In today’s hyper communicative and technology dominated world, social networking has made inroads in almost every aspect of our likes. Today, social networking websites are used extensively for a variety of purposes like brand promotion, business marketing, sharing information etc. Today there are hundreds of social networking websites on the web. People use these networking websites on a daily basis for variety of purposes. When it comes to generating traffic, a social networking website can be a great tool.

Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin are some of the most popular social networking websites. These are used by millions of people across the world. When it comes to an online business, these networking sites are extremely successful as social media marketing is very important to a business. This is because these sites are accessed by huge number of people. These sites provide an opportunity to advertise your business for free. These sites are replete with myriad useful features which when utilized properly can help a business to reap great dividends.

A social networking website is the best way to make people aware of your business’ existence. It is quick, easy and also saves lots of time. You can spread the word about your business on a social networking time, and it will reach to plenty of people in no time. On the other hand, marketing a business using conventional methods would cost one a huge amount. But ever since social networking websites have come in to action, the story has changed. Today, businesses can easily save huge amount by utilizing the benefits provided by social networking websites.

A social networking website helps in promoting a business and offers numerous advantages. First of all, it is a low cost investment as compared to other options. It offers many links to your website, that too free of cost. Since these networking websites themselves receive a great volume of traffic, they help in generating good volume of traffic for your site as well. With social networking websites you get an additional advantage as it provides a word-of-mouth way that people tend to believe.

Discussed Below are Some of the Benefits Offered by Social Networking Websites

1. It is Easy to Implement

It is very easy to implement a social networking button on your website. You just need to go to the official page of a social networking site. Let us take example of LinkedIn. It lets you choose from three options that represent how the feature will be presented on your site. These options include- a vertical view with a counter that displays the number of shares, a horizontal view with the counter, and a horizontal view with no counter. Once you decide which view is best for your site, you can simply copy the provided code, and paste it into the HTML section of the web page of your choice. You do not need to seek help from a developer for this as it can be done by just about anyone.

2. It Adds Credibility to Your Website

When it comes to an online business, association is a powerful tool. If a website is associated with another important and reputed website, it helps in building user’s confidence and trust in your site. In fact, social networking websites like Facebook are considered as a safe place by users from where they can get reliable information. If your website has a Facebook logo and a ‘like’ button, it will give assurance to the visitors that your site and its content are legitimate.

3. It Helps your Content to Go Viral

People tend to believe word-of-mouth. And it is the same with Internet. Social networking sites provide word-of-mouth about your business to people. Whenever someone clicks the ‘like’ button on a website, it shows in that person’s Facebook news feed. Now, everyone who is there in the friend list of that person will be able to read that news feed. Therefore, your website stands high chances of getting ‘liked’ by many other people as well.

4. You can Easily Put up the ‘like’ Button

In order to put up a Facebook ‘like’ button on your website, you do not need to be a web developer. Neither do you need to seek professional assistance for this.  You can generate the basic HTML code automatically from the Facebook developer page. All you need to do is to provide the information that the code generator requires and paste the resulting code on your site.

Like every other technology, social networking also has some cons along with its share of pros. We have already discussed the pros of social networking sites. Let us have a look at the cons of these networking sites.

1. Possibility of Scams: Anyone can be a victim of scams or other nuisance on social networking websites. Whether it is a personal account or a business account, you can avoid these scams by maintaining security and privacy settings. This helps you in avoiding cyber-stalking, cyber bullying, online schemes, identity theft or any other form of harassment.

2. Time Consuming: These networking sites require time and effort to establish great connections. You cannot expect to connect your site to relevant and reputed sites overnight.

Although there are hundreds of social networking websites out there, but Facebook surely roosts the rule. It is the number one choice of business houses, corporate houses etc to establish and extend their business connections online. The reason for this could be attributed to the fact that Facebook provides a very user friendly and flexible way of doing this. It is very popular among online marketers. Facebook provides more targeted audience as well as family oriented audience if your company is targeting such clientele.

Facebook has many amazing features to offer, which has made it so popular among marketers. It is not just the ‘like’ button. It has many other features as well.

Share: First of all, it provides a share button. It lets users to share any post they like. It can prove to be very useful for a business. Users who will like your post can share it and thus can spread the word about you.

Fan Page Creation: Facebook also lets you create a fan page for your business, community, etc. This way you get a huge fan following, and it also adds to the credibility of your business.

Group Discussion: It also lets you create a group discussion. Any business can utilize this feature by encouraging its customers to participate in group discussion. It helps in spreading awareness about your business to other people as well.

Event Creation: Facebook also lets you create events. You can invite users to an event. Business houses can use this feature to its optimum level by creating events about their new product launches.

From the above mentioned points, it is evident that Facebook is the number one choice of online marketers. It provides great features that can be effectively used in marketing and promoting a business in the best manner possible. The fact that Facebook has around 550,000,000 users sumps up the whole story. It provides the widest range of exposure to a business. Thus Facebook can help a website attain great volume of traffic and generate good ROI.

Author Bio: MarkupBox.com is a specialized PSD to HTML Conversion Company, backed with years of experience and diligent professionals. We also offer software implementation service like PSD to Joomla, PSD to Magento, PSD to WordPress,PSD to Drupal and much more

Google launched its latest Android 4.0 operating system (Ice Cream Sandwich) on October 19, but since the focus of the launch conference was mainly concentrated on Samsung Electronics’ new Galaxy Nexus smartphone, and no mention was made about tablet PCs, sources from PC vendors are concerned that Google’s resource distribution between smartphones and tablet PCs may become imbalanced.

Although Android 4.0 has several improvements from the previous version, the operating system is still not strong enough to help Android tablet PCs compete against iPad 2, and with Apple expected to launch the iPad 3 as soon as March 2012, the technology gap between Android tablet PCs and iPad may expand further, according to the sources.

The sources pointed out that Google, lacking R&D personnel, has been unable to provide support to its downstream partners and the situation is unlikely to improve for Android 4.0. Google is likely to place its focus on Android smartphones, which have already gained a firm market share to compete against Apple’s iPhone.

With Asustek Computer set to launch its second-generation Eee Pad Transformer with Android 4.0 by the end of October, market watchers are mostly conservative about its sales performance as Amazon’s Kindle Fire has significantly affected the Android tablet PC market with its low price.

Several notebook players have already placed their hopes on Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system and expect its compatibility and familiar user interface will help them regain consumer demand.

Dick Craddock, who manages the group responsible for Microsoft’s Web-based e-mail service, can still recall the day of celebration in 2004 when the Hotmail division had just posted a stunning financial quarter. Craddock, along with other Microsoft execs and developers, convened to relish in the victory.

The triumph was short-lived because soon after, Google launched a competing Webmail service called Gmail, and like in the short time it takes Google to call up a search query, Hotmail instantly looked dated.

Gmail gave users a gigabyte of file storage for free, while Hotmail presented a few megabytes and required users to pay for more. Gmail was fast, spam-free and let people attach files several times larger than that of Hotmail. And Gmail only showed small text advertisements, while Hotmail’s pages were covered in ads, which is why the site was able to exceed financial goals during that quarter in 2004.

After evaluating the options, “it wasn’t hard to pick Gmail; it just wasn’t hard,” Craddock said in an interview on Monday. “It was a great learning experience about what really matters.”

After a few years of lightning-fast growth for Gmail following its launch and at the expense of Hotmail, Microsoft reversed course. “We set out to really invest in Hotmail and really, to rebuild it from the ground up,” said Chris Jones, a vice president who oversees several of Microsoft’s Internet applications.

The Hotmail team eventually got the green light to dial down the ads while increasing development on features made available to nonpaying users.

Making money directly from Hotmail “is not the most important thing for us to optimize for,” Jones said in an interview. “The lesson from some of the most successful Internet companies is they build something valuable and durable.”

That is a notion, Jones said, that Microsoft learned from a rival, Google, and from a partner, Facebook. It is not conventional wisdom for Microsoft, which makes most of its revenue from software sold for hundreds of dollars a package in brick-and-mortar stores.

The people who write the history of technology tend to take shortcuts. Accounts of Friendster’s, Myspace’s and AOL’s fall from grace are often summed up as: they just stopped being cool. In fact, they were less reliable and less capable than their scrappier competition. The same was true of Hotmail, but Microsoft is fighting back.

The Redmond, Washington, company gathered reporters together here at an art gallery in San Francisco on Monday to show PowerPoint slides that demonstrate how Hotmail is just as feature-rich, if not more so, than Gmail. Microsoft is putting muscle behind features such as granular controls over daily-deal messages and newsletters, automatic filtering and various new functions that launch in the next few weeks.

These changes are already being touted to current users of Microsoft’s e-mail service in a banner that urges them to look out for “the new Hotmail.” It’s a part of a campaign to improve the brand’s image, so that people aren’t embarrassed to say their e-mail address ends in @hotmail.com.

“For a lot of folks, Hotmail was their first Webmail address,” Jones said. “Now the challenge that we’re fighting, frankly, is mostly one of perception.”

Hotmail still holds the highest market share worldwide, followed by Yahoo Mail and then Gmail, according to research firm ComScore. In the U.S., Yahoo is the leader, and this year, Gmail surpassed Hotmail and maintains faster growth, ComScore says.

The options for free e-mail are poised to increase, with other tech giants making bids for the space that follows your name and the “at” symbol.

Apple will discuss its iCloud service at a news conference on Tuesday, which is the first time the company will give out free e-mail access, in this case, an @me.com address, to customers. Facebook recently gave each of its 800 million users an @facebook.com alias, but few people seem eager to use them.

Microsoft is hoping to regain some cool in the hopes of hanging onto the friends it still has — and to make new ones, before the new kids take over the block