social networking – Page 121

Conversational marketing has been all the rage on blogs in recent years, but is there any proof that it really works? A new white paper from Communispace offers convincing evidence that it does help increase levels of engagement. Online, at least.

The report — Beyond the “Other” Box: Giving Customers an Independent Voice in Your Community (free PDF, registration required) — suggests that when organizations give their customers control of “small, private, online communities,” the result is higher levels of participation. The implication:

Ensuring that members can make their voices heard independent of the sponsorâ€™s agenda and making the dialogue truly reciprocal may also help members feel valued and listened to, and thus promote participation. When members take a site and make it their own, it becomes a much more engaging place to visit.

Link via Bloghound, who shares more details about the research.

Update, June 13, 2007: After playing around with the site a bit more, I discovered that you can add more than three social networking sites into your profile.

In last week’s Friday Five I pointed to a TechCrunch review of MyLifeBrand, a social networking utility (and yet another social network, in and of itself) that lets users aggregate social networking memberships and navigate between them from a single place. I was intrigued, so I applied for membership in MyLifeBrand Alpha and to my surprise was immediately accepted.

So far, all I’ve done with the site is create the space where I can access my top ~~three~~ four social networks (Facebook, MyRagan, ~~and~~ LinkedIn and MySpace). This could be a good solution for anyone managing multiple social networks. The Alpha version only allows you to place ~~up to three~~ several social networks on a page, and you have to go to the “snapshot” view to input and view them.