Social media clutters the web in a variety of happy colors. From the light blue of twitter to the bright orange of blogger, social media has made more than a playground out of the web. We shouldn’t have to say it, but shame on anyone who has neglected their social campaigns. Everyone loves to talk about SEO, but for the intelligent individuals who really understand how to harness the power of social media building links may fall a second priority to “wall posting” and “friending.”

Why is has social networking become so powerful, and more importantly how can you use it to drive massive amounts of traffic? Those are the questions we set out to answer. This is what we discovered.

Social networking started long before myspace, friendster or even my childhood favorite, AIM. It probably began somewhere in the mountains or in a desert where people left hieroglyphs for each other to discover and talk about. Or maybe it started with amoeba organizing themselves into groups and standing for something. Either way it was definitely not invented by hackers at 2 a.m. getting wasted in ivy league dorm rooms.