Facebook Sponsored Stories are a new way for companies to advertise using word of mouth buzz. It is different than the normal Facebook Ads where advertisers promote their company/products on the side of the browser. Companies can now sponsor ads in the sidebar to republish check-ins and other updates made by the viewer’s friends. For example, your friend uses the check-in feature to post that he is at Starbucks. Starbucks can then “republish” that same post on your newsfeed under Sponsored Stories on the sidebar so that it doesn’t get lost. Only people you are friends with would be able to see those stories. It’s a way to amplify word of mouth. Continuing with that example, you would be able to then click on the Starbucks link and be taken to the Starbucks Fan Page where you could “like” the company. They’re basically recommendations from your friends.

I like these Sponsored Stories because they’re not advertisers telling users to use their products or frequent their business. It’s a way for you to see what your friends are using and recommending.

Check out this video to learn more: Facebook Sponsored Stories

Social media presence – Having your website on social media networks will help improve rankings on Google. If a website has strong presence over social media, it will command high ranking. Thus online marketers need to give high importance to Social Media Optimization.

Twitter is a must – As a means of connecting to the public, Twitter has gained high reputation. It has been observed that Twitter is capable of driving huge traffic. Therefore, marketers must include Twitter while devising SEO strategy.

Coded Facebook pages – With Facebook’s importance growing this year, coded Facebook pages will give your business an edge with an interactive touch, generating leads as well as increasing conversation rate.

Trustbait instead of linkbait – Links coming from independent online sources rather than those links that are contextually linked to a site are better for Search Engines. This refers to Trustbait and is a vital part of online marketing.

SEO to grow more comprehensive – In 2011, the term SEO will need to expand and be more all inclusive.

The demand for SEO will only continue to grow and make the task of online marketers more challenging as well as rewarding.

Even with the popularity of other social networking sites, LinkedIn is still the best site to promote your business. Here are the top 3 tips for getting massive results from marketing on LinkedIn.

#1 Leverage LinkedIn groups
If you have been working on LinkedIn for a very long time, you will agree with me that the best way to generate leads from high-end companies is through LinkedIn groups. Some important groups to consider are those related to social media, marketing and startups. When creating a group, there are two things to consider. One is to create a group name with keywords in to so that Google can index it. Second, there is an option to put your links in the group so that group members can check out your site and send you more traffic.

#2 Answer or ask questions and build your reputation
You are not only limited to post in your groups. You can also join a lot of groups. To build your reputation as a knowledgeable and credible business, answer relevant LinkedIn questions. You can also post questions that you think can entice other people to join.

#3 Building your list
There was a time when LinkedIn only allowed you to add people if you knew their email address. Fortunately, now you can add people through groups. It is much easier to connect to someone even if you do not know; all you need is a personalized and genuine message as to why you are adding him/her. Once you have a huge list of connections, you can simply opt them in for your newsletters, events and etc.

If you follow these important steps, you will clearly see why LinkedIn is best for your business. Make sure to be active on LinkedIn, update your profile, post content and add connections. Now go and grow your business with LinkedIn!

Once you’re signed in, Hotpot gives you a public nickname, just as a way to help keep track of your reviews. You can change it if you want. Click through the opening screen, and you’ll see a page with a search box at the top with the word “restaurant” already entered. I performed the search and was greeted by restaurants in my local area, which I was asked to rate.

These restaurants were not listed in the usual way you see search results listed. They appeared in rectangular boxes, about three and a half inches long and two inches wide on my laptop’s screen. At the top of each listing, you can click a star that says “Save for later,” which will presumably let you rate it later, or an X that says “Not interested,” which will presumably remove it from the listing. Below these two options you’ll find the name of the restaurant, with a link. The link takes you to the Google Maps listing of the place. If you’ve never seen one of these (and if you haven’t, what rock have you been living under?), it includes the address, phone number, fax number, a map that shows how to get there, a list of categories for the place, its specialties, reviews from around the web, reviews from Google users, and a whole lot more. If you like to do research on a restaurant before you patronize it, this is a great place to start.

Below the name of the restaurant, you’ll usually find a picture of either the exterior of the restaurant or a sample dish. Below this image you’ll find some indication of where the restaurant is located; this can be either the town name or something more specific, like the intersection. Below that, you’ll find a brief description of the cuisine, such as “Traditional American” or “Ribs.”

First, let me say, everyone is still figuring out the best ways to monetize social media.  There is absolutely no magic pill to social media.  Some things work for some markets, other things have the reverse effect that you were aiming for.

Here are some facts to show you that social media can be monetized:

• We’re sold thousands of tickets to different events for our clients thru social media
• Several $25,000+ consulting engagements were landed as a direct result of social media
• Social Media has generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in product sales across our client base

Bear in mind, that while most of your social media can be monetized, there are some things that are tough to track:

• How much your brand is improving by your presence on the various social media places.
• How much negative social media exposure your getting (and what this could cost you for years to come)

All in all, it all comes back to tracking.  How are your tracking your marketing campaigns?

Here are four things you can implement in the next 24 hours to better track your social media efforts:

• Install and use Google Analytics – this will show you exactly where your traffic is coming from
• For phone orders always ask “where did you hear about us”  if they reply “the web” ask for a more specific location
• Drive traffic from your various social media sites to targeted landing pages only
• Give out special coupon codes on your social media sites, and different codes for each of the sites.

Seven reasons  why I like marketing on Facebook:

• It’s the second most popular site in the world (next to Google)
• Facebook Ads allows  you to do some very targeted pay per click marketing
• Fan Pages are a great place to market your business, products and services
• It keeps getting bigger and getting more traffic (also can be seen as a negative)
• Tricking out your profile is easy to do
• It can be updated with ease using a mobile device
• You can finally secure facebook.com/yourname! (unless someone grabbed it and wants to sell it to you now)

Six Reasons why I don’t like marketing on facebook:

• They like to ban accounts and provide little information as to WHY it happened.  This could put you out of the Facebook marketing business overnight.
• It’s becoming over populated — this turns a lot of people off
• Way to many crazy applications (I’m sick of seeing who poked me, hugged me, tried to get me into their mafia clan or listed me as their top friends)  it’s just weird
• Personal Facebook profiles are very difficult to monetize
• Limitations on the number of friends you can have
• Strange data ownership clauses — do you own your data or not?  Make up your mind Facebook!
• I can’t send out emails to my friends

All in all, I do use Facebook as one of my online marketing tools, but I do not use the site exclusively.  I encourage you to check out additional social marketing sites that can be used to drive traffic, leads and sales.

A few other reasons we like LinkedIn as marketing tool:

• Various groups to network on
• Easy to scale up your network
• LinkedIn answers section — allows you to get and give advice
• See and give reccomendations

A few disadvantages to LinkedIn:

• You can’t simply blast your network with the click of a mouse
• Paid version (some people only prefer free)
• Easy to get your email address (so expect lots of spam)

To further amp our juices (I figured I’d get into the thanksgiving spirit a bit)  they decided to recently open their back door to their API code.

What does this mean for you as marketer or entrepreneur? In the next six months, there are going to be many new applications and fun tools that link linkedin to other platforms.

We’re confident at Taz Solutions, that this move will further increase the popularity of the site (which boasts over 50M users)

If you’re not already active with LinkedIn marketing, now is a great time to start!

The site is among the top 500 sites in the world and is a must use for people doing business on the web.

 Here are six ways you can start leveraging Technorati for:

#1 Become an expert on technorati –  look at this opportunity to write on one of the most trafficked sites in the world — http://technorati.com/weblog/2009/02/472.html

#2 Find authority blogs; then network with them, and or post on their blogs with relevant and useful content to get a quality backlink

#3 Keep track of your competitors blogs

#4 Get your videos, photos or articles archive; Technorati keeps track of more than just blogs

#5 Track your current online visibility

#6 Use the Technorati mini feature on your desktop to see your favorite blogs updated in real time

Social marketing is not a new trend, but one that continues to amaze us as more new social networking type of sites pop up.  In 2008 alone there were over 10,000+ new social networking sites created.  That’s good news and also bad news.  The good news, if you’re  in a niched market, there is a good chance there is a social networking site dedicated to that topic.  The bad news, you need to find out which of these sites are going to give you the biggest bang for your marketing buck. 

 Alexa.com is a great tool to use to gauge how powerful a web site might be.  By looking at the top 1000 web sites in the world, you will notice that many of the top 20 sites in the world are social networking sites.  Is this a trend you should be using heavily?  Of course!

According to alexa.com, the top 3 social networking sites are as follows:

·         Myspace

·         Facebook

·         LinkedIn

These are the three key social networking web sites you need to be leveraging in your marketing efforts.  Think that myspace and facebook are just for kids?  WRONG!  The fastest growing demographic across these sites is executives above the age of 35!

 Get some accounts setup and start driving some quality traffic before your competitors do!

Key Resources:

·         Myspace.com

·         Facebook.com

·         LinkedIn.com

Check this out:

According to Alexa.com here is a list of the top 10 web sites in the WORLD!

1. Yahoo

2. YouTube.com (Web 2.0 Video Sharing Site)

3. Windows Live

4. Google

5. Myspace (Web 2.0 Social Networking Site)

6. Facebook (Web 2.0 Social Networking Site)

7. MSN

8. Hi5.com (Web 2.0 Social Networking Site)

9. Wikipedia (Web 2.0 encyclopedia)

10. Orkut (Web 2.0 Social Networking Site)

Don’t fight the trend, catch up with it and get ahead of the curve or expect to be left behind!