Social Networking is catching steam in India and more and more people are joining a community of their choice to remain connected. In the Comscore report the popular social networking sites used by Indian users are : Orkut , Facebook , Bharatstudent ,hi5 , ibibo, Myspace, Linkedin and Bigadda. The Social networking has now taken a next step to be a valuable business tool also. Beyond the casual friendship conencts , these tools offer all of us a great oportunity to utilize the resources to make our community , business and ideas visible to a wider world.
Every knows about social networking but not everybody knows the benefits or uses it to it’s full advantage. Of course the main reasons people network are to talk to others, build relationships and find people who are similar to themselves. The more you dig down though the more uses and benefits you can find for social networking and with all the different social network and platforms, you’re spoiled for places to go.
1.Building Meaningful Relationships
Social networking and the human side of it is so important, the more real and transparent you are the better. Therefore you’ll have the trust of people and when barriers are broken down and people actually trust you that’s when your relationships will really grow. When you reach this point and it’s the point you want to strive for, when you trust each other and when you just want to HELP and BENEFIT each other, that’s when the magic happens. For example, on twitter I get a lot of direct messages but the people who send them don’t introduce themselves, say my name or personalize it in any way. I understand the time savings of having automated messages and people don’t always have the time but in the long run it’s better to sent a message by hand. Those who do personalize and actually interact with me are the people I trust, the people I remember and the people I want to help more because they put the effort and time into building a relationship with me.
If you always keep in mind that you really are trying to build valuable and meaningful relationships and not seeing them as another visitor, customer or sale,then everything else you do will bring you nothing but opportunities, responsive followers and lifelong friends.
Priortizing the important channels for communication then becomes an essential need of the way we do Social netwrking.
2.Building Traffic
Basically the more networking you do the greater chance you have of getting traffic. This doesn’t mean the more you bombard and spam people, the more traffic you will get. It means the more real and valuable you’re networking efforts are, the more traffic you will get. Building traffic from certain social networks can be very targeted and very beneficial. For example, if you’re looking for traffic from professionals online then go to linkedin, if you’re looking to target blog owners then go to blog social networks and comment on other blogs. Each social network has their own audience and user demographics so you’re approach to each should be slightly tailored to each one.
3.Building links
Link building is the life blood of SEO. The more links and quality links you get the better and if you can get those links with your choice of anchor text then you’ll rank higher in the search engines. Most of your social profiles will allow you to link to your blog or/and your other social profiles. This is a key to successful blogging, you must build as many links as possible.
4.Increased Visibility
The more social profiles you create, the more content you create on them and the more you interact, as at result you will increase the visibility you, your site and your brand will get and also gaining you trust in the minds of others. Remember don’t spread yourself all over the web if you can’t contribute, interact and give time to each of those networks and communities. People want to be in a community, they want to talk and interact with you but if your not there to care or share then that’s a problem and may be bad for you and your site. Still, the basic point is the more you’re seen, the more familiarity and trust you’ll gain.
5.Business and JV Opportunities
Over time and the more people you meet, the more business opportunities you will come across. You’ll meet other leaders and players in your industry and niche so over time these relationships will grow, ye will understand and know what the other is doing and an opportunity will arise when one person takes the first step and proposes something. I would recommend taking action yourself and not hoping or relying on others to propose something first.
6.Mind-sharing and Insight
The idea here is that you can engage with your target audience and find out new insights. You get a unique perspective into them, their lives and their problems. You can give them help and advice and in return they give you feedback and trust, this also applies to joint venture partners where ye both help each other, so in other words mind-share with each other. This is so powerful to be able to talk to your prospects and audience and hear from them what their point of view is. Social networking is also a great atmosphere to get feedback, research and insight because it’s so human focused. People don’t want to be told, forced, spammed or made do anything but when you Involve them that’s when everything changes.
So there you have it, 6 benefits. The benefits are huge and the results you’ll receive can be huge too.
Can we seek some great ideas or examples where you have seen Social Networking is actively involved. Share your best experiences , your hosted communities with the group ?
One of such efforts I saw recently was the site by Mumbai Police encouraging youth toe be connected with police and actively partcipate in the law and order issues for the city.
For folks interested in dancing , there is an active facebook group which discusses dancing community in Mumbai
So , social networking provides a good worth of your time is used effectively . Ensure that every minute you spent on the Social networing site adds a positive experience to your life. Cheers and stay connected.
