GOOGLE + Cambiará para siempre la forma de compartir información

Google siempre se encuentra innovando, y ahora presentaron algo que cambiará la forma de compartir información en Internet. En primer lugar, ¿qué es Google +? Decir que es la red social de Google sería demeritar el trabajo que han realizado. Pero si, es una red social que en gran parte se encuentra inspirada en Facebook.

Pero lo que hace diferente a Google + es la capacidad de influir en el buscador. Después de todo, son productos de la misma empresa. Google siempre busca dar los mejores resultados a sus usuarios, al darles información de valor. Pero también desea darte información basado en recomendaciones, de esa manera ellos pueden saber que es popular.

Google+ ha ya alcanzado los 25 millones de usuarios, un dato que lo convierte en la red social que alcanza esa cifra con mayor rapidez, según los datos facilitados por ComScore.

Facebook para llegar a los 25 millones se tardó 3 años, o los poco más de 30 meses que requirió Twitter.

Algunas de las características más llamativas de Google+ son el poder ingresar a tus amigos en “Círculos”, clasificándolos para reconocerlos mejor. Y la parte social aumenta cuando comienzan las “Quedadas”, que son poder compartir conferencias en video con todas las personas pertenecientes al círculo.

Sin embargo insisto, lo que a mí más me impresiona es la forma en la que se encuentran enlazando los buscadores con el aspecto social. Si te fijas, ahora al hacer una búsqueda en Google podrás encontrar un pequeño signo que dice “+1”. Eso es una especie de voto, tal como el “Me gusta” de Facebook.

Entonces, eso influirá en las búsquedas de tus amigos. Imagina que todos son fanáticos del beisbol. Entonces, cuando te encuentres buscando información de beisbol, verás que en los resultados orgánicos un letrero que dice que “tu amigo” está recomendando esa página. Seguramente entrarás por esa confianza de ser alguien conocido.

Además con Google+ puedes “escuchar” o “monitorear” post desde tu perfil. La funcionalidad de Sparks, que inicialmente fue diseñada para agrupar por intereses, puede ser utilizada para monitorear varias palabras claves y marcas. Lo que hace útil el Sparks, es que una vez que el contenido es procesado como resultado de tu búsqueda, puede ser compartido con tus círculos con un sólo click. Y queda almacenado en los sparks y no hay necesidad de volver a registrar las búsqueda cada vez que sea requerida.

Otra gran novedad, que hizo temblar a la competencia, fue la posibilidad de usar un chat múltiple que además permitía videoconferencias con varias personas al mismo tiempo.

Pero por encima de todo esto, está la posibilidad de que Google+ tenga en su propia esencia la llave para gobernar en el reino de las redes sociales gracias a su marca.

Los millones de usuarios que consultan a diario el buscador, acceden a su cuenta de correo en Gmail, tienen una bitácora en Blogger o visitan otra ciudad con ayuda de Street View o de Google maps pueden llegar a convencerse de que esta red social es la extensión "+" que le faltaba a la experiencia en la red que desde hace años ofrece Google para cerrar el círculo.

Email marketing...

Tal como su nombre lo dice, se trata de utilizar el correo electronico para realizar actividades de marketing; pero primero definamos que para N&C la definicion de marketing es: Toda actividad encaminada a construir relaciones de mutuo beneficio entre dos partes. Esto significa que no se trata solamente de mandar mails por mandarlos, sino que deben estar entrelazados o embebidos dentro de una estrategia completa de marketing un negocio o prestador de servicio.


Es por ello que es muy importante que tenga en cuenta que al menos debe tener definido dos aspectos de su negocio para llevar a cabo una campaña de e-mail marketing; del lado de la presencia en internet; al menos debe tener un nombre de dominio propio, ejemplo www.nombrempresa.com y en la pagina principal de ese nombre de dominio tener diseñada una landing page (pagina de aterrizaje).


Bien del lado de la estrategia del negocio debe tener muy claro el mensaje que desea enviar; estos pueden ser con objetivos muy variados; pero al menos dos son los mas importante; el primero es de “retencion” lo cual siginifica que es para construir una relacion de largo plazo con el receptor del mensaje, la principal caracteristica de estos mensajes es que aportan contenido de valor que es relevante para la audiencia o los lectores; esto permite que la persona se sienta identificada con su marca o negocio y se acostumbre a recbir informacion valiosa de su parte; el otro tipo de mensajes son los llamados de “respuesta directa” cuyo objetivo es detonar una accion del receptor del mensaje, generalmente una accion de compra, o suscripcion, etc.


Es importante la landing page porque al recibir el correo el receptor visitara esta landing page y el objetivo principal de dicha landing page sera o bien obtener la suscripcion del visitante o realizar una venta en linea.


A diferencia de otros esfuerzos offline de marketing parecidos a este, en el e-mail marketing se puede medir a gran detalle los resultados obtenidos en una campaña, e incluso de cada anuncio o cada texto enviado, y en base a estos resultados tomar decisiones para mejorar o replantear la campaña.

Blogging and It's Relevance in Social Media Marketing

Blogging is a powerful tool in social networking. Since long time, it is being used strategically as a medium for social networking. Blogs were a medium of expressing your vision and thoughts about anything. Bloggers were free to express their views without any censorship. It became the most important reason behind the popularity of blogs. Later people started interacting with fellow bloggers and sharing ideas with each others.

These days, blogs are not only used as a medium of expression. It has become more evident in self promotion, and is acting as the powerful source of attracting people towards some pre-defined goals. Nowadays, it's a platform to meet and communicate with potential customers. Webmasters are using different blog websites like "Word press" and "Blogger" as their main tool for targeting their customers globally.

Some people engaged in internet marketing or advertising of products and services use blogs as a tool to promotion. They also interact with existing and potential customers with help of blogs. Updating blogs regularly with latest information about their products and services keeps them ahead from competitors. It is very important for customers to know about the latest information about new product launches and company's latest achievements. It helps in creating a positive impact over them.

Blogs are also helpful in driving organic traffic towards its parent website that always results in conversion of potential business into sales. Therefore its importance cannot be overlooked. Nowadays, blogs are more relevant in social media marketing.

A new concept which has taken everything into its roll is micro-blogging. Immense popularity of Micro blogging website Twitter is the best example. Now, you can easily find a link on every ecommerce website to their latest tweets. It is the least time consuming and maximum productive way of making formal announcements. You can inform everyone in your network with a simple and short tweet.

Apart from tweeting, My Space and Facebook are other two most important tools used in social media networking. Facebook and MySpace both combine the features of a blog as well as social networking website, making it perfect for webmasters. It's really interesting to see this useful association. If you really want to get success in eCommerce and want to be a perfect and popular social networker, you cannot ignore the importance of blogs and blogging.

So, keep blogging and earn respect in online community of fellow bloggers and social networkers.

Learn to monetize blog and earn quick money online, since blog has became the most important social media platform in social media marketing to generate new business leads. For more information please visit us at: http://www.pushbuttonmoneyblog.com

Social Media Networks and the Impact on Small Business

There's been an interesting debate of recent times about social media networks and their impact on the search process. With the increasing number of people using social media sites to communicate with other users, research brands and receive advice via their social network, forum or blog sites, have they abandoned the traditional search process in favour of social networks.

That's looking from the consumer side, and I've not doubt that in the future, we might well see some movement in current searching trends, given the amount of advertising now appearing on Facebook and the other social networks, but what has been the impact of social network sites on small business and owners?

I've been monitoring this for some time now and whilst the social networks do have an influence on consumers, they don't appear to have any real impact on business. In a new survey released by the Citibank/Gfk Roper group, over 76% of small business owners have not found social networks to be helpful in generating business leads or for expanding their business, during the past year. 86% of the business owners surveyed also responded that they had not used social networking sites to get business advice or information.

The survey of 500 small business owners across the US, found that despite widespread consumer use and the increase in marketing efforts by larger corporations into sites such as Facebook,MySpave and Linkedin, small business appears to have largely ignored the social networks.

The survey found that general search engine sites such as Google and Yahoo trump social networks, small-business-focused sites and general business destinations where business owners go to seek business advice or information. Some 61% of respondents say they still rely on search-engine sites to get business information.

Additional survey findings:

42% of small business owners and managers reported that in the past year they have made greater use of their company's website to generate business leads and sales.
Among companies with 20-99 employees, this percentage rises to 57% reporting they have made greater use of their website.
Survey respondents are using email marketing (28%) and online advertising (25%) to generate business leads and sales.

One interesting result from this survey, is small business has finally realised the need to inject funds into their web sites, making them both SEO and consumer friendly.

The survey suggests that small business owners are still finding their way with social media, particularly when it comes to using these tools to grow their business. This  might be all about to change though, with marketing advisers to small business now cutting the more traditional forms of marketing and advertising and using lower cost, on line marketing to save money.

In my observations working with business, social media's growth in the past 12 months has completely overwhelmed them, and combined with a lack of knowledge on how to use this medium in their business, they have ignored it, hoping it might go away. The problem for small business with this, is if you don't start to adopt social networks, you do face the prospect of becoming irrelevant to your customers.

They are moving faster than you are, so at some stage they will be so far ahead, they won't need you anymore as they will impacted by advertising and consumer advice and reviews on brands and purchases, via their social network.

Author Mike Andrew is a technology consultant to small business and operates a web consultancy that covers areas such SEO, social media strategy and Internet marketing.

You can visit Mikes web site on Internet marketing/SEO/Social Media Strategy for more articles and information at http://www.mikeandrewconsulting.com

What Social Media Marketing Is

Social Media Marketing (S.M.M.) is one of the hottest forms of marketing on the internet and it is where majority of the internet users spend most of their time - social networking. With SMM, web business owners have the potential to gain quick popularity in less time with less cost than pay-per-click ads. Fortune 500 companies are already using the power of social media networks as a means to gain popularity and strengthen their market position.

If you have a website selling products or offering services or just publishing content for ad revenue, this is a viable method that will generate you massive amount of targeted traffic and make your site profitable over time. Recently, it was said that Dell had earned $3 million in revenue directly through twitter since 2007, when it started posting coupons and word of new products on the microblogging site.

Social Media Marketing is a form of internet marketing strategy based upon the utilization of social media or any other collaborative networks to inter-connect with people, promote your ideas, and build new business partnerships. Basically, the more people you reach, or the more people get connected with you, the quicker people will be exposed to your business and then the quicker they will visit your website.

We can definitely categorize Social Media Network into Social Networking sites and Social Bookmarking sites. Some many internet users and even web marketers are confusing social networking with social bookmarking Social networking sites include popular sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Bebo, Ning, or Google Buzz; while social bookmarking sites include well-known sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, or Delicious.

One of the advantages of using this form of internet marketing technique is that it is fun, you can reach a lot of people and it's free. You begin to meet a lot of people that you normally wouldn't run into during the normal course of your business.

Effective SMM takes your search engine positioning and ranking to a higher level as it helps to foster a more deep relationship with your customers. Sharing a good post/article on these networks can realistically acquire a large number of high quality links which will lead to multiple benefits for any website. Do this enough and your search traffic will undoubtedly increase.

SMM is heavily dependent upon building long-term relationships with your potential consumers rather than focusing on the quick one time sale. What's even better about social media marketing is that you have the potential to reach more people in a quicker way for less cost than traditional advertising.

Jerry Ihejirika is an experienced Internet Networker Marketer.

He is the Founder of FortuneBuildersTeam; a group of success people who work at home and make money online in travel. To know more about his team-built, visit: http://fortunebuildersteam.com/

Properly Engage in Social Media Networks: Business and Personal Life

The Rise of The Modern Social Media Network

Social Media has become an integral part of modern society. Members on certain sites number far more than populations of most nations in the world. Before the pillars of the social media market of today existed (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) there were many social and business sharing platforms that paved the way for their efficiency. In 1979 Usenet systems allowed online communications between newsgroups, Bulletin Board systems (BBS) came shortly after, along with forums. Originally these systems had to be dialed into by one user at a time. After BBS, came "online services" such as CompuServe and Prodigy, these were the first corporate strategies online. In 1985, a subsidiary of General Electric actually developed the next set of systems called Genie which ran through 1999.

Blogs then started developing as people started spending more leisure time online and less time strictly looking for information. As sites became less boring and rudimentary, people started really getting involved socially online through dating sites and websites, like Six Degrees, which was launched in 1997 as the first modern social network. However, Friendster was the first really modern style social network and it was launched in 2002 allowing users to do the things they do today on Facebook like post pictures and comments and find other friends within the network. Facebook, originally Facemash was concocted on October 28, 2003, Twitter was launched publicly in July of 2006, and LinkedIn on May 5, 2003.

Promoting a Business Properly in a Social Media Network

Fast forward to 2010, the Biggest "do" regarding social media for business is to get involved. Never underestimate the power of these sites for businesses. One can establish their business among a wide variety of prospective clients through social media networks. Creating a business presence on these sites also helps to shape the integrity of the business while expanding its customer base.

The biggest "don't" for social media in business is getting involved before one knows what they are doing. All of the newer ways to advertise online can be so exciting for a new or developing business once they are introduced to the idea that some people dive right into setting up their profile before they understand how exactly the sites work. Before devoting time into these sites, one should familiarize themselves first with the good and bad aspects of getting involved so that detrimental mistakes can be avoided. A business can run a very smooth social media campaign fairly easily when the proper precautions are taken initially. Remember, there is no social media insurance.

Personal Profile Do's and Dont's for Social Media

The biggest "do" for social media for personal use is to have fun. Before diving in, and experiencing all the leisure and exploration that the sites provide, please take the time to do a few things that may help to avoid a bad situation later on. Here are a few things that everyone should be practicing online to protect themselves from fraud and other criminal concerns: change passwords frequently, adjust privacy settings appropriately, be selective when adding friends, be careful when clicking on things that are unfamiliar, get familiarized with privacy and security settings, learn how to report a potentially compromised account, pay attention to what is appropriate for business and personal life, and more importantly where the line is drawn for adding friends that are family or coworkers to a personal profile.

The Future of Social Media Networks For Business

According to Nielson Reports, as of June 2010, Americans are spending 22.7% of the time they spend online engaged in social media networks. Money that companies spend advertising within Social Media is forecasted to hit about $1.7 billion this year, and $2 billion in 2011. Social media shows no signs of slowing its involvement in both the business and personal lives of people young and old around the world. Placing ads within Social Media sites is extremely effective. Facebook, for example, allows companies to place ads based on users demographics (i.e. Users age, martial status, likes, etc).

This is very powerful as a business owner can ensure that their ad is being placed in front of their target market. Say for example, a business sells wedding cakes, they can place an add in their region to appear in front of women in their mid to late 20s that have a status of engaged. This is very effective because these engaged young women are the perfect audience to be marketing wedding cake services. If you are a business owner, it is recommended that you consider a social media strategy if you want to remain competitive in our ever changing world of communication.

Expert Author, Christopher M. Castillo, is the CEO of Aeutus Marketing and is a top internet marketing guru who works with industry leaders in developing the best tools to market businesses and making money online. Christopher M. Castillo is an expert in Marketing holds a BBA and MBA in Marketing and has decades of experience in Marketing for corporations, small business and non-profit organizations. To learn more how Christopher M. Castillo and his team of Marketing Mentors can teach you to make money or online today, visit them at http://www.HomeMarketingGuru.com To learn how he can help you market your business online, please visit http://www.AeutusMarketing.com

3 Ways Social Media Networking Helps

If you own a Facebook, Friendster, MySpace or a Twitter account, you will see that the accounts featured there are not only of people but also of companies. These companies consider these accounts as their active online channels and as tools in increasing their presence in the internet. Such companies find these social media networking tools very efficient because not only do they have a very low overhead cost, but they are also precise in turnaround time, have cheap and reliable communication channels and they are easy to maintain. Along with those benefits, here are also other listed marketing contributions that social media marketing can incite:

Building an informational base or simply creating buzz. Social media marketing makes sure that the public is updated with regards to what's new with their company, products, services and other promotional events. If one account has 1000 contacts, the message automatically reaches those accounts and through that, the message can replicate regarding on how many people pass on the new info. Usually it's not hard-selling so it is received by the public nicely. Try to check out corporate accounts on Facebook.

Getting help in the promotion. For example, for a makeup company, there are certain women who really worship the brand because it has worked wonders for them. These women can then join groups of similar interest (a.k.a. "fan groups") and then promote the product themselves. Most likely, they will also speak positively about the company and in turn will invite their friends to join in.

It's highly interactive, which is important for assessing public response regarding your product/ services/ company image. The good thing with social networking accounts is that they are interactive. They are not one-way, unlike other advertising efforts. Because of this, it encourages people to participate and talk about the company. Good or bad comments are welcome-they all help the company the same way. Those are the top three most important things that social networking sites bring companies which utilize them. Remember that you can just go about it on your own. Remember basic online etiquette and try your best to update as often as you can!

Tired of spending countless hours on social networks, online marketing, and SEO? Discover the #1 secret only the "gurus" know about social media marketing. Visit http://AutomatedSocialNetworking.com for more details.

Having Fun With Social Media Networking and I'm Not Playing Games

Marketing is a fundamental part of being a successful entrepreneur. You have to know what kind of marketing needs to be done in order for your website, store, and business all together needs to keep you up and going. To be seen you MUST market somehow. Whether it is by word of mouth, ads, or commercials, you will need to market. I love using the social media networks to get my marketing done for one huge reason. Every time that I go on there I know that I am going to have fun.

Most of the social networks have some fun games, chats, and forums. I love to play me some mafia wars on MySpace.com, Farmville on Facebook.com, or if you play hash tag in twitter.com marketing becomes fun and enjoyable. You may say well why do you waste time playing the games and not adding more sites to be on? Well, one reason, if you just make a profile and never use it then the only people that are going to add you as friends or even look at your profile are people that spamming. So, complete waste of time in just making a profile.

Let's say that you are advertising your site on Facebook. You are playing mafia wars and you get on the top of the list of best players. People add you to their friends lists just so that they can get up there too. These games require you to gain friends as you go on or you don't move up into higher levels. So, more social interaction is necessary there for people will be more prone to add you if you are playing a game like they are doing.

It's all a numbers game when it comes to marketing like this. For example: one guy adds you to his friends list and his friend adds you then three of his friends add you then another and so on... after a while that one person becomes a hundred then those hundred becomes a thousand. That's just how social networking goes and you have to interact or else your friends list is not going to move.

Randi L Miller is a professional blogger that has a passion for helping others in their search for business motivation, career balance, and life motivation.

Allmojo.com
Twitter

SEO - Essentials Regarding Social Media Networking and Their Secrets in Trade Development

Social media networking has been augmented during the past years. For instance Facebook with well over 350 million users had surpassed the number one social networking website, MySpace, putting it at the second place as far as the online traffic is concerned. And this trend is still going northwards at a quick rate. The amount by itself speaks the importance of Facebook within the human race.

Social media isn't a platform where in a person have to deliberately and incessantly show his product or service. However, if he does so, media users can simply pay no attention to it and will not do any favors to it as well; quite the opposite there is each chance that the product or service so offered will get even negative reviews.

In fact, social media is a handy way to develop relations with potential purchasers and make them daily ones. Numerous ways are available to make them so: you can continually develop links in order to resolve their issues; a personal chatting with them would be an ideal way to lend a hand to them; a content addressing the necessities of users will be created and posted on the site.

This is often the manner by that someone can compel the users to require the good note of the product or services being offered. The words in the site are enough to prove your genuineness.

It should be kept in mind that Facebook isn't a place where you'll be able to share the nutty grainy materials regarding your product or service. Tiny and sweet notes should be served so as to attract the people and making them ask for additional of such information. Tendering complimentary materials would be ideal to grab the eye of the people.

Facebook is the platform used by the folks to share information and market their products and services, by using various options offered by the Facebook. A mixture of few the ways will definitely be useful to improve one's marketing technique.

This is often one amongst the perfect marketing tools on the market on Facebook. Pages are explained by the Facebook as a public profile enabling the users to share, among the opposite users, info regarding the product or services being offered. This business promotional tool is therefore effective that it spreads fever among your fans and attracts a lot of and more traffic on your site making you popular in no time.

However, the content offered on your page should be actually informative therefore as to draw in and paste the individuals to your site.

Promote events, to be organized at a specified time and place. It'd be handy to create event at least one at national and international level each, per your business features. It will be tired any of the formats like, a seminar: an introductory and complementary, it can be paid one further; a webinar: an online seminar which will be attended by anybody on the earth; a product/service launch: a pleasant manner to grab attention while launching a brand new product or service.

Promoting an incident contains a viral effect on the people and each second person would attend the event without any delay.

Just from last year a replacement tool in the shape of advertisement is initiated by the Facebook enabling the user to put up ads concerning their own web site or page by paying pay per click (PPC) or impression (CPM). It is like that of the Google AdWords.

In addition to targeting the ads to specific biological place a person can deliver the ads to social actions. For example, a business wedding photographer can promote his services by putting the mesmerizing snap shots of these "would be" brides between 24 to 30 years wearing engagement rings.

However, the Facebook advertising is still new born baby requiring correct nourishment before it will become a age into a matured personality.

Embrace Facebook

Marketers of the online website should doubtlessly rely on the Facebook as a unique strategy, thought it's a very time intensive.

http://www.maria-johnsen.com/social-media-marketing/

Internet Marketing - Importance of Blogs and Social Media Networking

Marketing is one of the most important aspects of businesses. With the help of the newest technology, it is made possible for business owners to use the Internet for marketing and promoting their products. However, in the growing competition in the Internet Industry, making sure that you use the most effective marketing tool is essential. The success of your online business depends on how good you market your product.

There are several ways in which you can promote and market your business online. Such ways involve article marketing, link building, advertisements, affiliate marketing etc. But the most widely used tools, nowadays, are Social Networking and Blogging. Social Networking even it its early years played a vital role in Internet Marketing. Social Media Networking uses different strategies so continuously learning the most effective one is very important. Social Media Networks like Facebook and twitter give you excellent ways to meet new people; therefore meet new prospect customers that will drive traffic in your websites.

Another great tool used by social media networks are micro-blogging and instant messaging. Each of these social media sites has their own ways for users to share messages and opinion with one another. On the other side, blogs are mostly used for search engine optimization. Basically, search engines like Google loves websites with frequently updated content. What is the easiest way to produce new updates and content? Blogging.

Blogging is also one of the best tools used in product and website promotion. You can use different categories and topics to get your blog up-to-date.  Here you'll be able to share your ideas and help people find solution to their problems. This can help you establish a good relationship with your customers. This will also help determine how expert you are in the business line you are in. Social blogging has become a sizzling topic and it's only getting hotter every day. For you to further strengthen your social blogs, you need to use the newly popular life-streaming service trends such as friendfeed and Twitter. This will make it possible to integrate your blog marketing and social networking strategies.

Blogging and social media are like your left and right foot. They walk hand in hand together. However, you must make sure that they are coordinated to produce the best benefit for your business. So if you learn to combine blogging and social media, you will soon discover a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It may be sound tricky at first but with correct formula, you are on the right track to success.

Real Andrews is a Certified Personal Trainer & Gym Owner. Real is an expert at helping people Achieving their Goals [http://www.realandrews.com/category/motivational-inspirational/]. You might recognize him as Lt. Taggert from the ABC Show General Hospital. Want some advice on online businesses? Visit The Real Blog.

Remember: "THERE IS NO SUCH WORD AS CAN'T !!! Oh by the way. YOU are a CHAMPION!!!"

Use of Social Media Networks for Effective, Active and Improved Business Marketing

Marketing plays a very significant role in the organization's overall success and development. Some of the main marketing activities are advertising, promotions, sales, customer service and relations. It is very important for an organization to market their product or service before and after its introduction from the customer's perspective. The marketing strategies and functions carried out in order to market the products to the customers and boost its sales, understanding the preferences of the customers must be creative, effective and cost-effective.

The most common form of marketing is through advertising. Creative and effective advertising targeted at the intended customers can boost the sales, and improve the performance and popularity of the organization and can make stronger presence among the customer base. However, with the advancement of technology, internet and social media, they have paved in way for newer, advanced and active marketing.

The popularity of the social networking among the internet users and with the number of people joining and using the social media and networking services to communicate among themselves increasing each day, it has got a lot of attraction from the marketing professionals and has kindled in their thoughts to make use of it for effective, active and result-oriented marketing.

The Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a latest of its kind, in which the social media, sharing and networking sites and platforms are interactively used by the organizations to promote their products and services, by sending across mails, messages (with text, audio, video and other media contents), online ads to the users, and posting the same on online discussion boards, blogs, groups, communities and other online forums.

Some of the social media networks are face book, twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Digg, Blogger, wikis, podcasts etc. In this way, the direct customers are targeted, bringing about a greater awareness of the products and services among the customers. This is an active marketing strategy, in the sense that the customers can give reviews/responses and opinions on the products and services, triggering a row of discussions, conversations and comments from the customers online.

The response information from the users, can be effectively used for better understanding the preferences and choice of the customers and consider them to improvise the products and services, as also the same can be used to develop the business of the organization.

The advantages of the social media marketing are: they directly involve the communication with intended customers, provide information and understanding of customer preferences from which organizations can devise better business strategies, increase its presence and reputation as brand and it is cost-effective.

Though the social media marketing involves greater challenges, innovation and creativity, the power of social media networking and internet along with the effective marketing ideas and approaches can take the businesses to greater heights of success. Its time organizations go online with social media marketing, to promote their products and services, and attract and retain the customer base.

Erwin Felicilda is an Entrepreneur, Social Media & Internet Marketing Consultant. You can visit his blog at http://erwinfelicilda.com, which presents unique interdisciplinary views of Entrepreneurs on experimentation in lifestyle advancements in the digital age and where he also share his passions, ideas & knowledge

Discover the Right Way to Leverage Social Media

You will feel a sense of enlightenment after you have read this short article. You will be able to willingly influence social media as a tool that you may use to improve you, your business, and your brand, YOU inc.

However, Before we go further into the exact methods of how to accurately influence social media. Lets take a further look behind social media and identify what others are doing incorrect.

Social Media sites such as MySpace and YouTube are a place to meet individuals one on one and build relationships. However there is no need for you to instantaneously turn around and crush that connection immediately by pitching them on a business opportunity.

Sound familiar? I started out that route in my opinion as well.

It is ok most folks feel that urge to reveal their amazing opportunity instantly. But this is not going to help you or your business in any way shape or form.. This will only slow your business you in the long run guaranteed.

Envision with me for a instant, how amazing it would be if you were able to sign up each and every person off of your Facebook list into your major business. How much would that help your business?

What would that do for the people on your list, their life, and their family's lives?

You need to learn how to correctly get your point across so you can not only increase your business. But so you can help change the lives of people who require your business opportunity. You know that your opportunity is effective, and can improve anyone who gets involved with it. However getting this message from beginning to end to your circle of influence so they answer back is the challenge.

Social Media is one of the most influential tools that must to be leveraged to guarantee your success as network marketer. The most important mistaken belief with social media is how it can be leveraged from a marketing perspective.

Everyone knows that no individual likes being sold to.

You are a smart individual, why should social media networks be any different?

Most individuals view their social media friends list as a captive audience. They in simple terms use this list as an advertising medium.

That is the massive misunderstanding.

Here Comes the immense Secret.

Social Media sites are a place to put out content, relate with other like minded persons and add value.

Sound pretty uncomplicated?

Then why are most folks not doing this?

They are not looking at the bigger picture, or the science and psychology in the wake of marketing. Social media networks are merely your tool to access mass amounts of people so you can aid them. Not Spam their inbox box with offers.

Social media networks are a location for you to present guidance and explain what you have learned to your network. You need to offer value whatever it may be about. Instruct what you have learned as you study it.

You might teach article writing, or how to properly film a marketing video. Social Media is just a place for you to put out your content to a network of attracted individuals. You Must Add value to them in order to be perceived as a leader.

Distributing valuable content will create a viral effect. The people that like your useful content will recommend it to others, and link to it. Creating more visitors and establishing your business and you as a expert.

Educate your social network something; anything, just make definite it is something they can use. Something they require.

There are a mixture of different skilled marketers out there. There are thousands joining the industry each day. Something like setting up a word press blog may seem easy to you. But there are thousands of individuals out there who would love to get their hands on some good content teaching them this skill.

The trick is to educate them, to make it their idea to join you and your business. This is a method to allow them to see the usefulness that you have to offer while helping them with their recent issues and business model.

Have you realized yet that we are harnessing the laws of attraction, and basic human psychology? By establishing yourself as a leader, and proving your value. The people that spot this value, who you help, will be drawn to you. They will seek you out and obviously want to work with you. The more individuals you help with your content the more your business will grow.

Imagine human interaction as plain mathematics. When they are reading your content, it's like you are speaking with them. You are creating a bond with the individual on auto pilot. Simply use social networks to gain access to all these persons.

Are you starting to see the big picture here? You can employ this approach to build thousands of relationships with one afternoons effort!

Are you starting to see the innovative ideology behind marketing using social media?

Allow me to present this nice and plain for you right here.

Don't spam your list trying to improve yourself and your business. Help your list with your content, offer value and your business will of course grow on its own.

Congratulations.

You have learned what 97% of other home business owners never comprehend. You are well on your way to becoming one of the few 3% of flourishing home business owners out there.

Use this technique as the correct means of leveraging social media. Utilize this potential to build you and your brand, YOU Inc.

But remember...

This is only the start, merely an introductory glimpse into social media. There are still many sophisticated techniques with some neat tools that you must learn.

We must be constantly learning and growing, this simply gives us more value to offer. Never stop learning, personal development is the recipe to success.

I would like to help you be subjected to the amazing results that social media has to offer. Social Media is simply a tool to a bigger picture, simply one leg of the beast that is network marketing. Allow me to reveal you the bigger picture so that you and your business can profit from the same amazing results I have achieved.

Come visit me anytime. Drop by my blog, shoot me an e-mail.

Remember.

There is no such thing as an educated person. Never stop learning!

Dedicated To Your Success

Kameron George

P.S Come Visit My Blog For FREE Access To Some Of The Most Technically Advanced Marketing Strategies Guarunteed To Explode Your Home Based Business TODAY!

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Website Traffic - The Dark Side of Using Web 2.0 Sites & Social Media Networks For Getting Visitors

There has been a lot of hype surrounding the use of Web 2.0 sites and social media networks for getting new visitors online. In this article I want to show you the dark side of using these sources in your niche market to get new visitors to your site.

First - You have to always be doing all the work!

The problem with using social media sites to get new traffic to your website is the fact that you are the one that has to always be doing all the work to get more visitors to your site.

You can't automate what you are doing very easily and it is very hard to outsource all the work that has to be done as you have to be the one who is usually doing everything.

Second - You have to compete with a lot of people to get visitors to your site.

The problem with a lot of free traffic sources like Web 2.0 sites is the fact that you have to compete with so many other advertisers to get visitors to your site.

The reason that you have to do this is because the traffic is free and therefore everyone wants to get access to it and use it to grow their businesses.

You need to realize that in most cases it is a lot better to use other sources that you can automate and that are proven to actually work! Sources like banner advertising and Google AdWords can give you visitors without you having to do anything.

What if you can't get more website traffic? Here's a "secret snowball traffic system" that has generated over 1,175,000 visitors for my tiny websites. Click Here Now to get this free video that will show you how to make it happen for your sites. http://www.jasonnyback.com

SEO With Social Media Marketing & Networking - Twitter, Digg, Mixx, Stumbleupon

Social Media Marketing & Networking

As SEO is essential to having your website generate traffic and potential customers/clients so is the whole Social Media Marketing Platform. As the internet evolves so do the ways we search for information, products, and services.

Social Media Marketing Networking has taken the internet by storm and is becoming more relevant then search engines.

Social Media Networking like Digg.com & Stumbleupon.com are based off of how many Diggs or Thumbs up/down you receive in order for a Story, Press Release, Website, Photo, and Service to make it to the front page and get to the tops in their own search engine. Digg isn't a playground for the weak or inexperienced. Its audience can be fickle, extremely judgmental. Diggs Algorithm can be extremely tricky and if you're considered a spammer you're banned.

There are several important factors of Social Media Marketing Networking. The major one is developing your network. In order for your information to gets views you need to have Hundreds if not Thousands of friends that follow your submissions. If your information is liked by your network then it can go very far, if not your submission will not survive. You have to work extremely hard at gaining a trust level with many of the Social Media Platforms, and once you do then it's a good start.

We have an extremely strong and powerful following on several of the top Social Media Marketing Platforms and we continue to build our following. So what does that have to do with getting links for search engine rankings? Most social bookmarking sites make their bookmarks available for the search engines to see. Search engines really love these links because they tend to be really good indicators of which sites are quality There are so many Social Media Networks for a normal business/company to even think about handling. We have a generic list as a guideline.

1. Digg.com -Digg.com is the #1 user-submitted news site worldwide where advertisers can engage their brands with 25 million influential professionals. Digg advertising gives advertisers the ability to target relevant areas of interest such as world & business, entertainment, technology, travel, and autos. Advertise on digg.com and reach an influential and lucrative audience. Digg's audience is younger, with 75 percent of its population ranging in age from 18 to 49. With 6.8 million monthly unique visitors in the U.S. and over 17 million worldwide, Digg's expansive audience is also affluent-with an average household income of $81K. Digg is the #3 referring source of audience traffic to the New York Times; Digg-referred users are the only partners that the Wall Street Journal allows to read full articles without subscriptions. Advertisers can reach a passionate audience on Digg as they discover and share the latest news, events, and culturally relevant topics.

2. Twitter.com - Twitter's reach is geared towards the user. It takes hours upon hours to gain Tweets. Twitter.com has become one of the easiest ways for you to get the words out. Twitter.com is really no different than Digg. The more friends you network with the further the word travels. We as an SEO Company have established thousands of users and our following continues to grow daily.

3. Mixx.com - Mixx is your link to the web content that really matters. There's a lot of information out there and, let's face it, you don't have all day to find the good stuff (if you do, we're totally jealous). And who knows better than you what informs you, what makes you think, what makes you laugh? So why should some faceless editor get to decide what's important? But now you're in charge. You find it; we'll Mixx it. Use YourMixx to tailor the content categories, tags, specific users and groups, and we'll deliver the top-rated content as chosen by you and people who share your passions. So go ahead and whip up your own version of the web. Just tell us how you like it Mixxed and we'll deliver the best the web has to offer-morning, noon and night. Mixx.com functions the same way as Digg.

4. Stumbleupon.com - StumbleUpon has more than 7,609,846 members. Users can rate a site by giving it a thumbs up, thumbs down selection on the StumbleUpon toolbar, and can optionally leave additional commentary on the site's review page, which also appears on the user's blog. This social content discovery approach automates the "word-of-mouth" referral of peer-approved Web sites and simplifies Web navigation. Stumblers also have the ability to rate and review each others' blogs and join interest groups, which are community forums for specific topics. Users can post comments in the manner of a discussion board in these groups and post links to Web sites that apply to the specific topic.

5.Tipd.com - Is another Social Media Networking site that you have to develop followers, however this is a Social Media Networking site for Real Estate, Stocks, Banking, Economy, Finance, and Money.

6. Reddit.com - Launched in 2005, Reddit is a social news website that displays news based on your personal preferences and what the community likes. Your preferences are determined based on your history of voting stories up or down. Reddit.com has over 5 million unique visits a month. Reddit.com has similar aspects of Digg.com and Stumbleupon.com.

Social Media Marketing Networking is a Science just like SEO. SEO & Social Media Marketing Networking now go hand and hand. One can not be successful without the other. We have a Successful Track record on both SEO and Social Media Marketing. As mentioned before most Social Media Marketing sites make their bookmarks available for the search engines to see.

Search engines really love these links because they tend to be really good indicators of which sites are quality. There are so many Social Media Marketing Networking site to list. Depending on what your needs are, we are members of just about all of them. We have listed some of the most influential. Thank you for reading our article and we hoped it helped.

Lyle Hawkins Owner/SEO & Social Medial Professional http://www.Searchenginesurgeon.com lyle@Searchenginesurgeon.com

E-Mail Marketing Through Social Media Networks

Businesses are increasingly utilizing social media networks for communication and advertising. Social networks can be utilized to reach far beyond the regular consumer scope.

It is a fair assumption that most consumers with web knowledge and e-mail accounts are currently active, or soon will be active, on some form of social networking site. Based on this assumption it makes much sense for businesses to integrate social media marketing in to their normal advertising scheme.

The majority of major vendors enable e-mail ad campaigns to be tracked even when the e-mail leaves to originally intended recipient.

Most recently though, social network groups are now replacing e-mail address books as the consumer's personal contact list. A growing number of consumers are more apt to post an e-mail to their blog or social network page as their preferred method of communication with friends and relatives.

There are two primary forms of contact within e-mail campaigns to social media:

Direct method

Contact is distributed directly to the business's own social media program, such as Facebook. This direct method extends the campaign to a greater number of prospected consumers.

Indirect method

Marketing with social sharing features built into the e-mail message allows recipients to share the information via the social networking site of their choosing.

Not every e-mail advertising campaign should be extended to social media networks as improper use can lead to wide spread consumer dissatisfaction. However, when using social networking as a form of marketing it is important to utilize both tracking and forwarding technologies to allow the reporting and sharing of information.

Merging social networking's with e-mail advertising campaigns can far extend the scope of audience and increase consumer impact. Improve effectiveness by enabling the viewer to share the e-mail through the personal media channel of their choice.

Ecommerce - How Social Media Networking Can Help Online Business

Social media websites are becoming increasingly popular. These networking sites bring together like-minded people from across societies, even geographies, to share views, interact and exchange information. E-commerce website marketing executives recognize the potential of marketing on these portals to increase brand awareness. Currently, over 25% of display advertisements are posted on social media websites.

Strategies used by e-commerce developers on social media websites

E-commerce developers use the following strategies on social media websites to develop and promote their internet business:

Display advertising

Display ads can be developed for a target audience, include information on offers, discounts, coupons and deadlines to make the customer act urgently. Display ads can clutter up a website's landscape, so make sure they are targeted to make them relevant to the website's context.

Increasing brand awareness

Since these sites are interactive, e-commerce developers can engage users in discussions of the brand. They can demonstrate quality and expertise to the potential customers and build the brand's image.

Spread the word

A lot of customers post their opinion of brands on social networking sites. E-commerce websites should encourage their satisfied customers to spread the word by sharing their feedback on these sites.

Building a user community through the e-commerce site

The e-commerce business can begin building a user community on its own website. The web site should be designed to link their user community to various social media sites. User forums are an excellent source of feedback on the e-commerce business' products and services.

Monitoring discussions of brands

Just as positive feedback of an e-commerce business' products and services can enhance the brand image, negative feedback can damage it. E-commerce developers should closely follow any mention of their products on social networking sites and address misconceptions and complaints. This builds a customer friendly image of the brand.

Advantages of using social media websites to promote e-commerce business

There are many potential benefits of using social media websites for e-commerce development:

Widened customer scope

Social networking websites are popular and their membership is rapidly growing. By placing ads on such sites, e-commerce businesses expand their customer outreach. Display ads should attract the attention of interested members. A click on the display ad should immediately take the customer to the page on the e-commerce website where they can finalize the sale.

Increasing brand awareness

Social media websites allow e-commerce display ads to be viewed by a large section of people who share some common interests. Display ads that target this customer segment will have better chances of getting through to this community, increasing awareness of the brand.

Influencing brand reputation

Social media website members will share their opinion of brands. This influences the brand's reputation, and improves sales if the customers have something good to say. Even bad opinions can be altered or at least improved by following up with the dissatisfied customers.

Social media websites are opportunities for e-commerce businesses to expand their clientele and improve their brand image. By their very nature, social networking sites have a strong impact on the reputation of a brand. E-commerce developers should understand the merits and demerits of marketing through social networking websites and make the most of this advertising opportunity.

Daljeet Sidhu is at TradeSeam. Read our Ecommerce website blog. Compare ecommerce shopping cart quotes.

Is Social Media Networking a Fad?

Social media networking plays a significant role in bringing people closer and creating a sense of belonging among the users. People find it a great way of interacting, voicing their opinions and even sharing their moments with others. Any new technology or development has its share of supporters and opposers and social media is no exception. Many feel that this is a fad among the youngsters and tech savvy individuals. The new age marketing people who strongly believe in the untapped potential of social media as a marketing tool feel otherwise. More and more companies have adopted this type of marketing as an integral part of their marketing strategy.

No fad but a novel marketing trend:

Advertisement through interactions via social media has found many takers, these days. You get the ultimate business momentum by signing up with a social networking site and that too, at no cost. Social media allows you to meet up with numerous people across the globe belonging all kinds of profession. You can create a large network of people who are the renowned in the industry to expand your professional and personal horizons. Posting links for videos, audio files, webinars, regular updates, first-rate blog articles, quality content, newsletters, et al on social media can increase your site traffic. Increased site traffic apparently results in increased advertising, popularity, exposure, online reputation, brand visibility, business and finally profit.

Benefits of social media networking:

Networking:

A prominent reason for joining a social networking site is widening one's network of friends and acquaintances. Social media allows one to form an interest specific group from your industry. Your group/network can help you to a great extend in finding new jobs, promoting your business, etc.

Advertising:

Advertising normally incurs greater costs but now social media allows you to advertise free of cost. You can post the links to your company's site, excellent contents, etc. Compelling content posted by you improves your site traffic through editorial links, bookmarking, sharing and so on. Even quality responses to questions posted in the forums belonging to your community can fetch you more following. So you get advertised instantly, through social media networking.

Guidance:

In your network/group/community in the social media, you might stumble across people who are experts in the industry. The experts can help you during a crisis with their wisdom and experience.

Profit:

We advertise to get more profit and social media helps you to do it in many ways through networking, interacting, communicating, responding, engaging and following the members/users. The visitors to your site can be converted into customers/clients/business partners/associates with a bit of extra effort and inventive thought.

Social Media Optimization Services & Social Media Marketing Services is for those who care to optimize their online presence in this web2.0 revolution.

Advertising By The Use Of Social Media Networks

No one can deny that social media marketing has transformed the way people do business these days, in fact hit has made the business of advertising to be easier and this has been able to improve the performance of different business.

It is one of the best modes of advertising, Social media marketing is based on marketing mainly to the relevant prospects who are anticipated to buy a specific merchandise; this has always been so since advertising started in the world.

Any entrepreneur would love his/her company to develop must market his/her products to the right prospects who he/she is sure are going to sample the products. For example if an entrepreneur decides to market female hygiene products on a male targeted publication he/she wouldn't be able to yield more on this.

But if he/she decides to market the same goods on a female targeted publication then he/she will be surprised with the outcome and how the sales are going to sky rocket. Marketing involves extensive planning and research in order to get the right outcome at the end.

This makes social media marketing to be the easiest way to meet the targeted audience since social media sites have most people who have the preferences of the things you are selling in the market.

What this mode of marketing does is to provide businessmen an easier way to reach their targeted audience.

It is suitable for new and upcoming business enterprises since it is much more economical for them to do advertising.

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Do Not Advertise on Social Media Sites

Don't advertise on social media sites. Lets be honest, advertising is about persuasion while social media is about empowerment - service as opposed to solicitation. The difference boils down to consumer confidence - advertising and marketing messages are inherently persuasive and rightly perceived as biased whereas word of mouth messages naturally build (or diminish) confidence without perceived bias. Granted, the value of good advertising in social media or any other environment is in its ability to spark inspiration and need, emotion and thought; from those things that make up everyday life.

So why does traditional online advertising not work in social media? First, most consumers' decisions on social media sites take place through the referral of friends. Case in point, 78% of respondents to the 2007 Nielsen Global Survey on Word of Mouth indicate consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising. Second, the push marketing approach does not apply to niche, fast-moving audiences found in social media sites. Three, the mindset of social media users is driven by self promotion and community (social engagement) - in order to connect there has to be an exchange that is of value to the user. If you chose to advertise on social media sites be conscious of the need to give that audience something of value as opposed to a advertising message.

Twiter, Facebook, Flyertalk and thousands of community boards, blogs and social media platforms empower consumers to communicate, network, contribute and make decisions about their everyday life. The gold dust of social media is consumer generated content and the sentiment it reflects about brands - dynamic word of mouth and conversation. The question is how to identify, harness, measure and act upon the conversational gold dust. In simple terms the challenge is to define and tie key performance indicators to the content and sentiment being measured.

The first thing to understand is that social media and consumer generated content serves as a repository and public record of conversations and consumer sentiment about a brand. A number of companies (Nielsen Buzzmetrics, Brand Watch, Market Sentinel) have popped up offering technology to capture those conversations for analysis but much of the application of that technology is still quite tactical or focused on brand reputation management. In fact, the consumer generated insight research opportunity is to use that insight on a regular basis and with quality marketing-based analysis to derive valuable insights that can improve marketing communications.

In our experience, the single most important measurement metric for social media is a variation of Net Promoter Score ®. Creator, Fred Reichheld of Bain & Co., measured the number of consumer "Promoters" (those who would recommend a product or services) and "Detractors" (those who actively discourage the use of a product or service) of hundreds of companies across many categories finding that on average the NPS leader grows at 2.5x. While the Net Promoter Score ® metric can provide a foundation metric, it is important to define additional metrics aimed at benchmarking the contribution of social media against other channels of consumer interaction.

Our work with Avis and OpenSkies on the social media space has allowed us to define a measurement approach to consumer generated content; based on five measurement modules.

1. Involvement

This set of metrics is aimed at understanding the propensity of involvement for either your own social media environment (community board, blog) or third party social media sites that drive users to your site. Assigning a unique referring ID to your social media property or third party social sites within your site analytics tool (Web Trends and Google Analytics) should facilitate this data.

- Site visits

- Time spent

- Pages viewed

- New vs. returning users

- Navigational path

2. Engagement

These metrics are aimed at understanding the specific actions and behaviors of users. Every engagement such as a comment should be equated to a call centre engagement or store visit. This approach allows for social media engagement to be viewed as part of the overall customer journey, providing a degree of benchmarking.

- Commentary volume

- Frequency of comments

- Sources of commentary

- Commentary creator segments

- Topics/Subjects

3. Sentiment

This set of metrics is aimed at identifying changes in positive and negative feedback across time and against competitors. This information can be used by Customer Service teams to proactively address specific issues being openly discussed by consumers. - Net Promoter Index variation

4. Propagation

This set of metrics is aimed at indentifying the distribution of social media content and its impact on how other consumers find and participate on the discussions about your brand. A key metric is search engine indexing which is related to the incremental impact of natural search traffic and visibility derived from social media.

- Citations

- Trackbacks

- Search Engine indexing

5. Transaction

While not applicable to all brands, transactions from social media can be measured by leveraging third party ad-serving and site analytics data. Establishing a control test against your average transactional site data can be an effective way of identifying variations on behavior and value.

- Registrations

- Shopping cart instances

- Conversion rate

- Revenue per transaction

- Revenue by user

Alain Portmann, Web Liquid

Demographics in Social Media Network Marketing

The marketing plan for any company includes the demographics of their target audience. Who they are trying to reach can be segmented out so as to allow for different marketing strategies for each segment. It makes more sense to advertise a product appealing to 18 to 24 year olds predominantly to 18 to 24 year olds. Social media networks are valuable marketing vehicles. The demographics of each social network should be reviewed to develop an effective marketing plan for each one.

It's probably no surprise to anyone that the social networking sites MySpace and Facebook are visited most of the time by people between the ages of 18 and 24. Their gender breakdown is almost the same: 63% female, 36% male. Is this demographic the market for your product or service? If so, it could be very beneficial to develop a profile and actively participate in these communities. If you are not trying to reach this demographic it is still worth your time to develop a presence on MySpace and Facebook. Absolutely! There are still millions of users or 31% over 24 who are using these networks.

Once you know which market segment each social media network appeals to you can focus your message and profile to that segment. For example, Linkedin.com readers have the highest household incomes and are good targets for high-end or premium products or services. Propellor.com and stumbleupon.com have the highest percentage of over 65 visitors if this is the market you are trying to reach.

You can find demographic information on these social media networks on quantcast.com. Enter the domain name and it provides a summary of the U.S. demographics and a traffic summary. It tells you what categories visitors to that domain are also likely to visit broken down into: Communities, Photo/Video Sharing and Movies. It also shows what other sites visitors to that domain are likely to visit.

Reviewing the demographic information freely available to you enables you to determine if that community is a good fit for your message and if it would be a good use of your time. It also helps you enter and participate in these communities with the knowledge you need to interact appropriately. MySpace and Facebook have the most traffic and should be used. From there you need to determine what other social communities are worth your time to participate in. Marketing opportunities differ in each community in terms of how you will get your message out, be it with groups, blogs or other internal applications.

Lynn Jebbia is a Senior Project Manager at ArteWorks SEO, a search engine marketing company. Her focus is SEO Strategy, Keyword Analysis, Competitive Analysis, Web Site Audits, Pay Per Click Management and Client Account Management.

Social Media Marketing - Get New Customers From Social Networking Sites

As a small business owner, your job is to get as many customers as possible. Social networking is a big part of this. This is where you meet as many different people as possible, pass out business cards, and spread the news that you are open for business and you're ready to accept new customers. But you can only meet so many people and you can only hand out so many business cards.

Advertising on Social Media Sites

Another way you can advertise your business is to utilize the ever growing social media phenomenon. Social media marketing is the best way to get the word out about your business to attract new customers. With the internet spanning the globe, and reaching millions if not billions of people, if your business isn't using online social networks, you as a business owner are seriously behind the times.

Social media describes websites that bring others together, no matter where they live. A few popular sites include Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, and more. To get a full list, you'll have to do your homework. All it takes is getting online to find out just how many social marketing opportunities there are out there. To promote your business on these social networking sites, you'll have to create profiles, describe your business, post pictures if applicable and anything else you would like to advertise or promote.

Keep It Simple

To attract as many customers as possible, you'll need to keep it simple, and just give enough information to cause potential customers to want to contact you to learn more. You don't want to give everything away, such as specials or prices. Have people get in contact with you, or have them visit your website where they can learn more. The purpose of social media marketing is to reach as many people as possible, thus increasing your chances or drumming up as much business as possible.

Social Networking and Relationship Marketing

Once you've signed up for the social networking sites, it's now time to get your business out there to the masses. Start developing relationship with your target audience. By becoming friends with people on Facebook, or having followers on Twitter, for example, your business and your message are going to reach more people than you ever could have with just word of mouth and business cards.

With the internet so popular, and most people doing their business online, you're doing business and yourself a disservice if you're not on one or more of the many popular social media sites out there. It may seem time consuming at first to create many profiles, advertise on each profile and then network your profile out to others; but the hard work you put in will reap benefits beyond your wildest dreams.

Get more social media marketing tips to help you in attracting more customers at http://www.smallwebusiness.com/. Plus you can learn many great ways to utilize social networking sites.

Myths, Lies and Social Media

Social media is all the rage at the moment. Twitter... Facebook... YouTube... everybody's talking about it.

And there's a lot of myths and lies out there. Personally, I don't know many people who are profiting from it. And I think there is a lot of "shovel selling" happening (i.e., the people who made all the money in the gold rush were the people selling the shovels). For example, with twitter everyone is following everyone out of courtesy, not because they are interested in = what they have to sell. And I've seen dozens of "how to make a profit via twitter" notes buzzing around. My advice is just dig in and get stuck into it. I caught up with a friend the other night. And he didn't want to get involved in it until he understood it 100%. Fair enough.

I have a different approach: dive right in. Otherwise known as ready... fire... aim. Just go to Facebook and set up an account... set one up on twitter as well... and do the same on YouTube. But the question remains: does it work? Personally, I cannot claim to have made a lot of money out of social networking sites. I know for a fact I have made some. I have used it to get more subscribers to my web site. I also know it can be great for increasing your rankings on search engines. I did an interview with search engine marketing expert, Niro Thambipillay and he explained the fact if you linked to your site from some of the major social networking sites, it actually improved your rankings in the search engines. I thought that was interesting.

So one way you could use it is by having a blog. And then writing comments on Facebook which link directly to that blog to automatically drive your search engine rankings up and drive people to your site. I have also read an interesting book about social networking by Jeff Jarvis. It's called "What would Google do" and is an interesting read which talks about how big companies are using social media to manage relationships and turn profits. The reality is I think the key to social networking is building relationships. And there will be spammers... get rich quick scammers... and a range of different people trying to take advantage of this medium.

After all, it doesn't cost anything. I came across an interesting report on the subject today from a guy all the gurus are saying knows what he's talking about. If nothing else, it's an interesting read about how to monetise social media without pissing people off. The guy claims to have devoted his life to learning about social media. He also claims you can get $1 per month per follower you get via social media. It's worth a read. After all, social media is only likely to get bigger and bigger in the months ahead.

Do you want to learn the easiest way to get more customers fast? I have just completed my brand new guide "7 Ways to Get More Customers" where I outline everything so it's as easy as 1, 2... 3. Download it for free by visiting http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au

Social Media Networking - The Imperative Aspects Behind Communications Nowadays

The importance of social media networking has increased rapidly with today's time changes these days. The world is getting busier which has created many barriers for individuals to interact with each other on a daily basis. Social media networking has minimized it to a greater extent and provided a platform to many individuals to meet with millions of people at the click of a mouse.

These social media networking websites enable user to chat with each other, send emails or even communicate by phone later. The ancient and conventional method of passing information with the help of letters and sending good wishes by post has been replaced by email services almost completely. A lot of websites are offering their services in this field and have gained enormous popularity as well.

Social media networking websites are working tremendously hard to provide people a new way of interacting with each other. Twitter, Digg, Stumpleupon, Orkut, LinkedIn and Facebook are amongst these websites. The individual only has to register with these websites, post their information in their profile and start connecting with other members. It is an easy way to stay connected with your friends. You can send messages to other members easily with just scribbling in their scrapbook.

These social media networking websites have provided several advantages in respect of communication nowadays. Youngsters are highly attracted to these networking websites as they can easily connect to more than one person at the same time. You can even promote or market a new product in these networking websites. Demands of advertisement have grown immensely on these websites and are being published more often. Everyone from around the world can interact with each other. There are no boundary or cast issues in these websites. Everyone has been given the right to convey their opinions without any interference.

The concept of social media networking is gaining huge popularity these days. The scope of providing this service is even rising to a higher level. Social media networking has become a new trend in communicating with other people online as well as marketing and promoting services and products on them. Business entities are opting this way to market their product as the audience ratio is much higher than in any market.

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The Death of Outbound Advertising - The Social Media Gold Rush and Twitter

We hear about the demise of this Internet phenomenon and the death of that social media platform from various pundits and prognosticators as they attempt to sound intellectual or just in the know. We even hear about the death of various forms of advertising and marketing as various Internet "gurus" and self-appointed inbound marketing "experts" attempt to validate their lofty status in an effort to improve their brand and sound "in the know." Lately, we have heard about the death of Twitter, with its high turnover rate and lack of retention, as high as sixty percent, the death of MySpace with the emergence of mini-blog phenomena, Facebook and Twitter, and the death and rebirth of network marketing, with every Tom, Dick and Web Prosperity citing Donald, Robert, and Warren as their authorities.

In an attempt to lend credence to their shaky, often tenuous arguments, the various authorities point to this indicator and that metric while all the time keeping a close eye on what the herd is doing. The herd! To paraphrase Mark Twain who said it best, writing in his notebook of 1904, if you find yourself siding with the majority, it's time to take a step back and think about the side you are on. In other words, it's time to "pause and reflect." Somewhat earlier, but on the same topic, Twain wrote in an unsent letter to Baynard Taylor, 1878, "When you set aside mere names & come down to realities, you find that we are ruled by a King just as other absolute monarchies are. His name is The Majority. He is mighty in bulk & strength...He rules by the right of possessing less money & less brains & more ignorance than the other competitor for the throne, The Minority. Ours is an Absolute Monarchy." The herd effect or herd ethic is incredibly powerful when it comes to advertising and marketing, exponentially so when it comes to Internet marketing.

The social media marketing phenomenon is a complex and difficult puzzle, a conundrum, neither fully understood nor tested, social media is an excellent example of the herd effect in full stampede. There can be little doubt that social media marketing holds with it the promise of untold wealth, if properly applied, its strategy carefully mapped out and implemented. However, the rush to Internet social marketing gold has novice and "guru" alike maneuvering, clambering, and even elbowing for the ultimate prize, Internet marketing gold. Not unlike the California Gold Rush or the race to acquire the untold and forbidden wealth of China throughout history, entrepreneurs are engaged in the ultimate Internet gold rush, pursuing the riches promised, yet rarely achieved, as many as sixty percent, and perhaps many more, going home broke.

Twitter marketing is the most recent phenomenon in the Internet marketing derby for online riches. There are a myriad of products available to automate, optimize, and monetize the Twitter experience and more created daily. Industrious marketers have created plug-ins of all sorts and kinds. Designers have created amazing landing pages and Twitter backgrounds with incredible graphics and impressive visual effects, many offered at no charge. Of course there is usually an upsell, for just a small price. After all, what self-respecting Internet marketer would forget the upsell? Others have created automated tweet functions to happily tweet the day away completely on autopilot, I still can't believe I use that word, "tweet."

Automated follow and unfollow applications are also available and make it possible to build massive followings, again on almost total autopilot. Twitter makes it almost imperative that members drop those pesky people who either fail to reciprocate and follow back or drop followers as soon as they reciprocate, a phenomenon called "pump and dump." You see, Twitter applies a metric, a ratio of following to followers, and if the ration is off, "the powers that be" will stop a person from following anyone else until they achieve nirvana. Well, at least until they achieve Twitter balance, the Twitter version of ying and yang, The Tao of Twitter! Being cut off from following others, particularly for the spammers, is a kind of Twitter death. Since the new mini-blog marketing phenomenon is viewed by many as a numbers game, the more followers, the greater the audience. The greater the audience, the more clicks on the links embedded in each and every tweet; and, the more clicks, the more conversions. Ultimately, tweets with links lead to clicks, and the more clicks the more conversions; and, the more conversions, the more sales. Or does it?

Interestingly, the data does not support this supposition, the logical next-step that links lead to clicks, and clicks to conversions, and conversions mean sales. What many Twitter marketers are discovering, and perhaps this is one part of the reason why the retention is so low, is the tire-kicker phenomenon. What I refer to as the tire-kicker mentality is explained best as follows:

o Twitter followers tend to follow like-minded people, other Internet marketers, coaches, soccer moms, whomever.

o Twitter marketers are marketing to other marketers who are interested in self-education.

o Internet marketers (a.k.a., Twitter marketers) can get all the free education they need by. signing up for another's offerings, taking full advantage of the free education and whitepaper resources.

o Internet marketers who find a good product will sign up as an affiliate and purchase it from themselves, rather than from the individual who initially referred them by way of the link in the original tweet.

The conversions and sales? Yes, sales are being made but, as many find out when offering Clickbank products, particularly Clickbank products offered to other Internet marketers, they are not being made by the individual initially responsible for the introduction of the product to the consumer. Additionally, most Internet marketing products, sold by other online businesses have little or no tracking capability if an individual decides to beat the system. The moral of the story? In this author's opinion, the opportunities to make a living as an affiliate marketer, even with a sizeable following, are limited, at best. The reality? Multiple streams of income is still the best approach. Social media in and of itself, and twitter in particular, may offer advantages as part of a total marketing strategy but if you plan on making a living solely from this sort of income producing methodology, you may be in for a bit of a disappointment.

So, what are the alternatives? What solutions are there for the Internet marketer bent on making a living from social media? One solution? Don't sell to Internet marketers. That's right! Get out of the Internet marketing niche altogether and offer products to the public at large, those not actively engaged in online business. Another solution? Create your own product and offer that exclusively. If you create a product that solves an immediate problem or does something better than a current application does, you can then offer that product to anyone, given the right advertising and marketing strategies. A third solution? Create your own company offering a unique service or one you feel you can do better, cheaper or with a different spin than the current online businesses are. There are other strategies for making a significant income online, and there are opportunities to cash in on the social media marketing gold rush, just not in the way many envision and not as quickly and not at the click of a link We will discuss the real value of social media and other social media marketing platforms in the next article in this series.

The transition from the old to the new, from an entirely "outbound" marketing strategy to an online focus has resulted in the formation of a new company, The Ultimate Internet Image, with offices in several states and more coming. The need for personalized marketing strategies, incorporating a synergy between the best of traditional offline marketing techniques and innovative and revolutionary new inbound, Internet marketing strategies have resulted in a company with one goal, excellence! For more information stop by our new blog at:
http://www.UltimateInternetImage.com

John P J Zajaros, Sr.

Social Media Networking Websites You Should Know About - 7 Top Ones

Social media networking websites are popping up like crazy on the internet. They are fast becoming favorable with the search engines because they provide a consistent flow of new and unique content. Anyone can join these websites, as they provide a fairly simple and informal approach to an online, community-based, social interaction.

Social media websites provide a platform where people can meet to share information, build relationships, and even find new business associates. If you start sharing your expertize and give value, you can build up a large network of prospects over time. These people will do most of your advertising for you by spreading the word to their friends, families and other net-workers, if you play your cards right.

Here are seven (7) of the top social media networking sites that you should know about:

(1). Facebook - Facebook has now become the world's biggest social networking site. You can join and look for other people who share the same interests like you. What you want to do here is set up your online business profile and create a fan page for your business. Invite your customers and subscribers to join so you can easily alert them whenever you have any new updates to share.

(2). Twitter - This is a micro-blogging social networking site that allows its members to send out short posts to others, including the people who are following you. Just like how you encourage people to follow you through your tweets, you can also follow people who might be of interest to you. Remember it is all about providing value.

(3). YouTube - YouTube is the top video-sharing site on the internet and provides some unique ways for you to establish yourself online. Now that video marketing is taking over the web you can use this site to create awareness, build excitement, and command a powerful online presence. You can also have your links embedded in your video to get maximum leverage from your marketing.

(4). Digg - Digg is more of a news-sharing site where members can post links to their favorite news articles. It also allows them to make comments or to vote for the ones they like best. The key here is to get a good rating on an article that has a link to your website, this will generally lead to massive amount of traffic to your site.

(5). StumbleUpon - On this site members can check out and rate web pages, videos and photos. When you "stumble," the results that shows up are ranked based on your previous ratings and the ratings from other members. When other members give your site a good rating, your site could show up more often in their results which could lead to more traffic.

(6). LinkedIn - This site is probably the most popular social networking site for business purposes on the internet. It provides a conducive environment for you to find potential business associates, joint venture partners, and people who might be looking for your products and services.

(7). Delicious - Delicious is a very popular bookmarking site where its members can save links to their favorite websites, blogs, articles, or other resources, and share those with other people. The power of this is that you can comment on each other's links, and these in turn link to your personal profile which should have your website link. Generating traffic here is all about getting busy making lots of comments.

Social media networking sites are taking over the internet and could become the driving force behind all major promotions in the near future, but there are some things you need to pay close attention to. These are sites where members gather to socialize, not to listen to sales pitches, and if you go in there and start advertising your products or services you will be ignored like the plaque. The goal here is to make friends and build relationships.

Godfrey Thaxter is a marketing consultant who writes informative articles providing tips and strategies for "Home Business Success" with your internet marketing business. Click The Link Now To Get Instant Access To The "Highest Quality Advertising & Marketing [http://www.PassiveIncomeOnAuto.com]" On The Internet - And To See How You Can Explode Your Traffic Generation Using Articles!