Great article in Business Week on how social networking is no longer for the kids pointing with an influx of older users-professionals their 30s and 40s, many in high-tech-is changing the face of Facebook.

Some of the examples are Ernst & Young having a Facebook network with 16,000 members, Citigroup's having nearly 8,500 members.

The article estimates that the "35-and-up" crowd now accounts for more than 41% of all Facebook visitors.  Well thats all great, but where is the value...isnt this all just for play?

Not so, according to Business Week who point to a number of areas where VALUE exists around these social networks:

1) Advertising - the obvious one with Facebook attracting the ad spend of the likes of HP, Coke, Microsoft and Proctor & Gamble;

2) "building social capital"...what the heck is that? ....according to Business Week, this how informal banter can grease the wheels for interaction when work needs to get done. Is anyone using Facebook to add new contacts to their Rolodex? "They're certainly doing it with us," says one commentator who says his Facebook inbox is starting to function a lot like traditional e-mail.

Whats our take?

Well there are 2 sets of value that the article outlines - the advertising is the value for the site owner and the "building social capital" is the value for the users.

This with the other research we have done all points up to the relationship building and information sharing - its what has always happened in the real world and online networks are just helping to facilitate this in a different way.

What is fascinating is the changing demographic profile...whilst I am sure this spells the death of Facebook being the cool site for the teenagers (Twitter is the new mover from what I hear), it does start to challenge our thinking on whats a Digital Native and Digital Immigrant and show that new ways of interacting are becoming more pervasive and engaging.

One question? Do you have many friends who are'nt on Facebook?

On a completely different note, I am delighted we now have our Basket Ball Guru on board The Good Ship Trovus  (TGST) and am very much look forward to working with him and Jon being a part of our adventure.

Comments

There are currently 2 comments about this blog.

Nick Harris, 9 months ago

Well after that build up, anything I now say is going to be a let down. I am sure that you already know this but I am guessing that people are after concrete examples where social networks can save them money in an enterprise setting. Finding the right people for professional service "gigs" has to be one of the best examples. Back in 2002, working for a consulting company (regulatory compliance) in the pharma industry, we uploaded lists of machines that we had worked on in a rudimentary word document to a file server. If the person had worked on a similar machine, you could cut the effort and therefore billable hours by half, saving the customer money. Within professional service companies, social networks can be used as a sophisticated repository for who knows what, allowing talent to be effectively leveraged. As the article mentioned, it will not be long before recruiters start looking in Facebook.

Caspar Craven, 10 months ago

Forgot to add - I can't take credit for digging out this gem from Business Week - it actually came from one of my oldest and most inspirational friends - Nick - currently residing in Washington DC and someone who I am hoping will grace Rewarding Dialogue with his wit and insight.

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