Kind of a long title I know, but I thought it would be really good to start a conversation about the future of social networking.  Now that Facebook, Myspace, and LinkedIn have become a huge part of the daily lives of the majority of Americans, it appears that most of us early adopters are leaving, opting to use other services for our communication, like Twitter. I can personally say that this is definitely the case for me, where I tweet at least 5 times a day, and only check Facebook when I get the occasional message from one of my friends.

First things first, Twitter is a social network

Amongst the conversation about decentralizing Twitter so we no longer have to deal with their down time, I came across this really interesting article about why decentralizing Twitter wouldn’t work. The main point that I found so interesting was Twitter existing as a social network, but rather being based around your profile the way that Facebook is, it’s completely based around your quick thought blasts.  This means that I, as a follower of my friends, get a much quicker, and more complete view of my friends. If you follow me for example, you could very easily get a picture of what I do and who I am.  Plus, there’s no pressure to conform to anything, no guidelines for interaction.  It’s just your thoughts, right or wrong, funny or not, professional or not. That’s pretty darn cool, and why I find myself using Twitter more and more each day.  It’s simply a better communication platform than any other social network has provided.

That being said, Facebook and Myspace are not going anywhere

Despite the fact I haven’t looked at Myspace in like, ever, it still gets 74% of social network traffic. Now Myspace’s numbers are decreasing, but Facebook is still getting more traffic and more applications.  But that increase in applications is a big reason for the loss of a lot of the early adopters that Myspace suffered when Facebook launch, most applications do nothing more than turning up the noise.  Sure, a song in someone’s profile is fun for about five minutes, and then the song is over, and the next time you check a profile it’s just annoying.  And that’s the problem, the “just for fun” applications that spread the most quickly serve mostly as spam and noise.

What can Facebook do that Twitter Can’t?

The answer is simple, and leads to the way that Facebook applications can be made to be useful, context. A person’s friends, and more importantly the large amount of profile information that users work tirelessly to fill out can provide a context in which communication can be made more effective.

For example, does anyone actually want to be marketed to?

Yes, when they’re looking for the product that you’re marketing.  When I’m looking for a new car, I want to hear about cars.

All of that information is already waiting within someone’s profile, and when you enhance that with their friends information and input, the context of the communication, you have a formula for building something of value through the Facebook application.

Use the context to make something Useful

This seems to be the hardest part, because useful doesn’t always translate into really high viral growth, and most applications haven’t started to think of how they can make a user’s life better through the use of the application. That simple question will lead to better applications and a better user experience overall

So, in short, Twitter is now my preferred social network and communication platform, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.  However, I’m not ready to give up on Facebook and it’s users yet. Just because someone hasn’t used the context to create value yet, doesn’t mean that it can’t be done.  In fact, I’m positive that it will be done.

Think I’m crazy? Leave some comments below, this is a conversation I’d love to continue to have.

Recently Facebook released their own personal guide to using Facebook as a venue for viral marketing. You can check out their work here, but I think their work was a little bit skewed to focus using Facebook ads.  While that’s completely understandable, considering that’s their business plan, all of us at Intrigo still think that there are many ways for businesses to utilize Facebook, and most business have yet to really tap into it.

The biggest benefit of marketing through Facebook is the automatic generation of word of mouth via the News Feed. This means that any interaction a person has with your brand gets blasted to every single one of their friends. The challenge, as a business, is to give potential customers and Facebook users a reason to interact with your brand on Facebook.  The easiest way to do this is by playing up the psychographic aspects of your brand in your Facebook interactions.

The psychographic elements of your company are the elements of your company that you want people to identify with. Essentially, it’s the personality of your company.  In order to have successful marketing via Facebook, you need to create a “face” and personality for your company that people can become “friends” with. This type of relationship is easy to see with lifestyle brands, things such as clothing companies, restaraunts, and clubs that really play on psychographics for their marketing plan. For example, I wear lululemon clothes because I enjoy yoga and pilates, and that lifestyle. As a Facebook user, I would become a fan of lululemon to tell all my friends about this part of myself.  Or, I really believe in the OpenID movement, and I want to become a fan of Vidoop so my friends know about the work they’re doing.

In order to best market on Facebook and other social media, you need to create your company’s personality. Whether it’s a cause such as being green, a lifestyle, or a culture, personalities are what people can best identify with in a social environment.  Then you can connect with customers that have the same personality, and best suited to you as a company.

I had a really interesting conversation recently with one of our clients regarding communications with customers. We were discussing the need to blog, and the need to utilize the large number of emails from interested customers they had collected.  They asked a very good question, asking what it is that they should be writing about. Thankfully I had Dawn Foster’s great post about corporate blogging tips to show them, but they initially didn’t see the real beauty in blogging for your company, activating a conversation with your customers.

The bad news is that as a start-up or small business, your existence is defined by the lack of budget that you often face. One of the biggest manifestations of this challenge is the need to be creative and selective in the way that you market. But the advantage that you have is that you’re now in the era of web 2.0. Social applications and connections are one of the defining pieces of the growth of web 2.0. Applications and tools such as blogging, Facebook, Twitter, and a host of others are designed for users to comment, interact and talk. That means that you as a business can use these applications to comment, interact, and talk about you and your company.  So use them! Open yourself up to your customers and talk about what you’re doing. Get their feedback, get their comments. Then interact with your customers when you can. Post to them, thank them, make them feel a part of your company. Truly word of mouth at its best!

The concern that our clients had about this process was a lack of message control. Opening yourself up means allowing your customers to say whatever they want. Saying whatever they think generally isn’t what your corporate script says. But as a small business, you need to set your customers free and let them be the salesforce you don’t have.

Take a look at the success Barack Obama has had literally turning the users of his website into a nationwide network of campaign volunteers. Or the success Starbucks has had with mystarbucksidea.com. The point is that you shouldn’t be reluctant about being a part of these conversations. Your customers often know what you do and how you do it better than you do. Most importantly, their experience with you and your products can be extremely valuable as endorsements.

So, how do you do it.

Message Control 2.0 - Give your customers something to talk about. Open up and talk about what you’re working on. Ask them questions about how they used your products. Get them to tell you how you did, and what caused them to feel that way about you. But get them talking on your terms with your discussion points. You’re able to get great feedback on things that customers like and dislike, and things that they need from new launches. The Starbucks and Obama sites are great examples of this, where both companies were able to control and start the conversation, but let go of what resulted from the conversation.

Give your customers a reason to care - Now this part is a little easier if you’re Obama or Starbucks, you know, something that people are addicted to, but you can do it. You’re looking at one of the ways right now, giving out good information in your communications. Customers are far less interested in corporate schill than we would like them to be, but they are interested in solutions. And hey, you’ve built a business around helping to solve a problem that someone has, so talk about how to fix it.  Your users will appreciate it, and continue to check it. Plus you can give them a forum to discuss what issues they face, and you can get new ideas directly from them.

Don’t be afraid of putting your brand in the hands of your customers. Worst case scenario you get great feedback on what you’re doing wrong.