December 14, 2007

A Framework for Thinking About Social Networking for Dance

I was planning to write follow-up post about how to use Facebook to promote your next dance performance after I wrote about the Columbia Ballet Collaborative's use of Facebook yesterday.

But I thought it would probably make more sense to start with a bigger picture view and offer my definition of what social networking is all about. Without coming-up with a meaningful definition, there's no way we can figure out a worthwhile way to embrace (or not embrace if we choose) the large number of social networking tools, applications and websites.

What is Social Networking?

Social networking is a people-centric approach to using the Internet. Online users create, share, recommend, and network with their existing and growing networks of contacts. In some cases these contacts or "friends" are people one knows from the "real" world and in other cases they are new online acquaintances.

Before the rise of social networking, impersonal corporate entities were king. In other words, we were in the broadcast age where people consumed media (TV, newspapers, radio) in a manner that could be disconnected or removed from the specific interests and recommendations of one's circle of friends, family and business colleagues. Essentially, we had to put more trust into impersonal entities than we do now. Today, we can seek instant feedback from our social networks on anything -- books, movies, restaurants, dances.

What Are Examples of Social Networking?

Social networking does not just refer to MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and related websites.

Social networking refers to any tool, functionality, software application or service that facilitates a people-centric approach to sharing and communicating online.

Here are examples of social networking in addition to the three popular sites I just listed above:

- Ning is a white-label social networking application. "White-label" means that you can brand this application with your name and logo as you build a customized social network.

- A number of dance-specific social networks use Ning: The Inter Mission, dance-tech.net, and Ballroom Dance Channel.

- MC Hammer has an upcoming social networking site called DanceJam. Here's interview with MC Hammer about the feature set and focus of this site.

- Social networking does not have to take place on dedicated websites. In the upcoming redesign of Voice of Dance, you'll see that a MySpace friends list is pulled-into the home page. And the overall feel of the interface is very much social networky - to coin a phrase. And take a look at how SEOlogs blog incorporates the MyBlogLog community-building tool to add social networking functionality to the blog reading experience. You'll see in the right-hand column of SElogs thumbnails of recent readers. On the Mashable blog, the community membership functionality is directly built into Mashable and does not use an external software application such as MyBlogLog.

- Finally, take a look at Flock, which is an example of a social web browser. So, in essence, you can surf the web with other people.

I link to all of these examples just to make the point that a people-centric approach to the Internet can occur in many different ways and that there are many paths to creating social networking sites and functionality.

What Are the Benefits of Social Networking to You and Your Organization?

I'd like to stress something:

The first question is not whether you should use MySpace or Facebook to reach a larger audience and sell more tickets.

The first question is what are the potential benefits to you and, if you're part of an organization, your dance company or related group of using social networking capabilities in general?

By harnessing social networking functionality, applications and/or websites can you build larger audiences, increase donations or achieve some other positive measurable benefit?

Second, if the answer is yes to the above, do the possible benefits outweigh the time, energy and commitment required to achieve these results? It's a good idea to keep in mind that you probably have a website and you may be sending out email blasts on a regular basis - managing your website and email campaigns may already take up too much of your time.

And, three, do you have the people who are 1) sufficiently comfortable and experienced enough to use and implement these social networking tools and 2) going to stay will it long enough so that you will achieve the results you are looking for?

What Social Networking Tools and Functionality Should You Use?

If you decide that there is a good case to move forward, then the next step, I believe, is to decide how to implement a social networking game-plan.

In other words, how specifically do you plan to incorporate social networking into your overall Internet marketing, community-building and communications strategy?

The above applications give some guidance about what is possible:

- You can create a profile/page on sites like MySpace and Facebook.

- You could build your own private-label social network.

- You could add community-functionality into your blog with MyBlogLog and similar tools, or

- Create your own customized application with social networking functionality - an expensive proposition.

So there are many possibilities and many ways to waste time and energy if you're not focused on whether or not your social networking undertaking is really going to help you achieve specific, measurable objectives.

I'm not trying to discourage anybody from using social networking tools and applications. They can be very worthwhile. It's just a question of whether in each specific instance if it's worth the commitment of time, energy and resources to making it happen.

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