Question

Topic: Strategy

Social Network Web Developer Business Plan

Posted by russellbusey on 4/4/2016 at 5:26 PM ET 250 Points
Hello marketers,

We are developing an engine that will enable businesses, organizations and individuals to create their own private label social network.

If you only read one paragraph, our question is: WHY would organizations benefit of running their own private community website in addition to building their social media presence on traditional platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

We are currently writing up a business plan (we are developers and yes, we've done this the wrong way around).

In my mind, the clear benefits of purchasing a private label community from us is the superior quality of the software compared to competitors (the engine provides all the major tools Facebook offers, and ties this in with advanced blogging and Q&A forum software. In future development we'll add ways to monetize your audience).

For now, my question is more general. Leaving aside the future possibility to monetize your audience, why would a company or organization want a private label social network?

So far, we've answered this question by the following downsides to outsourcing your social media presence to traditional platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
- On traditional social media, your audience is distracted by messages from friends and brands
- while trying to keep your followers/friends focused on the core values of your community, they are constantly distracted by other communities on traditional media equally competing for their attention
- traditional social media allows competitors to advertise on your page
- you don't control the site, don't get to fully leverage the content created
- you don't control the privacy controls (important to stave off competitors, for businesses to allow community members to privately share in depth knowledge without it being exposed to the outside world, for churches to allow a true sense of private communications or for schools who want to update parents about the activities of their children in class).
- Content created by your audience actually belongs to the social media platform.

By creating your own social media platform, you are in control on how you guide the community. The content your community creates drives others to your website and you can set the rules to keep the conversations on topic and relevant to the community. There are no distractions that go counter the purpose of your community and if you want, you can shield the community from the outside world and protect the content (or parts of the content) generated by your community. People may also feels after communicating openly on a private community that is shielded from public eyes. Or if it is an open community, they may be more engaging because they have come here for a specific, targeted reason.

I am pretty sure that we are going to have to segment the pros of a private label community for each vertical market, but for now, I am seeking your input.

Thank you for participating in this discussion.

Russell
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by telemoxie on 4/4/2016 at 6:23 PM Accepted
    If this were my project, I would consider setting up a venture to sell services related to Facebook fan pages to companies in your target market. If they want to buy these services, that is fine, you can become more experienced and expert with social media and put the money in your warchest. If they are not interested in Facebook fan pages you can ask them why, gathering the information you seek and creating prospects for your new technology.
  • Posted by superhuman on 4/5/2016 at 7:04 AM Accepted
    I prefer the private social networks as there is mush easier to find the target audience than just in social networks. But I would not like to create my social network because as for me they lose their popularity and are degraded. Moreover, the sense of the social network is to enable the maximal amount of users as it is practically the main factor of joining the user into this community. So I son;'t think that it's a really good idea.
  • Posted by saul.dobney on 4/6/2016 at 3:46 AM Accepted
    (Disclosure. I've been involved in building this type of offer - it's not so original). The main networks work because of scale that means they produce a lot of relevant content quickly which brings people back so they're self-reinforcing. Small networks struggle because there's no reason to return - a group of 1000 people might only generate 10 items of content per month - you just don't get the return rate unless you high a certain scale, or specifically have very active collators bringing people back. That means you need an angle - which in turn means you've got to be able to identify potential target markets - ie which customers, and what are those customers trying to do. Once you identify and understand the customer you'll get a much more focused offer. It might be say Meetup or sports club management, or collaborative research groups, or membership schemes, or band fan groups, or self-help communities or swap-networks. The tools might be 'social media' but the focus will be very specific with very focused deliverables and critera for success that can't be met through a pure generic solution (otherwise everyone would just use Facebook et al).
  • Posted by mgoodman on 4/6/2016 at 3:27 PM Accepted
    I always begin marketing strategy projects by looking at the end-users and their needs, attitudes and behaviors. So let's think about why a person joins a social network platform/community. In the case of Facebook it may be to connect with friends/relatives. For LinkedIn it's to network with other people in similar/related businesses. Etc.

    So why would someone want to join a more limited/specialized platform? What's in it for them that they can't get from an existing platform with which they are already familiar/comfortable?

    Until I can get that, it's difficult to come up with the rationale for an organization that would invest a lot of time, effort and money creating their own private platform (even with a slick ready-to-go white-label back-end)?


    P.S. Did you really invest time/money in developing something before you had a solid marketing and business plan?
  • Posted by fiona on 5/13/2016 at 7:49 PM Accepted
    I don't mind the idea.
    From an organisation's point of view, if they "own" the platform, they can control the message.
    Not that they should delete messages that they don't like, but overall they can control what options are enabled and how conversations online are framed and steered.
    So you could argue its all about helping companies better manage online reputation in an open, albeit controlled environment. There is some stuff on my blog about reputation if it's useful.

    Good luck.
  • Posted by Shelley Ryan on 7/5/2016 at 6:25 PM Moderator
    Hi Everyone,

    I am closing this question since there hasn't been much recent activity.

    Thanks for participating!

    Shelley
    MarketingProfs
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