Top Four Social Media Sites to Help You Do Business Better

Social media has brought about enormous changes in the ways in which we share and gather information. It has expanded the ways in which we can connect and stay connected with one another. Its impact has been felt on both the personal and the professional levels, as social media isn't merely something for "friends." It has become a crucial platform for businesses - in order to communicate internally, with the customer and with the industry at-large.

Social media has also become an important venue for social change, allowing us to use these connections we establish in order to make the world a better place.

Here are four key sites you should know about in order to help you do business better.

Justmeans - Connect to Do Business Better

Justmeans is known for having the largest online community focused on doing "business better". The site is a platform for sharing information about corporate responsibility and sustainable business practices. Justmeans has also developed several social media marketing tools that help companies engage people. Clients of Justmeans are able to quickly engage people through an easy-to-use challenge tool that allows businesses to crowdsource solutions to environmental and social problems. Clients can also use the platform's syndication tools to distribute their messages to multiple social media sites, including Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, as well as use Justmeans' tracking tools to gauge analytics and results.

Triple Pundit - Expertise and Community

Triple Pundit is a social media site for businesses that emphasizes the "triple bottom line": people, planet, profit. The site provides both editorial coverage as well as community discussions on sustainable business practices. Triple Pundit provides solid coverage of green issues by their staff writers. In addition, companies and organizations can become sponsors, which gives them the ability to provide several posts per month on their area of expertise.

SocialVibe - Brands and Social Engagement

SocialVibe connects customers and companies and allows users to share branded content with their own social networks in order to support a cause or benefit a charity. SocialVibe gives its corporate sponsors a way to help connect their brands with their consumers who are both socially-aware and active social media users. To date, SocialVibe has raised over $700,000 for over forty different non-profits.

Change.org - Putting It Into Action

Change.org is a social network that allows users to form communities around twenty major social issues including global warming, health care, and human rights. Change.org provides ongoing news from expert writers and nonprofit partners on the various topics they cover and issues for which they advocate. But in addition to sharing information, Change.org encourages its users to take action - to create and sign online petitions. Businesses can install widgets on their own websites linking to Change.org's petitions so users can join the campaign without leaving the site. According to the site's blog, Change.org users have taken over 2 million actions over the past year and has had numerous campaign victories.

There are many ways in which the advent of social media has helped us come together to make the world better place. We have access to more and better information; we have tools to give us a voice. Social media has also helped to facilitate businesses in becoming open, transparent, and socially engaged.

These four sites - Justmeans, Triple Pundit, SocialVibe, and Change.org - point to some of the ways in which businesses can harness social media for social good. We'd love to hear about others in the comments!