LinkedIn

LinkedIn started as a headhunters’ paradise, but has recently evolved into one of the most powerful business to business marketing tools.  LinkedIn reached about 5% of Internet users daily in 2011.  If you want to find or target people by employer, job role or any number of other criteria this is it.  Premium subscriptions also give access to powerful search facilities targetted at the recruitment industry, but these can also be used in account planning.

LinkedIn is the perfect place for keeping in touch with ex-employees by setting up an alumni group.  It also has specialist groups on most topics many of which are worth reading.  Consilium has used it successfully to research attitudes and opinions for clients.

Facebook

The second most visited web site in the world after Google, by now you will have perhaps even seen the movie.  This is a great place for people to share their experiences with others, though repeatedly criticised for ignoring users’ privacy.  Businesses wanting to target people on criteria from their private lives will love Facebook advertising. Want to find people planning scuba diving in the Andes anyone?

An increasing number of business-to-business sites now also carry the Facebook Like icon, so you should not discount this without careful consideration.

Twitter

About 10% of internet users visit Twitter on an average day in 2011.  So powerful it can almost start revolutions ... but leaves others totally unmoved.  This is one for people who are either bored on the train or who only live for the moment.  Perhaps more usefully if you want an instant view of what the world is thinking.  Many bloggers and Facebook users also link Twitter to their accounts as another way of gaining attention.

Once people come to grips with geotagging and divest themselves of their last scruples on privacy the game will change yet again for Twitter.  This feature is there but so far is comparatively little used.

YouTube

There are two ways of looking at YouTube: first and obviously it is a site full of videos such as Charlie Bit my Finger and Fenton the dog chasing dear in Richmond park.  This is probably part of what makes YouTube the third most visited web site.

More interesting is the increasing impact YouTube has on both B2C and business-to-business purchase decisions.  Whether you are looking for an eReader such as a Kindle or an IT system to manage pharmaceutical laboratory data you can find demos and reviews here.  

This has helped make Youtube the second largest search engine in the world.

Blogger

If you need to get a blog up and running quickly this is one of the better known blogging sites.  Take note though that search engines like new and ever changing content so, if you can, you should put your blog on your own web site.  Against that if your web site is little visited putting it somewhere where it can link easily from sites such as LinkedIn will drive your decision.

Blogger is owned by Google.  See also Wordpress below.

Delicious

Similar to Digg.  One of dozens of social bookmarking services  for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks.

Digg

Social bookmarking similar to Delicious.  Technology focused news site where the stories are chosen by community members rather than editors.

Flickr

Probably the best known image hosting site which now offers video as well as still.  Can be used to promote goods which are bought on their appearance.

Google Buzz

Google’s social networking and microblogging contender; now withdrawn.

Myspace

Myspace was the slightly down-market competitor to Facebook.  It has had to reinvent itself after losing its battle and now centres on games and music.

Orkut

Another Google project to help people keep in touch.  This one is particularly successful in Brazil ... but pales behind the shadow of Facebook elsewhere.

Posterous

Another bookmarking and personal content sharing site.  This one claims to be both complete and simple to use.  It also has some broadcasting features so it might be worth a look.

Reddit

Reddit is another social news website on which users can post links to content on the web. Other users may then vote the posted link up or down , causing them to appear more or less prominently on the Reddit home page.

Read It Later

At first this just looks like a useful temporary bookmark plug in for Firefox.  More interestingly they have joined the long list of companies selling their users’ data.  So if you are interested in finding out what people plan to read rather than what they think their friends might want to read ... or what they’d like their friends to think they read this is the one for you!

RSS

Really Simple Syndication one of the earliest social media going back to ideas started in the mid-1990s.  Used to publish frequently updated works such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video in a standardized format.

Slideshare

If you’ve got something to say and have it in PowerPoint, PDF or other formats, this is a good place to post it.  Slideshare also links well to LinkedIn and Facebook.

Squidoo

Content sharing.  This one makes a plea for users to be original and to challenge conventional thinking.

Stumbleupon

Another well known social bookmarking site.

Technorati

Tracks the world’s blogs and rates them for authority and more.

Tumblr

Content sharing and blogging.

Wordpress

Wordpress started as a blogging tool, but there are so many add ons available that an increasing number of very smart web sites are written in Wordpress.  It’s also a great technology to use if the people who write your web site aren’t professional web designers as Wordpress delivers a very sound content management system.

The open source Wordpress software is available for download from wordpress.org and a free hosting service at wordpress.com.

Wikipedia

The web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. It has 20 million articles, over 3.82 million in English.  As the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet it is not to be ignored if your proposition is difficult to find, and likely to be researched by potential customers.

Yahoo Buzz

Yahoo Buzz buzzed off in April 2011.  Another lesson in the fickleness of the surfer.  So be careful where you commit your resources.