There are dozens and dozens of social sites and more popping up all the time. I have compiled a list of the ten best social sites with which to get you started. I have chosen these sites by my own professional opinion and by actual popularity.

Facebook
Facebook has an estimated 850 million users! This is the most popular social site and my favorite as well. Facebook is very versatile in what you can do with your page. Be sure to open a business account and also read the rules for businesses. Fill out your profile completely. Add images and videos to your page to make it more interesting and interactive. Visit your page every day and post helpful information, links and resources. Answer all comments promptly.

Twitter
Twitter has 200 million estimated active users. I like Twitter because it is quick, easy and effective for marketing your business. You simply add tidbits of information, new product info, sales and/or specials, links, motivational quotes, etc. and tweet! Keep your tweets professional and beneficial to your followers. Don’t tweet things like what you’re having for dinner or what movie you just watched. Get involved with other tweeters and participate!

LinkedIn
LinkedIn now has over 150 million estimated users. The thing I like about LinkedIn is how you can participate in groups that interest you or will benefit your business. Join groups and be sure to participate in the discussions by offering real and helpful information and advice. Follow their guidelines on how to completely and effectively fill out your profile.

Google+
Google+ is one of the newer social sites, but it already has an estimated 65 million users! I must admit, I have not done much with Google+ as of yet, but I do like the format and versatility of the site. Be sure to add the +1 Google feature to your website so people can click it to show they like your site. This will help you in the ratings. Again, be sure to complete your profile and spend time daily or at least weekly on your Google+ page.

Pinterest
With over 10 million active users, Pinterest is growing in popularity very quickly. Pinterest has come up with something a little different. You are given a pinboard to add visual items such as photos, graphs, videos, etc. Pinning helpful visual information is a great way to attract people to your pinboard. You can add comments as well. People respond more to visual items than just words so get over to Pinterest and start pinning!

Ecademy
Ecademy has over 17 million users. Ecademy is a membership site for business owners to connect, help and grow with one another. There are paid and frée memberships. Take the time to build relationships with other business owners. You can start your ówn clubs, write blog posts, and participate in discussions. This site is more involved than some social sites and will take more time to learn to use effectively.

YouTube
YouTube has an estimated 300 million users. YouTube is a video sharing site. Making an effective marketing video to share on YouTube can have a dramatic effect on your site traffic. Show your expertise with instructional and informational videos. You can also present slide shows to market your products and/or services. Set up an account and start uploading those business growing videos.

StumbleUpon
Despite a “stumble” in growth, StumbleUpon is now growing in popularity and has an estimated 20 million users. StumbleUpon is a social site that allows the users to share interesting and helpful websites. You will need to be an active user to reap the benefits from this site.

Ryze
With less than a million members, Ryze is not the most popular of the social networking sites but it can be effective. Ryze is similar to LinkedIn in that it is a place for professionals to grow, connect and help one another succeed. Join networks that target your business and network with other business owners.

Blogs
Blogs are very popular social sites and there are lots of them. Search for blogs that target your niche and become active with guest posts, comments, etc. Participating on blogs can help you make connections and get traffic you might not have gotten. Also, if you do not have your blog yet, be sure to get started. I would recommend WordPress, but there are other blog services available.

If you are a business owner, you really cannot avoid social media in this marketing age. So rather than ignore it, you need to study it, learn it and participate in it. Once you do, you will find it to be a very enjoyable and beneficial experience!

However, this is not true and not partaking in this type of marketing can cause your business to lose out on a great deal of business. By not appealing to potential customers via email, your business may lose a great deal of business to competitors who are using email marketing campaigns to reach customers around the world.

However, the first step of an email marketing campaign should be creating an email distribution list. This article will discuss some popular options for doing this and should help to the reader to learn more about what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to email marketing.

Once you have made the decision to start using email marketing to promote your business you are likely facing the dilemma of compiling an email distribution list. This is essentially a list of email addresses to which you will email your advertising and promotional materials.

One common way to gain a list of email addresses is to purchase a list from distributors. However, this method is not very effective at all and we do not recommend it. The problem with purchasing an email list if you have no way of knowing whether or not the members of the list would have any interest at all in your products or services.

This is very important because while you want to reach a large audience with your email marketing you also want this audience to be members of your overall target audience.

When you purchase an email list you may be sending your email messages to some users who might be interested but this is largely coincidental and is not likely to be well received because the message was not solicited.

Internet users are very quick to delete materials they believe to be spam without even opening or reading the emails. In fact some Internet service providers include spam filters which may automatically delete your emails if your messages are deemed to be spam.

These filters run complex algorithms on the subject heading and content of the message to determine whether or not it is spam and are quite adept at weeding out spam. Therefore you run the risk of having your email marketing effort turn out to be a complete waste if the majority of recipients never even read or receive the message.

A far better way to create an email distribution list for your email marketing campaign is to ask current customers as well as interested potential customers to register with your website to receive additional information and periodic updates about your products and services as well as other information which might be of interest to them.

This provides you with a database of email addresses from current customers as well as potential customers who have a genuine interest in your products and services and who are interested in learning more about these products and services.

Once you have a list of interested customers or potential customers you can send emails or create e-newsletter for distribution to the members of your email list. These documents should contain a wealth of valuable information as well as a soft sell pitch for your products and services.

This information will be valued by the readers and may help to persuade them to try your products and services. You might also want to include useful links to either your website as well as other websites which may be of interest to your readers.

Your content should also contain a portion which urges the reader to take a specific action such as making a purchase or at least investigating a product further.

Following are some highly effective viral marketing techniques that should be part of your overall marketing strategy:

1. Videos. Upload an interesting, educational and/or entertaining video to YouTube, Metacafe and other video-share sites that captures the imagination of viewers, and anything is possible. Case in Point: Ted Williams. Need I say more? Speaking of videos, I’m currently in the process of converting some of my “How to” titles into videos…more on that later.

To learn how you can use videos to market your business even if you don’t have a camera, I highly recommend you Google and read Tracy Matthewman’s excellent tutorial, “How To Make Videos Even If You Don’t Have A Camera And Are Terribly Shy”.

2. Social Media. Although Hotmail achieved viral marketing success before the advent of social media, it’s hard to imagine a business having that same level of success today without participating in social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others. Simply put, social media marketing, if executed properly, can put your viral marketing efforts on steroids!

3. Article Marketing. If you write articles and allow them to be syndicated, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that one or more of your articles could go viral – provided, of course, they are well-written, interesting, educational and/or entertaining, and provide good value.

I receive articles in my e-mail box all the time from friends and colleagues who think the content is something I might be interested in reading. More often than not, they’re right. After you write your articles, you can significantly grow the reach of your content by converting them into videos, using conversion software such as ArticleVideoRobot.com and Article2Video.com. As I mentioned earlier, I’m currently in the process of converting some of my “How to” titles into videos.

If you don’t write well, or don’t enjoy writing, reputable and professional article writing services like Nicole Beckett’s PremierContentSource.com, can write articles for you at a reasonable cost.

4. Tweet Button. The Tweet Button is pretty much everywhere these days. This useful widget allows users to post a tweet to their Twitter profile from any website. Here’s how it works: Tweets posted using the Tweet Button are pre-populated with a shortened link to the webpage from which the message was sent (for example, your website). Users have the option of customizing the tweet’s content before posting it. This is an excellent way to give visitors to your site the ability to spread your content via Twitter. You can get a tweet button at the following link: twitter.com/goodies/tweetbutton

5. Share Widget. Share widgets give your visitors the ability to easily share and bookmark your website through popular social network websites. You can get a share widget from ShareThis.com.

6. E-Books. E-Books have long been one of the most effective methods of viral marketing because they’re easy to produce and have the ability to reach a large audience. If your e-book contains content that is interesting, entertaining and/or educational, and offers good value, readers will enthusiastically pass it along to others.

If writing isn’t your forte, rebrandable e-books (e-books written by others) gives you the ability to accomplish the same thing. WhiteDove Books.co.uk has an excellent affiliate program already set up through ClickBank. Simply rebrand the e-books, and give them away or sell them. You will then make commission on back-end sales from your affiliate links within the books.

7. Newsletters. Newsletters are not only an excellent way to keep the name of your business in front your subscribers, they also have excellent viral potential. To take full advantage of this potential, at the end of your newsletter, ALWAYS encourage readers to pass your newsletter along to others. You’d be surprised how many actually will – if you simply prompt them to do so. You can create a newsletter quickly, easily and inexpensively through services like ConstantContact.com and VerticalResponse.com.

Ari Kesisoglu, Google’s managing director for the Middle East and North Africa, said, digital advertising in 2010 in the region amounted to $120 million (Dh440.4 million), up from $30 million in 2007. This year, it will reach $175 million, he said.

Total regional ad spend across all mediums including print, television and digital is expected to reach $6 billion this year, up from $5 billion in 2010, said Kesisoglu in a networking meet hosted by the International Advertising Association (IAA) in Dubai Media City.

Considering there are 150 million people in the region who are still not online, there is huge potential, he said, noting there is a “very high correlation of growth and the increase in usage.”

Powers of interactivity
Kesisoglu pointed out that it’s taking advertisers some time to recognise the benefits of reaching out to consumers in online campaigns but said “there’s no reason for growth to slow down here.”

Globally, he referred to projections that the 500 million people now online through mobile hand-held devices will double to one billion. The growth was boosted by the fact that the sales of mobile phones were higher last year than those of PCs. Kesisoglu pointed out that the “first ad appeared in a French newspaper in 1836″ and that by the early 1900s, the first radio ads were essentially simple speeches read on air to capture the public’s attention.

“In the early days of TV, what you had was typically radio with pictures,” he said.

Today, internet ads combine voice and imagery, but in many cases video is being used in creative ways.

One particular online ad used a little creativity combined with the powers of interactivity with users to generate a massive response, he said.

The ad asked users to answer whether a bear featured in the ad should be shot, or not be shot – 16 million people responded online. “Suddenly with online advertising, you can get people to engage with the ad,” he said. He also mentioned an entirely new world of advertising possibilities thanks to interactive maps and geo-enabled software on hand-held devices that can reach out to consumers as they pass retail outlets and inform them not only about meals at restaurants but also who is eating at them.

New and highly popular geo-based programmes such as Four Square are not science fiction, they are now being used by a younger tech-savvy population to mark and share favourite places.

“It’s only a matter of time before people start using these technologies in the advertising concept,” he said.

Trend
Kesisoglu went as far as to suggest that there will come a day when today’s description of digital forms of advertising and marketing will no longer need the digital reference.

Few, these days, refer to past innovations in society such as colour TV and horseless carriage, he said, and eventually people will simply drop digital as a way to describe what is a natural course of communicating.

At a glance: Huge potential
* 85m number of people online in Mena region
* $120m value of digital advertising in Mena last year
* $5b value of ad spend across all media last year

Via: Gulf News

“The debate is a highly overblown issue,” said Wales in a response to question about his personal view of net neutrality. “A lot of the things that people are afraid of are in reality a long way from happening. The real threat comes from the apps model.”

Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia About Apps as a DangerOn the open internet anyone can develop software and give it away or sell it. “But in the apps model, you have to get Apple’s permission,” said Wales. “That choke point is very dangerous. It’s not theoretical like a network operator potentially shutting out Skype, it’s real and it’s happening now.”

The words somewhat echo a recent report from the inventor of the web himself – Tim Berners-Lee. Here’s a sample from that:

In contrast, not using open standards creates closed worlds. Apple’s iTunes system, for example, identifies songs and videos using URIs that are open. But instead of “http:” the addresses begin with “itunes:,” which is proprietary. You can access an “itunes:” link only using Apple’s proprietary iTunes program. You can’t make a link to any information in the iTunes world—a song or information about a band. You can’t send that link to someone else to see. You are no longer on the Web. The iTunes world is centralized and walled off. You are trapped in a single store, rather than being on the open marketplace. For all the store’s wonderful features, its evolution is limited to what one company thinks up.

Other companies are also creating closed worlds. The tendency for magazines, for example, to produce smartphone “apps” rather than Web apps is disturbing, because that material is off the Web. You can’t bookmark it or e-mail a link to a page within it. You can’t tweet it. It is better to build a Web app that will also run on smartphone browsers, and the techniques for doing so are getting better all the time.

Smartphone usage continues to skyrocket. Usage of the iPhone in particular is about to as it comes to Verizon. And of course 2011 is the year of the tablet as iPads continue to sell well and all of its competitors come to the market – many powered by App market places.

In other words, don’t expect the app model being criticized by these guys to go away anytime soon. Berners-Lee’s report also criticized social networks like Facebook for walling off data, which is part of the same issue – a fragmented web, which could hardly be considered a web at all in the traditional sense of the word.

The first definition of “web” listed in Google’s definition results is “an intricate network suggesting something that was formed by weaving or interweaving”. While there is certainly plenty of room for interweaving within the app model, there is also plenty of room for disconnecting. Of course, when you take the second definition Google provides for “web” perhaps the web is in no danger at all: “an intricate trap that entangles or ensnare its victim.”

There are a lot of great apps. There’s a reason the web is going in this direction, but will we reach a point where the apps that are supposed to bring more convenience to our lives end up creating an incredible inconvenience? Many of us are bound to reach that point repeatedly.

Luckily, the web as we know it is still here too. It’s not really going anywhere, and is readily available from all of our smartphones, tablets, and connected device. It’s just that more of the innovation and development may go to serve these fragmented ecosystems rather than focus on the web itself.

Microsoft has apologized for the incident, but it can’t have been very good for the service’s reputation with users, particularly considering there plenty of other options out there. Hotmail has hundreds of millions of users and competitors like Yahoo and Google will be happy to take as many of them as possible. The whole thing makes you stop and consider how much users are relying on third-parties for essential communication. Who’s to say people didn’t miss extremely important messages during that period?

Microsoft’s Mike Schackwitz details exactly what happened on the company’s Inside Windows Live Blog:
In Hotmail, one way we monitor the health of the email service is through automated tests. We set up a number of accounts with different configurations, and then use automated tests to log into these accounts, simulate normal user activity and behavior, and report when errors are found. We use scripts to create and delete these test accounts in bulk. The way we delete a test account is to remove its record from a group of directory servers that route users and incoming mail to the correct mailbox.

On December 30th, we had an error in a script that inadvertently removed the directory records of a small number of real user accounts along with a set of test accounts. Please note that the email messages and folders of impacted users were not deleted; only their inbox location in the directory servers was removed. Therefore when they logged in, a new mailbox was automatically created for them on a new storage server that didn’t contain their old messages and folders. This is why the accounts received the “Welcome to Hotmail” message.

Read the post for further explanation.

It’s not like Microsoft is the first provider to experience downtime. Google has always bragged about its Gmail uptime (and has a dashboard where users can monitor it), but it’s gone down on occasions, too. Facebook is trying to redefine email and electronic communication with its social inbox, but Facebook recently went down for a lot of users itself. Twitter is no replacement for email, but a lot of people communicate with it frequently, and that fail whale appears fairly frequently.

Microsoft says it’s updating its infrastructure, and changing its alert process, as well as its feedback process to take preventative action against future incidents. Unfortunately, and this goes for any company, it’s usually the issues you don’t think to prevent that end up costing people.

As reported by the AFP, News Corp. COO Chase Carey told investors late yesterday, “We’ve been clear that Myspace has been a problem.” Then Carey continued, “The current losses are not acceptable or sustainable. Our current management did not create these losses but they know we have to address them.” Finally, in terms of setting a timeframe for whatever move News Corp. will make, the COO hinted, “I think it is something we look to judge in quarters, not in years.”

It’s hard to imagine MySpace could just go dark; to people of a certain age, it feels like the site’s been around forever, and it still has lots more users than many other networks. At the same time, MySpace has clearly lost the numbers game to Facebook, and the site’s reputation/image has had better days.

What should be the first step in developing a website?
1. Creating a design to use as a basis,
2. Deciding how the content needs to be integrated and managed,
3. Gathering content from corporate collateral,
4. Developing a strategic plan for your specific needs, or
5. Choose the most cost-effective hosting plan.

In just about any profession other than website development, your answer would be choice 4. After all, you couldn’t build a house without considering the layout, number of bathrooms, and features of the home. You wouldn’t create a design for a major advertisement and then plan the content and message of the ad. Yet, when it comes to website design, often the design comes first and the strategic plan for the site comes last.

It seems to me that the development process should be:
1. Discover the reason a business needs a website and the expectations of the business.
2. Understand your typical customer and what influences their purchasing decision.
3. Have a clear understanding of how the website fits into the marketing plan.
4. Research to find what customers are searching for in Google, Yahoo in relation to the business (keywords).
5. Carefully plan a site architecture which is best for the demographic, online search trends, and have a site that’s easy for search engines to follow, is designed with the target market in mind, and has clear definitions of conversion goals.
6. Create a design which speaks to the target demographic.
7. Launch the site and begin an internet marketing plan to fulfill realistic expectations.
8. Modify strategic marketing plan as needed in response to real-time data.

Then issues such as server configuration, hosting service, domain registration variables, proper site construction, CMS, SEM, PPC, Social Media, and many other features need to be researched and fine-tuned. For example, choosing a hosting package with an IP that has been associated with a “bad neighborhood” in the past (bad neighborhoods are offensive sites, etc.) can cripple your website marketing plan before it begins.

Instead the plan is usually:
1. Create a design.
2. Add content. (most plans end at this point because there usually are no marketing goals for a site.)
3. Contact SEO firm who performs keyword research based on content of site.
4. SEO firm proposes keywords. 5. Site is optimized by SEO firm by editing original site to make it more SEO friendly.
6. Results vary.
7. Usually followed by redevelopment IF business doesn’t lose faith in the internet.

All the details are usually not dealt with because the average designer doesn’t know they exist. I think the reason the internet world can get away with a backwards strategy is because the design portion is fun, is more tangible, and looks impressive. It gives a client the ability to suggest colors, logo position, interactive media, position of the navigation system and other elements. The process usually goes smooth because the developer gets the excitement from the client and the client is impressed by the nice design work. BUT… that’s also why over 99% of all internet businesses FAIL.

Because there is no quality infrastructure and strategic plan in place. Either the site is poorly marketed, keywords are unfocused, or it doesn’t fit into the overall business marketing plan. In most cases, this is where the business owner begins to think the internet is all hype and will not work for their particular business. They disregard stunning statistics, such at 65% of all Americans begin their search for local services on the internet FIRST. This is followed by a competitor leveraging the internet as a strategic advantage and ultimately leads to a loss of revenue by the disillusioned company. So What’s the CURE?

Your website needs to be planned. A thorough understanding of your expectations, target demographic, and geographic influences have to be considered. The proper research needs to be done to assure your internet marketing plan has the right infrastructure and architecture and then you can eat the “cake” (design).

BUT… This is easier said than done for the following reasons:
* It’s more expensive to create the right plan.
* It’s not as fun to start off with planning, expectations, and realistic goals.
* A good team to create your plan has to understand design, marketing, social media, SEO/SEM, custom development, and customer service to get the job done.
* Most website developers mask their weaknesses. Some are good at design, others technical work, others SEO, but few are good at it all…
* College students and novices practically give away website design which is hard for the business to turn down.
* Consultants usually do not have a complete understanding of the entire process.

AND THE WORSE PART… Is now the internet developing world has realized that cheaper, do-it-yourself systems sell better than a comprehensive plan. So companies like Intuit provide “simple solutions” (because it is high profít, low overhead), and the one who ends up suffering is your business. Be Smart and Eat Your Vegetables First… Then have Dessert.

Proper planning is the cure. Hiring an experienced company to help you is the one way you will truly have an opportuníty to dominate your market online. It will cost a little more, it won’t be as fun up front, but it will be worth it in the end.

He writes: Those who decide whether Twitter goes to Google pretty much come down to a handful of folks: Founders Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey, and Biz Stone, with COO Dick Costolo and Twitter’s investors and other Board members (Fred Wilson, Peter Fenton, and Bijan Sabet). I know most of these guys well enough to say this with confidence: They don’t want to sell, and even more importantly, they don’t need to.

Now, sure, Google can write a ridiculous check, and perhaps, that might sway the key folks (management). But I doubt it. Why? Because nearly all of them have already sold a company to Google – Blogger (Evan and Biz) or Feeedburner (Dick). And, well, they didn’t stick around, did they?

He also says Google won’t buy Twitter because Google’s learning to be patient. Let’s make a deal!

According to a post from Michael Arrington, Yahoo might as well be dead (and is “the ugly girl at the dance”), because nobody wants to do deals with them. By nobody, we mean Yelp and Foursquare. In reality, Yahoo is far from dead, and they do continue to make strategic deals with other companies. A certain search and advertising deal with Microsoft comes to mind. He’s certainly not wrong in that the company has its problems, but it might be a little premature to write its epitaph. Yahoo still has millions of users.

Should AOL and Yahoo merge? Henry Blodget at Silicon Alley Insider makes another interesting case for why the two “struggling Internet giants” should (and says “Big Investors” are calling for it). Among the reasons he gives are that the two companies run very similar businesses with various similar products. “Yahoo and AOL are both basically media companies,” he writes. “They both use technology extensively, but their core competency is producing content to attract an audience and then selling display ads against that audience. They also both operate duplicative mail, instant-messaging, sports, finance, news, maps, and other services, all of which currently compete with each other. That is senseless. By combining, Yahoo and AOL would achieve greater scale and reduce duplication.”