FreshNetworks Blog

Anybody with even a passing interest in online communities and social media knows that things are changing and developing. And they’re doing it quickly. From the apparent 800,000 new profiles being added to Facebook every day, to the growth that we see at FreshNetworks in the number of brands setting up their own online communities, or engaging with their consumers through social media.

It’s also an area where there is a lot of discussion as we learn from each other and collectively define and shape the online communities space. Whether it’s the merits of focusing on how we build and manage online communities (rather than technology), the protocol for how to react when somebody talks about your brand online, or the ways your online community can work offline too. There’s a lot of great debate out there and even more to be had.

That’s why it’s great to see the launch, today of Communities and Networks Connection, a collection of articles from blogs and the web about online communities and social networks from people who are passionate about them and are keen to add to the debate. I’m pleased to say that FreshNetworks is one of those contributing to the site, but more that we’re alongside people that we follow here including: Community Guy, Connectable Dots, Full Circle, Making CommunitySense, socialreporter and The Bumble Bee (to name just a few). Should be an interesting collection of thoughts and a great way to keep up with what people are thinking, saying and doing.

But perhaps more than anything this shows benefit of distributing content. In a world where user-generated content and ‘editorial’ content have merged, and where people are interacting with websites rather than just reading them, I think that distribution and sharing of content will become one of the main ways we organise and gain benefit from what we find online. We see it already in the way people are interacting with blogs. Whilst RSS feeds and email updates are still popular, many people are turning to sites which aggregate content on a similar issue, often with a level of community-organisation or editorial control. At FreshNetworks, our content is already distributed to  Futurelab, Social Media Today and Community 2.0, and many people see our content on these sites rather than on our own. That’s fine. That’s great actually. We get more good content to more people rather relying on you stumbling upon the odd post or site that’s may be of interest. In the end, content is what’s most important, and we need to let people find and interact with it as easily as possible.

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Some more reading

• Your Social Media Questions (altitudebranding.com)
• Social Media: Where to Start? (becoming-a-writer-seriously.com)
• The Five Myths of Social Media (markevanstech.com)
• Five Digital Trends to Watch for 2009 (micropersuasion.com)