Having an active presence in Facebook and Twitter will give you instant access to your current audience and customers, and the potential for many more is huge. When someone becomes a Facebook Fan or Twitter Follower of your brand, it will be knowledge which is obtainable for all the friends and followers of that individual. This gives you the opportunity to establish further name recognition. So instantly your company or blog name is in front of many more people than just your current audience. Chances are some of those people will become Fans and Followers too. The number of people can snowball quickly. If you are able to drive a portion of these new found Fans and Followers to your site, you’ll get a boost in traffic and have the opportunity to convert these Fans and Followers into your regular audience.

If you are seeking ways to increase your social marketing audience, here are three ideas worth exploring.

1. Entice followers with coupons. Let your potential customer base know that you’ll offer special coupons only available to social network followers. These coupons can be announced with tweets and status updates. Many retailers have had success with reaching their online customer base by offering percentage off discounts in this manner.

2. Give things away. Who doesn’t like free stuff? There is one success story where a franchise dangled $15 gifts out to the first 100,000 individuals who became a Facebook Fan. The strategy worked like a charm. In less than four days the 100,000 Fan mark was achieved. Analytic tracking indicated that many of those new Fans went on to make purchases in subsequent months. The franchise now had 100,000 new eyeballs to read regular status updates and target for future purchases.

3. Don’t be afraid to just ask for followers. Placing the recognizable Facebook and Twitter Icons on your website will let your current audience know that you are engaged in the social marketing world. They are already at your site, chances are they’d like to be up to date on what you are doing and offering. The icons offer easy access, in just a few clicks they can begin following you, and you’ll be thee beneficiary.

Leslie Handmaker has a site specializing in gifts for friends and celebrating friendships. She also offers marketing support and project management to small businesses on a contract basis.

Over at the Web Hosting Show website, some of you might have noticed I have a little giveaway going on there.  Just in case you missed it though, I thought I would share it here.  Want to win a free Apple TV?  All you need to do is subscribe to Ping! Zine, one of the greatest web hosting magazines out there today.   Check out the details on how to get your chance at the free Apple TV over at WebHostingShow.com.  A free magazine subscription, a chance to win a free Apple TV, does it get any better?

Lunarpages WordPress Contest Themes – Series One = 95+ WordPress Themes

Lunarpages WordPress Contest Themes – Series Two = 134+ WordPress Themes

Lunarpages WordPress Contest Themes – Series Three = 90+ WordPress Themes

Thanks to Lunarpages for providing a spotlight for all of these great WordPress themes!

Lunarpages WordPress Theme Design Contest – Series 1 Entries

Lunarpages WordPress Theme Design Contest – Series 2 Entries

So if your looking for a little insperation on your next WordPress theme design or your stressing over finding a great one to use, check ‘em out.  Lunarpages is also currently holding it’s third WordPress design contest right now – so if your a designer you got to check that out too.

The rules have changed a bit to include mention of the exact schedule for voting and submissions (also noted below) as well as voting by Lunarpages Staff, ensuring all votes are tracked and accounted for.

The prizes, however, are just as juicy:

• First Prize is $1,000 cash and 5 years free hosting on our Basic Plan
• Second Prize is 3 years free hosting + $300 cash
• Third Prize is 1 year free hosting + $100 cash

Entering is just as simple as before – just Submit Your Theme and you’re in. We’ll post the top 5 Best WordPress Themes each week starting April 21 right here on the Blog for our community to vote on.

Go submit your own WordPress themes!

Lunarpages is having a WordPress Theme Contest!! All you need to do is design a unique WordPress Theme and upload it to our site for the chance to win! Just about anybody (with a few exceptions) can participate in the contest and the prizes are amazing!

What are the prizes?

First Prize is $1,000 cash and 5 years free hosting on our Basic Plan

Second Prize is 3 years free hosting + $300 cash

Third Prize is 1 year free hosting + $100 cash

Along with their logo design contest – things are really starting to get creative and fun over at Lunarpages. Oh yeah, might be worth mentioning they are one heck of a good web host too!

Lunarpages is holding a contest for our new t-shirt design, and you are all invited to submit your designs via our community forums. Currently we have black t-shirts with a white design on the back and we would like something a bit snazzier.

Please post your entries on this forum thread as images or a link to your design, and on December 17th we will close out the contest and spend the following 11 days voting as a community on the best 5 entries.

What is the prize? The winning prize is a Xbox 360 or $400! Get more information about the contest over on the Lunarpages forums.

This is Shannon Prue, Scholarship Coordinator for the Daniel Kovach Scholarship Foundation. Just this morning, we started accepting applications for our 2nd annual Blogging Scholarship.

The Grand Prize this year is $10,000 and will be presented at the Blog World and New Media Expo in Las Vegas, this upcoming Nov. 8-9.

We are looking for well qualified applicants, so if you think any of your readers would be eligible, then please let them know about this opportunity. Full details are at CollegeScholarships.org:
http://www.collegescholarships.org/our-scholarships/blogging.htm

What are the requirements to enter?

• Your blog must contain unique and interesting information about you and/or things you are passionate about. No spam bloggers please!!!
• U.S. citizen
• Currently attending full-time in post-secondary education; and
• If you win, you must be willing to allow us to list your name and blog on this page. We want to be able to say we knew you before you became a well educated, rich, and famous blogging legend.

I would say this is an open door that can’t be passed up for any young writers out there that have a blog and a skill at the written (or typed I guess I should say) word.