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How To Market On Social Networks - Effectively

06 2008 Friday

By admin in Featured

Online social networks, like the World Wide Web itself, are a microcosm of a vibrant human community. If you participate on services like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace for some time, you’ll notice the same types of people as you might on a trip to the shopping mall or a weekend at the beach.

There is but one difference. While ‘offline’ you see people, on the Web you see their personality.

Understanding this is core to your effective use of social networks for marketing.
While others will rush into these digital fora blatantly spe.wing advertising messages willy-nilly, you’ll be able to tap into their minds more intelligently. Because by following some simple principles, you’ll create an online persona that people WANT to engage with and listen to.
Over 2 years of intensely being involved in various social media marketing channels, I have learned some lessons you may find useful too.
Less Is More

When you’re getting started, it is natural to explore many different services. This ‘flit and fleet, dip and dabble’ approach is often necessary, because each of them vary in significant ways from the other.

But once you find the right one(s) with the ideal mix of audience, features and convenience to suit your personality, stick with it instead of trying desperately to sample all the available alternatives (there are over 1,000 of them as we go to press, so that’s practically impossible).

By honing in on your preferred social networks, you can better carry out the important other steps of engaging your audience and participating actively in your online community.
Engage Your Audience

Be yourself. Let your personality shine through. It is your unique advantage over everyone else in the online social media marketing space.

Carried away by the potential to drive more traffic or make more sales, eager marketers often explode on the social networking scene like a bombshell. They launch into what is the online equivalent of a full-throated sales pitch right in the middle of a Sunday morning sermon in church!

Won’t that shock the others? Of course. And then, they’ll ignore you.

Engagement is not instant, automatic or easy. It is however powerfully effective. Over 9 months, I have 1,000 ‘followers’ on Twitter. We share a relationship - even if it is at arm’s length.
Build Your Following

The conventional approach of herding audiences into closed spaces so that you can market to them are long gone. Social media marketing is not as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. These fish are swimming in a vast ocean. You need to reel them in - by using powerful bait… intelligently!

The formula that works consistently is simple. Be interesting. If what you share on social networks is useful, valuable, funny, entertaining, new, insightful or soul-stirring, people will find you - and stay with you.

And because control is in their hands, you have little choice in the matter anyway. Social networks are all about ‘attraction marketing’. You attract them into your circle - and keep them there.
Be Real

That does not mean you need to reveal every intimate detail of your life, like what you ate for breakfast or what you watched on TV this morning. Or even where you live, work or play.

It does mean that you should have a persona - and be true to it. All the time.

I’m a heart surgeon. I also have a little daughter, love reading, travel to interesting places and blog actively. All of these aspects of my life make their way into my posts on social networks.
Almost incidentally, I also slip in the stuff that makes my social networking effective - like my Internet infopreneur business and my non-profit Foundation that raises funds to help children from poor families receive expensive, life-saving heart surgery.
Give To Get

Many people are selfish and self-centered. And these people are on social networks online. While you may hope and wish it were different, in reality, they do it for what’s in it for them!

To smartly levereage social media marketing, you must take advantage of this knowledge - and give enough value to satisfy your audience, and turn them into raving, loyal fans.

Only then do you ask for something in exchange - a visit, a click, a sale.

When you do this consistently, you’ll notice a reciprocal benefit that grows and swells until you are swamped by a return far in excess of anything you ever gave.
Now, It’s Up To You

Will you make your social networking and marketing effective using these simple insights?

They are deceptively simple. But when you try following these principles, you’ll discover how effective and powerful they really are.

Another test of their impact is to try and ignore them. You’ll see how badly social networks can burn you. But then, you’re not going to try, are you? No way… You’re smart!

Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian is a social infopreneur and uses his Internet marketing to fund heart surgery for under-privileged children in India. He blogs at Money.Power.Wisdom - http://MoneyPowerWisdom.com - and is on Twitter (drmani), Facebook and MySpace too.

Online Business Opportunities and Squidoo Lenses

06 2008 Friday

By Jim Suzak in Featured

What the heck are Squidoo lenses and how can you relate them to online business opportunities? Squidoo.com is a web 2.0 website that specializes in hosting personal web pages for anyone who has 10 minutes to build one. They are referred to as “lenses” instead of website because each one focuses on a particular topic or idea.

You can create a lens for whatever reason. Whether you want to share your opinion on a particular online business opportunity or just complain about the electric company, Squidoo gives you a quick and easy venue for getting your message out to the masses. It it so easy anyone can do it.

Squidoo lenses are simple to set up, requiring absolutely no technical knowledge or programming experience. With a few clicks you can easily add youtube videos, Flicker photos, polling surveys, google blog searches, RSS and much more to your personalized lens.

In addition to providing a social outlet, Squidoo can also serve as a highly effective and risk-free marketing tool for your onlinebusiness opportunity. Below are the top 7 reasons you should create a lens to help give your online business opportunity a kick:

1. To increase traffic to your site. Squidoo lenses can include inbound links to your website, boosting your site’s credibility in the eyes of search engines and increasing your overall link popularity. Plus, the lenses themselves are indexed by search engines, so your personal page can achieve a high ranking with strategic keyword placement. Get a few links to your Squidoo lens and you can easily get your lens to rank favorably in search results for some competitive keywords.

2. To save money on advertising. Unlike costly print ads and direct mail campaigns, creating a personal Squidoo page won’t cost you a dime. It takes about 10 minutes to build a Squidoo lens and you can really boost your credibility and brand yourself as an expert in your industry.

3. To highlight multiple aspects of your online business opportunity. You can create as few or as many lenses as you want. It’s possible to have hundreds of different lenses focusing on different components of your business, all driving traffic back to your website.

4. To piggyback on other Squidoo pages. When your lens is nestled among hundreds of thousands of other interesting lenses, it’s more likely to benefit from the traffic generated by those neighboring pages.

5. To sell stuff. A great way to get your feet wet in the e-commerce arena, Squidoo lets you sell items from Ebay and Amazon and earn royalties from each sale. It also lets you have direct affiliate links to any of the affiliate programs you endorse.

6. To conduct surveys for your business. Squidoo pages are a great way to gauge consumer attitudes and reactions to new products and services. The Squidoo polling feature is really easy to set up and allows you to survey your customers.

7. To interact with potential consumers. Visitors to your lens can add their comments and links. Every time an update is made, it makes your lens that much more appealing and relevant to search engines.

If you’re still unsure about Squidoo, ask yourself just one question: what do you have to lose? It’s free and easy, which are two of the most desirable qualities for anyone promoting an online business opportunity! I highly recommend it!

Jim Suzak is a professional internet marketer that utilizes several high quality online business opportunities and has achieved residual income success through this method. Check-out his website Residual Income Opportunities for more details and get your FREE online income opportunities newsletter, so you can also realize your dreams while working in the comfort of your home. –> http://www.DynamicInternetProfits.com

Increase Relevance for Search Engine Spiders with Frequent Updates

06 2008 Friday

By Jeffrey Smith in Featured

Were you aware that search engine spiders love fresh content and the more frequently you update your content the more frequently spiders traverse your site?

The advantage of adding fresh content frequently directly impacts your topical site synergy. By creating islands of topical (related) information on a subject provides each page with an opportunity to pull its own weight and rank on its own constitution as a contributing factor to your traffic and exposure.

Without updating your content, or having aged content on your site that could benefit from a content and link audit you are implying to search engines that proper on page factors are not a top priority.