Social Networking is about "building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others." (Wikipedia)
People use social networking to find jobs, source candidates, find lost loves, source materials, promote and sell products and services, and much more … and it’s mostly free!
"Social networking is in its infancy," says David Nour, Relationship Economics CEO and Web 2.0 guru. "We’re on the upward swing of the hype cycle."
Lots of people are discovering the power of social networking and investing their time and energy to make it work for them.
"The real power and promise of social networking is a mass collaboration platform, accelerating one’s ability to get things done," adds Nour. Enlightened individuals are shifting from "not invented here" to "invented everywhere." It gives us the opportunity to extend our reach beyond any geographic, functional roles or even industry sectors to learn and grow from others.
More than a handshake and an introduction, social networking allows us to nurture key relationships by supporting those who sustain us and stay connected with our most trusted relationships — on or off-line.
Three key trends illustrate the bright future of Social Networking: 1) Interoperability, 2) Visual Insight and 3) Enterprise Social Networking.
Interoperability — You may be familiar with these household names: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo and Naymz. What you may not know is that Web sites like TweetDeck.com and Ping.fm will allow the user to update multiple platforms with single inputs. It also permits the user to capitalize on the value of these social networking platforms.
Visual Insight — Next generation Social Networking will present key insights not just in text, but a visually appealing manner; from transactions to transformation; from raw data to visual insights.
Finally, Enterprise Social Networking is being used to bring all the functionalities inside a company to support the key goals and strategic objectives of the organization.
As guru Nour points out, we are only scratching the surface of the power of social networking. Invest in this area; it will be important for us all!
