Let's Discover Some Of The Other Popular Social Media Tools

Today we are briefly looking at some of the other (perhaps lesser known but often rapidly growing in popularity) social media tools available online in my Social Media for Business Class.  There are many social sites competing for users - if not hundreds – and the top fifteen have recently been highlighted in some of the following online articles linked here – (eBiz- MBA)  April 2013 / (Biz Journals)  December2012.  

As you can see in these two articles linked above - Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the top contenders consecutively with the most unique daily social media visitors year to year. The changing ranking of Pinterest, Google +, Tumblr and Deviant Art are some good examples of how the rapid changes and growth in popularity of these other social media sites, can change the social marketing environments quickly in a very short time. Business needs to stay on top of the changing environments and always follow their customer’s social movements closely.  

For this week’s assignment I am supposed to choose four of these other social media tools, beyond what I have discussed so far over this past semester (please see my previous blogs), and analyze how they might be integrated into my business or organizations growing social marketing efforts.  

Google+  might be another good social media tool for building a social following for your business, or in my case to attract people interested in helping nonprofit organizations like the Sabrina Keller Foundation. It would be similar to using Facebook for gaining “social followers;” – but with the Google+ “circles feature” – it allows you to separate your family (colleagues) from your friends (customers) – and your business profiles from your personal ones. 

You can also join in social “communities” which are based on topics or trends, and you can make comments related to your industry or business - Just like with Facebook posts.  With these communities you can do user research into business trends and see how people are reacting to your brands, products or services. They also offer a visual chat feature called “Hangouts” which allows up to ten users to participate in video internet communications for meetings.  

While I might be able to find some value for SKF to use Google+ in the long run - I think we (the board) will have enough new social media tools to learn and master, before we decide to reach out to people socially on some of these other ones. 

Although one Social media tool I think we might add sooner than later is called LinkedIn. After researching into using LinkedIn for a nonprofit organization as a social media tool; I found some interesting articles and news about some new LinkedIn features, designed specifically for nonprofits, called “Board Member Connect.” 

These new tools are designed to help nonprofits reach out into the business community, particularly to those leaders of nonprofit committees and other executive boards. They (LinkedIn) want to be able to help find “executive talent” that can really help the nonprofit communities thrive.  

I think the Sabrina Keller Foundation would be wise to create a business page and take advantage of the many LinkedIn research tools available to locate key business people, as well as participate with the many LinkedIn Business Communities online related to nonprofits and fundraising. The SKF foundation can reach out to local San Diego or national Businesses through online social networking, and eventually solicit them for product/service donations or for event volunteers, etc.  

Another social media tool that might be of value in the future is called Meet Up – Meetup is a social website where people/groups can be formed to hold regular meetings in real time on topics that are of interest to them.  For example if I wanted to create a Sabrina Keller Foundation Meetup – Group. I could use it to attract members (volunteers/donors etc.) who will then regularly respond (hopefully) to our calls to action to attend, volunteer, or host a fundraising event and/or related family activities. 

  

Flikr- a photo sharing social website - could also be used by the SKF Foundation to host our member videos and pictorial documentation of our fundraising events and other organizational activities. 

Another social media website which I might want to recommend to the SKF board is called “Cafe Mom” – a social community designed specifically for woman – or actually “moms.” It is a rapidly growing network of social (commerce) websites - that also cater to Latino woman, as well as produce webpages that covers popular culture and politics.  It has group and post features which can be used much like Facebook timelines or Google’s - Circles/Communities. So you can create and join groups to make social conversations related to your business and industries. This social community of moms would be an excellent community for the Sabrina Keller Foundation to engage due to our target audience being mostly woman (parents) or moms between the ages of 25 – 65 years of age.