Social Media Websites You Need to Know as a Business
Collected by Martin Brossman – (919) 847-4757 Facebook: http://BrossmanOnFB.com

Source: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org c2010 Wicipedia with exception of the inSideAreaCodes write up by Martin Brossman.  All these sites offer full service free levels of membership.

Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses web-based technologies  to turn communication into interactive dialogues. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content.”[1] Businesses also refer to social media as consumer-generated media (CGM). Social media utilization is believed[who?] to be a driving force in defining the current time period as the Attention Age[citation needed]. A common thread running through all definitions of social media is a blending of technology and social interaction for the co-creation of value.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

Facebook is a social network service and website launched in February 2004 that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc.[1] As of July 2010[update] Facebook has more than 500 million active users,[6] which is about one person for every fourteen in the world.[7][N 1]  Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common interest user groups, organized by workplace, school, or college, or other characteristics. The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book  given to students at the start of the academic year by university administrations in the US with the intention of helping students to get to know each other better. Facebook allows anyone who declares themselves to be at least 13 years old to become a registered user of the website.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

Facebook Wall: A place where “Friends” and you can post comment, pictures, links or video. The idea came from the small bulletin board  outside many dorm rooms in college where you may post things or your friends can.

Twitter is a website, owned and operated by Twitter Inc., which offers a social networking and microblogging service, enabling its users to send and read other users’ messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user’s profile  page. Tweets are publicly visible by default, however senders can restrict message delivery to their friends list. Users may subscribe to other author tweets—this is known as following and subscribers are known as followers. As of late 2009, users can follow lists of authors instead of just following individual authors.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. Three former PayPal employees created YouTube in February 2005.[3]    The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, VEVO and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program.[4]   Unregistered users can watch the videos, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos that are considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users 18 and older. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and now operates as a subsidiary of Google.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youtube

LinkedIn (pronounced /ˌlɪŋkt.ˈɪn/) is a business-oriented social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003,[2] it is mainly used for professional networking. As of 9 August 2010, LinkedIn had more than 75 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.[3] The site is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.[4] Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linkedin

inSideAreaCodes (first one was inSide919) is a free micro-business and small business networking site that lets businesses build business allies with other businesses in their area, grouped by their area code. It is 100% transparent to Google, allowing for a way to produce local content that can be viewed by anyone. This open system allows a business to increase its local web presence at no cost, but you must be a member to comment on a post. Since the people of a small business are often the best competitive advantage they have, inSideAreaCodes requires that you sign up under your real name and use a real picture (there is a separate place for your business name by your picture). All the inSideAreaCodes.com are built on the Ning platform (see following definition from Wickipedia). See http://www.inSideAreaCodes.com to find one near you or to see the founding group: http://www.inSide919.com

Ning is an online platform for people to create their own social networks,[3] launched in October 2005.[1] Ning was co-founded by Marc Andreessen and Gina Bianchini. Ning is Andreessen’s third company (after Netscape and Opsware). The word “Ning” is Chinese for “peace” (simplified Chinese: 宁; traditional Chinese: 寧; pinyin: níng), as explained by Gina Bianchini on the company blog.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ning_(website).

Connect with Martin Brossman on Facebook at http://BrossmanOnFB.com
Learn more about Small Business Training and Chambers of Commerce Trainning at www.SBCSpeakers.com or his Business training at www.ProNetworkingOnLine.com