Has anyone else got any experience with launching or growing a social network for their customer base?

Melcrum are launching their first fully-fledged social network, cross between LinkedIn and TripAdvisor, next week, so it would be good to hear from people with do's and don'ts.

Thanks,

Robin Crumby,
Managing Director.

Hi Rob

I would have thought that EMAP and the BBC would be your best bet (if you can get any information out of them) if not just try some of their sites to see what they are up to.

I get the feeling that there's not a huge amount of documented info on the uses of 2.0  - if you're happy to share how it goes for you I think that we'd all be very interested.

Good Luck

Hi Robin

Had lunch with one of your competitors today. Apparently you've moved all your forum type activity onto LinkedIn? What's the thinking behind that?

Ashley

Ashley Friedlein
CEO
Econsultancy
http://econsultancy.com

Rob - I launched the Emap specialist sites a couple of years back, including social networking and user content facilities.  Very happy to talk through some of the learning with you. You might find my article on encouraging user content helpful:
http://www.penmaen-media.co.uk/index.php/2009/01/five-ideas-for-user-content-on-your-website/
 Send me an email via the website : http://www.penmaen-media.co.uk/index.php/contact-us/ and I'll give you a call.

Carolyn  Morgan
Penmaen Media
www.penmaen-media.co.uk

Hi Ashley,

Yes, Linkedin has is our preferred online network and our groups have seen explosive growth, based on the simple principle that our business customers were already Linkedin users and therefore signing up to our community and getting them to keep coming back was a simple proposition.

As you know, when you maintain your own social network, it needs significant investment in time and resource to sustain and nurture that community. Linkedin makes the management of a community low-cost and low-tech, both of which made sustaining our own separate community an unattractive option going forward.

All the feedback from users and customers has been incredibly positive, so no regrets so far.

Robin.