The 10 Types of Social Media Sites You Need to be on and Why
- Microblogging
Leader: Twitter – Everyone knows this service. It’s got such a lead in this space that it’s difficult to see anyone else taking over. This is partly due to the traction it already has but it’s biggest asset is the community of users. They are the ones giving the application it’s value and this crowd will not be easily herded into another platform without a very compelling reason
Why microblogging? This article explains the value of microblogging more completely, but in summary microblogging is an ideal way to get a quick snapshot of the mood of the times on any given subject. It is also one of the first services to catch viral fire in the mobile space and shows a lot of growth potential there.
- Bookmarking
Leader: Digg – They are tops in social bookmarking and it would certainly behoove you to really have a look at them, not just click through on a link they host. Because of their position, they are better able to try out what might be considered riskier or more blatantly commercial models. In the case of the latter, them adding a bar at the top of pages others have added to Digg might be annoying, helpful or neither but watching how Digg works to monetize is a valuable education in itself. Monitoring the reactions of others would be a master class. It is very important to keep in mind that Digg, like Twitter and Youtube are not the only applications of a given type. Always keep a look out for others in the same space.
Like microblogging, Social bookmarking adds a great deal of efficiency to your searches for useful information on the web. Not only are resources easier to find, but YOU are as well. This means additional promotional opportunities for you and your brand by being able to better target people who will be interested in what you are about.
- Video
Leader: Youtube – Youtube has the volume, there is an incredible amount of variety here and it is increasingly a source of education as well. I’ve picked up some tips from varioius videos here and find watching videos a nice change from scanning through assorted blog posts of various quality. Youtube videos do well on Google search, so videos you produce can help generate traffic as well.
Online video is going to become a standard component in social media, there is no doubt about this. What differentiates online video from your network TV variety is that you can do very well with a low budget and high quality content. It is an equalizer for many small businesses and if done well can create trust very quickly, perhaps even quicker than text which can easily be copied or paraphrased from others.
- Photo sharing
- Search
- Professional
Leader: Linked In- Like Twitter, the community is the asset and it is unlikely that people will abandon the connections they have built up over years to try the next cool thing. There is a lot of stability in this model and time put into it is a worthwhile investment
How you choose to promote yourself may or may not include a social network as tight as Linked In, but you should absolutely have a look at and understand the appeal of a system that is more exclusive.
- Purely social
- Forums
Leader: None – The leader depends on the niche and the number of communities around a given topic varies widely. You will have to do that research but there are great rewards to be had here
Forums might be a static throwback to last century, but they are still a great knowledge resource if moderated with care. Well run forums come with built in trust because the users know that the moderator will drive conversations toward constructive usage. Therefore, when you do put in links to your site, and they stick, you are more likely to receive quality, well targeted traffic.
- City/Regional Weekly
Leader: None – Like forums, there are no internet wide leaders. Individual cities and towns will certainly have them and you would be wise to make use of the marketing insight you can get from learning about smaller regional areas.
Social media is going local, this couldn’t be more obvious when you see how many Tweeps are tweeting from smart phones. If you don’t get a more specific regional knowledge, you are unlikely to be able to see where conversations are headed and your targeting of visitors may end up coming across as a spammy saturation bombing effect.
- Gadget News and reviews
Leader: Engadget – This one is more of an example, there are heaps of gadget blogs out there and they differ as to area of specialty. You may end up changing favorites as you investigate different types of devices.
Social media is going to go where ever gadgets go. Instead of waiting for the next iPhone to become so popular that you will have started building the application 6 months too late to get easy attention you should plan ahead. Gadget blogs provide a sense of where hardware, software and social interaction will intersect. They don’t describe this explicitly, but the devices are part of the equation and essential to forecasting and preparing for future trends.
Photo sharing gets good search results so you’d be unwise not to keep an album of photos labeled with keywords related to your site. It’s another traffic driver. Beyond that, it is a good way to research the graphic inspiration of competitors in your niche. This will help with design considerations.
Search is getting more and more powerful and granular. Part of it’s evolution will be to both measure social media sites and to incorporate their features. Both of these will be able to provide very valuable data.
With all the technology out there it’s easy to forget that social media is about socializing. These sites are a great source of both inspiration and warning. Inspiring because of the number of creative applications found within and a warning for the same reason. Purely social sites don’t seem to have a particular purpose and so it is difficult to identify a potential customer and point them toward your value proposition without being ‘The Amway guy’
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I would argue that Facebook is a personal and professional tool. Those two worlds are merging and either folks need to figure out a way to connect with both through one social network (or more) or risk being left behind and not part of the broader conversation.
David Libby’s last blog post..The Long and Winding Road of Social Media Marketing and Public Relations
great Postthanks
I would agree that Facebook has professional value, but it feels ’slower’ than Twitter.
Great post! I think that Ning.com is doing a great job of facilitating the formation of “local” communities online. In Wilmington, N.C., there’s a Ning network – http://thirdstreetplaza.com and I think it’s a destination for a lot of folks who haven’t adopted these other sites yet. I agree that local is big. I wonder where you think http://brightkite.com fits in as well? Supposed to be the next big thing.
Good questions, I will have to look at both brightkite and ning then do reviews on them. I’m very curious as to how they place themselves in the mix.
should add OrSiSo http://orsiso.com for social organization for your facebook, twitter, linkedIn & other social platforms even your IM
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another useful site is http://wetpaint.com brilliant easy to use wiki styled custom websites (free)
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Agree about Linked’s stability. For greater flexibility, it’s a good idea to partner your linkedin profile with a niche profile.
For customization and multi media options, myspace has it all over FaceBook, and for this reason I remain unconvinced FBook is an effective business model.
As for blogs, I am convinced wordpress, (while a little complex) is miles ahead of the pack as it’s the only platform where the user owns their intellectual property. For this reason, I am now migrating to wordpress.
It all comes down to the end users needs, in which case a willingness to play around with mediums, patience, and a little research pays dividends in the long term.
Thank you for an excellent review. It was very timely for me to read and cheat from!
I agree with David Libby, it’s getting hard to distinguish between professional and social on Facebook, unliked LinkedIn which is definitely Professional. People source networks through both tools as well and Plaxo is building in this regard too.
Ning seems to be a niche product for building one’s own social network, which is an excellent tool for societies, associations, schools etc that already have communities and want to use a good online tool. I’m sure it will gain in popularity.
Like life, we move in different circles. We will online too!
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Facebook seems to be suffering from the problem of not being well defined and may end up struggling to monetize until they do so. Your point about moving in different circles online is very true and something that people should factor in when thinking about online communities. It makes no sense to capture a large crowd with no focus.
I transition on facebook. I went from using it as a tool to reconnect with my friends and family and the I statrted to promote my biz. I thought the transition was going to be difficult, but it was not. It was more difficult for me mentally then it was for my friends. My updates are generally business related and my pictures are now of the houses I sell. I share links to my blog and it’s helping to to create traffic and solified my relationships. Then again, since others are not using facebook like me, I get to see and read things not business related and borderline inappropriate at times. Lots of large companies have started to block facebook b/c of games and racy pics.
I am not using linkedin to it’s fullest potential. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s another mental block. But great article. I think you touched on the big mediums out there and certainly the most reliable for marketing and sales.
Great information!
Absolute great post. Thanks!!! YouTube has worked great for some of our clients, especially those focused on consumer markets. “You” don’t need a lot of expensive hardware and a big marketing budget – we use a Flip camera for some of our videos, which is under $300. and has good editing software as well, incorporates a self-upload to YouTube also. Although for some clients we use a good solid Sony high def (consumer version)video camera, then set up accounts with all top tier video sites via TubeMogul, then upload. Annotation is of course important and client side brand (web site, 800 number, email, etc.).
Thanks for the insight how companies with a smaller budget can get themselves out there. It is a very nice twist of fate that big companies have taken to using low-fi technology in order to gain authenticity. This really represents a huge opportunity for SMEs.
Very well done. Thanx
Thank you. Your article is a good summary and gives me confidence in what I am doing.
Tim’s last blog post..Low budget high success marketing for small business
Glad to see others encouraged by this shift from traditional to social media marketing.
Ning provides networks for specific groups i.e. single parents, single mothers, working mothers along with being able to make local groups. Meet-up.com allows people to meet on the www in order to meet in the real world. Also where would craigslist fall in?
Craigslist is an interesting case of an older and technically inferior model being sustained by the inertia given it by a large number of users.
Thank you for great info. As computers become faster and storage much cheaper; maybe Twitter gets rid of its frequent crash times and the limits on how and where you get your follows. And Facebook gets rid of number of friends you could have. Facebook few month ago made few great changes and now actually looks like Twitter with much much more great options in one place. Although, Facebook likes to be like twitter but I think the limit of number of friends will make social marketers look into Twitter more.
As for blog sites, I think Blogger is better than Word Press in ease of use, many free programs to fine tune your traffic and making your blog to come up more in search engines than Word Press.
There are other great beneficial social media sites out there that should have been mentioned. Maybe next post!
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Thanks for the great top ten on Social Media. I really like how you included the leaders of each niche, but listing alternative social services would have been welcomed. Here are some samples of alternatives:
Microblogging = Utterli.com
Bookmarking = Delicious.com
Video = Revver.com
Thanks again!
Tony V
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Great post. I’d add TubeMogul.com in Video class for massive distributin to all top tier video sites and their analytics. WordPress as the best platform to build a Blog presence, as you want to link your SM posts back to a core social media platform (blog is a first gen S/Media platform).
Well condensed information. Nicely done! Social media as a force is stronger today than ever and not only heavily impacts the way we communicate on a personal level but on a larger business level
However, there still remains much confusion and uncertainty in the business arena on how all of this really works effectively to capture a greater marketshare and of course drive profits up. So there is still a somewhat steep learning curve in addition to many trail and errors!
I would also add that when it comes to searches, Google enables you to create a profile that can be very helpful in driving traffic.
I agree Lee. TubeMogul.com is a great site that saves a lot of time. How about blogs? Who is the leader? Blogger or Wordpress?
I do use facebook for some social networkig, but it is more of a personal tool for finding old friends. I publish my blog posts to there, but also keep it really personal. It’s not a place where I want people I don’t know to hang out with me.
So, it’s good for both but for a smaller market.
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Adam re #1 – microblogging I also find posterous a captivating and super easy tool
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Great post. Twitter good, Digg still thinking about it, Flickr not yet…, Linked In good, Facebook works for me for both business and personal purposes partly because my hobby friends and professional work overlap considerably,
Wordpress…. not happy with it at the moment, but it has more advantages than otherwise but painful on photo gallery or multiple images
I like a URL shortener and use http://bit.ly/ as it allows me to track the number of people who follow my links
Bit.ly integrates with Firefox and I use Shareaholic in Firefox to post straight to Twitter and Facebook
cheers
David
Permaculture Designer, Climate Change & Sustainability Educator,
Sacred Earth Works
http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmarsdenballard
http://www.twitter.com/Garden27/
http://www.facebook.com/david.marsden.ballard/
http://ideasofthegardener.wordpress.com Ideas on sustainability
Thanks for mentioning bit.ly, I need to look into that more and write up about it.
The newest social media site is previewing today…Vreebit.com
Vreebit (client) Vreebit.com founder Michael Fleischmann will lead an online preview for 1,000 people on Aug 13
see here for details – so far it looks really cool
http://twitpic.com/d2b30
[...] Creating profiles on the 10 major social media sites [...]
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Trying hard to get the web site seen
Thanks for the advice
http://www.ksccrystals.com
Keith
Sensible summary. it is ‘flickr” not “flicker” though
I use the top 7, although mostly del.icio.us instead of digg, but the way I use it now is more for personal bookmarks than truly social information — digg is clearly more appropriate for that. So a reminder for me to look at digg more often!
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The problem for us… we are a small company, there are so many different social networks.. how are we meant to keep all this conversation together. Its like being on the phone to 20 people at the same time. If we could bring it all together and update our blog/tweets/status from one location then all this would work for us
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