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Marketing Benefits of Social Networking
By Carl Martens | April 8, 2008
I have been a huge proponent of the marketing benefits of social networks ever since their conception.
Case Study
I used MySpace and word-of-mouth to promote my website, stcNiteLife (if you visit the site, keep in mind I never did complete it), a place to find out what the local drink specials are in downtown St. Charles. I’d use Myspace’s search function to locate people within a ten mile radius of the zip code for St. Charles and between the ages of 21-30 (niche marketing). Next, I’d request to be added as their friend and would send an email promoting the website and the benefit of the site to them. The response was awesome. In the site’s prime (when the site was regularly maintained) the site averaged around 15,000 unique visitors each month…sometimes reaching 20,000. I still get at least one call per month from someone asking, “is this a bar?”
Three benefits of social networks:
- Social networks provide you with more “real estate” (couldn’t help it) in cyberspace. Search engines love social networks and often the profiles, articles, blog posts, etc. contained within will rank high on keyword searches.
- Looking to target a specific niche? Most networks allow you to filter a search to locate members meeting your search criteria, such criteria could be: age, sex, location, hobbies, groups, keywords, etc.
- Network with hundreds, even thousands daily. Most networks enable you to publish blogs or bulletin posts for the community to read. Many offer forums where you can answer questions or participate in discussions.
Real Estate
I have only dabbled in social networks as a way to locate individuals needing to buy or sell a home so I can’t speak much on the topic. My best attempt thus far has been to search for specific keywords contained in member’s profiles. Keywords such as: engaged, engagement, pregnant, divorced, divorce, wedding, etc. I try to locate people going through a major life change…the type of life change where the individual is most likely to be making a real estate transaction in the near future. I’ve had some success…
Fact
The average age of a person with a profile on MySpace is 35 and the average age on Facebook is even higher. It is time to take social networks more seriously and identify a way to market to their members.
A list of suggested social networks below:
LinkedIn
ActiveRain
Wanna Network
Trulia Voices
Myspace
Facebook
Bebo
Topics: Internet Marketing |
