Public Social Networks for Business: Is a FOAF a Foe?

Info-Tech Research Group, March 2009, Pages: 8

External public social networking services, such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Friendster, can be valuable sales, marketing, and support tools. The friend-of-a-friend (FOAF) trust model that connects social network users together presents marketers and advertisers with a potentially lucrative audience for promoting goods and services. However, this same trust model can lead to inappropriate connections between business and personal contacts.

This research note includes:

-A detailed explanation of how social networks function, especially the FOAF trust model.

-A discussion of typical valid business uses of public social networks.

-Key considerations and recommendations for implementing business use of public social networks.

Careful analysis must be conducted before approving employee use of public social networks for business purposes.

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