Using the power of Social Networking websites like MySpace or other blogging sites is a great way to promote your business. However, because most of these sites are free, they tend to provide a 'value-less' experience. Instead, a new type of Social Networking website - A Social Reward and Recognition space - can provide an incredibly valuable sales and marketing tool for a very small financial outlay. Let's illustrate this claim by examining a very real example.

Being a nominee on the1000best, a new social reward and recognition website is turning into a marketing dream for Helen Van Den Berg, a tour guide operating from a small remote town in Australia. Helen's profile as 1 of the1000best has seen her inundated with tributes and boosts from her clients, all with one very clear message that Helen is the best tour guide in the world.

Helen's nomination as 1 of the 1000 best tour guides in the world was gifted to her by friends as a way of rewarding, recognising and saying thank you. This gift gave her a Personal Space page on the1000best where Helen profiled herself, her own newly launched web site and her Tour Guide business.

As well as the profile, the website also encourages ongoing positive reinforcement for nominees by giving people the ability to boost' their favourite nominees on a daily basis and to send tribute messages. It is the tribute messages that are paying off handsomely for Helen. "I have been overwhelmed by the tributes I have received and I have been on a constant high with all the positive feedback. This website has to be the ultimate marketing tool - this type of marketing is priceless and it's lead to an amazing amount of traffic to my own website".

The1000best.com takes social networking in a totally new direction. Rather than just providing a platform to connect people, the1000best.com goes the next step by offering a gift of social reward and recognition. Generally, anyone can join a social network for free however to get connected on the1000best.com someone must value you enough to purchase a gift nomination and nominate you as 1 of the1000best in the world (according to them). People with business interests and who are fortunate and worthy of nomination then have a very public platform to market themselves by way of sharing the positive experiences of their clients with the world. Referral systems like this are worth their weight in gold.

Savvy business owners can also nominate their employees or business teams and use the power of social networking and social recognition to both reward their people and gain valuable positive advertising. This is a form of synergistic marketing, in which the business is linked to positive values and social appreciation. As Grant Soosalu, one of the developers of the1000best.com commented "Social Networking is a huge and growing phenomenon, and the1000best.com now provides a fantastic mechanism for showcasing your business by linking your people into this network of value".

So if you want to really make use of Social Networking to promote your business, and do so in a way that links to strong positive values, check out:

www.the1000best.com

it can work wonders to promote your business.