Social Media in 2009

December 30, 2008

The battle in different fields of social media in 2008 has become severe. From users point of view there is just too much information. This post has been motivated by Sarah’s post at readwriteweb on social media predictions for 2009, and I will bring my thoughts.

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The Good, the Bad & the Ugly of Business Social Networking

October 18, 2008

Business owners in the offline market know the value of networking. There are a lot of ways locally, nationally and worldwide for meeting new people who share similar business interests and benefiting from these contacts. With Internet and all social networking trend the value of networking only increases. It’s easier to reach more people and it usually costs far less.

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Business Promotion on Craigslist

April 13, 2008

Craigslist has approximately four billion page views each month with ten million people using Craigslist each month. And according to Alexa.com, Craigslist has a traffic rank of 66 worldwide (today when I write this).

One of the most favorite uses of Craigslist is for business advertisement and promotion. Both, large and small businesses can find their place, of the free advertising offered on Craigslist to promote their business and appeal fresh customers. On first glance Cragslist is similar to other advertising websites, but here we have forums and communities.
And the biggest advantage of Craigslist certainly is in its massive traffic.

If we focus on advertising, we all know that we don’t need much time to post the ad. So it will not take much time, and Craigslist traffic can bring potential costumers. But, like any marketing campaign, your advertisements on Craigslist must be intriguing, informative and in a location where you will reach your target audience.

Business owners are free to lay ads in the particular section. This section is split into a list of categories where business possessors can lay their ad in the most adequate position where it is likely to reach the target prospects.

If its done properly, when advertiser research for right place to post ads, advertising on Craigslist can be lucrative. However, while practicing this, precaution should be taken to avoid bringing in posts which will be detected as spam. Placing an advertisement in an adequate section of Craigslist is standard. But, posting the same advertisement in almost every section of Craigslist website for a number of different geographical regions is considered spam.

Also, taking part in the discussion forums and offering useful comments and true answers, and at the same time also placing a link to a business site can help to drive traffic to an ecommerce website.

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Be aware in Promoting Your Business/Site on MySpace

April 11, 2008

The question how to promote business on MySpace can be debatable. But here I just want go through MySpace Terms of Service. If you are using MySpace in commercial purpose it’s important to read terms carefully, because MySpace is meant to be an un-commercial website (for members) by nature. But there’s a opposite between blatant commercialization and bringing up a product or service you put up and provide a link as a helpful and useful resource to visitors of your site. This post will have a look at the chances to promote a business on MySpace by offering info about whether or not your way of business promotion is allowed on MySpace and information how to push your business without being accused of spamming MySpace.

Lets see what’s in the MySpace Terms of Service!

MySpace Terms of Usage

One of the conditions of the MySpace, what all members can see when opening Myspace account, interprets as follows:

Non-commercial Use by Members. The MySpace servicing are for the personal role only and can not be applied with any commercial strives (take out those that are specifically approved by MySpace.com). Illegal and/or unauthorized use of the MySpace Services, including collecting user names and/or email addresses of Members for the purpose of sending unsolicited email or unauthorized framing of or linking to the MySpace Website is prohibited. Commercial advertisements, affiliate links, and other sorts of allurement may be removed from Member profiles without notice and can result in termination of Member’s account. Appropriate legal action will be taken for any illegal or unauthorized use of the MySpace Services.

So, here we see that MySpace is produced for non-commercial usage unless Myspace has approved the usage of a member’s page for commercialized aims. Thus be aware while designing a MySpace page to assure it will not be viewed as a commercial website by MySpace administrators. Be aware that many MySpace profiles have been deleted by administration.

If you are unsure ask questions.

If you are doubtful of whether or not your MySpace page is considered as commercial website, you should consult with MySpace administrators. Reviewing the terms of usage agreement can supply a lot of fact, but some users could yet be unsure on the possibleness that their site will be fined if administrators view it as commercial in nature.

Contacting MySpace is an easy action. Members can use the, “Contact MySpace” link at the MySpace homepage. There is an option to select a subject and a subtopic. And once this is done MySpace supplies some preliminary information which can be to the point. If these information isn’t of value to the member, they can e-mail an elaborated request to MySpace.

So, Be aware….

If you decide there’s a chance for you to boost your business through MySpace, be assure the promotional material does not pass over the line and go into spam. Spamming is dealt very seriously by the MySpace admin and it may effect in links or message being deleted or even membership may be revoked.

This is important to understand. Links to your ecommerce website structured into your MySpace website is not counted as spamming. Depending on how it’s applied it may not been viewed as advertising, and consequently prohibited.

Still, placing a link to your ecommerce website on each Myspace page you visit would be reckoned as spam. These persons may or may not be interested in the message you send, but even if they’re curious, posting these unsolicited links to many members is often considered to be spam.

You may work really hard to create long list of friends, and one day BOOOOOM, your MySpace profile is gone…..don’t allow that!

Posted by Sloba | Filed Under Social Networking | 1 Comment

Web 2.0 To-do

March 13, 2008

I will write about web 2.0 tool I found very useful. It is very important to be organized in business. I know that so often i don’t have time to do everything i planed. And i was really opposite to things like to-do-list, or time management, because i thought that people who are doing that are slaves of own business. Wow, i was so wrong, because when you organize the time, you have more time for things which are not related to the business, that is for relaxing, fun, etc, etc. And guess what, i found how web 2.0 can be very good resource here.

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