Network Based Marketing Concepts And The Power Within Social Networks - Part Two

Copyright 2008 © Ricardo Vasques

http://www.RicoSuccess.com

Here we are again.

As I suggested on the last post, social networks are very powerful and they in fact represent a powerful consumer association. Show me anyone that denies being a consumer and I will show you a liar.

So, social networks are made of people that know other people, that know other people, etc. etc., and it has always been this way in the human lifetime history. Its simple, but it’s very powerful.

Stanley Milgram’s Small World and Duncan Watts’ Six Degrees theories propose that almost everyone is connected and, according to Mr. Watts approach (see the book Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age), we are interconnected to each other in a maximum degree of six relationships in depth.

Explaining this in plain words, imagine this situation: You, my dear visitor, that is reading this humble article in my blog right now know somebody, that knows somebody, that knows somebody, that knows somebody, that knows somebody that has a very high probability of knowing me (remember that I live in Brazil).

Now, it doesn’t mean that we are friends yet, but related inside a global relationship network.

Can you get the amount of power and possibilities that lies within the networks?

And here we are, in a small world, and the internet has helped to turn it smaller. Just to illustrate this, I have associates in India, Pakistan, United States and Australia that I’ve never met but are part of my affiliate or network marketing business due to the possibilities the internet and the big small world has provided me.

Social networks are main issues in our society. Orkut, Facebook, My Space and several other sites have attracted billions of people forming huge nets that ignore almost any physical or social distances.

To understand the possibilities and the potential of the social networks, let’s talk about a conception that is not new and have been proposed by Peter Blau in 1977, the “Homophily” principle.

According to this social theory people that communicate with each other are more likely to have similarities in behavior, so groups that relate directly to others might have similar tastes and also consumer patterns.

On the next post I will tell you why is this so important.

Ricardo Vasques
www.RicoSuccess.com

Until Then
….. Do you have a correction to this post? Do you have a contribution? Do you agree or disagree? We are waiting to hear it from you.

Network Based Marketing Concepts And The Power Within Social Networks

Copyright 2008 © Ricardo Vasques

http://www.RicoSuccess.com

Hello,

I came from a traditional group of marketing professionals. During all of my professional life I’ve been taught and also experienced marketing segmentation based on geographical, demographical, psycographical and behavioral variables. But science and research have gone far ahead from this regular and universal knowledge and are proposing new approaches to identify and organize different consumer groups using more sophisticated concepts and techniques.

The rise of the “genetics era” has allowed a much deeper and profound knowledge of some characteristics of the individuals never before even imagined.

Nestle the famous Switzerland company, for instance, is researching the relationship between genes and flavor perception, leading to a new and revolutionary consumer’s categorization method that relies not only on age, behavior or other known segmentation variables, but also by the probability of reaction to certain flavors and aromas presented by some consumer groups.

This is only the beginning and the scratch of a world of distinguished and new possibilities, and also of a major issue that will consume years of debate: the DNA analyses confidentiality. But businesses like insurance, medicine, agriculture and others areas are eager to appy this kowledge to boost their results.

While the biotechnology development and ethical questions are being examined, other theories and concepts about consumer behavior are calling our attention.

The one we are going to discuss during the next posts is not really a “novelty”, but only in recent years has been treated and examined scientifically: Network Based Marketing.

Network based marketing concepts are old friends of mine. For more than fourteen years I’ve been practicing the majority of what you will read in this and future posts, but with no scientifical base or proof, only relying on common sense and non systematic personal social behavior observation.

On the next posts the “Small World”, “Six Degrees”, “Blau’s Space”, “Homophily” theories and the key aspects of the paper “Network-Based Marketing: Identifying Likely Adopters via Consumer Networks” wrote by Shawndra Hill, Foster Provost and Chris Volinsky, published by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in the Statistical Science magazine in 2006 are going to be explored to explain what is the power that lays beneath the Network Based Marketing concepts that can contribute for the sales performance improvement of many different businesses.

Ricardo Vasques
www.RicoSuccess.com

Until Then
….. Do you have a correction to this post? Do you have a contribution? Do you agree or disagree? We are waiting to hear it from you.

It will be a kind of experience

All right, here I am.

I've been writing technical stuff in Portuguese for quite a long time, but I have been encouraged by a friend of mine to start sharing my thoughts and researches in a wider perspective, so that's why I'm here.
But this blog will be a kind of experience.

As English is not my native language (I was born in Brazil), I know that mistakes will occur. And exactly at this point is that YOU, my dear reader, will have the chance to CORRECT ME.

Nobody enjoys being corrected, so this will be a kind of experience.

Very soon we will be interacting and I will be sharing my first ideas about Network Based Marketing and how you can take advantage of social links to increase your sales and your opt in list.

We will be together very soon. Stay tuned.

My best regards,

Ricardo Vasques

http://www.ricosuccess.com/