Blog | Building your own online Community

Social Media: What is it and why is it important to you?

 

 

Everybody has heard of websites such as Linked in, Facebook and YouTube.  Community driven sites like these have seen a huge surge in popularity over the last half a decade, and now dominate online communications. They are all forms of social media.

Social media websites are essentially communication tools where people can come together as individuals to keep in contact with people they know, make new contacts and share resources.

These tools are used by people with shared interests or common goals to communicate and keep in touch. They are therefore known as ‘Social Networks' or ‘Online Communities.'

Online communities work in exactly the same way as any offline community - be it a business network, a society, a club or community group. They are a network of people who come together because of shared interest.

However, there are some key differences:

• Your online community is not constrained by Geography so people from all over the world can access it
• The methods of communication are different. Rather than face to face meetings, telephone calls and letters, people in online communities tend to user E-mail, chat rooms, ‘walls', groups, forums, file sharing, status updates and blogs.
• You can communicate with your community instantly from anywhere in the world so long as you have internet access.

Essentially however, in the online environment you manage your community of contacts in exactly the same way as you might manage your client list, membership database or address book. It is a way of managing communications with other individuals.

Some Social Networking statistics:

To give you an idea of the importance and growth or Social Media, here are a few statistics:

• 6/10 top internet sites in the UK social networking sites: YouTube, Live.com, Facebook, Hi5, Wikipedia, Orkut; none were on the list in 2005
• The number of Britons joining a social network is expected to treble from 9.6m to 27m by 2012.
• The market analyst predicts the UK to see the strongest growth in Europe over the next five years.
• Europe is expected to see a jump of 41.7m active social networkers to 107.4m by 2012.

Managing you audience online

It is therefore important to engage with your audience online. You might want to consider a presence on websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other sites in order to reach you audience on these platforms.

However, there are so many ways to communicate with your audience, and so many different platforms out there, that it can become time consuming to manage. Moreover, having all your staff have access to these platforms can cause issues.

A Solution that gives you control

Organic Development are offering a web based solution that allows companies and organisations to create their own online branded private network or community where they have complete control. Members can still interact, blog, network online, promote events and to publish articles, but without relying on sites such as Facebook or Twitter.

This enables you to communicate and manage your online network of contacts in one single controlled environment which can be used as a powerful CRM tool to communicate with your audience, an internal communications tool for your staff and in many different ways.

Importantly it allows companies to embrace the huge growth marketing phenomenon of social network marketing in a controlled environment without the risks of encouraging your staff to visit a diverse range of third party sites.

To support your companies marketing, Organic Development can also offer training and support in social marketing for your staff to help then use Social Media in a powerful, effective and responsible way for your business.

Of course, this doesn't replace you presence on the major platforms - but it does mean you don't have to invite or encourage existing clients and staff you have a relationship to engage on these platforms when you might not be entirely comfortable with the idea.

Example Communities developed by Organic Development

www.360intouch.com	www.agencyingrammicro.com
www.tbx1.com	PINS-SW
www.tweenjo.com

Our platform and services provide you with an organised, controlled and risk free way to harness the power of social networking for your business.
 
Features: Our platform includes the following features as standard (although any can be switched off):

•   Setup, community settings configuration and hosting
•   A choice of three design templates
•   Addition of you logo and a choice of three profile page layouts
•   Blogging and status updates for all members to run their own blogs
•   The facility to create groups similar to Facebook groups and invite members to join. These can be closed or open groups.
•   Points or 'karma' that members earn who engage and use the community The facility for members to link to one another
•   The facility for members to communicate with each other (if required)
•   The facility for members to invite new members (member get member)
•   The facility for members to add and subscribe to events
•   The facility to add content and news to the site
•   The facility to choose what data you capture and what is shown on the profile

Bespoke Development: Organic Development can also provide bespoke functionality and designs to you. This is quoted as requested by individual clients. We can change pretty much anything as part of a bespoke package.

Contact Us!  If you are interested in this service please call James Moffat at Organic Development on 0845 689 7654 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it