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Co-Author of “We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business“, Barry Libert, talks about the importance of community in todays corporate and small business world. “What is it that the small business owner can do to help their community?” That is the question that businesses want to ask themselves. This is the way to generate business in today’s market place.

When you do this “the community” will market your products and services for you. Watch the video below to learn how you can use these social networking strategies to help grow your local business.

It looks like Google Friend Connect is finally going to be released soon. Google seems to be on a social rampage, releasing all these new social features. Early it was the new Google voting features on the SERP’s and now it’s Google Friend Connect. Social networking has been around for some time and people have been participating with on on sites like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, etc., BUT “social networking” has not hit the masses yet. I think Google will be the company who will bring social networking to the masses. Between the new DIGG like features on the Google SERP’s to Google Friend Connect, soon the web will be one giant social network.

What does this mean for your small business…?

Well, it means every single person will be able to easily have a say on what they think of your business (online and offline components of your business). This may excite you or it may scare the pants off you – I leave that for you decide. Regardless, “social networking” and all it’s components are here to stay. I would recommend that if you are in business then you will want to learn these more about these social tools and learn how to use them to your advantage, even if it’s only protect your good name.

Google friend connect looks like an excellent tool that will enable you to create conversations with your community. You can easily take your static website and allow it to go social. This means more people engaging more deeply with your website — and with each other. This is what the search engines love and obviously people too, otherwise other social sites like FaceBook and YouTube wouldn’t be as popular as they are. It can be a great tool to help build fresh on going content and conversations about what your business focuses on. Depending on how you use it, it could be your websites best new friend – no pun intended!

Watch the video below and then leave a comment on what you think of the Google Friend Connect Tool.

Online videos and all the video sharing sites have been around for some time now and we all understand that they are a huge part of how the web operates, especially when Google purchased YouTube for $US1.65 billion. Google even claims that 13 hours worth of video is uploaded every minute on YouTube. The most current internet marketing news is how YouTube has released PPC (Pay-Per-Click) service that enables YouTube users to have their videos appear at the top of the search results on YouTube for keywords they choose in their ad campaign. Watch this video below where Product Manager Matthew Liu explains how you can you use Sponsored Videos to promote your videos on YouTube.

Michelle MacPhearson has also written a pretty good post on how to set-up a YouTube PPC account. According to Ed Dale (30 Day Challenge’s Maverick) at his Seesmic video account he states that video will be have to be apart of every persons marketing strategy and explains that YouTube is the #2 search engine in the world.

It is obvious this will be a great opportunity for all types businesses and artists to promote and help find their niche group of fans. I can’t wait for all the success stories and new IM’ing businesses that will develop due to this new PPC platform. I will assume that the other video sharing sites will also soon follow suit with their own pay-per-click just like how MySpace followed with their own PPC after Facebook’s PPC program finding huge successes.

I am now signing up for an account and will do some testing. Once I have done a some testing I will report back with the results on how I found YouTube’s new PPC. Before I do, what do you think this will do for your business? Are you currently using YouTube and videos to market your business? If not, will this maybe become a new marketing strategy for you? Let me know in the comments below…

Oh! And if you want to sign up too… go to: YouTube PPC

I recently read at emarketer.com, “a September 2008 study by Rosetta (formerly Brulant) that focused on the top 100 online retailers in the US found that 59 had a fan page on Facebook, up from 30 in May 2008. Among the 29 who added Facebook pages since that time were Best Buy, Toys “R” Us, Kohl’s and Wal-Mart.“

What does this tell you…? That social marketing on Facebook is a very important place to have your business(s) interacting with with the community.  You may want to take a moment and watch Jeff Johnson’s “Tapping into the Viral Power of Facebook” where Jeff offers free how to videos on this exact subject matter.  Another good resource for Facebook marketing is Mari at Why Facebook.

I can not stress enough why it is so important for small business owners to seriously start looking at ways to get all their products and services online. In this day age there are all kinds of user friendly and easy ways to get your products and services online like through Google Base, etc.

Look how this open source challenge “Android Developer Challenge” lead to Ryan Barnes developing the “ShopSavvy” application. This application goes on mobile phones and is similar to Jeffrey’s Sharkey’s “Compare Everywhere” , both won awards for Google’s “Android Developer Challenge”. These applications will change the way everyone shops. Currently a large percentage of the market does comparison shopping at home online before making their purchasing decisions, but this will make it a regular everyday thing among consumers…AND they will be doing while browsing in your retail location!

Why is this so important?

Because the application is for mobile phones. It will be the mobile phone industry that changes the way we shop forever.

If this does not show small businesses the importance of having a very strong presence online is essential to sustained success, then I don’t know what will. These phone applications can scan all bar codes and do the price comparison on the spot. This is the future of shopping and small businesses need to wake-up and smell the coffee. The world is online and if your business is not online then you are risking losing sales to your competition who is online with all their products and services.

Don’t be scared. Get involved and start by reading blogs like this one, maybe even subscribe , then start finding someone who can help your business get online. There are many, many tools you can use that are geared towards the newbie to get their products and services online. Let me know (in the comment section below) if you want me make a list of great user friendly tools that a small business owners can use to help strengthen their online presence.

You May Also Like The Following Posts:

Stores Clueless About Mobile Barcode Scanning Applications?

Google Adds Voice Recognition to  iPhone App

Small business owners always ask what is the best platform or the best user friendly website platform to use…and my answer is always: WORDPRESS

Why WordPress…? I think the below video will sum up why WorpPress is one of the best platforms to get started as a newbie.

Glenda Watson Hyatt, aka the Left Thumb Blogger, shares how blogging with WordPress has enabled her to be heard by the world and increased her circle of friends.  Glenda should inspire you and show that WordPress is a great web property to start with on the internet.

Small business owners always ask where should we market or where is the next hot place to market…?

Emarketer.com posted this today:

“Social networking is an everyday activity for the majority of college students, and the percentage of students who use the networks daily has nearly doubled in the past two years. EDUCAUSE compared social network usage at 44 colleges and universities in 2006, 2007 and 2008. It found that nearly twice as many students at these institutions use social networks every day in 2008 (59%) than did in 2006 (33%).“

Go where your future shoppers hang out!

Follow what the YOUTH do!

Follow the students!

It will lead in the ‘right’ marketing direction and you can usually still get some very cost effective advertising.  Like FaceBook’s PPC.  Some of the best bang for your buck for local businesses.

Loads of tips there!

Some other related posts that will begin to help you see the importance exploring advertising on these social networking sites.

Here are some other posts that may shed some light on why you may want to start exploring advertising on these social sites for your local business.

Emarketer.com today posted these stats on how shoppers shop today. What does this tell you…?

That it is equally as important to make sure your website is easily accessible as your retail location.

If basically half all people split their shopping between online and offline – wow! It’s doesn’t get any more obvious then this.

We are quickly approaching the busiest time of the year for shopping, if you have not yet addressed your website’s readiness for the up coming X-mas holidays… then I highly suggest you put it on your urgent to do list.

Just another reason for your business to have their own YouTube channel.

What do you think…?

I found this very awesome tool that can be used to do market research on Digg .

This Mashup Tool allows you to discover what articles, posts, conversations that became "hot" and buzz worthy in the Digg community over the last two years.

One of the best ways to learn what will work in your market place on your major keywords is to know what is already working with big successful social sites like Digg.

I thought this tool was so good, that I made a quick video below on how to use this mashup for market research on your main keywords. This tool was created by Dipity.com and the tool can be found at: Archaeologist

Thanks to Dipity for creating a very useful Mashup!

Watch the video below to see how this Digg Mashup tool can help you do some quick & easy research on your target market.

Tell us how you see this tool being useful for your business.