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Archive for the ‘Networking’ Category

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Networking is a powerful business and life tool, used in an appropriate and consistent manner it really can bring you anything you want in your business and life.

Here is a profile of the six most common networking personalities in business today. Take a look and see what your networking personality is, what is says about you and your business.

The Socialite

Socialites often make great networkers, they love to attend events, meetings and will always say yes to meeting up for coffee, lunch or dinner. They can be relied upon to ‘lighten’ up any event, they are involved and involving. Generally speaking these are the people that will seek out the person standing at an event on their own and include them in their conversations. Event organisers love these people, they are the ones that will forward on information to their ‘circle’ and invite colleagues and friends to join them.

Socialites are great connectors and generally will be able to put you in touch with the right people to help you get what you want. Be warned though if you are a ’socialite’ you do run the danger of spending too much time socialising and connecting people that you leave little time for yourself to do the things you must do, often resulting in time pressure and unfinished business. You run the risk of being relied upon a little too much and find yourself wondering why you do for everyone else but rarely for yourself. The key to being successful if you are a socialite is to maintain a balanced schedule between socialising and business, time must become your friend not your enemy.

The Serial

The serial networker is always busy and has plenty of business-coming their way, they are often known to rush around from one network to the next collecting business cards and making quick ‘friends’. These are the people that rarely give you a chance to talk or catch your breath before they have you involved in their business, projects or connecting with some random stranger that unbelievably will bring business to your front door. They are a whirlwind of information and have a database that reads like a business who’s who directory. They are often involved in projects and will give freely their time and resources, as long as it fits in with their schedule and needs.

There is a danger with this type of networker and for those that don’t necessarily like attending events meeting the ’serial’ is their worst nightmare. The serial can appear overbearing, pushy and out for themselves while this may not be the case unfortunately that is how networkers like the Socialite and the Occasional will perceive them. A word of caution for the Serial networker – slow down and remember not everyone is on board as quick as you, some networkers have a need to slowly build relationships and paramount in networking is to slowly build that relationship into one of trust.

The Initiator

The initiator is the type of networker that you meet who is not only well connected to others, but has strong relationships and will only connect you with people for a common purpose that will benefit both parties. This is often the person you meet at a function, on a bus, through a friend or business interaction that sees opportunity and will follow up with you. They will call and arrange a time to meet and discuss opportunities and get things going. Before you know it these are the type of people that will help you get what you want, because of their ability to cut through the red tape, clear the clutter of thinking too much and ability to take action they initiate change, action and results.

The initiator is extremely resourceful and if they don’t know something or someone they will know someone who does. The initiator is often a very busy person, take care to not waste their time if they have a challenge or frustration it is working with people who do not follow through on what they say. This can make them extremely cautious in working with you or assisting you again. Initiators are the real money people, they know where the customers are and how to service them, a lot can be learnt from this type of networker. They can be great advocates and are good relationship managers. They often operate with a ‘what you see is what you get’ attitude, however, be prepared they will pull no punches if they think you are wasting their time.

The Occasional

The occasional unfortunately is the most common type of networker that exists they occasionally attend events, they occasionally follow up, they occasionally seek to meet new contacts, they occasionally connect other people. Pretty much they network occasionally because they need to, either business is slow or they feel a need to seek opinion, ideas, social interaction or business from others. These are the people that think ‘I really should do more networking’ and don’t because they let other things get in the way and don’t truly understand the real value networking can bring.

Typically they will go to an event, meet new people, exchange business cards and not follow up.. sorry occasionally they will send a ‘nice to meet you’ email but not much more will happen after that. They rarely get business from networking so categorise it as a nicety rather than a must-do or an integrated part of their overall marketing plans. Be cautious if you fall into this category, it can be difficult to re-connect with those that you have not maintained a connection or a relationship with.

The Balanced

The balanced is the type of networker that seems to do things easily and effortlessly, they are consistent with their actions, follow up when they meet people, see opportunities when they are presented, connect people and give without expectation. Achieving all of this while running successful and growing businesses, they understand the true value of what networking means to their business and integrates it into their daily, weekly, and monthly activities.

They never forget a name or where they met you and connect with people anywhere an opportunity presents itself, at the hairdresser, on a bus, in an airport, at a function, at a party. Importantly they plan their networking activities, they know each day who they will call, each week what events they will attend and who they will follow up with and who they can connect.

The Inactive

You know who you are and what you should be doing! These are the people that in the past have thought ‘I really should’ but just don’t. They often think networking is a waste of time, or they are fearful people will reject them or they are just way too busy to network. To move out of this category all you need to do is one thing… NETWORK!!! it won’t kill you, in fact you never know what it might bring!

A Brief Look into the World of Social Networking

Undeniably, social networking has been one of the biggest internet fads to date, having millions of people subscribe and visit the countless social networking sites everyday. With the popularity of social networking these days, someone who isn’t taking part of all these can’t help but wonder if there are any real benefits to it all – whether if you’re personally using it or your company is using it. A lot of social networking members will claim that there are heaps of benefits to these kinds of sites so let’s take a look at some of them:

1. Building a “social network”

When you’re a member of social bookmarking sites, you get to meet friends the world over. You aren’t restricted to your own local community when it comes to meeting new people, unless of course, the social network that you belong to is restricted to your locality alone. These people can become mere acquaintances, friends or even business partners. Relationships in social networks tend to be flexible. Your social network can also be “specialized” depending on what you need a social network for.

2. Social networking sites have different categories

As stated in the first point, you can choose which social network you want to subscribe to depending on how you want to use it. There are different kinds of social networking sites:

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Conventional and generic networks

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News networks

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Bookmarking networks

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Business networks

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Media-sharing networks

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Video-sharing

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Image-sharing

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Music-sharing

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Startpage networks

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Fitness and sport networks

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Widgets and plug-ins networks

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Mobile networks

With the knowledge of the different kinds of social networking sites, you can easily choose those that are to your interests and build a network that will suit your needs as an individual, career-person or a business entity. For a more in-depth look at the many forms of the social networking world, you can check this list:

Ask anyone who is using the Internet regularly about websites like myspace, yahoo 360 or classmates. Everyone will have one common answer that these are social networking websites. These social networking websites have increased in popularity through the recent years. People who have been using these kinds of social networking websites will be well aware of their popularity and also the reason behind it. Let’s see something that helps these social networking websites to draw the attention millions of people towards them.

EASE OF USE

With wide variety of social networking websites in use, there are different reasons for their popularity in the Internet. The fist feature noted in most of the social networking websites like Myspace is their ease of use. Even one with very little knowledge about the Internet could use these social networking websites. These social networking websites are made so simple so that users can easily navigate through the pages.

EASE IN GETTING NEW FRIENDS

Second aspect is the easiness in making new friends with the help of these social networking websites. There are many people who really love to make new friends online. The reason being, social networking websites allow the users to get the information about the interests of the other Internet user before making any contact or conversation with him. Without these social networking websites we would have to connect to others through chat rooms, and learn about their interests by actual conversation before considering them as friends.

FREE TO USE

Another noticeable feature of social networking websites is that most of them are free to use. All we have to do is to make a free registration in these social networking sites. Once the registration is complete, we are all set to go. This free registration for a unique service is one of the main aspects that make these social networking websites more popular. However, some of the social networking websites like Classmates offer only a free trial membership. You can try the website and decide whether it is worth paying for. Since most Internet users don’t really want to pay for something that they can get for free, these paid social networking websites have only limited number of members.

MORE BENEFITS

Meeting new people and making new friends online is the basic use of these social networking websites. Apart from making friends, most of these websites have started including some additional features. The additional features they offer are, free webpage, free music, free videos, free blog etc for their members. There are people who use these social networking websites for business promotion.

Mentioned above are very few of a bunch of benefits of these social networking websites. These are the reasons why these networking websites are at the top.

The popularity of social networking websites has hit the highest point through the recent years. Myspace, Facebook, Classmates, Yahoo 360 are some of the bunch of social networking websites that were wildly successful. The global Internet users are embracing there social networking websites with more enthusiasm.

MORE OUT OF INTERNET

Internet is considered as the largest source of latest information. Nowadays, the Internet is becoming something more than just a place to find information. It is now a place to interact, communicate, learn, opine about various topics. The social networking websites create platforms for people to get new friends online and to maintain old relationships. Communication has been never easier before.

THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL NETWORKS

Since the development of the first social networking website, Classmates, in 1995, the popularity of this kinda websites has steadily increased. Today there will be only a countable number of teens who are not members of any social networking websites. What I would say is they are really missing something in their life! One of the main reasons for the quick growth of the social networking websites is because they are easy to use. People with little or even no knowledge about the internet can use these social networking websites with ease. Moreover, getting new friends is made easier through these websites.

SOME FIGURES

The other reason for these websites to remain popular is the high number of unique registered users in them. The leader of social networking websites, Myspace had over 50 million registered users the previous year. There is nothing to wonder why these social networking websites have such huge number of registered users. Free registration provided by these social networking websites is the main aspect that attracts millions of people towards these networks. Classmates, the first social networking website has over 14 million registered users. Classmates have fewer users because they provide only a free trial registration. People do not wish to pay for something that they can get for free somewhere else. Social networking websites are growing at a rate of 47% a year.

FUTURE TRENDS

Social networking will go mobile and is poise for a spectacular growth in next five years. Mobile social networking is expected to grow in a higher rate and attract much more users. Whatever, Social networking has made people use Internet more than ever before. This makes the social networking websites act as a catalyst for the growth of Intenet.

Information technology is a much mandate for almost any sphere of life. So is the social networking. The activities like make new friends and maintaining the relationships are common in these social networking websites. These social networking websites are use for effective business promotions also. These traditional websites not only allows one to develop business relationships with other organizations, but also helps one to build close relationships with others with the same interest. This varied use of these social networking websites makes people stay longer in these websites.

SOCIAL NETWORKING AS a BUSINESS

A social networking website can generate revenue for you like any other Internet business. Everyone could see that the social networking websites like myspace, yahoo 360, orkut, classmates etc are in big business, generating huge revenue. The most interesting thing about these social networking websites is that, they have the ability to build up customer loyalty and are capable to retain its members. It has been noted that the members of a particular social networking website, keeps inviting his/her friends to join the same website inorder to expand the friendship circle. This in turn creates more members for he networking website with ease. This act also builds up the brand of the website and as it does, other people will get interested in advertising in the particular social networking website. Hence the revenue starts to flow in.

SOCIAL NETWORK WEB DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

From the above paragraph, everyone will be clear that a social networking website can generate huge revenue than any other Internet business. So if you want to create your own social networking website, it’s simple. The first and foremost strategy to be considered while designing a social networking website is to create a platform that attracts people to use the website to build up relationships with others. The website should provide user friendly tools to customize their profile layout, add friends, inviting friends and so on. The important factor to be taken into account while designing a social networking website is to make sure that the design is user friendly. I.E the website should be easy to navigate through pages so that even users with little knowledge of the Internet can use your website.

If you are not sure about the design of a social networking websites, there are experts in social network web-design waiting to help you. They are capable of creating eye catchy, user friendly designs. All you have to do is to approach them and describe they type of network you wish to create.

PLAN BEFOR YOU LAUNCH

Launching a social networking website requires a lot of planning. Based on the plan you should choose the best design. You must look into all aspects of how you can lure users to your website and make them spend more time in the network. That is the start of the unique revenue generator.