We know that social networks such as Twitter, Myspace and Facebook are very powerful tools to utilize for your business. Just by searching google alone you will see that google places these properties high in its rankings. It is amazing to me how a twitter message I send out today can outrank a website that has been on the net for years.
Anyway, this is all I am saying for this posting: Since google is giving such power to these entities, you should consider using social networks as part of your regular networking. One way to do this is to add your social network to the signature block of all your outbound emails.
To make it easier for people to remember your social network or facebook page, give it its own domain name. For example: chooseyourname.com and then go into your domain screen and point it at your twitter, myspace or facebook page. It is way easier than telling someone to remember http://facebook.com/whatever your screename is. People are used to domain names. Once you add the forward slash and some other screen name people start to forget or make mistakes. Make it easy for them. Domains start as low as 8.75 and give you free pointing and masking services. Masking allows you to change the title that appears at the top of the browser. If people save a link to your page, this can be very powerful and a useful tool. Rather than publicizing Twitter.com or Facebook.com you can publicize your name or your product instead. Obviously you don’t need a hosting plan since you are just pointing to a hosted social network.
Also, another reason to do this is that let’s say you ever get kicked off of twitter or whatever, all the work you did to drive traffic to that page is not lost. You own the rights to YOUR DOMAIN so you can now point your domain at a new website, another social network, or wherever you want. This is powerful!
