How to make the most of the top 10 social media sites

Most people can name three or four social media sites, as a business you might think that being on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and maybe Google Plus is enough but what you need to understand is that not all social media websites are the same and not all serve the same purpose.

Here are the top ten most popular social media sites and how you should use them:

1. Facebook is of course the number one most popular social network website and top of social media sites overall as well. Facebook can bring a lot of value to your brand and website and is great for supporting offline marketing as well as building brand awareness. Selling through the social network website hasn’t really taken off yet but integrating Facebook on to an e-commerce site is great for letting people share a product page through Facebook.
2. Youtube: with some elements of a social network website which could be developed further Youtube is more often seen as a place to host videos that can then be shared on other sites and shown through your own site. The fact that people do respond to videos though, sometimes with other videos, means you can interact and get feedback from customers through Youtube as well including for ads and product showcases.
3. Twitter can be the toughest social network website to get your head around as it is used in so many different ways, some people are looking for news, some people want to socialize, some people are following their favourite brands and celebrities.
4. Pintrest, is a social bookmarking site but where you are sharing images rather than purely links or articles; adding images of your products can drive traffic to your site though as can interesting images that relate to articles and other content. It is also worth remembering that Pinterest is probably the only major social media site with more female than male users.
5. Yahoo Answers, look for questions where your site can provide the answer or solution and add a link, Yahoo Answers pages tend to rank well in search as well so you won’t just be driving the person who originally asked the question to your site.
6. Google+: struggling to compete with Facebook at least here you have less competition to be heard.
7. Tagged, the idea of Tagged is to be a social network website where people not only add people they know from real life but get to meet new people with similar interests, if their interests relate to your offering you can benefit.
8. Linkedin may be down in 8^th but if you are selling to businesses for even part of what you do you need to be here and not just posting updates but engaging in meaningful discussions with groups and potential customers.
9. Myspace, still hanging on in there but with no new ideas; however some of its users still use it regularly and don’t use other social sites.
10. Meetme is on its way up it seems so it could be sensible to become an early adopter now, its quite close to being a dating site but its for making friends as well as finding dates, opportunities for businesses are limited though.