BOISE, Idaho — With little money for marketing, specialty food maker Donya Schweizer struggled to spread the word about the products in her Donya Marie's Beyond Chocolate line of gourmet foods.

But recently, she joined business giants like Dell computers, Hewlett-Packard and General Motors in marketing through online social networking. One step beyond e-mail, social media apply the power of the Internet to let people share and discuss personal and professional information with many people at once.

She now uses Facebook and Twitter to kick-start word of mouth on her chocolate-infused meat rubs, barbecue sauces and vinaigrettes.

"I have about 1,300 Twitter followers now," Schweizer said. "Many of them have become important business contacts and good customers. It is an invaluable resource. Anything I want to know or need help with, all I have to do is send out a message on Twitter or Facebook and someone always responds. It saves me an enormous amount of time."

Schweizer joined the Internet social world with the help of George Seybold, owner of Boise marketing company Seybold Scientific. Seybold and others involved in social-media marketing have an evangelical zeal for the field's potential. They say social-media marketing combines the mythic effectiveness of word of mouth with the limitless power of the Internet to connect people.

Seybold is a marketing professional who creates social media strategies, among other services, including more traditional marketing campaigns. He helped Schweizer register for an account on Twitter and opened his network to her, telling his Twitter followers that she had an interesting business and they might want to follow her.

In addition to her Web site, www.donyamaries.com, Schweizer uses Facebook and Twitter daily. She sees social media as a business mixer that never ends.

"If there is an opportunity to pick up on a conversation, I will if I'm interested," Schweizer said. "You just have to remember to use the same sense of courtesy and etiquette you would use if you were meeting people face-to-face."

MORE TIME THAN MONEY

Social media can be an integral part of traditional marketing strategy, or can be as simple as creating an account on Facebook and diving in. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Naymz are Web sites that allow people to connect and communicate with an expanding network of acquaintances. Either way, plan on investing more time than money. It takes a commitment to participate in a growing community and to gain the trust of the people who use it.

"There are two ways to get the most out of social media," said Brian Critchfield, co-founder of Boise's Blue Line marketing company and owner of Navel Marketing in Meridian. "One is integration, and the other is monitoring."

Social media marketing should be combined with traditional marketing strategies — using advertising and public relations — so people get a consistent message about a business and its owner.

It's easy to monitor multiple social media sites using an information aggregator like Google alerts or Twitter search, he said. They will update you with blogs, Web sites or posts of interest and send them to your e-mail account or a smart phone.

Like a growing number of people, Critchfield likes Twitter for this because of its 140-character limit on posts.

Brevity is golden with a network like Critchfield's. He follows 426 people on Twitter alone. He also participates in large, active networks on Facebook, LinkedIn and Naymz.

Critchfield says he manages it all by checking in on his Twitter feed three or four times a day for a few minutes at a time.

Registration on most social media sites is free, so for a small investment of time, anyone can use them.

EXPERTS FOR HIRE

Expert help will cost more. Critchfield said combined social and traditional marketing services will cost between $2,000 and $4,000 a month.

For that, you can expect your media will be managed for you — including correspondence and blog writing.

Jenn Harris may be the most zealous social media evangelizer around. Harris leads social media marketing and sales at TSheets, a Meridian company that provides time and labor management applications online.

While she's talking about Twitter, her hands fly in animated excitement and her BlackBerry beeps frequently.

Harris, like Critchfield, is an alumnus of Blue Line.

Later, she was a new media specialist at MPC Computers before being laid off last fall. The Nampa, Idaho, computer maker went out of business at the end of December.

"Two minutes after I was laid off, I Twittered," she said. Her network of friends and associates responded so quickly that Harris had job interviews lined up within hours.

"It really is relationship-building," she said. "Pretend there are no phones or TV or Internet. What would you do? You'd go out and have coffee and create relationships with people. It is marketing 101 from 1902, with the power of the Internet."