By Joey Rahimi

Believe it or not, social networking has been around since e-mail was just getting popular. You know, the days when you were using Lycos or AltaVista to do a search … when you were using dial up instead of DSL.

When I was a freshman at Carnegie Mellon back in ’98, I frequently visited a Web site called MiGente.com (Spanish for “my people”), which was a Latin version of MySpace. I used it to “connect” with other Latins out there. It had the same layout as MySpace, same functionality, same everything. It was a lot of fun, but it had nowhere near the same user base or activity that MySpace has today.

So why on earth didn’t online social networking “catch on” back in ’98? The world just wasn’t ready.

We were still getting used to sending Instant Messages instead of calling up our friends. We weren’t even texting or taking pictures with our phone, and we wouldn’t even dare put a picture of ourselves online. What if someone would steal it, Photoshop it into something obscene, and plaster it all over the Web!? We’d be ruined by the embarrassment!

Well, those days of paranoia are long gone. The world is now connected, and everyone is showing it all for their 15 minutes of fame, or maybe just in hopes of getting 1,000 friends on MySpace.

So what is online social networking today? It’s the same thing as regular networking, just more efficient and more transparent. You know when you go to one of those gatherings:

a cocktail party

a fundraiser

a networking event

… and you meet people and exchange business cards? Usually, nothing comes out of it; but every once in a while, a direct impact happens because of one of those “connections” you’ve met, or a friend of your new friend, has helped you hire a great Flash programmer or sales person.

Imagine being able to meet these “connections” online, at a rate much faster, while being able to do your homework about the person you’re meeting with a simple Google Search. Save on gas money. Save on the drinks (and the calories) you’ll probably be buying at the event. Oh, and lose some of that charisma you’ve been working on because you’ll be spending your entire day in front of the computer.

Social networking is by no means a replacement for attending events. It’s simply a complement, and a really good one. Whether you want to add the person you just met at that cocktail party to your network on LinkedIn, or you want to see who he knows and ask for an introduction, online social networking done correctly can increase your network exponentially.

However, there are a couple of factors you have to consider:

Remove the stigma that online social networking is a waste of time and just a place for people to post their provocative pictures and/or meet their next fling.

You have to make sure your online personality reflects your offline personality, both for you and your company’s sake.

With that in mind, the goal of this series is to demystify online social networking. Now, when your new employees are talking about the latest YouTube video at the water cooler, you’ll be all over it and already “Twittering” about it on your cell phone. ;o) For now, we’re just going to touch on all of the Web sites (that matter) briefly and explore them “in-depth” later. And if you haven’t noticed, I’m writing this article the same way I would write for the Web. Short sentences, headlines, and bullet points.

According to Jakob Nielsen - the Web’s authority on usability …

No one reads online, they just scan.

Headings and bullet points make it easier for people to read, I mean, scan.

And now … the online social networks that should matter to you and your business…

LinkedIn – “Where the Go-Getters Hang Out Online!”

You’ve heard of LinkedIn. You might already be on it. It’s where people post their resume and connect with other professionals. If you see one of your employees on this site as you pass their cubicle, they’re probably looking for another job, so before you fire them and save your bandwidth, there actually is a way to use Linkedin to advance your business.

Cool LinkedIn stats:

It’s the nation’s 56th most popular Website.

The average number of “connections” for people who work at Google is 47.

All 500 Fortune 500 companies are represented on LinkedIn by director-level-and-above employees. In the upcoming columns, I’m going to show you how you can teach your salespeople to use LinkedIn to build connections and leads while marketing your product or service. It’s also great for recruiting top talent. If someone’s taken the time to get their LinkedIn profile 100 percent complete (it’s a pain in the @!#@!# to do so), then they’re worth interviewing. What a screening tool!

MySpace and Facebook –

“Costing Companies Millions a Year in Productivity Since 2005” These are the two sites where your employees actually spend most of their day at work, yet they’re always minimizing their window as you walk by their cubicle. They’re also the Web sites that you check first when you have a new job applicant to make sure there are no crazy pictures of them doing keg stands the weekend before.

What are your employees/coworkers doing on MySpace and Facebook?

Messaging their friends about how bored they are at work.

Posting pictures of themselves from last weekend’s crazy South Side drinking binge.

Searching for Mr. or Mrs. Right, or Mr. and Mrs. Right Now.

Trying to coordinate next weekend’s crazy South Side drinking binge.

Cool MySpace and Facebook stats:

MySpace is the nation’s third most popular Web site.

Facebook is right behind it at #5.

Google’s social networking site, Orkut, is ranked #70 in the U.S. You know Google is pissed about that one.

The average user spends 21 minutes logged into these type of sites.

There’s no way you could be using MySpace or Facebook to progress your business, right? Actually, you can. Companies who keep it clean, while providing transparency and authenticity for their organization, can not only recruit top talent, but keep employees happy and build camaraderie. If Wal-mart can have a MySpace account, so can you!

YouTube – “Because You’re Having a Bad Day and Need to Laugh at Someone Else’s Misery”

You love YouTube. It’s the place where you and your employees go to kill time during work to watch the latest Internet sensation, crazy cat trick compilation, or your favorite artist’s music video.

Cool YouTube stats:

The nation’s fourth most popular Web site.

Google owns it now; they picked it up for a cool billion.

YouTube videos are now showing up in Google Search results.

The most popular video of all time on YouTube is “Evolution of Dance,” a six-minute video of a comedian who performs all the dance moves throughout history.

YouTube can be used to educate your customer, show what a day in the life at your office is like, and even get your point across about what makes your company special. YouTube is the nation’s fourth most popular Web site because most people hate to read! Hint, Hint. Blogs – “Those Online Diaries that Bash Politicians, Wal-Mart and Britney Spears”

You probably think a blog is a journal that your most disgruntled employee uses to share all of the company’s dirty secrets. You’re right, to an extent. Most blogs suck, but the ones that are really well-written are becoming more popular than traditional media sources, since they now educate and provide links to other relevant and important information sources.

Cool stats about blogs:

There are 9 million blogs out there.

40,000 new blogs pop up each day.

A constantly-growing 27 percent of Internet users read blogs.

The nation’s most popular blog is the huffingtonpost.com, a liberal online news Web site by Ariana Huffington, an author and columnist who describes herself as a former right-winger who has evolved into a compassionate and progressive populist. Nowadays, there’s a blog about everything. Want to teach your salespeople the art of selling? There are hundreds of blogs out there about that. Want to get inside the head of a billionaire? Try reading Mark Cuban’s blog. How about a blog that helps you raise your kids? Tons to choose from. Good blogs are the new way to learn quickly while getting inspired. They’re critical to any business and every employee should be reading them on a daily basis—blogs that educate, not the ones that talk about Britney and Obama.

In the upcoming columns, I’m going to show you the two things you should be doing about blogs in your company.

1. Reading the good ones

2. Authoring a good one

RSS Feeds – “Stalking Your Favorite Bloggers” Don’t worry about what RSS stands for (Really Simple Syndication). All you need to know is that it’s a great way to track when the blogs or Web sites you love have updated their site with another article that’s going to teach you how to dominate the world.

Not so cool stats about RSS feeds:

About four percent of Internet users use RSS feeds for updates.

When you see a blog you like, you can click on the orange button that should be prominently displayed, so that you can now receive updates to your Feed Reader. You can get a Feed Reader account from anywhere (Google, Yahoo, MSN).

You know when you log into your e-mails and choose which ones you want to read based on who they come from and what the subject is? Imagine logging into your RSS Feed Reader and choosing which blog posting you want to read according to the subject and author. This way, you only read the ones you’re genuinely interested in, just like your emails. ;o)

Twitter – “OK, Now You Have Way Too Much Time on Your Hands”

You probably think it’s for birds and has something to do with chirping, but it’s the nation’s 947th most popular Web site. So it can’t be that popular, right? Well everyone’s using their cell phone’s text messaging service to Twitter, so traffic numbers aren’t factored into this one. It’s growing with popularity, and it’s growing fast.

Twitter is a service that answers the following age old question: What are you doing right now? With Twitter, the individuals you add to your network are people to whom you’d actually ask that question. In turn, you get the response whenever they feel like updating their status. There’s nothing cool about Twitter. I realize I might be offending a lot of people out there, and I’ll probably be addicted to it six months from now, but I’ve tried it, and it’s stupid. I want to share this opinion with the world, no matter how much trouble it gets me in. I’ll be going into more details later of why you should not be using Twitter.

Two Other Web sites You Should Know About but Aren’t Important Enough to Talk About …

Digg – The 33rd most popular Web site—where users decide what news makes the front page—with an emphasis on science, technology, and other nerdy stuff. If you think your company has great news to share, post it on Digg to see if they care.

Flickr – A cool place to share your photos and videos. (But why not just do it all on your Facebook or MySpace?) Yahoo bought Flickr last year. And finally …

Search Engine Optimization – “Beating Google at Their Own Game!”

You probably think Google does its best to display the most relevant Web sites for the search terms you type in their box. Right? You think Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a term that computer geeks use to “game Google’s algorithm” and get spammy Web sites showing up first on search results.

Right?

Wrong. SEO is for everybody. It just sounds intimidating. What does this have to do with online social networking?

Everything. Showing up first on search engines is simply a popularity contest. The more people and other Web sites are talking about you or your company, the better chance you have to show up number one.

Everyone uses search at least 10 times a day. OK, I made up that statistic, but as more and more people learn how to effectively use the Internet to get what they want, optimizing your Web site for search is becoming more and more important.

The only stats you need to know about search:

About 75 percent of searchers will only click on the top three links of a search result.

Every day, 20 percent of Google searches have never been seen before! These two stats are HUGE, but I’ll explain more later. See you next month.

ABOUT BRANDING BRAND:

Branding Brand (http://www.brandingbrand.com) is blurring the lines between advertising and public relations. An integrated marketing company, the firm offers both "online" and "offline" services and uses new-media forms such as blogs, online social networking, and viral video to complement traditional branding techniques. Unlike other firms, the company believes in investing in its clients and often practices a "VC Marketing" approach that includes a percentage of sales or ownership.