Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Use The Power Of Article Marketing To Get Listed On Google In 2 Days And Make Money With Even Needing A Website. Use Social Networking Sites Such As Facebook And MySpace To Make Money, Or Use Your Twitter Followers To Promote Your Website.
Artice Czar.
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Every smart online entrepreneur knows that an online home based business needs to have a strong SEO and a web presence in order to be successful. If you are an online entrepreneur then you will be well aware of the fact that if you want to make your online business a success, you will need to market it effectively. Advertising is a key strategy for marketing and creating an online presence. However, advertising can also be a very expensive option and end up depleting your funds before you have earned any.
So how do you market the product that you are promoting and the website that you have created effectively while using the least amount of funds? One of the best and most economic means of accomplishing this is to use social media tools to create a web presence for yourself and work up a following. The internet has several social web media advertising tools that one can use for advertising. Some are expensive, while others are low cost like Zango, Google Adwords, Yahoo and MSN and some others like Twitter, Squidoo, Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, Craigslist and Ustream are zero cost or free.
Selecting the zero or low-cost advertising methods is advisable, especially if you are a beginner. This is because in the case of the internet, low cost or zero cost products and offerings attract the most traffic as compared to those that you have to pay for. Sites like Facebook and Twitter, Squidoo, Myspace, Youtube, Craigslist and Ustream call for no expense on the part of the user and can be far more effective in roping in traffic than sites like Zango.
If you feel that you do not have enough time to manage social networking and work the social mediums like Twitter and Facebook to secure more traffic, then you can sign up with network marketing systems like CarbonCopyPRO that will do all your marketing for you, using such advertisement mediums.
Facebook and Twitter are by far the most successful online advertising mediums that you can use. Even businesses that have been largely successful for many years still resort to these mediums for advertising.
If you are an online business entrepreneur, it is imperative that you create a web presence for yourself or advertise your product on these social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Youtube, Craigslist and Ustream. After you have becomes successful, you can then opt for low cost and then perhaps later high cost advertising mediums.
Brian Dinelli is a business coach and mentor that assists serious entrepreneurs in building a profitable online business with multiple incomes streams. Brian and his team have assisted hundreds of people in generating profits that exceed $250K or more in their first year. For more information and to contact Brian, visit: http://www.TheFriendlyMillionaire.com
Sunday, January 24th, 2010
Whenever I have a chiropractor approach me and speak about how pay per click advertising on Google and Yahoo is the best thing since sliced bread, I sit back and smile. When chiropractic practices or other small business newbies first break into internet marketing, usually these paid mediums are the first types of marketing exploited since they appear to be quick, simple, and promising in returns. Quite honestly, there excitement is only natural, as it feels like a big accomplishment to begin to market on the internet. Now, it is possible to run highly profitable Google Adwords campaigns, however, the hard reality is most spend thousands upon thousands in hard knocks with nothing to show.
Personally, I am known throughout the chiropractic marketing world as the social media expert, YouTube chiropractor, video marketing and social networking authority. I choose to take advantage and teach others how to mine these free websites for tons of new patients and create multiple sources of income. But, in lieu of this I have a confession.
My confession is that for the longest time I ran pay per click advertising. Not only did I utilize it, I was running killer campaigns that would get me 15 new patients per month on average. Did it happen overnight? Absolutely not! I spend $10,000 on this type of medium before I found a formula that worked. If you don’t have money to lose for testing and tweaking your ads then you should probably stay away from pay per click advertising.
So, what can you do if you’re trying to get the most bang for your buck in this economic crisis that we are facing? Well, I strongly feel that harnessing free mediums of chiropractic marketing and advertising first is where you should begin. One of the main reasons is because there is no financial risk, period! Another reason is because websites like YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace are in the top 8 most popular and visited websites in the world.
You are simply putting your message and your story in front of masses of targeted people. You can meet people that have the exact same interests as you along with tons of members in your local community. With a simple click of a mouse you can be spreading your chiropractic message and promoting your practice like wildfire.
Video marketing is also going to stomp the search engines like Google and Yahoo in 2009 so be prepared. Over 50% of all online content at this moment is video and it will continue to dominate the organic search results for years to come. People get a chance to see and know you before ever walking into your chiropractic office. This is great PR and and has been shown to be the best virtual medium for acquiring new chiropractic patients on the planet!
If you choose to utilize pay per click (PPC) for your chiropractic marketing and advertising, make sure to set a daily spending limit. This was a rookie mistake that I made about 5 years ago when I dove in. You can literally specify that you only want to shell-out $20 dollars a day and Google will run your ads sporadically and dispersed so you will still get exposure. I didn’t set a limit originally and I unintentionally spent about $130 my first day!
PPC is by no means worthless, but there is an appropriate time and a place to use it. Whether you can get 40 new patients a month out like some chiropractors claim is up in the air. Make sure you are willing to pay $1-5 dollars per click, too. Depending on your area, this may very well be more or sometimes less costly. It is also best to put a specific condition in the headline like “back pain.” Many times I see chiropractors use their personal or practice name which is a bad idea. Put your ego aside and focus on the patient and what condition they are seeking relief from. This will assure you a higher return on your investment and better response.
- Matthew J. Loop, DC
Want to get tons of New Patients every month with free chiropractic marketing? Learn how to make $30,000 + / month and create multiple sources of income with this ultimate social media video training series. Visit http://DCincome.com right now before your zip-code is gone for good!
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
Twitter has been around for quite some time now. And its popularity has been instrumental. The cute bird logo and the simple platform to share tweets with friends, colleagues and family have made it an effective social network. Twitter being a microblogging platform is well suited for today’s faced paced life where people around the world complain of lack of time to blog or share information with their social circle.
The number of users who are switching to Twitter is on rise. People are moving from the conventional blogging or social networks like Facebook and MySpace to Twitter’s tweets. However, it is not only about sharing information with your friends. Twitter has a lot more to offer. Following are ten tips to extract best out of Twitter:
Keep it short and simple when it comes to tweets. It is a microblogging platform and condensed to 140 characters per tweet. To unfollow you is just a click away for your followers. Therefore tweet often and tweet only quality. Follow people strategically. Just don’t follow anyone to everyone. Especially when you are planning to explore the marketing possibilities through Twitter. Therefore establish a base of followers or start following others if they have share similar interests as yours. Twitter is not all about making money. It is an effective social media network that enables you to connect to people around the globe in no time. Do not post spam through your tweets. It is a big turn off for others. You can use tools like Tweet Later and others to manage your tweets when you are on the move. Through these you can save your tweets and set them accordingly to publish the tweet in future. Retweet to the tweets of your friends and followers. This helps in building rapport amongst them. They would only be interested in you if you are interested in their deeds. Don’t post too much. Concentrate on posting some quality content if you are trying to derive business benefits from Twitter. Make a complete profile. Make sure to include ‘One line Bio’ and other details like interests and hobbies. Always follow an influential and innovative people. You can grow with them.
Twitter is just a social networking tool. If you are looking to explore business benefits through viral marketing or general marketing of your products and services, you have to spend more time on twitter. The time you need to spend would majorly involve in identifying a quality set of followers or people whom you can follow. Be patient as a newbie. Start to discover the features twitter can offer. It is important for you to understand how to leverage the reach of Twitter and use it accordingly to drive your business needs. So discover the business possibilities through Twitter!
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
A “niche” or specialized social network can be a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to build a unique website where members identify more closely as a group based on their profession, training or experiences.
Niche websites can allow advertisers to reach a more concentrated group of potential customers, which can let you sell advertising space on your website at a premium.
Unlike FaceBook or MySpace which attracts millions of people of all ages, and interests, a niche social network website attracts a smaller group people of like mind and interests. You can easily build a more focused, where everyone “gets” all the other members.
What is a Social Network Website?
Social network websites have a number of features which makes it easy for website members to join the community, create a member profile, join groups, post blogs, send private emails, make friends, discuss topics in forums and more.
MySpace and FaceBook, two of the largest social networks, have millions of members from all walks of life, all ages and many different interests and backgrounds.
What is a Niche Market Website?
A niche website is a social network website where members share a common background or career experience-something all the members can relate to.
For instance, your niche market social website might be for firefighters, artists, Corvette owners, camera collectors or entrepreneurs.
Many people have a hobby or interest they truly love, and would like to meet up with others who share that interest. While anyone can join Facebook or MySpace, finding other members with similar interests among the millions of members on the large social network websites is time consuming, and often members can get lost in just figuring out what all they can do on a large website.
Building Your Website – Two Approaches
Free or rental – If you want a quick and easy website solution, consider using Ning.com.
Ning.com allows you to set up your own social network using their system for free. It is easy to get started and this approach can be a great place to try your idea for a niche website, without spending a lot of money out of pocket initially.
Ning.com does let you upgrade your website, so if you want enhanced features, have your wallet handy.
Keep in mind that you will be limited to what they provide you in terms of software and features and advertising.
While having a “free” website may sound attractive, you will need to spend quite a bit of time and effort setting up your website, adding your website’s logo and initially marketing the website. Keep in mind that you are inside the Ning.com network, and later if you decide to move your website away from ning.com, they in fact own the website.
Be sure to read all the fine print first or consider a website that you own 100%.
100% Owned – If you want to own your website entirely so you can have full control over your website look and feel, database and everything within the website, consider buying some off the shelf software and hosting your website yourself.
There are a number of social network applications that can provide a robust website that you own totally. Software such as Social Engine provides website owners access to the source code, the ability to add additional features to the website via plugins and offers several design templates to choose from.
Keep in mind you may want to own your website entirely so it has a greater value in case you want to sell the website or make major programming changes to the website.
Selecting Website Software…
Installing software on a website server is not quite the same as installing a program on your own computer.
Hosting companies will typically have “shared” hosting servers, so there are very strict guidelines as to what any hosting customer can install. Applications are typically PHP, CGI, Ruby on Rails, NET and CFM.
You will need mature, reliable software which has many websites using the software, not something that is brand new and unproven.
There are many software developers who offer MySpace or FaceBook “clone” software for a few hundred dollars, which seems too good to be true – and it is.
Keep in mind, that if the software you purchase is from a one person company or individual developer, you probably will not experience good, reliable software support. And if the individual stops supporting the software, or decides to take a full-time job, you may be stuck with obsolete software that cannot be upgraded, ultimately affecting your website and business.
Find a Reliable Technology Partner
If you are not technical and most of the above seems like “Greek” (or “Geek”) to you, find someone to work with you who has some technical skills or you may want to consider using a “free” or low cost hosted solution like Ning.com.
If you are looking to build a business around your niche market, work with a website design company who has some experience with application integration and some experience with creating a social network website.
A website designer will be able to help you with selecting and evaluating software and with the customizing of your website, branding and can help you with all the technical issues.
Review Application Demos
Make sure you check out actual working demos of software and look at actual websites running the software before you take the plunge. Poorly supported software, no matter how slick it is, will be frustrating to use. It can be especially frustrating to learn, after you spend several days to customize your software, that it has software bugs or just is not going to work the way you expected it to.
Make sure the website administration area is easy to use. As the website community “host” and administrator, you will using the Administration system on a daily basis to manage users and work on the website. Make sure the system you go with is intuitive and relatively easy to use, which will save you time and effort over the long haul.
Look for official support forums where website owners are use using the software you are considering. These discussion groups are great for getting a feel for how well the software you are considering is supported and discussion groups can give you insight into community building and growing your website.
Software that just shows you screen shots and where there is no official support forums should be avoided. Usually these software programs force you to buy first and suffer from very poor customer support.
Contact website owners
If you see a social network site or software that you like and seems to have a good mix of features, you might consider contacting the website owner and see what they will share with you about what they are using for software, and how they built their website.
Do not expect the owner to give you endless help with how to build your own website-do your homework first and ask a few relevant questions. Remember, their time is valuable and you don’t want to wear out your welcome.
Hosting Basics
Use a reliable hosting company. While the hosting company will not help you install software and build your website, they can be very helpful in helping to get an application or script running on your website.
Make sure the hosting plan you have will allow for your website growth. Social network websites can contain a lot of photographs, videos and can get very busy at times. Be sure you can later upgrade your hosting plan if needed to give you more server space and bandwidth.
The Importance of Backups
Make regular backups. I like to use hosting that has Cpanel. Cpanel is a control panel that will let you make daily, weekly or monthly backups.
Backups are important in case your website gets hacked or there’s a problem with the server. While hosting companies do back up their networks, your website is essentially a database and if it gets corrupted or you need to move to another hosting company, you will need to have a recent backup.
Work with a “niche” group you know inside and out
For your website, be sure to go with a group you belong to or identity with. You are building an online community, and if you have a lot of enthusiasm and interest in what the group is about, this will help your website to be successful.
When members see that the website owner is “one of them”, you can personalize the website more easily and members will see you as a person, not as a faceless website.
Starting an online community takes a lot of time and dedication. If you love woodworking and you live out in your woodshop and you love to share with other woodworkers, then starting your own online community for that group is a great idea.
On the other hand, if you only like the idea of a group, and you haven’t “walked the walk” and can’t “talk the talk” you will have to rely on recruiting some key members to help build momentum in your website, which may take some time and effort.
Tips for Building Your Online Community
1) Lead by example
You will have “seed” your online community by starting a few discussion groups, inviting members to join, and nurturing the community along.
Some members who join will jump in and contribute and be active in the community, but other members will join, post a comment and do nothing more for several months.
You will have to lead by example and contribute blogs, comments and forum topics initially until you have enough members on board to share the load with you.
2) Be patient
The first month or two will go slowly as you slowly new members. With an empty website, some potential members will be turned off, others will get what your website is about and start contributing.
You will need to be pro-active. Invite people you know to join and you will contact clubs or organizations who have members that are appropriate for your website. Invite the club or organization’s president or key people to check out your website.
Remember the 80/20 rule-100 members signing up will give you 20 members who will really do something on the website in terms of contributing.
Seek out and befriend those who are contributing to your website. While social network websites generate their own content, but it is the members who are active that make it happen, and some encouragement and recognition on your part will go a long way..
3) Treat your website seriously
Starting an online community then only checking in once a week or once a month or so to see how it is doing will not work. This is like starting a restaurant and expecting it to run itself.
If you start a community, you have to be involved and constantly looking for ways to engage members. You should be a community leader and involved on a daily basis.
Starting a niche social network website is a lot like throwing a party.
A good host will make sure all the party goers are having a good time and make sure the refreshments and food is available so a handful of people becomes a noisy crowd having a great time.
4) Set Reasonable Expectations
If you start a community hoping to cash in on advertising revenue or commissions on affiliate programs in the first year… it is probably not going to happen. Building your website membership and getting website traffic will take time.
Focus first on building your membership and getting your members involved in the the community. Send out monthly emails to members to profile members and to point out new groups and areas of interest in the website. Refine your website to make it better as time goes on.
By first create something of value, your members will help spread the word to others and your community will grow.
Later, you can focus on how to do some cost recovery or make money with advertising on your website.
5) Do your homework
Remember, you get what you pay for. Free website services rarely are truly free. Most have hidden strings attached and moving your website from a free or low-cost service to a 100% owned system will mean somehow importing your old website into a new system, which may require custom programming.
Use Google to do research on hosting companies, and find complaints about software or online services you are considering, and to learn how to market your website and grow your community.
6) Have a 1, 3 and 5 year plan
Plan on a year to initially build, launch and to start your website growing.
Keep in mind you will need several years to grow and develop the website, especially if you grow by word of mouth and you don’t have a large advertising budget.
Bigger is not always better… a small community that is close-knit and vibrant will be easier to grow than an overly-ambitious large website that is under-funded.
7) Spell out Your Terms of Service
You must have a Terms of Service page with your website rules and what will happen to members who violate your terms of service. Having rules in place beforehand will make it easier to deal with misunderstandings or problem members later on.
You can review several websites to get ideas of what should be covered in your own Terms of Service and you can of course have a lawyer draw up a final document for you.
Practice Tough Love
It will take a few weeks or maybe even months for your website to start growing and to pick up momentum, and at first it seems that every new member is invaluable to helping make the website grow.
You will have some people join who have their own agenda in that they are less interested in helping you to build a community and more interested in promoting themselves or recruiting your members, or spamming members.
Do not hesitate to give members who violate your website rules or Terms of Service, “the boot” if they are clearly violating your website rules.
Sometimes new members may not have much experience with social networks and may just not know how to post correctly. Contacting problem members and offering to help them or to explain to them why you have certain rules can go a long way and help you build a great community. But if someone is not listening or is not a good community member, you must be prepared to disable or delete their account so they do not drive off other members.
Robert Goodwin has a degree in graphic art and has been involved in website projects since 1997. Robert is a frequent contributor to Expert-Website-Design.com
Monday, January 11th, 2010
Social networking has made the process of marketing your eBook much easier. By having a presence on Facebook and Twitter you can position yourself as an expert in your field in a very short time. Even while you are still writing your eBook, get started on these two social media sites and become the go-to person in your niche.
Facebook now has more than one hundred million members, so the best way to let people know about you and your eBook is to start your own group. You can use the title of your eBook as the title of the group you create, provided it is filled with your keywords.
You can invite your Facebook friends to join your group, but people will also be able to find your group by typing your keywords into Google or any other search engine. For example, if you type ebook writing and technology into Google, my Facebook group is number one. How cool is that?
You will also want to create a page on Facebook with the name of the eBook as the title. A page is separate from your profile in that it is specifically about your business or your product, which in this case is your eBook.
This page will also rank high in the search engines, but that is not the only way it will help people to find you and your eBook. When you create a page you can also import your blog’s RSS feed into the page. This means that every time you make a post to your blog it will automatically be syndicated into Facebook. Even though you can do this in other areas of Facebook, being able to import your blog, where you are writing about your niche topic, will give your eBook even more exposure.
My strong recommendation is that you purchase a domain name that is the same as the name of your eBook, and then forward that domain to your page on Facebook. Your blog’s domain name can be something very similar, or it can be exactly the same with a different extension. For example, your blog may end with dot come, whereas your Facebook page may end with dot net. This is a great way to take full advantage of your keywords, while branding your name and your niche at the same time.
Twitter is the other major player in the social networking arena. You can set up your account to automatically tweet your blog posts at certain times each day. When you write about your eBook in one of your blog posts, anyone who is following you on Twitter will see what you have written.
Even though you are limited to 140 characters with each tweet, you can shorten your links by using a site such as tinyurl or bitly. This enables you to provide great information about your eBook in the space you are allowed. You may also want to give out a sample chapter to your Twitter followers so that they can see if this is something they will be interested in purchasing. I recommend doing this while you are still writing, so that you will already have prospects when you are ready to make sales.
The combination of Facebook, Twitter, and your blog will give you the online presence you need in order to sell your eBook and become known to your target audience. By seeing your name in so many places, you will be able to attract new prospects and clients on a regular basis.
By getting involved in social networking right now, you will be able to position yourself as the expert in your niche. People will know who you are and associate you with your topic. There has never been a better time to be online than right now, and social networking speeds up the process of building your list and gaining the credibility and visibility necessary to sell your eBook and building your online empire.
Connie Ragen Green teaches you how to write articles and eBooks to build an online business, as well as how to use the technology needed. Visit http://www.EbookWritingandMarketingSecrets.com to find out more.
Saturday, January 9th, 2010
I am currently using this system to generate alot of traffic to my current website just by using a new web 2.0 system called twitter. For those of you who live underneath a rock for the past few years; twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets.
Twitter is exploding onto the market and it’s one of the fast growing social networks on the web. Currently, twitter is the third largest social network (besides Facebook and MySpace) with 55 million visits a month.
I have learned alot of tricks using Twitter to build my online business. How couldn’t it work for your online business?
Imagine, 1 month from now, you have thousands of people following you on Twitter, who all respect you and value what you have to say.
Imagine thousands of people recognize your name or your business name, and regularly visit your website or Blog.
Imagine making a ‘tweet’ (post on twitter) and instantly, thousands of people go to YOUR website and buy what you are selling, or fill out your affiliate offers, making you money instantly!
Imagine being able to build your lead list at lightning speed, and then monetizing that list to make constant money from it, because the people on your list now respect & trust you.
My friends, the time is now to get access to one of the fastest growing social networking sites on the web. it’s time to automate your marketing and earn more leads, traffic and more money.
See why so many others are tapping into this massive market: http://hotshorturl.com/uq17
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
Copyright © Tyler Pratt
http://internetmarketingfreecourses.com
When I get up in the morning the first thing I ask myself is “what are 5 things I have to do today to gain more traffic to my website”. All 5 are things that I just hate to perform.
Why would I hate them? Because I am lazy and I would rather go the beach and do nothing. I want the shortest road, the quick way, the get rich by doing nothing.
You know, the lazy mans way to riches.
Well I spent a lot of time hoping that things would just happen without any work. This brings me back to the things I hate to do but are a must if you want to succeed at making money online.
I have made a conscious switch in my mind that the things I hate to do I now love. The 5 things I love to perform each day are….
1. Writing and submitting informative articles are now the top task I love to perform each day. I found a simple strategy to help me pump out 5 articles each day. When I start I will take my topic for the day, “link building” , “free traffic”, “article marketing” and then search on google for information about this topic. Once I find a nice article or press release I will read it and then add 5 bullet points to my text editor about that article. From there I just start typing, not worrying about how bad my spelling or grammar is. With this I can type out a nice 500 word article in about 15 minutes. And this is good fresh content that I can post to articles directories.
2. Twitter and Facebook are 2 website that you must start to love. These sites are the place that “ALL” people on the internet hang out. This is the best place to drop a few lines of text and add in a link back to your website. Love em or hate em, these sites have massive amounts of traffic.
3. Everyday I love to update my personal blog and all the other free blogs. My personal blog is profitsbox.com and I like to use wordpress.com and blogger.com. Both are free and they will let you take your new article and add it to there site. With your link at the bottom… of course.
4. What I hate the most but I fight thru it, and now I love is answering questions on yahoo. Why do I hate it, well because I want to be on the beach and not answering question on yahoo. But doing this will get you some big time traffic back to your site. Try and be the first to answer a question and add your link as the source.
5. What I really do love the most is posting on forums. This is a place that I can talk with like minded people who share my comment interest. And its a place that I can promote my websites. The signature at the bottom of each post has my link back to my site, so the more I post the more my link shows up. I try and set a goal that I will respond to at least 10 new threads each day.
Can you believe it? These are the things I hate to love each day. What I find so funny is I struggle to get them done and they only take about 1 hour out of my day. But once I am done then I have the rest of the day to go and play at the beach.
How I went from $0 to $20,000 per month, your Free Gift worth $397
Make Money Secret Formula
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
Social Media Marketing, which is also known as Social Influence Marketing, is the method of using social influencers, social media platforms, and online communities for marketing, public relations, and customer service. Some of the more common social media marketing tools include Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube. One of the major benefits of advertising on a social networking site is that advertisers can leverage the users’ demographics and target their ads appropriately.
In terms of Internet marketing, Social Media refers to a collective group of web properties whose content is mostly published by Internet users, not direct employees of the property (ie, the vast majority of videos on YouTube are published by non-YouTube employees).
Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a series of methods that generate publicity through social media, online communities, and community websites. Social media marketing has two important aspects:
(1) Adding links to services so that their pages can be easily saved and submitted to and for those services.
(2) Building brand or company methods that visitors can promote themselves in multiple online social media venues.
The guidelines of Social Media Marketing are not easy to define. Because the concept is still so new, many bloggers, as well as public relations experts, marketers, and social media experts, don’t always agree on their definition of what Social Media Marketing involves. Quantitative results from social media remain hard to measure.
Companies can count page views and compare the number of positive vs negative comments. Sometimes, consumer feedback can influence an important decision. Online social networks started as digital gathering places where people could communicate with each other. Currently, companies are using social media more and more, hoping to sell their products and services or get their message out where consumers are constant visitors.
Blogs and social networks comprise an emerging social web. The social web includes social media sites and it is a place where social media marketing can occur. It’s not just the technologically savvy brands that have pages on Facebook, post videos on YouTube, and exchange short messages with consumers on Twitter. Long-established companies that are used to traditional forms of marketing and advertising are also experimenting. Companies that now embrace the idea of communicating directly with the consumer find that consumers respond positively to that kind of personal contact. The potential for your business to grow exponentially is very real.
As Internet usage continues to grow in other parts of the world and social networks continue to proliferate, advertising dollars on social networking sites outside of the US will begin to play a major role as well.
Social Media Marketing as a Selling Tool
What is one of the most valuable and credible selling tools that you can use? The most credible tool that you can use when considering whether to buy a product or service is word of mouth. Other people who have had personal experience with those products and/or services will be your most reliable and credible source for advice. This applies to both online and offline buying; those who use online social networks are three times more likely to trust the opinion of others in their network than traditional advertising when it comes down to making a decision about a purchase.
How does that apply to you and your business? Social Media Marketing is the latest trend in the word-of-mouth marketing arena and optimizing your Social Media Marketing strategy lets you leverage your own unique content, along with social media tools and sites, to communicate important information within your area of expertise. This concept, especially in combination with search engine optimization (SEO), is an extremely effective tool that drives valuable traffic to your website. Social media marketing uses fresh content and tools such as news, social bookmarking, social networking, content tagging, and other interactive social websites to create brand awareness, establish thought leadership, increase qualified website traffic(which, combined with SEO and information architecture, can help increase your lead generation), and develop a community.
Implementing a successful and effective social media marketing strategy requires an understanding of the subject and available tools, a well thought-out plan, and experience in driving traffic through the use of the content. If all of those are part of your formula, your business is bound to succeed.
We are pleased to provide you the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.
Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications, a consulting company specializing in developing communication strategies for small businesses that require expertise in promoting a unique business voice and vision on the Internet.
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
Sapna Gupta, Founder & Owner of Sapna Jewels has innovated a business model that merges old world craftsmanship with cutting edge networking.
‘Sapna Jewels’ is a Mumbai, India based firm that specializes in “made to order” designer diamond jewellery at affordable prices. When Sapna was looking to expand her business she initially thought about using all the traditional methods of marketing such as sending out mailers, taking part in jewellery exhibitions and hoping for positive word of mouth references.
Being computer savvy and a part of the social networking phenomenon sweeping the world, Facebook, this 29 year old entrepreneur decided to leverage this platform to her advantage. She set up a Facebook ‘group’ for her company and then using Facebook’s built in advertising mechanism, released a series of ads aimed at women in her key markets of India, Pakistan and the Middle East.
The ads were an instant hit and in the first 2 months the membership on her group had swollen to nearly 800 women. Working women, bollywood starlets, corporate high fliers, and social butterflies were all signing up. From the first month itself she had orders coming in from across the subcontinent, neighbouring Pakistan and the Middle East.
Of course her fabulous jewellery helped. But this young lady had left nothing to chance. She had already set up a crisp website alongside, providing information about her services and had all her catalogues online, ready to be downloaded.
Says Gupta, “The women who are joining my group love the fact that they can access my catalogues right from the comfort of their PC. They can then discuss design changes via email or phone calls and make payments via credit cards and online bank transfers”.
Indeed, her savvy marketing is slowly but surely helping change the way women across Asia are choosing to select and buy their diamond jewellery. Earlier, they would have to set aside time to browse through local shops and jewellers in crowded by lanes, haggle over pricing and yet not walk away confident of having bagged a good deal.
“When prospective clients view our online catalogues, all they have to do is send in the product codes of the designs of their choice and within 1 business day they receive a detailed breakup clearly indicating the making charges, gold charges, diamond & other assorted charges.”, says Gupta.
Sapna Gupta realized that the women of today want better service, more choice, convenience to shop on their own time and above all honesty. Sapna Jewels with its innovative and transparent process is attempting to provide a more pleasurable, and honest buying experience to its clients.
Akshay Gupta covers trends emerging from the Indian subcontinent in Internet Marketing & Social Networking.
