Posts Tagged ‘social software’

Video Marketing – Things to Remember When Starting a Video Networking Site

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Video social networking has grown over the years with sites like YouTube, MySpace Video, and more producing massive amounts of traffic. Each and everyday users all around the world search for their favorite television shows, music videos, and how to videos. Major corporations have even taken advantage of the video sharing craze by sponsoring consumer created videos and purchasing advertisement space for commercials to be aired before online videos. Once Internet marketers and investors realize how profitable video social networking sites are they want to know how to start their own, similar, video sharing sites.

Before talking to a web developer or coming up with site layout ideas you must first establish a budget for your new venture. Video sites require specialized hosting packages because of the huge amount of memory and bandwidth needed to keep any sort of video site operating. If you are serious about this venture you might want to consider investing in a private or dedicated server. This will help you avoid site outages and overages which can lead to extra, unnecessary expenses. Also be prepared to consult a lawyer before you go live!

While all business ventures benefit from legal advice video sharing creates an opportunity for all sorts of legal problems. Some users will attempt to upload copyrighted videos or inappropriate material. Having a term of service and user agreement prepared by a lawyer will help avoid any serious misunderstandings that could result in the loss of your website. After you have consulted a lawyer and come up with a realistic budget it is time to find a website developer.

Quite a few individuals attempt to build their own video sharing sites with absolutely no help but if you are not a professional website developer this will lead to a lot of stress and wasted time. Coming up with a working software program that will let users register, upload, and share videos is a complicated process. A professional web developer with social networking website experience is necessary to create an acceptable, fully functioning, video sharing network.

When the time comes to consult developers have a list of features that you want your video sharing site to have. Try to include every desired feature in your first consultation because the designer will need this information in order to give an accurate price quote and time estimate. Requesting additional features at the last minute will result in launch delays and a raise in your original estimate. Common features found on video sharing sites are:

User Registration- This will help you, the owner, keep track of who is uploading what material.

Age Verification- With age verification you will be able to prevent minors from being exposed to inappropriate material.

Video Sharing- Visitors and registered members should be able to embed videos on blogs, websites, and also directly link to videos in emails.

Reporting- Users should be able to report inappropriate content to you and other staff members. This will help make the process of monitoring content easier and give users a way to respond to content that they disapprove of.

Other features that you, a website owner, might like on your video sharing site are messaging systems, user profiles, feedback/comments, and rating. These features are popular with users but are not necessary or required. If you do decide to implement these features always include a reporting system so that users can easily notify staff about inappropriate profiles, comments, or messages.

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Understanding Social Video Networking Software

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

In the past two years the popularity of social videos has exploded. Many amateur actors and video producers have earned a measure of Internet fame after creating popular “viral” videos that were viewed by millions around the world. Taking their cue from these lucky individuals many musicians, aspiring actors, and even business owners have started creating and distributing their own social videos with the help of social video networking software.

This software makes it easy for anyone with a bit of dedication and computer knowledge to create and edit videos. One no longer has to hire a professional to create their own videos. Even though many businesses have been made aware of the ease of creating these social videos quite a few do not realize the promotional potential these videos have.

There are many websites live today that exist solely to showcase social networking videos. These videos let visitors view and share their favorite videos absolutely free of charge. Social videos can be embedded on websites, in blogs, and even emailed to others. Businesses can make their own short videos promoting services, special products, and even more. Some companies even hold contests asking customers to create their own videos for the chance to win prizes.

Social video networking software can be used to edit these short videos. Effects can be added to fade into certain scenes or fade out other scenes. Graphics can be added and audio can even be inserted. Once the videos are prepared and ready to be viewed by the public social video networking software can also be used to widely distribute these videos to as many social video networking sites as possible. Some video networking websites have even started to include their own web based editing software free of charge.

With the rise of video social networking more companies are developing advanced video editing services that are both easy and affordable for users. Pretty soon all business owners will be able to easily create, edit, and massively distribute their own promotional videos with no previous video creation knowledge. By investing in social video networking software now your web based business will be able to get the jump on competitors while reaching out to an entirely new audience.

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Social Networking Solutions For Customer Service Problems

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

One of the biggest challenges that customer service reps face is getting information from the corporation in a timely way and getting it out the customers who may be upset about something. These days there are social networking solutions for most of the customer service problems that plague businesses. Do you think that social networking sites are only good for making friends? Think again. Social networking solutions offer a great way to connect with your customers and keep them informed.

For example let’s say that your customers are having trouble understanding one aspect of how your product works and your customer service reps are swamped trying to answer questions and explain how to properly use the product. Instead of wasting everyone’s time on phone calls customers can join your corporate social networking site and download a video of how to properly use the product. If the customer is still not satisfied the customer can connect with a customer service rep immediately using live chat or instant messaging instead of having to wait on hold to talk to a customer service rep on the phone.

Another way that social networking solutions can solve your customer service problems is by giving members exclusive deals and coupons. Customers always like getting a deal that no one else is getting so you can use the list of all the people that have registered for your social networking site as a mailing list to send out coupons, special offers and sale flyers. Your customers are getting added value that makes them feel like very special customers and you are getting repeat business from happy customers.

Social networking sites also will help cut down on the amount of customer service staff that you have because a social networking site makes it possible for one or two customer service reps to answer questions and help take care of many customers. A customer service rep can answer a customer’s question in one instant message while emailing another at the same time. Using social networking can increase efficiency and cut down on stress for your staff and your customers.

Social networking solutions for customer service problems aren’t going to the right answer for every business. But if you want your business to stay competitive as business and technology become more dependent on one another you need to be able to think outside the box and think about ways that you can use existing and popular technology applications to give you an edge in business.

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How to Build an Online Community Site

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

You might have thought in the past about building an online community site to help you promote your business or to become a new business for you. But many people are not really sure what makes a community site attractive to new users or how to build an online community site. It can be confusing to figure out what makes a community site successful, but once you learn what you need to have on your site to attract visitors and users it gets less confusing.

When you’re learning how to build an online community site to connect with your customers or your co-workers, or even as a stand alone business product there are certain elements that you have to have on your community site in order to get people to join. There are a lot of social networking sites and community sites out there and more are coming everyday. When people look at a site they expect that the site will offer certain features to them. Here are a few of the features that people expect to find on an online community site:

Blogs – one of the reasons that people join online community sites is so that they can have free blogs. If you’re going to build your own online community site you need to offer people the chance to have an online blog with their membership on the community site. Many people won’t even consider joining a social networking site that doesn’t allow them to start a blog.

Forums – forums are a critical element of a social community site. Not all social networking sites offer forums but the ones that do have a much stronger community of users and find it easier to attract users. Many new social networking sites are incorporating forums into their sites because users really like the chance to discuss issues in a forum setting. Just make sure that you have at least one forum moderator to make sure that discussion on the forums stay civil and polite.

Multi Media Applications – one of the most important parts of a social networking or online community site is the multi media that is available. When you’re building a new online community site it’s crucial that you give users photo albums that they can use to share their important photos, video galleries that they can use to show popular videos and music players so that they can share their favorite music.

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