Top 10 Social Media Sites to Boost Your Brand Online

Whether you’re a small business owner, a blogger or someone who’s looking for their next big break, the Internet has an infinite number of resources and opportunities for personal branding.

Social media sites are especially useful resources for meeting potential readers and customers, as practically everyone you reach out to through those platforms are also interested in expanding their contacts base and engaging in the greater conversation. Here are some of the best sites that can help you boost your brand online.

Twitter: Twitter has exploded in the past year as one of the easiest and most addicting forms of social media. Bloggers and established news websites use it to send out blasts of posts and stories, and other stores and brands post links about their featured products and services.
Facebook: Facebook isn’t just social networking anymore, it’s a platform for making business connections too. Set up your profile or page to post pictures and information about your brand.
LinkedIn: Serious professionals wanting to make contacts should try out LinkedIn. You can create a profile and network with other business people in your field.
Flickr: Visually promote your brand on a photo site like Flickr, where you can create photo albums of your products, special events, co-workers and more.
Podcast Alley: Start your own podcast to give customers and readers a more holistic sense of your brand, and then add it to the directory on Podcast Alley.
Blogger: If you don’t already blog, set up a personal site (it’s free!) to publicize your business, project or portfolio.
FriendFeed: FriendFeed is still going strong and is used by companies and brands to start conversations about the issues that affect their customers.
Niche social media sites: Research the web to find smaller social media sites that focus on your field and attract your most direct target audience.
YouTube: Start uploading videos that have to deal with your field (they shouldn’t all be commercials for your brand) and provide a service by offering advice, recording tutorials or covering an event as a citizen journalist.
Digg: Digg is an excellent space to promote your own writing. Make friends with other users who will help make your posts more popular.