Social Networking
Social networking isn’t a new phenomenon. It wasn’t invented in the twenty-first century. Every Elks Lodge, Lions Club, Chamber of Commerce, Church, Sewing Circle, Book Club, etc. that ever existed afforded an opportunity for networking.
The members of any such group identify with and help other members of their group. They provide information to one another that is mutually beneficial.
They tell each other when something of interest or something of concern in happening that is interest to or a threat to their particular social network and the members collectively pursue the interest or ward off the threat.
These networking groups can be either very close knit or very loosely organized or even have no apparent organizational structure at all. The organization is of a great deal less importance to the members than the benefits that each gains from it.
In today’s Web 2.0 world, social networking and complete anonymity are both possible.
The online dating sites are a very good example of this compatibility. People can register and pay for memberships on online dating sites and conduct an entire relationship for many months without either party knowing the other party’s real name, ISP email address or the name of the city in which they live.
There are Web 2.0 websites that are dedicated to nothing but networking. One of the better known ones among the younger set is MySpace but there are at least a hundred different social networking sites on the internet and probably a lot more that that.
Web 2.0 networking sites are divided in many different ways.
There are sites that are dedicated to specific ethnicities; BlackPlanet.com is for African Americans, Babbello is for Australian teenagers, FaceBox is for European young adults, Gronco.net is for Poland, iWiW is for Hungary, Migente.com is for Latinos, Mixi is for Japan are just a few examples.
These sites are also divided sometimes by interests. For example you can find such social networking sites as CarDomain for car enthusiasts, Flickr for photo sharing, Gaia for gamers, Gopets for virtual pets, Joga Bonita for football or soccer, or Last.fm for music.
These are only a very few example. There are a great many more.
Most sites, however, are not dedicated to a specific group. They are general membership sites and the members themselves divide themselves into appropriate groups according to interests and compatibility.
Almost all of the sites are free to join. There are just a few that have membership fees. The site owners make their money from advertisers rather than from users. A few sites are only open to those who have been invited to join by other members.
Most of these sites provide you with your own blog when you join the site. You can make posts to your blog and you can invite others to post to your blog. The trick here is to also use the social bookmarking sites and upload links to your blog posts into them with the appropriate tags containing key words.
Networking is easy and it is fun. It is a way that you can enhance your online business and have a lot of fun in the process. You can meet some of your very best potential customers on social networking sites. You can make friends and influence people as well.
It has long been a well established fact that more business is actually conducted in social settings than in offices.
More deals are made on golf courses than in board rooms in the real world and more sales are made through the use of networking sites on the Internet than through all of the paid-for advertising combined.
People HATE commercials but they don’t mind hearing their friends recommend a product or service. Not only do they not mind...they even go to a lot of trouble to seek out that information.
In addition to being a great way to advertise a business social networking sites are also a great research tool and one that should never be overlooked. Rather than having to conduct a lot of expensive and time-consuming surveys for example, you can simply look through a networking site and find out exactly what people are thinking about.
You can find out what their problems are and what measures they are taking to solve those problems. You can find out what their interests are and how they go about pursuing those interests.
