In internet commerce, it is vital to build a strong network of relationships with your customers. By having a base of loyal customers, you ensure the successful longevity of your business. From time to time, it is necessary to gain new business’ new clients and customer with whom you bring into the pool of focus for building a strong relationship. You may be doing all the “right” things, such as newsletters for your business, email marketing campaigns and advertising on other websites, but you still feel that you’re not attracting as many new customers, or building as many new relationships as you would ideally like to. Exploring social networks as a way to form new business relationships, and to potentially gain clients is something worth investigating, if your business has not yet done so.

Social Networking

The popular social networks like Facebook are thought of as a place to keep in touch with long distance friends, share photos and stories about your life. But these online social networks are also great ways to make new business contacts. Each network is structured slightly differently so you may want to join several, or investigate the sites on your own before deciding which one to try for your business purposes. Social networking can be the next step in a relationship-marketing plan for your business. Below are a few of the most popular social networks and what they have to offer from a business perspective.

LinkedIn

When thinking of a social network, many adults assume they are juvenile or the domain of teenagers and twenty-somethings. If you have an aversion to the idea of social networking, LinkedIn is the best place for you to start. LinkedIn has a mature, professional audience, and it is a combination of social networking and business networking. When you join LinkedIn, you usually list your contacts, both social and professional, and invite them to join. Once your contacts have joined, you then have access to their social and professional contacts and they have access to yours. This is a great way to reach out to new people and make connections because you have a mutual friend/associate in common.

Facebook

Facebook isn’t just for kids anymore, the demographic of this particular social network continues to broaden, and it is a great resource for making contacts and potentially looking for people to hire if and when your business expands. Facebook has a number of useful features and advanced applications, along with a certain level of privacy that doesn’t exist in other networks. It also has the sheer volume of numbers on its side: with 600 million searches and more than 30 billion page views a month, there is a seemingly endless pool of resources to tap into.

MySpace

MySpace is perhaps the social network that is geared most towards a younger population. However, try not to let that deter you. The Internet is making it easier for younger, tech-savvy people to create business, which means there is large market of younger business owners and entrepreneurs, as well as potential customers that can be connect with on MySpace. Young people also have more disposable income than they have historically, which means that subscribers to MySpace often have money to spend, and are they looking for unique, niche market sorts of products.

Building strong customer relationships as part of a relationship-marketing platform is an important ingredient in the success of your business. Using these social networking tools has the potential to connect you with extremely talented, professional people with whom you may not have otherwise been exposed. Part of a good relationship-marketing platform involves reaching out and building relationships with people with whom you have something in common. These social networks are an excellent way to expand your network of business contacts.