List of 12 Social Networking Sites to Grow Your Biz

Social Networking:

A social networking website facilitates community building among people who have something in common. They provide a means to connect with people you know through school, work, or activities. They also aid in the creation of new friendships.

Ways to using Social Networking to Grow Your Small Business:

• Find directories related to your specific industry and add your company profile or link. You can do this by going to Google and typing “my industry directory”.
• Post and comment in Yahoo and Google Groups with a link to your site in your signature.
• Yahoo Answers - Answer questions in your niche. Only answer questions related to your product. Include a direct link between the question and your link in the source box if you don’t want to get banned.
• Create a Google Notebook and include your site's link.
• Create a presence on the leading free social networks. It’s another way for potential customers to find you, it’s free, and it can drive more customers to your website. The links back to your website help to give you a higher page rank in the search engines. Popular social Networks include:
  • LinkedIn - LinkedIn is an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170 industries and 200 countries. You can find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you need to work with to accomplish your goals.
  • Ning - Ning lets you create and join new social networks for your interests and passions.
  • Bebo - Bebo is a popular social networking site, owned by AOL/Time Warner, which connects you to everyone and everything you care about. It is your life online - a social experience that helps you discover what's going on with your world and helps the world discover what’s going on with you.
  • Facebook - A social utility that connects people, to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and videos.
  • Myspace - Young demographic and with strong interest in music.
  • Ecademy - A Business Network. Create new contacts and find friends, Market your business and get found on Google, Share knowledge, opportunities and do more business
  • Biznik - Biznik is an award-winning community of entrepreneurs and small businesses dedicated to helping each other succeed.
  • Nexopia - Canada's largest social networking site for youth. With over 1.2 million members, and hundreds of new accounts created every day, Nexopia is quickly solidifying its reputation as the online place for teens to connect and express themselves.
  • StudiVZ – Germany language social networking site that is popular in Germany.
  • orkut (popular in Brazil) - orkut is an online community designed to make your social life more active and stimulating. orkut's social network can help you maintain existing relationships with pictures and messages, and establish new ones by reaching out to people you've never met before.
  • Hi5 - hi5 is the most globally diverse social networking site in the world, with over 80% of our users from outside the US. The hi5.com site was designed for this global audience from the beginning, and was the first in-language social networking site in many countries around the world. The site has been translated to over 40 languages and dialects (with more than 60 planned by the end of 2008).
  • Xiaonei – Chinese - The most real effective Social networking platforms, in-depth to meet your social, entertainment, information, and many other needs.