VIP Review: Social Networks for Business
Jinfo Blog

By Penny Crossland

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VIP Magazine No.78, released this week, includes a comparative review of three networking sites, all used for business purposes: LinkedIn, Jigsaw and ZoomInfo. While these sites are aimed at job seekers, recruiters and marketing professionals, they all have content and tools that are useful for information professionals – if used with caution.

LinkedIn is a robust and sophisticated search tool, so much so that it is easy to forget that the data is based on user-generated input. Membership has grown exponentially in the last two years, no doubt as a result of the recession, with 65 million members representing more than 150 industries at the last count. The database consists entirely of user-generated content, which is enhanced through content partnerships with several publishers such as Business Week, Capital IQ and CNBC.

LinkedIn has numerous useful tools for the researcher, as well as business focused applications, which members are able to add to their profiles. Outlook users can now view their connections and send invitations without having to switch between the systems. Twitter is synced with LinkedIn, while mobile users also have access to their profiles through BlackBerry, iPhone and Palm Pre apps.

Jigsaw is an online directory of 21 million business contacts and around 4 million companies, which is updated by a user base of 1.2 million members. Members are encouraged to exchange and share their business contacts with each other and are rewarded for uploading or updating business contact information with points, which they are able to redeem for further contact information. However, Jigsaw users are not obliged to share their contacts – you can purchase data either as a one-off or as part of a subscription. Jigsaw’s strength is its contact data for hard-to-find business people and small firms in less well-documented countries such as India and Singapore. The database covers 9 English-speaking countries and is organized into 20 industry sectors. I found the company profiles useful – the contain links to articles on the company, wikis and relevant research.

ZoomInfo started out as a subscription-based search engine for people information. In 2007, the company moved to a freemium business model and now refers to itself as 'the world’s most comprehensive directory of business information on people and companies'. (http://digbig.com/5bbqse)

The company developed and patented a semantic search engine, which continually crawls the English-language web looking for biographical and company information. In addition, ZoomInfo relies on user-generated content. Users are able to add and edit existing profiles on the database. At the end of 2009, the company launched FreshContacts, a tool aimed at job seekers, which allows business people to swap their business contacts for 2 months of unlimited access to Zoominfo’s database.

ZoomInfo contacts are updated on a daily basis. According to the company in an average week, 230,000 new people are entered into ZoomInfo’s directory, 750,000 people are updated and 1.9 million people are refreshed. As of April 2010, ZoomInfo has profiles on more than 45 million people and 5 million companies. Zoominfo has a free, basic search facility; however its paid-for database PowerSell has more sophisticated search facilities and also allows users to export results. Anybody wanting to conduct lengthy people searches should consider subscribing to PowerSell. Costs are not too onerous. ZoomInfo has frequently been criticized by information professionals for having inaccurate data and I did find some out-of-date profiles, however, as with all these social networking sites, it is a good first port of call for people and company data. Info pros should not accept any of the data as gospel.

For further information on using social networking sites for business information purposes, read these FUMSI articles on using Twitter for business and social networks for research.

Purchase the VIP Report: Comparative Review of Social Networks from the FreePint Shop. Or save money by purchasing VIP Magazine No.78, which includes the VIP Report: Product Review of BiomedExperts.com.

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