When it comes to marketing the choices are clear: market to your reader. But the place to find your reader has changed as more and more of our lives migrate online. A recent article on how offline media is succumbing to the net talked about a flurry of newspapers diving into online content, online ad placement, and online forums to push more of their feature pieces, reviews and editorials into a virtual medium. Even industry standards like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are moving more and more of their content to the website. So what does this mean for you? Well, it means that the lines between on and offline are becoming even more blurred. It used to be that if you had a few select publications that you were pitching you could contact their on and offline departments and possibly be considered for interviews or feature pieces in both of them; that's not the case anymore. Sometime an online feature means that you can kiss your offline exposure goodbye, so it's good to ask before you start pitching. Much of the online content is now pulled from the offline source, so while this could work in your favor, better to be certain if you have your eye on print coverage. That said, you might be better off being on their website, where you'll get lasting exposure. But media promotion isn't the only factor in marketing, in fact, there's a lot you can do without even heading into the media realm. Consider these ideas: * Craigslist: have you been on this site recently? If you haven't, take a few minutes and run through the listings for your city. It's a great place to promote yourself but be careful, the Craigslist people don't like a salesman type of pitch but prefer something more folksy and casual. If you surf the site for a while you'll see what I mean. You can use Craigslist to promote your event, your product, even your service, but they key is, don't look like you're promoting. Also, keep in mind that often regional media will surf this site looking for events they can cover, so get yours listed there now! * Virtual networking: it's not just for trading business cards anymore. If you're trying to gain platform or gain media exposure, heading on over to sites likeLinkedin.comcan be a good way to start your network and gain additional exposure. Also, sites like MySpace have gotten a bad rap as predator sites, but only a marginal portion of people on this site are there for nefarious reasons. While the MySpace age does tend to skew younger, there's virtually a place for everyone and every message on this site. Not aFacebookperson? Try eons.com instead, this site targets the over 50 crowd and offers another great place to market your book and message. *YouTube: this site isn't just for singing pancakes; in fact, more and more authors are moving snippets of signings, speaking gigs or other visual promotion tools to this hot new resource. It's a great link back to your site. *Social bookmarking: have you been doing your social duty lately? Posting to sites like del.i.cious.com could really help to spread your message like wildfire. Sometimes a few sites is all it takes to start the buzz going in your market. * Consider the overlooked media: As the bigger papers are moving their content online and vying to keep readership interested, the smaller overlooked papers like The Bastrop Daily Enterprise in Louisiana and Arkadelphia Daily Siftings Herald in Arkansas are booming. Their readership is loyal and their papers always hungry for content. Have you poked around in the smaller regional newspapers yet? If you haven't, you might want to. You might find that while it's great to have an online presence, the further we get into Web 2.0, the more these publications are overlooked by pr people. The net has opened many opportunities both online and off, take your focus off the norm and start exploring some new territory, you might be surprised what it can do for your campaign! ...read more

Driving traffic to your website and promoting it is not easy. There are millions of websites in the internet and chances are about a hundred or a hundred thousand of those could be your competitors. Therefore, it is important that you heed these 3 steps for aneffective websitepromotion. It is imperative that your website should be found in almost every search engine results,social networkingwebsites, and broadcasting websites. You have to understand that the Internets attraction springs from the fact that it has everything. A person would only have to key in words or phrases and he would have access to any information that he wants to have. With the internet, one doesn't have to wait for the news on the tube to get the latest weather report. One need not open a cookbook to get a recipe. Because of this inherent usefulness of the internet, the number of internet users has rapidly grown and expanded. With this growth in the number of internet users, however, came an equally rapid increase in the number of businesses jockeying for the internet markets attention and patronage. --- The Importance of Web Traffic --- You need to bring your customers attention to your website if you want your business to thrive. There are no ifs and buts about it. Your e-business can survive only if your website is generating traffic. Traffic means potential customers. Your website's traffic is the lifeblood of your business. Your website should be accessible to your intended consumers. This is a way for you to obtain a high percentage of the market size. It is very important, therefore, to promote your site so that more potential customers will be drawn to it. There are many ways to promote your website and a mixture of methods would be more advisable. Here are the steps for an effective web promotion. Step 1: You should have a promotion budget When you are trying to launch a web promotion campaign, you should have a budget, no matter how stringent. With online advertising though, you can use a lot of methods without spending thousands of dollars in advertising expenses. Utilize free forms of online advertisements. Do not spend money on anything that could be done for free. Instead, channel your funds to your website improvement, for web-based applications and other natural internet marketing expenses. Pay for advertisements on parts of your websites that are not accessible to non-members. Do not advertise for the part of your website that people can get free access to. Step 2: Employ website promotion strategies You should use all possible promotional strategies available to you. You should promote your website to an existing market. Be consistent in promoting your website. Let your market know that your website exists. Make sure that you are promoting your website to your target market. What is the point of advertising for different shades of lip gloss if your website is getting more hits from men? Concentrate on generating targeted traffic. Every thing you do must be aimed at generating more traffic for your website, so it is best if you would utilize the services offered by popular web promotion brands. Step 3: Use different methods of promotion You should use different methods of promoting your website. Write articles that you could post in your website or you could submit in other websites. Informative articles that are useful to people would arouse people's curiosity and interest. Make sure that you optimize your site for the search engines. Create blog posts using words or phrases that people would usually key in search engines when looking for something. Build your network through social networking sites. There are a lot of methods that you can use. The idea is to use multiple methods and to use them well. ...read more

YouTube is a very powerful social site. It's the first thing that people check when they are looking for video clips; andYouTube videoscan be and have been conveniently passed on to other internet users worldwide. Due to its extremely viral nature, YouTube is a wonderful tool forinternet marketing. Here are the steps that you should follow in order to do so. You probably have heard of YouTube. Well, who hasn't? Millions of people are uploading, watching, downloading, or linking to videos in YouTube everyday. If you want to see a video of something, you can always check it out from YouTube. YouTube is a free video sharing website that utilizes adobe flash technology in order to be able to display videos uploaded by its millions of members. These videos are watched and seen by around 20 million YouTube visitors every month. Videos in YouTube feature thousands of unknown and known people daily. If you have a website, an account with YouTube would certainly benefit you. You can take advantage of its free video sharing and the extremely vast network of people you could market your product to. Just imagine how much traffic your website would generate through your own videos. There is no better way to advertise to millions of people for free than YouTube. Using this service, you can maximize all internet marketing opportunities. Here's how you can use YouTube more effectively in your internet marketing efforts. Step 1: Create a definite genre for your video Deciding on what kind of video you will be creating depends on what kind of target audience you intend to create the video for. Colorful and interactive videos would work best for teenagers or college students. A more classic presentation will suit the professional and working market. The idea is to create a video that would most attract its target market. Make sure that your videoís message is clear but concise. Make sure that your clip wonít play for more than 5 minutes. Create an impact with your message. Try to shock and move people out of their usual indifference. Make them curious about your product, business or service and make them want to possess what you sell through the content of your video. Make sure that you are clearly identifying yourself with the video. It should contain your logo or your company name. This is a way to make sure that your message wonít be lost to the viewers. Take your time in creating your video. Make sure that the finished product would give out the message that you want to convey. Step 2: Strategically place your video in the net A strategic placement of your videos in YouTube will raise people's interest and would get them to watch your video. Make it a top-watch video. Chances are your video will appear on YouTube's home page, generating more possible interest. This is where viral marketing would start to work. Your videos will be watched and passed on by more and more people. Step 3: Create a link to your website Remember that the purpose of your video is to attract more people to visit your website. However, a direct sales pitch from a video is frowned upon by YouTube. To avoid having your video deleted (yet still being able to make a subtle advertisement), put a teaser trailer at the end of the video. Put your company name on the trailer and make sure the person watching it would know whom to associate the video with. ...read more