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What exactly is a social network? Think about the question before you answer it. The obvious and easy answer is just to say “YouTube, Facebook, Twitter.” But it goes beyond this. I think that what differentiates a social media website from any other website is the presence of sharing. Of course, user-generated, non-professional content is also a key part of the mix, but the fundamental idea behind the whole drive is sharing.

People put videos on YouTube because they want to share them with the world. People tweet because they want to share those 140 characters with their followers. People update their Facebook because they want their friends to know… exactly whatever it is people are updating Facebook status with these days.

The important part; however, is sharing. And just as important is the re-sharing and the crossover sharing. When someone reads a great story on Facebook, they have the option to re-post it so that their friends can see it, or they might even hop on Twitter and Tweet about it. Or perhaps they’ll find a great video on YouTube, and then post it onto a friend’s Wall, so that that friend, and everyone in his news feed are also exposed to the video.

It’s easy to see how things go viral this way. The question is, how to you use this phenomenon to make your posts go viral. The key is inciting in your followers an urgent want to share your postings.

So make things relevant to your customers. Social media constantly gives us new tools which allow us to break down users preferences and segregate them into disparate groups. You have more information about your customers than ever before. So speak to them only with ideas that are relevant to them, and that they will act upon and re-share.

Beyond making things relevant, make it easier for your customers to share your posts and videos. Integrate all your social media with sharing buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, at least. Social media mavens have mixed opinions about this, but I like to think about it this way.

Whenever you post a video or an article, there are going to be three camps of people. The first camp will absolutely love your post, and want to scream it from the top of a mountain. They will re-share it whether you have a button or not. The second camp will hopefully like the post, but decide for whatever reason that they do not want to re-share it, even if there is a post.

In the third camp are the undecideds. Some of them may really like the video, but maybe not quite enough to click over to Facebook and think of some clever caption to write with your video. If there is a share button there though, I can all but guarantee this will sway at least some of them. People are inherently lazy, and people like anything that makes there life easier. The share buttons do. So add them.

Of course, the most effective way to do this is by putting yourself in your customer’s position. Before you post anything via social media, make an honest attempt to look at it at from your readers/customers/followers positions, and ask yourself two questions: “How does this help me?” And “Would I want to re-share this?”

Google, the single most used search engine in the United States, is constantly looking for ways to better serve its customer base. The newest trend in search engine usage is for local searches using mobile devices. Mobile device users like smart phone and tablet owners are growing to dominate the search market. Usage has expanded 500 percent in the past two years for mobile devices. Smart phones are predicted to replace most existing traditional cell phones within the next eighteen months. Plus, when a mobile user uses a search engine for local business searches, two thirds of those searches translate into sales. With these staggering numbers, no business can afford to ignore the benefits of marketing to mobile customers. There are several steps you will need to perform to ensure your visibility to mobile Internet users.

1. Revamp your website. Mobile display is very different from traditional computer monitors. Smart phones often have screens less than three inches across, meaning that regular websites do not load properly on their screens. Offer a mobile friendly page, ensuring that smart phone and tablet users can access all of the information they need. Plus, the more easily they can browse your site the more likely they are to walk in your door.

2. Get listed. If you are not already listed as a local business on Google, do so now. If you are listed, check to ensure that your business profile and information is current. More people use Google to search for local listings than they do the yellow pages, making it critical that you participate in their local business listing services.

3. Google is not alone. Do not forget to list your business on as many local listing sites as you can find. Google may account for almost two thirds of all United States searches, but that still leaves a lot of people using alternatives. Make sure that your business is as visible as possible by listing your information far and wide.

If you offer a mobile friendly website, people are more likely to take the time to actually browse your site. This can translate into more sales for your business. With two thirds of all mobile searchers then walking through the door of a local business to make a purchase, you can not afford to ignore the necessity of adding and updating your business listings. Even if you do not sell anything online, it is crucial that you maintain an online presence.

If you are invisible online, you will also be invisible to many people searching for local businesses. Very few people bother to crack open the yellow pages at this point. It is much easier to run a quick search and get all of the information in one easy place. Plus, the yellow pages do not offer rankings and reviews. Today’s consumer enjoys having instant access to local listings and peer reviews of those businesses. The Internet is an incredibly powerful information gathering tool, and businesses that do not bother making their presence felt online will not get the benefits of additional sales.

The advent of social networking has entirely transformed the manner in which web marketers attempt to connect with their audiences. Incorporating this powerful tool into one's website can have dynamic impacts on the overall success of web marketing campaigns, but it is absolutely essential to provide visitors with the keys to make sharing information on their social networking profiles as easy as possible. This requires implementing web design that is Facebook friendly, which in turn encourages the user to promote a brand or external website.

One of the easiest ways to allow your visitors to share intriguing content with their online friends and acquaintances is to provide them with a small click here button, which will automatically broadcast the information on their Facebook profile. Fortunately for web designers, adding these buttons to any website can be accomplished relatively easily. Facebook provides a variety of different buttons, templates and codes to web design professionals, streamlining the entire process and allowing the designer to provide a simple way for any visitor to share content with others.

In addition to the "Like" buttons that can be added to any page, it is also important to keep the overall design aesthetic in mind when creating a Facebook friendly site. For example, if the buttons are added in an inappropriate place, site visitors may not even notice them when reading content. It is important to experiment with different placements and templates in order to find what positioning will most effectively catch the reader's eye.

Beyond button placement, the general navigation of the site should be clear and easy to understand. Simple navigation bars and links make it easy for the visitor to browse through relevant pages on your website, in turn allowing them to discover additional content that may be of interest to them. If a site is professionally designed and easy to understand, the likelihood of the visitor sharing the content they discover with others is greatly increased.

Regardless of what particular methods are utilized to make a website Facebook friendly, it is important to make certain this takes place before the site launches. Building a website from the ground up with social network users in mind will guarantee success over the long haul. Furthermore, this will likely contribute to increased readership and loyalty.

Many businesses have begun to incorporate online marketing strategies into their overall business plan. However, what many fail to realize is that it is not an either/or proposition. To be successful, a business needs to utilize all marketing efforts. Also, marketing efforts should never be looked at as individual items. All marketing is a complete package where each item should build on the overall picture. Online marketing efforts and offline sales are becoming inextricably linked. More and more consumers take a few extra seconds to look at online reviews and comparison shopping websites before they make purchasing decisions.

The smart phone may be the single most transformative device of modern times. With a smart phone consumers can look at a digital representation of the street in which they are standing and get a list of reviews next to every business. Information is more accessible than ever, and it is important to ensure that your business communicates on every possible level. Smart phone shopping apps allow users to locate a store locally, read reviews, see any promotions and compare prices with other local stores, all in a matter of minutes. This has revolutionized how people shop, and it needs to revolutionize how businesses market. Make sure your company is listed on Google maps and local listing sites, so mobile users can find it easily. Also, post promotions and sale prices so that customers can see that you are competitive.

Capitalize on cell phone market penetration with SMS marketing. SMS marketing is one of the best methods available today. With cell phones reaching record heights, there is no other advertising method that has the same read rate. In fact, cell phone users often have no choice but to at least glance at your message. While this is not strictly speaking an online marketing tool, there are a variety of programs out there to enable quick and easy bulk text messaging.

Create and maintain social media profiles for your business. With an investment of only one of two hours a week, you can see a dramatic increase in sales. Consumers are constantly in contact with mobile access, so they can instantly respond to both good and bad experiences. Show them that you are responsive to their preferences by posting signs letting them know you are on Facebook and Twitter. Offer email mailing lists and text sign ups for special promotions. Engage them with coupons only available to Facebook fans and offer them incentives to share your link.

Keep in mind that all online efforts should be geared toward driving offline sales. For industries like restaurants, spas and other service industries, traditional online marketing is not effective. But, integrated marketing can be effective for any business. When you lay out your next marketing push, include both online and offline efforts. Illustrate how one effort can drive another and the entire plan works as a cohesive whole. If there are weaknesses, address them before finalizing the plan. Most businesses don’t exist solely in the vacuum of online, and they shouldn’t market as if they do.

Determining where to put your limited marketing dollars is difficult in today’s economy. Budgets are tighter than ever, but with more competition for the same consumer dollar, marketing is a must. What mediums really help to drive sales, and which are simply a black hole of spending? Traditional marketing avenues of radio and tv are no longer as effective as they used to be. The radio is becoming less common, with an incredible number of people choosing to listen to mp3 players where they avoid the annoyance of commercials. Even some online radio sites offer commercial free listening, or paid services like satellite radio, that are commercial free for extended periods of time are becoming a favorite. Radio simply doesn’t pack the punch it used to. TV is just as bad. Now, more people use services like DVR or TiVo and simply skip or fast forward through commercials. Unless you have the money to advertise during prime time national television shows, it is simply not worth the money. Sites like YouTube are also growing in popularity, where people watch totally commercial free content.

Newspapers and magazines used to be a good place to put advertisements, but now more people read blogs dedicated to topics they are interested in or stay current using social media. Newspapers are going the way of the dinosaur. Search engine optimization techniques are more profitable for a business than print media ever will be. Listings in the phone book are now a thing of the past, ensuring your business is listed on websites is important, but very few people use a traditional phonebook in today’s society. Online listings are easier and faster to search through. Ensuring your website is search engine optimized so it shows up during internet searches is a much better investment. It gets your company to a wider audience, for less money.

Other traditional marketing methods are also taking a hit. Telephone calls are not welcomed by the public and can actually hurt your business more than they help. Street signs still have a place, but they are expensive and it is difficult to track sales generated from this method. If you can’t track the return on investment, it is difficult to determine the value of a specific advertising method. Search engine optimization allows your company to reach the billions of people that shop online. It is also easily tracked and inexpensive. Why pay tens of thousands of dollars for radio and television advertising when you can reach more people for less money online?

Contracting a search engine optimization service to help your company show up on the first page of search results is a great investment in the future. Businesses that don’t take advantage of online sales will have a difficult time staying profitable during economic downturns. Online sales can help to fill in the gap when local markets are strained. Make sure your website is the visible sales tool it should be with simple search engine optimization techniques and expert help.

Social media can be a great marketing tool, but only if it is used appropriately. Social media lets customers interact with your company in a less formal environment. While employees responsible for maintaining your social media presence should always be professional, it is a great opportunity to engage customers with fun information as well as with product information. Establishing a brand takes time, and it requires that people bond emotionally with the products. One successful example includes Coca Cola’s annual Christmas campaigns, which work on a sentimental level to remind consumers how long Coke has been a part of their lives. Creating that kind of consumer identification can be much easier using social media tools. Below are five great ways to get customers to interact with your company and start building brand recognition and loyalty.

1. Encourage Reviews – Today, many people post reviews of local and national companies on review sites like Yelp!, Epinions, and My 3 Cents. Ask customers to post a review of your business and offer them an incentive to do so. A discount coupon or free give-a-way is a nice way to thank customers for taking the time to share their opinion about your company. With more and more people checking online reviews before deciding on a company, service or product, it is important to ensure that your business is represented positively online. Unfortunately, you will probably experience the bad with the good. Not everyone will have a positive experience and they may post less than favorable reviews. By monitoring these you have the opportunity to show other consumers that you care about the opinions of your customers and are willing to try and address their concerns, even when they are negative. Think of negative reviews as a way to demonstrate your stellar customer service.

2. Customer Service – Negative responses are always more likely on a review site, so it is important to address them as quickly as possible. Invite the person that had the poor experience to contact you directly so that you can work together to create a solution. Don’t get involved in an online argument, and once the customers issue is resolved don’t hesitate to ask them to post an update, or post one yourself stating that you hope the customer’s concerns have been addressed and express your apologies for the inconvenience.

3. Online Check-Ins – Another great way to keep customers engaged is to offer an online check-in. Many social media sites now offer people the ability to post their location automatically when they login to their social media of choice. Offering customers give-a-ways or special discounts for checking in at your location can be a great way to advertise your business. It is a bit like word or mouth, but has a much broader application. Everyone in that customer’s social network will see where they shop and that introduction can drive sales right to your business.

4. Viral videos – Creating videos for display on sites like YouTube is a great way to build an additional following. There is no real formula to creating a viral video, so make sure that all your content is either informative or fun.

5. Promote Events – Using social media to promote in-store events is a great idea. Not only will it give you some idea of attendance numbers, it will help generate excitement prior to the event. It is free and very easy to create an event page, so this should definitely be included as a part of any upcoming promotions or sales.

When it comes to search engine optimization, professional marketers know that distributing content in as little time possible to key locations on the internet is one of the biggest secrets to getting high search engine rankings. However, it is usually more difficult to submit SEO content manually. For example, if you are writing a 500-word article related to your niche, it would take you hours to research, create, edit, and distribute your content. The process, when repeated, becomes extremely slow and tedious (and therefore almost humanly impossible) for any person to endure. In short, submitting SEO content manually is too much work for so little return.

You can only reap the positive results of creating and distributing SEO content if you know how to leverage and automate your marketing efforts. By automating various aspects of your search engine optimization campaigns, you can do so much work with less effort, plus you will reap more returns in terms of profits! Most marketers choose to be the “lone ranger”, thinking that they could do it all by themselves without outside help. On the other hand, professional marketers use systems and tools that allow them to gain maximum leverage and do more work in less time. Here are some ways you can automate certain parts of your SEO campaigns:

1. Outsource the writing of your SEO content. You may love writing articles and blog posts on your own, but on a large scale, you have to explore the possibility of outsourcing the SEO writing tasks to somebody else. For example, you may want to have ten new articles written for you every month. A good solution would be to hire a freelance writer or virtual assistant who will do that task for you. Sure there is a cost involved in outsourcing, and you have to carefully instruct the freelancer at the beginning, but the returns are much bigger if you know how to distribute your content well.

2. Use Automated Article Submission Services. There are online services that allow you to automatically submit your SEO content to popular article directories and high-authority blogs online. Unique Article Wizard and SubmitYourArticle are two of the most well-known sites that offer these kinds of services (mention of trademarks in this article is not made for promotional purposes). Plus, you can choose to “spin” your article so that the SEO content will turn out to become a different version on each blog or article directory you post in. This is beneficial if you are trying to get backlinks and high search engine rankings.

3. Submit your SEO content to Ezine publishers. Ezines are online mailings which are regularly sent out to a group of subscribers who have an interest on a particular topic. The key for you is to find ezines in your niche, contact the owner of the Ezine, and negotiate the possibility of you sending out a one-time mailing of your article to their Ezine list. When your article gets mailed out, it could potentially reach hundreds of blog owners who would be willing to repost your article on their sites. As unique versions of your articles spread naturally through the web, you will find that you will generate more organic traffic to your website.

Studying and mastering some Facebook marketing secrets will doubtless enhance the traffic building capability of any online marketer nowadays. With hundreds of millions of users, truly Facebook cannot be ignored by anyone who is serious about driving traffic towards their business websites and making more sales. In fact, if you’ve been using pay-per-click and search engine marketing for the past few years, now is the time to look at the potential of Facebook marketing and add it to your overall advertising strategy. In the next few paragraphs, let’s look at some free and paid methods of advertising in the world’s currently most popular social media site.

If you are offering a product or service brand, one of the most common free ways of promoting on Facebook is creating so-called “fan pages”. These are Facebook pages that you can create and customize so that you can place relevant information about your business, inform your market about updates, and basically brand yourself in the social media platform. The beauty of Facebook pages is that they are searchable within the Facebook community, and other users can easily find your created page if It matches the likes and interests reflected on their profiles.

Doing the old-fashioned way of prospecting and networking will also work on this social media site, if your intentions are clean and if you provide value to the community. Befriending people who are in your market is a good long term strategy for networking and prospecting. For example, if you are selling weight loss information, it is always a great idea to find friends on Facebook who need to lose weight, or has needs and wants that match the benefits that your product can offer. Be careful though, because randomly adding people can get you banned on Facebook. It is always better to get real on social media communities. Start by adding your real-life friends, and then branch out from there by participating in groups and discussion forums.

Free methods are great, but if you are truly serious about promoting your online business, a better alternative is to use the paid Facebook ads feature. This is more like a pay-per-click advertising platform where you can create short ad snippets and then pay for each click that your ad gets. But what separates the Facebook ads from all other PPC platforms is that it is not entirely keyword based. Instead of relying only on keyword search phrases, you can target your audience using advanced demographics such as likes, interests, date of birth, location, age, nationality and many others.
This allows you to create ads that are extremely targeted to your ideal customers.

But the secret to advertising on Facebook (and any other ad platform) is old-fashioned honesty. For example, if you are selling candles, don’t be afraid to admit that you are! More often, people who click on ads are extremely interested buyers and the mere fact that they visited your site means they are looking for ways to buy a product that they want and need. Don’t waste your time beating around the bush. State the exact product or service that you will render, the benefits and advantages that they will get, and what they need to do to get what you are offering.

Website owners are all atwitter over the new avenues of generating online traffic and some of those that use social networking the best are finding tweet results. As millions upon millions of websites offer sales and services online and around the world, it only makes sense for advertisers to put their money where the most people are located. In today’s digital marketplace, the majority of potential customers are gathering in social networking circles.

One of the largest, Facebook with over a half-million members is a lush market for many advertisers and its entry into the search engine market makes them even a more appealing place for businesses to park their advertising dollars. Twitter has also taken a giant leap forward in business marketing and YouTube offers businesses the opportunity to play before millions of people every day. Business-to-business advertisers are flourishing on business-related social sites such as Linkedin where business leaders and owners often gather to exchange ideas.

Nearly everybody who is anybody in the online marketplace has connections to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Linkedin and finding it a profitable venture to ease into the social networking scene. Consider the number of people that visit these sites on a daily basis and then consider the potential for word of mouth advertising available. Most people will take the word of their friends about a product or service before even the best constructed advertisement. Businesses that can get a mention on one of these sites is going to be rewarded with more visitors.

Understand, the opposite can also occur if one person writes something negative about your site. The backlash can be devastating and companies are learning that having their own site that befriends others on the social network is only part of the formula. As a friend they can also see what others are writing about them and if they can handle an issue without seeming overly defensive, or worse going on the offense against the disgruntled customer, they can help deflect the criticism.

Yes, it will take time and energy to maintain your social networking status and to remain in good graces with the friends on your network. But there are many opportunities for businesses to connect with their customer and hear what they like and dislike about your business or business model. By paying attention and making changes to benefit the majority of your customers can show them that what they say is being heard.

Companies with a social networking presence also have an audience they can relate to and is a better representation of the niche market than any other form of advertising currently available. By avoiding the so-called ad-speak and focusing on the customer needs, social networking can improve your image as well as sales.

On search engine results pages there are two types of returns; one that paid for a high position and those that depend on their search engine optimization to achieve a higher rank organically. Concerning to most online business operators is the time it takes for truly organic marketing to list their websites to the top of the search engine results pages. Their frustration only grows when they see other sites similar to theirs getting a boost in the rankings by paying for it.

Like it or not, pay per click advertising on search engines is probably the most profitable for search engine operators and until the everyday users revolt, is not likely to change. However, more internet users are actually becoming smarter and see the difference between organic marketing and paid links. It appears on search engine results pages, the paid advertisements, pay per click and paid placement ads, are either at the top or bottom of the results page.

While this makes them stand out against the other websites, all users have to do is read a little of the post on the page to determine if the site owner paid for the link or not. By insuring your site is optimized for search engines, and keeping it updated, you site will slowly crawl out of the basement and onto the upper floors of the results house. There is also no way to accurately determine how many people click on a paid ad and leave immediately and the only way a website depending on organic search results can determine their success is though page views.

Owners of search engines such as Google, AOL and Yahoo! have felt some heat in the past about the practice of selling placement on the results pages. However, so far they have not been accused of doing anything illegal and those advertising on the results pages are continuing to pay for their spots.

Essentially, search engine marketing has taken on the role as the means in which a site uses paid advertisements to achieve higher rankings on the internet. Whether it’s through pay per click or straight out pay for placement, it is one of the methods used by many websites to improve their placements in results pages.

Search engine optimization depends more on the site’s design and how visitors view the layout and content of the design and whether information available on the page is relevant to the terms being searched. Many of the more successful online businesses, at least those that can afford to do so, will utilize both methods to improve their odds of being found on the internet. Even those who start out using only organic search results may add paid for results to their marketing arsenal to gain more exposure.