Trent Partridge is Own Your Power’s Internet Marketing Expert and he always has loads of information to share with our community. If you want to get access to his FREE teleclass he gave on How to Become a Social Media Superstar, just sign up for our community to tune into it in our FREE STUFF area at www.ownyourpower.ning.com.

We’ll have featured articles from him each month. Enjoy his first one!
Simone

I truly believe wholeheartedly that you must have a Social Media Marketing (SMM) strategy. The days of users going to Google only and finding your company is done. Users expect you to be on their web space. Not eliminating traditional Internet Marketing but you have to add a solid SMM programs.

Many people even in the Internet Marketing industry feel SMM is a phase but everyday more and more users find a web space they like Twitter, Facebook, Utterli, DailyMotion, Delicious, Identica etc.. If you are in business you have to be in the key web spaces. If you are not there your competition will be in a matter of time.
Below are some facts from different sources on Social Media:
Social Media Facts (Cone):
• 93% Americans say companies should have a social-media presence,
• 85% believe these companies also should be interacting with consumers
• 67% of Americans are on social media websites daily(Incredible)
Social Media Wealthiest Households:
• The wealthiest households (household income of $75K+) believe that companies should seek to reach them via social media.
• Two-thirds of the wealthiest households and the largest households (those with three or more members) feel stronger connections to brands they interact with online.
• Companies should develop new ways to interact with their brand (37%) through social media.
• Companies should market to consumers (25%) using social media.
“But Aren’t These Social Media Sites Just For Kids?” (Alexa)

Maybe two years ago, but now these sites are crammed with professionals with all kinds of disposable income (who are comfortable buying things online) – look at who is signing onto these social sites, for example…
62% of MySpace visitors are older than 25 (40% are 35+), and 83% are making over $30,000 a year… and 19% are making $100,000 and up…
Facebook.com, is a little younger since it started with college students – but that’s changing in a hurry – 46% are over 25 and 34% are 35+… but they’ve got deep pockets – 88% make more than $30,000… and 23% make $100,000 or more…
To put that into perspective… that means 880,000 twenty-somethings who make over $30,000 a year are joining Facebook.com this year …
That’s over $42,500,000,000… 42.5 BILLION DOLLARS of new spending power flowing into Facebook.com alone — EVERY WEEK!
And that’s just counting the users who make a 30 grand a year… (and remember we’re just counting Facebook here, not those other 1,919 social media sites)…
The traffic is there… the prospects are there… they have the money… now all that’s left is to figure out how turn that “potential” into actual growth and increased profits for YOUR business…
Bottom Line: This Web 2.0 Stuff Is The Fastest Way To The Top Of Google
There is nothing – nothing – that will get you to the top of Google and the other search engines the way these Web 2.0 sites will – but ONLY if you know how to use them properly.
Some optimistic news today in a study dug up by eMarketer: lots of small businesses plan to increase their spending on social network marketing in 2009. In fact, 25% of the small businesses surveyed by Ad-ology Research indicated that they would increase spending on the medium this year, a higher percentage than any other marketing format.
Meanwhile, 33% of small businesses indicated that they would keep spending on social networking about the same, while only 5% reported that they plan to spend less than in the previous year. Surprisingly, while 37% of small businesses in the survey don’t use social networking at all, that’s a smaller percentage than any other medium, including email marketing, search engine marketing, and even just maintaining a company website.

I think it is important everyone should know that Social Media is for real. Users are not waiting for you to get to their webspace, they are going to move past you to competitors. Ironically my last five networking opportunities came from WordPress, LiveJournal, Utterli, Twitter and Plurk. Two years ago I wasn’t even thinking about other social places but I kept seeing them grow. I will always be on Facebook, MySpace and Youtube and yes they do well. But many other websites now do well also and you have to be on them.
Trent Partridge author of ‘Internet Marketing for Music Artist Models and Entertainers, Real Estate Internet Marketing Workbook’ and contributing writer in ‘Be a Real Estate Heavyweight’ Social Media Marketing, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization. http://www.musicandmodelmarketing.com/