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In the world of affiliate marketing, you need to take advantage of tried and true marketing methods. You also need to take advantage of newer methods of promoting your business. With article marketing and social networking, you take two different approaches to building traffic for your affiliate products.

Article marketing is a great way to establish you as a credible affiliate marketer. With article marketing, you write articles related to your affiliate product. You then use a good article distribution service to get your content published by niche publishers. This may be as online or hard copy newsletter content.

Every one of your distributed articles will contain links back to your website, blog, or affiliate product site. If your article writing provides relevant, useful, and up-to-date information, you encourage your readers to investigate further. How will they investigate a topic you are knowledgeable on further? They will do so by linking back to a website you provide them at the end of your article.

There they can learn more about the subject they just read. This is when you can begin the selling process with them. Article marketing gets interested readers back to your website. It is a way to get your niche market to your site where you can convert them to customers.

Article writing, and article submissions to a distribution service is an efficient way to perform Internet marketing. The advantage of article marketing is that you can get widespread distribution of unlimited articles for a reasonable price. Of course, you have to choose the right article-distribution service. You have to choose one that does not put a cap on how many articles you can submit in a month or quarter.

One disadvantage of article marketing is that you cannot blatantly promote your affiliate products in articles. You have to provide information not the “hard sell”. In article marketing, your content will tend to be generic. You will not publicize your affiliate product by name per se. You will talk about the qualities one should look for in an affiliate product such as yours. You will offer helpful information and news as relates to your affiliate product in general. You will do all of this to inform your readers not sell them.

You can promote your product specifically and by name with social networking. What is social networking? Social networking is where people develop networks of friends and associates. Web sites and services that allow you to connect with friends, family, and associates online is what a social network is. Social networking allows you to connect and meet people with similar interests or hobbies.

With social networking, you are in essence performing targeted marketing. You engage with those who are interested in things you are interested in, and can do so regularly. If they have an interest in topics related to your affiliate product, they are pre-disposed to learning about the product. With social networking spaces you can talk openly about your products by name, trumpeting their benefits.

One advantage of social networking is that you can let your personality shine through when it comes to your affiliate product. You can talk about it in your own vernacular with friends, family and others. You can upload pictures of whatever you’re promoting, as well as streaming videos.

One disadvantage of social networking is that it will take you longer to get widespread distribution to a niche. You have to build a contact group that shares your interests. This takes time. To convert people to buyers you want to build contacts with a niche that shares your interests. You have to work to build these contacts.

You can use article marketing and social networking together. As you engage in discussions on topics related to your products point people to your web articles wherever they are. Show them you are knowledgeable about the topic and actually write about it regularly. From your articles, they can link to your website where your affiliate banners and product information are in full bloom.

Use article marketing to get your links out consistently. Use social networking to meet with those who share your interests related to your affiliate product. Use both of these marketing tools to build you affiliate business faster.

Brad McGovern is the Marketing Manager at
Article Marketer, and offers advice and news of note to article marketers. Watch for
more from Brad in the coming days!