The Commerce Times

The ABCs of Social Networking

With Web 2.0 in full effect, social networking is now the norm. Learning to grasp the intricacies of each major online social networking tool will ensure that you don’t fall behind in today’s ultra-competitive business climate.

Facebook
By now, everybody and their mother is on Facebook. The technology that started as a simple way for Harvard students to communicate with each other has grown into one of the most prominent online social networks.

If you are looking to grow your brand or business online, consider building a Facebook fan page (as opposed to a group). Any updates to your fan page are communicated on the news feeds of fans.

Twitter

Finally gaining traction in Canada after being popular in the United States, Twitter is essentially a “blog in 140 characters”. This was done to accommodate updates through SMS text messages on cell phones. Twitter has exploded in popularity thanks in part to how easy it is to update a Twitter feed and reply to followers.

Companies such as Future Shop have used Twitter to attract followers to time-sensitive promotions. Marketers are able to easily and directly target interested customers, efficiently and cost effectively.

LinkedIn

Every student in the Ted Rogers School of Management should probably consider getting a LinkedIn account. This networking tool for professionally-orientated individuals focuses not only on the quantity of your connections, but also considers the quality of them as well.

It’s safe to assume that most bosses are going to be more impressed with a good network on LinkedIn than with thousands of friends on Facebook.

Buzz

It’s still too early to make a clear judgment on the success of Google’s version of Facebook and Twitter.

The combination of elements of other popular Web 2.0 technologies such as Gmail, Picasa, Flickr, Youtube, Blogger and Twitter and the rest of Google’s arsenal of popular apps, might mean that Buzz will fare well.

Buzz has the capability to filter and manage useful knowledge, and if Google gets all the kinks ironed out, Facebook might finally have worthy challenger to the online social networking throne.