Reporter's Notebook

SOCIAL NETWORKING: NOT JUST FOR KIDS

Before grounding your teenager for spending too much time on MySpace, you might ask him or her how it works first.

Online social networking has become a common and often free marketing tool for businesses and professionals of all ages.

“Google tends to respond more favorably to links from social media,” said Doug Williams, a Vancouver-based web marketing consultant.

A professional account with sites such as LinkedIn.com, Facebook or MySpace can help with search engine optimization by increasing links to a company’s website, he said.
Corporate examples of success and failure with online networking include attempts of Target and Wal-Mart to reach college students through Facebook in 2007.

Target offered an online survival guide for dorm living, touting its established image as a low-cost source for practical items. The page let visitors post photos and videos of their dorm rooms and chat about dorm life. By March 2008 the page had more than 20,000 fans.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart posed as an online fashion expert. The page played down Wal-Mart’s image as a practical discount chain and came off as unauthentic, Williams said. Comments and online chatting were restricted, and by March 2008 Wal-Mart’s page had 116 fans.

“It was a fiasco for Wal-Mart and a big win for Target,” Williams said. “Wal-Mart was not believed.”
Other helpful interactive sites include Wikipedia, which offers user-generated definitions and research information, and Yelp.com or Citysearch.com, where customers can leave company reviews.

“Ask (customers) to rate you with honest feedback,” Williams said. “It tells your staff to take care of customers and it tells customers you care.”

Charity Thompson can be reached at cthompson@vbjusa.com