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What Are the Business Benefits of Social Networking?

By annie shum | May 27, 2009

Tired of Twitter? Facebook Fatigue? In one week 98,000 US executives chose Meettheboss.com

You may already know, MTB was originally just for finance executives and received fantastic exposure owing to the ‘credit crunch’ with substantial backing from all the major financial institutions including the FT, CNN Money, WSJ. MTB hit the broadsheets when usage went up 66% the morning before Lehman Brothers collapsed. – MTB became an indicator of Financial news.

Now the site has expanded into other verticals and it has become the executives ‘secret’ online community/business tool. A place that is 100% business focused, with no salesman, Press or recruiters. ‘Social networking sites are great to catch-up with old friends, share photographs, music and links but in this climate does the executive community have time for this?’ Asked Spencer Green CEO of MeettheBoss.com (pictured) – the business networking service. ’’Credit isn’t the only casualty of the crunch: time is another scarce resource for executives, they need immediate value when online’’ and reports show he is right with 200,000 executives world-wide flooding to his business site for answers since its re-launch on May 11th 2009.

US executives are leading the way with nearly 100,000 new active members from companies such as Wal-mart, GE, Procter and Gamble, Citi and Shell signing up. “The influx of new US business members could be associated to the Economic downturn or just simply because the American executive is more innate to the new technology, either way they have embraced the site and are reaching out to the world through MeettheBoss.com’’ – Harlan Davis – Director – MeettheBoss.com ‘’Each member is ‘fed’ specific content to their profile, from people, and broadcasts based on their activity across the site – from the weather, to industry blogs, contacts, and even news from their favorite newspapers. You get everything in one place unique to you, quickly and easily. And if you want to connect with a network of your peers/colleagues at the same time, or join in a live peer-led discussion group, well, you can do that too. It’s the ultimate aggregator”

The website has also expanded into key vertical channels such as Telecoms, Pharmaceuticals, Oil and Gas and Utilities. Each industry channel is limited to 20,000 users and provides specific content and contacts related to the user, such walled communities provide each executive an exclusive platform to share ideas and communicate with peers from around the world securely and privately.

If you are a key executive not related directly to the aforementioned channels, you are invited to the horizontal network of business management where you can pick up leadership lessons and business learning from executives like Manfred Fitzgerald, Director of Brand & Design at Lamborghini, Vinton Cerf – Chief Evangelist at Google and Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos . New industry channels will be create on request of the users, the next month will see manufacturing and retail launch.

It seems like sites such as MeettheBoss are the future of Web 2.0. – Well 98,000 executives seem to agree.

By John Funnell, May 22, 2009

Topics: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Media | No Comments »

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