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Online social media are a growing business, and have made possible social media marketing. Web 2.0 has made linking to your projects with proper keywords more powerful than ever, and finding free marketing space is now a real option as a marketing strategy.

Unfortunately, website trends come and go: a website that is very ‘in’ right now might die in a few months time. Therefore ‘divide and conquer’ has become a more reliable strategy and one I’m an advocate of. Never focus all your resources on marketing through a single channel, but use many, and seek new channels all the time.

Social Networking Top 3

The top three social networking websites, in the order of their global Alexa rank are MySpace, Facebook and Orkut. All of them have millions of users, and are very effective marketing tools if used right.

MySpace

The number one of social networking service has over 200 million users. Pure numbers mean it’s a powerful marketing tool, but as if that wasn’t enough, they offer some powerful networking tools to (ab)use.

First, you must understand that at MySpace friends are everything. The number of friends you have is directly proportional to the visibility you get. This visibility means that viral marketing may turn explosive, if you have enough friends added.

The main three tools to use on MySpace are bulletins, widgets, and layouts. Learn to use them better by reading my post on MySpace marketing.

Facebook

Due to the school and workplace oriented nature of Facebook, using it as a marketing channel is much more difficult. The main channel to viral exposure on Facebook are doubtless the Facebook Apps. They are small applications that can be added to ones profile, and shared with friends.

If you are a web developer, and can create Facebook apps, they are a potent tool. The tool needs to be interesting, and have something new, but after that it’s easy. You’ll only need a few ’seeds’, who will share the application with all their friends, and you can get thousands of users in just days.

Groups are another way to get exposure on Facebook, but they have less power. There are also fewer ways to monetize them, and you will probably need a better idea than with apps for it to go viral.

Orkut

Though smaller than the previous two, the Google owned Orkut still has a great number of members. The virtual life at Orkut revolves mostly around friends and communities. Those should be focused on in marketing through Orkut.

Social Bookmarking Top 3

In social bookmarking, the three most important services are Digg, Technorati and StumbleUpon. Unlike the social networking services above, these were practically made for website promotion and easily used for traffic.

Digg

Getting front page on Digg means thousands of visitors to your website in just a few hours. Though that means great exposure, it also means you should be sure your server can handle it before even trying to get there. However, it’s not easy by any means.

You need a few hundred diggs to make it page one, and even then you could be buried in minutes if your content isn’t good. Digg is also heavily edited and both accounts and whole websites have been banned due to self promotion.

Technorati

If you are a blogger, you should get Technorati listed. You won’t get great traffic unless you break the top 100 (which is very difficult), but a ranking may improve your advertising income. PayPerPost, and some other advertising networks determine your price using Technorati rankings.

StumbleUpon

Unlike with Digg, just one stumble may give you hundreds of visitors. With StumbleUpon it’s more about the persons stumbling than the number of stumbles. Power stumblers give hundreds of visitors with a single stumble.

You will want to build a network of friends for best SU effect. You can also send links to your friends through the toolbar, though you should keep the number low. Some users may be offended if you spam too much.

Red more on stumbling on my post How to Stumble with Power.

by Sutocu | October 31, 2007