India is more or less still stuck in 'e-commerce era' and ebay and amazon are still the latest thing is college and school case studies. Time to move over. Web 2.0 and social networks have revolutionised the business world in a way that might even overshadow the ebay-amazon success stories in just a couple of years. Most companies around the world still block out social networking sites like facebook, orkut, etc from their networks. Proffessors scoff at information from wikipedia and delicious.
Time for a paradigm shift. Social networks are helping businesses and marketing professionals create leads and land business deals within no time. Using sites like facebook, orkut ( linkedin, spock, etc are more dedicated business tools) can help in searching out and creating valuable contacts for your business. Here's an excerpt from a proponent of social networks for business:
“….I just came back from an event. t the event, I know certain people from my Facebook Friends list were going to be there, so I made an effort to meet them personally! Now my Facebook friends jsut became my real friends, who happen to be in the same industry as me. Fromt that event, I met over a dozen facebook friends who we are now doing projects together. I met people there, then looked them up on Facebook and now they are my friends and some I met there that I didn’t realizer were friends of mine on facebook and now we chat all the time!
I’ve made a sales of products and business opportunity members all because of social marketing….
Part 2 to this story is, When I came back from the event, I posted many pictures from the event, I tagged all my Facebook Friends and people on Facebook were seeing my picture all over Facebook and I didn;t spend a dime to get that exposure! I had a lady contact me and say, “Wow, You are everywhere!!! I want to work with you!” Attraction Marketing at its best….You got to love it…”
Wiki’s and youtube can used to upload material on creating awareness about your product line, product announcements/ demonstrations, briefings, etc. Afterall, our main aim is to increase our visibility. Especially, in a globalised environment such tools help small business and entrepreneurs create seamless and powerful business networks.
Some other uses can be :
· Social networking solves business problems like expertise location and mobilizing groups;
· You get access to many people in volume;
· You can keep track of colleagues;
· Social networking tools can be ad hoc meeting places for far flung workers.
So it’s time that companies wake up to this new world of business networking online.
