If there’s anything that’s true about social media marketing, it is the amount of money that is being spent on it. Yet the return on investment in social media marketing is so poorly understood. Social media marketing is still inits infancy and we will see big changes to the landscape in the years to come.

Here are a few predictions that will impact social media marketing in a big way this year:

#1: Youtube will beat Yahoo as the second largest search engine in the world
More and more people are interested in watching video instead of doing text searches. Youtube will quickly become the second most used search engine.

#2: Email will make a comeback
One of the biggest reasons why email addresses (as opposed to social media) are such an excellent investment is because people who use them rarely change them. Social media has become so saturated that messages are often lost.

#3: Large companies will spend money on ‘vanity’ metrics
Most experts believe that there is very big difference between vanity and actionable metrics, and one of my predictions for this year will be that large companies will waste a lot of money on vanity metrics that will do them no good. Therefore, it’s important for companies using social media to understand which metrics count in terms of their company’s performance and which don’t.

Television and radio stations, advertising agencies and even Fortune 500 companies all depend on voice actors.  Whether you’re shooting a commercial, a how-to training video, or an animated movie, voice actors are the people behind the scenes, the ones who bring your script to life and convey your message to the audience.

But how do you find a talented voice actor without having to pay high union prices? It’s easy. We found a production company in Virginia Beach, Virginia that makes it possible. Founded in 1966, Studio Center is the largest, fastest growing video and audio production company in the country. While the company offers just about every service you need to make a movie or commercial — including music, script writing and motion graphics — they also provide more than 1,000 uniquely talented voice actors with a variety of voice talents. What’s the best part? Most of the voice actors are non-union, with means they’re affordable.

Finding the right talent through Studio Center is also easy when you visit the company’s website. Producers can search for the voice they’re looking for by selecting from various categories on the website, including top ten men, top ten women, kids and teens and foreign voices. Producers can even search by new talent or browse the entire catalog by name.

Whether you need to need to find a voice actor or actress for a commercial, how-to training video, or an animated movie, you’re sure to find the best person for the job at Studio Center.

Internet marketing has many forms, one which is email advertising. With the success that several companies have obtained in using internet marketing (with email advertising being a crucial element), more businesses are following suit in order to maximize on profits, thanks to a larger customer base spread all over the world.

While there is no doubt that there are advantages to email advertising alone, it is up to the user to use it right! So here is a list of distinct advantages of email advertising that you can benefit from:

#1: Zero investment

Almost everyone who has used an email marketing system knows how little the investment really is. Some of them only have to spend on making the advertisement, and thus, the return on investment is almost always immediate.

#2: Efficient

Imagine yourself sending emails to customers manually. That takes up a lot of time and energy (that you might not necessarily have) that you might as well use somewhere else. Email marketing software helps you to send emails to a whole list of customers by a single click of a button.

#3: Reaches your target audience

As opposed to television or even internet ads which reaches out to a general audience, customers who read your emails have already subscribed for these email because of their interest. Thus, there are greater chances that their interest in your product or service can be converted into a sale

#4: The Use of Technology

Almost everyone has an email account these days, and they do check their mails at least once in three to four days if not every day. This guarantees that customers who these emails are sent to will definitely get them directly as opposed to other marketing methods include ads and banners that almost everyone will come across but might not be interested in. Since the use of technology is on the rise, you can be sure that your potential customers will get to read what you send them by email.

Travel Blogging is when a Blogger who’s traveling Blogs along the way. I’ve been spending a lot of time in net cafe’s lately. Playing computer games and what not. I’ve noticed there’s a lot of people that have Blogger accounts that come to the net cafe for the purpose of only posting pictures on their Blog and talking about how their holiday is so far and where they are if they are doing a trip. I never really thought it was such a big thing, but at least 15% of the people that go to the net came I’m at are here just for the sole purpose of Travel Blogging.

Travel Blogging is much better then writing about it on pen or anything. Plus you can email and tell your friends your Blog and your whole travel is accurately documented. Not to mention that it’s time dated, can have pictures and what not. Is this going to become the latest Blogging adventure?

There used to be a time when pagerank 5 was considered high, there used to be a time when directory submission cost 30 cents per submissions, there used to be a time when articles cost more then .01 cents a word, there used to be a time when directories were rare. Now, pagerank 5 permanent links sell for 2 dollars, Now directory submissions go as low as 8 cents, Now article writing is slave trade in some nations, Now there’s 20 directories + getting created every day. This is not bad for the market, just making everything worth less and less each year. Not everything though, domains are at a all time high.

So what does this mean for the average webmaster?. Well, there’s a lot less competition. You can always find someone who will work cheaper on the internet. But, at the same time, it’s getting hard for the “average webmaster” to register dropping domains, get high serps. I wonder where the webmaster market will go in the future…..

Recently on DigitalPoint forums, a new directory trying to gain exposure paid some forum “heavy-weights”(popular people with lots of posts and reputation) to advertise in their avatar there new directory – site shift. 3 hours later, half the forum had these avatars even though site swift only paid for some avatars. Then another directory – sevenseek did the same thing. This campaign proved to bring a lot more traffic and exposure to the new directories. So this is now a new marketing 2.0 scheme.

Now, if you’re on any forum and you’ve either got lots of posts or are very well known, I suggest you head over to Digitalpoint Forums and register then sell your avatar on the other forum you go on. For the moment I suggest to only sell for 1 month. Why only 1 month? because prices are bound to go on the increase. Selling permanent avatar rights now is a choice you may regret in the future.

Below is a graph of site shift’s alexa traffic

Notice the big increase? that’s when the avatars became live.