The document provides an overview of popular social media outlets for individuals and businesses to engage online audiences, including websites for networking, sharing content, and monitoring discussions. It describes platforms for professional and personal connections like LinkedIn and Facebook, sharing content through blogs, photos and videos on sites like YouTube and Flickr, and tools for finding and engaging with discussions on topics of interest on Twitter and through RSS feeds and alerts. The document also offers suggestions for measuring effectiveness of social media efforts through monitoring and analytics services.

1. your guide to
online Social Media outlets
Wikipedia: Wikipedia.org is an online en- TechnoraTi: Technorati is one of the many
cyclopedia anyone can contribute to. If you sources for bloggers to find content. It also
decide to contribute, remain neutral and cite measures how many bloggers have blogged a
your sources. There are more than 10 million story, so it is a great monitoring tool.
articles in 250 languages, with 2.5 million
articles in English. digg: Digg.com is a social bookmarking
tool based on the concept that users decide
Facebook: The most popular online social what is the most important content, rather
networking site, Facebook.com is often than those who are producing it. Users will
viewed as a personal medium, but it might mark (or Digg) stories that they like—the
be right for your company to create a fan more Diggs a story has, the further up on the
page to communicate with a target audience. home page it appears.
Facebook allows users to update status,
build a profile, add friends, join groups or fan FLickr: Flickr.com is one of the most
pages, upload pictures and share events. popular photo-sharing sites on the Internet. It
is a great way for reporters or editors to find
MySpace: An older networking site similar pictures by both amateur and professional
to Facebook, MySpace.com is significantly photographers. Make your photos easier to
declining in popularity and has a heavy band find by adding keyword-specific tags to each
and artist audience. one.
Linkedin.coM: LinkedIn is a professional youTube: YouTube.com is a video-sharing
networking site where you can build your site where users can watch and comment
resume, add connections, join groups and on videos uploaded by other users. You
contribute to conversations. Also be sure to can also embed a YouTube video on your
go to the answers section, contribute and be website or share the link.
seen as an expert.
podcaSTS: Similar to radio shows, pod-
bLogS: In its simplest form a blog (short for casts are downloadable to your computer
“weblog”) is an online journal; today, there and can be transferred to your iPod. Some
are blogs on every topic imaginable. Blogs companies use podcasts to share interviews
are a way of building a community, so tell a podcaSTS or Q&A sessions with employees.
story, invite comments and share expertise.
Keep in mind that more than 65% of visitors reaL SiMpLe SyndicaTion (rSS):
will be unique as they might search for RSS feeds are used to share content that
something specific and find your blog. is updated regularly or changes frequently,
such as the CNN News Feed. RSS feeds
TWiTTer: Twitter is a microblog in which rSS are aggregated into RSS readers (such as
users answer the question “What are you Google Reader) to display updates from
doing?” in 140 characters or less. Create multiple sites in one place.
a profile, share your URL and a brief bio,
customize your page, then sign up to follow Search engine opTiMizaTion (Seo):
other people’s “tweets.” A way to find people Appearing at the top of search-engine listings
who are talking about what you like is to go to in your area of expertise is paramount, as
search.twitter.com and type in a topic. Keep most people do a search and click only on the
in mind that twitter is a community: contribute first couple of links that are returned. SEO is
to conversations, answer questions and a series of techniques applied to a web site to
respond to other tweets (“retweet”) often. boost its position in search-engine rankings.
Many specialized firms provide this service to
companies.

2. googLe adWordS: AdWords allows you pLaxo: Plaxo is an online address book
to pay for a desirable placement within the that lets you move contacts, calendar data
search results, although your company will and other things out your computer’s e-mail
appear as a sponsored link. program and onto globally accessible
platforms such as Google, AIM and Yahoo.
googLe aLerTS: A great monitoring Plaxo is also a social networking service
tool for topics you are interested in, Google similar to Facebook.
Alerts allows you to insert keywords, and the
search engine will automatically send you an MoniToring: With online social media
e-mail when it finds new content containing efforts underway, you’ll want to measure
those words. your effectiveness. There are many services,
such as PR Newswire, Vocus, Cision and
WikiS: Used mostly to communicate internally Radian6, that provide online social media
and often password-protected, Wikis are simi- monitoring to fit your needs. These services
lar to a company intranet, in which users can range from $500 to $1,000 each month,
share and update content without having to and allow you to monitor what is being said
e-mail. The most popular wiki is PBWiki.com, online about you firm.
which is free and extremely user-friendly.
ning: Still in the early stages of development,
Ning allows users to create targeted social
networks. Ning has grown by 4 million users
in the last year and currently has 6.5 million
users, according to Compete.com.