Robin Blandford [ ByteSurgery.com - Digital Media Engineering ]

26/02/08 Niche Network Nurturing & Trending…

SINGAPORE - Online ‘User Generated Content (UGC)’ networks gain their value from the creation and sharing of objects. These objects can be commentary, sales leads, structured info or most importantly, ‘people’. When business is about who you know, not what you know - niche online networks need to really deliver in this area to create ’stickiness’.

With many other tools competing for data input at the time of ‘network creation’, it is vitally important to provide an easy way for users to quickly import their contact list and allow single-click adding. Asking a user to spend time adding value to your application by connecting to their contacts needs to be returned in kind with access to tools nurture and manage their networks…

Nurturing your network is about building it out through your friends networks, through the authors of shared objects and the discovery of new or recommended people.

Trending your network should allow you to see the distribution of your contacts across geographic regions, corporate entities and industry interests. Charting percentages in comparison to your contacts and allowing you to determine which areas need more work give users the incentive to spend time doing this.

-Robin.

(Image Credit: Aerobatic display at the Singapore Airshow 2008. By Author.)

Tags: business network, niche, niche network, nurturing, social network, trending

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