Online marketing solutions

How Restaurants Can Use Social Media

Every kind of business and service is getting on the bandwagon of Social Media.  Whether you are using email bulk campaigns or e-newsletters, Social media has given the Internet a new intimacy of virtual relationships. Reaching out to your customers and prospects has never been easier. This indeed is another great marketing channel for every restaurant looking to grow their brand awareness.

If your restaurant has been in business for years, and is known in the neighborhood, trust me, people are talking about you online. Make no mistake that there is chatter happening. The question remains, what are they saying? Most restaurants know that having a spectacular dish or menu is not the end of it all. Your customers want to be appreciated and connect personally with you in some way.

I don’t know about you, but when I enjoy a meal, and feel very satisfied and happy with the service, I start talking about that restaurant almost immediately.  Don’t you?  We tell our friends, you need to check this place out, great food, fabulous service. You want to share a good thing when you find it. How much better it would be if we could actually connect with our favorite restaurants online, or see what they are talking about. It sort of completes the experience.

Here is a list of tools that any restaurant owner could use to connect with their customer that in return could produce a type of brand evangelist.

Social Media Tools for Restaurants

• SEO: – your website must be optimized with your key words. That is a must. Being found on a search and ranking high in the SERPs is the first step for brand awareness.

• Sign up with the local restaurant search engines: Yelp.com, Urbanspoon.com, and TripAdvisor.com – Request that any  positive feedback be shared on the site publicly.

• Twitter: – Create a Twitter Account – publish you profile and use it to announce special family deals and discounts on meals.

• Create an E-Newsletter: – Ask your repeat customers for their email addresses and send a double opt in to subscribe to your e-newsletter.  Send a new recipe once a month, include some food preparation tips.  Ask for feedback for your next newsletter.  This is a great way to start your database list for future use along with acquiring a solid lead of customers.

•  Blog on your Website: – Bring your customers into the kitchen, behind the scenes.  Let them feel they are part of the action -  as if they are participating.  We all want to feel a little more than just being filled with good food.  We all want to belong.

•  YouTube – sign up for a free account.  Make a YouTube video of one of your most popular dishes.  Send out the URL on your newsletter and announce it in your blog.  As for feedback from those who have tried the recipe.  What a great way to engage people.

• GoMobile – Collect your client’s cell numbers and send SMS messages about specials and coupon deals.

If you need some guidance with marketing ideas, see this free online source: Virtual Restaurant

BEFORE you Jump into Social Media Marketing:

• Create a plan: First, know your audience, says L. Michelle Smith, president and CEO of Dallas-based media-strategy firm M Strategies Inc., whose clients include Atlanta-based Church’s Chicken.  Are your customers on social networks, and if so, which ones? Next, know what you want to accomplish: Is your goal to build a relationship through dialogue with an audience? To tell people about the brand, or about news and events? “It’s not a strategy just to be there,” Smith says.

• Listen to what customers are saying: Search social-media sites and read what already has been posted—not just in reviews but in comments and conversations. “You’ll learn a phenomenal amount,” says Van Vandegrift, president and emerging-media consultant with Matrixx Pictures, a Santa Monica, Calif., production company whose clients include Austin, Texas-based Schlotzsky’s Deli. “They’ll say all the things they love and all the things they hate, and that’s incredible business knowledge.

• Know your Voice: Decide whether you want to speak to consumers in your personal voice (i.e., as the owner, chef or general manager), or as the overall brand, says Christina Wong, restaurant and chef publicist at JS² Communications in Los Angeles.

• Create brand ambassadors: Find the people who really love your restaurant.  Share your vital info with them, let them spread the good word.

• Make  your conversations interesting: Just listing menu items, unless they’re particularly unusual, makes for a boring post. “Say something that shares part of who you are, like, ‘Chocolate ice cream is the only worthy ice cream’ or ‘Just finished making my grandmother’s bread-pudding recipe and it rocks,’ or ‘Completely slammed in the kitchen, no end in sight,’” says publicist Ellen Malloy.

Remember, social media is just a tool, but you are the one to make it happen.  Listen, answer questions, and connect with people online.  Take these opportunities to reach out to your customers.  When you do, they will be telling others about you, building your brand, and making you visible.

According to Nielsen Online, Twitter alone grew 1,382% year-over-year in February, 2009, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US for the month. With statistics like this, Social Media is proving to be the largest channel for marketing and communication ever.

What is Social News?

Social News websites allow its users to submit news stories, articles and media (videos/pictures) and share them with other users or the general public. An article’s importance is determined by the value or importance placed upon it by the voting community. Users have the power to influence the visibility of content. Whether the voting process is fair or not, the people rule.

As any business email marketer knows, getting your company and website noticed means putting it in front of as many people as you can. Social Media marketing has become a hot new avenue of marketing, and an absolute must to incorporate into your marketing mix. With thousands of people hitting these sites daily, you cannot afford to walk away from such a large audience.

Which sites to join? Each site attracts a different community. Be aware that there are many sites where marketing type articles are not permitted and will be deleted.  However, there are some Social News sites that marketers can use:

• http://www.reddit.com/
• http://digg.com/
• http://www.propeller.com/
• http://slashdot.org/
• http://www.mixx.com/
• http://shoutwire.com/
• http://tweako.com/
• http://www.smallbusinessbrief.com/index.php
• http://www.iliketotallyloveit.com/

Here are some helpful guidelines when creating and posting your articles:

1) Create a catchy headline. Make your headline short, engaging and maybe a bit mysterious.

2) Ask your friends to Vote for You! Email your friends and ask them to submit a vote, if they really like it. Hmmmm…..this will give you a head start. Don’t be shy, get some honest feedback

3) Make it easy to vote. Have a simple, clickable call to action. Don’t make people click through to sub links in which to cast their votes. They just might get a bit frustrated and not vote.

4) Timing is everything. As soon as you publish your article, try to have your friends vote for it right away. The more votes in the shortest amount of time will put your article on top.  Top articles receive a higher search engine ranking. Bottom line, you want quick, and relevant traffic.

5) Become an active community member. Don’t just submit your articles to the social news sites, take the time to vote for articles that you might find interesting, as well. See which articles are getting the most votes. This will give you a better understanding of what type of communities each site is attracting and what they are writing about. This gives you a “heads up” on what these communities like to read.   Customize your article to fit into the community.

6) Success is never guaranteed. No can predict which articles will be successful and which ones will not. Just keep writing good copy about relevant subjects. Social Media News is just a part of your marketing mix. Keep working on all the channels of marketing towards building your ROI.

Know your target sites. With over 50 social news sites and growing, it can be a bit overwhelming. Joining and posting your articles to just any site, is a waste of your time and talent. Focus on what sites and communities will give you the most success.

Social news is getting more mainstream everyday. Within 5 years, we might see a social news site for every conceivable topical or business niche.

All B2B or B2C email marketers know that email campaigns are an important part of their marketing mix.  With the explosion of social media, further avenues and channels must be explored and incorporated for reaching your targeted audience.  A good ROI does not depend on one strategy alone.  In a recent survey advertising and PR professionals stated that 95% of their clients incorporate blogs as part of their online marketing mix.   Nearly 88% have successfully increased measurable SEO objectives as a direct result of blogging.

“Build it and they will come” was a great line in the movie, Field of Dreams.  But that is not how it works in the real world.  Every day, thousands of new blogs are being created by companies and individuals alike.  Putting up a blog, as with a website, is a great start.  Then you need to optimize both for the Search Engines.  But that is just the beginning.  As with your website, no one can read or subscribe to your blog, if it cannot be found.  So how do you promote and market a new blog to the vast internet public?

First and foremost Content is always King – The foundation of any good copy is content.  Good content is vital to the health of your website or blog.  No one wants to read nonsense or fluff.  Make sure you have something to say, and it is relevant.  If you are targeting a particular audience, do your research and join other blogs and RSS feeds to see what your niche audience is talking about.

As I researched the web, I have found some really good tips to share.  Here there are:

1. Write a list of over 100+ resources or ideas.
2. Maybe you can write a “How to Guide?” Spend time making this awesome.
3. Write some articles and submit them to some article sites:

• Enzinearticles.com

• iSnare.com

• ArticlesBase.com

• SearchWarp.com

For a full list of the 25 top article submission sites, please go to:  http://www.wilsonweb.com/linking/wilson-article-marketing-1.htm

4. Need ideas?  Check out different blogs and see what people are blogging.  You can always modify content for your own niche market.

Don’t Forget About Facebook

Facebook is hot.  If you do not have a Facebook account, you need to create one today.  Take advantage of this powerful marketing tool.  If you have one and just let it gather cob webs, it is time for action.  Use Facebook’s great potential.  Here’s how:

Break of out the box. Join other groups that interest you, reaching out to people you would really like to get to know.

Have a voice – don’t be shy.  The whole purpose of having a Facebook account is to reach out and interact with the other members.  Write encouraging comments, ask relevant questions, letting people get to know the person behind the name.

Create a catchy profile. – Facebook has applications that let you do some cool stuff.  You can add YouTube applications that allow you to embed videos.  If you have some videos on there related to your profession or some you have made, that is being savvy.

Keep an up-to-date profile. – If your profile is not kept active, it will start dying down.  It is a commitment, but one worth keeping.

Online Videos

What a creative way to market your product, service, or company.  People like seeing and hearing a person.  No one wants a relationship with a company brand.  Letting people see who you are and what you are all about, is a way to reach out and touch your audience.

Once you have created your video:
•    Put it on your Facebook Page
•    Include your website and blog address below
•    Upload your video to different video sites
•    Put the video on your website
•    Share the video with friends
•    Remember to use rich keywords in the title

There are so many great ideas out there in Internet space.  Research and read the best ones and start implementing your strategies towards getting your blogs noticed.  And when you do, don’t forget to send them your replies.

Blogs and blogging have exploded all over the Internet.  Most websites now have a blog.  As more people sit home on their computers for work and pleasure, we have succeeded in creating an age of electric communications as well as electronic relationships.  What a great time to be a business email marketer.

I came into the blogging world, a bit late.  After creating some blogs of my own, I became curious about this phenomenon.  I wanted to know more about blogging.  Why do people blog?  How many people are blogging?  Is it beneficial and if so, how?  So I started researching everything I could find on blogging.  So here’s the scoop.

How Many Bloggers are there?
According to an article in the NY Times:  America’s Newest Profession: Bloggers for Hire, “The best studies we can find say we are a nation of over 20 million bloggers, with 1.7 million profiting from the work, and 452,000 of those using blogging as their primary source of income. That’s almost 2 million Americans getting paid by the word, the post, or the click — whether on their site or someone else’s“

Why do People Blog?
Blogging allows even the most insignificant topic to be “heard” in ways that were not possible before.  Anyone and everyone have a voice in this technological age.  At one time, not so long ago, you only read the opinions of those elite editors from The New York Times and Wall Street Journal.  The everyday person, for the first time, has a vehicle for sharing their personal and unsubstantiated perspectives and ventilation about news, politics, sports, business, and so much more.  We are all given our moment in the main stream media.  Who could have ever imagined anything like this before?

Blogging creates community. Everyone has something to say.  The freedom and ability to comment on someone’s blog is one of its strongest attractions.  You start a conversation and others join in.  Before long, you are all talking to each other and not the commentator.  Readers are free to agree or disagree, adding their own website links for marketing as well.  The tone and path the blogs take, is solely in the hands of the Bloggers.

According to WordPress.org, there are over 14 categories of Blogs.

Advantages of Blogs:

• Creative Inspiration:  Reading what others have written about gives  me ideas that I can build on.

• Keeping up with the latest events, technology, and social happenings

• Blogs can be entertaining

• See what your competitor is writing about

• What is going on in your market niche

Disadvantages of Blogs?

• They can be addictive and time consuming

• You can feel compelled to read them all.

• Whose opinions are accurate?

• How many blogs do you have to read to obtain all the facts about a  subject or statement?

Blogging and Safety
The Internet has given us a false sense of safety.  For whatever reason, people click on links, enter personal information, answer questions and never think about it.  So I ask you, what about privacy?  The best way to blog and still preserve some privacy is to do it anonymously using a pseudonym.  For more details, please read:  How to blog safely across the world.

Whatever your reason for blogging, strive to be accurate and positive.  Inspire and inform your readers.  And by the way, Happy Blogging.

Social Media Marketing is growing faster every day, as thousands of people are opening accounts with Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin. According to surveys, there may be as many as 120,000,00 YouTube videos already loaded and playing.

The stats are staggering. Social Media is here to stay. As more and more businesses search for new avenues where they can market their brand, getting their content seen, another channel is becoming advantageous – Say hello to Social Bookmarking.

Whether you use direct email campaigns, e-newsletters, or HTML email for your marketing tactics, you need to consider adding social bookmarking to your portfolio.

What is Social Bookmarking?
Instead of having 50 favorite website links on your desktop or hundreds in your favorite folders, you can save them to a designated website and share them with your friends, colleagues, and the public. Can you see the possibilities? As different users save their favorite places, listing them with keywords and in subject order, the bookmark sites become search engines within themselves. With your permission, your bookmark can be found publicly with the keywords and subjects you create for each link.

Social Bookmarketing Leverages Web Promotion Strategy
This free tool offers so many channels to market any business. You can bookmark your website pages, blogs, YouTube videos, which create back links to your site and information. The more back links the search engines sees, the more valuable it deems you page in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Page.)

Helpful Suggestions:

1. Join as many social bookmark sites as you can. A great page to start with is  Socialmarker. Social Marker can help you spread a link on 48 of the best social bookmarking sites.

2. Tag your website, blog, social networking sites and any other web presence you have on as many social bookmark sites as you can. Don’t forget to use your press releases as promotional links, as well!

3. Install the Socializer “Addthis” tag to your website and blog, encouraging visitors to add your site to their social bookmarks with one click to begin the process.

3. Use Affinity Marketing. Collaborate and promote with a noncompetitive market.  Share your social bookmarks.

How to Begin

1. Choose a social bookmarking site and register. Some of the most popular sites are: Stumble Upon,  Del.icio.us,  Digg, and Faves.

2. Get familiar with the bookmarking site. Read what they are about. See what types of social users are there and if they fit your type of work and niche.

3. See what news, blogs, articles and websites are being recognized with a high ranking. That will be a gage to use when finding out what people are interested in reading.

4. Start promoting your bookmarks. Send them to friends, family, and colleagues.

5. Submit quality content. Don’t take a chance on losing your good reputation by spamming for the sake of exposure.

6. Bookmark sites you like and find relevant: As people go to your social bookmark, you will quickly gain trust when sharing valuable information that has nothing to do with your personal gain.

7. Comment on other people’s bookmarks – share your thoughts. Be positive and get your name out there.

8. Others link to you. Have you written an article, blog, or post that you feel would be interesting to another industry? Ask those involved if they would link back to your article. If it is interesting and relevant, they might say yes. You have nothing to lose.

A Few Negatives:

• It is time-consuming. Most of the sites require you to fill in their form and send you an opt-in link for verification. Many submissions contain content description and keywords. Once submitted, they will ask you to confirm that your content is not duplicated by similar content.

• Loading is slow. Depending on the site traffic and your connection, submission can take 30 seconds or more. Use this time to practice your patience.

• Site Overload: There are over 45 sites to register with. Do not get overwhelmed. Become familiar with the process. Take it one step at a time. Tip: Make an excel spreadsheet of the site, URL, username, and password used.

For more information on how to use Social Bookmarking to promote your business, please go to:  http://homebusiness.about.com/od/internetmarketing/a/social_bookmark.htm

For further reading on Social Media Marketing, just download this free PDF file called “Do it Yourself Social Media Marketing”.

Marketers need to be creative and resourceful.  As the Web becomes a prime source for shopping, information, and global news, it has most definitely become a powerful place for marketing.

For those businesses that have focused on business email marketing campaigns, the energy and time devoted to the incumbent strategies within that campaign, takes research and creativity.  Why not add that personal outreach to your campaigns with media marketing?  Putting a voice and image to your brand is a helpful tool in today’s borderline obsession with the need for communication and visibility.

YouTube allows you to upload your videos and share them with the world.  They have a great help menu that gives you a step-by-step process and within a matter of minutes, your video is uploaded – ready to be shared with the public.  If you are a small business or a sole entrepreneur, this is a marvelous tool for expressing who you are personally.  We like meeting the person behind the brand.  That can turn out to be a deciding factor when converting prospects to clients.  People buy from people they like.

At this time, there is a 10-minute limit for each video you make.  You will need to practice and rewrite your material so you speak naturally, have a good flow in you presentation, and not have it suddenly cut off.  For many people, this is a bit intimidating.  But practice makes perfect – don’t forget to have a smile!

Depending on the product or service you are speaking about, will decide the tone and information you are giving.  Listed below are just a few of the most popular categories:

•    Informational videos
•    Educational videos.
•    Entertainment videos
•    Tutorials

How to Get Started

Go to :  http://www.yoYouTube.com/ – Now you need to create an account.  Once created and verified you are ready to upload your video.  If you have any questions about what videos you can load, they have it all spelled out for you in their YouTube online handbook and Help Center:  http://www.google.com/support/yoYouTube//bin/static.py?page=start.cs&hl=en-US .  Need to ask a question?  Join their various support forums.

Here are some tips on getting noticed in the YouTube communities:

•    Engage: There is a vibrant community of “YouTubiens” out there.  Do a search in the YouTube search bar for your niche market.  See what others are saying.  Add relevant and helpful comments.

•   Link your site to your YouTube video: When your video is found and watched, a serious prospect will need to know who you are and what you do.  Make sure your web address link, and other relevant contact information is there.

•    Landing Pages: Internet marketers know that having a specific landing page created for the call to action is extremely important.  Why not do the same with YouTube?  You can easily create a page that has the look and feel of your video, just for that purpose.

•    Choosing the right keywords: SEO is as important for YouTube as it is for your website and blog.  Remember, with millions of views passing through YouTube, is it more important to attract the right 10 targets then 1,000 that will never be interested in what they are viewing.

It’s an exciting time to be in marketing.  From paper to email, from phone calls to videos, the outreach to our targeted audience is quickly changing.  Creating a successful campaign is hard work.  That will never change.  But, what is changing and changing quickly are the tools.  They are intuitive, creative, and becoming more sophisticated every day.

Embrace the change, and use the changes that are happening, to see what new and innovative creative juices you can  stir for your YouTube presentation.  Utilize every resource available to raise your ROI – and don’t forget to have fun!

Facebook is no longer just for the very young.  Many businesses have now turned to Facebook as another powerful marketing tool.  Why?  The answer is simple.  Facebook can help any business gain new clients, stay in touch with their current clients, while promoting new products and sales offers. You can also use it to create an internet buzz that is specific about your business.

You need to be where your customers are and your prospective customers are,” said Clara Shih, author of “The Facebook Era” (Pearson Education, 2009). “And with 300 million people on Facebook, and still growing, that’s increasingly where your audience is for a lot of products and services.”

Facebook offers many paths with an impressive  array of tools and networks.  If you are a newbie, you need to ask yourself several questions before choosing the path that will best work for you:  What is your primary object, building your brand or creating a communication tool for client support and comments.

Every email marketing business knows that time is precious, and oh so valuable; you cannot afford to waste it.  Know your objects, get knowledge through research and start small.  Grow as you learn.  If possible, find a mentor who knows the ropes.  It is worth the training.  Remember, a successful Facebook page mirrors the personality of your business and brand.

As your Facebook gives your business an identity, it will help strengthen your brand.  Your clients and prospects can become a fan of your page and start following what you are doing and talking about.  You are now a person with a personal voice and personality.  You are no longer just a business representing a product or service.

The advantage of having Facebook is that everyone is connected.  You fans are connected to their friends, their friends see they are connected to you and they end up checking out your page.  This automatically creates a buzz about your business.  The possibilities are endless.

Facebook lets post photos, videos, applications and messages. Any activity that is performed on your Facebook Page is broadcast into the mini-feeds of your followers.  The hundreds of links created throughout your Facebook is priceless and far reaching. Facebook gives the e-marketer a goldmine of demographical information from their followers, as well.

If you have a company blog, import it into your Facebook notes. Your individual blog postings appear in your news feed and that of your contacts. What a quick and seamless way to keep your business contacts up to date with your blog.

Join the Passion
Facebook is a social networking site that has already become the world’s number one social network. Are you looking to grow your business?  Who isn’t?  If you are, Facebook is definitely the marketing tool you need to learn and use.

My Final Thoughts:
As with any new software or product, you must explore all of its applications, and add-ons.  See how others are using Facebook as you discover its potential for your business and brand.  Learn the tools needed to create a winning homepage.  Take some tutorials online.  Speak to business associates using Facebook and get some valuable advice and suggestions.  See how others are profiting by this savvy internet tool.

As business owners, we are always on the lookout for creative ways in which to promote our business.  With over 300 million users and still growing, Facebook can be a creative avenue in taking your business to the next level.

Please click this link to download a free PDF tutorial on creating your first Facebook page.

Social Media Marketing is not a social fad or a passing phase.  It is now considered one of the most powerful and effective tools that have entered into the business marketing arena.  Social media is impacting every walk of life and every aspect of business.  It is here to stay and its following is growing by the thousands daily.

Yet, according to marketing specialists, a majority of e-marketers and business campaign strategists are not up to speed on this phenomenon nor how to use it as a marketing tool.  What is going on?

We live and breath on our mobile phones, text messages, Blackberries and I-phones which have now become a business marketing icon.  It tells the world – we are important – our public must contact us at all times.  We have indeed become 24/7 communication junkies!

Did you know that the average family spends more time online than watching TV?   At the same time, there are rising generations who get their information only via the net, having never read a newspaper.

Now, Social sites are changing the way we do business.  We have fewer face-to-face meetings; and fewer phone calls.   Starbucks and airports have become the new conference rooms of today’s internet generation.

So what is Twitter? Simply stated, twitter is an online service that enables you to broadcast short messages, with a social or business edge.  Getting started isn’t hard, but acquiring a large and faithful following takes creativity and longevity.  This cannot be done overnight.  It requires a commitment of time and planning.

Use Twitter to:

Build and Expand your Brand Name: When you use Twitter to build your personal brand, your customers and prospects start perceiving you as a person, not a company or generic department.  You are a person, with a personality.  Your business voice is casual with an open dialogue to all.  You now have become very approachable, which is always a positive appeal in business dealings.

Build Credibility in your Niche Market: Use your tweets to announce presentations, workshops, product specials, just about anything.  You can use your tweets to link directly to anything or anywhere you want.  Twitter can direct people to all your events.  Offer tips and solutions in your field of expertise.

Broadcast Internal Communication: Twitter can be used in place of your email for broadcasting important announcements in your company, saving you so much time and energy.  By releasing short tweets to your employees, managers and team leaders, you can alert them to important announcements, or direct them to internal intranet web articles and documentation.  Be an innovator within your own firm as you avail yourself of the latest savvy technology tools.

Answer Customer Inquires: No one I know loves to send customer tickets when relating a problem or asking a question.  So why not be creative?  Create a customer twitter page.  Have your support team monitor the page and see what people are writing about.  You can quickly gage what is going on by what is talked about.  Good and bad.  See what you need to know live, without having to request reports or stats.  This communication can be quite effective.

Learn from Your Competition: See if your competition has Twitter.  By following and monitoring the tweets of your competitors, you can give yourself a heads up in your marketplace.  Be innovative – Follow the experts and leaders in your field, as they advise others.  Give yourself every edge possible by using today’s technology for your present and future success.

Do you use Twitter for your business?  Maybe you have some helpful tips to share?  We are looking forward to your comments.


Whatever your business campaign style, you would be foolish to ignore the tremendous explosion of social media for your Internet marketing strategies.  Let’s face it; we all need to grow our bottom line, if not just to stay alive.  I am not being negative, just honest.

Maybe you are late in the game, or embarrassed to admit, you don’t even know what social media is, and least of all, the role it can play in your business.  Well, join the club.  For the longest time, I thought this was just for kids; just another entertainment tool.  I was so wrong.  For 2010, the reports from many large retailers are that social media has seriously impacted their business and sales.  So, as we endeavor to improve our email business campaigns, and write that catchy subject line, let’s look more closely at social media as something that we can use – and implement right now!

Increasing website traffic, new subscribers and prospects, is what we all hunger for.  Building a loyal following, which is not easy, has become more attainable with the entrance of social media.  Why?  Because people love reading blogs, twitters & tweets, while communicating with those on facebook.  We need to get in the game.  Social media can increase leads, improve search engine rankings, while improving brand and product awareness and reputation.

“As more marketers incorporate social networks in their business, they will look to increase the impact of their social network presence by linking it to other marketing initiatives, both online and offline,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Social Network Ad Spending: 2010 Outlook.”

How does Social Media open the doors for us?  Simply put, social media uses low-cost tools, combined with technology, using words and conversations as its prime source.  In other words, social media gives e-marketers a personal voice, enabling them to communicate with their peers, their customers and most importantly, potential prospects.  Your blog and tweets personalize your brand while spreading your message in an informal and relaxed conversational type style.

Buyer beware!  I have a warning for you.  Before you run out and create a wordpress blog, remember, it is a commitment.  Sort of like deciding whether to have a child.  For when you do, your life will never be the same again.  Your blog, facebook, and twitter, become a daily part of your life.  That is the difference.  Your internet marketing campaigns may go out monthly, bi-weekly, or quarterly.  But, you will need to keep up with your social media campaigns almost daily, in order to keep the momentum high, as your create the attention needed for your success.

Are you ready to take the plunge and learn the role social media can play in your internet business marketing?  The stats are behind you.  Put it to work in your business marketing strategies today.

See the stats for yourself on youtube.com