While most of these social networking channels still maintain their top rank in the game, a new social networking site called Ello has been gaining some buzz recently.

Say hello to Ello!

Unlike most social networking sites that sell ads or user information to third party advertisers, Ello boasts as being completely ad-free with a strict ‘no-ad and no-data-mining’ policy. Better still, they give you the opportunity to opt out in sharing any information if requested.

Seems interesting right? But one has to wonder how the site will support itself in lieu of advertisers.

Ello’s answer to this is providing special features through a user pays system. As special features are introduced, users can add it to their account by paying a small fee which is then activated on their account forever.

This approach seemed odd to me at first, but when I though about it, it’s kind of like paying for an upgrade, or like buying another accessory to your camera like a lens that has a different function.

The way to join this social network is by invitation; you just need to go to their website, enter your email to request an invite and then wait for their response.

With this out of the box structure and security promise, can this social network rise against other social media giants out there? Only time will tell.

Yours in social networking,
Brio Team

Kondoot – a social network based around live streaming video – was quietly launched last month by a small Brisbane team of young technical programmers and already has users from more than 100 countries signed up, with most interest from the US.

It started out as just an idea last year and has taken a little over a year in the making when a few of them got together to see if it was possible. The tight-lipped technical crew has managed to keep it quiet until now.

Mr Hoad, 24, one of the team’s programmers, said Kondoot was a mash-up of the best features of the major social media websites. “Most of them do only their thing – nobody really covers more than that,” he said. “YouTube, for example, is big into video but the social side is not so good. We add that other dimension.”

The team of 10 who work full-time on the site’s business, legal and IT needs is currently working 18-hour days to develop new features.

Users can “friend” others, just like Facebook, but the main point of difference is the wide range of streaming video options.

Kondoot will allow users to broadcast streaming video from home or work live to the world.

“The video calling and text chatting is there and posting to profiles, but we add another dimension,” Kondoot spokesman Nathan Hoad told The Courier-Mail. “It’s mostly about connecting people and video is just one way to do that. “We think we can make a massive splash in the social media scene.”

Will you make the change to Kondoot?

Yours in social media
Angie Rapisarda

Facebook trumps other social networking sites:

The Sensis report, which explores how Australian consumers and businesses use social media, also revealed that Facebook is the number 1 choice for consumers and businesses. Facebook captures 97% of social networking users and 60% of all internet users.

What consumers want:

This report is a helpful tool for marketers to gain an insight into the consumer’s behaviour within the social sphere. Not surprisingly, when asked what consumers wanted from businesses and brands they followed, discounts was the most commonly sought after item. Giveaways, invitations to events and general product information were also sought by a sizeabe proportion of followers.

Below are some key takeaways from the report:

To access the report in full, click here.

Yours in social media for business,

Julia

By giving your company a social personality, you’re opening up to your consumers in new, engaging ways. Great for brand awareness, brand affiliation and also real business results. Did you know that 40% of Australian businesses gain new customers through social media?

Your audience is already there, ready and waiting. Where are you?

Brio Group specialises in helping companies achieve results through social media for business. We love it so much, we created a presentation that’s full of interesting facts and stats – it’s your must-have social media for business 101.

Yours in social networking,
Julia

The Benefits for your Business
For business owners, social network integration is invaluable for your brand. When a user shares a website link to their social networking site (like Facebook or Twitter), this material is shared to their entire friends /or followers list, opening up potential for more traffic to your website. Statistics show the average Twitter and Facebook user has about 130 followers and friends respectively.

Peers prefer Peers
It’s been reported that audiences today trust the recommendations and brand feedback from their peers more than the company itself – despite companies now entering conversations online via social media. Therefore – like editorial over advertorial – a user sharing your website link to their social networks is highly valuable.

Links are highly shareable
To add further weight to why social network integration is important to your website, consider this: every 20 minutes, 1 million links are shared via Facebook.

So how to you add social media integration to your website?
There are loads of plugins you can source via Google. If you’ve some coding know-how, you can add these to your website. Alternatively, if you want a more strategic approach to your integration that compliments your digital marketing strategy, we’d recommend enlisting a professional agency.

Yours in social networking for business,

Julia

In Mobile Social Networking: change driver & key players, Ovum states that Facebook is much more than a social network – this is just a starting point and its domain spreads much wider. However operators are being slow to wake up to the extent of Facebook’s ambitions and tend to view it as benign, non-competitive presence that they are keen to form partnerships with.

Eden Zoller, author of the report and Ovum principal analyst, said: “Facebook is encroaching directly on mobile operator territory and should not be underestimated.

“It has come a very long way since it first launched Facebook Mobile in 2006. It is now a force to be reckoned with in mobile with over 200 million users interacting with the service via mobile phone. It is much more than a social network and is better viewed as an increasingly rich platform for communications and content. Facebook wants to integrate with everything and be the main way that people consume and share information, anywhere and on any device.”

Facebook has made several moves that have placed it in competition with mobile operators. It has an integration deal with Skype for voice communications and in November 2010 unveiled an email offering. Meanwhile, it is turning increasing attention to location-based services with its Places platform and is pushing into mobile advertising in the shape of the Facebook Deals ‘check-in’ service. Facebook apps dominate app stores across most smartphone operating systems.

Zoller continued: “There is also intense ongoing speculation that Facebook will come out with its own phone, which in some respects would be the final piece of the puzzle. However, we don’t think that Facebook is a ny rush to launch its own hardware just yet, although it could be interested in working with partners on a customised device platform. This would in effect make Facebook a social operating system.”

Despite this competition from Facebook, mobile operators are keen to partner with it, for example by offering easy access to its services and address book integration.

Yours in Facebook news,

Julia

“How do I grow the fanbase so more people are engaged and have exposure to the brand?” Every Marketer asks themselves this question when they’re working to build a brand through social network sites.

First, you need to be clear on the rules for promoting a brand through Facebook. From a marketer’s perspective, we recommend reading the Facebook Promotions Guidelines. If you’re across these rules you’ll have a better chance of not getting on the wrong side of Facebook (and in turn get banned, as that wouldn’t be good for the brand you’re promoting!).

There are two main ways to get fans on Facebook:

1) Be likeable

The first way is to become a celebrity or have a well known brand people which people will actively seek out and become a fan as a way of affiliating themselves. In these categories, generally there is no issue in how to get fans. All you need to do is post regular updates and information that’s engaging to fans to keep you top of mind. This will help organically grow a fan base (as when your fans interact with your page, this interaction is spread virally to their Facebook friends). Justin Bieber is famous and has an astounding 21,849,746 Facebook fans and Gucci is a great well known brand that has 3,791,867 Facebook fans.

2) Incentivise

The second way is to have some kind of incentive to ‘like’ your brand. I know this sounds simple and is basic marketing, but there are many ways, and some very creative, to do this. Here are some ideas you could try:

• Give people a discount or a prize for being a fan on Facebook.  They could be weekly draws, like: ‘Mention the special Facebook code when you come in store’ etc.

• Give them something special to engage with once they have liked you. For example, once you become a fan of Barbie on Facebook, you can shop at the exclusive pop-up store in NYC.

• If you have a specific product or service, now is the time to engage with your target market with helpful information, feedback or news from the industry.

A bit of coding goes a long way

Customise a tab in Facebook to act like a landing page where you can create a call to action, sell something or create some intrigue.  You can be really creative with this page as it acts a little like a mini website on Facebook and only requires some simple coding.

Engagment ads on Facebook

At Brio Group we have had a lot of success with Facebook advertising. It can be really specific and you can limit your spend with a pay per 1000 impressions or pay per click (like AdWords). It’s a great way to build awareness to your new product or service, or to build up fans for your brand or product before you launch. If done well this can be one of the most cost effective advertising strategies you will do. I always advise that when advertising on Facebook  remember people are expecting something for FREE or really cheap so promote discounts, giveaways, tell your fans about your competition, etc. Then make sure to link to your customised landing page where there are more details, or a custom tab on your Facebook Page – never just sent them to the Facebook wall.

Appoint a Facebook account manager

My final tip is to get an account manager if you’re really serious with your Facebook Advertising. They will be only too happy to help you work with Facebook to approve competitions, create effective ads and help you get the most of the latest developments from Facebook.

Yours in Facebook marketing,

Belinda