Networking 2.0

In the rapidly evolving Web 2.0 era, it’s not who you know, it’s who you don’t know but your friends do. There’s no denying that face-to-face networking is still a powerful way to meet and connect with potential clients. But online social networking is becoming more and more useful for doing these same things and more. Since I wrote “Web 2.0 for Your Business”  last year, the tools have evolved and users are more savvy. More people belong to social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn. But how can business owners maximize these tools to make business connections, promote brands, add value, increase sales or close deals?

Selling on Facebook

Facebook, a social network that started as a resource for college kids, now has more than 70 million users of all ages. Facebook allows a person to create a profile, connect with friends and share pictures, videos and messages.

Historically, people have not thought of Facebook as a place to be “sold to” and, in fact, few people want to be directly “sold to” online. Facebook users can take advantage of a successful marketing tool used by consumer websites — recommendations. Almost everyone appreciates a second opinion when they go shopping. Forrester Research’s “2006 NACTAS Q3 Media and Marketing Online Survey” notes that 83% of people look for opinions from friends above other sources when looking for information on products or services.

There is no limit to the creative marketing uses of Facebook. Take photo posting, for example. Uses for this go way beyond sharing vacation photos or product shots. Enter EyeBuyDirect.com, an online seller of fashion eyeglasses. It launched its new “EyeTry” feature in September 2007, enabling online browsers to upload a photo and virtually try on thousands of frame and color selections. The glasses choices can be posted to Facebook. Shoppers ask friends (or random online surfers) for opinions on which glasses look best on them. Over 20,000 shoppers have tried the service, and those shoppers attract between three and six friends to view their glasses choices (and potentially become EyeBuyDirect customers).

“Customers who share their photos are almost 90% more likely to purchase because they are committed; they take the time to try frames on,” says the company’s CEO, Roy Hessel. “Placing your picture on the wall with EyeTry is a vote of confidence in the EyeBuyDirect community. Customers follow through with their shopping cart with only 10% of carts abandoned.”

One main feature of Facebook is the “news feed,” which gives you updates on the status of your connections on the network, their interests and events they’re attending (see example here). In my own experience, I updated my Facebook status to indicate I was interested in a conference on social media. One of my connections got my status update in his newsfeed, which read “Howard Greenstein is considering attending the Graphing Social Patterns Conference.” He contacted me about the conference and the subject matter; after a few conversations, I ended up pitching his company on a consulting project. Updating my status — a 20-second activity — has actually driven business opportunities to me.

How NOT to use Facebook

Companies can put up Fan pages on Facebook, allowing their customers to virtually show their love for the company, product or service. Some of the fan sites create ads that appear in the newsfeed on a customer’s main page, right next to their status and picture updates. So you might see your friend’s picture next to a product and a slogan. Like the EyeBuyDirect.com campaign, this type of social ad is based on the premise that we trust the recommendations of our friends when we buy.

But a recent case shows that companies must be careful when using this strategy. Marketing maven and writer David Berkowitz signed up to be a fan of video rental company Blockbuster. Soon, a banner that read “David Berkowitz is a Fan of Blockbuster,” with his picture, was visible above an ad offering a video rental trial. This ad appeared in the newsfeeds of David’s Facebook friend network. However, Berkowitz, an Internet veteran, had no idea that by becoming a ‘fan’ he was signing up as a product endorser. Calls and e-mails to Blockbuster went unanswered, and soon David’s blog was filled with entries, comments and even fake ads jeering at Blockbuster to pay attention and remove this unwilling spokesperson.

The takeaway: If you’re going to use a social network marketing strategy, you can’t ignore the network and the connections of the people in it. The companies and brands that are doing the most effective job are in the network to communicate with customers every day. They use social tools to answer customer concerns and let customers talk about their products. The back-and-forth is often right there for the public to see.

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