ORKUT
Why did a social network with over 30 million users fail. It followed the Applied Strategic Theory that was discussed in Strategic Social Media. The site followed the framework Action Plan.
Goal
There were defined goals which were to enable people to find communities and other people that they could relate to. Orkut created a sense of belonging and allowed people to connect with others on a social level and also on a professional level. The goals were aligned to make the customer satisfied and hopefully keep people connected for many years.
Target Audience
Who was Orkut trying to claim as their audience.
They had an idea of who they wanted to use the social networking platform and who could benefit from it. Orkut had an invite only membership list. This invite only status made people feel like they were part of a special community and that they were in some aspects important.
Resources
Orkut had the resources to reach millions of people. It was backed by Google and was one of the largest social networking platforms in Brazil and India. Google has a huge budget to spend on advertising and using social media influencers to spread their message. Since this is the case the question is asked where did Orkut go wrong? One is one particular thing? Did Google not use their resources to the best of their ability? Orkut was early in the social media landscape. Many things have changed about what is expected and known about social networking. Laws have changed and expectations have changed.
Policies
As a way to make sure that a business functions properly they create rules and policies. Orkut was no different. They created policies that they expected users to follow, but people created fake profiles and used it to spread hate. Social media has battled with ways to ensure that people are who they say they are but up to this point there is not real way to make sure a person’s profile is really about the person on the profile. As people learn how to get around the policies it allows people who can hide behind fake accounts to create hate and hurtful comments.
Monitoring
Orkut did not monitor the competition and because of that they fell behind in their goal to stay ahead of their competition. In order to stay ahead of competition a company has to make sure that they are listening and observing not only their competition but also their customer base. Competition was allowing business to create profiles and those businesses were than able to connect with more customers. Orkut did not allow businesses to create profiles so as competition was growing Orkut started losing traction in the race for dominance.
Activity Plan
A good social marketing campaign has a great activity plan. This allows time frames and monitoring included in the long term plan. When are new procedure going to roll out? How are customers and competition going to be monitored? Ideas of how to help a business or social media platform to grow have to be discussed with all people who have a stake in the growth. The plans have to be put into writing and followed. Orkut came about because Google allows workers to spend 20% of their work time on endeavors that the employee wants to create. Did this keep Orkut from becoming important to everyone? Could this side endeavor have been doomed from the beginning?
Orkust is an example of an idea that was brought to market and had great success for a period of time but the competition proved to be to much and Orkut could not keep up.
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