Social Media Continues to Grow
Social media marketing growth has been quite astounding since these sites initially showed up on the radar screen and appeared on the scene in 2005.
Sites like YouTube which sold for $1.5 billion to Google, Digg which is reportedly looking to sell for between 40 and $50 million, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook which received around $300 million in funding from Microsoft, Ning, Stumbleupon, Propeller, Mixx, DailyMotion, Odeo, and various others have all built tribal and rabid community followings.
This collective group and this overall philosophy of websites have been titled Web 2.0.
Unfortunately, many businessmen and even many venture capitalists and startup founding members are searching for the profitable business models of these various Web 2.0 websites and social networking sites.
The question is becoming, “where is the money at?”
And it’s a viable question to solve in order for social media and its Web 2.0 compatriots to continue to experience this explosive account growth.
Profitable and sustainable business models have to be obtained for each various site without dampening their loyal tribe. You don’t want to piss off the natives or your site dies.
Of course, on the flip side you have bandwidth, hosting, infrastructure, employees and other hard overhead costs which have to be covered at the very least during your growth in order for your site to survive.
These challenges are creating various creative solutions.
Facebook in particular debuted a very controversial program called Beacon which gave advertisers access to much of their account holders data which allowed the advertisers better targeting and ROI.
Beacon was terminated because of user outcry over privacy issues.
But the issue of how to profit with social media marketing and these various tribal user bases in the social media space is still very relevant.
It’s hard to say where this is headed and whether we’re on the cusp of Web 3.0 in the near future.
One thing is definitely certain in the hyper evolving world of the Internet. Social networking sites and Web 2.0 is even more supercharged and hyperfast evolving than the overall web in general.
Learning the tactics and etiquette for how to grow your business using these already pre-existing tribes on various sites is crucial.
Each site seems to have its own etiquette and acceptable modes of practice for communicating with those members of that tribe.
One thing about these social spaces is if you come in as a blatant marketer or with overt advertising you’re going to lose, damage your business reputation, and even get flamed and called a spammer…a death sentence on the Internet.
So just get to know one site which you like and start participating there. Take it slow over 30 days to see how the community members correspond and communicate with one another.
Once you have the modus operandi mastered you can start to intertwine some of your website promotion efforts into your communications. You want this to be very natural and an extension of the accepted communication modes within that site and tribe.
This may seem like it’s going to take a great time investment but the benefits of doing a small amount of research up front will pay you massive dividends.
And of course if you don’t do this whatever time you spend will be 100% down the drain without any return on your investment.
Get started in one of the massive spaces like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or Digg and have a go around there. Contribute a whole bunch in conversations with various members and you will begin to have the payoff.
Just make sure you have your goals in mind at the start of what and you want to accomplish and guide your activities where you’re spending your time in order to accomplish those goals.
