Social Networking and Local Advertising
Couple of things:
1. The Pew Internet and American Life project repeased a report showing that 55% of teens use social networking sites and have built a personal profile.
That’s a big number, but this is more interesting:
- 48% of teens visit social networking sites daily or more often.
If you’re wondering where consumer behavior will be in a few years, look no further than today’s youth. Social networking is going to be a natrual way for people to exchange ideas in every aspect of their lives.
Teens may not be the audience that you are marketing to, but guess what. Teens grow up. I don’t do everything now that I used to do as a teen (such as guzzle Mountain Dew), but many of my behaviors remain unchanged.
2. I met with Jon Carder and Jager Fornal, founders of MojoPages.com, a new web 2.0 social networking / Yellow Pages site.
I am naturally very skeptical about new businesses that set their sites on changing the business of local marketing. And MojoPages has their work cut out for them.
However, there is an intersection of local business referrals and social networking that WILL happen. Several people are chasing the dream, and at least a few will succeed.
MojoPages intends to use the lessons of social networking and a background in lead generation to build new type of company. As Yelp, InsiderPages, Judy’s Book Yahoo Local and several others have demonstrated, this is not an easy task.
But, I liked Mojo’s spirit and thinking. Their site has a very interesting video blog showing the behinds-the-scenes look at the start of their company. The actual launch of Mojopages is a few months away.
They have something, shall we call it mojo?, that a larger organization will never have. I think that they have a very good chance at success. They’re keeping their burn rate low, they are creating great buzz, and most importantly, I think the market timing is excellent.
The point to all of this is that social networking is an important phenomenon that is still in its early stages, but it will impact local marketing in a major way. MojoPages may be a winner in a very important game.
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January 14th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
I am glad that you like our spirit and thinking. Yes, we have our work cut out for us. But we are all burning the midnight oil and putting every ounce of our being into this. We think that we can make a difference and that MojoPages can be very helpful to people that are trying to find a reliable local business.
The intersection of local business and referrals is where we are aiming.
Glad to hear that you like our videos, we are trying to share and be transparent and show people our journey. We hope that these videos let people feel connected to us and that the videos helps other entrepreneurs.
Thanks for your thoughts, we welcome everyone to tell us what they think.
Rodney Rumford