Social Media Marketing Sees Exponential Growth
Social media marketing growth has been quite astounding since these sites started to be a blip in the public consciousness and appeared on the scene in 2005.
Sites like YouTube which sold for $1.5 billion to Google, Digg which is reportedly looking to sell for between 40 and $50 million, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook which received around $300 million in funding from Microsoft, Ning, Stumbleupon, Propeller, Mixx, DailyMotion, Odeo, and various others have all built tribal and rabid community followings.
These sites and this overall philosophy of websites have been dubbed Web 2.0.
Unfortunately, many businessmen and even many venture capitalists and entrepreneurs are searching for the profitable business models of these various Web 2.0 websites and social networking sites.
The question is becoming, "where is the money at?"
And it's a viable question to solve in order for social media and its Web 2.0 peers to continue to experience this massive growth curves.
Profitable and sustainable business models have to be attained for each various site without putting off their loyal tribe. You don't want to piss off the natives or your site dies.
Of course, on the the negative side of business operations you have bandwidth, hosting, infrastructure, employees and other hard overhead costs which have to be paid for by someone at the very least during your growth in order for your site to survive.
These challenges are creating various creative solutions.
Facebook in particular released what they thought was a killer profit pulling software called Beacon which gave advertisers access to much of their account holders data which allowed the advertisers better targeting and ROI.
Beacon had to be discontinued because of user outcry over privacy issues.
But the issue of how to profit with social media marketing and these various tribal user bases in the social media space is still very relevant.
It's hard to say where this is headed and whether we're on the cusp of Web 3.0 in the near future.
One thing is definitely certain in the hyper evolving world of the Internet. Social networking sites and Web 2.0 is even more supercharged and hyperfast evolving than the overall web in general.
Learning the tactics and etiquette for how to grow your business using these already pre-existing tribes on various sites is paramount.
Each site seems to have its own etiquette and acceptable modes of practice for communicating with those members of that tribe.
One thing about these social areas is if you come in as a blatant marketer or with overt advertising you're going to lose, damage your business reputation, and even get flamed and called a spammer...a death sentence on the Internet.
So just get to know one site which you like and start participating there. Take it slow over 30 days to see how the community members correspond and communicate with one another.
Once you have the modus operandi mastered you can start to interlace some subtle hints and links to your website in your communications. You want this to be totally cool and laid back and an extension of the accepted communication modes within that site and tribe.
This may seem like it's going to take a lot of your time but the benefits of doing a little bit of leg work up front will pay you massive dividends.
And of course if you don't do this any time you invest will be totally useless.
Get your start on a site with an already pre-existing massive audience like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or Digg and explore it to find which one you like. Be very active in both public and private conversations with targeted friends in your industry and you will get back sales and subscribers for your upfront time and value contribution.
Just make sure you have your goals in mind at the start of what and you want to accomplish and guide your activities where you're spending your time in order to accomplish those goals.
