Article 1 Make your corporate website relevant , integrate facebook , twitter , Linkedin, Google, Myspace.

Companies must integrate customers behavior on social networks to their corporate website to increase relevancy, word of mouth, and trust
A plethora of options creates confusion in the market for brands to integrate these social features. Using community platforms to allow customers to connect to each other on branded domains works for loyal customers and often may not reach prospects. The challenge? its confusing to figure out what to do. Use this data as a roadmap and guide in understanding. Benefits of Social Integration Feature What it does Benefits Downsides What no one tells you

Allows users to Free to deploy, as Beyond sharing and Its scary to send share content social newtorks offer simple analytics, traffic away but it Sharing Features from corporate features or Sharethis theres limited causes viral effects websites to social or Addthis functionality you didnt expect networks Embed features If you dont on social Breathes real social integrate this with networks (like interaction to static Control over whats Embeds and your look and feel Facebook Fan corporate sites, being said is Widgets and use default Reactions) on showing real world limited. features your site your corporate customer interaction will look amateur website Login to a Increase chances of You have less website using a interaction. Users ability to glean their Social networks social networking hate filling out email address, as are really an Authentication login, often registration pages, so theyve logged in identity play, by through two this allows them to another route. In the using this, they clicks like login faster using long run, youll gain more control. Twitter connect. their own login. have disparate data. Cross Publishing Users can share Rapid sharing of Spreading Careful. Dont from my site to information to content, and information means allow for users to social networks specific friends in sometimes the ability more disparate simply spam their Pollination their social for users to instances of data, friends with

specifically select who theyll share to this is beyond making it hard for content, be networks simple sharing brands to maintain selective. features as activities control. and actions can quickly spread Enable your Use this for key corporate site to Not all content will events, or Update websites really be real time be relevant, and important in real time with Real time updates through updates in excessive updates customer social content on social networks in will become white transactions, not corporate sites. real time, and vice noise. the mundane versa. activity. Rather than subject customers to a Dont assume Serve up content generic user Create a series of what a customer based on users experience on your specific content does in Twitter is Social profile corporate website, types is costly, as relevant to your Personalisation information and customize the well as the engine own product, one previous experience based on to develop this. size does not fit behavior, their social all. networking profile, increasing relevancy. This is very Allow your users complicated system Every company is friends to increase to create, and Present real time a media company, relevancy by requires a mindset information based and the smartest Social Context suggesting content to let go to gain on their friends companies realize and products to each more as users may behavior, they are a other increasing say and recommend marketplace. rate of action. things you dont like. A platform that Companies want to Costs to developing offers third extend unique these applications Youll need long parties to create features onto social are high, you need term resources or Application web based networks (like the specific developers budget to do this Platform applications using most popular content that understand the and your existing the social on a corporate site) ever changing team may not have networks APIs, to increase nuances of these the skill set. access to data interaction platforms

Who Offers What: Social Networking Integration Features

Facebook Google Sharing Features Embeds and Widgets Yes Yes, Fan Box Yes Yes, third parties

LinkedIn Yes Yes, 3rd parties Yes, OAuth

MySpace Yes, Share on MySpace Yes, every page offers embed code

Twitter Yes Yes, see Twitter Widgets

Authentication Yes, FB without Connect password Cross Publishing Yes (Pollination) Real time updates between sites

OAuth

OpenID, OAuth, Yes and MySpaceID OAuth Yes, + with 3rd party tools Yes

Yes (Buzz)

Yes (via Yes, Share on REST APIs) MySpace

Yes Yes (via Yes, Real Time (PubSubHubbub) REST APIs) Stream

Yes, this can be Yes. Access all Social Yes (via done through twitter profile Yes Yes Personalization REST APIs) MySpaces REST info and some APIs. behavioral data. Yes. MySpace Yes. One could Real Time Stream show articles Yes (Most to get songs from from the people Yes. see Yes, with Google Social Context content on the friends, could you follow have Examples Friend Connect site) also use data to shared or tweeted suggest artists to about. Example: others. Feedera digest. Offers an Yes. See wiki and Application OpensSocial Yes Yes Yes, OpenSocial. getting started Platform platform guide. to select partners

Article 2

Web Strategy matrixGoogle vs Facebok vs Myspace vs Twitter

Lack Of Signal In A Sea of Noise Theres an incredible amount of media and blogger noise about social networks, yet most focus on killer app hype without an objective point of view. For those fraught with information overload, this definitive matrix distills what matters. Situation: New Contender Shakes Up Industry Google has entered the social networking play with Buzz, and by the look of it, this time its for real. Theres a lot of market confusion on how they could stack up, so heres my take. Lets cut the noise and get to the heart of it with a comparison matrix based upon talking to these companies in formal briefings, observations, as a user, and dealing with the brands trying to reach them. Executive Summary: Brands Must Stay Focused On Where Customers Already Are Googles entrance causes media havoc but web strategists should stay focused. Find out where customers already are through developing data around consumer behavior called socialgraphics. Facebook continues to demonstrate a sophisticated marketplace for consumers and brands to mix about,but only if your customers are already there. Continue to monitor Twitter and respond if customers are tweeting but theyve yet to indicate sophistication to help marketers, instead rely on third party tools and agencies to respond. The feature set of newly spawned Google Buzz isnt important, what matters is their ability to aggregate social content which will impact search strategy for businesses trying to reach consumers.

Web Strategy Matrix: Google Buzz vs Facebook vs MySpace vs Twitter (Feb 2010) Google Buzz A dark horse that has big backing and access to existing platforms. Estimated to sit on a user based of over 100mn active gmail users, they have access to the most popular webpage in the world, google.com. Has access to mainstream users on Google.com and advanced email Facebook MySpace Twitter

One-Liner

Has opportunity The MTV of this A mainstay platform to become utilitygeneration is at that needs to grow like infrastructure, risk during an ugly out of its shell. but not a transformation. destination. Boasting over 400mn users in just a few short years, theyve saturated Gen Y in US, and show global expansion at record rates. Recently reported at 57mn US unique users most of which are heavily engaged with site. Has saturation of coveted youth, working class and small businesses within US. Although difficult to track, estimates indicate 75mn active users, but doubts are emerging about reduced rate of growth. Usage by tech savvy, media, and celebs.

Vitals

users on Gmail. A large talent pool of engineers to pull from, Buzz stands on top of existing Gmail, mobile devices, and dominant search portal. As Buzz grows, they can integrate with all Google apps and aggregate the entire internet. Rapid US and international growth over last few years bodes well as quickly evolved feature set of platform and and FB Connect gain traction. Attracts top talent from Google which are quickly defecting.

Strengths

Big backing by a media giant, a super engaged audience, and rich history of reaching media starved young consumers.

Has clinched adoption over media elite, celebrities, and tech influencers. Incredible media buzz, and easy-touse features.

Complacent: they really let Struggles with the themselves go. In conundrum of the eyes of the tech having promised Late to the party, world, they are users a closed Google has had a becoming experience where to series of social irrelevant or even be successful networking misfires worse, a niched requires them to be Weaknesses from Wave, media play not open. Historically Dodgeball, Orkut their even a lifestyle poor track record in culture shows signs of network. This meeting privacy becoming corporate leaderless ship expectations of like Microsoft. without a captain is customers, and undergoing radical overall complex internal turmoil interface. and innovation has stalled. By integrating The more information Facebook Connect users share, tag, or everywhere, the create, the more data service becomes is created on Googles Opportunity ubiquitous, and platform to organize, therefore the default giving them identity and default opportunity to address book for monetize. consumer behavior. Threats Mainstay email companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL have already Facebook is a conundrum as they must make experience open A few hours ago, the CEO Van Natta was let go. Now a new chief can step up, and lead the recently formed executive team, fostering innovation and solidarity. Self-implosion from internal instability causes stalls, forcing

Although features are dead simple, they are now a commodity status update features are ubiquitous. Mainstream users confused by how to get started. Overhyped, the infrastructure has shown strain. Brands generally confused on how to interact.

Must develop more features to increase the overall value of this utility of the this simple status messaging tool. Overhype from media leaves Twitter at risk for burn-out-

shown social features bolted onto their email systems, and could pose threat, although success hasnt been proven by any. Secondly, Facebook has made notions to develop an email web client Project Titan that will threaten tech savvy users competing for Gmails attention.

yet this provides Google the opportunity to monetize as an intermediary. Social networks come and go, before MySpace was Friendster, they run the risk of becoming complacent, losing talent to Twitter and failing to innovate over the next few years.

media brands to develop their own social networking on their own sites, rendering MySpace a duplicate. Worse yet? Cool kids jump ship, and establish a colony elsewhere, leaving MySpace a wasteland of clueless advertisers.

syndrome like a Hollywood child star turned skid row. Secondly, the more successful they are, the more strain it put on the already questionable infrastructure.

Marketing Platform

Nascent. Although Confusing and promises have Although not fully overly complicated, Strong and straight been made for developed, expect there are too many forward. branded advertising options to marketing options Established team experiences, appear for brands who perplexing brands. has cut deals with analytics, and want to promote Its not clear if many media other premium relevant ads wherever brands should companies and has features, for most Buzz is located, advertise, interact in legacy culture of marketers its especially on SERP pages, create understanding being treated like pages widgets or do a media. a chat room not combination of all. a marketing platform. A communications platform for consumers and brands. Expect Facebook experience to be in many public experiences and mobile devices. Theyre trying so hard to shift from closed to open, and like a nasty divorce, Like gas, water, or power, Twitter There are two is likely to fade paths: Integrate into the MySpace into TV background and and mobile devices become a utility or fade into pit of thats integrated irrelevance like into everything Friendster. someday, even your fridge will Tweet. Like an internal disease, the insiders are hurting, morale Not sure what they want to be when they grow up.

Buzz will aggregate the voices of their users and those of Future State other social networks, aggregate and serve up monetization options.

What They The collective already Dont Want owns you you just You To dont know it yet. Know

its tearing them apart from users. Demonstrate success with Buzz, then quickly integrate into other tools like Search and Chrome. Kill off the confusing Wave, and consolidate teams and efforts. Aggregate public content from Twitter and Facebook, intermediate them and monetize their own content.

sunk, teams in disarray, yet they dont want the public to know. Quickly establish a chain of command and execute based upon a single vision. Have regular talent turnover to avoid complacency. Develop a white label product that can compete with Cisco EOS, Kyte, Pluck, or Kickapps (Altimeter client). Develop a vision to become the dominant protocol over SMS, where teens and international cultures are already heavily texting. Continue to build out platform for developers to build on top of, becoming a data play, like a utility.

What They Should Do

Get open now. Build a browser to quickly go transcend the web. Reward users to share more information in public like restaurant or media reviews in exchange for other values. Double down efforts on Project Titan email feature.