social networking and communication

Social Networking

Social Networking has grown massively in a very short space of time. The first site were set up in 1995 called www.classmate.co.uk.  Also one of the first social networks was friend united in UK in 2000.This area has grown with the development of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, MySpace, Google Plus+ etc. The most popular social network sites is Facebook, twitter and Google plus.


Social networks also can be an essential tool for e-commerce as most business use the internet to sell goods for their business. Clever businessman should use social networking as an opportunity to market their business and can send out large batches of messages to people in one hit - this is achieved much more easily sending to members of a group than sending from your individual profile. 

Social networking allows me to keep in touch with family and friends that live far away by sharing updates, photos, videos, and messages. Family members and friends can stay connected even if they live across the country or the world.

Also a social networking site can be a good way to make connections with people with similar interests and goals. I have personally made new friends on Social network sites by sharing interests that i have in fitness where we have discussed different fitness programs.I find that it can be a way to connect with people that I  may not have had the opportunity to before.

Most importantly, social networking sites offers people the opportunity to create a positive self-image. The profiles gives you a chance to create the image of themselves that you want people to see by putting you best qualities on there. This shows that you care about you reputation and what people think about you.

However a danger to being on a social networking site is that scammers use social networking sites to trick people into downloading malware. A common tactic is to use social engineering. Social engineering plays on human nature to get results. For example you may have a friend send you a link to a video and the link will tell you have to download a type of software to view it. This is the virus that can harm your computer.

Also identity theft can be easily done by gathering information on people’s wall and is very addictive and could be procrastination if you need to do stuff.

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service launched in February 2004, owned and operated by Facebook, Inc. As of September 2012, Facebook has over one billion active users, more than half of them using Facebook on a mobile device. 

 For a small  business it is important to expose your business, facebook can be stepping stone to do this. It is also a free way to market your business, so If you make use of not only the Pages application, but also many of the other applications, you will find great, user-friendly tools to market your services and products and promote what you do. Facebook offers you the possibility to create ads and target them to a specific age group, gender and location. You can also track your ad’s performance

Here is step by step guide to how to set up your 

Facebook page for a business. 

Choose a category and a Page name that represents your business.

Pick a logo or another image that people associate with your business to use as a profile picture.

Write a short paragraph about your business so people understand what you do.

Set a memorable web address for your          Page that you can use on marketing material to promote your presence on Facebook.

Choose a cover photo that represents your brand and showcases your product or service. It's the first thing people will see when they visit your Page.

Twitter

Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with over 500 million active users as of 2012, generating over 340 million tweets daily and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day. Since its launch, Twitter has become one of the top 10 most visited websites on the Internet, and has been described as "the SMS of the Internet Unregistered users can read tweets, while registered users can post tweets through the website interface,   SMS, or a range of apps for mobile devices.

   

Google +

 Google+ is a multilingual social networking and identity service owned and operated by Google Inc. It was launched in June 28, 2011 As of September 2012, it has a total of 400 million registered users of whom 100 million are active on a monthly basis Unlike other conventional social networks which are generally accessed through a single website, Google has described Google+ as a "social layer" consisting of not just a single site, but rather an overarching "layer" which covers many of its online properties.