esmoretti.com

It’s about the conversation – not the number of friends or followers.

Social Media has become the buzz word of the day on the internet. Carrying websites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace and turning them to the glorious way for marketers to make money without spending money. It couldn’t be farther from the truth. For one, if you get everyone in your company to Twitter, you’re taking them away from their real jobs. To successfully work in Social Media you need to have a person who understands it and to continually monitoring and developing the plan.

Having a person dedicated to social media does not mean hiring a full time Twitter intern. Social Media is not simply creating Facebook profiles. Social Media is away for companies to open up dialog for consumers and to achieve granular details about the client like never before.

What really attracts people to Social Media is the fact that they can reach people they wouldn’t normally have access to. If you aren’t responding and actively engaging your customers through your social media initiatives then you’re paying someone a lot of money to screw around on the internet.
read more »

In the past month or so at least 4 executives have branched out from both Google and MySpace. If you know what it’s like to work at Google you have to wonder what they are thinking. Apparently, it’s that they think they can do social networking better. Most recently, three executives from MySpace, including Amit Kapur, left MySpace to join a start up. It seems a little crazy to ditch a well paying job in this economy but you gotta do what you gotta do.

The biggest question it sparks, is just how much social networking can we take? Isn’t the social networking market pretty well saturated? Between MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many other sites what are the odds for social networking startups to succeed?

One of these start-ups is Likaholix. Started by a former Googler, Likaholix seems to be a Twitter like item for products and media. The idea is that you make suggestions for things that you like and people comment it and favorite on it. It is still in private beta, so to say it is a tad undercooked is being pretty accurate.

[Read] Total Telecom Three MySpace execs quit, including COO
[Read] Mashable Why Googlers Are Leaving to Start Social Sites

Although I keep waiting for MySpace to die out, it’s quite frankly just too big of a money maker. MySpace made an estimated $1 billion in ad revenues in 2008. A figure that’s not crazy considering that any given day the MySpace homepage is festooned with some movie or album dropping that week. Still, there is only too many glitter gif’s one person can take.

Where does Facebook fit into all of this? Good question! Because even though they managed to nab another 222 MILLION unique visitors in December, twice as many as MySpace they only managed a measly $300 million in ad money. What gives? Well Facebook’s model gets exploited without making profit. Burger King made headlines with the often mentioned “Dump 10 friends, Get Whopper” ad, and Facebook made zilch.

Facebook doesn’t play the same game MySpace is. Facebook doesn’t get taken over, or super plastered with advertisements. And that’s their game. Facebook is working the Pull mechanism while MySpace is sticking to tried and true pushing. The problem for Facebook is that while alot of companies rely on on the Facebook platform for free advertising and networking, Facebook has yet to figure out how to capitalize on it. The plus side is Facebook’s popularity might be more recession proof for it. Which puts a oncstant drain on the servers, without a constant poor in to the bank.

Are you waiting for the pull? Here it comes, while companies have been getting ads for free, their fans have been increasing. It’s a measurable figure. You know who is paying attention to you. Viewers of MySpace colorful ad pages might be ignoring them, but not the New York Times Facebook fans. When the Gray Lady allowed people to “gift” images of Obama on their front page, NYT fans tripled to 160,000.

Facebook is also adopting more engagement ads like offering up surveys. Markets now get brand awareness and concrete numbers to analyze. It’s a dream for them, and probably a cash cow for Facebook. The worry is that as these yet untested methods are now offered, companies now on the rocks might be cutting experimental advertising and sticking with cheap banner ads. Maybe Facebook’s approach is not so recession proof.

Read: AdAge “Facebook’s Plan to Amp Up Ad Revenue”