The core commercial value of those buried "social networking sites"

At the moment, social networking sites have been deep into people's lives, different types of social networking sites have emerged, the development of the blowout, while the search for profit model is progressing slowly. Is the number of fans the core of the social networking site? This article hopes to discover the neglected core business value by decoding the core elements of the "social networking site" and the core DNA, and use this as a starting point for opening up the "social networking site" to break the profit trap.

The rapid development and profitability dilemma of social networking sites

In the 2.0 era, Facebook-represented social networking sites have created a social trend, followed by "social media" and "social marketing" as the hottest topics.

However, compared with the growth of the social networking site blowout users, its profitability is not good, for example, Facebook in the first half of 2011 net profit is 500 million dollars, and Google accounted for the world's internet advertising market, only the third quarter of this year's net profit is 2.73 billion U.S. dollars. Many of the country's social networking sites face the same situation, with high user values, but business interests are not easy to achieve, all of which show that social networking sites have been slow to explore business models.

In the face of this, we should go to the point where we look at the uniqueness of social networking sites-what are the core values of social networking sites?

Analysis of the core elements of social networking sites

Social networking sites (Social Networking site) have two core elements: social relationships (also known as social maps); In Facebook, for example, social relationships refer to friends (friends), while the Public homepage (fan page) and group (group) are interest maps. The difference between social networking sites and traditional sites is that the core of social networking sites is a combination of trusting social relationships and interest maps, and traditional sites have only one element in the past.

The analysis of social networks often mixes social relations and interest maps, confusing two different sociological concepts of relationship and interest, and makes it difficult to explore further. For example, chatting with friends about their favorite mobile phone, even if their preferences are different, or even diametrically opposed, will not pay special attention, not because of this reason and the release of friendship. But when a user discovers that one of his mobile phone brands is not in line with his needs, he will lift his focus on the public homepage of the mobile phone. This can also explain why a person's number of friends is not obvious, and a brand organization, the number of fans will rise sharply.

In the early development of social networking sites, friends are closely related to relatives, classmates, friends and colleagues, its characteristics are strong relationship between friends of the new nature is the focus of users. Later, in order to increase the stickiness of users, social networking sites have introduced many interesting content, common home pages or interest groups, which form the most authentic and at the same time have extraordinary value of the interest map. It is these social content that makes social networking sites more likely to have public media attributes and business marketing.

The battle between social networking sites and search engine profit patterns

Google-represented search sites and vertical community sites, with their precise, simple business model, get the bulk of the Internet advertising cake. And as a social network of emerging forces, it is necessary to compete in the profit model, to fight for their own interests.

However, looking at the purchase demand generated from social networking sites, and ultimately the purchase behavior, the path is too long, the closer to the final purchase behavior, the more likely to be lost to search sites or vertical community sites. Such problems have plagued social networking sites in their search for profit patterns.

While social networking sites are highly user-worthy, it is not yet clear whether the business model can compete beyond Google's search model. Perhaps to help the social networking site is E-commerce, mobile interconnection.

The combination of social relations and interest maps produces "core business value"

is a fan a core value?

Many people focus on the number of fans in the business promotion on social networking sites. True, the number of fans is an important tool for the spread of information. But the core DNA of social networking sites is the trust relationship between friends, and if the information conveyed in the business promotion is not trusted, then many fans are worthless and even negative.

One of the known core business values: multiple interactions

Social networking sites provide a platform for business organizations and brands to interact directly with users, creating multiple interactions between users, organizations, and users. There has been much in-depth analysis of the multiple interactions between users and institutions in social networking sites, and there is no more to say.

Neglected Core values: Trusted information

Since the core DNA of social networking sites is the trust relationship between friends, the "trusted information" that arises among friends is the core value. Only people who are trusted can produce "trusted information".

In the last hundred years the development of commercial society, marketing advertising has become pervasive, its ultimate performance is: Even the boring time will be advertising encroachment. But the ads that are armed to the teeth are increasingly not believed. Perhaps we can see that, under the interaction of two core elements of the social networking site, a fruit of extraordinary value-"Trusted Information"-is produced.

As US social media marketing expert Wilson Kerr points out: "Brands can no longer simply advertise the benefits of products to consumers." Push is outdated, pull is the right path. What consumers need is a proven, trustworthy message from consumers like them, and knows where to find it. "(Ps can no longer pitch the merits of misspelling product to consumers.) Push is out, pull are in. Consumers want verified, trusted information from arranges like themselves and know where to find it.)

"Trusted Information" is the starting point for social networking sites to break the profit trap.

How do I categorize trusted information?

There are two basic types of "trusted information": one that is issued by a commercial organization and which is approved by the user, such as forwarding, commenting, and collecting, which is the expression of trust, and the other is the name of the commodity, category, brand or organization that is mentioned in the chat between friends.

Differences in user relationships naturally lead to differences in trust values, such as the degree of trust among classmates, co-workers, and business partners.

How to exploit, generate, and utilize "trusted information"?

The excavation of "trusted Information", on the one hand, is the improvement of technology level, on the other hand, it is linked with business model. Some good marketing cases, such as Burger King "Snitches" is a typical example of the ultimate.

"Trusted information" needs to be explored

"Trusted Information", a seemingly psycho concept, how to achieve a viable business operation to help social networking sites break through the profit model? That's the real problem!

Note：

Social networking sites, SNS have different definitions and classification methods. In this article, social networking site (Social Networking site) is a social network services (sns–social Networking service) in one, mainly refers to Renren, Sina Weibo, Tencent friends, happy net.