Social networks are taking over the Web. Business professionals start understanding that people networks are powerful tools to raise awareness for a brand, target a broader segment of potential customers, deliver the news about a product, service, or company faster and so on.
With so many social networks on the Web, it is hard to choose the one that will work best for your business.
Social bookmarking sites like digg, redit, stumbleupon, del.icio.us, magnolia, Netscape, my space, etc are important networks and they might help your business by increasing targeted traffic to your website and delivering some link juice (as they are authority sites). But each of these sites has its audience and users. For example: it would probably be not so wise to submit SEO news to digg, as this particular social network had some issues against SEO sites in the past (issues that seem to be solved right now, but who knows?). Digg is a great place for entertainment and gaming news. It looks like the age segment of the digg users dwells between 14-22 years.
Serious business professionals seem to prefer a different social networking site: linkedin. If you browse the blogs of the most influent bloggers you'll notice on their sites a "view my profile at linkedin" button that will lead you to the site. Linkedin is based on a simple philosophy. As they say: "relationships matter". A linkedin account, if used properly, helps professionals in their daily endeavors by easing the way they look for potential clients and business partners and helping them find business opportunities or jobs. Linkedin is not a bloggers' exclusively network. Any professional is free to join, with or without a website.
If you are looking for a bloggers network, MyBlogLog seems to be the right place for you. It belongs to Yahoo and, except a dispute about an unjustly banned blogger, they have good reviews. It looks like they do their best to fight spam and have very strict privacy policy and terms of use.
There are many other networks online, but some are not as serious as the ones mentioned above. Businesses need to send out their messages to reliable networks and not randomly. To use the right network you need to identify your market and the network associated to that niche. Then you'll need to enunciate your message clearly to capture the attention of your potential consumers.
You'll also need to create competence - meaning: you have to prove yourself as a resource (so that people would bookmark your site for further reference and spread the word about the quality of the information provided within your web pages).
Always take care to reinforce your brand. The Web is highly competitive and people tend to forget about you if no one brings the matter back to their attention. But do it wisely and don't spam.
It is clear that when we talk about people networks you should show that there is a human behind your business. So make your message personal and encourage the members of the network to contact you for questions and support. They'll be glad to know they can rely on an expert in case of need.
If you have a big company hire a blogger or two to do the job. And if you haven't even considered social network sites by now, it is time you should really wake up and smell the Web 2.0! This is the future!
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