What Is Social Networking?

MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn are websites that are frequently talked about in the news, online, and in conversation.  When trying to define social networking, one might think of beautifully decorated webpages that describe someone and what they like to do for the purpose of making friends.  But a social networking definition cannot be complete without talking about the other aspects of these websites.

Social networking websites are a collection of webpages that are user generated using a form.  The information put into the form is then published on a generated page.  From that point on, the user can customize the page, adding pictures, video, MP3s, and other media that are all the choice of the user.  But social networking sites aren’t just for regular people looking to make friends.

Social networking sites are perfect for businesses too.  There are features on these sites that allow a particular page to indicate whether it is for personal or business use, which shows other businesses which pages to look at.  There are also search engines, so any keywords optimized on a business page will come up with a search of that particular keyword. 

MySpace and Other Social Networking Websites

The most popular of the social networking websites is MySpace.com  MySpace was founded in August of 2003, and since that point in time has grown to have over 100 million users, and is the most visited website on the Internet, surpassing even .  MySpace began as a place for regular people to simply meet and make friends, but has grown to the point that many businesses have MySpace pages, as well as several celebrities.

The second most popular social networking site is Facebook.com.  Facebook was created in February, 2004, and is a college-oriented style of social networking website.  While not as popular as MySpace, Facebook has the largest number of registered members of any college-oriented website.  Like MySpace, though, Facebook also offers an option for a page to be displayed and indicated as a page for a business.

Another very popular social networking website is LinkedIn.com.  This website is very popular amongst the plethora of social networking websites because it is business-oriented.  As of 2007, LinkedIn had pages for over 150 industries, and more than 14 million registered users.  This website also had more than 400 economic regions, all with the intention of linking other businesses together to find out more about each other.  LinkedIn is different from Facebook or MySpace because there is no social agenda to the website.  It is all about building business contacts.

Call Brick Marketing today at 877-295-0620 or contact us and find out how we can help you drive visitors and sales through social networking.