Social networking has become a trend over the past months and many employees and business owners have been asking themselves how to participate in this online phenomenon. Networking is all about opening up the communication lines with someone you have just met. You want to let others know about you and your business while also finding out details about them and their business. Online networking expands these contacts thousandfold – exploring the unlimited contact possibilities on the web makes this the perfect marketing opportunity for businesses.

There is always going to be a debate over which one is better: online social networking or online business networking. While social networking platforms such as facebook and myspace present millions of contact possibilities, business networking platforms are much smaller with Linkedin the largest global player and ZaaBiz being the local market leader here throughout Australasia.

So let’s define the differences between the two: online social networking is more of an escape from the business world and a glimpse into the life of the social person outside the professional arena. Chat with friends about the weekend and upcoming events or simply try to connect with old mates. Social networking has a casual feel. Here you find any kind of connection and even the platforms themselves boast about their huge variety of distracting activities. The risk for a business is the proximity to private news and the lack of professional understanding of most of the users.

Online Business networking is just as easy to categorise. It’s an integral part of today’s everyday business and an ever-expanding network of connections. Building up connections starts with useful business contacts that you trust as someone you potentially want to do business with. The different platforms show you to which degree you are connected to a new business contact: ZaaBiz actually is able to visualise the six degrees of separation theory, so each member is connected to everyone on the network at the most by six degrees.

(Next week: We will be revealing the second part to this article.)

Michael Brecht