A couple weeks ago I posted 5 niche social media sites for business - so where broader social sites may not have worked for you, these could in driving more targeted traffic to your site as well as helping to establish you as an authority and build your brand.
The post received a pretty good response, because my goal was to list sites that were not necessarily on other social site lists (and there are a lot of lists out there). Sure, a few of the sites have been listed before, but I think they deserve more promotion than they've received. Anyway, this prompted me to find some additional business-niche social and web 2.0 sites - and find them I did.
Here are 5 more business social sites you may not know about (or possibly overlooked):
- SmallBusiness.com: Yes, wikis can be a great way to leverage web 2.0 technology for your business. Not only is it a great source of small business information (with user-generated guides on everything from starting your business, financing, and marketing to e-commerce and blogging), but it's also a great place to promote your business. You can create a profile, and if you have any small business knowledge not already covered, then you can contribute to any of the guides. If you offer services for small businesses, then you can add a link to your site or blog to any of the small business directories listed. Note: wikis are not for link spamming. It's advised that you take a good look at the information available and contribute if you have something solid and useful to add, and add your links in only the most relevant directories.
- Briz: Briz is a social networking site where consumers can interact with local businesses. As a business, you can create a free profile, which includes a link to your website, your business address, your phone number, and even your logo (among a plethora of other things). Consumers can search for businesses in their local areas, send messages to them, vote for them, and bookmark them. This is a great way for small businesses of all types that serve a specific geographic area to promote themselves to and interact with their customer base.
- Hubspot: Hubspot offers a variety of tools to help small businesses use the Internet to effectively market themselves (such as keyword research, link building, business blogs, lead intelligence, and a ton of other tools). They also have a beta site, titled Social Content for Marketing Mavens, where you can find and post links to articles about online marketing and vote them up or down. Plus, if you're a marketer and have a profile on LinkedIn, you can join the Hubspot Marketing Mavens group.
- KillerStartups: Do you have a startup? Is it killer? Add it to KillerStartups! They review each new business added to their system, then post them on the site so visitors can vote on "the next big thing". It's a great way to gain insight into the popularity and viability of your startup idea. You never know - a potential investor may just find your business and think it's "killer" enough to finance.
- Upspring: Like Briz, Upspring allows all types of businesses to create a profile, which potential customers can find. It works for both B2C and B2B businesses, and customers can search by business name, location, or category (which, for some strange reason, Upspring has hidden at the bottom of their pages). Unlike Briz, you don't get all the bells and whistles for free - the free basic profile comes with your logo, a link to your website and email address, up to 1 mb of photos, and your business hours, while the Premium Listing (at a pretty inexpensive $19.98 a month) gets you the ability to add videos, coupons, and testimonials, as well as interact directly with customers and create groups.
Again, I'd like to know what you think. Have you used these or any other niche social media sites? What kind of results did you receive?
