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What Is Social Networking?  

Social networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups, like small rural
communities or a neighborhood subdivision, if you will. Although social networking is possible
in person, especially in the workplace, universities, and high schools, it is most popular online.
This is because unlike most high schools, colleges, or workplaces, the internet is filled with
millions of individuals who are looking to meet other people, to gather and share first-hand
information and experiences about cooking, golfing, gardening,  developing
friendships or professional alliances, finding employment, business-to-business marketing and
even groups sharing information about the end of the Mayan calendar and the Great Shift to
arrive December 21-2012. The topics and interests are as varied and rich as the story of our
world.

When it comes to online social networking, websites are commonly used. These websites are
known as social sites. Social networking websites function like an online community of internet
users. Depending on the website in question, many of these online community members share
common interests in hobbies, religion, or politics. Once you are granted access to a social
networking website you can begin to socialize. This socialization may include reading the profile
pages of other members and possibly even contacting them. 

The friends that you can make are just one of the many benefits to social networking online.
Another one of those benefits includes diversity because the internet gives individuals from all
around the world access to social networking sites. This means that although you are in the
United States, you could develop an online friendship with someone in Denmark or India. Not
only will you make new friends, but you just might learn a thing or two about new cultures or
new languages and learning is always a good thing.

As mentioned, social networking often involves grouping specific individuals or organizations

together. While there are a number of social networking websites that focus on particular
interests, there are others that do not. The websites without a main focus are often referred to as
"traditional" social networking websites and usually have open memberships. This means that
anyone can become a member, no matter what their hobbies, beliefs, or views are. However,
once you are inside this online community, you can begin to create your own network of friends
and eliminate members that do not share common interests or goals.

As I'm sure you're aware, there are dangers associated with social networking including data
theft and viruses, which are on the rise. The most prevalent danger though often involves online
predators or individuals who claim to be someone that they are not. Although danger does exist
with networking online, it also exists in the real world, too. Just like you're advised
when meeting strangers at clubs and bars, school, or work -- you are also advised to
proceed with caution online.

By being aware of your cyber-surroundings and who you are talking to, you should
be able to safely enjoy social networking online. It will take many phone
conversations to get to know someone, but you really won't be able to make a clear
judgment until you can meet each other in person.  Just use common sense and listen to your
inner voice; it will tell you when something doesn't feel right about the online conversations
taking place.
Once you are well informed and comfortable with your findings, you can begin your search
from hundreds of networking communities to join. This can easily be done by performing a
standard internet search. Your search will likely return a number of results, including
MySpace, FriendWise, Social Networking Architecture

Social networking is based on a certain structure that allow people to both express their
individuality and meet people with similar interests. This structure includes having profiles,
friends, blog posts, widgets, and usually something unique to that particular social networking
website -- such as the ability to 'poke' people on Facebook or high-five someone on Hi5.

Profile. This is where you tell the world about yourself. Profiles contain basic information, like
where you live and how old you are, and personality questions, like who's your favorite actor and
what's your favorite book. Social networks dedicated to a special theme like music or movies
might ask questions related to that theme.

Friends. Friends are trusted members of the site that are allowed to post comments on your
profile or send you private messages. You can also keep tabs on how your friends are using
social networking, such as when they post a new picture or update their profile. Friends are the
heart and soul of social networking. It should be noted that not all social networks refer to them
as 'friends' -- LinkedIn refers to them as 'connections -- but all social networks have a way to
designate members as trusted.

Groups. Most social networks use groups to help you find people with similar interests or
engage in discussions on certain topics. A group can be anything from "Johnson High Class of
'98" to "People Who Like Books" to "Doors Fans". They are both a way to connect with like-
minded people and a way to identify your interests. Sometimes, groups are called by other
names, such as the 'networks' on Facebook.

Discussions. A primary focus of groups is to create interaction between users in the form of
discussions. Most social networking websites support discussion boards for the groups, and
many also allow members of the group to post pictures, music, video clips, and other tidbits
related to the group.

Blogs. Another feature of some social networks is the ability to create your own blog entries.
While not as feature-rich as blog hosts like Wordpress or Blogger, blogging through a social
network is perfect for keeping people informed on what you are up to.

Widgets. A popular way of letting your personality shine through is by gracing your social
networking profile with web widgets. Many social networks allow a variety of widgets, and you
can usually find interesting widgets located on widget galleries.

FriendFinder, Yahoo! 360, Facebook, Orkut, and Classmates. 

Why Start Social Networking?

Social Networking is a nice form of entertainment, great for meeting people with similar
interests, and can be a very effective business technique for entrepreneurs, writers, actors,
musicians or artists.

Most of us have hobbies, or things that we are keenly interested in such as books, television,
video games or movies. Social networks allow us to reach out to others that have the same
interests.

For example, if you like movies, Flixster can help you decide if you might like a new movie just
out at the theaters. If you like music, Last.FM can help you find new artists that are similar to
your favorite bands.

A brief history of social marketing and the

Internet
The roots of social marketing date back to the 1950s, when one psychologist argued
that the more non-profit organizations communicated like for-profit marketers, the
better their prospects for success. Then during the 1960s, practitioners in developing
countries and marketing academics set the stage for the emerging field. Social
marketing was formally launched in the 1970s; searched for an identity in the 1980s;
and had found a unique niche by the 1990s. By 2000, social marketing was considered
an established field; it now continues to grow and evolve.

Website credibility for social marketing

campaigns
From 2006-2008, I conducted a large study of website credibility on a global anti-poverty
campaign, in order to assess the impact of website credibility and trust on target audience's
participation levels. The study found a relationship between website credibility, users' trust, and
their participation levels. The findings suggest that online campaigners need to engineer credible
and trustworthy e-campaigns if they wish to maximize their potential impact. The following
excerpt describes the practical applications of this study

Online Social Marketing

Social Online Marketing is one of the up and coming Online Marketing tactics. Social Online Marketing is done by
using Social Networking websites, which is part of the Web 2.0. Social Online Marketing is not only a popular and
effective strategy of marketing, but it is easy and fun. By promoting yourself and your company into the online
community (outside of your own website) you are participating in Social Online Marketing.

Social Online Marketing requires the use of Social Networking sites such
as MySpace,FaceBook, Digg, Blogger and YouTube to add/edit content for others to be able to access. Information
placed on such sites allows consumers to not only view it, but also link to it and/or post their own comments about it.
The end result of Social Online Marketing is to increase visibility on Social Networking Sites, create inbound links,
and increase traffic to your website which can be tracked thru analytics software.

Not only are Social Networking sites useful for Social Online Marketing, their content can also be informational to its
viewers.Social Networking sites can allow people to catch up on trends in the Internet world. There are many blogs
for example that offer information solely on Internet news. Social Networking sites don’t just give information on the
Internet; they can also give readers access to almost any information imaginable.

Although consumers are in control of Social Networking websites, they don’t have full control; Social Online
Marketers can also participate in these sites. Customers don’t necessarily want to be marketed to all the time, but
they want to be communicated with, which can be done through online discussions. Consumers are out there
expressing their thoughts, opinions, recommendations and complaints about your products regardless and not
accessing/engaging in these conversations is ignoring an excellent opportunity. By engaging in conversations with
your customers and hearing their thoughts, you can get feedback on what changes/improvements your product can
use as well as give you and opportunity to address their views thru your comments. All the hype of Social Online
Marketing is causing an exponential growth of its users and its possible uses and an online marketing tool.

Before starting your Social Online Marketing campaign it is important to think about what exactly it is that you are
marketing. Brainstorming about your Online Marketing goals should include research of your target demographic and
your key competitors.

Once able to locate your target audience it will enable you to answer key points that define what Social Online
Marketing tactics will be successful. The following are questions to keep in mind about your users when determining
how to proceed in your campaign: where do they spend a majority of their time when online? (or sometimes even
when offline) and what are their hobbies, interests and needs?

By researching your leading competitors you can gain knowledge of how they have tackled Social Online Marketing.
Whether competitors have published in wikis, posted on blogs or created a myspace page they should all be easily
traceable through their website. Many Online Marketing attempts can be found just by performing a link search of
their website.

Social marketing on the Web:

 Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing, along with other concepts
and techniques, to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good. ...

 Marketing and advertising that reaches potential consumers via social networking
website, such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. They appear at the edges of users'
profiles and can be targeted based on keywords in their profiles to match their stated
interests or recent activities.

 Planning, execution, and evaluation of programs to influence the voluntary behaviour of

target audiences in order to improve their personal welfare, eg encouraging people to give
up smoke.

 A marketing message designed to promote a social concern or political idea as well as a

product.

 The use of marketing principles and techniques for the social good. For example, by
attempting to influence a target audience to voluntarily accept, reject, modify or abandon
a behaviour for the benefit of themselves and/or society as a whole.
  Ethics Environment & Community Legal

Examples of Social Online Marketing websites include, but are not limited to:

1. MySpace is a Social Networking website that revolves around networks of friends. Friends on Social
Networking sites are not necessarily “friends” outside of the Internet; they can be people just interested in learning
and keeping up to date about you and/or your company. Each user on MySpace can interact in blogs, groups,
view/add photos, music and much more. A Social Online Marketer can post a bulletin about a sale they are having for
friends to view and be attracted to visit their website.

2. FaceBook is another Social Networking website that gives users the ability to keep in contact with friends.
People can publish notes, upload photos, view news from friends, join networks and so much more. By posting a
photo of your brand on your companies FaceBook page it allows friends to view your product and hopefully generate
traffic to your website.

3. YouTube is a video sharing/distributing Social Networking website. It allows visitors that don’t register the
ability to watch videos or those who do register the ability to access the websites full potential, offering many of the
applications that sites like MySpace do. YouTube is one of the fastest growing and largest Social Networking
communities currently available, so it is a great avenue to perform Social Online Marketing.

4. Blogger is one of the more popular blogging networks. By commenting in open-ended conversational
marketing it allows the community to have a lot of control over conversations. Social Online marketers can create
their own blog to share specific information to the community and plug their own product/brand.

In most Social Online Marketing communities it is recommended to not start out by promoting your brand or website.
If you start out by “spamming” you are likely to get kicked out of that social community. Not only could the site
administrators off you from their site, but it could also scare consumers away from your direct online marketing
tactics.

Social Online Marketing sites are useful, but its content needs to be easily accessible by searchers. By making
access to your Social Online Marketing attempts possible thru a link on your website it makes less work for your
users to view them.

So you were able to define your audience, locate your customers on the Internet, build a social relationship with them
and promote your brand and website thru Social Online Marketing. How can you tell if your Social Online Marketing
techniques are working? Most analytic software allows goals to be set up and allows for the monitoring of conversion
rates. (Note that you need to know what you are measuring first)

When just beginning your Social Online Marketing campaign it is recommended to perform one technique at a time. If
using more than one Social Online Marketing technique it could be hard to tell which one elicits what results. To be
certain which tactics work best, you should start your campaign by performing one Social Online Marketing form at a
time. If you start a multitude of tactics at one time it will more than likely give you an excellent result, but will leave you
wondering which one is better for me.

On the other hand, if you are familiar with Social Online Marketing and know which forms are necessary for your
campaign it is best to perform more than more tactic at a time. By promoting multiple forms of Social Online
Marketing at once it will give you quicker results than marketing just one at a time.

Additional Social Marketing "P's"

Publics--Social marketers often have many different audiences that their program has to address
in order to be successful. "Publics" refers to both the external and internal groups involved in the
program. External publics include the target audience, secondary audiences, policymakers, and
gatekeepers, while the internal publics are those who are involved in some way with either
approval or implementation of the program.
Partnership--Social and health issues are often so complex that one agency can't make a dent by
itself. You need to team up with other organizations in the community to really be effective. You
need to figure out which organizations have similar goals to yours--not necessarily the same
goals--and identify ways you can work together.

Policy--Social marketing programs can do well in motivating individual behavior change, but
that is difficult to sustain unless the environment they're in supports that change for the long run.
Often, policy change is needed, and media advocacy programs can be an effective complement
to a social marketing program.

Purse Strings--Most organizations that develop social marketing programs operate through
funds provided by sources such as foundations, governmental grants or donations. This adds
another dimension to the strategy development-namely, where will you get the money to create
your program?

Example of a Marketing Mix Strategy

As an example, the marketing mix strategy for a breast cancer screening campaign for older
women might include the following elements:

 The product could be any of these three behaviors: getting an annual mammogram,
seeing a physician each year for a breast exam and performing monthly breast self-
exams.
 The price of engaging in these behaviors includes the monetary costs of the mammogram
and exam, potential discomfort and/or embarrassment, time and even the possibility of
actually finding a lump.
 The place that these medical and educational services are offered might be a mobile van,
local hospitals, clinics and worksites, depending upon the needs of the target audience.
 Promotion could be done through public service announcements, billboards, mass
mailings, media events and community outreach.
 The "publics" you might need to address include your target audience (let's say low-
income women age 40 to 65), the people who influence their decisions like their
husbands or physicians, policymakers, public service directors at local radio stations, as
well as your board of directors and office staff.
 Partnerships could be cultivated with local or national women's groups, corporate
sponsors, medical organizations, service clubs or media outlets.
 The policy aspects of the campaign might focus on increasing access to mammograms
through lower costs, requiring insurance and Medicaid coverage of mammograms or
increasing federal funding for breast cancer research.
 The purse strings, or where the funding will come from, may be governmental grants,
such as from the National Cancer Institute or the local health department, foundation
grants or an organization like the American Cancer Society.

Each element of the marketing mix should be taken into consideration as the program is
developed, for they are the core of the marketing effort. Research is used to elucidate and shape
the final product, price, place, promotion and related decisions.
Social Networking in Insurance Industry.