A Tactical Approach to Social Network Marketing

A Tactical Approach to Social Network Marketing

For many social network marketing involves joining any of the available online communities, making contact with members and ‘blazing’ away with your promotional arsenal. What is wrong with this approach is that more times than not it will take you a long time to get results. You must first start with the recognition that online social networking requires a more personal and casual approach in order to successfully connect with others. Secondly, if you have got a business to run than you must learn to make the best use of your time! In order to do this, effective social marketing strategies must be developed and implemented so time and effort is not wasted.

Here are 5 suggested social marketing strategies you can use to help you make the best use of your time and energy when working within any of these online communities. After all, time is money, right?

Locate Your ‘Target’ Audience

Find what social sites your target audience congregates at and join if you are not already a member. Online social networking communities for the most part contain a very large cross section of people with varying interests and even socioeconomic profiles. Your aim is to locate those people who have the ‘profile’ that matches up well with what you offer.

‘Nail’ Your Bio

Putting together your bio is very important from the standpoint that you want it to be professional while also reflecting a little about you as a person. This is something people can see even if they do not have direct communications with you. Remember these are online communities that revolve around sharing interest and ideas with one another. With that said it is therefore common for people to check out the bio of another before deciding to ‘engage’ in conversation.

Plan Before Interacting

When using these online social networking sites for business purposes you need to be mindful of how you use your time. Remember you do have a business to run! Before engaging in any conversation have an idea of what it is you want to get out of the interaction. Are you just meeting someone for the first time, sharing an opinion during a conversation or promoting something. In any case you want to make the best use of your exchanges all the while maintaining a casual and friendly demeanor.

Understand the Environment

Some of these communities are more casual than others and may even cater to particular interests or have an expected codes of behavior. You need to be aware of how it is you are expected to act within the community and then act accordingly. In all cases, if you are there for business it is always recommended to behave in a professional manner since this is a reflection on not only you, but your business as well!

Know What is Appropriate

Even the ‘niche’ that you are working within at any given site will have its own ‘unwritten’ rules or parameters for expected behavior. These groups that form within online communities have banded together due to common bonds and interests. They will often have their own accepted behavioral patterns within the group itself. Identify through observation what these patterns are so that you can act in a manner that is most familiar and acceptable to the others. You want to gain acceptance (fit in) which will lead to familiarity allowing you to promote your goods and services more effectively.

The purpose behind social network marketing is to promote your business and increase your sales, however, tact must be used when working any of these online communities. Recognition that online social networking is primarily about meeting new people and making friends is the key! As an internet  marketer, failure to do so will only extend the time and effort it will take to gain any ‘success’ from your efforts! The 5 suggested social marketing strategies reviewed above serve to help you better plan both your approach and determine the potential any particular site may hold for your business. By implementing these simple strategies you can save yourself much time and wasted effort since as we have already stated above, time is money!

TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina. For more tips about planning an effective social network marketing strategy and to also receive a free instructional manual that teaches valuable niche research techniques visit:http://affiliatequickstart.com/

Article from articlesbase.com

Social Network Marketing Review

For many social network marketing involves joining any of the available online communities, making contact with members and ‘blazing’ away with your promotional arsenal. What is wrong with this approach is that more times than not it will take you a long time to get results. You must first start with the recognition that online social networking requires a more personal and casual approach in order to successfully connect with others. Secondly, if you have got a business to run than you must learn to make the best use of your time! In order to do this, effective social marketing strategies must be developed and implemented so time and effort is not wasted.

Here are 5 suggested social marketing strategies you can use to help you make the best use of your time and energy when working within any of these online communities. After all, time is money, right?

Locate Your ‘Target’ Audience

Find what social sites your target audience congregates at and join if you are not already a member. Online social networking communities for the most part contain a very large cross section of people with varying interests and even socioeconomic profiles. Your aim is to locate those people who have the ‘profile’ that matches up well with what you offer.

‘Nail’ Your Bio

Putting together your bio is very important from the standpoint that you want it to be professional while also reflecting a little about you as a person. This is something people can see even if they do not have direct communications with you. Remember these are online communities that revolve around sharing interest and ideas with one another. With that said it is therefore common for people to check out the bio of another before deciding to ‘engage’ in conversation.

Plan Before Interacting

When using these online social networking sites for business purposes you need to be mindful of how you use your time. Remember you do have a business to run! Before engaging in any conversation have an idea of what it is you want to get out of the interaction. Are you just meeting someone for the first time, sharing an opinion during a conversation or promoting something. In any case you want to make the best use of your exchanges all the while maintaining a casual and friendly demeanor.

Understand the Environment

Some of these communities are more casual than others and may even cater to particular interests or have an expected codes of behavior. You need to be aware of how it is you are expected to act within the community and then act accordingly. In all cases, if you are there for business it is always recommended to behave in a professional manner since this is a reflection on not only you, but your business as well!

Know What is Appropriate

Even the ‘niche’ that you are working within at any given site will have its own ‘unwritten’ rules or parameters for expected behavior. These groups that form within online communities have banded together due to common bonds and interests. They will often have their own accepted behavioral patterns within the group itself. Identify through observation what these patterns are so that you can act in a manner that is most familiar and acceptable to the others. You want to gain acceptance (fit in) which will lead to familiarity allowing you to promote your goods and services more effectively.

The purpose behind social network marketing is to promote your business and increase your sales, however, tact must be used when working any of these online communities. Recognition that online social networking is primarily about meeting new people and making friends is the key! As an internet  marketer, failure to do so will only extend the time and effort it will take to gain any ‘success’ from your efforts! The 5 suggested social marketing strategies reviewed above serve to help you better plan both your approach and determine the potential any particular site may hold for your business. By implementing these simple strategies you can save yourself much time and wasted effort since as we have already stated above, time is money!

Social networking sites are a hot topic for marketers, as they present a number of opportunities for interacting with customers, including via plug-in applications, groups, and fan pages.

Each social network presents its own possibilities and challenges. Users of individual sites have different expectations of commercial behavior. In what follows, I’ll introduce you to the three most popular networks and their unique features.

History

The roots of online social networking can be traced to the 1980s bulletin board systems (BBSs). These systems allowed users to log in—through very slow connections — to share software and data as well as send private messages and post to public message boards. Due to the high cost of the long distance calls that would be required to access BBSs in other parts of the world, most of these were very local communities.
The late ’80s and early ’90s saw the rise of the desktop applications CompuServe, Prodigy, and AOL. Far more feature-rich than BBSs, these systems allowed users to connect to the Internet and create personal profiles, post events, chat, and send public and private messages.
As the World Wide Web grew in popularity, social networking moved to web-based applications. The
first wave was built for specific functions or audiences. In 1995, Classmates.com and Match.com were created; both remain fairly popular sites in their niche. In 1999, more targeted networks were launched, including BlackPlanet.com, MiGente.com, and AsianAvenue.com.

The modern era of social networks began in 2002, when Jonathan Abrams launched Friendster. Inspired by Match.com, Abrams wanted Friendster to be a dating site that wasn’t about dating. In what many consider to be one of the biggest financial mistakes in recent history, Friendster rejected a million buyout offer from search giant Google.
In 2003, several employees of a marketing company now known as Intermix Media — which was later sued by then–New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer for making malicious spyware applications — duplicated the core functionality of Friendster and launched MySpace. Initially powered by Intermix Media’s large email lists, MySpace quickly became a leader among social networking sites. Thanks to its customizable user profiles and its focus on music, MySpace had a cooler image than its somewhat stodgy rival, Friendster. In July 2005, News Corporation purchased MySpace and its parent company for 0 million.
Then, in October 2003, a Harvard sophomore named Mark Zuckerberg hacked into the university’s private dorm ID database and created Facemash, a site that let students compare two ID photos to select the more attractive one. Narrowly avoiding legal action, Zuckerberg went on to create “The Facebook,” a social network that began as an exclusive site for Harvard students. Slowly the site allowed other colleges to join — initially only Ivy League schools, and then other colleges, and then, eventually, high schools. Finally, in 2006, anyone with an email address could sign up.
Sometime between April 2008 and February 2009, Facebook overtook the long-standing king, MySpace, as the world’s most popular social network.

Social Network marketing

Web master

Article from articlesbase.com

Social Media Management for Celebrities
Ebook on How to Make Money by Managing Social Media for Celebrities and Famous People. Work With Famous Celebrities Who Will Pay You Handsomely Just For Spending Time On FaceBook & Twitter! Available as an eBook as well as Audio Mp3.
Social Media Management for Celebrities


Question by alan finger: How much of thier marketing budgets are companies spending on social networks?
I am looking for the ballpark range on how much companies invested in 08 or will invest in 09 on advertising on myspace, facebook, or managing and maintaining similar web 2.0 initiatives

Best answer:

Answer by Ben E.
A new way to network socially…

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1260253/how_to_access_social_networks_from.html

Give your answer to this question below!

More Social Network Marketing Articles

Social Network Marketing, Do It The Best Way

Social Network Marketing, Do It The Best Way

Are you looking to build your network marketing business on a massive scale? The social networks may be the answer you’re looking for. Sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are fast becoming the new sources of traffic in our industry.

Due to the nature of an MLM business, social network sites really are a match made in heaven, after all its all about networking with other people. Relationship building is the name of the game in our industry.

One thing that’s important to remember is that we don’t want to become spammers by only promoting our opportunities. Most of our time on these networks should be connecting with prospects and finding new ones. I expect you have already seen your own fair share of spam on sites like Twitter and Facebook, and also YouTube in particular. Personally I find it a real turn off, I expect you do to.

You can go a long way in creating trust and friendships in social networking sites, you can also promote your own brand, products and content, plus there is the advantage of increased exposure, if people like the stuff you are sharing then they may well share it with their friends also. Using these networks properly could make you very popular online.

It makes good business sense to harness the power of social network marketing and you should invest whatever time and money you need to become good at it. It’s just too powerful to miss.

Here are two ways you can use social networks

Facebook – Ensure you’ve set up an account on Facebook for business purposes. It’s a great way to connect with your prospects and also great for finding new ones! Search for new friends there who have similar interests to you. Search and join groups in your niche. More people will be able to find you the more groups you join, you will also get people adding you as a friend. Join about 200 groups and watch your friend requests go crazy!

The latest Facebook strategy is ‘fan pages’ these are very powerful and you should set one up for yourself and/or your business. Every time someone hits the ‘Like’ button they join your fan page and you can then easily keep in contact with these people en mass. It is just like building a list but only a list of people that already like you. Create some sort of lead magnet/offer so that when folks arrive at your fan page that have the incentive to opt in to your capture page, which can be directly on your fan page, or an external webpage.

Bookmarking sites – These are great sites for posting your content, when people come across your articles/videos they can share it with their friends if they find it useful, they can also vote for/like it at the push of a button. There is the potential for massive exposure using these sites and you will of course be getting extra backinks to your content which is a good thing. Google is paying a lot of attention these days to links from social book marking sites, so that means higher rankings in the search engines and more traffic for you! Whenever you create a new piece of content and upload it somewhere, social bookmark it, you can use the free tool Onlywire.com to do this for you on autopilot:)

There isn’t enough room here to go into the other three very powerful social network marketing strategies. Using these strategies in conjunction with my content marketing strategy it won’t be too long until you are getting 25 or more leads to your business every day.

This particular social network marketing approach will continue to work like a charm for your online business if utilized in full. You can watch all of the training videos for this approach at the J Hicks MLM website.

Article from articlesbase.com

5 Reasons You Should Be Using Social Network Marketing For Your Business

Are you looking to build your network marketing business on a massive scale? The social networks may be the answer you’re looking for. Sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are fast becoming the new sources of traffic in our industry.

Due to the nature of an MLM business, social network sites really are a match made in heaven, after all its all about networking with other people. Relationship building is the name of the game in our industry.

One thing that’s important to remember is that we don’t want to become spammers by only promoting our opportunities. Most of our time on these networks should be connecting with prospects and finding new ones. I expect you have already seen your own fair share of spam on sites like Twitter and Facebook, and also YouTube in particular. Personally I find it a real turn off, I expect you do to.

You can go a long way in creating trust and friendships in social networking sites, you can also promote your own brand, products and content, plus there is the advantage of increased exposure, if people like the stuff you are sharing then they may well share it with their friends also. Using these networks properly could make you very popular online.

It makes good business sense to harness the power of social network marketing and you should invest whatever time and money you need to become good at it. It’s just too powerful to miss.

Here are two ways you can use social networks

Facebook – Ensure you’ve set up an account on Facebook for business purposes. It’s a great way to connect with your prospects and also great for finding new ones! Search for new friends there who have similar interests to you. Search and join groups in your niche. More people will be able to find you the more groups you join, you will also get people adding you as a friend. Join about 200 groups and watch your friend requests go crazy!

The latest Facebook strategy is ‘fan pages’ these are very powerful and you should set one up for yourself and/or your business. Every time someone hits the ‘Like’ button they join your fan page and you can then easily keep in contact with these people en mass. It is just like building a list but only a list of people that already like you. Create some sort of lead magnet/offer so that when folks arrive at your fan page that have the incentive to opt in to your capture page, which can be directly on your fan page, or an external webpage.

Bookmarking sites – These are great sites for posting your content, when people come across your articles/videos they can share it with their friends if they find it useful, they can also vote for/like it at the push of a button. There is the potential for massive exposure using these sites and you will of course be getting extra backinks to your content which is a good thing. Google is paying a lot of attention these days to links from social book marking sites, so that means higher rankings in the search engines and more traffic for you! Whenever you create a new piece of content and upload it somewhere, social bookmark it, you can use the free tool Onlywire.com to do this for you on autopilot:)

There isn’t enough room here to go into the other three very powerful social network marketing strategies. Using these strategies in conjunction with my content marketing strategy it won’t be too long until you are getting 25 or more leads to your business every day.

Social networking is here to stay. Sites like Facebook and Twitter have touched a cord with the public. Millions flock to their accounts daily just to stay connected to the people and businesses that matter to them. While it may not seem relevant on the surface, successful business owners are finding ways to generate revenue and enhance customer service all through the unique advantages of social network marketing.

First and probably most important, social networking is convenient for customers. A properly managed account will give business owners instant access to customer feedback. This can prove invaluable quickly. If your customers see that you are putting effort into your social media account, they will respond in many ways. They will let you know what you are doing well, what you should improve on and how your product or service has made a difference in their lives. This is an incredible tool for further marketing efforts because any helpful feedback you receive can be used to attract more clients or add profitable products to your product line.

Social networking sites also give you a way to generate traffic and revenue by offering special incentives to those who follow your page. Discounts and promotions are popular among businesses that are using social media as an effective marketing tool. Not only does this get more customers to your store or website, but it also allows you and your customers to see the value in the social networking relationship. Attracting users to your Facebook page is the first hurdle, keeping them as friends and fans is the next. Give them a reason to come back often.

Social network marketing is more convenient to you the business owner as well. Connecting with your customers on Facebook or Twitter is often a faster and more effective way to communicate with them. Most users check their social accounts and friends/contacts nearly as often as they do their email. If there are issues that arise with a product, your main website or even the news media, you can keep customers in the know just by making a simple page update. The communication advantages alone can show immediate ROI for many businesses resistant to technological changes. Twitter is a great way to connect with your customers easily and quickly day or night.

Using social media often and appropriately shows your customers your positive intent about your business. Embracing modern technology is a way of showing progress and forward thinking within the hierarchy of your company. When customers see that you have an eye on the future, they will help you spread the word.

Finally, social media is becoming a necessary part of the overall branding initiative that you should have as a business. Branding is important to longevity. The more ways that you can show your customer base that you are out there, the better the odds will be that your business will connect with them and convert sales. That alone makes social media worth the effort.

From social media monitoring to find out what others are saying about your business to posting your latest news on Facebook there are many new ways to meet and interact with customers and potential customers online. Finding the niches that will help your business the most is the key to maximizing your resources when investing time or money in social network marketing.

Find out more helpful tips and tricks from our social network marketing newsletter. CartMetrix will show you how you can better use social networking for the good of your company. Visit our site to learn more today!

Article from articlesbase.com


Question by nancy: how companies use social networking sites for marketing purpose?
how companies do marketing on facebook ,twitter , linked in etc.

Best answer:

Answer by Who, me?
By posting/tweeting ads and links to promote their products:
Facebook has “fan pages” for products and compaines
Twitter lets them broadcast specials and news
LinkedIn lets them share news and post jobs
Foursquare lets them offer specials to certain people who use foursquare
The list goes on and on

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

Social Network Marketing – The Future of Consumer-Brand Relations

Social Network Marketing – The Future of Consumer-Brand Relations

Do you have a social network marketing strategy?

Let’s go a bit off-board and get psychological.  What did you do today?  Well, you  woke up, you went to work, as everyone has been doing for however many years we’ve been doing that now – you flirted at the water cooler.  And you know what else you did?  Dare I say, did proudly?  For the nth time, you checked your Facebook, and you tweeted some, and you emailed some more.  And probably all on your iPhone, you unashamedly modern person.

What has changed now then?  The answer?  We’ve all changed.    Consumers have grown up.  And what is the seat of this shift in consumer politics?  Digital communication of course such as email.

Email accounts today are the digital fortresses of our ego: it is from our email we reach out and, after the single quick search engine-scavange, contact whoever we damn please.  ‘Things used to be simple’, says Alan Duncan, marketing director of Sony.  ‘You launch a product and then you let it go’.  So much cannot be said for the times today, lest you get relentlessly googled, emailed, and had bad word-of-mouth spread about you like — well, whatever bad word of mouth gets spread around like. Brands, having just wiped the sweat from their brow after wrestling with the tough generation X, and, later,  generation Y, have very quickly realized that the world has again lurched; but this time, it has lurched with never-before-seen audacity.

And now the final invitation is extended and the truth is revealed.  Welcome to the cybergens, the cyber generation: the latest in a long line of opponents to the marketing machine.  But, ho – brands, a little uncharacteristically  it seems, seem prepared this time – an effective weapon have they; one that  specifically targets this ‘always-online’ new market.  Indeed, a method with near-dangerous amounts of success: social network marketing

Let us examine your usual web-browsing session.  You check your RSS page, you check your email; you check your facebook, check your twitter;  and, a mystery until very recently, you’re probably texting as well.  Statistics on facebook dictate that 6 billion minutes a day is spent on facebooking.  And that’s just facebooking.  

This is it; congratulations, you are today’s brand new consumer (with yes, the pun for once being intended), falling prey to the ubiquitous phenomenon of social network marketing.    No – not fallen prey, but completely assimilated.  Seamlessly integrating with everything ‘new-media’ you could possibly engage in, it indeed seems like the dawn of a new sleek, digi-horizon.  And you don’t mind either.  – But what about this newfangled method.  Why.

A quick history lesson: in days of old, business worked differently.  Brands were strict parents.  We did what we were told and we took the veracity of such teachings absolutely for granted.  The cane was still a teacher’s favourite at schools of old, and everyone meanwhile sauntered round in starchy shirts, half-muttering ‘yes… discipline and obedience.  Good’.

Such was the way of old.
Such are the ways no longer.  

Why not though?  Well, of course the ‘why’ has a lot owed to the recent explosion of ‘Web 2.0’, the mischievous Youtubery; Google-mania, Facebook -mayhem (and, more recently), Twitterjabber.  Tolstoy once famously said that war was the locomotive of change.  Well, today, us all shiny and beardless, we may remark, apparently even cleverer then the old fellow could have hoped to be, that no: such is not the case.  The warhorses of change are none other than the demons mentioned above.  And we are the agents insidiously infected by all of it.  The world, where it used to be as a product of complex calculations and compasses, lies now at our not-so proverbial fingertips.  Brand best realise that we have become a digital people; social network marketing perfectly slots into our new digital ways.

And yes, yes, decry, panic, lament, etc. etc.; but the effect on the consumer-brand relation has seen unparalleled changes because of it.  At Sony, ‘online marketing and our other marketing branches have no difference’.  The world has instead morphed, becoming one big, thick, gloopy, cooking inbox, where  all is on your screen; everything of any possible relevance to you is all neatly in one place.  This is your world, and these are your profiles, your pages.  You have no intention, by any means, of taking any of that fuzzy old nonsense of yesteryear.  Newfangled is the new black.  If those suits want your currency, then golly, they’re going to have to work damn hard for it.

Today identity about digitally portrayed image, and the life of the cybergen is lived in shameless shortcuts.  The ‘one quick search’ approach has become common-place owing purely because of it’s convenience, with people being left dismayed and empty because of it.  

Bad news again as our satisfaction recedes, perhaps, but good news in our change of sheer demand.  The ripples of such an effect end up acutely felt on the respective brands duking it out for all your consumer’s digi-wallets.  Responsibility shifts once more: brands are snorted at for expecting times of old – now they do their own ethical work; we make of it what we please.  Well-known demonstrations of this change can be seen with for instance Marks and Spencer and their ‘Plan A’ pledges, or McDonalds’, and their blatant pandering to newly-savvy consumers with pictures of grass and cows all adorning the descriptions of their ‘healthy’ and / or ‘british’ ingredients.

With all this in mind then, the modern phenomenon of social network marketing is very quickly a phenomenon no longer.  People are constantly blabbering, twittering, facebooking, youtubing, texting, googling, and it’s about time brands took advantage of it.  It’s in their own interest –  says Graham Sim, marketing director of HMV, ‘one-on-one engagement has the potential to be far more cost-effective and get better customer response than the [previous] scattergun mentality of the mass-market approach’.  

Indeed, regarding its cost-effectiveness, social network marketing even reaches up to suits at the British Heart Foundation.   Head of Communications, David Barker: ‘if you place something on a social network site it can be picked up around the world in seconds’.   That’s certainly a lot faster then the brand’s themselves can manage.  Not without some vague irony, suddenly the consumer’s newfound pride is completely reversed: in our sheer demand demand demand, we have ended up doing the dirty work ourselves – and the machine still functions perfectly efficiently, saving time and money on both sides.

According to Barker, ‘media today is driven by the here and now’.  Social network marketing is not just shiny, sleek, and silver, and ‘young’.  No longer is this exclusively the territory of brave new cutting cutting-edge business: it is a cheap, effective, and incredibly rapid mode of modern marketing which like it or not, effortlessly ties in with the digital madness making up much of our lives today.  Once the strange unkempt billboard a few streets away, social network marketing has become, like it not, part of the wallpaper of modern-day life.

Paul Palmer is from the UK, he is a social networker, entrepreneur and web site optimisation specialist, specializing in SEO and social network marketing. Leave me a comment Id love to hear from you or visit my Internet Web Site Marketing blog.

Article from articlesbase.com

What You Need To Know About Network Marketing
This is exactly what the title indicates. Network marketing techniques that will save you time and money when you get started in network marketing. For those of you already in business, I also included 65 shock & awe marketing strategies.
What You Need To Know About Network Marketing


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Question by Christine M: What are the laws/requirements to operate a US based social network site or game site internationally?
I am fact checking. What are the legal requirements for a US based company that offers social network and games sites and expands into international markets. Meaning, is the company required to register in each company it expands to, or, does it only pay US taxes and follow US laws since that is where it is based. Note: the site charges a user fee.
Internet QUESTION

Best answer:

Answer by mel
if u go to europe, it depends on the individual europen country and some EU regs.
if in Asia – its still less regulated.
some countries dont have double taxation laws. but usa has it. so the profits u make in other countries are still taxable.
if u open a separate entity say, in HK, singapore, then u have to abide by their rules and pay their taxes but not usa.
many countries have double taxation rules with usa. u got to check with the treasury but u will be sent fr pillar to post. best to get an international finance lawyer

Give your answer to this question below!

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