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Using Social Networks for Business – What Are Your Goals?

In the first post of this series, What Social Networks Should I Join to Promote My Business Website?, I gave an overview of some questions you should ask (and try to answer) to decide which social networks are best for your business.  The first question, is the most important:

What goal or problem am I trying to solve?

It may help to take a look at some possible answers:

  1. Increase Sales
  2. Increase Traffic to the Website – Why?  This is a common answer, but what does more traffic give you?  One would hope you’re actually trying to increase sales (see #1).
  3. Increase Customer Satisfaction – Good.  This should also lead to #1.
  4. Need more information on how our products/services are doing.  – Also good (and should lead to #1 – see a trend?)

Businesses often lose sight of their main goal – to increase sales.  Don’t become bogged down with all these new technologies and buzz words.  If sales are hurting because you have a customer serice or research problem, then use social networks and your website to solve that problem.

Take a deep breath.  Visualize what you’re trying to do and why.  Now we have a good foundation to move forward.

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Stickam courts teens not business

This week I want to navigate some of the legitimate business needs in the live broadcasting space.  But like anyone helping a friend new to a city, lesson number one is always a warning of which alleys not to enter.

There is a good reason video sharing giant YouTube, now corporate courtesan of the Google empire, has decided to shy away from live video broadcasting.  Unsurprising to most of us, live broadcasting on the internet has a very risque sub-community of young followers and interested parties.  Stickam has become the service of choice for that market, as is evident to anyone searching their site.

Stickam, started by Advanced Video Concepts in 2006, was an interesting technology company when it hit the press.  Well built, easy to use live video streaming tools made for inexpensive web cameras has the potential for great social impact and consumer activism when used responsibility.  Yet early on Stickam thought small as they focused on the MySpace social graph as a way to get AVC’s video technology out to a huge, interested demographic.  Through MySpace’s youth audience, Stickam was able to establish a large stake early by promising teens unrestricted access to content distribution.  As their success attracted more attention, it brought with it the reputation of an uncensored, lawless landscape.  Accusations allege that AVC’s parent company is in the adult entertainment business, loosely linking the youth related site to pornagraphy.

“Letting people do whatever they want is one way for these sites to differentiate themselves,” said Josh Bernoff, a Forrester Research analyst. “It is the race to the bottom.” – IHT

Stickam’s community aside, the AVC technology is solid.  There are a few notable users of the service like Leo Leporte that have promoted the possibilities as well as the potential.  As with any video sharing service, you can embed Stickam videos into your site without your viewers ever seeing the Stickam community site.  For a progressively thinking business this can be a great option as the Stickam tools for live broadcasting are extreamly easy to use.  Still, it is hard to separate the Stickam reputation and its communtiy from its technology.

When deciding between technology and community, it is clear where Stickam has its attention. Robin Bechtel, Warner’s vice president for new media, said in an article with the International Herald Tribune that people would migrate to even controversial video sites if they have features that MySpace and YouTube did not.

“People are going to go where the content is,” Bechtel said. “If Stickam has celebrities and is entertaining, they will go there.- IHT

Next we will take a look at a more viable business option in the free web streaming domain, ustream.

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Are Buses IT's mortal enemy?

“Oh, and have Tony document that accounting payment transfer thingy he wrote, in case he gets hit by a bus”

MLSP Network Engineers, Oracle RAC admins, that guy who keeps that FoxPro app running.  These are the unsung heroes who seemingly risk their lives every day while crossing the street to get to work.   No one knows why, but Public Transportation has had a devastating impact on the life expectancy of our irreplaceable IT brethren.

While there are no known reasons for specialized IT professionals to have a greater statistical likelyhood towards large vehicular manslaughter, there is anecdotal evidence dating back years to suggest that the tragic possibility has always loomed near.  Management has tried to warn us of the wheeled menace.  Through an organized campaign of prophesy and doomsaying, they have in their own way tried to stem the tide of blood on the sidewalk.  Sadly, few people listen to anything management has to say.

Bus patrons claim their commuter cars are being unfairly targeted by the IT community.  Passenger transport experts say they have been unable to identify a single documented case of technaside and maintain that buses do not attack sysadmins unless provoked.

Are buses the mortal enemy of IT?  While researching this report, I personally witnessed a prediction from my boss on the very real danger that exists should I neglect to pass on the diagramed call procedure for SOA workflow model I created.  In his words, should I one day come face to grill with a runaway bus, he would be ‘totally screwed’

The enemy?

IT’s natural predator?