Starple.co.uk

Have a look at this social media sales funnel. It guides you through a relationship on how followers can become customers. The important area to ponder though is that its only through compelling content that you will create a viral effect. A thought is that Viral marketing is not so much of a strategy as it is a way to produce quality that people will feel compelled to share. Also have a look at the previous blog post that highlight the importance of how reviews are useful to your business.

Have a look at the chart below and pay particular attention to the red circles. This is an indication of how much customer opinion matters. In this survey done by Nielsen Research, 70% of participants say that they rely on other consumers opinion posted online to aid them in their own buying decisions. 

Even as a brick and mortar business, you can leverage the power of your existing clients' reveiw. All you have to do is to create a system that you can collect all the wonderful things that your customers are saying about you. This can then be transferred online where others can see your reviews.

It also pays to deal with any negative reviews that people may post on your listing. In many cases, customers doesn't expect that you be perfect, they appreciate it when you tackle problems head on and fix them. Some companies even build credibility by dealing with negative reviews openly.

South West planes used their blog to tell their side of the story of two girls who claimed that they were kicked off their planes because they were pretty. After representing their case using their blog they gained their customers' support. Have a watch of this video

• They engaged their customer
• Customers spoke their views

This is an amazing way that social media can be used to get your side of the story out.

Dealing with the core aspect of a business such as sales and customer service can be a challenging and time consuming task, that demands a great deal of time and attention.

However, with the ongoing buzz of social media marketing and the fact that recent survey showed that 50% of small businesses acquire new customers from social media such as Facebook and twitter, many business owner have tried to build an account without any real success.

This is because the time and the dedication required to build consistency, add value to followers and keep the conversation going is just not available. In fact many businesses are now hiring social media managers all across the UK to tap into this new media and to bring value to their business.

In fact, a simple search on one of the UKs’ biggest job sites- Reeds returned over 100 search results for businesses looking for social media managers for up to £40K per annum.

But hiring just anyone to run your Social media campaign may not work in your favour. Here are 7 reasons why you need a business minded, social media manager who understands that building relationship is what it takes to be successful in social media marketing.

1) PROPER TARGETING: Study by Gartner back in July 2010 reported that 74% of consumers reply on feedback on social media network to guide purchasing decisions. Your social media manager should therefore target those who influence other peoples’ purchasing decision.

2) BRAND CONSISTENCY: Consistency matters especially if your goal is to build a brand and be portrayed as professional. Your social media manager must be aware of your branding and convey its consistency across multiple social media platforms.

3) RIGHT PLACE: There is no point setting up a page on MySpace if your target audience is on Twitter and vice versa. Your social media manager must have some insight about where your potential clients are having day-to-day conversations. They should also have a working knowledge of how Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn work.

4) ADDING VALUE: Without value on a social media platform, you fall out of place so all across the board your business need to bring valuable information to fans and followers. This comes in the form of blog post, links and other factual information. Your social media manager must understand this and do their home work on a daily basis in order to bring your potential and existing clients the value that they expect.

5) ENGAGE PEOPLE: Social media has shut the door to a one-way conversation and it’s not good enough to dish out masses of information. An effective business asks questions and seeks feedback. A good social media manager knows this and so they will keep up to date with you to find out if there’s any pressing issues that can be addressed via the social media platforms.

6) BE ACTIVE: Being active is a key to social media success but there must be a balance so that your conversations aren’t missed or become a nuisance to others. A skilled social media manager knows the difference and can discern between them.

7) FAST RESPONSE: Because of the open nature of the platform, any business owners must be alert and respond to queries and complaints in a timely manner. A good social media manager is skilled enough to keep the situation under control while they consult business owners on the final verdict.

When looking for a social media manager, ensure that they know their boundaries and the extent to which they can speak on your behalf. You should also ensure that you give out any specific instructions about the management of your account/s. You must also agree on the task that should be carried out on your behalf.

All in all, a professional social media manager can bring value to your business and save you hours of keeping up-to-date with online social media marketing task. The good thing is that you will always be in charge as there should be a comprehensive monthly report and ongoing means of communication.

Regus Research 2010 found out the following in a study that they conducted to find out ifbusinesses acquire customers through social media.

1.    50%of small businesses acquire new customers through social media

2.    36%of medium size businesses acquire new customers through social media

3.    28%of large businesses acquire new customers through social media

It is commonly stated that social media is widely used to find new customers and to engage existing ones.

Here are 10 reasons why every business should utilise social media:-

1.   It builds your brand and strengthens your relationship with your customers. People can recommend your business to their friends and that’s extremely effective to drive new customers your way. According to Nielsen survey, 90% of consumers said that they trust recommendation from people that they know and 70% trust opinions from people who post reviews online

2.   Social media site arepopular: 500M on Facebook meaning that if it was a country, it would be the 3rd largest in the world. Twitter 145M and Linked in 70M. There is a chance that many of your target audience are using atleast one social media site.

3.   Social media is used byeveryone.Pingdom the web monitoring provider found out that 25% of social networking site users are between 35 and 44. 57% is older than 35 and the average age ofuser is 44

4.   Social media is a never-ending conversation: In June 2010, Facebook reported that halfits users login on any given day and spend up to 500 billion minutes on the site each month. 25 Billion content shared on Facebook each month. 65 Million tweets daily

5.   Instant Feedback: Customers can comment onyour positive and negative aspect of your business giving you the power toenhance what is working and work on your weak points

6.   2 Way communication: Allows you to have aninitial conversation with multiple consumers at any given time

7.   Share your profile: You can post important information about you or your business giving people an instant insight in what you do

8.   Social Media marketing is Free: SMM is free unlike other conventional marketing means

9.   Separate personal account from your business: Enable you to target your audience in a relevant  way

10. Social media is everywhere: People access their A/C from their mobile phones or even from the email. Like buttons and other software makes it more manageable.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a set of methodologies that make it easier for a search engine to find, index, categorise and rank web content. It is the most effective online marketing tactics to generate results as it adds to the relevance of a website andincreases its visibility for particular keywords.

Each month while 285 million people view TV and 48.4 million read the daily newspaper; there are over 14 billion people who conduct online search within that same period of time. This implies that morepeople use search engine to find information that they need than any other medium.  It would therefore seem worthwhile for marketers to employ SEO to improve the relevance of their websiteand to become more discoverable.

Here are two case studies that indicate the relevance of SEO:

1.      Fabric Retailer:- JandoFabrics.com

 This particular fabric retailer was overspendingon ads; however they implemented SEO and 5532 inbound links. As a result oftheir SEO effort they reduce money spent on marketing, their sales increased aswell as website traffic increased by 80%.

2.      SmartKit:- Smart-Kit.com

This was a 6 month old gaming websitewho was struggling to get traffic. They then turned to SEO and social media to increase website traffic which increased by 4,400%. The website is now in top10 position of Google for important keywords that sends them 300,000 visitorseach month. They have also increased their revenue stream as they are sellingadvertising.

In both these case studies, SEO has proven to improve online marketing success and to grow business and to reducecost spent on advertising.  Since, theseare three (3) areas of interest to most marketers they will become attracted to SEO.

References:

•  How to Implement SEO to Improve Search Traffic by Jia Li Lily Zhu at HubSpot
• Class on Basic SEO Techniques
• http://inboundmarketing.com/university/seo-crash-course-to-get-found-gf102
•  Hubspot University student
  

When people talk about Social Media, many people think about Facebook and Twitter oreven YouTube. However, there are scores of other Social media platforms thatmight be more appropriate to the needs of your business or your interest. Starple Marketing services have put together a Social media directory on your behalf.  

aNobii

aNobiiis a social networking site targeted to worldwide booklovers. The idea behind aNobii is simple: create an online platform for avid-readers to share reviews,recommendations, and most important of all, find other similar-taste booklovers

AudioBoo

AudioBoois a website and iPhone OS application designed to allow users to post andshare sound files on the AudioBoo website. AudioBoo was developed by UK basedand partially funded by Channel 4 and was launched in March 2009

 author STREAM

AuthorSTREAMis a web-based PowerPoint presentation sharing platform from authorGENTechnologies, a company based in Raleigh, North Carolina (NC), USA, with adevelopment arm in Chandigarh, India.

Aviary

Aviary is a collaborativecreative suite for artists of all genres. Available both on and offline, via Adobe’s Flex and Air technologies respectively, Aviaryenables artists to create on the fly with an inventory of tools for everymedium. From image editing to typography to music to 3D to video, artists cancreate and collaborate using our free, light, and powerful software.

BackType

BackType is a marketingintelligence platform that helps brands and agencies understand the businessimpact of social media. BackType also powers social features for over 100companies, including The New York Times, Slideshare, Automattic (creators ofWordPress), Bit.ly and more.

Badoo

Badoo` is a multi-lingual, Londonbased, social networking website. It offers users the ability to connect withpeople at a local and global level, allowing them to share photos and videos,create `reportages` of their lives, and promote themselves and their work.

BallHype

BallHype is a sports aggregatorwhich pulls in information from thousands of sports blogs and also allows usersto create their own content.

Bambuser

Bambuser is an application/servicethat enables the user to stream live video from your mobile phone using 3G orWiFi. Bambuser, the simplest way to share your experiences and interact withyour viewers in real-time.

Bebo

Bebo is a popular socialnetworking site which connects you to everyone and everything you care about.It is your life online - a social experience that helps you discover what'sgoing on with your world and helps the world discover what’s going on with you.

Behance.net

Bēhance is an application forCreative Professionals to create, maintain, and share online portfolios.Members may also connect with other creatives within the platform. Jobs arelisted and links are provided. Other users may browse the galleries and offersupport via “appreciate” tabs.

BizNik

Biznik is abusiness-building social network for indie professionals. That means folks whoown and operate their own businesses, whether they are the head honcho of oneor a team of twenty. Accountants, fashion designers, writers, sex therapists,business coaches, attorneys, marketing gurus, soap makers - and countlessothers - are all part of the Biznik mix.

BlinkList

is a greatsocial bookmarking site for beginners and for long-time users. The videotutorials make it easy for those new to social bookmarking to get up andrunning. The blink button added to the browser toolbar is a great way ofquickly bookmarking and tagging sites without moving away from the website, andthe ability to highlight some of the text on the site is an added bonus.

Blip.fm

Blip.fm is amusic recommendation and streaming site. Users post short messages on whatmusic they are listening to at the moment, the site then turns them intostreaming links using Imeem.

Blip.tv

Blip.tv is anext-generation television network. They provide services of scale to more than48,000 independently produced Web shows. Their services include technology,workflow automation, business development, distribution, marketing andadvertising sales.

Blippr

blippr is amicroblogging service for user reviews of products, allowing users to discuss,discover, and organize books, games, movies, and music that they are interestedin.

Blogger

Bloggeris a blog-publishing servicethat allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries.

Blogmarks

A social bookmarks manager that allows categorization via custom tags. Offers several tools to share content, including synchronization with a weblog.

BlogTV

BlogTV is the place where you can show off your talent, build a fan base and share youropinions LIVE! Any person with a lap top or PC and a webcam is only seconds awayfrom having their very own live broadcasts, recorded videos and televisionstyle scheduled programming.

Brightkite

BrightKite isa social network, however unlike many of the other social networking sites thisone is location related. This site works in real time to keep track of whereyour friends are, and also makes it really easy to share various experienceswith one another. You can also use the site to find and meet new people fromyour local area. It’s really easy to use BrightKite and the system can beaccessed using email, WAP, iPhone, and text messaging. This ease of use makesit particularly easy for anyone to update their status wherever they are.

Buzznet

Buzznet is a photo, journal, and video-sharing social medianetwork, owned by Buzz Media. Like other social networking sites, Buzznet isa place for members to share content based on their personal interests. Unlikeclassic social networks, which focus primarily onmessaging and profile pages, Buzznet members participate in communities thatare created around ideas, events and interests; most predominantly, music,celebrities and the media.

Cafemom

CafeMom is a social network site for mothers. CafeMom allows mothers to connect on shared interests, challenges,and local communities. CafeMom’s features include customizable profile pages, awidget platform, mom-created groups, IM feature and friends’ networks.

Claimid

claimID allows users to manage theironline identities using OpenID.

Colour Lovers

COLOUR loversis a community of color enthusiasts, naming colors, creating color palettes andsharing color inspiration ideas. There are basic palette making tools as wellas professional tools to help develop color palettes.

Corkd

Cork’d is afree service for wine aficionados. You can use Cork’d to catalog, rate andreview wines you’ve tasted. You can also keep track of wines you’d like to tryand buy as well as subscribe to what your buddies have reviewed. It’s a new wayto discover and share wine — and we think it’s perfect for people like you.

Current

Current is the website that hosts Current TV. The site is designed to allow audience membersthe ability to participate in the current TV experience. There are also anumber of online social networking features which make it possible to createprofiles and comment on various events. Current TV boasts one of its foundersand its current chairman as Al Gore, that’s the same Al Gore that was a formerVice President of the United States. Clearly whether this is really the case orjust a publicity stunt remains to be seen. He does have something to do withthe site, but we will never know how involved he is. The channel is availablein over 51 million households all around the world and is carried by a numberof TV networks including DirecTV, Virgin Media and the Dish Network. Thenetwork is made up of pods; these are segments of content which are between 1and 8 minutes long. There is a current journalism program which allows amateursthe ability to create their own pods to cover various stories. There is anapproval program in place to make sure that only good content is approved.Users can also help to support the site by creating viewer created adverts.

DailyBooth

DailyBooth provides users with another fun way to keep those they know informed abouttheir life. The site allows users to tell stories through their photos. Userscan also add status updates to go along with their images. Sometimes textsimply isn’t enough. The photo format makes it fun and easy to show the worldwhat the user is doing or did today. The site works in real time so friends andfamily can always review the most up to date images and status postings on auser’s profile. DailyBooth gives users a fun, entertaining way to stay in touchand keep others informed on what is going on in their lives.

DailyMotion

Dailymotion is a social video site based out of Paris that offers a mix of both amateur andprofessional content. They are differentiating their site by offering a mix ofprofessional content, contextual advertising, and paying top content producers(companies or individuals) through their MotionMaker program. Dailymotionoffers a healthy mix of individual videos, channels and groups that can beviewed by popularity, most recent, most views and most rated.

Delicious

del.icio.usallows you to keep your bookmarks online. Instead of sorting your bookmarks perfolder you can tag them. By default your bookmarks are public allowing peopleto learn from one another.

DeviantART

deviantART isan online artist community. The site aims to be the place for any artist toexhibit and discuss their works.

Digg

Digg is a user driven social content website split up into two sections – “Popular” storiesand “Upcoming” stories. After you submit content it goes into the “Upcoming”stories section. This is where other people read your submission and “Digg”what they like best. If your story receives enough Diggs, it’s promoted to the“Popular” section and listed on the front page for other visitors to see. Thiseffectively allows the Digg community to choose which stories are the best.

Diigo

Diigo (DEE-go)is a Social bookmarking website which allows signed users to bookmark and tagweb-pages. More exclusively, it allows users to highlight any part of a webpageand attach sticky notes to specific highlights or to a whole page. Theseannotations can be kept private, shared with a group within Diigo or a speciallink forwarded to someone else. The name “Diigo” is an abbreviation for “Digestof Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff”.

Disqus

The service offers a networked comment system used to foster engagement and connectaudiences from around the web.

Dropjack

Dropjack is anonline news site that users can contribute to and comment on news stories.Users can read news stories, rank them and also comment on them. If you want tocomment or rank news stories then you need to register for an account and signinto it.

EBay

Ebay is one ofthe most well known virtual marketplaces on the internet today. The siteoperates much like an auction, with users posting items for sale and otherusers bidding on those items. The highest bidder can purchase the item when thetime runs out. Users can also add a “Buy it Now” option that allows anyone toimmediately purchase the item and end the auction for a set price. Manyindividuals and businesses have started their own Ebay stores, which work muchlike a regular store but through Ebay.

Ecademy

Ecademy is asocial network for business people worldwide.

eHow

eHow.com inspires and empowerspeople to succeed at life’s everyday projects, by connecting members withinformation, tools and each other to accomplish any task.

Elgg.org

Elgg is open source socialnetworking software. It provides the components that help individuals andorganizations to build a fully-featured social environment

epinions

Epinions aims at helping peoplemake informed buying decisions by being a source and platform for valuableconsumer insight, unbiased advice, in-depth product evaluations, andpersonalized recommendations.

eSnips

A socialnetwork where users get 5GB of free space to upload and share their files,photos, videos and music.

Etsy

Etsy.com is awebsite that provides an online marketplace that connects people who createhandmade products and buyers interested in this market. Handmade items, artssupplies, and vintage items are all listed on Etsy. By registering, a user maycreate his or her own seller’s shop with an individual URL based on username.Buyers and sellers may take advantage of multiple methods of payment includingPayPal, personal check, money order, or a user-defined method.

Facebook

Facebook is a free social networkservice. The network is made up of thousands of networks based aroundorganizations, education and regions.

Fanpop

FanPop is a is a network of fanclubs to stay up to date with current affairs. The internet is getting biggereveryday which means finding out about what you’re interested in can becomevery time consuming. Fanpop simplifies that by gathering together all of thisinformation into a one stop resource for everyone. Fanpop is simply a largenetwork of fan sites which are created by users. These fan sites are allcreated on different topics and subjects. They are then maintained by the samecommunity. Each fan site has its own features and can work as an independentsite. The features include pictures, forums and videos to name but a few.

Faves

Faves, formerly called BlueDot,is a bookmarking site with a uniquely anti-social approach. The relaunched siteadds features making their bookmark database more relevant and easier to usefor anti-social bookmarkers. At the core, it has the same social and privacyfeatures of the old Blue Dot. However, they’ve added a new method of findingtrusted links that doesn’t require building yet another social network. The newsite adds a topic network that does a lot of the networking and recommendingimplicitly along with an easy-to-use feed reader for sorting through new links.It’s kind of like Digg and Delicious combined with Google Reader.

FFFFound!

FFFFOUND! is a web service that notonly allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web,but also dynamically recommends each user’s tastes and interests for aninspirational image-bookmarking experience!!

Flickr

Flickr.com is a photo sharingwebsite with free and paid memberships. Users have the option to make theirpictures private or public, however around 80% of the pictures on Flickr arepublic. Other features of Flickr include maps to track where and when photoswere taken, tagging and commenting on pictures, and the ability to createpostcards and other products.

Fotolog

Fotolog is a social networkingwebsite based around photo sharing. Users set up photo diaries which allow themto share their photo filled lives via the internet by sharing access to theirdiaries. Fotolog signed up their 3 millionth user account during the spring of2006 and has over 15 million hits a month.

Foursquare

Foursquare is a location basedsocial network that incorporates gaming elements. Users share their locationwith friends by “checking in” via a smartphone app or by text message. Pointsare awarded for checking in at various venues. Users can connect theirFoursquare accounts to their Twitter and Facebook accounts, which can updatewhen a check in is registered. By checking in a certain number of times, or indifferent locations, users can collect virtual badges. In addition, users whohave checked in the most times at a certain venue will be crowned “Mayor” untilsomeone surpasses their number. Various venues have embraced Foursquare, and offerspecial deals to users who are “mayors”.

FriendFeed

FriendFeed aims at enhancingsociability among people through sharing of online content. This is achieved byseamless sharing of streams of information to which pooling keeps occurring atdifferent stages. FriendFeed effortlessly allows its members to remainup-to-date about web pages, photos, videos and music that are shared by friendsand family. When a user signs up to FriendFeed, it is followed by sendinginvites to friends.

Funnyordie

Funny Or Die is a comedy videowebsite that combines user generated content with original, exclusive content.Celebrities, up-and-coming comedians and regular users alike can all put upstuff they think is funny. At the same time, the site hopes to eliminate allthe junk that people have to pick through to find good videos. Users vote onwhat videos are funny and what videos deserve to die.

Fwisp

fwisp is a network focused onbusiness, economy & finance-related topics. It provides fresh,user-controlled quality content for everyone to discover and share.

Gather

Gather is a leading demand-drivenmedia company. The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Skyword, the leaderin Search-Driven Media (SDM). The site is powered by content created bySkywriters, who create more than 8,000 pieces of content that reach more than9M people worldwide.

Good Reads

GoodReads is a social networking sitefor book lovers. The site is intended to serve as an easy way to review booksand get recommendations from friends, based on founder Otis Chandler’s beliefthat recommendations from friends are more valuable than referrals fromalgorithms or bestseller lists.

Google

Google Docs is Google's online office suite application. It allows you to read and writedocuments, spreadsheets and presentations. In this review we will beconcentrating on the word processing functions.

GRAZEit

GRAZEit is asocial bookmarking plugin and application for sharing web pages with friendsand connections, helping to drive more traffic to your site.

Hi5

Hi5.com is oneof the largest social media sites worldwide. According to comScore, hi5.comserved approximately 150 billion pages in 2009, making it the 14th largest website in the world by page views. Available in over 50 languages, hi5 combinesthe core features of a social networking site (including user profile pages,friend connections, friend updates, photo sharing, groups and more) with socialentertainment features – including a dedicated games portal with hundreds ofFlash-based and social games, a global virtual currency for micro-transactions,and various self-expression features (e.g. customizable profile skins, 3Davatars, animated gifts, etc.). The site monetizes traffic through bothadvertising and direct user payments for virtual goods and games. The site alsodistributes many third-party games, which run on its OpenSocial platform, andshares revenue from the game with partners.

Howcast

HowCast is avideo sharing site similar to YouTube however it is slightly different as itoffers educational how to type videos. These videos can be used to show you howto do pretty much anything you want. It was founded by a group of ex Google andYouTube employees.

Hulu

Hulu is anonline video provider held by NBC Universal,News Corporation, and, as of April 2009, Disney.The site focuses exclusively on professional content and does not take on YouTubedirectly as a viral video destination. The site raised $100 million infinancing from Providence Equity Partners. Hulu iscurrently the second largest video provider on the web.

iLike

iLike is asocial networking site based around music.

ImageShack

ImageShack isone of the better knowing image sharing websites on the internet, they do offersubscription based services but most users sign up for free accounts. Most oftheir revenue is generated from advertising and partnership deals. ImageShackhas received a lot of positive reviews with it being one of the fastest growingsites on the internet. The site was launched in 2003 and ever since has grownin popularity because of the range of features and ease of use. The main pageof the site is where you can upload images quickly and easily, you just need toselect the image that you want to upload. The site supports BMP, SWF, TIFF,GIF, PNG or JPEG

Instructables

Instructablesis a site developed by Squid Labs, a lab whose focus is on technical innovationand whose founders were once part of the MIT Media Lab. Instructables providesa forum for personal creativity, as it allows users to post instructions todescribe how they created something.

Jaiku

Jaikuis a social networking, micro-bloggingand lifestreamingservice comparable to Twitter.[1] Jaiku was founded inFebruary 2006 by Jyri Engeström[2] and Petteri Koponen fromFinland[3] and launched in July ofthat year. It was purchased by Googleon October 9, 2007.

Jamendo

Jamendo.com isan online community of free, legal and unlimited music published with CreativeCommons licenses. Basically, this means that any of the music published on theJamendo site can be used free for personal use. The Creative Commons licenseallows the owner of the music to retain some rights, while giving users theability to download and listen to the music freely. Commercial rights are alsoavailable on a case-by-case basis, which can be handled through the Jamendosite. This allows the site to offer free music to its users yet allowspublishers to earn some income from the commercial rights to their works. Userscan search for music on the Jamendo site by keyword, or by browsing by Artistor Album. The site also features a group of Selections, which includes The 100Most Listened To, Radio Stations, and Play lists (developed by users). The sitealso features social networking aspects such as Profiles, Friends, Forums andMessaging. There is a very active user base at Jamendo, and all of the music onthe site is rated by the users using a star system of 1 to 5 stars. Music isavailable in MP3 or ogg format, as well as via BitTorrent download.

Kaboodle

Kaboodleoffers an easy way to collect information from the web and also search forthings you may be interested in. Kaboodle can be used to collect and shareinformation for shopping, travel, research, or just about anything else. Withover 35,000 users, Kaboodle’s user base is relatively small, but the site isyoung and has much room to grow.

Kongregate

Kongregate isa casual gaming social network where gamers can gain ranking and earn awards.The site allows developers to upload their games and share in revenues (25-50%)from the ads displayed around the games. Kongregate promotes developers toupload new games by having “game of the week” contests.

 Last.fm

Last.fm is a social networking company which revolves around its music recommendationengine. It offers events, wiki-created artist profiles and discographies andcommunity forums.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a fast-growing professional networking site that allows members to createbusiness contacts, search for jobs, and find potential clients. Individualshave the ability to create their own professional profile that can be viewed byothers in their network, and also view the profiles of their own contacts.

LiveJournal

LiveJournal isa blogging service.

Livevideo

LiveVideo is avideo streaming site incorporating live streaming videos with social networkingfeatures. The site features videos, messaging, chat, profiles, groups,channels, photos, music playlists and blogging. All of these features can beaccessed via the user’s home page on the site. Videos are the main feature ofthe site, with the other features incorporated around them. Video blogs can behosted on the site, and their creation is simplified via Livecam, abrowser-based video recording tool incorporated into the site.

Mahalo

Mahalo is a human powered search engine founded by Silicon Valley veteran entrepreneurJason Calacanis. Results are generated non-algorithmically by a team of profile builders who create pages for search terms. Mahalo includes the most appropriate hand found links and information about for about 10,000 unique queries. Mahalo is one of a few substantially funded alternative search engines including Powerset,Hakia, Wikia,and ChaCha. Wikipediacan also be considered a competitor.

 Mixx

its a social network that lets you find and share news based on your interests and location.

Multiply

Multiply is asocial site built around digital content sharing. Users get their own pageswhere they can add all their favorite personal digital content like videos,music, calendars and blogs. They are encouraged to invite their contact listsfrom other sites like Yahoo, Myspace, Hotmail and Bebo. Once you have built upa network by inviting friends and family and you can start picking and choosinghow your digital content is shared with the network.

MyLot

MyLot is anonline community that you can use exactly the same as any other socialnetworking site. The site helps you to meet friends both new and old, andpossibly find people that you will fall in love with. The community is friendlyand you can talk about anything you want including fashion, hobbies, TV, films,music, money, and relationships. What’s different is that MyLot actually paysyou money every time you post.

MySpace

MySpace isclass leading social networking website that encompasses a plethora of featuresto provide a user-friendly platform to web users to keep up with their friends,families, and business people.

Netlog

Netlog(formerly Facebox) is a social network primarily used in Europe. As of March2010, it has over 60 million users.

Netvibes

Netvibes ishome page which can be customized to include Atom/RSS feeds, email, weatherforecasts, search engines, to-dos, notes and other widgets.

Newsvine

Newsvine.comas the name suggests is a news website, albeit with a difference. In thisapplication, news from the wire sources like ‘The associated press’ and ESPNare tagged and posted on the site. Additionally registered members can alsopost their own news as well as seed posts which are linked to the original newssource. This translates into an interesting, interactive and dynamic site.

Ning

Ning is the world’s largest platform to create powerful, custom social websites. Toporganizers, marketers, influencers, and activists use Ning to create a socialdestination where content intersects with conversations to inspire action.Every social website comes with out-of-the-box social integration, communityfeatures, point-and-click design tools, and turnkey monetization solutions thatare easy to use.

Odeo

Odeois a podcasting service and is a division of SonicMountain,a digital media company. Odeo is SonicMountain’s “portal through which theyplan to unveil new tools and utilities that improve the podcasting experience.”

Photobucket

Photobucket.comis an online photo, video and graphics sharing site. Users can create albums,slideshows and scrapbooks. The site features an excellent browser-based imageeditor, and users can create group albums which allow several different peopleto upload images with a common theme. Photos and videos can easily be shared onMySpace, Facebook, Blogger, LiveJournal or via email. The site also provides aconvenient place for hosting photos that are too large to be uploaded to theuser’s blog or social networking site, with each image uploaded to the sitehaving a link assigned to it. Users can upload photos easily from theircomputer hard drive, from web URL, from a mobile phone, via email, or from theAsk toolbar. Prints can be ordered on the site directly from Target or Kodak.Users can also order mugs, T-shirts and playing cards with their photos printedon them. The site also includes a feature called remix, where a user can createa custom presentation that contains photos, videos, and background music. Thereis also a feature called fotowall, which allows the user to create a collage ofdifferent photos.

PHREADZ

hreadz is asocial multimedia conversation network of video, audio and photo bloggingcreated via the desktop or from mobile devices. It also posts content to othersystems like blogs, photo or video sites.

Picasa

Picasa isGoogle’s photosharing product. It is accessible from the Google toolbar andallows users to upload, share, and organize photos with privacy settings.

Plaxo

Plaxo helpskeep people connected by solving the common and frustrating problem ofout-of-date contact information. Users and their contacts store their information on Plaxo’s servers. When a user edits their own information, thechanges appear in the address books of all those who listed the user in theirown address books. Because contacts are stored in a central location, it’spossible to list connections between contacts and access the address book from anywhere.

Plurk

Plurk.com is acredible online application that endows micro-blogging and social networkingservices to it users. The service lets users to send and receive updates, inform of short messages or links. With Plurk, web users can broadcast a shortmessage of less than 140 characters, either to themselves or to their buddieswho may be located across different regions of the globe. The ‘timeline’ widgetof this remarkable application displays the received updates in chronologicalorder on its user’s homepage. This sequential presentation helps users inunderstanding the received information in an enhanced manner, and offers asound idea about the issue. From sharing emotions, thoughts, and ideas, toimages and videos, the application proves to be a commendable sharing platform.Along with this, the application further lets its users to keep in touch withthe friends and colleagues, and dole out other required social networkingattributes. In addition, Plurk also allow its users to send feedback on theirfriend’s status that is usually displayed in form of instant messages or textmessages. These feedback and comment options let the users feel more valued andimportant, and thereby enhance its appeal for the web users.

Politics4all.com

Politics4All is asocially-networked platform that allows candidates, citizens, and politicaladvocacy groups to collaborate and effect change on every political level.Theirfree Web-based social platform combines fundraising, volunteering, campaign andlegislative tracking, news feeds, blogging/micro-blogging, press kits, and areal-time meeting and debate forum. Their collaborative network provides acommunity of users interested in people, activities, events, and groups aboutpolitics.

Posterous

It’s a simple web publishing platform via email. Text and files can be uploaded to the sitevia email.Posterous embeds video, MP3s and other media into a player and turnsimages into image galleries. PDFs and other office documents are displayed in aScribd embedded widget.

Propeller

Propeller is anews story gathering website with a social networking twist.

Qik

Qik bringspowerful video capabilities to the mobile phone including the ability tocapture and share experiences right as they happen. Qik enables live two-waymobile-to-mobile video chatting, as well as the ability to send and receivevideo mail messages. Qik also allows users to capture special moments whereverthey might happen and instantly share them with others via email, SMS or postthem to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and any website.

Quora

Quora is acontinually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, andorganized by everyone who uses it. The most important thing is to have eachquestion page become the best possible resource for someone who wants to knowabout the question.

Rate Your Music

Rate YourMusic (or RYM) is a meta database where musical (and non-musical) albums, EPs, singles,videos, bootlegs,and (as of 2009) moviesare rated and reviewed by users. This data is then used to generaterecommendations for users and to create rated lists of albums. Weighted averagesare used to calculate the ordering for these lists; regular members who writereviews and rate more albums have a greater weight applied to their ratings. Itis a wiki inthe sense that users can add, edit and remove content; however, the majority ofnew, edited content must be approved by a moderator.

Rebja

Rebja is abusiness networking community that aims to automatically connect businesses intheir areas to enable significant growth of contacts.

Reddit

Reddit is asocial news website that displays news based on your personal preferences andwhat the community likes. Your preferences are determined based on your historyof voting stories up or down.

Redux

Redux is yourentertainment guide to the web. The premise is simple; people that share yourtaste push great entertainment to you. And Redux does so in a live, energetic,and addictive social environment unlike any other.

ResumeBucket

ResumeBucketis the fastest growing free online employment service. Helping job seekersbuild a personal brand and better represent themselves to future employers,ResumeBucket provides each candidate their own website where they can easilypost, edit, share and track their resume online.

Revver

The first usergenerated video site to offer revenue share, Revver is a video sharing site.Revver was founded in 2004 before user generated video had even begun to takeoff.

Ryze

Ryze helpspeople make connections and grow their networks. You can network to grow yourbusiness, build your career and life, find a job and make sales. Or just keepin touch with friends.

Seesmic

Seesmic.com isa video conversion website that mainly focuses on the video aspect of socialnetworking. With Seesmic.com, instead of writing in plain text, users can blog,comment, share their views through video.

Setlist.fm

Setlist.fm isa wiki-like service to collect and share setlists. Users can search, add andedit setlists and embed them into websites.

ShareTheMusic

ShareTheMusic.comis an innovative and unique project since it does not distribute music filesbut it acts as a middleman among those who are willing to share their music -by enabling other Internet users to listen to it.

Shelfari

Shelfari, Incis a division of Amazon that runs Shelfari, a social network for book lovers.

Skribit

Skribit aimsto cure writer’s block by helping bloggers and other website owners receivesuggestions and topics to write about. Bloggers customize and install a widgetin their sidebar or a suggestions tab, allowing their readers to makesuggestions.

Skyrock

Skyrock.com isa social networking site offering its members a free, personal web space. Onecan create a blog, add a profile, and exchange messages with other registeredmembers. The site also offers a specific space for members who create blogsshowcasing their original musical compositions.

Slashdot

Slashdot is anonline community news site which is powered completely by user’s submissions.This means that users are free to write their own posts and submit them to thesite.

Slide

Originallyformed to make photo sharing software for social networking services such as MySpace,the company achieved its greatest success as the largest developer ofthird-party applications for Facebook.

SlideSix

SlideSixempowers users to create a unique and powerful impression by giving them a richweb based application where they can import presentation material and personalizetheir message by narrating each slide with video or audio.

Snooth

Snooth is asocial network, recommendation engine and shopping site all in one, thatrevolves around wine.

Socialgo

SocialGOc reates a flexible, fun social networking website for you and your group. It is stand-alone or can simply be bolted onto an existing site if need be. As  browser based service, it is operated from dedicated servers and does notrequire software downloads. In this way, members of a network can access itfrom anywhere in the world.

SoundCloud

SoundCloud isa really useful way of sharing music files without having to worry about doinganything complicated. SoundCloud simplifies the process involved in sharing musicfiles. Rather than having to upload your files to an FTP and then send everyonecomplicated instructions you can now use this site.

Soup.io

Soup.io is atumblelogging service -- an easy multimedia blogging system. Users can easilypost a text entry, upload videos, audios, links, photos, reviews and events.

Sphinn

Sphinn is a unique social networking site aimed at marketers. It’s designed with thepurpose of making it easy for you to discover and share news stories that youthink are interesting. There are also social networking features includingdiscussions and the ability to discuss stories with other people.

Squidoo

Squidoo is anetwork of user-generated lenses - single pages that highlight one person’spoint of view, recommendations, or expertise. Lenses can be about anything,such as ideas, people or places, hobbies and sports, pets or products, philosophy,and politics. Lenses aren’t primarily intended to hold content; more emphasisis placed on recommending and then pointing to content on the web.

Steam

Steam Republicis a company with roots in music business, and a future in digital fan-oriented marketing in the world of entertainment. The company creates concept-drivenproducts and solutions for social oriented marketing needs in the constantlychanging digital age.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon isa discovery engine that finds the best of the web, recommended just for you.StumbleUpon uses positive and negative user ratings to form collaborativeopinions on website quality. When users stumble, they will only see pages whichfriends and like-minded stumblers have recommended. Users often find that thecontent they discover on StumbleUpon could not have been found using a searchengine.

Technorati

Technorati Media is an integrated online media company with an ad network, three owned webproperties, and an ad technology platform.

ThisNext

ThisNext is asocial commerce site where people recommend their favorite products so otherscan discover what’s best to buy online. It blends two powerful elements ofreal-world shopping otherwise lost for online consumers: word-of-mouthrecommendation from trusted sources and the ability to browse products in theway that naturally leads to discovery.

Tipd

Tip’d is asocial media community where members can share investing, finance, andbusiness-related tips and ideas.

Tribe

Tribe is asocial networking site that is similar to MySpace and Facebook however usersare able to create their own small social networks which are tailored forspecific interests and hobbies. These are known as tribes and other users are freeto join these tribes if they are also interested in the subject.

Tripit

TripIt is anintelligent travel organizer that helps travelers manage their plans so thattheir trips go more smoothly. Travelers simply forward their purchaseconfirmation emails to TripIt and TripIt automatically creates masteritineraries with travel plans and other critical information. With TripIt, it’seasy for travelers to print or access their trip plans from anywhere–and toshare itineraries and travel calendars with friends in their TripIt network.

Tumblr

Tumblris a microbloggingplatform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes andaudio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can follow other users, orchoose to make their tumblelog private. The service emphasizes ease of use.

Twitter

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post their latest updates. An update is limited by 140 characters and can be postedthrough three methods: web form, text message, or instant message.

UStream

Ustream is theleader in live video and its platform empowers any individual, public figure orbrand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size. Ustream offers freebroadcasting and viewing platforms for the Web and mobile devices. Theinteractive functionality within Ustream enables real-time engagement withFacebook, Twitter, MySpace and AIM. Hundreds of high-profile broadcasters havepartnered with Ustream to reach millions of people.

Vi.sualize.us

Vi.sualize.usis a social bookmarking site with a twist, it allows you to surf the internetas normal and then bookmark any of the pictures that you like on your travels.If you see any sort of image that you like then you can use the plugin to addit to your list of bookmarked images. It’s an interesting form of socialnetworking that lets you share images that you find interesting with otherpeople. It’s a fun way to learn more about what your friends like, and findpeople that have similar interests as yourself.       

Viddler

Viddler is avideo site that allows users to upload, enhance and share their video fromtheir browser. The site charges premium fees to users who want to use upgradedfeatures, and also allows users to upload in bulk, add deep tags at specifictimes during videos and record directly from their webcam.

Vimeo

Vimeo is acleanly-designed video sharing website that allows people to publish theirvideos for public consumption or just for friends and family. Vimeo launchedsupport for high definition video in October 2007, further establishing itselfas a leading video hosting platform.

Virb

Virb isdedicated to providing a website building and maintaining service to users fora very low monthly fee. Users can tailor their site to any purpose they like,and Virb offers elegant elements and handy tools to make the process easy.Users to not need any website design or programming knowledge to put togethertheir eye-catching web space on Virb. Additional features are available tousers, including music albums, blogs, event posting tools, and collection pages.

Vox

Vox is anextremely easy to use web based blogging platform, that also acts as a socialnetworking platform. It is designed to be simpler than Type Pad, but morerobust than LiveJournal.

Wakoopa

Wakoopa is avery specialized social network revolving around the desktop software itsmembers use. Through a downloadable tracking application for your PC or Macevery software application you use and how long you use it is recorded andgathered by Wakoopa’s servers. Your personal profile will display all of yoursoftware related data and will update automatically with any news, updates orreviews on each specific application. Small forums are created around individualapplications and similar applications are listed below a tag cloud. This socialnetwork does have utility and fills a crucial hole for many users.

wikipedia

Wikia is afree commercial wiki hosting service aimed at creating communities.

Wishlistr

WishListrgives users an easy way to tell the world about the things they want. Foryears, people have been compiling wish lists to make it easier for friends andfamily to shop for them. This valuable tool can shave off a great deal of timewhen looking for the perfect present. The gift giver can buy with confidenceknowing that they are purchasing something the gift receiver wants and does notalready have. WishListr takes this common task and makes it web based withadditional features to help users track their wish lists and share them withothers who might be buying them something. WishListr is easy to use and makesshopping for gifts much more convenient.

Wordpress

WordPressis a free, Web-based software program that anyone can use to build andmaintain a website or blog. It was originally intended as an easy way to set upa blog. But, thanks to the efforts of a large “open source” community ofWordPress programmers working to extend and improve its capabilities, WordPresshas become much more than just a tool for bloggers.

Xanga

Xanga is afree service which allows users to create their own video, audio and webblog.The site is similar to many popular social networking sites such as MySpace,Friendster and Bebo. The site is largely popular with teenagers and issuccessful in Asia.

XFire

Xfire is a free application that combines multiplegaming tools into one powerful tool to alleviate the need to run multipledifferent gaming related programs. For instance, Xfire allows you to chat withyour friends, see what games they are playing, what servers they are playing onand join them instantly with one click. Xfire also allows you to show off yourgaming skills by capturing screenshots and videos and uploading them to yourProfile page on the Xfire website.

Yotify

Yotify is atidy piece of online application which can keep track of updates and notify theuser. Let’s face it. A normal healthy individual spends at least one hour a dayclicking through various website interests. Keeping abreast of job postings,sale offers and bargains, news etc. is par for the course. Yotigy.com canmanage your interest on the web and save quite a bit of clicks and time alongthe way. In some ways, it is a must for the web savvy. One of the featureswhich can prove to be useful is the inclusion of friends in the notification process.Community scouts and scouts shared with friends can give significant inputs tothe creative process. A scout is the required information which can be set onyotify.com. One can specify the source of information may it be blogs, newsportals, shopping travel or classifieds.

YouTube

YouTube is avideo site where users can upload, share and watch short movies.

Zooomr

Zooomr isdesigned to be a photo sharing application; it is designed to make sharingphotos with anyone wherever they are in the world as easy as possible. It’svery easy to use Zooomr to share an unlimited number of photos with people inall corners of the globe.

 References:

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki
• en.wiktionary.org/wiki/
• wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Since my friend told me about this tool, it has made my life so easier to manage all my twitter accounts. I though I might as well share it with you. It's very cool and easy to use. Just so you get a clearly picture, I've copied the following features from their website:

1. Schedule tweets across all your Twitter accounts,
   
2. Send DMs to all your followers.
   
3. Vastly improve your productivity on Twitter.
4. Easily manage multiple Twitter accounts on one single page with your own TweetCockpit.
   
5. Never again switch windows and log in and log out of multiple Twitter accounts.
6. Keep your Facebook, MySpace, and other social media accounts ticking over with scheduled updates via our Ping.fm integration module.
7. Use our Twitter productivity tools to easily stay on top of your Twitter activity and gain more free time.
   
8. Feed the Twitter addiction without it consuming your life.

I think you've propably got the picture so here is the link. The above is also selling abit but it does what it says. Have a look at SocialOomph here (affiliate link.. I think!)

More information from Social Media Management Service

Many people want to own their own website these days. When I ask people, why? Most answers seem to suggest that,the intention was for it to make its owner loads of money. But there issomething that I tell people and it's this. It’s not just good enough to have a website.

What do I mean by this very blunt statement? Let me explain!  With over 13 billion websites on the Internet and hundreds of thousands of competitors- how do people find your business above the rest? How have you planned to pull traffic to you website? Or, is your website in the non-existent zone on the web.

If people cannot find your website it doesn't exist. I always tell people that having the website is the easy part whether or not they designed it or hired someone else to do it. The hard work really comes with keeping your website in the way of traffic, and traffic that will generate business.

I wasn't going to use this analogy- but I might as well. A website is like a baby who needs close attention if it should grow. (Forgive me, just had to)

Ok let's carry on! Here are sometools that must accompany your website if it's going to reach anyway apart from before your eyes only.

1.      Submit to search engines

2.      Submission to online directories,yellow pages esp. those specialist to  your business

3.      Ask others to post in their own page or social profile

4.      Blog as often as possible

5.      Create podcast them on iTunes where people can subscribe to it

6.      Create a press release

7.      Set-up and join social networking pages

8.      Write and publish articles to article directory

9.      Put website address on printed and all promotional material

10.  Link swap (but be careful where your site ends up)

11.  Participate in question and answer platforms

12.  Add website link to all email signature

13.  Paid per click- PPC

This list is not exhaustive but it is a way to get you started on the journey of making your website stands outand brings you the business that you've set out to have.

Another point to add to this is to ensure that your website is what is called SEO friendly as it's only through such a website that the above will have effect.

2.4 billion People are using the mobile phone of which 30% of this amount surf the internet via their mobile phones. No wonder why the popularity of web development is increasing, with Apple Store reporting a download of 9.9 billion on the 22nd of January 2011.

A mobile compatible website involves product development, applying modern development procedures and special designing. Therefore, you need to understand first that web browsing in mobile and in computer has a major difference hence why you should design a special website that is compatible to view on your customers' mobile devices.

Here are some tips and hints to consider for your mobile site. You should avoid tables in layout because it's not good for mobile designs. Try CCS layout as it it gives maximum compatibility in mobile web site.

Your mobile website can even be more sophisticated with the usage of XML or XTHML coding and set it as UTF-8 in character encoding. You need to consider that there are many mobile screen dimensions associated with the Iphone, Ipad, Blackberry, and Android etc. Your designs should therefore work and be compatible with the most screen dimensions.

20 kilobytes is the maximum size of mobile website. Hence, you should fit all the contents combined with the pictures in that definite size. You also need to put all the important business details and product in a prominent position on the home page

These are the examples of mobile-friendly websites designed for Smartphone.

For search:

• Google: http://m.google.com.au/

• Yahoo: http://au.m.yahoo.com/

For Social Networks

• Facebook: http://m.facebook.com

Whether your business' target audience is local or national, having a mobile website or landing page is more than a good idea. This is because research proves that it increases traffic to your site by up to 13%.

With over 16 million people accessing their internet by the phone within the UK alone, there is not a better time to go mobile.

A mobile website will present your content in a mobile compatible way to your potential customers and drive call to action such as click-2-call, direction to business driving instructions and consequently foot traffic to your business.

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