There’s always discussion as to what is the best way to present your product or services to prospective clients. A company without a web site is rare. Only the smallest of main street businesses can survive without a web site… possibly. As people turn to the web, rather then the phone book to find the service they need, an online presence seems to be necessary to survive. From haircuts to juice bars, unless you are in a great location that guarantees constant foot traffic, you need to be found by other methods.

With newspapers and magazines dwindling, not to mention the cost of ads and television advertising, the web offers free marketing for any firm. The question is; what is the best venue? The answer is; what does your company need?

What Is The End Product/Result?

Recently a friend of mine needed help for an event he was holding. He wanted an eFlyer, web site, Facebook page, Twitter account and anything else I thought would help get the word out about the event and aftermath.

After a discussion of his needs and desired results, I sent him a creative brief that suggested a digital flyer that could be posted to sites, Twitter and emailed to his mailing list. It made sense, as this was a limited, time-sensitive project. It would have the build up to the day it was held, occur and then have some photos and comments. After that, it was a dead issue. I suggested a Facebook page to reach more people within the demographic, a Twitter account to keep people up on the event and undisclosed location as well as reach more of the demographic through the use of hashtags and I told him to forget a web site.

For this need, a static web site, even one updated regularly, including a blog section was just a waste of time and effort vs. what is available through Facebook. He insisted on both but his ability to dedicate the time needed to keep all accounts updated and fresh was limited, so the idea of the web site and blog was dropped.

The eFlyer was designed and he had friends and contacts post it on their Facebook pages, pointing people to the fan page of the event. The eFlyer was also posted to his Twitter account with the appropriate hashtags and the Facebook page garnered close to 4,000 hits in the first week.

It was easy to keep up with the two basic accounts, Twitter and Facebook, for news and blurbs leading up to the event and within the month leading to the event date, the fan page had over 10,000 hits.

Would a web site draw the same attention? Possibly but it would have to draw on the addition of the Facebook page, which would be an extra step in his daily posting schedule. For one person servicing all of the social media needs, it was a time drain he couldn’t handle.

This fit his needs but what fits YOUR needs? If you are a Fortune 100 company, you have a team of marketing/social media people to post all over known creation and that is where you need to be. If you have a small service-oriented company, such as being a freelance designer, hair dresser, house painter, plumber or limo driver, just to name a few, you certainly don’t need both a Facebook page AND a web site. A web site alone will do better for you with the proper SEO so customers will find you easily.

With Facebook…

A Facebook page will allow a small business to update information quickly and has tie-ins with Twitter, Foursquare, Pinterest and Instagram. If you want to announce daily specials to your followers, show new product offerings or encourage inbound marketing and interactive response, a Facebook page is ideal for businesses that don’t have a lot of time for social media management or paying a web master to update a web site.

Facebook also has a “close proximity” factor for gathering and tracking followers.  This means that people are logged in and concentrating on their timelines. If your information is viral on Facebook, you are part of these figures:

• One in every nine people on Earth is on Facebook (this number is calculated by dividing the planets 6.94 billion people by Facebook’s 750 million users).
• People spend 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.
• Each Facebook user spends on average 15 hours and 33 minutes a month on the site.
• More than 250 million people access Facebook through their mobile devices.
• More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook.
• 30 billion pieces of content is shared on Facebook each month.
• 300,000 users helped translate Facebook into 70 languages.
• People on Facebook install 20 million “Apps” every day.

The use of viral images and information, you can grab a part of Facebook users. With the tools that are a part of Facebook, as well as those that have sharing integration with Facebook, you can keep your social media marketing organized with a minimum of time needed to use multiple channels of social media marketing.

An interesting use of Facebook marketing which actually relies on Twitter for the main social media element. A local food truck announces its daily location via Twitter and then Facebook and allows for recommendations and reviews, along with fan interaction via a Facebook fan page. They have no web site and probably won’t need one unless they decide to park in the same place every day.

So, Why Use A Web Site?

There were an estimated 2,459,646,518 internet users worldwide as of February 2012 (representing about 30.2% of the population worldwide), according to Internet World Stats data. The figures grow every day as technology allows more people to gain access to the internet.

Those figures aside, there will always be a need for a company or individuals to have a web site. Again, it depends on your needs.

When you have a web site, aside from the morals and taste factor of society, which isn’t really much these days, Facebook has rules and privacy settings (although no one seems to be able to figure those out) and will place ads on your page which may very well compete with your product or service, so owning your own web site gives you complete control over content (although you need to read the terms of service of your web hosting provider).

©GL Stock Images

When planning a web site, the first thing to consider is how it will be built. Will you use a ready made template, a WordPress theme or hire a web designer to build the site from scratch to your particular specifications. All will cost money but make sure it’s money well spent. When hiring a designer, it’s best to let them use their expertise at understanding your needs and then allowing them to design your site without interference.

If poorly designed and developed, your site won’t work very well with your users and search engines. Getting involved because you believe design is simple or you need to control the process or, worse yet, you want to brag to friends that you helped design your own site, you will end up costing yourself prospects via lost SEO and a site with bad navigation or designed poorly so people surfing the site won’t stay to view your products or services.

A no-nonsense site is best for a business that offers a product and pricing information that is available to the casual shopper, 24/7. In this case, a well designed website will help you sell more. The website can become a powerful visual aid for your business and a knowledgeable, convincing and tireless virtual salesperson who will always be there when your clients want more information to make the buying decision.

Because of this 24/7 digital salesperson, you will save time and money. Your website will be always available online, even after hours, so won’t have to answer the phone as frequently because now people have another way of getting the information they need about your business: through your website.

With a digital presence, you can reduce or even eliminate the costs for printing and distributing flyers, brochures, newsletters, etc. Including a digital PDF on your site allows prospects to download all of these at no cost to you and they can be updated at any time.

With a website, your business can be listed in various online directories including the web directories of Google, Yahoo, Bing and other business-specific online directories. For your customers, these are like on-demand phone books that will come in handy. Specific searches from local prospects can bring customers right to you.

Show Your Work Process And Successes!

Facebook allows for quick updates to show projects and how they turned out. The same can be used on a web site and will boost customer confidence. With a web site, you can place reviews where they will be the most effective. A big project for a big client will bring big SEO for your site.

One way to encourage a new customer is by showing the transparency in your work process. Tough economics, competition between companies and the cost of services has clients worried…not that they weren’t worried before but now it has become imperative to waylay the client’s fears with a lot of “hand-holding,” explaining what will happen when, how, and why. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it makes perfect sense.

By showing the process, in detail on your web site, before a project even starts, both parties should understand the milestones and what can and should be expected by BOTH the client and the supplier. By simply stating, “this is what my company does, and this is what it typically costs,” it eliminates a lot of the needless bartering and wasted time crafting custom proposals for clients. By defining what you do for a client, and what you don’t do, it’s become easier for you to determine costs.

When prospects see examples of your successes, they will also be inspired for their own projects. Often, if they see what they like, they will ask you to repeat the same project. They may see a style or process they like and ask you to provide the same for them as they now have confidence you will deliver their vision without guessing at the end results.

Yes, these can be added to Facebook, too, using the photo album function but, once again, on your own web site, you can control placement and impact.

What Price For Fame?

There’s been endless discussion about price lists on web sites. The internet, technology itself, has changed the way we all do business. The rise of Amazon.com and the effect it has had on certain retail sectors (i.e. retail toy and book sales). We have gotten use to the ease of point-and-click buying. Personally, I prefer to hold the product in my hands before buying. I like looking at the package, flipping through pages, trying on clothes and shoes BEFORE considering the purchase. Unfortunately, that option is disappearing.

Some would say that’s a con and not a pro but apparently society doesn’t agree as evident in the bankruptcy and closing of retail stores and chains. There will always be the projects that need the personal touch. The meetings, the briefs, the back and forth and the negotiations for the fees involved…followed by the arguing and non-payment thereof. With a posted price, the prospective client or buyer knows what the product or service will cost and is more likely to pony up the entire cost up front. If not, payments split into two or more with milestone payments are still acceptable to internet shoppers with a final payment due upon delivery, which, thank goodness, will erase the “30 day” payment period. As a friend once said, “30 days is a jail sentence and not a payment term.”

©GL Stock Images

People argue the notion of price lists on a web site as “too rigid” and “unchangeable.” Companies that post products would scoff at that. If you are in a product oriented or service industry that can post a flat fee or price, they can be changed albeit by a person who can handle the web site and needed changes. You have to ask if there will be frequent changes to your prices and costs. If not, placing prices on your site may put you ahead of competitors when prospects are shopping around the web.

As mentioned in the opening of this article, it’s up to you to know your business plan before jumping into social media. Your business plan has to consider the demographic of your targeted consumer and what will reach their needs when marketing your company. Jumping in blindly is a bad business decision and a savvy businessperson will know that planning is the first step in execution.

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The worst argument I ever heard from a student in response to my talk on steps to market oneself was, “I thought I’d just get an agent.” It seems the teacher of the class gave the students that sage advice. I wonder how many took my advice and how long it took the others to realize that advice was sound. How many careers, I wonder, never took off at all.

It doesn’t matter what business you’re in – marketing is as important, if not more important, as what you know and how well you do it. There are horrid incompetents who do extremely well and talented people who go nowhere due to their marketing efforts, or lack thereof.

Some people believe that search engines will help people find them on the web and that’s true to a certain point but at its best, it won’t replace marketing. In any business, you need to encourage growth and new customers. Don’t wait for prospects to find you – go out and find them!

The question is – what kind of marketing tools do you need? The answer is not what tools are out there but what tools fit your business. Social media is free or costs less… well, can be cost effective in most cases. As with fresh, young students setting their first step into the business world, the challenge is knowing what to use, how to use it and what NOT to use.

Is Your Site Really Ready To Promote?

No matter what business you are in, you need to show your services, product(s) and in some cases, the price(s). What’s more, you need to do it quickly as people will spend less then a minute on your site if they are surfing several different competitors. Make sure your site has the most important information in the space that will come up when your site loads. If people have to scroll excessively or your navigation is difficult, then your site is weak and marketing will be a waste of time. Your site is the foundation of your marketing and it has to be strong and reliable.

Let’s say you have a great site and you’ve allowed a seasoned and talented designer or design team to create something great for you without mucking up the design by asking your 12 year-old niece, who won a fourth grade art contest at her school, for her opinion on the design and then forcing the designer to put in prancing glitter unicorn gifs all over your site. In other words, don’t tell your doctor how to remove a malignant growth by telling him/her that your seven year-old son plays the game, “Operation” and will be assisting during the operation. You will die! Have your niece help with design and the site and your business will die!

Aside from that, design blogs LOVE to spotlight the best and worst of web design. Under which label do you want your site appearing? It won’t help when people search out your site. Let a professional design and code your site. They want to do their best so you’re happy and keeping coming back for more as technology changes web applications and technology.

Do You Sell, Process Or Manufacture?

What is it your business does for customers?  Do you sell hard goods through a store and an ecommerce site? Even if only through an ecommerce site, be sure, once again, to listen to your web designer so the proper SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will allow people surfing for your type of products will show up and best if they show up within the first page of a search and even better if they show up within the top five.

What else can you use for selling hard goods? By having a tight and focused Twitter following, you can announce new products, sales and specials. Twitter is your billboard and even though it’s free, you have to know the optimal times to post your tweets to catch peoples’ attention without multiple tweets to the point of aggravation to your followers.

When are the best times to tweet? According to an article in Forbes.com, “Twitter gets busiest between 9am and 3pm Monday through Thursday (EST).

An article on Mashable.com also uses the same information compiled by bit.ly (URL shortener and link tracking), writing, “the company revealed that posting links to Twitter between the hours of 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. ET (or 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. PT) will give you the highest click rank, especially on days earlier in the week. Meanwhile, sending a tweet with a link after 8:00 p.m. should be avoided — as should posting links after 3:00 p.m. on Fridays.

I disagree only on the basis of what they point to as “peak times.” I deal with a global clientele and followers, so I have to plan tweets for the same working hours in different time zones. I have noticed that even tweets at 2:00 a.m. (EST), have drawn responses from people in (PST) as well as those just starting their work day in western Europe as well as eastern Asia.

The key is to know your targeted audience, tweet at times they are most likely to see your tweet in their feed, which can fill up with 500 tweets within a minute, pushing yours far off the page. Tweet at optimal times, but not so much that your own tweets sent page looks like an endless list of the same tweet. Bit.ly, to its credit does note, “by understanding the simple characteristics of each social network, you can publish your content at exactly the right time for it to reach the maximum number of people.”

This also brings up the practice of mobile marketing. Have you made your site mobile friendly? If not, you are sorely behind the times and being left behind quickly. Think of it as jumping off a speedboat at night. Within 60 seconds you will be lost and either drown or be eaten by sharks… the sharks being your competition.

With a mobile site and mobile marketing to smart phones, an opt-in list will give you a willing audience who will read your messages sent directly to them. Better then a tweet, more ROI then email marketing and simple to maintain an active database.

SMS (Text) Marketing is the popular way of using mobile marketing as almost every single person is an active text user. Many of these people prefer texting to most other forms of communication and most people carry their mobile device with them at all times. With text marketing, you have the opportunity to contact multiple customers at the same time and they receive the message in real time. SMS message delivery can be guaranteed which makes it a preferred method to email in many instances and there is a greater open rate for texts as opposed to emails.

SMS marketing can also be “location-aware,” so that if a potential consumer is nearby, you can send them a coupon or make them aware of time-sensitive specials. Foursquare is a site/application that you should check out if you want to offer pop up specials and sales.

Developing an application that promotes your business to a mobile user is another great way to harness the growing power of mobile marketing. Mobile apps are one of the hottest items available and you could apply the same concept to mobile games as well. Any application that builds your brand into a potential buyer’s mobile experience is a great way to increase your business.

If you manufacture products, the same techniques apply. The main difference is you are marketing business to business. Mobile marketing will not fit your efforts as well as email marketing and print catalogs. If you specialize in small runs in, say a firm that manufactures promotional items, having a fan page on Facebook with Google ads (which are also good for retail sales) is quite effective.

If you sell services based on intellectual properties, such as web design, consulting or copywriting, there are different choices that must be made. Your site, naturally, must show samples of your work and contact information. Unlike ecommerce sites that show a product and the price, most freelance designers and photographers would rather field requests from prospective clients and price projects accordingly. There has been some discussion if it’s a good idea to actually offer a price list so people surfing for design services can see costs upfront. By the same token, although it commoditizes design work, it also offers upfront payments of 50% or higher before the work begins and terms of sale the customer must accept before the project proceeds.

A design firm in England has found a unique middle ground to this question. Promo Design hits the “process,” “value,” and samples of their work right up front on their home page. Their contact page asks the PROSPECT to layout all of their needs AND budget before the first contact is ever made. The pull down menu of budget will act to weed out the clients looking for a bargain but it still gives the salesperson at Promo a chance to negotiate the work and fee.

But how do you bring prospects to your site in the first place? Creatives tend to be drawn together in life and on social media. We follow other creatives, connect with them and spend an inordinate amount of time-sharing our work, dreams and disappointments. Misery does love company but how much time is spent on this commiseration as opposed to searching for solid business contacts?

When it comes to business, other designers aren’t the number one source of work for us as freelancers or referrals. The dark side of relying too much on connections with other designers is that they can sabotage others. People can be petty and the current financial and competitive environment is fierce. Learn to trust your own efforts!

While your trusted friends, whether designers or “normal” people, are great connections and should be treasured and nurtured, you need to seek out those who BUY your services.

LinkedIn is a purely business site for networking. It allows you to connect with some legitimate heavy hitters who buy creative services.

Build a list of a hundred dream clients. Search companies, identify the right people (not the CEO; try people who are in a position to book design projects) and build a list. Make sure you respond to every accepted connection with a personal note (via LinkedIn) to thank people for connecting with you and include your site URL for “more on me.”

LinkedIn has thousands of groups you can join and even more “questions” that you can answer for awards for “best answer.” Search for questions on marketing and answer how design helps marketing initiatives or advertising. Become an expert in the eyes and minds of possible leads who will need your services. There are some members of LinkedIn that like to give one-sentence answers that usually make no sense or don’t even address the question. They like to have the “most questions answered” title for all to see. Their reputations aren’t the best on the site so think quality and not quantity! Good, sound answers show others you are knowledgeable about your field. Building trust with prospects is an important step in gaining new clients.

Groups allow you to create closer connections with prospective clients. Are you going to join the “Lovers of Joomla” site or the “Small Business Marketing Ideas” group? The latter is filled with people who need your services. The idea of marketing yourself is to reach out to prospective clients, not to be friends with other creatives. Leave that for local design group bitch sessions. The biggest mistake a creative makes is failing to network which, in its most simple state, is sales or selling yourself and your service. If you attended a college or university for the art program, you will have an alumni group that will contain members that were not art students and they have businesses that need design services. So, why not urge them to use a fellow graduate? Surely you talked to other people at that school… right?

Were you a member of a fraternity or sorority? Your brothers and sisters are no doubt members of a LinkedIn group. If not, then start a group. Starting a group puts you in charge and number one in the spotlight.

Both LinkedIn and Twitter have intuitive feedback that help you connect, join groups, hashtag to hot trends and see who is following you or viewing your profile. Use this information to connect with the right people who will become clients and customers.

Blogging is a great way to reach prospects but very labor intensive. This is why many firms start to ignore their blogs – they don’t want to have an employee using their time to update the content or pay for someone to dedicate the time and effort. I have several clients that pay me to write blog posts for them. The big danger with a blog is having it show that it hasn’t been updated for months or over a year. It reflects badly on you and your company. Update it at least once a week, even if it’s just one little blurb. Ignore it and it is a blot on your company’s ability to keep up with marketing, which is not a good sign in our business.

We are in a Googled world of information flying left and right. With sites like Stumbleupon and Digg, just to name two, and aggregators by the hundreds, your blog will cross someone’s path at some point, either via a shared link, Facebook “like,” or just showing up in a search for some odd term. The key is to bring that person BACK to your blog again and again.

While the internet offers many ways to connect with other people, don’t forget another effective marketing tool – face-to-face networking. You are more likely to do business with people who have met you in person then any other way. The old tried and true firm handshake and confident smile still works.

What Fits Your Needs?

All of the avenues mentioned in this article are dovetailed to work together. One is not better than the others and some just may not be necessary for what you want to accomplish. Any small business needs to advertise, market, brand and reach out to prospective clients. Target your clients and go after them. The idea is to use what works best for your needs, keep at it and make everything count towards gaining clients and business. When using social media or any active marketing solution, be sure you can dedicate the proper time and effort to keep at it. It’s better to have one active and effective marketing outreach then to have six that go nowhere.

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This rule was strongly agreed upon and enforced by any means necessary until about five years ago.  It’s difficult to say exactly what happened to cause this shift.  Likely, it was a combination of a number of factors.  For one, there was a general sense that web site users were getting a bit of a free ride and that the money for web site owners to pay their bills had to come from somewhere.  Also, whereas businesses who wanted to find new customers before had to resort to reviled options such as direct email solicitation (forever etched in our vocabulary now as “spamming”), now alternate means exist, mostly through non-intrusive means found on social networking web sites.

Jump on in!  But do it right.

This means that those who are in new or growing businesses who want to use social media web sites to increase their customer base no longer have to worry about the blowback from treading in forbidden waters.  However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still certain rules that apply.  It also doesn’t mean that it’s just as simple as slapping down an ad and forgetting about it.

If you’re a business who wants to expand into the social networking world, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1) Work with the site, and the users

Since large social networking sites need your money to keep going, they’ll be in the best position to tell you what the lay of the land is like: they’re not going to want to see you set up shop just to get chased out of town for not following some social code you didn’t know of until you broke it.

Also, listen to user feedback.  While there will always be some trigger-happy users who find spam everywhere they look, generally you’ll get a good idea of what’s fair and what’s not from user reactions.  And if you actually asked, you’d be in such a rare category that you’d automatically earn a certain level of respect.

2) Follow the cool kids

Yesterday it was MySpace.  The day before that it was LiveJournal.  Today it’s FaceBook, but there are already signs that it might have peaked.  Tomorrow it will be someone else, possibly FourSquare, or likely Google Plus.  The “hot spot” changes at lighting pace.  You need to move just as fast.

3) The toys change too

In addition to new places on the web, you will need to keep track of new ways to access the web.  PCs aren’t exactly dying as much you might hear, but iToys are going to become more and more frequent.  These new technologies more and more often include in their embedded software ways for businesses to interact with customers without having to go through a web browser.

One last bit of advice: hire an IT guru.  Or if IT is your specialty, hire a marketer or secretary.  The point is that just keeping up with how your business does Ecommerce is enough to keep one person busy for well more than 40 hours a week.  You’re going to want to make sure that you have someone who can focus on that, and only that.  Social networking is no longer a no-business-class zone.  They can and do now coexist.  You just have to devote the resources necessary to do it right.

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Blogging is an increasingly popular way of maintaining relationships with existing customers and attracting new sale leads.  Perhaps the greatest advantage of blogging is being able to keep customers in the loop of the daily operations of a specific company.  Whether providing important customer updates, details on special promotions for first time buyers, discount information for existing customers or just random ramblings too read for enjoyment, everyone with a garnered interest appreciates being kept informed.  Companies that open their doors and share experiences via blogging are more often than not repaid with customer loyalty.

Blogs are also a great tool for building and strengthening business relationships.  Not only do blogs allow customers an insight, but also encourage them to participate in blogging by leaving comments and feedback regarding specific products or services.  Many blog administrators find it helpful to enable the comment feature on blogs to allow visitors to post comments and replies.  This is especially helpful when soliciting customer feedback.  Although most feedback is extremely positive or negative, each individual feedback response is vital for continuous improvements of product quality or services

Blogs also help to generate traffic to a particular website.  An increase in blog activity is typically a good indicator of increased traffic; thus more traffic means an increase in potential sells.  While it’s important to keep in mind that not everyone visiting a blog will make a purchase; however, blogs are a great marketing tool to fish for new sale leads.

Disadvantages of Blogging

The greatest drawback of blogging is the time it requires.  Depending on how often a blog is updated dictates how much effort is involved with maintenance.  If a blog is only updated once a month, bi-weekly, or weekly, the time required isn’t too demanding; however, for those requiring everyday entries, the task may become daunting.  It’s important to post scheduled blogging entries; old and out-of-date entries are a sure way to tarnish one’s reputation.

For blogs requiring daily entries, often the task of posting entries is outsourced to a third party.  While smaller companies may not have the resources to hire someone responsible for blogging, larger ventures find that having someone to handle the blog a worthwhile investment.

Spam is another disadvantage of hosting a blog.  While it’s not nearly as much of a nuisance as it was just a few years before, robots and malicious users continue to thrive on posting spam and other annoying posts.  The good news is that blog administrators have more control over blogs, especially when it comes to thwarting spam attacks.

Conclusion

The decision whether or not to blog depends on the size of the company and available resources.  Even though most blog web hosting packages include a free blog, the amount of time and effort required to maintain a functional blog is often too much of a strain on smaller ventures.  Mid to large-scale companies with a sizeable customer base, however, reap the most benefits from blogging.

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The results include:

• Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Compete Rank, Technorati Rank
• Indexed pages by Google, Yahoo, and Bing
• Inbound links by Google, Yahoo, Alexa, Digg, Delicious
• and some other semi-useful values.

Go check it out. The rank check for WebHostingGeeks.com is here.

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The Revamped Website’

The release of this new social media store has been launched in conjunction with Lyle & Scott’s revamped website which has been optimized for mobile use. Also developed by BT Fresca, the site serves more than 53 countries. Also, the design of the website is now suitable for viewing on smartphones with quick and easily-navigable uncluttered pages.

A Statement Lyle & Scott

The head of the eCommerce department at Lyle & Scott released a statement announcing that customers can now easily shop with them no matter their location. The mobile site was the first step and the new Facebook store allows customers to shop without ever leading the social networking site. The company selected BT Fresca because they have supported them with the development and execution of the social media strategy.

Increasing Sales and Experience

Known as transactional social media, this addition to their portfolio should significantly increase sales due to an enhancement in customer’s buying experience. It is also an excellent opportunity to further grow the Lyle & Scott brand. Today’s online shoppers spend more time on Facebook than retail websites. Therefore, it is extremely important for retailers to maintain a specific brand image across all channels of revenue.

Additionally, BT Fresca is providing Lyle & Scott with online marketing services such as email marketing campaigns and traffic analysis. Therefore, they are providing well-rounded support for their product.

Company Information about Lyle & Scott

The Lyle & Scott brand was established in 1874 and features a contemporary look through original and authentic designs. The company is driven by a simple sense of integrity and the highest level of quality. The company was named Drapers’ Young Fashion Brand of the Year 2010 for its high-quality jackets, skirts, knitwear and polo shirts.

This is the beginning of many land-based and online retailers adding a Facebook eCommerce store to their portfolio in order to reach the hundreds of millions of users across the world. In the future, expect to see a variety of new eCommerce pages from some of the most popular brands.

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The Amazing Numbers Following Launch

Within the first four days following launch, the site generated over 1 million hits, boasting 5,000 unique visitors and 125,000 page views. As a result, Spling.com was tagged as one of the fastest growing social media websites to ever launch. This is quite the honor considering the competition like YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and social bookmarking sites.

The Goal of Spling.com

The primary goal of the CEO and Founder was to launch a different experience. Spling.com’s idea of sharing a variety of popular media content is straightforward and simple. Once a user joins, they become media broadcasters by creating their own virtual channel utilizing the Spling system to collect the best and most relevant media from across the Internet. This content will then be sorted onto a personalized page as a microblog.

The First Real Social Networking System

Spling.com claims to be the first true social networking system utilized solely for entertainment and media. The experience is a hybrid website, an intersection between social networking and microblogging with the goal of entertainment. Their motto is, “We are new, we are different, and most importantly we capture the Internet users’ thirst for entertainment.”

The 2011 Venture Plan Competition

The founders of Sling.com recently took first place in the 2011 Venture Plan Competition sponsored by the Greater Susquehanna Keystone Innovation Zone, Bloomsburg University, Bucknell University and Susquehanna University. Spling.com was initially launched on 19 college campuses simultaneously and is currently being promoted by 35 campus representatives to advertise the service.

Innovation at its Best

Spling.com appears to be an innovative, fun and different way of communicating with friends the latest happenings in the news and entertainment gathered from across the Internet. Each account seems to be fully customizable to the tastes of each user. Therefore, other users can search for specific types of media in various categories to display the virtual channel of users in that group. This is definitely much different from Facebook, Twitter and other popular social media websites.

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Contextual advertisement is not to be underestimated however, as many lucrative online businesses have utilized contextual advertising services like Google Adwords for years, and it continues to work today when done properly. However, the applicable uses of contextual advertising differ greatly, which is why it is important to consider the following information about the differences, advantages and disadvantages of contextual advertising and social media.

What is Contextual Advertising?

Contextual advertising may come in the form of strategically placed text blocks, banners with flash animations, and even small videos in the sidebar of a page. This type of advertisement bears its name because it is served based on the context of the web page, hence the name ‘contextual advertising’. A prime example of contextual advertising is Google Adwords, an advertising services that let you place ads for your site on another person’s web site in your niche.

How Does Contextual Advertising Work?

Google uses bots to index data on web pages, and when they detect certain keywords (which you bid on) they serve your ad wherever the webmaster decides to put their Google Adsense ads. The problem with contextual advertising for many novice webmasters is that it requires some investment and some expertise in order to bring substantial success quickly. Literally every major company uses contextual advertising, so your competition is usually fierce.

What is Social Media?

Social media is any form of media that is marketed on a social site with the intention of driving traffic to a certain web page, or to advertise a specific brand. Social media can be a free and easy way to generate traffic instantly without any monetary and very little temporal investments. Simply making a an interesting video and putting it on YouTube could result in thousands of visitors to your web site over night. Social media has become enormously popular because it is the best way to generate an incredible amount of intention with the least amount of effort.

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Utilizing YouTube’s power to generate traffic to your site and potentially convert that traffic into sales is becoming a mainstream idea. The following are a few tips to acquire additional traffic and promote products utilizing YouTube. These pointers include:

• Posting viral videos
• Posting quality videos
• Including your website logo in the videos
• Video promotion
• Make videos search-friendly
• Create an intriguing profile

Viral videos are useful videos that appeal to large groups of people. If you create a video that becomes viral, others will promote the video for you by word of mouth. This allows anything in the video to be seen and accessed by potentially millions of users.

Unfortunately there are many low quality videos available on YouTube. By posting videos of high quality, you are separating yourself from the pack. Viewers don’t like lower quality videos so they will skip over those not conforming to their viewing taste.

Including your website logo or actual web address in the videos is the best promotional tip to generate traffic because it creates branding. Its best to place the logo and URL throughout the video for extended exposure.

Once this is all achieved, promoting the video to gain viewership is the next step. Its unrealistic to just assume that any video created will become viral. Step up and start promoting in blogs, forums, content mills, email links, or other high trafficked web sites.

Furthermore, allow viewers to be able to easily find your video on both YouTube and search engines. To make the video search-friendly, simply include major keywords in both the title and descriptions and pay close attention to tags.

The final tip is while you’re creating and promoting the video, craft an interesting and intriguing profile. This allows viewers to learn more about you. If they read a boring profile, they won’t want to view your content any further.

YouTube and other forms of social media are a gold mine for advertising and generating free traffic. Although there are many videos displaying websites and many advertisements on Twitter, Facebook and Myspace, this is still an untapped, highly resourceful market.

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Social networking sites

Social media sites

News publishing sites

Dating sites

Blog sites

Video sharing sites

Photo sharing sites

What Type of Hosting Do You Need?

Web hosting plays a huge role in the creation of these types of community sites.  Such a website requires an added dose of power in comparison to the typical website.  However, what it requires the most is a scalable environment that supports the growth of the community.  As your site increases in popularity, it will attract more users, which means it will be populated with more pictures, videos and possibly other interactive features.   This tremendous growth means that the average shared hosting package may not suitable for the needs of your community.  You have to consider critical resources such as disk space, bandwidth, RAM and CPU, all of which impact the overall performance of your website.  While you might be able to pull this off on a shared hosting platform from a technical aspect, your community could be the one to suffer from slow loading pages and sluggish performance.

A dedicated server makes for one of the most reliable ways to host an online community.  This type of hosting will give you the scalability you need and dramatically reduce the occurrence of performance issues you would endure on a shared server.  The problem is that maintaining a dedicated server can be very complex and expensive.  Leasing the server can run you upwards of $100 per month – and this is just for an unmanaged service.  If you choose to run your community on a dedicated server, keep in mind that you will be responsible for updating the operating system and web server software in addition to managing all the applications and security mechanisms it requires.   This is something many people simply are not equipped to deal with.  For this reason, you should strongly consider looking into a service provider that specializes in community hosting as they are more likely to have the unqiue environment you require.

Conclusion

A community site can be very beneficial, but only when choosing the right web hosting solution.  Before heading out to look for a service, take both the present and future growth into account when factoring in your requirements.   Think about the features you need, the type of content and media you plan to host, and the volume of traffic you anticipate.  If you truly want your community site to be a success, don’t hesitate to ask prospective web hosts questions and find out exactly how they can suit your needs.  This will make it much easier to find the ideal solution for your online community.

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