Q&A: What Social Networking Can Do for the Business Web Site
by Christina Lee on December 8th, 2008
Q: Can social networking Web sites be useful for my business?
A: No longer focused on just individual users, social networking Web sites have been creating new tools that go beyond what basic feedback additions – a customer service e-mail, a product review feature, a blog – have done to humanize the online business transaction.
“Now it’s really about trying to connect emotionally, even in a business-to-business level,” said Brian Easter, CEO of web design and marketing company NeboWeb.
Since its launch in August 2006, Twitter has had web experts questioning whether a business would have any use for a site with a prompt that reads, “What are you doing?” Their conclusion nowadays: yes, but only if a business can prove that someone is actually listening.
In August, FaceReviews deemed Starbucks as one of 34 “Brands That Suck on Twitter,” though it was a title it had to retract three hours later. The reason why – a post that read, “We have our own ideas about what we’re going to do here. We’d love to hear from you, do you (or anyone else) have requests?”
“Instead of answering the question, ‘What are you doing?’, answer the question, ‘What has your attention?” said Chris Brogan, social media and networking advisor. Indeed, while Twitter can open up a business to more criticism, it also provides more opportunities to respond back.
In addition, the latest social networking developments from Google and Facebook also focus even more on the relationship between the business and the customer. On Thursday – and within hours of each other – they both announced the launches of their latest interactive features for business Web sites, which customers can access with log-ins they already have.
But as they provide the same convenience, each of these platforms opens marketplaces in different ways. Open also to Yahoo, AIM, and OpenID users, Google’s Friend Connect offers gadgets – including discussion and product review walls – that can be easily posted on a business Web site. Meanwhile, Facebook Connect allows individual users to carry both profile information and social networks as they navigate sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, so they can later post their activity on their News Feeds.
“That is really going to speed up Web 2.0 integration in more traditional sites,” Easter said, later adding that with usage of these platforms, the business Web site “becomes an instant community, so to speak.”
In sum, social networking Web sites provide what should primarily be used as other means of customer service. If used solely for additional promotion, a business is bound to seem fake – when in fact, they work best for the business with nothing to hide.