Social Networking Today
If you ask a room full of people to define social networking, you will likely get several different answers. The meaning of the term has changed over time. Today’s social networking is not the same phenomenon as the social networking of only a few years ago.
In years past, social networking meant to meet other people face-to-face and interact. That is no longer the case. Today, social networking simply refers to the practice of gathering people together into specific groups.
What has caused this shift to occur? Put simply: the Internet. Because of the Internet, we have the ability to network without having to be together in person in real time. We can meet virtually and interact that way. Social networking is a major component of Internet traffic, and is the fourth most popular activity people online are engaged in. Putting this into perspective, the third most popular activity is using email. Social networking is used for all sorts of purposes online, from finding a romantic partner to reconnecting with old friends to finding employment opportunities.
Online social networking is popular with and beneficial for professionals regardless of field. Professionals tend to stick with more established sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook for the purposes of social networking.
Business use of social networking is a wise investment of time. Studies show that using the Internet in this way helps with finding vendors and manufacturers, making sales, and hiring employees.
For diversity and sheer volume, few sites can rival LinkedIn. LinkedIn was officially launched in 2003, and in the ensuing years has become a global network of more than 50 million users.
Facebook is another extremely popular social networking site that is gaining popularity among older professionals. The number of American users over the age of 35 has doubled in recent months. Overall, Facebook has more than 150 active users, half of whom are on the site daily. Users can be found in more than 170 countries and territories, and post to Facebook in more than 35 languages.
Twitter still lags behind these other two in terms of numbers, with 4.1 million users monthly. However, research shows that Twitter users are more technologically savvy than users on other networking sites. Twitter also draws a more educated population of users, and more women.
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