SmallBizResource Blog -- Marketing

How To Make Social Networking Work For You

Posted by Judy Mottl Thursday, Oct 25, 2007, 05:05 PM ET

Andrew Pass has no qualms about social networking. The business leader has embraced it from the start and is seeing some huge benefits.

In fact, the president of The Living Textbook, a solutions provider that works with school districts, state education departments and educational service agencies to develop educational materials, believes it’s one of the best tools a business has at its fingertips today.

His initial introduction to social networking came about when he was searching for a more effective and interactive way to engage his clients.

"I see social networking really as an evolution of communication and a desire to share and dialog around subject matters in a deeper person-to-person way. It also enables a forum of people to come together in a way in which they feel more connected to a marketplace," he says.

His first foray was developing a Ning community called Classroom2.0.

While it proved successful, there were challenges.

"What I realize now is creating a community on Ning means I am essentially competing for mind share with other networks as the people who participate in Classroom2.0 have other social networks they spend time on," he explains.

That mean Pass had to focus on cultivating mind share--no easy feat.

When he learned about another social network, MyLifeBrand.com, he realized he could get all the benefits he was getting from Classroom 2.0 plus more.

MyLifeBrand has created a platform for businesses, communities, organizations, and individuals, to use to grow their "fan base," customers and audience. In addition to being a platform for businesses to drive visibility, MLB offers users a slew of features (cocial interoperability, personal tools, community tools and social tools).

Pass likes the centralized model approach it offers.

"I like MyLifeBrand.com because it lets me centralize my other social networks like Classroom 2.0 and other ones being formed. It lets my members at any time centralize and access their social networks from my community."

This means Pass isn't competing with other social networks but enabling access and inter-connectivity from his community.

"No other social network I have found can do this," he says.

One of the biggest benefits, he points to, is interconnectivity between other social networks and communities from his community for his members and his business.

"I am finding we are growing our membership because people are finding our community relevant or has a friend who is a member and thus joining," he adds.

MyLifeBrand lets Passcentralize all my web assets and they can be accessed from the community on MyLifeBrand. He's able to engage with his clients and provide communication tools far superior to just blogs.

And there's even a mobile phone benefit as MyLifeBrand offers a way for Pass to have his members access his community from a mobile phone and soon from a Web widget called 'wameba' which can be shared virally across the Web.

"It will function a little like a vCard only in that I can add it to my email as attachment and is a dynamic player which includes access to my content, media, members and other communities," he says.

He says businesses need to full embrace social networking and not be afraid of it. As he points out, it's here and it's here to stay. The knack is figuring out which model fits your business needs.

"Understand when starting a social network, however, you are competing with other existing ones so be sure when you choose a platform that you chose one that lets you connect your community to other ones for you and your members."

MyLifeBrand.com, which recently moved out of beta, announced a major upgrade this week related to functions and features. it has released a major system upgrade to their service, which includes improved blog features, public member profiles pages, deeper member search filtering, as well as searchable people data through Wink integration, a tool that delivers access to over 200-million social network profiles.

MyLifeBrand is introducing these major enhancements just several months after its move from Alpha to Beta. The company improved blog features, public member profiles pages, deeper member search filtering, as well as searchable people data through Wink integration, a tool that delivers access to over 200-million social network profiles.

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