In the United States alone the numbers are outstanding. An article by Muhammed Saleen calculated that of the 309 million U.S. residents, over 116 million of them are on Facebook. Around 90% of people living in the cities of Dallas and Philadelphia are Facebook users and over half of the residents of Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Diago, and San Jose are on Facebook. These numbers continue to grow at astonishing rates with women over 55 being the fastest growing demographic. InsideFacebook.com estimated that the number of female users 35 and over doubled between the months of January and March. What makes Facebook such a success is how it quickly adopts features to make it more competitive with other social networking sites like Twitter and YouTube and how it has adapted to become more compatible with businesses. So, even though the site is not as new as other social networking sites it is still able to maintain an extremely competitive growth rate.

Read more cool Facebook Facts and Trends :

Info/Law » Facebook Inserting Users Into Ads – Dan Solove at Concurring Opinions has some quite sensible concerns about Facebook's new advertising program — specifically, that it may violate privacy law. I think he's right, and then some… In short, the new program allows … feh's book – i've cut my friend invitations (not to mention the pile of other pending interactions) at facebook down from a hundred or so to about fifty. i'll get around to processing the rest of them (in an annoying non-ganged process that involves …

To do this you need to be persistent and friendly. These professional bloggers do not like traditional press releases or traditional PR for that matter. Their reviews are based on their own experiences with something, therefore you need to build a relationship with them and show that you are a respectful audience. Do not just send them information as it becomes relevant. Create a consistent connection so you become a familiar face and name. Professional blogger, Barb Dybwad suggests that you “develop customized offers that they cannot refuse, that reflect your understanding of their uniqueness and point of view.”

You also need to make this easy. The general group of influential bloggers are more apt to discuss things that come to them, not necessarily things that they have gone and found out about on their own. This is because they have so much at the fingertips, it is not necessary for them to go out hunting for new content since it all goes directly to them. You need to make your product, brand, idea, ect. so relevant and great that they spread on their own. And, when you are in between campaigns you should relying on the relationship you forged and work to maintain it so that you do not get forgotten about. The more consistently you share content, the more trusted and authoritative you will become and the bloggers with take notice.

In the end, its all about the word of mouth and you want to get their shout out. But remember, their power is in creating awareness. Once you have the bloggers attention, you will have the attention of hundreds and thousands of other people, all of which will ultimately make their own judgement on you. You cannot rely on these blogging influencers to be the the say all on your brand. Being mentioned is the big break but you need to have something to back up their support to keep your audiences captivated.

Check out these links that further explain why blogging is so important: 

• is blogging serializing? - i got an email this morning from a colleague in the office of communications, who said that she was speaking to our “guru of issn numbers.” here is the upshot: today she told me that after much debate, catalogers had decided that …
• adventures with because effects - twitter is paying my rent, marshall kirkpatrick says. specifically,. i don’t mean they’ve hired me as a consultant, though i would love that, i mean twitter is great for news discovery. read on for my thoughts on how you can use twitter …
• The Unofficial Stanford Blog » Blog Archive » The Decline and Fall … - Breaking news! The Facebook group “The Stanford Party Crew of 2011″ has wizened up under scrutiny, and not only is the message board down, but one has to request to join. Because your correspondent is fearful of getting rejected from …
• college hi-jinks and social derring-do at gBlog – How we see it … - I’ve now passed the first two weeks of my second semester at Gallaudet. I really, truly am glad to be back here. One month of holidays was far too long. I was keen to return to my college hi-jinks. On our first Saturday night back at …
• The Accidental Scientist » Blog Archive » Exploratorium in the … - Exploratorium floor As a museum, the Exploratorium has been on the Web since 1994 and we’ve developed online exhibits, artworks, live Webcasts, and other experiments. Before blogging was recognized as such we wrote expedition journals …
• Publishing Presentation on Academic Blogging « Easily Distracted - Last week, I had a chance to talk about academic blogging in relationship to academic publishing at the Professional and Scholarly Publishing pre-conference event in Washington. Here’s the basic outline of my talk here, …

• Trick one is to stay away from commercial like videos that simply sell your product. People want to watch informative videos that they can benefit from. Try to give them advice within your area of expertise. If there are five or so questions that you get most often from potential clients and buyers then create a video that answers these questions. Don’t to get caught up with the video quality. Flip cameras or even regular cameras that have a recording feature will work and you can edit your own videos on your computer.
• Trick two is in the titles and descriptions. The more specific they are the more it will help boost your VSEO. Mashable blogger, Mitchell Harper,  explains, “say a company sells shoes and you just recorded and uploaded a video about ‘casual sneakers.’ You want to use the phrase in the title twice to maximize SEO impact –- once at the front and once at the end, like this: “Casual Sneakers — How to Choose Casual Sneakers 101.’” After, in the description you want to link back to your website and include a precise paragraph summarizing the video. The description is important because it is what will show up on Google and it determines which keywords and phrases your video will show up for.
• The final trick is the important one. To get beyond your own personal linking of your video to your Facebook page and Twitter, post your content as a ‘video reply’ to other related videos. To do this search for similar videos with the same keywords or titles as yours and then post your video as a video reply. This will get your video more exposure and a steadier flow of traffic.

The two things that Google takes into account when determining the result’s rankings are authority and relevance. Authority is based on the number of inbound links or how many other people have thought the information on a your site was useful or helpful and relinked the site to their own or another.To gain authority you really have to take advantage of blogs and other social networking sites, having a website is not enough because you need to be driving traffic to your site. Relevance is how close a match the keywords someone searched are to the tags and/or titles on specific site. The tagged words therefore are key in rising to the top of the search results. For your keywords you don’t want to be too obscure so that your page will never show up but you also don’t want to be too broad where the page will get lost among many others. Once you have perfected these key words than it all comes down to the title and headings. The catchier the title or more to the point it is the more likely someone will click on your link.

The biggest thing to keep in mind though is that Google and other search engines like frequently updated content so make sure to stay on top of your blogs and webpages. The more often you update the content on a page the more often Google will crawl the site. You can track the analytics of any webpage and even see how many times Google has indexed it with websitegrader.com.

Visit different video websites, and look at the advertisements that have been popular among viewers. On one YouTube channel alone, Starburst’s Berries and Cream commercial has had over 15 million viewers since its television debut in 2007. In fact, it appears on multiple YouTube channels as well as on other sites. Evian, however, has taken commercials’ success on YouTube and other sites in another direction. Evian tried out debuting an ad on the Internet to test its reach potential. Now, after 10 months, a grand total of 102 million views, 130,000 comments and 500,000 Facebook fans, Evian is putting its babies to work on TV. The success that the ad had online proved it would be a sound investment to launch the commercial on television in the US, and recently even in Europe.

1.  Research the different platforms:  It is important to know your audience and know where they get their information.  Focus your marketing in highly concentrated areas so you do not spread yourself too thin.

2.  Different platforms will require different types of messages:  When you decide which media to market through, you must speak in that language.  The users who are your target audience set the standard.  Take note of how others successfully communicate through similar media.

3.  Don’t expect immediate results:  We are still in the beginning stages of social media, which means we are setting the trends.  It is about building relationships with clients in fun and creative ways.

Social media is the result of a constantly changing media market.  We must keep up with the changing times simply to keep up with our clients.  Social media marketing will soon become an indispensable component across the business field.

Marketers promoting through Facebook and Twitter have the same, if not more, exposure to a targeted audience as they would promoting through a print ad.  They have the opportunity to filter their audience, allowing them to focus more on the specific needs rather then the general appeal.  Even better, its practically free.  With the shift in the economy, newspaper advertisements have decrease 40% since 2003 and are expected to drop another 20% by 2013.  Magazine and television ads are not as severe but follow a similar trend.  Meanwhile, online advertising is expected to grow 7% this year.

The smooth transition to media marketing can be as easy as you make it.  Follow your favorite brands, companies, and business from your favorite home site.  If their daily news interests you, click over to their site through a direct link.

• 58% said social media met expectations, 12% said it exceeded, 26% fell short;
• 22% said it increased company profit, 19% lost money, 45% believe it to be profitable by next year;
• 75% have a company page on a social networking site, 57% built network though LinkedIn or similar site;
• 37% use print advertising, 24% email marketing, 19% social media marketing, 18% phone sales, 17% direct mail, 14% broadcast advertising.   

According to a study conducted by Chadwick Martin Bailey, social media consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that they follow on Twitter or are a fan of on Facebook. But, how do you get these followers and fans? The cycle of fan to consumer is as much a factor of networking as it is ad strategy. Generally people become fans or followers once they have already had some interaction with a brand. Obviously the more fans a page has, the more reach the brand will have. This is just the initial step in the networking process. Next, you need to become aware of the two different types of reach; direct and indirect. Directly, the brand will be seen by those connected to the fan page, the ‘fans.’ Indirectly, friends of the fans will gain exposure to the brand through newsfeeds and updates. For example, I may not know what Hess Marketing does, but if one of my friends becomes a fan, I will have exposure to company updates and have the opportunity to view the fan page myself. Almost 20% of Facebook users join fan pages because of a recommendation. And, since it has been proven that Facebook fans and Twitter followers are more likely to reTweet or write on a brands Facebook wall, the likelihood that the news will come across my newsfeed is higher. Also rising is the likelihood that I will want to join the fan page myself or follow the brand on Twitter. 20% of people join Facebook fan pages and follow brands on Twitter so that they can be a part of a community of like-minded people. (If my friend likes it, I will most likely like it as well.) Furthermore, being a fan of a certain brand has become a general part of the personal profile, and who you follow on Twitter shows others what you are interested in and what types of organizations you support. 42% of people become fans for the sole reason of showing support. 

Monty found a way to do this for Ford  by providing a space on the main website called the ‘The Ford Story‘ page where costumers can post personal stories about their
 experience with the brand and testaments to their loyalty. The page gives visitors to the site a chance to get a feeling for the brand and its costumer satisfaction. Ford uses this as their blog space even though it is technically not a blog. Monty explains that for such a large brand, having a company blog is not as useful since fans would most likely see it as being impersonal. Having ‘The Ford Story’ page works as an interactive blog and is actually is more productive for The Ford Company than a traditional blog would be. Monty continues to explain on own his personal blog how large companies may need to triple social marketing efforts to reach out to different demographics. For instance, Ford Motor Company has different Facebook fan pages for each of their different model vehicles. This way the Ford Fiesta enthuasists have a place to go where they don’t get lost with the other cars in the Ford social media parking lot. Targeting specific audiences within your mass audience shows that though you are a large brand, you have many facets to who you are as a organization. The results of Ford’s approach to social media: 

• 11 million Social Networking impressions
• 5 million engagements on social networks (people sharing and receiving)
• 11,000 videos posted
• 15,000 tweets.. not including retweets
• 13,000 photos
• 50,000 hand raisers who have seen the product in person or on a video who said that they want to know more about it when it comes out and 97% of those don’t currently drive a Ford vehicle
• 38% awareness by Gen Y about the product, without spending a dollar on traditional advertising ( Fords model “Fusion” doesn’t have that awareness after 2 years of being out in production and yet it has received hundreds of millions of dollars in traditional marketing spend).

For many other ways large companies can establish more successful social media campaigns visit Scott Monty’s blog that explains how he uses social media for The Ford Company: http://www.scottmonty.com/2010/03/how-ford-uses-social-media-video.html

Curtis Kimball, the owner of a Crème Brulee cart in San Francisco, originally joined Twitter to let his friends know about the special flavors of the day. When he started to notice people in line that were not his friends he asked how they found out about him and their answers were always, “Twitter.” Kimball has since quite his day job to focus solely on his Crème Brulee business. Another San Francisco success story is with Umi Sushi Restaurant. Umi tweets about the fresh fish of the day and gets about five new costumers a night from Twitter. Likewise with Chris Manna’s Woodhouse Day Spa, Chris uses Twitter to send out special coupons and discounts to draw costumers in. His Twitter followers are eager to snap up the bargain and spread the information to their friends, bringing in new business every month. According to the NYT’s article, “small business owners like Twitter because it allows them to talk directly to costumers in a way that there were able to do only in person before.” Looking at a local brand, Naked Pizza is another perfect example of a small company that has found much of its following through Twitter. Using the networking site they have further been able to create a following in different states, which is key as they begin to expand their brand outside of New Orleans.

The trick is to know how you can profit off Facebook. Since there is limited freedom to how your page will look, consistent updating of profiles to match the newest advertising campaigns and updating featured products is important. There is also a trick to guiding the conversation that is being held on your Facebook page. Many companies have costumer service staffers that are dedicated to responding to costumers on the site and that also try to harness the content being posted in order to control the conversation so it stays positive. It is important to know that bad comments or reviews are not necessarily bad for your company. Bill Emerson, a retail consultant said to the New York Time’s commented, “allowing criticisms to remain on a company-sponsored Web page isn’t negative. Some research shows you will do more business even with bad news than if you do not do anything.” What is important is that you address the criticism to show you are a brand that cares. Other tricks to maximize your Facebook usage: display custom content with RSS feeds which Facebook fans can subscribe to; make use of your Facebook events to interact with customers; add FBML (Facebook Markup Language) which will allow you to show off your logo or add hyperlinks that will guide fans back to your website.