Roanoke’s Social Graph
Posted on February 5, 2009
About 270,000 people live in the Roanoke area. You can find 63,603 of them on facebook. That would mean that about one in four people in Roanoke has, at a minimum, some degree of computer literacy and awareness of social networking. For those of you who aren’t on facebook or don’t know what it is, maybe a little primer would help.
Basically, social networking means interacting with other people over the internet. People sign up for an account and complete a profile that tells people who you are, where you’re from, what you like, what you do for a living and what you’re doing right now. Then they look for other people they know or people they don’t know who share something in common. But, pretty soon you have a group of “friends” on facebook.
Some are people you haven’t seen since high school. Others are people you’ve worked with. There may be neighbors, members of your community organizations, or members of your family. There will even be a fair number of people you think you may have known at some point, but you’re not sure. And, you’ll even get a few who are pretty sure they’re not your real friend but insist on being your facebook friend. For them, facebook provides you with a convenient little “ignore” button. You can even seek out people who fit that profile and forever block them from finding you on facebook.
Facebook includes a growing number of applications that allow you to do things like throw virtual snowballs at friends or give virtual gifts. You can share photos, videos and music with friends. You can put a friend’s name on a photo so that all of his friends can see your photo. It really is an amazing way to interact with people. If you think about it, there probably has never been anything in Roanoke that has brought 63,603 people together in one place. And, there’s certainly never been anything that’s given those 63,000 Roanokers direct access to another 90 million people all around the world. But that’s how many people are members of facebook.
For the type-A personality and those of us who have to work for a living, there’s the more practical social network for professionals, called LinkedIn. 9818 Roanokers have taken the time to build a business profile on that site. LinkedIn allows you to seek out people in your profession to share ideas. It gives you an easy way to identify potential customers and make contact with them. And, it’s just beginning to deliver some real business applications that allow professionals to share files, make presentations and collaborate on projects. It’s also not a bad place to look for a job or find a new employee.
Just like facebook connects you to friends of friends, LinkedIn actually tracks the number of people that you are ultimately connected to indirectly. For instance, you may have 200 direct business contacts on LinkedIn. But, if you add two degrees of separation, you may be connected to more than 2 million contacts that are only a couple of introductions away. That’s a long way from the old style Rolodex.
Stuart Mease has been advocating social networks as a way to attract young professionals to the Roanoke Valley since he was tasked with that job by the City. It’s hard to argue with the fact that social networks are an incredibly cost-effective way to reach people in a meaningful way. Let’s say that the 63,603 Roanokers on facebook each has an average of 50 friends. That’s more than 3 million people with a personal connection to Roanoke. Unlike traditional direct marketing, social networks give you the ability to combine the power and credibility of word-of-mouth marketing with the exponential reach of a viral marketing campaign. And, there are no printing or postage expenses.
Price Gutshall has been developing a presence for the Roanoke Region of Virginia on facebook and LinkedIn since he was hired by the Partnership to bring a younger perspective to their marketing. So far 527 of the 63,000 Roanokers on facebook have become “fans” of his group. Other businesses and organizations in Roanoke have also developed a presence on facebook and LinkedIn as integral tactics in their marketing plans. The use of social networks as a primary media strategy is still in its infancy. But, as more and more businesses, organizations, independent professionals and ordinary people sign on, the potential grows just as exponentially as the latest viral video that got passed along to you.
In the past year, this writer has seen several Fortune 500 clients cut their television advertising budgets and steer money toward social networking and viral marketing projects. In almost every case, the return on investment was greater percentage than they were achieving through traditional media. If it works for some of the biggest brands in America, it will certainly work for Roanoke’s local brands. And, it doesn’t cost a heck of a lot to give it a shot.
So go out there and explore these two social networks and the dozens of others that are cropping up. If you haven’t done it yet, you’ll be amazed at how many people you’ll run across that you may have never seen in your daily life. And, you’ll be equally amazed at how much those virtual worlds reflect your own real world.
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