Imagine the concept of social content networking as being a cafe where a variety of cliques are engaged in dozens of different interesting conversations, enjoying the ambiance, sipping on Joe. Friends may drop by to say hello and perhaps join in on the chatter. Each group is tackling different issues, some are talking about all that’s happening around the world, and some carry on about their personal lives. Someone, maybe you, may overhear a conversation and wonder: should I say something? In an online world, people don’t hesitate to join in on a conversation with complete strangers, albeit, only a very small percent of visitors actually participate. Along with sharing ideas, expressing opinions and so forth, there is the opportunity to exchange interesting content, such as a funny email or links to an interesting article. Making it easier for visitors to pass on information, is perhaps more inviting than getting them to write a comment or post an opinion.

With every comment that is written or every piece of content that is passed on to a friend, publishers have an opportunity to benefit.

It wasn’t long ago when people relied primarily on search engines to get information and they will continue to do so, however, with the rise and rise of ’social networks’ more and more people are getting their information elsewhere. Does this mean that Google AdWords is useless or even worthless? No. It simply means publishers have more options in reaching highly targeted traffic.

Yahoo! and Google have already revolutionized e-mail, it is in essence, the first and dominant content sharing tool. Email will always play an important role in sharing content, either with friends or colleagues, so its important to re-think the potential ‘revenue’ opportunities email. Grouptivity is a good example of how a publisher can seize the power of ‘Email to Friend’ by taking it up a notch and allowing visitors to not only share their favorite emailed content with people in their address book, but to also talk about that content in private or public discussion groups. The UGC or shared content can be accessed by everyone on Grouptivity’s discovery site, Ipond. Grouptivity played it smart by making it easy for users to read and participate in discussions. Further more, the pages where those conversations take place are completely co-branded with the publishers logo, the page code is optimized for search engine preference and thus brings in more targeted traffic.

Grouptivity Sign up