Thursday, February 14, 2008

Throughout the history and development of the Internet, social networking has inherently played a key role due to vast telecommunication possibilities. We started with chat rooms, forums, and eventually developed networks like Friendster and Myspace, resulting in an explosion virtual connectivity All of these networks were simply designed to connect people without the issue of distance. Well, at some point people started to realize that networking is also a valuable tool in another major aspect of life, business. Networking is a powerful business tool practiced by politicians, businessmen, and entrepreneurs since the establishment of human commerce. Today it has become so imperative that many businesses pay big money to attend industry specific networking events. Everyone knows the old saying, “its not what you know, its who you know,” and it could not be more true. With the creation of business and professional networking sites, now businesses can legitimately network throughout the web, gaining leads, partners, advice, and an abundance of other useful ventures.

LinkedIn, Fastpitch, Ryze, and Tribe are all social networking sites specifically designed for the professional world and might quite possibly become the most valuable business resources on the net. The set up is simple. By signing up, putting together a basic profile and connecting up with a few friends, you are already well on your way, and networking sites like these make it easy. The setup for each network is relatively the same, but each network has its own advantages and disadvantages, and some are more relevant for specific industries. LinkedIn has begun to rise to the top because of its simple methods of increasing and maintaining your social network. With an easy upload from your existing email or IM contacts, LinkedIn can show you which people you already know on the network, and once you have even a few friends, the network can expand quickly through the friends of your friends. Not only that, but you can easily search for users with names or even keywords.

Once you have established a profile, business networks can be used to post jobs, search for jobs, find services, make partnerships, negotiate sales, consider new ventures, and so much more. It is not at all uncommon for businesses to hold meetings or discuss propositions from the introductions made on a social networking site. Like Internet dating, social networking makes it possible for people to meet that might never have crossed paths in the real world, which greatly expands the limits of possibilities.

The best thing about social networking right now is that most of it is free! What some pay thousands in order to join networking events or groups, they can do for free with the help of online social networks. This will probably change in the future, so now is a great time to get involved and build a network.


About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. He has a Bachelor's degree in radio, television and film and extensive experience in social media marketing. Mr. Hamilton also heads up the ArteWorks SEO educational video series on topics related to Internet marketing and search engine optimization. If you would like to view the free educational SEO video series, please visit www.arteworks.biz.