Obviously, all of us who love social media take it seriously...at least most of the time. But it’s never made more sense to have a sense of humor than right now. In our winter of economic discontent, in the middle of very uncertain times, perhaps it’s time to take a break.

Take a break from all of the seriously negative news. Take a break from winter’s icy grip. Get away, for just a few minutes, from the serious decision-making involved in the world of social networking software.

Besides, when you think about it, one of the major reasons we like social networking is because it’s fun to communicate with other people online. Without the fun factor, social media communities would be a lot less enjoyable (and a lot more dull).

So join web designer Matthew Inman in an amusing, visual tribute to a lineup of social media icons. If you find yourself grinning and would like more Inman humor, there is more.
Be sure to see “How to tell if your cat is trying to kill you.” 

Thoughts about social networking sites, viral marketing or any other social media topic? Please share them here—we would love to hear from you.

Are you shopping for social networking software? Have you thought of seamlessly linking your community software platform into your existing web destinations? If you’re concerned about bolstering your brand identity  (and promoting it in the marketplace), then you should be thinking about total integration.

Potent Social Media for Your Web Properties

You can jump into the social networking movement in a matter of weeks if your social media solutions vendor is experienced in furnishing a brand-oriented, all-inclusive solution. Generally, solutions providers will package their elements into a comprehensive, dynamic set of social media enhancements termed a “suite” or “portfolio” of tools. Strengh of integration is a result.

Partner with a Vendor Who Works with Proven Partners

Whomever you decide to partner with, their community development team should have a list of well-known specialist organizations who have lots of experience in the social media space. If you’re being courted by a SaaS company, for example, check on their high-level integration capabilities with back-end content management systems (CMS) experts. Pulling together the expertise of these “niche” firms helps produce a tightly integrated, smooth deployment.

In Social Media Engineering, Dropping a Few Names Isn’t Lame

It matters who a SaaS organization turns to for technology solutions in platform construction. You want tried-and-true industry leaders to create the elements that will solidify and drive your brand in an integrated online community. A few companies with recognized expertise in integrating social networking components include Convio, Kintera, Avectra, Multicast and TMA Resources.

Your Brand Is Not Who You Are, It’s Who You Are Perceived to Be

Consumers are rarely concerned about who you think you are. However, if they know your name, they will have a perception of what you represent. Your brand exists on the Internet along with all of your competitors. How do you differentiate yourself in a wholly positive way? At an accelerating pace, organizations are refining their identity through the power of social media networking. By far the most productive way to boost your image is by launching a thriving online community that perfectly reflects the brand you’ve built. That is why seamless integration with your existing web presence is so essential.

Connect with Your Customer Base—and Expand It—with a Fully Integrated Social Media Community

Whether you’re a non profit, a trade association or a media organization, you can engage your supporters and build compelling revenue streams by deploying social media. In a Web 2.0 world, it is not enough anymore to have a good-looking, functioning website. You want customers to interact with each other, share content and deliver (positive) opinions, all under the canopy of your perfectly integrated online brand.

If you have thoughts about social networking sites, viral marketing or any other social media topic, please share them here.

Open source software has many positive attributes and even more good intentions. But a recent study by expert analysts concludes that “open source” software is not a viable business model. Or put another way by Matthew Aslett of the 451 Group...”freedom of speech won’t feed my children.”

Open Source is a Business Tactic, Not a Business Model 

The truth is, there is very little money being made out of open source software that doesn’t involve the addition of proprietary software and services. The line between proprietary software and open source software is becoming increasingly blurred as open source software is embedded in broader proprietary hardware and software products. This is especially true in social media community building. In large part, it is the proprietary code (and the high-level functionality it creates) that drives the revenue-building potential of any community.

Open Source Elements, Yes, Open Source Communities, No

Tag clouds, blog editors, photo uploading, CMS blogs and other modules can add interactivity to a community. But the overall platform architecture will work far better if it is proprietary and custom developed. All of the dynamic community elements should be seamlessly integrated and function reliably with each other. With a ready-made, mass-produced, open source platform, you have little choice in what you get or how it operates. To say the least, this projects a “generic,” “community-light” impression.

Even if Open Source Social Networking Software Is Free, It Comes with a Price

Generally speaking, your open source community will have design elements that do not reflect your brand image, as well as intrusive advertising that generates revenue for someone else, not you. Then, there is the difficult, omnipresent matter of support. You’ve adopted an open source social networking platform—is your IT staff fully prepared to address functionality issues when they raise their ugly head? Or, if you pay for ongoing support services, why not subscribe to a moderately priced SaaS provider that creates custom communities with support built-in?

Do You Risk Legal Issues with an Out-of-the-Box, Open Source Platform?

One of the key benefits of open source software is the ability to access source code and modify, adapt and enhance the software to meet your particular needs. However, there are usually no contractual commitments of quality, so you will have to bear the risk (and costs) of any errors in the code. Since your internal developers will be contributing code to the existing architecture, it will be difficult to know when you infringe on any open source licenses that are legally binding.

Can You Maximize Profits—or Fundraising Efforts—with an Open Source Community?

The number one consideration for your social media community is how it projects your identity and promotes your brand. An open source solution will never wrap tightly and seamlessly around your existing web persona. This is crucial. After all, if your advocates, subscribers and/or members aren’t jazzed up and buzzing about all the good things you do, you’re not getting their dollars on a regular basis. So make sure your community is 100% you—all you, all the time. In most cases, a custom platform provider lives and breathes the concept of brand and will develop your community with that priority always in the forefront.

If you have thoughts about open source social media options, please share them here.

You’re shopping for a company who creates, deploys and maintains online social media communities. What should you be looking for? Does it matter whether a provider is small or large? If you get a lower price and what appears to be a better proposal from a startup with a short track record, should you take it?

Weighing the Pros and Cons of Small Versus Large

Many young, small startups in the social media space create dazzling innovations that might give your community an edge. But does your prospective startup have the bandwidth to take care of your needs over the long term? You have to be certain that a firm with a limited number of employees has enough resources to cover issues that arise post-launch. A larger social media vendor will have separate, well-established departments dedicated to addressing the inevitable problems that are part of the process, before and after deployment.

Communicate, then Comprehend What Your Smaller Vendor Is All About

 If you believe a smaller, less costly provider is a good fit for you, the most important aspect of your relationship is clear communication. You need to understand a potential partner’s philosophy, then examine real-world examples of how the company’s leaders implement that philosophy. Before you take the leap, make sure your dialogue with a vendor has depth and meaning—don’t succumb to a combination of buzz words and sizzle. Ask for the steak.

Research Online, then Take Care in Preparing Your RFP

Details about any prospective vendor, even smaller firms, should be easy to access on the Internet. After all, if they are any good at social media, they should have a dynamic web presence, even if their quantity of projects is limited. Online information should give you a “homework head-start” before you initiate contact. When you prepare a request for proposal, take care to clearly outline your social media objectives. Also, get to know a future partner’s people intimately—especially if a company’s executive staff is smaller in scale.

How Dynamic and Complex Do You Want Your Online Community to Be?

Are you diving into the social networking space in a big way, or is your plan to start small and grow your social media footprint as you become more fluent with social networking? If you’re contemplating a more gradual approach, many smaller providers are excellent at creating individual tools which can be deployed at a lower cost and still have a significant impact. Some of these widgets may be integrated within your existing web sites without the expense of launching a white label community that boasts multi-layered solutions and tools.

Perhaps You Really Need All of the Services a Well-Established Vendor Can Provide

A larger social media solutions organization usually furnishes a greater degree of reliability and deployment experience. Also, if a company has been in business for many years (rather than a few), they will have cohesive departments that perform consistently. If a less seasoned prospect neglects account management, client services, product development, Q&A, or engineering refreshes, your social media venture could be compromised in a short interval. On the other hand, an experienced, recognized vendor can offer you the confident fulfillment only relationships with large, well-known organizations can forge over time.

Summing up the Risk and Reward of Choosing Small over Large

One benefit of going with a smaller provider is that you have a good chance of receiving more personalized service since you will be a big focus of their efforts. This probability has an appeal all its own and may be a good fit for your size and immediate intentions. You can always consider switching vendors and social media platforms if it doesn’t work out. But there are unavoidable challenges—and obvious costs—in switching providers, either early or late. Extracting data from an old platform, plugging it into a new one, then re-implementing integration...these are all expensive propositions. However, if a smaller prospect’s depth of personnel, breadth of services and financial strength aren’t paramount to you, the smaller pick could prove advantageous.

Hitting the Sweet Spot in Your Decision-Making

 In terms of a vendor’s head count, perhaps a moderate approach on your part might ultimately be the most successful. An organization with hundreds of employees could simply be too large for your corporate culture. But a youthful startup with two to 15 overworked individuals might be too small. In the final analysis, your search may advance more productively if you shoot for the middle and start by researching social media firms with growing ranks of 20 to 50 experienced professionals. An organization of this relative size might deliver the best of all worlds to your social media debut. All told, a mid-size company would be small enough to be fast and flexible, but still be well-versed in all of the processes that equate success.

Please express your opinions about the search for a perfect-size solutions provider in the social networking space.

Is your Facebook group doing everything possible to engage and energize your current and potential customers or contributors? Would it be worth it to your organization to create your own social media community that helps drive your ROI? Are you meeting your company’s objectives fully by leveraging online social media?

 

Definition of a “White Label” Community

White Label deployments exist as software you can brand and integrate tightly into your existing domain. The user experience should be nearly seamless. In other words, a White Label platform is one that is produced (usually) by a SaaS provider, then the company presents the community as its branded social networking site. Customization is generally an integral part of the deployment.

 

What Are the Limitations of Facebook?

Facebook is a fine way to get started with online social media. Yet Facebook has significant limitations in terms of scale. For smaller groups, it works all right. But if you expect your community to grow (and if not, what’s the point?), the Facebook solution becomes less and less cohesive. At the same time, connecting with other members in the group becomes more chaotic and less flexible. Perhaps most important, your members may hesitate to share their true passions in a public forum such as Facebook. On the other hand, a branded community with a singular focus will be brimming with like-minded supporters who hold similar zeal for the subject.

 

Focusing on Your Brand Is Critical

Creating a group on Facebook (however successful) does very little to build a true brand that has emotional resonance with your clients, contributors or advocates. A brand is much more than a logo, an identity or even a product. Relying on your Facebook group to boost brand perception is like swimming against a raging current. The Facebook brand will simply drown your identity. In order to really grow your brand in the social networking space, your best bet is to establish an independent address.

 

By giving your most passionate supporters a unique online destination to connect and engage, you will leverage the true power of social media. Because your constituents will be surrounded by like-minded people with similar passions, they will be energized—and comfortable—about  expressing opinions and sharing information with their peers. The branded environment they discover should be woven seamlessly into your existing web presence.

 

Should You Use the Marketing Power of a Branded Community to Augment Your Facebook Group?
If that makes sense to you, you may be ready to launch your own white label community. After all, Facebook will never allow you to capture member data, nor will you be able to promote your causes to registered members of your group. With an integrated social media platform, once they register, you’ll be able to track every member, create an email data base and mine demographic statistics that can be used for powerful, targeted marketing campaigns.

Think about Using Facebook as a Supplement
Perhaps the most intelligent strategy regarding Facebook and sustaining a meaningful group there is to maintain the group presence as an adjunct to your white label community. For example, the Events application is useful for updating constituents about corporate conferences you may sponsor or attend. With a link to your integrated community, you could bridge both social networking spheres of influence.

Please comment if you have thoughts about the advantages or drawbacks of launching a white label community. If your organization has successfully utilized a white label community and a Facebook group, please tell us about it.
 

Whether your IT department is large or small, social networking sites demand special skill sets and specific engineering expertise. Communicate these points to your IT resources and start an objective conversation before moving forward about the possibility of using a SaaS vendor.

 

 Know clearly what you want to accomplish

 

 For an implementation to succeed, you need to have a clear understanding of what you want to accomplish. Unless you do, a vendor will be the one to help you define your needs, and your platform will end up based on their ideas. Be certain your IT personnel know they will be involved in any dialogue with a potential vendor, start to finish.

 

 

 If your goal is rapid ROI, make sure IT knows this

 

Whether it’s common knowledge or stated formally, every department is aware of its limitations. Hosted solutions definitely lend themselves to a more rapid deployment which will translate into more rapid ROI. Compare the implementation projections submitted by potential providers to your IT department’s projections. Stick to your goals.

 

 Lay out the upfront costs to IT decision-makers

 

After consultations with prospective partners, the real-world numbers of your implementation should be clearly spelled out. After all, industry experts estimate a huge savings reward in outsourcing IT development. In fact, the reductions in capital outlay and operating costs will help drive the SaaS market to over $10 billion in revenue by 2011. A trend that powerful is difficult to argue with.

 

Start a dialogue about the breadth of your ITdepartment

 

 Smaller companies, especially, should be cautious about implementing a large in-house social media project. If your IT staff has an obvious bandwidth limit, they will understand the pitfalls of onsite development and engineering. Discuss with your IT director whether his or her staff is prepared to take charge of security, management and connectivity for the long haul. An agreeable consensus should come to light sooner rather than later. If your breadth of IT resources is limited, the services of a SaaS provider really begins to make sense.

 

Find a balance between aggressive and realistic objectives

 

 Ask for your IT leaders’ input on goal-setting. Empower them to do an independent analysis of a planned social media project’s demands on human resources and physical capacity, then together, compare the costs and scheduling estimates to the submissions of your top vendor prospect. Again, agreement over the comparisons should evolve.

 

Let your IT people know you trust them

 

Take a look at point number six in this article at TechRepublic.

If your IT manager(s) and staff know you have faith in their abilities, they won’t feel slighted when a large-scale implementation is outsourced for the right reasons. Communicate your belief that IT is who you rely on when problems need to be solved and deadlines have to be met. Convey the realization that their core competencies will continue to grow and contribute to your organization’s success—even without the crush of a major social media deployment.

Please comment if you have thoughts about your IT department’s involvement in

5. Identify Leaders within Your Constituency

            Communicate with them frequently and praise their participation. Give them suggestions about topics they might like to raise in the community. Send them links to Social Groupings or Forum discussions that will likely interest them. Convey to them ways to start individual fundraising drives in their locale.

 

4. Let Members Launch Initiatives that Parallel Your Goals

            Within your community, energize registered users by letting them create special groups that reflect your organization’s primary causes. For example, subscribers to the Sierra Club’s Student Coalition created a “Campaign” group called Save the Whales where like-minded members gather to blog, comment, share photos and link to additional web-based information. Let your members know that fundraising, in and of itself, can be the primary focus of a Social Grouping or posted Event.

 

3. Leverage Blogging in a Variety of Ways

Inspire subscribers’ generosity by helping them connect and share stories with strong human-interest elements. Center stage blog rolls and additional blogs in “Featured Groups” give community members unique ways to express opinions and comment on others’ experiences.

For example, the Arthritis Foundation uses a robust blog roll to let members tell each other about their trials and triumphs in dealing with arthritis. Plus, “social grouping” tools developed by ThePort Network give members a heightened sense of community and desire to help others by donating. Featured Rheumatoid Arthritis and Surgery & Arthritis groups feature blog posts that are emotional and inspiring at the same time.

 

2. Listen, Learn and Adapt to Your Members’ Needs

1. Create Multiple Click-and-Donate Buttons within Your Community

Fundraising links should be spotlighted in highly-trafficked areas of your community. For example, historic nonprofit CARE places a “DONATE NOW” button prominently on its main community page, center-cut, just above “Latest News” feeds, and just below a registration button for first-time visitors. Donating is automated, simple and fast.

 

If you have an idea or question about fundraising, please leave a comment.  

If hosting your own community has strong appeal to decision-makers in your organization, take time to consider the benefits of partnering with an experienced SaaS provider. “Software as a Service” means your community and all of the applications within it are hosted on your provider’s servers. All of the content is simply accessed via a web browser. Because SaaS is subscription-based, your vendor performs daily technical operation, maintenance and support for your community for the term of the subscription.

The Logic of SaaS Benefits:

 

Reduce Costs

 

By subscribing to a proven SaaS platform, you bypass a myriad of costs and everyday worries. First, you don’t have to purchase licensed software for deployment. Second, you’ll skip the purchase of servers and the continuous maintenance of hardware and software. Third, you won’t need to search for and hire additional IT personnel. 

Leverage Economies of Scale

 

On average, your application costs will be reduced because your provider has multiple subscribers and all are linked to the same platform (or a slightly customized one). Your provider will have made the overall system highly scalable to service additional subscribers as they come on board. All the data is securely stored and maintained to serve your needs. You pay a single regular fee and your provider assumes all security and infrastructure costs. You can concentrate on growing your business. Over time, growth and innovation will go hand-in-hand with your ROI.

Subscribe and Save Cash

 

Launching a dynamic social media community can be expensive if you do it all yourself. The initial outlay is significant and upkeep costs never go away. You save capital when you utilize a software-as-a-service model. Whether you are building your own platform or customizing an open-source version, buying servers, configuring them, launching them and maintaining a data center demands a continuous infusion of capital. In addition, if your SaaS subscription is based on metered usage, you only pay for what you use.

 

Lock in a Quicker Deployment

 

Get the Latest Innovations

 

If you’ve licensed software to build your platform within, you’ll have to wait for new releases to implement platform improvements. Updates such as this are continuously evolving in the engineering departments of SaaS providers. You’ll receive new social media tools and new versions of existing tools much sooner. Also, SaaS vendors generally perform rigorous Q&A testing and deploy corrective updates in early morning hours to reduce interruptions to your users.

 

Is the SaaS Trend a Lasting One?

 

The quality and reliability of SaaS solutions continues to improve month by month. A 2008 survey of 260 firms around the globe by Gartner states that close to 90% of the organizations polled said they expect to maintain or grow their relationships with SaaS providers. More than 33% indicated they plan to move on-premises hosting and applications to SaaS vendors.

In fact, in social media, the movement to SaaS solutions is accelerating, and the benefits above explain a few of the reasons why.

 

Please comment if you have a SaaS experience to share.

 

 

 

 

In strategic planning with your social media solutions provider, be certain to incorporate the right suite of tools. Make sure your members can fully interact with each other, whether you’ve decided to build your own community in-house, or you are simply integrating a new solution. Fast communication, quick content sharing and easy social grouping are vital. Your community’s tools should encourage interaction on multiple levels.

 

Yes, social media can be complex. But rule number one is simple. If you want your community to take off, start with the right tools.

 

Here are a few essential Tools:

 

Begin with the member Profile component. The Profile is at the heart of every individual’s participation in the community. Users should be able to personalize, edit and control all of the information in their profile. Managing communication—in one place—should be simple...messages, requests, commenting, invitations, lists of friends, blogs, news feeds, photos, events, calendar and more.

 

Invitations should be quick and easy to send...urging like-minded people to Join the community, and participate in commenting, groups, events and other socially-enhanced activities.

 

On-the-fly Blog posting and commenting is a critical element to encourage interaction. Blogging sets the stage for an energized discussion about everything that is important to your organization. Along with commenting, members should be able to rate/tag blog entries, as well as collect blogs and have an easy way of linking to feed-driven blogs.

 

Remote Modules allow visitors to non-community areas of your web sites to interface with community content without demanding that they join. With Remote Commenting functionality, casual visitors can contribute to the topic, thereby producing valuable content linked back to the community.

 

In terms of interaction, Social Groupings (also known as “social objects”) give users exciting options. Social Groupings are unique rallying points like-minded members will return to again and again. Above all, Social Groupings consistently generate additional page views.

 

Social Groupings include all types of Groups, such as Groups linked by geography or common cause or even a favorite topic like travel. Just like individual members, a Social Grouping has its own profile, avatar, blog, photo album, video gallery, events calendar, friends and bulletins. Members of a Social Grouping have commenting and rating privileges. In addition, your community’s social grouping should include a blog, photo album, and video gallery so that members can easily communicate and share content.

 

Members visiting public Forums and those invited to private Forums can create topics and comment on posts, setting thestage for a lively exchange of opinions. This is the type of activity that quickly builds a feeling of community. The most energized Forums let visitors receive notification of updated content via email or RSS link. Private messaging should also be a feature of Forums, along with the ability to post surveys and opinion polls. Surveys and polls help stimulate discussion, and more important, you will be able to quickly collect valuable data.

 

Photo and Video galleries offer a fast, fun way for members to express themselves. Visual postings make a rich community even richer, as everyone joins in the sharing. You should have full, flexible administrative control of Photo and Video functionality. Options normally include the capability of pre- or post-moderating, with email notification if desired.

 

Groups and Events are proven elements that generate interaction between members. Encourage your members to create and/or join Groups of people with similar interests. Often a popular community group will buzz with activity as members share information and images. Likewise, Events posting will give visitors the opportunity to make others aware of important happenings in the weeks and months ahead. Links to a calendar, web site information and location mapping help make Events come to life.

 

Does your vision of an online community include all of the above?

 

Please feel free to share you thoughts now by commenting.

 

 

    

It’s true that Facebook is a fine gathering spot for meeting friends and finding new ones. The site itself is well-executed and innovative and provides flexible security options. Facebook also boasts a clean, uncluttered design which is easy to navigate.

That’s the first problem.

Facebook’s look says, Facebook. To try to organize and promote a community within Facebook would forever put you in direct competition with the “Facebook” brand. It’s literally a no-win situation. Instead, consider the significant advantages of a custom-tailored, totally integrated online destination wrapped seamlessly around your existing brand.

The first advantage of a custom community is that you have a unique url destination and full control over all of the community’s elements—how it looks, how it functions and how it reinforces your goals. In addition, a full-featured, branded online community lets you deploy a precise range of networking tools and gives you total control over membership permissions and activity. As your membership grows, a custom community will be scalable, allowing you to meet the challenges of growth and the evolution of your organization’s objectives.



Throughout its existence, a destination built on a Facebook page will severely limit the type and number of social media tools you can offer your followers. Then, if Facebok chooses to delete applications or activities that your fans really like, or adds features that don’t make sense, or imposes guidelines that curtail your community’s growth, well, there is simply nothing you can do.

What about ownership of your followers’ basic data, starting with their email addresses? With Facebook, you will have no automated or bulk access to critical email lists. This single issue is a major drawback when compared to a custom community with built-in administrative control over membership data.

Above all, if you decide it is easy and cost-effective to create a community on Facebook, your competition may be thinking the very same thing. So whatever ideas or initiatives you deploy on your Facebook page, your competitor can copy your innovations within hours or days. That tends to make the power of original content short-lived at best.
The obvious counter-strategy to the copy-cat problem is to launch your own proprietary community, one that is unique, creatively branded and resistant to simple mimicking.