As a category, social networking sites are probably the most used sites on the Internet after search engines. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are referred to as the powerhouses of the Internet, along with Google. So if you are trying to market a business online, you cannot overlook its potential as a small business marketing tool.

Almost everyone who is online now has a Facebook profile or a Twitter account, and each of these people can be considered a potential customer. By trying to find ways to promote your products on those sites, you will reach far more customers than you would if you were limited to using other online marketing methods, such as SEO. This is not a recommendation to abandon those methods, but rather a suggestion that you can build an even more successful business by augmenting your existing internet marketing campaign to include these more social advertising opportunities.

There are two ways to boost your sales through social media sites. The first is to use the sites as a marketing tool and create profiles for your business on these sites. This is a great way to engage with your customers, increase trust in your brand, and start and open an engaging dialogue about your services and niche with the public.

If you choose to do this on Facebook, you will set up a business page, rather than a normal profile. There is no such distinction on Twitter. Then on Facebook, instead of making people friends with your company like they would your personal profile, they will like your company page instead. This is a great way to build a following. On Twitter, you would set up and run a business profile similar to how you would with a staff.

There are also paid advertising options that you can explore in the realm of social media. Because social media is still relatively new in terms of the life of the Internet, there is likely to be further growth and development in how these advertising models work. However, there are ways you can pay to advertise your products through social media; most notably and powerfully, through Facebook.

Facebook has a powerful system for buying advertising. This works in a system like the one used by the major search engines; a pay-per-click system. This means that you will offer a certain amount that you want to pay each time someone clicks on your ad. Then you will only pay when someone clicks on your ad, not just when your ad is displayed. This is a great template to at least make sure your message gets seen.

The great thing about these ads is that, like everything else on social media sites, they are social. If someone likes an ad you’ve posted, they may actually like it. This will show your news feed and your friends’ news feeds, who will hopefully click the link, like it, and repeat the process. This social aspect of advertising is what makes the Facebook advertising process so engaging. People are also much more likely to trust a product or company when recommended by a friend than if it were simply a random ad appearing on a web page.

With Facebook, there is also a strong market for in-app advertising as well as on the front pages. So if you have an ad that is successful or an ad that is in a successful app, then the social sharing aspect of the site should get your message going like wildfire.