Social networking is not just a neat way to stay in touch with friends, but it is big business for any sized company. Indeed, the 2009 year-end holiday season proved to be a boon for businesses using social networking promotions and exclusive advertising to help increase sales.

Based on the recent 2010 FedEx Office Signs of the Times Survey,
while only about 1 in 5 of all small to medium sized businesses utilized social networking in 2009, 36% of business owners plan to use social media in 2010 to help promote their business.

However, with the popularity and number of social sites growing, it is impossible to maintain a presence on all networks. So how do you choose which one or ones work best for your business?

Facebook

Facebook is by far the most popular social media site, with over 400 million active users worldwide. That’s a staggering number of potential customers. While no business owner should expect to reach all 500 million, Facebook is a great place to establish a presence. It offers an easy and free option for businesses to create a page and gather fans.

You can easily promote your business with fan interaction and social discussions. Maintenance and updates are easy on Facebook and take little time, and this social network is probably the most highly recommended for any business to use for their promotion purposes.

Twitter

Twitter also gained a great deal of popularity in 2009 with the help of celebrities who make frequent updates. However, businesses also helped jolt Twitter’s popularity with their exclusive promotions and deals sent to Twitter followers.

With a Twitter account, you can easily post giveaway or promotion announcements, interact one-on-one with followers, and research hashtag (#) keywords and trending topics to help focus your Twitter posts.

MySpace

MySpace was one of the first leaders of social media. Its format made it easy to create a site on the internet where a business could gain a following. MySpace pages can be customized, and you can stay in touch through the MySpace blog function. While MySpace may not be the best promotion network for all businesses, it is great for music-related businesses and for marketing events.

Ning

Ning is a growing online community where millions of people are coming together to share and explore interests in a variety of fields. Businesses that use Ning can create their own community where people can post to a forum, chat, share notes and opinions, and even highlight and promote events.

The more members a business can attract to a Ning network, the more interaction that can take place.

WordPress

WordPress is an interactive blog community. Businesses can create an attractive blog site and gather loyal readers via RSS subscription and even through keyword searches.

WordPress uses plugin capabilities to get the most out of a business blog, such as a comment tool to promote community discussions. WordPress also connects to Twitter so any updates are automatically posted to Twitter followers as wel

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