Social Business Networking and E-Commerce
Introduction
Social media have expanded its role apart from dominating the online social life of millions of people around the world; social media has also taken its purpose of connecting people in the business and professional discourse. One of the key elements in the success of the social media in penetrating the professional circle is the characteristic of social networking platform in marketing. From large to small size business are taking advantage of the social media to connect to larger audiences without the need for elaborate brand advertising (Bosari, 2012). The same principles apply to professional service marketing in which professionals from all fields of expertise connect with potential employers to obtain short-term and long-term employment opportunities. One example of a social-networking website designed to cater for business professionals is called “Xing.com”.
Characteristics
The major characteristic of Xing is its given overview to the readers and the kind of people and companies that uses its service. The 5.27 million members of the DACH region is characterized as local members within Austria, Germany, and Switzerland (Colicchio, Demirkaya and Hachler, 2012). Although the total number of local users in the aforementioned region is relatively small as compared to the population percentage of the three countries, the popularity of the social networking site was due to its flexible language preference where most of the members are from German speaking population. In addition, Xing shows a higher distribution of professionals in the services field in which the website is most well known. Industries such as media and IT comes close to the statistical number of distribution of professionals with small businesses comprising 30% of the website’s frequent visitors.
Benefits of Community Interaction
The huge volume of daily exchange and interaction in Xing website entails relatively beneficial gains on the part of the employers and the professional members of its community. Primarily, the obvious benefit that professionals are getting from interactions within the Xing community is the choice to create a free membership account. Although the available functions for free membership is rather limited as compared to priced subscription, the level of benefits remains the same. The daily interaction exchange in the website enable the users to gain a better way of keeping track of the contacts within their circle and or to tap into the personal network and other business connection of online peers and other Xing members. Daily exchanges of information, professional background and linked preferences allow job seekers to effectively locate prospective employers. On the other hand, business is able to browse through potential talents without the need for first hand contact with the professional by means of scrutinizing the detailed professional information posted by the user. This approach makes it easier to search and locate opportunities through information display and job match.
Motivation for Joining
While non-professional social networking sites motivate people to sign up due to the contemporary culture embedded in the social media communities, the professional counterpart such as Xing motives people to sign up because of the promise of finding better professional opportunities that are harder to come by in non-virtual opportunity search (Bolar, 2009). In addition, Xing acts as a resource for businesses to promote their brand as a preferred working environment for the right job seekers. Factors such as difficulty of finding suitable job opportunities in specific professional field is among the primary reason why professionals choose to sign-up with an objective to be directed towards the right professional circle and industry. In addition, freelance professionals searching for earning opportunities outside their day jobs are directed to professional business social networking sites such as Xing. Time and task flexibility is a luxury that most professionals do not normally afford. However, social networks like Xing provides such opportunity by connecting to the freelance circle.
Success of Xing in Creating the Business/Professional Community
The success of the social networking site was drawn upon the need of professionals in finding alternative and dream career. The realities of economic struggle brought millions of professionals out of career or if not practicing a different profession outside of preferred field. The community that Xing has created is specific to a certain population. For example, freelancers find it difficult to gain access to flexible work opportunities that offers self-managed time and workload. In addition, the freelance industry is considered, as a new young where there is only limited businesses are engaged with (Pehkonen, 2013). Professional services that are rarely vacant and too costly for businesses to sustain as an integral part of its organization often resort to scouting for professionals online that are willing to take the job without committing a long-term employment relationship (Rowson, Broome and Jones, 2010). The social structure embedded in social networking is neither holistic nor individualistic, but rather relational in nature. The notion of social connectedness is much easier to achieve in a virtual social environment than in reality (Rowson, Broome and Jones, 2010). For example, a professional animation artist with a dream to work in companies such as Pixars and Dreamworks will take remarkable efforts of establishing himself as an artist just to even enter the dominions of the aforementioned animation houses. However, social networking websites such as Xing, getting close to the right people takes only a few taps on the keyboard and click of the mouse to get connected to the target enterprises.
References
Bolar, K. P. (2009). Motives behind the use of social networking sites: An empirical study. TheIUP Journal of Management Research, 8(1), 75-84.
Bosari, J. (2012, August 8). The Developing Role of Social Media in the Modern Business World - Forbes. Retrieved December 4, 2013, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneywisewomen/2012/08/08/the-developing-role-of-social-media-in-the-modern-business-world/
Pehkonen , J. (2013). Freelancer as an owner-manager – the challenges and opportunities of knowledge-based self-employment. Saimaa University of Applied Sciences.
Rowson, J., Broome, S., & Jones, A. (2010). Connected communities: How social networks power and sustain the Big Society. Retrieved from RSA Projects website: http://www.thersa.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/333483/ConnectedCommunities_report_150910.pdf
