Last Updated on Tuesday, 29 March 2011 13:16 Written by Mark Chinery Monday, 27 September 2010 11:55

It often seems to be that the Internet develops from the most trivial beginnings.

Where services such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn have been successful bringing singles and groups together based on affinity and mutual interests (for the masses), business-networking services are now offering a parallel experience in the professional world. Along with LinkedIn are such offerings as Ryze and Tribe.net. This use of online, friend/associate-based networking will prove to be one of the most valuable business tools the Internet has yet provided.

Although the number of these services available to entrepreneurs and businesspeople is growing, LinkedIn strikes us as the easiest to embrace, and the most effective for business networking. Typically, each service has formal sign-up steps that assist you in creating your online identity. This may include information relating to your current job, previous positions, and general interests. Some business networking sites enable you to publish your own "blog" or join specific community discussion groups.

"So, is your business using this social phenomenon to its advantage? I'd recommend taking a good look before your competitors do"Often, the key to using a business network successfully involves the creation of your personal friends — or business connections — group. The registration process is similar across the various social networking websites but these methods are now extremely simple. By simply uploading an exported file from your contact manager, LinkedIn can immediately tell which friends of yours are members of the service. This method of contact maintenance and connection group development makes such sites a breeze to start with, immediately enabling you to gain access to your contacts, without having to laboriously enter emails to discover if associates are already there.

It's worth mentioning that, although Facebook and Twitter can be considered more mass media, they have a place within the e-business networking environment. For example, I use Twitter to stay updated with software builds and updates, and Facebook to alert me of company updates. A simple 'share' button on a web site, and an account, are all it takes to involve others.

The natural next step beyond assisting with the network meeting process is to provide an online application facilitating rich, real-time communication. Just as in the online dating world competition for members depends on expanding feature sets, leaders in the emerging online business networking space will separate themselves by implementing new applications that support better methods of business collaboration online. Forward-thinking entrepreneurs will do well to begin getting comfortable with online audio and video technology, so that they can be among the early adopters as these services become available.

Google Docs is already one system commonly in use enabling real-time collaboration. There are others available including more commercial 'Cloud' solutions from companies like Microsoft and its 'Mesh'. As Cloud computing becomes more acceptable (and, more importantly, trusted), this situation will develop quickly.

So, is your business using this social phenomenon to its advantage? I'd recommend taking a good look before your competitors do. The biggest danger to a business is that it reads too much into the word 'social'. Wikipedia has come up with a more long-winded definition:

'A social network is a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.'

It soon becomes apparent that this is an extremely powerful marketing tool. Discount it at your peril.