Like business on Facebook?

Jamshedpur, July 18: Over 750 million users with each spending an average of 23 minutes per day to catch up with their 130 friends from across the globe. Social networking site Facebook is creating waves across the world, but are we really using it to get furitful returns?

The answer, if professor Sree Sreenivasan of Columbia Journalism School is to be believed, is no.

Sreenivasan, addressing the students of XLRI at a session on corporates and the effective use of social media, today said one should not be overwhelmed by the number of contacts they make on social networking sites. The ways in which they use the platform to benefit is important.

"Social networking sites are not just places of fun. We must treat them as platforms of business. It is not about uploading status messages on Facebook or Orkut, but to use these messages for your benefit. People join a number of social networking sites. But they do not know what to do and what not to do on them," Sreenivasan said at Sonari-based Tribal Culture Centre.

Sreenivasan, who has researched extensively on various types of social networking and its uses across the globe, further stressed on the fact that people stop treating sites like LinkedIn as job portals. Such virtual platforms only helped one manage one's career and keep a track of his/her business activities, he added.

"Similarly, in networking sites like Facebook, people add a number of friends but never realise whether any one of them is actually helping them in gaining anything. People should instead start looking for more business opportunities," he said.

Sreenivasan then went on to dwell on how newly launched sites like Google + allow one to create specific groups for sharing selected information.

Echoing Sreenivasan, head of corporate affairs of Tata Steel Prabhat Sharma said that executives started using social media in a more positive manner. "The reach of social media is expanding. The workshop was organised to let our executives know how social media can be used for gain," Sharma said.