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Social networks are now becoming corporate and if you are a company there's no hiding.

This trend means the people behind the company get to show themselves and interact with other human beings in the real world.

The idea of one-on-one interaction can happen. If you trust your employees you can let them out of their cages and cubicles and empower them to represent your brand in the real world.

They can solve problems, answer questions, entertain and inform.

They can become friends with customers and in short, they can be your pure brand ambassadors or the best ads you ever had.

Of course, this all depends on how brave you are.

It also depends on how much you value and believe in your employees.

If they are merely dispensable drones who you believe are stealing from you, you know only by their employee number and zip code, you may have some work to do.

Welcome to the death of the faceless corporation.

There is no nowhere to hide and if your people aren't out there interacting, you are missing a massive opportunity.

It appears that Zappos gets this idea big time.



Who else is brave enough to follow its lead?


Posted by Ed Cotton Facebook emerged from college dorms late in 2006 and then exploded onto the cultural scene in the US, UK and Canada in 2007.

With close to 60 million members and an audience that's doubling every 6 months, Facebook is the brand phenom of the year.

Consider that over 50% of its audience use the site daily and that over 20% of Canadians have an account.

The brand faces significant challenges in 08, with the core question being how it makes money?

The Beacon debacle hasn't helped and there's got to be more to it than banner ad inventory. The brand is going to need to work closely with agencies and its community to ensure useful media tools are created for brands.

The problem with the Social Graph is that it's still not clear if users want conversation and friendship with brands or if they want brands getting in the way of their conversation. Apple Students, Nike and Victoria's Secret are currently the only three mass brands who can talk of any real success on Facebook.

Clealry, there's going to need to be a considerable level of creative thought applied to the development of relevant brand communication platforms.

Facebook would be wise to call upon the best minds in the creative industries to help them. An all expenses paid three-day creative summit in Cannes or Necker Island could be in order.

If Facebook follows the wishes of its investors looking for a quick return, in 12 months time we might soon be talking about it as if it were Friendster, get it right and we could well be looking at the next Google.

Today, its power and hold over its users is unquestionable, so strong, it's even spawned a thriving t-shirt business.

Sadly, there are only 5,000 of these suckers available.



Posted by Ed Cotton The rise of social networks and the promise of monetization is driven by the belief that recommendations hold significant value.

There are numerous studies that show "Word of Mouth" as the leading source of influence on a person's purchase decision. However, WOM has become something of a general term to describe general conversations that people pick up from a wide variety of sources. Social networks like My Space and Facebook are hoping to make money based on the recommendations of "friends" to "friends".

Interestingly, a paper published in 2006 by Andrew Gershoff and Gita Johar at Columbia, suggests that we tend to over-estimate the knowledge and understanding our close friends have about us, when in reality, their recommedations are no better than others who aren't as close.

However, the sharing of ideas and recommendations, even if their recommendations aren't great, the process plays a crucial role in strengthening the bond between friends. We still want to recommend and be recommended things, because that's one of the ways we become closer to others.

Here's the opening paragraph of conclusions from Gershoff and Johar's paper.
 


However, Facebook, Amazon and MySpace know far more about us than our friends ever will.

Perhaps the "secret sauce" and the "tricky territory" will be for these players to help our friends to know us better and therefore increase the likelehood of succesfull recommendation, leading to a win-win situation.

Toolsets and applications that help friends better understand the taste of their friends could play a significant role in helping to monetize these social networks.

Although this is the role of many of the current applications on Facebook that determine taste and interest, there are too many of them and there's no way to aggregate the information and build interesting friend profiles, perhaps that will come.


Posted by Ed Cotton Facebook has been described as the Google of its generation. A new internet tool that brings accessible social networking to the masses. On a basic level, it does a fine job, it does all the things you want it to and it's easy to manage.

The problem is that it's perhaps a little too easy. We get attracted by the blinkling lights and add new applications and join groups on a whim. It's wonderful to see those groups grow and cool when new fun applications arrive, it's a little like living in an amusement arcade.

However, while all this stuff is happening we seem to be missing the powerful potential of this social network to make a difference and to do something really interesting for all of us.

Today, Time Incorporated announced it was closing its magazine Business 2.0. It was a sad day for subscribers and those of us who were fortunate enough to get free copies of the magazine.

However, for the 2,500+ members of the Facebook group that had formed to try and save the mag, myself included, it was another day on the social network, with all the usual distractions.

Many had probably forgotten they had joined the group in the first place, others had lost interest after a few days.

The problem is that it's easy to click and join and very hard to do something constructive.

It's the big weakness in the Facebook system.

For groups, it's hard to leverage, galvanize, manage and do something great with Facebook.

Facebook is attracting a ton of people and it's doing a great job with the basics, but the real "win" is leveraging the collective wisdom and power of crowds to do something interesting; to buy goods at a discount, to give loans, change the political system, raise environmental standards, reduce poverty and yes, even keep interesting business magazines afloat.

If Facebook can do this, fantastic.However, I have a hunch that a couple of kids in Mumbai are working on something that can do everything Facebook can do but will  trump it because it can harness the collective power of the crowd. 

Facebook, the clock is a ticking.

Posted by Ed Cotton The rise of social networks has now become important enough for companies to create positions for people to manage them.

Warner Brothers is looking to hire someone to do this for its bands. Someone who has a strong understanding of running or fostering community.

Here are the job specs.

Main goals will be to improve, nurture and grow artist communities on the website, message board, or other area depending on the artist. You will have a lot of interaction with fans and must be able to identify influencers and trends within these communities. This is a new and exciting role within the music industry that holds the opportunity for a lot of creativity and growth.

Responsibilities/Duties:

    Manage a roster of artist communities, evaluating and improving upon community activities to build and grow traffic and quality of the community
    Be a “face” within the communities, participating in site activity, communicating with members, and occasionally in person at events.
    Manage reporting throughout your artist communities and collect and analyze data like traffic, registrations and conversion rates.
    Identify influencers and trends within the communities and come up with creative ideas around these trends.
    Understand each artist and read trends within communities to lend to the marketing of an album or single.
    Manage an in-house team to carry out community initiatives and manage community moderators and specialists.    
    Manage relationships with community based partner sites.

Job Requirements:

    Familiarity with social networking and user generated content sites and message boards.
    Strong understanding of running or fostering community.
    Some understanding of the music industry.
    Highly motivated team player able to multi-task and work in a fast paced environment.
    Self-starter who needs minimal management.
    Creative, innovative, highly organized, detailed oriented.
    Must have excellent communication skills (both oral and written)
    Computer knowledge of various applications and excellent knowledge of the Internet
    New Media and music industry experience a plus

Via


Posted by Ed Cotton "The deep structure of future human connection is being contrived, now, on the web, and it will slowly unseat other systems, like an oak tree growing in a churchyard, encroaching on the cathedral's foundations with roots that are deeper and stronger than artifice can achieve. This is in us, it is in the wiring, and social tools are allowing us to rechannel our ancient tribal past in a post-industrial future. Nothing can stop it."

Stowe Boyd


Posted by Ed Cotton