Nearly every week a new social media service launches. Is your brand protected?The team at Lotame has put together a good reference list for 30 of the top social networks and social media sites that you should register at. The accounts are free and typically only take a minute to complete the registration. My suggestion is to set up a new e-mail address and use that for all of the social media accounts.

The list includes popular sites Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Twitter, etc. However, there are other sites like document-sharing sites Vuzit, Docstoc, and Scribd, that you should register your brand on. Other sites on the list include SlideShare, Brightkite, FriendFeed, and Delicious.

Unlike buying domain names to protect your brand (I've bought thousands in my former corporate life) which could amount to thousands of dollars a year, the social media sites are free, as I noted above.

Lotame also discusses the services that you should be active on and those you just need to monitor for brand mentions. We will look at monitoring social media brand mentions in another column.

It's hard to tell which social media services will grow and which ones will slowly fade away. Take the time to protect your brand on all of the sites so you are ready once a service explodes in usage.