John Halderman writes about personal growth and online marketing , helping people take command of their income, personal growth and wellness. He is also on Twitter

This phenomenon called social networking has absolutely exploded I the last couple of years and the thing is, I think it’s just getting started. If you look at the growth of social networking just in the last six months, it will floor you. Two or three years ago many people were complaining that all this online activity and attention was just serving to isolate people because it was keeping them away from social activities.

Now look what happened, we humans seem to have automatically solved the problem. Or should I say we evolved into the solution. When this many people move in one direction this quickly, it’s humanity talking! We people need to interact, communicate and collaborate, it’s how we are built. And even thought this Internet thing first appeared to be the grand ’separator’ there had to have been this response to our basic human need growing deep within, just waiting for us to discover it and allow it to blossom. I know, this is pretty ‘big picture’ thinking here, but I believe everything has purpose and just because we can’t see it – it’s there.

Do you realize how much easier it is to locate people that have similar interest to yours? Look, when I was in high school, and many consider me an ‘older guy’ now even though I’m only about halfway ‘there’, many kids were really isolated is they were a little more unique than average. It was a physical, as far as you can walk or maybe drive, area that you had to function in. And even then it would be difficult to find someone just a couple miles away at a different school that shared some of your unique interests.

A persons interests were not listed in the phone book . . . how did you find them? There were many brilliant, creative individuals stuck out there alone with no one to help further develop their thoughts. Not that individuals can’t and don’t do many wondrous things individually, collaborating expands the thinking of all involved much faster.

Do you realize the power in this? Have you ever studied about the ‘mastermind’ concept? Author Napoleon Hill wrote about it in his classic “Think And Grow Rich” detailing how the mental power of a group of minds working in alignment with a specific intention far surpassed the basic mathematical combination of the individual participants minds. Some say the resulting thought capability of a group increases geometrically.

Now why did I bring this mastermind thing up here? Think about it, just a few years ago it was hard to find someone who shared a unique interest, now you can locate thousand of those like minded individuals. Then add in to this how we humans progress, in anything. We build on what we know, and when several people are together, the group knows more about the specific subject. Add to that the mastermind affect and any idea develops faster. People feed off of each others ideas allowing creativity to blossom.

This vast system of interlinking has just opened the flood gate to human progress. The speed at which progress moves forward has just picked up an other comma. And we are here to participate in it and work with it, so we better understand it and learn how as a business we can benefit.

OK, back to my original thought about this article, monetizing the social movement. And this is not so off what I have just been talking about as the exchange of information, tools, resources and materials is all part of our interaction as we feed and support each others unique interests. Yes commerce is involved in the physical functions of our growth and evolution.

Then, the more successful one can become in delivering their own unique resources to others who desire them, the more they can do in all areas of their life, and that’s a good thing. If this would be you, wanting to be very successful at mastering delivery within this social system on hyper drive, I stumbled across a wonderful blog post about monetizing all this socializing we are doing, which you must read. I’m not even going to take any more of your attention to give my highlights and interpretation, just go see what blogger Dosh Dosh has to say on the subject – it’s really quite good.

The amazing thing that happened to me was, stumbling across the Dosh Dosh blog post as I was thinking about that very topic, actually it was presented to me – amazing!

John

Salwa is a digital artist, designer, blogger, and writer from U.K. She authors a blog at www.blogriffic.com. She is also on twitter

With the recent increase in social media programs, internet marketers are beginning to target social media sites for their marketing campaigns. But how exactly do you market your products through social media?

Most advertisements in social media are presented casually. Many ads don’t even have hyperlinks, and the viewers actually have to type in your URL into their internet browser. While you probably won’t get as much traffic as you would with a normal hyperlink advertisement, those who view your site will be HIGHLY targeted, as they have taken the time to visit your site.

Most social media marketing is done through YouTube. Short ads are often added to the beginning or end of videos, or even mixed in to the middle. Be warned that advertisements in videos can be very annoying to viewers, so don’t over do it. One small, tasteful ad in each video will suffice. Do not overwhelm your viewers with tons of long ads.

Many types of social media marketing do not appear to be done by the actual promoter, but rather the general public. Often a “fake grass roots” movement is started intentionally by a marketer. A blog or other webpage will be created, with a “normal guy” talking about a specific product. Statistically, people are more likely to purchase something recommended by a “normal dude” that they can relate to, rather than an advertiser. Viral videos are often used as well in order to promote a specific product or website.

The entire goal of marketing in social media is to be the next big thing. The internet is constantly changing, and new trends seem to spring up every day. If your marketing campaign is part of the latest trend, you can receive millions of visitors. Do not underestimate the power of suggestion. If whatever you produced is considered by the public interesting or funny enough to recommend to a friend, you can expect to see your traffic and sales rising rapidly.

As I said, YouTube videos are the most common medium for social media marketing. But why exactly is this? Because popular videos on YouTube receive massive amounts of views within hours. The top videos of the day usually have from 100,000-500,000 videos within the first 24 hours. As with any form of advertising, not everyone who views your ad will actually click on it. In my personal experience, a normal click through for YouTube videos is about 20-30%. This means that out of those 100,000+ views, you will receive 20,000-30,000 unique visitors to your site, all within 24 hours. Of course the click through rate will change drastically depending on ad placement, video subject, quality, etc, but if a popular video has your product in it, you can expect massive amounts of traffic.

Opinions vary as to whether or not social media is a good medium for internet marketing. Some think that traditional advertising works better, while some prefer social media. However, with social media on the rise, I expect that more people will be marketing through social media sites.

John Halderman writes about personal growth and online marketing , helping people take command of their income, personal growth and wellness. He is also on Twitter

Any one who has been writing or blogging for any time here on the net(“The Wild Wild West”) knows that plagiarism is rampant. Now I am not such a purist to think that no one should ever read and regurgitate what they have read into their own words, that’s research, right! But the blatant ‘cut and past’ artists are the ones that  have become just a ‘little’ irritating.

I think most of these direct rip offenders are doing so to get some sort of content on their Adsense sites just to satisfy the search robots. These are the same people who a couple of years ago were able to do what is called “scraping” of articles and other website content, which is flat out copying the content of others and placing it on their pages. This way they get a content rich site the easy way!

Today this is harder to get away with as search engine bait, which is why the “duplicate content” rules has been established. Those of us that want to honestly put our articles in multiple places now must be very careful how we do this or we get punished just as if we had stolen the article. Lazy article writers and bloggers are still copying or close to copying to save time. I understand that this writing thing takes time, but there is such a thing as honesty that many choose to forgo.

I know I should not let it bother me, and actually I don’t stress about it. I know that those copycats will get their just rewards, there is a thing called Karma. Most likely their readers will see through their shallowness and they will not garner much credibility in the long run.

However, if you are wondering if and how much of your content is getting ripped, soon there will be a tool for checking up on your fellow bloggers. I know that first we should be trusting of others, but again, this is “The Wild Wild West” and almost anything goes. Content tracker Attributor which can check up on other locations using your text, pictures and videos has a new service geared to bloggers now in the beta phase called FairShare. It does appear from the website that they are accepting beta testers if you are interested. (2-24-09)

Well, whether you are blogging, writing and whatever online, and you feel the need to checkup on potential plagiarism of any of your content, the sources are available. I guess the determining factor in allowing others to get away with copying your content is in how you are monetizing it. So when someone copies it, viewers can see it somewhere other than your site, you loose any related income – and you did all the work.

You have the rights to the content you created, but online it is your responsibility to keep your plagiarism partners honest. Such a world!

John Halderman