Concept And Advantages Of Networking And Social Capital

Networking

Earth with a surface area of over 500 million sq.km has become more like a global village, thanks to the Internet and its fruit of social media. The world with a sprawling population of over 7 billion and internet penetration of over 53% have made it easier for people to network with a person who is sitting thousands of miles away from him, with the use of technology(Gerbaudo, 2018).Extension to the above Preamble lays the foundation of this report writing.

The report here will focus on the concept and advantage of networking & social capital at length. It will also focus on the significance of weak and strong ties in the context of the networks. Towards the end, a small reflection will be presented on my current networking and business relationship skills and the way I have identified to improve my networking skill.

Networking has been in existence ever since the concept of civilization cropped in, networking in the earlier days was limited to bargaining practices, and however, the concept has seen a revolution of change from Then to Now. Networking can be understood as the process which fosters the exchange and transfer of information and ideas among individuals or groups which share a common interest, it can be both social as well the business people (Tuten & Solomon, 2017).

Networking is of great importance in today’s professional world, it helps to boast individuals professional and employment prospects. Networking exists in all forms such as business networking, personal networking and professional networking. The underlying rationale here is that networking helps the individual in getting in contact with the person in power or a person who can be on immense help to the other person(Chung, Yang & Huang, 2015).

Networking as mentioned has evolved over the last couple of decades, earlier networking was limited to business meeting, conferences, events or family gatherings. In these type of gathering people in a formal way used to communicate with each other, build contacts, exchange cards and depart with the promise of Staying in touch and more so. However, in today’s world, due to the rise of Internet and Social media, Networking has become easy and it has become extremely easy for people to stay in touch with the Network. Today’s Networking is based on the Pillars of efficiency, ease of communication, wider, larger and strong networks.  Social media platforms such as Facebook, Linked-in and Twitter are some of the channels which shows strong networking growth in the present day world, and are highly effective(Kasemsap, 2016).

As the name implies, social capital is the network of relationships amongst people who live and work in a particular society helping the society to function in a better and productive manner. In today’s dynamic world Social capital is also seen as the worth of an individual, the more a person has strong network which he/she can leverage for their own good or the good of their friends/families/acquaintance, the more is his worth in the market(Lin, 2017).  Social capital in the organization is of great importance, more the social capital, better are the chances of the company’s growth and ease of communication in the organization. Thus, social capital is of great importance in the ecosystem of Networking (Burt, 2017).

Social Capital

Facebook is the largest social media platform which has over 2.3 Billion active social media users; it was after the success of Facebook a wave of social media platforms stormed the market and groped the users in the disruption of social media. Instagram, Snapchat are some other channels which are seen as strong platforms for Networking.

Fecebook as Network Growth- People have misconception that Facebook as a platform is used to boast informal communication or to build informal relationships with the network. This is however not entire true, as Facebook as evolved over the last couple of years and is focussing on business networking. Facebook gives plethora of options to people for staying in touch with each other, option of building a community amongst the like -minded people, option of adding people sitting at any remote part of the world and also to engage and communicate with them at ease. It has now become easy for a person to find somebody on the Facebook, send him a friend request and start building a relationship with them (Sehgal & Agarwal, 2018).

Linked- In as Network Growth-Linked-In is the number one social media platform for Professionals who are looking to build their network and stay upbeat in the professional world. Linked-In as a professional media platform gained huge popularity due to its professionalism and plethora of services which are akin to stronger networking groups. Linked-In makes it easier for the users to be a part of any community in which he is interested in and be am member of the community. In this way he is able to identify the people in the industry, what have they been doing in their professional journey and can easily approach them for any kind of help. Features such as In Mail, Messaging, Join a group, Professional community; recommendation etc. makes the platform a good channel for Network growth (Krishna & Sekharaiah, 2015).

Twitter as Network Growth-Twitter is the largest micro-blogging platform which gives the users to communicate his views/opinion within 140 words along with GIF or rich media. Twitter gained popularity all of a sudden when in large herds, media celebrities, politicians, models, fashion designers and influencers joined the platform. At present Twitter boasts of over 1 Billion active users on the platform and give a lot of independence to its users to follow any public and private account. The platform is not as simple as Facebook, still provides plethora of options to increase the network of the individual. It is the presence of the eminent personalities and a large group of people which hooks the people onto the platform and helps them in growing their network by following them and building a relation of trust and faith (Isom, Walsh & Gardner, 2017).

Networking as explained earlier is extremely important in today’s professional and personal world .Both strong and weak ties in Networking holds tremendous significance, some of them are as follows:

• Strong ties in Networking helps in bringing the people with diversity close together and helps in better exchange of ideas, views and thoughts. Strong ties in networking are seen as the breeding grounds of ideas which lead to creativity and innovation. Thus, strong networking not only helps the individual but the entire network (Centola, 2015).
• Weak ties in networking can be of great help in the form of crucial information regarding a job opportunity, a new start up business idea or acting as a bridge to build new connection in the same or different industry. The important point here is to nurture and cultivate the networking ties in the system to ensure a steady flow of information which can be of great utility in the future (Dubos, 2017).

I attend various industry forum events in a bid to know important stakeholders working in the industry, and also to build a relationship of trust and faith with them. I always try my best to be a part of the network which has a lot of diversity in the group, this helps me to gain knowledge on the subjects I am not inclined towards or have strong affinity. This not only helps me in giving a significant weightage to my network, but also puts me on a pedestal to learning and growth.

I strongly value networking, and I am always looking forward to meet such diverse network groups. I do my bit of contribution to the network as we all are mostly focussed on the concept of utilitarianism, doing greatest good for the greatest number of people.

I am a firm believer of the concept that “Network” is the “Net-worth” of an individual, going by the philosophy I believe in keeping my network strong, closely tied, encouraging, motivating and full of positivity. I ensure that once a week atleast I engage with my network through the use of social media and do not miss the opportunity of meeting with the network if they are in town. I have benefitted a lot from my network, not only in my professional journey but also in my personal life as well.

I am a firm believer that Networking is the net worth of an individual and it opens the doors of unexplored territory to the members of network. Networking has evolved over the last decade, it transformed from traditional networking places like events, business meetings, and informal gathering to more systematic networks on social and digital media. Social and digital media has paved the way for networks to engage, influence, motivate and help one other by creating a strong community of like-minded individuals. Networking is of great help when it comes to building connections, identifying opportunities, raising the profile, increasing business and churning new ideas,

References

Centola, D.,  2015. Choosing your network: Social preferences in an online health community. Social science & medicine, 125, pp.19-31.

Chung, H.F., Yang, Z. and Huang, P.H., 2015. How does organizational learning matter in strategic business performance? The contingency role of guanxi networking. Journal of Business Research, 68(6), pp.1216-1224.

Dubos, R., 2017. Social capital: Theory and research. Routledge.

Gerbaudo, P., 2018. Tweets and the streets: Social media and contemporary activism. Pluto Press.

Isom, J., Walsh, M. and Gardner, J.M., 2017. Social Media and Pathology: Where Are We Now and Why Does it Matter?. Advances in anatomic pathology, 24(5), pp.294-303.

Kasemsap, K., 2016. The role of social networking in global business environments. In Social media and networking: Concepts, methodologies, tools, and applications (pp. 1635-1653). IGI Global.

Krishna, A.R. and Sekharaiah, K.C., 2015. Security Features of User’s for Online Social Networks. IITM Journal of Management and IT, 6(1), pp.51-58.

Lin, N., 2017. Building a network theory of social capital. In Social capital (pp. 3-28). Routledge.

Sehgal, D. and Agarwal, A.K., 2018. Real-time Sentiment Analysis of Big Data Applications Using Twitter Data with Hadoop Framework. In Soft Computing: Theories and Applications (pp. 765-772). Springer, Singapore.

Taneja, S. and Toombs, L., 2014. Putting a face on small businesses: Visibility, viability, and sustainability the impact of social media on small business marketing. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, 18(1), p.249.

Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2017. Social media marketing. Sage.