Why do users need business social networks?

    The issue of business social networks has repeatedly and from a fairly long time been raised on Habré.
    If what the business might need networks for is obvious enough, then with the needs of users it’s not so clear.
    Offhand, the following needs come to mind:

    • Learn about news, discounts and special offers of companies of interest . The need is quite clear - but at the same time few people will be actively engaged in it. And most of them are already solving them somewhere. You can become an aggregator of companies' offers - but rather it’s functionality for an RSS reader than a social network
    • read company reviews . The thing is necessary - this is confirmed by research ( Western , of course ( link to squeezes in Russian )). A potential incentive to write reviews on a large network is to have a large user rating. But this is also far from necessary for many - as always, there are 10 viewers per 1 generating reviews. Better than the available resources, it can only be that the reviews on everything that can be collected on one resource - but this is also a minus, since now the reviews are scattered around thematic portals that people are already used to
    • participate in thematic communities . All this in one form or another is already there, and luring users from the forums and communities to which they are accustomed without giving anything fundamentally new is quite difficult, if possible
    • ask a company question (communicate directly with its representative) . But is the Internet really necessary for this - when is it most often possible to call?
    • Find out new reviews of users you trust (reviews of which you have already read before) . The need is non-standard, but most often for this purpose usually just friends and acquaintances are used (if from the network - then some other.
    • find out the general rating of the company / place of the company in the ranking . Another not the most influencing decision making need.


    This point of view may seem depressive-decadent - I just try to critically approach the reality of every need.
    In total, we conclude: is business-social networks a stillborn idea that is not implemented because it does not satisfy any unresolved user needs?

    I invite to the discussion those who raised this issue earlier - Yuri yurylifshits , Anatoly amilner , Vyacheslav slava7

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