If you have tweeted on Twitter, set up a profile on LinkedIn, or used Facebook to promote your business, then you are on the right track when it comes to modern online marketing. But with the advent of new Internet tools and technologies, you should not limit yourself to putting up profiles in social networking sites and linking them to your website. Here are 10 innovative social media trends of 2011 that should make your company an economic tiger in cyberspace.

1. Target-based Marketing
Most of the traffic in your website consists of a multitude of visitors trying to check out what you are offering, but they do not necessarily end up as clients. To acquire and maintain high-value prospects and clients, you need to target their specifics.

Aside from Facebook, familiarize yourself with other sites such as Foursquare, Places, and Gowalla. These tools allow you to determine your prospects’ interests. Knowing what they want, you can design discounts, promotions, giveaways, or campaigns that specifically pique their interests, giving you a bigger chance of a business transaction.

2. Video Platforms
Uploading your videos of your product, services, and company events on Youtube is a good, effective way to advertise your products; after all, YouTube is one of the largest video-sharing sites in the Net. However, other platforms that are not as crowded as Youtube and are more business-focused exist. With these platforms, you can target specific markets. Dailymotion, Viddler, and Vimeo are examples of such sites. They emphasize live streaming straight from your blog, website, or interactive broadcast platform such as Ustream.

3. Text Campaigns
Mobile phones, PDAs, tablets, and similar gadgets are being sold by the millions. Take advantage of this huge number by engaging in text campaigns. Applications such as Enowit and MessageBuzz offer services that allow you to generate a mobile-marketing campaign. Incorporate a mobile widget in your site so that you can automatically get mobile phone numbers.

4. Fundraising Campaigns
Fundraising campaigns are a real turn-on and can draw lots of viewers. An example of this is Tweet-a-thon on Twitter. Users encourage their Tweeter account followers to donate to a particular charitable cause. Gaining immense popularity, these initiatives allow businesses to capitalize on relationship-building, one of the most powerful aspects and capabilities of social media, and develop their corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns.

5. Higher Bandwidth
3G will be a has-been in 2011. Say hello to 4G speed, the latest in cellular wireless standards. 4G provides quicker download times and allows you to send your message to your constituents faster. In 2011 and beyond, customers will be demanding for faster bandwidths.

6. Wordpress-based Websites
Wordpress, an open-source publishing application, is a great platform for blogs and websites. Not only is it easy to use (the platform requires no knowledge of HTML codes to use), but it also integrates search engine optimization at little or no cost at all through plug-ins.

7. Plug-ins
Plug-ins add specific capabilities to a larger software application and, when supported, can tailor the functionality of an application. Thousands of new plug-in options are introduced each month.

Scribe is an example of an increasingly popular search engine optimization plug-in. It monitors and scores your website’s keywords and key phrases and automatically updates your site to increase results to help your SEO endeavor succeed.

8. Review Sites
Customers want to be heard, and they seek answers to their queries. Review sites such as Groubal.com, Epinons.com, and ConsumerSearch can support your company, especially if you have a good product or service. Customers who have positive experiences with your company can spread the word by posting their opinions on your business in review sites. In fact, with the use of review sites, your customers can act as your salesmen, gather more customers for you!

9. Dashboards for Monitoring
Customers feel more comfortable if they know there is a real person behind the website. To make sure your presence as a human being is known in the net, you need to respond promptly to their queries, showing them that you are listening.

Dashboards are excellent online tools that will make the job of monitoring your customers conversations easier. Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Radian6, and Objective Marketer are great examples of dashboards that allow you to keep an eye on and participate in live conversations.

10. Presentation Platforms
Interactive Web seminar platforms such as SlideRocket.com and Prezi.com have easy-to-build presentation tools for webinars. In addition, they have social media, video, and live feeds, which allow your consumers to see or feel you, not just listen over a bridge line.

Don’t get left behind! Integrate these trends in your online marketing plan now.