Social Capital in Online Social Networks

Social networking sites are suddenly rising to the the surface of the Alexa ranked sites on the internet, in addition to blazing a steep trail through the stock market. So, what's inducing the sudden rise is both arenas? What is causing their amazing success, and what sort of impact will their users have upon the economy? The facts of those questions is pretty simple, however the character and depth upon how they'll affect our future and society all together is totally a mystery. One of many main areas that will be suffering from these social network societies are charities, and the ratio of donations that will be provided in their mind through the e-commerce which occurs within social networking sites.

First and foremost, the success of a social network is due to the number of functionality that it provides to its users. From the dawn of the social network age, people experienced simple desires and demands. Due to this fact, until now, the success of a social network is based mostly on just how many demands that it meets because of its users, in addition to the caliber of the way they meet these demands. Users want to generally meet new and interesting people, in addition to keep in touch with friends and family. However, they do not want to have to visit, or spend a lot of time and money through the method of doing so. Social networking sites allow users to trade messages and comments with people near and far, in addition to to talk about pictures, videos, music, and to express their thoughts and emotions through the content and design of the profiles.

However, user needs and demands have evolved and developed on the years. As competition has grown within the social network industry, users have begun to expect the newest and greatest features and functionality within their social network. Many social network users have invested a lot of time each and every week with communicating making use of their friends, and are becoming used to spending a long time online each and every day. That, combined with fact that social support systems introduced advertising within their sites, has allowed users to now become used to the fact they can accomplish much more through a common social network in regards to being a consumer. Now, they could find amazing products and services through their social network, which allows them to purchase an item or service without leaving their house, or their social network for that fact! Instead of getting to leave their social network to surf and look for products, now then will find some truly amazing deals within their social network.

Users are participating in purchasing products and services found within social network sites so much, a boat load of earnings have now been realized within some of the very most successful social support systems on the internet. In a written report submitted by eMarketer back 2007, MySpace, still typically the most popular social network undoubtedly, was estimated to generate $525 million in U.S. advertising revenue Social media to promote yourself and business. Facebook, a quick growing competitor of MySpace earned around $125 million, and both were projected to have significant advertising revenue growth on the coming years. Combined, MySpace and Facebook are projected to take into account 75% of social network advertising spending in 2008. Advertising revenue generated within social support systems is a clear trend which shows that more and more social network users are looking for products and services while they are utilizing their social networks.

Along side advertising revenue being generated for the social support systems, a new opportunity comes up for the charity community. Business owners and internet marketers, who wish to help charities by donating a percentage of proceeds to charity from their earned advertising revenue, enables charities to also take advantage of their new found successes. More and more internet marketers and businesses are beginning to realize that they have the greatest ability to help charities through this implies, either independently or through the efforts of the marketing and business opportunity representatives within the charity community. Thus, the number of charity aware advertisers within social support systems are growing each and every day. In the beginning of 2007, within Facebook, the social network which put applications or widgets on the "social networking map", had charity awareness applications numbering in the tens. Now, in 2008, you will find hundreds of applications within Facebook which either raise charity awareness, allow users to donate straight to charity, or utilize online advertising for money-saving products which donate a percentage of proceeds to charity.

Without the ultimate ingredient for this success formula, charities wouldn't be able to take advantage of this ground breaking opportunity. The final ingredient is social network user awareness. By educating the social network user community there are advertising opportunities which benefit charities, either direct advertising or through applications and widgets, they'll then have the opportunity to make a conscious decision to select these opportunities over others. Retail sales figures throughout the last 10 years have shown a substantial trend based upon product affiliations to charities. Customers will purchase a quality product which benefits a charity through the sale, over another quality product, or even the same product, without any charity affiliation. Through this same model, we can assume that customers will be more likely to do business through e-commerce sites which provide a quality product or service online, saving the consumer a visit to the store, but which also provides a portion of the proceeds to charity.

It's truly essential that the social network community become aware of those opportunities, so they can seek them out. In case a Facebook or MySpace users want to purchase an item online, then it'd require they search for advertising for that product within their network. Then, it can be imperative they choose advertised items which also donate a portion of the proceeds to charity. Advertisers that may offer this charity affiliation, and also a discount that the consumer cannot find somewhere else, gives users a double take advantage of the e-commerce transaction, and will truly find success. Even though a lot of burden raising user awareness belongs to internet marketers, some of this user awareness burden lies on the charities themselves. Charities need to help make the online community aware of those social network opportunities by marketing them independently websites. This will ensure maximum exposure towards these social network charity donation opportunities, in addition to the total amount of success that the charity community may find with your endeavors.

In the end, charity awareness will determine how much success that the charity community may find through social network advertising. By raising the charity awareness of the advertising community, there is a results of more advertisers looking to greatly help charities through their particular successes. By raising the charity awareness of the social network user community, more users will seek out e-commerce opportunities within their network which will benefit charities at the same time. Plus, by charities raising their particular awareness of advertisers and social networking applications which are donating proceeds to the charity community, they will have the ability to help them with marketing of the products and services, thus raising the user community's awareness of the availability. If this charity awareness synergy is realized, it becomes quite apparent that the social network communities have the greatest potential to boost an immeasurable number of charitable donations through social network e-commerce and advertising revenue.