My feed delivered this article to me today. It is making a good point about the Long Tail that is Social Networks. You might be a resident of MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn, or even have a few accounts to stay in touch with a range of your acquaintances, but have you ever even looked at any of the other “big players” like hi5 or Orkut? I’m not even talking special interest / Niche networks – there is a variety of bigger and smaller Social Networks for a range of topics (pets, politics, parenting, film, gabling, anything you can think of!).

Many people assume that if they use a certain network, application or tool, everyone else is using it as well. And even more common is another quick conclusion: if this works for me (or someone I know and trust), it must automatically work for everyone else. These are some common misconceptions, that I am trying to raise awareness for constantly: we have to look beyond what we know to discover what else there is, and what will work better for our agenda. To connect to the people you want to connect with, you might need to go into (to you at least) unchartered waters. Especially if you have a niche / long tail interest or agenda.

And even if you want to connect with a wider range of people, make sure they are in the right region(s). Here you can find a map of the dominant Social Networks by country. That is not to say that e.g. Facebook or MySpace are not in New Zealand, Austria or India, but it indicates the networks with the most users at this point in time. And as we know, Social Networks are a fast-changing landscape. I’m curious how this map will be looking in six months from now.