subject: Stand Alone Or Integration What Approach Should You Take With Social Networking Software [print this page] Making the decision to add social networking software to your companies business is the first step. The next step is to decide if you are going to integrate the platform into your exsisting website or create a separate site for your new social network.
Here we will take a took at a couple of factors that should help you with your decision on whether to integrate or go with stand alone.
Domain Name How long has your current site been around? A long standing domain name is a very valuable thing. If your website is firmly established and well known integration could be the way to go. However if you are looking to focus on only a small portion of your business with your new community you may want to separate it. When choosing to go the stand alone route domain names also play a very huge part. If you are unable to aquire a name that is going to be recognizable and reflect the nature of your new social network you should probably consider integrating instead.
Site Design - How happy are you with the way your current site looks? If your site is fairly simple in terms of design it would be very easy to inegrate your social networking software and have it look seamless with the rest of your site. If however you have a very complicated design with multiple color pallettes and custom graphics getting your community to look exactly the same could become an issue.
Your social networking software provider will be able to sit down with you and go over many more of the pros and cons of the two options and help you decide which is the right way for you to implement your new online community.
