Daily Archives: November 18, 2008
Monetizing Social Networks
Posted by Gautam
Jinal posts her thoughts on the issue:
When I look at some of the recent start-ups and existing networks,
– it clearly comes off as these sites were started to 1) build a
community first and 2) figure out a rev. model then.
The risk these companies run with such a model is that the expectation
for the community is already set: the community already believes that
this is a free service and they begin to conform/ expect and fall in
love with that frame of reference.
Once you try to change that frame of reference, you risk uspetting or
even losing your community or your fans. And rightfully so – because
you are trying to change the core product that the community first fell
in love with.Which is why, it only took Threadless 3 years to make profit and
neither of the companies stated above are even breaking even yet.Which is also why, I think Opensource and crowdsoucring and “Free”
are the domains of companies that already have money and are not
particularly expecting to see a return on investment. I also think
Opensource is a fantastic domain, and possibly, should become the only
domain for social good/ social design and social causes. When the
collective agenda is to ultimately “do good” – concepts like open
source and crowdsourcing are not only incredibly useful, but also
cost-effective.
My thoughts:
Stand alone communities which think they can build a community and then get businesses to leverage that community don’t know either of their clients. Neither wants to be ‘pimped’
I’d encourage organizations to engage and converse with users using the community. Forget monetization – get ideas on usability, design, service and make your products and solutions better.
That should be ROI enough!
Posted in online, social media
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Bhanu on Indian Social Media
Posted by Gautam
Came across this interesting blog by Bhanu. Well, he’s related to me (he’s my first cousin’s husband) but we’ve never met and only interacted on Facebook. He’s with a PR firm based out of Mumbai and also runs a blog on social media.
In an interesting post he advised other PR folks that Bloggers Bikau Nahin Hain:
First of all Bloggers are individual personalities.. They Blog only for their self interest and views. They dont even entertain such conversations where the financial matters are involved. They blog only for their self interest and not for money. They look for fresh content and unique information towards Products, services, Celebrities etc…
They never tamper with any kind of information. They need clarity and transparency. In most of the cases where the information gets published at a cost involved is always tampered such as Print Publications, TV, Radio etc. We never get clear and genuine information.
Yes, Placing Ads on Blogs is very much possible where it is linked back to a particular website or other source. Lot of Bloggers do it, provided their Blog is world famous and backlinking is provided. But there are only few who does it. Even Blogger communities does it but very few..
Well, every Blogger will have different perception towards whatever he or she absorbs from the resources. But there is a way to justify it by commenting on it and giving them a clear picture. Whereas, this is not possible in other media. Hence we have to absorb whatever gets published.
