One of the best lines I’ve heard regarding social media was, “Who is that spaceman” from a colleague at Marketwire (we won’t name any names).  What “spaceman” was the colleague referring to?  This one:

I thought this was hilarious.  Many of you reading this will immediately recognize the logos of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter because these social media sites get the most attention.  However, don’t limit yourself to just these three, there are other networking sites that you should consider visiting. 

One of the main reasons why a business should use social media is to engage with customers and to better develop your business.  Social media networking for businesses is about knowing where those customers are.  In my opinion, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn belong in the “must join” category. However, there are lots of other social media sites (maybe too many) that pertain to one’s interests, beliefs or industry.  To help you determine which social media sites to consider joining, here’s a list of my recommended social media sites that represent  a very small percentage of all networking sites:

“The Big 3″

• Facebook – Our Facebook page
• LinkedIn – Social media corner
• Twitter – Our Twitter page

Popular networks

Bookmarking/News/Blogging – These sites will keep you up to date on the most popular news stories.  You can also share your own stories or websites with potential clients and partners by commenting on stories, uploading and ranking different articles.  These sites are also a great way to generate traffic to your website.

• Bebo – http://www.bebo.com
• Delicious – http://www.delicious.com
• Digg – http://www.digg.com
• Reddit – http://www.reddit.com
• StumbleUpon – http://www.stumbleupon.com
• Technorati – http://www.technorati.com
• Yahoo Buzz – http://www.buzz.yahoo.com

Business Related – These sites are great for businesses that have a specific niche like online marketing or finance.  If your business creates any helpful tip sheets or presents at conferences, Scribd and Slideshare are great options to spread your message even further.

• Scribd – Document upload – http://www.scribd.com
• Slideshare – Presentation upload – http://www.slideshare.net
• Sphinn – Online marketing – http://www.sphinn.com
• Tip’d – Finance – http://www.tipd.com

Photo – Upload and share your photos to give viewers an opportunity to look “inside” your company.

• Flickr – http://www.flickr.com
• Photobucket – http://www.photobucket.com

Sports – If you’re in the sports industry, Ballhype is one of the top all sports related social media sites.

• Ballhype – http://www.ballhype.com

Video – Videos provide opportunities for businesses to promote special events  and feature knowledgeable people in your industry.  Videos are an excellent way of ranking on the first page of search engines.  Multimedia especially photos and videos are great for SEO because of little competition.

• Metacafe – http://www.metacafe.com
• Vimeo – http://www.vimeo.com
• YouTube – http://www.youtube.com

If you are new to social media, I highly recommend signing up for our free social media fitness program. It takes 10 days, 30 minutes a day to get social media fit.

Have you joined any of the niche social media sites?  What do you think of it?  Do you have any other social media networking sites to recommend?  Let me know!

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Tags: social media chiclets; social media sharing sites; bookmarking sites

This entry was posted on Friday, May 7th, 2010 at 11:32 am and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.