We are almost four whole months into the year of 2010 and already we have seen a huge amount of growth in Social Media.  Spring has sprung and new Social Media Networks that were planted last fall are now blossoming into beautiful active communities with hungry little bees (other wise known as users)  coming into the community and sucking up all the honey. If you haven’t already used these networks, haven’t yet even heard their names, now you have no excuse.

  1. FourSquare - Since it’s conception, Social Media Marketers knew that this Location based, geo locating, social network was going to be special. Users “check in” at local businesses and earn rewards for frequently visiting participating establishments.  Users are also purely just checking in to allow their friends to know their daily whereabouts.  It has over 1 million users checking into locations per week,  over 800 establishments participating by offering deals to the users who check in, and is growing in value exponentially on a daily basis.

Not only is this an awesome idea for business, but this network will update your Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare profile.  They have also created easy to use apps for the iPhone, Blackberry and Android mobile device.  And of course this hot new network has a dynamic API that can be used in your site or app.

2. Tumblr- This is not a new platform per say, however it’s growth is skyrocketing.  Tumblr is an increasingly growing blogging platform that has Social Media capabilities that are innovative and continuous.  Tumblr has made blogging from anywhere possible to stream to everywhere.  You can even call in your next post. The social aspect of this blog is that you are Followed by a community who can then reblog your content.

The Tumblr community loves the blogging platform so much that there is even fan art for the network.  You can keep up to date with all of the new innovations that Tumblr releases on their blog.  Tumblr syndicates to Twitter, Facebook, and any other site imaginable. Their dynamic API allows users to integrate Tumblr into just about anything you do online.  There are apps for your Blackberry, iPhone, Facebook, and any other Blogging platform you might be using.

3. DailyBooth-  This is a social networking site that allows users to upload images on themselves or anything else really (as long as it is within the TOS).  The images show up in the site’s infamous Live Map Feed and can be commented on by people all around the world.  In August, 2009, the site was reported to have over 3 million unique visitors a month with a growth rate of about 35% a month.  Some business have adopted this Social Network and upload pictures of their products or campaigns but haven’t really been able to participate in the social aspect of the site.

The most popular and useful engagement of this site is the “Comment back with an Image” aspect.   This is fun, works directly with your iPhone, webcam, email or desktop. This allows users to actively comment on each others pictures.  The secret within Dailybooth is the amount of user data that is hidden within these pictures.

Just as everyone knows about the Twitter Celebrity Boom, the same thing is occurring on Daily Booth…. Demi & Ashton have their own accounts.

While these networks are NOT brand spankin’ new, they are still emerging.  There are many knockoffs of these popular networks, but these are without doubt the most used in their space at the moment. If you haven’t considered them for personal use or business use, you might want to try them out now while they are still growing!