Will Facebook, Twitter & Qik assists vB's funeral?

[Wayne Luke]

Originally Posted by GSeybold

I'm sorry I don't want to exchange virtual plants and animals when I'm looking for people or information.

Why do you have to?

I haven't taken a single quiz on Facebook and usually ignore the gift applications (I think I have accepted three). However I can become a fan of different topics and be updated when there is news on those topics. I can keep in touch with family and friends that I don't get to see a lot due to distance or timing due to work, illness and other factors. It makes it easy for us to share pictures whether we use a service like Flickr, Picasa or Facebook itself. All can be tied into each other. Only have to visit the site a couple times of week because it will notify me if something important happens. We could all join a forum and do this but Facebook is a lot more convenient

On Twitter, I only follow people who post serious information. These include major sites like NPR (National Public Radio), BBC News, CNN News as well as informative blogs and sites on vBulletin, Wordpress, Drupal, etc... I let the people I follow point me towards articles that I might want to read. I don't even have to visit the website. If I find something that I think is interesting, then I forward it or retweet it and it automatically gets picked up by my personal blog and Facebook.

Forums on the other hand are great for getting support questions answered whether its software support, finding out information on the new Pokemon game, learning how to prune apricot trees and more. However Forums don't make a website anymore and you need to add more content and be up to date if you want to compete in your niche or are just starting out.

Though you can easily use Facebook, Twitter and all the other social networking site to promote your forums. You can use these promote them to people who would never otherwise find them because you rank 95th for gizmos and gadgets on Google. Facebook alone has over 200 million people. If you avoid it without even knowing what it is and think it is some teen-fad then your limiting the potential of your website. Promoting a forum is all about word of mouth and referral recognition. Social Networks are all about viral networking. Networking has been around as long as man-kind has done business. These sites just bring it online. It is not much different than going to a business luncheon in your city to meet new people and promote your ideas or going to a tradeshow/conference to do the same thing. Avoiding social networking though is like closing a lot of doors that could lead to opportunity. Or you could continue to fight against companies that throw tens of thousands at page ranking every month and have hundreds of new domains linking to their sites every month.

To put it into perspective, forwarding one good thread to Twitter with 100 followers can result in dozens of blog posts linking to your site drawing in audiences that you never knew you had.