At a time when people are getting busy to connect with friends in real life, web communication is helping people to stay connected. People are communicating with their preferred group at their convenient time. Web 2.0 has made this worldwide networking of people possible. This feature of web 2.0 is called social networking. Social networking sites help you to find people of your network. They are ideal places on web to make new friends.

People look for friends, colleagues, family members and business guys when they log in to social networking sites. Social networking sites allow its members to chat and send message to people of their network. Popular social networking sites like Myspace, Facebook, Bebo, Orkut, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr boast of millions of members and are important part of the social media revolution.

How popular social networking sites are? According to a source, there were 41.7 million regular users of social networking sites in 2008. It is estimated that by end of 2012, 107.4 million people will have account in social networking sites.

[Source: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/social_networking/facts/index_en.htm ]

Once you have signed up to a social networking site, upload your picture and make a good profile. Social networking sites use an intelligent way to find immediate friends during sign-up. You can send networking site’s invitation to the contacts of your mail id. You can also find friends by searching people using their name, age, gender, location and email. In case you have interest for any particular topic or subject, you can find subject wise groups in these sites. Popular topics or categories may be hobby, politics, religion, region, age group etc. also social networking sites introduce new sub-categories to narrow down the search results. Join any group and you will find some group members. They have similar taste and choice like yours. They may be your next friends.

Your network grows as newer people join groups, visit your profile. And a friend of your friends can send a friendship request to you. Gradually, you will have your own admirers, friends and even fans!

You may be promoting your business in social networking sites. Business to business sites like Small Business Brief and Sphinn.com are ideal for internet marketing and social networking. Such sites can help you to make your business portfolio online and to generate leads of prospects. Make friends on social networking and tell them about your business. Send them business offers if they have no problem receiving them and don’t spam to unknown people. If other members of a site report spam or abuse, your account may be blocked. But you can use business to business social networking sites as an alternative option to promote your business.

Downside of social networking sites:

• Think twice about unknown people’s friend requests. They may be spammers. Spamming guys find it very easy to spread their messages through networking sites. Go through a person’s profile and friend circle before accepting him as your friend.
• There are cases of human abuse in social networking sites. Judge a person before sharing your personal information with him.
• People get addicted towards chatting and sending messages through social networks. Their real life communication become less and web communication become more. Social networking kills a lot of people’s valuable time.

Plenty of social networking sites are competing among themselves to get more members. New social networking sites need you more than you need them. In the future beyond web 2.0 social networking sites will have new roles to play.

Open your window of communication. Millions of people are waiting to be part of your friends’ network. Join one social networking site on today. If you like to get connected and meet new people, you are going to love social networking sites as much as I do.

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