It’s time To Create Your Own Space
The inaugural Neilsen-Community Engine 2010 Social Media Business Benchmarking Study found that 70% of all Australian businesses intend to conduct some form of social media activity this year, up from 40% in 2008.
And whilst diverting expenditure from traditional media online is clearly the sensible direction to follow, how do you do that in such a way that will increase revenue, decrease costs and truly improve satisfaction amongst your key stakeholders?
Working with mainstream social networks and community platforms (such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and more) can be notoriously hard to get right, and seemingly impossible to leverage – What does it all mean? What rules do I have to follow? What happens when something goes wrong? What do I really know about my so-called ‘followers’ or ‘friends’?
Taking advantage of new technology shouldn’t mean that you have to give up on your core values. Your relationships, your data, your brand are all precious assets that need be guarded and managed well – handing over control and ownership to a third party is not something we would consider in the ‘real’ world, so why we would do it online?
Community Engine specialises in proprietary social networks. We can create a social web space that you manage and you control, and – crucially – one that is full of the social media tools that everyday users have now come to expect in their online usage. This space puts you at the centre of the conversation, and gives you full ownership of your community.
Rather than leaving people to discuss your products, services and organisation outside of your space, you can now foster your own community on your own web site, and directly interact with the very people that can help you to grow your brand and grow your business. We can also help you to link that with any promotional activity on mainstream social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – ensuring both types of engagement gain maximum leverage from one another.
More and more organisations now realise that proprietary social networks are the only truly effective way of facilitating direct interaction with your constituents. The Nielsen-Community Engine Study revealed that many businesses are actively considering and would indeed prefer to create their own social network. 77% of those businesses claimed the reason for this preference is the importance of owning the information they directly capture – as opposed to the less substantial information they derive from third party platforms.
Consider this – your own community network, with engaged and committed constituents and customers, all helping to drive your business forward – such a network is a unique, long-term marketing & business asset, and can be built for much less than you would ordinarily spend on a short-term tactical media campaign.
Find out what you can do with your new social network >
