Yeah, yeah...we all know about Stumbleupon, Digg, Del.icio.us, LinkedIn, etc. ad nauseum. Social media marketing can be a hit or miss for many businesses, depending on the niche and how cunningly it's utilized. But with the mainstreaming of social media comes a wealth of niche sites that could yield better results for businesses than their more general 2.0 cousins.
Here are 5 I found that you may not have heard of (and if you have, then maybe they deserve a second look):
- Biznik: This business networking site looks (and acts) a lot like LinkedIn; but it has quite a few additional features that can turn the volume on your promotion up to 11. For instance, you can write and contribute articles, link your blog feed up to your profile, and find and post local business events. You can post a profile with your photo and one link to your website; but the downside is that you have to pay a monthly fee to access other premium features (like uploading a business logo, adding more than one link, and adding the aforementioned blog feed).
- Small Business Brief: This social networking site has been around since 2007 and has been getting its props lately on other lists social networking sites; but it's well worth a mention here. The target audience, for the most part, are small business marketers (the most popular content is pretty much about online marketing). It's a great place to find advice to help you market your business, or post good, relevant content of your own. Downside: lots of spam postings that have nothing to do with small business advice.
- Gooruze: This is a social networking site for online marketers (get it - "gurus" except with the g-o-o from Google and z-e at the end? Meh.) Here you can post links to "news" about online marketing, your own original articles, or questions for other online marketers to answer - all which can be rated and commented on by other members. Best part - it's all free.
- Design Float: A niche social networking site for graphic designers, this won't suit everyone; but there is a Business & Freelancing category that has some pretty good articles posted for small businesses. If you're a designer or a freelancer, it's worth checking out.
- FreeIQ: This is like YouTube for business - you can watch instructional videos about small business marketing, ecommerce, sales, or post your own. They bill themselves as "The Marketplace for Ideas", and there's definitely a lot of useful information here (especially if you're more of a visual learner).
If social media marketing hasn't worked very well for you on the bigger sites, then maybe you should dig a little deeper and check out some of these niche sites - you may be surprised at the fruits of your efforts.
Tell me about social media sites you've found that have worked for you. If there are some diamonds in the rough, then I may be inclined to post them in another list. :-)
