With the rapid advancement in the Internet and its increasing user presence, the medium has become a preferred means of communicating directly with customers. Among the most popular activities on the Internet is the voracious usage of social networking sites.

With its open architecture and wide range of functionalities, Facebook stands as the number one social networking site. There are many reasons for this cult followership of Facebook. The ease of use and dissemination of content, tagging of friends and related users on shared items is yet another great Facebook feature. Facebook also allows creation of secured groups and publicly available fan pages regarding your own brands.

The Facebook applications are its most popular components. Facebook has an open platform for web developers and programmers to create different applications to run applications from within its framework.

What is new about Facebook applications?

Until the option of applications was incorporated, the Facebook features were more about conventional social media usage, such as adding friends and creating groups pertaining to common interests and affiliations.

Applications initiated by Facebook expanded the function of the site toward more interesting features, which included social gaming, where you could include friends and even unknown participants from around the world. The big leap happened when Facebook opened its programming platform to developers around the world, who could develop applications and submit it to Facebook. These applications are made live for public usage once they are certified by Facebook.

How do applications help brand marketing?

On an average, a user would spend no more than a few seconds on the homepage or any other text rich section of a website. Similarly, on Facebook, text-based sections have their own limitations when it comes to holding attention of the users on the same page. That is where rich content and applications come into play.

A game, such as Scrabulous or UNO, on Facebook can engage a user for hours. Social games like Farmville have brought about a new genre of Social Gaming, which is the latest buzzword in gaming circles.

For a brand, a Facebook application can serve as an effective tool to gather and engage captive audience for a longer stretch of time. Users hooked on a particular game or application on Facebook will stay with it until the completion of the game. Brands have smartly used the opportunity to insert their logos and branding very subtly in the game. Subtle messages like these are known to give more brand recall and attitude change compared to intrusive advertisements.

Much to the delight of a marketer, Facebook provides usage stats of subscribers, which gives insight into the profile of users that the brand attracts. This can be compared with the intended target audience of the brand, and campaign modifications can be done based on the findings. Unlike most surveys that are based on sample estimate, what you get to see here is a summary based on each and every user who has added the application.

Developing Applications for Your Brand
Unlike most other participative aspects of social media, developing applications for Facebook requires adequate programming knowledge. Facebook has its own set of guidelines for the creation and submission of applications. Developers working on the Facebook framework must be updated with the guidelines defined by the site for any application to run. Brand owners need to avail services of a developer who knows all the steps that go into the creation of successful Facebook applications to ensure that their brand makes its presence through one of the most engaging options available in online media.

Get more information here for the best Facebook training available:   CLICK HERE

One of the unfortunate aspects that affects people “having a go” at the internet is the “toe in the water” syndrome. As implied by both quoted pieces of text in the last sentence, this describes most people’s attitude and application to what really is a formal business process. And sadly this leads to a high degree of failure.

Why do we think this way about Internet Marketing? If we look at creating business on the internet then there is certainly some nice advantages. For a start we can set up and operate from home – there are no premises to lease and no plant to set up. And we do not necessarily need to employ anyone – to get off the ground we can do most of it ourselves.

With these two components being sizeable business elements its certainly nice to know that we do not have these headaches to begin with. And this leads to a mind set that makes IM appealing in the first instance.

With the natural human propensity to seek the quickest route to a destination, the tendency to view IM as simply an online activity in itself also leads us into the false belief that we can master the concept quickly. The mistake here is that we believe the term “internet marketing” to imply something more simpler than the myriad of activities it encompasses.

And so we underestimate what it takes to make it work. And if we couple this with the belief that we can make quick revenue from IM then we are in the right frame for failure from the start.

Yes it is possible to make quick revenue from the internet. BUT! You have to know what you are doing and you have to have developed a business system that will make this work for you.

And so you have to invest…..invest in learning what you need to know, invest in personal application to become fluent with IM activity, invest in creating a business environment to create that revenue, and invest in the business process itself – just as you would for any other business start-up.

If you have recently started in IM and are finding the going difficult, reassess the situation today. Remove the salient expectations that this is a walk in the park, and that it will all just fall in your lap.

If you talk to any internet marketer, and especially the big names in the industry, there is a story behind there success. And it usually incorporates a change in their attitude and application to their business. And in most cases some extremely dedicated work to achieve the results they get today.

Make it your New Years resolution to meet the challenge and build a business and not a hobby. Knuckle down and put in the hard yards, and the results will surely come.

And most of all treat it like a business  – Proper!

Stephen Pierce has published a post today with his 21 laws of making money on the net. And his very first law is “ always target a niche”. For many this is common sense especially if you have been doing this for a while. For others, and especially starters (or “newbies” as they are fondly called) this is a concept that works against the grain.

In my development as n online marketing coach, I have found this concept is one that is difficult to grasp my many starters. Here are some of the issues that come up..

1)      “Why am I not going for a whole market?”
2)      “How do I determine a worthwhile niche?”
3)      “How will I know in advance whether this is a good niche?”
4)      “How fine or narrow do I go with my niche?”
5)      “What if I pick a useful niche but I am off target with my assessment?”
..and more

What can often occur is that people become bogged down aiming to get everything exactly right, and not having enough experience to know that in most scenarios, a test and measure process is nearly always necessary. And of course some niches just don’t happen at all, especially for the inexperienced.

So I would like to add to Stephens first law with this:

“If at first you don’t succeed, then try again. But COMMIT to a niche and MAKE the mistakes..”. In other words TAKE ACTION

And then follow all the marketing advice your mentor or coaching package offers. Until you take this action, nothing will happen and you may quickly lose interest in a process that is essentially very simple.

And to help you work out your niche here is something that may help you…..

Although conventions or seminars have been a part of our world for decades, they have been proliferating significantly during the past 10 years. These events simply bring people together for either debate, discussion, and learning of particular subjects and strategies.

Today they offer much more than just a meeting and are worth attending for a number of reasons

Customarily there are many keynote speakers participate in each convention, and these speakers are usually experts in their own fields, or topics. With the internet becoming a respected marketplace of serious magnitude, the convention has been significant in the dramatic growth of internet marketing focused events.

Many internet marketing events like  are coming of age and here are 5 serious reasons why people should attend?

1. A large amount of “learning” compressed into a short period of time.
Even if you do nothing else you come away from a convention with some form of knowledge that you did not have beforehand.

2. A meeting of people with the same interest.
An internet seminar provides the opportunity to network and form alliances especially within a commercial sense. The possibilities are exponential particularly if you partner in an explosive joint venture

3. A feeling of replenished hope and inspiration.
The unknown nature of the beast means that this is particularly true for online marketing conventions. In this case many business concerns are reduced by sharing experiences with others. Events today even provide demonstrable proof at the event of what can be achieved.

4. Keep up with the latest developments.
There is always something new coming out at a convention, divulged for the first time by creative industry participants. A convention is an ideal way to keep up with developments and the very people at the forefront of those developments.

5. The opportunity to Grow.
While there is useful knowledge growth provided by all and sundry, usually there are further learning products made available. This provides for ongoing development after the event and careful selection can put any individual or business on the path to a stronger experience in every sense.

So there are 5 listed key reasons why conventions are important. If for no other reason than to learn something, every person remotely interested in the seminar subject should be attending whether you consider yourself an expert or not.

Checkout the amazing DreamLife convention in Melbourne – 11th-13th September.

Could you define Michael Jackson as an expert? And if the answer is yes could you see why he could be described as such? Could it be a dedicated knowledge of,  and participation in his chosen field. And could it be the eternal desire to be the best in that field?

Irrespective of what sort of business you are in, to create business success online you need to be perceived as the expert in the field. Although you do not need to be a rock star, “rock star” status in your field will yield plenty. And at the very least you should attempt to be a “Real Expert”.

For topics that you have knowledge in its fair to say that nobody has walked in your footsteps but you. Draw on your own life experiences. Bear in mind …..do not attempt to promote yourself as an expert without accomplishing expertize on a topic, at least to a reasonable extent. Choose your area of experience carefully.

To establish expert status produce material that endorses you as the expert, there are 3 key methods for doing this.

Write Articles
Compose articles on the topic of your experience and present these to the web. Every successful business on the net creates articles to one degree or another and they are developed to drive visitors to your web site

To further augment your presence as a professional in your niche, search engine optimize your articles with certain keywords to improve your perspective as an expert. Utilise web article submitters to syndicate your article to lots of web sites all over the web – ensuring each article has links back to your site.

Become are “Public” Expert
As you develop your image as an expert in your niche, people start inviting you to speaking engagements. Grab such opportunities as and when they come your way.  By turning into a public spokesman you further get a lift to your reputation as an expert.

Consider authoring your own Book
Start writing a book to further display your information on the topic of your experience. Your understanding on your subject helps a lot in writing a book. Some of your article work will start to come together and will assist to develop your material.

Being a writer further increases your reputation as an expert. And there really is not any difficulty to writing a book other than it takes time. However it may be a project to run parallel to you expert creation, and most experts leverage the use of support writers to achieve the end result.

Naturally, becoming a pop star like Michael Jackson would aid considerably, but that is clearly a niche in itself and carries some burdens that may not fit with online expert status.

And its a life consuming “occupation” all of its own.