Social network question?

krmwebdesigner

Just wanted to ask a question to people here: Would you want a social network on your website? Do you think it could do anything for your business?

BrianD

It depends what you mean by social network?

Many sites, have the ability for customers to register at the web site and access special parts of the site and receive communications from the site owmer. It may not sound glamourous but this is a social network. Communications tend to be one way from the business to the members.

Some web sites allow members to communicate with each other. The big questions are... do you want customers talking to each other without moderation? If you were a B2B industry would you want one customer to be able to tell pricing to another?

If you run a site aimed at younger consumers you also run into all the headaches that go with social networks - bullying, flaming etc etc.

You'd also want to have good insurance to cover for libel and defamation!

There are plenty of ways to build a good online community without incorporating Facebook type social networking,

krmwebdesigner

BrianD wrote: »

It depends what you mean by social network?

Many sites, have the ability for customers to register at the web site and access special parts of the site and receive communications from the site owmer. It may not sound glamourous but this is a social network. Communications tend to be one way from the business to the members.

Some web sites allow members to communicate with each other. The big questions are... do you want customers talking to each other without moderation? If you were a B2B industry would you want one customer to be able to tell pricing to another?

If you run a site aimed at younger consumers you also run into all the headaches that go with social networks - bullying, flaming etc etc.

You'd also want to have good insurance to cover for libel and defamation!

There are plenty of ways to build a good online community without incorporating Facebook type social networking,

Some good points made there BrianD that I hadn't really thought about but I think I have found a way to help my clients increase their revenues through social networking. I think the headaches could be worth it. It's all about how you build the system I suppose.

Thanks for the points made though as it will give me food for thought.

BrianD

Sorry, I was unclear if you wanted to build in social networking into your site (i.e. your own besopoke networking) or use existing social networks to complement your site.

I would heartily recommend, though it does depend on your business type, the use of Twitter or a Facebook fan page. If your site has a news page with an RSS feed you can automatically tweet any news stories that you add. You can also inform customers of offers etc. The Facebook fan page can do the same and allows customers to interact easily with you in an environment they probably use regularly. You do need to moderate Facebook. Don't be overly concerned by what seems like a negative comment - it offers you a chance to jump in and turn around a negative situation (if you do it well).

You could look at other networking sites - Bebo, MySpace, LinkedIn etc depending on your business type.