Social networking is a great way to keep in touch with friends and co-workers, but it's also a great way to expand marketing strategies into new arenas. The major networking sites have huge followings with tens of millions of visitors a day. Sites like Facebook also have the added benefit of keeping members on the site for long periods of time. This can be important when trying to interest other members in products or websites. Using social networking sites requires a lot of communication to other members, as well as a profile that intrigues people enough to make them want to befriend you. MySpace and Facebook both allow members to acquire thousands of friends, and that can be a powerful way to get a marketing message out to a large number of people quickly. Twitter Marketing Another networking site that is used frequently in marketing strategies is Twitter. This site can be used as both a mini-blog as well as a communication method. Twitter members send out messages and acquire followers who receive each message sent by the member. Sending out tweets, as the messages are called, can get a marketing message sent instantaneously to everyone that is a follower. Successful Twitter marketers use the site to send out funny, intriguing or informative messages to gain a following. Mixed into those tweets are ones that fit into the member's marketing strategy. They can be sale announcements or information about what a website can do for them. Backlinks Having a business presence on social networking sites is also a good way to get additional links. Any backlinks are useful for website marketing because they help the website's page rank. The links also make the site more accessible to people who might not have heard about the site before. The key to marketing strategies on social networking sites is to make the profiles informative about the site that is being marketed, but to refrain from spamming other members. Reaching out to the members of the networking site is important, but sending out frequent messages that are all dedicated to marketing can be viewed as spam. Special Deals through Social Networks One of the most successful things to make network marketing strategies a success is to offer something new on the sites. Many companies offer special deals to their Facebook friends or send out secret coupon codes through Twitter. This method of network marketing encourages other members to become followers in order to get what they can't get elsewhere.