Global goods colossus Unilever’s senior vice-president Laura Klauberg stressed the importance of social networking sites such as Facebook in online marketing and advertising last week at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival.

Delegates from all over the world gathered in the south of France to discuss the changes and challenges facing the industry and were all singing from the same hymn-sheet when it came to the pivotal role of social media over the next decade and beyond.

In previous years, special guests have included the bosses of the Microsoft corporation and search engine giant Google, but this year’s online marketing focus was well and truly on Facebook, with a special appearance for its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Ms Klauberg, who is Unilever’s senior VP for global media, insisted that “social media isn’t just another channel. It’s not just about Facebook, it’s much bigger as it changes the relationship with the consumer, forcing us to change the whole mindset of our business.”

She revealed that her company is increasing its budget for digital advertising by at least 50 this year and said that it is increasingly reliant on online marketing to complement its advertising in more traditional media such as television or print.

Procter & Gamble is another company that is beefing up its social media role. The firm’s chief marketing officer Marc Pritchard told delegates that “the moment I realized the huge potential of social media was when I joined Facebook two years ago.”

With its ability to generate “instant feedback” on brands, services and products, Facebook – along with Twitter – are increasingly being targeted by forward-thinking companies for their unique contribution to advertising and marketing.

The social networking phenomenon Facebook has proven to be one of the most remarkable success stories of the modern age, growing from a way for college friends to keep in touch, it now has an unprecedented global reach with over 400 million active users.

The sheer number of Facebook users has also made it a fertile ground for online marketing, with Facebook adverts fast becoming known as an ideal way for businesses to reach the right kind of customer.

This is because Facebook stores many of a user’s personal details, plus a list of their likes and dislikes – making it far easier for online marketing experts to target the right consumers for their products.

Because of this unique new marketing opportunity, there has been a concomitant increase in the number of organisations and publications dedicated to helping businesses reconfigure their online marketing strategies to take maximum advantage of the situation.

A lot of these businesses teach marketing departments or small business owners how to use Facebook features such as the “Like” option, which helps build an internal hierarchy within the website and swiftly shows which ideas, brands or products are popular – and with who.

With extra marketing applications such as Facebook ads in place, and more on the way over the next five years, it looks as if the social networking site will be reaping even greater financial rewards – it already makes more than a billion dollars a year and expects to increase this tenfold by 2015 – and it makes sense for any business committed to online marketing to try and get on board.

Search engine giant Google has begun offering independent financial advisors (IFAs) free training and support services to help them brush up their online marketing skills and make themselves more visible on the internet.

With online commerce becoming increasingly vital to the success of businesses, Google has pledged to help IFAs make the most of the burgeoning demand for online financial advice.

From the beginning of next month, Google will also host a downloadable online seminar complete with demonstrations showing IFAs how to use Google’s free online resources.

Recently it published a White Paper entitled “IFAs in the Digital Space,” which stressed that many such advisors and their companies are failing to take advantage of this growing market.

The paper is available to members of the social networking website IFA Life and looks at online searches for financial advice services. Google revealed that in February this year, the search term “unbiased financial advice” was used 84 per cent more frequently than at the same period in 2009.

Despite this surging interest, Google warned that IFAs are not throwing themselves into the online marketing and SEO campaigning necessary to tap into this growing market for financial help. Most IFAs either do not have a website at all, or are lax when it comes to keeping it up to date and promoting their business.

Google UK head of finance Ian Morgan told Money Marketing magazine: “We want to offer more support to IFAs looking to grow their business through effective use of search marketing.

“Our aim is to offer an educational starting point to these financial advisers. Consumers are looking for guidance in their wealth management and we believe that the internet can play an important role in helping them find the appropriate support.”

A leading online marketing organisation has urged companies to harness the instant feedback possibilities of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

A recent poll found that nearly half of all online consumers demonstrate their support or dislike for certain brands on Twitter or Facebook.

Referring to the study by market analysts ExactTarget, search engine optimisation company SEO Junkies argued that even negative feedback from such social media was very useful when it comes to formulating online marketing strategies.

SEO Junkies director Di Forster insisted that any companies that experience negative feedback online are well place to “turn it around and spin it to a positive.”

“You’re finding out how people are talking about you, whether it’s good or bad. It might be bad, but you need to know about it, then you can change it,” she added.

With the recent introduction by Google addition of an improved real-time search algorithm, which updates the search engine’s databases more swiftly and accurately than ever before, social media such as Twitter has become more important as a marketing device than ever before, Ms Forster insisted.

However, the benefits for companies intent on incorporating Twitter into their marketing strategies will not come without effort. Writing for Official Wire, SEO expert and social media businessman Leon Hill stressed that for social media to be at its most effective, brands have to put work into building up a strong and loyal following.

A company needs to consider what sort of fans it wishes to attract and then concentrate its online marketing efforts into enticing them.

Micro-blogging phenomenon Twitter is contributing to the excitement surrounding the start of the 2010 FIFA World Cup today with a special website set up for football fans around the world.

The social network unveiled http://twitter.com/worldcup, which is dedicated to all things World Cup – giving Twitterers information about the match schedules, flag icons of all the countries participating in the tournament, and of course the promise of live tweets throughout all the World Cup matches.

Writing on the official Twitter blog, its co-founder Biz Stone pointed out its advantages for fans and the potential for online marketing, with the dedicated site giving them a perfect opportunity to link up with teams, players and official sponsoring brands during the World Cup, not least through the medium of Twitter advertising.

He said that the Twitter FIFA World Cup page boast such unique features as live widgets, real-time search facilities and Top Tweets sections. The latter in particular is interesting, as its algorithm seeks out and republishes the most popular and interesting tweets about the tournament. By clicking on the View Match link, Twitterers are able to check out a live stream of all the site’s updates concerning an individual match.

But there is more to the Twitter/World Cup tie-in than that. It has also introduced a facility that causes a football icon to appear next to any tweet concerning the World Cup which features the #WorldCup hashtag, as long as users are viewing them via the Twitter Web interface.

When Twitterers use the hashtags with the first three letters in a participant country’s name, such as #ENG for England, the nation’s flag will appear next to the tweet in question.

A study by a Dubai-based marketing and communications agency has concluded that there are more Facebook users across the Arab-speaking world than there are newspaper readers.

Research carried out by Spot On Public Relations found that there were over 15 million people across the region who had profiles on the social networking phenomenon.

This compared favourably with the total number of newspaper copies sold in the Arab-speaking world in Arabic, English and French, which stood at just under 14 million – apparently confirming that social networking sites such as Facebook are becoming the number one way for people to communicate and read about new events and products in Dubai and beyond.

Spot On argued that the findings revealed how Facebook, Twitter and the like were starting to redefine how Arab citizens found out about new phenomena, and how they shared the new information.

It said that the largest number of Facebook users could be found in Egypt, at 3.5 million – which far outstripped the circulation of any Egyptian daily paper. Surprisingly the second biggest number could be found in Saudi Arabia, despite its severely conservative government and society.

In the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, a third of the population had a Facebook profile, according to Spot On.

The company said that online marketing firms should take note of the study and recognise the incredible potential that exists throughout the Arab-speaking world for marketing opportunities.

It suggested that companies eager to explore the online marketing potential of sites such as Facebook should consider carefully how their brand would fit in, and decide what tactics would be right for them, such as SEO-orientated marketing or the creation of a Facebook fan page.

Its a fact blogging is here to stay and if you have a blog the chances are it will be using the worlds most popular blog CMS Content Management system Wordpress. If you don’t have a blog why wordpress well one of the main reasons we used wordpress was it is so easy to use and second there are so many different plugins and options available so you can customise the blog to your own personal preferences.

One of the most important things needed if your blog is going to work and by saying making your blog work we mean generating visits and traffic is you have to consider the blogs setup from a seo or search engine optimisation point of view.

The best plug in for this is the all in one seo pack this really is a must if you are going to get the best out of your blog. This allows you to add meta titles, descriptions and keyword to each page which is very important in generating listings on google and other search engines. The second selection of plug-ins to consider are the social networking ones now social networking is as we speak becoming more and more popular and providing people the ability to share news or articles with there existing set of friends on followers on facebook or twitter it is a great way of generating free exposure.

Social networking is such a new source that many companies simply don’t understand the full implications of using it to benefit there companies from a marketing point of view. If you are new to blogging and are looking to get your company blogging on a regular basis we would say you would be better using a company that offers a blog setup service. This way you can be ahead of the game and save important time so you can start adding content online.

Time and time again the optimization of Natural listings and Google adwords is mentioned as one of the first steps to improving your companies fortunes online.  Often overlooked simply because of a simple lack of understanding Social media and the optimization of this should be considered as one of the first steps for your companies internet marketing.

Optimization of natural listings comes with first on page and link building a long drawn out process. Our Managing Director Garry Pickles explaines further ” Many Companies are still not fully aware of how to get the best from social networking. A Simple fan page or group is created and then neglected.”

The key to improving these fortunes is simple News content and relevant news content at that. If you can engage with the audience and provide interesting information and news on a regular basis then it is possible to generate traffic. More and more social networking sites are used to share infroamtion amoungst there peers this is where the snowball effect of the social networking experience comes into play.

So as with the optimization via link building for natural listings the optimization of social networking accounts isnt easy and dedication is required a longterm commitment is required but there really is nothing to lose. Once your companies grows its number of followers and friends the only way is up and the pages will grow and grow. This isnt a short term fix social networking is here to stay and in 5 to 10 years time you could be broadcasting  your companies information to literally thousands of people daily

So make the move into social networking and consider how you can get the best out of it before someone else in industry does.

If you are a new business or have no experience in marketing your established business online then Facebook is a great place to start. Facebook now allows companies the option of opening there very own fan pages. If you have a Facebook page for personal use then great you can use your current account to setup the Fan page.

If you are totally new to Facebook then that is no problem you can start a fresh specific business page. Where having an existing stock of friends on a personal page comes in useful is you can suggest these people become a fan of your business. Once your friends are fans of the page they will be provided with regular updates from your page if and when updated.

One of the most common things we have experienced with our clients is as soon as the facebook page is setup that is it and no further content or information is added. The key is the constant interaction and being able to engage the audience if your Social networking campaigns are going to be a success online. Lets face it why on earth would anyone be interested in a page on facebook called “RJD Joinery” for instance but lets say that same page provided regular updates with help and advice or even diy tips then people will engage with the page and perhaps share that information with there friends and thus the snowball effect of social networking begins.

Its the same old tale you only get back what you put in and this is very much the case with social networking. How on earth am I going to find the time to update the facebook page on top of my website? you may ask. Well the key is to get this fully integrated to a source of news and this is where the social marketing experts come in handy. Existing experience in making these campaigns work is a must before you consider getting any help in this area.

So to round things up -

1. Open up a fan page for your business,

2. Suggest friends

3. Provide regular updates with free help and advice

Remember it is free and if you offer a product or service there are millions of people on facebook who may be interested.

Well there off over the next 4 weeks we will be inundated via the television, newspapers on the election from each different political party. Equal billing is given to prevent bias towards a particular party on television but media that is very much in its infancy in the form of social media networking sites such as facebook and twitter has no bias controls.  We will be following it closely of course and keeping an eye on any trends but already we have seen the conservative poster being adapted to suit particular comedy slogans.

The power social networking sites have over some of the other forms of media is astonishing. The ability to target via advertising on these sites to a particular age range or gender for instance is so precise. The campaigns messages can be finely tuned in order to appeal to this particular partys political message. Lets take this as an example a political party had a policy that provided an increase in national pensions a campaign could be set to target this particular age range. The potential is massive and the variables are also long and wide.

Will political parties take advantage of this medium I should hope so if not they really will be losing out. Not only does it provide a up to date image for the party concerned but it helps the message reach people on a daily basis and parties will reach people they might otherwise never be able to communicate with.This election has already been mentioned as having the potential to provide a hung parliament . Do I feel the use of the Internet to market a political party could make the difference between a labour or conservatory victory,  Yes I do. OK you may think coming from a company that provides Internet marketing services that is a hollow message.

You only need to look at the way Barack Obama used his website and email marketing to reach people on a regular basis.

The email inbox, twitter pages and Facebook profiles are the new battle buses in 2010 and the party not taking full advantage of this medium will probably lose the election in our humble opinion.