An introduction to Social Media – Social Networking

Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Bebo, Tagged, XING, Friendster, Mixi… Sounds like a bad day over at Websters Dictionary right? These are Social Networking sites. Social Networking’s definition lays within the very roots of the words that make it up. They are social communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.

Social networks aren’t the only fish in the sea when it comes to social media. You have social bookmarks, social network aggregators, blogs, micro-blogs, wiki’s, social news (which can also be considered social bookmarking), social opinion sites, photo sharing, video sharing, live-casting,  audio and music sharing, product reviews, Q&A or frequently asked questions, product reviews, virtual worlds and game sharing. Some would even contend that MMO’s (massively multiplayer online games) are of the largest social networks.

Sounds like a lot huh? It is, and if you aren’t utilizing at least 80% of them, you are not even in the game. Hell, you haven’t even left the bench yet.

In my future blogs you will see me refer to SMM or SMO, this simply refers to the marketing or optimization of social media. First I’m going to cover the most popular sites in each section that I described above, then, over the nest few weeks, I will be covering how to utilize each of them to the fullest extent in your primary business.

Social Networking – The three major players

FaceBook – I’ll be honest, when I first tried facebook, I HATED it. I was a myspace junkie, so the constricting layout and the million and a half applications in facebook were too much. I have since, come around. Facebook is a social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Incorporated. Users can add friends and send messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region. The website’s name stems from the colloquial name of a book given to incoming students at Zuckerberg’s high school alma mater, Phillips Exeter Academy. The book shows the faces and names of the school’s students and faculty.

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook with fellow computer science major students and his roommates Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes while he was a student at Harvard University. Website membership was initially limited to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It later expanded further to include any university student, then high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. The website currently has more than 250 million active users worldwide.

A January 2009 Compete.com study has ranked Facebook as the most used social network by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace.

Myspace.com – MySpace is a social networking website. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California, USA, where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, Fox Interactive Media, which is owned by News Corporation. MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006. According to comScore, MySpace was overtaken internationally by main competitor Facebook in April 2008, based on monthly unique visitors. MySpace employs 1,000 employees, after laying off 30% of its workforce in June 2009; the company does not disclose revenues or profits separately from News Corporation. The 100 millionth account was created on August 9, 2006, in the Netherlands.

LinkedIn – Personally, I do not have a linked in account. I should, I was even invited, but at the time I was heavily into MySpace so I didn’t feel another social network was needed. I was wrong, too much of a good thing in this case, is never enough. LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003 mainly used for professional networking. As of July 2009^[update], it had more than 43 million registered users, spanning 170 industries. For serious minded business people, you can immediately see the benefit of being a member. The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called Connections. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection.

This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways:

• A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections (termed second-degree connections) and also the connections of second-degree connections (termed third-degree connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone you wish to know through a mutual, trusted contact.
• It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one’s contact network.
• Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
• Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.

The “gated-access approach” (where contact with any professional requires either a preexisting relationship, or the intervention of a contact of theirs) is intended to build trust among the service’s users. LinkedIn participates in EU’s International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles.

In my next Blog, I will cover Social Bookmarking and why it’s so important.

Please Comment below and let us know how effective social networking has been for you and what your favorite sites to use are! Feel free to add your URL’s and profile links, this site is a DO-FOLLOW blog!