Some would say, if my customers don’t use social networks, why should I? One response could be, ‘what about the potential for new customers?’ I tend to take a different path.

Everyone has the potential to be influenced. This post may influence you. When looking at social marketing we are often told to segment that market and to target those that fit our potential customer profiles. That is fine. What if my customers are children? I know they are not going to be using social sites and even if they were, targeting them could be difficult.

Marketers would argue that children are not your customers. The parents are the ones holding the purse strings and the ones doing the buying. The children maybe the influencer’s, but the parents are the customers. This scenario has been the cause of many arguments between marketing people for many years. Who do you target – the parent or the child?

In this case, our social marketing cannot target children, we have to target the parents and the aim now is to turn them into influencer’s. We need to ’sell’ the product to the parent in the hope that they will in turn ’sell’ the product to their children.

If your customers are not using social networks, rather than ignoring the process of social marketing, you need to find which group can be targeted to influence your potential customers. Target those influencer’s and the job is almost complete.

Social networking is one of the hallmarks of Web 2.0, however many businesses have found entry into this environment confusing and daunting. Its that first step that has been the most daunting of all, and not without good reason.

The question asked is whether or not they need to be involved in the social networking or social marketing scene or any other aspect of Web 2.0. Most consultants would reply that you can not afford to not be involved. The real truth is somewhere in between, and no, I am not sitting on the fence.

Every business can benefit from involvement in Web 2.0 social involvement. However, not every aspect will suit every business. The key to getting a start is knowing where to start and which of the many social sites could be used to promote your interests.

Professional services can help make those first Web 2.0 steps and help you gain a presence on the sites that will be of most benefit to your business interests. This could, in the early stages, be the creation of a blog with simple submissions to directories and social bookmarking sites.

The future of any online business will now hinge on how well they can use Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, social bookmarking sites along with their involvement in social networking. Is Web 2.0 for everyone, you can betcha blog on it!

The more I read the more I find that individuals are realizing the benefits of social marketing through Myspace. The latest little tidbit comes from the WAHM blog who has recently discovered the benefits of Facebook and social marketing.

It has been slow in coming for many professionals who still see both Facebook and Myspace as teen havens. Not any more. In fact a recent article suggested that the 30-40 age group where the fastest demographic to join over the last 12 months.

WAHM has also discovered one of the downsides to Myspace, and that is the overloading of pages with music, video and fancy glittery graphics which do nothing but drive traffic away. A professional Myspace page should be just that – professional. Lean, clean and mean but not boring.

One comment I totally agree with comes late in the article:

If you are using MySpace to connet with family & friends and also for business, I highly recommend you have two myspace pages! One that is professional and one for your friends and family only.

This is a must. Keep your personals and professional pages separate. If you want fancy graphics and music, leave them to your personal page, after all, they are personal likes. Myspace is becoming popular and if handled properly, can lead to more traffic. Unlike some social bookmarking sites, the traffic from Myspace may just hang around and look at what you have to offer.

Microsoft will next week reveal their latest addition to the family with a new social bookmarking feature for MSDN and TechNet.

According John Martin’s TechNet blog, the new social bookmarking feature will be unveiled for preview next week and showcased ad TechEd North America the following week. The new social bookmarking feature will allow the user to:

• Bookmark any URL on the web
• Apply tags
• Save bookmarks in the new My Bookmarks tool

The report also revealed:

All bookmarks, bookmarkers, and tags will also be enabled as links and can be “surfed” to discover new content and people.

It will be interesting to see how this works in action and whether or not it can be used to help drive traffic to your web page in a similar fashion to many other social bookmarking sites.

You can bet that Microsoft will not ignore the possible data collection potential of a move such as this particularly when the data from tags could be invaluable. Social bookmarking is a popular tool at present and there will always be room for more players as long as they remain functional and of benefit to users. Time will tell.

The projection for advertising on social networks has been reassessed and the prognosis is that it will not grow as quickly as first thought. Following on the heels of a slower than projected growth in mobile advertising and the environment it does not look too rosy. Social marketing on the other hand may just fill in some of the blanks.

Speculation surrounding the cause of this downturn is varied, however if you have been involved in marketing at all then you will see some of the symptoms. One sniff of a recession and business owners start to look at their belt lines and wondering how they can tighten them; marketing is generally one of the first to go along with employees. Those involved with social marketing may save themselves if they can prove to be successful.

However, a report from WebProNews makes an interesting point:

“Tapping into consumers’ conversations and spreading brand awareness virally has proven more challenging than companies originally thought.”

There is no magic formula for success in the social marketing field. It is a case of being subtle, persistent and building a reputation, often around the individual first. The branding can come later if at all. Often the reputation for the individual is the key following up with the subtle control of conversions and branding issues.

For others, the focus is on openly trying to build a brand. Social marketing in an open style is has more barriers to overcome, chiefly from a resistance to the introduction of commerce into an essentially social environment.

With social advertising budgets possibly set to fall, the need for an ongoing social presence in some format will be essential. The one thing is a guarantee at this stage is that no matter what you do, your competitors are going to be actively engaged in one form or another. Social marketing and social networking should not be ignored; in fact they need to be harnessed to deliver as much in the way of brand awareness and traffic as possible.