The latest buzz in the internet world is on social media sites. Many times when you post on these types of sites you can gain top positions in the search engines in, sometimes minutes! The search engines view content on these sites as current cutting edge information that is highly relevant to the viewing public. How long this will last is anyone’s guess, but for now it definitely pays to get your information out there to generate as much traffic as possible.

Of the online communities, I like to use eBay. Now you may be thinking ebay? Well, yes! There is a way to submit your articles through ebay Blogs. All you have to do is go to ebay.com, click on the “Community” tab at the top and then scroll down to ebay Blogs under the “General” section. Register with them and start submitting. The other good thing with ebay is you can also display any products you are selling and link to your store if you have one set up.

I also like to use MySpace. MySpace allows me to have a blog. I set up a blog on MySpace and I put my articles there. Now, each of these articles are driving traffic back to my squeeze page so I can capture those people’s information and also try to sell to them. Once they become a sale, then what I’ll do is take them offline. We’ll pick up the phone and we’ll call them.

I’m also using the online communities, such as Squidoo, Scribed, Digg, Propeller, Socialmarker and Amazon.  As crazy as this may sound, Amazon also allows you to set up a blog through Amazon Connect.

As for Squidoo.com, I can build content that is monetizable, add my links and set up affiliate marketing “lenses”. One other cool thing is Squidoo sites can be bought and sold. (For more detailed information on Squidoo visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squidoo )

Scribed.com allows you to publish any type of article you want. It is great for republishing old content such as back issues of your email broadcasts and newsletters.

Digg.com (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg) is good for time limited things that you want to announce to the world.

Propeller.com (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propeller.com )is also a good site to submit your content as well as other people’s content.

Socialmarker.com allows you to set up bookmarks on several sites, bookmark special pages, major blog posts, videos, squidoo pages and links to your site. 

As you can see, social media is very viral and has a lot of web power to take your website to the top in its niche. If you’re not using social media to grow your business you’re leaving a ton of money on the table. Take a look at these social media sites I mention and begin to network your business to the virtual sphere. It’s well worth the effort!