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What Social Media Networks Should I Join?

According to a recent survey of Mediapost readers, 50% of marketing officers are looking to have a presence on social media sites in 2010. Duuuuuhhh. Of course they are. If social media truly is the new mass media, then it should be a part of almost every marketing budget at this point. The real question is, which networks? How many of them do you need to be active on to reach your market?

Nobody can afford to dump a load of time and energy into a social media network or tool that fades into obscurity in a few months, but everybody wants to be on the “cutting edge” right?
Wrong.

You don’t have to be on every network to have an effective social media strategy. Unless your business is cutting edge technology , software or Web 2.0 related you don’t need to be on the cutting edge networks either. It’s smarter to do a little homework with those social media listening tools to find out which networks are the most effective for your message, the industry you’re in and the clients you want to reach.

Instead of jumping on the bandwagon for every new tool or network give it a little time. See who is adopting. If you don’t want somebody else to snap up your brand name on the site go ahead and register it, but that doesn’t mean you have to use it right away. Use UsernameCheck.com to see which sites you’ve claimed your name on. Again, you don’t have to be on all of them. Take the time to look at the network and see if it’s a good fit. If it is, make sure you set up a profile and link it to your blog, your web site or one of your other social media presences so people can get in touch with you. (It’s good for SEO too!)

To decide which networks are worth the investment ask yourself these questions:

Is the site relevant to my business?
Twittermoms.com is exactly what it says it is-a site for moms on Twitter. If you’re business sells hot rod parts to a mainly 18-30 year old market it might not be a good fit.
Is it credible?
Read what people are talking about on the forum or network. Can you get behind what they are saying or are they from another planet entirely? If you don’t agree with the content it’s probably not a good fit.
Is it established?
Lots of people get burned by flash in the pan sites that look super-cool but never really develop. If it feels hinky get the username if you must, but watch it for a while before you expend too much energy.
Are people using it?
Think about it. If the forum posts are all from 1-2 people there aren’t any comments and traffic is low either it’s an un-discovered up and comer or it’s not going anywhere. Sites like Compete.com can tell you what kind of traffic the site is getting. Do a little analysis before you jump in.