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I think this social tools will grow even more in next year...

Hey man GREAT news about Social media...

Although social advertising can bring in a great deal of traffic to a website but the quality of the traffic is what that matters. In my opinion most of the traffic from social sites are untargeted and they worth garbage.I will not advice anyone to indulge in social advertising.

It's great to see WPN taking a positive stand on the possible influence of social media and its communities. With that in mind, I'll add my two cents in the moment saying that yes there is a potential market there. And no, it does not currently work the way "traditional" methods work.

To be effective in the social media marketing arena you've got to be willing to put in the time and effort to get to know others. If you're a people-person that shouldn't be hard, and even if you're not it's a great way to learn how to step outside yourself and find new strengths.

At this moment, social marketing is great for branding. Being "new" (which it isn't but marketers are approaching it like it is) it does have its possibilities for taking the next step to list building and/or sales. However, it takes a lot of personal interaction if you're on a shoestring budget or placing ads (buying them) in, for example, Facebook.

Social communities, comprised (in a majority?) of bloggers (who yes do buy stuff), makes it for the moment a tougher sell. The traditional view that you can't market to social sites is going out the window - slowly but surely.

Aggressive marketing should be avoided at all costs. Choosing a few, and working them via active participation can lay the foundation for a future for your website.

Will be interesting to see where this all takes off to.... however, I almost cringe when marketers get their hooks on anything lol!
 

I agree with Marc,

Banner ads and other conventional forms of advertising tend to be passed over by most viewers.

The form that advertising takes has to be somewhat different I believe - something that offers useful, relevant  information and sticks.

I'm going to be experimenting with video on Youtube and various other sites to promote my  recording music at home site, though I think that this form of promotion requires more refinement in order to really work.

        Yahoo claims that yahoo web hosting is for beginners. In late January I had signed up with Bluehost and realized right away that they were too advanced for me and actually got my money back inside of 3 hours or so from the time I signed up with them. On February 1 of 2008 I was starting my very first web site with Yahoo and for all intense purposes my first period. At this time I had never even helped anyone with a web site. 

      I am pretty fair at reading and comprehension. Yahoo technical writing has proved to be less than accurate in almost everything in their site. I have found at least 15 errors in their technical writing that I know for sure are mistakes now. When I first applied their Tech writing examples I didn't know just how often and how incorrect it actually is. I spent hours on things that were completely written wrong.

     After my first error or two I would write technical support via email. 9 times I have wrote their email support that I have data on....4 times they answered......the answers came anywhere from 5 to 12 days after submission of the question.......2 of those answers were not even to the subject that I had a dilema, they simply didn't answer the question I asked....the other 2 were copies of the technical writing that had caused me to write them in the first place. Basically speaking I am 0-for-9 writing technical support via email with Yahoo web hosting.

     After my first 3 to 4 day wait for tech support email to be answered (by the way that initial email has not been answered yet...it was on February 3) I phoned their tech support. Before this latest dilema I had actually looked at my phone for how long it took for an actual tech to get with me on each call. I had called their technical support 14 times.......Regarding 5 questions(they are often wrong in their answers).......The auto-respond answers and states that tech support will be with you soon and that all calls are answered in order...after that auto-responce the average wait time was over 56 minutes to speak with an alledged "real" person or techy........9 answers were either wrong or they stated they weren't required to know that answer(who is?).....the other 5 were either right or just good enough that I could figure out my problem based on what info the did actually know.

     One example of an answer that helped in the leading to my figuring it out was this one.....if you go to help.yahoo.com and type "sitemap" in to their help search bar then click search, you will come to a page that has 5 to 10 things listed. the first says "How to build a sitemap" , click on this one. If you do not know java script, and have a web site control center, then for fun, follow the directions and see if you get an xml style  site map. lmao. If you do know java script then you can look at the very bottom of either example script (they could have gotten one right but didn't) and you will see they end like this

</url>

</url>

</urset>

Because there is two </url>'s this site map will never work. I called their support three four times about my sitemap, or lack of, none of the four techy's knew what my prob was and 3 stated that they weren't required to know java script (apparently neither are the tech writers) the other came on the phone after what is a short wait at yahoo tech support of 36 minutes (sweet) and he didnt know either, but he busted his ass for the next 1 hour 43 minutes getting me an answer by conferring with other techys that he was right there with. I allowed him access to my File Managaer via giving him my password. I had 52 pages on my "sitemap" when he got done there was only the four main pages. Then I asked him if he did the yahoo web hosting tech writing to a tee. he said yes. I didnt bother to let him know he didnt, I had noticed by looking at his 4 page xml scripted sitemap that there was only one </url> at the bottom of his script it did work, although I was now without the other 48 pages, I did know where the prob was. I asked him what I would have to do to get my other 48 pages on this xml filed sitemap, and he said to go into file manager and insert them into the xml file at that point, wrong!, luckily I knew that was wrong. You see you cant edit an xml file the same as html code. you have to save it differently which was actually stated correctly in the yahoo technical writing(whoopee!). In order to make it easy I just went back to my original code, which I still had saved inside my notebook, and erased one of the </url>'s at the bottom. re uploaded it and it worked magically. This was one example of multiple wrong answers in tech writing and phone support that I cyphered through their nearly complete bullshit and made it work. I couldn't get mad at that techy, even though he was still quite wrong, because he tried extremely hard to help me.

     If you don't believe what I am saying then call yahoo web hosting tech support for yourself at least 5 times and keep the average wait time down so you can get your own average. Or write tech support and do your own calculations on their answers or lack there of. They are as bad as I say, Ill bet 25-to-1.......any takers.

     The reason I will not give up the other fourteen wrong answers is because I want to get payed for all the time I have waisted, that these same bad writings costed me. I would be so much further ahead with why I actually decided to start a web site if it werent for their lousy ass service at yahoo web hosting.

      I currently have 2 problems that I believe that they should have already taken care of, but don't. They are not telling me what I have to do to hook up Pay Pal with my site. The phone support tells me they aren't required to know php script. I can't go read their tech writing anymore because of my complete lack of confidence in it. I cant really expect a good answer from yahoo email support because they do not answer even half the time, and then dont answer your exact question half the time that the do answer,  and the other half is with the same tech writing i have already read and created the initial dilema.

      The other problem is with the dam sitemap. every week or so it keeps reverting back to four pages and I have to go back and upload my notebook with the whole, now 53 pages, in it.

     Anyone have any ideas as to a good service for a novice. One that already has the scripting written in for you and all you have to do is alter the company name or the greeting and stuff like that. One that actually has support that actually is required to know the stuff that applys when building a web site. One that actually has well written, flawless, and simple directions in their technical writing. Really if i get any one of those categories covered i will be ahead of the Yahoo web hosting game.

     You can reach me at samcstaffen@uscarny.com

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I don't need to add anything Rich, Dr Blockbuster knows all this!

:wink:

I think one of the ideas that is missing here is that when you're advertising to the social web you need to remove the concepts of old school marketing and avertising.   You're now dealing with a group who are able to be selective over the information they get.  We now have the power to ignore advertising in it's basic form.   Now we have to engage the consumer to be on their mind for when it's applicable.  You are investing your time now for a bigger return later and a lot of word of mouth (the best kind of marketing and advertising any one company or organization could ever hope for)

Putting up a  banner or creating a group where people can do nothing but find out about your company will be a giant drain on all your resources.   If you follow someone like TD, who in 6 months managed to grow their facebook group to 12,000 members, there is a way to get to your audience.    The main goal is to focus on offering the combination of interactivity and information. 

If you're selling flowers, create a group on information about how to grow flowers, what kind of moss is the best to use, who to talk to when you need information.  People will come if they find use for the information, as opposed to just blantantly trying to get your image and product in their face.  

 There is no defined best practice for this right now, but chances are by the time a "best practice" is organized, you'll want to work on playing around with "the next big thing"

personal relationships

personal service

commercialization

as long as commercialization does not monopolize a social network,

social interaction will sustain itself by answering  to people's read needs and interests...

not corporate interests

WILL? As in yes indeed?

Please don't even bother.

Social networking will not succeed until advertisers CHANGE their way of thinking. Their present form of marketing has not and will never translate to the web.

Until they make that change, they will not succeed.

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