With so much choice available within the Social Media arena it is easy to understand how some of us can seem daunted and confused about starting to use social media for the first time.

This article will run through the big players within social media to help you learn which type will work best for you.
Once you have worked out the best form of social media for you and your business it will give you the opportunity to harness the true potential of social networks and help your business grow. It is worth taking time at this stage to figure which aspect of social media suits you to really see the benefits in the future.

The following list includes a current classification of the top social networking sites.

• Bebo – started up in 2005, Bebo pulls in a young crowd and its main focus seems to be multimedia – great for sharing video and music. If your target audience are teenagers then this will be a great starting point to get your name into the young domain.

• Blellow – Similar to Twitter, Blellow is a social community for professionals and freelancers to help with productivity and project solutions by asking ‘What are you working on?’

• Blogger – a very powerful tool, a blog is becoming the perfect partner for any modern website. Easy to update, post comments, fully interactive, looks professional, minimal fuss and so simple to link back to and help promote you and your business.

• Delicious/ Digg/ StumbleUpon – All these services share the same principle of users book marking their favourite sites, links and information. They have less potential use for business promotion but are a good source of noteworthy information and give good feedback on sites.

• Facebook – The biggest and probably the most effective social networking site for both personal and business benefit. A great platform on which to reach a wide audience and to promote events, products and services and also an excellent global communication tool. Like blogs, a facebook page is becoming the norm for most businesses these days.

• Friendfeed – This will help integrate all your current social networking sites. Check the latest news from your Twitter, Facebook and Google. A convenient way of sorting through different news and information feeds.

• LinkedIn – A business only site that requires you to load your education and work details and is a high quality business network of vast proportions with high-value business contact to be made. A must for all business ventures and professional individuals.

• MySpace – Predominantly for music and video, many new music talents have been discovered through Myspace, a powerful platform for creative music types but with no space for business networking. A good tool to reach a young crowd.

• Picasa/ Flickr – Both sites are used for uploading and sharing pictures. These sites are good for any business that requires artwork or photography. A great social feel to the sharing of creative wares.

• Twitter – Definitely one of the ‘big two’ in relation to social networking sites that have most influence. (Twitter and Facebook). A simple yet highly popular format of posts, no more than 140 characters. Share thoughts, interesting information and links. A great opportunity for businesses to re-connect with customers on a more personal level and very easy to use.

• You Tube – Last but definitely not least. With faster internet connections being a thing of the norm, videos are a great way to get a message across. You Tube is the second largest search engine! And it’s just for videos. Short videos can be great for business as they are more effective than a screen full of text and will appear in most google searches.

Depending on your business sector the list above will help you better understand the pro and cons the wide selection of social networking sites and help you make the right choice.