Before online businesses can begin using social networking effectively, they need to fully understand these services and why they have so much valuable potential.
History of Social Networking Early on in the creation of the Internet, efforts were made to develop software and programs that would allow users to stay closely connected.
Those efforts rarely went anywhere.
In fact, one of the earliest versions of a social network was created by Classmates.
com, a site that is still around and still building its user base.
The concept of the site was to provide a venue in which people who had gone to high school or college together could re-connect virtually or just check in to see what others from their schools were doing now.
Today, Facebook has taken a similar concept, blended it with aspects of MySpace, and created a more popular and more user-friendly version.
Basics of Social Networking While online business professionals want to stay in touch with leads or current customers, most people who use social networking services want something similar.
The whole goal of these sites is to stay connected via communication.
Obviously, the types of communication you use will vary depending on whether you are running a business or chatting about high school couples but the overall purpose of these sites don't change.
To be successful with social networking, however, you have to know how to communicate with people through online means.
For example, even on a social networking site you would never write to another person using all capital letters.