Social Media Marketing – Networking in the New World
Social media is changing the way you do everything! From the way we communicate and interact with friends, coworkers and clients. Social Media provides new ways to how promote and market businesses products and services. The wave of always-connected consumers, location-aware mobile apps and on the go services are making business more social than ever. The big question is: how will you leverage social media to drive revenue?
Social Network Sites: A Definition

Social network sites are defined as web-based services that allow individuals to:
(1) construct a public, semi-public or private profile
(2) demonstrate a list of users with whom they share a connection
(3) view and traverse their list of connections as well as other’s lists

We use the term “social network site” to describe this platform, “Networking” emphasizes relationship initiation, often between strangers.

What makes social network sites unique is they enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is a viral media phenomenon that can result in connections between individuals that would not otherwise be made.

The goal are is to communicate with people who are already a part of your extended social network. The visibility of your profile varies by site and according to user discretion.

Profiles on Friendster and Tribe.net are crawled by search engines, making them visible to anyone. Alternatively, LinkedIn controls what a viewer may see based on whether she or he has a paid account. Sites like MySpace allow users to choose whether they want their profile to be public or “Friends only.” Facebook takes a different approach—by default, users who are part of the same “network” can view each other’s profiles.

Structural variations around visibility and access are one of the primary ways that Social Networking Sites (SNS) differentiate themselves from each other. Most SNSs also provide a mechanism for users to leave messages on their Friends’ profiles.

Some sites are designed with specific ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, political, or other identity-driven categories in mind. There are even SNSs for dogs (Dogster) and cats (Catster), although their owners must manage their profiles.