It is exciting to know that a new form of media is taking shape and this media can hold a  wide range of possibilities for marketing the products and services of clients; but in the same breadth, it is also worrisome to know that social  media does not have any form of restrictions or rules for marketing services and products. Don’t get me wrong. It is a good thing that finally after decades, centuries even, of keeping mum over issues, ordinary people are finding their voice and getting those voices heard.

It is good that we now have the freedom to say what we feel and have that communicated to other people all over the world. But as a marketing practitioner for many years, I am also worried that social media may eventually be used by unscrupulous individuals to promote their services underhandedly and worst still, give false information. Right now, social media marketing services are beginning to boom. Companies are working double time to make sure that they stay ahead in the game.

Unfortunately, some have resorted to promoting their products and services by putting in false blog posts and forum comments. How is this done? They just create multiple accounts on their websites and make several positive comments about the product or service. Consumers who do not know better would naturally assume that the comments came from different people. Some even resorted to putting negative information about the products and services of their competitors. And since there is no law against doing this, they have the freedom to engage in such practice. It is cutthroat I guess but business need not be so.

You would have read from my various posts in the past that I am a strong advocate of increased dialogue to establish greater understanding and bring about some guidelines to bring about more credibility. The new conferences and seminars throughout USA and even in UK is a good sign that the move is beginning to take place. In the meantime, we could all contribute to the desired end goal by being more responsible even if our competitors aren’t being so.

Selva

I don’t want to sound snooty or be a snob but I believe that there are a number  of  bloggers and so called social media people who seriously need to have some form of training  not only in their use of the language but also in the way they report their news.

Not only because Social Media is fairly new but also because it has tremendous potential  that I feel that people need to get some kind of social media education first and find out what exactly social media is and how it can impact the world. I guess, few people who post and blog away, guess at how much their short prose can change a world. If they know the power and potential of Social Media , I don’t think that they will look at it lightly or post things without really thinking about it first or verifying the information unless of course they are doing it deliberately to mislead people or to misinform them.

And this is not some conspiracy theory that I have cooked up. It is entirely possible for some people to use social media to further their own agenda. You have to remember that blog posts are anonymous and though it is completely traceable, the government will not waste time using their resources to trace a post unless it is some threat to national security.

The point I like to make is that while it is completely ideal for people who want to use it to promote their products or promote someone quite legitimately and that is a good thing, it could also be used to destroy the reputation of someone or something or start a gossip quite maliciously too. It is so easy at present. With time, I am sure sanity will prevail, especially as people get more educated on the correct use of this great platform to conduct and promote businesses. Experts have actually realized this fact and have called for conference  and increased dialogue or some way to provide education for social media practitioners and subscribers.

Selva

I think that social media is the next big thing and it is the future of news and information dissemination. There is however a lot of things that people and agencies need to look into about this and in my opinion, experts in the field of media should look into it now before people get used to what they are doing right now. There must be a social media conferences that must be organized not only regionally but also both country wide and world wide.

It is indeed refreshing to note that  Social Media Summit 2010 is taking place right now in the USA. In the UK, a four day Social Media gathering in London was so overbooked that a second gathering was quickly put together very successfully.

These conferences should not only invite the industry bigwigs but also people like me who subscribe to information from social media and also people who engage in social media practices. For me, it is absolutely refreshing to finally have the chance to say what we think and to have an audience for it. It is also refreshing in turn to finally be able to know what other people think, people beyond our circle of friends and acquaintances. This is the opportunity that social media has given us: the chance to share ourselves.

But in recent months, people have come to rely on social media for their information and news. It is however important to realize that no matter how much well written a piece is, it does not have the credibility that news and information that came from official agencies have.

There is however no doubt that Social Media is fast taking over the “Buzz “ creation while the journalists concentrate more on the validation. Social media cannot be stopped though and the only way to make this work, in my opinion, is to organize conferences that will gather all the people involved and get them to talk and engage in a dialogue. That way, information from social media can be sieved through and monitored without compromising freedom of speech.

Selva

With how popular social media has become in recent years especially during this year with the boom of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, people have begun to see the potential income from this new piece of media. Besides all the new social media platforms that have begun to mushroom on the world wide web, there are also companies that have been created to take advantage of the buzz that social media sites create.

One such kind is a social media marketing company that is designed to ensure that products and services of their clients have presence in various social media networks and platforms.  These marketing companies create videos that are uploaded for promotion, online activities and even blog posts that are meant to inform and educate consumers about their products. And as a testament to how social media has become a legitimate platform for advertisements, there are even companies whose sole service is to measure the performance of social media sites and compare advertisement and product exposure against traditional media in print and broadcast.

Examples of these companies are the following: Buzzlogic, Nielsen BuzzMetrics, MotiveQuest, Technorati & Edelman, Onalytica, Market Sentinel, CIC Data (a Chinese company), BrandIntel, Umbria , Kavaa, Unica, Factiva, MediaMiser, Biz360, Politizbuzz ( a French company), Wavemetrix and Radian6 (UK), Integrasco (Norway), and Gala (Japan).  The creation of these companies (and their sheer number) only go to show that social media is a hit among people and that companies are starting to notice the possibilities that lie in advertising and marketing their products in social media sites.

Selva

Social media as an emerging medium for companies to put across information about their products and promote them excite companies. And who would not be excited? I mean, from a marketing point of view, social media websites and applications are a goldmine for business promotion and product marketing. Just imagining how a single blog post can reach hundreds of people all over the world is enough to make a marketing person jump up and down in glee. You can make your own websites and invite people to visit it by giving out free downloads and holding online contests.

You can try promoting your products by posting on blogs and forums. You can join online groups and post your marketing dialogue. You can invite your friends in facebook and other social networking sites to try your new product. You can post a video online showing how easy to use your product is. You can make wiki entry so that people will know that your product is legitimate.  The possibilities are endless when it comes to business promotion in social media.

But while there are a lot of great things that you can do to promote your products, there are a lot of great things that your competitors can do to malign your product. This is perhaps what worries the marketing world about social media now. Because information can come from just anyone and the medium is totally free and ungoverned, there is no way of knowing whether what you are reading is true or just made up. One can just as easily lie about something and get away with it because no one will be monitoring it anyway. If you say it from a personal point of view, who would challenge your opinion? Everyone is entitled to have one.

Having said all that, it is also true that social media is all about community. If you set up a sharing platform and build honest and accurate communication that allows other participants to share their views, you will indeed  succeed with your promotions. Remember that good long term business can only be established and sustained though building credibility.

Selva

Here are six ideas to help you start your viral marketing campaign:

(1)Purchase the branding rights to a viral E-book.Allow people to give away your free E-book to their visitors. Then, their visitors will also give it away. This will just continue to spread your ad all over the Internet.

(2)If you have the ability to set up a forum or other bulletin board, you really have a great tool. Allow people to use your online discussion board for their own website. Some people don’t have one. Just include your banner ad at the top of the board.

(3)Do you have a knack for web design? Create some templates, graphics, etc. and upload them to your site. Then, allow people to give away your free web design graphics, fonts, templates, etc. Just include your ad on them or require people to link directly to your web site. Make sure that you include a link back to your site in the copyright notice and require them to keep your copyright notice in tact.

(4)Write an E-book. Allow people to place an advertisement in your free E-book if, in exchange, they give away the E-book to their web visitors or E-zine subscribers.

(5)Write articles that pertain to your product or service. Allow people to reprint your articles on their website, in their E-zine, newsletter, magazine or E-books. Include your resource box and the option for article reprints at the bottom of each article.

(6)You can easily find products on the Internet that will sell you a license allowing you to distribute the product free of charge to other people. Look for those products that provide “branding rights”. That is where you can include your own name, website, and contact information.

For More Information Please Go To: http://www.BestOnlineSecrets.com

Social media is the newest kind of way that we present and pass along information. It used to be the newspaper, where people found out about the latest information and news about the world. We called newspapers, the print media. Then came the radio and then the television, which we called broadcast media. Now, we get information from another source, from the internet. But hey, don’t get confused. Social media does not refer to internet news sites. They are part of what is called the online media.

Social media refer to the information that we get from other people.

We get them from their blog posts, like what I am writing right now. We get them from the status that we post on our facebook and twitter accounts. We get them from videos that we contribute to websites as citizen journalists. These are information and news that are passed along and communicated through social interaction. This is what social media is all about: interaction. It democratizes media and puts the power to give news from the hands of a couple to the hands of the many or communities.

You may have already heard of the word social media but for the life of you, you just can’t figure out what social media is. Social media refers to the method or medium of transferring information from one person to another through social interaction.This is pretty broad, in my opinion, because virtually everything that we do can be deemed social interaction. So although most people would attribute social media to the use of the internet to express how we feel about certain issues— through blog articles, twitter updates and facebook statuses,  blog posts and forum posts and even this post I am just writing— many still maintain that social media is not really all that new.

In fact, according to some media experts, social media has actually been present for decades now. We are just not aware that it is. For instance, public speaking and demonstrations are said to be forms of social media. The same goes with slogans that are used in rallies. Even street preaching and person to person marketing which are often used to market credit cards are also forms of social media. And maybe they are right in defining what they believe social media is. After all, when you really look into its definition, anything can constitute social interaction. And admit it, those mentioned above do transfer information through a form of social interaction.

But for me, whether or not it has been around for decades or just years is not really the issue. The issue is whether it is the future of news media. People have increasingly relied on social media for their information and sometimes even news stories. I think this is what people should be debating on.

However this article is about tracing the roots of Social Marketing and the following content describes not only the roots but also how it has opened up to allow marketers to use the techniques to improve  the business opportunities it offers.

Social marketing is a new and innovative way of thinking and acting.It has brought to notice the old human endeavors but in a new and polished manner, so as to promote social concern and awareness of various topics for discussion among communities

Helping in the promotion of social concern as well as political ideas, social marketing dates back its origin to 1970s when two of its pioneers Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman, realized that the marketing principles and strategies which were used to sell products could simultaneously be employed to sell ideas, behaviors and even attitudes. The marketing strategy differing on just one point i.e. objectives of the marketer. Social marketing is no different from the other traditional marketing methods. This does not centralize the marketer but the target audiences or the general people or society instead, to benefit them greatly.

Having employed extensively in health programs at  international levels- especially focused on contraceptives and oral rehydration therapy (ORT)- the strategy is more used in US for even concerns such as heart diseases, drug abuses and also organ donation.

Basically concentrating on the actual needs of the people, social marketing is the application of marketing to find solutions to the social problems and where the main centralized idea is the behavior change. Targeted to enhance the personal welfare of the society it encompasses analysis, planning and preparation, execution of plans and also the evaluation of the programs.

Basically working for the social good, this method of marketing involves a systematic application to promote goods, and also to promote the well-being of the entire society and not just the marketer.

Especially proving a boon for low-income groups, social marketing proffers health products and services to that class of the society who cannot afford it otherwise.

The key feature being effective communication, it encourages the masses to adopt  health practices and to utilize the products and services completely so as to maintain the health of the whole society and not just few people. The programs involved make the social message heard and followed. Social marketing utilizes tools like educational campaigns and even specific advertising techniques, to reach the ears of target audiences.

Also using a mix of strategies and channels, interpersonal communications and mass media, the marketing strives to remove social concern totally  thus helps in building a better society as far as health and other matters are concerned.

A process brought into practice to bring change, social marketing is a modified term which has been given to the conventional methods of product and service marketing. Social marketing already has made great roots in the societies welfare and influences the life of people on every front, be it health, education, environment or other such important issues, which are threatening and deteriorating the life of communities.