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8.3 Enterprise Social Networks 239

“My Starbucks Idea” (mystarbucksidea.force.com) is an
example of a company-hosted social network that is open to • Biznik (biznik.com). Biznik is a community of
the public. In contrast, CEMEX’s internal social network, entrepreneurs and small business owners dedicated
SHIFT (see opening case), is open only to the company’s to helping each other by sharing ideas and knowl-
employees and is considered private. In this section, we will edge. Their motto is “collaboration beats the com-
concentrate on public social networks. petition.” According to biznik.com, their policy is
The following are some examples of business-oriented that members must use their real names on the site
public social networks. and Biznik supplements its interactions with face-
to- face meetings.
• EFactor (efactor.com). The world’s largest net-
work of entrepreneurs (over 1.9 million members in
• Google+. Google+ (“one Google account for every- 222 countries across 240 industries) provides mem-
thing”), which began operating in 2011, designated bers with people, tools, marketing, and expertise to
itself as a business-oriented social network. In its succeed and make real, trustworthy, and lasting
fourth year of operation, it has over 1.1 million connections (2011 data). Members connect with
users. For an overview, see martinshervington. like-minded people and with investors.
com/what-is-google-plus. • Startup Nation (startupnation.com). Participants
• LinkedIn. Referred to as the premier business- in this community of startup owners and experts are
oriented network, linkedin.com is known as the helping people start and operate new businesses.
most popular network for business, as illustrated in Sharing knowledge and ideas is the main objective.
the closing case of this chapter. Also see the info- • Inspiration Station (inspiration.entrepreneur.com).
graphic at blog.hootsuite.com/social-network-for- Inspiration Station is one of the best portals for small
work. businesses and start-ups. It not only has a lot of use-
LinkedIn shows content and provides customer ful information for business owners, it has a great
service in a multitude of languages, including English, community for you to take advantage of, and to con-
Spanish, French, and Tagalog, among others, with a nect with fellow business owners from around the
plan for considering other languages in the future. globe.

Several other networks similar to LinkedIn are Wealink
(wealink.com) in China, Rediff (rediff.com) in India,
International High Potential Network (iHipo) (ihipo.com) in SECTION 8.2 REVIEW QUESTIONS
Sweden, and Moikrug (My Circle) (moikrug.ru) in Russia.
There are many public business-oriented networks that 1. Distinguish between private and public business-oriented
focus on specific industries or types of professional special- networks.
ties; one example is the Network of Entrepreneurial Women 2. List and briefly describe public business-oriented net works.
(connectw.org). 3. Define entrepreneur networks and list two examples.

Entrepreneur Networks 8.3 ENTERPRISE SOCIAL NETWORKS

Some business-oriented public networks concentrate on entre- An increasing number of companies have created their own
preneurial activities. A few examples are listed next. in-house, enterprise social networks. Some of these networks
Gottlieb (2015) lists 42 social networks for entrepreneurs. can be private, developed for use only by their employees,
Here are some more in detail: former employees, and business partners. Others are open to
For how social entrepreneurship works, see Martin et al. the public, although these are mostly used by their custom-
(2015). ers. Private networks are considered to be secured (“behind