Social networking is constantly on everyone's tongues these days.
Some examples of sites are:
* Twitter
* Facebook
* MySpace
* Plaxo
Do these sites have a place in your business?
Only you can answer this question because there is no 'right' answer for everyone!
Firstly you have to consider who your target market is and what they want from your product.
Secondly you have to consider whether networking with peers may be a good business move.
These 2 points are important for your considerations of B2B and B2C e-commerce. Companies use social networking at times for different purposes.
Companies heavily involved in innovation or R&D may use social networking for B2B purposes.
Companies that have constantly changing products or customers who like to affiliate themselves with the products may use social networking for B2C purposes.
Norpa for example uses FaceBook as another way to send information about upcoming shows and allow people to discuss what is happening or has been on. It would be interesting to know if they have any data yet on whether it has increased their levels of attendance.
Remember, ALWAYS, at the end of the day, the aim of venturing out into e-commerce is to INCREASE your profit, not just increase your workload!
Social networking will mean that you need either yourself or someone that can dedicate to constantly updating and responding to what is happening online.
An e-commerce web site that is only updated every month or 2 may still be reasonably successful, but a social networking site that is only updated that often will fail.
Social networking means that you will be expected to keep your site updated anything from daily to at least weekly. These updates don't always have to be large but they do have to be frequent and relevant if you are going to keep anybody interested.
