Category: Social Media For Biz

Video: Brad discusses how to effectively use Twitter in your online business.

One of the primary reasons that social media exists in the first place is to engage. Social media gives people a platform to reach out to each other, whether that purpose is fundamentally business or pleasure. People wish to engage with each other constantly, and social media gives people the ability to do so in real time, around the world.

This is why social media is such a popular way for people to touch base, since it can be done anywhere, at any time. While a physical storefront will have hours of operation, the social networking sites never close.

Essentially, the final step in the three part process regarding the offline business’ approach to social media should be getting people to engage with you and your business. You want people to subscribe to you Twitter feeds and Facebook profiles in order so you can communicate with them in a regular manner, and keep them interested in your content and wares.

There are several ways you can use social media to engage your potential customers other than simply leaving messages on a Twitter feed. Many people these days are turning to video blogging, or “videologging,” which is an excellent way to reach out to customers in a way that best simulates the face-to-face interaction that you have with them at your store. If you can post videos of yourself talking about your product, it goes a long way toward creating that kind of proof of expertise that you have when you speak about your product in the store.

A great way to augment the engagement factor you’ll get through working with social media is to have a blog or website to center everything on. This means that you’ll have a place to reference your potential customers to visit. It’s even better if you can offer an online shopping center as well with your website, as this allows you to take even better advantage of the engagement of social networking. It’s important to be able to engage customers local to you so that they’ll visit the store, of course, but don’t forget about the rest of the world, as well! Offering an online store allows you to make the entire world your selling market, not limited to the locality of your physical store.

Essentially, as a business owner who owns a physical store, you are in a unique position to use social media as a weapon both online and offline. You can use it to think both globally and locally at the same time, and end up with incredible increases to your revenue. Don’t let the social media revolution pass you by – even though it might sound like a daunting arena to enter, it’s an entirely free way to up your engagement level with customers both locally and around the world.

If you have spent any amount of time looking into advertising your business online, then you know there are all kinds of options available to you. All of them seem to be screaming that they are the best method, but the truth is that any internet marketing can be effective if you know how to use it. The two methods we’re going to compare are solo ezine advertising and safelist solo ads. First, let’s take a look at what each one is.

An ezine is basically a newsletter that is delivered to the subscriber’s computer via email. The ezine will cover one topic and appeals to those who are interested in the topic. Each issue of the ezine may contain ads, but such ads will be competing with other ads as well as the actual content of the newsletter. That’s where solo ezine advertising comes in. This is where the publisher of the newsletter will send your ad to all of their subscribers, without anything else competing for the reader’s attention.

Safelist solo ads are a bit different. A safelist is an email exchange. Everybody that signs up agrees to read email messages in exchange for their message being read. Readers click a special link within the email to prove that they have read the message, so they can receive credit. The more messages you read, the more people you can randomly send to. However, if you pay for a solo ad you can normally choose how many people will get it, or (at the highest level) have it sent to everybody participating in the safelist.

The big benefit of solo ezine advertising is that the newsletter covers one topic. Therefore, if you sell a related product or service, then you can be sure that you are targeting people that will be interested in your offer. Safelists typically don’t have any requirement as to specific topics, so the targeting of safelist solo ads is more tricky. Your best bet with safelists is if you’re selling something safelist users would want; such as information on how to make more money with safelists.

Another big difference between the two is that ezine subscribers are more likely to actually read each issue they receive. So when they receive your ad, they are more likely to spend time to read it, and consider your offer. Safelist messages, on the other hand are not typically read all that closely. Why not? Because most safelist users are only trying to build up credits to get more people to read their ads. So, instead of reading each message, they are just hunting for the link that will give them credit, and then they move on to the next one.

Does this mean solo ezine advertising is better than safelist solo ads, or vice-versa? Not at all. It just means that you should understand the pros and cons of each one before you use it to market your own business using either one, or both, of these methods.

There is no doubt that we are struggling through a troubled economy right now, but nobody seems to know how long this downturn is going to last. Unfortunately, this makes a lot of people so nervous that they don’t know what to do. While some of you may have heard of this “making money online” thing, you aren’t really sure what it all means. First, let me put you at ease and let you know that it is completely possible to make money, and not everything is a scam. For example, a lot of successful people like to blog for money.

Let’s start with some of the basics. A blog is really nothing more than an online journal, and is a short for web log. The best part is that you can start blogging for no cost. Even better is that there are some online blog services that make it really easy to get up and running, regardless of how computer savvy you may or may not be. It typically takes anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or two to get your blog started.

Your first task is to decide what the main topic of your blog will be. Your goal is to blog for money, but if you can choose a subject that you’re interested in, it will be much easier to keep on blogging. On the other hand, if you just want to make as much money as possible, then you should take some time to learn about the various methods of choosing hot niche markets. This will give you more return on your efforts if you go about it the ri

There is a big myth about online marketing, and that is internet advertising costs nothing. The fact of the matter is that all advertising costs something. However, one of the biggest advantages of advertising on the web is that you don’t necessarily have to pay with money; at least not to get started. Instead, you can pay with your time. This is great news because it means that virtually anybody can start a business if they can spare some extra time.

You need to consider several factors before deciding what’s best for you and your business. It will take you longer to build an income if you only use free advertising methods, so it’s a good idea to start reinvesting a portion of your initial earnings into paid options as soon as you can.

There are a lot of free ways to market your business online. Some of the better known ones include traffic exchanges, safelists, article marketing, social networking sites, forums and online classified ads. Here is a brief overview of each of these methods.

Traffic exchanges are where you visits a certain number of sites in exchange for people visiting your site. A typical ratio is where you need to visit three sites to get one visit back to yours. You will need to visit each site for about 20 seconds before it counts, but that means others have to visit your site for that amount of time as well. Safelists work in a similar manner, but you have to read email messages as opposed to viewing websites. So, the more sites you visit or emails you read, the more people you will have viewing yours.

Article marketing can be done with little or no internet advertising costs, depending on your ability as a writer. Here you simply write articles that are related to your business. You then submit these to various article directories, and include a link at the end of the article for readers to visit your site.

Social networking sites and forums put the power of communities to work for you. This takes time because you have to focus on building relationships with the people of each community. You have to be careful that you don’t use a “hard sell”, or you will just make people mad.

Online classified ads work just like putting an ad in the newspaper. You will be limited to how many words you can use, but that should help you in choosing your words more carefully. One of the downsides is that the free ads tend to move down the page quite quickly, so you will have to submit ads as often as each site allows. The other problem is that the only people who will be viewing your ad are people using the site themselves to advertise. For the most part, the average internet user will never visit a classified ad site.

Yes, internet advertising costs one way or the other. But if you’re just getting started, and don’t have any money to spend, then it’s good to know that there are plenty of options that only require an investment of your time.

There are many different social networking websites on the internet and each of them have different features that they offer. With these sites you can meet new people and make new friends as well connect with potential customers for your business. One very effective method of marketing your business with social networking is with a social networking blog.

There are two ways to market your business with social networking blogs.

1. Join a general social network site that allows you to have a blog as part of your personal profile.

2. Join an actual blogging based social networking site. These websites are created specifically for people to blog and meet other people through their writing.

When you write on a blog it can be very personal and also offer some great information so this is a very effective way to promote your business on a social networking site. With social network blogs you are allowing people to get to know you on a more personal level which builds a good relationship with your potential customers.

There are so many different social networking blogs around the internet and more are being created all the time. Some of the popular blogging sites are WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Weebly, LiveJournal and Soulcast. Even larger social networking sites like MySpace have the option of blogging within your account, which allows you to use their website a big part of a business marketing plan. With these social websites you can reach out to existing and new customers within the networking community.

With social networking blogs you can create personal blogs or business blogs or a mixture of both. If you are creating a blog for your business it is recommended to have a personal approach so you can develop a connection with other members. When you regularly write on your blog you will find that other members will view your blog and your profile and get a good idea about who you are and what you bring to the community. Members will know what you are about, what your business is about and what you are trying to achieve and they can respond accordingly.

Social networking blogs allow you to reach out to new friends, business partners, customers or even to build personal relationships. If you are honest with your blog and open about what you do and what you have to offer then you will attract people that are interested in your business and your niche.

When you create a social networking blog you should fill in your details in your profile so that if anyone wants to get a good idea of who you are and the interests you like, they can do so by viewing your profile. Your profile doesn’t change at any time unless you update it so if you change any details be sure to update them in your profile.

To get the most out of social networking on the internet you really should have a social networking blog to promote your business.

No matter how big or small your business is, and no matter how old or new, you can only succeed if people know about it. Whether you do this through radio, television, the newspaper, word of mouth, or over the internet; it is absolutely vital to the success of your business. After all, you may have the best product anywhere, but if nobody is aware of it, then it’s the same as not having it at all. Regardless of which methods you are using now, the internet and advertising are ideal for marketing your product or service.

While not everyone on the planet is on the internet, there is an amazing number of people who have access to it. There has never been anything like it in history. It gives you the potential to have customers all around the world. People go online for all kinds of reasons, and most of those reasons go hand-in-hand with the internet and advertising. For example, people often log on to the web to find solutions to their problems. If you are able to offer a solution they are willing to pay for, then you have just made a sale!

Another great thing about advertising online is that you can gather tons of useful information about your site’s visitors. Where they are from, what operating system they’re using, they’re web browser, how long they stayed on your site and what links they clicked are just a few of the things you can find out; each of which can help you to market more effectively.

When it comes to the internet and advertising you have the ability to easily change your marketing message, and it costs virtually nothing to make those changes. But, you don’t have to just guess what changes to make because you can track the results of all of your changes. You do this by using what’s known as ‘split testing’. This is where you make a change or two to something, then compare it to a control. Then you keep whichever performed better, and that becomes the control for your next split test. By repeating these steps you can see major increases in your bottom line.

The low barrier to entry is another benefit of advertising online. There are many methods you can try for no cost at all. Now, these may take longer than the paid options, but they are an excellent way to get started and see what happens. However, don’t let the low barrier fool you. You still need to take online marketing seriously. Give careful consideration to who your target market is, and the message you are using to reach them. This is just another aspect of running your business, and should be treated as such.

The internet and advertising are an almost perfect match. In fact, there isn’t any reason for you to not add online advertising to your overall marketing plan. It’s easy, it’s inexpensive, and best of all…it’s effective.

Video: Creating Facebook Applications

Most social media is entirely virtual in nature, like the oft-mentioned Facebook and MySpace. These provide people the means to connect with each other on a virtual level, but do very little in the way of having people meet in the physical realm. (Of course, there’s always the chance that people on Facebook will choose to meet with each other of their own volition, but that’s something that’s arranged by the individuals on a personal level, and not something directly encouraged by way of the social media platform.)

With MeetUp, though, the game is entirely different. A MeetUp group is a way of social networking wherein physically meeting others in the group is the entire point of the website. There are literally hundreds of thousands of MeetUp groups in existence, and there’s absolutely no reason for one of them to not be directly connected to your business.

Having a MeetUp group is a great way to garner interest in your business, and since you have a physical place for your business to be, you have a physical place for your MeetUps to take place at.

There are many things that you could start a MeetUp group in honor of in terms of your business. If you have a car-based business, consider starting a MeetUp group to have people come to your business and discuss the history of a particular car that your dealership works with. Another great thing to focus MeetUps around is free (or paid) trainings – if you have a dealership, for example, you could teach people how to change a tire, fix a flat, or change their oil.

Giving away information is a great way to get positive attention focused on your business. Even better, in order for the participants in the MeetUp to get the information, they have to physically come to your place of business for the class. And when they’re at your place of business for the class, there’s no reason to think that they won’t do any shopping while there, right?

If you are interested in utilizing MeetUp-type media – which you should be – there are other sites that do similar things. There’s actually a Twitter offshoot site called TweetUp that has become a very popular medium through which people meet each other locally and use the power of social media to further the good of themselves and their communities. Another site worth checking out is Biznik, which allows members to join it through an online platform, but it’s local-community based and is a tool for the promotion of in-person local events.

While going virtual is a great way to get the word of your business out there on the waves, don’t forget that going virtual is an excellent way to get people to come to your physical store, as well. Starting groups through MeetUp and similar sites is a great way to accomplish this goal.

If you have been online for a while now, then you have probably heard stories of people who have become wealthy using the internet. While most people simply will not become independently wealthy this way, it can and does happen in some cases. Either way, it is entirely possible to make enough internet advertising revenue to add a nice chunk of change to your bank account. Regardless of what some of the hucksters would like you to believe, it’s going to take some time, and you need to follow a marketing plan that’s a good match for you.

Whether you already own a business of your own, or you are just toying with the idea, the internet is an excellent resource that you can use to increase your profits. What it all really comes down to is having something to sell, getting people to see your offer, and then convincing them that they should take advantage of whatever it is that you’re offering. Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that, but those are the basics of how it works.

Perhaps you already have some experience with marketing in the offline world. This could range from buying air time on television and radio to putting up a billboard, from trying to sell a used car in your local newspaper to printing up business cards. All of these things, and more, are a form of marketing. While there are a lot of similarities between offline and online marketing, there are also some differences.

The main thing to realize is that the basic principles of selling never change. Convincing people to buy still requires the same psychology. That being said, internet advertising revenue is easier than ever to cash in on. Imagine being a small business owner who has a shop in an area with a low population. Sure, you have loyal customers that keep you afloat, but you know you could do better. Well, the internet marketplace covers the entire world. Suddenly, the whole planet is filled with potential customers! That fact alone is exciting, but it gets better.

Not only do you have incredible reach by marketing online, but you also have more control over your message, better customer tracking, and usually at a much lower cost than traditional forms of advertising. Yes, business owners really are in the middle of something revolutionary. If you aren’t yet taking part, then it’s probably a good idea to hop on board now…before your competitors get the edge and take a larger share of the market.

There are just so many ways to generate internet advertising revenue that it’s worth facing any perceived risk; real or imagined. The best part is that you can start as small as you like and then test and track your results. Then ramp up your efforts as you start seeing positive results. Your imagination is the only limitation on how much you can potentially earn, but even that will grow as you start making more and more.