For many over forty years old, when you ask what they know about “Social Networking” they will say it is either a kid’s social toy for communicating with their friends or an online dating site. Those who have teenage kids will mention sites like FaceBook or MySpace, but they know little else of what is going on.
Social Networking is quickly evolving into the next great paradigm shift in how we will communicate with friends, relatives, co-workers and customers. Any entreprenuer/small business owner needs to begin the process to understand the technology, establish themselves with a onlene presence and begin to build a network.
What is a Social Network
If you look up the term “social network” in Wikipedia it will tell you:
A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friendship, kinship, dislike, conflict or trade. The resulting graph-based structures are often very complex.
Do not be confused by the word social to mean that it is all about fun. Social Networking can be a very powerful tool to expand and market your business, find employees, establish industry related contacts as well as share common problems and solutions with others in your market community.
Which Social Network To Join
New social networks are popping up almost daily as they become more and more specialized. You can find networks for the banking industry, entertainment industry, sales/marketing and the list could go on.
First, as a business professional I would suggest you register and join LinkedIn. It is by far the most popular business driven social network. It takes just a few minutes to set up and you can begin reaching out and “Linking” to exisiting contacts, old and new associates, college friends and customers. You can put as little or as much as you want as part of your profile and how you want to position and/or market yourself.
Twitter is another network that can be used to promote your business, your blog, connect with friends and family or just put in your 2 cents on a subject. You are limited to 140 characters for each posting so they are short and sweet and can be linked to SMS on your phone. I have colleagues who create a “closed following” of work associates to update schedules, deal with support issues and pass along time sensitive information.
I would also suggest that you consider joining a social network for personal use. This is going to be the way that family and friends communicate in the future and it will evolved dramatically over the next few years. My kids thought it was hysterical when they found that I was on FaceBook. Now, my kids are 23, 21 and 18 so my motivation was to communicate with them as they are living all over the country and a majority of our interaction is now by email, AIM, SMS “texting”, and video calls on Skype. You have to be invited to see some one’s page or communicate with them. So what you write is not out to the public unless you choose it to be. Funny thing is that I keep getting “Friended or Faced”…invited by all of their young adult friends, who see this as their way to say hi and stay connected to their hometown and community.
A personal social networking page enables you to update friends and family with pictures of vacations, changes in your life as well and can become a personal history over time. This is hard for many as they see it as an invasion of privacy, but the younger generation sees this as part of their normal social interaction. These same young adults will soon be your employees and customers… if they are not already. You can find many different networks like FaceBook, MySpace (which can also be an effective tool to market you or your business), Plaxo and many more.
The real key here is to be aware of this developing technology as it will continue to evolve and be part of everyday society very quickly. Learn to leverage these networks to impact your career, your business, your industry as well as communication with family and friends.
The first thing I do when someone registers to become part of the New Entrepreneur Essentials Community is I invite them to “Connect” with me on LinkedIn. I hope to see you there soon.
Bill Sifflard - With over thirty years experience as an entrepreneur, an executive, an author and as a business consultant, Bill Sifflard has a long history of experience bringing innovation, efficiency and success to large and small businesses adapting to evolving markets.
As a premiere Sales and Marketing Innovator, Bill is changing how business integrates traditional marketing strategy with the power and potential of the internet utilizing his "Velocity for Success" matrix.
To learn more about Bill and Bssential Small Business Solutions you can visit http://www.bssentials.com and register for his Free eNewsletter or follow all of his blog posts by clicking on the RSS feed button above. 
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