A professional network service (or, in an Internet context, simply a professional network) is a type of social network service that focuses on interactions and relationships for business opportunities and career growth, with less emphasis on activities in personal life.[1]
A professional network service is used by working individuals, job-seekers, and businesses to establish and maintain professional contacts,[2] to find work or hire employees, share professional achievements, sell or promote services, and stay up-to-date with industry news and trends. According to LinkedIn managing director Clifford Rosenberg in an interview with AAP in 2010, "[t]his is a call to action for professionals to re-address their use of social networks and begin to reap as many rewards from networking professionally as they do personally." Businesses mostly depend on resources and information outside the company and to get what they need, they need to reach out and professionally network with others, such as employees or clients as well as potential opportunities.[3]
"Nardi, Whittaker, and Schwarz (2002) point out three main tasks that they believe networkers need to attend to keep a successful professional (intentional) network: building a network, maintaining the network, and activating selected contacts. They stress that networkers need to continue to add new contacts to their network to access as many resources as possible and to maintain their network by staying in touch with their contacts. This is so that the contacts are easy to activate when the networker has work that needs to be done."[4]
By using a professional network service, businesses can keep all of their networks up-to-date, and in order, and helps figure out the best way to efficiently get in touch with each of them. A service that can do all that helps relieve some of the stress when trying to get things done.
Not all professional network services are online sites that help promote a business. Some services connect the user to other services that help promote the business other than online sites, such as phone/Internet companies that provide services and companies that specifically are designed to do all of the promoting, online and in person, for a business.
History
In 1997, professional network services started up throughout the world and continue to grow. The first recognizable site to combine all features, such as creating profiles, adding friends, and searching for friends, was SixDegrees.com. According to Boyd and Ellison's article, "Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship", from 1997 to 2001, several community tools began supporting various combinations of profiles and publicly articulated Friends. Boyd and Ellison go on to say that the next wave began with Ryze.com in 2001. It was introduced as a new way "to help people leverage their business networks".[5]
Inside the works
Quite a lot of work is put into a professional network service, such as the number of hours that go into them and the type of people they work for, as well as the business model of it all, such as the professional interaction and the multiple services they deal with.[citation needed][vague]
Types of services
Some professional network services not only help promote the business but can also help in connecting to other people. Those services may include a specific phone and/or Internet company or a company that helps to connect with other businesses. According to the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR), there are at least nine online professional networks that are being used.
Professional interaction
Kaplan and Haenlein elaborate on five key considerations for companies when utilizing media. These include the importance of careful selection, the option to choose existing applications or develop custom ones, ensuring alignment with organizational activities, integrating a comprehensive media plan, and providing accessibility to all stakeholders.
Choose carefully
"Choosing the right medium for any given purpose depends on the target group to be reached and the message to be communicated. On one hand, each Social Media application usually attracts a certain group of people, and firms should be active wherever their customers are present. On the other hand, there may be situations whereby certain features are necessary to ensure effective communication, and these features are only offered by one specific application."[citation needed]
Ensure activity alignment
"Sometimes you may decide to rely on various Social Media, or a set of different applications within the same group, to have the largest possible reach." "Using different contact channels can be a worthwhile and profitable strategy." According to the Society for New Communications Research at Harvard University, "the average professional belongs to 3–5 online networks for business use, and LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are among the top used."[6]
Integrate a media plan
Social media and traditional media are "both part of the same: your corporate image" in the customers' eyes.
Allow access to all
"...once the firm has decided to utilize Social Media applications, it is worth checking that all employees may access them." According to the SNCR, "the convergence of Internet, mobile, and social media has taken significant shape as professionals rely on anywhere access to information, relationships, and networks."[7]
Online usage
"Half of the respondents report participating in 3 to 5 online professional networks. Another three in ten participate in 6 or more professional networks." "Popular social networks are now being used frequently as Professional Communities. More than nine in ten respondents indicated that they use LinkedIn and half reported using Facebook. Twitter and blogs were frequently listed as 'professional networks'."[8]
Business model
According to Michael Rappa's article, Business models on the Web", "a business model is the method of doing business by which a company can sustain itself – that is, generate revenue. The business model spells out how a company makes money by specifying where it is positioned in the value chain." Rappa mentions that there are at least nine basic categories from which a business model can be separated. Those categories are a brokerage, advertising, infomediary, merchant, manufacturer, affiliate, community, subscription, and utility. "...a firm may combine several different models as part of its overall Internet business strategy." At first, Flickr started as a way to mainstream public relations.[9]
Social impact
When it comes to the social impact that professional network services have on today's society, it has proved to increase activity. According to the SNCR, "[t]hree quarters of respondents rely on professional networks to support business decisions. Reliance has increased for essentially all respondents over the past three years. Younger (20–35) and older professionals (55+) are more active users of social tools than middle-aged professionals. More people are collaborating outside their company wall than within their organizational intranet."[10]
Limitations
Since the internet and social media are a part of this "world where consumers can speak so freely with each other and businesses have increasingly less control over the information available about them in cyberspace", most firms and businesses are uncomfortable with all the freedom. According to Kaplan and Haenlein's article, "Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media", businesses are pushed aside and are only able to sit back and watch as their customers publicly post comments, which may or may not be well-written.[11]
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or other organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information.
Online dating, also known as internet dating, virtual dating, or mobile app dating, is a method used by people with a goal of searching for and interacting with potential romantic or sexual partners, via the internet. An online dating service is a company that promotes and provides specific mechanisms for the practice of online dating, generally in the form of dedicated websites or software applications accessible on personal computers or mobile devices connected to the internet. A wide variety of unmoderated matchmaking services, most of which are profile-based with various communication functionalities, is offered by such companies.
A virtual community is a social work of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual communities are online communities operating under social networking services.
Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way that a virus spreads from one person to another. It can be delivered by word of mouth, or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet and mobile networks.
LinkedIn is a business and employment-focused social media platform that works through websites and mobile apps. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. The platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows jobseekers to post their CVs and employers to post jobs. From 2015, most of the company's revenue came from selling access to information about its members to recruiters and sales professionals. LinkedIn has more than 1 billion registered members from over 200 countries and territories.
Reputation management, originally a public relations term, refers to the influencing, controlling, enhancing, or concealing of an individual's or group's reputation. The growth of the internet and social media led to growth of reputation management companies, with search results as a core part of a client's reputation. Online reputation management, sometimes abbreviated as ORM, focuses on the management of product and service search engine results.
A social networking service or SNS is a type of online social media platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.
Enterprise feedback management (EFM) is a system of processes and software that enables organizations to centrally manage deployment of surveys while dispersing authoring and analysis throughout an organization. EFM systems typically provide different roles and permission levels for different types of users, such as novice survey authors, professional survey authors, survey reporters and translators. EFM can help an organization establish a dialogue with employees, partners, and customers regarding key issues and concerns and potentially make customer-specific real time interventions. EFM consists of data collection, analysis and reporting.
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation, sharing and aggregation of content, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. Social media refer to new forms of media that involve interactive participation. While challenges to the definition of social media arise due to the variety of stand-alone and built-in social media services currently available, there are some common features:
Social media apps are online platforms that enable users to create and share content and participate in social networking.
User-generated content—such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through all online interactions—is the lifeblood of social media.
Users create service-specific profiles for the website or app that are designed and maintained by the social media organization.
Social media helps the development of online social networks by connecting a user's profile with those of other individuals or groups.
Mobile social networking is social networking where individuals with similar interests converse and connect with one another through their mobile phone and/or tablet. Much like web-based social networking, mobile social networking occurs in virtual communities.
PlanetAll was a social networking, calendaring, and address book site launched in November 1996. It was founded by a group of Harvard Business School and MIT graduates including Warren Adams and Brian Robertson. Their company, Sage Enterprises, was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and was the winner of the 1996 New Business of the Year Award from the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce.
Odnoklassniki, abbreviated as OK or OK.ru, is a social network service used mainly in Russia and former Soviet Republics. The site was launched on March 4, 2006 by Albert Popkov and is currently owned by VK.
Reputation is a business-to-business online reputation management and customer experience management company headquartered in San Ramon, California. The company claims its software-as-a-service platform helps businesses monitor and respond to online reviews, social media, and surveys; analyze customer sentiment; and collaborate to make operational improvements.
Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers.
Ambient awareness (AmA) is a term used by social scientists to describe a form of peripheral social awareness through social media. This awareness is propagated from relatively constant contact with one's friends and colleagues via social networking platforms on the Internet. The term essentially defines the sort of omnipresent knowledge one experiences by being a regular user of these media outlets that allow a constant connection with one's social circle.
Corporate social media is the use of social media platforms, social media communications and social media marketing techniques by and within corporations, ranging from small businesses and tiny entrepreneurial startups to mid-size businesses and huge multinational firms. Within the definition of social media, there are different ways corporations utilize it. Although there is no systematic way in which social media applications can be categorized, there are various methods and approaches to having a strong social media presence.
Online presence management is the process of creating and promoting traffic to a personal or professional brand online. This process combines web design, and development, blogging, search engine optimization, pay-per-click marketing, reputation management, directory listings, social media, link sharing, and other avenues to create a long-term positive presence for a person, organization, or product in search engines and on the web in general.
Since the arrival of early social networking sites in the early 2000s, online social networking platforms have expanded exponentially, with the biggest names in social media in the mid-2010s being Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. The massive influx of personal information that has become available online and stored in the cloud has put user privacy at the forefront of discussion regarding the database's ability to safely store such personal information. The extent to which users and social media platform administrators can access user profiles has become a new topic of ethical consideration, and the legality, awareness, and boundaries of subsequent privacy violations are critical concerns in advance of the technological age.
Social media use by businesses includes a range of applications. Although social media accessed via desktop computers offer a variety of opportunities for companies in a wide range of business sectors, mobile social media, which users can access when they are "on the go" via tablet computers or smartphones, benefit companies because of the location- and time-sensitive awareness of their users. Mobile social media tools can be used for marketing research, communication, sales promotions/discounts, informal employee learning/organizational development, relationship development/loyalty programs, and e-commerce.
The advent of social networking services has led to many issues spanning from misinformation and disinformation to privacy concerns related to public and private personal data.
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