The Advent of Social Networking

Social networking has turned out to become the Internet’s most successful agendas. It is powerful as an online organization tool, and perhaps even more useful as a marketing and eCommerce avenue. Business networking is the most lucrative way to take your brand into the global economy. Superior communication technology and Internet services have made globalization a 21st century achievement. Till the net made overseas trade and international communication an affordable possibility, you could not have walked on the same platform as multinational giant brands. Today, with affordable overseas communication and outsourcing becoming parts of commercial trends, online social networking has revealed its true prowess as a communication and business platform.
The advent of socialization over a virtual platform arrived with online chat rooms and forums well before the 21st century. Yahoo chat rooms were amongst the most popular communication platforms for people across continents to interact. But the idea of business networking and socialization for more concrete purposes came into action after 2001. Though seeds of such online social networking were sown in the early era of casual interaction, more refined platforms arrived. Let us study some of these more lucrative online doors to commercial aspirations –

# 1 Facebook
Even before the 2010 movie ‘Social Network’, Facebook had become a worldwide phenomenon. Nearly 700 million people connect over this common platform of communication. Specific communities and pages are available for surfers to choose their fortes of interest. However, the magic of this website is the growth. In just 3 years from 2005 - 2008, it grew by 125%. In the next two years, it was the most popular website on the planet, visited even more than Google! People had found a common interaction podium with opportunities of online business like PPC management and business networking!

# 2 YouTube

If you use the Internet, you have heard some names like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and not to forget YouTube. This was the first live video streaming channel. People use it for various purposes; from video blogging, to online advertising like on television. With over 200 million registered users and more than twice the number of casual visitors daily; YouTube has a more long drawn and steady success story than Facebook. Its humble beginnings were a part of managing a video blogging platform for people to share everything from home videos to music clips. Today, it is a mega .com brand in itself.

# 3 Twitter

Social networking can’t get any faster! 140 characters (a mobile SMS contains at least 700) of powerful interaction. It arrived in 2006 as a part of micro-blogging sites that were trending then. Today the buzz about Twitter itself is phenomenal. Over 400 million individuals regularly use this hyper – communication medium to discuss the hottest topics online. Marketers use this facility to advertise and create hypes about any product or services in the correctly targeted niche audience circles.

# 4 LinkedIn
Of all the websites offering business networking, LinkedIn is the most profession oriented platform. Nearly 200 million professionals have a personal profile of their resume, work status, and educational background. It offers both a basic and a premium service. You could do everything from casual interaction to job hunting and resume hunting over LinkedIn. HR executives use it as a background and reference check, and marketers use it as a commercial online social networking platform that delivers!