The most cost effective way for a business to develop and promote, a strategy of best practices of a social network optimization will be to focus upon the best business social networking sites.
According to a survey done in (Dec 09) by the University of Maryland small business school, the following are the survey results from small business participants; of those surveyed some 75% were focusing upon their own web pages, some 39% were also blogging online content articles about their area of expertise.
Additional survey results showed that 69% of those business owners surveyed were focusing their efforts on building a network utilizing Face book and LinkedIn. Some 54% of business owners were spending time monitoring their online business reputations. Only 16% of those surveyed were focusing on tweeting on the Twitter.com network.
So base upon the results of that survey it is obvious that the top three small business social networks are Face book, Linked In, and of course Twitter.
The following is a brief history of Face book, Linked In, and Twitter.
Face Book was founded in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. It currently has over 500 million members world wide. It is free to join. There are some features in Face book that will cost you money. Review the terms and conditions of Face book.
Linked In was founded in 2003 and opened for business in May 2003. Linked In currently has over 190 Million members. It is also free to join. Like Face book, Linked In also has features that require paid dues. Again read the terms and conditions of Linked In.
Twitter was founded in July of 2006. It’s world wide membership is over 190 million users. See the terms and conditions of joining Twitter. It limits its messages to under 140 characters per message.
Other social network sites to join are the following list;
1) Your local area Chamber of Commerce 2) BNI networks 3) Home base business network
4) Meet the boss 5) Meetup.com 6)The Free Lance Face 7) Partner Up
Perfect business
9) Your success Network 10) Sales Spider
As part of your overall marketing strategy for your business you want to incorporate a small Business social network strategy to drive traffic and increase your sales as well as profits.
Your goal for your social networking strategy is to define what you want your potential customers/readers to do. Is your goal for social networking to build and drive sales, is it to retain current customers, or is it to build your community relationship as a trust source of accurate knowledge.
Remember that the key to social network optimization is to follow the three golden rules;
A) Great article content B) Great Linking strategy C) A great SEO strategy.
Those golden rules will bring you increased online traffic to your blog as well as web site. Increased online traffic will mean increased sales and revenue.
There are 4 color personality types. Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. 

