It’s a fair question, and one that I ask every time I take my guitar to a recording session—but that’s for another blog. Today, I’m talking about social networking. More specifically, hyper-local and hyper-focused social networking. Where do you plug in to your social network?
I recently helped launch a social networking site for the Collin County Songwriters Association in North Texas. We used ning.com to get it going, and the speed and ease of putting it together was breathtaking. But our excitement from the speed and ease didn’t hold a candle to the rush we got from what happened next.
To put it simply the site BLEW UP, and I mean in a good way. Now, I guess I have to qualify what I mean. It’s not that we got a huge number of participants—right now we’re at 67 members and climbing. What was amazing was how much started to happen on the site. Videos, photos, discussion forums, blog posts, music posts, friending, and events. Wow. Why did it do that, and why did it happen so fast?
My answer is pretty simple. We already had a group of people who wanted to network. The social network online merely facilitated the synergy that was already happening, and put it on steroids.
Right now, people are wondering how to use social networking for their business. As I wrote in my upcoming primer for executives (and stole from Groundswell), one of the five things you can use social networking for is embracing your customers—creating a cult (think Harley Davidson owners, who spend an inordinate amount time of time recruiting people to become Harley owners). For a certain niche of small businesses, this is a perfect fit.
If I had a dance studio, music school, cheerleading school, karate school, flying club, day care, guitar shop, night club, wine club/bistro, church, hobby shop, special interest group, local political party, arts organization, or anything that is as much a club as it is a business, I’d start a social network. I’d use ning or something like it, because it’s free and robust. Set yourself up as the information broker, the expert, or the facilitator for something happening in your neighborhood. Goose it up with an occasional discussion post of a controversial subject that everyone would like to comment on. Stand back and watch it fly.
What are you waiting for?
M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas
Ryan.y@sbcglobal.net
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
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