Your network is your net worth. That is debatable but true when you understand how to go about it in a business world that has become a jungle of networking platforms through social media and influencer marketing. The internet has become a jungle of networks. And without understanding how they work and communicate with the real world, you can easily get lost in the maze. At Holistic Literacy Empowerment Hub, we believe any entrepreneur needs to be network literate for professional networking.
Networking Platforms
The starting point is to realize that the Internet has always been for business connections. It is essential to be familiar with all social networks and networking platforms and understand which ones are appropriate for what you do in life and business.
However, with the business landscape becoming saturated, networking platforms have become numerous, and choosing one that is a good fit for your needs can be overwhelming, especially in the era of AI technology, where entrepreneurial ventures battle for customer and consumer attention and market share in the saturated market. Here is how best you can understand networking as a marketing strategy in the digital global economy.
Is it About People You Know?
Networking can be business or social networking. In this post, we will explore mainly business networking and social networks that boost your online business networking and offline networking with real people in the real business world. It is not about people you know from your circle of friends, relatives, or neighbors. It is about introducing yourself to the world and enjoying a diverse clientele base who can read, understand, and appreciate your personal and business brand and its offers.
It is about gaining exposure to the world by providing value that makes people understand your purpose and value in your industry and niche market. Interaction with such people will expose you to new ideas and inspire you to think outside the box of your community. Networking opens opportunities to interact with people from different backgrounds who view the world differently, which can open your mind to new perspectives in business and life.
What it Involves
Network literacy is about building a web of support, resources, and opportunities that you can easily access and utilize to expand your reach and connection. It is about knowing how to support and use yourself as a resource for information that opens opportunities for other people and what appropriate channels to use for communication and curating information. Understanding that will enable you to create and distribute material on social media platforms that are suitable and appropriate for your network community.
That will mean having the ability to critically evaluate what content will suit different platforms and their relevance to your content format and target network. It is about understanding the connectivity of networks on the web and how people connect and relate to each other on the web. And how you can exploit such opportunities to build business relationships as an entrepreneur.
Network Platforms and Apps
Your network literacy will ensure you do not get lost and waste time exploring networks that do not promote holistic branding and marketing in the digital global market. In this blog post, we emphasize global outreach as an entrepreneur with no blinkers of limiting their potential in the market. Let’s explore the most used networking platforms and apps that seem to have a global impact since the entrepreneurial approach to business made inroads in the business landscape.
Facebook is an online social networking service. Facebook allows you to connect and share information, pictures, images, videos, music, article links, and opinions through commenting on your connection’s posts. Initially meant for college students, Facebook has evolved into business through creating communities for business connections and networking.
It was initially to connect employers and employees for job hunting and hiring. LinkedIn has evolved into professional networking branding and marketing. It is a professional business-oriented social media networking platform. Mainly professionally oriented and evolving through incorporating skillset professional development and personal development for professional and business growth.
An online photo-sharing social media web that allows you to share your fashion style, life, and business. That lets you share your fashion style, life, and business through reels and pictures captured with a mobile phone. Posts can be shared publicly or with a select group of followers. Instagram users can view, like, comment, and bookmark posts. So, effective for networking through group communities.
It is a social network that allows users to discover and share visual images and videos for inspiration in various fields of life and business. You can post or pin images or videos to your board or other users. Your pins must have a common theme for organization and user-friendliness for easy browsing by other users. Pinterest has since evolved into being able to promote businesses and find inspirational ideas about anything you might think of.
YouTube
It is a free website for sharing videos. You can create and upload videos about any topic relatable to your life or business for personal and business brand building. YouTube is fast becoming the largest social media platform. Nearly everyone is on YouTube all over the world. It helps to interact with other users and viewers by liking, commenting, or sharing videos. It also promotes community building through having a subscriber base that enables networking opportunities.
It is a free social networking site where users broadcast short-form posts called tweets. You can use tweets for text posts, videos, images, or links. You need to be connected to the internet on a smartphone and sign in as a user to share content, communicate, and connect with others. Newly rebranded into X, you can now listen to podcasts, shop, and watch short videos with paid subscriptions.
Tik-Tok
It is a Chinese-founded social media platform. Though controversial with its addictive short funny videos. It is fast gaining momentum for both entertaining and personal branding. Everyone is now on Tik-Tok. It focuses on personalized experience, where its algorithm leans on what the user likes and watches. Users create short one-minute videos based on anything of their interest, like comedy, dancing, life syncing, memes, and educational content.
It is a news and forum website with an app where Redditors submit content and share it with their online communities called subreddits. Reddit has over a hundred communities that cover topics such as news, sports, and TV. Users can also create subreddits for niche communities. That means there is always something for everyone, like trending topics, diverse discussions, engaging communities, and comments. Redditors have authentic and interesting conversational content around anything of interest and concern.
WhatsApp Messenger
It is a social media platform for instant messaging from a smartphone. Users or subscribers can send text messages, images, and pictures for updates and communities. WhatsApp has since evolved into a networking and advertising platform where entrepreneurs can promote and market their business ventures, products, and services. But mainly for instant messaging with emojis as some of the main features most users use for reacting to messages.
Benefits of Network Literacy
As an entrepreneur in the present digital global world, network literacy is essential for exposure and outreach to like-minded people in the industry and niche you operate as an entrepreneur. Here are the benefits of Network literacy for business networking.
- Exposure to different types of networking platforms.
- Learning to make learned choices in your networking efforts
- Understanding how people use social media platforms for business networking
- Choosing the most appropriate networking platforms for your marketing needs.
- Understanding content creation and messaging needs for your branding and marketing needs.
- Designing and creating suitable formats for messaging and communicating in your branding and marketing efforts.
Besides the above online-based benefits, you can also try to reach out to offline formal networking meetings, forums, and workshops. You can also reach friends, relatives, and inner circles within your niche. That can open doors and opportunities to attend their meetings, parties, and conferences from their workplaces. But make sure you are selective and discerning what to attend and not attend. Best of all, remember that technology rules the business world. The internet has become the most used networking platform to appreciate, explore, exploit, and use for your online networking needs.
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