When you are launching your online business, trying to figure out the in’s and out’s of internet marketing and deciding which of the overwhelming strategies and tactics to put in place first, social networks tend not to be in your top 3 (and probably not even top 5) list of focus items.

There are good reasons for that including:

• social networks are new – most of the major ones have only come to our attention in the last 12-18 months
• fragmented…as with any new technology, the sheer number of participants and their rate of change is enough to make you wave your arms in the air in surrender – you have Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and then add the various social media sites such as YouTube, Google Video, Filckr…and the dozens upon dozens of strong alternates in the video, image and message space
• outside the box…when you first happen upon one of these social network sites you may have a hard time understanding how a series of messages about politics, the latest movie or celebrity scandel or personal messages about how I spent my weekend relate in any way to your business…it takes a different sort of thinking than traditional marketing teaches
• overwhelmed…all of this leads to a sense of "which social networks do I focus on for what content and why" which for most of internet marketing community leads to placing a lower priority on social networking until the market matures

But…let me give you a glimpse into why I believe the time has come to make this a top 3 priority for your online marketing strategy and tactical plans:

1. To stay leading edge you need to try near everything…a major part of achieving the advantage of online marketing is to get hold of what works early and to do that, you cannot rely on 2cnd or 3rd party comment (because most people screw up the analysis themselves) so that means you need to be trying things for yourself…become active and see for yourself.

2. The next Google!  This is a pretty big statement to make right now, but there is a very real possibility that what is today largely unrelated social networks will be pulled together and become the next way users will en masse search for relevant content.  Take a look at a company called Lijit – take a close look, even go through the process of setting up an account, and you will see they are attempting to build a search business based on co-ordinating content from dozens of social networking and media sites – a direct shot across the bow of Google’s Cruise Ship!  Suddenly, using 5 or 6 social networking sites that previously seemed completely separate are brought together for your user and it all makes perfect sense.

3. Tight relationships…you have the ability to pull in an audience that would not typically respond to overt ads or even infomercials or other types of content.  In other words, you expand your target audience in the only way they would respond giving you a competitive advantage

4. Networking…right now, one of the best ways to get known by Top Gun’s in your marketplace are within the uncrowded social networking sites.  In just a few weeks on twitter I have made contact with potential partners that would previously have been unreachable via other traditional communication methods such as phone and email.

5. Beyond teenagers…when social networks first started out the audience was largely teenagers.  Myspace began with a heavy influence on alternative music, Facebook as a teenage social network hangout…but all of that is rapidly changing as they hit the mainstream giving you more of a balanced audience to target

6. Mix of media and editorial…means you can communicate with your audience in multiple modes ensuring your content, opinions and messages are heard by the majority of followers and friends

7. Instant feedback…while the thought of instant, public feedback may scare the bee-jesus out of many, as an internet marketer and information product publisher I embrace the notion that we can throw out ideas, concepts and even promotional thoughts and get instant feedback by way of comments, responses, read statistics, etc…

8. Ease of use…blogs are a powerful, alternative way to communicate with your target market using a the "pull" model of RSS instead of the ever-decreasing effectiveness of the "push" email model.  However, configuring RSS has continued to be an obstacle for the average non-techie user to setup continuing to make blogging a niche communication technique for most markets.  With social networks, choosing to be your friend or follow you is typically as simple as pushing a button and BLAM, your updates now reach them day after day.

9. Frequent contact…a major part of marketing and branding is being able to frequently reach your audience.  With a tool like twitter, you can (and are often expected) to submit several updates each day – imagine sending your prospects 10 emails in a day, what do you think their response would be?

10. Connecting at a deeper level…what will inevitably make you a much better marketer in your online business is becoming more aware of what it means to really "connect" with your marketplace.  As broadcasters of information we are fairly limited in quantity and quality of messages and ability to analyze messages for their effectiveness in really "connecting" with our target market.  Whether Myspace eventually gives way to Facebook which gives way to something else is really irrelevant to us as marketers.  More relevant is our ability to know how to connect on a deeper level than "promotion" allowing us to become much more effective in ALL of our marketing – social networks challenge us to figure out how to connect deeper and that’s a good thing.

What are your thoughts on social networking and how you have been able to incorporate them into your online business?