Social Networking is the process of networking with people in online communities. In networking sites there are usually sub communities of people with common interests that you can join that will give you a more focused target audience. For example, if you are selling golf apparel you could join golfing subgroups to meet people you know will be interested in what you have to offer. When marketing on social networks though it’s important to be yourself, not you as a business owner, just plain you. If people connect with you and develop a relationship with you they will want to visit your site instead of feeling like they are being forced to.

Examples of social networking sites:

• Facebook
• Myspace
• Twitter
• Bebo
• Orkut

Social media marketing is a marketing platform that allows you to market your business or website through social sites.  Unlike conventional marketing channels, social media marketing is based on interaction with your target audience.  Instead of TV or radio advertising that tell the consumer what to think, in social media marketing the reader can talk to you or your past customers and form their own opinion of your product or service.  When executed correctly marketing through social sites is extremely effective at driving massive amounts of targeted traffic your way and can be significantly less costly than traditional marketing methods.  Which poses the question, how do you use it “correctly?”

Social media marketing takes some finesse.  It is not about pushing what you have to offer in someone’s face.  It is first and foremost about marketing yourself and your product second.  Your goal should be establishing yourself as an authority through social sites by giving your audience information they can use.  Spamming the internet with “buy my stuff” posts isn’t going to get you anything but a bad reputation for you and your company. You should make people want to visit your site, not try and force them to.

As the meaning of television grows to more and more include web distributed and downloadable video, your free (or, at least, extremely cheap) opportunity to use the world’s new take on commercials is finally here…and it’s yours for the taking, if you know how to get the most out of it.

There are as many ways to get customers from a promotional web video as there are products that are advertised by them, and the path to web video success will take some specifics depending on what you are selling and who you are selling it to. But regardless of your industry and even your market, there are a few universal guidelines to the most successful web videos to promote products.