1. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies Comparing Social Networking Sites

2. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies Disclaimer I’m no expert on Social Networking sites. I see the activity and acknowledge the popularity but I am not an avid user nor do I find them very compelling. I work for a company that has generally been restrictive about employee access to Social Networking sites. Although I set up a Twitter account last summer to prepare for a different presentation and a Facebook account recently for this one, the only Social Networking site I use regularly is LinkedIn and even that is sporadic. What follows are some facts and figures I was able to gather and viewpoints from a non-enthusiast. Buyer beware! What follows is NOT the voice of experience.

3. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies You Can’t Argue with Success

4. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies Facebook dominates and is growing fast

5. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies

6. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies Estimated Population of Facebook by fall of 2010 = 500,000,000 Population of US 309,000,000 If Facebook was a country it would be 3rd in world population

7. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies Mainusers are not as young as you may think A full 25% of the users on these sites are aged 35 to 44, which in other words is the age group that dominates the social media sphere. The average social network user is 37 years old.

8. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies

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10. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies Some observations on age distribution Bebo appeals to a much younger audience than the other sites with 44% of its users being aged 17 or less. For MySpace, this number is also large; 33%. Classmates.com has the largest share of users being aged 65 or more, 8%, and 78% are 35 or older. 64% of Twitter’s users are aged 35 or older. 61% of Facebooks’s users are aged 35 or older. LinkedIn, with its business focus, has a predictably high average user age; 44. The average MySpace user is 31 years old. The average Twitter user is 39 years old. The average Facebook user is 38 years old.

11. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies There are hundreds of Social Networking sites Traffikd » List of Social Media and Social Networking Sites Social Networking Sites for Business Professionals http://social-networking-websites-review.toptenreviews.com/

12. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies You can check-out any time you like,But you can never leave http://www.seppukoo.com/ Helps you delete your Facebook account http://www.suicidemachine.org/ Helps you delete popular Web 2.0 accounts like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn What shall I do after I've killed myself with the web2.0 suicide machine? “Try calling some friends, take a walk in a park or buy a bottle of wine and start enjoying your real life again. Some Social Suiciders reported that their lives have improved by an approximate average of 25%. Don't worry, if you feel empty right after you committed suicide. This is a normal reaction which will slowly fade away within the first 24-72 hours.”

13. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies What’s all this mean to business? There is no doubt that Facebook and other social networking sites have potential for commercial use but to what extent should organizations or businesses allow social networking at work? What are the concerns? Should employees have access to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other sites when they are supposed to be working? What can businesses do to exercise some control and still reap the benefits of Social Networking?

14. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies The Concerns Loss of productivity: According to a study by information security consultancy Global Secure Systems, the use of such sites is costing U.K. business an estimated $12.5 billion per year in terms of reduced output. Another study showed that employees spend at least 30 minutes a day visiting these sites with some employees spending up to three hours of their working day taking care of their online profile. Impact on network resources as bandwidth is consumed: In smaller organizations, unnecessary browsing, uploading to and downloading of files from social networking sites can eat up bandwidth thus affecting network resources. Social engineering and phishing: This can result in data or identity theft. Most people would not divulge certain details to strangers but it is amazing what data can be gleaned from social networking sites—personal e-mail addresses and even social security numbers. Brand hijacking and lack of control over corporate content: Many users simply do not understand how their own behavior could possibly impact the company.

15. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies The Concerns Sites are attractive to hackers and spammers: Social networking sites are attracting hackers armed with malware of all kinds - spyware, viruses and online scams. Hundreds of applications being developed for these sites are used as launch pads of malware such as Trojans, malicious ad content and targeted attacks through your connections. Inability to adequately control access may violate regulatory requirements: SEC, FINRA, NASD, FRCP and others all have rules about discovery and control of information that are difficult to meet. Think your company isn’t affected because it’s not in the Financial Services industry? If it’s publically traded there’s a good chance you do. Mobile updates are particularly difficult to deal with. This has led to some new products designed to control and record all interactions through social networking sites one is http://sync.socialware.com/ Loss of business opportunity: Particularly in Sales and Marketing oriented industries Social Networking sites (in particular Facebook and Twitter) have become extremely valuable ways to reach customers and prospects.

16. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies About Facebook Privacy Issues Lately there has been a lot in the news about Facebook’s policies on keeping the data it houses private. While there have always been a lot of settings on accounts that can help control what is made public, setting them up is complicated and tedious. The Facebook agreement you OK when you set up an account gives them the right to change the rules whenever they want. They have done this several times and not always been completely transparent about what they are doing or why. Historically Facebook has used an opt out system instead of an opt in one. Typically the defaults created the maximum exposure of information and the individual user had to figure out how to control their information after the fact. One example of Facebook sharing personal data is Facebook Beacon. Beacon sends updates to everyone on your friends list any time you made a purchase on a large number of 3rd party web sites. The default set up was everyone was enrolled and everyone sent updates.

17. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies About Facebook Privacy Issues These issues are not limited to Facebook. Google had a similar problem with Google Buzz where by default anyone you corresponded with through Google Mail was immediately inundated with information on anything you did on the site. Facebook’s latest product Open Graph allows Facebook members to indicate likes and dislikes on other websites and have the results pushed to your Facebook friends. The product launched in April and already 100,000 sites have integrated the technology. On May 5th the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a compliant with the FTC claiming Facebook’s privacy settings are non-intuitive, border on deceptive and that the frequent changing of the policy and the opt out nature of the controls make it nearly impossible for users to adequately control their personal information. Facebook recently announced new “simpler” privacy controls as a partial response to users’ concerns. Critics believe they do not go nearly far enough and have not changed the basic Opt Out versus Opt In set up. This is likely to be a continuing trend as these businesses with large databases of information try to find ways to monetize them through targeted advertising.

18. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies What can businesses do? Ban access to social networking sites (in an extreme case—block all Internet connectivity). Pretty obviously counterproductive. Also pretty much impossible. Its just not that hard for users to find alternate ways to reach these sites through mobile devices, proxies, connecting with home systems from work, etc. Allow employees unrestricted access. Also unacceptable, you can’t just leave the front door open this is too dangerous for you network and potentially your productivity.

19. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies What can businesses do? Monitor and limit staff access to these types of sites much like most first do with general Internet browsing. The middle ground monitors all Web activity and controls it on a per user basis when social networking sites can be accessed at the office. Some mix of traditional Web monitoring software to limit access and some more sophisticated tools like Sync Social Ware discussed earlier can get some control and provide full archiving. Education also is important. If an organization wants its employees to be given restricted access to their social networking profile, it must be made clear to them that they need to be vigilant, avoid clicking on links that are suspicious, refrain from downloading files or applications that may be infected, and limit what details they add to their profile—details that could be used to steal identities and commit fraud. Running third party applications should also be discouraged.

20. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies What can businesses do? Make a decision whether the business value outweighs the potential risk and actively involve employees in the understanding the opportunities and pitfalls of the Social Sites. Hackers are attracted to social networking sites because they see the potential to commit fraud and launch spam and malware attacks. Organizations, on the other hand, need to be made aware of the security risks involved and take the steps necessary to safeguard their systems and data yet allow the company to make the most of what social networking has to offer. This is a difficult balance on a fast moving landscape.

21. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies Business Goals for Using Social Networks Get found by people who are searching for your products or services Connect and engage with current and potential customers Create a community around your business Promote other content you create, including webinars, blog articles, or other resources

22. Business use for connections and prospecting One powerful use for Social networking tools is build a network that can be exploited for sales or marketing. Individuals can create sites much easier than a traditional web site but reach as many or more people. Some key steps to using a site like Facebook: Edit your security settings Create a Powerful Profile, think of it like personalizing your desk Build Your Contacts and Friends Lists Communicate with Wall Posts Update Your Status Be philanthropic Participate in Groups or start one of your own Add apps selectively Manage Your Time The most effective users designate time in their day for Facebook activities just like scheduling time to reply to emails or any other business function. It’s easy to let time get away from you (the “time suck” factor). Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies

23. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies Profiles are for people, Pages are for businesses There are a few key differences between Business Pages and Personal Profiles: Pages allow you to designate multiple administrators, so that you can have multiple people help manage the account, and if one of your administrators leaves the company, you can still have control over the Page. Pages are, by default, public and will start ranking in Facebook and public search results. Pages are split into different categories (local businesses, brands, musicians) that help you get listed in more relevant search results. Personal profiles have friends, which require mutual acceptance, whereas anyone can become a fan of your Page without first going through administrator approval.

24. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies How the Word & Brown Companies are using Social Networking for business In October of 2009 W&B launched a new company HealthCompare Insurance, our first B to C company. As part of a brand building and awareness campaign for the first time we are actively promoting a company on Facebook and Twitter. To do this we’ve engaged an outside marketing firm that has several people dedicated to keeping new activity on Facebook and Twitter daily along with more traditional marketing activities. At this point we are not trying to use these mechanisms to directly drive sales or prospects and are not sure how to measure success in that regard when we do try.

25. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies How the Word & Brown Companies are using Social Networking for business http://www.facebook.com/HealthCompare http://twitter.com/HealthCompare

26. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies What about you? Which social networking sites to you use? What do you do with them? Are you comfortable with the security and privacy provided? Do you do anything special to control your information? Does your business use these sites? If so how?

27. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies Links & Reference http://siteanalytics.compete.com http://social-networking-websites-review.toptenreviews.com/ http://traffikd.com/social-media-websites/ http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow/?p=12846&tag=nl.e539 Jason Perlow Blog http://www.cio.com/article/551513/Ten_of_the_World_s_Strangest_Social_Networks?page=1#slideshow http://www.cio.com/article/508121/Facebook_Bible_Everything_You_Need_to_Know_About_Facebook http://www.cio.com/article/495098/LinkedIn_Bible_Everything_You_Need_to_Know_About_the_Social_Network_for_Professionals_ http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9176439/Social_networking_boosts_legal_regulatory_compliance_headaches?source=CTWNLE_nlt_mgmt_2010-05-10

28. Copyright 2010 Word & Brown Companies Links & Reference http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/07/21/32-ways-to-use-facebook-for-business http://social-networking-websites-review.toptenreviews.com/ http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/07/24/12-ways-to-use-facebook-professionally/ http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_facebook_apps_work.php http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4813/Free-eBook-How-to-Use-Facebook-for-Business.aspx http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business/ http://www.flyte.biz/resources/newsletters/08/06-twitter-for-business.php http://www.cio.com/article/596248/Group_Lists_Top_Five_Social_Media_Risks_for_Businesses?page=1&taxonomyId=3108 Time Magazine, Vol. 175, No. 21, May 31, 2010