The Power of Social Networking Sites for Internet Marketing

Sites that feature free social networks and online social bookmarking are more popular now than ever. It can be a little tricky, however, when it comes to knowing which to choose. That’s where social media reviews come in. When reading these reviews, though, you may find that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some might defend their particular choices tooth and claw. That might be because they were ignorant of the options, so they got hooked on one site without really knowing what’s out there. Some of those who are insistent about their choice don’t even know the difference business networking, 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 media platforms, like Capazoo, that use small amounts of money per click to pay for people to use and promote their sites.

People often don’t know the difference between online social networks because the features and uses overlap. As an example, HubPages can be used for either business networking or to just have fun. And there are literally tens of thousands of Ning sites, such as New Energy Network, which specialize in narrow niches. These sites are really where the rubber hits the road when it comes to online social networks due to their emphasis on people’s niche interests. Communities focused on interests, such as book readers, abound. Online social networks , like GoodReads have book reviews and other features created just for people who love to read. Another powerful form of online networking is online social bookmarking, which has become a standard for people who work and play on the Web. Social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us allow people to save their favorite bookmarks so they can access them online any time. This platform type is also great for people who conduct searches, because keyword tagging is allowed Keyword tagging also makes social bookmarking sites of great interest to online marketers, who use them to garner backlinks for their blog posts and Web sites. A single social bookmarking link isn’t that meaningful but when there are many of them, search traffic often increases. Also, like with Digg, if a blog post is entered on one of these sites, top search engine rankings can be had for that page if it has good keyword tags and was submitted correctly.

Confusing the issue even more are sites like Digg, which feature both social networking and 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 as a bonus, material placed on them oftentimes ranks well in Google. This makes these type of sites genuine gold to Internet marketers.