The millennial generation started it as a way to connect with their friends. Now businesses have adopted it as a marketing strategy. Put simply, social networks are communities of people with common interests who interact and communicate online. Why would a corporate goliath of a company like Disney create a profile on Facebook? I’m sure it has to do with the fact that they now have over 1.6 million people following their profile, and it was free!

So what are these online watering holes about? I looked up social networking in Wikipedia which listed around 138 examples. Although united in purpose, most of the sites are separated in categories like business, travel, or photography. Depending on your industry it may be recommended to use one network over another. Here are several choices businesses are flocking to online because they are free and popular.

Twitter – A way to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, and frequent comments.

YouTube – An online destination to watch and share original videos.

Yelp – An easy way to find, review and talk about what’s great – and not so great – in your area.

Facebook – Helps you connect and share with the people in your life.

Somebody recently asked me if social networking was a good idea for their business. I said yes, of course! This individual however wanted to know about any negative aspects. Why so concerned? Well, recent news such as a 16 year old losing her job because of a comment she made on Facebook is showing a dark side of the trend. For a business, the benefits heavily out-weigh anything negative. We cannot ignore that the internet is where the masses are getting their information. It is accessible, convenient, and people will use it to make a decision on what business to spend their money with. So, let’s investigate it a bit closer by looking at the benefits.

If your company is not online that should be your first priority as it is necessary for today’s businesses. In tandem social networking helps to bring visitors to your website, and it builds public awareness about your company. Twitter is an online community that is gaining recognition among the social networking giants. What makes it popular is that it is simple and convenient. Barak Obama used it during the election and has attained over 400,000 followers. He used ‘tweets’, limited to 140 characters , to post a comments about where he was speaking and to share tidbits of information about his policies. He included hyperlinks in his comments to redirect visitors to more information elsewhere like his website.

You can earn trust and creditability just by sharing valuable information. Eventually this could turn into a community of loyal followers. If you get lucky you could really make some waves and become viral. Blendtec, a manufacturer of blenders, reached viral status with a marketing campaign “Will it Blend”. Infomercials starring Tom captured massive interest through the blending of unusual objects like golf balls and a video camera. The purpose was to emphasize the power of Blendtec’s blender. Currently the most popular video they produced shows a iPhone turned to dust which has been viewed 6.5 million times.

So we covered some benefits, what about negative aspects? When it comes to social networking, individuals are mostly concerned about open and public attacks to themselves or their business. Cyberbulies are usually anonymous and uncommon. Most social networking tools give you the control to screen comments through an approval process. Some networking sites like Yelp put the controls in both the public and the business’ hands. As a business you can set up an account with a description of your business and photos. Your customers then write reviews, which gets posted whether it is good or bad. They can also visit your location and post their own pictures of your business. All content is reviewed by the staff at Yelp before it is set to your account.

To make social networking effective it takes a certain investment of time and dedication. It is not something that you can expect to produce immediate results. Like any advertising method there are right and wrong ways to go about it depending on your business and industry. The payoff you get is an efficient way to share information and grow your business.

- By Todd Kingman the Ring Leader at SuperGeeks