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Facebook first came into being as a spin-off of a rating site called Hot or Not back in 2003. It was created by a Harvard University student named Mark Zuckerberg. Facemash, as it was then called, was used to compare people by showing photographs and allowing users to vote on them. It was a satire website of sorts, in that it sometimes showed one picture of an animal and another of a person for comparison.

Over time, as more and more people caught on to the idea and members registered by the hundreds, Facemash faced trouble as Zuckerberg was charged by the Harvard Administration with multiple offenses. Facemash was shut down immediately afterwards, but thankfully, the creator was not. The project was revived in 2004 when Zuckerberg teamed up with Eduardo Saverin and Andrew McCollum. Facemash was revamped into Facebook, and more features were added to the website, supplanting the satire image of its former inception, and quickly becoming a worldwide hit.

The Easy Endeavor

It is stated that around 70 million people (and growing) use Facebook every day and not just for personal use, but to create opportunities that branch out into the categories of business and self promotion. The idea of using social networking sites for marketing enterprises has certainly been around, but Facebook takes full advantage of this and creates even more possibilities and concepts.

The fact that it is easy to use and certainly cleaner to look at than most social networking websites is not enough in describing its effectiveness both as a business or social tool. Its smooth and organized interface helps newcomers to work around trivial aspects, making it easy to figure things out in a rather short amount of time.

Facebook as a Marketplace

Aside from the fact that Facebook attracts both the DIY community and private entrepreneurs alike, it also is used by a number of corporations that seek to promote their products and image. The Mini-feeds (status update news) come into play as users quickly realize that it is highly convenient for network enterprising. Facebook is also a way to develop business relationships aside from the conventional social ones. It raises the visibility factor as other users become curious about your publicizing and creative ideas. This allows you to personalize your products and turn on your genuine charm.

The humongous storage capacity that Facebook provides for photos of you and your merchandise (or ideas) certainly brings a smile to the average businessman. Embedding videos on your page is another option that can attract customers or potential partners. Items that you post are categorized geographically and into networks that make it easier and more relevant for other users to browse through. These are reasons enough to want to get in on the action. However, it doesn’t stop there.

The Mobile Facebook

The addition of remotely controlling your account by cell phone, via the Internet, is a big reason to do business through Facebook. Texting commands come easily and information can be acquired from other users which allows for quick adjustment according to the given info.

What the Future Holds

As the lines between personal and public networking blur at varying degrees, the time will come when Facebook develops into an everyday necessity for communication networking. It is predicted to evolve into its own, making it seem like an Internet within the Internet, but on a grand scale. As the future draws its cards and ejects other players, Facebook is the one contestant that should weather it all and survive whatever tomorrow brings.

Online social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Twitter are among the most popular social web networks for modern day socialites. Social media memberships continue to grow in popularity in all demographics, especially among teens and young adults. Whether you are one of the millions of users that use a social media site to keep in touch with friends and relatives, or a professional looking for work, there are numerous advantages of becoming a member of a social media outlet. Read the rest of this entry »

In the ‘good old days’ – about three years ago – you used to keep in-touch with your customers using phone calls, email messages and face to face meetings. Nowadays the world has changed. People expect even more frequent updates, yet it’s nearly impossible to meet with every business contact on a regular basis.

Thankfully, blogging has come to the rescue. Setting up a blog on your web site – and having an associated RSS feed – means you can keep in constant touch with your clients and potential customers. Plus you don’t have to email them and they can get your latest news without having to visit your web site.

So how does this all work? A blog is really a fancy name for a web page that gets updated regularly. It’s nothing special. There are several methods of writing ‘blogs’, but they are nothing more than computer programs which allow you to easily update a web page. Far and away the easiest way to start a blog is with a website called blogger.com.

However, for keeping in touch with your customers, RSS is the key. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. What this means is that your blog can be automatically delivered to people who want to read it – you don’t have to send it to them and neither do they have to come and collect it. All they need is the address of your RSS Feed and their RSS Newsreader can do the job for them. There are several RSS readers available and new web browsers incorporate the ability to read RSS feeds and keep them updated.

Whenever you add new content to your blog, the RSS Feed automatically gets updated in everyone’s Reader program or web browser. That means you are guaranteed to be able to keep in touch with clients and prospects. You don’t have to do anything other than produce the content. Equally, you don’t face the problems of email filters and anti-spam programs blocking your email. Furthermore, people tend to read RSS Feeds because they have subscribed to them whereas they tend to ignore non urgent emails.

As you can see, there are several advantages to Blogs and RSS Feeds. But it doesn’t stop there. Search engines love them. That’s because blogs provide fresh and new content – precisely what searchers are looking for. Hence the search engines are actively pushing blogs higher up the search engine ranking. This means if you don’t have a blog for your business, you are seriously reducing your chances of a high search engine ranking. You need a blog nowadays to get noticed by the search engines.

So, blogging is essential. Not only does it improve your web presence, it also means you can keep in touch with clients and prospects more easily. And all the marketing research you can find will tell you that keeping in regular touch with your customers is an important component in gaining new business. So get blogging!

Every day millions of people start blogging. Indeed, the best estimates show that a new blog is created every single second of every day. As if this weren’t enough extra material being added to the Internet, there are of course millions of blogs already in existence. There is a vast amount of new information being added to the Internet every minute of every day.

Many people have been told that blogging helps increase your visibility on the Internet. That’s true enough, but if you are in business at what cost?

Let’s assume your time costs $100 an hour and that you spend a total of two hours a week adding to your blog. That’s $200 a week or $10,400 a year. That’s the cost of blogging to your business. You really should calculate the amount of time and its value to your business.

Once you’ve found out how much blogging is costing your business, you need to consider how much money it is actually making. How many people bought items or services from you as a direct result of your blog? If you don’t know, you need to add tracking codes to your blog links to ensure you can work this out.

Also, add up all the advertising income or affiliate income you’ve generated via your blog. Then look at the total. If it is less than the cost, you’re wasting time and losing money by blogging. Don’t let the fashion for blogging overcome traditional business requirements of profitability. For many people blogging is actually draining their profits, but they are unaware of this because they are not measuring their blog.

Ensure you measure your blog using tracking codes so you can check the real value of your blogging efforts. To do otherwise could seriously affect the profitability of your business.

True enough, blogs can raise your visibility on the Internet and can help boost search engine rankings. But being top of the search results for a particular keyword is of no value to you in business unless being top of the page actually translates into sales. Far too many people chase search engine ranking at the expense of chasing customers.

If you are using a blog to gain search engine ranking, but have not measured the income generated as a result, you could be wasting your time by writing your blog. As ever in business, measurement is essential if you are to do your best. So don’t blog hopefully; measure its real impact.

Does the thought of scheduling your blogging seem so… uncreative? Posting to your blog shouldn’t happen only when you feel “moved” to create an award-winning post. Blogging needs to be done regularly to provide good content for your readers and to maximize your profits.

Set yourself up with a schedule to post on your blogs. Take a realistic look at your business and figure out how blogging can fit in. The object is not to be constantly blogging, forsaking all else, but to bring blogging forward a bit from your low priority pile of things to do. Take a look at your business model and where blogging fits in. If your blogs are currently your only platform for making money, then blogging should be high priority.

Your blogging schedule is up to you and can certainly be changed when your circumstances change. Perhaps you’re going to temporarily blog daily on your Internet Marketing blog because you’re promoting an affiliate product or you’re just about to launch your new ebook. On a regular week you might consider blogging everyday, but alternating between all your blogs.

The important things is to think about your blogging ahead of time and create your schedule for the week. Also keep in mind the time of day that is available to you for blogging, especially if you’re a part-time internet marketer. Will mornings from 7:00 am to 7:30 pm work? And how about lunchtime from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm?

While you’re thinking ahead about your blogging, get a rough plan down on paper about what your blog subjects will be for each of the posts you’re going to post in the week ahead. If you can’t think of something right away, it will be a seed planted in your mind and you’ll come up with a great idea before it’s time to write it.

Try to find ways to streamline your posting. If your blogs are in a related field, you can sometimes modify your blog post to fit all your blogs. If your blogs are in very different fields you may still want to do the same sort of post to save time. For example, if you want to post a YouTube video, you can look for different videos for your different blogs all at once.

Scheduling your blogging may not be a creative endeavor, but it can make your blogging more successful nonetheless. A blogging schedule can help you become a consistent blogger who doesn’t lose readers for lack of posts and can also help you maximize your profits.