Social Networks- Forum for social and business activities

If you ever find time, sit with your grandparents and ask them how they communicated with their friends and family when they were young.

Of course we all have heard stories about how difficult it was to communicate with relatives when there was no internet but I think hearing a personal anecdote would make you realize what a blessing technology is.

People sent letters and waited for days for a reply, there wasn’t surety of any kind whether the letter was even delivered or not, if you got a reply after days that was the confirmation of the receipt and I wouldn’t forget to mention the bulk of letters that got lost in the mail.

The innovation of internet has made things much simpler and convenient for us, especially, the existence of social networks.

Some of you may be wondering what a social network is; Well in layman language, it is a platform where you can freely express your thoughts, share pictures and keep in touch with your friends and family, social networks provide you with a chance to communicate with anyone from across the globe.

The first social network site classmates.com was developed in 1995; its utility was limited to creating a profile and sending and receive short messages, next came sixgedrees.com in 1997 and it is said to be the first social network site with all the features.

In order to use a social network you have to become a member of the social network website by signing up through a simple procedure, most social networks provide you with an option of keying in personal details about yourself, like your interests and hobbies, so you can interact with people of common interests, this is a great and easy of sharing information.

I think many of you out there would agree with me that social networks have a vital role to play in the exchange of knowledge and cultures going on in the twentieth century; it is due to these social networks that our society is becoming an open society.

People have started to develop a level of tolerance for other people’s view and ideas, they have healthy discussions on various topics and most importantly communicating with people of other cultures and religions has become so easy that it has cleared many misunderstanding that prevailed earlier.

It is unbelievable how important social networks have become in the lives of modern urban people, anyone with a computer and internet has minimum one social network account and maximum is relative for people, some may have two, three, four or more.

The common examples of social networks include Twitter, Facebook, My Space, Orkut etc; the percentage of people visiting these websites has increased by 82% over a few couple of years. People tend to get addicted to these social networks due to the wide range of services they provide, other than sharing your pictures and interests you can inbox people, talk to them through instant messages, comment on their views or pictures, search people you know or are long lost friends and communicate with them.

There are various fun activities too on a social network website in which you can engage, like playing games, joining applications that allow you to rate friends, check the number of people who visit your profile and the list is never ending.

It wouldn’t be wrong to say initially social networking had limited uses like keeping in touch with friends and family or dating but now they are used as a marketing strategy by many businesses, be it a small business or a large one.

Nowadays people are lazy and prefer an indoor activity which is why a normal urban person spends a greater proportion of his day engaging on social network activities.

This situation provides an excellent advertising opportunity to businesses, they pay the owners of social network websites to display their logo, offer, promotion etc on their webpage; we all know if you see something regularly we develop a familiarity, therefore when you go out for shopping, the logos you see everyday are ranked higher on your preferences.

Social networks not only help businesses to increase profits but also provide information on discounts and sales through advertisements on their pages, sometimes there is a fantastic sale going on and you may not even know about it until you log on to your social network website.

Other then advertising many businesses have even developed their profiles of accounts on social networks; the profiles normally include detail regarding the business and their products along with information regarding the location of their store or offices.

The use of social networks is accelerating in our lives and I don’t see a reason why it shouldn’t, they are making the society more efficient and knowledgeable, I believe they have become a part of our lives for good.

Similar Articles:

Ning, the best white labeling site out there

How do social networks make money?

Online Social networking, Problems and solutions

To Tweet or Not To Tweet

Gear up to work on Facebook Privacy Settings

The LinkedIn Magic Works