Accounting Degree.com

By Courtney Phillips

Social networking has become a ubiquitous term.  It seems everything has some social networking component these days.  Everyone is meeting up online to stay in touch with new friends and old, find jobs, or discuss topics of mutual interest.  Facebook’s global membership nears 100 million and the interest in these sites continues to grow.  However, while some social networking sites have business models that make them self supporting, others struggle with funding.

What’s a marketer to do in a world still, to a large degree, quite new?  There aren’t years of case studies, anecdotes, and archived advice to wade through to arrive at the perfect formula.  That’s because there isn’t a perfect formula.

But, with a little common sense (this isn’t so different from traditional marketing) and a dismissal of risk aversion, you can do this.

You may have considered some of the following solutions, but they are always worth repeating:

Advertising

Once thought of more as a necessary evil than a viable advertising vehicle, online advertising expenditures are increasing exponentially.  The leading social networking sites are primarily supported by advertising.  While revenue dollars do not always reflect income (aggressive growth is expensive), advertising is the primary source of revenue for most sites.

Revenue Share

Talk about targeted advertising!  Marketers have precision targeting through social networking profiles, tapping into user interests—and offering purchase options within very specific filters, generating revenue for the social network’s owners.

Events

Offline gatherings and conferences for social networks are on the rise.  While they don’t account for much actual revenue, they’re a great branding tool and useful for making real, offline connections for deal making at a later time.

Corporate Sponsorship

Corporations are taking notice of social networks and are working to increase brand loyalty with special offers for current users and build it with the uninitiated. Increased brand loyalty and sales opportunities lead directly to monetization.

Membership Fees
This one’s tricky. Making people pay to access a site means the site had better be worth the price of admission.  And, with so many free Web sites, the lure must be strong and your community mobilized to spread the word about the site no one can live without, even at a cost.  But, the flipside is that people can join a small community, where the interests may be quite narrow and there is no advertising or solicitation.
 

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