Do these dwindling numbers for the big networks mean that social networking is dead? Not by a long shot. What is happening is that the concept of social networking is evolving and morphing. It’s now about making the entire Web social instead of just creating a ghetto of destination sites where people have to go to socialize. Retailers, newspapers, TV networks and even search engines are incorporating “social” into their digital strategies and they’re taking cues from the social networks to do it. News Feed
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Here’s what they’ve learned from social networks: Share the spotlight. People want to feel special and tend to reach out to the things that make them feel that way. So, it’s no surprise that people flock to social networks in droves; they make users feel like the star of their own lives. The same desires extend to companies, products and even TV networks. The lesson here is that sociallyaware companies put customers and audiences at the center of their world, or at least make them a part-owner in it. The New York Times and most newspapers do this by simply highlighting the “most popular” articles other site visitors
have read, searched or shared. CNN goes a step further and gives broadcast and digital airtime to user-generated, citizen journalist iReports. Nike does it too, by centering its Nike+ site on the users’ profiles and the community’s interactions, instead of its shoes. And Yahoo!, Google, and Coca-Cola go full bore—giving their entire home pages over to each user to “trick out” with their own MyYahoo! and iGoogle controls or Coke bottle designs. In all cases, the key is they make sure the spotlight is on the customers and not on themselves.
Leverage the platform, not just the site. The most recent rapid expansion on the Facebook and MySpace sites came when they opened up their systems and allowed developers to make applications for their sites. Flickr and LinkedIn saw increased gains from similar types of external hooks, one by pushing out “embed code” and Flickr streams, and the other by pulling in email contacts and pushing a user’s network back out to world, making even BusinessWeek articles contextually relevant to the individual reader (see screenshot). In all cases, playing nicely with other systems has created opportunities to build an
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audience and increase engagement and usage by simply remembering user preferences and planning for distribution. For this approach to work, the walled-garden Web site should be loosened up enough to allow the traffic to come in.
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FEED: The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report / 2008