There are dozens of business oriented social networks out there. But for this article series I’m highlighting the two most popular — Ryze and Ecademy. Each operate a little differently and bring varying opportunities for you to use your business blog further leverage your time and expand your online networking influence.

Ryze:

Ryze is a social grid that allows members to interact with each other through niche topic groups, or in Ryze as a whole. This online business network is forum based. It’s a U.S.-based network that has business people from diverse industries and company sizes from around the world.

(You can learn more about Ryze at http://new.ryze.com.)

Ecademy:

This organization is more of a true social network where all your communications across the entire Ecademy network are tracked and organized for you. Ecademy has also stepped up their networking environment to a higher level by adding internal membership blogs. It’s a UK-based network whose international members are primarily professionals and owners/executives of larger companies.

(You can learn more about Ecademy international at http://www.ecademy.com or the US chapter at http://us.ecademy.com.)

Linear posting vs. business blogs

As great as these online business networks are at forming relationships, the standard linear posting and tracking of online communications can be somewhat limiting. Following a thread of discussion topic can be frustrating and time-consuming for members. This is where your business blog comes to the rescue.

I came across an excellent diagram that Tom Coates over at the http://www.plasticbag.org blog had that illustrates the challenge with linear posting, and how business blogs overcome it.

As you can see, many of the relational benefits in an online conversation are lost in linear posting. But with your business blog, discussions stay organized and people are a lot more likely to get the full context of the discussion, and therefore gain more benefits.

In part three of this series … you’ll learn how to improve the communication flow of your online business networking, broaden discussions, and attract more qualified prospects by strategically integrating your business blog into your online communications.

John-Paul Micek
The Click-and-Mortar Business Coach
Business Owners Coaching Club
http:/www.AdvancedBusinessBlogging.com