Everyone connected to the web has managed to build and maintain an online social network. With so many ways to connect, most people have all or most of their family and friends on one or more sites. Social networking is the most popular online activity. It has even beat search engine usage. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Digg provide a means for people to connect and share. With more and more people joining these websites, the online social media business is flourishing. With so many different sites being offered and people from across the world are able to share their daily life through them.

The popularity of these sites has led to social marketing. More and more people are trying to get out their adverts on these websites. Even if they don’t advertise there directly, they indirectly find ways to link these sites to them. For instance, they may have a blog that holds information on statistics or guides on making proper use of them. Blogs and websites have social media icons on them that users find very appealing to connect to. In some cases, these icons have options to “share” the information with friends on a particular website. Others indicate different places where they can be found. Thus, if a visitor belongs of the social networking site himself, he will probably find the icon impressive.

The best part about social media marketing is that it is totally free. All you need is internet access to get started. You can sign up for no charges at all and start reaching people from around the globe. This has also helped bridge the gap between companies and their customers. For instance, a company can have a Facebook page to interact with its consumers totally free of cost. Through such a page, the company can get feedback and introduce new products. The thing about social media sites is that information travels fast with so many people being online.

The social media network, being so widespread, acts as a good platform to help create awareness. Whatever your motive may be, you can always use social media sites to inform more people. These sites can also be used to raise charities. There are even websites targeted for kids that provide a safe online environment for them to play and interact with other kids. Some people think that being on social media sites is time consuming and useless. However, the truth is that it has become the most productive online activity. In fact, social media websites are time saving since they bring together people from all over the world. You can interact with them much easily online.

A big mistake that businesses make is to simply put their current company literature onto a website and expect this to be sufficient to have a maximum impact online. A business does not want a web visitor to have the same experience that they could have from offline literature. The business website must utilise the potential of the internet and form a website that is engaging and communicates to the web visitor on many levels. A successful online business utilises the creativity and communication techniques that can be sought online to give the customer an interactive experience on the website.

Having an interactive ecommerce solution is now an obligation for businesses to sell online. Many businesses fail to add certain elements to their website which engage with the customer, here are the top elements that need to be included in an ecommerce software solution:

• Social Bookmarking: The recent Google algorithm update has meant the need for an ecommerce solution to have a social presence is now a necessity. There is now huge traffic and potential customers on social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The ecommerce software must have the ability to link into these sites and interact with their customers. Having sharing buttons on the ecommerce solution so that customers can spread the word on your behalf to their friends and colleagues is a priceless marketing tool and is so simple to incorporate.
• The businesses social presence is now benefitting the businesses search results more than ever with the algorithm update. This means that increasing the social brand will benefit the traffic and potential sales. By adding these ‘share’ buttons and ‘like’ buttons will increase your social presence and now that the search engines are using a websites social status as an element when ranking the website they are essential tools that need to be incorporated.
• Email Newsletter: Collecting web visitors’ information and statistics is fundamental to the success of an online business, knowing their web habits and behaviours will give the business an advantage over competition. By adding a ‘subscribe to newsletter’ option, the business is then able to gain an email address of the web visitor and interact via email. When the email list starts to grow, it can be become one of your most valuable marketing tools as information can sent directly to the web visitors’ inbox. By engaging with the customer, with their consent, the ecommerce solution is more likely to make a sale, as the customer has expressed an interest in the website already.

Incorporating these elements into a business website will gain the website an exposure to your customers and interact with them to create sales. By utilising the social market will give the business an exposure to a market that is growing all the time and will be the future of how a customer finds your product or service.

I run a small offline business which in recent months has enjoyed a very nice upswing in business thanks to the internet. This was no accident – I’ve been working hard on my marketing for about a year. Much of this effort was spent learning how to market my business online.

During this process of getting it right, I’ve bought some garbage courses and information. But, within the piles of garbage I’ve also bought some real gems that without I’d not be enjoying my recent surge in sales and new customers.

As I look back about what’s were good purchases for learning marketing and which were not useful at all, I’ve come up with the following criteria to look for when choosing a business marketing guide or system.

3 Criteria When Choosing a Small Business Marketing System:

1. Don’t buy a small business marketing system that promises to teach you everything about marketing. What you’ll often get is a lot of fluff and little substance. You’ll probably know most of the information already in the massive “all-in-one” marketing kits.

No marketing author can tell you about print advertising, SEO, social media, referrals, viral marketing, e-mail marketing, direct marketing, TV ads, etc. Each of these topics on their own are self-contained guides or systems.

Instead, know exactly what you wish to learn about or improve, and buy a business marketing guide that caters to your need specifically.

2. Don’t buy from someone who doesn’t have real-life marketing experience. You preferably want to buy from someone who actually runs a small business and does their own marketing.

There are hundreds of people who write about marketing and sell “marketing systems” but have never done it for real.

3. Be prepared to do the work yourself – or at least do some of it so you get a hands-on education so you can properly hire people to implement the marketing activities taught. If you’re not prepared to roll up your sleeves and take action, no business marketing system will work for you.

In my view the best type of business marketing guide to buy is one that teaches you how to hone your online marketing. Focusing my marketing activities on the Internet has by far worked the best for me during the last 6 to 12 months.