In this blog, I strive to provide a balanced viewpoint of both the benefits and challenges of a web strategy, it’s easy for us to become over-hyped and then fall right into the pit of exuberance.
From white label social networks to existing social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, and on, there’s been much hoopa raised. Yet, we should always remember the challenges that are facing these tools, as there are many difficulties to overcome.
The Many Challenges of Social Networks:
Each of the following hurdles can be overcome, but first, let’s identify them.
Difficult to Monetize
Even Google says it’s having a hard time monetizing social networks, why? The use case is completely different. Members aren’t hunting for information like they do on a search, instead they are communicating with each other, and self-expressing. (We’ve data to back that up too), Bakardo agrees. How bad is bad? “Marketers say as few as 4 in 10,000 people who see their ads on social networking sites click on them”Excess of Players
In the case of the many white label social networks (white label means you can rebrand, and create your own Facebook), there are too many players in the space. As a result, I spoke with CIO magazine and share with them our thoughts on the future of these many products. Consolidation will happen, and many will be irrelevant.As Marketers Move In, Users Move Out
Remember Friendster? Tribe, or waay back and eCircles? Nothing is new, as communities form, marketers will move in, and in some cases bastardize the experience and the hip, cool, influencers will leave to the next network.Untrustworthy Member Data
In many cases (I’ve seen reports of up to one-third) of users submit inaccurate information on their profile. As a result, marketing efforts will not be aimed at the right audiences, members continuing to be an elusive target.Lack of Metrics Makes Success Hard to Measure
For many marketers who want to deploy a campaign on a social network, access to server metrics isn’t always available. As a result, they have to often visually monitor the interaction on the site, or measure click throughs to their site. In some of the more sophisticated platforms, a crude dashboard is provided.Stalkers and Other Unwanted Activity Ruins Lives
Child stalkers in MySpace continues to be a problem, and in some cases, masking oneself as someone else is easy, and to readily fool others. As a result, one young teen committed suicide from the deception, rejection, and embarrasment from a peer’s mother.Privacy Concerns Mount as Developers Move In
The great hoopla and community push back from the recent Beacon experiment, launching of newsfeeds, and social networks sharing too much information with third party widget developers puts members at risk, and visibly makes them uncomfortable.Strings Attached to Membership: Difficult to Leave
According to this NYT article, leaving Facebook is difficult, there are hooks, saved accounts, and ways to continue to reconnect to the site, even after you’ve left.Plateau or Social Network Fatigue?
I’m starting to see some reports from sources that suggest that the usage of social networks are slowing down, if not reducing perhaps it’s from the endless tasks that occur, or the shinyness has rubbed off.Successful Networks have hard time scaling
Facebook and Twitter (yes a social network too) are suffering from scaling issues, as a result, their sites have a great deal of downtime or latency. The complicated applications will only increase in intricacy as more users are added.Loss in workplace productivity “Social not-working”
Companies, organizations, and individuals are concerned about the time wasted in managing social network profiles, in some cases, companies have banned Facebook from their employees, often using Firewalls. (submitted by Beth Kanter and David Mitchell in comments)Got others? leave a comment
If you’ve got one that I missed, I may add it here and credit you.
Need more information? check out my weekly digest of the social networking space that I publish every Wednesday.
Lastly, if you want to connect with my further, I recommend you follow me on twitter, and I’ll follow you back, we’re furthering the conversation there.
I think there are two types of fatigue – one is that people get irritated with being asked to join ‘yet another’ network – more signups, more profile tailoring, etc … the second is along the same lines as Ruud is talking about – once I’ve signed up, found long lost friends, and said ‘hi’, there is a sense of ‘now what?’ – the social networks that last will be those that provide an obvious and compelling answer to that question …
‘Selling it to your own company’ We as marketers may feel that we know Social Media Marketing but properly communicating the benefits of it to management/stakeholders can be a daunting challenge in its own.
I’ve personally spoke with people in my current/past companies who felt it was just a ‘fun cool fad’ and didn’t see any benefit from putting resources towards that type of marketing.
On the flip side, we must fully understand this marketing medium and apply it directly to our respective business model and understand the benefit, first, before trying to sell it to others in your company.
‘No sir, I really am doing work on twitter!’
This post has raised some really interesting issues and everyone has raised great points as a result.
The only other challenge that hasn’t already been directly mentioned that I’d like to add to Jeremy’s list is the problem of “authenticity & personal identity” – for example what happens when someone who is not the real brand or idolised person creates up a fake social network? What measures are being put in place to stop others from posing as other people.
I have a few further thoughts:
In the UK we’re continually seeing more corporates wanting to add social networks as part of their marketing & communications mix without knowing exactly why they want to do this – Sergio’s point above is valid. I’d add that many brand & companies have found great ways of engaging with pre-existing communities rather than trying the “white label” approach of creating their own.
Over the last month, I’ve seen a massive growth in the number of brands, companies, artists etc creating “fan” pages within Facebook. They seem to be getting lots of people adding themselves as fan, but I wonder what the next step to these pages will be. Has anyone built one or been asked to for a client?
I don’t think the social networking medium lends itself well to advertising, but it can be an important part of marketing. Any space you create that gets people checking in regularly builds familiarity and comfort with your brand. As long as you don’t have to pay too much to achieve that, it is worthwhile.
That said, I am a part of a social networking community (www.Phone-Buddies.com) built around the free exchange of different types of counseling sessions (goal achievement coaching, tarot reading, emotional support, etc.) that isn’t really monetized (just set up to accept donations). Yet that community struggles to grow at all. You would think that with all the money women spend on psychics they find online and talk to by phone that the opportunity to do so for free would be irresistible, and yet it’s still a really small community a year after I joined.
Clearly the monetary value of a community, whether to its owners or users, has nothing to do with its size or success. Social networking is about something else. Somehow some sites just catch on and become very popular places to hang out, but that may be all they ever destined to be.
social networking sides are good but the bad thing some people use it in a wrong way its so bad
All these comments about what happens to those out front of a social network site. I was just thinking…how many people are employed to run and operate a social network site. How many people are employed and earn a living monitoring the comments etc posted on a social network site.
I wish there was a networking site for talking about real problems or dealing with feelings. So many times a person doesn’t want to burden their friends and if you are spewing about your relationship that can backfire in your inner circle by your friends hating your spouse. Counselors can take weeks to get into and are expensive when often someone just needs to release what is bothering them and maybe get someone who relates to talk to. If they have one let me know. Maybe even something gender specific and call it pmschat or something.Â
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8 years later…