Social networking on the internet has been the topic of many discussions lately. With the explosion of Twitter and other networking sites, businesses have seen the potential power of the internet for marketing and creating opportunities. This is true for big businesses and even small, local, mom and pop operations. Today’s entrepreneurs realize the value of an internet presence.

With all of the buzz about this on the internet, it seems that many small business owners are diving in full throttle and devote a considerable amount of time to it. Many people are finding their niche and using the internet to expand their sales. Others come to question the value of their efforts when compared to the actual dollar return they see. But it is important to remember that it is also about creating a presence that will make you more visible on search engines. Just as in local consumer retail businesses of any kind, visibility is always beneficial.

And ultimately choosing a prime social networking site that works for you is a good idea. Some sites will not work as well for your business as others. That is something you have to research and learn about for yourself. But I can tell you that YouTube will work for anyone who is willing to offer some free information to their viewers. YouTube is like a social networking site on steroids. For Catspit Productions, YouTube is the number one social networking platform. It creates the most amount of traffic to the Catspit website not including Google, (although YouTube videos are often featured in search results). If you play the YouTube game correctly, it can provide your business with a lot of exposure.

Of course there are some things you will need to learn in order to take advantage of YouTube and manipulate your video information so your videos show up where you want them too. But in general, YouTube is easy to use and can create a lot of opportunity for businesses. One of the key factors in making any social networking site work for you, is being consistent with your activity on them.

That doesn’t mean you have to obsess with social networking sites, just think of them as fishing lures. Your profiles and activities are the lures, so choose and create them accordingly. Make sure to complete profiles as much as possible and then all you have to do is wiggle the lure with some activity and check the lines now and then, sort to speak. You may find that one site works better for you than others and it may be beneficial to focus on that site some more.

I understand that Google has plans to enhance their search algorithms in such a way that social network bookmarking will play a bigger role is search engine results. Evidently this is being done to combat the continuing abuse of paid incoming linking. It seems that companies can pay other services to create incoming links for them, rather than the links being generated due to genuine interest from the internet community. Google traditionally liked to see incoming links because this shows that people think your site is important enough to link to. After all Google was originally designed to be content driven.

But in general if you can’t really define your niche, then being active with some social networking sites will at the very least create an online presence which will create opportunity in the long run. And in my eyes, opportunity is always good.

Thanks for reading!