The past few posts I've been focusing my research and attention on the phenomenon of social media. I have to admit it fascinates me, but the goal of course is to make it work, from a business stand point. How can online social networking help your business? And how do you choose from the hundreds of sites that make this available?

I'm going to deal with a number of well-known sites, each one I have reviewed in the last few weeks. Now I'm going to list out each service's pros and cons so they can all be compared.

Pros:

• Networking Intensive
• Open and chatty community
• real time answers.

Cons:

• Time intensive
• Navigation not intuitive
• Leans towards the internet savvy

Pros:

• Great way to "poll"
• Close to Real Time but simple to use
• Ability to automatically feed blog posts

Cons:

• Too much down time
• Often Tweeple are more interested in getting follower than networking
• Superfluous information

Pros:

• Community Opportunity
• Clean Profile look - user friendly
• Ability to create applications, events and blog posts

Cons:

• Audience not "marketing" friendly
• Networking more social
• Ability to be tagged in notes and images that may not be work appropriate

Pros:

• Massive Audience
• Forum opportunity
• Widely-Accepting to advertising

Cons:

• Spammy
• "Bathroom wall of the internet" - reputation isn't great
• Friend Collectors instead of clients

Pros:

• Simple, Clean, Business-friendly
• Opportunity to get business feedback
• Chance to get reviewed by clients

Cons:

• People may "reject" your link because they don't remember you
• Many users don't check-up on their profile regularly
• Not all people network with others they actually know

Pros:

• Viral effect for blogs
• Simple way to get noticed
• Easy to use

Cons:

• Many people "digg" things because their friends do, not because they like it
• Hitting the front page of Digg has been known to crash websites from too much traffic
• Millions of submission to compete with

Pros:

• Easy for any website
• Allows for site indexing
• Allows for reviews and keywords

Cons:

• Takes a little more time
• Can be bad for niche sites with advertising
• Allows the opportunity for people to rate you negatively

Pros:

• One of the longest standing Social Bookmarking sites
• Allows you to import bookmarks
• Ability to share of keep private based on user needs

Cons:

• Usefulness is merely just an extra link without good user connections
• A hassle without a toolbar extension
• Format is not instinctive

Are there any other social media sites you'd like to see reviewed and added to this list? Let me know what business tools you use.

The last social bookmarking site I think is important to mention is del.icio.us. That's right, the one with the weird punctuation. If you've been following the last few posts, del.icio.us works like the other social bookmarking site though its origins are a little different.

del.icio.us started as a way to keep track of your bookmarks from computer to computer. In a world where many of us have a desktop, a laptop, an office computer and a cell phone with internet access, getting to your favorite website can often end up as an exercise in text recall. del.icio.us solved that problem, letting you put all your bookmarks in one place.

Of course the social aspect soon developed. People shared links, used del.icio.us to promote other websites and their own. The truth is, humans are social creatures. We love to share and learn from each other. We like to offer up knowledge to other people. Use these social tools to get in on the online networking! Most business owners spend hours networking offline, but imagine a network that is running constantly. Again, del.icio.us is a must for you to submit to and also put as a widget on your blog.

del.icio.us is not just like a browser bookmark. So the interface may take some time adjusting to. Everything works with tags instead of being sorted into files. However, if you bookmark your own site you can also find out who else is bookmarking your site as well!

Get del.icio.us links from Veribatim.