Roy Keely, marketing director of Xcentric, offers this rundown of social-networking sites for CPAs:

Twitter: Grew by more than 1,300 percent between February 2008 and February 2009, and another 77 percent between February and March of 2009. A form of micro-blogging, which is a blog where shorter, media, or link-based posts are encouraged. Largest demographic segment is between 35 and 49, which is vastly different from other social sites on the Web. Users subscribe to follow other people/businesses to see updates as they are rolled out. Microsoft has also rolled out ExecTweets that allows users to follow popular CEOs and other executives. If you are a CPA firm you should sign up for Twitter, regardless of whether you're going to use it, because you can get the name you want.

Facebook: Now a household name in much of the world, and fifth in global Internet-traffic rankings. CPAs are beginning to use FB as a recruitment tool rather than a revenue generator. Eventually will turn into a marketing channel. Start a Facebook page for your firm and let someone who is going to be onboard a few more years run with it. Proceed knowing that one day it might very well be one of your top lead-generation tools.

Blogs: Becoming increasingly popular as a means to disseminate information. There are many blog platforms: Blogger (blogger.com, free); WordPress (wordpress.com); and TypePad (typepad.com).

MySpace: Has a strong following and ranks eighth in worldwide traffic, but not much obvious use for CPAs right now. First to market on a significant scale, it's become the social-networking site known for music.

Meetup (meetup.com): Mission is to "revitalize local community and help people around the world self-organize."

Affluence (affluence.com): Social networking for the affluent, where you can be involved in exclusive parties and other red-carpet events. To qualify, you must be worth more than $3M, have an annual household income of $300,000 plus, and have five friends to invite who also meet the criteria.

Yelp (yelp.com): Allows peer reviews of Web sites and other business establishments food-related. Also acts as a guide to businesses in local markets, so CPA firms should be listed.

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