This will pull you in a good base of readers which will then lead to networking with people in the industry. A Blog is also a place to see your progression of work and see where you were six months ago with your work. Due to advances in technology, Photographers have really needed to keep up on evolving trends and industry new comings. Cameras have been getting so advanced that they are marketing them as anyone can take a good photo now.

Another great aspect of having the Blog is the added extra bonuses you can have behind-the-scenes videos and photos. Your visitors can comment about your work. You can market the link to your Blog on other websites and web articles. keeping up on a Blog is also important and is a lot of work, but it can also get much easier once you get into the swing of it. Here are a couple main points to remember when doing a Blog.

• Post often, probably at least once a week.
• Use images in your posts to illustrate your point.
• Encourage feedback.
• Have fun with it!

• It is fun once you try it (seriously it is)
• You can voice your own opinions on certain topics and have them stand out over text content.
• You don’t have to be in the video. You can tape something your talking about behind the camera.
• It’s inexpensive to get started.
• Allows you to reach a larger audience.
• Anyone can do it. Even using a video enabled phone.

Now that you know why you should try this out let me tell you how you can get started. Anyone with a video camera or decent video capability on their phone can get starting video blogging. Next step find something you want to blog about. It’s best to choose something your interested in or something such as a hobby. Lets say you enjoy skiing during the winter months. So the next time your in Vail, make sure to tape some of your experience then post it later. Your video can relay information about your experience to the already popular resort destination. Maybe you want to show people how to cook an apple pie, everyone loves apple pie right? Ok maybe not but showing a step by step process of a how to would be very helpful for anyone who wants to learn.

Now that you have done your video, you will need to decide what your going to do with your video. You can upload it to many different sites such as YouTube, Blip.tv, Vimeo, Flickr or google video. Once you have created an account and uploaded your video, most of these site will also allow you to use the video on your own Web site or blog. Find the area where you can copy the link code to the video then you can add the code to your site or blog. Bam! your now video blogging. It’s fun and easy to do.

Your answer to the question ‘What you are doing’ could be letting the world know about your business, hobbies, emotions, or anything else, that you feel that people would be interested in knowing.

If you want to brand yourself, get feedback, advertise your business, talk to the prospects, offer and get support, or make new friends, you can use twitter.

You can be in contact with the potential market, talk to them or get to know information using questions. The result at times may surpass the search engines.

You may have friends on Facebook, but if you want followers, you use Twitter. People who read tweets by you and look out for you are called your followers. Alternatively, you too follow others. You can even listen to conversation of others and give your view if you can contribute to something that is being talked.

You may choose private, direct or general communication with the rest of the tweeters. To facilitate this, you can use applications that let you to view twitter instantly, like TweetDeck. With this, you will be able to see tweets instantly and can immediately respond to the tweets.

You can also use other applications on Twitter like Twitterfeed. This enables you to load your articles and blog posts you have more people to read your content.

You can also use Twellow to connect to the experts and gurus in your area of work.

Several applications are created particularly for Twitter to help active social marketing to gather the events and happenings instantly, using other modes of communication such as cellular phones.

How to Use Twitter?

• Avoid tweeting nonsensical stuff, that nobody is interested in reading.
• Incorporate interesting details pertaining to your business in the tweets.
• If you receive a good tweet, share it with your followers. This is good conduct of a twitter.
• Upload your newsletter, blogs and other networking in Twitter
• Update your bio data regularly. There would be many interested in getting to know more about you.

•    Links connect to a URL. You can use images to make it look attractive.
•    Use events application
•    For videos, use Video app
•    Add an opt-in form for blog subscription, newsletter.
•    Use Images as front end links that enter your website. You can use Gimp, Powerpoint, Fireworks to create images. For HTML editor you can use Dreamweaver, CoffeeCup, or Frontpage.
•    Communicate with friends through email, suggest links to friends, and create a link with Fan Box. Make use of website, email signature, e-newsletter, website, blog and email blast

Advantages of Facebook Page Ads
1.    Search Engines index them
2.    Create a community
3.    Connected: If the website has useful information, you will have more visitors and fans.

Settings
Change Settings – Default View for Wall >> Posts by Page and Fans
Default Landing Tab for Others >> Customize Welcome Landing Page
Fan Permissions >> allow/disallow fan posts,

Increase your community:

1) If you are promoting a product, add galleries and pictures.
2) Add ebay RSS feed to Notes application of Facebook.
3) Customize landing page, put images and banner ads on the site.
4) Add a link to your online store in all the posts.
5) Create new videos regularly and post it on Facebook, Youtube etc.
6) Provide useful information such as tips, product reviews, storage ideas, points to remember while buying, related accessories, do’s and don’ts, gift ideas and the latest, FAQ, advantages of shopping offered by your site.
7) Include Newsletter
Always give response to the people who post on your page. Take it as an opportunity to learn what your visitors want. Provide your visitors with the useful content. If you have to write a big post for it, you should do it.

LinkedIn – Which allows you to post comments, articles and join groups in your profession

Biznik – Provides you with the opportunity to post articles pertaining to your business, rfps and job postings

You want the best result for your customer yet the market, both local and international, is flooded with the same product or service you are providing. What can we do to ensure that your web site reaches the first page of the major Internet search engines?

The Title of Your Web Site

The contents of the title of your web site is what you see at the very top of your browser. Pro Web Marketing will include keywords in your title that specifically describe your business, and if necessary, the location of your market. The title of your web site is also what people will see when they are viewing a listing on the search engines. So, the title needs to be kept clean, precise to the business, and professional looking to the viewer.

Description and Keyword Tags

Each web page on the Internet contains specific coding, which directs the browser to view your graphics and text. Every web page in your website should include a code for “Meta Description” and “Meta Keywords”. Meta Description is used to describe what your site is all about. For example, if your web site is for a vacation rental site, you would want your description to include the location of your rentals, surrounding cities, type of accommodations you offer, such as cabins, hotels, or condominiums, and so on. It should be brief yet specific, as this description will be displayed under the title of your web site in the search engines. Meta Keywords is used to tell the search engine that individual keywords a searcher types into the search engine is include in your web site. More importantly than keywords with most search engines is what is in the body of your text seen on your web site. We will get into the importance of that later on.

ALT Tags or Alternative Tags

Most web sites also include graphics and/or photographs within the web site. A search engine cannot see your image as part of your web site. However, if an ALT Tag is associated with your image, it helps the search engine find more keywords that associate your web site with what the searcher is looking for, as the ALT Tag is a text description of your image. For example, you have a picture of a 23 foot Maxum boat on your web site, but the name of your image is image.jpg. There are millions of image.jpg’s out there in the World Wide Web. You can narrow this down by creating an alternative tag (ALT Tag) name for your image by calling it “23 foot Maxum boat”. Now the search engine can see that there is a text description of the image, which is used to describe the image in text format versus image format and can be included in the search as text on your web site.

Text vs. No Text

Although Flash may be a beautiful way to display your web site page, most search engines, at this time, do not index them unless only part of the page includes a small flash presentation and the rest of the web site page is text oriented. Search engines index your web site page by the text presented on that page. The more descriptive you are about the product, services, and location of your business using text, the more apt you are to be indexed by a search engine when an individual types in their keywords.

At Pro Web Marketing, we strive to ensure that your web site is optimal for search engine indexing. However, we cannot guarantee that your web site will reach the No. 1 position, but we will try to position your web site as best we can against the vast amount of competition on the Internet.

1. Start Blogging – Blogging is old news to many. Not quite the distant past, but still not the future… sort of a Web 1.5. Is blogging what’s ‘hot’ at the moment? Well, no. It certainly doesn’t compare with chasing a link from the front page of Digg. But blogging is alive and well! It continues to be a great way to get interactively connected with your customers. ‘Dialoguing’ is the reason social marketing exists. How much time you invest in your blog is up to you, but you’ll get out what you put in. You don’t have to drive yourself crazy putting in daily entries, but you should establish a regular schedule for your blog updates. Otherwise, when people check your blog they’ll see the same-old/same-old so often that they’ll stop visiting your site… which is the whole reason you started the blog! So don’t shoot yourself in the foot by creating a blog that’s a visitor-repellent rather than a visitor-magnet.

Blogging is not a monologue. Your blog is not the electronic equivalent of Hamlet’s soliloquy. Just the opposite! Blogging is about creating conversations and joining others in progress. Take time to read what others in your industry are saying. Get in on the discussion (and get your name out there) by posting your comments on other blogs. It’s free, and again, the amount of time you invest can bring some very big returns. The beauty of blog posts is that you’ll almost always be encouraged to supply your name and URL when leaving a comment. This is a great way to build visibility and create a springboard to catapult traffic from other blogs to yours.

2. Take and Share Digital Photos – Flickr can be a tremendous marketing tool thanks to its incredibly active photo groups. The time and cost investment are minimal, and you can use Flickr to reach thousands of highly targeted prospects with compelling images of your product.

3. Be The Answer Man (or Woman) at Yahoo Answers – There’s one thing you have to provide that no one else does – your expertise. If you’re a service-based business, your knowledge is your #1 marketing tool. Yahoo Answers is a great place for you to hammer away at prospects. Imagine being the go-to person that people seek out. That’s who you’ll be at Yahoo Answers.

There’s no better way to share your expertise and make an instant and direct connection with potential customers. I know dozens of marketing pros like me who spent as little as an hour or two each week answering SEO and promotíon-oriented questions there. They tell me that they’ve been able to track big results from even that small investment of time.

4. Get Into the Movie Business – Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but moving pictures are worth their weight in solid gold marketing. Fortunately, good video cameras are cheap these days, and a short video needs little editing/production work in today’s “everyone’s a filmmaker” environment. And if you’ve got the creative “chops” to add some sizzle to a video, go for it! Be the next Scorsese, if you can. Fortunately, the software you need to add special effects won’t break the bank. The most “viral” videos are usually spontaneous and unproduced… merely “captured” by a videographer. For marketing purposes, however, a produced video is the way to go… and a how-to video featuring your product is a good choice. If the look or location of your business is a selling point, “tour” videos – of a workplace, a restaurant, the homes you sell, the real estate you landscape, etc. – are your best bet.

Marketing videos are finding a home on local search portals like CitySearch. The find-it-in-your-town site announced that local video ads will be added to its listings. YellowPages.com is also exploring the idea of video opportunities.

Upload your videos to a unique page on your website or add them to your blog page. But don’t stop there! YouTube is the most obvious – and the most active – sharing destination. And there are so many others. Just nose around the web and you’ll find ‘em.

5. Don’t Wait To Visit StumbleUpon.com – There are many so-called ‘discovery’ type sites in social marketing. The best-known are Digg, Reddit, and Netscape, but they’re also a bit complicated. StumbleUpon requires the lowest time investment. The site’s functionality makes it much quicker and easier to join groups related to your industry and add friends from those groups.

Once you’ve joined and created your lists, you can start to upload “sticky” (appealing to visitors) content and before you know it, other users will “stumble upon” what you’ve added. That’s when the “magic begins”. When visitors give your pages good feedback, your content is shown to even more users.

You can’t sell your product or service on StumbleUpon. The benefit it offers is increased traffic, which can lead to increased profíts. Those profíts are just a click away because your site is just a click away. Think of StumbleUpon as a way to raise awareness, Blog readership, grow subscribers, etc… all of which ultimately feed into your profit stream.

6. Join Up – A HUGE part of social marketing is detective work. You need to find your customers where they like to hang out. Well, if your customers are like most people on the planet, it’s pretty likely that they hang out at Yahoo Groups or Google Groups to share interests and opinions.

Fetch, Marketer! Go get those prospects.

Like Flickr, the groups at Yahoo and Google are organised into interest-based lists. When you join the lists and discussions, you can provide your expertise (there’s that word again) and become a trusted member of the community… the person that other people will want to do business with. There’s no better outcome to marketing than that!

7. Make Friends, Not Noise – As you explore social marketing opportunities across the web, be sensitive to the rules and regulations posted on various websites. As a member of a social community, it’s your obligation to play by the rules… so make sure you know them and follow them! But here’s one general rule for using these sites as marketing tools: Don’t spam the system. Flickr doesn’t want your entire product inventory posted, and they have rules against doing so. But a few high-quality photo submissions that add to the community are fine.

Whatever social marketing you do, make a contribution to the community. Try to add content and comments of value, not an endless spew of “Buy my product” messages. In other words, don’t be a leech that’s merely there to suck up prospects. Give back a little. Or, better yet, give back a lot! When you do that, you’re on the road to social marketing success. (Translation: more money than you’ll know what to do with!)

And remember, with social marketing we’re not talking about any old traffic. We’re talk about platinum, USDA Prime, pre-qualified, eager to do business, trusting, ready and willing prospects who don’t think of you as a business… they think of you as a friend.

So be a good friend. Deliver on the promise of quality and service. If you do that, social marketing will make you rích beyond your wildest dreams.

So stop dreaming and start marketing… socially.

By Jonathan Jay: Founder and Managing Director of SuccessTrack. Helping Business Owners Make More Profit in Less Time With Less Effort. Strategies like that can explode your small business quickly, that’s why you should go right now to www.freemarketingbook.org and request a copy of Jonathan Jay’s new book “Marketing Secrets of a Multi-Millionaire Entrepreneur”, a 72 page book with hundreds of practical ideas. About SuccessTrack – www.successtrackonline.com