I don't always (or even usually) agree with John Dvorak, but his latest column on PCMag.com, Why Social Networks Stink, is dead on. He points out that social networks are basically marketing machines, providing companies a way to shill their products "socially" to the networks' huge user bases. All the social stuff that goes on is just to get users to come back.
TechCrunch had a related post up last week by a "viral marketer" who outlines his strategies for getting his clients' videos onto the Top Viewed list. His tactics are ingenious, despicable, and, according to him, effective. The post caused quite a stir, too--if you think networks like YouTube and MySpace are truly socially driven, you're in for a surprise.
The really yucky part about all of this is that a huge chunk of social network users are likely not web-savvy enough to even know they're being marketed to. Indeed, if the TechCrunch comments are any indication, a good chunk of TC readers didn't know this kind of marketing- and PR-driven gaming was going on.
It is, and is typically happening before the social network companies themselves figure out a way to capitalize on it.
I remember talking to a PR person a few months ago and hearing the term "NFO"--short for "News Feed Optimization"--for the first time, referring to Facebook's News Feed and how companies use various strategies to get their products and services to the top of users' News Feeds without paying to advertise outright. And bear in mind that this term was coined BEFORE Facebook came out with their Facebook Ads program, which is just a way for Facebook to make money on the shady stuff the marketers were already doing on Facebook. Is it any wonder that MySpace plans to copy the News Feed idea?
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