Network marketing has been around for several decades, but social network marketing is relatively new.
Regardless of how old or new each one is, they are an effective way to make money if you know how to use them properly.
Let's start by defining 'network marketing' and 'social network' so we are on the same page as we move forward.
Network marketing is a business model where you share the product and business with prospects, and you earn more income based upon the size of your active group.
There are several variations of this model, and many of them can also be defined as multi-level marketing, though they are not completely synonymous.
'Social network' refers to the group of people you know and share things with, but in the online world this network extends to the networks of all of the people you know, and all of the people they know, and so on.
It's easy to see how quickly you can expand your reach by using online social networking sites.
Put it all together and you get social network marketing, which is one of the most exciting methods of marketing to come along in quite some time.
Why is this so? The best way to answer that is with a question: have you ever watched a movie based on the recommendation of a friend? Almost everybody has, and that's where the beauty of social network marketing lies.
What we're getting at is that people tend to have a distrust of advertisers, but they tend to trust their friends. Social network marketing gives you the chance to get people to recommend your products and services on your behalf.
So, while you get the ball rolling by giving people something to share, the goal is to get them to take over the spreading of your message.
It works even better because people trust the recommendations of their friends more than they trust a marketing message from a business.
Things get a bit tricky here, and it will require some top-notch marketing know-how.
The big secret is to write your social network marketing messages in a way that sounds natural and not like an actual marketing message.
When you do it right, you can quickly grow the size of your network marketing business. Not only will you grow your business, but you will also be reaching prospects that are "warm" because they will be introduced to your offer by a friend of theirs.
As you can see, social networking sites and network marketing are a perfect match. It's the kind of union that is waiting to be harnessed by anybody that can see the bigger picture and is ready to make the most of it.
Social network marketing takes a bit of finesse, but it is fairly easy to do. However, reading about it won't do any good at all; instead, you need to take action and start making it happen.