Most people think that social networking sites are for people to waste time, keep up with friends, and stalk potential romantic partners. All these things are true. Social networking sites also serve as a tool for companies to spy on people. If your company isn’t gathering data from social networking sites you are wasting a powerful resource.

After corporate America co-opted love, freedom, virtue and truth in the 1990s and 2000s they moved on to friendship. Friendship proved a more formidable foe than the aforementioned notions however. It is hard to be friends with a corporation. I mean I love Burger King, but I am not in love with Burger King.

Now that I am friends with Burger King online I can see it every time I turn on my computer and every time I walk down the street. Soon visiting the Burger King Facebook page will make your computer emit that oh-so-familiar Burger King odor. Burger King in turn gets to see everything I do, say and buy. If that isn’t friendship I don’t know what is. Online marketing is great because it speaks to the notion that corporations are people too. Your company can become human too, by using online business marketing.

The internet is a large, meta-physical space. They don’t call it the World Wide Web for nothing. Many businesses think that they should not be spending money building a presence on the World Wide Web when they only operate in one small physical realm. This is where local internet marketing comes in.

Since privacy, as a concept and practice, no longer exists the internet knows where you are at all times. It tracks your every move. Every time you pick up your phone, check your email, or buy something the internet stores this information. Why do you think those ads on your computer have an eerie relevance? This is scary yes, but it is also marketing gold. You can use this information to target only customers in your area. That way you don’t need to waste money boosting your presence on the World Wide Web you can stake out your own little corner.

World domination is a hard thing to pull off, but local rule is a lot more manageable. You should stick your flag in your corner of the web before someone else beats you to it. Use an online marketing company that offers local solutions. The internet is like the American west of old, virgin, lawless and just waiting to be claimed.

The Internet: many of us have heard of it, but few know what it is. The fact that you are reading this right now is a positive sign. Let’s go over some internet basics.

The internet was invented by Bill Gates and Al Gore sometime in the 1980s. Back then Gates and Gore were just two Silicon Valley nerds who communicated on calculators tied together with copper wire (called the “copperlator”). Advancement in calculator technology led to the first computer, which Gore dreamed about and then built. Some years (and a lot of copper wire) later the internet evolved into what it is today.

Today the internet is  a shopping mall, a black market, a way crazy people can espouse their views, and a source of confusion and frustration for the elderly.