If you’ve set-up an Internet business but you’re not blogging about it, then you’re missing out on one of the best ways to get free targeted traffic to your website. However, getting a blog up and running and keeping it updated is only part of the story. One of the most successful blog strategies involves taking advantage of web 2.0 social networking sites to publicize your blog posts.

The main reason why social bookmarking sites should be a part of your daily Internet business activities is that many people use these sites as their main source of news and gossip. A popular social news site such as Digg gets a lot of traffic. Digg attracted more than 230 million visitors in 2008. People visit Digg and similar sites to find out what’s new and to share content from the web, including their own blog posts. If users like what they read, they can vote for the article, and if an article is popular enough, it will reach the top pages of Digg and be seen by millions of visitors. Other social sites use a similar voting system.

If the blog posts you submit to Digg and other social sites don’t get any votes, you’re still getting the benefit of building one-way backlinks to your blog, so it’s well worth the time in making a point to submit your blog posts to social marketing sites. Also, it’s very easy to do and quite often takes just a click of a button.

Another benefit from blogging regularly and submitting your posts to social networking sites is branding yourself and building your credibility. Make sure that you use keywords that people are using to search for your kind of business. Social networking will also give your blog a great boost in search engine rankings, and you may find that you can get your site into the top ten of Google for a wide range of keyword terms if you take a disciplined approach to social marketing.

Speaking of discipline, don’t take on too much when it comes to social networking. Too many people try to submit their post to every social networking site that they can find only to feel overwhelmed by the huge number of social networking sites that have sprung up in a relatively short time.

It’s much easier to choose a dozen of the best social networking sites for your business and to concentrate 90-95% of your social networking and marketing effort on making regular submissions to those sites. The other 5-10% of your allocated time can be used to post occasional submissions to other social marketing sites where you want to maintain a presence.

By utilizing a focused and disciplined approach to blogging and social networking, you’ll gain much more publicity for your blog and online business than you will if you take a scattergun approach to social marketing. Combining your blog posts with social networking is one of the top blog strategies which you can implement.

Learn more about Internet business opportunities at Work From Home Opportunity and sign up for the free newsletter course.
Also, check out John Baril’s online training blog at: Online Marketing Promotion

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Everywhere you turn, you can see evidence of the impact social networking sites have on today’s society. Billboards advertise products using their Facebook pages, celebrities share stories with their fans over Twitter, and musicians find their own limelight on MySpace. Interacting with people on the Internet has become the next big thing in socializing.

However, one must take the proper security measures to ensure their interactions online are safe and their identities are not stolen.

Strong passwords are like the big bouncer at the door to a club; if you have a competent one, you don’t have to worry about any trouble. You can strengthen your password by mixing numbers with letters, changing the case of the letters, and never using anything easily guessable.

Passwords should be changed semi-frequently; it keeps the hackers guessing. Just when they think they’ve figured it out, you switch it on them!

Also, don’t list your full birth date on your profile. Sure, you want to keep that hot doctor you just met guessing, but the more practical reason is that identity theft can occur much more easily if the thief knows when you were born. Hide it, and wait for people to ask (if they have the guts).

Privacy controls are your best friends. Don’t be afraid to use them. You can grip the reigns tighter than a jockey in the last lap; even specific people or groups of people can be restricted from your page. Use your powers for good.

You should limit the exposure of your pictures too, not just your information. Sometimes we get caught on camera doing something a bit inappropriate. It’s cool for your buddies at work to see it and laugh, but it stops being funny when your boss sees a picture of you urinating on a picture of him.

Beware the creepers. Pedophiles can be hackers, and they might be on the prowl for new targets. So keep your kids safe and don’t tag them in any of your pictures, if you can help it.

Many dangerous things can happen because of the Internet. But it is easy to protect yourself and take precautions. Go have fun on Facebook now.

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Even as my website, blog, Facebook page and daily Tweets propel me deeper into the Attention Age, I find myself frequently astounded by the pace of growth and change in social media.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise to some folks - especially my kids - that I’m perplexed by something related to the Internet. But I’ll venture to guess that few people could have predicted the exponential growth and cultural impact shown by social networks.

Who knew that five years after launching YouTube would be getting more than 2 billion (with a “B”!) views each day? That is is close to 1.4 million views every second. Certainly not YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley who told the BBC, ” I don’t think we could have ever planned or imagined we would get to the scale or the size we are today.”

Who really anticipated the move in April by the Library of Congress to archive every Tweet ever sent on Twitter and the daily flood of messages that’s currently around 55 million? Or, furthermore, that these collected messages of 140 or fewer characters would be valued by historians and other researchers as a snapshot of our culture.

Society’s seismic shift toward perpetual connectedness appeared cold and possibly dehumanizing at first and people lamented the demise of face-to-face interaction. I was guilty of such doomsday prophecy myself after the advent of instant messaging and other forms of electronic office communication. I was astonished to see coworkers typing and sending a message to colleagues on the other side of the room instead of walking over - or even yelling across the room!?

Thus, when IMs and chat rooms began Twitter and Facebook updating, I could not imagine a more ridiculous waste of time. Reading about someone’s trip to the grocery store or how they had to clean up after the kids or where someone I barely know is eating lunch are not at the top of my list.

But now all of that has blossomed into a breed of connection that - although it may lack true personal contact - provides a new level of support and even community.

That digitally linked community provided many of the best resources for information during and following the storms and floods that wreaked havoc on Nashville and Middle Tennessee last month. I heard a number of people relate how they first heard about the flooding through the Twitterverse, Facebook or some other social media.

Twitter’s immediacy made it an appealing vehicle to relay or gather the latest developments during the disaster.

As local news outlets provided marathon coverage, TV stations and newspapers expanded use of websites and social media to inform the public on what was unfolding. The alternative info sources became vitally important when large sections of Nashville and the surrounding area lost power and had to use smartphones to deliver video, photos and basic information about the rising water.

Christine Madella, weekend anchor at WKRN-TV, said she was reading and sending out info through Twitter during the 15 hours straight that she headed up the station’s coverage at the flood’s outset.

“Now with Twitter and social media, being able to disseminate information and organize volunteers and financial donations - it’s really changed the game,” Ms. Madella told TechNewsWorld. “It’s changed media.”

In the flood’s aftermath, social media continued to to be indispensable to churches and other nonprofits in coordinating relief efforts - what one observer called a real-time volunteer seeking service for crisis communications.

Although it didn’t have a similar life-or-death impact, the immediacy of social media was displayed Monday during the Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference where hundreds of the attendees sent out live updates and received real-time responses on the proceedings, including Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ introduction of the new iPhone 4.

Incidentally, Mr. Jobs had trouble connecting via Wi-Fi to the internet during his demonstration and had to ask more than 500 journalists in the room to turn off their Wi-Fi connections because he believed so many network connections was the reason for the problem.

Another impressive display of power came in May when a Facebook campaign succeeded in getting a “Saturday Night Live” hosting gig for 88-year-old Betty White. The result was one of the 35-year-old show’s best installments and Ms. White’s opening monologue was great - especially her Facebook zinger.

“When I first heard about the campaign to get me to host ‘Saturday Night Live’ I didn’t know what Facebook was,” she said “And now that I do know what it is I have to say it sounds like a huge waste of time.”

Mitch lives on the lake east of Nashville in Sumner County and attends the First Baptist Church of Hendersonville. When not in the office, Mitch enjoys working out and training for running events. A love for boating led Mitch to obtain his United States Coast Guard Captain’s License in 2004, which he puts to use several times a year boating in South Florida along the Atlantic coast, and in the Keys.

Get to know Nashville Attorney Mitch Grissim by watching his videos at his site. Read more at Nashville Accident Lawyer Mitch Grissim’s Legal Blog

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Social networking has been the most popular method used by businesses to enhance their visibility and increase the number of customers. It is interesting to note what started out as a way by which friends and family got connected, is now a popular means used by businesses to communicate vital information to their customers, both existing as well as the prospective ones. The initial wave of websites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, which are equally popular today. However, some newer trends in social networking are noted these days, some of which are:

Social networking goes mobile: With the increasing use of hand-held devices and smart phones by people in various businesses, it is apparent that a field like social networking would have to soon adapt itself to the mobile world, or else face the problem of becoming obsolete. The current trend, which was initially started by the iPhone, involves widgets of various sites readily available on various smart phones available in the market. These widgets offer an excellent way for business owners as well as their employees to stay connected and communicate with their customers and visitors in real time.

Integration of multiple networking sites: Given the multitude of social networking sites available on the internet today, choosing the best one for your business often becomes very difficult and in some cases, even impossible. It is often seen that more than one social networking site is relevant for gaining visibility with your target audience. This is exactly where the concept of integration and inter connection among various social networking sites come into play. Widgets are easily available on most sites that allow you to post the same information on multiple sites. For example, if you are updating your Twitter status, then you can also upload the same onto Facebook without duplicating your efforts. Similarly, your LinkedIn profile can be easily be linked to other social networking sites so that your followers or fans in one site are aware of the other. Thus, you can easily conduct both business as well as personal communication simultaneously.

Demand for online professional business networking sites: With more and more businesses entering the internet marketing field, there is a need for more professional networking sites like LinkedIn, which is assuming a new trend that will take in the future. In the past, sharing has been more personal in nature, with information being doled out in such a way that it reaches the other without obscuring anybody’s privacy. However, if you truly want to have a business network these days, it is important to ensure that you share information in a way that resembles what you would do in any business meeting.

The trends mentioned above are just three of the many that will be dominating the world in the coming years. So, take your pick based on what your requirements and priorities are.

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Social Network Marketing - Best Strategies Are Free!
By Laxman Samtani

Best news about creating effective strategies for social network marketing and utilizing them is they are free!

The best way to start is with article marketing. Writing articles is a terrific way to expose your products and services to internet users within online communities. You can use Google to find a number of article directories and submit to as many suitable directories as you can find. Avoid submitting identical content to number of directories and also ensure your articles are unique and will pass the muster of Copyscape website.

Blogging is another tool to educate internet users of your products and services and other business needs. You can do this by creating different blogs for networking marketing tips and for your business.

A personal blog is a wonderful way to create a personal brand, which in turn, makes it easier to market your products and services. People buy from people they like and trust. Makes sure your personal blog contains absorbing information and some captivating tidbits. This makes you stand out from the crowd..

Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are superb social networking websites to utilize to generate network marketing demands. They have a plethora of features and tools for anyone to leverage substantial benefits for marketing products and services. Do not add too many friends in a remarkably short time on these sites as your account may be disabled or may even be banned altogether for misuse and infringement of their rules, regulation and policy. It is a good idea to read through them carefully before you start utilizing them extensively.

Video marketing is another tool to promote your products and services in social media arena. With millions of visitors every day, YouTube is 3rd most visited website and the 2nd most popular search engine on the planet. Create a short video of your product and service and post them there with suitable tags. There are several other video sharing websites on you which you can post some of your unique videos.

There are many networks focused forums which you can be part. These forums are a great way to bounce your ideas, or to get ideas from other members for content to your web pages and for allowing visitors to click on your business links.

Express and present your talents in social media sites as much as possible. Some internet users enjoy talking or watching videos. And then some enjoy writing and reading. So see what your network marketing audience wants and what is your strength and build your strategies accordingly.

You will see from foregoing strategies that they cost you nothing, just some of your time and thinking what to write. Of course, persistence and focus are the most essential ingredient of successful network marketing.

Laxman Samtani is an Internet entrepreneur based in Toronto, Canada. You may visit his website http://www.aff-resource.com/

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Social Networking For Women - Braveheart Women Review
By Lori R. Somekh

Many social networking sites have popped up recently. One in particular that caught my attention is Braveheart Women.

Braveheart Women is the creation of Dr. Ellie Drake. Her vision is to bring together women to support each other in creating purpose, passion and prosperity. The purpose of this site is to provide social networking for woman with a purpose. Ellie’s goal is to empower you to be empowered and to inspire you to be inspired. What distinguishes this site from all the others I participate in is that it regularly features interviews with a host of celebrity women.

Braveheart TV

Ellie and her panel regularly interview women who are making a difference in their fields. Her guests include celebrities, businesswomen, entrepreneurs and other women who have valuable insights and experiences to share with other women. I’ve seen interviews with Dr. Maya Angelu, Mary Ellen Tribby, Mariel Hemingway, Morgan Fairchild, Lindsay Wagner, Dr. Judith Orloff, Forbes Riley, Gloria Loring, Lisa Nichols and Estelle Harris, to name a few. The cool thing is that these interviews are not fluff. They’re really good. I come away from each one feeling inspired. Ellie digs right down into the heart and soul of what makes these women tick.

Forum Discussions

When I first joined as a free member a little over a year ago, I introduced myself on the discussion forum and began reading some of the other introductions. I saw a post by a marketing mentor and picked up the phone and called her, figuring I would get her machine and leave a message. She picked up the phone, and we made a great connection. I started working with her as a client, and within the last year, I wrote three ebooks and developed a brand new website to connect with other women in midlife looking to improve their health. You never know. Since then, I have watched Ellie’s interviews often and continue to be inspired each and every time.

RISE - The Braveheart Women Annual Event

Braveheart Women hosts an annual live networking event. This year’s event is in October in Beverly Hills. I did not go last year. I may be able to attend this year. It looks like they have a great lineup of empowered, inspired women. I was surprised to see to how inexpensive it is. I hope my schedule supports my attending. I’d love to bring my daughter.

Conclusion

This social networking forum gets a big thumbs up from me. You can read more about it on my blog.

Lori Somekh is an attorney and a business owner. She resides in New York and helps women transition into online business ownership. You can find out more on http://www.somekh1.wordpress.com

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Designing Your Company Social Networking Policy
By Dr. Mark Clayson

Social media is the dish of the day at the moment. It has the pizazz and verve required to engage huge numbers of people in an effortless way. Commencing a social media plan is something which just about all enterprises ought to look at. Generally there is ample proof that businesses that have succeeded in doing so (and applied it with proper guidance have greater customer satisfaction and bigger gains. But the judgement should not be regarded casually as generally there are a variety of potential stumbling blocks and troubles.

Consider the following guidelines when beginning the process of implementing social media marketing for your business.

Choose where exactly you stand. A strategy is merely as good as the organization that brings it about. Effectively, choices have to be formed and you need to assume a position. Are you able to ascertain what your organization desires as a direct result of advertising and marketing? Will you elect to simply connect in reply to what someone else states? Do you want to be proactive in engaging the community? Do remember the network will be made up of many people that buy your goods and expertise along with people that assess them. Without an overall attitude concerning social media, it could be very difficult to produce a policy.

It truly is most beneficial to be resolute in the arguments for applying social websites activity. Make certain almost everyone (make that, everyone) is up to speed and agree wherever feasible. If effective, you’ll be able to reap the rewards in a somewhat limited time period.

Mark Clayson is a professional, home business entrepreneur, mentor and speaker. Visit his Social Media Blog to find out more.

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Are the Smaller Social Networking Sites Worth Signing Up For?
By Jeanne Grunert

Many people eschew the smaller social networking sites in favor of the big networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Linked In. Yet before you hop onto the Facebook bandwagon, let’s explore some of the positive aspects of smaller networking sites.

Go Where Your Customers Are Online

The key to effective social networking online for business is to go to the networks where your customers socialize, conduct business, and network. If your customers are all on a smaller networking site, talking to one another on a specific forum or message board, or hanging out on a popular website, then go there.

Think about it in comparison to traditional media. If you’re selling a mass-appeal product such as cookware, then direct television spots make sense. Everyone cooks or at least prepares food. That’s why you see so many infomercials for products like microwave cooking products, George Foreman grills, pots, pans and similar items.

Yet a niche business such as model train hobbyists wouldn’t fare as well through direct television spots unless they were chosen very carefully, say placed within a special on the History channel on the development of the railroads. Why? Because although collecting model trains is a wonderful and popular hobby, it’s not a hobby shared by everyone. For every person interested in model trains, there are nine others who don’t care about them.

Your job as a marketer is to find the 1 in 10 person who wants - no, needs - the latest, greatest and best model trains out there.

If we’re talking about social networking instead of direct television spots, the analogy still holds true. Large sites such as Facebook do enable you to connect with millions of people worldwide. You may do so to network or out of curiosity. That’s all fine. But if you’re trying to maximize your time and efforts using social networking for marketing, it pays to find out first where the 1 person in 10 who wants and needs your product is hanging out. Then go there, get to know people, and share messages related to your product.

Marketing Through Social Networking Sites

What do you do to promote your product or service once you’re on a social network? First and foremost, don’t jump right into your sales pitch. Nothing turns off potential customers more than hard-hitting sales pitches before they’ve even gotten to know you.

Social networking sites are first and foremost about networking. Like in person networking events, you want to meet, greet, exchange pleasantries and get to know people. Then and only then can you introduce things you sell or want to promote. Don’t jump right into the sales pitch before you’ve gotten to know someone. That’s about as obnoxious as a sexual come-on at a party when you’ve just met a person. Don’t you want to know about them first?

Determine Which One Perform Best

One final way in which you can tell whether or not small social networking sites are better than large social networking sites: test them.

Choose three of your favorite social networking sites. Choose one of the smaller social networking sites as one of the three. Now begin to cultivate your messages and relationships. Develop an attractive profile and keep on message. Which one works better for you? Where are your leads coming from? One way to set up such a test as a direct marketing test of sorts is to create a unique URL for each social networking site profile and direct each URL into a special landing page on your website. This way, your site metrics will give you the response rate for your social networking efforts.

The only way to really know which sites work best for your promotional efforts is to test them. Get started today! There’s no time like the present.

Jeanne Grunert’s latest book, “The Art of Effective Online Social Networking” (http://sevenoaksconsulting.com/socialnetworking.aspx), teaches you the basics of how to use this fast-growing online platform to acquire, retain and create loyal customers. An award-winning author and online marketing expert with over 20 years of experience, Jeanne is available to help YOU grow your business. Call her at 434-574-6253 for a free consultation today.

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Social Networking Strategies - How to Use Social Contacts to Grow Your Online Profits
By David Hale

Today, it seems everyone is using social networking strategies as a method to grow their online profits. One good tactic to employ is contacting old connections.

Use your past relationships to attract new referrals and connections: One of the top ways to build referrals and influential relationships is by reconnecting with old friends and family members or those influentials within your target market. Log onto Digg and search for your target market and see who the top people are who are receiving the most Diggs. They will be the ones on the first page.

If it is old classmates and friends you wish to reconnect with the best site uses Facebook or classmates.com. This is one of the best marketing methods because these people already know, like and trust you will choose your major hurdle to negotiate in the marketing waters.

Most of the top social network sites allow you to connect with people through the e-mail addresses. You never know which old classmate of yours is actually a market influencer who you may be able to plug into to dramatically and exponentially grow your business.

Like with any marketing venture, it is a numbers game. For every one hundred contacts you have, there may be only five who will buy your products right away. Another ten may buy after seven to ten email contacts, and another 10 may buy after a few months or even a year. The rest will never buy.

By using strategic social networking strategies and your social contacts to generate additional more online profits will help you in turning your online business into a the turbo-charged machine.

If you are out to attract prospective customers and develop your online presence and exposure, you owe it to yourself and the financial future of your business to learn everything you can about Internet marketing and social networks.

Want to discover more social networking strategies?

Do you want to learn more Internet marketing techniques on how to use social networks successfully?

For more information on Internet marketing and free training, go to http://www.drdavehaleonline.com.

Dr. Dave Hale, The Internet Marketing Professor, is one of the country’s leading developers of Internet marketing and social media curriculum for businesses and universities and specializes in online marketing communications.

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Expanding Your Business Through Social Networking For Business
By Michael D Saunders

Networking with other businesses in the same industry can increase your sales, improve your product lines and ensure your company is one of the top competitors. It used to be that businesses had to meet face to face or through local business associations. While that method is still great, it is no longer required! Many business owners can experience the great benefits of social networking for business online.

Business owners can meet other business owners online. Those who know each other in the real world can also add each other online to strengthen relationships. There are certain services and tools that are needed by every single business owner. Credit card processing, basic supplies and services can be appreciated at a lower cost by every single business owner. Certain types of businesses may not be common in a particular region. For example, ice cream is not nearly as common in Alaska as it is in Florida. Business owners can gain insights from experienced owners in other states and countries. While the conditions may not be the exact same they will provide more information and details.

Franchised businesses can also take advantage of social networking for businesses. They can have owners sign up for their own private networks or have them join groups on major social networks. This allows everyone to connect and learn about potential problems and solutions for their businesses as well as have professional relationships. Facebook has groups that are for many different things. Everything from a group about the sport of rugby to groups for McDonald’s employees are available to join. There is no fee and no limit on the number of members that can join a group.

Business owners who take advantage of social networking for their businesses can also increase sales. Social networks are a great method of reaching existing and new customers at a fraction of the cost of other marketing methods. Most individuals who are asked to join a group or view a page on a social network will. They do not have to be amazed, interested or even paid. Most simply will look at the account and decide whether they are interested in the page or not. However, this can lead to many small businesses wanting to spend all of their marketing time or budgets on social media. While spending some time and money on social media is a great idea, you want to diversify. Having a combined strategy of social media integration and other marketing methods will lead to the most success.

Businesses that do not take full advantage of what social media has to offer are losing out. Sales, customer satisfaction and employee happiness can increase dramatically through a series of social media accounts. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts should be standard for every business, regardless of what industry they work in or products they deliver. Connect with customers on the social media services that they use in order to find a free method of marketing to millions of people.

Are you trying to add tools for social networking for business? Get the 1st two chapters FREE of my book The Prism Salvation that is all about implementing smart social media for businesses! Go to http://www.ThePrismSalvation.com now to get the 1st two chapters!

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