It’s worth noting that, even though we’ve covered the major tourist sites on the social networking map, we could go on for quite a while longer. Not only are there all kinds of other social media sites and platforms out there, but more are springing up all the time.

Should any of them have a place in your online marketing mix?

For most companies, most of the time, the answer is probably not. It isn’t that none of these sites offer anything of value, or aren’t fun to use, but that the real goal should be leveraging your time and money. Why spend an hour a week updating a site that carries only a thousandth traffic of Facebook or Twitter? Wouldn’t your time be better spent elsewhere?

In most cases, it would. The potential customers you are trying to reach are all meeting one another – and vendors just like you – on the major sites, so you should concentrate your efforts there. Still, here are a few things to keep in mind when checking out second-tier social media sites:

Lots of them are fun. From picture sharing sites to those that promote random chatter, checking out new ideas and social networking can be a great way to kill five or ten minutes. But, as we mentioned, it’s probably not a good idea to make a habit of it if you have a profitable business to run.

Industry specific social media sites are popping up. As some of these gain steam, their importance as marketing mediums might drastically change. Just as LinkedIn carries far more weight than it would seem to just based off its membership numbers – because the men and women using it are professionals who tend to be good buying prospects – so might some of the smaller industry-based social media sites follow the same track. It only takes two or three major new buyers for most companies to feel a noticeable change, so having even 1000 of them in one place can make it a good hunting around.

Social networking is always changing. One of the downsides in writing about social media is that your work is virtually always outdated – even this blog series which goes straight online. The field is always evolving; not only are new sites, ideas, and concepts popping up every day, but the ways we use the ones we have is constantly changing, too. You can be sure that a year from now, many of the ways people use and marketing sites like Facebook and Twitter will be the same, but there’ll be some new avenues and tactics.

The point is that you have to keep your eyes open and constantly tweak your approach. Do what works today, but also keep your eyes out for new sites, new methods, that are going to be profitable tomorrow.

In marketing – whether it’s online or off – it’s never a bad idea to “go to the people.” If you can find a venue where lots of your buyers are hanging out, it only stands to reason that you should be there, too.

The biggest argument for using social network marketing as a tool for finding new customers can actually be summed up that simply. Of course, there are other benefits, too, and we touched on some of those in the last section. You should definitely be looking to deepen the ties you have with your existing customers, not to mention improve your search engine positioning… but if you’re like most companies or self-employed professionals, opening new accounts is going to be your biggest concern.

Just how many potential accounts are out there? Let’s have a quick look at the numbers:

Facebook, possibly the “king” of all social networking sites (not counting myspace, which has more members and a longer track record, but little commercial value for most of us since it tends to be popular with teens), boasts more than 500 million members – including 175 million who log on every day, and 100 million who access the site through mobile devices. That’s an awful lot of prospects, no matter what business you’re in.

While not at Facebook’s level, Twitter has more than 105 million users and is gaining ground at the rate of 300,000 new members every day. That’s more than 50 million tweets daily, covering members’ views on business, sports, politics, personal life, and everything else under the sun.

It would be easy to think of LinkedIn as a “smaller” social networking site, given that it only has around 50 million registered users, but that number misses the point. Because it’s focused on professionals, networking, and business topics, LinkedIn is the straight up shot to Facebook’s cocktail – a more concentrated venue for social network marketing. It’s a place to do business and meet others to do business with; you don’t have to contend with people looking to catch up with family and friends there.

The rest of the social networking market is as hard to define as it is to measure. Some would count YouTube, which registers upwards of a billion hits each day; others would mention blogs, as well as sites like Digg.com, Stumbleupon, or Flickr, but none of these are important enough to detail on their own… yet.

The point to take away isn’t that these secondary sites don’t matter, but that the social networking market is huge, and growing all the time. It could be that next year will bring a more popular venue; how many of us thought Twitter would be a major force just a few years ago, or that Facebook would become a hot place to advertise? If you’re going to use social networking effectively, you’re going to have to stay on top of these trends and adjust, but luckily the strategies that work with today’s major players translate to other sites, as well, so you just need to get the fundamentals down.

Since our last successful blog post “We’ve Come a Long way in Advertising” (click the link if you haven’t seen it) I have now finished season 3 of Mad Men. I am still dumbfounded at how our culture was so completely different (smoking in the office, excessive drinking ALL DAY, etc..) and how women were treated.

Well… my great friend and photographer (and avid JTCG blog reader) Aviva Bowman sent me some more great advertising from the 50’s-60’s that any creative agency now would cringe at the thought of showing the public. Check out the Beer and Marlboro ads focused on babies! Thanks Aviva! Feel free to share ENJOY!

Sphere: Related Content

If you have not heard already, MDC Partners Agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky is lending a hand to the Carrot industry to launch a $25 million campaign to position baby carrots in “sleek, junk food packaging” in order to boost sales and interests in healthy snacking in the U.S.

Though fighting the obesity epidemic that is plaguing the United States’ youth is a genuine enough underlying goal in this whole effort, I’m not sure it’s taking the most direct route. I mean come on, what about the fact that carrots are also an excellent source of beta-carotene, the key ingredient not only in it’s nutritional value and orange color, but also one of the substances most easily converted to vitamin A, raising the effectiveness of the light-sensitive area of the retina and improving eye sight….Zzzzzzz

Here, a recent TV spot was released by the Agency that depicts a gorgeous female model, cradling the beta-carotene filled sticks making them sexy, futuristic and attractive. Let us know how you’re feeling about the carrot ads, because I for one am very intrigued. If CP+B pulls this one off they’ll have conquered the same challenge Goodby, Silverstein & Partners did with their “Got Milk” campaign.