But what good can come of these viral posts, videos, and emails?  Can they be leveraged for marketing purposes?  Is it ethical to do so?  Would it even be effective?  Who knows?  Maybe the polls were helped along by the “I Got a Crush..on Obama” video.  Perhaps wedding DJs would have seen a decline in funds if it weren’t for all the funny first dance videos sweeping the internet.

Viral marketing comes in here somewhere.  People who work in viral marketing hope that their marketing pieces “go viral.”  They utilize social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr to spread their marketing message like a virus.  The white hats do it organically.  They create great content, it goes viral, and BAM – people know their brand.  The black hats do it with spam and dishonest social media manipulation.  In fact, the term “viral marketing” has a bad connotation in most circles, because of the dishonest ways in which some individuals and companies attempt to reach the public.

So, if you create some really funny content, and it has the potential to go viral, you can either post it up on YouTube ala “David at the Dentist” and have someone maybe throw some money your way (I think that guy got $100,000 or something), or you can use your powers for good and find a good partner and a good way to leverage your opus for a cause that counts.  And you might even make a little money in the process.

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Social media is not a fad – it is here to stay.

The issue is how to gatecrash someone else’s party with a commercial message that doesn’t get you thrown out of the door as soon as you walk in!

This is the conundrum which established, mainstream social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace are trying to address as they seek to monetize all those surfer eyeballs spending minutes, hours and days on the internet.  While this may seem like someone else’s problem, it is in fact every business’ problem – how to engage potential customers as part of their recreational time online.

It is important for businesses to understand that while Facebook, Digg, Reddit, LinkedIn and the rest of the big players in social media, may be grabbing the headlines with multi-million dollar valuations and financing, they are not the only party on the block.

So let’s take a look at three sites you may not have heard of, but they are bubbling under the top division in the social media league.

Kirtsy.com (Alexa 10,100)

Kirtsy caters primarily for women and it’s a good social media site for businesses looking to attract women as their prospective customers.

The site is primarily user-content driven with a substantial amount of third party content added by the users themselves for comment, education and simple fun.  Kirtsy focuses on female friendly topics and issues, but they do include forums and self-help groups for dealing with more than just relationships and the site lends itself to infiltration by businesses with something positive and constructive to say on issues such as technology, especially if it addresses a female experience with the issue.

Kirtsy is well laid out, simple to use and easy to register – it stands out because of its focus on women.

Small Business Brief

(http://smallbusinessbrief.com)

This is a good example of how to develop a blog into a social media site – Small Business Brief is primarily a blog, with content centering upon small business issues, however, it has developed beyond a blogger writing posts.

The site/blog stands out because of the quality of the posts and information which is included – it is obviously written well and by people who really do know what they are talking about based upon experience.  What makes SBB stand out though is the opportunity for users, eg. your business, to interact with solution provision.  If you do have a genuine B2B solution, then SBB has a platform for you to hold forth.  If you are a B2C company, you have a community of tens of thousands of small and medium sized business owners for you to tap into, to bolster your own knowledge and experience base.

SBB has some way to go in getting its format better developed, but it certainly shows how powerful even a simple platform can become in the social media niche.

NowPublic.com

NowPublic is a social media platform powered by citizen journalists who either write, or more usually, share existing content with the rest of the site community.  News items are voted up or down, depending on popularity pretty much the same way as we see on Digg or Reddit.

NowPublic stands out because of the diversity of issues which are covered – there is a well organized format which effectively replicates the content of a serious newspaper, and there is a very active community of users and a vocal commentary on stories of consequence.

Consider NowPublic to be an evolution of Digg and Reddit, with a greater degree of organization, much more user-friendly and a very lively community which is not primarily made up of internet nerds, but Joe Public with a passion for issues.

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Google Rankings are Earned, Not Entitled

“If you build it, they will come!”, may be a maxim many follow when creating a website, but the reality comes as a cold, freezing slap across the face for most.  Generating traffic to your site is crucial if it is to provide any meaningful impact on your business in terms of profit, sales and generating brand awareness, but this takes more than a great looking website – it takes a lot of planned and recurring effort to promote your website to both the search engines, such as Google, and to human visitors who have money to burn.

Think for a moment about what a website is.  A good analogy is to look at a website as being a billboard on the side of a road – the more cars driving along that road, then the greater the response and impact from the billboard.  How good the billboard is helps a lot to convert drivers, but to have any impact at all, you need the billboard labeled somewhere where people will see it to begin with.

Imagine your website is a billboard which is in the middle of a desert and only rarely does a car pass by.  Fortunately, the satellite navigation systems of all these drivers can detour them past your billboard, provided you offer something of value.  These satellite navigation systems are the search engines and of them all, Google is the largest and most important.  If you convince Google to send you traffic, you stand a much better chance of achieving your online business objectives.

Therein is the crucial key – you must convince Google and the other search engines to send you traffic.

This means there is a lot of work to do in promoting your website which goes beyond simply providing a lot of content.  For a start, the content you do use must be relevant and optimized for the search terms which are likely to generate the traffic to begin with.  This requires website owners to research key phrases extensively so they have a good grasp on what their potential customers are using to find information in the net in connection with their service and product offering.  The content and website coding, then needs to be optimized with this keyword research in mind.

It is almost impossible to get a high ranking in Google without obtaining an extensive network of other websites linking to yours.  A link from another website is considered to be a vote of confidence in your own site, and this in turn is rewarded with a higher ranking.  To be of value, a link must come from a site which is relevant – there is little value in a link from a website selling flowers when you are selling hi-tech electronics.  Link building is a definite art which requires a lot of tact, diplomacy and negotiation between website owners in order to optimize the impact on search engine rankings.  It is time consuming and a good link portfolio is not built in a few days or weeks.

Search engines are not the only game in town either – a considerable amount of user time is being spent on social media sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and MySpace.  Building a great site is only one aspect of your online business presence; perhaps it is better to regard the website as the commercial focus around which you will build a network of online sites which point back to the main website.  Blogging, Facebook fan pages, article marketing, Twitter tweeting and a whole lot more should be considered to spread the word about your fantastic website loaded with lots of relevant content, but all of this is going to take time.

Gaining a high Google rank is something which takes patience and a lot of hard work and even more to maintain that high ranking once it is achieved.  This means that successful website management must adopt a reiterative approach to promotion and constantly work at improving the site and site marketing to open the search engine flood gates which will direct potential customers to your online billboard.

Shell Harris, Big Oak SEO

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3. A Twitter Fan’s Review of Plurk

Plurk may do the same as what Twitter does, but it does it far better in my opinion – and I speak as a fan of Twitter who applauds their independent stance, which has so far kept them out of the hands of the likes of Google!

You get a text input box to type in your strictly limited 140 characters, you get to follow friends and persons of interest, and they you in return. All the “immediate” real-time updating that has become Twitter’s hallmark and differentiators from other social media sites is present in Plurk.

But what makes Plurk different is so very attractive and what separates it from Twitter.

The most impressive difference is the timeline which is used to show you exactly when a “plurk” (the same as a “tweet”) is made. You get a scrolling timeline which defaults to the current time being shown in the center of the screen – as time progresses , it scrolls to the right and updates with your plurks and those of connected, fellow “plurkers.” Twitter has “FriendFeed” to manage the tweet thread’s but Plurk has it all in one place as soon as you have the UI up in front of you – very refreshing and extremely enjoyable.

Plurk presents what your fellow plurkers are up to in a very manageable and easily readable way without being clunky or requiring a lot of mouse-messing around. Twitter doesn’t beat that.

While Twitter allows you 140 characters, Plurk provides some qualifiers to allow you to make full use of the rationed characters allowed – on Twitter, I’d tweet, “I love eating hash browns at the American Diner”, but with Plurk, I can use a range of qualifies – Karl loves, hates, shares, wants, wishes …{my plurk message} – this gets around the shortage of characters by using some standardized qualifiers.

Sign up is a breeze – I mean it took me all of 60 seconds to sign up, and most of that time was wasted on the dilemma I faced about disclosing my age! The ability to migrate email and other social media contacts is also extremely straightforward, and my FaceBook and email address books were notified with one click. Privacy settings are also easy to manage. I really liked the ability to regulate privacy settings for different contacts.

In fact, there is nothing clunky about Plurk – the developers have really gotten their act together on this site.

So where did the name “Plurk” come from?

Plurk may sound like a made-up name that evolved from some stoned developer’s bong-time, but the humor behind the name tells a rather different story. Plurk actually stands for something, unlike most other Web 2.0 sites, and here are the components:

Plurk can be an acronym – People, Love, Unity, Respect, Karma (perhaps there was some bong-time involved after all).

On the other hand, Plurk can be a combination of People and Lurk, for all the cyber-stalkers out there, but I prefer the corruption of Play & Work. Plurk is certainly going to spin-off a whole new range of words for the modern lexicon, and all of them are going to sound like they should mean something naughty – I plurk, you plurked, “Who’s plurking over there?” and of course “What a plurker!”

Frankly, Plurk wins out on Twitter not for the UI but because it has one essential ingredient Twitter seems to have lost – fun!

Lawrence Reaves, Big Oak SEO Company

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He answers this question: Links from relevant and important sites have always been a great way to get traffic & acceptance for a website. How do you rate links from new platforms like Twitter, FB to a website?

Essentially, Matt says Google treats links the same whether they are from Facebook or Twitter, as they would if they were from any other site. It’s just an extension of the pagerank formula, where its not the amount of links, but how reputable those links are (the company uses a similar strategy for ranking Tweets themselves in real-time search).

While Facebook and Twitter links may be treated like any other links, they do still come with things to keep in mind. For one, with Facebook, you have to keep in mind that a lot of profiles are not public. When a profile is not public, Google can’t crawl it, and it can’t assign pagerank on the outgoing links if it can’t fetch the page to see what the outgoing links are. If the page is public, it might be able to flow pagerank, Matt says. With Twitter, most links are nofollowed anyway.

“At least in our web search (our organic rankings), we treat links the same from Twitter or Facebook or, you know, pick your favorite platform or website, just like we’d treat links from WordPress or .edus or.govs or anything like that,” says Cutts. “It’s not like a link from an .edu automatically carries more weight or a link from a .gov automatically carries more weight. But, the specific platforms might have issues, whether it’s not being crawled or it might be nofollow. It would keep those particular links from flowing pagerank.”

By Chris Crum

source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/01/14/how-google-rates-links-from-facebook-and-twitter

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Facebook represents a fantastic opportunity to engage with prospects and customers at zero cost and only the investment of a small amount of time.  Facebook is also an excellent networking tool because it attracts more adults than any other networking site and as such, it is very attractive for businesses looking for a target audience with the means and need for their products and services.

The big issue for Facebook business users is how to get their message across to readers and then get them to pass the message around throughout their own social circle – this is known as “going viral”.  For an excellent example, take a look at the Burger King campaign last year which traded a burger for sacrificing 10 friends – this campaign was immensely successful because it was fun and appealing to all demographics, and was widely adopted across the online networking community.

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The reality is you will need to spend more time on the net but not necessarily more money.  The reason for this is that so much is available on the internet in terms of resources and huge numbers of potential customers already on there.  The issue for you is how to tap into that pool of prospects and gaining understand and skills to use the resources already there.

Nevertheless, you’re rich enough to have $50 to hand so let’s see what you can get done.

Build and Promote a Web Site

For $50 and around an hour, you can build yourself a landing page to promote your business, provide an overview of products and services and make sure your contact information is available for those prospects who want to speak to you.

You do not need to invest thousands in web designers or marketing specialists nor do you need specialist skills yourself.  If you are new to e-commerce, search for free web design services and hosting and test the water first.  If your project returns results, you can consider increasing your allocation of time and money resources and then call in the professionals.  At most, you will need to spend $50 to pay for hosting or a website template to use.

Social Media and Networking Sites

Signing up and producing a profile with FaceBook, MySpace, Ning, Bebo, Orkut and the many other online networking sites is easy and best of all, free!

In return for signing up and generating a profile for your business or particular product or service line, you will be able to generate traffic to your own website off the networking site.  In addition, you get a lot of users referring items of interest around the online networks which is what many marketing professionals look to achieve – getting their social media promotional activity to go “viral”.

We still haven’t spent the $50 yet, but if you feel like doing so, head over to LinkedIn, the business networking community and subscribe.  You don’t have to pay to register and develop a profile but the paying subscribers get better exposure and access to more promotional tools.

Buy a Great Sounding Domain Name

Head over to GoDaddy or any of the domain name companies and you will see offers such as, “Get Your Domain Name for Free” or in any event, less than a few dollars.  The reality is that most of the great sounding domain names have already been bought and if they are not actively being used by someone else, they will be gathering virtual dust as someone is holding the domain name for resale or because they no longer need it but haven’t thought of selling it.

For a great sounding domain name or to buy one from someone else who is no longer using it, be prepared to spend a little more time and a little more money to get a name which will really attract visitors to the site.

Establish a Blog

Setting up a blog is relatively simple and straight forward and you can do it for free as well – just head over to WordPress or Blogger and follow the step by step instructions.

Blogging is very popular and while it does not eclipse search engines for popularity amongst users, blogs have become the focus of a great deal of activity and discussion over the net.

If you want to spend some money, look at buying a domain name for use with your free blog with WordPress who for $10 will let you use your own domain name without the wordpress.com extension and make yourself look more professional.

Dell Atlas – Article made possible by Exhibit Wholesale, online suppliers of trade show displays.

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Following on the heels of older social networking sites like Friendster and Myspace, Facebook has become more than just a social networking site. Many people use it to promote their businesses or their personal interests (think charities, clubs, etc), and many people are using it in this tough economy to promote their own personal brand.

What is a personal brand? Think of it in terms of what you would want a potential employer to see. If you are marketing yourself, you only want to show the best side of yourself to the internet world. In fact, many hiring managers and HR professionals use Facebook to check out applicants. Additionally, some colleges check sites like Facebook and Myspace to research students who apply.

That being said, there are some obvious rules to follow if you are using Facebook as a means to brand yourself. Even if you’re not actively using it for that reason, the things you put on Facebook can work against you if you put questionable photos, or comments on your profile or on the profile of your friends.

We’ll go into how to make Facebook work for you in your personal branding efforts, but for now let’s talk about what you shouldn’t be putting out there.

Photos

Semi-nudity and a child bathing in the tub. Would you hire her as your babysitter?

Your photos are a big part of your Facebook page. It’s best to avoid putting questionable or suggestive photos of yourself on your Facebook page. Use your best judgment, but it’s best to avoid partial nudity. Facebook generally blocks real nudity, but what Facebook deems appropriate and what you should consider appropriate for your page should be different. Unless you are an up-and-coming swimsuit model, multiple pictures of yourself in swimwear is probably not appropriate. That’s not to say that the occasional vacation pic is a no-no, but you should generally have more photos in plain clothes than in bikinis or Speedos. Also, photos of yourself in compromising situations should be avoided. It might only be tobacco in that hookah, but the average person browsing Facebook doesn’t know that. Same for pictures of yourself drunk and disorderly, or doing anything illegal. A good rule of thumb to use is even if you don’t care what a potential employer thinks, think about what your mother would say.

Profile Information

We’ll go into it more soon, but your profile should be complete and reflect your true interests and goals. If you care about your personal branding image, you won’t use Facebook as a dating site (there are plenty of websites out there for that) and you’ll use a bit of decorum when filling out your profile.

Status Updates and Wall Posts

What you say reflects who you are, whether you like it or not. Excessive use of profanity or vulgarity makes you look, well, profane and vulgar. Remember that the internet is a very big place, and what you say can have a lot of impact on how people perceive you. Be smart, and make these types of sites work for you. And be sure to keep watch on what people say about you. You don’t want a situation that Expedia was confronted with (see image below.)

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