The importance of social networks’ weak ties in business development

This paper aims to present the importance of weak ties in social networks for sharing information at personal level, across departments in a company, as well as between managers that seek business opportunities. Also, the paper shows that complex knowledge requires strong ties in order to be properly shared and used. Weak ties between departments in a company make information diffusion faster only if the knowledge shared is simple, otherwise if the information is complex, the communication between departments and the development of projects will encounter difficulties. The article analyses the structure and the dynamic of business social networks starting from Granovetter's theory and Burt’s social capital theory and offers practical examples of how to develop a business using the weak ties in social networks, such as the well-known Facebook platform or the professional oriented LinkedIn platform.