"Social Marketing - It's Free and it Works!"

I'm sure you've heard the term Web 2.0 a lot lately. The term itself does not mean that the software running the web has been upgraded. Web 2.0 simply refers to a changing use of the web - to an increasingly social platform, driven more and more by the users themselves who really want to work at home..

Once you understand the concept, you can use this phenomenon to help your business.

Imagine if one of your friends told a group of her friends about your newest blog or website. Now imagine each of those friends, in turn, telling some of their friends. And so on. Pretty soon your website traffic would be flowing steadily and if you knew what you were doing, you could make a comfortable income from all that traffic. This is exactly what is happening to many websites thanks to a handful of social web 2.0 resources.

There's no doubt about it, the emergence of this social web provides opportunities for viral marketing that never existed before. Think of it as Web 1.0 "forum marketing" on steroids.

If you'd like to get involved with this aspect of web marketing, here are the top resources that will help you get started...

Note: Before jumping to social websites to launch your viral adventure, make sure your site is both monetizing traffic (via ad sales or product sales) and make sure it is social web "friendly". One way to accomplish both of these goals is to offer an affiliate program so your visitors can earn money by telling others about your site. A contest that rewards the top "inviters" with prizes is also a good idea.

Once your site is ready to roll, visit the following sites and start telling the world why your site is a big deal...

1. Digg. This is a community based news popularity web site. If your article hits the front page of Digg, you will get thousands of visitors and some of them will eventually become your regulars. Study the types of articles that end up on the front page of Digg. Then write your own articles targeted to Digg users.

2. Squidoo. At Squidoo you create "lenses" (a Web page) about any topic. You can create as many lenses as you want and you can embed external links in your lenses. Squidoo lenses also have good search engine credibility. So, your sites will get some good external in-bound links for free.

3. Delicious. Google "Del icio us" to get the url because it is not a dot-com domain. It is a social book-marking site to store your bookmarks online. You should build a network of friends at this site and study their book markings to assess the type of articles they prefer to bookmark. Tailor your articles to mimic the article style your network appreciates.

4. MySpace is the ultimate social website because of its sheer size in terms of visitors. If you have lots of friends who have their MySpace pages, create a niche network community in MySpace with common interests. Post teasers of your interesting articles in your MySpace page with links to your full article. Ask your friends to write comments on your postings.

5. LinkedIn is an online community of experienced professionals. Create your account at LinkedIn and network with professionals in your fields. Offer some free services for other professionals in your network and solicit their recommendations. All recommendations appear in your profile. LinkedIn provides great opportunity for someone to find your business or services.

Other sites worth exploring for viral opportunities are Flickr and YouTube. Both the sides accept multimedia (photos for Flickr and videos for YouTube) content. These sites are good for establishing your brand by regular posting of theme oriented humorous contents.

Finally, when your really ready to work at home click on the report offer below... and you'll find a great list of social bookmarking sites. These are the sites where you want to start spreading the word about your site!

"Realize that there really is a new trend. This is not a fad. It's here to stay, and it's getting even better. Any businesses right now that jump on this and participate in this web 2.0 social media world are going to profit immensely from it. Social web is all about conversations with people, and you can have no better advocate than your customers."

Jim Daniels