Page 324 - Social Media Marketing

c h a p t e r 11 : ╇ T he S ocial G raph╇ ■Taking this one step further, by including an option for email addresses your
social site—through built-in or built-on software extensions—can look into a new
member’s address book with explicitly granted permission and then suggest automati-
cally friending or following any discovered “matches” between the new member’s
address book entries and the general network member’s addresses.

This sort of automated “friend finding” provides a very easy way for a new
member to quickly build a followers list and thereby “feel connected” to the commu-
nity. Here’s an example: When you join a new network, one of the sign-up steps will
typically ask you for permission to access your address book, quickly locating people
you already know who are also members of that network. Think of it as a social
“jump start” that makes new members more likely to engage the larger network and
its services.

While this can be handy, take care to avoid networks that immediately spam
your entire address book! Many reputable social networking services will ask to look
at your address book and quickly find all of the people that you already know, and
302 who are members of that network. Just be sure that you know what will happen when
you click “yes | next.”

A quick note here: If you want to avoid a reputation for spam from developing
around a social network that you develop, encourage your prospective members to
always read the Terms of Service, and design your applications in ways that minimize
the chance of inadvertent “spamming” from happening in the first place. Make it easy
for people to understand the various “friending” options that are presented during the
sign-up process rather than encouraging them to blindly click “Next, Next, Next.”
Above all, pay attention to your default sign-up options, since you already know most
people will ignore the Terms of Service and click “Next, Next, Next” regardless of
your warnings to the contrary.

Why does this matter? Consider as an example the dating site Jhoos. Jhoos has
a sign-up process that includes friend discovery and automated invitations. A careless
trip through the sign-up process will result in your entire address book—including your
professional contacts—being sent invitations to join the dating site. This outcome—
which comes under the heading of “probably not what you wanted”—is a direct result
of a design decision by Jhoos’ designers and developers. By automatically sending to
everyone in your address book by default—rather than defaulting to the more conser-
vative “no one” and requiring that (you) specifically choose—the dating site ends up
taking it on the chin for spam. Use Google and search “Jhoos spam” for an indication
of what happens when an aggressive sign-up process is coupled with people’s known
tendency on the Social Web to click “Yes, Next, Accept...” without reading any print,
let alone the fine print.