Stairwellblog

Having a hit social media site is like having a hit music video on MTV. (If MTV still played music videos) You never know when you could find yourself being yesterday’s news. Sites like Friendster, EbaumsWorld, and MySpace came in with a lot of hype and now find themselves in decline. On the other side of the coin Digg.com has been praised for just how long it has stayed relevant as one of the top 150 most visited websites for 7 years. (www.alexa.com/topsites) That makes it an elder statesman in the social networking world. I figured I’d try my best to make sense of it all by looking at some up and coming social networking sites just in case Facebook and Twitter don’t have that same lifespan. Just like Twitter, the next big social media site will probably come out of nowhere. But I’m sure you will be hearing a lot more out of these sites in the coming years.

Formspring (www.formspring.me)

Formspring should be a virtual no-brainer for business owners. It’s a great way to answer questions from an audience without having to sift through a message board. What makes it great is that you don’t need a user name to ask a question so it’s an easy way to interact with your customer base. It skews toward a little bit of an older audience, but it looks like it’s growing steadily. I’d recommend looking at this one if customer relationships are a central part of your business model.

Scribd (www.scribd.com)

Have you ever seen the “Take A Book, Leave A Book” racks at the train station? That’s basically what Scribd does except on a global scale. (And no, that isn’t misspelled.) You can upload everything from book chapters, comic strips, flyers, and newsletters and you can comment and share other material with other like-minded users. Scribd has been around for a few years, but is really blowing up thanks to iPhone and iPad apps and it doesn’t look like it’s stopping anytime soon.

JustinTV (www.justin.tv)

JustinTV is series of channels that the user can program as he or she sees fit 24/7. News sites like Geekweek.com have had great success building a following for their site that launched earlier this year. They use their Justin TV channel to promote their writers and celebrity guests and it has gained them a following very quickly. Other companies are using the site to run news footage, sponsor movie channels, and create their own content. It’s a great way to have your message running all day every day.

WordPress (wordpress.org)

WordPress is a searchable database of blogs that cover any subject you can think of. It can be a great way to get into niche marketing – mostly because it is by far the most organized and easy to read blog site I’ve ever seen. You can write a series of blogs about knitting and start a dialogue with your audience right there on the same page. Like Formspring, it’s a fairly new site that has a lot of business owners using it in connection with Linkedin.

Dailymotion (www.dailymotion.com/us)

The problem with a lot of social media sites is that they get crowded with bots and not-so-reputable-advertisers. You can see this starting with YouTube now. Dailymotion tries to answer this by being a more discernible video sharing site. Dailymotion can be a good place to post your video and get people talking about it without having to deal with the clutter of other video sites. On top of that, Dailymotion tags videos from websites like Hulu so their SEO profile is actually much higher than YouTube’s. This means that if your video is tagged the same as, for example, Jon Stewart’s video, then you could potentially be seen by everyone who views him online. That’s something YouTube can’t offer for sure.

StumbleUpon (www.stumbleupon.com)

StumbleUpon has actually been around for almost a decade but has only recently gained a cult following in the art house sector. Stumbleupon, is part Blog, part Facebook, and part message board. Its eclectic style makes it ideal for sharing links with your friends but not necessecarily a great business site. Still if you want to see what the hip young audience is looking at StumbleUpon could be a good tool for you.

Propeller (www.propeller.com)

Propeller follows the same model as YouTube and DailyMotion: fan generated content with fan generated ratings, except Propeller does it with news stories. Users can post news stories either written by themselves or ones they find elsewhere. You can post news about your favorite cause or recent events that effect your business and get instant feedback and audience comments. The more positive feedback you have, the more people will see your article. But just make sure it’s good because if it gets enough bad reviews they drop it altogether.

Last 5 posts by joshuasinason

• Twitter Offering Regional Targeted Ads and Becoming The Place For Social Media Marketing in 2012 - January 20th, 2012
• Social Media Aspects That Failed in 2011 But Could Explode In 2012 - January 3rd, 2012
• The State of Streaming Video in 2012 - December 21st, 2011
• Gearing Social Media To Sports Fans - December 9th, 2011
• Take A Lesson From The Muppets: Kermit The Frog and Social Media - November 22nd, 2011