Many marketers lately argue that there is no single social media to go after for businesses trying to join the conversation. I disagree. There are 6 of them you have to join and use.

The 6 social sites every business and professional should use are:

1. Twitter
2. FriendFeed
3. LinkedIn
4. Delicious
5. Yahoo Answers
6. A niche social site for your industry (Sphinn for me)

It’s true that you have to find out where you fit in best. Maybe it’s even YouTube, Flickr or StumbleUpon instead of Delicious but those 6 sites are indispensable at first to find out. You’ll never even know what’s goin on when you’re not there.

These 6 sites enable you to

• join social media on a business and professional level
• meet and connect with industry peers there
• find out about industry trends and what’s popular outside your niche

More than that you’ll find out what’s popular from your niche outside of it.

I was a big proponent of StumbleUpon a year ago and I’m still active there but it’s a site which is very difficult to use for business purposes other than actually reading about business. By now I think that it’s far better to get stumbled by others “accidentally” than actually engage yourself there.

Related posts:

1. Broken Social Media: 5 Anti-Social Sites vs Alternatives
2. 5 New Niche Social News Sites for Business People and Internet Pros
3. What Social Media Benefits for Business Can You Expect?