How Social Networking Fits In...

The Internet bust of 2000 showed that revenue is what matters. “As we learned from the first dot-com silliness, value is not in click-through or eyeballs. Value comes from revenues…

Can you sell subscriptions to your data or your service? Can you charge for referrals or for purchases that result from referrals. Can you sell stuff? If not, your revenue is zero and your market value is zero.”

Social Networking technologies have emerged as the most attention-grabbing communication media for consumers and the hottest topic in media and marketing channels. Powered by user-generated content and increasing consumer distrust of advertising and corporate messaging, social networking technologies create new channels for consumers to connect with one another.

There is growing evidence to support claims that some social networking services can be a powerful professional ally to businesses—in particular, independent entrepreneurs and smaller companies, for whom each new personal connection is a significant business building block.

You only have to look around and see how some blog developers are connecting with each other, called “linking,” and pushing each others content and coming up with joint-venture deals. When you have something to sell you have leverage. You don’t necessarily need traffic, as you can always borrow someone else’s audience as long as you offer that person a compelling deal. Through Social networking you have a greater change of meeting someone with the same ideas as you have who can help develop your project or add something, like a skill, that you don’t have or you don’t have time to do.

Recently, I was doing some research for a business proposal that requires partners. I had a few possibilities in mind, but had no direct connections. After some online social network research, I discovered that I was only one “degree” from the people I needed to talk to. The system worked. These services aren’t magical dust that makes money appear — but they can facilitate valuable connections.

Social networks are like grease — in some cases, gasoline — for our personal business networking machines. If you aren’t plugged in, you will be out-done by better-connected, hyper-networked colleagues and competitors.

If you know how to structure a deal that is an irresistible win-win for everyone involved, you can make a lot of money without committing yourself to developing insane amount of free content just so you can try to figure out how to make money from it later.

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