Benson and Quarm Publishing: Want to make money on line? make a plan

Benson and Quarm Publishing: Want to make money on line? make a plan: You want to make extra income to pay bills,something on the side  for a rainy day.  So what do you do?   You get on line do a search fo...

why oh why dose internet marketing suck?

Internet marketing is boring frustrating overblown full of the false claims with many complex methods of doing it.

There is a learning curve which seem to increase all the time.

Yet with its many problems and shady parts, I still like, why?

how many business models do you know allow you to start with no money or experience?

Internet marketing is confusing because the customer is really you. You are seen as " prospects" or" newbie".

You are a" hot Lead"  because you need to learn how to make money online and in order to do that you are put through a "sales funnel".Which often starts with a free report, e-book, a training video, which is designed to get you to give your e-mail address then you are sent  engaging e-mails which tell you what your problem is and for a price, what the solution is, it is usually presented as the best thing since sliced bread, the solution to all your problems, there Is a scarcity tactic plus bonus, so it's a no-brainer.

Buy this product and all your problems will be solved.

So you buy the product, feel-good cause you feel like you have done something towards your financial freedom, now all you have to do is learn how to use it.

Ooh by the way, the product needs setting up which involves learning to use FTP, web hosting, domain registration, index files, payment systems, you writing  and creating compelling articles, sales letters, links to offers, autoresponders, getting people to sign up for your offers and the list goes on.

So you start to learn what it takes to make the products work while you're working or have other commitments.

You know there must be an easier, quicker way because people are making money online all the time

yeah sure there are scams,but your smart enough to see them coming. So you investigate further, start to learn all the things needed to make money online in realize i't  is going to take time to learn and implement it all.

So another service or product is offered by another marketer  you are aware of  in the field ,you take a look at the products or service, it is helping to make people money, this system requires minimal investment and time and yet it is helping people to produce full time income( what this system is

Has not been revealed yet)The presentation is a full blown Hollywood  production with light, editing, actors,with compelling message which appeals to you ,a scarcity tactic is used  and " a call to action".so you buy the product,service,find out that its useless.So why would a marketer with a good rep want to promote this Junk?

Because they get paid not for the product, but from the referral of you (as your name is on a list it gets passed around a few marketers who use it to part you from your money,one of the saying in the field is"the money is the list"this is affiliate marketing or MLM which is similar).

This is what is causing the bad reputation wtihin the industry.

You join a list in good faith wanting to find a way to make money online either at no cost or low cost.

What Happens is you are put into a highly developed marketing system designed to confuse you at the same time offering you solutions to your financial Problems, they all seem good, Some of it too good to be true, yet with a degree of truth, you could become wealthy if you use this system.

One of the main problems with Internet marketing is it is always coming at you from a wealth angle as opposed to a skill angle.

The business opportunities are always presented with pictures of wealth, expensive cars, homes, luxury holidays, pictures of payments going into accounts, large payments or a lot of payments at the same  time,Which is made to look very easy and simple to do(which it's not)that you can do as well.

Yet behind every system there is the mechanics, the skills, the planing, strategy, method, costing which is all needed before you see the presentation.That is what marketing is, on line or off, finding a group of people with a problem then providing the solution's to that problem.

Marketing is positioning a product or service to a group of people who are HAPPY to pay for it.

Example:I have a leaking tap which after trying to fix myself got worse, so i need a plumber so i contact my friend to recommend me someone he/she knows,they come along fix  leaking tap, problem solved.

My friend is not a marketer but was in the position to recommend someone who could help out,if my friend had not known the plumber i would have to go looking through the net,ads,not knowing what to expect.

Marketing has nothing to do with wealth building yet it is presented as such.

Marketing is two things

1.building a relationship with a group of people with a problem,then recommending solutions to them for a payment.

2 .positioning a product or service to a group  who understand what is on offer.

      Internet marketing like all skills,takes time to learn and master.
It is a skill with many different areas which require at least the basic knowledge of how it works,you do not need to be an expert in all fields but an understanding  of the area.Like S.E.O,email marketing,list building,social media,off line marketing,setting up and running campaigns.
Once you understand marketing is a skill which requires learning and practice you start to see  the different kinds of marking going on around you,on-line and off.
You start to see how it can be used to produce an income in many different ways.
Like helping local business design and run special offers,promote affiliate programmers,MLM,network marketing the right way.
So if your interested still in learn this wonderful skill......... ,yes! that's right ! I just so happen to have a link to my "sales funnel" which is set up in the hype sales style BUT don't let that stop you from seeing and learning the process,yes i will be recommending products and services to you but their is a lot of free quality learning material for free,which works.No sugar coating  or b.s about making $$$ by this time next week,i t can be done but it take setting up which has to be learned.You will see how it really works,all the products and services are designed to help you achieve your goal of making an on-line income.
Thanks for taking the time out to read this.
I hope this is the beginning of a long lasting relationship, below is a link to some free gifts,just to say thank you.
please click here for your gifts

   

Why did face book buy Whatsapp? by Adam Hartung

Three Smart Lessons From Facebook's Purchase Of WhatsApp

 

Facebook is acquiring WhatsApp, a company with at most $300M revenues, and 55 employees, for $19billion.

That’s billion – with a “b.” An astonishing figure that is second only to HP’sacquisition of market leader Compaq, which had substantial revenues and profits, as tech acquisitions.  $19B is 13 times Facebook’s (not WhatsApp’s) entire 2013 net income – and almost 2.5 times Facebook’s (again, not WhatsApp’s) 2013 gross revenues!

On the mere face of it this valuation should make the most dispassionate analyst swoon.  In today’s world very established, successful companies sell for far lower valuations.  Apple is valued at about 13 times earnings.  Microsoft about 14 times earnings.  Google 33 times.  These are small fractions of the nearly infinite P/E placed on WhatsApp.

There is a leadership lesson offered here by CEO Zuckerberg’s team that is well worth learning.

1. Move fast to avoid irrelevancy.

Irrelevancy can happen remarkably fast.  True in any industry, but especially in digital technology. Examples: Research-in-Motion/Blackberry.  Motorola.  Dell.  HP.  All lost relevancy in months, and are struggling.  (For those who want non-tech examples think of Circuit City, Best Buy, Sears,JCPenney, Abercrombie and Fitch.)  Each of these companies was an industry leader that lost its luster, many of its customers, a big chunk of its employees and much of its market valuation in months when the company missed a market shift.

In a very short time market trends reduced the value of each company’s historical success formula, leaving investors, as well as management, wondering how it was going to compete.

Facebook is not immune to changing market trends.  Although it has been the benchmark for social media, it only achieved that goal after annihilating early leader MySpace.  And although Facebook was built by youthful folks, trends away from using laptops and toward mobile devices have challenged the Facebook platform.  Simultaneously, changing communication requirements have altered the use, and impact, of things like images, photos, charts and text.  All of these have the potential impact of slowly (or not so slowly) eroding the value (which is noticeably lofty) of Facebook.

Most leaders address such challenges by launching new products to leverage the trend.  And Facebook did that.  Facebook managers and technologists not only worked on making the platform more mobile friendly, but developed Facebook’s own platform apps for photos, messaging and all kinds of new features.

But, and this is critical, external companies did a better job.  Two years ago Instagram emerged as a leader in image sharing.  And WhatsApp developed a superior answer for messaging.

Historically, we trained leaders to say “we need to find a way to beat these new guys.”  Management would make it hard to integrate new solutions with their dominant platform in an effort to block their growth.  Management would spend hugely on marketing and branding to try overcoming the emerging leader’s building brand position.  Often management would file intellectual property litigation in an effort to cause short-term business interruption and threaten viability.  The entrenched leader might even try hiring the emerging company’s tech leader away to stop development.

Often answers come from the market, not internal efforts.

All of these actions were efforts to defend & extend the early leader’s market position.  Even though the market is shifting, and trends are developing externally from the company, leadership will tend to look inside for an answer.  Leaders will often ignore or downplay the trend, disparage the competition, keep promising improvements to historical products and services and blanket the media with PR flagging stated superiority.

But, as the list (above) of companies that lost relevancy demonstrates, this rarely works.  In a highly interconnected, fast-paced, globally competitive marketplace customers go where they want.  Quickly.  Often leaving the early leader with a management team (and Board of Directors) scratching its head and wondering how it lost so much market position, and value, so quickly.

Hand it to Mr. Zuckerberg’s team.  Instead of ignoring trends in its effort to defend & extend its early lead, they reached out and brought the leader to them.  $1B for Instagram was a big investment, especially so close to launching an IPO.  But, it kept Facebook relevant in mobile platforms and imaging.

Making a nosebleed-creating $19B deal for WhatsApp focuses on maintaining relevancy

WhatsApp already processes almost as many messages as the entire telecom industry.  It has 450million users with 70% active daily, which is already 60% the size of Facebook’s daily user community (550million.)  By bringing these people into the Facebook corporate family it assures Facebook of continued relevancy as the market shifts.  It doesn’t matter if these are the same people, or different people.  The issue is that it keeps Facebook relevant, rather than losing relevance to a competitor.

2. Giving an acquisition independence is critical

How will this all be monetized into $19B?  The second brilliant leadership call by Facebook is to not answer that question, because nobody really knows.

Facebook didn’t know how to monetize its early leadership in users, but management knew it had to find a way.  Now the company has grown from practically no revenues in 2008 to almost $8B in just 5 years.  (Does your company have a plan to add $8B/year of organic revenue growth by 2019?)

So just as Facebook had to find its revenue model (which it is still exploring,) Zuckerberg’s team allows the leadership of Instagram and WhatsApp to remain independent, operating in their own White Space, to grow their user base and learn how to monetize what is an extraordinarily large group of happy folks.  When looking to grow in new markets, and you find a team with the skills to understand the trends, it is independence rather than integrationthat makes the most sense organizationally.

3. Create, and use, your own currency

$19B is a huge amount of money.  Unless you don’t really spend $19B.  Facebook has the blessed ability to print its own currency.  Private money that it can use for acquisitions.  As long as Facebook has a very high market valuation it can make acquisitions with shares, rather than real money.

In the case of both Instagram and WhatsApp the acquisition used a mix of cash, Facebook stock and restricted Facebook stock for employees.  The latter two of these three items are not real money.  They are simply pieces of paper giving claims to ownership of Facebook, which itself is valued at 22 times 2013 revenue and 116 times 2013 earnings.  The price of those shares are all based on expectations; expectations which now require the performance of Instagram and WhatsApp to make happen.

By making acquisitions with Facebook shares the leadership team is able to link the newly acquired managers to the same overall goals as Facebook, while offering an extremely high price but without actually having to raise any money – or spend all that money.

All companies risk becoming irrelevant.  New technologies, customer behavior patterns, regulations, inventions and innovations constantly challenge old success formulas.  Most leaders fall into a pattern of trying to defend & extend their old business in the face of market shifts, hastening the fall into irrelevancy.  Or they try to acquire a new business, then integrate it into the old business which strips away the new business value and leads, inevitably, to irrelevancy.

The leaders of Facebook are giving us a lesson in an alternative approach.  (1)Recognize the market shift.  Accept it.  If there is a better solution, rush toward it rather than ignoring it.  (2) Bring it into the company, and leave it independent.  Eschew integration and efforts to find “synergy.”  (You never know, in three years the company may need to be renamed WhatsApp to reflect a new market paradigm.)  (3) And as long as you can convince investors that you are maintaining your relevancy use your highly valued stock as currency to keep the company moving forward.

These are three great lessons for all leadership teams.  And I continue to think Facebook is the one stock to own in 2014.

Happy valentines day,share the love

happy valentines day to you and all your loved ones.Love is all about the value we place on a relationship,whether it is with someone in your personal life or in a professional capacity.So building that relationship into something that benefits both parties  should be something to work on,having a good relationship means that when thing are not going great there is that mutual trust and understanding to fall back on.  

Change is the only constant, how do we deal with it?

A side effect of resisting change is anger. People resist change because they are afraid of the 
unknown, and then internal resentment builds up, leading to anger. 
        This anger is often directed at some external actor, and can lead to anger addiction fear as a means of coping with the feelings of inadequacy. This can lead to a perpetual cycle of failure to change, resentment, and full-blown anger addiction.
Change is always happening yet we resist it, trying to preserve what we have, hold on to the known, resisting the unknown as long as possible.
Sometimes change seems to happen too fast, before you have had a chance to adjust to the new situation, its changed again.
Change happens all the time whether you are ready or not. We as humans are successful because we are able to adjust to changing circumstance in climate, living conditions,social relationships, environment.
We have a unique quality in that, to a certain extent we can control our environment, use tools to aid us to shape and manage that environment.
Yet we will take rubbish from are boss, are partners, people who think they are doing things in your best interest, while all the time stopping us from really taking the steps required to move ahead.
If like me you feel you are not where you want to be, it's time to take a good  hard critical look first at your self, than at your circumstance, relationships, environment, what it is you want and what is holding you back.  
Your answers may be very difficult to deal with, it may be your best friend who never says anything positive about you but expects you to cheer them up, so you are there for them to feel good about themselves at your emotional expense.
Change is something that we have to deal with, so the sooner we embrace it, use it to our advantage, the easier it will be to adapt to it.
Change can be positive or negative depending if you are in control of that change or not.
To be in charge of that change, first you have to recognize it for what it is, make a plan to navigate your way through it, having a plan will help to minimize the negative aspects while increasing the positive ones.
As a side note, many companies, institutions, religions, even countries do all they can to resist the very thing that bought them into existence in the first place...change.
Sam cooke wrote the song "A change is going to come" after hearing a song by Bob Dylan which made him realise he had something more to sing than "popcorn" songs.
Fear is there for a reason, but we can not let it be the reason for not changing things for the better, we may have to hurt those close to us to make the positive outcome we desire.
The pain will be worth it for you and for them. 
Edward Quarm

How to use twitter search to see what your customers are talking about in real time.

Many business professionals believe the Twitter search function is the most powerful tool for marketing insight ever created.

If you search Google, Bing or Yahoo, your results will be articles, videos, and websites. But if you search Twitter, the results are real-time conversations. And you can learn a lot from tapping into conversations!

Used effectively, Twitter search can be an essential tool for discovery and marketing research. And people are catching on — there are nearly 3 billion search queries performed on Twitter every day!

The basics of search are extremely easy to master. You can insert any name, phrase or hashtag in the search box at the top of the profile page and find some useful results.

But to really unlock the power of content on Twitter, it’s useful to know some advanced search operators. You can dramatically improve your search results by typing these directions directly into the search box.

Typing this:	Show you tweets that:
lang:en	Are only in the language “english”
funny movies	Contains both “funny” and “movies.” This is the default operator.
“Steelers win”	Contains the exact phrase “Steelers win”
man OR woman	Contains either “man” or “woman” (or both).
Steelers-football	Contains “Steelers” but not “football”
#Steelers	Contains the hashtag “#Steelers
from:markwschaefer	Were sent from person “markwschaefer”
to:markwschaefer	Were sent to person “markwschaefer”
@markwschaefer	Referencing person “markwschaefer”
“Chinese restaurant” near:”chicago”	Contains the exact phrase “Chinese restaurant” and sent near “chicago”
near:NYC within:15mi	were sent within 15 miles of “NYC”
“Chinese restaurant” since:2013-07-30	Contains phrase “Chinese restaurant and sent since date “2013-07-30? (year-month-day)
“Steelers” -attend : )	Contains phrase “Steelers” but not “attend” with a positive sentiment
flight : (	Contains the word “flight” with a negative sentiment
Flight ?	Contains the word “flight” and tweet is asking a question.
hilarious filter:links	Contains the word “hilarious” and linking to a URL

More Search Tips

1. Keep your search as simple as possible. More complex searches miss more tweets.
2. There is often more than one variation of popular hashtags (for example, #FollowFriday and #ff mean the same thing).
3. Sometimes a search won’t show you older tweets, because there are too many results. Consider doing one or more searches using the before: and since: date operators.

It is also a good idea to save common searches to save time typing in this search every day. Twitter allows you to save searches, but I find it most helpful to turn to a third party platform because you can save a search and it shows up as a constantly-updating column of tweets in your stream. This can be a valuable source of leads, ideas, and insight as conversations unfold minute-by-minute.

There are limitless possibilities to the ways you can combine these advanced search operators to help your business. Think about using advanced search techniques to discover:

• People in your town who need your product or service
• Positive sentiment about restaurants, hotels and entertainment venues in a new city you are visiting.
• Relevant new contacts who are already expressing interest in your product.
• Conversations expressing a negative sentiment about your competition.
• How people are using your product in new ways
• People using phrases that might indicate political alignment, an interest in a cause, or expertise that can help you
• Influential online personalities mentioning your product

A case study

Here is just a small illustration of the potential. I just did a simple search for people in my hometown (pop. 600,000) talking about pizza. There is at least one mention of pizza every 20 minutes, on average, and the rate is higher during lunch and dinner time. Remember, the beauty of Twitter is that tweets are public so the search results are not just for the people you are following. These are results from every single person meeting your search criteria.

Here is a sample of local, pizza-related tweets in my city over a four-hour period. If you owned a pizza place in this town, what business benefits could you derive by discovering people publishing the following tweets:

• Craving pizza but I’m broke. Where can I get pizza for some change in my pocket??
• I want a really unhealthy burger, but there’s also Cici’s macaroni pizza.
• What Pizza Looks Like Around the World: Turkish pizza looks yummy! (included a link to a photo essay on pizza)
• I just dropped the pizza face front on the floor. I REALLY suck.
• Not a good night for cooking. Thinking pizza
• My parents are coming for a visit. What’s the best pizza parlor in town?
• I just got so excited making a Lean Cuisine pizza. I really worked my butt off in the kitchen! LOL
• Can you cook pizza in a toaster?
• Dear delivery pizza people: You are all pansies for not delivering pizza today. The roads are not that bad!
• The weather is bad but Papa John’s is still delivering. Thank you Papa Johns!!

Together, we could probably brainstorm some interesting business tactics from following this stream of tweets on an hourly basis. Some of the business opportunities  might include:

• Discovering the people in your delivery area who love pizza. This is your ideal Twitter community, right? Follow those people and put them on a List!
• Tweeting back to create human, personal relationships with people in your city who talk about pizza
• Providing helpful advice for people who have questions about buying pizza on a budget, cooking pizza in a toaster, or a recommendation for a family dinner (“Stop by and your beverages on are on us!”)
• Competitor research – who has delivery cars on the move? Who is failing?
• New product development – Macaroni pizza? Turkish pizza? What makes Lean Cuisine so good? Should we offer a diet or healthy version?
• Create buzz – One person in your town ruined her pizza by dropping it on the floor. What do you think would happen if you tweeted her back publically to tell her you wanted to deliver a whole new pizza to her free of charge so she’s not hungry?
• Content source – The link to pizza from around the world sounds interesting. If you have surrounded yourself with a local group of pizza fanatics, they might love to see a RT from you on this!

So you see even a small, family-owned pizza parlor could create transformational business benefits simply by paying attention to what people are saying on the  Twitter stream. I hope you’ll experiment with these advanced search options and find ways to grow your business!

Companies who target their efforts see the best results by Jayson DeMers

Every social media manager wonders: what’s the most effective social media marketing platform for businesses to focus their efforts on? Now, thanks to rapidly advancing social media analytics and market research, it’s possible to understand which social networks are driving the most sales. Here are some important takeaways from the latest research about social media success and selling online in 2014.

One overarching theme in recent research is the benefit of properly targeting your social media efforts. If you want a better understanding of how social media influences your customers’ decisions to purchase your products and services, there are a few important questions that you’ve got to ask. In this case, a bit of smart consumer research will go a long way toward directing your social media strategy.

Most importantly, you need to know where your customers are actually spending their time online. Are they using Facebook frequently to engage with businesses and connect with friends and family, or do they spend most of their time on Twitter or Pinterest? The next step is to dig a little deeper into how your customers are using these platforms.

For example, a Pinterest user is going to be looking for different things than a Facebook user. Pinterest users be using the platform to find new recipes or ideas for DIY crafts, while typical Facebook users may be on the lookout for personal updates or current events. The platforms where your customers spend the most time also determines whether you should focus on video, microvideo, visual, or written updates.

A recent whitepaper by VisionCritical outlines how you can most effectively use each network to connect with your customers. They suggest that in order to make the most out of your businesses’ social media presence, you need to first understand which types of content are going to result in maximum engagement on which networks. It’s also important to pay attention to the culture of the network and the audience. To get a better sense of what works for each platform, do research into businesses that have experienced significant success with their social media efforts. This will help you get a better sense of which approaches yield the best results.

Top Social Media Sites & How You Can Benefit From Them. By Kelly Swee

You probably do not have to move your mouth to talk to the right people but the good news is, they will still "hear" you. You would be amazed at the powerful connections that social media sites have. All it takes is a click and you could probably be publishing a very valuable piece of information for your prospective clients or bosses.

Here we have analyzed 5 popular social media sites based on the following criteria:Communication, Brand exposure and Traffic to your sites. You could find out which social media site best suits your purpose and which social media sites could bring your message to the right people better. A snapshot of our take on the 5 social media sites is shown through star ratings that would give you a gist of our recommendations and a quick estimation of their effectiveness.

1. FaceBook

Facebook is a fastest-growing popular online platform that enables customization of user interface, which also includes installing applications to personalize the experience further. Users are connected to their friends very quickly as they could receive notifications when someone in their network has made changes or updates to his/her current profile or status.

Communication: 4/5 starsWith the help of notifications, the convenient and simple platform allows the ease and swiftness ofcommunication. Besides, accessing FaceBook with mobiles has become an increasing phenomenon. Users can share opinions, join groups, hold events and participate in contests conveniently.

Brand exposure: 4/5 starsDefinitely great brand exposure. Users are able to get to know about you as long as their friends are “connected” to you. Users are able to view the necessary information they need to get to know you. Advertising platform on FaceBook could also increase your brand awareness significantly within your target audience.

Traffic to your sites: 3/5 starsModerate traffic to your sites with the aid of “share” and “like” buttons. Will attract only people who are interested in your profile.

How Can You Benefit?

If you are intending to create a professional online portfolio for networking purposes and attract future employers, FaceBook could be a useful channel, but do keep in mind of the content that you are publishing. You future employers might not want to see you being "tagged" in an album "A racy party at John’s".

If you are searching for a convenient way to find friends, family or acquaintances and get connected to them easily, FaceBook is a appropriate platform.

If you are organizing public events or gatherings, FaceBook is a great way to send out invitations. Invited people are also able to invite their friends for the event, depending on the privacy level that you select.

If you are seeking for advertising to reach out to your target audience, FaceBook could spread the word for you as the advertisements would appear to those who have indicated the related interest in their profile.

Who Should Use It?

Freelancers, entrepreneurs, organizers, advertisers and anyone who wants to connect with people.

2. LinkedIn

LinkedIn‘s tagline “Relationships Matter” is very appropriate to show us what this social network does. Believing that people relationships is a valuable asset, LinkedIn serves to help individuals and companies to build and maintain them. This gives professionals an advantage to be more successful and productive in their careers by leveraging on as well as contributing their to own professional and trusted network.

Communication: 3/5 starsNot spontaneous communication with others, but you could build an identity for yourself by answering inquiries related to your industry to demonstrate your expertise. A feature called Answers, is similar to a forum where users can post questions and contribute their related opinions or solutions.

Brand exposure: 5/5 starsCertainly favorable for branding your identity for both individuals and companies. Users could get themselves connected to a people in the same interest of work and industry to build a network. Make the profile a complete one in order to leverage on this platform effectively.

Traffic to your site: 1/5 starsSignificant traffic might not be evident. Only potential clients and customers are more likely to visit your site.

How You Can Benefit From It?

If you are a fresh graduate, who is all ready to step into the working society, LinkedIn is a great starting place to prepare your resume and introduce your strengths and abilities to attract employers or recruiters to land in the profession you desire.

Also advantageous for job recruiters to seek for passive yet qualified job candidates to match them to the right job or profession.

If you are thinking of extending the web of your career network, LinkedIn is an excellent tool to facilitate you. Use the LinkedIn search to search for contacts in your email address lists who are already on LinkedIn. You would also be able to search alumni networks as indicated by your profile information to increase the chances of getting “connected” with the related people.

If you want to further develop and maintain professional relationships, LinkedIn definitely does more than what exchanging business cards can do. Provide necessary and extensive information in your profile and get yourself actively involved in the LinkedIn Answers or update your status to publicize your current project or work. Increase possibilities to get sale leads.

If you are looking for solutions for your current or interested industry, LinkedIn is a great place to search for serious and professional answers. Be sure to phrase your question in a direct and succinct manner as it would be more sound more authentic and people are more willing to share.

Who Should Use It?

Professionals in all industries. Also useful for job recruiters and headhunters.

3. MySpace

A large and diverse audience uses MySpace. Hence, it’s hard to tell who these people are. Available in 15 different languages, MySpace allows customization of profile and integration of features such and blogs, groups, bulletins, widgets. It seems to be widely used by the entertainment industry such as musicians, bands and comedians. Subsequently, it allows the rise of independent bands by providing a platform that bypasses the big players in the industry.

Communication: 2.5/5 starsSimilar to Facebook, users are able to send messages, add friends and comment on the profile page or find people from your email address. However, the pitfall of commenting on pages comes from a lot of necessary spamming.

Brand exposure: 3/5 starsBranding could be done through customization of profile or adding videos (your own or others) to show your personality and interests. Blogging would help to build your brand awareness. Therefore, come up with witty yet insightful posts to reveal the true side of you. My SpaceAds also helps to run an effective online marketing campaign.

Traffic to your site: 1/5 starsIt could be difficult to get traffic to your site unless your name is very much sought after. This also means that you have to work on the branding of your name and identity. Focus on a target audience. Remember to moderate your comments page to avoid spamming and include genuine comments from the fans of your music.

How You Can Benefit From It?

For musicians, you could create your portfolio or repertoire of your own original music, not forgetting uploading of pictures, videos and playlists. Users could conveniently play your songs via the music player. Creating your video channels also helps to sustain your presence. For developers, you could create applications that can promote your web site.

For music producers who are on a search for new talents, you could learn more about uprising independent works and their popularity online.

My SpaceAds helps to run an effective online marketing campaign. You could design your own advertisement, choose who is able to view it based on profile characteristics such as listed gender and locations, and pay based on the number of clicks the advertisement receives.

Who Should Use It?

Independent bands. Cast aside the thought of sending in your music CDs and tapes to the recording companies for a moment, how about creating an online name or music identity? MySpace is a great place for you to get started and allow your music to be known to the rest of the world.

4. Twitter

Twitter is a popular micro blogging system that enables users to send messages of 140 or less. It first started as a means to communicate within friends, family and coworkers and has evolved into a powerful social medium as a great and extremely fast way to disseminate information. Talk about the grape-vine. Twitter indeed illustrates the meaning. Even the 44th U.S president Barack Obama tweets.

Communication: 5/5 starsTwitter allows spontaneous interaction in real time. Twitter clients on mobiles are getting popular and enables quick and easy communication. You would be able to track what people are saying about you or your related business competitors.

Brand exposure: 4/5 starsTwitter allows engagement with people in a viral way. Loyal and satisfied customers or clients would “re tweet” messages that they would love to recommend. Through constant and vital tweeting, your brand awareness would be enhanced. A short, sweet yet sufficient message would serve as a great marketing gimmick.

Traffic to your site: 3/5 starsThere is a fair amount of potential to garner traffic to your site, but it depends on how you promote or sell your website on Twitter. Under or over promotion can both turn your followers off.

How You Can Benefit From It?

Twitter is a practical and useful way of disseminating information of your organization online. Offer useful information such that target audience and your targeted customers or clients would be “following” you. To attract attention, use catchy and intelligent copy writing when tweeting. You could also follow related people who are in your area of business and interest and you can be assured of landing in the right network.

Who Should Use It?

News organizations, marketers and advertisers.

5. Digg

Playfully named as Digg, it is indeed a platform to dig for good stuff and release breaking news. Discovering and sharing websites is basically what Digg is about. Users “digg” for web content and submit links to Digg. These contents include from anything from technology to sports. Subsequently, Digg becomes a system that allows the internet audience to drive the type of quality of information on the web. The main repercussion is that there’s no editorial monitoring, so we must be careful when it comes to collecting data and information.

Communication: 3/5 starsCommunication might not be the the primary means in Digg. Users seldom use it as a form of communication. Readers could comment on the Digg page though.

Brand exposure: 4/5 starsYou would certainly able to leverage on the Digg website to create and sustain brand exposure. To create excellent brand exposure, be sure that your titles of your articles do not sound too much like advertisements but provide sufficient information to get readers interested and hungry.

Traffic to your site: 5/5 starsDefinitely drives traffic to your site as interested and hunger-driven Digg readers would click on the title that links to your site.

How You Can Benefit From It?

Digg creates the trend or the talking topic online as the Digg users discuss or vote for the topic that best interests them. For business entrepreneurs, you could search for popular and interesting topics that dominate over a period and decide for a niche market to enter. For advertisers and marketing, you could watch out for trends and headlines or content that cause users to get excited and vote for it.

Digg also serves as a valuable tool to keep track of news of business competitors. Any press releases about decisions made by business competitors and would eventually involve the consumers would likely to be “digged/dugged”. Hence, it is useful as a tool for PR monitoring.

Who Should Use It?

Online publishers, bloggers, marketers and PR personnel.

Conclusion

It is definitely not an exaggeration to say that social media websites are evolving to be (or are already) an integration into our lives. Especially for the younger generation, they are growing up in a world that seems smaller because communication has become much easier as compared to their grandfathers’ time. Interaction with a complete stranger from another side of the world doesn’t seem that strange after all.

The key is to remain competitive is to use it to your advantage. Identify your needs to attain effective communication and then choose the right channels to broadcast your message.

With more advanced technology, better accessibility and better user experience are made possible. We can definitely expect a proliferation of social media websites and applications. People are interdependent and vital networking with others is definitely an asset.