Engage: Social Media Blog

With the large numbers that Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have amassed, you may think creating a social network takes time and resources your business does not have access to. In fact, creating a social network is within reach for a small business or startup.
 

Before proceeding, it is important to consider how your business will benefit from creating a social network. There are many positive aspects to developing your own platform.

1. The content that is created and shared on your business’s social network will be yours to own. On Facebook, companies do not own the information that is spread on their pages or to their fans. Creating your own social network means ownership of all of that content.
2. Restrictions that are in place on Facebook would no longer hinder your marketing efforts. Take for example running promotions on Facebook. There are many rules and guidelines dictating how exactly they can be carried out and measured. These roadblocks would no longer pose an issue to a company.
3. Creating your own social network means that users will be interacting on your own branded channel. You won’t have to compete with ads and sponsored topics. You can always promote your material through popular social media channels, but with the intended goal of directing users back to your platform.

It is also necessary to evaluate the pitfalls of creating a social network. The most obvious being that Facebook and other large known social networks have a huge user base that is already active. Creating a social network will take time and money before a payoff is seen, as with all social media efforts. You must also consider if your business is the type that consumers will genuinely want to interact with, whether this can translate into customer support, to testimonials for the product, new product testing and more.

Businesses have heard about social media and are aware of the options; the next task is finding a way to stand out. A few of the bigger brands (and therefore bigger social media marketing budgets) have already begun to view social media and social networks in a larger sense.

This morning, Pepsi unveiled "Pepsi Pulse" a live social networking dashboard about pop-culture, that will eventually be paired with the companies' "Live for Now" campaign. The dashboard highlights music news and tweets from fans using the #now or #LiveForNow hashtag. It’s hard to determine if people will embrace this dashboard, but it will give users one place to visit to easily find and share content in this field.



A few months ago during the Superbowl, Pepsi’s competitor Coca Cola created the Superbowl social media lounge, the Polar bowl. Fans could watch the bears cheer for their teams and react to commercials and performances, all in real time. The polar bears were a huge hit among social network users.

As Shiv Singh, the global head of digital for PepsiCo Beverages said, “It’s not enough anymore to have phenomenal TV ads — brands have to do more.” Brands and businesses now have to think creatively to fit their ad and product into the established social networks, while bringing something new to the user.

With the Olympics coming up this summer, it will be interesting to see what companies come up with. There will no doubt be social networks  and websites designated for the games, but brands may try and create a niche lens for their customers to enjoy the Olympics.

Do you think brands should focus on catering to such specified fields, or do you think they should stick to what’s already out there? Let us know in the comments. Contact Wild Frog Studio today to get started on your own social media strategy.