Private Social Networks for Business

There are many benefits when a business uses public social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace & emerging social media services! Here are just a few benefits: Promote & market your brand, find new prospects, create fan base, enter new markets, offer incentives & coupons, capture customer feedback and defend your brand!

However, public social networks can also be dangerous for your business:

Here are the Five Pitfalls of public social networks for your business: Be in the know!

1. Information Security - All business information that is put on these public social networks is public (Everything! Don't get mislead that your business information is safe. Anything you share on these public networks becomes public knowledge!)

2. Network Access - Employees of the company setup & share public profiles on these public networks (your business loses control, as employees access these public networks and share sensitive information, knowingly or unknowingly; as more employees get on these social networks, greater is the risk of your business information going in wrong hands!)

3. Industry Compliance - Public social networks offer minimum to no industry compliance, security & regulatory support (Sharing of any information about your customers, partners or members, knowingly or unknowingly, on these public networks can be detrimental to your business.)

4. Competition - Your competition will love you for using these public social networks (the more information you share on these public social networks, the better your competition learns about you, your customers & your business; and your competition will use this knowledge to win against you!)

5. Customers - Your customers, members and partners may hesitate to do business with you over public social networks (Concerns over sharing of their profiles, sharing of critical business information, security, and saying something in a public forum that will be taken out of context prevents external users to do business on public social networks).

What are Private Social Networks for Business? And what are some of the key benefits...

Private Social Networks - PSNs provide the core features & functionality of Public Social Networks... Making new connections, creating & sharing of profiles, sharing of information, ideas & feedback, collaboration, learning & networking, and promoting your brand. However there is one significant difference: PSNs are completely private; meaning, only the business & its population have access to the private business community!



Five Benefits of PSNs - Private Social Networks: This is the way to go!

1. Exclusivity - Exclusivity is key to Private Social Network. A Private Social Network is exclusive to only the invited users and business community. Customers, partners & members are aware that they belong to an exclusive private community, and will love to be part of it! No outsiders have access to the PSN.

2. Privacy & Security - On a PSN, the organization controls & manages access to all users of the network. There is complete privacy of the user information since the PSN is under business' management. PSNs are completely secured. Outside users cannot simply get into a PSN. Finally, all shared information by the members of a PSN remains private within the community.

3. Business Branding - A business is able to manage & maintain its brand on a PSN with ease. PSNs offer many customization options - logos, banners, network names, modules, messaging, workflow & more. A business is able to fine-tune & customize a PSN such that it becomes an extension of its brand or website.

4. Deeper Relationships - PSNs allow businesses to build longer-lasting, deeper, profitable relationships with the constituents. Importantly, the private community is engaged and is always connected with "what's going on". Users now connect & learn more about their business colleagues. Members share useful information & valuable feedback openly, and frequently. This creates greater goodwill and builds considerable member & customer loyalty. PSNs help businesses retain, manage, engage & grow the customer base (and reduce customer churn). PSNs help grow partner channels, and make them even more productive.

5. Collaborative Culture - PSNs help build a thriving company culture that transforms the organization into an interactive, engaging community that begins to share ideas, make new connections, collaborate, and leverage expertise rapidly and frequently. As more users use PSNs, more ideas get generated & shared, more collaboration & group coordination begins to happen, more projects get managed on time, and more issues get tracked & resolved. In short, a collaborative organizational culture emerges when a company uses PSN.

Best of all, your competition has no idea or no access to your private social network. Hence, your competition cannot benefit from your PSN.

Finally, PSN - Private Social Networks can be selectively public, and can help your business build & promote your brand on the major public social networks.

Want to learn more about Private Social Networks - PSNs?

Take a look at oGoing - Leading provider of Private Social Networks & Social Networking Solutions for Business.

Attend our weekly webinar on the key benefits of Private Social Networks & the pitfalls of Public Social Networks. Go here to register & attend.

Learn more about oGoing here: http://www.ogoing.com

About oGoing - oGoing is the leading provider of private social networks & social networking solution for business community & organizations.