I have this post for the end of the week, so if you get blown away by the social networking awesomeness of it all, you can recover over the weekend! Fear not, brave social networking traveller! You shall survive.

Warning: This social networking post is not intended for those with lame a$$ excuses, the case of the “but’s”, “um’s”, or “cant’s”, or the whiners, dark clouds, and other foul beasts of fear!

Instead, this blog post is dedicated to those entrepreneurs in search of truth in social networking! Go gallantly you brave knights! Defeat the fear, and discover new lands with social networking! Without ado, let us begin our quest!

Social Networking Kick Butt Time

(Theme song coming soon!)

1. LinkedIn can be a tremendous source for referral partners. Think about this scenario. You sell business services. You are looking for partners who also work with businesses. Maybe you need to connect with attorneys, CPA’s, financial planners, real estate agents, business brokers, credit card processors, etc. The list goes on and on, but the simple thing about LinkedIn is that you join some targeted groups and then start connecting with members in that group who might be able to refer you business. Spend 10 minutes every day on LinkedIn making and building connections, and see what happens in 90 days.
2. Facebook only has 600 million members. That’s it! Really! Come on Facebook, you need to be out there and be more active among college students, moms, grandparents, consumers, and other groups. You only have accounts with 2/3 of the American public. Why so lax? When are you going to make a real push for dominance? Maybe you should have more groups with people in different interests. Pretty much everyone needs to be on Facebook today, because there are so many diverse groups of people that you can meet and connect with, from photo groups to UFO and everything in between. Your target market is on Facebook ready to connect with you, and buy the perfect product/service for them. Use the same philosophy with Facebook that you used on LinkedIn: 10 minutes every day making and building connections.
   
3. Blogging is the new website. You have heard it here for the 34th time, and not the last time. Blogs are replacing websites, because of the amazing content management systems that go on behind blogs. The ability to control s blog is easier than ever, and more people are switching to blogs, because of the power behind them. Additionally, creating great content on the web is not only a way to engage with your current social network. Creating content is also a tremendous way to gain search engine traffic. More and more Google is looking for the content that you put out, along with the social networking signs that this is relevant to a particular audience. This is where blogging can become a goldmine of quality traffic.
   

Kick Butt Social Networking Bonus

Bring your connections offline as quickly as possible, if you have a service or customer service based company. The entire point of social networking is to meet new people. The entire point of sales is to have someone hand you money. Do not confuse the two, or you will be wasting your time.

So, how do you kick butt with social networking?