You love it…you hateit….but you just can’t ignore it anymore….twitter is here to stay……..It isabsolutely the most happening thing in the social networking world…

Its phenomenal successis still going strong….

Even without acommercial model and not making any money, Twitter is the latest buzzword amongthe marketers.

Even in recessionhit times, Twitter is defying expectations with a 1,382 per cent growth in usernumbers in February, along with $35 million (£23m) in new venture capital thisyear.

With the hype of140 characters limit and an infatuated media, the micro blog has more than 17million users already.

From the point ofimportance for an online marketer, twitter opens up a new avenue for “easy,timely and open communications”. It is important to market yourself as competitivenessin the Internet marketing world increases by every second. It is very importantto be found and stand out.

Some brands havealready started using twitter for marketing purposes.

In an interviewwith Hashem Bajwa, a columnist in revolution magazine, Biz Stone, one of the cofounders of Twitter, says, “Comcast, JetBlue and WholeFoods use Twittereffectively by approaching the process as a hybrid between customer service andmarketing. The successful brands understand that every interaction with acustomer is an opportunity - even if they are initially unhappy.” He adds,“Engaging with followers using replies and being mindful or sparing when itcomes to self-promotion seems to be the way to go.”

Twitter can add realvalue to branding through online marketing. Mr. Stone says, “Twitter can bringan authentic voice to a brand in a timely manner. The trend toward openness incommunications extends to other areas. Twitter lowers the barrier of entry forbrands and companies and provides an intimate, immediate connection.”

Biz Stone furtheradded during the interview that they want to build on the quality of the brandbefore venturing into the profitable aspect of the enterprise. “We don't want to find success early onlyto fall apart later because we haven't grown up right,” explains Stone.

Even though thecommercial plan of twitter is vague and is yet to win the votes of the Internetmarketing gurus, but still there seems to be ample opportunity of subtlemarketing of your brands…..Just be to the point and get branded…

Time and tide waitsfor none. In the fast growing world of social networking, time is becoming themost important factor. Every late action from late response to your tweets ornot following the trends of the ever changing Internet marketing strategies tonot understanding the value of time while marketing on social network siteswould make you loose your efforts completely.

You need to be always onalert while working through SMM while not going crazy about doing it all thetime. Don’t get addicted…

You need to understandyour audience and their functions based on their GMT time. You have to timeyourself and work accordingly. You have to make sure they get your tweets whenit is relevant to them. Your networking should not be repetitive and should bein accordance to the moods of your targeted audience. By following the trendsas to when you get replies from your targeted visitors, you can get an ideawhen to be active on your space.

Never sit on an idea.Make them varied and don’t be too elaborate and always handle marketingsubtly…to avoid being black listed.

Always propose ideasin accordance to the present trends. Like if you are talking about FAO, learnabout what is new with financial services outsourcing, where will your targetedvisitors likely to be found and how can you enter their network. A timely entryon a targeted strategic networking circle can yield much result than spendinghours on planning elaborate marketing strategies.

The world of Internetmarketing has changed. Its no longer only getting your site optimized and waitfor strategic visitors to find you and ask for you. Now the trend is to findthe strategic visitors and make sure they ask for only you….Time is running…letsrun with it...if not ahead of it.

The Web 2.0revolutionizes in introducing people to social networking sites, blogs, wikisand video sharing sites. These new tools and technologies are now used for adeveloping concept of marketing called inbound marketing.

Inbound marketingstrategies focuses on the usage of Web 2.0 tools and techniques for marketingtheir products and services while socially interacting with their customers ortargeted audience. This marketing strategy use “SEO(search engine optimization) marketing, blogging, social networking sites andviral campaigns”. The popular inbound marketing techniques include “referralsand brand searches, free tools and trials, organic search engine optimization,blogging, email newsletters, webinars, pay-per-click advertising, sponsorships”.This strategy is “quick, efficient and result oriented”.

Lisa Almeida in her article, UnderstandingOutbound vs. Inbound Marketing, describes the advantages of aninbound marketing strategy.

“Not onlyis inbound marketing more polite, it produces better results because:

• The relationship factor leads to higher … client conversion
• The loyalty factor leads to more repeat sales
• The methods for implementing it are far less expensive than traditional outbound methods
• It’s highly track-able so you can easily adjust to improved results
• There are a lot of easy to use, ready-made tools for the technically challenged.”

As further discussed in an article inecrowds.com: 

“With reference to “Adam Needles’ blog"The InboundMarketing/Marketing Content Management Crowd – A Fourth Camp?,"the previously disparate worlds of managing web content, creating marketingmaterials, SEO optimization, and Web 2.0 communities are converging into whathe's dubbed the "fourth camp," an interactive, user inquiry-drivenmarketing realm where prospects come to YOU. This "fourth camp" ismarked by companies focused on offering solutions that are two-fold: creatingand managing dynamic site content, and optimizing that content to increase thelikelihood of interested and relevant prospects finding it.”

Gone are the days when just followingprotocol was all that was needed for a job to be done… It is now a world whereyou have to make opportunities come your way to take a lead and win the race…Itis now a world of “connecting to people”….

Twitter has taken micro- blogging to a whole new level. With the limit of typing 140 characters at one time, it facilitates twittering via mobiles. It is an online social networking website which not only helps you stay connected to your friends and family but can be used for subtle online marketing activities. If you are looking for financial advisors for your business, all you need is to tweet and you might find them available inscores…. 

Born in the generation where “small is beautiful”, twittering provides with the opportunity to market without exaggeration.

With media using twittering for posting breaking news or celebrities twittering their relationship status, twitter has also become the new hotshot in the Internet marketing arena. It is used by CEOs who find it easy to track the market trends in no time.

Even when there are limitations on using twitter for direct marketing, it can be used subtly to promote your products and services. 

But one should also be cautious about solely depending on twittering as their main marketing strategic activity. This as Doug Champigny, a well-known Internet marketing mentor, speaker, and the author of the book “Advanced Twitter Marketing” said,“Twitter doesn’t belong to you - meaning the owners could at any time shut it down. In almost 13 years online now I’ve seen a number of big sites come and go, and while Twitter seems firmly rooted at the moment, remember that they still haven’t monetized the service. Even with the business brilliance of Biz Stone & crew, and the small staff they’ve stayed to, they do have some good-sized expenditure for hardware, bandwidth, etc. Sooner or later the bills have to be paid, and I for one will feel much more comfortable about Twitter’s future once they have a monetization system set up and working well.”

But for now learn the subtle marketing techniques and twitter about your productsas it is the way to future as it can be seen now…

Although social media marketing or social media optimization are the evolving techniques of online marketing in this globalized world, the time tested SEO techniques are still what will get your website visible the most in the world of Internet. 

Without undermining the value of informal chit chat and social networking as a great fun way of marketing your products and services, the more surer and professional method still remains to be going by the SEO rules. 

According to latest Internet news buzz it is reported that only with proper understanding of the SEO techniques provided by the ruling search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN, one can guarantee those top page rankings of all the strategic keywords. It is further said that it is important that everything you type should be optimized even if it’s a part of social networking or blogging. This is to ensure better rankings on search engines and subsequent rise on traffic on your website as you increase your visibility. 

It is also important to avoid being penalized by the search engines owing to unethical SEO practices just as much as it is important to get your site fully optimized. 

Hence it is important that focus should be first on getting the SEO in place before indulging in other techniques such as posting videos, pay-per-click ads, SMM orSMO. This is as the search engine such as Google being the number one, provides with the most guaranteed traffic to your website if you can get into the top page ranks in the search engines for your strategic keywords.

Even with new marketing techniques evolving by the minute while everyone struggling to survive the credit crunch, the time tested SEO techniques when properly implemented by the rules can still guarantee enough business to survive these hard times.

Even before getting into the debate whether it is better to go for the small pay perclick search engines or stick to the market giants such as Google or Overtures,let me just begin with what is the basic concept of pay per click search engines.

Pay-per-click(PPC) search engines are part of marketing strategies which offers options suchas "pay-per-click" to users. An online marketer can place a small ad on the search result page for a few particular keywords in lieu for a particular payment when a visitor actually clicks on the ad. The advantage being no payment will be required for the ad to be put up on that page per se. Hence the advertiser pays only when a visitor clicks on the ad. 

Hence PPC ensures you pay only when you get traffic to your website. Although it has mostly 1 to 2% conversion rate even among the large PPCs, it is worth even if you have one sale a month especially for small businesses.                                                                                                                                                            

There are different players in the market…The giants such as Google and Overtures are dominating the current market of PPC while the small PPC are trying to manage with small businesses.

Although it is a raging debate among the Internet marketers whether the small PPC are ofany worth, it can be only be proven once they stand the test of time. The advantage of the small PPCs is that the bids are lower than what is required to be made in the large PPCs. But then the large PPC are provided with better distribution and far better features. 

It is very easy to even create your own PPC but then most often there are no guarantees of any strategic traffic for an indefinite time. 

While keeping an eye how the small PPCs evolve over time, it will be better to leave the micro managing of the PPC activity on the larger PPCs for now.

With social media networking emerging as a major player in the online marketing strategic arena, it is important  that one knowsexactly what to do while marketing through such practices. The most importantis “active listening”, according to the online marketing experts. “Activelistening” means that even before starting on a full on online marketing program based on SMO or SMM, it is important to know listen what people aresaying about your site. It is important to actively ask relevant questions which would help you in the proper understanding of the market needs and critically evaluate your services while promoting them. Social networking is not only about informal chit-chatting but is soon becoming a social forum where you can get a proper outlook of what are people conversing about and use the information to strategize your marketing programs. 

Hence you get to know what your customers are looking for at the moment… 

This can be best illustrated by an example given by Dave Evans, the author of the book “Social media marketing: an hour a day”, where he says in one of his articles on social grace – “Coca-Cola and Pepsi have both created a viable presence on Facebook, for example, and used this to build a strong fan base to gather information, refine their products and marketing strategies, and other initiatives. Coca-Cola gained favorable press recently for its adoption and support of its Facebook community -- started not by Coke -- but by fans who saw a need early on for it.  Compare this press with the questioning responses as Coke was seen as having "missed" the opportunity to capitalize on the Diet Coke/Mentos videos of a few years back. If nothing else, the social Web will make you smarter. Meanwhile, Pepsi has pushed further into its social efforts, building "The Juice" in support of its healthy-lifestyle Tropicana Trop 50 juice brand. “ 

The above is just an illustration of how the social media along with “active listening” can be usedto understand the need of your customers and build products or services accordingly for smartly earned profits. 

Hence it can be said that social media communication is not only about giving opinions but listening to what other has to say too… 

With recession hitting the world hard, the people of the world turned more global than ever before. With this, came the era of social media where people got into the mode of the most basic instinct – the instinct to communicate.This led to the launch of popular ways of communicating in the internet. This started with launches of social networking sites such as Orkut by Google, where you can get connected to your long lost school friends, college friends and make new friends joining any number of fan clubs.

The online marketers saw this as an excellent opportunity to use it as a ground to promote their services or products. Although most such forums prohibit direct marketing, it always can be used for chit-chatting about your website and subtle promotion of your services. Hence it also gave birth to online gurus teaching you the art of networking your business without making it too obvious. 

But the best part is it is fun to work on these techniques as you get to build a network across the world with immense opportunity to market with innovative ways. You get to communicate with the top CEOs using twitter ( the most popular social networking site in the current market) in the most informal way and get your business moving without too many hassles about formal discussions…. 

The other sites that falls under the popularity charts are Facebook and LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the most professional site which helps you get connected to your colleagues even afterthey have left for greener pastures. 

But the best way to social network will be blogging. Having your own business blogs gives you the opportunity to have your say the way you want. It is the best way to market your products with any restrictions. A properly optimized regular blog can ensure the proper branding of your website and its services among the strategic visitors on the Internet. 

But before you get started on creating your network, one should have a thorough knowledge about your goals in the networking site and clear profile of your targeted audience. With to the point communication you can have a much better impact than blabbering about unrelated topics.