Image by: Kris Krug
By: George Lamb

So you’re starting to get back aches from keeping your ears glued to the ground huh, well you came to the right place because today we’re going to discuss some more modern ways to stay hip to the groove. Did I really just use modern and hip to the groove in the same sentence? Shoot me now.

As I’ve said in virtually every Internet related article I’ve ever made, we live in a very technological world where both our financial and social success is often times dictated by how computer savvy we are. It’s a hard pill for technologically disadvantaged to follow–but if you’re not online, you essentially don’t exist. So that means if you’re still surfing the curves, you may want to crawl out of your hole and adapt to some of the latest trends that are all the rage.

#1) Blogs

If you want to find expert opinions about a particular topic of interest while portraying your thoughts and product to the business world, there’s probably no better option for you than to blog. Blog blog blog! I’m pretty sure you heard it before and are up to date with the concept, but are you effectively using sites like WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr to your marketing advantage? If not then you better get on it.

Create a blog and allow it to serve as the foundation of your marketing campaign, as well as a safety guide in case you’re confronted with confusion on a certain Internet marketing topic.

#2) Twitter

We’ve heard so much about Twitter, but how does it relate to you staying on top of the latest marketing trends? Well, other than allowing you to follow industry leaders and receive daily tweets concerning their thoughts and opinions on the latest trends, you can also promote your own brand to any followers you may accumulate. It works as both an attack and defense.

Sounds pretty awesome doesn’t it, although when considering Twitter is the next best thing since the coffee maker, you probably already knew what marketing capabilities this unbelievably effective website offers. But if Twitter isn’t enough and you’re looking to broaden your social media horizon, Meetup and LinkedIn may be a couple more websites you want to apply some attention to.

And if this isn’t enough another social media channel called StumbleUpon would, in short, cause you stumble upon many more sites you can add to the artillery. No pun intended.

#3) Study the Competition

What do athletes do when they aren’t spending time perfecting their craft? They watch, study and even emulate the competition to improve themselves. And as an entrepreneur that’s exactly what you need to do as well. Find ways to improve what your business has to offer by exploring the amenities of other companies and consider applying them to your own. If you’re good at this sort of thing, you might be able to source a report conducted by your competition which would supply you with dire information on the trends in your industry.

And the best part about this is the fact that it’s relatively cheap to use this method, and is a lot less time demanding than committing to social media sites.

#4) Learn From Work Colleagues

In a lot of cases, colleagues can provide the best information as they may have valuable experience with different types of internet marketing. Not only does this add weaponry to your arsenal, but it also enhances your workflow opportunities as you will be developing healthy working relationships that will increase your exposure to other opinions on the latest trends.

#5) Intuition

Be creative and implement new innovations to the marketing world yourself! The best way to market your product is to be a model or example for the next wave of incoming entrepreneurs, as they will regard you as the main source of guidance if you can manage to pave the way. Somebody had to set the trends, right? So why can’t you!?

Internet marketing is exploding so fast how can we keep up? There are so many sites and social networks to use that it seems a bit overwhelming? What are some of the most effective methods if marketing you have implemented for the success of your business? We’d appreciate if you share below!