Jun 20 2007
Do Social Networks work?
Way back I started a few bbphp forums and was perturbed by the amount of spamming that continued to bombard each site.
Then along came Social Networks and the potential of having virtual friends.
The big issue I have right now is whether they have the potential to enrich our lives and just as important, sustain themselves.
Based on some initial observations and studies I would suggest that on average there is probably a 1-10% average of participation from members. You could suggest that it depends who is on and what the subject is. True. However, there has to be more than apathy that is the root cause.
At one government client we rolled out a national eLearning product. The average completion was between 15% and that was with a heavy blended element (face-to-face combined with telephone tracking).
Maybe the same is true for Social Networks. We need to go back to the core reason for people joining. For example, Facebook appears to have a strong education base. MySpace has a mix of participants with many musicians… Linkedin appears to be a virtual equivalent of business contacts. Ning is a little different in that it provides customisation, private networks and access to configurations.
New on the block is MS Popfly – a mash-up generator… More on that soon.
The hard truth is probably that unless a social network, either public or private is driven by a few committed and loyal members, it will probably fade away.
In addition, unless update bulletins, fresh feeds (I have put some aggregated ones on the ones that I have generated) and both engaging and relevant content (well moderated) is posted then visitors will disconnect.
Maybe I’m too idealistic in the hope that Social networks at a critical mass can become self-perpetuating. I’ve set-up both
K-lever.net and
Fitness and Strength
in a hope that they can sustain themselves.
(BTW Does anyone know what that number is? Is it just a numbers game - I heard that someone was recently boasting about how many MySpace friends they had! Is any contribution being made to the network itself?). Or, it could be that I’m cynical and should be more active in championing the cause of the subject matter itself.
If loyalty, real daily use, involvement in projects, great enagaging content, interactivity, focus + championing of issues and effective communication are the reasons why Social Networks work - then these networks are ideal as serious corporation tools rather than public time passers by.
Popularity: 33% [?]
