"Effectively Leveraging Social Networking" panelists at SMX Social Media in New York suggested an attentive approach to attracting visitors from those sites.

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Dave McClure offered the Facebook view of making the most out of its growing userbase. First, it helps to reference people in your network, or people you want to reach in other networks.

Many Facebook users probably underutilize tagging, but it helps to get the attention of others. Tagging a photo or video with someone's name will make it show up in their feed. Overusing this could be considered spamming by the recipient, so don't go overboard.

Helen Overland of LinkedIn had an interesting nugget of information about her site's users: there are about 15 million users with an average income of $140,000.

When it comes to selecting contacts on LinkedIn, Overland suggested picking the "Lions," LinkedIn Open Networkers, who have lots of contacts and don't mind sharing them.

One good thing about using LinkedIn is the link juice the Answer pages have on search engines. Outbound links are not "nofollowed" so they provide a boost to the linked site. Anyone with a blog or site they want noticed in search should consider participating more on LinkedIn Answers, per Overland's suggestion.

Cindy Krum of Blue Moon Works said MySpace can be a major boost to someone's online efforts. It can also be a major pain, due to the management needed for friends joining a profile, possibly with offensive pictures from their profiles.

Likewise, the blogging and chats need responses and participation, adding to the demands of a MySpace profile. But Krum cited Flying Dog Brewery as a success story, as the company has kept its edgy, Hunter S. Thompson-worshipping persona up to date on the site.

(Krum sees it as a success story, but to us it looks like any other MySpace profile, with the usual chaos in play, and the sparse participation by MySpacers in leaving comments. Krum says it's working for Flying Dog; we're always in favor of little breweries doing well, so good for them. - David)

WebProNews Video anchor Kara Ratliff contributed to this report.

SMX Social Media, Social Networking