Australia Inc. Blocks Social Networking?

Whether social networking sites should be accessed at workplaces or not is probably one of the hottest debate topics across the Web. Though several businesses allow their employees to ‘tweet’, ‘update’, or ‘poke’ at their friends, others are skeptical about its usage and are blocking access to sites such as Facebook and Twitter. As per the recent findings from Telstra Business and MessageLabs, Australian businesses are taking strict actions against the use of social networking sites.

Loss of productivity and increased use of bandwidth and Internet are the major concerns forcing enterprises to keep their employees away from social networking sites. In fact, a recent research by Nielsen also supports the fact that social networking is more popular than e-mailing at offices.

To understand the situation better, here are some statistics as per a review of web-usage trends of Australian small and medium firms:

MySpace Rolls Out Local Business Directories

Finding local business directories just got easier! Social network MySpace is localizing with small-business directories that features content generated by users. To get started, it has collaborated with Citysearch to introduce MySpace Local in private beta, which will provide several benefits to MySpace users based in the US.

The latest feature will allow users access social directories of small-sized businesses, write reviews, rate and share the content with others. MySpace is still working on the plan, and expects a national public beta launch in the following month. The social networking giant also plans to make the service available on mobile, increase the number of categories, and expand the service outside US.

Twitter Popularizing Amongst Small Businesses

If you are a business running on small or medium scale, this is very important news for you! Social networking and micro-blogging site Twitter is attracting huge number of SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises), claiming 6000 of them flocking to the site every day.

SMEs are aiming at Twitter to trim their marketing expenses and keep in touch with their clients, according to a recent survey conducted by O2. It is estimated that 700,000 small businesses are already on Twitter to promote themselves.

Blogs – An Excellent Social Media Tool

In this fast moving world of communication, social media plays a predominant role in engaging users across the world. Social media applications such as video sharing, social networking, online forums, social bookmarking, etc. have become increasingly popular to create and share content between people globally. However, one such application that has set the Web world on fire since the past couple of years is Web log (popularly known as blog).

Initially, blogging was confined mostly to individuals, who created personal or category-specific blogs to share their views with friends and community. However, with time, businesses realized the importance of blogs to strengthen their marketing and communication activities, the result of which we see thousands of them using it to promote themselves today.

Survey: Businesses Double the Use of Social Networking Sites

According to a survey, social networking portals have gained more importance than before as businesses doubled their promotional efforts through them since the last six months.

After examining how small scale businesses promote themselves, how they network and what technology they utilize, the BT Tradespace research revealed some stunning results. It found out that 15 percent of these companies used social networking sites to market their business compared to mere 7 percent at the dawn of this year.