Business Social Networks

Posted by Carroll Trosclair Aug 18, 2008

According to eMarketer, some firms and industries have been so impressed with social networking sites that they have not only joined Facebook’s youth club, but they are now launching their own sites for business networking.

EMarketer reports that business-to-business (B2B) advertising on social networking sites will reach $40 million in 2008, a 179 percent increase over the $15 million spent in 2007. The research firm predicts the total will zoom to $210 million by 2012.

But the business-to-business ad growth is just part of the story, according to Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer.

LinkedIn Is Best Known B2B Network

"Marketers will spend far more over the next few years to create and manage their own social networks for business customers, partners, suppliers and vendors," Williamson says in a new eMarketer report. She says the new business networks will be used, among other things, to improve communications with customers and to assist in the development of new products.

Will they be called "social" networks, or B2B networks?

LinkedIn is currently the best known professional network, having doubled its membership in the past year. But Williamson said the biggest growth in business networks is expected to be in vertical sites serving professions such as lawyers, technology and video.

Reference: eMarketer.com