Image Courtesy of Chris Dowsett

In this century, many of people start to use online services to promote their business.

People start to build websites or blogs, from small business owners, home-based business owners to giant corporation. From profit organizations to nonprofit organizations.

Owning a website or blog is not enough if we do not know how to promote and drive traffic to it. No traffic and reader, we are absolutely nothing.

There are many ways to drive traffic to our websites or blogs, one of them is through online social network services.

Building a business is about building a network. Some of online business owners start from zero to multi million business by building networks. They gain royal visitors, readers, and subscribers.

Social network service is the most important leverage for business success.

For you who new to social networking, According to Wikipedia, social network service is an online communities of people who share interests and activities. Each social network services has million members interacted in it.

Most social networking are web-based and provide ways to interact with others, such as direct-message/private-message and instant message.

Some of most popular social network such as Twitter , Facebook, linkedIn, MySpace, Flickr, and Blog Catalog.

For more list, Wikipedia have sorted out the list of social networking complete with the descriptions and alexa ranks.

View the list of social networking website here.

How social network services can help you grow your business?

1. You can promote your branding by instant message which publish to your unlimited network

2. You can share any useful information which may can interact people to view and visit your website or blog

3. You can introduce your services/products, blog, and website to your unlimited network

4. You can find out other useful blogs or websites that might be interested you.

5. You can private-message/direct-message to others

6. You can chat with others globally

7. Your Profile will be appear if someone add you as his/her friends, and it will link to your own.

You don’t have to use all the social networking at once. You can pick up some that suit you and fulfill your need.
The importance is your effort can be delivered to the right target market.

Here are some tips using the online social network :

1. Put a clear and informative description on your profile, make sure that you wrote a solid short description and don’t forget to put link to your website.

2. Response to any comments that come to you, this is to keep and maintain your contacts/friends.

3. Interact in any topic that people are talking around.

4. Do not just post your own articles and interests, you can also post others people’s articles that might be interested and useful information for your networks.

During my research, I have found some useful articles related to social networks. Some of the articles base on their own experience on using social networking. Check them out!

10 Social Networks for Entrepreneurs at Blogpreneur.com and Mashable.com

9 Ways To Use Social Networking for Blog Promotion at Kikolani.com

Learn how marketers are using social media to grow their businesses, presented by Michael Stelzner

Darren Rowse, one of the top bloggers on the earth, sharing with us “9 Keys How to Promote Your Blog Through Networking”

Ali Hale shared about Five Networking Tips for Wallflowers at DumbLittleMan.com

Books about social media :

Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way We Do Business & Market Online by Warren Whitlock and Deborah Micek

Social Media Marketing : An Hour A Day by Dave Evans

Smart Networking: Attract a Following In Person and Online by Liz Lynch

The 29% Solution: 52 Weekly Networking Success Strategies by Ivan Misner

The Truth About Profiting from Social Networking by Patrice-Anne Rutledge

The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media by Paul Gillin

Facebook Marketing: Leverage Social Media to Grow Your Business by Steve Holzner

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Share with us how you use online social networking to promote website at the comment section.

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