Whether you are new to the whole social networking thing or have just been apprehensive to add them to your marketing strategy now is a good time to start testing the waters. In my opinion social networking is the best way to market your brand online. It provides the ability to connect with people who are likely to be interested in what you have to say, providing that you are not just simply spamming.

If your a business trying to market yourself online, here are my top 11 picks for social networking sites that you simply must have in your marketing strategy.

1. Squidoo: I really like Squidoo for business marketing because it gives you a chance to market yourself through your knowledge. Share the knowledge you have relating to your specific area of expertise to connect with the right audience.
2. Wikipedia: Is there anything you can't find on Wikipedia? Even arguably one of the best online social networks can be found on Wikipedia. You can build a reference page relating to your business as well as connect with other users on Wikipedia's Community Portal.
3. Gather: Gather is the thinking social network. Community members generally discuss politics, economics world events, etc. For most businesses branching out online these are typically the people that you are looking to connect with.
4. YouTube: A no-brainer. My grandmother has a video on YouTube. Well, not really but just about everyone else does. The brilliant thing about YouTube is that people are not only uploading videos, but they are also watching them...by the millions. If your business does not have some kind of video content on YouTube you are missing out....video = viral.
5. Technorati: Probably the most important blog network online. If you have a blog register it here now, Technorati publishes top stories across it's network daily.
6. StumbleUpon: StumbleUpon is simply a toolbar that sits in your browser that allows your to channel surf the web. When you start doing this you will connect with like-minded individuals interested in similar content. I recommend this for the more guerrilla online marketer, but it is effective..
7. Digg: Digg has a huge following online because of its optimum usability. Visitors can submit and browse articles in categories like technology, business, entertainment, sports and more.
8. Facebook: In the beginning Facebook was primarily a bunch of college kids trading pictures from last night's kegger. Well, Facebook has grown up and is a very important site for professional social networking.
9. Twitter: Probably my favorite social networking site mostly because of it's innovative nature. You can connect with and keep track of where your contacts are and what they are doing.
10. Del.icio.us: Social bookmark your way to better business with sites like del.icio.us, which invite users to organize and publicize interesting items through tagging and networking.
11. Blogger: Blogger represents a huge blogging community, providing you a fantastic platform for getting your blog in front of a much larger audience.

You probably noticed that MySpace is not on the list. I was actually torn on this subject but ultimately decided to leave them off. I might rate them as number 13 or 14 in order of importance. My take on MySpace is that although the community is important because of it's size alone, relevance and targeting can become an issue.

If you didn't know, Realtor.com does have an iPhone version of their website at http://iphone.realtor.com/ .  As expected this will be a quickly growing trend, and proof of that is the launch of Trulia's iPhone version of their website.  Trulia did create a great video promoting the site.

 Check it out here:
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZI1UE92eeg"

However, Realtor.com did a great job integrating with iPhone's mobile Safari application, taking advantage of all the amazing features iPhone has to offer.  After running a quick test it seems that Trulia has not taken the same route.

And so unfortunately, the formating of the site on the iPhone is a little off.  Being able to see all the content is difficult....a little too much scroll/pinch involved. Trulia did do a good job integrating with Google Maps - when you click on the directions link under the map display it redirects you over to the address in Maps...well done.

This is clearly another step towards excellence in mobile real estate search.  Check it out if you have an iPhone!

Builder Homesite Inc. ‘BHI’ (Newhomesource.com) announced a partnership with dynamic ad platform provider AdMission to launch a highly targeted online ad functionality for home builders. The partnership will allow Newhomesource.com to display targeted ads that have been purchased by home builders to users based on their search data, specifically geographic location and price range.

These custom display ads based on user searches will feature images and details on new homes from BHIs home building firms across the country. The company is planning to leverage the smart ads across it’s partner sites including Yahoo and Trulia. BHI is planning to sell the ads on a CPM basis to home builders and are already testing with Pulte Homes and Lennar.

The ads are intended to push traffic to builder sites for lead generation purposes as well as act as a brand building vehicle; their users can find more information on available homes, and request to be contacted by the builder.

This partnership model is becoming typical in the local online marketplace. It has already proven successful in the auto industry and is not being tested in real estate. Ad and technology vendors are more often aligning with local media companies to get their ad products in the hands of local advertisers.

BHI has about 10 salespeople in major home markets. It also distributes its new home listings on Yahoo Real Estate, Trulia and AOL and resells Yahoo and Trulia display ad inventory to builders.

Yahoo’s SmartAds are VERY similar in functionality to this ad solution so definitely check that out as well if this is an interesting ad model for you.

I just noticed that Google's video Adwords listings are functional. You can see them by doing a search on 'smart phone'. In the paid listings area you will see a "+" with the tag "watch commercial" after it. Click on the plus sign and the video commercial plays right on the page. You can also search 'cell phone' and see some ads as well.

They are pricing this on a CPC, however watching the ads counts as a click. It appears that the ads in there now are beta specifically around cell phone companies.

YouTube has quickly become much more than just a place for High School Speed Stacking clips, American Idol auditions filmed in a backyard and other random personal video clips. You may already know this but many companies use YouTube as a distribution channel for their content and commercials. Large corporations are creating great content specifically for YouTube, understanding the viral nature of the phenomenon.

So this poses the question…how are you using YouTube as a marketing channel? For Real Estate agents creating a quick 30 second video of one of your premium listings with a simple voiceover explaining the property is all it takes. Getting the content on YouTube is super simple and takes only a couple of minutes. Oh yeah, it’s also free! For those daring and creative enough, try adding an entertainment element to your clips. It is more likely to be virally distributed and users may look for more content created by you.

Millions are searching for video content on YouTube, and not just for South Park clips. Yes, Real Estate is locally based, but for those of you working in high populous areas (actually even in smaller cities/towns) leveraging a mass medium like YouTube is likely to pay dividends in the long run.

Here are some useful resources when trying to evaluate if a website is worth your marketing dollars and time.  Of   course there are the no-brainers (Craigslist, Google, etc) but there are tons of other sites out there claiming that they will drive prospects.

Compete.com and Alexa.com are two free services that will tell you the approximate traffic (and much more) going to any website.    This is one critical data point in determining the amount of people who will see your listing and whether you should invest.  Sites with VERY low traffic will not register on these services but even a few hundred people per month should generate some results.

Also, these services are a lots of fun to use...for example RealTown gets about 40,000 visitors per month :-)