A social networking site is not just a place to socialize with friends by dropping messages, spreading giggles, chatting, sharing videos and photos etc. The arena of social networking can transcend the boundaries of just maintaining good relationship with friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Well planned and effectively managed business applications in social networks remarkably increases the popularity of a business, by leveraging its “word of mouth” marketing advantage.

Facebook will suffice as a good example. Nowadays large, medium and small scale businesses uses Facebook to promote their products. Facebook business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to use the site to administer “Pages” and their ad campaigns. Pages created will have the features of Facebook’s main site integrated into it, such as “like”, “comment” etc. Owners can add Page content such as photos, videos, and events. They can also view all the statistics related to both Pages and ads or start a group or fan page for product, brand or business.

Twitter is yet another big network that breaks news faster than many other channels. It also serves well as an opinion poll, helping to study the quick impact of the people who are interested in the product. Apart from spreading the news Twitter also helps in listening to the news, people or businesses by following them, searching by tags etc. This way we can always keep an eye on whats happening in our areas of interests.

Linkedin is another business-oriented social networking site mainly used for professional networking. It connects people to jobs, sales leads and ideal business partners. Youtube, MySpace, Hi5 are the other major socializing playgrounds.

Now, apart from the advantages of socializing your business, there is always a risk of spreading negative opinions through public comments. Social networks do not prevent a user from expression their negative opinions about a product, unless it turns abusive, in which case the user is usually blocked. Thus the advantage of the word of mouth publicity has also been condemned for its possible bad consequences several times. The dignity and grandeur of the brand can be compromised if high level security measures are not taken while publicizing posts.

These social networks helps a business get where the crowd is. In the long run, after socializing your business effectively, a point can be reached where there is some sales even without actively creating opportunities for it.

About the Author :

Kiran has been working for Bobcares, as Sr. Software Engineer since April 2010. He is an expert in PHP based web development. He bags an experience of 3.8 years in the industry. His hobbies include blogging, listening to music and traveling. He is passionate about Zend framework, OO concepts and design, jQuery and much more