Social Engineering - What It Means to Me?

Three trains of thought but how does it apply to social networking and online PR marketing tactics and intent of online PR/Marketing professionals and companies applying these methods in their marketing mix?

Wikipedia.org currently lists three main topical discussions under “social engineering” but I think there is a forth tack to this topic to explore and that is in regard to the use of social engineering to; influence prospects and publics to obtain beneficial outcomes for an entity, brand, person or company. The intent is not to harm or manipulate but to entice action or activity in regard to a particular idea, brand, event or objective.

So how does this new application of a bold one-to-one hacker tactic apply to the active and personal marketing world in a Web 2.0 sense? It’s valid in the sense that online PR and marketing is about “You”. It’s about communicating with individuals in their environment in a voice, context, method and platform they understand; with credibility (social equity) they believe and will listen to. In online PR/Marketing if you are not personal, informational, factual, non salesy, truthful and credible you are dead before you post your first blog, opt in email campaign, webinar, podcast, survey landing page, twitter, text ad, sweepstakes, or campaign.

So how is social engineering employed today… Here are a few bullet points or areas of applications:

Centralized Government Tactics

• Laws, rules, policies, bylaws or guidelines for conduct
• Incentives and disincentives
• Political correctness which defines "acceptable" and "unacceptable" language or acts

Hacking Applications

• trickery for information gathering or computer system access
• Pretexting is the act of creating and using an invented scenario
• Phishing applies to email appearing to come from a legitimate business
• IVR/phone phishing
  • uses a rogue Interactive voice response (IVR) system to recreate a legitimate sounding copy of a bank or other institution's IVR system
• Trojan horse/gimmes
  • Gimmes take advantage of curiosity or greed to deliver malware/Trojan horse (malicious software - viruses)
• Road apple
  • A road apple is a real-world variation of a Trojan Horse
• Quid pro quo
  • Something for something

Under the listing Social Engineering Psychology there is no article to date.

Online PR Marketing

• Blogging – credible influence
  • Bloggers own readership based on high credibility or strong social equity as I label it.
• Web 2.0 PR Releases
  • Public Relations press realeases released in a manner that appear more like Web 2.0 blogs or podcasts. Usually media rich and easily linked to or shared; comments allowed, RSS feeds included, opt in soft squeeze elements integrated to web release landing page etc…
• Podcasts
  • Podcasters have established networks of interested readers. Many of these professionals already establish trains of thoughts, opinions or beliefs surrounding products and services in their core expertise.
• Embedded commentary
  • Comment management can be a powerful influencing factor with other blogshere users and publics
• Answers Junkies
  • Answers is a general labeling of technology commonly found in Yahoo Answrs, LinkEd Answers etc.. The higher rating of an answer the more potential social equity that person holds over their network of influence
• Uber User support
  • Within all social communities there exist Uber Users much like Tom of MySpace fame. When Tom posts or comments people listen. There are hundreds or thousands of other niche focused uber users or hbs that exist within every social network. Locating recruiting and obtaining favor form these users is paramount in swaying opinion as needed for some niche marketers.
• Embedded powers users – Employees working as users on a companies behalf.
  • Within forums, blogs, social networks any person can maintain and own influential personas that interject, manage and diffuse issues within a given network of users. Higher ranking within the forum commonly denotes stronger potential social equity, buy-in and trust form others users. But these embedded professionals must deeply understand the content and context of discussion within the given board to build credibility and awareness over time.

These are simply a few tactical ideas surrounding social engineering and the means employed today to influence publics as it pertain to online PR/Marketing.

It’s important to note… The more you know about your public or niche the more precise and beneficial your overall tactics will work. A company must have access to reliable information regarding their customer base, potential users and publics prior to any endeavor. In the online world empirical analysis of known data is paramount and thankfully qualitative and quantitative review of such data is possible given open and available sources of such data sources. Diligent research, access to analytics, proper collection and review and access to proper tools must be present prior to any campaign for it to render meaningful results.

If your company seeks professional support, consulting help or simply needs a question answered we encourage you to submit a question or comment to socialFIEND [at] gmail.com. We may feature your question on our blog or use it as a future case study within our organization with your permission. Our team will respond promptly to your question.

To Your Success!

Kenneth “socialFIEND” Knapp
Founder
socialFIEND.com
“Your Online PR Marketing Mentor”

Close the Loop and Win!

One of the latest old/new techniques being purported across the netisphere currently revolves around surveys. 

Numerous emarketers are driving webinars relating to this hot topic.

This current drive brings up an old school methodology from Public Relations that is quite relevant and needed in all marketing endeavors and that is "feedback."

Mike Long of Magic fame is presently launching his Area51 marketing group.  All of which offers throughout a steady availability of feedback screens as you access and view his many informative videos relating to emarketing tactics and business building strategies.

Mike has emphasized the relevance of his consumers feedback in the creation and deployment of future endeavors.  User feedback gives Mike and others like him a real time view of user opinion and desires.  It enables his group to drive products and services that are currently relevant to his primary customer base.  It also enables him to develop new future project concepts based on questions or responses he receives.

One of the keys to his strategy is that he and his company actually monitor real time these questions and feedback posts.  Why?  Because they are the clearest view of the mind of your most critical asset; your customer.

I applaud Mike's use and dedication to this strategy and know this critical feedback loop is pivotal in his long term business development.

So why would a company launching an online social campaign care about what their users are saying?  As I stated above without listening to your customers you lose out on important relevant topics, ideas, planning and business development opportunities.  

A tertiary use of these comments and questions may also define a more rabid user group within your greater mass database.  consumers who identify with a specific brand are far more likely to take time to share, question and dialogue with companies they feel passionately about.  These may become your greatest advocates and best fiscal supporters if you listen, react, communicate and answer. 

Close the loop to stay in touch and build a broader connection to your greatest supporters and customers.

Here's To Your Success!

 

Kenneth "socialFIEND" Knapp 

CEO, socialFIEND.com

How to Build Rapport But Avoid Becoming a WII FM Bore, “What’s in it for me radio all me all the time.”

Hi, Nick Cutter with Sharper Knives and Shears. You bust’em or rust’em we bring back the edge with pleasure. Sounds corny yes… You probably haven’t heard a pitch like this come out of a network contact at a chamber event but you have heard some doozeys over the years.

Many marketers will attempt one of two tactics while networking:

1.Present their pitch, exchange cards and move on for future follow up
2.Open conversation in an attempt to get you talking about you to make you feel like they care and are a good listener... This is an attempt to build trust.

But there is another way to build rapport without making others feel like you are being fake or too pushy in your efforts to build your referral database.

I’d like to offer an approach with a different tact that might simply fit a normal mode of conversational style we are all accustom to.

How many times have you sat on a plain, train, bus or subway and opened a conversation with someone sitting immediately next to you? We do it all the time. You know the moment that uncomfortable silence falls on a situation where you are very close to another human being almost sharing your comfort zone buffer and then it happens Out pops a question or comment. It’s really an invitation to dialogue. That allows the receiver to accept or deny.

Wow could this train take any longer to load? I guess I’ll be in the office fifteen minutes late as usual then they respond: Ya it’s like this all the time. You’d think the city would figure a way to get us to work on time for once. BAM! You’ve done it. You just broke the ice and have opened a mutually beneficial conversation with an unknown contact. You are networking! You have also built a sense of trust given their response, you both think the trains in your city have a scheduling and management problem and it bugs you. Rapport is building in just one exchange; you found out you are similar in at least one way, and you have a common problem.

So how does this relate to networking? Good question. When we network we seek like minded individuals who may improve or enhance our professional lives in some way. Perhaps we need referral partners to build revenue-generating business, or we need solution providers to enhance our pool of resources to your customer base. Whatever the case might be we need an active database of professionals who if given the chance would think of us, assist us on a mutually beneficial project and perhaps use our product or service if the need arises.

Basically we are looking for people we find interesting and like to talk. Overtime that like and enjoyment of corresponding may end up in a business relationship. We are looking ultimately to invest ourselves in others for our mutual long-term benefit.

So why do most networking groups teach their members to create a standard pitch? First I think the pitch is good if presented in the right way as a group introduction at event to allow listeners to label you as a certain type of professional or when used only to answer a question. And not used to open a dialogue with total strangers.

RULE #1: Don’t maintain a WII FM mentality. It’s a fact human nature tends to put our needs above the needs of others. And some truly focus on the ONE way too much. Generally those types of professionals are easy to spot. Don’t be one of them.

RULE #2: Give, Ask, Receive. So what is Give, Ask, Receive. Here’s how it breaks down (this is greatly over simplified):

GIVE a compliment or note something special about the new contact

ASK them an appropriate question that leads them into an open honest dialogue

RECEIVE usable information to build a trust building dialogue that leads to a business card or information exchange that has merit, trust and meaning.

Think about your natural behavior in public. Have you ever stood in line, waited for a plain for more than an hour with a group of other people? What happens? Over time you naturally lower your guard and seek out human contact. Over the course of minutes or hours a relationship develops that makes you feel at ease and more comfortable with your surroundings. You get a laugh, ease some tension and pass sometime. You build rapport.

This is a prime example of human nature and our desire to connect with the people and world around us. We want to share in this ride we call life.

So instead of shoving a boring 30-second pitch down someone’s throat employ a Give, Ask, Receive tactic in your interactions and watch your referral database grow.


In pursuit of happiness,

Kenneth Knapp
Founder/CEO
socialFIEND.com

Social Communities are our personal declarations of independence!

“Give me liberty or give me death exclaimed,” Patrick Henry in the presence of our country’s for fathers Thomas Jefferson and George Washington March 23, 1775, at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. Is it coincidence the social networking site Freindster.com founder, Jonathan Abrams also launched his social liberation brain child in March 2002 some 227 years after Patrick Henry’s historical call to arms?

There was a time in human history before 2002 when global media conglomerates spoon fed audiences programming and advertising straight into their living rooms. Not knowing better American’s gobbled up these visions of dreamy existence, perfect lives, shiny cars, and magical products.

Over time however the status quo tired of being told what to wear, to listen to and what to think.

Then came a new dawn, an era of interconnected intelligence and data; an intricate network of human consciousness; of free unbridled information. Over time these interconnected masses of stored knowledge were made accessible to billions worldwide. Friendster.com sent the call to arms against mass media and content control. The era of consumer generated media and content development was born!

The “information age” was born again after 2002 and human beings began claiming their stakes in a world where they would now dictate for themselves what was relevant, powerful, persuasive, interesting and meaningful.

But why is this need for individuality so strong in our nature. Why must we seek to be free, liberated, respected beings with purpose and creative agency to express ourselves?

Les Giblin once wrote…
“Whatever name you want to give it – “human dignity,” “personality,” or what-not—there is something deep in the heart of every man and woman that is important and demands respect. Every human being is a unique, individual personality, and the most powerful drive in any person is to maintain this individuality, to defend this important something against all enemies.

This is why you cannot treat people as machines, as numbers on a register, or as “masses,” and get by with it. Every effort that has been made to deprive human beings of this individual worth has failed. It is more powerful than armies and prison camps. It proved more powerful than the feudal lords who tried to turn people into serfs. It proved more powerful than Hitler’s armies. And it set the stage for our own “land of the free”; for the Declaration of Independence, if you read if carefully, is really a declaration of independence for the individual. It derives its power not because it sets out certain rights for a certain group of men, but from the fact that it proclaims certain inalienable rights for ‘all men.’”

Today we experience Friendster, FaceBook, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, Second Life and hundreds of other ever proliferating niche social communities where community members are sharing,, chatting, blogging, linking, nudging, poking, thinking, growing the network by adding their personal perspective to every post, online relationship, image, video, article, story, twitter and flake. Social communities are independent and dynamic and so are the residual relationships that develop as interaction in these networks grows.

We sit today at the precipice of a new realization… The call to arms has sounded and you are beckoned to heed the call to join the revolution. Social communities give everyone the right to share their voice, their vision and their influence on what interconnected communications and technologies will be over time.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Welcome to liberation! Enjoy your pursuit of happiness today!

Kenneth Knapp
Founder/CEO
SocialFIEND.com

Community Managers in the New World Order

This week’s online marketing minute is dedicated to the creation of a new role within PR/Marketing companies and within organizations with an eye on the future of online PR management. It is the role of community managers as front line defenders of brand and awareness within segmented groups of consumers and constituents. They are the troops who maintain “ground truth” as they say in wartime. They know and understand who is saying what in online forums, chat, blogs and social communities and further they know how to approach these individuals to get to root cause of dissent and can skillfully manage amicable resolutions to issues and concerns of the brand within these influential market segments. They are front line defenders of your company’s social equity.

Brian Solis, was recently quoted as saying, “Engage or Die” in his Manifesto for Integrating Social Media into Marketing.

In order to properly monitor, quantify and manage ongoing brand management an organization now must choose to engage and embrace social media or suffer it’s wrath.

There is ever increasing dialogue created by consumers who are adept in social media, connected via numerous social communities and forums, manage varying degrees of influence (what I term Social Equity) in diverse market segments and have plenty to say about companies and products they love or love to hate.

This is where a relevant solution comes into play I’ve termed it YouRelations. And it speaks directly to what other Online PR professionals have tagged as the dialogue and management of social communities and influencers within them.

The future of community managers and the evolution of YouRelations is wide opened and we stand on the precipice to our collective future. The truth all companies must face is communities are out there; their influence and communication power is pervasive. Now is the time to engage or die by the way side as evolution takes form and communications management takes on a new reality.

You must ask yourself, am I prepared or am I leaving this up to others to define the future of my brand and organization?

Stay tuned for a call for Community Managers across the globe by socialFIEND. Keep an eye on our YouTube channel for details.

Kenneth Knapp
Founder/CEO
socialFIEND

“Social Equity” a New Definition

Eureka!

Over the past couple of years I’ve been thinking a lot about a term that has complete relevance in the social community and online PR space. The term is “Social Equity” a phrase I have coined to express what people mean to people they interact with. In sociological terms social equity may bring to mind a groups struggle to gain racial equality or access to shared public resources. But in the context of social community, networking and online PR “Social Equity” as I define it is one person or brands value and relevance as perceived by a public internal/external, group, person or community. Think of equity as value and social is the community segment you influence or impact with your thoughts, actions, and marketing tactics. The stronger your sway on your public the greater your social equity in that public.

Think of a networking group you belong to. If you are good at what you do and people trust your opinion you may be thought of as the opinion leader in real estate, investment or legal matters. You are the guy or gal in the know. You have strong social equity in your sphere of influence when it pertains to particular subject matter. You are relevant.

The more social equity you possess the greater your influence potentially over a given person, public or audience. I enjoy Aristotle’s definition of ethos which brings clarity to the idea of social equity through his use of the term in his work Rhetoric which is an ancient Greek treatise on the art of persuasion. “Ethos is one of the three artistic proofs (pistis) modes of persuasion (other principles being logos and pathos) discussed by Aristotle in 'Rhetoric' as a component of argument. At first speakers must establish ethos. On the one hand, this can mean merely "moral competence", but Aristotle broadens this word to encompass expertise and knowledge. He expressedly remarks that ethos should be achieved only by what the speaker says, not by what people think of his character before he begins to speak.” wikipedia.org

In the world of online community most of what we know about an author is what we read, hear and see of them online. We may or may not have an indication of their real world character, beliefs, morals etc… We are left to judge the value or relevance one person has over our thoughts and ideas simply based on the words they use to articulate an argument or belief about a given topic.

I am a Social Equity Coach to my clients who seek to influence their publics and enhance their brand or personal identity online through interconnected media and social community platforms. We teach methods of influence, persuasion, PR and general marketing to small and medium sized businesses.

Give some thought to your current social equity status. How much do people invest in your opinions and thoughts. Would you like to be more relevant to your customers, peers, prospects? Stick around and we will share some insightful ideas and bring some opinion leaders in this space to share their thoughts with you overtime.

Stay tuned for more great information from socialFIEND, Your Online PR/Marketing Mentor. Don’t forget to keep an eye on our YouTube channel for new Marketing Minutes. Our weekly online PR and marketing tip. You never know what you might learn.

Happy Selling!

Kenneth Knapp
Founder, CEO
socialFIEND

Size MATTERS! and SMALLER is BIGGER Than You Think!

This little fact may surprise a lot of you reading this blog. Recently Yahoo posted the following fact: "Though they may never be mentioned by name on CNBC, small businesses have a huge impact. In fact, according to the Small Business Administration, a U.S. government agency, small businesses were responsible for more than half of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) of $11,712,500,000,000 in 2004."

That means small business in america constitutes $5,856,250,000,000 over 5 TRILLION dollars of our nations domestic product. Our world is small business and you are all making a contribution.

"So what defines a small business you might ask? Any business with less than 100 employees generally is considered a small business by US standards." wikipedia.org

I am happy to be focused on getting the small business owners in America a leg up in the world of online PR and marketing.

Stay tuned for more helpful videos, articles and tips form your truly.

Best Regards,

Kenneth Knapp
Founder/CEO
socialFIEND

Search Illustrated: The Power Of Link Baiting

Here's a great story on link baiting. The art of attraction is what I like to call it. I love the idea of creating relevant content that drives more traffic to your site. Most online marketing affiliate partnered gurus use this tactic to drive tons of list building traffic to their various properties.

Search Illustrated: The Power Of Link Baiting


I love this graphic:



Graphic by Elliance, an eMarketing firm specializing in results-driven search engine marketing, web site design, and outbound eMarketing campaigns. The firm is the creator of the ennect online marketing toolkit. The Search Illustrated column appears Tuesdays at Search Engine Land.

It's a WAR and brands must engage and defend their stake to stay ahead.

Current articles regarding social community and online PR spheres are suggesting a very strong need for prudent brand management within social communities and online forums. And the poor execution of it or complete lack thereof can be detrimental to a company’s image.

Katy Howell, managing director of Immediate Future, said: "Social media and consumer participation are growing at lightening speed. Conversations about brands are unfiltered, unchecked and outside the control of marketers.


"Brands are being discussed, applauded and criticized across the web. It is time for companies to pay attention to the online conversations and look at strategies to get involved with their audiences."

Social media is frequently driving news agendas, affecting


“Trying to manage your company’s image and reputation online and communicating with your publics can be a challenging task,” said Weinkrantz. “The old days of just listening to and responding to what trade and business journalists are saying about you online are long gone. And while this age of social media and the prosumer generation makes your job a lot more challenging, it also gives you the opportunity to make a much broader impact. The key is having the right message, the right strategies, and becoming part of the conversation.”

The world of the prosumer has evolved to the point where the consumer now supports and controls much of what some brands represent and mean to online community participants. Think of it this way, it's been taught to me that if one customer you deal with is unsatisfied with your service or company at least 250 people will hear about it. Now I'm sure this old adage was created many years before the promise of the Internet was realized, which leads me to believe the reality of one upset customer telling 250 friends has now multiplied many times over in this day of interconnected unencumbered dialogues.

So what is a company to do if issues occur and online buzz turn negative or even hostile? Most articles and posts I have seen focus on brands becoming involved on a personal level with their consumers on territory familiar to bloggers, social community members and forum junkies. The company needs to further it's transparency and get engaged one-to-one with their most irritated and often times supportive fans.

As I worked my way up through sales/PR ranks in technology firms it seemed the engineers within all or most of the companies I worked for got it. They realized very quickly to keep a product selling strong you need to manage and communicate with your core user base on their turf not yours. At one of the first firms I worked for ZyXEL North America, I knew we hosted our own forums for various test groups and power users worldwide. But we also had multiple task manager engineers focused heavily on various boards dealing with issues, questions, and negative opinions as they developed in real time not well after the fact.

I think the tech sector has long known you have to stay close to the people that know how to tear you apart the quickest, what's the quote... "keep your friends close and your enemies closer." ;-)

I think now that social community and blogs have taken significant attention away from mass media channels, mainstream brands which may be otherwise non-technical in nature are faced with the reality; there is a war of opinion raging everyday and it's being hammered out on keyboards worldwide.

It's time for business to become more like your client base and get down and dirty in our favorite spaces and places.

Enjoy!

Kenneth Knapp
Founder/CEO
socialFIEND

You don't get much more niche than this. YeeHaw!

A recent story shows just how powerful and popular niches can be when you get it right. The dream of a lonely cowboy finding love beats within the heart of an Ohio man.



Jerry Miller, the founder of FarmersOnly.com slogan: “City folks just don't get it!” focused on core values of farmer’s through his ad agency work. Jerry used his contacts and focused issues core to some farmer’s he had met to create a unique dating community for farmer’s only. His site now boasts a membership of 64,000 and growing. You might say 64,000 members is tiny compared to the millions that frequent MySpace and YouTube but you’d be missing the power of niche marketing here.

The hardest thing to predict for massive brands is who they are talking to with a given add campaign. They know what they are saying, they know how they want to say it but they can’t always predict exactly how the public will perceive the message, unless they know the public well.

In this instance Jerry has created a very focused and targeted market for would be marketers. Every product manufacturer under the sun would love to have their client base sorted into neat little target lists like the one Jerry has created. Which would ultimately allow them to focus very targeted pitches to very receptive audiences for optimal conversions (prospect contact = sale). You can think of it as shooting fish in a barrel. If brands you love and want badly know how and where to find you all they have to do is offer something compelling to you and WHAM, they have your sale.

Niche’s like FarmersOnly.com are leading the trend of what the internet and social communities will be in the coming decade.

There will always be the noisy, cluttered and unsorted world of MySpace, YouTube and the like but with these razor focused niche sites at work advertisers will always have ripe soil to grow and nurture their latest campaigns to eager consumers.

Great story.

Kenneth Knapp
Founder, CEO
socialFIEND

Positioning – what a concept

When your market becomes saturated and numerous companies jump into the fray of your financial existence you need to make a change. One excellent train of thought is repositioning your product, service or company to become more meaningful and memorable to your consumers and the general public.

Today Plaxo announced their repositioning: “Plaxo Reinvents Itself as ‘Switzerland of Personal Information’”. I’ve been a long time Plaxo user for many reasons but most notably because my Outlook address book is updated daily without me making a key stroke. Their magic solution tracks all of my clients and ties directly into their Outlook to let me know seamlessly anytime they change title, email, address or phone, it even tells me when someone has a birthday coming up so I can send them a card or gift. It’s a perfect fit for a tech sector entrepreneur like me. Many of my colleagues and friends migrate from project to project and overtime their business information may change.

To solidify what I already knew Plaxo developed their new positioning statement “Switzerland of Personal Information”. Plaxo is truly a neutral third party that keeps your info in check and up to date.

So if you feel your market is saturated and your company looks and sounds a lot like others businesses competing for your customer’s attention think reposition to win.

So how do you create a positing statement?

Unlike a tagline or slogan, which is externally focused, a positioning statement is more internally focused on vendors, employees and the like. This gives everyone who is knowledgeable in your product clarity and focus as well as brand extension to the organization. In the Plaxo example yesterday I would tell friends I invite to join me in Plaxo this system will keep your contact data up to date and remind when your birthday comes up. Today I would simply say they are “Switzerland of Personal Information”. You can keep everything neutral and safe while sharing it with your trusted family, colleagues and friends.

More to come soon. We can spend lots of time talking positioning.

Happy Selling!

Kenneth Knapp
Founder, CEO
socialFIEND

Change = Productivity... It's Human Nature

In a recent podcast I heard an interesting application of the Hawthorne effect mentioned. "The Hawthorne effect refers to a phenomenon which is thought to occur when people observed during a research study temporarily change their behavior or performance (this can also be referred to as demand characteristics). Others have broadened the definition to mean that people’s behavior and performance change following any new or increased attention. The Hawthorne studies have had a dramatic effect on management in organizations and how people react to different situations." wikipeida.org

I have experienced this effect weekly in my martial arts classes. I teach a children’s class twice per week in the evening and I have always known if you focus on each child, call them out by name and give them praise for a good kick, solid lesson execution or form exercise they will focus more intently in class and remain more engaged in their learning.

The podcaster mentioned the Hawthorne effect as it relates to online marketing. When an online marketer changes something an offer (price discount), contest, questionnaire, survey, free seminar anything offered creates new activity and increased productivity from even the slowest producing list of prospects.

His overall opinion was no matter what you do or say you will see an increase in your bottom line guaranteed. And the opposite is also true. Do nothing and nothing will happen.

What this tells me is if you remain silent you are ensured of low or no activity. If you instead to decide to "get loud" your activity will increase simply due to the fact you are making an offer or creating interest or desire in your potential consumers that wasn’t their before, you changed something.

It's human nature. If you read the material on the Hawthorne effect you will note in the original Hawthorne experiments simple things like lighting could be changed and no matter what change had occurred it always resulted in increased productivity by the workers involved in the test.

So if your boss walks in with a dozen donuts on Friday you may ask yourself is this his generous side giving us all kudos for a job well done or is he simply testing the Hawthorne effect on us? That’s for you to decide.

To Your Success,

Kenneth Knapp
Founder, CEO
socialFIEND

Niche is nice.

Today Mashable featured an article Konnects Launches Network of Communities for Business Professionals, oh ya I've heard of this site it's called LinkedIn. ;-)

The article is great at exploring the features and issues facing the good folks at Konnects with their newest entry into business social networking communities. What they didn't question was why???

The world is filling up with neat ideas and cool me too approaches. I'm wondering why programmers and marketers alike don't start focusing their attention specifically on niche solutions now?

After all how many social communities can one person realistically monitor? Human nature tells us we can focus on one topic or idea at a time effectively. So why do feel the need to maintain and monitor a Flickr, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn and whatever.com accounts? Are they necessary? Are they all relevant or simply bookmarks that tell the world, I’m here too, I belong, I’m in.

In my day-to-day reality I see LinkedIn as my most viable social community tool for now. Along with my various blogs.

So again I wonder... How many new me too social networks will we see in the coming years? I'd like to be the poster child for the promotion of niche social community development exclusively. It’s what we focus on everyday at Omnifuse (where I work today – a social community platform development company in Newport Beach, CA). And it’s how I build my business socialFIEND (a online PR and Marketing firm).

Yes social communities create a locked in feature rich content focused environment where members decide the destiny of the network. So let's focus our minds and brains on applying this wonderful technology to verticals or niches that could utilize them to their fullest potential.

Why don't I see an online poker community out there yet? Or a Coca Cola collectors community, A Disney pin collector community, A hockey, baseball or sports memorabilia community? There is an infinite number of ideas that spin readily off your head if you think about it. I want a Green Bay Packer’s fan social community.

The next biggest question to everyone is can you monetize this concept or is it simply neat? Well YouTube was quite simply neat and they seemed to do alright with their acquisition (Google To Acquire YouTube for $1.65 Billion in Stock). Not bad for a knock off America’s Funniest Home Videos play with an amateurs edge.

Maybe it’s just me but I’d like to see focus to all of this dot-com-all-over-again buzz. Let’s leverage this technology and find new paths to prosperity, integration and relevance for the social community development market.

Best Regards,

Kenneth Knapp
Founder, CEO
socialFIEND

Why is this blog relevant?

Professionally I have worked in and around internet related corporations and start ups for more than twelve years. I have observed from an inside-out perspective new technology deployment and adoptions. I have previewed new ideas and solutions well before launch and today work directly with a social community platform development company in Southern California.

I have been directly involved with the creation of companies from software development firms: Digital Forest, tds in 1995 to currently launching a social community platform company, online PR/marketing solutions provider. I love the act of creation, planning, execution and adoption. I have spent most of my professional career driving sales for developing/new technologies for numerous corporations and large Fortune 100 companies.

I fancy myself an educator as well. I drove product adoption for ZyXEL North America 1994 when they introduced some of the first ISDN (broadband internet access technologies) to market. I also drove training and adoption of MCI's VoIP solutions, VPN, DSL, WAN Ethernet products, managed hosting, collocation facilities prior to and during the dot com boom. I drove sales for remote storage solutions brought to market by ManagedStorage (now Incentra Solutions), which was a remote back up and recovery play over public networks.

I love to seek out the latest and greatest. I live for innovation and great ideas.

These are some of the reasons why I love to explore, learn, share and understand new technology and how it relates to my life, my profession and me.

I look forward to sharing thoughts from benign to far fetched with you via this blog. I hope you enjoy something I have to say share with you.

I'll keep posting be sure to grab my feed and stay in touch. You never what idea will strike me next or what story I will share from my diverse exposure into developing niche social communities at large.

Oh ya stay tuned for news on my brain child: socialFIEND as well. You will hear more soon I'm sure.

Best Regards,

Kenneth Knapp
CEO/Founder
socialFIEND

Welcome to socialFIEND

The Social Networker is "socialFIEND(TM)". Social communities have spawned a new layer of online intelligence and interactivity. Some venture far and wide to connect, communicate and control content and relationships across the internet. The uber users and hubs of significant networks are social fiends, those who simply can't get enough of networking in social communities.

socialFiend is the trademark of Kenneth Knapp All rights reserved.

Get rich in a niche!

Today's chatter focuses heavily on the evolution of niche markets within social communities. This reality of social community evolution is evident by the daily creation of more tightly focused communities catering to increasingly diverse mix of demographic strata.

The network and large content producers determine less and less what information is important. You and I determine more and more each day what is relevant, what is news worthy and what is important to us.

You are the network and everyone in your sphere of influence can and will be impacted by what and who you are online.

Today I can login into to anyone of my social network accounts, search and locate friends, business associates, jobs, mentors and facts. I can find anything I wish and almost instantly become connected to a new resource or people of significance to my personal and professional life with little time or effort.

What have social networks done thus far? Shared 77,000 new ridiculous videos with millions of viewers daily? Poked countless millions of college students around the world? Created a euphoric "Star" mentality among our youth culture today? Yes it has but it has also broken down barriers, opened communications paths, increased the breadth and depth of personal online social dynamics, hopefully in a positive way. And increased what I’d like to redefine as “Social Equity” for millions of users (more on that in future posts).

Pretty much every social community member who is active online knows more people today than three years ago because of Friendster, LinkedIn, OpenBC, Myspace, YouTube and Facebook.

Increasingly people of similar backgrounds are gravitating to exclusive, invite only, professionally focused social networks developed by brands, organizations or associations catering to them.

So why would an organization care to develop a social network of their own? How is it meaningful monetarily?

In my daily business development and creative campaign management activities I have heard and scene many intriguing ideas surrounding social community development. The creative fervor at times resembles the late 90’s. Ideas abound, investment dollars are flowing and would be netprenuers are driving their dreams to market.

As an example of why an organization would create a social network we can review a hypothetical situation… Let’s say you are a global marketing firm. You have a large stable of brands/clients who all have products and services to sell. You have an idea; wouldn’t it be cool to offer our clients a secure place where they could spit ball ideas about cross promotion and joint ventures and perhaps meet other brands/teams looking to do the same around the world? Further, we could ask questions of them, take surveys and drive our new business ideas through this new platform while nurturing their creative plans and projects. The residual effect could be; new PR/Marketing projects for us, new business relationships, larger media buys, acquisitions, new product development, new marketing strategy development, stronger brand awareness through all active client companies, better feedback from publics internal and external, quicker reaction times to critical needs of client base, proactive solution development to evolving issues (nip it in the bud).

By launching an internal social community the marketing firm now has a managed platform to launch new ideas, introduce various account teams that may be dispersed over a very wide geography and create synergistic projects and relationships throughout client base and employee base.

The ideas for niche social communities abound, another great example is http://www.carcrazycentral.com/. This website was developed for two basic premises support and extend Maguiar’s brand (car wax company) and concentrate wrench head activity online in an open shared forum that can grow and develop freely through member contributions. Early on many individuals stated grey haired car guys would never migrate off their existing forums and onto a MySpace like social network. Boy were they wrong. CarCrazyCentral.com has grown exponentially as one of the favorite stops for car lovers and car owners a like. And it’s been a staple brand driver for Maquiar’s car Wax and showcases some of the featured events the car crazy community crave.

Within 2007 thousands of social communities will come online. And in an every increasing fashion much like the explosive growth of web sites in the early 90’s everything from knitting circles to professional offline networking organizations like the one I founded, Local Business Pros (www.mylbp.com) via Ning (http://yourlbp.ning.com) will find their way to social community platforms that offer free service and asset management in exchange for ad displays. While larger entities will opt to purchase an enterprise license or hosted license arrangements like those provided by Omnifuse (http://www.Omnifuse.com) and their FUSION 3.0 platform.

The final question for all organizations seeking to develop a social community strategy is simply: how do we monetize this new technology and is it meaningful to our publics (internal, external); more on that later as well.

Best Regards,

Kenneth Knapp
Founder Social Fiend

Tag Clouds for any blog made easy

Stop wasting time searching the world for the easiest way to manage a custom tag clouds for your blog (I use Blogger of course). Use what I do: www.zoomclouds.com. It's simple, free and really cool. Oh ya they update your cloud for you daily so it's always showing off your latest topics of interest, you can create custom tag cloud whenever you like for any blog you wish. All you need is the RSS/Atom feed. Yes it's that simple.

I found it very easy to sign up and create my first tag cloud. It took all of three minutes or less to have it active on my blog.

What could be easier.

Enjoy!!!

KK

Let's start with the end in mind.

The mission of this blog is to: "To explore, expound and discuss the relevance and significance of social communities and social networking online in business and personal applications, to further define terms, relevance, applications, analytics, ubiquitous communications and uses of ever present information/data in today’s evolving online world." And of course it’s my soapbox to launch into rants relating to my personal social behaviors and undertakings at large in professional and personal context.

With that said I welcome any and all input or critique so long as it's constructive or informative in nature. I am here to share and learn as much as I can in this life. I appreciate and welcome your participation and interactivity.

Best Regards,

Kenneth Knapp
Social Fiend Founder, CEO