Are New Age Media shaking up Old Values? The internet is creating cyber shockwaves in all facets of our lives. Including your 2nd lives…. so to speak. Look to Youtube, Facebook, MySpace, SecondLife to name a few, and in fact you could already be members of one or more of them. Below is a synopsis of each with statistics which hopefully will convince you the efficiency of such channels.

Facebook. This is a free-access website allows users to join one or more networks, such as a school, place of employment, or geographic region to easily connect and interact with other people. Users can post messages for their friends to see, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves. The website has more than 69 million active users worldwide and ranked 7th in Sept 07. It is the most popular website for uploading photos, with 14 million uploaded daily. 

MySpace.This is a popular social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos for teenagers and adults internationally. The 100 millionth account was created on August 6, 2006 in the Netherlands and a news story claimed 106 million accounts on September 8, 2006, and the site reportedly attracts 230,000 new registrations per day.  

YouTube. This is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. It uses Adobe Flash technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video-blogging and short original videos. In November 2006, Google Inc acquired the company for US$1.65 billion in Google stock. In July 2006, the company revealed that more than 100 million videos were being watched every day, and 2.5 billion videos were watched in June 2006. 50,000 videos were being added per day in May 2006, and this increased to 65,000 by July In January 2008 alone, nearly 79 million users watched over 3 billion videos on YouTube.

Second Life  (abbreviated as SL) is an Internet-based virtual world launched in 2003. A downloadable client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called “Residents”, to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a meta verse. Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, have virtual sex, and create and trade items (virtual property) and services from one another. At the end of March 2008, approximately 13 million accounts were registered, although a large percentage of these are inactive & some Residents have multiple accounts. In January 2008, residents spent 28,274,505 hours, so on average about 38,000 residents were logged on at any particular moment.

What actually do you see in common? You see social-centric sites which attempt to create communities via word of mouth. Each site offers unique and compelling reasons for you to become members of their respective communities with each site sharing different values and beliefs.

It uses what we might call a viral marketing approach which taps on the social networks to increase brand awareness of the site with the eventual goal to market or sell a product. Viral marketing is in essence, the power of word-of-mouth approach exemplified by the networking effects of the internet. 

The most compelling reason of all, that as true marketers you should note in the above information, is the massive amount of traffic generated within these sites which serve as great business opportunities which you can’t afford to ignore.

Here is a parting note to all marketers. At the end of 1st quarter 2008, simply by count of the above major social networking platforms, there is a massive 270 million users (but assuming duplicate accounts in various site) giving rise to viral marketing potentials.  

Food for thought to you, imagine being able to capture simply 0.1% of that count for your business.

Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites and it has millions of registered users. With this in mind it is no wonder that individuals and businesses use it to make money and boost their profiles. So what can Facebook marketing be used for?

Facebook ads are one of the most obvious forms of marketing on this social networking site. These can be custom made to suit any business and users can specify the type of user they want to see the ads. Marketing of this kind can be very successful as it targets the people who are most likely to respond to an advertisement.

Polls can also be a great way to market a business. Anyone can create a poll of any kind and get Facebook users to complete it. These can then have a click through at the end to the businesses site.

Businesses can also use Facebook to send emails to all of the users they are friends with. Using this can be much cheaper than paying for a mass email service and it is becoming a preferred method of marketing. Emails sent in this way are also not going to be caught by spam filters, so they get straight to the recipient.

Information can also be posted on the Facebook wall of a business, thus providing free marketing for that business. Such information can be seen by everyone who accesses the business’s page and can reach a huge audience in very little time.

As shown Facebook marketing is a very cost effective (and cheap in some cases) way of getting information to thousands of users. It is fast, easy to arrange and can get some amazing results for the individuals and businesses that use it. Add to this the fact that Facebook accounts can be set up in moments and it is clear why it is so popular.

Social networking media is a big buzz on the Web. Even if you haven’t heard the term “social media networking”, surely you have heard of the big social media networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace. You’ve probably even embraced some of the new adjunct social media applications as mainstream in your daily life if you are blogging, use Twitter, bookmark website you like on Digg or StumbleUpon. But, what is our preoccupation with social media and social media networking is it to connect with others or to simply become a voyeur into other people’s lives?

Social media networking and social media applications have proliferated this last year. Updating and actively working on your social media network is not just for college and high school students; real estate agents, business owners, and internet professionals are flocking to social media networking sites by the millions.

At these top social media networking sites, you are encouraged to reveal as much information about yourself as possible. You are asked to post what you do, where you go, what you buy, whose parties you go to, who you have connected with, upload photos of yourself, and much more. These sites are a candid snapshot of you! What makes these sites so incredibly popular is just that, the candid, naked view of real people; people who you may want to know and others who you may not want to know! My question is however, are social media networking sites creating a world of voyeurs and really the new performance art of the 60’s or are they efforts in our increasingly global and disconnected world to connect with others?

Here’s just one example, www.Twitter.com is a new social media application that encourages you to write 140 word mini-posts about what you are doing RIGHT NOW. You can embed your mini Twitter “blog” on any social media networking page and are even encouraged to text-in to Twitter with your cell phone “and tell us what you are doing right now!” Using Twitter, you allow others to watch and follow what you do throughout the day. You can select to follow other people, who use Twitter, to even find out what they’ve eaten for lunch or are doing “right now”. In a way it’s kind of fun to see what other people you are interested in knowing more about are doing, but in a way it is kind of disconcerting to know that everyone who wanted to look, saw you went to the garden center yesterday to buy a new rose trellis.

The value of social media networking from my viewpoint is to allow people to connect with each other in our global community in a new and exciting way. Whether you become just a voyeur or become an active connected participant is all up to you! Me, I am choosing to become connected and to embrace some of these new applications. I find them interesting, fun, and opportunities to really connect with others in my field of expertise.

You can watch what I’ll be doing today on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mccordweb.

Social media marketing is a way to promote your business on the internet via social networking. This has grown to encompass a very large number of websites and methods.

The savvy internet marketer is learning how to use this powerful marketing method to grow their business and make valuable contacts for the future.

Of course this also means making more money if you do it right. Let’s take a look at 4 ways to use social media marketing to make money online.

1. Blogging is a very strong way to combine various forms of social media marketing all in one place. If you do not have a blog you are losing ground to your competitors who do.

2. Social bookmark your blog posts to create traffic from social directories and as search engine bait for search engine traffic.

Be sure and use a quality blogging platform such as WordPress. They offer a terrific plug-in that makes social bookmarking a blog post very simple.

Social bookmarking gives you a way to get backlinks to your blog very quickly. You should be bookmarking to social directories such as Technorati, Digg, Stumbleupon, and Propeller.

Also go get a Twitter account and learn how to make friends and use it to drive traffic to your blog. This is fast becoming one of the top social sites online.

3. Video such as You Tube is becoming a favorite way for bloggers to add some excitement to their blogs, but it is also much more than that.

For example many affiliate marketing programs now offer videos embedded with your affiliate i.d. that you can use to pre-sell a visitor before sending them to your affiliate website.

Many bloggers are also easily creating videos and putting them online on their blog. This is a very powerful form of social media that is giving your visitor what they want. Many people are a product of the TV generation and like to learn by watching as opposed to reading.

4. Discussion forums are a great place to make friends and sell products if you do it right. They can also be an excellent place to create joint ventures and millions of dollars are sold online now because of these.

There is much more we could say about social media including social networking in places such as FaceBook, My Space, and many others. The bottom line is making money online via social media all comes down to finding a way you enjoy and then mastering how to use it to your business and personal advantage.

By Richard Harley
http://www.harleyenterprises.com

There is a buzz all over the internet about social networking sites these days actually. And most of the people who are using web 2.0 don’t really know what power they have in their hand and how they could really make a good leverage of it in their businesses.

As you can see, there are lot of things you can do with social media online and you can either use it for fun or you could use it to make a lot of money. What most people do is to shoot a web videos and upload it to YouTube and never keep track of those videos.

Most people even go ahead to upload videos to difference web 2.0 without placing their website link on those videos in order to leach the viewers back to their website. It always intrigued me when I saw most videos with a millions views and don’t actually get link back to the website of the people who created those videos.

Well, its true that, there are people who like to make social media like twitter, MySpace, YouTube and other top social platform a place where they go to and have fun without the spirit of making money why they are there. But as far as you are reading this article right now, you never want to start wasting your time in all these social networking sites without actually making money from them.

As you may have know, time is to most valuable asset ever given to a man and you have to make it count on every seconds as you go. Imagine when you make a little video and upload it to 2 or 3 social websites with a link back to your website or affiliate site and watch it bringing you more and more traffic for years to come as much as it stay on the web.

If the video is good enough, who know maybe your little video would go viral across the internet and start bringing in more free traffic that you don’t have to pay a dime for in your life. So when you are making your videos or connecting with friends out there on the web you have to start thinking about your time and how to make good use of it in order to make it pay you more dividend over time.

All the top web entertainers, the top internet marketers and other online marketing gurus know how to play the game of web 2.0 to it fullest. And none of them ever want to make videos, tweets without actually getting something worthwhile most of the time they put into the program. They always get something back in equivalent to their time they put in there.

In fact, you have to start making full use of social networking site in your business as you go along so that over time your dividend would start to sky rocket more than you ever thought possible in your business.

The exponential growth of social media websites in the last few years presents a new and exciting opportunity for small businesses to get increased exposure and grow their pool of potential customers. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn enable small businesses to build visibility quickly, which, in turn, can route more traffic to a business website and increase sales.  

The novelty of Social Media Marketing causes some business people to hesitate to get involved in Social Media Marketing due to misconceptions about lack of privacy or technical savvy in the use of Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn websites. They might also mention lack of time and lack of trained “marketing” resources, which prevent them from taking the Social Media Marketing plunge.  

However, since social media websites are now a significant component of the Internet and here to stay, Social Media Marketing must be regarded as highly valuable as well and cannot be overlooked. Therefore, Social Media Marketing is one activity that everyone needs to find time for and create a budget for, in order to gain visibility, branding, and credibility; this will ultimately lead to increased sales.   The following are some key strategies to consider when one begins on the Social Media Marketing journey:  

Start Social Media Marketing right away. If you don’t begin leveraging social media websites to promote your business, and, especially, if your competition is already doing so, your business could be negatively impacted.

Dedicate some time to Social Media Marketing. You must either put the time in yourself for Social Media Marketing or outsource the work by hiring an expert to do it for you. This should be a person who knows the ins and outs of social networking.

Create the right impression. Online networking has reached a new level and you need to show your networking savvy by creating a more lasting impression on the readers. This will result in further opportunities and, ultimately, new clients.

Maintain a level of professionalism in your Social Media Marketing writing. Professional behavior should be the norm, especially for business social media writing. Prospective employers, prospective clients, current clients, and anyone who wants to look you up, can and will. Once you’ve put something out there, it is out there, and you will be held responsible for what is presented.

Frequency matters just as much as content: Blogging once a month or writing a tweet once every week or posting a FaceBook update once every other day will not significantly affect your visibility. All marketing activities, including online marketing, require frequency, consistency, and long-term effort.

To conclude, Social Media Marketing is a quick and cost-effective way to get visibility by providing the means of connecting with everyone around the world. Implement Social Media Marketing correctly and you will see a marked improvement in the growth of your customer base.

We are pleased to provide you the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.

Increase your web presence by using new and old friends that you connect with on a daily basis.  Social media is custom made to boost your web presence by using these suggestions:

Blogging about all the books you have enjoyed (especially book sites of friends that have a link to your blog) can help you to gain new friends through social media.  Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter has the potential to really boost your web’s presence into the stratosphere.  Create a Facebook account if you don’t have one.  Whenever you find new Facebook friends make sure they get the link to your blog site.  When you are connecting about a subject that one of your friends have a blog or book site about, talk the friend’s site up (remember, a link to your blog site is also on the friend’s site).  Every time one of you new Facebook friends go to the site, there’s a chance that your site is getting exposure too.

Discussing your blog and asking your new Facebook friends to mention your blog with the link included, helps to get your blog out to their friends.

Microblogging with Twitter is another great social networking tool you can use to get more viewers to your blog.  Again you can Twitter about your blog site especially when the conversation is about some topic you have on your blog.  If you don’t want to appear to be promoting yourself, promote a friend’s blog site or book (make sure that your blog site link is in one of the comments on the site).  Again you are helping your friend and your self at the same time.

Networking through LinkedIn is another new and effective way to get your blog name prominent on the web.  LinkedIn is a website that professionals, including writers and authors use to connect with each other.  After signing up, find writers and authors on the site, link to their site, if your blog or a friend’s blog is a similar topic; leave a constructive comment about your friend’s site or about your blog.  Social media is so hot right now that using one or more of these networks can boost your blog’s web visibility online.

1.Facebook

Having reached over 350 million worldwide active users in November 2009, Facebook is one of the most influential social networking community. It is continuously growing at a very fast pace and 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day. More than 35 million users update their status each day on Facebook.  And there are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.

2.Twitter

According to researchers, the micro-blogging service Twitter remains the preserve of a few, despite the hype surrounding it. Although it has received a great amount of media coverage lately, Twitter is still in its infancy. The Telegraph reports there are around 5.5 million Twitter users here in the UK and it seems that a typical user is under the age of 35.  To learn more about managing your Twitter account successfully, check out our post on Twitter Rules Business Must Know.

3.LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the largest interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170 industries and 200 countries. Its mission is to improve people’s ability to make use of their professional networks.  It offers the chance to its users to “get to someone” in order to make a sale, form a partnership, or get a job. It works well for this because it brings more than 55 million experienced professionals from around the world in one place. Professionals use it for posting their CV, highlighting their business skills or to promote campaigns, issues and causes.

4.MySpace

Up until this last year, MySpace was the number one social network according to statistics. Nevertheless, today MySpace is falling behind — some might say it’s been left in the dust. The social network holds more value now for musicians and artists, rather than for the large public.

5. FriendFeed

One of the rapidly emerging social media network sites is FriendFeed. According to the latest industry reports, more than 18% of online communities’ users have joined FriendFeed in 2009. FriendFeed is a service that offers an interactive and simple way of communicating with friends as well as sharing videos, pictures. The differentiating features that build it success would be that it doesn’t need a special application to be used on email or phone and it allows pulling in updates from other sites around the web.

6. Ning

Ning competes with social sites like MySpace and Facebook by appealing to people who want to create their own social networks around specific interests with their own visual design, choice of features and member data. Although it has millions of users, Ning is little known by the majority of people. However, Ning has revolutionised social media through how it boasts thousands of niche networks within itself – it’s a great easy way to set up your own social network for no cost – apart from lots of time!

7.Bebo

Better known to the public is Bebo, a smaller networking community, that just like MySpace, gives users the option to customise their profile. Bebo has recently increased traffic because of new features that let users see their friends’ activity.

8. DeviantArt

DeviantArt is an online community with worldwide appeal showcasing various forms of user-made artwork. As of October 2009 the site consists of over 11 million members, over 100 million submissions, and receives around 100,000 submissions per day.

9. Buzznet

Buzznet.com is a photo, journal, and video-sharing social media network. Like other social networking sites, Buzznet is built around the idea of members sharing content based on their personal interests. Nevertheless, unlike classic social networks, which focus primarily on messaging and profile pages, Buzznet members participate in communities that are created around ideas, events and interests; most predominantly, music, celebrities and the media.

10. Hi5

Hi5 is a worldwide known social networking website that claims to have over 60 million active users at present. However, according to statistics, Hi5 has been floating around as a social network for a while without being able to keep up with its direct competitors, such as Facebook or Myspace. It has most of the features Myspace and Facebook are using, but it is more popular in Central America.

11. Xanga

Xanga’s origins can be traced back to 1999, when it began as a site for sharing books and music reviews. It focuses on photo, video and web blogging. Xanga has now an estimated 40 million users worldwide. Xanga is the most little known of the ten social media networking website mentioned by us. However, it has been around for more than 10 years.

These are the most used social media websites at present. Nevertheless the Internet offers an incredibly large variety of social media networking sites. Some have chosen to structure them under categories such as: blogs, wikis, video sharing tools, picture sharing tools, links sharing tools, discussion tools, micro-media publications, social aggregation/ life streams and so on.

When you are starting out in business, chances are that you have a limited advertising budget.  You don’t want to blow it on advertising campaigns that don’t bring results.  One of the simplest and also free ways of advertising is to join social networks and use other social media.  There are many out there and each has its own benefits.  My suggestion is to pick one, master it and then add another one. Here are some of the most popular social media sites.

 Facebook

 Facebook is an easy social network to use.  It is easy to fill in information about yourself and your business.  You can easily upload photos and videos.  You can connect with customers for your business or prospects for an MLM opportunity by adding them as Friends.  You can form your own group and invite friends to join.  You can also start a fan page for your business.  You can create lists of friends and send information out to 20 people at a time.  With a group or fan page, you can send to everyone who subscribes.  This can be in the thousands of people. You can also talk to friends in real time using the online chat feature.

 MySpace

 MySpace allows you freedom to personalize your profile page putting anything on there that describes you and your business.  You can add videos and music and create an individual look to the page.  MySpace allows you to search for customers or prospects based on demographics.  You can connect with other people like Facebook.  You can also create or join groups based on specific topics. It was originally created for very young people and still has that bias.  Many people create pages that take minutes to load even using a high speed internet connection which can turn off all but the most patient of individuals.

 Twitter

 Twitter allows you to communicate with your customers in real time.  It is a great way to get a buzz going about your business in conversations of 140 characters or less.  Each message is called a tweet.  People can sign up to follow you on Twitter to read everything you have to say.  It is a great way to communicate to your customers using your mobile phone.

 YouTube

 With the advent of YouTube, anyone can be a star or at least can make a video statement about anything.  You can promote your business on YouTube and send your YouTube video out to many other video sites and RSS feeds.  It is free to subscribe to YouTube.  You create your own channel and people can subscribe to your channel.  You can also create your own YouTube group.

 LinkedIn

 LinkedIn is a professional network and is good if your business requires you to connect with other professionals or businesspeople.   You submit your profile listing your business, your experience and skills.  You can then connect with other businesspeople by joining company groups and user groups and personal connections.

 Digg

 Digg allows you to share with others something that you like.  You can use Digg in two ways, to comment on other people’s articles, blogs, videos, or images or submit your own and have other Digg members comment on it.  The most popular items jump to the home page of their category.  This is a great way to get the word out about your business if it the item you submit becomes really popular.

 There are other social media sites but the ones I have mentioned are the most popular and I would suggest you pick one of them to start.  When you have mastered all of them you can look at StumbleUpon, Reddit, Yelp, Delicious, Yahoo Buzz, Badoo, Bebo, and PeopleString.