By Dan Kenitz
Among Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, Ning, Goobla and Punchoo, it's nearly impossible for the small business owner to tell exactly how to log on to the social media trend. Heck, I just made up Goobla and Punchoo; the point is that in the social media world, it's hard to tell between the gibberish and the legitimate platforms upon which business can build a rock-solid online foundation.
In order to cut through the clutter, let's focus on one question. What if you could only promote your business on just one social media Web site? Which is the best? If you've been putting off your membership in the social media world, this article will help you finally buckle down, choose just one site, and get set up within minutes.
First, we'll have to establish some criteria for our ideal site. We're looking for:
- Popularity. It makes no sense to limit your business to a lesser-known social media network like FaceParty when there's a far-more-popular Facebook out there. If you're going to be promoting your business through this site, you might as well go after a large audience.
- Usability. Since this is your first foray into social media, it's best if we keep things simple for now. Don't worry about setting up a vast expanse of information on your MySpace page if you don't know how to handle basic navigation.
- Feed-ability. You probably don't want to micromanage your social media profile, so it's imperative that you're able to feed some basic information—like a blog feed — into your social profile.
Based on the criteria above, what's the conclusion?
Twitter!
Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms out there today, and for good reason. It's easy to use, simple to navigate and integrates well with blogs and home pages.
Does this mean you should ignore other valid sites like Facebook or LinkedIn? Of course not. But Twitter's capabilities and straight-forward interface make it ideal as your main social media network. You can post tweets from your mobile phone and easily follow friends who are doing the same. You can easily integrate your blog feed with your Twitter profile. And, best of all, doing all of that is perhaps simpler than on all of the other social media networks.
About the Author
Dan Kenitz, a graduate of Cardinal Strich University in Milwaukee, is a former Search Engine Optimization professional and a current freelance writer who works out of of the Midwest.