With 2009 around the corner, social media experts are forecasting new trends. What will the New Year bring? Read more here

Thank you for all you’ve done over the last 16 months. beachdog is a real asset to my business. And thanks also for your support as a customer.

Wishing you a happy and prosperous new year,

J.M.

While we’ve encouraged many of our business clients to engage in social networking, especially blogging on their business sites, I’ve personally resisted popular sites like FaceBook and MySpace . I am blessed to have a full life. The down time I do have I don’t really want to spend on the computer.

Then came the babies. In the last year or so, eight (yes, 8) infants have entered the Schwartz world. Their parents post pictures on MySpace. One of the mixed blessings of sites like these is that you have control over the information you post insomuch as it can be visible only to friends, or to the world at large. These parents are wisely not making the photos available to the general public, so I had to sign up for an account, and become an online friend, to see the babes. I soon found a number of our friends and family members were using the online tool to easily stay connected and I found myself doing the same.

“Professional Research” I called it. I really should find out more about the ins and outs of all these sites. Thus, my FaceBook, Digg, YouTube, Blogger, WordPress, LinkedIn and other accounts. Overwhelm is an understatement. Each of these sites take a unique spin on the same general concept: connecting people easily. Here’s a short, to-the-point, explanation of social networking:

Most of our friends and colleagues received a request recently to become a member of Linkedin.com, the social network for business connections. Why Linkedin? Because LinkedIn , Digg , and BusinessWeek’s Business Exchange offer good search engine optimization opportunities. Unlike the purely social MySpace and FaceBook , linking between these sites and your business site actually does your search rank some good.

To get the full value, it’s important to participate in these online communities on a regular basis; the more you participate the more “popular” your profile will become, which will only help your search engine optimization efforts. So start with LinkedIn and spend a little time there every week. If you have time and interest, add Business Exchange, which you can sync with LinkedIn. Try Digg. Just remember that you have to participate for the links to be very useful. Just signing up won’t help much.

So, enjoy MySpace or FaceBook for fun and check out LinkedIn, Digg and Business Exchange for professional networking. It won’t take long and it might just help your business.

Twitter is a social service for communicating and staying connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? If you would like me to write about how to use sites like Twitter to ramp up sales, just post a comment to let me know.