Sitting at the heart of the social networking universe, Facebook has become the destination for everyone who wants to make sure they stay connected to friends and family. Also, businesses and associates have begun to use Facebook as an easy way to maintain connections within their industries. However, when it comes to tapping into the vast Facebook user-base, trying to take advantage of the millions of page views per day, the average business model simply doesn’t have a section devoted to social network sites.

That isn’t hard to change.

Many ecommerce sites already embrace spending advertising dollars on ad space on web sites. A couple of the most visible areas on Facebook have already been set aside for advertising. This means that getting one’s feet wet, as it were, on a social networking site doesn’t step outside of the realm of what is already being done.

• Right column ads and the top banner ad are your typical ad slots, and while the statistics for those slots are going to be typical, due to the numbers of hits Facebook gets, even rotating ads are going to collect a lot of click-throughs.

• Facebook offers ad space in areas that aren’t quite as obvious. Those are the ones on the applets pages. Each applet has a banner area that is solely for that applet page only. Some of the smaller applets may have rotating ads on them, but the more popular applets like Egg Breaker and Mafia Wars actually have dedicated slots. If your product or service has already gained a certain amount of popularity, or a company is willing to lay out the dollars to buy those ad slots, then taking advantage of the applets is definitely the way to go.

• Setup up a “business” Facebook account and working off the framework for that, companies can build not only a user-base of people who are following that company, but an entire structure that doesn’t exist entirely on Facebook alone.

• Have all the advertising interact with each other, in other words, highlighting the Facebook account on business cards and other paper advertising, and referencing the paper adverts on the Facebook page, each advertising section is being supported by the other. This enables marketing to put unique information about services or products on each part of the advertising legs, drawing customers to an overall big picture view by having them seek out the other pieces of the puzzle.

Utilizing social networking sites such as Facebook is still a developing field. More and more unique strategies are available with these social interaction tools. Finding the best ways to take advantage of those tools is still a topic widely under debate. By using some tried and true methods, such as the right column and banner ads to pull eyeballs to your site, any company will be able to leverage Facebook into sales. Facebook gets millions of hits per day, and there isn’t a reason in the world you, too, shouldn’t be able to take advantage of those eyes for your sales.

Twitter: the social networking site for millions of people all interacting in a social network that is second to none when it comes to the ‘up to the second’ thought processes of each and every person who tweets. Whether it’s a celebrity like late night TV host Craig Ferguson tweeting to his robot skeleton army, or the average person tweeting about going to the grocery store, nowhere on the net is real-time interaction as instant as it is on Twitter. Even Google has noticed the effect of Twitter on the public zeitgeist and has found a way to incorporate tweets into Google Search in an attempt to bring that level of ‘now’ to their results. So how can businesses take advantage of Twitter and the real time search that Google is offering to leverage customers to their sites?

Google’s real time search is based on over a dozen new search algorithms and powerful data crunching engines that monitors billions of documents, blogs, feeds and microblogs like Twitter in order to have the most current information available for those using Google Search. Their goal is to have the most relevant information up within minutes of posting, so even the ‘breaking news’ type events will be available on Google Search for viewing. But what does that mean for those of us trying to employ Twitter as a means of advertising?

While not every tweet posted is going to hit Google, there are things you can do to increase the chances your tweet will. The first thing you need to do is make sure your tweets are seeded with current info. Since you’ve only got 140 characters to “hook” with, that in and of itself can be a challenge, especially if your product or service takes a significant amount of those characters to describe. Finding ways to juxtapose your product or service with a current news story is best, since that “flows” better when it is read on Twitter, and it makes more sense in the framework of the searches.

Another tip is to have a website. This way you can use your website as a tagline, and since so many tweets reference websites anyway, that’s not going to appear unusual. People get used to clicking on websites on tweets so having a website available for them to click on will bring hits to your site and eyes to your offerings. And when it hits Google Search, your website link will be carried through.

The most essential part of using Twitter is to develop either an extensive following or to post tweets to a LOT of people. You can open a few accounts and tweet back and forth between them, but the topic matter still has to be current, otherwise it won’t be picked up by Google. However, being a follower of people and groups that are constantly being picked up by Google will help you immensely.

All in all, it will take time and patience and some trial and error when it comes to using the Twitter/Google pass-through to catch traffic. The downside is the amount of time and effort to build up your account so that it does start showing in Google Real Time Searches. The upside to it is once you’ve put forth that “initial investment,” especially if you’ve developed a decent sized following, it pretty much takes care of itself. As Twitter becomes even more socially relevant and integrated, more companies like Google will pay attention. That means your effort will actually pay dividends. The work will already be done, and you’ll be able to reap the added benefits.

Unless you’ve been buried under a rock for the last 10 years, you know that social networking has evolved from newsgroup posts which could take days for interaction to take place to the ‘there before you think of it’ tweets on Twitter. Sites like MySpace have ushered in a new world of connectivity between friends and family, and they have also introduced a whole new world of opportunity for small businesses. So, what can small businesses do to take advantage of those opportunities?

The name of the game for a small business is to make them known without spending a lot of money in the process. However, keep in mind what your target audiences are — otherwise the effort spent in spreading the good word will be wasted. It does no good for an electrician in Boise to have national coverage through their posts, and efforts of a company with a mail-order business that can deliver anywhere to be limited to coverage only in Boise. That means targeting your audiences with your space or blog in such a way as to maintain your focus on your target.

Make your wall posts, blogs, and tweets relevant to your product or service. While it may be fine to express opinions about world events and politics in personal blogs and posts, those won’t do you any favors when it comes to selling to the general public. However, finding ways to weave current and topical keywords in your headlines or posts will ensure they come up in searches. And that’s one of the keys to leveraging the social networks to a small business’ advantage.

Everyone has become accustomed to doing searches, thanks in large part to Yahoo!, Google and Bing (formerly MSN Search). Virtually every social networking site now has some type of internal search. By using current keywords that people use to stay current with events and news ensures that your offerings will wind up in the search results. While it may not seem totally relevant to juxtapose the product or service offering with some of the keywords that work like health care and collectible marbles, but knowing that searches and click-throughs are basically a game of statistics gives the small business an incentive to find creative ways to link topics together.

Another feature of social networks is the fact that many of them allow streaming through RSS feeds. Making your topics and headlines show up in the RSS feed enables a small business to gain exposure to a lot of desktops that may not otherwise find a reason to be exposed to those posts or tweets. That’s another reason to be relevant in several different topics. By joining the groups and following those who are involved in the product or service, a small business can gain additional exposure through collateral connections.

Social networking has evolved greatly over the last quarter century, and never before has the ability to put your product or service had so many avenues in which to exist. It may take some time to establish accounts in the dozens of social network sites out there and to become familiar with all the quirks and nuances of how to best take advantage of them. For a small business trying to reach out and touch a large number of people, even Super Bowl ads don’t have the capability that social networks do.

Social media and networking sites have become extremely popular in the last few years, and Twitter is no exception.  Many people are using Twitter to promote their personal businesses or other personal endeavors.  If you are one of the many people using Twitter to promote their personal business, you will want to get peoples’ attention with your headlines.

The headline is probably the most important part of grabbing the attention of your readers, but it is also the most difficult to form.  The headline must grab the reader’s attention within a few seconds or the headline has failed.  This rule applies to Twitter headlines even more so than direct mail headlines, as the reader can just click the website away if they are not interested. Twitter headlines can be the maximum of one hundred and forty characters long, so use these characters wisely.  Here are five keys to making the best Twitter headline as well as making it SEO friendly.

• When you are working to write the best headlines, the first thing you can do is use the benefits of your products or services in your headlines.  Write a headline that points out the benefits to your target market.  Mentioning the main benefit of your product is the effective way to get the attention of your reader.
• Next, you will want to make your headline as straight forward as possible. Whatever your product or service may be, let it be known in your headline.  You will want your target market to be able to recognize you can do for them.
• Make sure your headline is understandable.  As fore mentioned, you want to get your readers’ attention within a few seconds.  Simple headlines are great headlines.
• The next two keys to writing a good Twitter headline have to do with using the words that get most peoples’ attention.  Starting your headline with “how” or “now” is a good way to get people to read your headline.
• The best Twitter headline is using power words.  There are certain words that get many peoples’ attention.  Cash, love, hate and huge are four power words that are great for getting peoples’ attention.  These four words can also be easily used by most people when they are writing a headline.

A good starting point for YouTube optimization is to make videos that are short, sweet, and straight to the point. People want instant gratification, not wanting to sit around watching a 30-minute video on how to use a cell phone headset. Videos should be kept to a few minutes to reduce production time, upload time, and download times. Have a script prepared so you do not mutter or stumble upon your words. Film the video in the highest quality format you can. Crisp, clean videos will receive more attention than grainy, hard to see videos. Do not make videos private and always allow for comments. This user interaction can help increase video views and move you up the YouTube video rankings. Using Annotations, text boxes in your video, can help deliver your message or promote your website or company. Make sure not too over use annotations as they can become annoying and distracting from your videos main purpose.

Since the search engine spiders cannot read or comprehend videos you must use the text fields to optimize your videos appropriately. This means doing keyword research and making sure your keywords appear in the title, description, and tags of your video is imperative to a successful YouTube marketing campaign. Maximize on the amount of text you can have in these fields. More text means a better chance of someone finding and clicking into your video. Make sure you use original titles and descriptions otherwise your video will get lost in the millions of videos with similar names. Original content is what YouTube wants to see. The more originality you add the better off you will be. You also want to have a user name with your brand or website name so it is easily remembered.

You have to put everything into perspective to increase views, as the average video only receives one hundred views annually. According to YouTube guidelines there are many factors that influence rankings and can help optimize your videos. These include the video title, the description, tags, incoming links, comments, subscribers, ratings, playlist additions, flagging, embeds, shares, age of video, channel views, subscribers, views, and the number and quality of sites that host or point to your video. You want to interact on YouTube by watching other videos, commenting, subscribing, creating channels, and making friends. Interaction helps with the viral marketing, where one person tells another person about the video. This person tells five others and so on. Doing this will increase your video network and views. All these factor into ranking high for YouTube optimization.