Tanya Ferrell, an SEO intern, has spent a lot of time researching social media this past year. In honor of her research, the Kolbrener blog invited her to write a post about her findings.

Here’s what Tanya found:

“A social media marketer has two options in life. They can be a power
account or they can pitch to power accounts. The biggest difference
between the two is a matter of time. Pitching to power accounts can
be fast and easy. Becoming a power account takes time, especially at a
large site like Digg.”

Tanya goes on to say that in order to hit it big time in the realm of social media, it’s not always a good idea to target the powerhouse sites. Tanya gives a very comprehensive list of 50 smaller, niche, news sites that can allow you to become a power account in a smaller community.

Here are a few from her list:

“Plime – Plime is a pliable tree of interesting links, cultivated and pruned by everyone.
Newsvine – Updated
continuously by citizens like you, Newsvine is an instant reflection of
what the world is talking about at any given moment.
ShowHype – ShowHype finds the top stories in entertainment for you to vote on and discuss.
Hugg – Seen some green? Hugg is your source for user-submitted green news.
Real Estate Voices – A
real estate social news site designed to help you discover the most
interesting articles of the day, as voted and suggested by your fellow
users.”

I have used several of these sites in the past and while they did not bring the desired traffic that a site like Digg and Stumble Upon can, I did not dedicate myself to making the most of them by building myself to a power account level.

Tanya’s list is definitely worth taking a look at and you can decide for yourself what sites would work best for you and your content.