Having the best computer systems or the new how to book
that will revolutionize some industry or an awesome recipe
that makes spam into a tasty treat is just not enough to
entice internet shoppers to purchase your product anymore.

With all of the research tools such as the amazons, and
google search enabled, price comparing websites, shoppers
are only going to become returning loyal shoppers when they
feel that they know you and can trust you and that you
offer some distinct content that they can identify with.

Net savvy consumers are not going to trust strangers with
their money anymore regardless how good a product or
service might actually be.

Social networking sites are seeing strong growth and have
developed a unique online presence that is continually
refreshed by user generated content, and this promotes
ongoing consumer interest and visitor loyalty.

So where are the visitors that you want and need at your
web- site gathering and more importantly, returning and
staying?

According to Nielsen//NetRatings,

MySpace.com heads the list with with 38.4 million unique
visitors and a year over year growth rate of 367 percent.
Blogger takes the Next position at number 2, garnering 18.5
million unique visitors and growing 80 percent year over
year, followed by Classmates Online with 12.9 million
unique visitors and a 10 percent year-over-year increase.
Rounding out the top five social networks is the New on the
scene “YouTube” and the old guard and standby “MSN Groups”
with 12.5 million and 10.6 million unique visitors,
respectively.

Although it’s not certain yet how strong these social sites
will become given the youthful nature of most of their
clientele, it is certain that they will not be going
anywhere soon.

Those youthful members of such online communities Buy, and
when they do, they also tell their friends, “a lot of
friends” about that cool new widget that they just bought
from a great website that they found from their network.

Repeat visitors are up to 8 times more likely to make a
purchase than a new visitor according to a study by ” study
by WebSideStory”.

The normal conversion rate of between 1.5% and 3% for new
visitors has never been much to get excited about, but with
an estimated 45% of all internet users spending more and
more of their time at MySpace, MSN Groups, and elsewhere,
website trade is also growing at a tremendous pace with up
to 23% conversion rates not uncommon.

In my book, those figures are enough to convince this old
grand-paw that it’s time to pay attention to the youth of
our society and to follow their lead.

Have you hugged your teenager today?

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

These people are also afraid of public speaking. One instance would be a homework assignment in school that would require you to read in front of the class. One with social anxiety disorder might opt to fail to finish the homework assignment and take the bad grade rather than facing their fear of speaking in public.

The diagnosis for this particular disorder is a little complicated, as you might have imagined by now. First of all you will need to go do a physician for a screening. You will have to take several tests to see where you stand. If any of the answers you give point to a possibility of having SAD, then you will need to have a full clinical exam to determine whether or not you actually have the disorder. If it turns out that you do, you should have experienced the following symptoms at some point:

These symptoms will generally occur when you are faced with a situation in which you are the center of attention:

trembling
dry mouth
disorientation
shaking
sweating
shortness of breath
tension

It’s pretty obvious how this would affect everyday life, and as such it’s something you’ll want to get taken care of as soon as possible! So what do you do if you find that you’re suffering from SAD? The best thing is to seek some type of treatment.

The treatment of this condition can range from medication, to different types of social training. For those who aren’t into medication, one good type of social training is to be immersed into a situation that you would be otherwise uncomfortable with. Being forced to do something that you wouldn’t normally do will generally show you that it’s okay.

Though if you have a severe case, a therapist might start with having you do imagined scenarios where you would think out how you would react in a certain social situation. It’s a long process, but it can be done if you stick with it.

Remember that you don’t have to go through this alone. You have the option of confiding in friends and family members, and there are even communities of people online who are going through the same thing that you are. You are not alone, you never have to be alone. Find friends, find loved ones, and talk to them, they’ll understand.

In order to live with and face this disease in your every day life, you’re going to have to do a few things. First of all you’re going to need to accept that you have a problem. Learn to control your fear instead of allowing it to control you. Everyone is a little nervous in public, remember that. Also remember that no one has any predetermined conclusions about you! You have the chance to make any impression you want, so do it!

You can live with this disorder, you can get help! Don’t let it rule your life, your career, or your relationships. Find a way to make it through, you can do it.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Time magazine’s May 25, 2009 cover story, “The Way We’ll Work” describes the parameters of the new economy as “a more flexible, more freelance, more collaborative and far less secure work world.” Among the values and abilities for navigating within it the article cites striking a balance between “doing well and doing good,” an more independent-minded approach to career advancement to replace the “corporate ladder” that often rewarded allegiance to the company over integrity, collaborating with co-workers with increasing diversity – including older people working long past conventional retirement age alongside and taking direction from Gen X – and environmental sustainability. Here is another way to see the challenges of this paradigm shift: we can create a future in which making a living is intimately bound up with making a life.

We all have the tendency to want to do things the way we have always done them and a return to routine a great comfort after a destabilizing change. But the shift to a Network Economy has already begun. Things are not going back to what they were, so we are better off using the uncertainty to upgrade our relationship skills and invest in a range of social relationships that draw upon different strengths and expose us to diverse people and situations.

Start with self-knowledge. C. Robert Cloninger, a researcher at the Center for Well-Being at Washington University at St. Louis published studies showing that well-being goes up, and symptoms of depression and other emotional disorders are diminished for individuals who work to develop what he terms “mental self-government,” i.e., becoming more internally directed than externally controlled, more cooperative and compassionate than competitive, more intuitive and thoughtful as a balance to rigid, structured thinking. A positive mental state is defined by some social psychology researchers as “a constructive and mature way of thinking that is hopeful and nonviolent.” People with greater self-awareness have a higher proportion of positive thoughts on a regular basis and demonstrate increased activity in the cerebral cortex, the most recently evolved portion of the brain. This tells us that positive thoughts and emotions are essential to proper brain functioning as well as well-being, And that a constructive, creative approach to problems can lead to a sustainable and enduring share of good feelings.

Here are some ideas for expanding self-awareness that also expand social networks for personal and professional advancement:

Make a list of your established strengths and accomplishments. Be specific. Write down positive comments others have made about these, in letters, conversations, or performance reviews.

Make a list of undeveloped potential and unused abilities. Next to each of these, list actions to take that will tap those potentials. Research organizations, websites, conferences, or classes that offer opportunities to attend training, observe others already involved in these areas, and talk to people.

Take stock of all the people already in your life and the contributions they make to your well-being as well as what you do for them. Write down their names and list the gifts they have already given you. Write down all the roles you take in relating to them and the special skills you use in that relationship. If there are few relationships of this kind on your list, figure out why and change it.

Feel uncomfortable meeting new people? Get busy doing something important. The discomfort will be there, but with a higher purpose.

Volunteer for a not-for-profit organization.

Join local community organizations and sign up for committees.

Journaling, meditation, and creative experiences are excellent methods for increasing self-awareness and self-discipline, but have the added value of getting past the defenses we all constructed in school when we became fearful of making mistakes of appearing foolish. Creative, intuitive ideas flow when we develop a habit of self-reflection that produces a sense of psychological safety. Those ideas show us our most deeply-held passions and vision, and in the network economy it is people who have the combination of mental clarity, self-awareness, and the capacity to be self-initiating who will benefit most from emerging possibilities.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

With the advent of the internet, blogs and social networking sites, more and more people are moving away from the traditional avenues of information. The ink and paper broadsheets have found themselves in conflict with a medium that provides interactivity, customization and promptness, things that are difficult to compete with when you are limited because of being printed on paper. Of course this doesn’t mean that these old newshounds are going down without a fight.

At this moment papers like the LA Times, the Washington Post and other periodicals are in a mad scramble to find ways to use the online social networking phenomenon to their advantage. Here are the Top 7 Tactics the grand old news names are using to survive in the digital information age:

1. Sourcing the “Network” – Time and again there are tales of bloggers scooping big stories from the major networks and papers. This is often due to the massive amount of diverse information you can get on the Social Networks, whether it be from Twitter, the various RSS feeds or the numerous Facebook and Friendster type sites. Of course that diversity is also its drawback.

With so much data a blogger would need to be very careful about his sources since what might be a big story may turn out to be a potential libel case, with the blogger as defendant. And that’s where the newspapers have an advantage as they employ people who can discriminate fact from fiction. A smart reporter can get leads, develop contacts and keep the newsroom up-to-date, even while at his desk.

2. Tweet the Story – Adding a Twitter extension to uploaded content can generate a lot of traffic to online components. These topics get seeded onto the online sphere and can be commented on, analyzed as well as referenced by audiences that have a deep interest in those stories. It enables the big papers to gain some insight on what people want to know about.

3. Forging Communities – An extreme extension of “tweeting” your news is buying up your own community. There is an effort by the major publishers to purchase or partner with existing social networks and social media services to create platforms for their news content. With the advantage of capturing and working with established audiences and people, it will be easy to exponentially spread your message throughout the “Twitter web”.

4. Story Sites – Customizing Social Networks to specific themes and topics is part and parcel of the networking phenomenon. So it’s quite natural that news sites create social networks or mini networks that focus on a specific type of story. From crime to politics to entertainment, the papers have a whole bunch of possibilities to offer the info / comment / discussion hungry masses.

5. E-News, I-Report, My News, etc. – Interactive news is the wave of the future. Giving readers the ability to post their own story ideas, cover their own news, ask questions of today’s luminaries and at least providing the function for customizing news interests are features no 21st Century periodical can do without.

6. Online Promotions- The traditional advertising gimmick is still a viable option for attracting traffic. As always it should be tailored to the audience in mind. In this case it’s the online generation who expect a multimedia extravaganza when something is promoted. Whether it’s a new book or some ongoing event, there has to be something cool to do or see.

7. Going Digital – There are periodicals that have shuttered their brick & mortar incarnations and went completely online. They have realized that their market is changing and to survive some sacred cows have to be sacrificed. This is because news, like many things in life, is dynamic. It was once considered the height of technology to have a guy ring a large bell and scream his lungs out as he told his neighbors what was up.

We have all evolved since then and the manner of disseminating information has evolved as well. Seen from this angle, the digital information age is another step in refining how we can keep informed

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

In the present scenario, almost every keen company has incorporated the section of social media optimization in its structure. It is a method that can be best defined as practical, quick and most organic solution available in the arena of advertising. Moreover, this process includes various fruitful techniques used to promote your service through social interactive media, online communities and many other community websites. There are many other important aspects of advertising such as promotion of bookmarks and related links; all these associated issues of promotion are also covered under the heading of social media optimization. A set of favorable measures united with the concept of SMO offers a substantial document formulation and as a convenient way to disburse the information.

The main reason behind the unpopularity of any service, brand or product is its inefficient market strategy. Moreover, if an owner uses poor or old set of advertising tools, then his reputation in the market also gets affected. Hence, in order to handle such situations, it is important for the owner to come up decent solution of good social media optimization, so that the company can generate valid responses. The entire procedure offers a lucrative opportunity of deciphering qualitative information about a particular product and also pave a route to call forth a level of interest for a relatively a less popular product or service. Presently, many market experts are conducting researches and studies to introduce more efficient attributes and rules, so that the customers can have a more developed set of services for their promotion affairs.

Social media optimization is an intelligent concept that is used to promote any product, service or brand in the most appropriate manner, where professional sense of marketing, is applied. Nowadays, this method is counted in some of the most frequently used techniques of publicizing your current commercial or any other important feature. The benefits of advertising your services and products with SMO are countless. First of all, one can easily save himself from the expense of heavy recruitment of workforce that is usually employed for keeping a track and manipulating as how many people are watching your commercial. SMO is definitely a smart, modern technique that has been designed to match the pace modernization and advancement. So if you are also in search of a better way of publicity, then do it with social media optimization.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Rather than concentrating too much in propagating your links on the Web or filling up your site with keywords to make it search engine compatible, you might want to look into the possibility of using social networking sites on the Internet to be successful in this project.

Why Social Networking?

If you want to increase your popularity on the Web, then you need to let the online masses know of your presence on the Internet. Since your aim is to let every single one of these individuals know about your site, you might want to directly communicate with them to achieve this objective.

Social networking is one of the services being offered on the Net that will let you do just that. You can join an online community composed of millions of members that you can directly interact with without looking up their email address to send them your best regards.

These sites require no extra cost on your end to join. You can use search engines to look for assorted social networking sites that you can use to increase your online reputation. Once registered, fill up your personal profile and give your own page a whole new look to make it interesting to the rest of the community.

Increase Your Contacts On The Web

One benefit of this service is the ability to add people to your contact list to increase your network. You can look them up one-by-one by using the search function found in the site for members who have the same interest, or business, as you.

You can add them to your group to increase your reputation, since the contacts of those you added can also access your site when they see your name on their contact’s list. The more people you add to your profile, the bigger your online coverage would be.

Come Up With An Interesting Profile

Since other members in the community can also add you in the same manner, you need to ensure that your own profile is interesting enough to catch their attention.

Come up with a design that best reflects your personality and site content. You can integrate audio and video streaming functions directly onto your page to attract more people to your little cubbyhole on the Internet.

You might want to set up a complete profile so that other people will be able to determine whether you are worthy enough to be on their list or not. In most cases, people in social networking communities will invite other members that coincide with their own personal interests into the group.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

1) Build your online profile with the intention of using it for work. If you build a page at LinkedIn or other sites, make sure it is professional enough to be used as a resume. Once you have loaded your job history, become friends with former colleagues and get recommended for previous work. If you are straight out of college, have a profile anyway as it makes you look serious about getting work. If you have a blog or a separate website, make sure it is professional. Google yourself and see what comes up. You can direct potential employers to this information in your paper resume if necessary.

2) Keep your professional social networking separate from your personal. Profiles have public and private settings. Sites like Facebook may be for your friends and other sites might be your professional look, but both come up on search engines. Make sure you separate the two as professionalism still counts online.

3) Get friendly with recruiters. Many recruitment firms now have profiles on social networking sites like LinkedIn. Find recruitment agencies in your area of expertise and become friends with them. You can say that you are looking for work, and the recruiters will often post on the site with jobs.

4) Use job blogs and networks to improve your resume and skills. There is so much information online that you can use to improve your chances to get a job. Check out sites that help you improve your resume or interview skills, or those that recommend new job search sites.

5) Keep an eye on company blogs or press releases. Smaller, more tech savvy companies are using online press releases, blogs or their own social networks for recruitment. If people have joined their RSS feed, or signed up for their newsletter, that person is likely to have an interest in their services and may be looking for work. So become a joiner for those companies/groups you are interested in working for, and keep an eye out for work opportunities. If you become an active part of these communities, you could even ask the group if there are jobs available.

6) Work remotely. With fuel prices rocketing, if you can work from home as a freelancer, you have the chance to work for anyone in the world. Elance.com is a site that connects people looking for work to be done, and those who can perform it. People submit projects, and then companies/individuals submit bids on the project. Payment is through the site by credit card, Paypal or their escrow service. Providers are rated and you can discuss projects on private message boards. If you have skills that can be used remotely, this is a great place to start. Although it is not a social networking site, you can use your other networking profiles to direct people to your elance provider profile which shows your availability.

7) Use Second Life. In May, the first virtual job fair was held on Second Life with big companies like Microsoft and Sodexho recruiting and avatars attending for discussions with recruiters. You can also drop into one of the virtual company headquarters and drop off your resume in Second Life. Virtual interviews are followed up on the phone or in person, so it might be an option for the tech-savvy person who can use their avatar professionally.

Use sites to find people to approach in the real world. If you want to approach a specific company, but don’t know how to stand out from the pack of resumes, make sure you direct yours to the right person. Use social networks and blogs to find out who the best person to approach is, and then send them your resume directly. Many companies have this information online, and you will be able to find out more personal information from social networks.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

If you’re trying to promote your music well enough to hit the mainstream, you can effectively use social networking websites to promote your music effectively and reach out to a wide audience. Different social networking sites exist out there and some of these websites include sites like MySpace, Facebook, hi5 and MyIndie and a host of others. Some other websites that may help you make money from your efforts are the revenue sharing websites that make you money and spread the word at the same time as well.

Websites like MySpace aren’t for indie artists these days, so getting the word out to a nice market of people who are potentially interested in whatever you have to offer won’t be an easy task. You have to compete with a whole lot of other influences competing for user attention and a huge portion of people surfing through MySpace are among the idle lot just there for the fun of it. In order to succeed you need social community markets which offer a focused user group: communities whose interest is about indie music, music in general or any topic strictly related to whatever music it is that you have on offer.

MyIndie.com is one such website where you have a social community whose members are focused on what members of the independent community have to offer. People who sign up to join MyIndie.com are looking for something related to music, film or art that comes from within the independent community. The social community also plays host to other people who can promote your music career such as producers and other musicians. You can also get information on sources of income and people who are ready to buy into your talent.

The reason why social community websites are so effective in promoting music is quite simple and can be linked to the word of mouth effect. Word of mouth comes at no cost to you at all and if you have the benefit of a lot of users of this community ready to spread the word faster than you can copy and paste an Internet link. Not only is spreading information about your music free, you also get to give your people a chance to listen to some of your music too.

These social networking sites are one of the fastest means of spreading the news through the Internet. Independent artists will love the reach that these websites offer and the fact that these websites are also free to join as well. The niche market that websites like MyIndie.com have to offer can provide the edge you need to cross some hurdles in your marketing efforts and these methods are even much more efficient than some paid campaign efforts.

Other than the cost-effectiveness of these websites, you have the fact that these websites also help you drive traffic to your primary website. If you have any material to offer for sale on your main websites then by participating in websites like MyIndie.com you can easily boost your marketing efforts very effectively. You may choose to sell things like tickets to your shows, CD’s, Downloads or anything else that you can think of just as long as it brings in the revenue.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Create Attention-Grabbing Headlines

Crafting the headline is crucial in drawing web traffic. However, if you want to keep that attention always, create a meaningful description. The description must be slightly stimulating since this draws more attention but still, never use lies and false facts to provoke interest. For instance, if your write “This article will reveal to you the 10 sure ways to deal with stress once and forever and live a relaxing life from now on.”, visitors will hardly think that your story is true and facts-based.

A simple example of this would be:

Original headline : The Two Types of Cognition

Improved Headline : Learn to Understand Your Own Intelligence

Craft Interesting First Paragraphs

You could also might be lured to using long tell-it-all paragraphs to describe your masterpiece; however bear in mind that many users will not bother reading anything over 100-150 characters.

Maintain Good Content

However, the first paragraph is not key to everything. Going further along the chain of attracting, as well as retaining the users’ attention, is key to top-level content. If your articles are just trash or plain bland, then bookmarking them would be useless. You might get away with it and cheat users once, but don’t count on them coming back for repetitive visits. To make things worse, you can get your site banned from social bookmarking sites, when you persistently post useless trash.

Make Full Use of RSS Feeds And Newsletters

RSS feeds, newsletter subscriptions, affiliate marketing are all forums wherein the traffic from social bookmarking sites could be of great help. A lot of people who come to your site and like it, will subscribe to RSS feeds and/or your newsletter.

Don’t Rehash Old News

Submitting old news will not help you in becoming a respected user. Yesterday’s news is history. However, if you still need to re-submit old stuff, consider placing feature articles, howtos and similar pieces that would remain up-to-date for quite some time.

Despite the differences in the likes of the different social bookmarking forums and communities, there are striking similarities. You will soon discover that if a post is well-liked inn one of the major sites, this generally drives it up on the other major and smaller sites. An example would be that usually it is posts on site like Digg that become popular on StumbleUpon or Reddit; however there are many other examples. To use this fact to your best advantage, you may want to concentrate your efforts on getting to the front page of the major players only, and take chances on the snowball effect to drive you to the top on other sites.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

It’s gotten mighty hard to nail down just exactly what people mean these days when they speak of corporate social responsibility.

Does it mean extracting sea turtles out of fishing nets or not eating monoculture salmon? Does it mean not out-sourcing jobs to cheaper foreign lands even if it raises the standard of living in those places? What if the outsourced jobs go to foreign union members? Is it better to build a new LEED certified building or to make due with the old building that’s sturdy if not entirely energy efficient? Is it more socially responsible for a company to donate to an AIDS orphan cause in Africa than to a ballet company in Africa? What if the ballet company employs AIDS victims?

I’m not an ethicist and some of these questions are ethical questions. But for the rest of us how are we supposed to navigate the thicket of sometimes competing and oftentimes perplexing conundrums framed as issues of corporate social responsibility?

This was all so much easier when “the business of America [was still] business,” to paraphrase the famously-taciturn former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge.

I am, however, a marketer. And in marketing one way to know where you stand with stakeholders who are important to you is to ask them. It won’t necessarily yield perfect moral clarity, but it can suggest pathways.

Fleishman-Hillard, a public relations firm and division of Omnicom, in conjunction with the National Consumers League has now conducted three studies on the subject of corporate social responsibility; in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

I read the executive summary for the 2007 study and if you can get past the laughably inaccurate renderings of the bar charts and the occasional editorializing in the summary… which has been no small hurdle for me… there may be something here for cause marketers.

What does “corporate social responsibility” mean? Fleishman-Hillard asked consumers just that as an open-ended, unprompted question. A truncated list of responses from the 2007 survey released in May included the following:

Commitment to communities—23 percent
Commitment to employees—17 percent
Responsibility to the environment—11 percent
Provide quality products—10 percent
More charitable donations—1 percent
Don’t know—9 percent

What contributions do consumers expect from companies? Again, the truncated list included:

Non-financial contributions—29 percent
No expectations—13 percent
Treating employees well—11 percent
Fixing problems created by company—11 percent
Doing a good job—11 percent
Environmentally-friendly practices—10 percent
Financial contributions—10 percent

What to make of these low numbers when it comes to corporate charitable donations? The authors of the study’s executive summary surmise that:

“…the consistent findings across both the 2006 and 2007 CSR surveys, when it comes to defining the meaning and expectations surrounding CSR, suggest that companies’ charitable and philanthropic giving is no longer enough to impress consumers. Perhaps it is now viewed as a standard expectation that consumers have — a bare minimum requirement — to even be considered as a socially responsible company.”

They’re suggesting that there’s a kind of market price for corporate social responsibility and that consumers have already factored into that price corporate generosity to charity.

According to the Fleishman-Hillard study, what is likely to move the needle for consumers when it comes to corporate social responsibility? As it turns out, it’s self interest.

When asked what is most important to consumers with regard to corporate social responsibility the top vote getter with 29 percent was ‘treats/pays employee well.’ If England is a nation of shopkeepers then the U.S. is a nation of employees. And the survey’s respondees are internalizing the question and answering it as employees.

And yet, unemployment is 4.5 percent right now in the United States… quite low… which has driven real wages up. So while the newspaper headlines here are filled with stories of jobs being exported to India and China, the fact is that the American worker is in pretty good shape overall; the glass is half-full. But the perception is that the American worker is endangered… that the glass is half-empty. The Fleishman-Hillard study bears that out.

Changing that perception is in no small way a public relations challenge.

Call Fleishman-Hillard. I’m sure they’d be glad to help

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

You want to venture into participating into these social media outlets and networks in order to help you reach marketing and communication goals. Having a profile that people can identify easily with your company can also help you achieve your branding goals. It may sound easy-breezy, but a successful venture into the social media networks also takes a lot of planning.

Like any other business venture, failing to plan on how to go about it will likely result in failure, primarily because you won’t have a clear road map on how to achieve it. First, map out your goals. You may want to start with attracting traffic and increasing exposure, as well as increasing brand awareness. Reaching a wider customer base is also one goal that you may want to achieve with social media marketing.

It all comes down on how you approach this process. There are steps and many different ways of penetrating the large online market and tapping into their resources. When you have listed down your goals and have planned out your strategy, you can go from there.

One of the many things that you can do is to join a reputable online community that is geared towards your interests. These types of communities will likely have members that would be interested in what you have to offer. A strategy to do is not to make it all about you at first. When you join a community, the new kid on the block who makes it all about himself will be made an outcast in no time. Start by helping out others here and there, giving suggestions, basically integrating in the community psyche so to speak. Being helpful to others and making their lives easier will make you a popular part of the community.

As part of being a community, you may also want to reach out to the established big guns. You may not know it, but these movers and shakers can actually do wonders and tell you a bunch of things you would never have learned on your own.

Creating quality content is one way to get noticed and it is always best if you are the first one to write quality content about something. Content will always be king, remember that, even in social media. You may want to do it in a form of a blog, which you can then promote in forums, or link back to in your main site. And when you form your blog, claim it in Technorati, that way you can ensure that you are indexed in search engines, allowing many people to find you.

Popular social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook are very hot right now, and you may want to jump on the bandwagon. They are popular because they have proven to be great networking tools and are very simple to use.

As social media evolves and more techniques and social media outlets are popping out of the wood work, it is only right that a company or web site such as yours get involved in order to make the best of this opportunity.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

I am first to say the non-profit industry needs to get on board with social media. Like on-line giving a decade ago, the industry can be slow on the uptake. While engaging in the social media is not the end all and be all for non-profit organizations – it definitely needs to be a part of an overall marketing and fundraising plan.

However, I must be the only person, working full-time for non-profit organizations, that sees some of the challenges of the “success” in raising almost $35,000 to be divided by four. I also have a great deal of respect for:

• WWF assets = 2007 revenue $160M+

• LiveStrong 2008 revenue $40M+

• The Humane Society 2008 revenue $131M+

• Oxfam – 207 revenue $9M+

These very large, international groups are doing great work with professional, full-time staff including amazing social media folks. They each must raise at least $35K EACH in a week!

I am glad Mashable launched the SOSG and delighted they could host some fun parties in the name of charity and potentially raise some awareness. And $35K is $35K, but there was a lot of press for not a lot of dough…especially when divided by four.

Think about impact…what will be the impact on these agencies? Let’s start a conversation about impact and making a difference – IMPACT how many lives changed, people and animals helped – for less than $9,000…..??? Nice start. What’s next? We have to learn how to harness the power of social media for good and make an impact at the same time. I also realize there were a number of impact measures – RTs, watching videos, attending the conference, corporate partnership.

A question I hope you would ask – Does giving less than $9,000 to each of the four organizations have an impact?

• Could a larger, better impact have been to give the $35K to one organization to spend as they see fit or invest in social media planning and implementation?

• Host a grant process for organizations that can REALLY use $35K or even $9K to make a difference in their communities?

I am sure you thought of all these ideas with the great minds you brought to the table to create, organize and implement the SOSG.

It was generous generous of Zappos, MailChimp and Hyatt to sponsor the SOSG, I bet the expenses for the events in each city cost more than $9,000 each. And I get the price of ALL tickets purchased went directly to the Mashable non-profit fund – but DONATING and/or MATCHING all the gifts made would have meant $70K was raised – now there’s a number worthy of sponsors like Zappos, MailChimp and Mashable.

I applaud your investment in the conference. Our industry needs you to lead the social media conversation. And I look forward to continuing opportunities for sharing and learning as well as the results from the survey. Think about collaborating with organizations already hosting major conferences for non-profit leaders – Association of Fundraising Professionals, Direct Marketing Association, Association of Society Executives of America, Association Foundation Group, BoardSource the list goes on and on.

Good effort. Now let’s get a fundraising strategy on the table that really makes an impact!

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Social Media – Creating Community

The benefits of social media marketing are obvious – the first being accessibility to a community. Making new connections and relationships within communities like Facebook and Twitter is the easiest way to get word out about your service and product; and in fact, if you work them correctly, much of the work is done FOR you. Social media sites are based on the concept of individuals sharing information – word-of-mouth recommendations are the Holy Grail of marketing, and worth their weight in gold. Posting something of value – current, newsy, cool, interesting — to your friends encourages them to share with other likeminded folks who may be outside of your circle of friends. Ongoing updates and two-way communication foster interpersonal connections – and a “trust factor” that article marketing can’t provide. There is no faster way to become a trusted and well-liked expert in your field than to use social media.

Regular and consistent article submission rounds out your marketing strategy.

Elevate Your Google Ranking. Searching for key phrases often will lead to an article on an ezine directory such as EzineArticles.com on the first page of Google. If this is your article, it’s likely that the ezine directory ranks higher on Google than your website does. The more consistently you submit articles to sites, the more likely that your articles will be the ones to appear at the top of the Google page. Tag onto EzineArticles coattails – it doesn’t matter how potential clients find you as long as they find you.

Reach an entire new audience instantly. Sites like EzineArticles reach millions. When people are looking for fresh content for their own ezine – they’ll often go to the article directories and use one they find there that is appropriate (resource box intact, so you get the credit). If it’s your article – it’s instant exposure to a whole new list of prospective clients, customers, or referrals.

Individually, social media and article marketing are two powerful ways to easily and inexpensively build your online presence. But effectively harnessing the benefits of social media marketing and article marketing can exponentially increase activity to your website, build your list (and ultimately sales), and make YOU the go-to expert in your field.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

CRM + [SOMETHING THAT INTERACTS WITH/MANAGES SOCIAL INTERACTION] = CRM 2.0. Paul Green’s Blog does have a great article on how CRM and how it has evolved from CRM 1.0 basically a tactical software platform to manage customer data or transactions to the era of CRM2.0 a customer engagement strategy. Vendors like SAP CRM 7 and Oracle Social CRM have been proclaiming CRM 2.0 for a while now, but according to Paul they still have a while to mature.

Jeremiah Owyang an analyst from Forrester Research is a web strategist and in his latest blog talks about in his article When Social Media Marries CRM Systems

“brands will be able to track, manage, and monitor who enters the community, determine if they are a prospect, customer, partner, or even inactive. Secondly, brands will be able to develop intelligence on how effective communities are for bringing customers closer such as integrating existing social networks like LinkedIn to the corporate intranet. In a theoretical sense, brands could determine which customers have the best reputation, and how to keep and reward them. But perhaps, most importantly, customer experience will improve as companies now have a better understanding of them throughout their life cycle -and beyond.”

I think there are some definite leverage points that today small business and others can take advantage of.

1. As Jeremiah suggests using the interaction that our customers have now with us through social media and building a better understanding of them and their life cycle as a customer will allow us to further customising our offerings to our customers needs. How you inter-grate all the channels of communication to do this, I don’t know but I am sure there is some agitator tool out there. The future CRM without new Internet technologies such as Web 2.0 does not work anymore. There are lots of new opportunities to collect information on customers in this new social interactive environment. Recruitment firms are already leveraging this by using Linkedin.

2. As customers start to collaborate the use of CRM tools can be more influential further up the lifecycle as we test the ideas for new products and services and build them together. Using CRM platforms as a feedback mechanism would be an ideal scenario particularly if we have the customer details like email, twitter id, or facebook name. As Jeremiah explains SalesForce is a CRM example where collaboration is starting to happen as Salesforce offers community insight tools. It offers IdeaExchange, which powers Dell Ideastorm and My StarbucksIdeas. As Paul Green explains “it extends the company’s value chain to the customer and incorporates the customer into the pores of that value chain in addition to allowing them to tap the unstructured information that is out there for the picking on the web.” There is a great opportunity to actually engaging the customer in the interactions and not many companies are using their CRM to do this yet.

3. Information on competitors, feedback on companies, customer reviews are all fare game now with the customer controlling the conversation. This information can provide a great deal of insight and an opportunity if collected and trends identified to intersect the conversation with key pieces of valuable information either to protect a brand that might be the victim of some unfair blogging or to capitalise on the groundswell of a viral campaign. As the CRM tools become more sophiscated at digesting this information companies will be able to leverage this to proactively meet the needs of their customers and protect their brand reputation.

4. Customer escalation. Hilary from Lithium makes a great comment on a blog about how CRM and community forums can assist call centre agents. Customers can search once and get combined results from forum posts and the company’s knowledge base. And customers are more likely to get their questions answered if questions posted on forums are escalated to customer support when not answered in a set time frame. For customer support agents, they get a (closer to) 360-degree view of the customer if forum activity is integrated into their CRM desktop. Hilary explains Lithium is doing this today. Helpstream is another example.

5. Adam Needle makes some interesting comments on his blog that current CRM vendors that largely cater for ” demand generation (Eloqua, Market2Lead, Marketo, Silverpop, etc.), marketing automation/EMM (Aprimo, Neolane, Unica, etc.) and advanced CRM (today prob Oracle, Salesforce, etc.) — collectively, what I refer to as integrated marketing management — are building on (and integrating with) existing CRM and are positioning both to be able to broker and to measure/nurture and find ROI in customer dialogue.” Adam states that these vendors aren’t in the best position to understand the customer dialogue because they operate in a data rich database environment but they are coming around. He believes that they are coming around and will begin to integrate social media and other such ‘unstructured’ data/communication capabilities into their platforms. So as marketers and small business the landscape will change with regards to the tools we have and how they intersect to have conversations with our customers and manage that data as part of a marketing intelligence.

SMALL BUSINESS TAKE AWAY:

So as a small business you might be just starting to collect names in a database and that is a great start but perhaps start to monitor the conversations your customers are having with you on your blog or about you on social forums or product reviews to see if you can join the conversation or identify trends where you can improve your service and your competitive advantage. A good way of starting to do this is follow google alerts and maybe some competitors just for fun or have a look at Marketingvox for some good tips.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

This fundamental business concept is applicable to almost all businesses, regardless of size, product/service offering or geographic location. This is a very powerful discussion to have within your company. Where are you focusing your efforts today? Is this the right decision? Are you investing your resources appropriately?

Today however, it is worth taking this discussion to the next level. Once you have defined your value discipline strategy, it is worth looking at how social networks can help create, promote and leverage this effort.

For companies who focus on Operational Excellence, there is a unique opportunity to use social networks to listen to customers and understand their unique market requirements. Then use this information to create low-cost, high-value products and services, and in turn, promote them over the same social networks. Companies are also using social networks to enhance their customer service processes.

In the instance of Product Leadership, companies can use social networks to get closer to their customers and gain a unique understanding of their specific requirements. One of the biggest challenges in gaining product leadership is not the manufacturing process, but rather truly understanding the features that are important to their target market. Social networks provide a powerful methodology to get “inside the head” of your customer. Listen to their conversations about your products. Test market features with them and even get them involved in the design process.

The final category, Customer Intimacy is the most intuitive. Social networks, by their nature enable two-way conversations with customers in a way that was previously impractical. Today, we can segment the market in unique ways and communicate with them in real-time. Companies are able to create a level of “intimacy” by creating communities of common interest.

Action Item: First, make sure you understand your value discipline and create an integration point with your marketing strategy. Next, leverage social networks to fine-tune and promote your value discipline. Doing this correctly will give you a significant advantage over your competition.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

This form of Internet marketing can also be used to attain branding and marketing goals through participation in various online social groups. The term Social Media is an all-inclusive term to describe the space and activities therein, such as videos, images, audio and written content.

Using sites like Twitter, Facebook and other social circles, can increase the number of people that will see what you have to offer. It can be a powerful tool when you are trying to increase the amount of traffic to your website. Social Media Marketing can increase conversion, sales tracking, page views and ad exposure. It can also be used as a branding tool – creating a positive brand association, and keeping it positive.

These are low cost ways that a person can generate the traffic that they want. Many of the people that will come to your site could potentially become regulars if they like what they see while they are there.

In using these sites you can get other people to your website with the use of links. Good links will promote even more traffic to your site. It will also help the ranking that your site has with search engines, which, in turn, can be extremely important in increasing your revenues.

Get out there and link to other blogs and websites. But make sure you’re becoming a reputable part of the community by adding valuable content and comments.

There are a lot of simple things that a person can do to make their website continue to achieve readership. This is key when it comes to Social Media Marketing. Having an informative and interesting site will keep readers wanting more. In turn, if they want more, they are also apt to tell others about the cool site that they found. This is another way that SMM works for us.

Here are a few tips when you are starting out. Make it about others. At first, limit talking about yourself. This isn’t to say that you can’t provide a link to your site at the end of your comment; it just means don’t go into a community with a sales pitch right off the bat.

You can reach out to the influencers in your niche. Don’t waste their time though. Be polite and sincere and you might get help.

Next, contribute quality content. When you comment on other peoples sites, don’t just say “me too” or “nice post” just to get your link there. If it’s a site that you’re interested in, you should have quality comments or questions to post. Become a real part of the community and your comments will be respected. This respect will lead to better branding for you and your site.

Quality content also applies to your site. You want to have a site that people visit to get information. This doesn’t happen overnight. Building your brand and your brand reputation takes long-term commitment. Your goal is to get people to your site, so your site should always be filled with updated and high quality information to keep them coming back for more.

Also, when thinking about keeping the readers coming back for more, make sure that the way your website looks is appealing to a reader. A nice looking site can make a world of difference when it comes to the amount of traffic that will visit it. Keeping things simple and easy for a reader to follow is of the utmost importance. If they get frustrated, the chances of them coming back are slim to nil at best.

Building a community is also a great way to have people keep coming back to your site. They are able to talk with others that have things to say on the same topic, not to mention that they feel special being included. Having some fun events or options available is also something that many communities have done. These have proven to be highly successful as well.

Here’s a short list of some of the many Social Media sites available: Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Metacafe, Scribd, Digg, Flickr, Reddit, Technorati and Blogcatalog. There are many, many more.

When it comes to getting to the root of how to get the people to your website, don’t neglect the Social Media Marketing aspect. This can be worth all the time that you put into it. You will see this as results in sales and rankings begin to soar.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

I learned that lesson from my father. Admittedly we aren’t all privileged enough to have poor, formally uneducated dads who are sticklers for people even pronouncing their name correctly, for gosh sakes! Bodines, the “i” pronounced hard as in to dine at a dinner table, have class, dad always said; Bodeens, as later portrayed by Jethro in the long running “Beverly Hillbillies” television show, were crude and often rude with a little empty headed arrogance thrown in to boot.

But being a stickler to such seemingly small things as name pronunciations was my dad. And that’s what it’s going to take today to stop Social Minimalism dead in its tracks again, too, I’m becoming more and more convinced.

I remembered dad’s lessons May 30 when CNN Heroes ran the story, “Crazy Turtle Woman transforms graveyard into maternity ward.” She’d stopped her fellow villagers from slaughtering sea turtles just so they could make a buck or two with their shells or whatever. From graveyards back to egg hatcheries, it is now!

Her nonprofit group promoting turtle conservation in the Caribbean had been awarded a prize by the United Nations Environment Program for what she and her husband (and others they’d later enlisted) did to save an endangered turtle; too, convincing villagers to use the turtles for ecotourism has meant more sustainable income for the local residents. What a win-win story!

Dad was reared like so many others in the Depression when scraps were table blessings. But bull-headed along the West Texas Red River region, he ran away from home early to escape what he always called a mean uncle who nearly beat him to death several times; and thus got little formal education. Probably like these turtle people.

Then after the Army and WWII he and Mom had to raise four kids with him working as a paperhanger and housepainter; with him only having a 6th grade education. Life was never easy in so much of what innocently then was routinely called “ways of the world.”

But he did have a name. And as he saw it, that name–genetic or otherwise; particularly how it was pronounced and defended–defined the essence of mankind in this world and what will and won’t be tolerated. What a place to take a stand against what wrong in Life, those whose knew him scoffed!

But this indifference to “what’s right and what’s wrong” was the same theme again this past May 29 in a New York Times op-ed column entitled “Holding on to Our Humanity” by Bob Herbert. The same simple message: Stand up! Maybe the times, indeed, “they are a changing,” as Bob Dylan and our old hippy generation use to sing.

Writing about atrocities, the killings of babies, widespread raping, wanton stealing by government forces, all the stories coming out of Darfur, Sudan, Herbert went back to such human basics as a person’s civic duty to stand up against it. Like the turtle people in the Caribbean..

About such plights, he quoted Eli Wiesel, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor in a speech at the White House in 1999. To avoid distasteful topics as killing turtles, Jews, killing babies–or, as even as the winter hearing by Texas Parks & Wildlife officials here in Presidio, TX, in the Big Bend region, over the plight of slaughtering burros in our own Big Bend State Park reminds us–it is always easier to lower your head and pretend not to see. Or care. Don’t get involved, our insipid commercialism zealots have taught us.

Wiesel pointed out such non-actions can be catastrophic to the soul of a society. Indifference to others “is what makes the human being inhuman.” Furthermore, “…not to respond to their plight…is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.”

I first ran across chunks of what I call this “minimalizing people” while reading such works as that of M. P. Baumgarter, a Rudgers sociology professor, who wrote of “moral minimalism” in The Moral Order of a Suburb (Oxford University Press, 1991); and the late Eric Siegel, America’s great poet and educator and founder of Aesthetic Realism, who maintained our economy, based on using the work of many people for the financial gain of a relatively few thru mostly single-focus investments, was flawed because of the contempt at its core–contempt being defined as the addition to self through the lessening of something else.

Well-intentioned governments and especially corporate America have been snagged for decades on this idea of “progress.” But when challenged (or pinched) with world trade, for instance, to maintain and even bolster corporate profits thru increased consumer spending, the government thru Free Trade pacts allowed American workers to became expendable to overseas production. What, overseas, you say? Workers in those poor countries? We have to compete with them? And the vagrancies and cruelties of the economic markets themselves were solely to determine who among us has value? That’s not fair!

Ah…thus the weeds of Social Minimalism flourished and took over our lovely gardens. Suddenly America’s stability had been rocked; workers had become minimalized by someone who worked for $5 a day overseas and was happy to get it.

While here the spirits of many American workers and their families, and even their communities…Gutted! Can we say about the apparent disinterested juggernaut of evil that is Social Minimalism what we said in the aftermath of the Civil War–gone with the wind? Hopefully not.

I cried especially about the turtles; I’m a “turtle freak.” And think and move about as slow. But dad would’ve called all these people who stood up some way to injustices “Bodines.” Not Bodeens. It validated his argument that innate goodness in each of us can overcome the seemingly impossible and help give new vitality to a distressed world–the spark of the divine assuring us, once again, that eventually Good trumps Evil.

Maybe, indeed, we’ve rounded the corner on the latest new millennium problems, folks, this news could very well mean. Or at least we’ve chiseled out a stronger toehold on a new way of economic thinking. That’s worth a cheer and a comment.

In the Caribbean Suzan Lakhan Baptiste of Trinidad for almost 20 years dedicated her energy and emotions to beating back human predators, who used machetes to kill giant leatherback sea turtles as they lumbered ashore to lay their eggs on a beach near her home. Locals called her the “crazy turtle woman”; the turtles were their income.

For 100 million years the leathernecks have roamed the world’s oceans, but with man’s overpopulation and a chronic buzz in the brain to feed his stomach and seemingly other insatiable money-spending, advertising-fed desires the slaughtering almost decimated the creatures. Increasingly their meat, fins, and prized eggs disappeared into the senseless maelstrom of zealous commercialism.

Baptiste and her husband organized their group in 1990 and patrolled a six-mile stretch of beach during nesting seasons, even getting into physical fights with hunters. Now Matura Beach is one of the largest leatherback nesting colonies in the world.

Dad, a hard-shell fundamentalist Baptist, had little respect for those who didn’t respect things like this; or people who otherwise had an arrogant attitude toward God’s life that seemed to give them the authority to override, neglect or abuse the sacred Ten Commandments (common-denominator rules in any religion we’re to live by)–to circumvent them just because “there was something in it for them.”

This is the crux of Siegel’s old contempt charge–hardset in corporate America for sure–but the softening of which by such groups as the Turtle People underlies what for many years I’ve considered this new, emerging Counter Social Minimalism thinking. It’s really going back to the old way of using spiritual morality in deciding to merit something.

To dad, whether or not that someone looking for “something for themself” was driving the national economy or the local job market, it made no difference; if “you were going to rob from Peter to pay Paul” it went against God’s rule of decency.

“There’s a right way and a wrong way of doing things,” he always told us, even down to the smallest detail. And making sure people knew how to pronounce our last name was one of them. If we didn’t politely or otherwise correct, we paid the price.

Pronouncing the Bodine with a hard “i” may sound…Well, a bit trifling, yes. But dad often got into scrapes over it; and he raised his kids to know the difference. People, even friends, would kid him about it, of course. A lowly housepainter? Faking pride?

Wasn’t pride to dad; it was a matter of being responsible. He wasn’t a Bodeen, he wanted you to know. To dad, Bodines and Bodeens weren’t just breeds apart but generations apart, in political, social and moral development; we recognized and feared the hand of God.

As with all of us, there are dormant traits that represent the best and worst in all people on earth, he would tell us. But it’s one’s “constitution” in the face of a difficult situation that determines their true nature in society–the ethics and moral values showed ultimately in how they confront and solve financial, legal, personal or social problems.

And each person has a God-given responsibility to define that nature for others to see–whether it be with the turtles, as is in this case; Darfur, which we’ve yet to move on; or even with last winter’s Big Bend burros, a practice of random, point-blank slaughter to protect what some considered a fragile eco-system. That issue is still awaiting a permanent solution by the state.

But at least it was a practice those of us who got involved managed to temporary stop. Shenanigans have got to be made public; that’s how we do stop it. Too often folks don’t understand an uproar is how we show our humanity.

And, as dad always promised, taking one small step like that brings its rewards. We all felt better, as humans, knowing we’d stopped something inhumane.

“Are you a Bodine, or are you a Bodeen?” I can still hear him demanding, standing angrily over me jabbing that index finger through the air as though it was a missile of logic burning brilliantly in some night sky. “If you’re a Bodeen, if you don’t care about things, go ahead and sit on ‘ya ass! Do nothing!

“But if you’re going to be a Bodine, if you refuse to be some crude hillbilly who doesn’t care anything about hardly nothing, then ‘ya gotta stand up! God is screaming at you for help, to act against something that’s wrong! You’ve got to stand up!”

Hallelujah to the Crazy Turtle Woman! And to those who helped her.

We’re all better people because of it.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Brian Solis, author, PR blogger and industry leader

Ok, so we are finally in the groove of using Facebook and understanding the power behind this Social Media platform and now Twitter emerges as the “darling” of the Internet. What the heck is Twitter and what is happening to business relationships?

Tweeting, Digging, Blogging, Chatting, Sharing, Notes, Events, Groups, Public Profiles, Tweetdeck, Tweetie and I could go on! Social Media has its own language and while I am trying to keep up with the swift changes, I am in awe of the magic behind this ever-evolving online platform for business.

The phenomenon of Social Media is the HOTTEST topic on the Internet and in business. I am here today to tell you there is a method to the madness of Social Media!

It has to do with strategy and authenticity. I have a 3 KEY SIMPLE approach to being successful in Social Media (Facebook & Twitter).

Please allow me to shed some light on this subject, first.

I encourage clients to build a strategy and PR campaign with their Facebook profile and network while building the KNOW, LIKE, AND TRUST FACTOR to attract their ideal clients.

I emphasize the importance of building relationships and time invested on Facebook is PURE revenue producing time. Please know:

Social Media is the NEW PR. Here’s what I am thrilled about for all of us:

We have a brilliant opportunity to build sincere and authentic relationships for business because of the power of Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and more! This is the best news I heard in years! My colleague, Brian Solis, writes in his 2009 released book “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations” -

“New PR is about people and relationships, not just new tools. The game is changing, and its survival not only for the fittest, but also of the most capable and sincere.”

Did you see that word “sincere?”

So with that said, Social Media is seriously changing the landscape in how we do business and how we earn our profits faster than a speeding bullet!

Here’s the GOOD NEWS: You have a huge opportunity to be your own PR rep and design your own campaign. As brilliant entrepreneurs, I highly recommend you take the first step to understand Facebook and Twitter, if you have not already.

I am extremely excited about the new focus on relationships, interaction, collaboration, and cooperation, which is the purpose and style of both Facebook and Twitter. After decades of aggressive strategies where success was measured only by numbers, the building and maintaining of relationships are now front and center as the first order of business and you stand to profit wildly as long as you play the game fairly and authentically!

Here are my three simple KEYS to being successful on Facebook and Twitter:

1. Make your focus on giving while using Facebook and Twitter as you build relationships (not projects). Giving contacts, resources, & inspiration will do you well on these platforms.

2. Apply a strategy and mindset to building your network of Facebook friends and Twitter community. You do not need to accept everyone. You are seeking to build a custom target market of like minds and potential clients/customers. Your networks and communities will breed themselves, so be careful. And, make giving first and foremost.

3. ALWAYS deliver authentic & sincere info about you personally and professionally. Authenticity is the new black.

Enjoy your time socializing for business!

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The Media:

No matter how conniving some outlets can be (while there are some that are not), let’s face it, you need them, because nothing gives more credibility than appearing in several interviews – giving you validated exposure – if you are validated by the media, then this means that your chances of going further are even greater. The person that gets the coveted review, story, radio play, is the person that is diligent, shows that they have put their self together, and are ready to be signed to a record deal if they are already not. The way that they get most of these things, is by announcing it to media, and that is through a press release and/or a press kit. A press release can make or break you, but nonetheless, it is you announcing to the world about you, and what you have going on. Most people either write these themselves or have a publicist add their flair to it, but it is a must have, and no getting around it. A press kit, simply put, is your musical resume, and is a must have, no matter how many times you may say that you have a social media page on different social networking websites, because chances are, the journalist (print, online, radio, television), will not click onto your link, so you have to entice them in other ways. You just would not send an editor a package and say to them, ‘oh, if you would like more information on me, then log onto my Myspace page’ – it simply does not work that way, and they will immediately trash your press kit, if that is all that you send to them in a letter or an e-mail.

Advice from an Editor:

I have been an editor-in-chief of a publication for many years and before that, I worked in the newsroom on assignments, and I obtain press kits and press releases all day long – 90% of my e-mail inboxes are flooded with nothing but press releases, and the reality is that, some are so poorly written and formatted, that I automatically trash them, some people have the arrogance to tell me that if I want to know more about them, then click onto the link below, to check out their social page or whatever site they’re on, but they do not realize that my time is very limited, and that the reality is that they have to grab my interest right away, or they’ll lose me in the first 10 seconds -after all, they contacted me, so shouldn’t they make it as easy as possible for me? I have also seen press kits that were horribly put together, and did not have the correct information enclosed, to peak my interest. When I was in the newsroom, I used to see press kits tossed to the side all of the time, because they lacked what was needed, and likewise with e-mails obtained, as the reporter gets bombarded with hundreds of pitches a day, but would actually look through them, and select the ones that had the best presentation, to at least give it a chance.

The Bottom Line:

You have to go beyond social websites. I get so tired of people saying to me, check out my social networking webpage, when the fact remains that you would not tell a potential employer that you did not send to them a resume, but instead, a link to your resume – you will likely not get employed by that company, because you did not go that extra mile to impress them. Creating press releases and press kits, and getting your story out beyond being signed up to a website, and having the most friends. You have to keep in mind that in order to be the best – you have to exhaust all possibilities, because no one will come to you, so you have to go to them. You need exposure in all mediums. So, make sure to get yourself together with your media and publicity campaign. We also encourage you to do your homework, and get the best out of every avenue possible, to get to the next level within your career, if you are in fact serious. Only the strong survives in the music industry, because artists have, seemingly, become a dime a dozen.

Kenyetta ‘Native’ McKinney, M.A. is founder and CEO of Grind Mode Media, LLC – the home base company for http://www.grindmodepress.com – an all-in-one media service site for Affordable Electronic Press Kit Creations (free trials), Press Release & Music Distribution, Biography and Press Release writing is also available.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

On Monday, he posted a total zinger, framing it as an ‘OH’, or overheard, indicating that he wasn’t the one who actually came up with the contents of the Twitter message (or “tweet”) but didn’t want to openly quote the person who actually said it. “Social media is like teen sex,” Kaushik tweeted. “Everyone wants to do it. No one actually knows how. When finally done, there is surprise it’s not better.”

And as I have been delving through blog after blog after blog trying to discover how we can help small businesses to benefit from the power of social media marketing – the above comments would seem to hit the nail on the head.

Some seem to say that it is worth a small business owner’s time to use social media to get the word out because it’s free, it gets quick results, it’s flexible, it gets easier with time, that it will lead to other valuable sources of traffic, that it builds links with social media and is safer than buying links, that social media users are predictable, that it doesn’t require as much time as we might think, that branding through social media is possible, that links can help your search engine rankings to rise quickly, and it allows you to leverage your existing traffic. And you may just target some visitors. In summary, the word declared is that the future of the internet is social. So be there.

So whether it is Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter, Blogs, consumer review sites, forums, discussion boards, online communities, social book marking sites, social news sites, social music sites and more. Whoo! I just get worn out writing about all these. We are being told to be there. But the BIG question is this: Where is a small business owner going to get the time to do all of the above? Or do they need to hire a force of writers to get the word out? Or do they need to simply choose a few places on the Internet where they can begin to build relationships on a deeper level and then be positioned as experts in their own field?

These are the many questions being asked by business owners today!

But the biggest question is: Are we as small business owners in the 21st century going to wake up after it’s all over and agree with Avinash, surprised that ‘it’s not better’?

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

New Site? What Now?

The short answer is that you need to start building traffic. In reality, though, the answer is more complex than that. Regardless of the techniques you use to build traffic it must be qualified, targeted traffic in order for the visitors it generates to prove effective. Poorly targeted traffic that is either too generic or entirely irrelevant for the content of your site simply won’t generate the results you’re hoping for.

Generating Traffic

The truth is that building traffic for a new website can be a long process. Every website should invest at least some time, effort, and/or money into an SEO campaign. Search engine traffic can be very effective with precisely targeted visitors landing on relevant pages ready to make their way through your buying process. Other options also exist; social websites can be used to generate equally targeted, if less responsive traffic. Viral marketing of videos and other content can also drive surf through traffic while helping to further improve your SEO efforts.

Harnessing Social Media

Social media is more than a current phenomenon or a craze; it’s almost single handedly controlling the manner in which the Internet is developing. New websites are being designed specifically with a web 2.0 theme and including various social media sharing functions, features, and benefits. SMO, or Social Media Optimisation, is one of the latest forms of online marketing to grab the attention of website owners and online marketers.

The Importance Of Your Website Content

The key to effectively harnessing the social Internet is through the creation, use, and dissemination of appealing, useful, and informative content. To some SEOs and marketers this may sound like old hat and in a lot of respects it is but the onus needs to be firmly placed on quality. Poor quality content that offers no relevance and contains no benefit for the reader won’t appeal to anybody and will therefore have no lasting effect on your SMO.

Adding Social Content To Your Site

For your own website consider adding a blog at the very least. Article pages, guides, blog posts, and other content pages should offer readers the opportunity to bookmark, share, and circulate the information on your behalf. Share buttons can be easily and quickly added to the template of a website so readers that find your information to be particularly useful or beneficial can quickly add a link to your page on many different social media sites. Your readers effectively become your marketers too.

Get Involved In Your Community

Sharing content hosted on your web pages is only a small part of the SMO battle. The most effective and profitable SMO campaign will require you to get involved in the communities that are relevant to your website. Research the social networking and social media sites to find those that are relevant to your website and frequented by your target market. Register with these sites and prepare to get as involved as you can.

A Little Effort For A Lot Of Reward

A little extra time spent becoming a valuable member of the community can translate into greatly improved traffic, increased sales, and better profits. If you don’t have the time or the resource to manage SMO in this way then look for outside assistance. Your readers and your visitors will do some of the leg work for you but you can’t rely entirely on them to promote your business for you.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Digg offer you some top-notch professional and business connections that you would never be able to access otherwise. LinkedIn alone boasts these 35 million professionals. So more and more VARs are logging on and logging in to find, be introduced to, and connect with like-minded people to accomplish their business goals. You’ve no doubt heard of LinkedIn and these other social networking sites, and you’ve perhaps even created an account. You recognize the value of being involved in this viral network. Someone asks you if you’re LinkedIn or on Facebook and you say, “Sure.” But quietly think to yourself, “I’m not sure what I should be doing though.”

You’re not alone. So let’s take a look at some of the ways to maximize social networking to your advantage.

First, the network that you develop for yourself will consist of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, and so on and so on. It’s similar to the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” where you are just a few connections away from key people. It’s the ultimate in networking, and you’re doing it virtually instead of at a Chamber of Commerce mixer or an annual meeting or trade show where you are limited by the physical attendees. In theory, you could be meeting future customers while lounging in your pajamas. Not only will you find partners and business opportunities, but they will find you too!

Now that you’ve set up your account, what do you do next?

1. Put on your sales hat and start selling you! The first step on any social networking site is to create an intriguing and informative profile about yourself and/or your business. Approach this like building an online resume, only you’re creating it within an already developed template. Start with four or five words that sell what you have to offer – let people know not only what you’ve done in your career, but also where you’re headed. One word of caution – don’t just cut and paste your resume into the profile field. It’s great to include that, but you must go beyond the standard resume. What are you passionate about? What are your core values? What makes your business different from your competitors? Why should customers choose you for their VAR? Social network sites elevate resume writing to the creative “self sell” it should be. You are sharing more than just your professional experience – you’re selling the whole package.

2. What details do you include? People do business with people so include a photo of yourself. Remember, a picture paints a thousand words so you’ll want to look professional but approachable in your photo. Lounging on your friend’s boat with an umbrella drink in your hand probably isn’t the best way to tell your story. But being in a stiff suit might not be either. Find a photo that you’re comfortable with and that speaks words about who you are as a professional VAR. Let people know how you want to be contacted. Do you prefer email? Maybe communicating through the social networking site for awhile works fine but do you want to communicate more directly? Or do you want people to call you out of the blue? Be specific about what’s acceptable (and what isn’t) for networking with you. The more honest you are about what you’re hoping to accomplish, the better your chances of connecting with like-minded people.

3. Start building your network. This could be “friends,” “connections” or other terminology depending on the social networking site. But the bottom line is, one connection usually leads to another as you build out your network farther and farther into this vast community. One good way to judge whether or not you want to make a connection with someone is to decide whether or not you would take a phone call from them during your busy day. If you would take the call, then invite that person into your fold. If you wouldn’t, you might want to think twice about the invitation.

4. Maximize the connections you make. Pose questions and answer others. Informed sources will chime in with their information. You become a resource for others. Recommend customers, vendors, and colleagues whom you know and ask them to do the same. Aren’t you more likely to do business with a vendor that is recommended to you by a trusted friend or business partner? The same rules apply here, too.

Of course, when you make yourself public, there are possible dangers and pitfalls to watch out for as well. People can spam and say negative things about you or your business. But that works both ways so never, ever leave negative feedback in public domain. You also might find “leads” on your doorstep that you don’t want or won’t fit within the network that you’re building. And lastly, don’t oversell and build yourself up too much.

The bottom line is that you have an amazing opportunity to develop connections and build quality leads and relationships in these communities. Using social networks will allow you to not only grow your business financially, but it will also enrich your business experience as you learn new and innovative ways to approach business from your peers.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Forget about PPC, forget about advertising anywhere, SEO is no longer worth the trouble of trying to figure out, keyword research is an unnecessary chore, as is copywriting, website design, in fact anything that might possibly be construed as ‘work’.

Instead, if you believe all of the information and buzz surrounding social networking, all that is required is to join as many of the ever increasing number of social networking sites as possible. Once there, you can ‘add friends’ to your contact list, thereby exposing them to your Internet presence, and the fact that you are now friends means they will check out you and your business. Obviously, the more friends you add, the greater your chance of some of them joining your business or buying your latest affiliate product!

And then of course, their friends will be exposed to you also as they will see your connection via their friends profile, exposing you to yet more potential ‘friends’. Who will then become your friend also being exposed to your business. Millions of potential commissions are seemingly waiting on the table and all you have to do is join up and start adding friends.

Unfortunately, as many are finding out to their cost, the reality is totally different.

It doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure out that adding a perfect stranger to your ‘friends list’ does not make them a prospect for your Internet business. All it does is make them a potential ‘friend’. Before you can convert them to a business prospect, you first have to convert them to a friend.

And that doesn’t happen by posting a single, spammy comment on their wall, or making a blatant sales pitch in their guestbook. It certainly doesn’t happen by offering them a ‘free’ (once they’ve subscribed to your list of course ) e-book that will change their lives.

Social networking is actually the same as any other form of networking. It requires that you form a relationship with people. A relationship that is based on two-way communication, and provides value to both parties.

The real lesson in using social networking to expand your presence and that of your Internet business is to build relationships. And that simply cannot be done with hundreds of people being added to your list on a regular basis.

* The first thing you need to do to build a relationship is to give those perfect strangers a reason to like you as a person.

That reason will depend on whether what you are offering matches with what they are looking for. People tend to like other people who share similar interests and values to themselves. You cannot expect to be friends with everyone you meet online, just as you cannot expect to be friends with everyone you meet offline.

Making the mistake of trying to be friends with everyone, can do your reputation more harm than good. Because you inevitably annoy a lot of people, who will pass the word on to their friends, who will pass the word on…

* Limit the number of social networks in which you participate.

It’s a simple fact that you can’t possibly keep up with more than 2 or 3 in any meaningful way. So limit yourself to only joining and participating in networks where you feel comfortable and are mixing with others who are interested in the same markets as you are promoting. This may seem like common sense, but in their haste to widen their reach, far too many marketers are joining social forum after social forum and not building a presence within any of them. You won’t find targeted, interested visitors if you are networking in the wrong areas. Pick your social networking communities very carefully.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

As many people are leaving the corporate world and creating home businesses, the trend toward Social Networking has become a very popular way for people of like-minds to both communicate and share ideas and opportunities. It provides an avenue for people to establish a place within the Social Networking Community. There are many established Social Networks which means there is something to meet everyone’s interests, desires and needs. Also there are some networks that allow you to profit from your relationship with them…. that’s a good thing.

Social Networking also makes the internet experience more personal as well as exciting and fun. “Success in Social Networking through Branding Yourself” will provide an avenue for you to establish your place within the Social Network Community and also the ability to maintain your place by ‘Branding’ yourself.

Social Network Communities are Becoming Hometowns Online…

A Social Network Community can become your ‘Hometown’ online. People meet, greet and become friends; share joys and sorrows; participate in community events, volunteer to help others in the community who may be new and trying to find their way around. Dialog with community members is provided through forums and online chat; and just as in any other community there are business people who have products and services to offer, that people in the community need, desire or want; so they put up their ’store fronts’ and let people know who they are. As they establish themselves over time they develop a ‘name’ or ‘brand’ for themselves, and now everyone in the community knows who they are.

So What Happens when You Venture from Your Hometown into the ‘Larger’ Community?

In small towns most people know each other quite well -but when small town people venture out into the ‘larger’ community they must establish themselves and make themselves known. This is generally done through some form of advertising via newspaper, brochures, radio-tv ads, handing out business cards etc. Please understand, the internet -is- the ‘larger’ community’ for the Network Marketing World, so even if you are well known and have established relationships within a Social Network Community, you are a ‘little fish in a big pond’ in the ‘larger’ community of the internet, thus the need to ‘Brand Yourself’ and make yourself known.

Jim Cobb (How to Build your Business through Personal Branding) writes…

“As an independent professional, and a self employed online small business owner one of the most challenging tasks is marketing “YOU”. You know how to do what it is you do really well, you know you can offer value to people, you just don’t know how to locate people (prospects) and convince them to use your services or products (become customers)”.

“The important thing to understand is that right now is the best time to start building an online marketing system. Many online markets are not crowded and it is easy to find a niche you can dominate. I guarantee there are people out there searching the web for “YOU” and what you offer”.

Discover your own Personal Brand and start promoting YOU….

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

We know that we can increase business performance substantially if we pay attention to the knowledge residing within our business. Now, how can we link our business performance to the knowledge exchange that is occurring outside our business – through tools such as YouTube, Blogs, Pod casts, Wikis, video conferencing, social bookmarking, community file sharing, and enterprise social networking sites such as Ecto Connect? Furthermore, how do we integrate this knowledge exchange into our business culture?

We all know that if you define your company’s strategy, work with your employees to understand your strategy, align your operations to your strategy, and align your budget to your strategy you will see a significant performance increase.

We also know that selecting employees for the long-term contributions to the business’ long-term strategy (person/future fit), having job descriptions and providing employees regular feedback (formal processes and procedures and professional standards), and understanding that employees work best when motivated by responsibility to each other and the business (family-like community) create the best, long-term workforce alignment.

The knowledge exchange occurring online, largely outside our business, benefits from the social software referenced earlier. As Clay Shirky defined it, social software is “software that supports group interaction.” When this interaction is applied to a business, just add “enterprise” and it is referred to as “enterprise social software.” Heady stuff for an organizational management type like me!

What is interesting about this software is that it stimulates interaction and with increased interaction, properly channeled, it stimulates collaboration. As Becker and Henriksen have noted “what is remarkable is the exchange itself and the organic growth of networks that support it.”

What is intriguing in this observation is how it appears so closely linked to the family-like community that is so valued within an aligned workforce. Let’s think about this – what if we could better enable the motivation of our employees to each other and to the business by encouraging the productive use of enterprise social software in our every day business activity? Would that help us to better understand how our business could more effectively relate to our younger workforce?

I watch younger people thrive in online social network communities – YouTube, Wikipedia, and My Space – as well as sharing photos and ideas online. I marvel at how easily they adapt to these experiences – not quite understanding how it can serve a useful, productive purpose. I am changing my mind on that, however.

Let’s look at some examples – brought on by the immediacy of the most recent, but certainly not the last of the dramatic run up in fuel costs.

Teleconferencing, webinars, videoconferencing – by themselves somewhat static in the past – are not very interactive. Many of these have been characterized as presentation-oriented, with little opportunity for collaboration. But what happens if they are enhanced and/or combined with other opportunities?

My intuition tells me that this method of collaboration can increase business performance. Let’s see how they can be used together:

* Combine teleconferencing with webinar capabilities all the while enabling document sharing;
* Enable live presentations and discussions;
* Create assignments for staff to complete, distribute, share, and encourage other staff to comment on;
* Evolve “draft” position statements into more complete concepts that can result in actionable items; and
* Schedule training sessions and workshops using these opportunities for fee paying clients; to name a few.

Interesting – no need to hop on a flight or get in a car. Perhaps we will be able to increase performance and lower costs, thereby resulting in increased profitability – classic! I know, not that simple, but, intriguing nonetheless. In future posts, we will explore more fully. Let me know how you are using it now – it could help to accelerate the change amongst us.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Content Popularization Using Social Clubs

The popular social websites like MySpace are unlimited web spaces to share your valuable ideas and thoughts with like minded people. Here is where you can play the game of attracting your potential audiences. If you are able to rule the thoughts of others with your content, you can enforce them to ask for more. As they ask for more, satisfy their craving with some good links to your own websites. Don’t you think, it is the most inexpensive and effectual way to set your website links to work?

Adopt Or Hire The Writing Skills

If the idea of writing contents for social websites clicks your mind, next big thing is to make preparations for some concrete contents. If you are gifted with the skills to frame right words in appropriate flow, you need not ask for anything else. If this is not the case, be prepared to hire some skilled content developers and ask them to deliver attention grabbing contents for MySpace layout customize process.

How To Utilize Contents

Once you are ready with powerful contents, it is time to distribute them efficiently. Here are few tips to help you in this direction:

* Join friend social networks existing on social websites like MySpace and post your content to people in these networks. You may include website links in these contents and convince your friends to click them.
* You may use special communities available on these social websites to publish your contents. For instance, there are technology-related groups, where you can publish your content related to technical subjects.
* You may also join writers’ groups on these websites and by doing so; it would be easy to share the content with more and more people.
* The main punch of writing contents is to make your website links popular. However, make sure you are not flaming spamming through your contents. Thus, be clever in your approach to reach hundreds and thousands of people with the powerful approach of content development.

You can use popular MySpace comment boxes to facilitate the users to leave comments for your writings. This will allow the readers to get related to what you have written. Most importantly, if their comments are accepted by you, it will develop a hunger in them to read more contents from your side. Here, you may ask them to visit your business website to read more.

If you are willing to know what experts recommend, take a look at FREE Report dedicated to suggest money making ideas through social networking websites. This will help you to keep a track of your approach and see the difference in amount of traffic visiting your website.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Forums have been around for a long time, allowing others to ask questions and get responses, and interact with other users. Forums are still pretty much the same today as they were back then. Forums were the beginning of a growing interaction between fellow internet users and like minds. They gave them a place of belonging where they could share opinions and express themselves and get feedback from others. But still, something was missing. Forums were only a small portion to the type of networking that would drive thousands upon thousands of users to gather together. Someone saw a need to create social networking web sites where users would be able to share more about themselves in a visual way, and not just a picture and a few short sentences about themselves.

In the United States, the most commonly used social network sites are MySpace, Facebook, Squidoo, and also Bebo, while other countries may prefer a different outlet, such as Asia’s Friendster or Germany’s Hi5. The power of social networking web sites cannot be underestimated. In fact, social network sites are some of the most visited sites on the entire internet. Social networking allows people to interact with each other by the use of forums, instant messaging, videos, pictures, and a lot more. Users are able to post a profile that contains information about themselves, pictures that they want to share, videos that they find interesting, games, etc. Users can send friend or contact requests for others to add them to their list. People can post bulletins, message someone on their friend or contact list or someone who isn’t, tag other people’s pictures to their profile, interact through forums and much more.

Aside from the personal power of social networking web sites, they are of great interest to the online marketer, as well as the brick and mortar store. This is a new phenomenon that is just now beginning to appear more commonplace. This is what we now know as Web 2.0. The best part about social network sites is that you have the ability to post ads on your profile. This can be used to promote your business. Bulletins and messaging and also forums can be used to market your business. The more friends or contacts you build and network with, the more people you can market your business opportunity or affiliate program to. There is so much untapped traffic potential with these kinds of sites. Bottom line… if you’re not using social networking web sites to drive traffic to your website, you should be.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Social bookmarking is all part of the Web 2.0 phenomenon. The term Web 2.0 includes what’s called user generated content, wikis and blogs, free websites, such as Squidoo and Hubpages, YouTube, and finally all those sites like Digg, Propeller, and StumbleUpon. Those last three, and the forty or so others like them, are called social bookmarking sites. They basically work like this.

Members of the social bookmarking site post Internet stuff that catches their attention, websites, news stories, blog posts, you name it. These posts are tagged with keywords. Through the use of the keywords, these posts are brought to the attention of the other members of the site. They all flock to the posted item, look at it, and if they want to, vote it up or down. Think of the whole process like democratic web page filtering.

All these different social bookmarking sites have their own spin on this basic concept. StumbleUpon actually puts a button on your toolbar that you use to “stumble” from site to site. How are these sites selected? Well, according to your preferences. If you and I both were using StumbleUpon at exactly the same time, we would see entirely different websites. StumbleUpon selects what you’re going to see from a list of preferences you fill out and also from keeping track of what you stumbled in the past.

Digg and Propeller don’t have the stumbling feature, but they work essentially the same way. Newsvine is another Web 2.0 site that lets members post news items to it. These items are voted up or down. So, if you log onto Newsvine’s front page, you’ll see the news items that got the most votes from the Newsvine community.

So, how does the internet marketer enter into this whole world and profit from it?

I’m glad you asked!

You can use the power of social bookmarking on two levels to gain immediate traffic to your site.

The way the social bookmarking sites would like for you to use them is to become a member of the community, share websites you think are important, form relationships with other members, and then suggest your own web pages only if they fit the communities needs.

For an internet marketer this is a little bit like being put into a straight jacket. Successful internet marketers tend to make systems work for them, not them work for the system. So, with that in mind, let me tell you what I do.

When I get a new site going, I post all my pages to about twenty or thirty social bookmarking sites. In some of these sites I’m actually an active “member” of the community, others I’m not. In other words, I basically use the power of social bookmarking to game the system.

Don’t my posts get voted down? Rarely-unless a post is really outrageous in the eyes of whoever the site’s elite users are, there’s rarely much voting down. Besides, I’m playing a numbers game, here. This is definitely a long tail marketing strategy.

The beauty of the Internet is it’s so huge that even a brief exposure on Digg or StumbleUpon, or any of the other biggies, is enough to get a small flood of visitors to your site. Once Google sees the traffic, it ranks your site higher. Usually, the site stays ranked higher, too. (Although sometimes not!) That means social bookmarking is work you can do now and get paid for again and again!

That’s the best kind of work there is!

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Social media is the catch-all term for a collection of networks and websites within a bracket that has been labeled Web 2.0.

This has opened up a whole new avenue for website marketing. If you are regularly providing valuable and informative content and it is being successfully promoted through various social media sites and niche networks, it can bring an enormous amount of traffic into your website.

But what is Web 2.0?

Allow me to explain. Basically Web 2.0 is an umbrella phrase referring to a second generation of web applications and communities that are largely driven by user generated content. For example, Facebook and YouTube, probably the two most popular websites doing the rounds at present, are both Web 2.0 applications where the end-user provides the content.

But though these may be the most celebrated, or widely known at least, they are certainly not it as regards to social media. There are a multitude of social networks scattered out like small seaports across the vast ocean that is the internet, covering practically ever niche you could hope to imagine and quite a few you probably wouldn’t want to. This has moved website promotion away from a sole reliance upon search engine positioning.

And it doesn’t end there. You’ve probably heard of blogs and the wonderful way they’ve revolutionised the internet in recent times.

The weblog has become more than just an account of your day to day, week by week activities. They’ve come a long way indeed. In the past ten years (when the term weblog was first coined) blogs have moved on from what essentially were nothing more than a list of favourite links; to the more popular diary format; right up to the present day where they are a source of journalism for the masses. A platform from which debate, information and conjecture can be passed freely around the realms of cyberspace.

This holds yet another advantage, in that if you have great content and a regular flow of visitors coming to check you out, it can build lots and lots of naturally formed backlinks. Plenty of links pointing at your website are a good thing. They mark you out as an authority site and that’s what Google likes to see.

And finally there is the fact that a regular input of fresh content shows Google that you are serious about your website. It will increase the frequency with which it gets crawled as Google and their search engine brethren value sites updated on a perpetual basis over those that sit stagnant and never changing. As this is one of the factors included in the Google algorithm it can see your efforts rewarded in the search engine rankings.

In conclusion, social media and social media optimisation are internet marketing buzzwords that have blown up into an entire sub-industry, and it would seem they’re in no immediate hurry to go away.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

First, I want to explain that Social Networking is not to be confused with a variant called Social Bookmarking, which I will cover in the coming weeks. Wikipedia defines a Social Networking Site as “[a] service [that] uses software to build online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.” For many of us I am sure this doesn’t make the issue any clearer, and honestly this is where much of the problem lies. The individuals who are connected online are usually not very forthcoming in explaining its nuances to the uninitiated.

Which brings us to the purpose of this article and this is to explain, in layman’s terms, just how these systems work and more importantly WHY YOU SHOULD BE USING THEM to attract more buyers and sellers

Before we actually dive into the world of rubbing elbows online I would like to present a short list of basic points regarding the “culture” of online networking that are important.

1. No hard selling – Yes, social networking sites can help you market your properties, but it is not for direct selling. The fastest way to anger prospective clients is to bombard them with high-pressure sales material. A well-placed advertisement for a product or service that is relevant to the conversation is perfectly fine, just avoid the “in your face” kind of approach and you will be okay.

2. KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) – Keep your details and explanations to a bare bones minimum but at the same time make them logical and to the point. Bulleted lists are infinitely more effective than paragraphs of long explanations. You are not trying to be Steven King here. You want to immediately grab their attention and keep it. Think “short attention span theatre”. That is your crowd. People surfing the net are very quick to click the back button if they cannot figure out what it is you are trying to say literally in the first two seconds. If you are unsure as to how to write copy that appeals to this crowd, don’t hesitate to find an expert who does, their creative skills are worth their weight in gold!

3. KISS (part two) – If you are maintaining your own website, do not load your pages up with dozens of pretty little flash animations just because you can. Nobody ever watches this stuff and they always translate into an annoying experience for your potential clients. I like to tell my website customers that their website (believe it nor not) is really NOT for them! In reality, their website is created for their potential customers to use. People surfing the net really don’t care about fancy swirling graphics and other cool webpage tricks. Instead, they are only there to find specific information and to see if you have something that they might be interested in. While a nice looking website is always important, the ones that are clean and business like are the ones with the biggest audiences, always! Think Yahoo, Google, Microsoft. Check out their sites. These are some of the leanest and no frills sites around but guess what? They also happen to have the largest audiences on the planet! Keep this in mind when you are debating the look and functionality of your own website’s design. Don’t let your site’s design get in the way of your message.

4. Be relevant – If you are in a club on one of the social networking sites, be sure the club is relevant to what you have to offer. Yes, Tool is a top-selling rock band, with legions of fans, and yes it is hypothetically possible that one of the fans in that club is looking to buy a home, but that doesn’t mean you should post your property listings to that club. Listings like these would obviously be considered spam and frowned upon by the other club members. Instead, find clubs that are not only in your area but are also likely places where your posting will fit in without objection. Check with people you know about which clubs they think are good ones to join. (Hey, you’re networking already!)

5. Listen before you speak – This is actually an extension of being relevant. Be sure to read the postings in the forums of the clubs to gain a good understanding of the social etiquette of that club. Imagine this as just like being at a party. You’re making conversation that fits in and you say what you have to say in a way that people at the party can relate to. A black tie dinner requires a formal approach, while attending a family reunion things tend to be a bit more relaxed. Online clubs are no different.

6. Follow up – When you post an informative message, many times people will reply back with questions or comments. It is expected of you to respond back in a timely manner. Failure to do so will result in people not taking you seriously and it also looks very unprofessional, too. Not only to the person asking the question but other people who frequent those pages will also get the impression that you aren’t with the program.

So far I have discussed the reasons why you need to take advantage of Online Social Networking and the simple rules that are wise to follow when doing so. In the next part of this series I will discuss the process of signing up for services (remember, they are free) and some of the basics on finding your way around them.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

While social networking websites came into existence as recently as 2003, their workings are suspect as are their business models, which essential thrive on sharing personal information of their users with other websites. This is the single biggest reason why most of these sites encourage you or make it mandatory for you to provide information that is not just about you, but about your friends and acquaintances as well. In many cases, these social networking websites even store the address-books for the users on the company’s server, which is easily accessible over the net and presents a huge risk for the users compromising their privacy.

Privacy of personal data and copyright on information provided is increasingly being compromised on most social networking sites. Many users don’t even think twice before volunteering the data of other individuals and therefore, this is makes such data non-consensual and poses a risk that can have serious and far-reaching implications.

Privacy and Copyright of Personal Contact Information

People’s contact information is not only private but also sensitive data. Not only is this true in the case of most individuals at risk but also true for the majority of the people worldwide. A stalker knows no race, ethnicity, or origin. Similarly, marketers are unscrupulous and don’t think twice about spamming mailboxes, inboxes, and calling incessantly over the telephone. All these malpractices are encouraged due to lack of regulatory controls and watchdogs.

Privacy of personal contact data is extremely important in a world that is grappling with alarming increase in cybercrimes such as identity thefts, sexual abuse, voyeurism, and financial scams. Furthermore, the address-book of any social networking website user contains precious and copyrighted information of multiple people, which is very attractive to prowling predators and marketers and scamsters. But more than anything else, the access to such valuable data poses a much bigger threat to the privacy of those unsuspecting people whose information is stored in these address books. Adding fuel to this fire is the fact that an increasing base of friends/acquaintances is a sign of being popular on these social networking communities. Interestingly, social networking websites and related issues have become a wonderful subject of research for sociologists, epidemiologists and criminologists, as well as becoming an interesting investigatory subject for those agencies involved in law enforcement and national security.

The threat that such voluntary disclosure poses for people whose data is recorded in these online email address books is more than just physical in nature. It also has serious psychological dimension based on the thought that ‘everyone’ knows a lot about them now’. Adding to the emotional susceptibility of lack of privacy on these social networking websites are two other factors – terrorism and unregulated and extremely powerful and vindictive national security and law enforcement agencies.

While there is no proper method/s that has emerged from this chaos just yet, suffice is to say that users should exercise more caution and prudence when posting any information on such sites and protect not just their privacy and copyrights but also of those unsuspecting individuals who happen to be a part of their address books!

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Social media optimization not just makes your website visible to larger group but also make your website easily connected or interlaced with various online communities and community websites. Though SMO is in its infancy stage, still it won’t be wrong to say that popular SMO tactics carry the potential to drive huge amounts of traffic to your website. In short, success is just a click away.

Many webmasters think SMO and SEO are same thing, however, it’s a wrong notion. Both these search engine marketing activities drive quality traffic to your website through new channels. Earlier search engines were only channels available but now tables have turned and there are numerous social media websites. With the help of SMO the result is more visibility, more exposure, inbound links and increase in targeted traffic.

SEO and SMO usually go hand in hand. If you are planning to have more quality traffic to your website do not rely only on one source of traffic. For instance, 80% of your traffic is coming from Google and suddenly their algorithm changes. This will cause your site to lose its ranking and also 80% of your traffic wiped out. So, the question here is how to proceed in this. To cater this problem SMO is the exact backup plan. SMO tactics have the potential to create and direct huge amounts of traffic to your website. Thus, the bottom-line is doing SMO can simply complement your SEO efforts. One of the most popular SMO tactics is to create linkbaits or great content that people will naturally link to.

Content writing is the backbone of social media optimization. Its the content only that attracts visitors and finally direct them to your website. You will be amazed to know that companies offering SEO services in India have started creating content keeping this in mind. With the emergence of social media optimization content writing in India has got a new face and look. People always like to tag with quality content which can be located in blogs, del.icio.us, Digg.com, and many social networking websites.

We can summarize everything by saying that quality and great content is the heart of SMO and is also the main ingredient in a successful SEO effort. SMO has made people to rethink how to do SEO. And the outcome is that now webmasters instead buying software to automate the request for link emails, they simply create quality content and leverage in social media optimization. As per search engine marketing experts social media optimization will replace SEO simultaneously it will also boost content writing or SMO content writing.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

As people bookmark information and ideas they find useful, the resources that are of more use will also be bookmarked by other users. Thus, such a system will “rank” a resource based on its perceived usefulness. This is arguably a more effective metric for end users than other systems which rank resources based on the number of external links pointing to it.

How Do Social Networks Work

A social network service mainly concentrates on the building and verifying of online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others,and which necessitates the use of software. Most social network sites and services are generally web-based and provide a collection of various ways for users to interact, such as chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, discussion groups, and so on.

How To Establish Networks On Social bookmarking Sites

Social bookmarking is considered as one good method you can use to promote your website, build more traffic, or establish more links. A good example of this would be to first visit a few of the top social bookmarking sites like Digg, del.ici.ous, Furl and Yahoo, for example.

You can try to do a Google search on these to find them if you’ve never encountered them before. The next thing would be to sign up for a free account with each of these. When you sign up for an account, you are then afforded the opportunity to select buttons that you can add to the end of each of your blogs.

Doing this will allow readers of your blog to “Digg” or bookmark your post over at the Digg bookmarking site. Whenever some other web user clicks on your Digg button, it will redirect them to the Digg site, where they would login with their account username and password. The blog or article post would then appear as a URL, and the person who clicked “Digg” will have the opportunity to write a comment about your post.

Once you find other posts on your topic of interest, then you have the opportunity to bookmark, or “favorite” those posts, and also add a comment. Doing this method can do wonders in increasing your traffic and creating better networks. If you add to your “favorites” other people’s sites and they in turn “favorite” your site and both comment on other’s posts, then you will soon have a network of links pointing back to your site.

One good thing to note when using social bookmarking sites for purposes of networking or marketing, is that you want to be seen as someone who has a credible and an interesting post, blog or site.

You don’t want others to see you merely as an annoying spammer who insists on letting his site be simply seen or clicked. As with anything in internet marketing or networking, like forum posts, no one likes someone who is there just to advertise themselves. You should be there to offer valuable information, as well as offer relevant advice,opportunities and interesting content.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

There are such a broad range of sites in this field that you may be at a loss over where to start. Well, the bottom line is that it doesn’t really matter. Each one of these social media sites has its own unique advantages and methods that a website owner can use to promote their business. Some of the attributes that these websites all have in common include the ability to reach a targeted audience, reach customers in a specific geographic region, to get your message out their quickly, and most importantly… to do all of this for FREE.

One of the sites responsible for the growth in social media marketing is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is one of the top ten most popular sites on the Internet today, in terms of unique visitors. Wikipedia describes itself as “a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project.” What makes Wikipedia a social media website is the fact that it is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world. Wikipedia says “people of all ages and cultural and social backgrounds can write Wikipedia articles.” With rare exceptions, articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet. The idea here is simple, to contribute to, or write an article on a topic related to your particular business.

Before beginning to contribute to Wikipedia you must determine what your ultimate goal is; are you determined to increase traffic to your site, build brand awareness or increase the number of inbound links to your website. If the primary goal of your contribution is to increase traffic than the quantity and more important the quality of your contributions should be your focus. You need to make certain that once your submissions are read, the reader will find it interesting or informative enough to either follow the citation back to your site through a number of different methods, or to possibly incite a discussion of the article in the discussion tab of the Wikipedia article. Once you engage the reader you have converted them into a potential customer. Another important feature to use in Wikipedia is the creation of your profile. When you make a contribution to an article you have the option to “sign your name”. This allows interested users to follow your signature to a profile of you, where it is possible to than direct the visitor to your website. If the goal of your social media campaign is to merely increase the number of inbound links than the most important consideration when contributing to Wikipedia is on relevancy. You need to be certain your contributions are relevant in order to ensure their staying power, so that other users do not edit your submissions.

One of the most important and useful feature on Wikipedia for those of us looking to use it as a marketing method is the “External Links” section. This section appears at the bottom of every article. It is, as you might expect, a list of external links related to the content in the article. It goes without saying that you will have very little success if you simply add a link to your commercial website on every page that you can find. They will be deleted almost as soon as they are posted. However, if you have, or can make, pages on your website that are dedicated to providing very useful information to a specific subject, you will be successful. Many business owners are experts in their particular fields and there is no reason not to take advantage of the “Expert” title when writing your articles. These pages should be related to the products or services that you offer. They should not be blatant advertisements for your site or contain sales related material. They can, and should, however, offer a very easy navigation system that would allow the user to access the rest of your website and thereby convert them into a potential customer.

At the bottom of every article on Wikipedia is a reference list. The purpose of this list is to give proper credit to the source of information contained in the article. If you have added information to an article that is either quoted directly from your website, or extrapolated from information on your website, than you can reference the URL of your site in the reference section of Wikipedia. The most important aspect to consider when contributing to Wikipedia is to focus on the right topic. You do not want to pick a topic that is too broad, or you will be competing against a large group of contributors, and more importantly your article will probably be edited frequently from your original text and you might lose your references. You also will not want to pick a topic that is too specific, you may have a great addition to an article on “antique mahogany rocking chairs from the mid to late ottoman empire” but nobody will read this, because nobody will be searching for it, and it will most likely be edited out of the article. The solution is to pick a topic somewhere in the middle. An article addition about “Chair Armrests” would probably draw allot more interest than the previous idea without the fear of being pushed out. You have to keep in mind that just because we are adding a contribution to an article does not mean that it will be read or even kept in the article.

A great tool to ultimately get a potential customer from the external links section of Wikipedia to your website is the use of e-zine articles. If you write an article on a subject related to your business, and you link it to Wikipedia directly through your website there is a possibility that it will be deleted by other users. Many users on Wikipedia are very much against the commercialization of information, and will view your link as an attempt to profit, not as an added resource of information. This is unfortunate, because often times an article written by a business owner can act as both. The solution to this problem is to submit your articles to free e-zine article websites such as EzineArticles.com or earticlesonline.com. When you submit your article to these sites you are given the opportunity to list some external resources, this is a good place to link you’re website. These sites will generally accept any article that is written following their guidelines, which basically tries to limit inappropriate material, copyrighted material and advertisements that are crudely modified to look like informative articles. When your article is posted on one of these websites it will give the author another layer of credibility. It is a good idea to link your articles from one of these websites in order to help maintain its existence on Wikipedia.

By nature, social media websites are constantly changing and these are just a handful of the methods that you can use to promote your website on Wikipedia. There is new information and new methods of marketing available almost on a daily basis. The key to being able to stay on top of these changes is to get involved with these websites as soon as possible, even if that means just becoming a member yourself. Once you are a member you have the ability to learn how they function and to see what other businesses are doing to advertise themselves with these websites. Social media websites offer unique opportunities, when you become a member of a community it often lends you a certain amount of trust and credibility that will help to separate you from the competitor who is selling their product out of a box in the corner of a monster search engine.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Now, let’s fast forward to 2008. Social Networking has literally taken the world by storm. Everywhere you look people are trying to start the next MySpace, Google, or Facebook. Marketers, advertisers, businesses, and ordinary people are looking for ways to capitalize and make money on these social networking sites. These people see opportunity knocking on their door from social networking and want to be a part of the game. Then there is the 95% of others out there who sit back and wait for things to happen. These are the types of people who enjoy “playing it safe” their whole life. They like to watch as others go out on a limb and try something new.

Isn’t it time you join the new revolution of Social Networking? The industry is now a multi-billion dollar industry, it’s time for you to find your niche. You don’t necessarily have to create a social network, but you should at least take the initiative to learn more about these amazing networks that are literally taking over the internet. Who knows, maybe you’ll find a way to capitalize for your business, hobby, or trade.

Facebook is quickly becoming the world’s largest social network, with over 60 million people signed up. The number is growing exponentially on a daily basis and is really starting to get up there. With a social networking so large, you know Facebook had to come out with their own advertising platform. Of course they did, Facebook Ads, formally Facebook Fliers are getting a lot of attention around the Internet. Since Facebook started offering advertising solutions, it seems their way of providing value to the marketer has improved with every update. At first, they had a program called Facebook Fliers. The basic concept of Facebook Fliers was you paid for per thousand impressions. While this was a good concept, it didn’t work as well as it way supposed to. The current program being used is called Facebook Ads, which has the option of paying per click or per impression. The targeting, pricing, and setup seemed to improve with Facebooks newest creation. The general consensus found with everyone I have spoke to is they are experiencing much better results using CPC versus CPM. If you think about it, if your visitor actually takes the time to read your ad, and then click it, they have to be interested.

Join the revolution today and learn about social networking, facebook ads, and how they can help you grow your business.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Customers want so much more than just a good product. Don’t kid yourself. Never ever fall for the idea that it is enough for your legal advise to be top of the class, for your engineering solutions to be tailor made, or for the car you sell to make them look like a million bucks.

You know it, everybody knows it. The real money from a customer is in the second sale, the third sale and so on. Getting a new customer is exiting, hard work and expensive. Keeping a customer is much cheaper, and …

much more valuable.

Yet, too few businesses actually focus their marketing activities on keeping customers. All the attention is on getting new customers. When I look at marketing blogs, read marketing books, I have the same impression, that I need to keep working on getting new customers all the time.

Ask yourself this. Is your marketing budget entirely dedicated to getting new customers? Your efforts to keep your current customers happy, how do you budget for those costs?

I suggest that you rethink this position. First of all, remind yourself that every interaction of someone in your company with the outside world is a form of marketing. Your customer service person on the phone, she or he is a marketer for your company.

So far nothing new for you, right?

What more can you do to keep your customers engaged and interested in buying from you?

Social Networking is all the rage these days. First, what is social networking? Here is one good definition from Wikipedia:

“A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.”

Usually marketers talk about social networking tools as a way to get new customers, to get people to talk about you, to go viral. Some new marketing experts suggest you twitter and magically, your short messages will be retweeted and thousands of new people will hear about your brand.

You can create LinkedIn profiles and Facebook fan pages. And you have heard all about email marketing.

The basic idea is all the same. You go where your customers are. And if you focus on getting new customers, that is an excellent idea.

Keeping Customers

But to keep your customers, there are other strategies for you to consider. Here you really want to focus on the interaction with your existing customers. How do you treat them when they call you? How quickly do you offer a solution to their problems? Are they delighted to interact with you, or are they afraid somehow.

Do your customers feel special? Do you treat your customers as if they are a special class of citizens? They are, you know.

Here is where social networking makes the difference.

You customers want to feel that they are special. They don’t only pay you for your products and services, they want to be recognized and pampered.

The Exclusive Club

What would it be like for your customers if you invite them to join a special group of people that meets online in a space exclusively for them? There they can share in their experience with your product, with like minded people. There they have the shortest route to customer support of anybody in the world. There they can hear from others about the next version, version 2.0 of your product, which they will need to have.

This online space is filled with information that is immediately relevant for their lives. Perhaps even relevant advertising, as long as the products you advertise are really important to your customers.

What are some examples?

You have a health club, and you need to have a place where you can host relevant discussions. Recently a Time Magazine article suggested that exercise is not all that good for you. Can you imagine the confusion of your customers, when such an article appears? Would you not want to talk with them about it, and reignite their passion for working out in your club?

You are a lawyer who helps people with serious injuries and trauma. This can be a place where your customers can get updates and resources about healing. You can help them find groups of survivors.

You are a luxury car dealer. You know how motor cycle riders greet each other on the highway. Your customers may not be so ostentatious, but they have that same recognition of each other. There is another one who knows what car to drive. You can bring them together and learn what interest they actually have in common? Now there is a marketing research tool for you. Free!

The trick is to bring your customers to a social networking site you own. Don’t chase your customers all over the internet. Instead create a site so compelling that it is in your customers’ interest to keep coming back. Then you can sell again and again. And your customer will love you for it.

Of course, you need a tool that will let you do just this. LCS Websites is exactly that tool and the good thing is that you don’t need any experience running websites to use it. That means you can focus all your attention on keeping your customers happy. LCS Websites is the platform that will keep you focused on your customers and your business.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

I think a little history of the Internet is in order to grasp the big picture. I’m not going to give any dates (late eighties and early 90’s)… I’ll just give a quick run down.

I would say nearly fifteen years ago I had a dial up Internet connection that allowed me to log into various College computers, BBS’s (bulletin boards) and Newsgroups.

The Internet was much different than the Web is today. There was no graphics… it was totally text based and everything was dial up. All you could do was basically post to a newsgroup, post messages on some BBS’s and send email. Internet Marketing as we know it today did not exist.

In time though – a few brave souls ventured out of the shadows and began marketing within the newsgroups. This started wars between the “Purists” and new “Marketers” that I still remember to this day.

You see, the Purists considered the Internet to be their own little playground. They viewed anyone selling something as evil. After all… Marketers had the TV, the Radio, Magazines, Newspapers, etc, etc as an avenue in which to sell their crap. “The Internet is ours” was their battle cry.

They viewed the Internet as a way for them to communicate with each other without having to wade through all the advertising – and they could control what was being said. When the evil “Marketer” entered the picture, this all changed – and it changed quickly.

Once the evil Marketer had discovered the Internet as a new marketing medium, the “Purity” of the Internet, newsgroups and BBS’s was destroyed forever.

The Internet was now becoming just another medium for Marketers to sell their wares. It was inevitable and only a matter of time before this happened. But the Purists fought it tooth and nail.

The Newsgroups and BBS’s were now inundated and overrun with advertising. There was so much spam that you could hardly follow a thread or make sense of it. The thread may have started out discussing a subject as “Microsoft DOS” as it’s first post… but it was hard to make sense of it as the evil Marketers would post “off topic” spam ads trying to sell their wares throughout the threads.

As we all know things have changed a lot since those “Caveman” days… the evil Marketers persevered and the Purists lost the War (or did they?)

Jump to present day.

The Purists did not really lose – they just lost a battle ten or fifteen years ago, but they have recently won the War and staked their claim on the Internet as belonging to them with Web 2.0 and Social Networking.

Just in case you missed this “coup d’ etat” – give some serious thought to the current environment on the Web and Social Networking specifically. The Web no longer belongs to the evil Marketer. It is back in the hands and control of the Purists and they are once again controlling the conversations.

I know… it sounds like a bunch of bull, but for the most part it is true.

The difference is the Purists have discovered a way to once again “control” the conversations they want to have, while at the same time make a profit from these discussions (i.e. social networking communities).

Welcome to Web 2.0 and Social Networking.

I do not consider myself a Internet “Purist”… I’d fall more into the “Evil Marketer” category. This being the case, like you (if you are an Evil Marketer too) I have to adapt and change the way I do things or I will soon fall to the wayside and die a slow death.

Like the saying goes, “When in Rome… do as The Romans Do” was never a truer statement than it is today.

The way you sell things and market has to change – you are now in Rome.

Marketing as we know it today on the Web is dying a slow death – but it is happening fast. Only those who adapt and change will survive.

The Web 2.0 Marketer will survive this “coup d’ etat”.

Interruption Marketing has lost out to Participation Marketing and the Web 2.0 Marketer will prosper with these changes. It is no longer about forcing our messages down the throats of people – they get enough of that with all the other advertising mediums. It is all about authority, conversations and participating within discussions that other people deem important – not what you or I feel is important.

Seth Godin has been telling us this very same thing for a few years now – but a lot have not listened.

Why is this? Because it takes work and discipline (and change) to make relationships and participate in meaningful conversations. It is easier to do what I would call “method of the day” or “hit and miss” marketing – at least in the short run. But that is all it is… marketing for the short haul with no regard to the direction the Web is moving.

Like Seth Godin, Jack Humphrey has been telling Marketers they need to adapt and change their marketing methods for years now with Social Power Linking. Jack saw this “coup d’ etat” coming before most and began joining in with the “conversations” while most of us were still doing our marketing basically the same way as the “evil Marketers” of past (and current) – cramming and forcing our message down our visitors throats.

This is not a fad or a “method of the day”… it is here to stay.

With the direction the Web is heading (we are there already) – Social Bookmarking, Social Networking, Conversation Participation with links from and pointing to those conversations is the key to being successful for the Web 2.0 Marketer.

So don’t rebel against the “coup d’ etat” – come on it, the water is fine.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The Internet is probably most famous for the ability to spread information, fact or fiction. We were once limited to news editors of a local paper, then to national cable news. Now anyone can search the globe, visit local papers in foreign countries, and see the views of all sides. This ease of information has also brought with it a large amount of hoaxes, money schemes, and fallacies.

There is no question that easy access to the Internet, like the introduction of mail service and the invention of the telephone, has changed the nature of people’s connection to others in their social world. Mail made possible connections among people without physical proximity, and the telephone facilitated communication among distant people, making rapid connections possible across long distances.

But has this communication revolution changed the pure nature of interpersonal and group processes?

On the one hand, since the primary use of the Internet is communication, some people might speculate that the Internet will have positive social consequences in people’s everyday lives because it increases the frequency and quality of interpersonal communications among people. People with easy access to others would feel better connected and more strongly supported by others, leading to happiness and engagement in families, organizations, communities, and society more generally.

But, on the other hand, the ease of electronic communication may lead to weaker social ties, because people have less reason to leave their homes and actually interact face to face with other people. The Internet allows people to more easily work from their home, to form and sustain friendships and even romantic attachments from their home, to bank from their home, to vote and engage in political and social issue based discussions with others (from home).

In this variety of ways, Internet communications can potentially displace face-to-face communications. I think this point is important because psychologists in many researches have described and proved such face to face and telephone connections as being of higher quality, when viewed in terms of their contribution to satisfaction and well-being.
Reading a series of longitudinal and experimental studies (e.x. McKenna, Green, and Gleason), who test a theory of relationship formation on the Internet, these researchers directly address the argument that the psychological quality of Internet social interaction is lower than is the psychological quality of traditional face-to-face interaction.

Consider my own use. I’ve received several e-mail messages in the past hour. My boyfriend confirms the dinner for tonight. Even though it is weekend, my colleagues send me questions about the pending exam expects a quick answer. So does some graduate student from Europe, that I recently met on “MySpace” with an urgent request for a letter of recommendation. My friend Ksenija sends me an IM to tell me the latest news about her new love. And so on and so on…

I assume that I am also living a virtual life, and what’s the most interesting of all, all of my friends online, are also my friends in real life. And if they weren’t that in the past, I somehow managed to bring my cyber friends into my real life, so I could here in my real life enable real communication, real face-to-face “talks”, real exchange of emotions, feelings of happiness, satisfaction and well-being. I’d say for me, the Internet is a great new way for doing old things.

So, what else conclusion can I bring except the one that Internet life cannot stand on itself without real-life communication. It is simple: If we understand the qualities of face-to-face communication that influence the impact of such communication on people and their social interaction, we would be able to predict the probable influence of any new communication technology. However, researchers show that people sooner or later convert their cyber contacts into more traditional face-to-face, the same as I do. People use the Internet, in other words to help them achieve their real-life goals. And rather than technology’s changing people’s social and psychological reality, in other words, people change their use of technology to facilitate their creation of a desired social reality.
Internet users should closely examine their behavior, to ensure that excessive time online will not negatively impact their personal well-being. We shouldn’t throw our computers out the window, but neither should we charge on blindly into complete dependence on the Internet. As with many things in life, it seems that moderation and balance are key to maximizing the Internet’s positive effect.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The rise of the PC in businesses during the 1980s ushered in a new vision for organizations. The center of attention shifted to managing processes efficiently, the objective being to reduce enterprise business cycles. As a result, organizations became “process centric.” Of course, customer satisfaction was never tossed out the window, but the marketplace did become primarily supplier driven.

In the 1990s, on the other hand, globalization was poised to dissolve national boundaries and engender a global marketplace where customers call the shots. Today, customers are harder to please, because they have been empowered by choice. Searching the global marketplace has never been easier. To complicate matters more for businesses, information about goods and services, supplier and product comparisons, and fellow customer feedback is as close as a click away. Today, the customer’s value is acknowledged as never before.

It is this reality that spawned today’s CRM market social ecosystem (including numerous boutique markets) which is the subject of this discussion. Previously, the industry had been responding to organizational demands for process automation and management solutions. Yet, that doesn’t mean CRM processes and ICT (information & communication technology) have suddenly become irrelevant. On the contrary, fuelled by imaginative unions, the landscape has become more customer-centric. A more expansive understanding is inspiring new approaches to business development and intelligence-driven E-commerce supported by hybrid ICT innovations applied to community renewal as part of CRM Strategy products that aspires to automate global social responsibility.

History teaches that such situations can be resolved by advances in technology or new applications that create dramatic social shifts which reverberate throughout the economy. The Industrial Revolution in the U.S. is one such example; at the same time that a huge market demand (railroads) was emerging, a dramatically improved technology (the Bessemer steelmaking method) catapulted the product (steel) to soaring heights of commercial success, playing a key role in the nation’s growth. Today, high energy prices are impacting nearly every industry, especially retail, and customers are responding with what some are reporting as cautious spending. Guarded spending may be interpreted as an indication of declining social capital. The U.S. Labor Department reported this June that consumer prices rose at an annual rate of 5.2% for this first part of 2006, putting it well ahead of the 3.4% annual increase of the previous year. A slowdown in the previously booming housing market has also emerged as a noteworthy indicator, accompanied by a declining consumer loans market.

Some experts estimate that U.S. national debt has continued to increase an average of $1.77 billion per day since September 29, 2006. Ben Bernanke, new Federal Reserve chairman, warns that huge deficits place future living standards at risk. His statements were in expressed in a response to inquiries following his appearance at a U.S. congressional hearing on the economy in February. In 2005 the budget deficit was $319 billion US, the third-highest figure in U.S. history. In 2006 it was projected to, the balloon to a new record of $423 billion.

The broadest measure of international trade jumped, according to CBC News, “… to an all-time high of $804.9 billion last year as the country went deeper into debt to foreigners. The Commerce Department said Tuesday the deficit in the current account was up 20.4 per cent from the previous record of $668.1 billion set in 2004.”

Combined with the social issues facing communities these facts all point to a dire need for innovation and new solutions. This points to where opportunities and challenges exist for those in CRM, marketing and beyond. Consider that social capital can be the glue that binds your customers to your business . Then what sector does not benefit from increased social capital? Furthermore how can it be leveraged to survive the bumpy ride that may be ahead? No enterprise is an island and it is to your advantage to understand the factors that are impacting your business or organization…and to then develop strategies to tackle them.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Realistically, there are as many reasons to invest in a good social media marketing campaign as there is website, but the top five reasons that you should be joining the social marketing and networking revolution include:

Increased SEO and Rankings-Participating in online marketing efforts like Twitter, Digg, and Facebook add dimensions to your effort. Moreover, when others in your online communities link to your posts or your blog content is Tweeted by members of your social media groups, you ranking increase with every single link. Further, as search engines love new content, blogs are highly prized by search engines for fresh material.

Exposure Equals Traffic on Steroids-Marketing is all about going where the people meet to share information about your products or services. In this case, more people meet online in social media groups each week than pass through the New York subway system. Imagine gaining exposure to every one of those people. With social media marketing, that goal is obtainable with less cost than a billboard or an advertisement. At this point, an important side note is to make sure you measure social media time as part of your ROI cost because time still equals money…even on the internet!

Voice of the Customer Connection-Many business owners pass up the opportunity to find out what their customers (or potential customers) think about their products. Through contests or online surveys, you can poll your market audience on subjects including pricing, features, or benefits of your products.

Fluid Flexibility of Marketing Message-In traditional marketing, the expenditure of A/B Split testing is enough to stop most businesses from deploying several marketing efforts to see which one works best. In fact, SM marketing is the best place to do A/B Split testing because your marketing message can be quickly changed to meet the reaction of your audience. One of my favorite case studies about A/B testing is Geiko, from the Gecko to the Caveman to the stack on bills with all seeing eyes; Geiko is testing three different marketing campaigns for audience response.

It is easy to stand back and wait for the electronic dust to clear instead of stepping into the social media fight; however, denying the existence and usefulness of social media marketing will put you in the same category as the person who thought the internet was just a “passing fade!” With a minimal investment of time and attention to the creation of a good social marketing plan, you can boost your exposure, gain potential customers, and instill an efficiency in your marketing efforts that traditional marketing cannot meet.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Let’s begin with the basics. Social media is a broad term that encompasses a large number of sites, online communities and some lesser known outlets, like Ning, Xing and Ryze. To keep it brief, though, we’ll stick to the Big 3: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Used as a business tool, these three can be leveraged in a multitude of ways. From a marketing standpoint, social media can be used to help build a brand, enhance reputation and (occasionally) communicate important company news. It can also be used as a networking tool, and from a sales perspective, can be used to locate and reach out to prospective clients.

But you’re not in marketing and you’re not in sales; so how can HR use social media? That’s what we’re about to explore:

LinkedIn
A recent article found that in many ways, a job applicant’s LinkedIn profile is more valuable than the resume they send to you. Why? Because their LinkedIn profile is public, and no one is willing to be caught in a lie by their many professional connections.

Not only does this make LinkedIn an extremely valuable tool to verify the authenticity of applicants’ resumes, but it’s a great way to find and engage passive candidates. By doing a quick search on important keywords, including skills, experiences or even location, you have a wealth of qualified at your fingertips.

Lastly, posting open jobs to your LinkedIn status is a great way to get the word out that you’re looking to fill a position. Not only is this efficient because it’s all free of charge, but it’s also more likely that your professional connections will refer to you a high caliber candidate that might otherwise be difficult to connect with.

Facebook
A few short years ago, no one could have guessed how powerful a recruiting tool LinkedIn would turn into. Many HR professionals predict the same will occur with Facebook. With more than 200 million active users, and the 35-54 year old demographic growing at an astonishing rate of 276 percent, this is no longer just a toy for college kids. Any smart business person knows that you have to go where your audience is, and more and more, regardless of demographic, that place will be Facebook.

A good corporate Facebook page will give the potential candidates insight into what it’d be like to work for your company, and hopefully sell them on that idea. In addition to updating the page frequently to include job openings, Facebook pages can also include employee testimonials, awards won and recent press releases.

Someone recently asked about encountering legal problems using social media outlets, namely Facebook, to recruit. The concern was that having access to intimate details about a candidate (gender, age, race) could easily lead to a discrimination law suit. However, if your organization has a Facebook page, on which you post links directing the applicant back to your company career site, that problem becomes null and void. Crisis averted.

Twitter
Twitter is the newest and most talked about of the Big 3 used for recruiting these days and it’s being used in a variety of ways. The obvious and perhaps easiest use for many recruiters and HR professionals using Twitter is to find and source candidates. Tweeting your organization’s open jobs is fast and simple, and within hours the open position can be viewed by hundreds of people. As your following grows, you will be reaching more and more passive and active candidates. Furthermore, it’s absolutely free! What could be any better than that?

Other, perhaps more advanced, ways to leverage Twitter is to promote your company brand. Like the Facebook page that illuminates how great it is to work for your company, your tweets can do the same. It can also be used to engage candidates and build relationships with them. If a candidate regularly follows your tweets, it can be assumed that they’re much better informed about your company and its culture before starting. Once the offer has been extended, having a virtual relationship with an HR team member at a company goes a long way in helping a new hire feel welcome in their new role.

Talent Management
The Big 3 in social media, as we’ve seen, are fast, cheap and easy ways to efficiently source, find and engage both passive and active candidates, maintain your company brand, build relationships… and the list goes on! Point made on the talent acquisition side. But how can you use social media for talent management?

While it may not be as overwhelmingly popular yet, more and more organizations are using social media as a way to foster employee engagement and productivity. Internal company blogs and discussion boards are two top methods to effectively communicate important messages with your workforce. Instead of the traditional one-way conversation- sending out mass internal communication and hoping it’ll be read, HR can now engage their employees in conversation and foster discussion, even across geographic lines. Again, with tightened budgets all around and less money to spend on communications, this can be a cheaper, yet still efficient, way to communicate with employees.

Social media outlets, like the Big 3 or corporate blogs and discussion boards, also allow employees to connect with one another, share information, and even create or expand mentorship programs. The rewards are great: employees will be happier at work, more productive and also more likely to stay longer, all of which affect the business’s bottom line.

So it seems that the benefits of using social media in HR are undeniable. From both a talent acquisition and talent management perspective, immense benefits can be reaped when you enable yourself to more quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively find, engage and retain talent. Even if you still aren’t sold on leveraging social media to drive HR outcomes before, what’s the harm in giving it a try?

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Many surveys that ask these types of questions have been published over the past while, and some interesting trends jump out of the results. One is that enterprise scale companies and big brands such as Starbucks, General Mills, Ford, Wal-Mart and others like them appear to have jumped on social networking platforms and tools early on. Maybe it’s because they have the resources or the staff to invest in it, or maybe they have people with some forward looking vision who promote it internally. But because of that early uptake, their social media marketing is often miles ahead of those who were not early adopters.

Generally speaking, small and medium businesses as a group don’t seem to have yet jumped in with both feet just yet. There seems to be a general hesitation about social network based marketing. Many are not sure of its value, how it can be used, how it can be measured, and how it adds value to the bottom line.

Discover Financial Services publishes report every month that’s called Small Business Watch. A recent “Poll of the Month” focused in on social media. Here’s a few of the very interesting responses by the small businesses polled:

* 38% are members of online social networking communities such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or My Space

* 45% of those who belong to an online social network actively use it to promote their businesses

* 62% percent of small business owners still do not have Web sites for their businesses

62% of businesses said that they still do not have a website for their business? Because I believe so strongly that a key goal of any online marketing strategy is to encourage people to visit your website, that’s a significant finding from my perspective.

Some food for thought is that when small or medium sized firms go ahead with some targeted social web marketing activity, a good percentage of them experience positive results for their business. The reported benefits often include increased generation of qualified leads, increased exposure of their business or their brand, and more traffic to their website.

It bears keeping in mind that it always takes time to develop the relationships that lead to actual business, whether online or offline. The best results are always reported by those who actually spend time and effort with their social media marketing efforts, doing some fine tuning as they go. Social media is not something to implement and then walk away from – it is not self-sustaining. The more consistently you engage the more benefits you’ll realize. Companies and/or entrepreneurs who spend a minimum of 6+ hours per week on their social media marketing usually report the best business results.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

And with all of these sites content is grouped and categorized by popular interests such as “health & fitness” or finance allowing users to easily find content that is specific to their search. Why is this important…well if you are trying to drive traffic around a specific group of keywords, these social media sites are highly regarded and have the “google juice” necessary to get you some high quality back links and push you further up in the search rankings.

#1 YouTube

Nothing beats video. I recently saw a statistic that boasted that over 50% of all the content on the web is now video. That is an amazing statistic. There are a lot of people that shy away from video as part of their marketing and SEO efforts. So that means its an opportunity and something you can use to your advantage. So get out there and make a short video of whatever it is you are doing and get it online. Stats: 72M visitors per month. Page Rank: 6.

#2 Blogger

Blogger.com has quickly become the free blogging platform of choice. Google owns it (no surprise there). Its free to sign up and start creating content that quickly gets indexed and viewed on the web. Want to be seen…put your content on blogger. Stats: 20.1M people per month. Page Rank: 32

#3 Twitter

If you haven’t heard of twitter then please continue to stay under that rock that you’ve been living under. Yes, everyone uses twitter from politicians to pop stars and athletes. For a low-cal diet of micro blogging and pointing people to more substantial content this is the place to be. Stats: 26.5M people per month. Page Rank 25.

#4 Wordpress.com

This is a free blogging platform that is a favorite amongst the people. Made for the people, by the people. This open source platform has tons of great functionality and content from the Wordpress network of blogs is picked up all over the web from other sites such as Google and Facebook. Stats: 188.6M people per month (across all published blogs). Page Rank 11.

#5 DIGG

Digg is the social media and bookmarking site on the web. Its a great place to be seen and heard. The site lets users share and promote content from anywhere on the web and google loves it…need I say more. Stats: 28.2M people per month. Page Rank: 53.

#6 Hubpages

Hubpages is a leading online publishing platform with an active community and easy to use tools for content creation. They also like to make it easy for you to monetize your content. This one is a “must” as part of your overall social media strategy. Stats: 13M people per month. Page Rank 125.

#7 Squidoo

Basically the same as Hubpages. If your an expert then you can place your content HERE. Squidoo lets you create a “lens” (there term for an article of piece of content) for the world to see. They have a user friendly format for building a lens using different types of content such as text, video and graphics and pulling it all together. And of course the more positive reviews you get the higher your rankings. Stats: 10.2M people per month. Page Rank: 166.

#8 Zimbio

Zimbio is one of the fastest growing online magazines and social media sites. They boast over 18M readers per month. The site tends to focus on the hyper-active pop culture segment which includes entertainment, style and current events. However they do not limit their content to these categories and as a marketer you can submit your blog relative to your niche and they will include your content on their site, as long as it is good Stats: 18M people per month. Page Rank: 107.

#9 Wetpaint

Wetpaint is a fast growing social media site that promotes users, companies or anyone for that matter promote their brand by building community sites that are engaging and interactive. You can set up a community and let the users post content to keep them coming back for more. Stats: 6.4M people per month. Page Rank: 1,329

#10 Propeller

Propeller is AOL’s social media/news and bookmarking site. Its very easy to submit your site or article and content ranks well in the search engines. Unfortunately their traffic has been declining. Keep an eye on this one. But for now it’s a “must” use social media site for creating back links and SEM. Stats: 500K people per month. Page Rank: 3,533

The key to effectively leveraging these sites is to post consistently and cross reference all of your posts and articles to create a matrix of inter-connected content all pointing back to your main site. If you can do this on a regular basis you will increase back links and see your page rank steadily improve over time.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

So in order to get some sense out of the hundreds of such sites appearing on the internet, I’ve decided to try & group them into 6 main general categories based on my own understanding of their main functions or objectives. Hopefully this will help you have a better idea of the types of Social Media sites that are out there on the internet right now:

(1) News sites:

These sites are places where members share & submit news stories or articles, in which other can then place their own votes about such stories or articles. Members can also comment on the stories or articles submitted & these can later give rise to ensuing conversations about what was submitted. Examples of such sites include Digg, Del.Icio.Us, Reddit & StumbleUpon.

(2) Photo Sharing sites:

As the name suggests, these sites allow you to upload & share your photos with others, as well as share information about those photos. Most of these sites allow you to add specific tags to the photos being uploaded, as well as allow other members to add their comments to the photos. Examples of such sites include Flickr, Photobucket & SnapFish.

(3) Video Sharing sites:

Such sites are close cousins to the photo-sharing sites above, the difference being they allow you to upload & share only videos instead. The main example is of course YouTube, which was acquired by Google a few years ago. Many of these video sharing sites now offer a lot more features than just plain video sharing, such as subscriptions to particular video channels, giving ratings to the videos & allowing members to embed the videos themselves on members’ own websites or blogs. Examples of these sites include YouTube, Veoh, Viddler & Daily Motion.

(4) Social Bookmarking sites:

These sites enable users to save & publicly “bookmark” whatever websites, links or web pages they feel are important enough to be “bookmarked”, & which in turn allow other users to publicly view such bookmarks as well. Besides saving your “bookmarks”, almost all these sites allow you to add tags, annotations or descriptions to your entries as well, & most of them also have pages that show the most popular or recent “bookmarks”. Examples include Digg, Del.Icio.Us, Technorati, Furl & Spurl.

(5) Social Network/Social Networking sites:

Social Network / Social Networking sites are at present the most popular & fastest growing social media sites right now on the internet, with sites like Facebook & Twitter taking the lead amongst all the other similar sites out there. As the name suggests, such sites allow users to network, connect with other like-minded people & build relationships with one another, both on a personal as well as on a professional level. However, besides the obvious uses mentioned, more & more businesses, companies & entrepreneurs are also using such sites as a means of reaching out to their prospects & customers, establishing their own corporate / business brands, as well as promoting their own websites, products or services to their target audience. Even celebrities & politicians are increasingly using these sites as a way of reaching out to their own loyal base of fans or supporters, the prime example of which was President Obama who made extensive use of both Facebook & Twitter during his presidential campaign. Besides Facebook & Twitter other examples of such sites include LinkedIn & Ning.

(6) General Information/Knowledge-sharing sites:

Finally, this last group of sites are the ones which in general allow users to provide, publish & share information & knowledge on any topic or area of interest, thus enabling people with a collective area of interest to form their own online communities or groups. Because of the massive amount of information that is published at such sites, many times they also act as an online “encyclopedia” for anyone interested to find out more about a particular subject matter or area of interest. Similar to the Social Network sites mentioned above, more & more businesses & entrepreneurs are using such sites as a way of building their own business or individual brands, as well as a promoting their websites, products or services to their target audience. Examples of these sites include Squidoo, Hubpages & Yahoo 360.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

They can also contribute with valuable information about their business and in the process can learn a lot from what others have posted. Hence we see that a person can become both, on a social networking site, a supplier as well as a reader of important information. Social networking sites can also send important notification to your account depending in the settings you have made in your profile. This allows the users to be aware of the latest developments in their field of interest. Social networks are often used in other context also.

Many people use these sites to write press releases that mention about a particular product or service. These press releases have a certain type of sales pitch attached to them. As mentioned before, these sites are often used as a major platform for marketing as well as finding and segmenting populations. You can send advertising messages to all members on the site or just to selected members. You can also add important content in the existing directories. So we see that there is so much that you can do from the business point of view in social sites. Some sites also have user friendly tools through which you can make simple web pages advertising about your company. You can create a web page and then upload it immediately for the world to see. Research shows that one of every five business users makes use of social networking sites directly to promote their business.

And many of these users have claimed to actually win many customers because of the awareness that they have created on the social site about their business. Social networking is a wonder tool for that small or large business that is looking for a cheap (Free) yet effective tool to connect with potential customers and turn the prospects into real buyers. These sites now allow members to post their full business profile on line. Hence you Don’t€™t need a multi million budget (as in the past) to spread awareness of your business.

You can now do the same almost free of cost or at very reasonable costs. Companies can now interact with their customers effectively through the social media outlets available on line. All you have to do to promote your business on line is to learn the nuances of on line advertising and marketing. You can effectively market today through social sites, forums, blogs, advertisement banners, etc. All these tools are cheap, yet effective in helping you achieve your goal.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

At first, voting or rating links might seem trivial, but it is this voting/rating system that makes social bookmarking so powerful. As more people vote on your links, the more prominent position they will get. In turn, this allows you to reach a broader audience with your content.

Now, there are a number of ways to take advantage of social bookmarking. The six top methods I’ve found are listed below. With them, you should be able to drive lots of traffic to your website and gain all kinds of customers.

1.) Use social bookmarking software. A few features you should look for in a software package or offer are: the software is easy to use, you can try the application before you buy it, there are free updates, no hidden costs, some kind of guarantee for making your social bookmarking efforts easier, and it must be time-saving.

2.) Get multiple links from one item. Be sure to use keywords in your profile, descriptions, and category submissions. You can get backlinks from each of these items, as well as from the profile page of another user (that is, if they recommend your work and links to others).

3.) Use Pligg sites for social bookmarking. Pligg sites are social voting communities. These sites get lots of traffic; so, if your link is on one of these sites, you will definitely get more visitors to your website!

4.) Bookmark your blog to generate backlinks. Do this by posting the particulars of your blog post on several social bookmarking sites. Make sure that you blog consistently and bookmark each post as time permits. Use www.onlywire.com to expedite this process since it is a site where you can bookmark to many of the top social sites in one click.

5.) Write each blog post that you bookmark using a keyword phrase as your central theme. After you bookmark your blog post, include the keyword phrase you used for your blog in the short summary and in the tags portion of the bookmark.

6.) Build up your contact/friends list by adding insightful posts to conversations that take place on the bookmarking website. In this vein, also join multiple social sites and visit them daily. This will help to ensure that you spread the word about your online business to a large crowd.

Always stay targeted in your bookmarking efforts. If you’re not, your visitors won’t convert to leads and customers. Remember that your best bet in using social bookmarking for making cash is to stick to producing quality content. After all, that’s what people want, right? Continue to post content with keywords and links to the best of your advantage, and know that not only are other users rating you, but so are the search engines.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Social media copywriting is based on the building and growth of relationships and having a two way conversation with your reader rather than blasting information at them. Social media copywriting uses key elements of direct response copywriting to focus on the prospect, customer, visitor or buyer. When they visit your website your goal is to speak directly to them and about them.

Here are 7 social media copywriting tips to help you focus your content on your audience and differentiate yourself from the crowd.

1. Talk to buyers in their own language. Use their phrases however be genuine. To effectively use their language you must understand the personality of your buyer or prospect.

2. Avoid overusing your industry jargon. Phrases like “best of breed”, “leading edge” “business planning techniques” “synergistic” “streamlined solutions” and so on, come across as meaningless corporate speak to prospects. Simplify things so that even those outside your industry they can still understand what you are saying.

Jargon creeps in when your content begins with the product rather than the buyer or prospect. Enlist the help of a good copywriter to help you simplify and eliminate unnecessary jargon from your content. If you are a business owner, product manager or developer the chances are you may be too close to your product to see past its features and jargon. Social media copywriting focuses on the prospect and conversational content and, importantly the needs of the prospect and how your product benefits meet those needs.

3. Understand your buyers and prospects goals, problems, aspirations, business needs. Ask them how you can serve them better – and listen carefully to what they say. The potential for marketers who listen to their audience is increasing every day with the proliferation of social media tools. Not only do you demonstrate your responsiveness, you effectively engage with customers and prospects.

To find out what issues your prospect may be thinking about visit forums, online communities and blogs and actively answer questions and interact on a regular basis.

4. Use friendly personal conversational language, as if you were talking with a good friend or relative. Write like you think and speak.

5. Use testimonials for social proof. Testimonials are powerful because people will believe testimonials before they believe your ad or brochure. Social Media gives users the ability to rate content and easily share experiences and reviews with their friends.

Including this kind of content on your site will provide a richer experience than static content.

6. Educate and entertain your buyers and prospects.

How will your product solve their problem? How will their lives be different from using your service and why? Does your content spark their imagination? Or does it dissolve into boring corporate-speak? Use Social Media tools like Twitter to share thoughts and get feedback on what your customers (or potential customers) are thinking. Use social bookmarking to visit sites your customers may visit. Invite interaction on a blog or using video or photo-sharing. Then creatively use this content in your message on your website.

Many websites seem to expect visitors to guess what they do and what they offer, while they describe how great their product or company is. People do not want to guess. They need to know in a few seconds whether you can solve their problem. So be ultra-specific in spelling out the benefits to your prospects so they are encouraged to take the next step.

7. Apply the 19 “New” rules of social media copywriting to your content creation to write compelling web-ready content that starts and ends with your customer and prospect, not your company and product.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

From start-up to execution and now ROI evaluation, we have lived the maturation
of social media and digital public relations programs. Our client work has also covered
a broad spectrum of organizations, with representation of global firms like British Telecom (BT), Microsoft, Spirent Communications and BearingPoint, as well as emerging growth companies such as GovDelivery and Epok.

During the last few weeks I have made the swing visiting with clients to share the best
practices and lessons learned we’ve picked up along this journey. It was during one of these discussions at a Starbucks tucked in a corner of a shopping mall in Washington, DC that a client helped define the three phases of a social media initiative.

Phase One: Pockets of Innovation

Strategic typically engages with a client in a pilot program environment, with the scope of work aligned with a funded requirement, such as a product launch, thought leadership campaign or industry conference. I assumed this pilot methodology was easily digested because it kept the budget (and risk) relatively modest.

While this is partly true, it’s also apparent that certain individuals within an organization emerge as champions of social media. They may recognize that their customers and partners have become engaged in social networks and online communities. You have to fish where the fish are, right?

Or, perhaps it is a competitive threat in which an upstart has stolen away mindshare and momentum through their use of social media as a thought leadership platform.

Regardless of the reason, the social media champion correctly concludes that how companies position, brand, promote and identify leads has shifted. Their desire is to drive innovation in their communications program in a meaningful and measurable way.

During this initial phase, the social media program wins funding, a strategy is defined, an editorial content direction is agreed upon and tactics move to execution. The benchmark is to attract a community of readers, which is carefully tracked on an ongoing basis.

Phase Two: Bridging to Pervasive

There is a proverb that states success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan. This has proved to be spot on when it comes to a social media campaign.

As readership grows, the word spreads internally about the traction generated through social media tactics. There may even be instances in which direct sales and business development opportunities are identified through online channels. This resonates across multiple departments within a company, such as marketing, sales and product development.

This internal buzz stimulates action. Others in the company closely track the campaign and begin to invest more time engaging in their own social media activities. LinkedIn profiles are updated. Discussion groups are joined. Twitter feeds spring up.

For our social media champion, this second phase is about accelerating readership and encouraging dialogue. The editorial content strategy may evolve and multi-media elements — such as video, podcasts, customer Q&As, etc. –are incorporated into the program. We also see a more consistent flow of comments, as well as other examples of readers reaching out to engage.

The promotion strategy to drive interest and among target audiences also becomes more effective and efficient. There is now a baseline. Readership and participation is measured with hot topics and themes fed to the sales organization as a form of real-time market intelligence.

Phase Three: The Last Mile

With the social media program now established and clicking along, our champion turns to the issue of ROI attached to measurable benchmarks.

At Strategic, we view community, conversation and awareness as merely the starting point. Is there an appropriate way to cross this last mile to identify members of our engaged community as sales leads, potential partners or new hires?

It’s in this phase that interaction with the organization’s sales team becomes paramount. Thought leadership-based lead generation tactics — such as educational Webinars — combined with good old fashioned sales outreach must be defined and put in place.

Although we never stray from what’s appropriate in social media participation, the last mile phase is all about justifying the spend to date and making a business case for continued investment.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The Benefits of Social Networking

There are many benefits of social networking when it comes to marketing. Marketing is an industry that is known to be successful based on the amount of creativity that is placed in the endeavor. It involves an intricately detailed plan that creatively works to communicate plans to deliver something in specific. This may be something as small as an idea, or as large as a reputation of a company. Individuals such as those who know the person conducting the marketing, specific customers, clients, and even businesses are often targeted in the marketing process for successful implementation of the marketer’s goals. The following highlights the advantages that social networking offers the marketer seeking success:

1. One of the most popular and ultimate goals of marketing among online social networks is that it allows the individual to harness the power of reaching individuals and companies around the world. This is a productive means of ensuring that promising avenues are created for optimizing success. The marketer may take the resources that they have at their disposal in order to link to the interests, work, and needs of people all around the world. This is a powerful strategy when it comes to highlighting certain items, products, people, and businesses.

2. The second benefit of social networking is that it is an inexpensive way to communicate with others. If you are a marketer, you can implement the use of a website, email, chat programs, online meeting programs, and more to effectively communicate and prescreen possible customer and client bases. If you communicated with others on a worldwide basis by telephone, or even postal mail, you may find that your business budget is quickly depleted.

3. Social networking can be an effective strategy that a marketer can use in order to provide the impression that they are an “expert” in their given niche. People want knowledge. They want to develop belief in others. They want to trust others. This is human nature. If you are into marketing, you want to appeal to individuals in such a way that they believe that you are knowledgeable, believable, and trustworthy. Networking on the internet can allow you to achieve success in these endeavors.

Conclusion

Yes, it is true that social networking is in its infancy. However, it is proving to be a huge success for marketers around the world! It is important in the marketing career to always maintain a competitive edge. Ultimately, social online interaction can create and establish this “edge” so that you are consistently successful. Yes, it will take time, work, and dedication. However, if you have come this far, it is likely that you are on the right path. Harness the immense power of social networking and you will quickly find yourself experiencing success in every effort that you make online.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

As a caterer there are great things you can do in the realm of social media. Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Online Communities, and even YouTube are social media tools that you can use to market your business.

Facebook

Facebook started out as a social networking site strictly for college students. As always, the online world changed the way people looked at Facebook. Facebook has grown substantially for all types of businesses. Whether you’re a musician, artist, non-profit, or catering company Facebook is for you. With your Facebook account you can join groups on catering so you can learn what other caterers are doing nationwide. You should also start your own group or “fan page”. Then, all of your Facebook friends and clients can join your Facebook fan page and you can show off to all potential clients all of the people you’ve done business with in the past. Think of a Facebook fan page as an instant testimonial section for your catering business. The best part? Your clients can post messages on your Facebook wall that describe how much they “loved all the dishes at their wedding” or how “ABC Catering made my event so special because I didn’t have to worry about anything!” You can post pictures of your events, the happy smiles of your clients, the delicious food and the preparations you made to each unique event. It’s a perfect place to show off your talents because a Facebook fan page is casual and allows you to connect with your current and potential customers.

Twitter

Twitter is a social media tool that simply asks, “What are you doing?” It allows you to answer that question and follow people that interest you who are also answering this same question. By keeping up with their day-to-day, you learn more about them and vice-versa. As a caterer you can really use Twitter to get involved in the discussions and choices people make when selecting a caterer.

Your Daily Tweets

Everyday you should tweet about new Blog posts on your website, Videos that you have posted on your website, events that you’re working on, clients that you’re working with, recipes that you would like to share, news, and testimonials for your company. It is a communication tool, and you should use it as such. The more you have to share with people the faster you can build rapport.

The Search Tool

A powerful and under utilized tool is the search. Whether it’s Google or Twitter searching gives you the pot of gold at the end of the social media rainbow. For instance: http://search.twitter.com allows you to search keywords for what people are doing RIGHT NOW. Right now you can figure out what people are talking about when it comes to catering.

A quick search of Twitter for “Caterer” gives us a GREAT example of what people are talking about. Here’s what they’re saying and what we can learn:

“Just got off the phone with a caterer. Breathing. Breathing.” – This person is obviously stressed–a caterer is part of a big event and he needs to feel comfortable and less stressed

“Today, the caterer gave me a little discount because I was nice.”
– Although it would have been nice for him to mention the caterer by name, this tweet shows how a little relationship can go a long way

“Welcome to Twitter, Meg! My most favorite caterer ever!”
– Proof that other caterers are on twitter already!

“Purple dot restaurant/caterer in Seattle delivers mass quantities of food. Helped make our public service dinner a success. Thanks guys! — Positive feedback in a public forum for one caterer’s company!”
–If I searched for “Purple Dot” on twitter because I was looking for comments on a caterer, I’d see a positive comment already!

“How does caterer not get directions BEFORE they leave for their destination? And how do they justify answering questions like this, I see trees.”
– This comment shows that not everyone is happy on twitter — but it’s a learning experience for you! Clients are smart and opinionated. Moral: Get directions!

This search was generated at 11:00pm on a Thursday evening. This is a small sample of what people have been saying as it relates to “Caterer” in one day. These are all within ONE day using only one keyword search. What if you searched for “caterers,” “catering,” “looking for a catering company,” “problem with catering company?” It’s like reading the minds of those who have a need or information on catering.

Using the search tool to find potential clients

You can use Twitter’s search function as a positive and beneficial version of the yellow pages, in reverse. Instead of them scouring the yellow pages for you–look for clients on the Internet.

With Twitter Search, you can filter your search down to cities or a mile radius.

Example: Search for “looking for a caterer” within 75 miles of your city and you can find potential clients. You can then follow them, reply to their message and let them know that you are interested in putting some quotes together for them.

Be careful, do not abuse Twitter and simply follow a large number of people in order to gain their business. You should use Twitter as a resource to connect with current and potential customers and provide value. Begin by following those people you’ve worked with in the past and other people you know.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

1) Link Building: Media Websites like Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Squidoo help in promoting your content over the Internet. Communities in websites like Facebook, Orkut have features of making comments and forums. Proper use of keywords from content is one of the main features of Search engine Optimization. All of the above are parts of Social Media Marketing.

2) Blog Submission: Search engines are undoubtedly a considerable boost that results from Social Media Optimization. This wide impact of SMM on SEO has many worthy reasons that prove their benefits.

3) Quality and Relevant Links: The Search engine ranking of a website is the prior aspect that brings traffic to its visitors. SMM is a way that enhances your search engine rankings. Organic links from Media websites deliver a lot of traffic to your website. These links can neither be bought nor can they be reciprocated.

4) Social Media Marketing: When your website gets linked by another well known website on the Internet, both visitors and search engines give preference to that. A certain amount of traffic from well known websites get delivered to your website via links. Search engine algorithms also track this and increase ranking based on this very concept.

5) Getting notified by social Media Websites: Targeting at specific keywords via media websites are more effective as they target more visitors. Better specified keywords can also help you geo target visitors. Social Media websites are places where people visit often during their leisure time. So, you can expect longer visits from them on your websites.

6) Video Promotions: Catchy Videos promoting your website spread the word more effectively. It might not help you rank your website but it definitely brings targeted visitors to your website. These new dimensions help new websites increase their visibility and in a faster and effective way.

7) Picture Promotions: This is quite similar to Video promotions. The difference lies here that as compared to videos, people see pictures at a glance and their attention is diverted if it is a wonderful one. The watermark along with the hyperlink would definitely attract more visitors.

Links from Search engine Crawlers: Newly added social media is often crawled by search engines. Therefore, links from these newly posts are directed to your website.

9) Viral Marketing: Viral Marketing by social media optimization services is another effective way of Internet marketing. It is a way of marketing in which visitors spread the word themselves, by their own will.

10) Free E-Books: This marketing is generally done in the form of some free e-books. The word you want to spread is induced in the free product. People download it, share it and the product gets spread along with your ad on it. It must be catchy which people would love to read and share.

There may be an adverse affect of social media marketing. Rivals can take various strategies to influence your reputation negatively.
So, you should be very careful about such factors and select your social media optimization services and social media marketing services with patience

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

There are many reasons social networking is probably the most significant tool one can use to build a business. Listing them all would not be within the scope of this article. I am going to list the top four reasons to use social networking.

1) The name says it all! Social Networking! If there is one way to expand a business it is to network. This means getting your name out there. In the non-virtual world this means handing out business cards, advertising in the media, having meetings to discuss ways to expand the business. With a social networking site or sites, this “advertising” sort of takes on a world of it’s own. One should use social networking sites as a place to create a brand of your own. This means selling yourself. Get people familiar with you and your ideas. When people feel comfortable with you and look forward to what you have to say, you instantly create credibility. Then you can go on to familiarize them with you and your products or business.

2) Social networking often becomes viral marketing. This happens when social networks, directories, bookmarking sites, video, text messaging and email all incorporate links and references between each other. Soon, one source of media references another. This is like work of mouth advertising, but people are talking to large crowds about your product or business.

3) Social networking becomes a way for people who may not be comfortable meeting people to get to know others. Many people who may want to start a business have difficulties talking with others face to face. This may be one reason they have chosen to utilize on line marketing. Well, here you go! This is a wonderful opportunity to get out there, talk with people and tell them about yourself without actually shaking hands with them. Soon, you become much more confident in yourself and it works without all the initial discomfort.

4) Finally, learning from others. We all know we need to know as much about marketing as possible. We all know we don’t know as much as we should. When networking with others, you have a great opportunity to learn from the pros. I have discovered that people are so giving. It seems that everyone with whom you meet is willing to take questions about getting ahead. They always seem to be eager to help. What a wonderful feeling to have so many people out there (some of whom you actually compete with) willing to answer your questions.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Whenever I’m someone is explaining something new to me I like to ask them to explain it to me as if “I were a five year old.” At first it’s interesting to see the initial expression but then the light bulb goes on and they go to a different place to explain said topic to that imaginary kid. So don’t get offended by this article on social media relationships, I’m writing it as if I’m explaining it to a five year old.

Social. To me the word “social” means to interact, talk to, communicate with, and be friendly because to be “anti-social” would be just the opposite. If you go to a cookout or party and you sit in the corner and not mingle with the others in attendance I’d say you’re being anti-social. Okay, so much for the “social” part.

Media. The definition of media (usually used with a plural verb ) the means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, and magazines, internet (facebook, twitter, youtube), that reaches or influences people widely:

So social media means to interact and communicate, or engage in conversation with others through a media platform such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Myspace just to name a few. Here’s why social media is indicative to online communities, because you can’t interact with people in a community setting on the radio, television or any of the other traditional mediums. Online communication has no time or space limits. For instance you can ask questions on Facebook or Twitter at any hour.

Relationship, an emotional or other connection between people. When you log onto your Twitter account the open box says “What are you doing?” You can communicate with those who are following you, in one hundred and forty characters or less what it is you are actually doing at that point and time, or you can pose a question to all in Twitter land that are following you, to start a conversation.

So having conversations through an online medium is a good way to build relationships with people. Some of those relationships will be purely for social and entertaining reasons and some of them will be networking relationships that can enhance your career or business.

Understanding how social media relationships can add value to you on a personal or professional level will put you in a better place in the long run because the trend is now a way of life. It’s that plain and simple.

This is new and uncharted territory for the business community for the most part. They know it’s important but they’re still learning how to make it work for them. Gavin O’Malley wrote a blog post at Online Media Daily on Graco’s effort to building an online community with tech savvy moms. He said they did it by “listening to the conversations” online.

The business of the future will have community based platforms and be engaged so they can build relationships with their customers. They have to or they will find themselves hemorrhaging customers and no business especially in this day and age can afford that.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Step 1 Sign up with the right social website.

Not all social websites will be helpful to your business. For you to make money with social networking, you first need to find a website whose target market matches that of your business. If you are after baby boomers, something as hip as Bebo may not be the ideal social website for your business. You probably want something more staid or exclusive like Orkut.

Be aware, however, that finding the perfect match for your business is not akin to finding a soul mate. There could be more than one social website that matches your business needs and if so, you should sign up for each and every one of them. It’s free anyway!

Step 2 Create a profile page.

Profile pages introduce you – or in this case your business – to other people. They always come with photos and you have the chance of cementing your business’s trustworthiness if you submit your own photo or at least the logo of your business.

Profile pages also come with a lot of free space so that you can tell people more about you and the business. Focus on making the details brief but precise, witty but informative, and last but not the least, all the information you give must be designed to encourage consumers to favor your business. But if the first thing they do is to add your account instead of buying a product out right, well, that’s good, too!

Layouts for profile pages can usually be modified. If you’re not familiar with HTML, CSS, and the likes, you can usually download design templates from other websites and apply it to your social networking account. The layouts you choose must fit the type of business you own. They must also be visually appealing to your customers but user-friendly at the same time, with highly visible links so that visitors would never get lost in your website.

Step 3 Send a message to everyone.

There are three possible ways for you to get in touch with everyone in social networking websites. If you have an announcement to make, you can send a message to everyone in your network. You can also post a message on the bulletin board or participate in the forums created by social networking communities.

Objectives for your message include introducing your business to the public, emphasize the benefits they can enjoy when they purchase a product or service from your business, and lastly, encourage them to know more about your business by visiting your personal page.

Step 4 Circulate.

The more you mingle, the more exposure you gain for your business. Post a comment, rate photos or other kinds of content uploaded by other members, and try adding a new member now and then to your network.

Step 5 Evaluate feedback.

See which strategies you’ve employed helped you to make money from social networking and which ones that failed abysmally.

Step 6 Repeat steps 1 to 5 with a new social website.

There are a lot of them online and if you can join all these websites, your business can only benefit from it!

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Today, it is now possible to network with people all over the world at no cost and with relative ease. Now, with the advent of Drupal social networking websites, a format exists where anyone can launch a social networking site with relative ease as well. Yes, Drupal social networking sites now provide possibly the most user friendly format for social network publishing.

If you want to see for yourself the level of quality with Drupal networking sites, there are a number of fine venues to check out. These sites include johnnycashonline.com, mylifetime.com, fastcompany.com, and many more. All of these sites are top of the line and have significant members in their communities.

This would not be possible if the platform used was not one of a significantly high quality. And, yes, Drupal networking websites are among the highest quality of platforms available. Drupal is easy to register with and navigate. It is this user friendly approach that allows social networking sites supported by Drupal to expand their members. This, in turn, greatly expands their popularity and presence on the internet. If the goal of these networking sites is to earn revenues, then this will greatly facilitate such goals.

As the saying goes, if we build it they will come. This is true of networking websites. Drupal social networking sites must be built, designed, and published in order for people to sign up. That is why ease of use is critical. Thankfully, easy publishing and management is the hallmark of networking websites. Drupal websites eliminate the impediments that complex platforms place in the way of those who wish to publish and manage their networking website. This is a benefit for both experienced publishers and novices. Actually, the benefits this provides for novices are even more important.

Keep in mind social networking sites are popping up all over the net. That is because it is human nature to celebrate common interests. Originally, social networking sites were designed to reach broad groups of people. While these types of Drupal web developments are still common, a number of niche social networking sites have popped up. Many of these niche sites have been produced by novices. For these people to be successful, they will need an easy to use platform. Again, this is where Drupal web develpments shine.

It allows for all inclusiveness for those that want to launch a small scale social networking site and need a simple platform to operate from. Drupal database management is perfect in this regard. Drupal social networking websites are designed for use by the “average person” and, perhaps, they can make their hobbyist pursuit the next My Space.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Social networking has become the way that many people use to build a business or just to meet with friends, family and colleagues.

Social networks are built around the concept that you will have people that you want to keep in touch with or get involved with again. Usually they start out by asking you to ask your own contacts to join you at a particular site. From this place you can expand and look for other people to join your network.

Most social networks see friends in a very broad way. These can be people you know, people who look interesting or people who live in our regional area. You can also meet people from all over the world. You can usually find people who have the same interests as you do or who are the same age. This all depends on the site and what you want to do.

How To Get Started

When you first go to Facebook or other sites you may feel overwhelmed by the amount of information that is not present. You can do a Google search for “how to get started on Facebook” and you will find several blogs that will help you get the most out of your experience.

Many people start by either inviting their friends or colleagues or by joining groups. Most social networking websites have communities where you can find people who are already in a group who may be interesting to you.

Groups can help you find people like yourself who are interested in the same things and they can also give you more information on particular topics. The one thing about social networking that is fun is that is very social so you can get overwhelmed by the information you find.

Creating Your Profile

One of the first things you will do is create a profile where you tell people about you and what you are interested in. You can keep your profile public or make it private so that only those people who are in your network can see it. You can customize your page with different themes or ideas that are totally about you.

Some sites will ask you for books you like or music and may even allow you to create videos or playlists.

Before you get started you might want to think about the type of network you want. As an example, if you are teacher you might want to join an educational social network. If you are into sports or reading you will also find them for these hobbies.

Explore several networks before you decide what ones you like. You will probably find many different types of networks in the same category but they may not all be the type of places you want to go. Above all else, make sure that you have fun with your network.

Also, important to remember is that, social networking is a great way to get traffic to your website. With the right strategies, you set up and use these different Social Media sites to your advantage to get lots of traffic to your sites fast.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The online social networking world is all about building relationships. Exactly the same way you would create friendships at a kitchen party or at a social event. Online networking using social networking tools like Facebook, LinkedIN or Plaxo is exactly the same as going to your local Chamber of Commerce or networking club and meeting new people or reconnecting with those colleagues in your local community.

Online social networking and media follows the same set of guidelines as you would find in any face to face interaction. You need to be yourself, you need to add value and most importantly you must be authentic.

How do we take our business online and attract new business opportunities using social media services?

The first step is you need to be memorable, you must create that memorable experience so when you follow up with a new contact they instantly remember you. Just like in a face to face networking event, you have to create that memorable experience. How are people going to remember you? What memorable experience are you creating so that they recommend you to their friends and family when they have an opportunity for you? You must create that memorable experience, you need to be unique and you must try to help everyone in your circle of inspiration, never sell to them.

The next step is exactly that, never sell your services and push your products using social networking tools. Again, just as in a real life face to face meeting, if you come across as an aggressive sales person, people will run away from you and you will find yourself being awfully lonely. The same thing happens online, if you post links to your products on Twitter or on your blog, you run the risk of pushing people away from you. We must educate and only focus on teaching or sharing our knowledge with others.

Talk about current events and the affect that is has in your world. It is also OK to be a little controversial, controversy will attract readers to your blog. Current events and the impact that it has on your clients and your industry are also great ways to attract new people to your blogs and websites. Engage yourself in conversations with others in your industry and offer your insight into their postings. By combining your own writing and participation in what others are talking about in your local community and industry will attract followers to your sites.

When leveraging social networking it is important to add value. You do not have to create content all the time on your own. Leverage existing content that is out there today that your clients, friends and contacts would find value with. You do not have to create the content yourself. This is the power of the Internet, there is many sources of content out there, you need to find what content your followers would find interesting.

Leveraging social media is exactly the same as networking face to face, you want to exhibit the same behaviours that you would at your local networking club or Chamber of Commerce. It is important that you approach the online world this way. Be helpful, offer assistance and whenever possible follow up. Follow up just like in a real life meeting is critically important, if you can meet face to face following an online meeting great, if not, leverage tools like instant messengers, email and online communities to take your new relationship to a whole new level.

The number one sin in a marketing is to be boring, the same rules apply when you are marketing online. You cannot afford to be boring, you need to be exciting, people are attracted to those that are offer fun and exciting things. If you are looking at attracting new business opportunities online, do things that are fun and will attract potential clients to visit your site, post fun contests on your social networking sites that drive traffic to your website. The number one rule is to be fun and exciting and make it your number one intention not to be boring.

Online and social media can bring a tremendous amount of value to your business if done correctly. Remember these basic tips and tricks to help you with your online experience. Leverage the tools available to you and your business today, create those memorable experiences and help out those that are hungry for the value that you can bring to the world.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Social networking is the latest buzz word, with a plethora of websites mushrooming everyday to cater to this new media audience. The concept is however not new. All of us are a part of a social network. Be it the high school sports team or a group at the office. In fact, our lives revolve around the social groups that we are a part of.

Networking is nothing but maintaining a friends circle sharing common interests. Businessmen use this as a key tool in generating word of mouth recommendations and creating mutually beneficial contacts.

Online social networking derives from this fundamental concept and takes “friend-making” to an all new height, expanding beyond your home, office and neighbourhood to the entire world. Some of the popular sites today include Facebook, Orkut, YouTube and LinkedIn.

These sites operate based around a cascade effect. You invite your friends, they invite theirs and in turn you discover common friends you had long lost touch with. Moreover, you get to see pictures and messages left by friends of friends that you don’t personally know. If you feel you share common interests with them, you can befriend them yourself; thereby using the social network in the capacity it is best suited to.

Given that social networking sites enjoy enormous popularity with subscriber bases of multiple millions, they are an important media for online marketing. Most sites are adding new applications and features to their offerings every day. In many ways, it is like the web culmination of address books, blogs, forums, communities, picture albums, messages and even email. If email was the dominant internet innovation of the ’90s, then social networking is its replacement in this decade.

There are several paid or unpaid (viral marketing) ways to market oneself on a social network. One of the most popular ways is to create a profile or groups page for your product. Your friends in this case are actually fans or users of the product and the message boards become a testimonial space. Video, pictorial and word content can constantly be upgraded in a blog-like fashion. Most companies have long realized this and jumped on to the social networking bandwagon.

Another way to reach out to target audiences is to advertise on these sites through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-impression method, similar to Google AdWords. This method not only allows you to reach audiences that can be targeted by location, interests, age or personality, it is also economical as you pay only for results. Marketers can also design games and applications to integrate with the site for a fee, thereby gaining active audience interaction with their product idea.

The key to successful marketing on social networks is to define a very specific target group and then to try and reach them through as many fun and innovative ways as the website legally allows. Like any other social group, the more you participate, the more you benefit.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

As in the web site example, just creating a Facebook page isn’t enough. To succeed with social media, you’ll need a strategy because cyberspace becomes more crowded every day.

Know what you want. What are your expectations for your social media marketing? Are you hoping to build your list (gaining “friends”) for permission-based marketing? Are you hoping to mine special-interest groups to find new prospective clients, consumers or collaborators? Are you trying to create a community landing space for your existing clients, customers and fans? If you have more than one objective, prioritize so that you can invest effort wisely.

Know what the competition is doing. Look for pages created by others in your industry and by leading experts you respect. How are they structuring their pages? What kind of content do they offer? What type of forums do they host-and where do they participate by adding comments to other people’s forums? You can pick up a lot of great ideas by looking at good examples created by other people. Remember that you’re in this for a business purpose, to steer clear of the more frivolous recreational elements (although a little bit of fun shows personality).

Realize you can’t be everywhere. The number of social networking sites is exploding, making it impossible to participate in every good opportunity. That means you’ll need to do some research to find the sites that really appeal to your core audience. It’s easier to go where your audience is already participating than to try to draw your audience to a new location. Experts say you’ll want a presence on five to seven social media sites, so choose wisely.

For example, for my Chronicles of the Necromancer fantasy book series, I’m on MySpace, YouTube, Squidoo, BookMarketing.ning, BookTours.com, BroadUniverse.com, Shelfari, and I have a blog on Amazon.com plus my Ghost in the Machine podcasts on iTunes and a growing number of podcast sites. For DreamSpinner Communications, I’m on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, eWomenNetwork.com, SmartWomensCoaching.com, WomensCommunity.com, MarketingProfs.com, 911MarketingHelp.com, Squidoo and Namyz, plus my Shared Dreams podcast on iTunes and my Marketing Turnaround blog. There’s some overlap from people who know me in both capacities, but separating the goals of the sites makes it easier to have a coherent message.

Recognize that social media success requires commitment. To be successful, you have to commit the time necessary to really be a part of these virtual communities. Just like real networking organizations, the people who join and then never show up don’t get their money’s worth. With social media, that means answering your “friend messages” on a regular basis, posting regularly to forums (your own and those that belong to others), adding relevant content regularly and actually hanging out online where people can find you. Even if you can’t check in daily, make it a commitment to check in every few days. It’s an investment, like everything else.

Understand the culture. Before you create your page and launch into your social media strategy, I recommend lurking. “Lurking” is online slang for hanging out on a site, reading the posts and watching without exposing your presence by participating. Lurking can save you grief by helping you understand the “netiquette” of a particular site. Most sites will delete your membership for spamming people with overtly commercial emails, for example. So it’s best to invite people to be your “friend” based on shared interests, not to begin with a sales pitch. Read the discussion threads in the forums that deal with your business interest topics to get an idea for who’s out there, who the established experts are and where some of the knowledge gaps are.

The exciting thing about social media and social networking is that they are such new tools that there are very low barriers to entry. And while some people have more experience than others, the tools are so new that no one is hopelessly far ahead. Everyone is learning and experimenting, which makes the playing field as level as it will ever be. So make the jump into social networking and take your expertise to the world.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

(1) Can make a public or private profile,
(2) Generate and share content, and
(3) Without any fear connect with others within or across networks.
(4) Manage their lives
(5) Entertain them
(6) Form Groups

Whenever one person gets added on these networks, the owner of the social network sites gets money. It’s a chain reaction and the above-mentioned things are marketing ricks adopted by the organization to earn money. Are you interested to build your own social network and earn money by connecting with people? If yes then hire a Social Media Optimization Consultant, India.

To meet the varied needs of the net users, there are different types of social networks available. For example, if you are interested in travel and lifestyle, then Wayn is their but if you are looking for a network, where you can meet he old pals and personally interact with people, then Orkut, hi5 are there. If you want to build a strong professional network, then LinkedIn is there.

These social networks help in meeting the needs of the people successfully. Seeing the popularity of the existing ones, there are many new social networks also emerging. The different Social Media Optimization consultant India offers people who want to have their own social network with the competent services. This includes making the site with features like personal scraps, discussion forums, comments, writing blogs, etc. Further to popularize your network they send mails, SMS alerts and use other SEO means and ways for website promotion.

You would have been receiving emails to connect to them. We even join them very curiously; do you know the reason why? It’s the human tendency to know what happening in other’s life. You won’t believe, but just think if your friend has become the CEO of a good company and you didn’t know but one of the common friends knows and contact him for job, gets the job at a better profile and salary package, you will be at the loss. So the social networking sites will give you the updates and help you in approaching the person at the right time. Hence, one can say they are less time consuming in comparison to old methods of communicating (telephone, mails, etc.) with people. In addition to this you can leave a message as per the time available and also talk to you at leisure.

Further you can make new friends and gain significant information about them through these networks. The various Social Media Optimization consultants across India, work forward to provide something new every time to their valuable customers. If you have plans to have your own social network site, contact them now. They have the experience of handling such task very effectively.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

But, are you really extracting the maximum juice out of your social presence on Internet. Are you reaching the inboxes of people in your social circle to make them realize the essence of your website? If you are doing so, then there is not much time left for celebrations. However, in a case different than this, you have stumbled at the right place to equip your knowledge with an informative approach of online money making.

Interaction Is The Key to Success

It is not beneficial to follow a cold approach of just popularizing the links of your website on these social networks. You must have the exchange of words with people in your friend list, communities and groups. Here is what should be done:

* Community discussion must be joined and created as well to express your views to others and ask them to comment on your thoughts.
* Recommending good products and resources like MySpace music player and MySpace overlays may lead to active participation with others. And if you have a resource website, you may share the link with people in your circle. A bonus point in your favor!
* Make an impressive profile to keep the interest of people in you alive and thus, to make them visit your profile again and again.

Sharing the Space In Mailboxes

The techniques mentioned above are dedicated to make your presence strong on these social websites. And once you are done with it, you can advance your strategies and employ more effective techniques for generating traffic for your website.

You can take the advantage of your social circle to reach the mailboxes of your friends and other contact on these websites. Remember! Email marketing is a tried and trusted tool and by integrating this tool with social websites, you can achieve the target in most apposite manner.

In order to use this strategy, you must have some points in knowledge as mentioned below:

* First of all, you must know the target audience for your business idea. By doing so, you can filter out most prospective clients and pay more attention towards them.
* Newsletters are the entities, which are good to be used for email marketing. Once you build a strong bond with people on social websites, you can trust them for reading your emails and thus, visiting your websites.
* You can influence the minds of people in your friend’s contacts by asking the favor from your friends to pass your emails to others. Thus, a chain is constructed, which can bring worth to your business and online money making.

The above discussion was an attempt to introduce an effective technique to reach your audiences through social networking. You may subscribe to free report to learn some of the similar ideas of online money making using social websites. This free report acts as the most substantial guide to improve the way you make money online.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

A lot of internet marketers are already earning more than enough money through the use of social networking sites’ systems in order to get their hands on more cash. Here are some interesting ways that you, can make some money with social networking websites that shouldn’t and won’t take you very much time at all.

The first step in marketing with social network sites involves actually setting up your account. If you don’t already have an account with Facebook, Yuwie, MySpace, or any of the other well-known websites out there, it’s time you did. When creating your account, one can either use their real name or a “pen name” of sorts. In fact, many internet marketers actually use a pen name in order to disguise who they really are as well as creating a social networking profile to go along with their real name.

What to sell: The number of products and things that you can sell on Facebook or Myspace is ultimately limitless. Whether you want to promote your own website to gain members and traffic to, or post your affiliate links to other products, anything is generally accepted in these communities.

There are several ways in which the actual selling process can be done. First, social networking websites usually allow members to post bulletins or notes that all the rest of their contacts that are members of the site will be able to see.

These bulletins are where the real money can be made, because pretty much anything can be included in them. For example, you could do a product review of a weight loss product and post it in a bulletin along with your affiliate link in order for your friends to buy. In doing so, your friends will give you commission sales on the products they buy.

The profile page is another way someone could make money using social networking sites. Whether you’d like to promote someone else’s products as an affiliate or your own products, this can be done right on your profile by posting affiliate links, product reviews, information, or anything else that will attract a potential sale. Even videos that are essentially product reviews and an attempt to try to sell your own product or your affiliate product can be posted on your social networking member profile.

As you can see, the sales and amount of money that can come from using and exploiting social networking sites can really compound. Basically, the more friends that a person has in their community profile means that the more chances they have and the more members they have available to them in order to market and try to sell their products. All in all, using Yuwie, Facebook, MySpace, or any another social networking community website can definitely pay off in the long run!

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Bloggs, Forums and communities dedicated to the concept ” Make money from home ” or ” social networking ” sights can be made well use of. Overall, your business should be showcased to the right people in the right way, so that you can have the greatest amount of success. The more time you spend with the lead giving him productive, pointed information, the more he is inclined towards your path of home based business and the better success you will have with your social networking leads. You can never make money from home through social network marketing unless you have these aspects in mind while finding leads.

I think you actually create a good prospect by what you say. It could be your first sentence or two, on the phone or in person.

Hiring a lead generating company cost more money, and your chances of success with social networking leads that have been blasted with all kinds of hype and useless information usually are not the best leads anyway. A number of ways are available for obtaining your own leads without having to pay anyone else.

Collecting people request information through your website is one the simplest ways to get your own social networking leads and are usually some of your best most position leads you can get specific for your product or service.

Do not discount social networking at your local chamber of commerce. Often, you will find other sales professionals who are more than willing to exchange leads with you. This can help you build up your client base locally, as well as allow you the chance to mingle with business owners directly at chamber events. When you become an asset to the local chamber, chances are its members will begin to contact you about what you have to offer. This takes some time, and locating the perfect lead usually requires going through a lot of uninterested leads. Using the web you can visit online membership lists for various associations and professions that may have leads for your business or products. For example many state level attorney association web site contains a list of member attorney firms. And also your chamber of commerce may have a list of associated businesses on their web site. You may find new social networking leads with relatively small effort.

Buying a group of leads from a lead broker is another way to get plenty of social networking leads, with very little effort. There are plenty of these sites around the net. However, this can be a tricky situation. There are a number of offers for leads on the Internet, and despite what you may hear, not all of them are qualified in the way you would like them to be. Many of the lists are not targeted. These may be called ” cold leads ” that is, they merely included individuals who have indicated they might be interested through some sort of contact that is broadly related to the goods or services you are offering. Price ranges significantly from broker to broker. Never pay more than .20 cents for these types of leads. You really have no idea how many times these list have been resold. Sometimes up to 8 or 10 times. Be sure to contact the broker directly and speak with a real person to feel them out, before you make this type of purchase. If you choose to use a list, go with a category that is identified with a specific sector for the idea or product that you have and would be interested in your offering, such as the legal profession or the retail industry. Your chances for success and recouping your investment will improve greatly.

When it comes to generating sales leads, you do have a lot of resources at your fingertips. Many of these sources are free and others are available at a minimal charge. The important thing is to get your name out there, using sources that are legitimate and will leave potential customers with a good feeling about you. Be sure to promote your product and its benefits long before you introduce their chance to enter in as a business associate.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The question is whether or not you and your organization are tapping into the potential and opportunities available through various methods of social networking. One such company has. Habitat for Humanity has long been known for their work helping communities throughout the United States. They are metro region-based, are charitable organizations, and they have joined the 21st century when it comes to social networking and media opportunities. In many locations around the country and in Canada, the charity uses Facebook for viral marketing programs to advertise their campaigns, their locations, as well as to generate information about attending various events that help finance their goals.

The well-known Humane Society has also seen the benefit of social networking. At last count, over 650 charities have profiles on Facebook. The ability to reach far and wide through the Internet enables donations not only from local residents, but also throughout the country and indeed the world. The Humane Society in the United States relies on social networking presence to help fund campaigns, generate information and to build their membership.

Recent studies have shown that nearly 50% of Internet users access one of at least a dozen well-known social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Blogging is also essential in today’s Internet-based society, as it offers limitless opportunities for many different types of charitable organizations. Says Alan Rosenblatt, executive director of the Internet Advocacy Center, “Social networking platforms give nonprofits a forum for meeting like-minded organizations and potential supporters, and provide(s) a medium for spreading their message beyond the immediate community.”

Some of the most popular social networking websites include but are not limited to:

* Flickr
* Care2
* Friendster
* LinkedIn
* MySpace
* Facebook

Social networking allows both individuals and groups to connect with each other through blogging, Internet messages, and website discussion and forum boards. One of the best things about such social networking websites is that they are free to join and most receive tens of thousands of visitors a day in both unique and return visitors, allowing charities and organizations to spread their message and disseminate information without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on old-fashioned mail campaigns. When searching for the right network for any organization or charity, intended audience is a general determining factor.

Social networking websites enable charities and organizations to increase visibility and raise both awareness and funding. Consistent blogging, regular updating of websites and information offers nonprofit organizations and charities the ability to connect with one, hundreds, or the hundreds of thousands of people at a time.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

I was recently thinking on this topic. Why is social media such a hard thing to wrap your business head around? Probably because we use so many terms trying to shorten our ideas and concepts into statements that area not only hard to understand, but as non-sexy as you can get.

Like good health, social media tends to push novices into a dark spot where they do not understand the lingo and vocabulary. By pushing them into unfamiliar territory, they retreat and ignore the basics of getting healthy to improve their life.

If you are trying to understand social media, you are probably realizing that it has more in common with our body than you could know. Unfortunately many of us treat our bodies very poorly.

Take consistency as a point. Like a strong heart, a social media campaign has a regular beat to it. Unfortunately social media tends to be comparative to sitting in the bleachers of your favorite sports game and being trampled by the star player as they make a dive for the game point. One minute you are at rest, the next minute you are subconsciously dealing with information overload.

Those instant “ups and downs” created by communities reacting to your online presence (or lack there of) can be mitigated by having a healthy check-up and having a regiment of flexing your social media muscles.
Too many companies simply rely on one aspect of an online presence to mitigate one freak instance from doing irreparable damage. Sure you may have a website, but do you YouTube, Linkedin, Twitter, or simply converse with your own clients?

Having a presence on different services may not impact your brand today, but it can help mitigate and defend your brand tomorrow. There are three parts of understanding why having a healthy social media and online brand is good for you:

1. A strong body stays healthier, longer. If you keep fit, your body (aka personal brand) will take care of you in some rather tough situations. You can jump higher, move faster, and manage to turn heads a little more often.

2. Healthy brands, like healthy people, have dedicated friends. While a presence on Twitter or Facebook may not work for every company, having an established group of supporters and evangelists is in your best interests. If you had a heart attack in real life, do you really want to experience it alone: or do you want to be surrounded by a community of trusted supporters who know the right person to call?

3. Knowing the right person. Regardless of how good your personal network is; the “network effect” multiplies the number of people available on a ten-fold level. (I.E. Your 100 contacts give you access to 1000.) Would you rather turn to your immediate personal contacts and rely on one of them to perform open heart surgery on you, or open up the search to a few connections away?

After thinking about it- take a moment to browse more information on social media and give yourself an education on terms used and steps that will flex your social media brain. Creating an effective strategy, committing to moving through the steps, and keeping a learning mindset will help grow your professional goals online. Without your planning and commitment to the end goal of having a healthier business brand, you may find yourself having a sudden cardiac problem.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The new Web2.0 social network marketing can be successfully tapped to generate significant traffic for your internet enterprise. It is necessary that you have some involvement related to network marketing, MLM, affiliate marketing, or some other business involving products or services. All of these have a tendency to create lots of hits from these sites. YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and others like them do not hold much admiration from many marketers as they don’t see the gain from using these social sites. They fail because they do not know enough about how to network in these type of environments. You need to learn the art of converting your friends or fellow network marketers from these social networking sites to your customers or leads.

Get your friends to see what you’re offering; 7 guaranteed tips for using social marketing advantageously:

First become familiar with your friends and what they’re marketing using their profiles, blogs, or websites.

Visit their blogs and websites and don’t forget to post a comment. People sometimes find ways to insert their own links into these comments. You could do this if you are allowed.

You write positive reviews of their site, while offering friendly criticism that points out any errors in a constructive fashion. To rephrase, saying these hurtful remarks should be avoided.

You can bookmark anything you find interesting on your Facebook or delicious, et al page. and forward the link to ten of your friends, requesting that they stumble it and pass it on to their friends.

Following this, communicate to the owners of the websites informing of your actions taken to spread the word regarding the web content found at their sites.

Invite them to visit your website or blog and give their feedback on your site. It is usual for this activity to be automatically returned in kind by other friends. To ensure that those from other social networking communities seek your website, link, blog, etc.

When you give your best to help their business, sincerely, you will see that they, in turn, will desire to do the same for you. As a result, if they saw some merchandise or services they needed on your site, they’d be ready to purchase or sign up.

Are you advertising your website in accordance with the above You would have definitely seen some positive outcomes if you have. If you haven’t, try them and see what happens for yourself. Tell your friends regarding “web 2″0 social networking does work.”

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Social bookmarking sites were designed to help log, file, and categorize favorite sites by “marking” them. Otherwise how would we find them again. After a while we would have too many to remember. Then the practice of sharing your bookmarked favorites with your friends began and the rest is history. Now if we really “dig” a website or an article online and want to share it with, say, the whole Digg community of friends we have there, we can. And presto! We’ve just added internet traffic to that site.

A word of caution, there’s a right way and a wrong way to get involved in social bookmarking. The last thing to do, is to “share” an article of yours that you posted on, say on Squidoo, that has nothing but hype. Don’t bookmark anything for others to review if it is not quality content. Even the search engines hate that. And real people will take you off their friends list.

Also, be sure to promote content other than just your own. That’s being sociable. Being sociable online is the same as business networking meeting. Pretend you are visiting at a fundraiser dinner or at the Chamber of Commerce meeting, sharing and getting to know real people. Whether online or not, networks made up of real people tend to ignore those who are not socially acceptable. Online, hype and ongoing self-promotion is considered spamming.

You can bookmark your own site and share your own articles but not exclusively. For example at Digg you can Digg your own articles, your own blog, etc. creating a link to your content elsewhere on the Internet. Asking your friends there to visit a recent blog article is fine. Almost everyone who uses social bookmarking now uses it to generate traffic and free leads. And high traffic to your content from a high traffic site like Digg and others will definitely get search engine attention. It is a great way to help build your prospect list and ultimately it helps build your business.

Also, add all the bookmark widgets, the icons, to your websites. Most social bookmarking sites have cute little icons that you can copy the code for in raw HTML and then put it on your websites. That way, people can bookmark your work by clicking on the icon If they are a member of Digg, or StumbleUpon, etc. When people do that, now you have an outgoing link from your site to a high traffic site. We need both, incoming and outgoing links to high ranking sites, in order to show up on the front page of search engine sites like Google. Join bookmarking sites, socialize, bookmark sites including the work of others, and networking will build your business just like it always has.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Social networking as we know it on MySpace and Facebook is a great way of meeting people across the globe or catching up with your old school buddies. But… what happens when you move to a new area and want to meet local people? You might check out a few of the local web sites and find out where to go etc but with the advent of social portals, you can meet new people, get involved in the community straight way and find out where to go and more importantly who with.

YourMarbella is a great example of this. The site is focused on the Marbella area of Spain, an area synonymous with tourism but also with a high proportion of mainly British ex-pats. Taking the best features of social networking sites and blending them together with the best features of local portals, the site has become the highest trafficked web site in Marbella and Puerto Banus.

Until this point the local portals had the majority of the traffic, however when you blend in the social features, the users can gain a real understanding of what kind of people go to a particular bar or restaurant as opposed to reading an editor review which may or may not be slanted by advertising deals.

Social networking is definitely here to stay, the question is in what guise and how successfully can social features be integrated into other businesses. Taking a look at the computer games companies, most of their work when releasing new titles is involved in how to integrate and grow the community aspect. There is huge value for them in owning communities of people, and with the advent of focused social networks, the marketability and value of the customer database increases dramatically.

An example of this would be to look at, for example an airline. In the UK we have a company called EasyJet who spend a lot of their advertising budget on The Internet. Now when looking at spending their advertising dollars, they will generate a far higher return if they target people who regularly fly abroad and so they will look to spend their money on travel sites and perhaps seek out blogs, forums and yes – niche social networks on which to advertise. If they select a primary social network, they will generate a lot more wastage in their campaign and therefore a lower ROI as the customer base is vast and may or may not be interested in their product. Airlines are one example but there are more companies advertising online each year and everyone is looking for more and more targeted media. This is where the niche social networks will benefit.

Expect a lot more social networking products to be released over the coming years, but watch out for owners working on ways of monetizing them by focusing more on a particular subject or area to as opposed to competing with the big boys for volume.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Social Media Optimization (SMO) can be regarded as an advanced version of Search engine optimization or SEO. In simpler terms, SMO is the next advanced level of Internet Marketing which if combined with traditional SEO will surely reap a great success in your online business.

The best part about SMO is that you don’t have to remain anxious or curious about the ranking of the particular keyword phrase related to your product or services. With SMO, you will enter a new realm where you will be allowed to broaden the sphere of SEO content writing and promotion of your product that will automatically result in generating publicity for your introduced product or service.

Social media is a part of those websites where there exists a community in which we can share different forms of messages in types of texts, images, audio and video. Some of the popular social media websites include YouTube, Digg, Facebook, Delicious, and Revver. These websites can be used to plant your marketing message easily.

SMO works on simple principle of social media content writing that says the more you converse with the communities the more you are able to create awareness and spread the buzz. Such a simple participation in the community platforms and forums will help you in spreading your marketing message in a faster mode.

But SEO and SMO will go hand in hand as before starting off with your Social Media Optimization campaign, you have to get SEO of your website into full swing. Once you have the highest-ranking site for the targeted keywords using the web content and other content writing services, this means that you are ready for the next level of promotion and publicity via SMO. The mating of these two concepts is known as “A Slam-Dunk” in the SMO world or terminology. This type of marketing is just like a newfound friend which will help in putting you in front of your potential customers and targeted market without letting them know that it’s a marketing punch.

The reason behind the sure shot success of SMO is easy to comprehend as it helps in achieving multiple tasks at the same time, including creating and optimizing a rich content as well as popularizing the content to attain inbound links.

HOW IS SMO DONE?

There are few steps that are considered as the processes involved in Social Media optimization:

Increase your linkability

In order to go for SMO of your website, it is necessary to enhance the content linkability. This can be done via adding a blog, creating white papers or by simply adding the content.

Use of tagging and bookmarking

Put quick buttons on your blogs so that if people liked it, they are able to save them on any social bookmarking websites being used. Your web pages must also have relevant tags and suggested notes for a link. Also, make sure that you get your web pages, including your Home Page to tag on popular social bookmarking sites.

Getting inbound links

Inbound links are must for getting higher search results and rankings. There is another way of increasing these links which is by listing recent linking blogs on your website as it offers more visibility to those who get linked to you.

Let your content travel

SMO unlike SEO is not mere bringing changes on your website but its much more than that. It is about making use of portable content in the form of PDFs, video files and audio files by submitting them onto relevant sites. It is called traveling of your content which will at the end collect links for your site.

Encouraging the mashups

It is all about sharing and distributing your blogs in the blog networks. Syndication of your content through RSS will provide direct links to the visitors who wish to subscribe.

If it is to be summarized, then we will say that SMO is a process that will let you:

Optimize your website or blog

Have more visibility in social media websites

Avail more links through other sites

Become a hot topic of online discussion in the blog posts and other social media forms.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Since like-minded individuals are creating tags on every item they post, it becomes easy to find relevant products and related subjects within each area of interest.

Social bookmarkers are primarily interested in learning more about products and ideas that interest them, and will network accordingly. They are more exposed to new information, whether this is pulled from blogs, media sites, or simply a product page from a business. The more involved marketers are with these social networks, the higher the chances of increased brand exposure. As more social bookmarkers participate in their communities, the buzz about a particular product or idea can easily be broadcast across multiple markets with very little effort.

The thinking process of a social bookmarker is relatively simple. First, they find an idea or product of interest. They then upload this information to the social bookmarking platform, whether this is a news site such as Digg.com, or a social shopping sites such as ThisNext.com. Next, they describe the product or idea, usually posting a brief summary that includes keywords and other relevant information. This is noted on the social bookmarking site’s search engine, as well as the tags that are added to the item after this. Once complete, a picture or other media clip may be added, followed by the social bookmarker’s signature (if it does not automatically get posted as part of the profile). Once submitted, the new item is organized and implemented into the appropriate category on the site.

Any new information posted to the site can now be viewed by the entire audience; subscribers to various channels will see new topics posted immediately, in a very similar format to an RSS feed on a blog. In either case, this fresh information will be on the ‘roster’ of all the people in that community. If others find it important as well, this increases the chances of sharing as they are more likely to ‘note’ it and include it on their lists.

But what does all this mean for the marketer?

Essentially, this means that the marketer or business can create unique content and products to send to various social bookmarking sites. Once they create a valuable presence, it becomes much easier to influence the decision makers in each and every community. This is the essence of social bookmarking and networking at its best; community building can create a network of influence that can now also be enjoyed by marketers and entrepreneurs on the web.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Most social network services today are generally Web-based and provide a selection of various methods and format for users to interact with each other, and among them are chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, discussion groups, and so on.

Social Network Services Allow Users To Create Personal Profiles

In general, a social networking service allows users to create a profile for themselves. Users can also upload their own pictures and can often be “friends” with other users. In most social networking services, like Bebo, Facebook or MySpace, both users must confirm that they are friends before they are linked.

For example, if Jenny lists Vernice as a friend, then Vernice would have to approve Jenny’s friend request before they are officially listed as friends. Some social network sites also have a “favorites” feature that does not need approval from the other user. Most social networks generally have privacy controls that allows the user to choose who can view their profile or contact them, etc.

Common benefits of Social Networking

As the term “social” denotes, these sites specifically allow individuals and groups to interact with each other, build online and real-world relationships, as well as establish new business or inter-organizational contacts. These sites also allow individuals and groups to :

- Connect with like-minded industry professionals;

- Allow for networking beyond your current circle of contacts;

- Give individuals the capacity to interact with others on a more “personal yet professional” level

- Give your business an online presence beyond typical corporate websites;

- Allows potential business contacts and clients to learn more about you;

- Generates referral-based contacts;

- Allows for the creation of professional relationships.

Social Networks Have Begun To Address Privacy Concerns

There has currently been growing concerns about users giving out too much personal information and the threat of sexual predators on many large social network services. Users of these sites need to be aware of data theft or viruses. However, large networking sites, such as MySpace, usually work with law enforcement to try to prevent such negative incidents from taking place.

In addition, there is a perceived privacy threat in regard to putting too much personal information in the hands of large corporations or governmental agencies, and thus allows a profile to be produced on an individual’s behavior on which decisions, detrimental to an individual, may be taken.

More importantly, there is an issue over the control of data – information having been altered or removed by the user may in fact be retained and/or passed to third parties. This sensitive concern was highlighted when a previously controversial social networking site, gathered e-mail addresses from users’ e-mail accounts for use in a spamming operation.

As a result of this, many networking services are increasingly being used in civil and criminal investigations, as the information posted on sites such as MySpace and Facebook, have been used by police, and in some situations, content posted on MySpace has been used in court to verify an appropriate sentence based on the defendant’s attitude.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

In fact, SMO is one of the most widely used methods through which one can interact and gain knowledge on various topics and issues. Moreover, social media optimization enables linkability of other websites or content to link back to your site, though only when demanded by you. The ways through which you can increase your natural listing amongst the top search engines is to get authority from various sites to link you with them, thus to increase your linkability with social media optimization is to make your site more informative and useful to others. In fact, the other methods used by SMO include blog writing, white papers, press releases, keyword targeted articles and RSS feeds. These methods are the most significant part of website optimization and should be any one’s foremost priority.

One can say that it has raised the level of internet services as it enhances the visibility of the site and simultaneously gets the site a higher rank amongst the famous search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo. Social media optimization also involves planned and laid out strategies that helps many websites in gaining popularity amongst these search engines. Moreover, one can say that it is a set of methods that actually generate publicity through internet and connect online communities and websites together at the same time. Social media optimization also makes tagging and bookmarking easy. For example, if the content of the website is tagged then it will be visible to others making viral traffic. To include social media optimization tagging on the website, one can add tagging links, such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Technorati, and many more. In fact, these tags can be added to other pages of the websites along with the home page. Moreover, when the visitors click tag button creating a suggestion box will be an added advantage, as it will help the visitor to obtain a relevant tag and notes.

Social media optimization additionally focuses on offering useful and relevant content on your website that can help you achieve in having more traffic. Today, many businesspersons prefer businesses conducted through social media optimization as it gives an edge over various other publicity methods. However, when content is published like an article, video, or audio file the web creator must ensure that it reaches maximum people within a short span of time. He can accomplish this task by submitting relevant information for high traffic websites. When the word is spreaded out about your catchy content, you will be able to receive backlinks to your site. Moreover, all this is possible because of social media optimization services. Therefore, this way the site will be able to create its own space amongst various search engines and also earn a rank as a top website.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Prad has been gone a little less than two days. I thought I would enjoy this weekend alone, and purposely did not schedule any social activities with my girlfriends. Forty eight uninterrupted hours, that I could spend doing all the things I love most! Blogging, swimming, taking long walks, reading, vegging. With only a few interruptions from Catherine, on the rare occasions when she still needs something from me. The truth is, being alone sucks. And virtual connections are no substitute for flesh encounters with good friends, family, and even strangers. Every day, my eighty five year old mother goes out for grocery shopping. She does not need to go that often, but she ventures out, still, for the human interaction with the shopkeepers. “Otherwise, I would go crazy.” She lives alone, with only one neighbor she can visit. All her friends have died, and she lives far away from me and my brother. My mother has never been very good at making social connections outside of our immediate family. Over the years, her active social network has diminished to practically nothing. Her life is hell.

Socialization, the way it used to be

Being in the house, alone, I was thinking about all the ways that people socialize nowadays, versus, let say, fifty, a hundred years ago. And I went right back to my days on the farm, with my mother and my grandparents. Socialization was embedded in the fabric of our lives, then. Sunday was going to the market on the horse carriage to the nearby town. The market was a social event, where you got to meet all your friends from other villages. It took us forever to make our way through the whole square, so busy my grandfather was talking to one or the other. Then there was Sunday mass right after. The best part was sitting in the church, and feeling surrounded by the whole community, our community. Of course, the whole village was out and about during the day. Everybody knew everybody, and would stop at each other’s house. At night, during winter, there were stories told around the fire. My favorite sitting spot was way in the far corner of the fireplace, real close to the flames. I had a little chair that barely fit. If I got too close, my face started to burn. Too far, I started feeling cold. I would spend my time, trying to find the right distance, while listening to the adults’ conversations. The highlight of the year was the batterie, a day of celebration for the whole village signaling the completion of a successful harvest for the wheat crop. Each year, the batterie took place in a different house, and I still remember the time whey we were the hosts. The women had prepared a feast and I had helped. The men, all sweaty from a day in the fields, were laughing and drinking wine, and everybody had something to say to me, la petite. We were pretty happy on the whole, back then. Our basic need for socialization was taken care of.

Socialization now, and why it’s not working

Things are different now. In Silicon Valley where I live, there is a lot of socialization, but you’ve got to plan it. I am fortunate enough to live in a great neighborhood, with neighbors who actually talk to and help each other. But the bulk of our socialization centers around driving from place to place, from activity to activity. For parents, it often means chauffeuring a bunch of kids in SUVs, to sports events. I live very close to the Stanford campus. The other day, I was walking at night, and noticed the soccer field, brimming with activity. There was a night game, and parents had come cheering. What got to me were the bright lights, and the amount of electricity that’s required for that type of social event. Shopping is another big pet peeve of mine. Shopping is a social outlet for many women, and men, and teenagers. All driving to the mall, often without any real need for anything. Only the need to shop. And to go to a place filled with people, with guaranteed opportunities for social transactions. These are just two examples. I keep reading reports that our happiness is way down. Our lives nowadays tend to be fragmented between various networks, that are geographically dispersed. This requires more work on our part, and results in more superficial social ties.

Socialization, as part of the green solution

In the search for a green solution, maybe we ought to consider strategies that address this fundamental need we have as social beings, for relatedness and community? It may not be all of the solution, but in my opinion, it ought to be a main part. Looking for ways to rebuild local communities, around non-carbon producing activities, or even better, around carbon reducing initiatives. Recognizing that the deeper human need is not about consuming, but socializing instead. The emergence of virtual green social networks is a step in the right direction. It is only one step, however. Virtual connections can only go so far. Eventually, people need to meet, and feel physically connected to each other, around a common activity. The churches, the villages are gone. We need to find a substitute for the mall culture. To do with community, neighborhoods, nature, stories, rituals, work, play, and celebration.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

In the past an individual might have saved their favorites or bookmarks on their own computers. Their bookmarks might have been organized under a few general headings. The social bookmarking web site allows individuals to store their bookmarks on the Internet and makes them accessible anywhere.

The concept of shared online bookmarks has been around since 996, with the entry of itList.com, and a host of other services like Backflip.com. The modern version of social bookmarking sites use an organizational strategy known as tagging.

Each social bookmarking site is a little different from the other; however all have the ability to include a description of the web site. These descriptions include keywords often referred to as tags, which help to classify the web site for the individual, similar to how you might use a heading in your bookmarks on your local computer.

Ideas Around Social Bookmarking

Aside from allowing users to bookmark their favorites and share them online, a number of ideas have also been credited to helping create the social bookmarking framework. Among the major ideas behind the creation of social bookmarking are:

- To create a set of resources that can be accessed on any computer connected to the Internet.

- To conduct research and share that research with your peers

- To track author and book updates

- Rate and review bookmarks to help with students decide on usefulness of resource

- Setup a group tag in order to share educational resources

- Share links to current news items that relate to classroom discussions.

- Examine the popularity of a web site that a student had listed and examine those who have tagged that resource in order to find new resources.

Linking With Various Forums And Boards Helps Increase Your Bookmarking Presence

Social bookmarking submission has developed into a powerful tool for SEO experts. It involves linking sites within the various forums, blogs and message boards on social networking websites, blog sites and content-centric sites like Digg.

Considered a better alternative to submitting a website on blogs, manual social bookmarking is a simple, convenient and hassle-free way of making sure that your site is noticed and marketed in the right communities or circles. Yahoo, Google and other major search engines have decided to go content-centric; the more places you have your content, the more traffic you create.

Online Bookmarking Provides a Venue For Like-Minded Individuals

Social bookmarking provides a community-based online venue or platform for like-minded individuals to exchange information and interact in a real-time mode and setting. As a community of loyal and dedicated contributors, social bookmarkers try to build a favorable reputation through consistent posting and networking schemes.

Over time, virtual allegiances are created and used as leverage for generating votes and page views for submitted content. Not coincidentally, the most successful contributors, such as those whose submitted stories receive the largest number of votes and the highest rankings, are usually those with the most friends and networks on the site.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Social networking can be defined as grouping individuals together into specific groups or communities, somewhat like a neighborhood. Although social networking can be done offline, as in a business setting, it is a popular way online to connect with other people, whether you’re promoting a business or not. There are tons of social networking sites online, many of these grouped by interests, and these sites aren’t limited to just business networking. Regardless of the reason for networking, it’s a great way to develop friendships with others, regardless of geographical location.

One of the main features of a social networking site, whether you choose a free or paid site, is the profile. The profile allows you to tell others about your interests, your business or work, and the type of people you would like to meet. The information you include on these sites can be quite detailed. This makes it easier to connect with others who have the same interests you do. Again, the ability to connect with others for friendship and common interest is an important part of these websites.

Another thing to consider here is general social networking sites versus topical social networking sites. Many of the most popular sites online, like My Space, and Facebook, are pretty general sites. You can meet people from just about anywhere in the world, as well as people with just about any interest you can imagine. These sites are good for connecting with others in just about any interest you may have. The fact that they get a lot of traffic is good because it gives you an opportunity to easily promote your interests. These sites usually offer open membership.

With topic specific social networking sites, these sites may offer open or closed membership. There may also be a fee involved for being a member, and you may even need an invitation to get into these sites.

The advantage to these types of sites, especially if you own your own business, is that the market for your products and services will be more targeted than if you’re marketing on general social networking sites. What’s key here is that regardless of which of these types of sites you choose to market on, that you go where your market is. Don’t waste your time making an appeal for your product or service in a group or forum on these sites that isn’t related to your product or service.

If you find the idea of connecting with others in your type of business appeals to you, then you should definitely consider marketing your business this way. It’s a very easy way to find new customers, as well as make new friends.

Just make sure you’re careful online. Not everyone you meet is who he/she claims to be, and as with any other form of networking, there are scammers out there.

You can find plenty of ways to network socially by doing a simple search in the search engines. Just type in “social networking”. You might also consider using the search term “social networking” plus your topic, like business, or internet marketing.

If you’re looking for an easy way to get new business, as well as make new friends, social networking is definitely the way to do it.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

There are several ways to generate traffic for a website. These days web 2.0 is seen as a major tool for online marketers to guarantee optimal traffic generation.

Social networking websites are those that allow individuals or entities, sharing a common interest, the opportunity to stay connected and meet other people with similar interest. It is a process that involves networking, interacting, building friends and relationships and obviously promoting anything online. Social networking sites can be classified as blogs, bookmarking sites, communities, etc.

The majority of the social networking sites are public. It means that they allow anyone to join. Organizations, including business companies, also have access to private social networking applications, known as Enterprise Relationship Management. These companies install such applications on their own servers and allow employees to share their networks of contacts and relationships to outside people and companies.

Social networking offers you some fantastic means of generating a considerable amount of traffic to your website.

- Blogs:

Posting comments on various blog sites is a sure way to generate traffic provided you give the link at the end of your comment. There are blogs on almost every imaginable topic, from business and marketing to archeology and movies. Select a blog site suitable to your topic, submit a relevant article with the best content. Write a great authoritative article and submit it to the top article directories. Remember, the way out to securing traffic this way is in your “about the author” box. Don’t forget to link back to your site and choose good anchor tags.

- Forums:

Many forums permit signature links. This ensures that you not only get a back link with your signature but also gain myriad exposure as your signature shows up every time you make a post in the forum.

- Social Bookmarking:

Social bookmarking sites have the ability to direct hundreds or thousands of targeted visitors to your site within a very short time. Numerous people bookmark their favorite pages. Other users in the network then refer those pages to more users. Therefore the number of links grows and brings in more traffic.

- Blog Directories:

Regularly visit blogs that you like, or those having similar topics as of yours, by subscribing to them through a feed reader. Check ‘your favorites’ no less than once a week, and post comments on any interesting new posts you find there. You can find active, popular blogs on just about any topic in some of the major blog directories.

- Videos & Pictures:

Make use of videos and pictures to attract traffic from the social networking sites. Trade links with other sites to gain backlinks. Update your postings in social networking sites from time to time with fresh videos and pictures.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

If you are new to internet marketing here is some basic information you can use on backlinks and social networking sites as guidelines.

Backlinks are links from someone elses site back to your own. Also known as inbound links, it is one of the best ways to boost the search engine rank of your site.

-Social networking websites are those that allow individuals or entities, sharing a common interest, the opportunity to stay connected. It is a process that involves networking, interacting, building friends and relationships and obviously promoting anything online.

Now that you have created a great site with loads of valuable products or services, the next step is to ensure a fair amount of relevant public viewing of your web page.

Just follow these simple tips to gain backlinks through social networking:

Posting remarks on a blog is a great way to get links. You should not only comment and attach a link to your site, but also ensure that you post it to a relevant blog post.

To gain more traffic, find a trendy subject related to your website and write a “How to” article on that. For example, if you are dealing in IT solutions then you could post an article on “How to create your own social software package”. It is a valuable way to get the targeted viewers to click on your link and visit your site.

Post an article on a web 2.0 site. List your site on the popular social bookmarking sites and submit articles at a regular pace. You can do it yourself, or you may outsource the job to a professional content developer. Of course the later comes at a cost!

-Along with your postings on blog sites you may offer something for free. For example, free screensavers or free clipart. Anything ‘free’ is always well-liked and people will take the bait.

-Last, but not the least, get yourself registered on some sites exclusively meant for social networking. On these sites, a member can send out invitations to other members to join their own personal network. New members repeat the course of action, thereby increasing the total number of members and links in the network.

As you initiate the process of gaining backlinks through extensive social networking, consider the loopholes as well.

-While creating network groups and posting articles, be careful as they might violate the Terms of Service for that particular website and get you banned.

-Avoid putting your links on pages that are over crowded with other links. It will lower your Page Rank.

Don’t just add your link to profiles, forums, or communities as posts. Try to enhance your business potential by building social relationships leading to a dedicated traffic flow.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

In September 1970 Friedman wrote “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Profit,” for the New York Times Magazine. In it, he argued persuasively that corporate social responsibility was just so much twaddle, socialism in a corporate wrapper that undermines a free society. Businesses that practiced corporate responsibility were playing Robin Hood with someone else’s money.

“The discussions of the ‘social responsibilities of business,’” Friedman wrote, “are notable for their analytical looseness and lack of rigor. What does it mean to say that ‘business’ has responsibilities? Only people have responsibilities.”

Instead, companies should maximize their profits and return capital to shareholders so that individuals could then donate to whatever cause they wished to, or not. For companies to do anything besides maximize profits was simply immoral, Friedman wrote.

When Friedman wrote that in 1970, corporate giving to charities was only a few decades old and basically amounted to a pittance. While it was permitted as early as 1917 in the State of Texas (a number that grew to 26 States by the early 1950s), it was a court ruling in New Jersey in 1952 that set the stage for modern corporate philanthropy. In 1950 New Jersey passed a law permitting companies to donate to educational institutions. But it was unclear whether the law permitted companies chartered before 1950 to make donations to nonprofits. In a test case a New Jersey manufacturer of valves and fire hydrants named A.P. Smith Manufacturing Company made a $1,500 donation to Princeton University. A group of shareholders challenged the gift in the New Jersey courts.

The court ruled that the statute was legal, and that it applied retroactively. The court opined that institutions of higher learning were essential to the democracy and the free-enterprise system. Companies increasingly realized this fact and had therefore a part to play to ensure the continued existence of such institutions as a matter not only of continued survival but to enhance the conditions of business in the present.

The case, called A.P. Smith Manufacturing Company vs. Barlow, changed the landscape of corporate giving in America forever.

But a sorry sort of intellectual stalemate was the result. Friedman and other Hayek-followers maintained that corporate social responsibility undermined free institutions. And the counter argument from the A.P. Smith ruling and others was that it improved the conditions necessary for business. In effect the later argument carried the day. Giving USA reports that companies in America gave $12.72 billion to charity in 2006.

But to see how much force Friedman’s article still has, Google the title. In the first page all that will come up are pdfs of the article posted by the nation’s business schools!

Increasingly academics have taken up the question and they’re finding that corporate social responsibility DOES make business sense. I’ve highlighted before the research of Raymond Fisman and Geoffrey Heal of Columbia Graduate School of Business and Vinay Nair of the Wharton School which suggests that for businesses that advertise a lot corporate philanthropy acts as a signal to consumers that a company’s products or services are reliable. They found a positive relationship between corporate philanthropy and profitability in industries with high advertising. But in industries with low advertising the reverse was true.

Recently I caught a presentation from Professor Paul Godfrey and afterwards we spoke briefly about his 2006 paper in the Academy of Management Review, “The Relationship Between Corporate Philanthropy and Shareholder Wealth: A Risk Management Perspective.” Godfrey teaches at Brigham Young University but like yours truly is a University of Utah alumnus.

The paper presents an ingenious theoretical underpinning which suggests that companies can use philanthropy to bank goodwill and, in effect, draw on it when the mine caves in.

His theory has 14 propositions and math that I couldn’t begin to explain. But his hypothesis goes like this:

Corporate philanthropy can generate positive moral capital among communities and stakeholders.

Moral capital can provide shareholders with insurance-like protection for a firm’s relationship-based intangible assets.

This protection contributes to shareholder wealth.

What he told me after the presentation is that the early data bears out the theory and the hypothesis. Of course Godfrey’s theories require further testing by himself and others. But clearly Friedman’s complaint that there is no rigor among those who argue for corporate social responsibility is no longer the case.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Social media optimization serves as a marketing tool for any business whether it is a new business or an old one. You must design your website keeping in mind the importance and meaning of your business. This will definitely help you to get a fast growth in your business. Today the web has huge response and it can easily reach anyone and anywhere around the world. The success behind social media optimization is that it caters to many users needs. People visit such websites and become member of social media websites to get connected to millions of people globally. And in other way the business promotion also gets executed through social media optimization. Online marketing methods have become so easier that many businesses are tempting towards it.

The icons or the links on a social media site are the perfect example of social media optimization that comes across to the online users. The web visitors click on the link or icons if they feel it will be helpful for them. This concept is sprouting with a fast pace ever since it came into being and many business is getting towards. It has really made many business or firm quite popular. The internet marketers are looking for the many other social media tactics to influence with pioneering ideas and concepts for its clients and businesses. You get so much affected by the social website that you feel something missing if you are not able to visit the social site. Here you find many of your relatives
and friends staying in any corner of globe.

This has happened due to globalization which had made everything easily accessible and in everyone’s reach. Use of latest and highly advanced technology has made everything in our reach. So you need to make such strategies that makes your business truly successful. Along with this you have to make your site link available on other reputed websites where you can expect maximum viewing. You can also exchange links with other websites so that you are not left with any option to make your business popular.
Social media websites are quite popular among many users and many other are joining the community everday.Social media optimization serves an effective business tool that can make your business boom with such techniques.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

As an ‘outsider’ it can be difficult to know how to begin to make friends. The office is an excellent starting point, but not everyone is fortunate enough to have a job offer immediately when they arrive in a new city.

Paramount Properties brings you some social networking suggestions to ease your transition to a new city.

Join a Gym

Good for the head, heart, body and soul, the gym also provides an easy environment in which to meet others. The camaraderie that comes from collectively punishing yourselves in an aerobic or weight-lifting class is unbeatable. Strike up a conversation with the person on the treadmill next you. See where it takes you.

Prominent Canadian gyms include Goodlife, YMCA, Florida Fitness, Gym Max and Curves.

Running Clubs

Although some runners prefer to conserve their air and don’t make great conversationalists, members of running clubs are usually very social when the run is done. Swap stories while basking your tired legs in an endorphin high. Running is also a great way to cover a lot of ground and explore a new city.

Book Clubs

If you’re a fan of literature, a book club is the perfect place to meet others who also like to lose themselves in a good novel. Take time out from your busy life as you momentarily escape from the “real world,” and then discuss the book and its themes with other people in the club. It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with the others about the true motives of the protagonist – the main thing is that you’re striking up conversations with new and interesting people. Another perk about book clubs is that you can sometimes get the chance to hear an author speak about his or her book. This can be very insightful and will give you and your new colleagues more to talk about.

Sports Club

Hockey, basketball, softball, soccer, tennis, golf and ultimate frisbee leagues offer excellent opportunities to meet people, get fit, have a great time and even get out of town if your team participates in inter-city tournaments. Find a sport you’ve always wanted to play and get involved.

Theatre Clubs

Assuming another identity and putting yourself on stage in front of the whole world may seem risky, but the benefits you reap will be even greater. Theatre is a promising way to meet outgoing people. Also, once you have mastered performing to a crowd, social introductions or job interviews will be a breeze!

However, if stepping into the spotlight is the last thing you would ever do, you can still enjoy the theatre experience as a member of the audience. Theatre/social clubs often have access to discounted tickets, and members will usually meet up after the show for food, drinks and a hearty discussion about what you just saw.

Volunteer for Charity

Help others and help yourself at the same time. United Way and Red Cross are two large and deserving causes. Local food banks are another place where you can see up front how your contribution makes a difference to the lives of struggling families.

Connect with Cultural and Religious Organizations

Most Canadian cities have strong Chinese, Greek, Jewish, Muslim, Italian, German, Hindu and ex-pat communities that host special festivals and events. Familiarity breeds comfortability, so seek out those common ties and make yourself known.

Coffee Shops and Pubs

You never know who you’ll meet during Happy Hour or at your local Starbucks, Bridgehead or Second Cup … give it a try and see what happens!

Good friendships take time, but the more you get involved in your community, the more at home you’ll feel and the more stories you’ll have to share. By the time you’ve made your way through this list, you’ll be a professional ice breaker. Good luck!

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Like me, you may have been told that your child needs to be in a school setting with other children to be socialized. Let’s consider for a minute what kind of social skills a child with autism may learn in school.

1. In a school or classroom setting, your child is exposed to both positive and negative socialization. This isn’t really debated by any of us who have been in school. The question is whether or not the “good” socialization outweighs the “bad” socialization.

2. There are typically two placements for children with autism when it comes to schools. Each comes with its own drawbacks as far as social skills are concerned.

For those who are lower-functioning, there is the special ed classroom. If your child is placed in a special ed class, they may actually pick up negative behaviors from the other students. Children who have never said a bad word in their lives come home with all sorts of words that the parents know they didn’t teach their child. Or maybe a child who wasn’t aggressive previously starts imitating the hitting, biting, or screaming of a classmate. That’s not what I think most parents are hoping for when they are told to put their child in school to learn social skills.

If your child is higher-functioning, they may be mainstreamed in a regular ed classroom. Will the typical behaviors of their peers be the positive socialization you hoped for? Unfortunately, many times children with autism become an easy target for bullies who cause them physical and emotional harm. Other classmates, who may be nice enough themselves, may still go along with cruel jokes or name calling at the expense of a child with autism just because they don’t want to be ostracized from their peers. Whether it’s bullying, teasing, or isolation, children who are “different” and don’t possess the same social abilities as their peers often experience great difficulties just trying to survive a day at school. These children often exhibit signs of tremendous stress and anxiety, depression, and some even contemplate suicide.

So are there any alternatives? Families who are concerned about the educational and social well-being of their children often choose to teach them at home. Home-schooling offers a better opportunity for positive socialization while drastically limiting the possibility of negative social experiences. Home-schooled children are not isolated or “unsocialized”. Home-schooling simply provides the opportunity for parents to expose their children to a variety of social situations when they feel their child is ready to handle them. Most communities have home-school groups that offer park days, sports teams, special classes or lessons, as well as informal get-togethers for home-schooled children.

It must be noted that children with autism do not learn social skills simply by being with typical peers regardless of the setting — school or home. In order to master social skills, autistic children require specific instruction and opportunities to practice skills first in settings with one other child, then with two children, then in small groups, and then in large groups. To place a child with autism into a classroom situation (or any group situation) and assume that they will learn beneficial social skills just because other children are present is not supported by research or real life (See point #4 in the open letter from Dr. Ivar Lovaas, autism expert, at http://featbc.org/why_lovaas/letter.html).

Common sense tells us that we don’t teach a child with autism to swim by throwing them into the deep end of a swimming pool and telling them to start swimming. Likewise, if we want children with autism to “swim” in the social world, we can’t just put them in a situation that virtually ensures their failure. We must teach them step-by-step and give them plenty of time to practice their social skills in a supervised setting. We can accomplish this via one-on-one play dates with peers, social skills small groups, sibling/parent relationships, community outings, etc.

So the next time someone suggests that you should put your child with autism in school simply because of their need for socialization, consider exactly what that means for your child. There’s not much compelling evidence to suggest that inclusion in school settings is accomplishing positive socialization or excellence in education for most children, especially children with autism. We can do better at home.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Below, we’ll describe the many ways in which Corporate America is harnessing the power of social media marketing. You’ll discover that this online marketing strategy complements, rather than replaces, your current advertising efforts.

Building And Supporting Brand Awareness

Consumers are aware of brands on a subconscious level. Through repetitive association, they slowly begin to recognize them. This is one of the reasons many companies are hesitant to allocate their budgets toward building those brands. The impact of branding efforts can be difficult to measure and seldom yield quick results.

Having said that, brand awareness works differently online, especially when promoted through social media marketing. Brands are recognizable to consumers on a more instinctual level. Plus, their impact is more easily measured. A stronger brand attracts a measurable audience through the search engines (via higher rankings) as well as through the social networks.

Injecting A Professional Voice

Companies once maintained an “official” corporate presence through which all forms of communication flowed. Press releases were used to push information to the market. An official spokesperson was appointed and tasked with controlling the message. The goal was to prevent customers from peering behind the public facade.

That “strategy” is less viable today. Corporate America is beginning to realize that customers are more likely to become fans if they can interact with a company’s professional voice. When fans promote company brands, word-of-mouth marketing is unleashed.

Interacting With Customers

When a company interacts with its customers on a human level, it builds a following. The results might include an explosive growth of followers on Twitter, dedicated fan groups on Facebook, and an assortment of user generated content on other social networks. This leads to increased brand exposure and deepening customer loyalty.

Many companies are using social media marketing and business blogging services to tap directly into their markets. In doing so, they are building platforms from which to engage their customers. They are establishing conversations that raise their top of mind awareness within their market. This level of dialogue influences their market’s perception and encourages customers to promote their brand.

Encouraging Customer Participation

Word-of-mouth advertising is potent like no other marketing strategy. It is often far more effective than print advertising, television and radio spots, and other conventional marketing channels. One of the core strengths of a social media marketing campaign is its ability to encourage customers to spread the word about your company. By maintaining a sincere dialogue, you can convert prospects to customers, and customers to raving fans.

Every social network has influences. When those influencers participate in promoting your brand, they are able to influence their peers’ perception of your company. What’s more, through their efforts, they subconsciously solidify their own loyalty to your brand. Not only does this strengthen your brand and increase your sales, but it also complements a search engine optimization campaign by means of on-site and off-site fresh content.

Expanding An Inbound Link Profile

Social media marketing plays a key role in lifting your corporate website in the search engines’ organic rankings. The reasons are due to your inbound link profile and the brand’s overall participation in relevant communities; a.k.a. “trust”.

Google, Yahoo!, Bing and other search engines, rely heavily upon the links pointing to your company’s site in order to determine its relevance to a user’s query. The greater the breadth and authority of those links within your inbound link profile, the greater influence they will have upon your rankings.

Social media marketing and business blogging services can generate links across a wide swath of websites. Not only do many social networks allow outbound links, but your company’s customers and fans will generate content on their own sites and blogs. Their blog posts and site pages will often include links that point to your website, which further expands your inbound link profile. Additionally, when the content in or around those links relates to themes and topics in your industry, the relevance of that link becomes stronger.

It’s worth noting that blogs, in particular, tend to rank quickly. When they do, they gain exposure, which leads to even more people generating content with links pointing to your site. If approached properly, social media marketing and business blogging services can generate a snowball effect for your site in the search engines. They build momentum as your exposure increases.

Social Media Marketing Strategies

While social media marketing is effective for any company that wants to build their brand, strengthen customer loyalty, and establish a dialogue with their market, objectives vary. Some strategies may be more appropriate for your company than others.

For example, if you serve a consumer market, business blogging services, product reviews, and video marketing will encourage customers to participate in promoting your brand. Some of them will be influencers within their respective networks. When given an opportunity to interact with your company, many of those influencers will become fans. Fans often become content creators, generating links that point to your corporate website. That lifts your site in the search engines’ organic rankings, further increasing your visibility to your market.

Corporate America shows no signs of slowing in its use of social media marketing to generate buzz, build secondary promotions, and establish an ongoing dialogue with customers. Social media represents a marketing theater in which your company can compete with the titans in your market.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Implementing innovative strategies to fuel positive social action is social entrepreneurship. There are different types of social entrepreneurial organizations, including for-profit and non-profit organizations. Certain professionals who have their own private practices provide their social services to communities in need on a spontaneous basis. As we analyze the way that these organizations work, the power and potential behind them becomes apparent. There are different models on which the ventures of social entrepreneurs are based on.

Models of Social Entrepreneurship

Social Sector Business
A “Social Sector Business” is a business run for profit which integrates a social mission with focus on maximizing profits. The service offered by such companies or the products marketed by them are geared towards addressing specific social needs. These businesses are also referred to as NJFP or Not Just For Profit. These organizations pay their way through their own earnings.

The Grameen Bank is one of the most successful examples of this particular social entrepreneurship model. It was founded in the year 1983 by Muhammad Yunus to help the poor in rural Bangladesh obtain microloans without collateral. The success of this model is evident with the 7 million borrowers as of December 2007 and the 95% repayment rate. That repayment rate is phenomenal! Earning huge profits was not the only benefit of this venture either, this bank was awarded the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.

Earned Income Non-profit
Another model is the Earned Income Non-profit in which the organization is focussing on a social mission and makes profits by selling its own products and services to those who can afford it. They do not depend on donations and grants. These organizations are referred to as ’social enterprises’.

An example of this social entrepreneurship model is the Delancey Street Foundation. This foundation was initiated in the year 1971 by John Maher and Mimi Silbert to assist ex-convict, substance abusers and homeless in San Francisco. This organization does not rely on any government funding. Clients carry on businesses and the profits generated goes towards funding this foundation. In fact, 65% of their funding is from client businesses which include a print shop and a moving company. This business, which has had a positive impact on at least 14,000 people, teaches skills and provides marketable job ideas to clients to make a difference in their lives.

Pro Bono Practice
Pro Bono Practice is a model involving professional services groups of health practitioners, lawyers and consultants. They contribute towards a positive change in the society by helping clients who cannot afford to pay. The practice makes money and funds those who cannot afford paying by charging those who can. They also generate funds by selling products or services or even reaching out for sponsors.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

It is now accepted that for technology to be used effectively in the learning process it must be led by firm educational principles rather than being driven by technology as an end in itself. This has led some experts to suggest that the term e-learning is replaced with something perceived as more inclusive such as interactive flexible learning . It’s also crucial to design learning solutions which users can get the best from instinctively. Expert Dr Matt Jones of the University of Swansea’s Future Interaction Technology Lab says that IT systems now play such a central role in modern life that ensuring they are designed so that their users interact more effectively with them is of paramount importance.

The impact of technology on communication
Undoubtedly the internet and devices used to access the internet are having a dramatic impact on the way we interact with all our contacts, from our peers to organizations and educators. Increasing use of social networking tools is helping to increase engagement and learners’ well being. Online tools can help usually shy or unexpressive learners to shine through use of mechanisms such as learner-generated podcasts, video podcasts, Powerpoint presentations or online contributions to discussions. New technology can also encourage deep reflection: the thought required to developing a podcast or a blog can help to improve cognitive learning, lead to better critical thinking and deep learning.

Today the relationship between learner and tutor is often less hierarchical and adopts more of a partnership approach, with formal meetings to review progress replaced by emails, ‘phone calls, texts or messages via a virtual learning environment. Most educators would agree that collaborative and blended learning approaches can help to ensure that the benefits of personal contact are combined with the undoubted benefits of elearning. Some distance elearning courses, for example, for dispersed workforces include ‘webinars’ or web seminars where the group interacts online with the tutor via text or webcam and text. Blended courses also include face-to-face sessions to encourage the group to bond and collaborate through activities such as away days or more formally in teaching sessions. And not all elements of the courses need to be online: many learners prefer to have hard copy documents, manuals or books which they can annotate and to use e-learning tools to participate in discussions and seminars online.

Social aspects of learning such as wikis and online social networking
Social networking is currently only used by a quarter of those on the internet but that figure is sure to rise. It was only four years ago in 2004 that Mark Zuckerberg developed a website which was the first iteration of the Facebook phenomena . In an indication of the growth in popularity of social networking sites, News Corp paid $580m for the parent company of MySpace in 2005 when it was just taking off and had a mere 17m members ; now it has an estimated 110m . Just two years later in 2007, Facebook was valued at an estimated $15bn . It is the UK’s number one social network with over 8 million users . Businesses are starting to use social networking tools for a variety of reasons from locating knowledge or experts within the organization to easing the path for new employees or to help post-merger bonding.

Social software can encourage learners to use e-learning as a way to collaborate and take greater control of their own learning. Learners perhaps do need to be more self-motivated than previously – in universities and in the workplace alike they are encouraged to find their own materials via the web. Web 2.0 tools also open up more possibilities for informal learning and group learning, which follow the popular social constructivist pedagogy.

Open source e-learning system Moodle was the creation of Martin Dougiamas, who holds graduate degrees in Computer Science and Education. Martin’s later Ph.D. studies examined “The use of Open Source software to support a social constructionist epistemology of teaching and learning within Internet-based communities of reflective inquiry” and this research has strongly influenced some of the design of Moodle, providing pedagogical aspects missing from many other e-learning platforms .

Moodle can be used with social networking tools in various ways and embedding social networking within a learning management system avoids ‘death by navigation’, the switching between applications identified by IT industry analysts IDC as a major hidden cost in the use of technology . Embracing social networking and including it in course management systems will help to ensure social networking is used for learning as well as social reasons. Course developers can’t afford to ignore social networking: the single largest growing Facebook demographic is people over the age of 25 who “typically spend their waking hours in the corporate world” and Facebook records show that already 30,000 Microsoft employees and 20,000 Accenture employees are subscribers. It’s certainly here with a vengeance: technology research specialists Forrester predict that “enterprise 2.0″ will spend almost $5bn on social networking tools by 2013 .

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

In many walks of life and across many different professions, social networks now have a significant role to play, none more so than in the field of online gaming. Many games platforms through some clever and psychologically appreciative graphics not only introduce the player to the game but also offer an interactive facility to entice and encourage competition from others.

The easy to sue icons of the major social bookmark and networking sites are ready to hand and a gamer is only a couple of clicks away from bringing friends and most of their address book on to the platform if they should so wish.

The major betting agencies, games and lottery platforms have developed these features dramatically in recent years. Two good examples of this are Coral UK and VWD through their e-lottery syndicate platform. Interaction and manual dexterity have a very close relationship which seems odd but on closer examination is a very pertinent point.

Given the number of people who text , compute e-mails it doesn’t really take too long to establish that the technological revolution and its acceleration goes hand in hand with the usage put on peoples’ ability to use quick moving technology. The major social networking sites and the understanding of age demography in relation to generation x and generation y individuals provides the background to online games and lottery sites. The understanding they have of peoples’ tastes and aspirations for communication and information gathering governs the way in which they promote and attract players.

The comparison of older style networks with the modern day entourage is a stark one. It often makes me smile to think of the older versions and the time and effort exerted just to participate. Equally, I feel a little embarrassed when the cutting edge modern technology we have doesn’t move fast enough. Being able to instantly introduce friends without any dialogue, just a few clicks, again is astonishing and that makes me smile as well.

In summary, social networking sites, games and lottery platforms are panaceas of new technology and internet wisdom. They are certainly the places where the new and attractive can be found. It is also a place where social networks and communities link in to each other and provide the makings of newer far reaching development. May be in a few years time I’ll look back and have another smile and wonder what the next dimension will bring. Will it ever stop? probably not, just continue in the new directions which are presented. The world wide web is ever changing, ever developing and in reality continually unique.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

If you are interested in joining a social network website, the first thing that you will need to do is find a network to join. You can easily find a number of networks by performing a standard internet search. For the best search results, you may want to search with the words social networking or social network websites. In your search, it is likely that that you come up with a fairly large number of different networking sites. Popular sites that may be included in your search results may include, but will not be limited to, MySpace, Orkut, Yahoo! 360, FriendFinder, FriendWise, Facebook, and Classmates. You may have heard of all of these. I personally use three, but am registered with a few more. I use Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Remember that my primary purpose in belonging at all is to promote my business.

Once you have made the decision to join a particular social network website, whether or not it is one of the ones mentioned above, you will need to register with the site. Even free networking communities require that you go through the registration process. Once you are registered, you should be able to start communicating with other community members. Before you start communicating, you may need to develop your online profile or profile page, depending on the networking site in question. Although it may seem easy enough to create a profile, there are many internet users who are unsure exactly what they should and should not include.

Perhaps, one of the most important things to include in your profile at each social network is your picture. While a personal picture is optional, it is ideal. Many internet users enjoy taking to someone that they can see in their minds, without a picture this is difficult. Personally, from the standpoint of using social networking for business promotion, I think it is unprofessional to not included a decent picture of yourself. If you are looking to use social network websites just to meet new friends you may not necessarily need to post a private picture.

In addition to your photograph, you may want to include your name. Now, when it comes to your name, you need to be cautious. You are advised against giving your full name, especially if your profile or profile page contains a personal photograph of you. In addition to your name, you may want to put down your location. As with your name it is important to display caution. Your picture, your address, and your full name can be dangerous, especially if it falls into the wrong hands. As much as you would like to fill your social networking profiles with personal information, you are advised to think about your safety before anything else.

You may also want to include information on yourself. This information may include your hobbies, issues that are important to do, your likes, and your dislikes. With many social network websites, including MySpace, you will find that there are preset profile fields for this information. In addition to preset questions or categories on your likes and dislikes, you may also find additional information, including fun questionnaires.

By keeping the above mentioned points in mind, you should not only be able to create an online social networking profile that is filled with valuable information, but you can do so while staying safe at the same time. Your safety on the internet is in your hands, that is why it is important to think about safety, as well as internet popularity.

Once you are established with a social network or two, you will need to spend a little time at each learning what is available. Once you have built a few relationships it may be time to start putting a little marketing in.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Advertising and promoting using social media takes time and effort…plain and simple. Yes, it doesn’t cost anything to be on Facebook, but how much time should you…and do you…feel like spending on developing and nurturing it? Is it really worth it? Can I defend the expenditure to management?

From research I have recently completed for my company, an advertising and marketing firm, the answer is a decided “yes.” Each situation and company is different, of course, but all are looking for similar outcomes-increased clients, customers and a RETURN on their investment. Because of their viral nature, it is questionable if metrics will ever be developed to enable marketers to accurately track and evaluate the full effect of the various social platforms, there are steps that can be taken to optimize the potential for success and deliver measurable results.

The following are the goals you should pursue and techniques you should try in developing your social networking campaigns:

1) Establish, Enhance or Maintain Your Brand

Social networking is a great way to debunk rumors and create a positive spin on how your company is viewed. In a recent article, The Future of Social Networks Lies in Shared Communities, the author explains why, in the near future, customers, clients, competitors, and even future employees will be paying much greater attention to a company’s social networking site than they will to their website home-page. These people will use the social network presence to understand the personality of a company and learn what makes them stand out. Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook allow a company to provide a more accurate portrayal a personality of a company in a more people-oriented manner than is possible on a conventional website.

2) Get prospective customers or clients interested in the company (drawing clicks to your webpage)

If you can provide interesting advice, information, or even something that just catches the eyes of existing or potential customers, you’re getting your name out there. You are increasing your visibility and, when it comes time for them to choose a supplier in your related field, they will remember you. Now of course, as with any form of advertising, the more they see your name the better. That means more effort on your end in multiplying the opportunities for them to come across whatever you have to offer them, be it professional advice, business or industry intelligence, news posts, even jokes or interesting facts-all can help get your name out there. This all can be managed through combinations of posts to blogs, microblogging (Twitter), Social Networks (Facebook, Linkedin), Email Marketing, etc.

3) Open the door for conversation

Let’s say the hard part is over, you have a large following on Twitter, and you’ve got a bunch of signups to your Facebook Fan Page. Now what? Well, you need to make sure you are getting those followers clicking to your goal site, whether that be your company website, the site for a sponsored event, or an e-commerce location where they can buy your product. Conversation can come through @ posts on Twitter (this is where you make direct contact with another Tweeter) or sending messages to your Fan Page members about deals or new products. Most importantly, however, it can come through publicizing your home page. Make sure the URL address is posted in plain sight anywhere that it can be listed (e.g., Facebook page, blogs, etc.) so that browsers may link to it. Discussion Boards are also a great way to get people interested and talking, and provides you with the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge of a subject.

4) Make it easy to buy your product or service

Once you have people clicking on your links and becoming familiar with your company, they need to be presented with contact information or details on how and where they can buy your product or service. The name of the game is “flow and ease” when converting visitors into customers on a social site. If you cannot offer them an easy way to purchase what they want from you, they will quickly move on to the next thing: someone else who can.

Case studies documenting monetary gains resulting from social media campaigns do exist. One study, entitled ROI May Be Measurable In Facebook, MySpace After All, cites one brand of that reported a $.28 million return on a $1.0 million Social-Media Campaign. The viral campaign included online couponing and a contest in which MySpace members submitted videos of themselves and then invited their friends and others in the network to vote on their favorite video. The results were compiled by Dunhummy, MySpace and ComScore at the Advertising Research Foundation. The Vice President of Dunhummy went on record as saying: “We have done other studies and just about every one has seen positive results.”

Having yourself “fully” on social networking sites will increase awareness of your brand and allow you to open an entirely new portal of communication with people you might have never contacted otherwise. Social networking sites make it easier to add enhancements to your brand and allow you to find others with relevant interests. This kind of free targeting will increase your ROI since you know who these potential customers are-along with their specialties, their groups and their interest-and you can openly communicate with them in a non-intrusive way.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The first answer I give is, yes. The marketing function is undergoing an evolution, the social media express has roared into town and design and architecture companies that don’t get onboard now risk being left behind. There are conversations happening all around us online that design and architecture companies could be involved in. Conversations that include clients and potential clients and if you don’t get involved, your competitors will. This goes for pretty much any type of business as more and more are joining in, daily.

But getting involved in social media is not straightforward. It takes a lot more than simply adding a profile to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn et al. As with all things marketing, it needs a strategy. But before I get into that, let’s start with a gentle introduction to the wonderful world of social media.

Social media is an online tool that builds communities of people with shared interests who are interested in networking with each other. The focus here is on networking and conversation, which is the underlying premise. It’s a bit like ‘offline’ networking at events, but without having to leave your home/office and with a little less alcohol. It allows you to connect with people that can benefit you or your company, which is useful for anyone wanting to hook up with potential clients, peers, journalists, industry guru’s and anyone else that could be useful.

The key uses of social media for marketing purposes are:

Brand awareness Brand reputation management New business generation News distribution and PR Research (through online polls) Customer support Specific product/service launch campaigns Connecting with affiliate companies Improving SEO

Not bad for an activity that needs little investment other than time.

There is a raft of social media sites available to us, from blogs to microblogs to networking to bookmarking. It’s easy to get lost in the quagmire, so here’s a brief description of each:

Blogs : a blog is a company’s communication tool that allows two way interaction with its readers. They are different to standard ‘brochure’ website as they ‘talk with’ rather than ‘talk at’ the viewer. The blog shouldn’t be used for ’selling’, instead it should contain advice and opinion that the reader will find useful and which will make them want to subscribe for updates (and thus extend the interaction further). It might even make them want to get in touch. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Microblogs : Twitter is the most talked about, and the most useful, microblog. In contrast to a blogs longer posts, Twitter contains 140 character ’statements’. It is a powerful networking tool that allows you to interact with people in a much faster environment. It has a global reach that breaks down the barriers of communication and allows networking in real time on a very large scale. Tweeters share information, give advice, debate real time issues and generally chat.

Social networking sites : these include Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Plaxo, Xing etc, and this list is growing. So for now I’m going to stick with the main two I find useful: LinkedIn and Facebook. Xing can be useful for architects, however this isn’t being used to a great extent in the UK so far (that could change in the future so it’s worth keeping an eye on). Networking sites allow you to connect and network with others in your field. The group discussions and forums are particularly useful here and should play a major role in their use.

Social bookmarking sites : this includes sites like Digg and Stumbleupon. They allow us to bookmark a web page we like or find interesting and ’save’ it to these sites. They also have a voting system that allows viewers to vote on pages they like. The aim here is to get your blog post or web page voted on and then, in turn, encourage others to view it.

Social media strategy

There are definite rules of engagement when it comes to social media. As I mentioned earlier, it’s all about networking and conversation. But before getting into any conversation, get your strategy sorted:

1. What are your objectives for using social media? Are you looking to increase brand exposure? Are you looking for new business leads? Do you need to improve your brand reputation? Are you launching a specific product or service? Are you looking to recruit staff? The objective/s need to be clear from the outset as these will drive your messages.

2. Who do you want to reach? Write down a list of the types of people or companies you want to interact with and be clear what messages you want to get across to them. But remember! Social media is all about two way interaction so you can’t fully control any conversation. However, having a clear idea of what you want to communicate at the start will be useful to your strategy.

3. Who should be responsible for running social media activity? Should there be a team or can one person take responsibility? Take heed here, not all conversation on social media is positive so you will need someone equipped to deal with any negative comments on behalf of your company.

4. Next you need to identify the right platforms for you. The model I have been using and am recommending to clients is an integration of the following: company blog, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook with, of course, links back to the main website and YouTube and Flickr as necessary. As with other marketing activities, they ALL need to be integrated for optimum results. There are tools that allow you to link these platforms to save on time, for example Twitter updates can now appear on your Facebook profile through Tweetdeck, WordPress blogs can be embedded into LinkedIn profiles, Twitter updates can appear on blogs etc.

5. Agree the wording of profile names before setting them up. For example, on Twitter do you want all profiles for your company to be prefixed with the company name then the employee or just the employee or do you want to have one company profile name that can be used by all or just your name? Clearly this has branding implications so it’s important to get this clear at the outset. I do prefer real names for Twitter profiles as it feels like you’re talking to a real person, rather than a member of a company. Once this is done, set up all profiles with clear bio’s and apply the branding to backgrounds where possible. If you don’t already have a blog, it would be a good idea to get this set up now. This needn’t be costly or time consuming. WordPress provides a very good system which is free. So get blogging with relevant, useful posts.

6. Now you need to find the people you want to network with. Get together a list of those you want to reach, search for them and connect. Once you’ve connected don’t make the mistake of diving into conversation before you get a feel for how they do things. Listen to what they talk about for a while and if you have something relevant to add to a discussion, add it. But remember, don’t sell! What you want to do here is build the relationship. So be relevant and give them sound advice. They’ll soon be nattering away with you and may even want to take it offline for a coffee at some point. How very yesteryear.

7. Next ensure all platforms are integrated as I mentioned earlier. Make the most of all available tools to streamline your social media activities.

8. Finally, timing. Social media can be very addictive so it’s worth scheduling the time you feel is appropriate to spend on these activities. There is a plethora of tools on Twitter that help cut down on the time you need to spend online. For example you can schedule your tweets to be sent out during the day so that you can get on with something else. But remember, don’t do too much of this as the conversation will be one sided which is against what you’re trying to do here.

Here are a few examples of companies that are making the most of social media:

Architects Journal, Architectural Review, Arup, Barefoot & Gilles, BDI, Blueprint, Brand Republic, Building Design, DBA, Design Council, Design Museum, Drivers Jonas, Ford Frog HOK I-am Associates Innocent Interbrand Landor Leo Burnett Loft Marketing Nokia Ogilvy RIBA Saatchi & Saatchi Design Shed Starbucks TBWA Williams Murray Ham WPP

So that’s it in a nutshell. If you still don’t think social media is for you. Think again. Those who don’t get involved now could miss out on an important development in marketing strategy.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Social Media Monitoring for Businesses: Obviously as a Business Owner or a responsible Brand Manager for a business (irrespective of big or small), you definitely would love to hear what people are talking about your company, your business, your brand. For the same reason, community portals like Trip Advisor and MouthShut.com got popular in the first place. Now unlike earlier days (around a few years back) when there were only a couple of such portals where people got together and shouted, today, there are thousands of places where people are voicing their opinions. And sometimes you may not even have the slightest idea of a growing protestation in a community or group for your products / services. For instance, say some of your customers are located in Saimata (a city in Japan) where your product is being talked about on a local blog / regional community forum. Obviously you are not expecting a dream about it. You need to find it for yourself.

Secondly, Social Media Monitoring is not just for Online Business, it is as important for an Offline Business too, only because your customers have gone online. They find internet the easiest way to review your product and a place where their voice is heard by many. So an offline business would not want to be completely unaware of what is cooking against them or for them online.

Essentially, Social Media Monitoring is now an integral part if businesses really want to safeguard their integrity.

Education: Monitoring education societies, organizations, education committees is a great way for students, researches alike. You are better equipped by what courses are on offer, what courses are in demand, what are the courses educational institutions or ministry are more inclined to develop. Further monitoring communities where people discuss or speak about details on a subject is another great way to benefit through Social Media Monitoring.

News: If you want to keep yourself updated with the latest happenings in any particular area, business, government issues or whatever, monitoring social media can only make work easier for you. Twitter is known to be the fastest news release source. Bloggers collect a lot of topics to write upon through this medium. Monitoring Social Media where news spread quicker than any other medium today would be the best source if you wish to be among the first few to popularize it.

Professional Development: As with education, social media can help you in an all round development of your professional personality. Monitoring social media groups where peers of your profession gather and speak and discuss things can help you in expanding your professional learning as well as networking circles.

Latest Buzz: Social Media Monitoring helps in keeping yourself informed upto the last minute. What is the latest buzz around your town? Which celebrity is making a presence tonight & where? Who is offering freebies and when? If you happen to love freaking out, you can be assured of being the first ones to get updated of the buzz.

Product Development: Businesses can strategize according to the buzz, trends being followed & things people look forward to. Social Media Monitoring can only help them combine their product / service with the ongoing buzz / trends to achieve a desired product.

Engagement: This is the most important and widely accepted aspect of Social Media Monitoring. Engaging yourself with what your customers say about you or your friends talk about you or your professional peers re-iterate, can help you gain access to a lot of freely available useful information as also having a personal chat with your customers. It is like understanding the needs and behavior more effectively.

Considering the scope of Social Media and the information that it has in store and which is freely available, monitoring it can only help you expedite your efforts to your goals. But what is actually needed is to Strategize and exploit this resource in the most efficient manner. This is what I shall take up in my next article.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

In paid placement, advertisers and merchants pay the search engine company to give their links prime placement. “Sponsored search results” can be found in popular search engines at the very top and often along the side of search result pages. Paid placement is one (expensive!) way to drive traffic to your Web site. If your budget won’t tolerate sponsoring search results, then “organic” search results are for you.

Organic search results are those sites that the search engine finds and the order in which the search engine prefers similar or related sites. Web site owners sometimes spend a great deal of time and effort tweaking the search results to improve their site’s placement in search results.

To improve organic search result placement, some sites have turned to social media as a way to drive desirable traffic to their site and valuable information to their consumers. Social media is a general term for a variety of Web- or Internet-oriented services that encourage Web site users to form communities, pass product information to interested consumers, and generate new interest in products and services from previously unknown prospects.

Social media can include blogging, Facebook groups, MySpace pages, Twitter, Digg, Stumbleupon, Squidoo lenses and other types of media that invite user participation in a community of interested users.

Social media is valuable in terms of its ability to improve search engine placement because many social media services include RSS feeds that inform users (and search engines) of newly published content. Additionally, sites like Facebook and MySpace enjoy high rankings in the search engines in the first place. It’s very easy to “piggyback” onto their already high search engine ranking with a page or group that publicizes a niche product, service or site.

Social media also builds customer and brand loyalty. The low-cost self-publishing tools mean that even small businesses that cater to niche audiences can compete effectively with the “big guys” in a shared market space. By focusing on niche terms, keywords, and tags that are likely to be used by their most sought-after customers, sites can improve their organic search results.

One major advantage of social media is that interested prospects and consumers “self-identify.” With traditional advertising, businesses create an ad campaign and run it where they believe their users are most likely to congregate. With social media, businesses create a place for interested users to congregate and then tailor extremely specific marketing information to an already receptive audience. Social media tools can help users find the exact products and services they’re interested in at the moment they’re ready to search.

Further, social media offers a “test bed” for merchants, site owners and service providers by allowing them to offer unadvertised specials, coupons, and discount offers that are tailored to particular customers. Informational services and notifications are also easy to provide and are welcomed by existing customers.
Finally, social media puts merchants, service providers and vendors in the same space their customers are already in. Many younger consumers don’t watch television or listen to the radio. These customers will miss even the best, most thoughtful and engaging advertising campaigns. Social media provides a mechanism for businesses to reach out to potentially interested customers who simply don’t engage with traditional media.

Social media’s major advantages are that they can place timely, specific information in search engines and help customers, potential customers and site visitors find the precise information they’re looking for in a sea of search engine results.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

For starters, there can be little doubt that as the owners/managers of these online community sites, it is their prerogative to decide not only what content they will allow to be shared on their site, but also the type of users they’ll grant access to. These guidelines or rules, often described in the site’s Terms of Service agreement, are meant to serve as a filter to help the site owner’s build the online community they hope to attract and nurture on their domain. However, as much as these rules or regulations are meant to define the nature and makeup of the site’s membership, the ultimate goal with social-networking sites is to make it as accessible and inviting to as many users as possible, thereby encouraging a heterogeneity of users to their site for interaction and communication.

Now, there’s no question that both Facebook and MySpace are not considered ’specialty’ sites or social-networking sites that cater exclusively to people who share a common cultural norms system or values/belief structure. And yet, reading many of the statements released by Facebook and MySpace concerning their policy of removing any images of mothers breastfeeding their babies from their respective sites, it becomes clear that there are in fact cultural norms being used to determine what kinds of interaction and sharing will be allowed on these sites, norms that not only are out of sync with most of the world, but ones that are not aligned with most state/provincial and federal laws concerning public breastfeeding. As such, it becomes a little more difficult to view these two social-networking sites as not being ones that cater more to the North-American societal segment that would agree that women can reveal portions of the breast for titillation and not because they are providing sustenance to their child.

In the ‘real world’, any social interaction between people is affected by the cultural/social norms of the society that they are a part of and as these ‘real world’ interactions are often limited by geographical proximity, there is a strong likelihood that both parties have a large number of these norms/values in common. With the creation of the internet though, people can now interact with others over wide distances, and cultural/social differences that are normally apparent in the ‘real world’ are less obvious. However, that doesn’t mean those differences aren’t there or that they don’t factor into how people communicate over the internet. While this divergence in cultural/social norms may have been less apparent a few years ago when these social-networking sites were still emergent ‘technologies’, given the greater sense of comfort and ease end users have using these sites, it is very likely that the debate over the appropriateness of breastfeeding images on social-networking sites is but the tip of the iceberg.

While Facebook and MySpace have been successful to date in creating a vibrant, diverse membership, the fact that these sites deem something to be “offensive” which the majority of the world’s cultures and societies see as being perfectly natural indicates a need for re-evaluation of how their sites function. Perhaps instead of one generic site, geographic-regional ones will need to be created that better relate and mirror the norms and cultural standards of people in various parts of the world so that members of these online communities won’t be subjected to having their exchange of information and ideas being regulated on the basis of one specific region’s social/cultural norms. At the moment, MySpace is in fact currently testing out over 20 different country-specific beta versions of their site, though perhaps this is more a result of losing ground to Facebook in 2008 among international users of these social-networking sites than a recognition that a more broad understanding of social mores and values is needed for such sites to be relevant outside of their geographic physical base.

Regardless, the debate over the removal of pictures of breastfeeding moms from these two social-networking sites has highlighted the reality that these kinds of online community sites have to adapt new measures to ensure that they not only retain their global presence on the internet, but also so that they remain relevant to as many internet users by not restricting their interpretation of acceptable conduct to a narrow cultural viewpoint as it currently does.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Simply said: culture is what a group of people have in common, for example facing similar questions and problems because they operate in a similar business. This is the internal element of culture, the other one is external oriented: in what environment does this group of people operate and how does this affect them. How do they interact with the environment?

Social responsibility is obviously a value that is focused on this second element: the interaction of the group (corporation) with its environment.

How it could work: a social responsible company charges more for their products and uses some of the profit margin for social projects…

A first question to ask about corporate values is whether a value should be used as such, like: “entrepreneurial,” “client focused” and also this one “social responsibility” are values that you’d better not use in the corporate values statement. The reason is that they are too vague.

Yet they appear in value statements:

Social Responsibility. We are committed to a culture of being friendly to the environment meeting a high corporate citizenship standard, protecting the health and safety of our employees and impact positively on the communities where we operate… A strong sense of social responsibility… etc.

So what does this mean?

A company like Siemens, a conglomerate of which social responsibility could really be an issue, is investing in Africa in projects to make energy available for the development of small villages. The idea is that energy in Africa is one of the main problems that withholds development and Siemens could play a role there.

Sure.

But does Siemens add the social responsibility to their set of values? No: Siemens’ corporate values are: “responsible, excellence and innovative.” Once you have defined “responsible,” social responsibility is managed automatically, but not as a corporate value, it is not a value that is shared amongst the employees.

Another reason not to use social responsibility is that it is not a value that can be translated to individual behavior. Imagine that two people meet each other on a holiday and they find out to work both for Siemens: would you think they feel related because of Siemens’ Social responsible role in energy projects in Africa? That is too far away and not (emotionally) connecting people and therefore not a cultural element.

Besides this view there is another view on social responsibility and that is the value of long term relations with the (social) environment versus short term business success. Social responsibility is another way of making sure a company does not only focus on the short-term benefits of stakeholders.

Another example is Microsoft and the Gates foundation. This is another view on social responsibility: a clear separation of business (Microsoft) and a responsible role in the global society (Gates Foundation).

One reason to keep these areas separated is that with the concept of social responsibility one enters the arena of politics. On the internet I found this statement: “Responsible business leaders know that business cannot succeed if society fails…” but still, call this a business opportunity and a marketing issue rather than a social responsibility.

Let’s take another example: Google’s social responsibility. For example Google could be held responsible for the increasing junk on the internet. In addition to every time indexing more pages it could operate as a police-officer so that surfers do not litter.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

There are many social networking websites that are emerging each and every month. TalkMoola.com, Zenzuu, Friendswin, Yuwie, and Wowzza are some of them launched recently. With all these websites, Internet marketers have a wide source to promote their business. However, many of the Internet marketers complain that spending time in these websites is a complete waste of time and they didn’t find gain out of it. It is because not all marketers have caught on to the power of social networking yet or how to properly use these websites to explode their businesses. But the ability to further expose themselves and their business to other like-minded people is extremely valuable and profitable for most.

The most important fact about social networking websites is that all of them that are created are not equal. Social networks differ in many ways. It is up to you to choose the best website that suits your business promotional needs.

Look for Social networks with similar interests

Before signing up with any social networking website for business promotion, you should make sure that the website has people who would be interested in what you have to offer, or are like-minded to you. For example, if you are trying to promote your business of electronic goods online, then you should look for websites with related communities and forums. If you try to promote your electronic product in a website that includes members looking for a date or love, it would be a complete waste of time.

Active involvement is essential

Maximum exposure to your business through these websites can be achieved only by increasing the contacts. This can be achieved by accepting all the friend invitations within the social network and searching for like-minded people in the community and adding them as friends. The larger your list of friends the more active you will appear to be and more people will take heart to what you have to say. Active involvement in social networks is essential for effective business promotion. Regular forum participations, blog postings and messaging to friends are some kinda active involvement. While promoting a business, bulk messaging is a facility to look for. Some social networks limit the amount of people you are able to send a message to at once. On the other hand, some social networks will let you add unlimited friends and you can send them a bulletin or message to all your friends at once anytime with ease. This is what you should be looking for.

Create your own social networking website

It’s always good to create your own website for promoting your business. Creating your own social networking website will be beneficial than promoting your business in other social networks. This will help you to strengthen the customer-supplier relationship and also helps you to identify your customer needs. Designing a website is just a breeze today. Professional web designers can help you design unique social networking websites to grab more audience.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Are you a new mom who wants to stay at home and spend some time with your family without sacrificing your financial freedom? A home business is the answer. Yes, setting up a home business gives you the liberty of choosing your working hours and spending quality time with your kids as well. But then, you need to ensure that the business is successful.

To see your home-business flourish you need to realize the importance of social networking. Social network is basically a social structure made of individuals and organizations who share common business interests. The importance of social networking lies in the fact that you can connect to people who can turn into your prospective customers in the long run. Actually, the importance of social networking is being realized by more and more work from home moms.

Importance of social networking

As a home-business owner, you are surely going to try to make your business a success so that you can continue to remain at home. Social networking can really help you here – particularly when you are trying to reach out to new prospects and extend your market. So understand the importance of networking. Since realizing the importance of networking ensures a turnkey to rich dividends, you are sure to deliver the best to your home-business.

The importance of social networking lies in the smart ways to link to people around you and there are lots of sites offering free membership that again does your job for free! You can create a social networking page of your own and make quality business contacts absolutely free. Not only linking to people but gathering knowledge about their business whereabouts also are other reasons that add to the importance of networking.

Another great advantage of networking is that it can be done from the cozy comforts of your home – and this adds great value to your home-business while you pamper your kids. To realize the importance of social networking, you need to explore the online communities of organizations or people sharing common activities, interests, and of course business ideas. Most of the web-based networking sites provide a number of ways to communicate with the users at low costs that could be really beneficial for you as a home-business owner. A very significant importance of networking is that since businesses run globally, social networks simplify the process all the more by making it easier to reach the contacts around the world.

Importance of social networking: how does it help your home-business?

Considering yourself as a the home business owner, it is obvious that going the traditional way of interacting face-to-face with your clients is almost impossible for you. And even if you did this, with how many people can you connect?

And here comes the importance of social networking through the Internet. You can interact anytime from any corner of the world, while enjoying that beach holiday with your kids and still expand your home-business exponentially. A professional social networking service attracts, aggregates and assembles prominent business-focused audiences by creating virtual, interactive and informative meeting places thereby booming your home business enormously!

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

When your goal is to make money online, content is a must. But if they never get a chance to see the content is there any chance of it working for you? I don’t th