When Social Networking Pays

For me, social networking is all about generating goodwill, but as advertisers it's hard to show tangible results. But tangible results are not the point right now. Right now it's to form a "community" of customers who want to interact about your product and/or service.

With that being said, social networks pay more when only the top customers are invited to particpate, and truly exchange helpful information. Past thinking has been, "hey, let's invite the whole world." I don't think this is as effective. Make your social network useful and the more goodwill you will generate. You will build more top clients and that is how to make your network grow. Fast and "let's just throw it out there" is not the way to go.

Customers will use the network to get answers to problems quickly, also reducing time your office staff has to spend answering questions. The new term for this type of social networking is called "narrowcasting", and I believe it's most effective RIGHT NOW. All the free support your clients are sharing saves companies time and money, and that's the bottom line.