The different communities hold the interest of their members through their utility and
entertainment value with scope to expand their networks. There are a whole range of social network communities existing on the web. These communities are organized based on the kind of interactions that people share. The types are only limited by one’s imagination.

Professional : Professional social networks provide opportunities for career advancement in the same company or with the industry. The various opportunities for getting recognized are: answer questions posted by other members, online writing communities; recommendations given, etc.

Eg: LinkedIn, SixApart Professional Blogs, LPN – the Latino Professional Network

Informational : Informational community networks are for people seeking solutions to everyday problems. This is the key segment for Marketers to start with as they are often connected to businesses and companies’ networks. Information is organized in a ‘how-to’ style format written by professionals and subject matter experts.

Eg: Forbes Stock-Picking Community, HGTV Forums, Do It Yourself Chat-room

Educational : Educational networks are student oriented and enable collaboration with other students for help on academic projects, conducting academic research, or to interact with the teaching faculty. Services and products targeted at the student community are leveraging these networks as they are extremely popular.

Eg: The Student Room – A UK-based student community, The Math Forum – A large educational network for math students, ePALS School Blog – Connects school students from around the world to promote world peace, eLearners – A community for online degree students

Research : The research oriented social networks are academic in nature and greatly enable academic researchers to take up collaborative works.

Eg: ARPANET – US Defense Dept., Thomson Reuters Scientific Research, OVID Health Research, Connotea Collaborative Research, MIT Annotation Community
Hobbies These networks are informal and have a mixed group of users. The sole objective of these groups is the common interest or passion. The whole community revolves around sharing information about the interests and gradually extends to other topics as well. The wide range of profiles, topics, geographies that these SNS cater to makes them highly popular.

Eg: GardenWeb, Automotive Forums, Sports Pundit, Spout Film Lovers Community
News News related social networks are content driven and are about publishing “community content.” Members generate interesting content in the form of news stories, commentaries etc but sometimes the quality of the content is also very low as none who post the information need to be qualified writers. When left unmonitored, the conversations tend to get megalomaniac self-promotions.

Social Networking sites are primarily used for connecting with old and new friends, but Social Media sites are business driven as they are generally used for promoting or broadcasting of products and help various businesses in spreading the information about their offerings. As they are more about direct communication, businesses find them easier to use and consider them a wonderful online marketing tool and for promoting and popularizing their product and services.

The differences between social media and social networking can be better understood in context of the following features. This understanding will help the e-Marketer in formulating strategies to leverage them for brand building and business development.
The Objective Social media is a means for transmission and sharing of information with a broad audience. Anyone can easily create and distribute this information and all that one requires to be part of social media is an internet connection!

Social networking refers to deeper engagements. Groups of people with common interests,
associate together and form online communities to build relationships through social networking sites.

Communication Style : Social media is a communication channel like television, radio or newspaper, that is used to deliver a message. Social media is not a location that is visited but basically a system or format that broadcasts information to others. Conversations form the core of social networking; hence this is all about a two-way communication. Based on the subject and topic, members come together to share thoughts, experiences and opinions. Through this exchange, deeper relationships are nurtured for a long term.

Return on Investment (ROI) Measurement : Social media is about creating the buzz, hype and excitement about the company’s services and products. Measuring ROI in such a case becomes tricky as one finds it complicated to assign a value to the hype generated. Because of this limitation, marketers choose a different mode of ROI measurement and assess the depth of the conversation or type of conversation or the influence achieved from the conversation.

ROI measurement is straight forward in social networking. For example, measurements of website traffic, volumes of conversations, size of the network base, etc., are clear indicators of the effectiveness in the marketing efforts.

Network Size : Building a following on social media is tough and prolonged. Unless an established brand, one can neither generate a following overnight or auto-generate individual conversations. If smartly used, social networking can lead to an exponential growth in the network. This is primarily due to the rapport established between the company and the focus group members through direct communication which is not only personal but also purposeful.

Exchange Control : Requesting contacts to put in positive comments or cast votes is risky and laborious in the case of social media. Skewing or manipulating comments, likes, diggs, etc., for a desired image building may result in a black mark in terms of dishonest practices. Social networking is less informal and more discussion oriented. Hence this provides the scope for businesses to not only introduce the company and its offerings but also request for suggestions or feedback.

These conversations, once established as genuine have the potential to convert many
members into loyal followers / fans. Knowing the differences in the two separate marketing concepts, despite the overlaps, can greatly influence the strategies made in this direction.

This kind of numbers is encouraging marketers to invest extensively in social network advertising. From $920 million spent in 2007 by the US marketers on social networking sites, the number has hit $1.6 billion in 2008. The same showed an 81%, growth in the world market and has reached $2.2 billion in 2008. The numbers for the subsequent years are further encouraging as e-marketers realized the power of peer recommendations.

More and more numbers of e-marketers who are new to the field, are honing their skills to emerge as expert practitioners of social network marketing. The entire advancement is targeted towards achieving the social marketing objectives and improving the promised return on investment (ROI).

In this pursuit, marketers are seen researching the medium and monitoring audiences to establish realistic objectives before formulating the strategy and implementing tools for accomplishing those objectives. Initially, marketers have approached social network marketing tactically and simply included various social networking and media sites to the marketing mix. Having realized that this was counter-productive, they have now, started working on the same strategically.

Social network marketing is soon reaching the point of maturity with most of the organizations moving into the transition phase from the initial trial period to the strategic phase of the learning and adoption curve.

The one weakness in social networking sites is that any can make a fake profile and spoof a person or organization with fake messages, thereby tarnishing the image of the other party. So organizations need to be wary of the bad propaganda that they may receive
through individuals who may efficiently broadcast negative information.

Every aspect of commerce is being shaped up by the burst of public opinion set forth by the powerful SNS. Because of the personal touch, Social Network Marketing is more like a word-of-mouth marketing from the online communities and has come to play a decisive role in customer’s opinion on the brand and the related purchasing decisions.

To keep up with the competitive strategies, marketers need to leverage these SNS. Social media which encompasses Social Network Marketing, has become as important as advertising. The one prime difference being that it is considered a more trusted source of information by the consumers; and, because consumers control the content, marketers cannot have any direct play on messaging and positioning.

For making the most of the social networks, businesses need to understand the ways to participate in the conversation and influence the message. The more the members share the content about a business entity within their social network, the bigger would the consumer base of the entity become – with almost no effort and with zero spending.

Social Network Marketing cannot be limited to making public service announcements or adding focus groups or merely including a popular internet tool. It’s more about building the relationship with focused groups of potential customers and ensuring their association with the company / product brand at a deeper level. In short, it is about understanding and connecting to the audience through thorough participation by addressing their belief system, latent needs and motivators.

The whole process is geared at gaining the bandwidth for the company and its brand through engaged communication. Being different from conventional marketing, e-Marketers are approaching their Social Network Marketing initiative through a thorough study of the best practices in the industry and the market dynamics for formulating a sturdy, yet adaptive strategy.

The presence on Social Networking Sites is not limited to merely advertising with the use of banner ads. It is extended to participation in blogs, forming and moderating groups, sharing consistent and newsworthy information, creation of a suitable profile that promotes traffic to the company’s website and continually post company related information like events, jobs, achievements, milestones, etc.