Online social marketing networks have become a mega phone for people who have once been timid to be heard. Those who have had trouble speaking their mind or being vocal now have many social platforms to not only be heard but also seen. This has created a whole new way for businesses large and small to be found and explored. Many have had to learn the hard way though, with these powerful communication devices also comes a price to pay if not used correctly.

Many businesses have learned that word can travel very quickly through sites like Facebook or MySpace. So fast that once something is typed and published it is often to late to pull it back before the harm is done. What you may think is worthy of publishing a large group could tear apart online. If you have any irate customer or client trying to reach out to you on Twitter it is very important to handle it the right way. Remember many many people are going to see your response and they will quickly cast judgment on your business or your brand if not handled correctly. You must think long and hard when crafting together an approach for your business on the social platforms. One wrong step or interaction with a potential client or customer and you can quickly have a reputation management issue on your hands. Sites like Twitter where people can retweet responses things can quickly spread like wild fire. If you are a large or small business just venturing into the social platform space it will be important for you to put together a game plan on how you want to approach your communication. It is ok to take it slow at first and get your feet wet. test out various approaches on the various platforms before you find one that sticks with your business style. it is ok to develop different approaches for different social sites. The approach you take on Twitter will be vastly different than on LinkedIn or MySpace. Over time you will develop the right social marketing approach for you.

Recently president of Brick Marketing, Nick Stamoulis wrote and article on Marketing Pilgrim outlining the vast difference of communication efforts between Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y individuals. If you own a business or have worked at a company where these three generations share work space and lines of communication you will know that there are probably many different challenges that occur on any day when it comes to communication. All three generations are slowly starting to overlap the amount of social marketing used for communication but the frequencies and skill levels are still very far apart. Lets take a look and see how the three generations vary.

Baby Boomers have spent a great deal of their life using face to face, mail and telephone communication efforts. This is what they have grown custom to and to adopt vastly new lines of communication is going to be difficult to integrate into their daily lives. Gen X are a bit more savvy when it comes to technology. Gen X is mostly worried about creating a healthy balance in their daily life pattern and tend to use IM, cell phone and email mostly for communication. Gen Y are very much into texting, IM and email for most of their communication efforts. Gen Y are idea factories and just want their ideas to be considered and valued by other employees.

Management at many different sized and shaped companies has been willingly trying to find a happy medium for everyone to be able to communicate efficiently. If a Gen Y’er is trying to IM a Baby Boomer who never has their IM on and check their email just a few times a day the lack of communication can quickly disrupt performance in the office. Once employees start to get frustrated in the workplace it simply just gets worse, especially if management ignores the signs. Is the speed of technology the problem? When the Baby Boomer generation was at the age of a Gen Y’er things where much different and technological advancement did not occur so quickly. When they did everyone had much more time to adapt and apply the new type of communication to their daily lives. Now with social networking websites creating new gathering places and platforms for communication the generation gaps are starting to take a toll.

To read more on this topic please click here and visit Marketing Pilgrim to read the full article about the workplace hurdles in communication.

You can do it on Youtube, you can even do it on Facebook, now you can do it on Myspace. One of the downsides to Myspace has been the video sections. Sure, you could load up videos, but you couldn’t record direct. Now you can.

Myspace have finally joined their competitors in allowing social users to save videos recorded ‘live’ from their web cams. It is strange it has taken so long for Myspace to incorporate the feature. However, with the advent of Myspace Music, their minds may have been elsewhere.

This will be a real plus for social marketing. You will able to record product launches live and live how to videos. The later could be done in response to live questions.

The social landscape is slowly changing and slowly evolving. Many of the social aspects of blogs are now moving to sites such as Myspace and Facebook. They may never replace blogs; they will however reduce their impact.

Live broadcasting across all the major social media sites is almost complete. What is next on the horizon – who knows? For social marketers, it has just become that little bit easier to do your job.
Using the one blog metrics tool provides a baseline from which further comparisons can be made. That is the only way to measure the progress of your blog. Forget trying to use all the tools. You will confuse yourself, make mistakes, and still not be able to accurately measure the progress of your blog and social marketing efforts.

Myspace Music is set to open its doors sometime this month, soon apparently, and given the features it will quickly become a magnet for advertisers.

The site will offer the entire catalogs of Universal, SonyBMG, and Warner Music; that’s around 77% of the entire US music market. Myspace Music will make all the music they have in catalog available free to listen, so long as you don’t mind the ads.

With free jukebox like that, they are sure to be hit with a huge flow of traffic – one would hope that their servers can cope and don’t suffer a Twitter-outage. With that flow of traffic, Myspace Music will have full advertising books for years – a real revenue cash-cow for the investors.

Will it prove to be popular? There is no doubt about it. Music is the one area of online marketing that has continued to boom. Everyone will benefit from this relationship, from the humble (and not so humble) artists to the buyers, and everyone in between. Myspace have hit on a winner and the doors have not even opened yet.

If you have the slightest relationship with the music industry then advertising on this new venture could prove to be a huge advantage. Will millions expected to access the site each day, just a tiny percentage of clicks could produce thousands of visitors. It will be interesting to see what sort of costs will be involved in advertising – I am sure it will not be cheap.

The most important component of any marketing campaign, social marketing included, is the research and planning that is done prior to starting. Your whole campaign relies on collecting the right information, putting it into the correct perspective, and formatting plans based on how you interpret that information.

One piece of information that is vital is to know and understand the market and reach of your proposed social marketing vehicle. Getting the right information can be difficult. Profy.com published a graph for Myspace showing the regional interest.

From a social marketing perspective, and probably advertising as well, is knowing the countries that have a high Myspace exposure. Just as interesting is to note the countries that don’t appear in the list.

Myspace has a high exposure in the major English speaking regions. The USA, Australia and the UK dominate with Puerto Rico and Malaysia also dominant. The countries missing include China, Japan, India and Germany. If you are targeting the US market then Myspace could be an ideal site to run a social marketing campaign. If you wish to target Europe, then perhaps a little more research on some of the other sites may show them to be more valuable.

There are some companies that try to avoid the Asian region as much as possible when it comes to online sales. If you are one of these companies then Myspace would be suitable. If you want to target this region, then perhaps Facebook may provide a better coverage.

These statistics are very simple and don’t reveal information such as demographics. Once you start to break the information down into age and gender, you may find the situation changes. Social marketing relies on this information prior to starting a campaign. This ensures your time and effort (and money) is being targeted in the right direction. Whilst there are no guarantees when it comes to marketing, you can at least narrow the focus and remove options that won’t produce results prior to starting. All it takes is a little research.