Article Contributed by Goranka
Do you need a leg up to jump start your career or business venture? Or launch and grow your small business? Well, we all do sometimes, especially when young and inexperienced. Not even our closest friends can always help us and give the right advice or support that we really need. Thankfully, there are social networks and communities where we can connect with seasoned professionals who can provide us with valuable tips, potential partners and like-minded people with similar interests, aspirations and goals.
Here are the 12 most useful social networks for entrepreneurs, small businesses and business professionals who are building their career.
1. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the world’s largest and most important social network for business professionals with over 120 million members. Obviously, it is a must social networking site for everyone who is serious about her or his career and business. If you are not convinced, check out how many members use the following in their profile:
- 1,553,123 LinkedIn search results for “business owner”
- 1,532,870 results for “CEO”
- 2,420,655 for “general manager”
- 325,807 for “entrepreneur”
- 619,354 results for “business expert”
LinkedIn is therefore great for developing relationships and meeting people that you may want to work with. Furthermore, LinkedIn company pages can help you to increase visibility and brand awareness, as well as attract new customers through recommendations.
2.Viadeo
Viadeo is a network for entrepreneurs, managers and business owners with 35 million members worldwide. Founded in France in 2004, it is very popular among professionals from western Europe. Viadeo can help you to identify useful contacts, share information and knowledge, find new leads and partnership opportunities, showcase your expertize and strengthen your personal brand, discover and recruit talent or get recruited.
3. Xing
Xing is a social network for business professionals with more than 11 million members globally. Through Xing you can find new contacts, experts, colleagues, partners and jobs, or get headhunted. You can also discover events, groups and companies of interest.
4. Ryze
Ryze is a network for smaller business professionals. It helps the members to make and grow connections, and especially to “rise-up” through quality networking. You can network to build your career, grow your business or make sales. On Ryze you can customize your profile page, send messages to other members, join groups, add friends and keep in touch with them.
5. Biznik
Biznik is based on a premise that “it sucks growing a business alone”. This is simply a community of entrepreneurs and small businesses dedicated to helping each other succeed. Biznik is about sharing ideas, not resumes. It is targeted to people who are building real businesses, not looking for their next job.
6. Cofoundr
Cofoundr is a fast growing social network for entrepreneurs. This is a community of startup founders such as CEOs, advisers, investors, programmers, developers and designers. By joining this community you can find co-founders, build teams and get advice.
7. PartnerUp
PartnerUp is a social network for small businesses. As a small business owner, you can use it to connect with professionals who can help you build and grow your small business, join discussions or get advice.
8. Ecademy
Ecademy is a business community for business owners and entrepreneurs to connect, share knowledge, support and transact with one another. Ecademy helps you to connect to the right people, market your business and grow revenue.
9. Entrepreneur
EntrepreneurConnect is a social community founded by Entrepreneur.com. It is intended for entrepreneurs who seek to connect, share expertise and network with their peers. Users can also promote their products and services.
10. Startup Nation
StartupNation is a free service founded by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. Startup Nation offers lots of useful resources like helpful articles, step-by-step guides, expert blogs. Members can also join very active small business and entrepreneur forums.
11. FledgeWing
FledgeWing is an online community for aspiring student entrepreneurs. It provides entrepreneurial students the opportunity to connect with professionals and mentors in their field of interest, have their ideas tested out with other users on the site and get advice on launching and growing their start-up.
12. Young Entrepreneur
YoungEntrepreneur is one of the largest online forum communities for entrepreneurs worldwide founded back in 1999.
Have you joined any of these communities yet? Or some other? Please share your experiences and opinions on networking for business.
About the author:
Goranka is an online marketing specialist and a small business consultant as well as Internet enthusiast. She is also an executive editor of a Serbian marketing blog.
