5 ways to test a social network for relevancy
Twitter.StumbleUpon.MyBlogLog.LinkedIn.MySpace.Facebook.blah.blah.blah.
The more social networks I see, the more I am convinced they are becoming irrelevant to really adding value.
How many fads can you be a part of? Just how many virtual friends do you need to have?
I for one believe that we are in the “Third Age” of Social Networking where we are being inundated with niche sites (Twitter, LinkedIn) along with new technology mega sites (i.e. facebook).
So how do judge whether to use something or not? I have 5 easy ways to test this out.
1.) Does it add value to my business or personal life?
2.) Am I just moving the same group of friends to yet another network or will this add to my “virtual friend list”?
3.) What additional functionality does this add to my productivity?
4.) Does this site have a purpose or meaning that I can identify with?
5.) Does this site have functionality that might work with other applications or social networks I belong to?
If you can’t get 4 or 5 out of 5, sign up.
If you get 3 out 5, it is your time to waste. 2 and below?
You are stupid and it should waste your time.
I am gonna start looking at some social networks to see if they add value to an entrepreneur’s world. Wanna help? Suggest some networks that you like and seem to help you.
I think your point is dead on, but from a different perspective. I just wrote about how all these new web 2.0 startups are going to fade because there isn’t enough advertising to support them all. But your point is even more valid- if they don’t serve the customer well enough, they aren’t going to build enough mass to even be able to attract ads in the first place. So they are in a fail-fail position- the service doesn’t attract users, and there aren’t enough advertisers to go around even if they could. Ouch.
I agree with you on a lot of this. First of all Twitter and Pownce are, well to put it bluntly, for web geeks. The average everyday person is not going to use those sites.
When using social networking sites for my clients or for projects I am doing basically the biggest things I look for are:
-how good is the search feature? Can I target people by location and by interest
-how many people use the site? Is there a large base of people within the region I want to target?
-are there groups or forums divided by interest that I can target people in?
If the answer is yes to the above three than it is totally worth it.
Some other things to consider:
Do they have outbound linking capabilities?
Will my profile be public without being signed in? (So search engines will pick it up)
Will my RSS feed stream into my page?
Can I set it up and forget about it? You cannot find time to work them all, but it is not bad to have your profile in a lot of places.
Most social networks are nothing but noise jungles. Still, if you work them right, you can connect with people who are like-minded and help each other create buzz to elevate your sites. It can take a lot of work and the pay off may not be worth it.