AboutOurWork – Social Networking For Small Business

Facebook is for friends who want to chat and LinkedIn for colleagues who want to network. Now small business owners have a social site of their own. AboutOurWork is an online network created specifically to give the owners of small to medium-sized businesses a place to share their knowledge and build relationships that are based on business connections.

If you own a small business then you should be on AboutOurWork. Once you’ve created an account, you can start building your business profile. Each business profile has a professionally designed theme, which you can customize to better reflect the company you run. You can even use your business profile as a public site for your company. Just follow AboutOurWork’s step-by-step directions and to point any custom URL to your AboutOurWork business profile page. The next step in using AboutOurWork is to start making connections. AboutOurWork connects you to other entrepreneurs in your industry or in your area, and shortens the “time to trust” by providing all your new connections with a snapshot of your business and the partners you work with regularly.

One of the features that sets AboutOurWork apart from LinkedIn and its social networking competitors is AboutOurWork’s business analytics tool, which you can use to see how many people are visiting your business profile page and find out who’s sending those visitors in your direction. You can even track visitor behavior, to see what people are doing when they check out your profile and what social networking icons they’re clicking on the most.

Practical Uses:

• Create a website for your business
• Connect with entrepreneurs in your industry
• Find mentors who know about managing your type of business
• Promote your company online

Insider Tips:

• Use site analytics tools to see how many people are visiting your page each day
• AboutOurWork offers instructions on how to point any URL to a business page
• Other users can send messages to your business through the AboutOurWork site
• All themes can be customized

What we liked:

• Entrepreneurs can feel comfortable talking about their craft with other professionals in similar industries
• Businesses without their own websites can use AboutOurWork for free
• People can connect with other entrepreneurs who use the same vendors or suppliers
• Analytics help people track visitor behavior on their profile pages

What we didn’t like:

• Users have to pay extra for analytics tools and custom URLs

Alternatives:

• Central.ly – http://central.ly
• Google+ – https://plus.google.com

Company Info:

• Launched: November 2011
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Columbus, Ohio
• Founded by: David Hunegnaw and Brooke Paul
• Web site: http://www.aboutourwork.com

Costs:

• Free
• Upgraded features range from $9.99 to $14.99/month