So how do you keep ahead of the curve in social media? Most users tend to flit from one site to another in a restless determination not to miss out on the action. Social media users are a transient bunch indeed, as the stories of the big(and little) players confirms. Look at the falling stars like MySpace, even after it's owners ( the big bad Murdoch empire) spent oodles on a revamp. Then there's Plurk, Yammer, Buzz and quite a few others who have or are falling by the wayside. The biggies of the moment are Facebook and Twitter of course, with 600 and 200 million users respectively, but just who are the newbies snapping at their heels ? After all, even the behemothic Facebook only captures about 14% of the total social media page views. Here are some of our picks for the future..

- Delicious. This social bookmarking site ticks all the boxes when it comes to content curation, and, after all, it's often said that 'content is king' and it certainly can lead to conversations and networking. Delicious can send your links to twitter and facebook, as well as giving you leads to other folk who are interested in the same so of stuff. Great for building your professional learning network (PLN)

- Quora. This is an idea with some serious money backing it's launch and ongoing development. You can post a question on anything, and answer any question back. Great for building your reputation as a 'guru' in your interest or business area. And loved by Google, who it's design and user-friendly interface.

- Foursquare. The shift away from the PC and laptop towards mobile devices carries on relentlessly. Making contacts on the move, and promoting your organisation to those near to you takes full advantage of an increasingly mobile society. A listing on this site, with your promotions and offers can attract more serendipitous business.

- Focus. A cross between Twitter and Quora, and, again, great for business and organisational networking.

Whichever you think might be the big new trend, social media is here to stay, in some firm or another as older media formats fail to adapt to a fast-moving digital world-shrinking business environment. The old days when having a blog and publicising it on twitter and facebook are long gone. You need to up your social media game plan by optimising your strategy to enable your message to be delivered right to the heart of where it needs to be. This means careful planning and perhaps trial and error before you get it right. The right strategy will not only place you where you need to be in the social media milleu, but also engage with your audience, building confidence in you and your brand and converting prospects into clients. Your plan needs to be long-lasting, but flexible to adapt to an ever changing social media landscape. If you can't do this yourself, then hire someone to do it with you.

But take expert advice and treat it seriously, because your competitors certainly will.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad