Top Five Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites are used for a number of reasons, both personal and business related. The Internet is an ever growing resource that allows anyone, anywhere to access information with the click of a button. For those who are using social networking to promote their business this can be an extremely valuable tool. The biggest issue that a website owner will have will be getting traffic to their site. Without traffic and without promotion a site will not be indexed (or found) in a search engine. And if a site is not in a search engine there is no way that anyone will find it. But the biggest question remains - what are the top social networking sites, and what are they used to promote?

Before moving on to the list, I want to mention I am not going to tackle networking sites like Facebook and Myspace which can be great social networking tools. The reason is because they tend to rely on you already being established and having a reasonably large friends listing or where you have to seek people out to send information. I am going to target social networking sites that do not have that requirement. Basically the premise is you post and through social networking they find you, not the other way around.

Twitter
I admit I use Twitter and first wondered what in the world it was good for if I didn't already have friends there. (And none of my friends are remotely interested in this site either.) I joined out of curiosity and am glad I did. Even though I essentially started sending "tweets" to no one but myself, other people quickly found me that had similar interests. Now I can send out information of what I am doing and working on, but I can get information from other people that might help me out with what I am doing. When you send out a tweet it is very limited in length, so you are only sending a sentence on what you are doing at that particular moment. It is a great asset to building your social network, and you do not have to do anything - just sign up and send tweets, others will come and find you.
www.twitter.com

Propeller
Accepts stories and articles related to just about anything - if you can write it they are willing to post it. However, they do have a strict policy about spam, so if they feel that your post is spam it will be removed. In addition to writing stories, you can join groups and learn about or share common interests. It is a great social networking tool for those who like to write and share with others that may be surfing around the Internet.
www.propeller.com

Digg
Similar to Propeller, you write and submit stories and articles for other people to find and read. When your story is "Digg"-ed it is promoted by the site, any story that is un-"Digg"-ed is eventually removed. It also has a Recommendation Engine which identifies your interests and then connects you to people with similar interests. This is where the social networking part comes in - the site finds people to social network with for you. Eventually your writing will connect you with those who are interested in the same topics and you can promote or share information.
www.digg.com

Del.icio.us
A slightly unusual site that promotes social networking of blogs rather than individual articles. Each blog is "book marked" when you choose it and you can share the sites you are looking at with friends. I especially like this option for social networking because you are not limited to sharing information with one or two articles. Instead, you can share your whole thought process or experience with a particular topic. Finally there is a subscription and networking feature that allows you to share with other members the sites that you have found to be the most interesting.
www.delicious.com

StumbleUpon
Matches your interests with websites that are listed with StumbleUpon. This allows you to network indirectly with other people because the search engine brings your site to other people with similar interests. Eventually your site or blog will be shared with others that may have not found you otherwise. Also, like Del.icio.us you can promote through networking and subscriptions.
www.stumbleupon.com

All these sites provide you different ways of networking though mini-sentences or phrases, articles, or fully published websites or blogs. They provide a means to "introduce" yourself to people that you have never met (and probably wouldn't have otherwise.) On a personal level it allows you to meet new people, and for businesses it allows for a level of promotion that you may not have been able to achieve otherwise.