Online Social Networking: Benefits for Online Marketers

Sites that feature social networks and online bookmarking have grown in popularity in the last five years. It can be a little difficult, however, when it comes to knowing which to choose. That’s where social media reviews come in. When reading the reviews, however, you might be surprised at how much variation there is in people’s viewpoints. Some people would defend their social media choices to the bitter end. That’s probably because the site they fell in love with is one of the few they tried and all their time was taken up with one site before they knew what was happening. Many who are asssertive about defending one site aren’t aware of the variations between business networking sites, social bookmarking sites and online social networking communities that are primarily there for fun. Even some avid social media users don’t know that there are also social networking platforms, like Capazoo, that use small amounts of money per click to pay for people to use and promote their sites.

Many social media users aren’t aware of the differences between online social networks because the features and uses overlap. Sites such as MySpace can be used just for fun or for serious business networking, or both! There are thousands upon thousands of user-driven free Ning social networking communities, such as Paper Craft Planet, which specialize in focused interests. These sites are really where the rubber hits the road when it comes to online social networks because they’re created by users and focus on distinct interests. Niches can be as specific as book aficionados, who now have many online communities geared just to them. Online social networking websites , like GoodReads have book reviews and other features created just for people who love to read. An innovative variant of social networking is social bookmarking, because it opens up new worlds of information storage and retrieval. Sites that feature social bookmarking, such as Mister Wong, allow logged-in users to save their online bookmarks for free. Social bookmarking sites also are a great help to Web searchers, because keyword tags that allow for easy searching can be assigned to each bookmark. The ability to use keyword tagging also is of value to Web marketers, because they can get backlinks for their Web properties. A single social bookmarking link isn’t that valuable yet when a site has many of them, it can change the amount of search engine traffic it receives. Also, like with Propeller, if a blog post is entered on one of these sites, high Google rankings can result if it is submitted properly and has the right keywords associated with it.

Blurring the line even further are sites like Mixx, which are set up for both social networking and social bookmarking. They are used for bookmarking but also are equally great for marketing and socializing. Business and personal contacts galore are just waiting to be discovered on these sites and blog posts featured on these online social networking sites have the potential to rank well in Google and other search engines. This combination of tremendous benefits is the reason that Internet marketers flock to them.