Are you an entrepreneur, small business owner, self-employed individual or freelancer that wants to get your business noticed and collaborate with other independent business people?  Then Biznik may be the social network you’ve been looking for.

Biznik’s tagline, “Business Networking That Doesn’t Suck,” provides the first insight of how, as Biznik states, “Biznik isn’t another LinkedIn clone.”

Biznik definitely has a unique feel, combining both individual profiles and a small business promotion element.  The profiles are geared more for business social networking than the individual, resume exposure on LinkedIn, Plaxo, or Ziggs.  From a small business promotion perspective, Biznik differs from Merchant Circle, Yelp or Insider Pages, without the phone-numbered based, walk-in business feel. (But you should still be on those networks too!)

While founded in Seattle in 2005, this year Biznik has really started to take-off, doubling its members and revenues from January 1 to July 1 in 2008.  Biznik is currently growing at a rate of 1200 members per month, and according to Biznik, expects to achieve profitability by the end of 2008.

Dallas on Biznik:  Since the primary focus on Biznik is to network with nearby business community members, searches by location can be conducted with increments ranging from 5 miles to 500 miles of your location.   A search for community members within 100 miles of Dallas returned 125 Biznik member profiles.  This is an excellent opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a growing Dallas social network, establish yourself and/or your Dallas-area business on Biznik, and help build the Dallas Biznik community.

Getting started: There are three levels of membership available on Biznik: basic or free, active and supporting.

Regardless of the level you choose, spend some time creating your profile.

Biznik provides a good opportunity to tell your story and market yourself and your business.  As the chart reveals, certain options are only available with the upgrade, but the basic membership provides an image, business information, a Google map, member compliments, one website URL and some search engine exposure.

Additional Biznik member benefits include publishing and reading articles, hosting and attending Biznik community events and participating in the BizTalk forum.

Still want to know more? Check out the Biznik tour, Biznik FAQs (with numerous video tutorials) and the Biznik blog.