Author: Kevin Sinclair

What would happen if one of your friends tells about your newest blog to her five friends and they, in turn, tell their friends and it goes on like this? Pretty soon you will have all the traffic you need for a comfortable income from your new-found writing careers. Is it possible to to achieve this kind of success using the virality of the social web, or does it sound like a pyramid scheme?

The emergence of social web provides opportunities for viral marketing that never existed before. Face to face talk or talk over the phone has its limitations in reaching your audience. The Web 1.0 offered forums for a limited viral marketing opportunity. The social web has opened up avenues manyfolds expanded online reach. This article describes seven techniques for using the social web to achieve virality.

1. Before jumping to social websites to launch your viral adventure, make your site social web friendly. Provide a link on your site for users to invite their friends. When someone joins your site through an invitation, reward points to the inviter. Announce a contest on your site and reward the top inviter with e-books or a t-shirt with your site logo.

2. Spend sometime at Digg. This is a community based news popularity web site. If your blog article hits the front page of Digg, you will get thousands of visitors and some of them will eventually become your regulars. Study the types of articles that end up on the front page of Digg. Write your blog articles targeted to Digg users.

3. MySpace is the ultimate social website because of its sheer size in terms of visitors. If you have lots of friends who have their MySpace pages, create a niche network community in MySpace with common interests. Post teasers of your interesting blog articles in your MySpace page with links to your full article. Ask your friends to write comments on your blog postings.

4. Take a look at Delicious. Google Delicious to get the url because it is not a dot-com domain. It is a social bookmarking site to store your bookmarks online. You should build a network of friends at this site and study their bookmarkings to assess the type of articles they prefer to bookmark. Tailor your blog articles to mimic the article style your network appreciates.

5. Visit a site called Squidoo. At Squidoo you create “lenses” (a Web page) about any topic. You can create as many lenses as you want and you can embed external links in your lenses. Squidoo lenses also have a good search engine credibility. So, your sites will get some good external in-bound links for free.

6. LinkedIn is an online community of experienced professionals. Create your account at LinkedIn and network with professionals in your fields. Offer some free services for other professionals in your network and solicit their recommendations. All recommendations appear in your profile. LinkedIn provides great opportunity for someone to find your business or services.

7. YourElevatorPitch provides a free online spot to announce your business and services. User rates your ad pitches. This site also allows you to link back to your site.

Other sites worth exploring for viral opportunities are Flickr and YouTube. Both the sides accept multimedia (photos for Flickr and videos for YouTube) contents. These sites are good for establishing your brand by regular posting of theme oriented humorous contents.

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Author: Andri Irawan

Social networking.  We have all likely heard of it before, but not everyone knows what it means? If you were asked to define what social networking was, would you be able to give an accurate definition? Unfortunately, most individuals cannot, even though it is likely that they participate in some form of social networking, especially online.

Social networking is defined as  the grouping of individuals together into to specific groups, often like a small community or a neighborhood . Although social networking is possible in person, especially in schools or in the workplace, it is most popular online.

This is because unlike most high schools, colleges, or workplaces, the Internet is filled with millions, if not more, of individuals who are looking to meet other Internet users and develop friendships.    When it comes to social networking online, websites are used.

These websites are known as social networking websites. Social networking websites are, in a way, like an online community of Internet users.

Depending on the social networking website in question, many of these online community members share a common bond, whether that bond be hobbies, religion, or politics. Once you are granted access to a social networking website you can begin to socialize.

This socialization may include reading the profiles or profile pages of other members or even contacting them.

The friends that you can make are just one of the many benefits to social networking online. Another one of those benefits includes diversity. Unlike in most schools or workplaces, the Internet gives individuals, from all around the world, access to social networking sties.

This means that although you are in the United States, you could develop an online friendship with someone in Japan. Not only will you make a new friend, you but may also learn a thing or two about a new culture.   As previously mentioned, social networking often involves grouping specific individuals or organizations together.

While there are a number of social networking websites that focus on particular Internets, there are others that do not. These websites are often deemed traditional social networking websites. These types of websites typically have an open membership.

This means that anyone can become a member, no matter what their hobbies, beliefs, or views are. However, once you are inside this online community, you can begin to create your own network of friends; thus eliminating others that do not meet your criteria.

If networking on the Internet sounds like something you would be interested in, you are encouraged to learn more about it, such as the dangers of social networking. These dangers often involve online predators or individuals who claim to be someone that they are not. Although danger does exist with networking online, it also exists with networking out in the real world.

As when you are meeting friends at a bar, school, or work, you are advised to proceed with caution online. By being aware of your surroundings and who you are talking to, you should be able safely enjoying social networking online.

Once you have learned everything that you feel you need to learn, about social networking online, you can begin to search for networking communities to join.  This can easily be done by performing a standard Internet search.

Your search will likely return a number of results, including MySpace, FriendWise, FriendFinder, Yahoo! 360, Facebook, Orkut, Friendster, and Classmates.

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