External public social networking services, such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Friendster, can be valuable sales, marketing, and support tools. These services comprise extensive networks of users who are self-organized into groups and communities. Users establish connections directly with other users to form a personal friends network. Users also...

The idea of Social marketing came to effect in the 1970s. During that period Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman realized that the same marketing principles that were being used to sell products to consumers could be used to “sell” ideas, attitudes and behaviors. Kotler and Andreasen mentions social marketing as “differing from other areas...