Juswant from the Berkshire Property Meet speaks about the Webinar, he and his wife Sylvia gave, with Rob Moore from Progressive Property about the benefits of networking. The full webinar is on www.progressivepropertyforum.co.uk

Social media marketing (web 2.0 marketing) is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels like digg, stumbleupon, blogging and it is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic. In current time it’s the most effective tool to generate traffic.Web 2.0 marketing is the only low-cost promotional method by which you can reach to large numbers of visitors, many of them will come back time to time on website.

If you are selling products/services or just publishing content for ad revenue, social media marketing is a potent method that will make your site profitable over time.Those who ignore the efficacy of social media usually fall into three categories; the ones who don’t know much or anything about social media, the ones who are interested but don’t know how to use it and those who don’t believe in the value that a social media strategy can bring to any site or business.

So the over all Social media is the perfect tool which contains all elements that provide traffic, popularity and etc.If you talk about alternative of Social Media Optimization then it must be equally match with all social media elements. Alternative must have the elements to drive visitors on site, web popularity affection and etc.

The nearest competitor of Web 2.0 Marketing is SEO Search Engine Optimization. SEO has the capability to drive the traffic thru search engines and other websites like web directory. By using SEO you can popularize you site web arena effectively But the SMO Services can do, no other has the capability to do the same job as Web 2.0 marketing.

Quick, what single word that comes to mind when you try to describe social media? Authenticity? Immediacy? Participation?

What about meanness?

It seems the best way to drive traffic to your blog is to write that something or someone is:

It’s the social media version of the Mad Libs game. Title your blog post “[proper noun] is [adjective from above list]!” and watch the comments roll in!

The problem with this game is that often, innocent, or mostly innocent people are caught in the crosshairs, and exposed to undeserved risk to reputation and career.

Certainly public condemnation is called for in many situations, but where do you draw the line? Gross ethical misconduct? Easy call. But what about a poorly thought out business model, a bad user interface, or a momentary, innocent lapse in judgment? Do these kinds of situations deserve the social media equivalent of the public beating in the town square? Or is it that the risk to reputation and career of harsh public criticism directed at specific individuals and companies is outweighed by the usefulness of this kind or reportage in helping others avoid the same mistakes?There are several things that encourage negative behavior in social media. The first is the idea that a good blog is one that gets lots of visitors and lots of links. That’s good if you sell advertising on your blog or if your ego demands it. So we write provocative headlines and we take on sacred cows. Because (mixing a few metaphors here) social media is like a day at the race track: some people come just to see the crashes.

Another more subtle factor is the need some of us feel, and I include myself in this category, to offer our professional wisdom to others in the industry. It’s often easiest to do that by commenting on a case study. Case studies involve real, identifiable people and their behavior, so it’s hard to write about them without naming the people involved.

In my journalism school days, during the Coolidge administration, we talked about the dismal failure of “good news:” print and broadcast news outlets designed to balance the doom, gloom, death and depravity highlighted every night on the evening news. The truth is, for whatever reason, bad news sells.

When I write about something I’ve read relevant to social media, PR or corporate communications, I try to base my analysis on the facts, and to avoid character assassination. I tend to stay away from the big four adjectives above, although I did call a couple of people “weasels.”

Lately, I have been giving a lot of thought as to whether all of this negativity is really necessary, and whether there is another healthier, more useful way to carry on these discussions.

This all started a few weeks ago when I left a comment on a blog in which I was critical of someone’s professional conduct. I soon realized that while I thought I was participating in an academic discussion on social media ethics, I was in fact unfairly questioning the integrity of a fellow professional based on only a handful of facts (those included in the blog post.) I did two things I have never done before. I apologized to this person, and I asked the author of the blog to delete my comment.

I then wondered, is it possible to talk about hypothetical conduct to avoid criticizing specific individuals, or is it only through “real life” case studies that we can understand difficult concepts, particularly in the area of ethics? What kind of conduct merits public disclosure? Where do we draw the line when it comes to criticizing the thoughts and deeds of others?

I’m not sure what the answers are. I’m still working through it. Until I figure it out, I have for the most part stopped using case studies on my blog, and have stopped criticizing people as a way to make a point.

And to help me establish my own rules of engagement, I decided to write my Social Media Love Manifesto. Despite the evidence that “good news” and kindness are not big sellers, I thought I would give it a shot.

While many claim that Web 2.0 and social media have brought with them new and uncharted terrain, where etiquette is defining itself with each advance and new rules are being written every day, the line between the online world and the real world was largely erased a long time ago, and there is no longer any reason for two sets of moral and ethical guidelines.

The people we “meet” in our online interactions are real people. They probably own a computer or two, write a blog or participate in a social network, and through the social media filter we see only glimpses of them, but that does not mean that they are not real, or that we are in any way excused from treating them like any other person we would meet.I have therefore resolved that when writing on my blog, or when using any other form of social media, when calling into question the conduct of a specific, identifiable person, I will:

And I will not:

I will always strive to:

Maybe I’m naïve or foolish. If I come across as didactic, preachy or self-serving, I don’t mean to. But I’d like to think we could all be a little nicer. Since I have agreed to follow my Social Media Love Manifesto, I have found less to write about on my blog, and my position in the Advertising Age Power 150 list of media blogs, the only ranking I watch, has slid gradually downward.

I’m a writer, and I try to choose my words carefully. That’s why I called this “My Social Media Love Mainfesto.” I wrote it for me, and I intend to give it a try. If you like it, feel free to use it. If you want to add to it, leave me a comment. And if you don’t like it, feel free to tell me why, but please try to be nice about it.

Social media marketing is a new, free and very powerful tool and it can serve you very well when you are searching for free internet marketing methods to promote your internet home business online.

Social media site are called social for a good reason. This is a place for people from all over the world find and connect with other people with same interests and hobbies, and form groups online, build friendships, have new relationships and share their favorites interests and ideas.

It was only natural for these people to start and use these groups, friendships and new relationships for their businesses. When you have online friends, you can reach a larger crowd of people, all are potential customers, and this is how the social media marketing or social networking was born.

So how easy it is to use the social bookmarking for internet marketing purpose?

Step 1 – Join some of the leading social media sites. Websites such as Digg, Mixx, StumbleUpon and more are very popular social media sites. Bookmarking a page in those site and some other sites can be indexed very quickly by the search engines, this is very good if you want to drive traffic to your website, free and let the search engines notice you.

This tactic is very good, When you need to drive traffic to a new website and have no money to invest in advertising.

Step 2 – Complete you profile. If you want to promote your internet home business using social media sites and social networking, try to give as much details as you can. When you are online do not hide behind a screen name, if you are here for business let the people know a little about you, sign in with your real name, write a few detail about yourself and on your home business. At the end give a link back to you website and a few of your mostly recommended products.

Step 3 – After finishing your profile is time socialize. Social marketing is all about making friends, finding people with the same interests as yours, joining groups and building relationships.

These friends are important for your business and they will help you in time to promote your home business, but you will have to help them too.

Step 4 – Now it is time to start the social networking. Social bookmarking is the word. You bookmark you website or blog, and you let people know about it. You also have to bookmark other people websites and blogs, and vote for your friend’s bookmarks.
When in social media marketing you need to give to others if you want them to give back to you, this is when you get the best results.

Step 5 - Ask your friends to vote for your favorite links and offer to do the same for them. From here the traffic to your website will only grow and you get it all for free.
If you join the top leading social media sites, you will get more traffic, as the website popularity grow you will get more votes, your bookmark get indexed faster and this is also counts as a backlink from some of those sites.

“Word of mouth” is the strategy behind marketing on social media. 2009 saw much hype over the emergence of this new form of marketing and now that the dust has settled, it is time to come to terms with the challenges of social media marketing. No longer a fringe benefit or additional service, online marketing sees social networking, blogs and bookmarking sites as the latest thing, picking up from search engine optimisation.

Apart from the upswing in popularity that social media has seen, there are advantages that remain untapped by many SEO firms that provide social media marketing services as well.Online communities have had a profound effect on popular culture evident from the widespread use of sites like YouTube, Flickr and other media outlets. Organisations that do not realise the business development potential of this cultural phenomenon will find themselves struggling in the marketing world of 2009.

The recession caused by the meltdown of financial institutions worldwide is now prompting a new wave of media marketing that is driven by smaller staff and tighter budgets. For conformists, holding on to traditional marketing avenues will probably spell PR doom. There is a demand for open, transparent and direct conversation between customer and merchandiser that only the social web can fulfil.

Adapt, evolve or perish has been the principle guiding success within every industry and the marketing world has seen the advent and decline of other media in the past. The first to embrace new forms of marketing have always been most successful and in this transitory period the question of when rather than why is now significant. The advantages of social media marketing are manifold. Enabling your customers to act as spokespersons, targeting relevant bloggers to endorse your services and initiating discussions between employees and customers are some of the many ways in which marketing is revolutionising online business.Very often social media marketing is confused with social media optimisation.

The two terms while similar, have taken a more definitive meaning in this new year. 2008 was the year of SMO – where websites were encouraged to be more social media friendly, add social bookmarking links and create user friendly content. Social media marketing, on the other hand, is an extensive field that finally aims at promoting content via social networking websites. As SMM makes its way to the forefront of online marketing, there is a compelling need to embrace this new medium to survive in the cutthroat world of online retailing.

Socializing is known to be the best way to get the latest news and the hottest gossips on just about everything. So if it works for people there is no reason why a social media platform should not work for online sites on the web.

Internet as we know it today is one of the biggest platforms for interaction and knowledge sharing. It is no wonder therefore that social media optimization is one of the most popular methods for enhancing the visibility of the site and giving it a higher ranking on the search engines. Search engine marketing firms often employ various methods of social media optimization for their online clients. The process involves carefully planned and laid out strategies that keep in mind the strengths and weaknesses of the client and are implemented accordingly.

Social media optimization is a method of generating publicity through online processes, communities and websites. The internet savvy people today frequent a number of websites that act as a social media optimization platform. The videos uploaded on sites like ‘you tube’ and the various sites offering blogging facilities, forums and discussion panels further enhance the effect of social media optimization.

The social media optimization uses the technique of viral marketing to spread their word across the web. The main idea is to get people talking about a product, service or idea. The word of mouth then serves as the publicity vehicle thereby popularizing the website that is most talked about by the internet users. Social media optimization utilizes the techniques of social book marking, video and photo sharing and blogging.

The term social media optimization was coined by a person called Rohit Bhargava and he also suggested some guidelines as to how websites can reap the maximum benefits from social media optimization. The main emphasis is to be laid upon increasing the link-ability of the website and also encouraging the inbound links to the site in question.

Social media optimization also stresses the need to make tagging and book marking of a site an easy process. Once a visitor to the site can easily book mark it and go back to it as and when required he is bound to achieve a comfort level with the website. This is in turn would make him recommend the website to other acquaintances thereby serving the inherent purpose of social media optimization.

Social media optimization platforms also face the common problem of spam and this might cause inconvenience to a group of users. However the advantage in this scenario is that the users on a social media platform are usually active participants and hence they can easily delete and block the spam as and when it is placed.

Some media platforms have specifications about qualifying matters into relevant data and spam and have taken precautionary measures to avoid influx of spam in the website. Social media optimization has reached a high level in recent times and the growing popularity of platforms like Facebook and Orkut show positive indications for this phenomenon. As the internet community becomes wider social media optimization is becoming a crucial tool for the websites across the globe.

One of the most recent and highly used newer techniques is social media optimization. Social media optimization is similar to all the other optimization techniques that are used for the promotion of online web sites. Nevertheless, like all the other techniques, social media optimization also has its individuality and there are certain unique principles that need to be followed while adopting to social media optimization for the optimization of a web site in World Wide Web.

There are various processes that need to be included when a web site has to be socially optimized. Basically, social media optimization helps to increase the linkabilty of the site. This is in fact, the main purpose for doing social media optimization for any online web site. Moreover, it should be made sure that the look and the feel of the web site for which social media optimization is being done, is constantly changed so that every time the site gives a fresh feeling to the visitors. This is also a necessity because nobody likes to see the same old graphics and read the same old content. Therefore, changes in the website help to get more visitors and at the same time help the business to earn revenue. Therefore, the content and the other materials used in the site should be highly attractive and attention grabbing.

The principle that works behind social media optimization is to mainly draw traffic to the site. Drawing a good amount of traffic is in fact, one of the best ways to get the site popular among various social media platforms and search engines like Google, Yahoo etc. The thing that mainly needs to be done is to write good articles and then get them circulated in the various social media platforms so that people can read them and come to visit the site. This not only helps in getting good traffic for the website but also helps in getting popular among internet users and various social media platforms. Once the content in the form of articles are floated among the various social media platforms, social media optimizers get hold of them and use them to optimize the site, which further helps in the promotion of that particular website.

After search engine optimization, social media optimization has become one of the most used techniques for the online promotion of a website. Social media optimization is a relatively newer concept but it is gaining a lot of impetus in the market as more and more optimization firms are using this concept to optimize the website of their clients. In fact, social media optimization proves to be a good option for drawing good traffic to a site and at the same time popularizing it in the social media platform.

Understanding the big picture, the business concept, of the social media sites is crucial, because it gives you the idea how to utilize them for your internet business. What is their driving force?

1.What Is A Social Site?
As we see, the term is built of two words: media, which means advertising distribution channel and social, which means a group of same thinkers inside some bigger group of people. It also means the interaction between the group members. Both parts are very useful for the internet business marketing and actually belong to its basic vocabulary.

So social media means communication place, which is established for people, who has the same interest or hobby, where they can change ideas and share benefits. If you think your own internet business this sounds just great!

Wikipedia puts it in this way:
“Social Media is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into content publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism to a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between authors, people, and peers.”
It is important that social media uses the crowds and their own will to connect information in a manner they want. So the social media sites are voluntary and extremely interactice, which gives lots of benefits for their members in the form of internet business forums, message boards, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and videos. Funny thing is that social media sites are driven by users, they make the content.

2.How To Grab Attention In The Social Media Sites?
When people participate in the social media, they act in interest groups, which is natural. In the internet business marketing this is called segmentation. If an internet business marketer wants to grab attention on the site, he has to stand out from the crowd. The requirement to be different is the same than in other mediums.

Social media sites are like open markets, where you as one participant build your own brand, your own expertise, which attracts some of the group of the same thinkers and a part of these interested people want to visit your website. In a way the question is about pre selling job, but never about advertising.

If the social media site has exactly the same content or idea than your internet business site has, then it can be a lead producer for your website directly or your website can even be able to sell the products to the visitors. In case of the leads, it gives your internet business site a great opportunity to approach them later with several emails or newsletters.
The competition in the social media sites requires that you need the AIDA process: attention, interest, desire and action. It is a process which needs planning, because the sites are full of personal messages. The most important thing is your promise: what is so useful in your offer?

The social media sites offer a great place to build your own brand, which is a multistep process. It is all about information, about influences and about feelings towards different actors. Social media marketing also involves the process of promoting and spreading ideas among targeted internet business audiences. Social media marketing can also be used as a calculated tactic to nurture feelings or goodwill towards a specific website or internet business.

Social media marketing is a strategic and methodical process to establish your influence, reputation and brand within communities of potential customers, readers or supporters.

Generating a buzz to get massive amounts of traffic to your website is best done using social media websites?

The easiest way to accomplish this is to leverage the clout of influencers within the social media community.

Influencers are people within a social network that are respected and liked by others in that community and are able to popularize discussions on topics of interst in that community.

Influencers stimulate the conversations, connect people to ideas and can capture the mindshare or opinion of an audience within a social sphere. All social media websites have a few select individuals who stand out for their activity within the community and their expertise has gained the trust and support of the social media users.

These are the people you are are looking for and the ones you want to influence.

There are so many social media sites and the points we make in this article can be applied to any of them. We’ll be studying how to develope your own strategy for targeting the influencers of these sites to engage  their social network with your content.

Let’s look at a social news site like Digg for example. Digg and other sites like it allow the audience to vote on the value of content with a simple thumbs up and thumbs down vote. By actively participating in the community you can develope a following and become and authority and with that comes influence.

Over time supporters will share your content with friends or add it to their websites and blogs. Social media users can be pitched just like a blogger or writer can be pitched with a simple introduction at first gradually building a relationship that’s mutually benefitial. The goal is to leverage their brand of influence by influencing them to promote your website content within their community.

The main steps are Targeting, Networking and then Pitching the influencer in question.

1.Targeting
Finding a social media influencer that shares your point of view about your content and is relevent to their website or sphere of influence is most important. Making your content in-line or coherent with the influencers interests makes it much easier to get them to promote or agree with your content.

Go to the public user ranking list of the social media site in question, in this case Digg, and visit each profile on the listed looking for who has influence and also who resonates with what you’re promoting. Get a feel for what interests them. You can also do a keyword search on the social media site looking for content based on your keywords and find the users that rank high within the site on those keywords. If they have consistently submitted content around those keywords they are likely to be open to suggestions of simular content. You can also do a URL search of your keywords to find people that may be open to more content of that type.

Using the site yourself will help you discover little details about the user you’re targeting that can help you reach them and develope rapport. For example, while top Digg user MrBabyMan submits a great amount of stories, most active Diggers are familiar with his avid interest in Cracked.com, a popular pop culture/men’s portal/magazine.

2. Networking
After you’re done targeting a specific social media website you need to contact them and develpoe a relationship. You can get in touch with them from their contact info in their user profile and join the site as a registered user. If contact info is not available Google them by their name and user name to see if you can find it elsewhere. Look for their blog or other profiles they may have listed on other sites.

Once you have their contact details initiate a conversation by just send them a note and thank them for their contributions. Trying to pitch to promote your content right away is very bad etiquette and annoying. You can stand out from the crowd of self-interested crowd by genuinely showing your appreciation for their contributions.

Take a genuine interest in them and engage them in a dialog of common interests and do so continuously until you have a good idea what material they would support and do favors for the user by giving them publicity or links to free resources and interesting content (not your own).

Real social media users are always interested in buzz-worthy news or opinions that can boost their own authority within the social media community. Your content or anything else you offer should not only meet the integrity of their personal brand, but it should improve it and the reputation of the user within the community.

Offer them free invites to unrelated websites, give away exclusive information on certain topics. Share some links to excellent websites. Do little favors without asking for anything in return at all. Give them a reason to be interested in you.

Networking is really just about making friends. It’s that simple. This will gradually lead you into the third and final stage: Pitching the influencer.

3.Pitching
So now that you’ve built a rapport with this person what next?

A. Ask Casually.
Do your pitching in a light hearted and casual manner and do not aggressively push the user to promote your content. This is a huge turnoff and you should understand that the user has a perfect right to refuse you.

B. Disclose Your affiliation.
I would recommend letting the user know that you are affiliated with the specific website, particularly if you plan to have a long working relationship with the user. He or she will appreciate your honesty and it will also make it easier for you to ask the second time round.

C. Space out your pitches.
The biggest mistake you can make is to ask the influencer to promote every single piece of content that comes out on your site. This is a major irritant so only offer the user your best work, while pitching your material only once per week or every two weeks.

Continue to keep aclose contact after they are promoting your site. Building a long-term relationship will have longterm results and targeted in-bound links to your website for years to come.

Good Luck!

Talk soon,

Frank Tocco–Marketing Mentor

The march of technology and the ingenuity of creative individuals never ceases to amaze me. I have always been very proud of the work I do on the internet for both me and my clients. Now a small Uruguayan film maker has been offered a $30m contract after uploading this short film to YouTube. This is the ultimate power of Social media.

Fede Alvarez’s short film “Ataque de Panico” (Panic Attack) featured giant robots invading and destroying Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. Director Sam Raimi will sponsor the film, Reimi also directed Spiderman and the Evil Dead Films.