As the popularity of social networking grows, so does the importance it plays as part of your overall online marketing strategy. DRIVE’s social networking specialists can help you:

• Understand the different markets that are available on the various social networking sites.
   
• Understand the varieties of tactics that can be employed to best communicate with your target audience on those social sites.
   
• Create content to publish on the social sites.
   
• Set up and develop your blogging strategy. We can even write expert content for you as ghost bloggers.
   
• Establish an email marketing campaign as part of your social networking.

This last item is vitally important because social networking is beginning to replace email newsletters due to email in-boxes getting inundated with messages and newsletters we don’t really care about.

• While existing newsletter strategies already in place for existing customers is still important to a degree, the ability to develop new social networking strategies is equally important.
   
• Don’t forget, the percentage of the population that regularly visits Facebook is the same as the percentage of your customers that are on Facebook, as well.
   
• If your customers are on Facebook, you need to reach them there.

The Statistics Speak for Themselves; Social Networking is a Growth Market – Just Ask Facebook

The appearance of icons for popular sites like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter (click on icons to open social networking sites in a new window) on traditional offline advertising venues highlight the importance businesses place on social networking to reach their target market.

To illustrate this, according to a Nielsen Company report, in December 2009 the average U.S. Internet user spent an estimated 68 hours online (both at home and at work).

In that time, on average:

• Nearly 2700 websites were viewed, with an average visit of 57 seconds per site.
   
• One hour and 53 minutes is spent on Google
   
• Two hours and 40 minutes on AOL (which could be considered the first social networking venue)
   
• Three hours and 8 minutes on Yahoo (including their popular email service)
   
• And a whopping five hours and 25 minutes on Facebook, an 82% increase over the same time a year earlier. And their popularity just keeps growing.
  • As of February 2010, the average time spent on Facebook was up to more than seven hours per month.
  • The average user spent more time on Facebook than on Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Microsoft, Wikipedia and Amazon combined.
     

Contending with the Future of Social Networking

Many internet users spend more time logged into social network sites than watching TV, and are much more receptive to that environment because the user chooses where to receive information, as opposed to having information forced upon them.

It is also important to remember that while they might be on Facebook this year, they could be into something else "new" by next year.

• You need to stay abreast of the ever-changing landscape of the segmented target markets that are using, or not using any longer, particular social networking sites.
   
• You should include your social networking site information on your offline marketing materials, including TV, radio, and especially print advertising. The mere presence of those Facebook and Twitter logos on your website says something about you to your audience.
   
• Create content to publish on the social sites.
   
• Set up and develop your blogging strategy. We can even write expert content for you as ghost bloggers.
   
• Establish an email marketing campaign as part of your social networking.

If that is something that you think is important to your target market, then it is very important that you have those programs in place or you won’t meet your audience’s expectations and will get beaten by your competitors who do meet their target market in the places they expect to see you.
 

“Just how big is the oil spill in the gulf?” read the Indianapolis Star article headline, going on to offer “a little mathematical context” to put the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe in perspective.

While there’s no really positive perspective on the oil spill, as a professional blogger for business and blogging trainer, I have a really positive perspective on the technique the Star journalist used to make matters clearer to its readers. Helping online searchers take your “measure” could be considered the main mission of each of your blog posts.

The Star used several unlikely comparisons concerning the oil spill’s first two months:

• The Mississippi River pours as much water into the Gulf of Mexico in 38 seconds as the BP oil leak in two months.

• The amount of oil spilled would fill 9200 average-sized living rooms.
   
• Were the oil to be poured into gallon milk jugs, the lined-up jugs would stretch 11,000 miles.
   
• Converted into gasoline, all the oil spilled in two months would be enough for all American drivers combined to travel for three hours and 43 minutes.
   
• Divided among all Americans, the oil would fill four soda cans for each person.

Online searchers may know what they need.  They may not know what to call that need. They almost certainly lack expert knowledge in your field. That makes it difficult for potential customers to know if your prices are fair, how experienced you are relative to your peers, and where you “place” in the big “scheme” of products and services.  Is your business “small”? Compared to what? In what ways is “small” better for this particular service or product? Is your approach to your field different from most others?  Is that good?

Remember, your website explains what products you offer, what services you provide, who the players are in your company, the geographic areas where you operate and what type of clients you have. The reader, though, may have difficulty translating all the data into the “Why-is-that-good-for-ME” terms.

How big is your big? How small is your small, how local your local, how fast your speed?. How special is your special way of serving customers?

How many average-sized living rooms will your customer satisfaction overflow fill?