What the “Social Networking/E-Mail” Story Means for You

I read with great interest the coverage on the report from Nielsen Online about social networking and e-mail that’s been making headlines in the past day. Simply put, I think all of this means that social media and networking is “ready for prime time” more than ever in the corporate, association and government arenas.

Essentially, here’s what the report says:

Now visited by over two-thirds (67 percent) of the global (Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the USA) online population, “Member Communities,” which includes both social networks and blogs, has become the fourth most popular online category – ahead of personal email. It is growing twice as fast as any of the other four largest sectors (search, portals, PC software and email), according to The Nielsen Company’s “Global Faces and Networked Places,” a comprehensive report published today revealing the new global footprint of social networking.

Yeah, that’s kind-of “wow” for me. Additionally, everyone’s focusing on the “social networks overtaking e-mail” factor, which is fine for the shock value. What’s as important to me, though, is that social networking is growing twice as fast as any of the other sectors mentioned above.

Furthermore:

- One in every 11 minutes online globally is accounted for by social network and blogging sites.
- The social network and blogging audience is becoming more diverse in terms of age: the biggest increase in visitors during 2008 to “Member Community” Web sites globally came from the 35-49 year old age group (+11.3 million).

And …

“Social networking isn’t just growing rapidly, it’s evolving – both in terms of a broader audience and compelling new functionality,” says Alex Burmaster, author of the study and Communications Director across EMEA for Nielsen Online.

This tells me that the very idea of social networking is being accepted pretty much across every demographic, and that more than ever it is time for organizations (companies, associations and yes, even — and especially — government) to start utilizing these technologies.

Why is this happening? As we at Portalfuze said in our recent white paper on social media and associations:

Why do people collaborate? Whether online or in person, people work together to share information, answer questions and solve problems faster and (usually) better than by working alone. In the context of enterprise social media, collaboration is generally accomplished by comment posting, forums, document sharing and other simple means.

So this means … what, exactly, for businesses, associations and government?

With multi-way collaboration among clients and the enterprise, participation is not only extended, the sponsoring enterprise becomes an even-more entrenched part of the client’s daily life. This can lead to additional sales or referrals, increased sign-ups to a nonprofit and/or association, and so on.

With the publication of this study, I think the pieces are now in place for social-media functionality to really benefit any type of organization. Customer/client/member/constituent acceptance + effective social-media/networking tools = true benefit for the sponsoring organization.

Where things can get really good is the development of additional applications, modules and functionality that can then be plugged into a social network or a social media-enabled Web site: Modules dealing with knowledge management, sourcing (RFP) and others, for example.

There’s so many ways an organization can take a social network or social media-enabled Web site to a new level that’s far beyond a LinkedIn or a Facebook, that there’s really no excuse not to set up some kind of social network/media function. And with new technologies like Facebook Connect, an organization can even bring people across from the generic social networks into their own.

(We at Portalfuze can help your organization with all of this, too. Please contact me to find out how.)

The entire report is a fascinating read. I’ve been through it once, but will go through it again while I wait at the doctor’s office this afternoon. If I gain any additional insight, I’ll have a separate entry on it here.