subject: Business media networks are finding scale and traction [print this page] Business media networks are finding scale and traction
While social networking has proved hugely popular over the last few years, professional networking media sites have taken a while longer to gain momentum. The business networks are now finally finding the scale and might transform the worlds of personal promotion, recruitment, job sourcing and making contact with individuals, who up to now have been outside of their scope of contact.
This is now becoming much more important in the field of finance and investment, given so much mistrust with many financial institutions, the impact of the recent credit-crunch and consumers looking for lower-cost solutions.
For professionals involved in areas of money and consumers interested, the ability to obtain peer-to-peer assistance and experiences can often be invaluable.
Being able to view people and (some) information on their profile takes network and contact (and even crowd) marketing to the next level, without even leaving the home,office or having the issues of picking up a phone.
Creating groups (which is something launching on Total Investor in April) plays a larger role in the way people use the service by creating their own (exclusive and non-intrusive) "space".
One of the problems of the sites like LinkedIn's, as it grows is the massive amount of non-related material and contact made from such a hugely diverse (and often non-relevant) audience. Hence we envisage more use of niche network communities, which given the global nature of the internet expands the horizons significantly.
Another issue is that British people historically, tend to be quite private by nature. So any form of collaboration with peers and competitors (even for skill sharing) takes a while to evolve and engender trust. Making contact first online is simply a much easier user experience initially, which can then subsequently be followed up by more direct conversation and meetings. Skype and online chat or chatbox will also see a rapid growth given its simplicity and ease of use.
The balance of information profiled is also important. Too much detail can be intrusive and create an environment for some unwanted opportunist approach, although the systems are designed for the recipient to ignore. The right level of profile information displayed needs to be a balance between necessity and privacy.
