In the world of Social Media, there are many options to choose from in order to stay connected in different ways.  There is photo sharing, bookmarking, chat, viral, and all types of ways—and it can be cluttered.   Here are the 5 to watch, and what they are all about—take my word for it!

1. Pinterest – Pinterest is an image bookmarking site that allows its users to bookmark images all across the Internet and pin them to their account for others to see.  With the infinite scroll design and slick properties, this site is gaining venture capital left and right.  Mostly geared towards women at this point, this site seems to be a huge hit in 2012.
2. Instagram – Instagram is a photo-sharing social app that you can use to take pictures as well as share and follow your friends’ images.  With built in Photoshop-esque tools, you can edit your photos and share them with your friends to see the things your peers are snapping.  Poised to be one of the top apps in 2012 with a huge following.
3. Tumblr – You have probably seen people talking about this and they most likely relate it to Flickr, SCVNGR, and other Social Media sites without vowels (or a limited number thereof) but Tumblr proves to be something special.  Its design, its development tools, and API are a little bit different and more development driven.  The basis of the site is a beautiful photo sharing and development tool similar to WordPress (even though most don’t know about its development capabilities) where you can purchase templates and code through HTML.  It integrates easily with a nice plug-in database, and also other options that make it a socially viable development option.
4. Twitter – 2011 was by far Twitter’s biggest year yet, and wait until you see what happens with the presidential election in 2012.  Twitter has been around for a number of years, but now with their expansion tools and tracking devices like TweetDeck, Hootsuite, and others, it makes Twitter much more interactive.  Also, look for things in the next 18 months (Superbowl) like Social TV and Twitter feeds on cable networks for instant feedback at major television events.
5. About.me – This is a nice new clean design template website for splash pages, pretty much an online resume builder with sleek design and photography options.  Here you can populate your personal domain, and it acts as a virtual resume for personal branding and a sleek way to present your digital self.  Not as updated with social media integration and login with social media tools as of yet, (through the Facebook API) but should be a great year for them as personal branding becomes much more accessible and suggested.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 at 9:56 am and is filed under Social Media Optimization, Twitter Optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.