A "Cheat Sheet" for those who are new to social media. These are the social media platforms that people are already probably familiar with, but may not know all of the business applications of the basic platforms.

1. Social Media 101
A Social Media Cheat Sheet

2. Social Media 101: The Ones You Probably Know
introduction to some of the
most popular social media
platforms on the web

3. AddThis

4. What is it?
Once added, visitors to the website can
bookmark an item using a variety of
services, such as
Facebook, MySpace, Google
Bookmarks, and Twitter.

5. How Can it Help My Business?
Provides incredibly in-depth analytics
regarding users and web traffic, and it is
a very effective way to get customers to
share your content through their social
media platforms.

6. Delicious

7. What is it?
Social bookmarking service for
storing, sharing, and discovering web
bookmarks. As of December 2010, this
site has reported more than 5 million
users

8. How Can it Help My Business?
Delicious is not only a great tool for
driving up website traffic; it can also be
utilized to learn more about customers
using some of the research and data
mining tools.

9. eBay

10. What is it?
An online auction and shopping website
in which people and businesses buy and
sell a broad variety of goods and services
worldwide. It is the largest Person-to-
Person shopping site online

11. How Can it Help My Business?
Provides detailed web traffic
reports, and it gives businesses another
way to sell their products. eBay has
been shown to be very effective in the
sale of high-end products for businesses.

12. Facebook

13. What is it?
The single largest social media site in
existence with over 800 million active
users. Over 85% of college students are
currently on Facebook - 60% of which
check the site daily.

14. How Can it Help My Business?
Facebook is an excellent starting point for
any business interested in social media
marketing. Not only does it contain dozens
of options for promoting businesses, but it
also is integrated with most major social
networks.

15. Foursquare

16. What is it?
Location-based social networking site
built for mobile devices. Users can
“check-in” and receive points/prizes at
various locations. The company
reported 10 million users as of 2010.

17. How Can it Help My Business?
Businesses can offer special prizes to people
who actively support their organization on
foursquare through prizes and promotions.
Often times users who “check-in” or write
reviews for their location will receive
discounts or promotional items.

18. Google+

19. What is it?
A social media networking and identity
site that is being considered by many to
be Facebook’s biggest upcoming
competitor. Latest estimates predict 18
million active users.

20. How Can it Help My Business?
Google is currently working on adapting
profiles for businesses. These profiles
are promising to deliver functionality
with both Picasa and YouTube.

21. LinkedIn

22. What is it?
The largest business-related social media
containing professional profiles and
resumes of over 120 million active users
worldwide. Over half of all job-seekers
nationwide are users.

23. How Can it Help My Business?
An excellent tool for generating
leads, recruiting, and developing businesses.
Although it is not as large as Facebook or
Twitter, it has an incredibly targeted core
group of users.

24. Myspace

25. What is it?
In 2006 it surpassed Google as the most
visited site in the world, but since April
of 2008 has had a steady decline in
users. Still the top social media site for
bands, artists, and producers.

26. How Can it Help My Business?
Myspace provides a highly-targeted and
highly-engaged segment of users, and it
is a “must have” for any entertainment
marketer.

27. Paypal

28. What is it?
Global e-commerce business allowing
payments and money transfers to be
made through the Internet. Over
300,000 websites worldwide use at least
one of Paypal’s services.

29. How Can it Help My Business?
Excellent alternate to traditional paper
transactions for small and medium sized
businesses. Paypal also offers
exceptional consumer tracking services
for subscribers.

30. Podcast

31. What is it?
Series of digital media files that are
released as “episodes” and are often
downloaded from some type of web
syndication. Podcasts are commonly
spread via RSS feeds.

32. How Can it Help My Business?
An excellent addition to any web feed or
RSS feed, podcasts allow businesses to
share information and express new ideas
to customers in a more engaging way.

33. RSS

34. What is it?
Any type of web feed in which regularly
or frequently updated materials (such as
blog entries, news headlines, audio, and
video) are published using a pre-
determined standard.

35. How Can it Help My Business?
An RSS feed is an essential compliment
to microblogs, podcasts, and other social
media sites. Customers regularly receive
your information, and can organize it
easily.

36. ShareThis

37. What is it?
Widget that lets users share content on the
Web with friends via e-mail, AIM, or text
message. It also keeps an account of
contacts so users can send information with
favorite links to friends.

38. How Can it Help My Business?
Much like the “AddThis” widget, it can
provide businesses an opportunity to
track and identify customers while
providing them an opportunity to spread
your information much easier.

39. Skype

40. What is it?
Software application that allows users to
make voice and video calls online. The
software is used by
students, families, and professionals
across the world (often for free).

41. How Can it Help My Business?
Skype has a variety of services in addition to
video chatting that include instant
messaging, file transfer, and
videoconferencing that can help your
business communicate internally and
externally for free.

42. Twitter

43. What is it?
Social networking and microblogging service
that enables users to send and read text
posts of up to 140 characters, informally
known as "tweets". It has over 100 million
users worldwide.

44. How Can it Help My Business?
It can readily integrate with most other
social media sites allowing businesses to
update multiple social media sites from a
single site. There are also some wonderful
listening tools that can be integrated with
Twitter.

45. Wikipedia

46. What is it?
Free online encyclopedia written and
edited collaboratively by thousands of
volunteers around the world. It contains
more than 19.8 million articles to date.

47. How Can it Help My Business?
Another very effective way for businesses to
manage their brand for free. Businesses
should stay active in the Wikipedia
community and ensure that their page
contains positive and relevant information.

48. Yelp

49. What is it?
Social networking, user review, and local
search site with over 50 million users
monthly.

50. How Can it Help My Business?
Yelp can be used to help businesses
solicit reviews from clients, promote
local events, and even respond to
negative reviews written by customers.

51. YouTube

52. What is it?
With over 120 million videos posted, it is
currently the world’s largest video
sharing website. It is also the world’s
second-largest search engine.

53. How Can it Help My Business?
An excellent tool for creating an intimate
connection with customers through
informational videos, product
demonstrations, and video blogs.