Business networking is a very effective method for finding new customers, and forging new business relationships. It is a business strategy that can be used by anyone from large corporations to small home-based business owners.
Business networking is the act of interacting and building relationships with different people for the purpose of establishing a business connection with them. These people can be your prospective customers, consultants, employees or even business partners.
To network a business effectively, you must be able to link yourself to people and companies through trust and relationship building.
Benefits of international networks
An international online networking site can help you:
o Meet and ‘match-make’ with your ideal customers
o Expand your market to new countries and regions
o Deliver your goods and services world-wide
o Foster business relationships
o Reduce costs
o Increase sales
What will my network cover?
Topics we have been involved with include:
o Environmental technologies
o Automotive technologies
o Research
o Testing and statistics
o Leisure pursuits
o Ecommerce
Security is a key issue
Security is paramount. Often, people are sharing valuable commercial and technical know-how. Access needs to be controlled by username and password, both within the code and at directory level too.
Access will be on multiple levels:
o Public information to attract interest. This may be in several languages.
o ‘Free registration’ to provide benefits and obtain contact data for potential network members.
o ‘Paid membership’ the area where members can meet and do business.
o ‘Super-users’ who can upload information, share documents and so on.
o Administrators who can manage the content and database.
Social media
We can expect social networking such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to be part of the public presence of our networks. News and blogs will be promoted using social media. In due course, smart phone applications will also link into our secure area.
Customer-centric
Database-driven software enables us to configure each page to suit the user, with information specific to them.
At the core of the network is a people and companies database. This is matched with specialised databases, with market and technical information that people want to share.
The database enables us to link users within working groups. It also enables us to suggest potential business partners.
Languages
The key public web pages are usually in English. However, at the public level we can produce pages in multiple languages. This will attract people to the network and explain the benefits.
The latest content management systems like Wordpress and DotNetNuke feature language modules that are relatively easy to set up.
It is important to have experts or fluent speakers translate the copy for your target languages. Everything we present must be professional.
Your English must be clear and concise. Many of your audience will have English as a second language; our idioms will be lost on them. Avoid abbreviations and don’t make assumptions that people will understand.
It’s always good to avoid long words and long sentences, and you must be explicit in what you set out.
Intuitive design
It follows that our design must be creative, clear and efficient. Three levels of navigation:
1. Primary – links to the main business areas.
2. Secondary - specialised navigation for the chosen topic, which will be different for each user.
3. Supporting – general information for all topics, such as contact information, terms and conditions and so on.
While help and guidelines can be made available, we want our users to find their way intuitively. Our navigation bars are always in the same place(s) and they always have similar links.
Domains and hosting
Hosting, in general, can be anywhere. It’s best to choose a ‘universal’ domain, like .com, .org or .eu, rather than a national one. Some of these, like .de are restricted as to where they can be registered and hosted.
For more on international online networks, contact Gareth Bromby:
Email: contact@pdcnet.org.uk
follow us on Twitter @pdcnet
See us on LinkedIn
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Visit us at www.pdcnet.org.uk
I like your blog, the benefits of international networks are very important for us to learn. Networking is great for people that aren’t confident as it really pushes them to grow and learn how to make conversations and lasting connections with people they don’t know. That’s why we need business networking. It is one of the most helpful marketing and prospecting method that we can use to grow our business. If we use this for our business, it means we have to be proactive. The foundation of networking is doing something detailed that is to focus on networking for the business development. Make a possible plan, focus and be consistent. When we understand precisely what business networking is and step up to the challenge, we will find way of opportunity that we may have otherwise, we will never get discovered and we will be making an important venture in the steady growth of our business. Thanks for sharing your ideas here in your blogs. It is important to read by others.
ReplyDeleteClwyd Probert @ Business Networking in London