Social Networking Feature: Groups

Social networking sites share a lot of the same features, from time to time I am going to look at these features and help explain how to maximize their use for your benefit.

Today I want to look at groups.

(How else do you represent groups with a picture?)

Groups are glorified forums where users can communicate via message board, bulletins, and are usually moderated by another site user. They are usually split up via different subject areas and there are often multiple groups about the same subjects. The benefits of groups are two fold:

1) It provides you with a listing of people that are interested in your subject.

You can go through and harvest the people in the group as contacts. This is an easy way in ensure a high conversion rate and gain a lot of connections within the site.

2) It provides you a place to build a reputation and gain loyal customers.

In most groups there are usually multiple discussions going on. For a few minutes a day you should take the time out to go in and participate in the discussion. It gives you a chance to intergrate yourself into the community and also it can establish you as an expert. For example let’s say you are trying to sell paint ball equipment, if you spend time in a paint balling group you can establish yourself as an expert. When people want to purchase equipment why wouldn’t they want to get it from someone that knows their product?

Spending a couple of minutes a day in the forums is a sure way to help establish yourself within the community and it won’t brand you as someone that is there just to acquire numbers. People will interact with you more and be much more receptive to things you have to promote.

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