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nternet Income Lesson #79—The Social Web: Part 15—Summary

What You Will Learn In this lesson, we will summarize our discussion of the Social Web thus far, while laying the foundation for a broader discussion. Do not think that our discussion of social media will end with this lesson. It will not. We have actually only begun our discussion. Hopefully, by labeling the last several lessons as parts of a series of lessons on "The Social Web," we have acknowledged the emergence and importance of this step in the evolution of the Internet so that it is no longer necessary to make a distinction between "The Social Web" and the Web. Mainly, I am formally ending this part simply because the numerals are getting too high to be conveniently included in each lessons title. But, it also helps to make the point that the Social Web has become the Web and when we speak of the World Wide Web in the future, we will be, of necessity, including it's social media elements. Many specific details of things discussed were promised in the lessons on this Part that have not yet been delivered; but, rest assured, they will be included in future lessons. Our first discussion of Social Networking was in Lessons 52-54 (written a few years back). InLesson 52, written before Facebook was even a known entity, we identified Social Networking as both "the latest trend" and "here to stay." Analyzing the psychology of personal connections and the sociology of group formation, we recognized that social networking more closely approximated the way connections are made and groups are formed in the offline world. We discussed some of the dangers and pitfalls of social networking, while concluding that they could be quite beneficial if carefully used. In Lesson 53, we reminded you not to approach social networking sites as broadcast advertising sites. Instead, you should use them to form trusted relationships, which you can then use to promote your business. We then gave you a list of the common features of social networking sites existing at the time and a specific discussion of MySpace (which was the most popular at the time). In Lesson 54, we covered the popular social networks at the time and there made our first mention of Facebook, which is much different now then it was at that time (circa 2007). We also briefly discussed standardization of Open Social—being pursued by Google. After Facebook and Twitter were going full steam, we returned to social networking again in Lesson 65 (the beginning of the series this lesson concludes). We discussed there the fantastic opportunity that social media offers for network marketers. In fact, "social media marketing" is now the most current and popular type of marketing and likely to remain so. As a network marketer skilled in social media, you are that marketer! In lessons 66-69, we introduced you to Network Science. Looking at the science behind our marketing, we saw that preferential attachment, fitness, and energy are the three main factors that allow a node to become a hub in a power law network (and we learned that most networks are power law networks). We took some comfort that fitness is the most important of these factors and allows upstarts a decent chance to become hubs, despite preferential attachment. We took even more comfort from the fact that preferential attachment kicks in after fitness has done its thing and allows for exponential growth. Then, we began our exploration of what constitutes fitness and energy for a new Website (node) on the Web (network). We examined the importance of growth to all networks and noted that networks favor nodes that facilitate their growth and disfavor nodes that do not facilitate growth of the network. Then, we looked at a couple of specific ways that nodes can achieve fitness by facilitating network growth: offline ties, and talent/entertainment. We saw that it is not as difficult as it sounds to facilitate network growth and reap the rewards of the exponential growth that naturally follows. In Lesson 69, we examined the concept of "Rewiring." In the conclusion to Lesson 69, we sorted out what had been learned from Network Science and how it applied to marketing. Networks, in their basic sense, are a collection of nodes connected by links. Nodes with lots of connections are called hubs. Hubs are characterized by fitness and energy. A major component of the fitness and energy of a hub is its ability to help grow the underlying network. Networks require growth to maintain their connectivity and networks must maintain their connectivity to survive—thus, networks favor hubs that facilitate their growth because networks favor nodes that contribute to their survival. Another way to maintain connectivity—an exception to the growth requirement—is rewiring. Rewiring also maintains connectivity and thus contributes to the survival of networks. When these concepts are applied to a successful Web presence, we see that the 'node' we create (i.e., our Website) should have fitness and energy and should either contribute to the overall growth of the WWW or, at least, contribute to its 'rewiring'—or both. This entire course is about ways to create and improve the fitness and energy of your Web presence. In Lesson 70, we began to examine strategies of Social Media Marketing. We introduced Google Plus and gave an optimistic prediction for its success. Then, we addressed the question of creating your own social network. We concluded that you should only consider creating your own social network if you have a niche audience—a distinct club, group, or organization that you could attract—who would find it useful. Otherwise, your efforts would best be placed elsewhere. If you did have such an audience, we pointed you to some resources and gave you some tips on setting up your own social network. We concluded Lesson 70 by setting the stage for using Social Media Marketing. We pointed out that to effectively use Social Media, we have to remember what we learned from Network Science. Your "profile" on a social network, like your Web page on the Web, is a 'node' in a network. Your Web page is a node on the Web. Your Facebook profile is a node on the Facebook network which is layered on top of the Web. We pointed out also that your Facebook profile is also a page on the Web itself! Thus, your Facebook profile is a node in two different, but layered, networks. For your Facebook profile to become a hub on Facebook, it must bring fitness and energy to the Facebook network. For your Facebook profile to become a hub on the Web, it must bring fitness and energy to the Web. By being part of a network layered on top of the Web, your Facebook profile is capable of bringing fitness and energy to the Web through the 'rewiring' that Facebook accomplishes on the Web. We outlined our goal as integrating a social network profile (such as a Facebook profile) with pages on the Web that we desire to promote. Understanding this integration, we explained, will allow us to bring a lot of fitness and energy to both networks, and thus promote our standing on both Facebook and the Web. Because Social Networks energize the Web by building a layered network on top of it (rewiring it), they provide an excellent way for you to both build your social network profile as a hub on the social network and add fitness and energy to the Websites you desire to promote. Integrating your Websites into your social network activities is the key to success in both endeavors. In Lesson 71, we began to address the strategies and techniques for integrating your traditional Web projects within social networks. As an SFI Affiliate, your Web projects need to also be integrated with TripleClicks. The first step, as always, is good planning. While straight promotion of the SFI income opportunity can be productive, it is by no means the only strategy you have available to build your SFI business. For many, depending on your particular knowledge and experience, the better starting place may be to pick some specific subject matter, product, or service with which you are comfortable and start by building your Website or blog around that subject matter. Your focus would be on promoting the particular products and services available on TripleClicks that naturally flow from the subject matter of your site. If you have products or services yourself, you can use the ECA program to sell them through TripleClicks. You can then employ the techniques discussed in this course to craftily lead your visitors into the other SFI products and opportunities through a natural flow. And, you can use social media to bring visitors into this process that you have set up. These are the steps for social media integration that we outlined in Lesson 71: The first step in the integration process, assuming you have already signed up for Facebook and created a personal profile, is to create a brand page for your Website on Facebook. We walked you through this in Lesson 72. The next step is to create a brand page for your Website on GooglePlus. We walked you through this in Lesson 74. Then, we reminded you to create brand pages or profiles for your Website on any other social media sites with which you are involved or feel may be helpful. Next, you should create a Twitter account. We walked you through this process in Lesson 73. Then, if you have not already, you need to to add the Google +1 button to the major pages of your site (slightly different than the follow button just mentioned), which we also discussed in Lesson 74. The next step is to create a "Facebook Like Button" (a/k/a 'Follow Button') to place on your Website as well as one for GooglePlus and Twitter. We discussed this and more in Lesson 75. The next step is to sign up for ShareThis, AddThis, or one of the similar services that allows you to place "Share Links" on your Website pages. We discussed this and more in Lesson 76. Obtaining software or simply developing procedures to manage and coordinate your postings across the various social networks is very helpful. This we also discussed in Lesson 76. In addition to these setup steps, it is also important on an ongoing basis to create frequently updated content for your Website suitable to be posted to your social media newsfeeds and the social media newsfeeds of your visitors. This was discussed in Lessons 77 and 78. Conclusion We have walked you back through our discussion of Social Media so that you would have all of the concepts in one lesson for review—with pointers to specific lessons for specific topics that you may want to revisit. We are concluding this segment on "The Social Web" with this lesson, but we are far from done with discussing Social Media. We will, from hence forward, consider Social Media to be an integral part of Online Marketing. What's Coming Next In our next lesson, we will continue our exploration of ways to enhance your efforts to build a business through online marketing. by George Little Copyright 2013, Panhandle On-Line, Inc. License granted to Carson Services, Inc. for distribution to SFI affiliates. No part of this work may be republished, redistributed, or sold without written permission of the author.  For more information on the Internet Income Course and other works and courses by George Little, see www.profitpropulsion.com.  For Web Hosting services specially designed for SFI affiliates, see www.profitpropulsion.com.