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Whether you just launched your new web business or you’ve been around a couple of years ( a lifetime on the W3), if you aren’t using social media to market your site, well, you’re rowing with one oar out of the water.

What Is Social Media and Why Do I Want To Use It?

YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Brightkite, Naymz, LinkedIn – these and many others, are all web sites actively seeking your membership, and better known as social media web sites. These free services are useful to individuals and companies in a variety of ways critical to web success.

A basic tenet of guerilla marketing is first described 4,000 years ago in Chinese tactician, Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War (still required reading at all U.S. military academies). When you, or your real-world or on-line business, create a profile page on LinkedIn, you employ the resources of LinkedIn to promote your services, goods or message.

The same is true of all social media sites. They’re free and they’re viewed by millions of people each day. Free exposure is always good for any business when properly deployed. That’s why everyone – from huge corporations to small, spare-room start-ups – use these sites. I upgraded the RAM on one of my computers but before I did I visited YouTube, did a site search for my computer name and RAM and up pops a half-dozen vid-clips on how to properly install my new RAM chips.

It makes the manufacturer look good, it cuts down on customer service or client care calls and it keeps the company name right in the viewer’s face.

1. You might be tempted to Tweet on Twitter every time you post to your blog but pretty quickly, your posts become the white noise of the web.

We’re all so used to being bombarded by web advertising that your plaintive little Tweet won’t draw many visitors to your blog or web site.

Now, that doesn’t mean don’t flare a new blog post, Tweet it and post it to your Facebook wall. By all means. For one thing, these posts are usually picked up by search engines creating more SERPs for you and your business. But post informational content, useful content, funny content. If all you do is flog your blog 24/7 on social media sites, (1) a lot of your web links block you and (2) 99% of those who don’t block you also don’t visit your site.

2. Create your own inter-connected weblet.

Web apps developers are a smart bunch and these coders have made it easier and easier to inter-connect your presence on social media sites to create a larger target for prospects.

Tweetdeck and Seesmic, two Twitter management tools, enable you to post once to Twitter and have that same post (with tiny URL) appear on your Facebook wall simultaneously. Post once, the post appears in a couple of places.

Keep a company blog? It’s free, easy and employs the resources of WordPress, Blogger, Typepad or other blogging platforms for your benefit. Well, WordPress and Typepad enable you to display your blog posts automatically on your LinkedIn profile – updated regularly. Post to your blog and your LinkedIn profile page automatically displays the headline and a link to your blog, which links to your Facebook page or your web site or your Brightkite profile.

This trail of crumbs enables prospects to find you in a lot of different places and, with a click, learn more about you. With growing interest at each stop, these prospects eventually land on your site where the story of your business can be told.

Social media equips you to create your own, business weblet with lots of contact points for prospects to hit in search of the products or services you provide. Bigger target? More hits. Simple as that.

3. Network.

You never know who you’ll run in to on LinkedIn. There are hundreds of “groups” that you can join from college alumni groups to professional groups to social groups. Use these groups to expand your list of contacts and to mine for potential clients or buyers.

Also look for service providers on these sites – outsources that can fill an immediate or on-going need at the lowest price possible.

A big part of web success, both in terms of search engine recognition and conversion ratios, is linkage. Use social media for easy, made-to-order links swaps. Again, this is a no-cost opportunity to exploit the resources of social media sites to further your business success. Sun Tzu had it right four millennia ago.

4. Make me want to learn more.

There’s nothing more frustrating than discovering an interesting post on LinkedIn Answers, only to discover that the individual who provided the pithy, on-point response has a one line description of herself on her profile page. What a wasted opportunity.

Create profile pages on all social media sites that make me want to learn more about you and/or your business. Don’t make me fill in the blanks. Are you someone I want to connect to? Someone worth following around various social sites? Your profile page should be crafted with great care.

Avoid hype and any hard sell. Talk about yourself and, as an “afterthought,” add a paragraph or two, along with a subtle call to action, that directs readers to contact you for a chat, i.e. “Hey, drop me a line if you’d like to learn more about virtual assistants and how I can help your business grow. And FAST!”

5. Add site keywords to all profiles and posts.

An SEO benefit to go along with all of the business development benefits to social media. Bots index your various profiles from the different social media sites to which you belong, so using the same keywords in your profiles that you use to optimize your web site or blog will have you showing up on more SERPs faster.

Whether you’re a CPA or an SEO, the same keywords should appear in your social media profiles and on your web site or blog.

6. Become an authority and build creds using social media web sites.

LinkedIn Answers, Yahoo! Answers and other social media sites’ “Help Desks” are a great way to frame your expertise within the context of an authority – the owner, founder and head custodian of your one-person biz.

By providing answers, you build credibility among readers of these site features. You develop name recognition and are branded an “authority” by the social web site.

7. Take this opportunity to “Toot your own horn.” Just not too much.

Billionaire and authority on self-promotion, Donald Trump, once said, “Toot your own horn. No one else will.” Good advice from The Donald and a strategy that has clearly worked for him.

Use social media to instruct, educate, motivate and inspire through your insightful insights and unbridled generosity at giving advice and helping others. It’s a great way to toot your own horn without it looking like you’re hyping yourself or your business.

A word of caution: Avoid too much self-promotion. Social media sites are open to anyone and in many cases any anonymous jerk can flame you for posting business-related content. I’ve had people complain that Facebook is “supposed to be fun,” not a place to announce new blog posts.

One contact actually dropped me a line explaining why he was going to have to block me on Facebook because my daily announcements of blog posts, interesting sites, articles and other contributions made him miss some important messages.

So, I got the message and cut back on my postings. Oh, I still toot my own horn.

Just a little more softly and not quite as often.

The popularity of social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace has led to the creation of a number of excellent social networking software applications. While there are entrepreneurs who wish to become the next Zuckenberg by launching their own social networking websites, they may not have the modal or skill required to build a website from scratch. So if you’re looking for reliable social networking software, the following solutions might be what you are looking for:

1. Mahara

One of the most highly-recommended social networking software packages, Makara offers everything from blogs, portfolios, and resume builders to online communities. Mahara is designed such that users can demonstrate their knowledge and skills to their audience. To some degree, Mahara is based on the idea of online learning communities, encouraging users to share information and a variety of intellectual resources with one another. Mahara is particularly suited to a demographic that involves college students.

2. KickApps

Developers gets more control over the CSS styling of the website using Kickapps, Consequently it requires high expertise to create the website, but it also means the result will be more promising than those websites that are based on premade templates. The widget creation tool allows users to engage in certain activities inside of a small box which will bring the users back to the main site. Perfect for website owner who wants to have professional looking website with variety of features.

3. Yogurt & XOOPS

XOOPS is a Content Management software program that lets you build your website based on your particular needs, while Yogurt is the social networking module that plugs into XOOPS CMS. Yogurt allows you to set up photo albums, video albums, friend lists, public messages and communities. It also allows you to integrate YouTube videos as well as other types of technologies into your social networking site.

4. AroundMe

AroundMe collaboration server is the perfect solution for anyone wishing to create collaborative social spaces on the Web. If you have an established business and are actively looking for software that helps you to expand your business then AROUNDMe collaboration server is the solution for you. One of the best things about AroundMe is that it is one of the least resource intensive software options, and only requires about 3 MB of disk space to get it set up. Of course, it requires more space for users to be able to store images, but that can be configured to whatever level you want.

5. Lovd by Less

Yet another open source social networking software, Lovd by Less is one of the few platforms that runs on Ruby on Rails. While they offer the same basic features as other social networking softwares , the web 2.0 design is certainly be the best reason why you should choose Lovd by Less. It also includes integration with both YouTube and Flickr.

6. Dolphin

YouTube, MySpace, Odeo, Flickr, Match and Facebook in one place. Whether it’s video sharing, mp3 streaming or dating service, Dolphin can provide it – All for free. Need some privacy? Chat with your peers online without interruption! You get to have full screen video mode that allows you to chat with your friends personally in a private room. Need a forum? The 100% Ajax forum will make your site looks classier. Want to know the upcoming events? Search event allows you to look for the hottest events that will be held near your place.

7. Ning

Ning is the one stop destination for everyone regardless of their knowledge in programming or semantic markup language. It’s fairly easy to create your own Ning network. Sign up for a free account, choose your theme, customize your appearances, and choose which features you would like to offer the users. In just 5 minutes you will have your own social networking website with cool features and personalized profiles, all for free.

8. Elgg

This open-source platform runs on the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) format. It offers a versatile array of features, including blogs, social bookmarking, groups based on topics, microblogging and file sharing. Elgg won the award for the best open source social networking platform back in 2008. For a full list of features, visit Elgg http://elgg.org/about.php official website for more details.

If you have just started to manage a website then the 8 social networking softwares mentioned above might be a good start for you. With a little bit of creativity and marketing skills, there’s no reason why you cannot be success in the future.

Fortunately, there is Greasemonkey. You can employ this trick to any given web page appears in your Firefox browser. So, for example, you can download and install a Greasemonkey script for Facebook that will change the way your Facebook page looks, and you can use it to get back the way that the “old” Facebook used to look before the developers felt the need to change everything.

There are some specific things to keep in mind, however. This trick only works for you – Your peers couldn’t see it. Other folks browsing your Facebook page will see whatever Facebook wants them to see. For them to see it the way you see it, they would have to install the Greasemonkey.

Without further ado, here are a few of the most useful and popular Greasemonkey scripts you can download for Facebook:

1. Remove Facebook Clutter. This is probably the most useful trick in terms of getting your old Facebook look and feel back. This one will hide the filters on the left side of your stream, as well as in the highlights section. It also removes the rounded corners that have appeared on profile photos. Out of all the tricks mentioned here, this is the one that will be most effective in helping to get back the old look and feel of Facebook.

2. Facebook Color Changer. This one lets you make Facebook as visually appealing as you want it to be. You simply choose a different color scheme and the application will alter your Facebook colors to match. The color changer lets you customize Facebook to your own style and taste. You can go beyond just making Facebook look like it used to and make it the way you want it to be. This one is currently being updated to allow you to change the Facebook icon at the top of your screen, as well.

3. Remove Facebook Ads. There’s a good bit of controversy surrounding Facebook ads, not the least of which is the way that Facebook can encroach on your privacy and others’ privacy through the use of Facebook images in ads. This script will allow you to remove the advertisements from your Facebook page, protecting your privacy and the privacy of those in your friends list.

4. Facebook Twitter Style. This Greasemonkey script for Facebook is especially useful if you’re a Twitter user who tweets so much till you want to make Facebook look like Twitter. In general, Facebook is trending toward the look and feel of Twitter, so this script takes that idea to its ultimate conclusion. When coupled with the built-in Twitter integration in Facebook, you really can merge the two hottest social networks on the Internet right now.

5. Facebook.Com External Apps Blocker. If you’re like most folks, you get annoyed at constantly reading about how someone gets a new high score on Bejeweled, or about the results of some of your friends quizzes. This one will block all of the external applications, such as quizzes and games, from showing up on your homepage. On the downside, it can also block the apps that you use on Facebook, so make sure that’s what you’re going for if you install it. Also, remember that it doesn’t block your apps on other users’ Facebook pages.