In the advent of the recent social media revolution, online connections have never been so important. This is the reason why Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and similar social media sites have become so popular, as they are the sites where people are able to connect with others online – their family, friends, colleagues, other professionals, potential business partners, and so on.For professionals and business owners, having a profile in LinkedIn has become essential. It could mean the difference between being hired or not, or someone forming a business relationship with you or not. LinkedIn has become the online professional network where you and your business need to be listed, or you could be losing out on a lot of potential clients and revenue.
Both corporate recruiters and job seekers have taken advantage of LinkedIn services. Today, the LinkedIn network comprises around 100 million users, and millions of users continue to sign up each month.
Facebook, however, continues to be the leading social platform, with over 750 million users. This means there are still hundreds of millions of people that have not signed up in LinkedIn yet that companies want to reach.
And this is why two applications have launched in Facebook that seeks to address this gap. BranchOut became the first to offer professional networking in Facebook. And it has quickly seen a huge growth in its users, which means that some Facebook users are looking for professional connections within the social platform.
So what made BranchOut so popular in just a short amount of time? First, it’s easy to register. You simply go to the application’s page in Facebook, connect to it, enter the additional information they require, and that’s pretty much it – you’re already a BranchOut user.
Of course, it takes a little bit longer to complete your BranchOut profile. They pretty much walk you through each of the steps you need to take, so it’s pretty easy.
After completing your profile, it’s time to browse the interface. Basically, BranchOut is all about social interaction and building your network. You can give your friends endorsements and badges. You also get to see job listings, usually coming from Indeed.com, and a list of companies you can apply to, which is a great feature for job seekers and corporate recruiters. This is why BranchOut has been called the LinkedIn of Facebook, though it still has a long way to go before it can really catch on to what LinkedIn is to professionals.
The newest and latest entry to the professional social networking in Facebook is the application launched by Monster.com, which they call BeKnown. As one of the most experienced players in the recruiting market of the corporate world, Monster.com has recently seen its business slow down due to social networks and other online job boards. Ultimately, corporate recruiters are heading over to where the majority of the people are, and most of them are now in Facebook and LinkedIn.
And this is why Monster.com has conceptualized BeKnown, hoping to get their share of the professional market in Facebook. And their biggest competition is of course, BranchOut, which has a distinct advantage in the fact that it was established ahead of BeKnown.
So what does BeKnown have to offer? First, it basically does the same thing as BranchOut. It offers features such as the ability to invite connections from your Facebook, LinkedIn and email address books, the ability to post and share jobs, the ability to give references and recommendations, the ability to share information and photos professionally, the ability to follow companies, and so on.
The main difference is probably the fact that since BeKnown is owned by Monster.com, they offer a better system to help people find the jobs they want and recruiters to find the people they want to hire. Recruiters can easily create jobs on their company pages, which people in the network can apply to. Another advantage is the fact that Monster.com has incorporated its job listings into BeKnown, so job seekers can easily see a lot of jobs when they click on the “jobs” button.
Both applications offer excellent features that almost feel like LinkedIn, but LinkedIn remains years ahead of the two in the professional social networking scene, as it has better offerings that engage its users and makes them interact with each other.
This is the reason why it has 100 million users now, and continues to grow by the day.
Though BeKnown and BranchOut are doing a good job with offering personal social interaction, they still need to do better with regards to creating professional contacts. And because of the number of users, BranchOut is still ahead of BeKnown at this point of the game. It will be interesting to see how these two applications evolve in the months to come.