Top 10 Internet Marketing Strategies

Over the past 15 years the internet has become a major marketing tool that can no longer be ignored. The internet is the most cost effective way of using your marketing dollars and putting your company and its products and services out there for others to find. But without a little knowledge on how to tap into this very effective medium and a strategy to implement your plan, you will not be found and can end up wasting a lot of time, effort, and money.

Internet marketing will draw more people to your website, increase your customer base, enhance your sales, marketing, and branding efforts, for your company, products and services.

If you are just beginning your Internet Marketing Strategy then you will definitely need a website to implement your goals for internet marketing success. All your internet marketing efforts should lead your customers to your main company website with a specific call to action.

The following list will get you started on a plan that will increase your internet visibility and enhance your total marketing efforts.

Top 10 Internet Marketing Strategies:

1. Blog: Start with a Blog and interact with your visitors. This is a great way to repurpose all relevant information to the web so that you become the expert and leader in your field.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – This involves researching Key words for your target market which will allow you to optimize your web content not only on your website but for everything you write about.

3. Back Links: A major part of Search Engine Optimization revolves around having a back link strategy that helps your internet ranking status. All back links point back to your Website like a homing beckon.

4. Newsletters: Email Marketing - Sending e-mails in the form of concise newsletter for the purpose of enhancing relationships with past, present, and future customers. This will encourage customer loyalty, repeat business, and will allow you to share knowledge and key information with your clients.

5. Call to Action: Build a responsive “opt-in” email list. Have people sign up for a newsletter and give them a free report or a tool that they can read and utilize.

6. Publish articles: If you are already producing a newsletter than you are producing content that can be used. You can self-publish your own articles if you are just looking for a little extra promotion of your website, or there are many other ways to get your work published on quality sites.

7. Run contests: This is a great way to drive traffic to your site as you can run a monthly or quarterly draw for a prize, and drive traffic to your site. With a little planning you can build your client list and raise your profile.

8. Press Release: Publicly announcing new company developments and delivering the message to a much larger audience allows you to gain more exposure.

9. Social Media – Allows you to build ways so that fans of a brand or company can promote it themselves in multiple online social media venues. Fan pages in Twitter, My Space, or Face book are examples.

10. Google Analytics – Allow you to track your efforts and analyze the visitors to your Blog and website. Consider hiring an internet marketing consultant to review and assist you in making better internet marketing decisions for your business.

As you can see these strategies will take some planning, but by following some of these strategies above you'll be well on your way to creating your plan that will help you “Build Your Business”.

Donald Robichaud
President FloodLight Consulting
Kelowna, Canada
250-768-9415
http://www.floodlightconsulting.com/
http://donaldrobichaud.blogspot.com/

Mom-and-Pop Operators Turn to Social Media

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
Published: July 22, 2009 New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO — Three weeks after Curtis Kimball opened his crème brûlée cart in San Francisco, he noticed a stranger among the friends in line for his desserts. How had the man discovered the cart? He had read about it on Twitter.


For Mr. Kimball, who conceded that he “hadn’t really understood the purpose of Twitter,” the beauty of digital word-of-mouth marketing was immediately clear. He signed up for an account and has more than 5,400 followers who wait for him to post the current location of his itinerant cart and list the flavors of the day, like lavender and orange creamsicle.

“I would love to say that I just had a really good idea and strategy, but Twitter has been pretty essential to my success,” he said. He has quit his day job as a carpenter to keep up with the demand.

Much has been made of how big companies like Dell, Starbucks and Comcast use Twitter to promote their products and answer customers’ questions. But today, small businesses outnumber the big ones on the free microblogging service, and in many ways, Twitter is an even more useful tool for them.

For many mom-and-pop shops with no ad budget, Twitter has become their sole means of marketing. It is far easier to set up and update a Twitter account than to maintain a Web page. And because small-business owners tend to work at the cash register, not in a cubicle in the marketing department, Twitter’s intimacy suits them well.

“We think of these social media tools as being in the realm of the sophisticated, multiplatform marketers like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, but a lot of these supersmall businesses are gravitating toward them because they are accessible, free and very simple,” said Greg Sterling, an analyst who studies the Internet’s influence on shopping and local businesses.

Small businesses typically get more than half of their customers through word of mouth, he said, and Twitter is the digital manifestation of that. Twitter users broadcast messages of up to 140 characters in length, and the culture of the service encourages people to spread news to friends in their own network.

Umi, a sushi restaurant in San Francisco, sometimes gets five new customers a night who learned about it on Twitter, said Shamus Booth, a co-owner.

He twitters about the fresh fish of the night — “The O-Toro (bluefin tuna belly) tonight is some of the most rich and buttery tuna I’ve had,” he recently wrote — and offers free seaweed salads to people who mention Twitter.

Twitter is not just for businesses that want to lure customers with mouth-watering descriptions of food. For Cynthia Sutton-Stolle, the co-owner of Silver Barn Antiques in tiny Columbus, Tex., Twitter has been a way to find both suppliers and customers nationwide.

Since she joined Twitter in February, she has connected with people making lamps and candles that she subsequently ordered for her shop and has sold a few thousand dollars of merchandise to people outside Columbus, including to a woman in New Jersey shopping for graduation gifts.

“We don’t even have our Web site done, and we weren’t even trying to start an e-commerce business,” Ms. Sutton-Stolle said. “Twitter has been a real valuable tool because it’s made us national instead of a little-bitty store in a little-bitty town.”

Scott Seaman of Blowing Rock, N.C., also uses Twitter to expand his customer base beyond his town of about 1,500 residents. Mr. Seaman is a partner at Christopher’s Wine and Cheese shop and owns a bed and breakfast in town. He sets up searches on TweetDeck, a Web application that helps people manage their Twitter messages, to start conversations with people talking about his town or the mountain nearby. One person he met on Twitter booked a room at his inn, and a woman in Dallas ordered sake from his shop.

The extra traffic has come despite his rarely pitching his own businesses on Twitter. “To me, that’s a turn-off,” he said. Instead of marketing to customers, small-business owners should use the same persona they have offline, he advised. “Be the small shopkeeper down the street that everyone knows by name.”

Chris Mann, the owner of Woodhouse Day Spa in Cincinnati, twitters about discounts for massages and manicures every Tuesday. Twitter beats e-mail promotions because he can send tweets from his phone in a meeting and “every single business sends out an e-mail,” he said.

Even if a shop’s customers are not on Twitter, the service can be useful for entrepreneurs, said Becky McCray, who runs a liquor store and cattle ranch in Oklahoma and publishes a blog called Small Biz Survival.

In towns like hers, with only 5,000 people, small-business owners can feel isolated, she said. But on Twitter, she has learned business tax tips from an accountant, marketing tips from a consultant in Tennessee and start-up tips from the founder of several tech companies.

Anamitra Banerji, who manages commercial products at Twitter, said that when he joined the company from Yahoo in March, “I thought this was a place where large businesses were. What I’m finding more and more, to my surprise every single day, is business of all kinds.”

Twitter, which does not yet make money, is now concentrating on teaching businesses how they can join and use it, Mr. Banerji said, and the company plans to publish case studies. He is also developing products that Twitter can sell to businesses of all sizes this year, including features to verify businesses’ accounts and analyze traffic to their Twitter profiles.

According to Mr. Banerji, small-business owners like Twitter because they can talk directly to customers in a way that they were able to do only in person before. “We’re finding the emotional distance between businesses and their customers is shortening quite a bit,” he said.

How to Monitor Your Social Media Presence in 10 Minutes a Day

Monitoring your business' social media presence is incredibly important. You need to respond to people talking about your brand and understand how people view your company. However, a common concern is that it takes up too much time.

The team at HubSpot spreads out the responsibilities, but it's entirely possible for one person to keep an eye on things. If you set up a solid routine, monitoring your online presence doesn't have to be a hassle at all.

Here are five easy steps you can take to get things started. Do each task in the morning when you start work, and you should be good to go.

1) Check Twitter for chatter about your company (2 minutes): Use tools like TweetDeck or Twitter Search to monitor conversations about your company in real-time. To check once a day, set up an RSS feed for a specific Twitter Search to go straight to your Google Reader. Do this by clicking the little RSS icon after you complete a search. Now, ongoing search results will be sent to your reader.

2) Scan Google Alerts (1.5 minutes): Check your Google Alerts for your company name, products, executives or brand terms. To set this up, enter your search terms and select to receive updates as they happen or once daily. Now, when people blog about your products, an alert will be sent to your inbox. You can read the articles and respond right away!

3) Check Facebook stats (1 minute): Visit your Company Page's Facebook Insights. This can be found by clicking "more" under the page's main photo. Scan your fans and page views count. If you are a member of a group, check to see if any new discussions started.

4) Answer Industry-related LinkedIn questions (3 minutes): Search for questions on LinkedIn that you or members of your company can answer. You can set up an RSS feed for specific question categories to go to your Google Reader as well. When you find a relevant question, respond and include a link to your website.

5) Use Google Reader to check Flickr, Delicious, Digg and others (2.5 minutes): Also set up RSS feeds for searches on your company name and industry terms in other social media sites. Similar to monitoring LinkedIn and Twitter, your Reader will serve as a great place to centralize your other searches too!

So what do you think? Would these tips save you time? What other tricks have you heard to monitor your social media presence more efficiently?

As posted at HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

How do I Market my Business Effectively?

Every month, I receive emails and phone calls asking the above question, and each and every time, my answer is always the same: “the Internet”.

With 73% of your audience utilizing the Internet, it is truly the most effective way of ensuring that your message is available 24/7. And if your target audience is in the 20 to 40 age group, you can be certain that they are checking you and your company out, and then deciding if they will do business with you.

Many businesses in the Okanagan are very slow to adapt to the Internet, continuing to spend traditional marketing dollars on TV, radio and newspaper advertising. Unfortunately, this approach reaps limited success and a shrinking target audience.

In the last year alone, TV, radio and newspapers have been contracting and in some cases, closing across North America; not wanting to adapt to the world’s changing technology, including the Internet, cost them greatly. This situation is comparable to the death of the old movie studio empires of the 50’s when TV came along. These studios also chose to ignore the new technology of the time, television.

Savvy business owners and entrepreneurs implement marketing strategies adaptable to the Internet; in today’s economy, it’s not just about surviving, it’s also about learning how to thrive and dominate your market.

The key to marketing your product effectively is to develop a simple, low cost strategy that makes people know, like, and trust your product and your company. This approach must also differentiate you from your competition, as well as establish your brand. With the appropriate marketing strategy, you will have the right message for your face-to-face sales presentations, your brochures, and the Internet. It’s the same message for all media.

The Internet allows you to continually refine and re-purpose your marketing message by speaking to your audience 24/7.

The Internet is the most cost effective place to launch your strategy, and if done correctly, will pay dividends for years to come.

With the Internet, swiftness is the key ingredient. This is where smaller businesses have a big advantage. For larger companies to alter their strategy from one that isn’t working to one that will, could take months if not years. Picture an ocean liner attempting to turn around.( or General Motors)

Small businesses can change course quickly, and continuing the analogy, much like a speed boat zooming off in a new and more promising direction.

The business climate on the web is changing rapidly: you must be quick-footed to stay in business, ready to grasp the opportunities as they are presented.

Points are not awarded for being late. Now, I ask you these two questions:

“What is your marketing strategy and how will you implement it on the Internet to ‘Build Your Business’?”

Donald Robichaud is the President of FloodLight Consulting and can be reached at Email or at 250-768-9415

Why do you need a marketing strategy?

Gentlerain Article
Every day you run into people and businesses.

Your aim is to market yourself.


The key to business marketing is a simple low cost strategy that makes people know, like and trust your product and your company.

You need a marketing strategy for your face-to-face sales presentations, your brochures, sales letters and your website.

However, at FloodLight Consulting we believe that the most important reason for you to have a marketing strategy is that,

it differentiates you from your competition and establishes your brand.

The stories you tell about who you are make you unique.

The results your clients achieve with your services or products will establish you as a unique player in your field.

And that is what a FloodLight Marketing Strategy can help you do, to create a compelling stories that let the world know who you are and what you do.

Excellent marketing strategies don't scream, I WANT TO IMPRESS YOU.

They don't scream, BUY MY SERVICES NOW.

Rather, the gifted marketing strategy and storyteller takes the reader or listener on a journey.

And, if the marketing strategy is well constructed, at the end of the journey, we are going to be impressed.

We are going to be interested.

We are going to want to take the next step in the sales process.

And that is why the most successful marketers tell stories.

So, what's your marketing strategy?

If you don't have one...I'm sure FloodLight Consulting can help.

Why not give us a call , and we can discuss your specific needs ?

Do you want to market your services and "Grow Your Business" — even in a down economy?
Click here for more information
-
Donald Robichaud
President
FloodLight Consulting
Build Your Business
250-768-9415 0r Email
http://www.floodlightconsulting.com/
http://donaldrobichaud.blogspot.com//

What is a Marketing Touch Point?

Every point of contact with your current and prospective customers is a "Touch Point" to build your business. They range from ads, websites, and sales process experience, to how you answer the phone.

Why is this important?

The consumer today is increasingly flooded with information from various sources. This increase makes identifying and acquiring customers more complex.

As the complexity of the buying process increases, the experiences that customers have with your Touch Points become more involved and more important than ever.

However, trying to control every Touch Point can be an overwhelming and costly endeavour. The need to ensure that only the most relevant of Touch Points are maximized is equally as important.

The FloodLight Touch Point System

Floodlight's Touch Point System is a systematic way of discovering your Touch Points, and of using that knowledge to better control the most important interactions that fuel customer acquisition, drive word-of-mouth referrals, and ensure retention of the right customers.

Like a road map, knowing your Touch Points doesn't tell you where to go or what road to take; but is very useful in helping you figure out where you are and what paths will be most effective.

Essentially, it bridges the gap between strategy and tactics, and provides nimble marketing planning and execution.

Benefits of FloodLight Touch Point System

• Is customer-centered
  
• Determines where you're most effectively reaching customers
  
• Identifies the Touch Point or tactical tools that would help your compnay reap reatest rewards
  
• Allows you to have a greater understanding of your marketing potential
• Ensures brand consistency
• Helps you grow your business
  

Testimonial

"We would like to take this opportunity to express how delighted we are with Donald Robichaud and his extensive sales and marketing techniques. With his wealth of knowledge and experience he has given us the tools that we needed to shape our business into the ongoing success that it is today.

Prior to hiring FloodLight Consulting, our marketing strategies were all over the map. We had lots of ideas and created forms and procedures to achieve our many desired marketing goals. When Don came on board he was able to streamline our processes into a simple system that worked! His ideas and advice allowed us to set into motion new techniques that resulted in a definite increase in our business.

We have enjoyed working with Donald and his level of professionalism is outstanding.

We recommend FloodLight Consulting to anyone struggling to get their business off the ground or fine tuning their sales and marketing techniques in order to take their business to the next level.."

Kym M. Tarr
ShoeString Home Staging & Interior Redesign
http://www.shoestringinteriorredesigns.com/

-

Kelowna, Canada, USA, North America, Marketing Coach

The Facebook Marketing Toolbox: 100 Tools and Tips to Tap the Facebook Customer Base

Learn to use Facebook as an advertising platform.
By Inside CRM Editors

In the last couple of years, Facebook has gone from a college photo-sharing site to a burgeoning business- networking platform for self-promotion, advertising and multimedia interaction. With new apps and add-ons, Facebook users can send each other a virtual drink, create and host events, advertise their businesses through social ads, and more.

When Charlie Gibson hosted the debate for the 2008 presidential candidates along with Facebook, the little networking site became a powerhouse in the online-marketing community.

100 Tools and Tips to Tap the Facebook Customer Base

If you're thinking of tapping into the Facebook crowd for some high-profile advertising, take a look at this list of 100 tools and tips that will help you maximize all of the applications and opportunities that Facebook has to offer.

Why Facebook?
Why has Facebook become the go-to networking site for marketers? Check out these articles to read up on the rise of this networking giant.

Inside Facebook: This blog is devoted to "tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform." You'll find useful stats, marketing tips and more.

Facebook's Ads Page: This page explains how Facebook provides business owners with self-service solutions, market-research solutions and integrated solutions when it comes to advertising.

Should You Advertise on Facebook?: This article helps U.K.-based businesses decide whether or not they should advertise on Facebook.

The Value of Facebook: Even in its earlier days, Facebook was considered a hot commodity in the industry. This post uncovers why there's good reason for all the hype.

What's the Big Deal About Facebook's Social Ads?: This article discusses why Facebook's social ads are such a hit.

$240 Million! Think of All the Beer We Can Buy!: When Microsoft shows a $240 million interest in your company, you know you've made it. Advertisers will also want to take note.

Why Is Facebook Suddenly So Popular Among We Geezers?: A CNET blogger wonders how Facebook's popularity has stretched from its original base of the under-25 crowd.

Ten Reasons Why Facebook Is So Popular: This tongue-in-cheek article explains exactly why Facebook is such a popular site.

How Did Facebook Become So Popular?: This blogger tracks Facebook's rise to social-networking stardom and its technique of "utilizing one of the most powerful viral marketing strategies ever conceived."

Facebook: More Popular Than Porn: Time magazine's Web site discovers that Facebook is more popular than porn sites among college students.

Fifteen Reasons Facebook May Be Worth $15 Billion: Back when Microsoft decided to invest $240 million in Facebook, it also declared the social-networking site to be worth around $15 billion total. The reasons for the site's popularity still hold true in 2008.

The Impact of Facebook's Platform: This article from ReadWriteWeb compares Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to a young Steve Jobs and applauds Facebook for opening up its company to developers and advertisers.Advertising
Learn about current and future advertising opportunities on Facebook by reading these posts.

Sponsored Groups: Sponsor your own group on Facebook by purchasing a link that hosts ad content, message boards and more.

Mini-Feed: When it first came out, members weren't sure if they wanted to be updated each time a friend added new photos, changed their status or even wrote on someone else's Wall. As an advertiser, though, you can track your Mini-Feed to find out what your friends have been up to and more closely study your target audience.

AceBucks: Facebook users earn AceBucks by playing games and taking surveys, then cashing them in for real-life prizes like Wii systems and iPods. Create your own survey or game to promote your business, then invite others to play.

Five Moneymaking Opportunities on Facebook: Mashable! lists several moneymaking strategies available on Facebook, advertising and otherwise.

Facebook's Secret Rate Card: This article explores which Facebook advertising methods are worth your money and effort, and which aren't.

Could Facebook Change Web Advertising?: Listen to this NPR (National Public Radio) report to uncover the newest trends in Web advertising.

How to Effectively Advertise on Facebook: Trendcatching's post explores some of the more lucrative strategies advertisers have used to tap into the Facebook market.

How Does Facebook Figure into Your Online Advertising Campaign?: This article is a must-read for business owners who are thinking about incorporating Facebook marketing into their own advertising campaigns.

Social Networks Find Ways to Monetize User Data: Learn how to make money off of your Facebook friends (it's not as sleazy as it sounds) with the tips and analyses provided here.

Digging into Facebook's Ad Future: CNET News.com believes that Facebook has the capabilities to become an "advertiser's paradise," despite some social-networking sites' inability to make serious profits.

Promote Your Cause on Facebook in Six Easy Steps: TechSoup shows nonprofits how to use Facebook for self-promotion.

Facebook Ads: Facebook's official advertising page strives to prove how social ads, profile pages and paid ads can increase a company's business.Free Marketing Opportunities
The beauty of using Facebook as a marketing tool comes from the endless ways in which you can advertise your business for free. Once you've set up a free account, use your creativity to maximize these features.
Profile Page: All Facebook members get their own profile page when they sign up. Use this as your canvas to upload pictures, logos and other information about your company.
Groups: Use the site's Groups feature to network with your target audience. You can join existing groups or create one just for your business to amp up the buzz about its services.

Facebook Marketplace: College kids use the site's Marketplace to scout out used couches and find roommates, but a savvy business owner can advertise services and product sales, as well as search for new employees.
Networks: Ignoring the Networks question when you create your company's profile could lose it a lot of business. List your business's city, industry, neighborhood and any other relevant information to let potential customers and business partners know where they can find you.

Facebook Badge: Facebook describes its Badge feature as "a customizable way to share your Facebook information on other Web sites." Creating your own Badge will link Facebook friends to your company's Web site.

Events: Instead of printing out flyers and mailers the next time you want to advertise an event, use the free Facebook Events app to get the word out.

FunWall: Mass emails are so yesteryear. If you want to keep in close contact with your Facebook friends, use the FunWall to create a message or send a greeting to everyone at once.
Top Friends Network: Reward your top friends by sending them a virtual drink or writing on their FunWalls. As a marketing tool, the Top Friends network serves as another way to group your contacts, keep an eye on your target demographic, and quickly and effectively reach out to your company's best customers.

Inbox: Send secure, private messages to your clients on Facebook with the Inbox app. You can still send out mass messages, but only to the contacts you select.

Notes: Mashable! calls Facebook's Notes application a blogging feature because of the way users post links, messages, photos and other information that they want to share with friends. Even if you maintain a blog elsewhere, give your Facebook friends an exclusive peek into your company's news and behind-the-scenes schedule by posting here.

Contact Importer: The contact importer helps you "find your friends on Facebook." If you want to find out if your clients or other work-related contacts use Facebook but think it's a little lame to come right out and ask, upload your contacts from AIM, Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail and more to find out if they're online.
Share Partners: When you publish updates to your company blog or Web site, add the link or a link and a photo to your Facebook profile using the Share Partners app.

Tools and Applications
Facebook add-ons allow you to customize your profile page and build up virtual relationships with clients and customers. Check out these tools and applications that will give your marketing plan a boost.

Facebook Social Ads: Pinpoint your company's Facebook friends and friend wannabes by creating a social ad that reveals itself to visitors of your profile and friends of friends of friends ... you get the idea.

Facebook Pages: A more business-savvy name for Profile, the Facebook Page now includes all kinds of add-ons so that you can post videos, logos, pictures and other marketing info.

Facebook Polls: Businesses can effectively find out what their target audiences are thinking by utilizing this polling service on Facebook.

Facebook Beacon: Connect your company's Web site to your customers' Facebook profiles with the Beacon action alerts. By integrating just three lines of code, your customers can choose to let their friends see what they viewed and bought on your company's Web site and more.

Facebook Insights: Through charts and mapping devices, companies can accurately track their "presence and promotion on Facebook."

Facebook Platform: If you want stand out from the thousands of other Facebook advertisers, create your own tools and applications with Platform. This system helps Facebook users design interactive apps so that visitors and friends can easily explore what your company has to offer.

FeedBurner: Advertise your company's blog or podcast with the FeedBurner app for Facebook. A feed will appear on your profile, so visitors to your page are instantly updated with new postings, videos and more.

Gydget: Small companies, bands, nonprofit groups and other organizations should try out Gydget, "a stand-alone viral-promotions tool" that you can add to your Facebook page and also encourage others to integrate with their own pages Update fans and clients with details about upcoming events, networking opportunities, sales and product launches.

Ether: Charge by the phone call when you list your Ether number on Facebook with this ingenious app. By adding the button to your Facebook page, you can advertise your expertise and invite friends to call you for advice.

Jobster: Attract new talent from the Facebook pool by integrating a Jobster button with your profile. Your company can build its own job network, submit a listing in the Jobster network and more.

QOOP: QOOP helps you create promotional items like T-shirts and mugs from digital photos. Facebook users can use the QOOP app to share the items by letting friends view and purchase your marketing creations.

Oodle Classifieds: Organize your company's advertisements, job postings and classifieds on Facebook with the Oodle app.Targeting the Right Demographic
Before you decide to tackle the entire Facebook market, try narrowing down your strategy by researching each of Facebook's demographics.

Big Brands and Facebook: Demographics, Case Studies and Best Practices: This slideshow from Forrester breaks down Facebook's primary demographics by age, country and other dividers to give advertisers insight into effective marketing campaigns.

Facebook Polls Launches Tonight: Marketing Research Paradise: This article details the ways in which Facebook's Polls app can help your company get in touch with its target demographic.

Could Facebook Become the New MySpace: Many have speculated over the relationship between Facebook and MySpace.com, and this article explores the specific demographics of each.

Facebook by the Numbers: This article is from May 2007, but readers can still use the post as a guide to study Facebook's age demographics.

Facebook Users Up 89 Percent Over Last Year; Demographic Shift: Find out how Facebook's overall demographic has changed from its inception to today.

Facebook's Most Popular Apps So Far: Want to know where to slip in ads and find your company's audience? Find out which apps people are using the most on Facebook.

Facebook Goes Beyond College, High School Markets: Even if your company's target audience isn't made up of college students, Facebook is still a viable marketing platform. This article explains why.

Facebook Market Research Secrets: Discover the sneaky way to perform market research by using Facebook's tools.

Facebook: The Future of Market Research?: This market research analysis holds that "sites [like Facebook] are providing useful business solutions not only to advertisers, but also to market research companies and marketing services companies." Read the whole article to find out why.

Facebook Provides Fascinating Glimpse Into Society, Media Demographics: This analysis of Facebook's advertisers also gives tips on how to look for marketing clues from your target audience.

Social-Networking Demographics: This article tracks the general demographic stats of social networking sites like Facebook.

Exercise for the Reader: Facebook Member Stats: The author of this post decided "to pull together some stats on relative numbers of members from each country." Find out the results by reading the entire article.How-to Guides
Follow these how-to guides to navigate the limitless marketing possibilities and tailor your own

Facebook marketing strategy.
Six Ways to Market on Facebook: This article should help those business owners who are still relatively new to the Facebook world. Simple tips include "host an event and post it" and "post news articles."

Inside//Out: Facebook: This blogger gives great tips on how to effectively market your company on Facebook without disrupting the advertiser-customer relationship.

Tips to Marketing on Facebook: Writer Janet Meiners considers some of the basic but effective
marketing tools that Facebook has to offer.

Facebook Marketing. It Can Be a Good Thing: BusinessWeek's article about Facebook marketing considers the pros and cons of placing ads on the networking site.

Eight Marketing Ideas from Facebook Groups: The Influential Marketing Blog dissects seven different Facebook groups and general event groups to find out what works and what doesn't when promoting your event or business.

Ten Killer Facebook Marketing Tips: From sending virtual gifts to adding friends, this article explains why certain Facebook actions are great self-promoters.

Facebook Usage and Marketing: Check out this guide for tips on how to make Facebook's apps work for you and your business.

How to Create a Successful Facebook Group: If your business wants to create a group on Facebook to reach a bigger audience, use these tips to gain a large following of fans.

Target Niche Audiences With Facebook Advertising: AllBusiness.com publishes this post to help advertisers understand the pros and cons of using Facebook as a marketing platform.

How Marketers Use Facebook: This upbeat article has some useful tips to introduce marketers into the world of Facebook.

Facebook Marketing: Social Networking at its Best: You don't have to go all out with social ads and beacons to use Facebook as a marketing tool. This article explains the benefits of setting up your profile page and networking with new friends.

How to Use Facebook Status for Marketing Purposes: Instead of letting friends know that you're "sleeping" or "at work," use the Status feature to clue customers in on what big business idea you're working on.Small Business Strategies
Even if you don't have the budget to promote a presidential election with ABC, your small business can benefit from Facebook's marketing strategies. Find out how with this list of tools and tips.

Networking: Use Facebook as a Marketing Tool: This article focuses on how entrepreneurs can use Facebook as a self-promotion tool and turn social networking into professional networking.

Top Five Viral Facebook Techniques: Learn how to make the most of referrals, giveaways and other simple apps with the tips in this article.

Web 3.0 Marketing with Facebook: Find out why Facebook is great for small businesses wanting to tap into a large, global market.

Facebook as a B2B Marketing Tool: This article chronicles how ordinary Facebook users have begun to use the social networking community as a place to self-promote and improve business.

Top Ten Ways to Use Facebook to Promote Your Business for Free: If your company doesn't have a huge marketing budget, don't worry. This article gives tips on using Facebook's free features to reach consumers.

Entrepreneurs Need Both Facebook and LinkedIn: This article from the Small Business Trends website details why entrepreneurs should take advantage of the many self-promotion and networking opportunities that Facebook offers its members.

Time for Facebook?: This author tries to figure out why Facebook, not just e-mail, is a useful tool for keeping contacts. Readers will also find tips on how to become more savvy at online networking.

Make Money with Facebook Applications: Web designers and developers are encouraged to create their own Facebook applications as an on-the-side moneymaking project.

Using Facebook for Business: A Real Life Example: The analysis of a real-life Facebook marketing strategy will help other small-business owners determine if a similar technique is right for their company.

Facebook Platform: This page includes "everything you need to get started building a Facebook Application." Ready, set, design!

Facebook, a Marketer's Friend: This article from The Wall Street Journal tracks a small-business owner and her lucrative, profitable adventures with Facebook marketing.

Five Ways Small Business Can Benefit from Social Media/Networking Sites: Small-business owners will find ways to use Facebook to meet their unique marketing needs.The Danger of Facebook
Before you invest all of your company's hard-earned marketing budget into Facebook advertising, check out these guides that discuss some of the negative challenges you might encounter.

Why Facebook Is Not a Viable Marketing Platform: Blogger Muhammad Saleem considers the reasons why Facebook marketing isn't always a good idea. From lack of focus to lack of visibility, he argues that there are several reasons to avoid this strategy.

Facebook Grooming Us for Intrusive Marketing?: A blog at CNET News.com suggests that Facebook's cozy relationship with advertisers treads on the dangerous concept of intrusive marketing.

Facebook Marketing Stunt Backfires: This article reveals how careless marketing tactics can lead to controversial, shady ad campaigns and bad public relations.

Five Things That Could Kill Facebook: From inbox contamination to application noise, learn how not to overdo your Facebook activity.

A Failed Facebook Marketing Campaign: Discover why Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Facebook marketing campaign wasn't a success, and what your company can learn from its mistakes.

Facebook's New Ads: If You're a Good Person, Why Should You Want Privacy?: Can advertising on Facebook backfire? This article thinks that it can, if members are annoyed that big businesses prey on social- networking sites just to spy on their consumers.

Facebook Beacon: A Cautionary Tale About New-Media Monopolies: This article condemns certain Facebook marketing opportunities like Beacon by calling the technique "a classic case of overreaching." Read this post before setting up a Facebook-oriented marketing strategy.

Madison Avenue Stampedes Onto Facebook: This video/article combination warns Facebook users against huge corporations that are "using Facebook ... to exploit the site's functions for their own business-networking pursuits, personal expression and just plain goofy fun." Make sure you steer clear of these sketchy techniques if you want to attract new customers via Facebook.

Ten Reasons Why Social-Media Marketing Sucks: From undefined goals to all-around randomness, see why this blogger thinks social-media marketing sucks.Miscellaneous Resources
These resources provide even more insight into the many ways that advertisers can capitalize on Facebook's popularity.

Social-Media Marketing in a Nutshell: Dosh Dosh introduces the concept of using social-media sites as venues for cutting-edge marketing techniques.

Facebook is the Marketing Story of '07: According to Influxinsights, "Facebook emerged from college dorms late in 2006 and then exploded onto the cultural scene in the U.S., U.K. and Canada in 2007." Read the rest of the article to learn why 2007 was Facebook's year.

Facebook Lets Advertisers Reach Members Via Free Apps: To reach customers on a "deeper level," get tips on utilizing Facebook's many applications.

Employers Reach Out to Recruits with Facebook: Besides marketing your business to consumers, why not market it to fresh recruits? This article shows you how.

Inside Facebook: The Facebook Book: This blog provides analyses and excerpts from the book "Inside Facebook" to help businesses understand what the social-networking trend can do for them.

Facebook Members Sell Their Own Ads: Though it's currently against the rules, "more than 1,500 Facebook users have started placing advertisements on their own profile pages." Find out how selling ads on your profile eventually backfires.

Why Your Company Needs to Be on Facebook: Harvard Business School's Conversation Starter site publishes this article from Forrester's Charlene Li. Check out the many reasons why all companies should consider joining Facebook.

Donald Robichaud is the President of FloodLight Consulting and can be reached at Email or at 250-768-9415