Social Networks - Why? How? How much?

Frances Bell, Salford Business School, Talk given to Chapel Street Business Group www.chapelstreet.org , Thursday 21 February, 2008 in University of Salford Think Lab.

Agenda

What is Social Networking?Why would SN be relevant to SMEs, Charities, and larger NFPOs?How can Organisations use SNS?How much does it cost? – effort and hard cash?

What is a social networking site?

• http://www.commoncraft.com/video-social-networking

What is a social networking site?

• Web-based service that allows you to:– Create (semi-) public profile – Connect to others– View your own and others’ connections (at your and their discretion)– http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html

• Where you meet your friends/family/business contacts online and find new ones? Facebook, My Space

• Where you meet your business contacts online and find new ones?

Are the personal and the business separate?• How do we network?

– Around personal contact – messages, gifts, ‘emotions’– Around objects - images, videos, ‘knowledge’– Around interests –talking about offline activities– Around professional concerns

• How is this different online?– The network is/can be visible– Without the richness of touch and presence but can share increasingly ‘rich’ objects

• Brief tour of facebook http://salford.facebook.com/profile.php?id=740690164

Why would SN be relevant to SMEs, Charities, and larger NFPOs?

• All – Personal professional network

• http://www.linkedin.com/

– Marketing

• Sharing knowledge – SMEs

• http://www.sme-blog.net/sme_blog/small_business_facts/index.html

– Charities, NFPOs• http://www.justgiving.com/danbell • http://beth.typepad.com/• http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/02/08/pros-and-cons-of-face

book-activism/

How can Organisations use SNS?

• A political campaign http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2fZHou18Cdk

• A University http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MvkwbzASyGw

• Selling products as value-added services http://www.moo.com/flickr/

How much does it cost? – effort and hard cash?

• Some ideas and words of warning– http://www.slideshare.net/jeremiah_owyang/vlab-shaking-the-money-tree-social-networks/

• ‘Free’ services– http://Blogger.com http://flickr.com http://facebook.com

http://linked-in.com

• Commercial services– http://www.typepad.com/

• Owned services, examples– Use Open Source or Commercial Software on your own

server– Use Open Source or Commercial Software on hosted

server

• Issues are maturity of use and understanding, degree of control, investment of time and money

Questions and Discussion