Networking Score: Quantifying Benefits of ...

Networking Score: Quantifying Benefits of Professional Networking Websites

Chaitanya Vyas Assistant Professor School of Liberal Studies Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. Phone: (O) 079-23275229 Cell: 09898225271 E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

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Networking Score: Quantifying Benefits of Professional Networking Websites

Abstract This paper proposes Networking Score, a unique and innovative scoring tool that professional networking websites can offer to their users. Networking Score will help the website users in mapping themselves as to how much users are benefitted by spending time and other resources on online networking through networking websites. Website users will be able to improve their networking skills and add more quality contacts or connections to their profile by using the proposed score. Here, methodology to calculate the proposed Networking Score and benefits for networking websites are shown.

Key words: networking score, social media analytics, professional networking, LinkedIn, Klout score

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1. Introduction Creating new contacts and relations and maintaining the established ones has become one of the pillars for successful professionals. Gone are the days where professional used to think about men, machine, money, material, and market only. Business can borrow money, buy or lease machinery and other assets, hire people and outsource as many things as possible but creating and maintaining good professional contacts may not be set up instantly. It requires networking skills – the skill which every professional needs to acquire and polish regularly. Professional networking helps executives in various ways from finding new business opportunities to nurture executives’ career. Bethencourt (2011) listed the objectives that executives may target including leading, recruitment, sales improvements, fundraising, etc. The author in her book - Success in six cups of coffee gives tips to executives on potential of current network, importance of networks, networking barriers and obstacles, establishing new and better contacts, cultural aspects and on long-term approach requirement. Two chapters of the book talk about creating new contacts and looking for better contacts. In short, quality and quantity of the contacts are elaborated. Earlier contacts were established by meeting professionals face to face, which now are practiced with the help of powerful tools such as virtual office platforms. Tapscott (2009) finds that young generation has very different expectations and attitude about working with organizations. They want fun at work (and also Facebook access!). They want to connect and collaborate digitally. Internet and WWW are the media for collaborating and networking for new generation, not seminars and industrial visits. Hence ‘Net’ needs to be emphasized in ‘Networking’. Professional networking helps people to establish contacts or connections with others having different background. The website dedicated to the professional networking allows the website users to connect to the people from different parts of the world and get advantage of those connected people’s experience, expertise, ideas, information, and their connections too. This gain may be in terms of users’ advancement towards career or searching for better jobs. Professional networking sites are different from social networking sites in a way that the contents shared on professional sites are more useful and less entertaining for users’ professional growth and development. Social networking site users may feel proud to see an increasing number of friends in their Friend List but professional network website users should feel proud having useful and relevant people in their contact list. In short, it is quality and not the quantity of people important in profession networking. Proposed here is an idea about introducing a scoring tool to help the site users know how effectively and usefully they are using the professional networking site. Scoring is done by the professional networking websites and it is offered to the site users regularly. Such score is known as Networking Score. Networking websites can trademark such scoring methodology. The methodology uses certain criteria, as given below, to calculate the score. If www.facebook.com is social networking giant, www.linkedin.com is the professional networking one. LinkedIn is the largest professional networking public company of the world today. The website connects professionals from more than 200 countries. Launched on May 5, 2003, it claims to have 238 million website users.1 Popular SlideShare is an affiliated company of LinkedIn. The mission of LinkedIn is to “connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful”. In 1

http://www.linkedin.com/about-us [Accessed on 08/09/2013]

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the second quarter of 2012, LinkedIn’s revenue was $363.7 million (an increase of 59%) and net income was $3.7 million.2 Apart from LinkedIn there are other such professional networking platforms. www.sitepoint.com enlists some of them:3 1. Biznik 2. Cmypitch 3. Cofoundr 4. E.Factor 5. Ecademy 6. Entrepreneur Connect 7. Fast Pitch 8. Focus 9. JASEzone 10. Manta 11. NetworkingforProfessionals 12. PartnerUp 13. PerfectBusiness 14. Plaxo 15. Ryze 16. StartupNation 17. Upspring 18. XING 19. Young Entrepreneur 20. Ziggs To fulfill the mission and grow, the organizations need to show their consumers that they are getting benefits for using the services of the organizations. It is not easy for professional networking websites to show apparently what benefits their users have out of online professional networking. Quantitative tool such as proposed Networking Score can help such websites in attracting and retaining users by showing benefits of keep using those websites. There are certain parameters such as Klout score and others available but they help the users to know or measure their online presence only. There is no concrete score available which can help the website users to exactly calculate the benefits the users get out of using networking websites. 2. Literature Review Networking is beneficial to not only professionals working in corporate but also to the students and academicians. Learning or working in a networked group has many advantages including developing higher level of professional networking abilities. Tricia and Rodney (2001) found that in cohort environment, students experience better networking opportunities and improved academic 2 http://press.linkedin.com/News-Releases/309/LinkedIn-Announces-Second-Quarter-2013-Financial-Results [Accessed on 08/09/2013] 3 http://www.sitepoint.com/social-networking-sites-for-business/ [Accessed on 08/09/2013]

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performance. The authors suggest a need of further research in the area of effectiveness of cohort experience in conveying knowledge into professional practice. Today, professionals observe extensive use of technology in networking compared to conventional collaborations. As Shimabukuro (2000) notes, the new era with progressively more technology dominance has begun. This dominance has given an opportunity to do networking with other professionals not done so rapidly before. Professionals use internet and other technologies for developing themselves through conferences and other such networking platforms. Professionals do expect more flexibility in spending time and making their presence at networking platforms. The networking medium is also changing. There are different motivations behind communicating with different professionals in the business organizations. DiMicco et al. analyzed user behavior of communication with colleagues. It was found that professionals use internal social networking to make new contacts and strengthen present circle. Motivations behind the communication are – personally connecting with co-workers, career advancement, and campaigning for their projects. Richter and Riemer also investigated online social networking phenomenon within organizations. Much knowledge does not exist about the power of use of social networking websites within organizations. The authors illustrated three cases of implementations and use of social networking websites in large, knowledge-based organizations and discussed implications for implementation by the organizations. Though social networking is dissimilar to professional networking, social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace etc. are used at workplace to connect to other professionals. Cardon raised concern about possible impacts of use of social networking websites on professional communication norms and practices. The author also noted that in November 2008, there were more than 50 networking websites having more than 1 million registered users. DiMicco and David Millen note that types of social relationships managed on social networking websites are becoming plentiful and varied. The authors investigated the issues related to managing different social networks through one system. Presenting them while using one site to keep in touch with users’ past connections and colleagues was investigated by examining online profile pages and interviews of networking website users. O’Murchu, Breslin, and Decker also note that social networking sites are used to do networking with business professionals and information communications over the web has changed the way people work. The authors classified types of social network sites and evaluated features and functionality of these sites. Though social networking sites are different from professional networking sites in terms of their target audience and benefits sought, presence of profiles of professionals are found on social networking as well as professional networking websites. Steinfield et al explored the relationship between organizational social capital dimensions and the use of an internal social network site. The authors tested hypothesis that use of a social network site adds to organizations’ social capital and the users can interact with other contacts and larger network. These sites not only backs social interactions among the users but also help in maintaing and strengthening relationships. Authors found that bonding relationships, sense of corporate citizenship, interest in connecting globally, and contact to new people are all associated with use of the social network site. Professional networking sites give platform to connect with more and more numbers of site users without any boundary of geography, age, race, nationality, income of gender. Linehan conducted an extensive empirical research with senior female international managers considering a recent increasing number of female professionals opting for managerial career. The study reveals the role of organizational networks on female managers’ career development and the finding that those female managers who are not part of an organizational support network face

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disadvantages in career development. Keenan and Shiri explored sociability on the web and promotion by different social websites to users on interaction aspects. The authors examined four websites – LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter from a viewpoint of users and observations were recorded and were compared which gave understanding of diverse approaches. It was observed that websites such as LinkedIn emphasizes on community, Twitter on technology, Facebook on privacy while MySpace focuses on publicity. All encourage sociability among the users commonly. Skeels and Grudin observed remarkable raise in use of social networking software and attitudes and behavior in a large, technologically-savvy organization. A survey and thirty focused interviews were conducted by the authors and they found widespread social and work uses having complex patterns. It was found that the use when extended to social groups across the organization’s firewall created pressure. The authors foresee fast adoption of social networking technologies by organizations. Professional networking is not only useful for the employees but it is equally beneficial for employers, particularly for informal reference checking as a part of recruitment process. Anjali Athavaley explored how employers use LinkedIn, Jobster etc. to contact ex-colleagues or acquaintances of potential staff members. The authors noted views of different recruiting mangers as to what types of industries have started to use networking websites for informal reference checking, recruiters’ convenience in hiring process, risks involved, advantages for job seeker, etc. Not only job seekers but also entrepreneurs get some or the other advantages of networking. McAdam et al reviewed literature related to university incubator business processes and networks. The authors linked the concepts of the process and network. The authors found the business and social inputs such as entrepreneurial networks less defined and the authors argued that business support and social support i.e. entrepreneurial networks play roles in operationalize resources. Lin, Wood, and Lu determined the importance in improving the service performance of business incubators by analyzing the relationship between resources and capabilities among the incubators in China. Based on survey data, the authors used a mixed-method design consisting of structural equation modeling and an in-depth case study. Investing in networking capabilities and other resources is advisable to the investors. 3. Proposed Networking Score Professional networking websites can calculate Networking Score by using below mentioned criteria and offer the score to the users and suggest them how to improve their score further. The score must be refreshed (recalculated) every 30 days. 3.1. Explanation of criteria Table 1 enlists seven quantitative criteria used for calculating Networking Score. These criteria are termed as Contacts, Circle, Industry, Seniority, Hierarchy, Organization Size and Activity. Sr. No. 1 2

Criteria Contacts Extended Contacts

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Industry

Table 1 List of Criteria Explanation No. of contacts in a user’s profile No. of contacts having at least 1.5 times more no. of connections than a user has No. of contacts working in a user's industry/sector No. of contacts from other industry/sector

7

4

Seniority

5

Hierarchy

6

Org. Size

7

Activity

No. of contacts with equal experience as of a user No. of contacts 5 to 9 years senior to a user No. of contacts 10 or more years senior to a user No. of contacts having similar designation as user's No. of contacts having higher designation than user's No. of contacts working in same-sized organizations as a user is No. of contacts working in bigger organizations than a user is No. of days since at least one new contact added

First criterion ‘Contacts’ refers to the number of contacts in a user’s profile. More the contacts in the profile, better the scope of networking. There is no consideration of background or profile of these contacts in a user’s profile in the first criterion. Though simply having large number of contacts in a profile does not warrant for higher Networking Score. For this reason contacts’ background such as size of the company they work for, sector or industry, work experience, designation etc. are taken as separate criteria. ‘Extended Contacts’ means number of contacts in the user’s contact. It is a kind of friends of friends in social media sites. This criterion is based on the logic that if a user is connected to the person having large number of acquaintances in the professional world, the user will benefit more compared to the situation where the user is connected to the person having small number of acquaintances. ‘Industry’ indicates the contacts’ sector or specialization in which the contacts are working or are associated with. For example, a networking website user working in an electronics company is likely to benefit more by connecting with profiles from electronics industry. The Networking Score suggests segregating and counting contacts working in the same industry or sector as of the user. Professionals seek for guidance and reference of the people working in the profession for years. It is important to connect with senior professional belonging to the same industry. The criterion ‘Seniority’ counts how many professionals in the user’s contacts are senior to the user. The more the seniors are in connection, the better the benefits of professional networking. Designation is also as important as seniority factor. One should always make attempts to connect with professionals having the higher or at least same level of designation as the user of professional networking sites. To help others in the profession and to get help from others are part of professional development. ‘Hierarchy’ denotes number of contacts having similar or higher designation with whom the site user is connected. ‘Organization size’ of the contacts matters much while calculating networking benefits. Whether the user’s majority contacts work with larger or at least same-sized organization as of the user or not is also considered while counting the proposed Networking Score. Second criterion ‘Activity’ shows how many days back a user has added at least one new contact in the user’s profile. The base of this criterion is the understanding that professional networking grows faster if one regularly adds a new contact in one’s profile. The professional networking websites have made their users’ task easy by suggesting them similar profiles and allowing users to see connections i.e. contacts in other users’ profile. The above seven criteria are used to calculate the proposed Networking Score. A specific number is attached to each criterion. 3.2. Calculating Networking Score The proposed Networking Score is calculated by multiplying values with Multiplying Factor as shown in the tables below. The product of Values and Multiplying Factor is known as Points. Sum of Points

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is divided by number of days since new contact added in user's profile (Activity) and the result of this division is final Networking Score. Four hypothetical profiles are given as examples in the following tables showing effect on the Networking Score when Values and/or Activity days are changed. Taking that 100 professionals are in a user’s contacts, Example 1 shows how the Networking Score is calculated. Out of total 100 contacts, there are 20 contacts that have more number of connections than the user has. 30 contacts have equal number of contacts as of the user and 50 contacts have less number of contacts than the user has. Likewise total 100 contacts in the user’s profile are divided on the basis of other criteria listed here. Table 2 Calculating Networking Score (User 1) Score Calculation Sr. No. 1

Criteria

Explanation

Values

Contacts

2

Circle

3

Industry

4

Seniority

5

Hierarchy

6

Size

7

Activity

No. of contacts in user’s profile No. of contacts having more connections than user’s No. of contacts having same no. of connections than user’s No. of contacts having less connections than user’s No. of contacts working in user's industry/sector No. of contacts from other industry/sector No. of contacts seniors to user No. of contacts equally experienced to user No. of contacts juniors to user No. of contacts having higher designation than user's No. of contacts having similar designation as user's No. of contacts having lower designation than user's No. of contacts working in bigger organization than user's No. of contacts working in same-sized organization of user's No. of contacts working in smaller organization than user's No. of days since new contact added in user's profile Total Points Networking Score

100 20 30 50 30 70 20 30 50 20 30 50 20 30 50 30

Multiplying Factor 1 3 2 1 2 1 3 2 1 3 2 1 3 2 1 --

Points 100 60 60 50 60 70 60 60 50 60 60 50 60 60 50 -910 30.3

It is seen in table 1, out of total 100 assumed contacts or connections the user has more number of contacts have less connections than the user has, belong to the industries other than the user work in, have less experience compared to what the user has, have lower designation than the user’s, and work with smaller organizations compared to the user’s organization size. Moreover, the user’s Activity Value is 30 meaning the user has not added a single contact in his/her profile in last 30 days. Thus this user’s Networking Score is as low as 30 as indicated below: Points = Values * Multiplying Factor Networking Score = Total Points / Activity Value Let’s calculate Networking Score for the second hypothetical user i.e. User 2. Second user’s Activity Value is 30.

Sr.

Criteria

Table 3 Calculating Networking Score (User 2) Score Calculation Explanation Values

Multiplying

Points

9

No. 1

Contacts

2

Circle

3

Industry

4

Seniority

5

Hierarchy

6

Size

7

Activity


100 50 30 20 70 30 50 30 20 50 30 20 50 30 20 30

Factor 1 3 2 1 2 1 3 2 1 3 2 1 3 2 1 --

100 150 60 20 140 30 150 60 20 150 60 20 150 60 20 -1190 39.7

Second user, as shown in table 3, is also as less active in addition new contacts as User 1 but second user’s score is higher than of User 1 reason being second user having contacts with professionals with large number of contacts, from similar or the same industry, having higher or equal experience, having higher or equal designation, and working in the same-sized or larger organizations. Profile of User 3 (Table 4) is similar to the profile of User 1 as both have more number of contacts with less connections than the user has, belong to the industries other than the user work in, with less experience compared to what the user has, with lower designation than the user’s, and work with smaller organizations compared to the user’s organization size but User 3 is more active in addition new contacts or making professional friends almost daily. User 3 has just yesterday, added a new contact compared to User 1 who is inactive for last 30 days. This actively connecting gives User 3 the Networking Score of as good as 910. Table 4 Calculating Networking Score (User 3) Score Calculation Sr. No. 1

Contacts

2

Circle

3

Industry

4

Seniority

5

Hierarchy

6

Size

Criteria

Explanation No. of contacts in user’s profile No. of contacts having more connections than user’s No. of contacts having same no. of connections than user’s No. of contacts having less connections than user’s No. of contacts working in user's industry/sector No. of contacts from other industry/sector No. of contacts seniors to user No. of contacts equally experienced to user No. of contacts juniors to user No. of contacts having higher designation than user's No. of contacts having similar designation as user's No. of contacts having lower designation than user's No. of contacts working in bigger organization than user's

Values 100 20 30 50 30 70 20 30 50 20 30 50 20

Multiplying Factor 1 3 2 1 2 1 3 2 1 3 2 1 3

Points 100 60 60 50 60 70 60 60 50 60 60 50 60

10

7

Activity

No. of contacts working in same-sized organization of user's No. of contacts working in smaller organization than user's No. of days since new contact added in user's profile Total Points Networking Score

30 50 1

2 1 --

60 50 -910 910

The best profile of all is of User 4 shown in table 5. User 4 has contacts with professionals with large number of contacts, from similar or the same industry, having higher or equal experience, having higher or equal designation, and working in the same-sized or larger organizations. Furthermore, user 4 is as active as user 3 in daily adding at least one new professional in the contact list. User 4 has Networking Score of 1190 due to bigger quantity and better quality of the people and active networking. Table 5 Calculating Networking Score (User 4) Score Calculation Sr. No. 1

Criteria

Explanation

Values

Contacts

2

Circle

3

Industry

4

Seniority

5

Hierarchy

6

Size

7

Activity


100 50 30 20 70 30 50 30 20 50 30 20 50 30 20 1

Multiplying Factor 1 3 2 1 2 1 3 2 1 3 2 1 3 2 1 --

Points 100 150 60 20 140 30 150 60 20 150 60 20 150 60 20 -1190 1190

From the above hypothetical users’ profile, we can see four different combinations of quantity of contacts, quality of contacts and active networking. Two users shown above are active in adding new contacts but they are not connected with larger or better contacts. This is summarized below: Table 6 Contact quality, activity, and score Users

Contacts quality

Activity

Score

User 1

Poor

Low

Poor

User 2

Good

Low

Fair

User 3

Poor

High

Good

User 4

Good

High

Better

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The following can be derived from the exercise above: Good networking = Quality contacts + more contacts + active networking

4. Conclusion Networking is an essential quality of professionals. Professional networking websites such as LinkedIn and others has been helping the net savvy much in creating networking of people with same or similar background, interests, experiences and profession. But there is a lot more to offer to website users. These websites should try to offer a measure to calculate how well the users can connect with quality profiles. Only increasing number of contacts will not help the business people to get benefits out of networking. They should be connected and stayed connected to better and stronger profiles such as seniors from the same industry, people with higher experience and skills, people working in the bigger organizations etc. The proposed Networking Score is a tool that LinkedIn and such other networking sites can offer to existing users of their site. The tool will help the users in judging how well or not they are connected with stronger professionals. It will also help these sites to attract new users and delight the existing ones. Knowing and using the Networking Score is in the benefits of both – users as well as service providers of professional networking website. The score will help the users in connecting with more number of and more effective professional online, which will help the users to climb their professional career ladder. At the same time, this score will help the networking websites in attracting and retaining more and more number of users. The websites can classify their users in to following categories and suggest strategic actions such as recommending more number of appropriate profiles to low scoring users, recommending more appropriate profiles to medium scoring users and highlighting high scoring profiles to all the users regularly. 5. References Richter, A., and Riemer, K. (2009), Corporate Social Networking Sites – Modes of Use and Appropriation through Co-Evolution, 20th Australasian Conference on Information Systems Corporate Social Networking Sites, 2–4 Dec 2009, Melbourne. Keenan, A., and Shiri, A. (2009) Sociability and social interaction on social networking websites, Emerald 58, 2009. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/case_studies.htm/journals.htm?articleid=1800527&show=html&WT. mc_id=alsoread Athavaley, A., Job References You Can't Control, The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 27, 2007. http://isite.lps.org/bkabour/documents/CareerEdArticle-References.pdf Bethencourt, P. (2011), Success in six cups of coffee, Palgrave Macmillan: Hampshire.

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Tricia, B.F., and Rodney, M. (2001), Issues Related to the Effects of Cohorts on Learners, the Annual Meeting of the University Council for Educational Administration, November 2001, Cincinnati. Cardon, P. (2009), Focus on Business Practices: Online Social Networks, Business Communication Quarterly, Vol. XX (X). DOI:10.1177/1080569908330376. Steinfield, C., DiMicco, J., Ellison, N., Lampe, C. (2009), Bowling online: social networking and social capital within the organization, the fourth international conference on Communities and technologies, New York, pp 245-254. Lin, D., Lincoln C.W., and Lu, Q. (2012), Improving business incubator service performance in China: the role of networking resources and capabilities, The Service Industries Journal, Vol 32 (13), pp 2091-2114. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED465227 [Accessed on 15/09/2013] LinkedIn Corporate Communications Team, (August 01, 2013), LinkedIn Announces Second Quarter 2013 Financial Results, available at: http://press.linkedin.com, accessed on 08/09/2013. Gregory, A., (August 28, 2012), 20 Social Networking Sites for Business Professionals, available at: www.sitepoint.com, accessed on 08/09/2013. O’Murchu, I., Breslin, J.G., and Decker, S. (2004), Online Social and Business Networking Communities, DERI Technical Report, 11/08/2004. DiMicco, J., Millen, D.R. , Geyer, W., Dugan, C., Brownholtz, B., and Muller, M. (2008), Motivations for social networking at work, ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, New York, pp 711-720. DiMicco, J.M., and Millen, D. (2007), Identity management: Multiple presentations of self in Facebook, International conference on Supporting group work, pp 383-386. Linehan, M. (2001), Networking for female managers’ career development: Empirical evidence, Journal of Management Development, Vol. 20 (10), pp.823 – 829. McAdam, M., Galbraith, B., McAdam, R., and Humphreys, P. (2006), Business Processes and Networks in University Incubators: A Review and Research Agendas, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, Vol 18 (5), pp 451-472. Skeels, M., and Grudin, J. (2009), When social networks cross boundaries: a case study of workplace use of Facebook and LinkedIn, International conference on Supporting group work, pp 95-104, New York. Shimabukuro, J. (2000), The Evolving Virtual Conference: Implications for Professional Networking, The Technology Source Archives, Sept/Oct 2000.

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Tapscott, D. (2009), Grown Up Digital, Tata McGrawHill: New Delhi.