Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

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.

So everyone wants to be on top in Google, but you don’t always get what you want now do you? Before things were so much more simple; you advertise, you give good service, you get customers. Now you need to compete with other companies via the Internet as well.

Being number one (that includes page 1 cause lets face it, there are just too many of us competing) in the search engines is critical as it can do wonders to businesses all over. I mean you don’t even need to rent a place anymore if you have a great seat on Google! But how do you get there?

There are so many things you can do from SEO - link building, submitting articles to different sites, to having landing pages with promotions. So what really helps? Right now, I’m going to talk about two hot topics, Google Page Rank and Social media index.

What are they and how do they help?

Google Page Rank is a bit on the confusing side as even Google has poor information on it. In the simplest of words, it’s a voting system, and an American voting system at that since some votes are more important than others. Google will take the link votes and determine which pages are more important based on them. Then the scores are used along with a lot of other factors to determine if the page will rank well in a search.

Google itself says, and I quote, ”PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.” Using these and other factors, Google provides its views on pages’ relative importance.”

Now what about Social Media Index? Well, normally we thought someone’s web influence was measured by how successful his or her blog is, and that was done by counting how many people subscribed or linked to it. Now that’s not credible as people use different social media tools to get out there. So how do the two work with each other? They don’t. The battle comes in the concepts of the two. Page Rank is supposed to be the ‘producer’ attracting the ‘consumer’ to their page. With Social Media invading every single computer, links are being passed on to friends and friends of friends and it’s no long a producer to consumer act, it’s getting all tangles up. The consumers are talking and listening to each other. So is Page Rank still really needed? With the consumers helping the consumers, the producers have less and less say than they did before. What do you think should happen now?

With social media being the new phenomenon online today it would be ludicrous for any internet marketer to ignore it when it comes to formulating a strategy for an internet marketing campaign. As with most marketing promotions your success or failure is usually determined by your approach. The most important part of a successful socialization plan when it comes to MySpace and Facebook, for example, is the content on your profile page.

Content drives traffic which drives sales when it comes to your Blog as well as your social media profile page. The richer and more varied the content the more people it will attract and the faster word will spread about your page and what it has to offer. Try to make it entertaining in terms of what’s available for visitors to interact with and adding a touch of humor helps because everyone likes to laugh.

For interactivity you could have your favorite music highlighted for them to click on and sample. You could add a music video or two as well as some comedy clips or maybe implement a joke of the day feature. One important factor not to ignore is your own personal story. The objective of these sites, after all, is to meet and get to know people, and most everyone likes reading or hearing about someone else’s life experience.

This doesn’t mean you have to reveal all of the sordid details but try to convey your likes and dislikes in your own style. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. People want to get to know the real you. Also try to make your profile informative. Everyone has an expertise in some area, so share this knowledge with your guests and before you know it you’ll have more online friends than you know what to do with.

If you keep giving people what they want they’ll keep coming back for more and the best way to do this is to write about what you know and what you are comfortable with. Pictures are also a great way to attract visitors. You can demonstrate some of your interests through photographs of some of your favorite activities. Pictures also add a more personal element to the page giving the viewer a better chance to get to know you and appreciate what you do.

If you’re an avid reader, for example, you could possibly start a book of the month feature where you discuss or critique a particular book you may be reading. You could ask visitors, who are also readers, to leave comments and maybe start a book of the month club. With any relationship, be it online or in your day-to-day life, the important thing is to maintain contact. On any of these social media websites this means visiting on a regular basis to let people know what’s happening in your life. It also means updating your profile page on a regular basis.

Any Internet Marketer who can follow these simple steps should enjoy great success in the new Web 2.0 or Social Media Market not only professionally but also personally, and always remember the old adage “Content is King.”

Where have YOU been?

Unless you have lived in a cave the last 4 years, you have probably heard of this. It is a rocking hot social networking site that seems to be almost everywhere today. It is on the news. It is on the radio. It is on the minds of millions of folks a day.

It is called “Facebook” and over 350 million people are active on this site.

Ok- I know that you may be asking,” A LAW about facebook?” Yes, 10 of them for marketing and business success in what you do. There are marketing laws that all marketers and business professionals must follow if they are going to have Success in the marketplace online.

It is the same for Facebook.

Lets cover them briefly:

1) The Law of Visibility on Facebook.

You MUST be visible on facebook of you are going to get your message out. You must spend time on facebook and get to know people. You must put yourself together a “facebook blueprint” and work it. How many hours a week are you going to be seen on FB? How many times are you going to befriend someone this week? How many times are you going to upload photos this week? All of these things put you in the ‘Visibility Zone” on facebook, and on the radar as far as people on facebook. Be SEEN and be THERE on a daily basis.

2) The Law of the Powerful Facebook Profile.

Why would people want to get to know you? One of the first things they check out is your facebook profile. What does it say- but better yet- what does it DO? Does it make people curious and want to get to know you? Does it make them think? Does it make them smile? Does it make them see that you have Value for their life and can help change it?

Powerful facebook profiles are NOT based on what is said in your profile- but what it DOES.

Does it direct them to DO something? Does it tell them you are person they MUST know? Or someone that has a nice picture and a nice profile- with no magnetism? Put yourself OUT THERE and tell the world WHY they need you as a friend, and get them to take action towards YOU.

3) The Law of the Facebook WALL.

You MUST use your Wall to market or message. many folks regard their Wall as a communication utility like email. It is not that. You already have a facebook email. The Wall is for you to BUILD- BRICK BY BRICK- MESSAGE BY MESSAGE- NOTE BY NOTE- VIDEO BY VIDEO- your Brand on Facebook. Every time something happens with you- it goes on your Wall. Don’t stare at the wall- CLIMB THE SUCKER and make your message the PEAK of the page- and keep yourself out there with the Wall. And answer the messages on your Wall. Thank people for sharing with you their visit or message. This will show up on THEIR wall. This will set you apart from most on facebook. The Wall is simply a BILLBOARD of what you are doing and your friends are doing on Facebook. Use it often and wisely.

4) The Law of Your Facebook Network.

You are part of a local facebook network and you have access to that network to befriend them. I live in Birmingham Michigan, and the network i am a part of is the Detroit network. There are 640,926 people in my network that I could potentially MEET LIVE in a local place and get to know them and connect with them. You have local folks as well. Where do you find your network?

Click on “settings” and then click on “network.” You will find it there. This is a GOLD MINE of people in your local area to CONNECT and Construct new trust bridges that may lead to business down the road.

5) The Law of the Facebook Notifications.

This is an overlooked and rarely talked about utility. Notifications are part of your “facebook email system.” Go to “email” at the top of your Facebook profile page, and then click on “notifications.”This is list of who is thinking about you, talking about you, including you in tags, and generally is pointing to you. This is a GOLD MINE of people that have PROVEN they are behind you and willing to make you a part of their Facebook experience. Pay attention to the facebook notifications. Thank them for their thoughts of you on their Wall and let them know you appreciate it. Include them as well on your tags and other activity on facebook. The notifications are GOLD and is a prospecting Vault of Leads. And make sure you stay CONNECTED to them.

6) The Law of Facebook Link Love.

The Link application on Facebook is a HOT commodity. It allows you to post a link that you like and then sends it out on the news feed that is on your home page. It picks up the image that you want on the link page, and allows it to be a LIVE link. Send out other people’s LINK and givem some LOVE. Do NOT just send out your own links. Let others do that. Find interesting links of others and send them out.

WHY? EXPOSURE for you. You will be given credit for the link. People LOVE link love. If you send out a LOT of other people’s links on facebook, they will start sending out YOUR links. Been there done that.

7) The Law of Facebook Groups.

Join groups. Join a LOT of Groups. Start your OWN groups. The join MORE groups. Why? Here are a few reasons: EXPOSURE. CONNECTION to other Group members. AUTHORITY. Start your own and be a Leader. INCREASE YOUR REACH.Groups extend your reach into Facebook. MULTIPLIED PROSPECTS. There are more people in a group — then on a profile page.

Duh. Build a list in your own group and then you can become an admin and email messages to them. Make them messages of VALUE and interest.

8 ) The Law of Facebook Events.

Attend events. Attend more Events. And then attend many MORE events. Why? It allows you to leave a message on the events page wall, and create exposure. I attend at least 2 facebook events every week- to learn- and to network. Events can be found on the new Facebook page in the upper right under “Upcoming”-these are the events that are upcoming. There is one unique twist: You have birthdays under the “upcoming” tag- and you can send presents to folks. THIS will get their attention as it shows up on their wall and the news feed as well. Attend as many events as you can. make them worth your while- learn and grow from them. BUT’always leave a RSVP message about attending or not- with an encouraging message. This will show your professionalism, and caring.

Event UP! This will do you well on facebook. Put the term “events” in the search box, and it will find every event that is going on in your network of friends. It is a GOLD MINE of new possibilties of business. Become a master of events!

9) The Law of Facebook Multimedia- Videos and Photos.

People LOVE photos and videos. They are the most looked at and watched pages on facebook. Make some videos and upload them. Upload some photographs. Not only will the be seen on your wall and the facebook news feed, but also will allow you to “tag” others on these. This means that you can pick out people you have befriended and let them know you are thinking of them. And when you tag someone- it shows up on THEIR wall. Not isn’t THAT cool? It is called EXPOSURE!

10) The Law of the Facebook NEWS FEED.

This is the big kahuna of Exposure on facebook. This gets you out to ALL of your friends and creates a massive exposure vehicle that can keep your brand in front and recognized. You also will be many times on the “featured” part of the new news feed on the right. This gives you HUGE exposure. Whatever you do, like change your status, upload a video, write and publish a note, or just comment on another person’s message on the facebook news feed- it SHOWS UP in the news Feed. Be seen- and be seen often if you are trying to brand yourself on facebook.

Yes, you need to establish relationships, and build community. But if you are going to MARKET on facebook-then you need to at least get a guideline of what and how to do it. The 10 Social Media Laws of Facebook hopefully gave you some idea in your social media marketing.

The use of social networking sites to connect people has become so widespread today.  But other than those who just want to communicate with friends, old and new, social media is also currently being taken advantage by business oriented people as a way to reach their target clients and improve their businesses.

People involved in small business have found a powerful marketing tool in these social networking sites.

Among the top social media used by business people today are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.  By using these sites, you are able to expose your business to more people, at both a local and international level.

Facebook
Facebook has become highly popular in recent years attracting millions of users from across the globe. This popularity has, in fact, led the site’s management to offer marketing platforms that encourage people to share their business endeavors and build communities as well. To use Facebook to your advantage, make sure to create an interesting personal profile page. Include photos and business information that will attract visitors and encourage them to read through your profile.

Update your information regularly so that existing and potential clients know what you’re up to. Discuss recent happenings regarding your business and interact with readers who post comments on your page. Be friendly at all times and don’t forget to create a “fans” page and invite clients to join.

Twitter
In just a few years, Twitter has attracted a steady following that is increasing rapidly as the “buzz” around Twitter spreads.  This is the power of social networking sites – they are viral. One advantage of Twitter over the others is that it lifts the lid on the activities and conversations of other people. What we are seeing today is news being reported on Twitter before the media even has a chance to tell us.

For business people who want to maximize the vast communication potential of this social networking site, it is best to be consistent when tweeting (telling people what you are doing). This means not only providing information to your followers about what you are up to with your business, but also adding value.  You need to share tools, tips and strategies and make your updates interesting and engaging.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is an ideal site for entrepreneurs because it gives you the opportunity to grow your business using less of your own money.  How?  LinkedIn is used by many professionals to search for potential employees and also as a means to expand their business contacts. Providing a detailed profile (business information and photos) is the best way to expand your network of contacts through LinkedIn.

You can include a link to your website or blog for those people looking to access more information about you and your business. Interaction is key and you can do this by answering questions that provide valuable and interesting information.

YouTube
YouTube is a phenomenal success in terms of video sharing on the internet. This social networking site has become the Number 2 search engine, behind Google. If you have not tried live video streaming as a marketing tool for your business yet, it is time to jump in front of the camera.  Videos are very powerful tools in drawing online traffic.

Create a short but clear video featuring yourself talking about your business and how you started out.  Tell them about your journey, provide them with success stories and share your passion about your business. Create several short videos (perhaps video seminars you conduct, presentations you make, or other business projects) and upload them on YouTube.  Make sure that you post your videos in the category relevant to your business to draw the right target audience.

In using social media to market and improve your business, building trust with your audience is essential. You can only do this by being honest and providing consistently interesting, useful and valuable information. What matters most is that you share your experiences and knowledge.  Doing so can influence people’s lives and encourage them to take action.

To those of us who use social networks frequently, or are familiar with the way the social web works, this post will seem self-evident.
However, in conversations with a couple clients and individuals lately who are unfamiliar with social media marketing, this question has consistently cropped up.

The main problem people have is reconciling making friends with possible ROI. What you need to know is that by adding friends or accepting friend requests, you are taking one more step to building your authority and visibility in your industry, which WILL lead to ROI (in the form of traffic, sales conversions or whatever your goal) as people recognize you as a leader in your field and choose you over possible competitors for services and products they need.

Here are 5 general, point-by-point reasons friends matter on social networks:

1. Relationship building.
The whole reason social networking is successful is because its very foundation is built on creating and maintaining relationships with people. Start conversations, introduce yourself, do everything you can to put yourself out there and meet as many people as possible. If you like the person or company you’ve built a relationship with, you’ll probably recommend them to your friends, and vice versa. If you make friends with someone in a related industry, you’ll benefit from recommending their services to your clients, and they’ll benefit from recommending you to theirs (e.g. a web designer recommends a social media marketer they like, a Realtor recommends a mortgage provider they know is honest and effective, and vice versa).

2. Referrals and recommendations.
You matter to me, and I matter to you, because if I like that really cool video you sent me, I’ll visit the site its from to look for more.
If I digg that awesome article and send it to my friends, or they see I dugg it, they might check it out too. If I get an awesome deal on this website’s service, I’m going to send you there. Or if I hear from you about it, I’m going to go there. If I find a fan page for a product I love, I might stop by, create a profile, and add myself as a fan, then tell all my friends about it. You do the calculations.

3. Access to more user info.
Many sites hide people’s profiles until you add them as a friend. Thus, adding someone as a friend is a good way to communicate with them in a more personal setting.

4. UGC, or User-Generated Content.
The more friends you have and interact with, the more content is produced on your site or page, and the more visible it becomes.
If you have a ton of people talking on your Facebook fan page, for example, all that content is adding to your area’s ability to be ranked on the search engines AND attract more users.

5. A large social community.
The more people you add as friends and the more you get to know them, and they you, the more popular you or your social networking profile becomes. Soon, you have a large community of supporters that further reinforces your authority and leader status in your industry.

What better way to brand your company and communicate a specific message to a mass of people?

These days there are those who would argue you would have to be living under the proverbial rock to not have at least heard of social media. Even those out there who arent even slightly internet savvy have heard of Facebook or MySpace. Social media are the tools that are utilised by just such sites, and there is an increasing number of businesses out there that are developing a presence in this field as well.

With a tool such as Facebook there are businesses out there that are developing enormous followings, and this is an advantageous step to take. If you have everything in good working order, and you are well connected with your customers, then social media gives you an opportunity to feel updates directly to your customers own pages. This makes it one of the easiest possible ways to keep your customers or potential customers up to date with everything you are doing, all from the one place and simultaneously. Even email cant boast being quite so streamlined!

Another popular new social media tool that has taken off in a big way, is Twitter. This is toll that sends out short messages, around 140 characters max. To those linked into receive your updates. As with Facebook this is a direct line of communication with your customers, and if you are clever with how you use these short and sharp tweets you can get your message across to your customers in a witty and succinct format. There is also the possibility for those interested to have this linked into their mobile phones, receiving your twitters as text messages. For the originator of the tweet, it is possible to link your tweets into your web page or blog via an RSS feed.

This brings us to the other social media platform that has shown phenomenal expansion over the last little while, blogging. Few of us arent familiar with blogging these days, so the question that many are asking is how it is of benefit to a business. Well as with Facebook or Twitter this is a great format that allows direct communication with customers.

Creating a business blog however, allows you to go much further than this. For starters a blog is not limited to 140 characters! That said, a blog provides you with the opportunity to show your expertise in your area of business. You can communicate new ideas and developments to your customers and communicate with them via the blog space. Customers have the opportunity to leave comments and this allows you to develop better understanding of their particular needs.

These are only a few of the social media opportunities that are available, there is a number of others that are also worthwhile exploring if you are serious about using this format to grow your business. If you are ready to start linking in with customer and expanding and developing your direct communications, then these options are worth taking the time to explore. As marketing tools go these are some of the cheapest and easiest forms of direct communication tools around. Investigate which options to pursue, and consider the fairly small outlay for getting these up and running. Especially these tools may hold great appeal for the small business owner with the bottom line to consider.

The Social Media News Release is a template available for the sole purpose of incorporating social media and multimedia into press releases. And while it may sound like an absolutely ingenious idea, it probably is not the best use of time and money for your business. Here are 6 reasons why using a SMNR may be one of the biggest mistakes you are making.

1. People Do not Read Them. Let s face it, this is not the best way to get your information out to the general public. The number of people who actually view releases on news release websites is quite small. There are better ways to reach your potential customers that are not nearly as expensive or time-consuming.

2. They are Expensive. The optimal use of an SMNR is to send a Social Media News Release with Multimedia, and It is expensive. Even a limited distribution will cost you hundreds of dollars at minimum. Compare this to the cost of writing a blog, which will also allow you to include images and video. The blog is far cheaper and gives you a much higher return on your investment.

3. There is No Critical Mass. One of the most important aspects of marketing with social media is that you can gather a huge number of like-minded or like-interested people in the same place. If you use an SMNR to send your information out to 500 websites, you may only get one or two comments on each website. If that is the case then your interested parties are not talking to each other, which defeats the purpose of social media marketing. Not to mention the time and tedium involved in responding to comments on each of the 500 websites to which your release was sent. Consider instead how you might get those 500 commenters to have a conversation with each other.

4. They Do not Help Your SEO. The whole point of news releases in general is to get inbound links to your site. And while SMNRs contain links, those links are not optimized and generally link to resources other than your website. Use the online Press Release Grader to see how your SMNR release stands up. You will most likely find that you have too many links, and that diminishes the effectiveness of your release greatly.

5. They Do not Help You Reach Your Goals. The whole point of marketing your business is to get people to come to your website and get them to buy your products. So why would you spend money to put your information on another website? We have already noted that SMNRs generally do not result in optimal links to your site, so there is really no sense in using them for that purpose.

6. They Do not Allow You to Use Your Own Mutlimedia Accounts. Did you know that if you want to include a video in your SMNR then you have to upload that video to the news release service s YouTube account? That is right! Never mind that you have already uploaded the video to your own account; now you have to upload it to theirs as well. This means that your video is sitting in an account with thousands of other videos that are not at all related to your product or service. So if a potential customer actually finds your videos and wants to see more from your business, he has to search a lot harder than if all of your videos were lumped together in your account.

Another problem is similar to the one we mentioned in #3. The comments left on the new release service s account are separate from the ones left on your account, so your commenters do not have the opportunity to interact with one another. And you have to visit your video in both places to respond to all of the comments.

You are much better off simply creating your own release, without images or video, and sending it over the wire, specially if you do not have the know-how to optimize them. Save the really cool release for your own website where you have control over what happens to it. You will save time and money, and the results will be greatly beneficial.

The whole notion of Andy Warhol’s statement that everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes seems to be true in the 21st century. It plays out everyday on reality television shows as well as talk television, shows featuring judges and of course a variety of news magazine programs.

This obsession with popularity has expanded to the Internet. Today social media can offer the potential of fame in a new arena. You can sign up for multiple social media sites like Facebook and MySpace and then compliment the attention you might be receiving by adding Twitter. This last resource allows you to keep your adoring masses up to date with everything you feel like sharing.

• “I’m going to the grocery store…”
• “I’m going in to ask for a raise…”
• “Just kidding…”
• “I’m going to buy my kids new shoes…”
• “It’s 12 degrees and I forgot my gloves…”

For whatever reason it seems that there are those who are interested in following your daily moves. That may sound like a perfect breeding ground for a stalker, but then again you can limit who can actually read your Twitter. You can also limit who can read your social media page. You don’t have to accept every friend invitation that comes along.

These social media sites have an incredible volume of online traffic and an impressive list of new signups on a daily basis. New applications are being designed all the time for these sites and users are addicted to the way these sites allow them to keep in contact with people they may have once known as well as new friends.

Social media can be a great place for Pay Per Click advertising. The blog or comment posts can result in the discovery of motivated buyers.

Yes, it’s true that there may be spammers who will ask you to be their friend and then load up your comment box with marketing links you don’t want, but the best way to deal with that is to simply remove them as friends and then delete their posts. Then, I suppose, you could become a bit more discriminating in whom you accept as friends.

People enjoy using these sites because they are free. They are only free because they are supported by advertising. Without the advertising there would be no way for the service to remain free of charge.

As long as there are people who want to connect with friends around the globe there will remain a place for social media. There will also be a sense of being important because we have friends who comment or post on our wall. We return the favor and new friends find us. We develop a highly personalized community where we get to choose who will be accepted. It may be the ultimate form of discrimination, but it creates the sense of safety we may need when engaging other ‘friends’ about our day or the things we are looking to accomplish.

Advertising will join us on the journey allowing our star status to remain strong, and our fifteen minutes of fame to be renewed on a daily basis.

If you have decided to jump on the bandwagon and join thousand of people using social marketing as a tool to grow their business, then you are on the right track. Social marketing has proven to be effective and sustainable in influencing the target market to buy your products and services. One of the most utilized strategies is by tapping on social marketing sites that are popping up everywhere. Of course it is necessary to choose only those that are reliable and good for your ecommerce business. Among the most popular social marketing sites today are:

Flickr:
It is perhaps the best online photo sharing site in the world. It allows you to showcase photos to friends, family and even to those you do not know. Launched 5 years ago, it now has more than 3 billion photos stored. It is a great site to promote your business. There is also PhotoBucket

YouTube:
This video social marketing site works wonders for any business. With YouTube, we can share videos for everyone to see. By uploading some videos, you will have people comment and share ideas on your page, which is a great way to understand your target market.

Twitter:
Twitter is a site which enables  Micro Blogging of 140. It has become one of the most popular ways to communicate  with the outside world, whether that be personal of business. There are something like 8 Million Tweets every day. Twitter can be easily used for business and it is a simple process to get an account up and running.

Others to note

• Metacafe: It is the number 2 site for video social marketing. You can upload and share videos about your products and services so people will know who you are and what you have to offer.

• Digg: In this website, you will find everything you need- from articles, blogs, insights, etc. If you like to improve your marketing and sales, then you need to get started with Digg. This is especially helpful for those who are new to social marketing.

• MySpace: With the music and video now part of its package, MySpace has definitely become one of the top social marketing sites in the world. It has high exposure to most countries in the West and East. Asia is also quite into MySpace too. With so many people joining MySpace, it will be easier to find your target market here.

Social media sites are indeed very helpful in getting you on track with your business goals. In so many ways, they allow you to stay connected to your target customers through photo and video sharing, blogging, commenting, and many more. The important thing with social marketing is you need to be able to keep up with the demand. People feed you with information- they tell you what they want and what they do not want, and in return, they expect you to be able to address their concerns. As a good social marketer, you have to be ready for any challenges that come your way when you use these social marketing tools.

As any good social marketer knows, being prepared for anything is vital to the success of your business. If you can do this, if you can apply the techniques involved in the social marketing process, then go ahead and tell the whole world about your business. You will find that it is probably one of the best things you have ever done.