Creating A Strategic Social Network Portfolio

With so many social media sites popping out all over the web like mushrooms, you can’t help but get caught in the frenzy of joining just about all of those sites. But do you really have to?

The thing you have to remember is that quality trumps quantity any time of day. You can join a hundred social networks in your lifetime and find that only a handful will prove itself useful in your social media marketing campaign.

The key is to downsize your social media portfolio to a select few that actually works towards your goal. Having only a few to maintain gives you ample time to concentrate on where your efforts need to be focused.

Here, let me give me a few examples of keepers:

For microblogging sites, you’ll find that Twitter is the best choice. Almost, if not all of the great social media masters use it. Not only that, but you’ve got over a million users to connect to in Twitter. This makes for a great opportunity to reach out to a lot of people.

In terms of social networking sites, you’ve got Facebook and LinkedIn . Both are popular and cater to different kinds of circles. Facebook is useful in connecting with your target audience – the masses. On the other hand, LinkedIn is more focused on professionals looking to find business contacts or build professional networks in the same (or different) industry.

Social bookmarking sites abound, but Del.icio.us still appears to be the leader of the pack. For one, it already has a lot of users in its belt. Another reason is that it has a better, easier-to-use interface. Lastly, Del.icio.us has better tagging functions that the competition. The Del.icio.us toolbar plugin for Firefox allows users to save and tag websites as they view them, all without having to visit the Del.icio.us homepage. It makes life easier for the average social media user.

Remember that it’s not so much the number of social media sites you sign up for. If you don’t have the time to maintain them all, what good are they to you?

I was wondering if you could add other social media sites you’d consider as quality sites. The comments section is open for your ideas and suggestions.

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Tagged as: facebook, linkedIN, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, social network, Social network service, Twitter, Website

Taffy1957

Hi, just stumbled upon your site, nice !

But hey I gotta say do you really think that Twitter is worth the time and effort...? I have tested this over the last month & believe me, the time involved in learning the system plus the software needed to try to make life a little easier, certainly does not justify the tiny trickle of visitors that I have seen. It is all well and good stating that you have an audience well in excess of a million users (in fact the latest figures are nearer 4 million), but what you have failed to point out is that a minute fraction of these users will ever bother to actually contact you personally. The vast majority of what now takes place on Twitter has been automated & basically counts for nothing!

Rodelio Lagahit

@taff, I agree with you.. with various reviews on twitter's impact to the bottom line, i doubt if it's a good and solid tool to rally our people(customers) behind it. I'd rather waste my time on facebook's pages/clubs. with 85k members (and growing) in just over a month? marketers and brand evangelist would surely envy me to death.. :)

Rob Angeles

I agree. I guess spammers really did a good job in making things unproductive plus there are people who got obsessed with numbers. Well, they still don't "get it".

Brent Hieggelke

Nice article, and with quality applications starting to emerge on to of sites like Facebook, the selection of social sites to care about becomes easier. We launched Second Porch, the first Facebook vacation rental application to rent and trade vacation homes with people you know and trust, for example.

-Brent