Facebook is an extraordinary phenomenon. Depending on the day, it’s either the #1 or #2 most-visited site on the web. It’s inspired a movie. It has half a billion adherents. And it’s become an imperative point of presence for businesses (or has it ?). Also included are a few posts from Facebook proponents, and skeptics, to help you determine if you even really need to be concerned with any of this — or if your social media marketing efforts might be best directed elsewhere. Facebook Marketing Tips and Tactics. How do you do it? Facebook Advertising. Always. Always.&#. MORE >>

Can the financial return on expenditures for social media business activities– in marketing, PR, customer support, HR, product development or other areas — be accurately measured? Can social media costs be justified on the P&L, so that as belts get ever tighter in this stagnant economy, these projects and tasks can be spared the budget axe? Among social media pundits, the debate rages on. The “yes&# crowd argues that of course social media can be measured, and must be in order to demonstrate value to the business. So much for my thoughts. What do other pundits have to say? MORE >>

Over time, the top source of traffic for most blogs is search. The two keys to search success are great content and links. Assuming you’ve already got great content, there are many places to get links (e.g. social networking profiles, social bookmarking sites, other bloggers). But two great sources are blog directories and RSS syndication sites. Not only do they provide valuable links, they can also supply direct traffic and help build your RSS subscriber list. charging for inclusion). Preparation: What You’ll Need First. Webbiquity B2B Marketing Blog). Blog URL (e.g., link]. link]. MORE >>

You’ve seen the eye-popping statistics: Facebook now has more than 350 million active users. If it were a country, it would be the third most-populous on earth , behind only China and India. TechCrunch predicts that “by this summer (2010) well over half of all Internet users will likely visit Facebook each month.&# It’s now the second most-visited site on the web , behind only Google. Given that level of popularity and traffic, it’s no wonder that marketers have embraced Facebook in a big way. Not even close. It isn’t demographics. They buy from people.&# MORE >>

Optimizing a website by incorporating keywords into page titles, headlines, text, page URLs, image alt tags and internal links will help improve the position of a site in the search engines—but it’s only half the battle. As one of the posts linked below notes, “In Search Engine Optimization, things that are happening OFF of your site can be just as important (if not more so) than things happening ON your website.&# Search engines look at on-site factors to determine relevance, but at external links to gauge authority. Nine Tools for Your Link-Building Toolkit by ClickZ. Digg this! MORE >>