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Reading Text: Business Applications

Social networks have various applications for businesses, healthcare professionals, and academia. Businesses can use social networks to expand their contact base and networks, act as a customer relationship tool, and advertise banners and text ads. Healthcare professionals are beginning to use social networks to manage institutional knowledge, disseminate peer knowledge, and promote individual physicians and institutions. Various social networking sites have emerged catering to different languages and countries, including some that specialize in connecting students and faculty.

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Brescia Delgado
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60 views

Reading Text: Business Applications

Social networks have various applications for businesses, healthcare professionals, and academia. Businesses can use social networks to expand their contact base and networks, act as a customer relationship tool, and advertise banners and text ads. Healthcare professionals are beginning to use social networks to manage institutional knowledge, disseminate peer knowledge, and promote individual physicians and institutions. Various social networking sites have emerged catering to different languages and countries, including some that specialize in connecting students and faculty.

Uploaded by

Brescia Delgado
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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READING TEXT

Read about applications for social networks. Then answer the questions.
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Business applications
Social networks connect people at low cost; this can be beneficial for entrepreneurs and
small businesses looking to expand their contact base. These networks often act as a
customer relationship management tool for companies selling products and services.
Companies can also use social networks for advertising in the form of banners and text ads.
Since businesses operate globally, social networks can make it easier to keep in touch with
contacts around the world.

Medical applications
Social networks are beginning to be adopted by healthcare professionals as a means to
manage institutional knowledge, disseminate peer to peer knowledge and to highlight
individual physicians and institutions. The advantage of using a dedicated medical social
networking site is that all the members are screened against the state licensing board list of
practitioners. The role of social networks is especially of interest to pharmaceutical
companies who spend approximately "32 percent of their marketing dollars" attempting to
influence the opinion leaders of social networks.

Languages, nationalities and academia


Various social networking sites have sprung up catering to different languages and countries.
(3) The popular site Facebook has been cloned for various countries and languages and some
specializing in connecting students and faculty.(8)

Social networks for social good


Several websites are beginning to tap into the power of the social networking model for
social good. Such models may be highly successful for connecting otherwise fragmented
industries and small organizations without the resources to reach a broader audience with
interested and passionate users. Users benefit by interacting with a like-minded community
and finding a channel for their energy and giving.

Business model
Few social networks currently charge money for membership.(4) In part, this may be
because social networking is a relatively new service, and the value of using them has not
been firmly established in customers' minds(1). Companies such as MySpace and Facebook
sell online advertising on their site. Hence, they are seeking large memberships, and
charging for membership would be counter productive. Some believe that the deeper
information that the sites have on each user will allow much better targeted advertising than
any other site can currently provide.(2)(6) Sites are also seeking other ways to make money,
such as by creating an online marketplace or by selling professional information and social
connections to businesses.

Privacy issues
On large social networking services, there have been growing concerns about users giving
out too much personal information and the threat of sexual predators. Users of these
services need to be aware of data theft or viruses.(5) However, large services, such as
MySpace, often work with law enforcement to try to prevent such incidents. In addition,
there is a perceived privacy threat in relation to placing too much personal information in
the hands of large corporations or governmental bodies, allowing a profile to be produced
on an individual's behavior on which decisions, detrimental to an individual, may be taken.

Investigations
Social network services are increasingly being used in legal and criminal investigations.(7)
Information posted on sites such as MySpace and Facebook, has been used by police,
probation, and university officials to prosecute users of said sites. In some situations,
content posted on MySpace has been used in court.(7)
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