Section
Navigation
5. Gaining an Online Presence
Business to Customer
:Without a website
5.1 eMail Marketing
5.2 Merchant Services
5.3 Creating Mobile Applications
5.4 Newsletters
5.5 Selling on eBay
:Using Third Party Platforms
5.6 Marketing Platforms
5.7 Free Services
5.8 Social Media
:With a Website
5.9 Building a Website: Introduction
5.10 Building a Website: Technical
5.11 Mobile Web Pages
5.12 Professional Pages
5.13 Shopping Carts
5.14 Payment Systems
5.15 Site Hosting
5.16 Webzines
5.17 Auctions
5.18 Blogs
5.19 Content Management Systems
5.20 Web Portals
5.21 Wikis
:With a Website:
Types
5.22 Selling Content
5.23 ePublishing
5.24 Distance Learning
5.25 Selling Advertising
5.26 Becoming an AdSense Publisher
5.27 Becoming an Affiliate
5.28 Selling Physical Goods
5.29 Corporate eCommerce
5.30 eCommerce Servers
5.31 Staying Safe
:Business to Business
5.32 Customer Relationship Management
5.33 Supply Chain Management
5.34 Digital Exchanges
5.35 eProcurement
5.36 Industrial Consortia
5.37 Private Industrial Networks
Control
Panel
5.7
Free Services
Many social media or business services are free, at least at a modest level of use,
and will help an enterprise through the early days when money is tight. Free Services
1. Keep track of interesting material: Google
Reader.
2. Document Sharing: Google
Docs.
3. Social database: Freebase.
4. Blog search tools: Technorati
and Google Blogsearch.
5. Blog hosting/building: see 4 above. Also simplified blogs: Tumblr
and Posterous.
6. Manage and measure use of RSS feeds: Google
Feedburner.
7. Mobile blogging and video sharing: Qik.
8. Social conversation: Twitter.
9. Social profiles: Facebook
and MySpace.
10. Business profile: LinkedIn.
11. Small business services: Box*
and Zoho.*
12. Social bookmarking: Del.icio.us.
13. Knowledge sharing and collaboration: PBwiki.
14. Web-based instant messaging: Meebo,
Adium and Trillian.
15. Web conferencing: FreeConferenceCall
and Google
Open Meetings.
16. Web conversation: Skype.*
17. Photo sharing: Flickr and Photobucket.
18. Text to audio conversion: iSpeech*
or SpokenText.*
19. Making audio clips. Audacity
or GarageBand.
20. Making movies: MovieMaker.
21. Video hosting: Brightcove
and YouTube.
22. Chat rooms: PalTalk.*
23. Create/share radio or video shows: BlogTalkRadio,
Vimeo, Viddler,
Revver, LiveVideo,
Ustream.
* also offer a commercial service.
Commercial Services
1. SpokenText:
Online text to audio conversion $0-90/year.
2. Brightcove:
Video hosting from $99/month.
3. Blip:
Independent TV hosting.
4. Ning: Social
website platform: $3-50/month.
5. Radian6.
More commercial social website platform: from $600/month.
6. Scriptosphere.
Transcription services: $0.9-1.4/minute.
Questions
1. Give ten examples of free Internet services and indicate where they
could be useful.
2. Compare free and commercial services in
a. document sharing,
b. video hosting and
c. social media.
Sources and Further Reading
1. Social
Media. Wikipedia article with further reading list. 2. Social Media Biz. Social news and strategy.
3. Social Media in the Workplace. White paper by UK public relations company.
4. Enterprise 2. Jeremiah Owyng's blog on social media trends.
5. Mashable. News and views on social media.
6. AllFacebook. Facebook news, surveys and events.
7. InsideFacebook. Facebook and the Facebook platform for marketers and developers.
8. SocialmediaExaminer. Guide to the social media jungle.