Is this the tipping point for Social Networks?

Rick Schiffren, the internet guru wrote in a recent e mail, "The BIGGEST reason why Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the Untied States on January 20, 2009 can be summed up in 2 words--social marketing."

Obama campaigned to the social marketing crowd perfectly, generating a HUGE amount of support from a variety of online resources.

Just check out these amazing statistics from Trendrr...

• Following the conventions blog posts mentioning Obama outnumbered those referencing McCain by more than 3 to 1.
  
  
• Obama's number of MySpace friends grew steadily over the last few months of the campaign while McCain's remained relatively flat. By election day, Obama had almost 4 times the number of friends McCain had.
  
  
• While those MySpace figures are remarkable, the Twitter stats are even more eye-popping. Obama had nearly TWENTY FOUR times the amount of followers that McCain had.

UNBELIEVABLE!

And it doesn't end there. I found similar numbers for FaceBook and YouTube usage as well, with Obama clearly outpacing McCain.

Obama's tactic was a masterpiece--targeting the younger, more technically literate crowd (many who had never voted or even bothered to register) and hit them right where they live--on social networking landscapes.

The subsequent result was a MASSIVE following that grew larger and larger by the day. And those same people made a huge impact at the polls.

So what does this all mean?

When the American political climate can be shifted by a blog, a forum, or a social networking site, then you have an 800 pound gorilla staring you right in the face.
And it's HUNGRY.

Obama worked this element with a surgeon's precision, generating a buzz very early on and feeding the frenzy until it grew to mammoth proportions.

But do you think Obama merely pulled a few net-savvy supporters together and said, "Go talk about me on those internet site thingys"?

Nope--he had a PLAN. A carefully conceived, painstakingly constructed plan. And it worked to perfection.

And that, my entrepreneurial friends, is what I want you to take away from that election.

I totally agree with Rich in that it has changed the way we communicate in 2009.
Now what does that mean to you, a small business owner?

In my opinion, Obama has triggered the ‘tipping point’ on Social Networks.

There is an overwhelming change happening on the internet and it is called Web 2.0 and includes Social Media.

Recently, I took a 3 day intensive workshop on how social media can be utilized to help businesses increase their client base and develop relationships with their customers through the use of Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube and Facebook.

For example, here are a few statistics on Facebook:

General Growth

• More than 175 million active users
• More than half of Facebook users are outside of college
• The fastest growing demographic is those 30 years old and older

User Engagement

• Average user has 120 friends on the site
• More than 3 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
• More than 18 million users update their statuses at least once each day
  
• More than 4 million users become fans of Pages each day

Applications

• More than 850 million photos uploaded to the site each month
• More than 7 million videos uploaded each month

More than 28 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each month.

• More than 2 million events created each month
• More than 25 million active user groups exist on the site

The tipping point has arrived and now the opportunity is at hand.

Over the next few days, I will be launching a 3 hour workshop to help you, a small business owner, understand how you can take advantage of this phenomenon to grow your business and create better relationships with your current clients.

Stay tuned!!
All good wishes,
Roy Prevost