The rise of social networking and web hosting users

It’s almost impossible to avoid social networking nowadays. Many web hosting users will undoubtedly be using them, whether for personal use or business projects.

They are, of course, not the only ones. Facebook has just announced that its user base has hit 350 million users across the globe.

This huge amount of users may be a result of Facebook’s "more generic audience" in comparison to other social networking sites. He explained: "Broader social networks do offer greater breadth and depth due to what they are and what is provided to their audiences."

Other services cater for different markets, he pointed out. For example, Myspace, is more focused on entertainment, lifestyle and music, and Twitter "thrives on real-time conversations that can cater for broad subject matter and appeal".

Now that it has such a vast user base, Facebook needs to take privacy into account, especially considering the amount of data on the social networking site. This enables companies to carry out "profiling and research" and this may be "risky" for those firms that debate and champion privacy issues.

So what are companies doing with social media to promote themselves? Econsultancy’s Social Media and Online PR Report recently showed that nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) of firms covered by the study had experimented with social media but had not done much.

Micro-blogging is now the most widely-used social media tactic among companies and is used by more than three-quarters (78 per cent) of firm respondents.

However, others are not jumping on the bandwagon, with a third of respondents (31 per cent) not spending any of their budget on social media.

Web hosting users can benefit from social media campaigns, especially if they are handled correctly. With proper management, such projects can bring many rewards and could give them an advantage over others.

Written by Alan Gorzanski.