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.

If you are a blogger you should be on Digg. Its not a question of usefulness, its fact. Of course I'm going to sound a little hypocritical here because I don't have a Digg button on my blog (but we are working on it). Anyhow, you should. Digg is to blogging what YouTube is to video, its the tool to take you viral. All you need is a few readers to Digg you and it can start a mass trend that will increase your visibility.

If you don't know what Digg is, here's how it works. Digg is a social bookmarking tool. People create profiles then digg blogs and articles they enjoyed. They have a friend network who can then read things they've dugg and decide to digg then as well. Then those diggs are posted on their profile and so and so one. Diggs that are in the couple hundred end up on Digg's first page. And lots of people read those. Digg also allows for comments and discussion about submissions. Right now I manually submit every post I write and digg lots of others. Its a great way to promote people who you read and subscribe to as well.

There are lots of sites out there about how to use Digg for SEO, here is a review I like at imediaconnection.com.

Its not hard to download a widget that you can put at the bottom of your blog. Then your readers can easily click and add you. Trust me, I digg far more often when there is a link. Most humans are simple creatures with short attention spans, they need a little easy reminder if they are going to digg your article.

Also find your friends on digg. If you are already using other social media post that you want to add people. Of course let me remind you of my soap box: the Golden Rule. Read and digg other people. This does not mean just digg whatever your friends post. Take some time to read articles and give feedback. Digg it forward and create your online word of net trend!

Digg what Veribatim thinks is hot here.