How Business is Using Social Networking
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HOW BUSINESSES ARE BENEFITING FROM SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
Businesses, both large and small, are undoubtedly benefiting significantly from consumers shift to new media outlets such as social networking sites to consume information. Initially, businesses emerged on the internet with traditional individual company websites. However, as new media has evolved, so has the way companies market via new media. Nowadays, many companies, both large and small have begun focusing their efforts on collaborative websites including but not limited to social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace, blogs, forums, and even YouTube. (Source: Lawrence, R., Melville, P., Perlich, C., Sindhwani, V., Meliksetian, S., Hsueh, P., & Liu, Y.. (2010). SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS. OR-MS Today, 37(1), 26. Retrieved April 9, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1974884041). Simply put, it was best stated in the article “Social Media: Investing in What Works” by Lin Grensing-Pophal: “Today, it seems that if your company is not using social media, you're at risk of falling woefully behind the competition and missing out on significant opportunities to engage thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of rabid consumers who are just waiting to hear what you have to say” (Source: Grensing-Pophal, L.. (2009, November). Social Media: Investing in What Works. Information Today, 26(10), 1,42. Retrieved April 9, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1900859141). For example, Chrysler, the major US car company, recently signed a deal with “New Media Strategies (NMS), the pioneer in the online intelligence and social media engagement industries for over ten years,” making NMS Chrysler’s “social media marketing agency of record.” More than ever, companies are turning to new media marketing efforts and benefitting from the popularity of new media among consumers by saving money on advertising and marketing while still being able to reach a large audience. As such, with the current recession and our economic slump—it is no surprise that new media marketing has come as the savior for many businesses’ marketing efforts. At stated in an article entitled “Tweet Deals” by Rachel M Zahorsky from ABA journal, “Companies are realizing they don't have $2 million to spend on an advertising campaign…but they do have $50,000 to spend on an Internet sweepstakes, which they can highly promote through various channels and advertising networks.” Moreover, there are other social media platforms and methods of marketing which can be just as effective and cheaper or even free. For example, many smaller and local businesses are beginning to create Facebook pages and groups, making events about their grand opening or a special sale or promotion and allowing it to spread freely and virally—essentially tapping into the highly effective “word of mouth” marketing method via the internet. All in all, from a business’ perspective, new media advertising and marketing is a win-win situation. Businesses get to access and reach out to numerous individuals they may not have access to otherwise while simultaneously saving tremendous amounts of money on advertising campaigns.
As businesses have shifted from their individual company websites to collaborative sites, society at large has benefitted as well. As consumers, we are spending more time on the internet and as a result, “to understand various aspects of consumer behavior in a contemporary society, marketing researchers have to focus on web as a social forum.” With more market researchers focusing on Webnography or web-ethnography, a term coined to express “attempt[s] to utilize information generated in natural context on the internet,” 7 companies have put more control in the hands of the masses or consumers and society at large. (source: Tyagi, P.. (2010). Webnography: A New Tool to Conduct Marketing Research. Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge, 15(2), 262-267. Retrieved April 9, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1917207331) As such, it’s a win-win situation for both consumers and businesses. While consumers get their voices heard through blogs, forums, and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter—businesses get to tap into the wants and needs of consumers. Essentially, bridging the gap between consumers and businesses and allowing businesses to offer a better product / service for the consumer. At the same time, since many businesses are saving money on their marketing campaigns, they are often able to offer freebies and giveaways as part of or in addition to their marketing efforts. The “Big Prize Giveaway” application on Facebook is a prime example of how consumers may benefit. Basically, the application allows individuals to enter in a drawing for free prizes such as iphones, laptops, and gift cards that companies have paid for or provided in exchange for product placement, custom promotion (such as users having to become their fan to enter the giveaway drawing), and traditional sponsorships and advertisements.
SOCIAL NETWORKING AND BUSINESS CONNECTION
By Jesus Guilbe Jr.
Social Networking Sites (SNS) today is one of the ways for people to stay connected with other people. However, SNS are not only for the people using it but also utilized by businesses for their benefits. A business can use a SNS in order to recruit or lure new employees into their own companies. A simple email or notification is enough to contact the potential recruit, and set an appointment with them. Simultaneously, the recruits are conveniently given the opportunity to look for a job without strenuous days of job-hunting on the streets. With a simple click of a button, their resumes are posted on a social networking site that helps market the individual. Examples of sites that companies utilize are LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter among many others. Companies look for a potential employee by searching on the key skills that are required for the available positions. Everyone with the required skill set will then appear in a list form. From there, employers are able to choose and contact the most appropriate candidate. This helps businesses hire the right people more efficiently than they usually would in the traditional way as discussed in an article written by Frank Langfitt Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting. One example of a company that uses social networking is IBM. IBM uses it to connect other groups together and put their ideas via collaboration on the web in order to make advertisements more effective. This is explained in another article What's Next? Your Future in Social Networking. Businesses today are using social networking for many different reasons than we would normally use it as individuals.
By Sangita Tamang
Beside that social networking is also useful for business because through SNS businesses can create global collaboration, which help them to discuss any problem or concern virtually and make the best business decision. This is a much better, efficient and effective way for business to make business decisions rather than physically call everyone in a conference room on a specific day at a specific time. A business can keep their employees up to date through social network. For example when a company wants to introduce new products, they can first demo the product in a virtual world and ask for feedback from people through social networks sites. The most success come, when business are able to communicate and get feedback from its customers in each and every step of its product development for the new experiencing products. This can help businesses reduce cost in product development as opposed to experiencing the actual new products market in the real world.
By Nichel Bethea
Businesses today are competing in the internet social networking circuit for a chance to make money with sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Billions of dollars are being spent by online companies such as Yahoo and Google to make money from these SNS. With all this commotion, it’s no wonder that with the passing of each day, more and more businesses are looking to make money online. Just take a look that this recent WSJ article by Emily Steel, Marketers Watch as Friends Interact Online. Doing business on the web is inexpensive, easy, and accessible to billions of potential customers. Businesses are paying these social network sites to advertise and search for new clients for their products through customized search engines, browsing history, conversation history, viral marketing and other means.
There are many social networking sites: LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and YouTube. And so there are several ways we can utilize these social networking sites, especially in the professional businesses environment. Some of the ways to use social networking is to connect management personnel to ordinary members in an organization for better and clear communication. For example, if customer satisfaction is low, perhaps it is the result of reduced business focus on relationships with customer. Perhaps, customer satisfaction is low due to high demands by company from it's employee to increase dollar amount business from a customer rather than establish professional business connections with these customers. In these situations a company can use online social networks to allow a prospective customer or prospective member to easily facilitate a real, human-level connection with individuals within an organization. Social networking can be used to provide support to the customers, gain feedback and make additional sales. For example, online networks allow customers to connect with experts in an organization who have deep knowledge in a particular area. Clearly, this will help an organization greatly reduce the time required for problem solving by allowing faster connection between a questioner (a customer or employee) and the answerer (an expert) who has solved similar problems in the past or is knowledgeable in the particular matter.
Just a few years ago, it was rare to see a single organization providing all the pieces needed to meet a customer's need. For example, even though a real estate agent aids in the process of buying a home, an entire network of other service providers, such as title company, bank, insurance agents, contractors, and others, is required in order to fully meet the needs of completing a transaction. By creating a strong network of complementary providers with similar philosophies and business practices, a single service provider can provide a much greater proposition to a prospective customer. In other words, the connections in an online social network facilitate creating the actual flow of information for an organization. Explicitly creating a social network within the organization can help all members better understand how information gets shared and highlights the areas within the organization that are truly responsible for effecting change, turning the company directory into a living, breathing knowledge network, and meeting customer’s entire needs. By connecting a social network with basic technologies such as RSS, or "Really Simple Syndication" an individual can easily get information from customers and colleagues on a regular basis. This enables a straightforward way to stay connected with the projects of interest, as well as a way to share knowledge within an organization without additional efforts. Although online social networks are relatively new to business, the MySpace and Facebook generation has grown up with them. By the time these individuals enter the workforce, online social networking will simply be a part of the foundation of business. The organizations that have determined how to best integrate them into their operations, will be the ones most successful.
However, online social networking has some negative implications also. For example, employees can end up spending time updating their profiles and adding new friends during office hours. A study showed that employees spend at least 30 minutes a day visiting their social networking sites. In some cases, employees admitted spending up to three hours of their working day taking care of their online profile. More seriously, the threat of social networking is that risk of data or identity theft, and the risk of malicious material finding its way into the corporate network.
While the present generation of young people are growing up with Myspace, Facebook, and all other SNS, the future of maintaining the sanctity of social networking will be one of the greatest assets for many companies presently utilizing these online networking sites. As younger generation joins the workforce, they will utilize social networking to perform work easily by providing quality service for their employers. As time passes, social networking demand are increasing drastically in, not just all sectors of the economy but also our lives. For example, current tech-savvy President Obama uses SNS to keep in touch with ordinary citizens. He even utilized SNS actively during his campaign. This is one clear indication that the popularity of social networking will go nowhere but up and up.
[Ways Business Can Use Social Networking]
== INTERACTION BETWEEN BUSINESSES AND SOCIAL NETWORKING==
By Derek Preston
SNS hold great potential and are becoming targets of many businesses. The value of social networking sites is sometimes underestimated by some businesses, even though the power of viral marketing has proved to be substantial. As the popularity of SNS grows, we can see a trend emerging. Many businesses today are trying to influence the members of networking communities by offering unique services or products. The use of online social networking sites is becoming one of the most valuable tools that the internet provides for many businesses.
For one, it is much easier to influence groups of social networking members while being a “part” of that particular group. Companies are currently hiring “community managers”. These employees have multiple responsibilities which include being a liaison between the business and the members of the community, promoting and spreading the word about their products through many community based sites. Not only do businesses tap into the broad resources that social networking provides through these means, but also many social networking sites are sponsored by certain businesses. When it comes to the interaction between businesses, we are able to distinguish between two major types of influences that businesses have on social networking communities, namely: Push and Pull
Many businesses will look to social media in order to reach a new public or maintain that public awareness. Many food vendors have even used Twitter to keep customers updated and aware of their food. Big companies looking to gain a popular awareness for a new site they are planning to launch will also turn to social media, mainly Facebook, as a means to attracting a large amount of viewers. Social networks are inexpensive and are a great access to reach a variety of people. Many businesses have analysis system that go over millions of user profiles on Facebook to find theri potential customers. If a company is unable to reach the type of audience it wants through starting a Facebook page, they can always promote it through Facebook ads, which can be targeted towards a specific population of Facebook users. Facebook is a popular place for this because companies are given that ability to select and choose who they specifically want to advertise to. Talk about selective advertising!!!
== TYPES OF SOCIAL NETWORKING USED IN BUSINESS ==
LinkedIn by Diana Dover
LinkedIn is a social networking site that represents professionals in over 170 industries and 200 countries. The company started out in the living room of co-founder Reid Hoffman in the fall of 2002. The five original founders were Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Jean-Luc Vaillant, Eric Ly, and Konstantin Guericke.
There are currently over 40 million users worldwide. Members can use their profiles to add others to their networks for the purposes of collaborating on projects, sharing data or seeking professional advice. LinkedIn also serves the purpose as a employment finder. Members can find and be introduced to potential employees and/or employers by doing a search. Profiles vary in distance by degrees. A lower degree level (1st degree) indicates a closer professional relationship in relation to that of another professional that is on the 4th degree. Business today also use LinkedIn to arrange in-person meeting. Members of the meeting are introduced to each other before the meeting by the LinkedIn profiles. This is extremely helpful when you know a brief history of the representative from other company that you will be negotiate with. So, you can strategized the negotiation that is designed for the particular representative.
LinkedIn is free to join and there are premium accounts offered that provide more options to maximize professional networking.
This is an example of a Diana Dover's LinkedIn profile
Here is a video about how LinkedIn works
Ryze by Vincent Yiu
Ryze is free to join. Upon becoming a member you are able to meet new people, establish new business opportunities, find jobs, and even makes sales. The site also emphasizes that everything isn't always about business. Ryze promotes a casual atmosphere where friends can just be friends and it enables members to keep in touch as such. Members can also create their own homepages, join and create communities, and message other members as they please. Ryze also has a paid subscription that enables advanced features. Ryze currently has over 500,000 members in more than 200 countries.
Facebook by Damon Tian
MySpace by Damon Tian
APSense by Vincent Yiu
APSense is an all-encompassing network where blogs, discussions boards, product and service listings, private social networks, in addition to many other things can be created. One of its most highly-touted features is that members get paid for their contributions which generates an enticing incentive for users to contribute content. APSense is a great place to start a business, to get advice, and make money all at the same time.
Ecademy by Amy Chen
Ecademy is a social network for business people that were founded in 1998. It is unique in that business people can connect online on the website and also offline at networking events and 1-2-1 meetings. They provide the networking tools for business people to find alliances, advice, mentors, new contacts, and find jobs. One important function is that the blogs, articles and profiles that are posted on the site appear high up on the search engines like on Google, which gives a boost to people and businesses that want to move up their profile on the internet. Ecademy was one of the first business social networks to have online clubs for people to join so that they have support from people that share similar things like them and to have blogs back in 2002. They have a marketplace where businesses can advertise/sell their services. They have many features like clubs, meetings, blogs, marketplace, and videos to watch.
Model Mayhem by Julia Lomtevas
Model Mayhem is a free site where professional models can meet professional photographers. Members create online portfolios, connect within the model/photographer community and are able to develop their portfolios together, since the two professionals are dependent upon one another. Friends and users are able to make comments, referrals, and bookings. It is a great way to meet professionals in the field and have influential, and potentially helpful feedback from other users. There are also many forums on the site with extremely helpful information.
Disadvantages of the Social Networking Era
We all know that social networking can benefit businesses and marketing efforts in countless ways. However, what we often overlook are the the negative consequences of social network platforms. Social networking sites' uncensored, unedited, and unrestricted platform on the internet basically opens pandora's box to all that may go awry.
One major downfall of the internet’s unrestricted platform is the excess of information that is inaccurate, biased, or even extremist propaganda. For example, recently, there has been controversy over a woman who is known as “JihadJane,” better known as Colleen LaRose, a 46 year old suburban Caucasian woman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who was recently charged with plotting to kill a Swedish cartoonist who offended Muslims with his drawings. However, LaRose is not the only one of her kind and how she and many other American citizens came to associate with and aid in terrorist acts and plots can be attributed to the new marketing efforts by al-Qaida: social networks and the internet. In an article entitled “’JihadJane’ isn’t the only one logging in” by Brian James Kirk from the Metro newspaper on March 17, 2010, Kirk stated that “Social networks have been a larger focus of al-Qaida, according to Jarret Brachman, who consults with US Law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies about al-Qaida’s online media strategy.” As Brachman states: “There’s a large, teeming mass of Internet jihadists to pass on al-Qaida videos and radicalize people and fan the flames of jihadism on YouTube” when “You get dumber people who are getting more empowered,” referring to these individuals such as LaRose as “jihobbyists.” 8 Basically, the internet has allowed al-Qaida to promote and market their ideology to countless individuals through propaganda dispersed through grassroots efforts on public social media platforms such as YouTube and hi5 which would not be possible through the censored and filtered means of traditional media. (Source: Kirk, Brian James. "'JihadJane' isn't the only one logging in." Metro 03 Mar 2010: 9. Print.)
By Jennifer Chan
The fact that potential employers are looking at social networking sites, beside professional ones (where you actually want the employer to look at) like LinkedIn may be quite disconcerting. Employers are looking at various social networking sites which individuals use for personal and leisure use like Facebook. They do this to get a better understanding of a potential employee's personality, to see if it fits into the model they have in their company Link. Employers can even discriminate and retract a job offer with SNS like Facebook, for instance, "if your applicant announced on Facebook that she was pregnant", they can move on to another candidate that is more fit.
At times people do not realize that what they post to such sites like Facebook and MySpace can work against them when applying for jobs. Many people display extremely personal and compromising information on their social networking profiles, not realizing that a potential employer is scoping them out. This can be disadvantageous because people do not have the freedom to post what they want without having to worry about which influential person will be there to look at it. For example, its very common that employess complaint about their employers with friends. It will be just fine in the real life. But, if the same act happened on social networking site like Facebook's status update, it is very likely that the employers will see it one day, it might lead to a lost of job. This is extremely common today, and people need to be more aware and conscious of these little details that can impact their careers.
By Dipen Patel
A lot of employees uses social networking for personal use while they are at work. They use company's computer and time to access their personal social networking sites. It is reported that many Britain employees used Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites during working hours.The survey showed that employees who keen on Internet caused an annual loss of 1.38 billion pounds.
Morse which is the consultancy firm surveyed 1460 office workers and found that more than half of the respondents use Twitter and Facebook during working hours.It is a waste of average 40 minutes per week on working time.
Morse consultant Philip Wicks said that if the proper use of social networking sites, you can play a positive effect on the professional, but companies must understand that it is not really what happened. 1 / 3 of respondents said that they have seen sensitive information of the corporate on social networking sites; 3 / 4 of respondents said that employers didn’t require them how to use social networking sites; 84% of people believe that whether they use social networking sites appropriately should be considered for the content of the post. Human resources experts said that with the younger generation entering the labor market, British companies must inevitably let employees use social networking sites.
Cellular Social Networking
by Derek Preston
The social networking influence is so majestic that it also influenced the mobile market. But when it comes to the mobile industry, the mobile social net workers are in search of information regarding their own, as well their friends location. One of the Businesses that provides social networking positioning services is GYPSii which is the provider of the “SpaceMe” services, which provide the users with the information regarding the location of an individual’s friends in real time.[1] Other companies that do plan to enter the cellular social networking scene , one of which is MyGamma a social network run by BuzzCity, based in Singapore, and it does offer its services to 2.5 million users mainly from the developing regions, such as : Asia, and Africa. The main reason why the mobile social networking scene is much more intense in those regions is because those regions do have a very low number of internet users, and a greater number of cell phone users. Whereas the cell phones did become an extension of online networking in the U.S. and not the primary means of such communication, cell phone social networking is one of the most prevalent means of networking in Asia. Another instance of a social networking attempt is ItsMy run by GoFresh (Munich based), and it has more than a million of registered users.
The invention of cell phone and internet or the combination of the two brought a significant change in human social networking and the business world. With the daily advancing internet integrated smart phone, we are now living in an era that the physical positions of human bodies don’t matter. People can be reach anywhere anytime in seconds within the network coverage. And we are now able to work remotely; corporate on projects without considering the geographical location. Today, many smart phones are preinstall with varies of business applications that allow users work on their jobs on their commute; every second is effective use. For example, there are apps for banking on smartphone. This enable business managers and individuals to manage bank accounts and transfer funds without travel to the bank or at the office and at home with a computer. Instead, this can be done right away when need. So what does time efficiency contribute the economic? As we all know, in the business world, seconds of delay may cause huge loss. When the flow of money are active and fast enogh, no doubt, our economy will growth at the same rate. For sure, advance social networking technologies increase the efficiency of work and communication. According to the research, there is a strong positive correlation between mobile phone user, employment opportunities, and economic growth.
Merchant Circle: B2B Networking
by Diana Dover
MerchantCircle.com is a site that offers free advertising to businesses as well as an opportunity to link with other businesses. As a business owner, you have control of how you represent your company in terms of content, pictures, slogans, etc. Meta tags usage is offered at no charge so that individuals surfing the web can identify with your product or service instantly. There is also room to purchase options that will enhance your visibility to the user by utilizing search marketing. It is a great tool to connect with other business owners since it is no longer a cold call when you contact the business.
Facebook is one of the most “social” of all Social Networking sites. Many people go to Facebook to connect to family and friends and people they have not seen in a long time. There are games to play, silly gifts to give and all kinds of other “Fun” things to do. However, there are many ways that Facebook can be used to promote your business as well. First, although Facebook has the option of creating a business account, it is better for you to set up a Personal Profile for yourself that will be solely used for the purpose of promoting your business. The reason for this is that a Business account on Facebook is limited in functionality.
Twitter
by Khalifa Campbell
Twitter is a relatively new tool. It is a mini blog. It has a lot of great features that can be used in business. The greatest thing about twitter is it connects people in real time. Twitter allows users to communicate messages up to 140 characters. The messages users send out are public, users can also use twitter via a computer or the cellular phones. Twitter is a quick and convenient way to communicate. It allows tons of people to follow you. This is useful in communication because you can keep thousands of people up to date with your business.
Twitter helps businesses connect to the public. It is a great way to start relationships and keep public informed. Twitter allows users to send; share and receive a tremendous amount of information in real time. It’s a great way to keep in touch with what is going on in your industry. Twitter is a way to enhance business relationships. Communication is critical to building strong relationships and twitter provides a great way to do so.
Twitter has several great features that are ideal when communicating with customers. Replies let you see what followers are saying in response to what you have tweeted. Which allows businesses to engage in conversation with customers. Retweet allows followers to retweet what an organization has tweeted. Which shares the information with other who may not be following an organization. Hashtag is a way to categorize an organization tweets and allow people to see all tweets related to a certain topic. Twitter allows business to engage with customers like never before and it is a free and efficient service.
External Links
http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites
References
- ↑ ""Social Networking Moves to the Cellphone" article by Victoria Shannon" http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E1DE143BF935A35750C0A96E9C8B63&scp=4&sq=%22myspace%22+%2B+%22contract%22&st=nyt
Baruch Wiki How the New Media are Used in Business
Social Networking Moves To The CellPhone by Victoria Shannon
Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt
Ways Businesses Can Use Social Networking by Christopher Carfi
Employees Obsession With Social Networking Sites Lead To Business Losses
