Are you always wondering which social network is hot and which is not?

Which one should be a priority for your personal branding efforts and which one should be a focus for your business?

And how many social networks can your business really continue to pay attention to?

Well here you will see the search growth rates of the 9 major social networks that I think are most important to businesses and our social media marketing efforts.

All this data is thanks to some amazing research by Ignite Social Media which I found thanks to  Justin Flitter (@JustinFlitter). In their research, Ignite documents the growth rates, demographics and top countries of 59 social media networks.

Let me know if you think I should have included a different network (Reddit?) or if Ignite should have (where was Empire Avenue?)
While many people watched Facebook’s IPO flounder a bit this year, the fact is that everyone else is simply jealous of their position as the king of social networks.

Yes, their growth is flattening out. But is anyone else close to catching Facebook on volume and engagement? Nope!

Facebook is forcing many brands to begin to address their customers as people and that cannot be a bad thing.

There is a lot of opinion on Google Plus in the blogosphere. I maintain my position that this is a social network that should be on the radar for businesses.

My personal experience is that this is a network of rabid, information-sharing social networkers. Quality over quantity? Maybe.

My view: with their dominance as a search engine, don’t bet against Google just yet.

This chart of slow and steady growth makes me happy!

I joined Linkedin relatively early on (August, 2004) and to me it will always be the easiest social network to explain to your Mom: it’s where I document my professional experiences and network with other business people.

Linkedin is also becoming an amazing content curator with Linkedin Today.

And it is also the best answer to what happens when you lose the email address of an old friend (or your potential new employer or sales contact).

It seems like many people told their family members about Pinterest over the holidays. Then those folks all came back to work and signed up.

It was a bit of a flash mob a little like Quora was not long ago. Except, I think it was clear that Pinterest was different…it taps into the need and growth of all things visual.

I’m not sure what the future of Pinterest is but I am still engaging there a few times a week. I’m not sure businesses need to be there, but they need to figure out how to make content interesting in a visual world.

Another slow-and-steady growth rate. Watch this network…Very closely.

If you are not creating content for Slideshare, you are missing out. I think this is one of the most under-utlilzed social networks in B2B Marketing.

Every business should have a sales deck, the latest event keynote, and your best marketing content on slideshare.

Recently, my friend Rachel Thompson (@RachelinTheOC) asked me what my “secret” was to getting some StumpleUpon stumbles.

I told her it was pure luck! Dead Serious. I followed the people who followed me until I hit my follower limit. I tag my posts as best I can and I cross my fingers.

This search pattern looks ominous but I think SU is like G+, a passionate group of information sharing freaks. And I am happy to take their votes.

Tumblr is another social network that forces brands to think long and hard about their visual identity.

I have to be honest, I have not gotten into Tumblr.

But I have a lot of respect for the brands and marketers who are making this network work for them. And with this growth, I may need to sign up soon!

It looks like YouTube may have reached a limit but like Facebook, you need to keep this stagnation of growth in perspective.

YouTube is the second largest search engine after only their parent Google.

The amount of content shared, consumed and time spent on the video-sharing site is hard to believe.

The best thing about YouTube is that you cannot hide. Video views is a brutal judge of the content loaded up.

Some brands get lucky. Some brands have figured out the recipe for success and some brands are still wandering in the dark.

If you know me at all, you know I am a tweeting fool!

Twitter continues with a steady growth rate. I think Twitter is also really important for brands.

Learning how to communicate something of value in 140 characters is a huge challenge for many brands still.

Twitter has forced businesses to address the need  to share helpful information and to stop the constant flow of overly-promotional marketing messages.

Twitter forces brands to think like people, connect and engage.

I hope you will follow me on Twitter,  LinkedIn, Facebook and my other networks listed above. And if you like what you see here, please subscribe to this Blog.