Subject areaChannels and tools
Also known associal networking site
A social network is an online platform where each person has a profile, a list of contacts and the ability to explore the connections made by others.
This is the definition given by danah boyd and Nicole Ellison in 2007: at the centre are the ties between people, and content travels along those ties.
LinkedIn and Facebook are the best known examples, and in Germany XING was built on the same logic for professional relationships. A social network is therefore one type of social media: all social networks are social media, while a blog or a forum remains social media without being a network of contacts. For anyone in sales, the value lies in the fact that every share puts the sharer's reputation at stake, which is why a recommendation from a contact carries more weight than an ad.
Source: danah boyd e Nicole Ellison, Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007.
An example
A sales director looks up the purchasing manager of a chemical company on LinkedIn and finds a mutual contact. They ask that contact for an introduction, so the first message comes from someone the buyer already knows.
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Enrico Giubertoni. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may quote, translate and adapt this entry with the author’s name and a link, stating any changes. For commercial use, write to info@enricogiubertoni.com
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