If you haven’t heard of Tumblr and Posterous, you are missing out on a convenient way to spread the word about your business. Promotion can take so much of your time that any effective tool should be readily welcomed. 

Tumblr is a blogging interface that provides you with access to a vast network of professionals. They make customization a snap, which is great news to any entrepreneur trying to establish a unique presence online. They provide easy-to-use analytic tools, so you can always be tracking and improving your site. Because Tumblr is connected to other social media platforms, it makes your promotional efforts much more effective. This strong internet presence contributes to their high Page Rank, which makes things easier for you. 

Posterous provides you with a convenient way to upload, tag and organize all kinds of media. Distributing videos, photos, text and audio has never been easier. Like Tumblr, Posterous is compatible with a host of other social media sites, making it a powerful hub in your promotion plan. You can share content with WordPress, Facebook and Twitter with the click of a button. 

To save time and effort in your social media campaigns, check out Posterous and Tumblr today. They provide a convenient way to consolidate your work and reach a whole new audience.

Twitter is an extremely popular social networking site offering many benefits to entrepreneurs. It is an excellent way to expand your network, share news, announce promotions and identify trends. Because its interface is quite rudimentary, Twitter allows individuals to create new tools, or “apps,” to improve functionality. The list of these supplemental Twitter tools is ridiculously long, but here is a quick introduction to seven of the most helpful tools, as chosen by the experts at PMI Education.

1. Twitter Grader: Twitter Grader uses a detailed algorithm to grade your users on a scale of 1-100. This allows you to see how engaged the people are that you’re following and decide if you want to continue to do so.
2. Friend or Follow: This helpful tool tracks your contacts so you can see who your friends, follows and fans are on Twitter. One main benefit is that it helps you see who is following you that you aren’t following and who you are following that isn’t following you.
3. HootSuite: HootSuite is an account manager with an extremely user-friendly interface. It offers a host of functions, such as tweet scheduling, link tracking and account overview. It also allows you to manage multiple Twitter accounts at the same time.
4. TweetCube: This free file sharing service allows you to tweet large files to your followers, such as audio, images or video.
5. TwInbox: Microsoft Outlook users will find TwInbox to be incredibly useful, because it allows you to manage your Twitter account directly from your Outlook interface.
6. TweeTake: TweeTake allows you to backup your Twitter account in a safe place. This includes tweets, followers and your own follows.
7. Twitt(url)y: This service tracks what topics people are tweeting and linking to. This is a great way to identify hot trends for blog entries and future tweets.

Update: TweetCube is no longer available

Facebook is a social media giant with over 400 million active users around the world, providing entrepreneurs with an unparalleled marketing platform. One of the most remarkable Facebook statistics is that more than 200 million users log on to the site on any given day. And each user clicks about ten pieces of content each month, meaning Facebook is generating millions of ad clicks every week. With this in mind, the internet gurus at Professional Marketing International have compiled these suggestions for tapping into the Facebook phenomenon.

 Accessing the Facebook Community

One of the quickest ways to access the Facebook community is to create a group or fan page for your business. Whether you offer products or services, you can customize your own page and begin gathering fans. This is an excellent way to spread the word about promotions, announce major events and maintain a relationship with your network. Because Facebook doesn’t allow entrepreneurs to market to groups and fan pages they didn’t create, this is by far the most effective way to get a direct link to a loyal community of fans. Creating a group or fan page is easy and Facebook provides instructions every step of the way.

Facebook group and fan pages provide entrepreneurs with amazing marketing opportunities that aren’t just limited to fans in a regional area. Consider this – each day more than 20 million Facebook users become fans of various pages. All told, Facebook pages have created more than 5 billion fans. This is an incredible opportunity to grow your network and introduce new contacts to your business!

Targeting Your Ads

In addition to your group and fan pages, you should consider Facebook’s PPC ad options. Despite its immense collection of users, Facebook offers incredibly accurate targeting tools to help you maximize your marketing success. A keyword box is provided where you can enter the words you’d like to target. Facebook will also suggest related keywords for you to use. These keyword suggestions often provide ideas you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

 The most important part of ad targeting comes with the ten elements Facebook provides you with to help you target your marketing: location, age, birthday, sex, education, workplace, relationship, interested in, languages and connections. A successfully targeted ad uses a combination of these elements, which is called “layering,” and utilizes maybe five or six of the targeting elements to narrow your ad to an accurate profile of who your customer is. Facebook’s easy-to-use interface allows you to experiment with these components until you find the most effective combination. For example, you could target your ad to men in California, between the ages of 18-24, who speak German, have a college degree and are interested in surfing. This flexibility helps you maximize your success and get the most out of Facebook’s marketing platform.

 As you go through the targeting process, Facebook provides you with an estimate of how many users would be reached. As your category selection narrows, the number of users goes down. A good number to shoot for with your first campaign is 65,000. In subsequent campaigns you can always expand or tighten that number. Facebook also provides you with data on those who clicked your advertisement, including what other kinds of advertisement they also clicked on. This information is extremely helpful as you optimize your ad in the future.

Landing Pages

Facebook allows your ads to direct users to any legitimate landing page you choose. Many entrepreneurs use a squeeze page that enables them to collect the user’s name and email address from the get-go. Just make sure that any promise made in your ad is delivered on your landing page. Facebook will check this and cancel any ad that they deem misleading.

 Another strategy that PMI Education consultants suggest is to link to a Facebook group or fan page for your business. This can be beneficial because some users are leery of leaving the Facebook site when they click on an ad. The disadvantage to this is that your group or fan page will still be a Facebook page with a lot of other ads and distractions. The user may even be intrigued by a competitor’s ad that they see on your own page. In this regard, using a landing page outside of Facebook may make some users a little uneasy, but it gives you more control and removes these distractions.

Conclusion

Facebook is a powerful marketing tool with incredible staying power. The current lack of advertiser competition provides entrepreneurs with amazing opportunities. By applying these strategies, you can effectively reach your target audience and drive major traffic to your website.