Web Strategy by Jeremiah

Are you thinking about building a community on your own domain with one of the 70 white label social networking tools?

Or have you thought about joining an existing community on a social network like Facebook or MySpace?

We thought this heated debate was over, I took heat from Shel Israel and Doc Searls (look at all the trackbacks and comments) for my stance that in some situations, brands should build their own social networks.

Brian Oberkirch fired up a thoughtful post on why he didn’t want to join the Fast Company social network. Ted Shelton of the Conversation Group charged an email to me, and we started a friendly debate, eventually we agreed that an audio podcast would make good discussion over this topic, and we were also joined by Chris Heuer also of the Conversation Group.

Listen into the discussion as we delve into the topic of brands joining and/or building social networks (about 20 minutes MP3)

If this is a topic that intersets you: you either are going to deploy a community strategy, or you’re one of the 70 vendors or work at a social network like Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, Tagged, LinkedIn, Dogster, or MySpace, I have an upcoming research report called “Social Networks: When should brands build and join” that will publish for clients in the near future (it’s just getting the final touches put on it).

And by the way, as many savvy readers have pointed out, the future strategy will more than often be “and”.

(Update: Elizabeth Albrycht extends some thoughtful insight The Question Concerning Social Networks: Existence or Meaning?

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

You can follow me on Twitter (my handle is jowyang) and I’ll add you back.

If you enjoy this blog, and are craving for more information, then you may want to follow me on Twitter. Although I’ve already outlined how I use Twitter, from time to time, I like to highlight the benefits that you’ll have by interacting:

I post supplemental links on my Twitter feed to things around social media, marketing, and sometimes personal interests. You’ll often see a flurry in the morning as I crawl through content as I pay myself first.

I’ve stopped publishing my Google Reader link blog as I can now point to anything (not just items on my feedreader) and provide additional context (well, in less than 140 characters)

We have conversations: I ask questions there on twitter, and we get into interesting conversations, polls, and surveys. And when you think I’m wrong (which happens) people will let me know, and I we get into some even more interesting conversations.

When there are real-time events on the web, I’ll alert people there, but not from my blog, so if you’re not watching, you may miss out.

I’m high volume, and tweet way over a dozen times a day, so that’s a pre-warning.

Not sure what Twitter is? It’s a next-generation chat room that spills over to mobile devices. Why does it matter? conversations, ideas, and news often breaks there before it does on blogs, and often before traditional news. There are many influencers there (that publish on other mediums), and relationships are being formed.

You can follow me on Twitter (my handle is jowyang) and I’ll add you back (In fact I’m following 3,872 although only 3416 are following me)

If you are on twitter and want to connect with other readers of this blog, leave your handle below in the comments so we can all connect. Let’s build community. (A much larger list is here)

Update: In the comments Jose Luis suggests that I’m pushing Twitter to hard on my readers, I’ve heard this before in previous feedback. Let me say first that Twitter is NOT for everyone, but those that want to be part of the early influencer conversation should look there. It’s true there is more noise than signal, but when the signal does occur, it often cascades to many other mediums.