At a recent Social Media-themed breakfast event for New Hampshire’s Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, one speaker (Leslie Poston, co-author of Twitter for Dummies) told the assembled audience there were 537 different social networking sites online. 537! And that doesn’t even count all the networks on Ning and other services like it, which allow you to build your own social network using their templates, or custom-made communities like “Greenopolis,” or “Equestrian Life.”

So when it comes to deciding which social media platforms make the most sense to use, the options can be overwhelming – if you let them. However, with a little focus, guidance, and strategic thinking, you can just as easily simplify your choices.

What follows draws from our 6-week “Social Media Kick Start” Virtual Boot Camp, which expands on these topics with self-paced learning modules.

Let’s start by keeping these two very important questions in mind: Where is your audience now? And where are they going to be?

Even if your target audience isn’t on a particular social network right now, consider the fact that involvement is social networks is growing exponentially. (Heck, if Facebook were a country, it would have the 4th largest population in the world!) Not everyone was on the Web 5-10 years ago, but you could see where the trend was going. Same thing with social networks. Here’s how to dive in confidently.

1. Start with the Big Three.

That’s LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. The odds that your audience is on one or more of these platforms right now is very high. And if they’re not on there, they will be by the time you finish reading this. Now, of the three, LinkedIn is the only one that doesn’t get tarred with the “It’s just for kids goofing off” brush. But consider this: The measurement company ComScore reported in April that the majority of Twitter users are 35+, and the 18-34 age group is growing as fast as the 55-64 age group. As for Facebook, InsideFacebook.com reports the largest group of users is between 26 and 44 years old, and the fastest growing demo is women 55 and over.

2. Budget your time and money.

These are your resources, and if you’re a small business owner, you’re using them with care these days. A platform like Twitter is about as simple as it gets – 5-minute sign up, a few communication conventions to learn as you go, then the Twitterverse is your oyster. Facebook, on the other hand, goes about as deep as they get in terms of customization opportunities. Consider learning and growing in this platform as a work in progress, and add, edit, expand and refresh as you go. Even LinkedIn has a lot of detail possibilities, too, but they also have a very helpful tool that tells you how complete your profile is, which can guide you through what options you need to finish to take maximum advantage of its features.

3. Follow the FUN!

It may sound frivolous at first, but there’s sound business sense behind it. First of all, as you play with each of the Big Three platforms, you’ll learn more about your own communication style, and how you like to experience your friends, contacts, and colleagues. Twitter presents quick snippets of insight, links, conversations, and opportunities to brainstorm on the fly. LinkedIn is more professional, following traditional and formal conventions. Facebook is all over the map, with nooks and crannies that’ll surprise you even after months of frequent use. In other words, if control is what you want, Facebook may be your nemesis, but if you dig spontaneity and possibilities from any direction, then hop on board.

The bottom line: if you pick a social network that you dread going to, you’ll find a way to put it off. If you’re not participating in the social network, then you won’t get much value out of it! What’s more, if you hate doing it, that’ll come through in your interactions. No one wants to connect with an unpleasant person. It’s just not good for business.

On the other hand, when you “follow the FUN,” you’ll make time for your social networking. You’ll laugh at the countless pathways – and diversions – available, and you’ll be able to get focused on the results you’re after with confidence and nimble clarity.

Then, as you expand beyond the Big Three, you’ll have a better sense of how to play in the social arena, and what features support your goals and style. Love taking photos? Love talking? Want to try out video? PowerPoint wiz? There are networks that support all media channels.

Some say at least 537, and counting.

NOTE:  The following is a guest post from one of my favorite internet marketing mentors.

Why I Love Affiliate Marketing – Part 2
By Jimmy D. Brown of “Affiliatenaire”

Pop quiz time.  What does “HTML” stand for?  Don’t know that one?  How about this – what does “FTP” stand for? OK, one more chance.  Do you know how to work with either?

That brings me to the second reason why I love affiliate marketing…

      ** You don’t need to build a website **

What scares people more than creating a product is building a website! 

* What in the world is HTML?  Or FTP?
* How much does the software cost?  And hosting?
* How do I upload files?
* Why isn’t it formatted correctly?
* Why don’t my graphics look like the ones the pros have?

If you are a complete beginner, it can be very difficult (even using templates) to get an attractive website in place. And hiring a professional to do it fo ryou is out of the budget for most people.

But, with affiliate marketing, you don’t need to build a website.  You simply send visitors to someone else’s professionally designed site through your affiliate link.

     SIDEBAR:  Just in case you’re interested, HTML stands
     for “hypertext markup language” and is the coding
     used to build webpages.  FTP stands for “file transfer
     protocol” and is the process used for moving files
     from your computer to a website, or vice versa.

Really, in a manner of looking at it, you get to take advantage of the time and money invested by someone else to develop the site.  Think about it:  when you promote an affiliate link, it reflects firstly upon YOU.  You are the one who is advertising the link, recommending the product,
sending people who have interacted with YOU to the website.

The professional site of someone else really represents you as the promoter, in the eye of those who have clicked through your link.

You get the benefits without the bother.

That’s why I love affiliate marketing.

You don’t need to build a website.

…………………….

Jimmy D. Brown is the author of “Affiliatenaire”, teaching you how to create big-time affiliate commission checks in only 1-3 hours each week.  Discover how you can get cash in the bank without a website, experience or even an idea!
Visit : http://avcbi-businesscenter.com/go/affiliatenaire

…………………….

There is a common misconception that a website automatically catapults a business to global stardom. This could be true – with a lot of time and money spent on it – but in isolation, a website is next to useless. No doubt all you SEO experts out there will think I’m teaching grandma to suck eggs but there are literally thousands of people starting out who just don’t realise what it takes.

The truth is, a website on its own is akin to opening a new shop at the bottom of a dark, gated alleyway – with no signage or advertising. Passers-by will do exactly that, pass by, never knowing what wonderful products you are selling. Without the brightly lit signs, local press, opening launches, special offer flyers and other advertising, nobody will ever know your shop is there!

It’s the same with a website, unless people know it’s there, they will never visit it.

So what does it take to get noticed?

Well, for a start, you should register your URL as early as you possibly can. Put up a page stating “website under construction”. Google rates websites, amongst other criteria, for how long they have been up and running. A new website will take many months before Google’s bots will start giving your site any credence.

Next, when you build your site you need to ensure it is built to be optimised for search engine spiders. There is a lot of information out there about how to do this but unless you are a web developer my advice would be to find a reputable company to do it for you. You get what you pay for. In my experience, a cheap website will end up costing you more in the long run. Better to employ a company with a proven track record than to to spend months messing around with a sub-standard site.

Then you will need to be constantly updating your site with fresh content so the spiders know you are a live business and so that your readers or customers have something to keep them coming back .

Establish links to your website from other sites that are high page-ranked. There are a number of ways to do this.

1. You can email the webmaster and offer to provide reciprocal links or manually enter your website details into the many thousands of directories or you can purchase software to part-automate the process. Again, this process takes a lot of time and effort and tests the greatest of patience.

2. Write articles and post them to the big article directories. If readers like your article they can publish them as content on their site, which then provides a link to your site.

3. Participate in forums, using your expertise, use blogs and social networking sites to get your url out there as much as possible.

Okay so all this takes time. What about getting business in the meantime?

Well this is where we come to sponsored links. Sponsored links can give you the immediate exposure that you need. This is where you and your competitors essentially bid to be seen on the right hand side of Google’s Results Page. I read all sorts of articles about the pros and cons of using this facility and I get the feeling that the overall message is a negative one, that somehow paying to be at the top of the listings is cheating. Well I don’t subscribe to this. The organic listings have created a situation that is very similar to the rise of the supermarkets and decline of the greengrocer and butcher and fishmonger. It is hard to compete with their buying power.

This is not so different. To get a good flow of visitors on your site you need to be on the first page of Google for your chosen keywords. To be on the first page is not easy, as I said before it takes a lot of time, effort and money to get there and stay there. Most small businesses, particularly those who are just starting out, don’t have the time, money or know how to do this. But they may well be offering a really good service, product or whatever. It isn’t cheating; it is just a way of getting noticed by your target audience while you gradually develop your SEO skills.

One of the most common questions I’m getting these days is “how should I measure the value of all the social marketing things we’re doing like Twitter, Linked-in, Facebook, etc.?”

My answer: WHY are you doing them in the first place? If you can’t answer that, you’re wasting your time and the company’s money.

Sounds simple I know, but I’m stunned at how unclear many marketers are about their intentions/expectations/hypotheses for how social media initiatives might actually help their business. In short, if you can’t describe in two sentences or less (no semi-colons) WHAT you hope to gain through use of social media, then WHY are you doing it? Measurement isn’t the problem. If you don’t know where you’re going, any measurement approach will work.

Here’s a framework for thinking about social measurement:

1.       Fill in the blanks: “Adding or swapping-in social media initiatives will impact ____________ by __________
extent over _____________ timeframe. And when that happens, the added value for the business will be $_____________, which will give me an ROI of ______________. ” This forms your hypotheses about what you might achieve, and why the rest of the business should care.

2.       Identify all the assumptions implicit in your hypotheses and “flex” each assumption up/down by 50% to 100% to see under which circumstances your assumptions become unprofitable.

3.       Identify the most sensitive assumption variables — those that tend to dramatically change the hypothesized payback by the greatest degree based on small changes in the assumption. These are your key uncertainties.

4.       Enhance your understanding of the sensitive assumptions through small-scale experiments constructed across broad ranges of the sensitive variables. Plan your experiments in ways you can safely FAIL, but mostly in ways to help you understand clearly what it would take to SUCCEED — even if that turns out to be unprofitable upon further analysis. That way, you will at least know what won’t work, and change your hypotheses in #1 above accordingly.

5.       Repeat steps 1 thru 4 until you have a model that seems to work.

6.       In the process, the drivers of program success will become very obvious. Those become your key metrics to monitor.

In short, measuring the payback on social media requires a sound initial business case that lays out all the assumptions and uncertainties, then methodically iterates through tests to find the model(s) that work best. Plan to fail in small scale, but most important, plan to LEARN quickly.

Measure social media as you should any other marketing investment: How did it perform versus your expectations of how it should have? If those expectations are rooted in principles of profit-generation, your measurement will be relevant and insightful.