It used to be that the only reliable way to find information online was to use a search engine. However, with the advent of Web 2.0 (interactive, dynamic websites that promote or operate as social networks), people can now easily find information and websites that other human beings recommend. The most recent instance of this is social bookmarking, where in websites like Del.icio.us, Digg, and Furl allow users to share their personal favorites (bookmarks) with others. Users tag each bookmarked website with the keywords they feel are most applicable. Now, instead of using a search engine to find information, people can search tags that will display all websites bookmarked with specific tag.This is human referral or vote for the site and its relevance to the subject being searched.

Other versions of social networking include blogging social networks - primarily Technorati.com. Technorati indexes blogs based on the amount of incoming links those blogs have, as well as the tags associated with their posts. The most popular social network is MySpace. The website enjoys over 20 million unique visitors every month, however few businesses or website owners have thought to penetrate this incredible resource.Also YouTube and BlogTalkRadio, two powerful new social media networks have emerged that are revolutionizing audio and video. These mega networks allow citizen filmmakers and broadcasters to share their visions with the world and spread the word about what matters to them. Few businesses realize it yet, but these media networks are potential goldmines stock full of future Speilbergs, Bloombergs, and Oprahs - all potential broadcasters of your marketing message. Read the rest of this entry »

Social networking websites are turning out to be a curse for privacy for people. The biggest culprit among various social networking websites is Facebook, founded less than 5 years ago. What made Facebook click was not its US$ 15 billion value, not its software, its patents, or its smart people but its enormous database, an electronic catalog of interconnections and interests of its members with details of who knows whom. The daily updates of my friends' new friends and what groups they have joined are like tiny, atomized announcements, inviting people to contribute updates. Facebook's vast social network is invaluable for checking reputations. The same data can be helpful to sell stuff though earlier this year, Facebook found that telling members what their friends had bought was going too far. On the other hand there are websites that purely help make business connections like LinkedIn.com's with motto of "Relationships matter," jigsaw.com that encourages everyone to submit others' contact information so that prospective clients can "bypass gatekeepers" and "go straight to decision-makers."

Technology keeps changing the norms. As such few years ago, a public catalog of all the nation's swimming-pool owners was shocking, but today anyone can use Google Maps to look down into people's back yards. As such friends circles are likewise going to be more public and staying off websites like Facebook.com won't keep people private. With many public sources from which social network information can be culled including newspapers and blogs computers can connect people simply on the basis of whether they are mentioned in the same article. As technology creates opportunities for people to catalog who knows whom, people are uploading their family photos to online album websites such as Facebook.com and Flickr.com. This is not only helping them create a vast network but also infringing on privacy as photographs that should be private are being seen by other people. Here’s were see things start to go wrong, with the whole world finding out, where someone spent their vacation. Read the rest of this entry »

As businesses worldwide adopt social media marketing as a tool, as such social networking websites are now littered with thousands of accounts set up for marketing purposes. Most of these accounts are effectively junk or lying dormant after initial excitement gave way to realization that social media marketing cant help product sales or brand awareness as originally hoped for. There’s no doubt that social media marketing campaigns ca be created but the key is to know when, where and how to use it. Social Media Marketing (SMM) campaigns can be carried out by even a novice; however doing it with a complacent attitude won’t help. SMM) campaigns need to follow some rules, and as such there are some dos and donts

Do’s! 

Build a strong social network. If you have a profile on Twitter and thousands of followers; take care to ascertain how many of these thousands of followers are legit? And how often do users interact with their followers, respond to the tweets received? A Less positive answer means that increased interaction is needed to ensure the network is as true to you as you want it to be and that your message is conveyed successfully.

Expend your effort building the trust quotient of your site. If the website is not a trusted site, set about working on improving the areas it is found lacking in. In SMM the entire world can scrutinize the website. if the user thinks it won’t be able to stand up then launch a campaign to ensure your website is clean of harmful viruses and spam links.

Create social media campaign blog. Bloggers pioneered and sustain social media sites like Digg or Stumble. Social media would be reduced to a couple of social networks and unending streams of status updates. Integrating a blog into the website and updating it regularly with ‘good’ content can be really helpful!

‘List’ posts to draw traffic to a blog. As video sharing sites are popular, creating a video and uploading it on websites like YouTube and Tubemogul is something that can really benefit SMM efforts of a website with the possibility of reaching millions of viewers. Apart from YouTube, you can promote the links to the videos on sites like Facebook and Twitter, and effortlessly double the exposure your brand stands to achieve.

Keep a check on the web. Be aware of all the changes happening around you on the web, as its important not just in social media marketing, but any kind of marketing on line. Subscribe to feeds from relevant websites, use an RSS reader like Zune or Feedreader and comment on posts you like or find particularly relevant. Commenting on posts is great way to get in to the thick of the social activity on a website, but being the first commenter gives the opportunity to initiate a discussion and channel it in the direction you wish to.

Be social in social media marketing. To make presence felt on all the major social websites, being part of micro-communities that are relevant to the business helps. While the message may get lost in the irrelevant ‘noise’ on established social sites, its more probable that reaching out to the intended audience in a smaller niche, micro-community. If the website is about pet grooming, joining a niche community for dog lovers like Dogster will greatly help.

Stick to a brand philosophy! Depending on a relatively modern approach to marketing doesn’t mean that one needs to abandon a brand’s basic ideology. Let the brand philosophy guide the SMM strategy, and help sustain the brand identity.

Don’ts!

 Don’t ‘spam’ on social sites. Spam = Evil, so engaging in social spamming, will result in quick death of SMM campaigns. With spamming one loses your credibility, social or otherwise. Social spamming isn’t limited to offering unsolicited irrelevant links on social sites; posting promotional comments (with or without links), Digging or Stumbling posts on popular topics that are in no way related to your website, even sending automated Direct Messages on twitter are considered spam practices.

Avoid blatant marketing tactics, be subtle. In social media instead of being blatant with user/follower/fan with overtly promotional and gimmicky marketing tactics being subtle will always help.

Don’t forget to update social profiles. ‘Dead’ profiles cant change one’s thinking. Social media users too like active and live profiles. As freshness is the essence in social media, stale information is of little use to anyone.

Don’t forget online reputation management. A significant amount of signals monitored in ORM come from social websites. So, while engaged in SMM campaigns, it is of vital importance to gauge user reaction to products and to take appropriate measures to counter any less-than favorable signals. If these negative signals point to an actual problem address the issue immediately. If there isn’t, rectify the wrong perception.

Don’t drop search in favor of social. SMM campaigns complement the SEO efforts. Choosing one over the other is a mistake. Continue building links and optimizing the website while building presence in social media.

Don’t try to do too much too fast. Let your SMM campaigns take a natural course. If the followers want to receive useful tweets, even one tweet a day is enough to keep them happy. Try not to flood their streams with less-then-useful, overtly promotional tweets.

SMM activities should be primed to bring exposure. The SMM campaigns should not be used to go on the offence and slander competitors. Battling it out with a competitor can do more harm than good even to a valid SMM campaign.

The capability of social media vehicle in online advertising cant be determined by its reach. It’s in reality the propensity of the intended users to consume, retain and respond to ads that matters. Google search is the biggest medium used by advertiser’s to communicate with users. It is believed that user’s purchase preferences and content are correlated. The inability to create subsets by user interest within a given property restricts the relevance of content association to the property as a whole. Social media websites like Facebook allow users to talk about their interests, making each user relevant to diverse advertisers. With its reaches worldwide and its monetization capability, sites like Facebook can help expand online advertising revenues.

Advertisers use Facebook to reach out to the buyers who want to buy diapers, as also to those who are not really focused on one thing alone. Facebook as such has emerged as either the biggest or the only component of the social media budget and is quite often seen as an independent component of online advertising plans. As advertisers get caught up in alphabet soup of CPC (Cost Per Click), CPL (Cost Per Lead), ROI (Returns On Investment), CTR (Click Through Rate), online marketing offers correct convergence of text, relevant banners, videos, interactive games to build consumer loyalty and awareness like no one else. Online marketing is however often incorrectly used and under-funded to effective marketing channel. As such it important to leverage this channel to cash in on its Returns On Investment. However for doing that a few things need to be covered by online marketers, these include learning about social media, develop strategy about using social media, use social media the correct and honest way, educate the target audience, develop creative strategies and back them up with careful planning and analytics to lure potential customers, explore options to make sure that if one option doesn’t work the other should,  increase budget to improve ROI, develop fresh and updated content for the ads on regular basis, develop case studies, leverage various online marketing techniques to ensure extra revenues.

One of world’s leading social-networking website Facebook has passed Google to become the most visited website in the US. According to industry tracker Hitwise, Facebook started by Mark Zukerberg in 2004 finished the week ending March 13 as the most visited site in US. Heather Dougherty, Director-research (Hitwise) said it’s a important milestone with Facebook enjoyed a 185% increase in visits in the same period, over Googles’ 9% increase in the same time. However it does not include Google websites such as social-networking website Orkut started by Orkut Büyükkökten in 2004, or the popular Gmail email service, YouTube and Google Maps.

Together, both Facebook.com and Google.com accounted for 14% of the US Internet visits last week. However David Drummond, SVP-Google said “We are at a critical point in the future of the internet. All of us have a choice. We can allow repressive policies to take flight and spread across the globe, or we can work together against such challenges and uphold the fundamental human right to free expression.” It may be known that Google has added the social-networking feature Buzz to its Gmail service as well as new message inbox that echoes Gmail’s format, to reposition itself from challenges faced from Facebook.com and micro-blogging site Twitter.com.

According to online tracking firm, comScore; Facebook boasts some 400 million users while Gmail had 176 million unique visitors in December, 2009. Google, meanwhile has taken measures to limit online free expression, in 40 countries. It may be known that Google and YouTube services are or have been blocked completely in 25 countries.