Social networking, a fast growing trend, has seen the world change its ways in terms of communication, advertising and marketing. Several social networking services and websites have been driving the trend and more continue to emerge each day.
With each social network defined by a distinct concept, the top five social networks can be narrowed down to:
- Facebook – The largest social networking site with over half a billion users from all over the world, Facebook lets users create a profile, add friends and exchange messages through the “wall” and its messaging services. Additionally, users can make updates and join and like interest groups and personalities. Businesses can create pages where they invite their target clientele and engage them in a more direct and timely manner. They can also use the Facebook ad service to show ads to targeted clients.
- Twitter – Described as a micro-blogging service, Twitter enables its users to send texts of 140 characters and read other users’ texts. A direct messaging service is also available. Twitter’s derives its marketing and promotion prowess from a concept that allows a user to follow tweets of people of interest and be followed in the same way. The tweets are publicly accessible and businesses can follow and be followed by their customers thus bringing customer service closer and creating a more direct and personal communication route.
- Linkedin – Described as a professional social network, Linkedin is more business oriented as it lets its registered users to maintain contacts of trusted people they know in business. It is a great avenue to network and can help a business to land deals, recruit talent and build credibility.
