There has been a lot of discussion recently revolving around the concept of tracking a users movement on the net and then targeting them with advertising based on their activities. Most of the chatter seems to indicate that consumers are not appreciating this target advertising. It then raises the question surrounding social marketing through the various social bookmarking sites.

One some forums however, the talk seems to indicate that consumers have a general dislike for advertising in general but if they are going to be shown ads, then targeted ads are more preferred. It also seems, as the internet experience of many consumers matures, that many now expect to see some form of social marketing.

The future may well be bright for social marketing as consumers start to use social platforms to find information on proposed purchases. Generally speaking, doing a search on a search engine is likely to return results related to sellers. Doing a search through a social platform is more likely to return results based on user experience and social marketing information.

These results provide consumers with what they want prior to their purchase, either validation of the their choose, or information on which they can base their choice. We are already seeing tech savvy people using various forum communities to discuss products prior to their purchase. One of the reasons for this is that tech companies and those selling tech products have undertaken social marketing strategies through those forums.

Young people and those in the music industry are now using platforms such as Bebo to either deliver their social marketing messages or to connect with others with like interests.

Social marketing is here to stay. Consumers are becoming more conscious of the information that can be found through these sites. Whilst search engines will probably never have to fear them, social bookmarking and social media sites will soon be a consumers first choice to search. Are consumers ready for social marketing? If they are not now - they soon will be.

“Unleashing Web 2.0: From Concepts to Creativity” by Gottfried Vossen is the perfect book when it comes to learning the emergence of Web 2.0 and exactly what it can do for individuals and companies alike. While this is more of a technical book geared towards developers, other web-savvy folks can get a good read out of it as well since it is quite thorough in its descriptions and information regarding Web 2.0

Gottfried Vossen currently serves as a professor of Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of Muenster in Germany as well as serving as the Editor in Chief of Elseviers Information Systems. A contributor - Stephan Hagemann is a PhD. student in Gottfried’s web technologies research group.

The book covers various topics such as a detailed list of Web 2.0 services and technologies, as well as informing the reader about new technology, products, services and more needed to utilize such tools.

The book introduces ideas of blogs and how an executive and their company can make the most of a blog that is related to their business as well as the benefits it holds. Giving a bit of history on the web, it goes in depth to explain popular internet technologies of today such as XML and CSS. It is a great stepping stone for learning about the Web 2.0 industry.

As previously mentioned, the book does get a bit technical which can be difficult for some but the way the book is written, most people will be able to understand it and follow it. If you are familiar with Web 2.0 products and websites, it is not suggested to be read as it will be mostly a review on what you already know but for those confused, intimidated or just completely curious about the subject – it’s the perfect book for you to get started on!

Do you have an area of expertise? If so, then your expertise could be used to to bring traffic to your web site, not in an overnight rush, but over a sustained period of time.

The online world is hungry for information. There are many web site owners, particularly in the blogging world, who are keen to publish that information. Their problem is not having the time, expertise or money or either create or buy the material needed on their sites.Your expertise could fill the gap and add to your viral marketing strategies.

Consider writing quality articles and then submitting them to some of the article sites. Publishers often come searching for good articles and with luck they will publish yours along with your bio and links to your site. If visitors read your article and like what they see, they are likely to click on the link and visit your site for more of the same - the viral marketing has begun.

To be successful at article writing, you need to consider the following when writing each article:

• The Title: Attention grabbing titles are important particularly if they suggest that the articles contents may help solve a problem - for example: “How to ….”; “When to…..” or number solutions such as “10 tips to…” or “top 10….”.
• Introduction: Your first paragraph needs to justify the title and provide enough reason to continue reading the article. If it is a ‘how to’ article, outline the problem in fairly simple terms.
• Body: Solve the problem; discuss the issues. This is where you win the reader. You have lured them in with a good title and opening paragraph, now you have to satisfy the reader. Fail to do that and they will not return. This is where reader trust is developed.
• Conclusion: Wrap everything up with a conclusion. The conclusion should sum up the contents and reinforce or answer the title.
• Resource Box: This is where you sell yourself. Place a link to your web pages here. You can also put in a small bio about yourself, particularly if you have qualifications or experience worth selling

Don’t sell yourself in the article itself. The article needs to be on topic. What about keywords you ask? By all means use them but they should not dominate the article. The content is the most important thing to concentrate on. Effective use of keywords will make your article valuable to someone who wants to publish it. Overkill, and whilst it may get published, no one will follow the links to your site - the easiest way to kill a viral marketing campaign.

Finally, having published your article, include a link on your site to your pages with article submission site. When ever you are socializing in any of the social networks, particularly forums, don’t be afraid to mention the article when appropriate. If you have a written a ‘how to’ article and someone talks about the same problem, point them to the article.

As you not pointing them to your own site, your credibility will rise. When it comes social marketing, your reputation and the credibility associated with it is of the utmost importance. That credibility is what will help to drive a viral marketing strategy.

Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites at present with millions of pages created by dedicated users. If you have a presence on Facebook you may want to broadcast that to your website visitors.

Facebook makes that easy with badges that you can add to your website. However, there are pretty tight conditions attached to any promotion of your pages.

You are not allowed to use any logos or banners from Facebook apart from the approved badges. You can, however, take a screen shot of your page and reproduce that (unaltered) as a badge. When it comes to wording, you may not make any statements that could imply a Facebook approval of your website.

Terms such as “find us on Facebook” are ok whilst terms such as “see our Facebook page” are not allowed and Facebook will impose harsh penalties if you transgress.

They have even gone to the extent of asking that you include “Facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.” wherever you link to Facebook. To quote from the Facebook page:

3) A registered trademark symbol ® must be included in all print / online displays of logo or wordmark that reference the Facebook brand.

However, if you have a page on Facebook and want to promote it, do it carefully according to their guidelines and you will not have any problems at all.

Web 2.0 is well and truly entrenched and talk now centers around the where-to-from-here concepts. Web 3.0 or is it going to be web 2.5 - hang on, I am still trying to get used to web 2.0 and the philosophy that drives it.

Whenever we talk about web 2.0 and the flood of social bookmarking sites, the one theme creeps up every time: provide value to your list of social buddies. This leads me to wonder. What is driving web 2.0? Is it the web site owner who is trying to market themselves, and ultimately their web site and its products, or is the consumer looking for information that will validate any decisions they make.

I know many will argue, and quite rightly too, that web 2.0 is not about the commercial aspect, it is all about the social side of things. Being able to connect with anyone around the world. Share information, photos, videos, music (?) and much more. However, let’s be realistic, commerce has invaded the social landscape and is quickly learning how to manipulate it.

My title asked the question, ‘what’s in it for me’ and it seems that this philosophy drives the commerce side of social bookmarking. Our interaction needs to be on a value adding basis. When you request an individual to add you to their list, the value adding philosophy points to the ‘what’s in it for me’ attitude.

If you want me to add you to my list of buddies: Why? What do you have to offer that the other 20 requests don’t? How much value to me is there in adding you to my buddy list?

These questions are rarely thought through consciously, they are generally automatic thoughts that get answered fairly quickly. We humans, particularly males, tend to make these decisions quickly, often on the spur of the moment. Remember, first impressions really do count.

You maybe wondering what the point of this article is. Very simply, as the web 2.0 social environment becomes more and more crowded, you are going to find more reject slips than acceptances. This is going to be exacerbated by the trend of limiting the number of buddies or contacts you can have in your list.

The only way to avoid this is by demonstrating, in very simple terms, what value there is in adding you to my buddy list. If I see no value, I am going to pass you by. Answer the ‘what’s in it for me’ question and you will make friends. Follow through, and you will stay friends.

So tell me, when it comes to web 2.0 and social networking, ‘what’s in it for me?’

Today’s article is actually inspired by an off line event that shows the unintended consequences of a single action and the effect it has had on reputation, social networking and marketing in general.

You may have heard the story on the news or in a newspaper reporting the New York landscape gardener who stumbled across a cool $140,000 in $20 notes. After giving the matter some thought, he decided to hand the money over to the police who eventually found the owner. The landscape gardener received a small reward for his efforts.

However, since handing the money over, the story together with his name and business has spread throughout New York and the rest of the US. Since then his phone has not stopped ringing. He will probably now have more work than he can cope with for many months.

What does this have to do with reputation management, social networking or social marketing? Think about it. Now that he has a reputation for being honest, if he is a halfway decent landscape gardener he could turn this into lucky strike into a viral marketing campaign that will last potentially for ever and take his business from a one man affair to a major contractor.

I am sure you can imagine this scenario. You drop around to my house and see the gardens looking magnificent. You ask me who did it and my response is, ‘that’s the guy that found all the money and handed it in - he is a good landscape gardener too - do you want his card’. Another ‘contact’ made. And so it goes and grows.

The online community is no different. If you can build a reputation for being honest, reliable and willing to help out when needed, you will find your reputation growing in a viral fashion - not rapidly, but growing. Again, I am sure you can see the scene, someone has a problem with their social marketing and the response is, “Nick is a social marketing expert, he is bound to have a solution’. Look at that, a referral and a link to boot.

Reputation management, social networking and social marketing are all closely linked. Getting a leak in one could cause a flood to spread out over the others. I wonder, can a landscape gardener deal with leaks as well.

Do you use Google Reader as part of your social blogging. It can be a very handy tool to have in your pocket, particularly as you travel the web keeping an eye on what your competitors are up to.

As part of my social blogging I subscribe to a various feeds using Google reader. As you visit new sites you can quickly add anything of interest to your feed list. It can also be a handy little bookmark tool. Every now and then as I come across an article that I want to hang onto for future reference. I don’t want the whole feed, just the one article.

One of the little known features of Google Reader is that you can add single articles without subscribing to the whole feed. There is a handy little bookmarklet that lets you find that article in a feed and just grab the single article.

Being able to grab and share single articles rather than the whole feed can be very useful. Now you can do it. It is a little tricky but try it out a couple of times and you will quickly get the hand of it.

Sometimes as a writer you find yourself unable to find that spark to fire up the fingers and produce the kind of content that your readers come to expect each day. Writers block! The bane of any writer, and yet, in a small way it can add power to your social marketing strategies.

If you are a regular reader of those in your social marketing circle, I am sure they have written articles that you have found not only interesting, but useful as well. I can hear opportunity knocking.

A simple cure for writers block. Steal their content! Of course not. However, I am sure you could add your little blurb to their thoughts. Perhaps even copy a little chunk - properly referenced of course - and then add some comments.

What does this have to do with social networking. First, if it is done properly, you will be continuing the conversion started in the original content. Secondly, the original author will appreciate the link and most likely appreciate the fact that someone thought their article worthy of reprint.

One aspect of social networking is the circle of creating content and watching as it permeates around the web, each author adding their views on the subject. It can be interesting to watch as topics go viral.

The next time you get writers block, have a look around you and see who’s content you can build on. It is interesting to note some of the top bloggers and their posts. They are often simply rehashes of articles from their networks of friends.

StumbleUpon is one of the most popular sites when it comes to getting your page to go viral. For everyday websites, it is more popular than Digg or any of the other social sites.

One feature that StumbleUpon has that most other sites do not have is the ability to ‘buy’ traffic - yes - ‘buy’ traffic. You do not have to fight for keywords nor do you have to pay a premium for popular keywords. The traffic you buy can be targeted to your niche.

The cost - a measly five cents per click - a lot less than some of the other pay-per-click alternatives. The traffic that is delivered is targeted and those visitors, being StumbleUpon users, have the power to give your content the thumbs up (or down). You may ‘buy’ 100 visitors for a cost of $5 and find that you actually receive 150 or more - this is due to the thumbing of your content.

Is it worth the effort? Your traffic may well be targeted, however, like most StumbleUpon campaigns, the traffic is often hit and run. You will find your bounce rate hovering around the 70-90%. Conversion rates from this traffic can be quite low. However, if you are selling products with a high buy price and high margin, then you will probably be used to a low conversion rate. At five cents per visitor, you may only need one conversion per 100 to come out well in front.

Buying traffic from StumbleUpon is not for everyone. However for some website owners, the outlay may be worth the effort. One side benefit to using StumbleUpon like this is that your Alexa rating will improve sharply. The statistics page for purchased traffic is fairly basic although it does display a percentage of how many visitors liked your page. This could be handy for market research purposes particularly if you have several different landing pages that you would like to trial.

Buying a viral campaign - now that’s different - but then, that’s StumbleUpon.

Social marketing is all about getting yourself, your site and your products/services out there in the public domain. To this end, should your social content be natural or should you manufacture your content to suit the social environment?

Critics would argue that once your social content strays from what is natural for your site, you will start to look contrived. Of course, if the masses start to feel that your input is contrived, you will lose all credibility and find yourself in a virtual void - the social networks version of being ’sent to Coventry’.

Others would argue that almost everything that happens in a social marketing environment is contrived and that any social content delivered to these sites has already been manufactured.

Both arguments are valid and it is fairly obvious that once you lose credibility, you will lose any following. However it is also obvious to any frequent observer that most of the social content on offer at present has had some tweaking done to make it more socially acceptable and, hopefully, a little more viral.

However, in the bigger picture, who doesn’t tweak their content. Whether it is for search engine optimization purposes, social networking or to simply drag visitors into your site, web site owners have been touching up their content for many years. Social content is just another vehicle to explore.

For most web site owner, getting the balance between content for social marketing purposes and content for customer satisfaction is always going to be difficult. Throw in the SEO needs for your site and writing good content, be it social content, general marketing content or basic customer product content has become an art form.

Perhaps the real key is to prepare your content in a natural style that is suited to your site and your niche; then tweak it for social marketing purposes. Don’t overdo it and you will have the best of all worlds.

Social Marketing is no different to marketing in general. If look at some of the principles from Intro to Marketing 101 you will see that they can be applied to social marketing with good results.

1. Talk - and listen - to the people you are trying to reach. Go to where the people are and talk to them.
2. Segment your audience - it can be difficult to totally segment your audience. You can however segment your audience into general age groupings and genre interests.
3. Position yourself - learn the benefits your prospective audience values most
4. Know your competition - be aware of the competing messages that are out there
5. Go to where your audience is - it is no good going to social sites if your target audience is not there. Select sites that your target audience gather.
6. Build Partnerships - find key allies that you can partner with.

When it comes to social marketing, knowing your target audience, where they gather and who you can partner with is a basic essential. From there you can slowly build on your network, slowly gathering credibility, building strong partnerships, and placing yourself in a position where you can promote yourself and your product or service with trust.

Social marketing is hardly different from basic marketing in the bricks and mortar world. It is the delivery method and delivery vehicles that are different.

Social marketing is gaining interest in the commercial world at rapid rate and it is not surprising that niche micro social networks are now becoming popular.

Peter Bowman’s article on micro social networks published on Internet Evolution provides a good insight into the direction the new networks are heading.

As social marketing becomes popular it becomes harder and harder to get noticed. With millions using these networks and the categories moving into the hundreds, gaining credibility within your niche has not only become super competitive, it has become extremely spam ridden.

As Bowman’s article points out:

However, many members get the feeling of becoming lost in crowds of millions. Micro-social spaces offer less diversity to users, but directly identify with their specific desires and interests.

This will become the key to social networking through these micro networks. Each network serves a particular niche drawing individuals from both sides of the commercial fence. This concept is not new. In the past, forums have served very well as niche networks, however the very term forum seems to turn people off. Call the site a social network, or better yet, call it a social bookmarking site and people will come in their droves.

Bowman’s opening paragraph really sums up the trend where he states:

…..they mirror what micro-sites have done to promote brands for many years. Will this growing micro-social trend dilute the existing power of social network elites like Facebook and MySpace , or will they empower more people to participate in a wider selection of online communities based on their individual needs and wants?

The future of micro social networks will be interesting to watch particularly as larger corporations make more use of the concept and develop their own networks. As social marketing opportunities there may be obstacles put in place as the micro network owners try to protect their ‘turf’ by preventing many of the marketing opportunities that are available through the larger networks.

It will be interesting to see how they balance their own needs with those of the social marketing users and the needs of the general public at large - ultimately their own customers.

Reputation management is not always about what you do with your site. It is not always what you don’t do either. Sometimes it is a good idea to sit back and watch what your competitors are doing. Often you can learn much either from their successes or, more importantly, their failures.

I shouldn’t just limit that statement to your competitors either. Just watching others from within your genre can be interesting.

What is more important is to listen to what is being said about your competitors. Sometimes you can find a real opportunity when you start to hear complaints about what your competitors are not doing - or perhaps, what they are doing that is upsetting customers.

Likewise, if you are a product distributor, what is being said about that product? Discovering this information early can have you well placed to answer concerns from prospective customers.

Reputation management is as much about listening as it is about doing. Spending time reviewing what is being said can save you the discomfort of unpleasant surprises; provide you with an opportunity to prepare; and perhaps even provide new opportunities.

Learn to listen, learn to watch, learn to read the reputation management social environment.

For every positive there is an equal and opposite negative. At least, thats what I was taught at school - well something like that anyway. It runs true to social bookmarking sites as well. Often, no matter how many places your submit your site too, it may just take time to see any results.

I said there were positives and negatives. For many sites, social bookmarking can bring very good results very quickly. For other sites, the progress may be a little slower - and that is the downside.

There is one unarguable fact when it comes to the internet, some genres are simply more popular than others. Any content devoted to marketing, SEO, celebrities, cars and wide range of topics are going to be popular. If you site is devoted to less popular genres like mens ties (do people still wear them) or mens underwear (yes - we do still wear them - sometimes) then you are going to struggle to get visitors. It is no different when it comes to social bookmarking.

If you can accept that some genres are more popular than others then you can see that even i social bookmarking sites, there is going to be a similar balance of popular and not so popular genres. The popular sites are going to get instant action. The not so popular sites are not going to get that same ‘instant action’.

This does not mean that sites that sit in the not so popular categories should ignore social bookmarking (or any other form of marketing for that matter). It does mean that often you are going to have to work a little harder for smaller results. However, social bookmarking delivers more than just traffic. The long term benefit of social bookmarking is the increase in the number of inbound one-way links - since these sites have fairly high rankings, that is some valuable link juice you are receiving.

If your business or web site sits in an unpopular category, don’t discard social bookmarking as an option. The benefits down the track will be invaluable.

I was reminded today of what a double edged sword forum communities can be. On the one hand, niche related forums can be a great place to hang out and build a reputation. However, as we mentioned in a previous post, push to hard or work to fast and you will find your reputation management strategies have been totally wasted.

Forum communities have been around much longer than any of the current social bookmarking sites, some are older than the world wide web (www) itself. Used judiciously, these forums can be very beneficial, particularly if you have a highly specialized web sites.

It is quite a paradox when you consider normal bricks and mortar business communities. They tend to spend most of their time trying to outdo each other; trying to get that business edge that brings the customer to their door rather than yours. With forum communities it is almost the opposite. Rather than seeing each other as commercial rivals, members of these communities relate to each other with a true community spirit - perhaps a legacy of the traditional pre www forum days.

With this in mind, your approach to any forum needs to be on the basis of participation. Forum communities are a great source of information particularly when it comes to product problems (and their solutions), current trends and corporate gossip. You would be surprised at how many product recalls are started because of problems identified by members of a forum. Listening to corporate gossip, while generally just that, gossip, can at times give you a head start on your commercial rivals.

Whilst most forums provide you with profile pages similar to bookmarking sites, forums often also allow signatures where you can place information such as your web address. These signatures are automatically added every time your post a comment or ask a question. Social bookmarking sites rarely allow such blatant promotion.

Other major benefits include the question and answer processes. Forum communities exist primarily as information tools. They are ideal places to canvas solutions for problems you may be experiencing in your particular field. It is similar to having a team of experts in a room. Throw in a problem and sit back and watch the debate. Eventually you will have a range of solutions most of which have been tried and tested. The more reliable participants talk from experience.

Once you start participating in these debates, you will find two things happening. First, you can become hooked. Secondly, if you talk from experience and can demonstrate a knowledge of the topic, you will be looked upon as an equal who can be trusted. From there, the benefits of belonging to forum communities will truly come to the surface.

Forum communities could be considered old fashioned. The results can be slow in bearing fruit however the amount of fruit eventually gathered could be equal to, or greater than, many of the social bookmarking sites. Don’t brush them aside to readily - fruit is fruit.