Recently a survey was conducted of 13,000 internet users regarding social networking and the results were surprising. 42% of the people surveyed knew about social marketing while 58% had no idea about social marketing. Remember, these were users of the internet. What does this mean to you, the internet network marketer?

Social networking sites build online communities of people with shared interests and activities. These online communities have fostered new ways of communicating and sharing information. As relationships develop online at social networking sites, trust also develops which is a key to social networking. The internet can be very impersonal but social networking and social media sites emphasizes relationships and trust. For the online internet network marketer, this trust provides an avenue to tap into the social network or, if it isn't handled properly, being excluded from the network. This is the basis of attraction marketing, positioning yourself as a leader by providing valuable information and training to those new to internet network marketing to build trust and an openness to work together.

When you talk about social networking sites, usually the names Facebook and MySpace come up. Other social networking sites that are often mentioned include Orkut and LinkedIn. These are what could be categorized as true social networking sites as their focus is on creating communities and connections. Social media sites, which are more focused in sharing information and experiences can have social networking features like adding people to your "friends" list or becoming "fans" or "followers". These sites can be blogs like Wordpress and Blogger, microblogs like Twitter, social bookmarking like del.icio.us and Stumble Upon, video sharing like YouTube, and article sharing like Squidoo and HubPages.

Getting back to the survey, while only 42% overall knew about social networking sites, 70% in the US knew about social networking. Overall only 26% of users were part of any social networking network while in Canada the number was 44% and in the US it was 40%.

What is the take away from all this? Social networking hasn't yet gone totally mainstream. And accordingly, neither has social marketing. This means opportunity. There are network marketers or people looking to get involved in network marketing who have not yet gotten into social networking, social marketing, or social media marketing. But they should. And who better to learn it from than from those internet network marketers who are already involved, who already experienced, and who are already seeing results. And there are those out there who wouldn't touch network marketing with a ten foot pole that would be attracted by the new internet network marketing model. Those of us who are blazing the trail now can build up that critical mass of business leaders such that everyone on the team can prosper, even if they are in a totally different network marketing business. There will be opportunities for profitable joint ventures and affiliates programs and other ways to develop multiple streams of income.

What we need to do is take action now and take advantage of this window of opportunity of technology, people's needs, and the new business model of internet network marketing. This is an opportune time to learn and teach social media Web 2.0 network marketing.

C Doug Mah is an internet network marketing coach whose goal is to teach independent business owners how to use attraction marketing and Web 2.0+ technologies to grow their businesses profitably. Going beyond the old school techniques that are still being taught by some network marketing and MLM organizations, these techniques drive pre-qualified prospects to your business, allowing you to spend more time in business building and training instead of prospecting and recruiting. If you are interested in learning more about internet network marketing, attraction marketing, and social marketing, please see my blog.