Social networking sites such as facebook, myspace and the like have attracted audiences/members from almost all regions of the globe. For the purpose of the report I have signed up for five of the most popular to find out their functions and how they could used in a marketing context.
Facebook:
Facebook is the biggest of the social networking sites with millions of users worldwide. Like all social media sites Facebook is used primarily as a source for people to interact with their friends and share comments, photos and other media. Its quite simple to sign up to and as part of the registration process it will even search through your e-mail and return a list of contacts which you can then decide to add as friends. Other functions are the news feed, message bar, links, groups and games along with others.The news feed simply keeps you up to date with your friends activities. The Message bar allows you to send and receive messages on the site, its function is similar to that of g-mail. The link function allows you link Facebook to other accounts you have. Groups allows you to join or create a group. There is even a function that allows you to post an advertisement.The advertisement on the page is well positioned on the right of the page which in general serve to give good exposure for the advertiser. Facebook also has a good privacy setting so you can control the amount of exposure your account gets from other users. The search bar is user friendly giving you suggestions with every touch of the keypad. While trawling through the thousands of profiles it is easy to see why Facebook would be a useful tool in the world of sales and marketing. In my opinion facebook has a number of downsides that would be of concern, the worse of which is when you deactivate your account. It's at this point you see the small print by the opt out button which states "your friends may still invite you to join groups and other activities please tick if you do not want to receive these invitations", this is where you realise it is their intention to hold on to your data. To confirm that you then receive a notification telling you to come back anytime using your old user name and password and everything will be as you left it. It would also be of concern that these sites could be subject to identity theft and open to the spread of viruses.
Myspace:
Very similar to facebook in its intention although the layout is quite different. The first thing you notice while registering is, it asks more questions including your sexual preferences. Again like facebook it runs a search for friends through your e-mail, although the search returned empty emphasizing the popularity associated with facebook. Once signed up to myspace quite a lot of friends are eager to enroll you and the motive is clear, they are all musicians and are keen to entice you to their product. Although primarily set up for that very purpose there is other attractions on site to entertain, in fact I think there is more on myspace. Myspace offers free music for a start and other functions include videos, channels, forums and movie previews. The find friend browser is more articulate and offers more detail, although the default showed women aged between 18 to 35 hence the question asked at the registration stage. This can be changed however and you can browse through different countries, for different people of any age. It even opens up more options to narrow down your search. Myspace has lots of apps such as games, news, dating, sports and the list goes on and on. After visiting myspace its hard to believe the general populist actually lay preference to facebook as I actually believe this to be a better product. The downside of the site is it seems to be prone to crashing. Again I would have the same concerns as with facebook other then when you delete your account on myspace your profile is deleted. From a marketing point of view its easy to make friends on myspace and has great tools to gloss up your image making you an attractive option. People using myspace tend to give a very detailed description of their personality thus giving the marketeer plenty of information to exploit. Again advertisements tend to have good exposure with positiong to the right of the page. You can also replace your photograph with great animated images giving an advantage from a sales point.
Bebo:
Much the same as Facebook and myspace only this time the members are a lot younger. Unlike the previous two Bebo don't give you the option to browse the site for friends which is good considering the age group that inhabit the site. Again like myspace you have a lot of apps like games, groups, skins and the like. Through the groups you can browse through the users profiles thus undermining the browse friend option. From a marketing point of view the same opportunities are available here although your audience is much younger.
Twitter:
Unlike the other social media sites twitter is different. This is a site that allows you to interact by sending comments known as tweets to your peers. The home page of twitter is very simple in design, with simple features such as a tweet bar to enter the text message, profile, find friends function along with others. A lot of celebrities use twitter along with politicians and journalist allowing you to follow them and comment on their topics. From a marketing point of view you can freely post tweets of events or products you may have, however the downside is it can only contain 140 characters.
Linkedin:
Like the myspaces and facebooks, linkedin offers it users a platform to interact with others. This however is where the similarities end. Linkedin is as I see it a site for business people both employer and employee to interact on a social media type setting. Given the nature of the site as you are building your profile you notice the questions are quite different, like give a summary of yourself, details of education and employment. Also different is the groups on the site as they are primarily made up of corporate companies and many you can't join because you are not an employee. Linkedin will provide you with contacts (called connections) based on where you worked and where educated. These suggestions can range from CEOs of a previous company that you worked in or students with accounts who are on entirely different courses. So its not easy to choose friends so to speak. The basic version of linkedin is free but unlike other sites it has upgrades at a price, for example the business plus package will cost around 50.00 euro. For this you will get extras like multiple e-mail accounts, more folders and extra search capacity. Overall this is a site to be taken seriously, with over 75 million professionals including multi nationals whom a lot of us aspire to for future employment with this in mind it would be wise to double check the content as you post. With the amount of companies at your fingertips this site is certainly one for advertising and grabbing attention for the purpose of marketing.
