The Complete Beginners Guide to Writing Articles.

Getting Started:
Do you have a passion? Are you particularly well-versed in a certain topic? Are you willing to invest time in doing research? Either one of these are all you really need, but if you`ve got all 3, then you`re definitely on the right track.

Grab a cuppa, a smoke, whatever you need to relax with, open up notepad/wordpad or even grab a pen and paper. Write down a 5-6 line bio about yourself and/or the product/program you`re promoting, this is commonly known as your 'Resource Box', and should be at the bottom of each and every article you write. The 'Resource Box' is THE only place you should promote ANYTHING at all in the article.

Next you need to focus on a topic. Start jotting down thoughts, and don`t worry about how mixed up they may seem to be at first, just keep going. If you can`t think of many things at first, save your work, and look it over another day, more ideas will pop into your head.

Once you feel you have enough, start moving things around until they really begin to make sense to you. Keep going until you`re happy with what you`ve got. Remember, articles don`t need to be mega-long, so long as they are helpful and informative. Write as you would speak, and make it personal, as if you are talking to a good friend. Let your personality shine through.

What to write about:
As I mentioned above, anything you are passionate about, or are well-versed on is a great start. You`re not passionate about anything? Not an 'expert' in any subject at all? Well do some research. Start by thinking about what YOU would like to read about, what kind of information would YOU find helpful? Thought about it? Go to www.google.com and type it in, see what comes up, start looking into the various things you find. You could even ask friends and colleagues what THEY would be interested in reading articles about.

What, still can`t come up with anything? It gets like that sometimes, so relax, take a deep breath, and start visiting forums/message boards. What questions are being asked? What do people need help with? Hang out in chat rooms, ask the same questions there, get as much feedback as you can, then start working from there. Eventually, you`ll find you`ve managed to write a GREAT article, in plain English, offering helpful/useful information.

Let a couple of your closest, most honest friends read through your articles for you. Don`t get offended if they make suggestions, some of them might even be good ones...hehehe, but make sure you stick with how it feels best for you.

So now what:
This is where the REAL hard work comes into play, cos now you`re ready to start submitting your articles to the world :~) Ok, if you want to go the easy way about it, stop reading now, go buy yourself some automatic submission software and get stuck into submitting your articles with it.
Personally, I prefer hard graft, and sometimes a bit of the personal touch. So for starters, I subscribe to a LOT of ezines that cover the topics I write about, then I offer the publishers my articles. Most of them are like me, and LOVE being first to publish well written articles. A nice personal mail usually gets that wheel turning ;~)

Then there`s all the article directories, and there`s TONS of them. It`s hard work submitting manually to them all, but then at least you know for definite that they WERE actually submitted. Don`t worry, I`m not going to make you search for them, I`ll list all my favourites here for you, and that`s gonna at least cut down a little on your work-load...hehehe

So here goes:
The first one is my personal favourite, as they make a webpage for your article and submit it to search engines for free. The rest are in no particular order

• http://freezinesite.com/articles.cgi?action=add
• http://www.searchwarp.com/Register.asp
• http://www.ideamarketers.com/writers.cfm
• http://www.marketing-seek.com/articles/submit.shtml
• http://www.ezinearticles.com
• http://www.netterweb.com/articles
• http://www.allnetarticles.com
• http://www.web-source.net/syndicator_submit.htm
• http://www.web-source.net/articlesub.htm
• http://www.articlecentral.com
• http://www.certificate.net/wwio
• http://www.connectionteam.com/art.html
• http://writerexchange.about.com/arts/writerexchange
• http://www.content-exchange.com
• http://www.dime-co.com
• http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/articles/submit.shtml
• http://www.womans-net.com
• http://www.writers-free-reference.com
• http://jogena.com
• http://businessknowhow.com
• http://www.selfgrowth.com/submit-article.html
• http://www.ezadsuccess.com
• http://www.opportunityupdate.com/doorwaytosubmit.html
• http://www.ezine-writer.com.au
• http://www.clickforcontent.com
• http://www.family-content.com
• http://www.boazepublishing.biz/articledir
• http://www.hitsnclicks.com/hnc/contribute/contribute.asp
• http://amazines.com
• http://www.mailbiz.com/mailbiz/magcat
• http://www.authorconnection.com
• http://www.HerAssistant.com
• http://www.ultimateprofits.com/index_author.htm
• http://www.webbers.com/newcontent

Use these ideas and resources to promote yourself with, and even though it`s scary at first, it DOES get better with practice, take it from a gal who`s been there. Always add your 'Resource Box' and copyright information with EVERY article and EVERY submission, it`s free advertising for you, and if your articles are good enough, they will be used over and over again.
Good Luck, Happy writing and submitting, and have fun!
May you be prosperous in everything you do.
Anna-Marie Stewart Venton

http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/5581/marketing/the_complete_beginners_guide_to_writing_articles.html

Top 10 Social Media Marketing Tips for 2013

Many social media sites started out as personal sites but social media marketing has become one of the most powerful online strategies for businesses, online and offline.
In 2002, Friendster was launched in the U.S and then in 2003 MySpace began.
Next to be launched was Facebook in 2004. Facebook was originally started for students but quickly spread, becoming much more. Twitter was born two years later in 2006. Pinterest, said to be the fastest growing site ever, was launched in 2010.
All of these sites, along with others, have become powerhouses in social media marketing. As each year passes the possibilities continue to grow and expand. There probably are not many businesses left that do not engage in social media marketing.
These social sites are continually growing, expanding and changing and it can sometimes be difficult to keep up with the changes.
Below are the top 10 tips to help your social media marketing in 2013.

1. Make your posts more relevant — When people first started using the social sites they were posting things like “Going shopping today with the kids. Wish me luck!” The social sites have grown and changed. You need to start posting more relevant information. Make it about your readers and followers, not about you. Post solutions, inspiration and interesting facts that can be useful and helpful.

2. Utilize features and tools — Social sites are increasing the possibilities for your business with more tools and features than ever before. Take stock of all of these tools and learn to use them for the benefit of your followers and your business.

3. Visual marketing — Marketing is going visual and you need to do the same. Embed text and your business info in relevant graphics to post. Pinterest, using image sharing, has broken records with its growth. Pictures are also the mostly widely used and shared method of posting on Facebook. When people share your images you want them to see your website link or other relevant info.

4. Help Your Clients/Readers — No matter what business you are in, you cannot provide solutions to all your clients’ needs. Be willing to post links, information and resources of other businesses that can help your clients when you cannot.

5. Use Your Analytics — Review your analytics regularly to see what is working and what isn’t. Are people visiting one social site more than others? When are people visiting your pages? Find out everything you can from your results. You can learn a lot from your analytics but you must use them to reap the benefits.

6. Host events — Hold regular events such as giveaways, seminars, chats, networking parties, promotions, etc. Facebook has recently updated its event feature so it is easier and more efficient.

7. Connections not sales — Use your social media pages to connect with your potential customers not for sales. You want to use social media to share information, respond to questions and comments and to showcase what your business is about. You don’t want to continually bombard your social sites with sales pitches and ads. Help your followers find solutions, do not pitch to them.

8. Slideshare — Slideshare is predicted to be the fastest growing social site in 2013. Slideshare will allow you to share your presentations with millions. You can also share documents, PDFs and videos. The possibilities are endless with this site.

9. Google+ — Google+ will be more important to your business. By being on Google+, you will be able to take full advantage of Google’s many services and tools. It hasn’t the social power of some of the other sites, but it is a central part of Google and you should be a part of it.

10. Use fewer social sites — Concentrating your marketing efforts to a few of the better-producing sites is more effective than spreading yourself too thin over many of the social sites. The time it takes to successfully participate in social media is substantial, so you need to build a strong presence on the sites that deliver rather than trying to dominate them all.
Social media marketing is expected to reach new and unequaled heights in 2013. Don’t let your business be left behind. Become active with social media. Really get involved. Make new connections and post relevant visual items. Make it about your followers and clients, not about what cereal you had for breakfast.

http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/02/01/top-10-social-media-marketing-tips-for-2013/

30 Amazing Marketing Tools, Tips & Tricks We're Thankful For

I asked a bunch of marketers what tools, tricks, and tips make them salivate more than a juicy turkey, and they came up with some awesome stuff(ing). (Getting tired of the Thanksgiving puns yet?) Here are some of the things that we're thankful to have as marketers -- because they make us do our jobs better, quicker, stronger, faster. I hope you can take away a few gems to implement once your holiday is over -- and that you share some of your little tricks with us in the comments!

Social Media Tools

1) Social Media Publishing Tools - It's wonderful to be able to actually enjoy your time off as a social media manager -- and social publishing tools let you do that. We use HubSpot's social media publishing tool , and it's supremely awesome because it allows you to schedule not just text updates, but image updates, too. That means we don't have to sacrifice engagement on Facebook over the holidays or weekends because we're just scheduling text updates, or spend our holidays at the computer creating memes to keep engagement up.
2) Facebook Global Pages - These are a pretty new development , but this is so helpful for global marketers. Before, Facebook marketers had two choices: Have one Facebook page for an entire global audience, meaning it was pretty untargeted; or have multiple Facebook pages to accommodate a global audience, and then struggle to maintain alllll of those pages. Facebook's global pages mean marketers get the best of both worlds -- a central maintenance location with better targeting options.
3) Audience Targeting in Facebook Advertisements - There's more to love about Facebook. Their audience targeting in their ad platform lets marketers, well, create ads targeted at a specific audience. Pretty self-explanatory. But also pretty -- or insanely -- helpful. It prevents a lot of money from being wasted because ads are way more relevant. You can even target custom audiences from email addresses you already have in your database!
4) Twitter Hashtags - Twitter hashtags are insanely helpful for marketing a specific event on Twitter -- and eliminate the desire to create a separate handle for something. So when we host an event like INBOUND , we don't need to manage yet another Twitter handle, we can simply create an event-specific hashtag and monitor the discussion there. That is so much easier!

Content Creation Tools

5) The Thesaurus - Ridiculous? Maybe. But holy cow do bloggers use this a lot. If you aren't leveraging it, get on it! We use this all the time in our "Title Brainstorms" so our vocabulary doesn't get stale (let's not call everything , "great," am I right?) and readers want to keep clicking on our headlines. Bookmark this baby on your toolbar for easier brainstorming, and more variety in your vocabulary!
6) Evernote - Whether you use Evernote or another note-taking app, this is so helpful for writing or brainstorming content when you're on the go. For example, many of our content creators have their best ideas when they're not at their computer. On the train, making their bed, in the shower, what have you. Instead of powering up your computer when you have content inspiration, an app like Evernote helps you keep your ideas straight, and easily find them later when you're at your work computer.
7) Factbrowser - You know when you're creating content and you need a compelling stat or data point to make your point? Enter Factbrowser . It's like Google for data. Broken down by topic, source, format, region, and/or demographic. You're welcome.
8) CreativeCommons - You have three options for getting images for your marketing content: Spend money on a stock photography site, create them yourself, or steal them from someone else on the internet. Oh wait, you have a fourth option! It's CreativeCommons! They let you search for photos that are free and allowed to be used commercially, provided you give credit to the artist. We use it all the time -- including in this very blog post!
9) Final Cut Pro X - The new version of this video editing tool not only lets even the least experienced video editors create something amazing and professional-looking, but it lets you easily share videos to YouTube and Vimeo directly -- without having to save them to your computer and then re-upload them.
10) PowerPoint as a Design Tool - It's not just for presentations, people! Marketers can use PowerPoint as a design tool -- to create professional looking calls-to-action , ebooks, even infographics ... all without needing to call up a designer or invest in expensive design software.
11) Snipping Tool - The snipping tool is a Windows tool that lets you easily take screen captures -- this is amazing for creating tutorials on how to do something, or even to interface with your IT or Support team to demonstrate bugs that arise. Here's a great synopsis of how to set it up on your computer if you haven't already.

SEO Tools

12) Google Webmaster Tools - Google has fantastic free tools that help marketers with their SEO. You can check things like the number of indexed pages on your website, submit your site to Google so you're getting crawled and indexed, and even disavow bad inbound links .
13) Free Site Crawl Tools - The more your site grows, the harder it is to get a full picture of all the pages out there -- and the problems they might have that are affecting your SEO. That's why free tools like Xenu and Screaming Frog are fantastic; they crawl your entire site, and spit out a spreadsheet of all the pages, URLs, and broken links on your site. It's a content or SEO auditor's dream.

Analytics Tools

14) Excel, Excel, Excel - Any report that can be exported into Excel makes a marketer's life so much easier, whether from a tool like Xenu, or when we use HubSpot. It's great to be able to have a spreadsheet of raw data that you can manipulate and analyze from different angles.
15) VLOOKUP - Marketers can analyze data very quickly using a VLOOKUP in Excel, searching for and identifying all types of a particular set of data. It saves our event marketers, in particular, a ton of time.
16) YouTube Analytics - With YouTube Analytics -- which they revamped about a year ago -- marketers can measure the effectiveness of their videos just like any other content they create. Looking at metrics like drop-off time and engagement help you ascertain which videos resonate most with viewers, the ideal length for your videos, and what content within the videos is most engaging.
17) HubSpot Sources - I think our marketing team looks at our Sources dashboard every single day. Whether you're using Sources or some other analytics software, we love being able to see where our site traffic is coming from, how it compares to past months, and whether any specific channels are totally rocking -- or totally tanking. And a great little feature within Sources is the ability to set daily, weekly, and monthly goals so you can always see how you're trending towards reaching that goal.
18) Statistical Significance Calculator - Most marketers can't do this kind of math in their head -- if you can, call us, we're interested. For the rest of us, when you're running any kinds of tests in your marketing, statistical significance calculators help you know when your test's results are actually meaningful. That way, you don't end your A/B test before the results are relevant.

Collaboration & Planning Tools

19) Google Drive - You might remember them as Google Docs, but I digress. Google Drive is a fantastic collaboration tool -- something all marketers are familiar with -- that helps everyone see and update information in real time. In fact, this very blog post used Google Drive to collect the tools and tricks our marketers loved! Plus, it's fun to see other people typing, and then try to finish their sentences with silly words. Again, I digress.
20) Filtering and Archiving in Gmail - If there's one thing I'm sure we all suffer from, it's inbox overload. Gmail provides life-saving filtering and archiving features so you can block out the messages that don't matter, and clear your inbox of message you do care about, but don't need to see right this moment.
21) Dropbox - Besides being a company with totally lovable marketing , Dropbox helps marketers that are frequently sharing big files from person to person. This is pretty common when you're doing any kind of design work, whether with a third party or in-house. Plus, you can access, edit, and save that content from anywhere.
22) HipChat - HipChat is an instant messaging client that lets a large team communicate with each other easily. This is especially important when working on campaigns across different departments, or across different sub-departments within your marketing department. For example, you could create different chat rooms for your email team, your content team, and your sales team -- and then only bring people into your room when you need their input, and leave them out when they don't need to be bothered.
23) Stand-up - No, not the comedy. Stand-up meetings are daily meetings that are intended to be short, and keep you agile. We often do a 5-10 minute stand-up meeting in the morning on each of the sub-teams in marketing to catch up coworkers on what's happening, prioritize projects, and get any minutiae out of the way so we can all be productive during the workday. So the two members of the blogging team will chat with each other quickly to sort out their day, but they won't do a stand-up with, say, the marketing ops team, because they're working on different initiatives. It's a must for agile marketers, in my opinion.

Sales & Nurturing Tools

24) Landing Page Creation Tool - Any marketer who has had to work with designers or IT to get landing pages created ... and found that it took days or even weeks to get it done, will be thankful for an easy landing page creation tool. We use HubSpot, and it makes our lives easier because we can create a landing page in less than 5 minutes. It makes launching offers so much easier, which means lead generation is made easier.
25) Smart List Segmentation - You're probably not batching and blasting anymore, but if you haven't dappled in smart list segmentation, ohmygosh, you will be so excited when you do! We use our smart list segmentation tool -- which means the software knows when a contact on your list does something that triggers them to receive a certain type of email content, be removed from a list, or be added to another list. That's a whole lot of manual labor that you don't have to do anymore. Helloooo, friends, family, and hobbies outside of work!
26) CRM - This isn't exactly small potatoes ... but if we weren't using a CRM -- we use Salesforce -- we would be a fumbling mess of a sales and marketing organization. It helps us close the loop on our marketing analytics, it helps us organize our lead intelligence, and it enables our sales team. If you're not using a CRM yet, it might be worth it to look into giving yourself (and your entire company) a nice little present this holiday season.
27) Agile and Aligned Sales Team - I think everyone is thankful for this, but our sales team calls warm leads as soon as possible. They've found a lot more success with calling leads right away, instead of waiting a few days or weeks to call. It makes us thankful as marketers, because we know the leads we're working to generate aren't going to waste.

Educational Tools

28) Social Media - Social media is an amazing way to stay up to date on trends and news, so you can be the first to report on it in your industry. We try to follow people that are always tweeting out the latest and greatest marketing updates so we're in the know -- and can connect with primary sources, too.
29) Ebooks - Ebooks are a great resource for getting a deep dive tutorial on a specific topic, but without having to invest the time (and money, if it's a free ebook) into an entire book. Plus, you can read them on your own time ... like maybe during a long flight home from Thanksgiving!
30) Webinars - Webinars are another amazing informational resource, but they let you actually hear the experts. This is awesome for topics that you need a little more hands-on teaching to grasp. Plus, you don't have to spend a bunch of money and time traveling to conferences to get it.

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33852/30-Amazing-Marketing-Tools-Tips-Tricks-We-re-Thankful-For.aspx

Free Ezine Advertising That Works!

One of the best ways to get free traffic to your site, is to write articles for ezines. Now before you shudder and click away, it isn't that hard to write a good article. If you've got a bout of writers block, just search for info related to the subject you want to write about, then re-write it in YOUR OWN words and style, do not copy. Your article needs to be around 500 - 700 words, with short paragraphs, 5 or 6 sentences. DON'T try and disguise an advert as an article and forget about putting in your affiliate links, publishers will delete it straight away, if you want to use this approach to promote an affiliate program, you should really get your own domain as it looks more professional. Once you have put your masterpiece together, leave it a day, then come back to it and re-read it, you'll be surprised what other nuggets of info pop out after a nights sleep, and how many errors seem to jump out at you. When you're sure your article is ready, run it through a spell checker and format it to 55 - 60 characters per line so the publisher can just cut-n-paste into their ezine. Don't forget to put your resource box at the bottom of the article! This is what's going to get you a ton of free traffic to your site after all. Believe me folks, just one half decent article can get you alot of free traffic, I remember one article I wrote was published in a ezine that had a circulation of 500,000, if I wanted to pay for advertising in this particular ezine it would have cost me over $400! Not only does this technique save you money, it also gives you credability, and alot of ezines turn your articles into web pages that will remain there for years to come. Get published, get credibility, get free traffic for years to come! I think that's worth a little effort don't you?

5 Internet Marketing Tips for Newbies

Unlike the offline world, where advertising is very effective, content rules the internet. You'll develop a more effective marketing campaign when you focus on strategies centered around developing content for your site.

Below are some of my most effective ways to market online, and I do it all for free.

1. Search Engines
Before you even develop your website, the first thing you should do is focus on the search engines. Organic, i.e. free search engine listings that are highly ranked, will get you far more traffic than using any kind of advertising.

The most important thing you should do here is find the right keywords. You can do this by using any of the pay per click search tools. You can also download a free tool like Good Keywords, http://www.goodkeywords.com

2. Articles
Writing articles not only allows you to brand yourself as an expert, it helps you to create original content for your website. The more quality content pages you have in your site, the higher it will rank in the search engines, and you will also create a viral marketing strategy for your business.

3. Press Releases
Press releases are news. Just like the offline world, where press releases are more effective than advertising, so too are they more effective online.

You should remember to focus on news about your business. Don't make your release a glorified sales letter. It will get rejected.

A simple search for press release writing will help you find resources to help you write an effective press release.

Press releases, like articles, are spider, or search engine food. The search engines love them, and a good release can be very viral.

4. Blogs/RSS
Blogging is the latest craze online. It's a very effective way to promote your business not only because of RSS, but because you can quickly and easily create content without knowing HTML, and with trackback, it has its own built in link building strategy.

RSS is nothing more than a very search engine friendly code that allows you to syndicate your content to other websites, or to be read in RSS readers.

With trackbacks, you can link back to other sites and build your links. This raises your search engine rankings.

5. Free reports
Free reports, like blogs, articles, and press releases, not only allow you to build a content strategy for your website, but you will also create a viral marketing strategy for your site.

A viral marketing strategy is very important because it's mainly passive. If you create good content, your content will be recommended by others. One person reads your content and recommends it to someone else, and before you know it, your content is all over the internet. The more entries you have in the search engines, the more likely you are to be found by your potential customers.

The point is, if you develop an effective content and search engine strategy for your business, you will get your message out a lot faster. Potential customers will find you, and they'll be eager for what you sell because they were already looking for you.

How to Create a Successful Twitter Contest

In his book "Ultimate Guide to Twitter for Business," online marketing expert Ted Prodromou offers an easy-to-understand guide to using Twitter that will help small-business owners generate leads and connect with customers. In this edited excerpt, the author outlines exactly how to create a contest on Twitter that attracts more followers.
The goal of most Twitter contests is to increase the number of targeted followers. Targeted followers help spread the word about your products and services for free. When a third party spreads positive comments about your products or services, it gives your company credibility and helps sell your products.

You also want to collect contestants' contact information so you can nurture new leads and eventually turn them into customers. You collect their contact information by enticing them to fill out a web form on your website or blog.

There are several ways to attract targeted followers during your Twitter campaign:
1. Have a clear goal for your contest.
What are you trying to achieve with your Twitter contest? Are you trying to generate new leads? Are you generating traffic for a new website or blog? Are you announcing a new product and want to generate a buzz? You need to have a clear goal and outcome for your Twitter contest or you'll be disappointed with your results. The clearer your goal is, the better your results will be.

2. Choose prizes carefully.
This is where people make some of their biggest mistakes when they conduct a contest. Your prize should match the goal for your contest. If you're trying to generate more targeted followers, offering a large cash prize isn't the right prize. Offering a $1,000 prize will attract a lot of new followers, but they may not be targeted. In fact, many of your new followers will be participating in the contest just to win the $1,000, not to support your company.
If you're trying to attract landscape artists as followers, for instance, you could offer an autographed book of landscape pictures or artist accessories as your prize. This would be a more effective way to attract targeted followers than offering a large cash prize.
When you create a plan for your Twitter contest, it needs to do two things:

• Encourage people in your niche to participate
• Discourage people who aren't in your niche from participating

This may seem obvious, but it's imperative that you design your contest properly and choose appropriate prizes so you attract the right people. Choosing the right prizes that appeal to your targeted Twitter audience will make your contest more successful.
A great way to generate buzz with your Twitter contest is to cooperate it with one of your partner companies. Your company could be the primary in the Twitter contest, and you could offer a prize donated by your partner company. This approach will grow your Twitter followers while providing publicity and exposure for your partner company, a win-win scenario for all.
You'll benefit most from your contest if you focus on your sponsor more than on your company. Make them the center of attention in your promotional campaigns and link to their blog and website as much as possible. Go out of your way in your contest promotions to thank them for donating the valuable prize. Rave about the value of the prize and how great it would be to win. When the sponsor sees how supportive you are, they'll become more enthusiastic about the contest and promote it like crazy to their customers and prospects. The more they promote the contest, the more followers you get who in turn could become new customers for you.

3. Track your campaigns.
This is an obvious step in running a successful Twitter contest, but I'm always surprised by the number of people who don't track their results. It's important to use appropriate tools to measure your contest. If the objectives of your contest are to increase followers, increase ReTweets, and generate leads, you need a tool that can measure these statistics. You may have to use more than one tool to measure your results. In this example, you could use a tool like HootSuite or HubSpot to measure the increase in the number of followers and ReTweets. To measure the leads generated by your contest, you could set up a new campaign in an email autoresponder program like Aweber or Constant Contact to capture your new leads.
When your contest ends, reach out to the winners on Twitter and via email as soon as possible. Once they respond, I let the Twitterverse know who won. It's important to wait until they respond to confirm that they're a real person and not a Twitterbot. It would be embarrassing if the winner of your contest was a Twitterbot and you announced it to the world -- that could have a negative effect on your credibility.
I usually give the winner a few days to respond before I choose another winner. If you wait too long to announce the winner, your contest will lose momentum and people may be reluctant to participate in future contests. Make it very clear in the contest rules that the winner must respond in a certain timeframe or another winner will be selected. This helps avoid any confusion and negative publicity if the original winner is slow to respond to you.
Once you confirm the winner, it's time to celebrate! Announce the winner publicly on Twitter, and on the contest's web page, your blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, and your other social communities. You can even send out a press release announcing the winner of your contest. Make a big deal about announcing the winner. The more publicity you generate, the more popular your future contests will be.
When your contest is complete, take time to review its results. Did you meet your goals? What worked and what didn't? What could you do better in your next contest? It's important to review your contest in detail so you can make your next one even better.


Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226099#ixzz2NzdAyS3G

Top-selling author, Brett McFall, reveals how you too can start your own internet business - FREE LIVE TRAINING

Some unbelieveable news has arrived for all those serious about making a living online. Australian Marketing Guru, Brett McFall is holding a 3 Day Seminar which CANNOT be missed by anyone serious about making money online!

I have my place registered already and AMAZINGLY IT'S FREE!!!!! Yes you read that right FREE. As well as this, everyone who attends will receive a $2000 AUD holiday ABSOLUTLY FREE.

Click on the link below to learn more or go directly to the site by clicking on the link below and reserve your place befre the event is SOLD OUT. The last event this size was 2010!

http://tiny.cc/e93euw

Creating Web Content That Attracts Attention for Link Building

In their book Ultimate Guide to Link Building, link-building experts Eric Ward and Garrett French offer straightforward advice to help you earn a higher search engine ranking and increase the authority and popularity of your site. In this edited excerpt, the authors outline different types of content that can attract attention, and links back to your site from other sites.

Outreach and submissions only go so far. Sometimes you have to let your content attract links naturally to get the results you want. If you create content that naturally attracts links, it not only saves you time getting them manually, but it also increases engagement on your blog (if it's worth linking to, it's usually worth reading). This is where your content and link-building strategies meet.
How-tos and tutorials.
Whether it's a tool, DIY project or anything else, showing people exactly how to do something is extremely helpful.

 

Quizzes and tests.
Testing your reader's knowledge and letting them share their results with their friends is always a great idea.
Timely or seasonal content.
Creating the right content at the right time can get you a ton of attention. Creating an infographic on the statistics behind this year's Super Bowl the day after the event is a perfect example. The same goes for seasonal content. Whether it's Valentine's Day, Halloween or Christmas, you can create holiday-themed content that can get a ton of attention over a short period of time (and every year after).
Case studies.
Everyone loves a good case study. Real results with real numbers can instantly catch people's attention. If you offer a product or service, this is a no-brainer. If you give out advice, find someone who's used it successfully.

Printable resources.
People like hard copies of useful guides. By creating a printable resource with an awesome design, you can almost guarantee a few links will come your way.
Creating contests.
Entering contests is great for link building, but creating them is even better. By requiring your participants to write about and link to the contest from their blog, you'll not only get links from them, but their posts will increase the exposure of your contest, thus growing your number of contestants -- and thus, the amount of links you get -- at an exponential rate.
Infographics.
People love data, but sometimes it's hard to digest. Creating an infographic on it is a popular way to change that. Not only will it naturally attract links, but you'll also get other bloggers embedding it, which means even more links. Not to mention you have control over the anchor text of the embed code.
Web tools.
Creating free online tools, such as specialized calculators, is a fantastic way to attract links. They don't even have to be complex. If it could save me five minutes, then I'll probably use and share it.
Interactive -- content your user can alter, change, or remix.
The next big thing in linkbait is interactive content. The reason: because it's flat out cool and few people are doing it.

Review something new.
Just like with news, if you're the first to review something, and if it's awesome, your review will get tons of attention. You can also use this to gain favor with the creators of the product or service you're reviewing.
Webinars.
Spending a couple of hours every month doing a webinar is a great idea for attracting links over the long term. Set up a page on your website solely dedicated to webinars and as you create new ones, the links will roll in each time.
Surveys.
There's generally a two-step process to attracting links with surveys. The first step is asking people to participate. If it's on a particularly interesting topic, reaching out to bloggers, experts and industry news sites to ask to spread the word both on their blog and on social media sites is a great way to attract your first wave of links.
The second step is releasing the results. Combine the release with some nice visualization and a bit of controversy, and you've got yourself a fantastic piece of linkbait.
Google maps mashup.
Google Maps is a great tool, and you can use it to attract links if you get it in front of the right audience. A great idea would be to map out all the industry events taking place this year.
Lists.
1. People
2. Love
3. Lists.
Why? Because the content is super easy to digest.
Debunking myths.
If there's a common misconception in your industry, make sure you let everyone know. If it's big enough, and if your statements are bold enough, you could get some serious attention.
Interviews.
Interviewing industry experts will always be a fantastic way to attract links, but getting them to interview is only half the battle. The other half is asking great questions. A good way to find out what questions you should ask is by holding a Q&A with your blog's community, whether it's on Google+, Twitter or any other site. Ask what kinds of questions your readers want to see answered

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226110

One Channel Now Available for All YouTube Users

YouTube’s One Channel is now available for all users after spending about a month in beta.

The new layout includes cover photos and trailers in an effort to “make your new channel look great on browsers across all screens and devices,” YouTube product manager Jeb Havens says in a post on the YouTube Creators blog.

“It will also help you convert more visitors into subscribers with a slot for a channel trailer, and you can customize how you organize your videos and playlists so it fits your programming strategy.”

The redesign, Havens says, received its final tweaks over the past month after collecting and implementing suggestions from early users and creators.

YouTube image
iJustine sports the new One Channel look.

Havens suggests trying the following three activities to get the most out of your new channel:

• Create a trailer that will play for any visitor who has yet to subscribe to your channel. “This is your chance to hook them and win a new fan,” he says. “Treat this trailer as if it were an ad. Keep it short and engaging and have a compelling call to action at the end.”

• Create and upload a large, eye-catching piece of channel art to act as your channel’s visual identity. Unlike the branding on the old channels, your channel art will look good across all screens and devices, no matter the size.

• Organize your channel’s videos and playlists so they are functional both for your audience and for your programming.

Now, when your subscribers click on your channel from the guide, your full channel appears rather than just your activity feed.

YouTube image

“With the new channel home and customizable sections, you’re in control of what subscribers see when they click on your channel from the guide,” Havens says.

To get started, go to www.youtube.com/onechannel and click the button at the bottom. YouTube will migrate your channel to the new design, and take you through it step-by-step. For a limited time, you will have the option of switching back to the previous design if you like it better.

Tips and strategies on optimizing your YouTube One Channel, can be found under Channel Optimization in the YouTube Creator Playbook.

 

http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/03/08/one-channel-now-available-for-all-youtube-users/

Why You Need A Local Search Strategy

Approximately four years ago, Google made a major change in their search engine results page by introducing a “Universal Search” system that blended listings with video, images and news results along with the sites it gathered from crawling web pages. Universal Search also accommodated the increase in searches for location-specific information. Instead of just searching “restaurants”, many people were searching “restaurants Louisville KY.” Search engines tested this new interest trend by placing a map and local listings at the top of the results page. Heat map reports showing how users absorb a search results page implied that users paid a good deal of attention to the map listings at the top of the page.

 

This research also indicates that users interact with map listings and organic search results more frequently than the paid ads. This change prompted Google to prioritize local search to the top of the search results page, and in time most engines followed suit.

 

Before the rise of local search, users had to enter a search term plus a geo-modifier (e.g., Louisville, Kentucky, 40299) in order to get location-specific search results. Today’s search algorithms take into account the IP address of the user, showing location-targeted results without the searcher requesting it. A search for just “dentists” from a computer in Louisville will pull up dental offices in the Louisville, KY area along with the general information pages.

 

Google experimented with how many local search listings to display in order to maximize user experience. Originally, only three local search listing results were displayed as flags next to the area map. Google tried increasing local map listings to a 10-pack, but found that searchers did not like how far down the page that moved organic search results. Research indicated that local searchers wanted a selection of map listings, but also valued the organic search listings. This led to the 7-pack format, which presented seven listings at the top of the search page.

 

The most recent iteration of Google’s local search display is called “Place Search.” This format combines the organic listings with local map listings and positions the map on the right panel. There is also an option to see only local listings by clicking the “Places” link in the left-hand panel. The latest iteration personalizes local search by allowing users to select their location to see local listings in any area, not just their current location. This change puts even more emphasis on local search results by showing more robust listings with pictures, meta descriptions and review quotes.

 

Bing and Yahoo have followed Google into local search marketing. However, all local search does not work the same and they have different algorithms to determine business rank. Obviously, you get more traffic if you are ranked on the first page of local search. To obtain a high ranking, you must build out your business listing using geotags, reviews, citations, product and service keywords and additional information.

 

http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/08/18/why-you-need-a-local-search-strategy/

Seven Ways to Effectively Use Twitter

I started using Twitter in earnest in January 2012. Since that time, I’ve learned a few tips that I have found very helpful. Hopefully, you will find some of these useful as well.

1. Re-Tweet (RT)

There is nothing more flattering than someone re-tweeting what you’ve tweeted. It fact, the more re-tweets you receive for a particular tweet, the better you feel. This is the case for others as well. I recommend that you pick a good category and look at tweets from others there. Then, re-tweet (RT) tweets that are particularly interesting to you. For example, I like to look at what people are saying under the category of “leadership.” So, I regularly do a search for #leadership in Twitter. This lets me see all the tweets that include #leadership. I then RT the ones I like. The tweet shows up in my “stream” and it lets the individual know that I re-tweeted their tweet.

It is an easy way to get started. Searching on #leadership allows me to RT people whom I may not currently be following or who may not be following me. By re-tweeting people I’m not following, I occasionally pick up new followers or I start to follow new people because I like their tweets. I usually pick one day a week to do my RTs. I only do about 2 or 3 max a day, separated by a few hours.

2. Hashtags (#) are Your Friend

The hashtag (#) is an awesome feature in Twitter. Whenever you do a tweet, try to include a category you would like your tweet to show up under. Sticking with my example from above, I regularly tweet about leadership and management. So, my tweets include #leadership or #management or both. This allows my tweets to show up whenever people search on these hashtags.

Remember, this allows people to see your tweets even if they are not following you. I pick up about 20 to 30 new followers a week because people read my tweets in these categories. During the 2012 presidential election, I tweeted a couple of non-partisan tweets about presidential leadership and included a hashtag similar to #2012presidential. I tried to be as neutral as possible so as not to offend anyone from either party, as my intent was to share my thoughts on leadership in general. My tweet was viewed by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, because that category was greatly watched at the time. So, hashtags, if used properly, can be a powerful friend and get your tweets viewed by many.

 

3. Tweet Links to Articles You Are Reading Online

This is very easy. As you read articles online, there is a Twitter “tweet” button that allows you to tweet the article, including a link. This is by far the easiest, possibly most effective way to tweet about things that are meaningful to you and others. Pressing the Twitter tweet button as you read online articles automatically formats the tweet so that it is 140 characters or less. I then add my hashtag or hashtags (e.g., #leadership, #management, #quotes, etc.) and I’m done.

 

4. Quotes

I like to tweet quotes about 2 to 3 times a week. You can find good quotes under #quotes (or by using Google). I like to tweet original quotes every so often. This gives me a good sense for how a particular topic will resonate with people before I write an article or blog about it.

 

5. Try Not to Spam Your Followers With too Many Tweets at a Time

Try not to do more than one tweet per 3 to 4 hours. I was once following a person who tweeted 8 to 10 tweets back-to-back multiple times a day. I finally had to stop following the person because the tweets were more like spam.

 

6. Become an Expert in a Category or Two

I recommend tweeting about something you are passionate about and then including a hashtag for that category. Over time, people will see that you are regularly showing up under that category and before you know it, you are considered an expert.

 

7. In General, Have Fun

Lastly, have fun. Twitter is an amazing social networking tool and I have so much fun with it. I don’t take myself too seriously and that keeps it fun. Don’t worry if some followers stop following you, because people do that for various reasons. Others will follow you – especially if you stay true and passionate about your subject matter.

 

http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/03/08/seven-ways-to-effectively-use-twitter/

The Little Word That Makes Website Sales Copy Great

The skill of how to use persuasion in website sales copywriting is so very important for information marketers and will determine the degree of success that they will enjoy from their internet business. Once this skill is learned, you can utilize the ability to influence the prospect or customer to take any action that you wish them to take.

So what do you want the visitor to your website or blog to do? Is it to sign up for a free report in return for them giving you their email address details or to make a purchase of a product or service that you are recommending to them? Whatever it is, you want the person reading or listen to you to take a specific action that you want them to take.

 

How do you Influence Them?

The fact is, and don’t ignore this important point, each piece of content that is created whether an email, blog post, article or sales letter should always direct the reader to take a specific course of action. The question is how do you get them to take such action or should it be rephrased to say how do you influence them to take the action that you want?

 

Get Tem to Say Yes!

A very effective technique to utilize is to try and get them to persuade themselves that the action requested to be taken is in fact in their best interests. Put simply, you get them to say “yes” instead of “no”. In fact, you get them to say “yes” repeatedly in their heads. Get them to think “yes”. Not once or even twice, but several times.

 

Simple Questions

Within the sales copy, by using a series of discretely placed questions, you can elicit the “yes” response in the mind of the reader. Simple questions such as “would you not like to benefit too?” and “does that sound good to you?” will virtually compel the reader to respond “yes” to themselves. It encourages them to think positively about your product and also about you.

 

The Yes Yes Sequence

The more times that the reader thinks about the word yes and mentally answers “yes” to questions asked, the greater the prospect of them taking the action you want. It is referred to as the “yes, yes” sequence and should be adopted in all communications with prospects and customers where your goal is for them to take a specific action.

 

Interest and Intrigue

The secret to utilizing this method is to ask questions in a very subtle way through ensuring that when one is asked, the text is part of the natural flow of the sales copywriting message. You don’t want to interrupt the interest and intrigue for the reader with a blatant question that could appear to be out of sync with the message that you have created. Some of the most effective questions are those that does not come across as appearing as questions but more as a link between one part of the sales copy and another.

 

Boost Your Sign Ups

When you discover how to do copywriting for a website utilizing this very effective method, you will witness a greater number of them taking the action that you wish for, which will ultimately influence the rate of sign ups to your email list or sales of your products.

 

http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/04/08/the-little-word-that-makes-website-sales-copy-great/

Top 10 Social Media Marketing Tips for 2013

Many social media sites started out as personal sites but social media marketing has become one of the most powerful online strategies for businesses, online and offline.

In 2002, Friendster was launched in the U.S and then in 2003 MySpace began.

Next to be launched was Facebook in 2004. Facebook was originally started for students but quickly spread, becoming much more. Twitter was born two years later in 2006. Pinterest, said to be the fastest growing site ever, was launched in 2010.

All of these sites, along with others, have become powerhouses in social media marketing. As each year passes the possibilities continue to grow and expand. There probably are not many businesses left that do not engage in social media marketing.

These social sites are continually growing, expanding and changing and it can sometimes be difficult to keep up with the changes.
 

Below are the top 10 tips to help your social media marketing in 2013.
 

1. Make your posts more relevant — When people first started using the social sites they were posting things like “Going shopping today with the kids. Wish me luck!” The social sites have grown and changed. You need to start posting more relevant information. Make it about your readers and followers, not about you. Post solutions, inspiration and interesting facts that can be useful and helpful.
 

2. Utilize features and tools — Social sites are increasing the possibilities for your business with more tools and features than ever before. Take stock of all of these tools and learn to use them for the benefit of your followers and your business.
 

3. Visual marketing — Marketing is going visual and you need to do the same. Embed text and your business info in relevant graphics to post. Pinterest, using image sharing, has broken records with its growth. Pictures are also the mostly widely used and shared method of posting on Facebook. When people share your images you want them to see your website link or other relevant info.
 

4. Help Your Clients/Readers — No matter what business you are in, you cannot provide solutions to all your clients’ needs. Be willing to post links, information and resources of other businesses that can help your clients when you cannot.
 

5. Use Your Analytics — Review your analytics regularly to see what is working and what isn’t. Are people visiting one social site more than others? When are people visiting your pages? Find out everything you can from your results. You can learn a lot from your analytics but you must use them to reap the benefits.
 

6. Host events — Hold regular events such as giveaways, seminars, chats, networking parties, promotions, etc. Facebook has recently updated its event feature so it is easier and more efficient.
 

7. Connections not sales — Use your social media pages to connect with your potential customers not for sales. You want to use social media to share information, respond to questions and comments and to showcase what your business is about. You don’t want to continually bombard your social sites with sales pitches and ads. Help your followers find solutions, do not pitch to them.
 

8. Slideshare — Slideshare is predicted to be the fastest growing social site in 2013. Slideshare will allow you to share your presentations with millions. You can also share documents, PDFs and videos. The possibilities are endless with this site.
 

9. Google+ — Google+ will be more important to your business. By being on Google+, you will be able to take full advantage of Google’s many services and tools. It hasn’t the social power of some of the other sites, but it is a central part of Google and you should be a part of it.
 

10. Use fewer social sites — Concentrating your marketing efforts to a few of the better-producing sites is more effective than spreading yourself too thin over many of the social sites. The time it takes to successfully participate in social media is substantial, so you need to build a strong presence on the sites that deliver rather than trying to dominate them all.

Social media marketing is expected to reach new and unequaled heights in 2013. Don’t let your business be left behind. Become active with social media. Really get involved. Make new connections and post relevant visual items. Make it about your followers and clients, not about what cereal you had for breakfast

 

http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/02/01/top-10-social-media-marketing-tips-for-2013/

Small Business Marketing - 3 Reasons Why Social Media Marketing Can Help

Small business owners often depend on traditional advertising methods such as magazine ads, classified ads or posters that are pasted on the streets for their small business marketing efforts. Also, despite the frequent mentioning that social media marketing is the current big thing, small business owners tend to shrug the statement off, citing that they are not targeting the global audience, which is a reason that arises from misconception about social media marketing for small businesses.

I am very sure that there are some small business owners out there that are monitoring the trends of blogging and the growth of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook but they are doubting whether social media marketing is the type of marketing that will work for their businesses. In this social media marketing for small business article, I am going to share with you 3 reasons why you, as a business owner, should start to tap opportunities offered by these online social media platforms.

 

Get Closer with Your Target Market

First, let's bust the "Internet is only for international companies" myth. The obvious truth is, more people, including those that are from your local community, are getting online. This means that it is very likely for them to look for a service provider or a product online. If you are able to get in front of their eyeballs during their search, provide the necessary assistance in the form of helpful content and build trust along the process, the likeliness of them doing business with you will be higher compared to a multinational company that often ignore small-sized customers or another local small business that fails to showcase their expertise.

Having an online presence also helps you to understand what the market is desperately looking for or things that they are hoping to get when dealing with your type of business. If you are the first to be able to satisfy their needs, they will definitely recommend your business to others and good words about your business will spread.

 

Death of Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing such as newspaper ad or TV ad is dying. Ask anyone who has just finished reading the Wall Street Journal on whether they are going to take action based on the ads they saw. Most of them will find it hard to even recall what are the ads that really caught their attention.

As the attention span of modern day human beings are getting shorter, technologies such as ad blockers, RSS feed for news reading and TiVo for television programs provide users with the ability to skip ads. Compare this to social media marketing where you are going to interact with your prospects directly by providing valuable content rather than hard selling marketing messages, you are more than likely to get better response rates and results.

 

Building Trust and Loyalty

Value adding through relationship building and useful content creation can achieve more than just bridging the gap between you and your target market. As a small business owner, social media marketing can help you to establish trust and loyalty with community members that you are targeting. With the help of these social media tools, you are now able to track, participate and broadcast within a certain targeted community.

Trust and loyalty is crucial for a small business. Both the elements ensure repeat customers as well as the likelihood of them recommending you to others. By being helpful online irregardless of whether a person will form part of your customer base will definitely contribute towards trust and loyalty building

http://ezinearticles.com/?Small-Business-Marketing---3-Reasons-Why-Social-Media-Marketing-Can-Help&id=2051586

How Men’s Wearhouse attracted 300,000 social media followers in 18 months

The Men’s Wearhouse Inc. was late to grasp the potential of social media, says Joe Nolan, the retailer’s director of social media. It didn’t even launch on Facebook until a little over two years ago.

Despite being a multichannel retailer with 1,239 bricks-and-mortar stores across its various brands and Internet Retailer-estimated 2011 online sales of $42.59 million, the Men’s Wearhouse had only about 4,000 social media followers 18 months ago on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+. Given the company’s target customer—shoppers who are between 21 to 40 and likely active on social media—that posed a problem, he says.

Recognizing that it needed to do a better job reaching consumers on social media, Men’s Wearhouse, No. 289 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, turned to social media marketing firm Viralheat Inc.’s software. The technology enables the Men’s Wearhouse to understand what its fans engage with on various platforms, what the retailer’s competitors are posting on social media and what consumers are saying on social networks and blogs.

 

Viralheat is a crucial element as Men’s Wearhouse develops its social media efforts and promotional campaigns, Nolan says. “The success of every campaign starts and ends with technology,” he says. He says the software tracks the retailer’s posts and promotions, and how consumers across the web respond. For example, it might track how many mentions its $19.99 tie sale on Twitter received and how that percentage changed week over week. That data then will likely help shape its next Twitter discount offer.

Broadly speaking, the retailer has found that Facebook users respond to—as measured by sharing and interactions—branding and public relations-related posts more than consumers on other social networks. For instance, a recent post highlighting the chain’s new mobile app—“The modern man is mobile. Now you can shop our designer brands anywhere in the world from the palm of your hand. Men's Wearhouse is now mobile. http://mensw.com/h” —garnered 262 Likes. On Twitter shoppers can engage with daily deals and contests.

Viralheat also enables Men’s Wearhouse to see how many consumers view posts related to its brand. For instance, when a consumer uses the retailer’s Twitter handle @menswearhouse in a tweet, his Twitter followers see the post, and the software tracks those impressions. The vendor also lets the retailer track what consumers and competitors are posting on social media and blogs across the web. For example, the retailer can run an analysis of posts on tuxedos in the past six months. And it can dive into that report to see what percentage of those tuxedo-related posts mention Men’s Wearhouse or specific competitors.

Seeing what consumers and its competitors are talking about has helped Men’s Wearhouse fine-tune the content and timing of its posts. In turn, that’s helped boost its number of followers across its platforms to more than 300,000.

Men's Wearhouse is No. 247 in the Social Media 300. 2.11% of traffic to MensWearhouse.com comes from social networks, according to Compete Inc.

Both Viralheat and Men’s Wearhouse declined to share how much the retailer pays for its technology. However, the vendor says custom social media marketing packages start at $499 a month.

http://www.internetretailer.com/2013/03/12/how-mens-wearhouse-attracted-300000-social-media-followers

10 Checklist Points Before Engaging In Social Media Marketing

Where to start?

Social media marketing has a phony reputation. For many an executive from the commercial department, this exercise sums up to a string of signups over several social networks randomly and from time to time, multimedia, article postings and advertising over Facebook and Twitter. This is definitely not the right shot!

SMM is more than just being present in the Social Media Sphere. It is a sharp commercial engagement that may just turn into total havoc if not handled properly. The goal of Social Marketing in cyberspace is the same as the real-world thing. It's about delivering Unique Selling Points that will end up into concrete and sustained sales. It is about converting an anon into a brand advocate at best. Achieving this objective follows basically almost the same rules except for the fact that Social Media allows a closer, more personal and customizable, so to say Social approach of the targets. Same rules apply but with more or less variations. Assessing the prerogatives, context, environment and toolsets is the essential starting point of any Social Media Marketing campaign. It implies thorough setup and clinical precision in the way messages and attitudes are to be delivered through dedicated channels. Within such campaigns, posting on Facebook, on a fan page, group page or personal page is never the same process.

Here are 10 checklist points before engaging into Social Media Marketing:

1. Define your base strategy. Setup a budgeted roadmap with intermediate white stones that will help at fine tuning the campaign all along the way.The roadmap should stay in tune with what is being done or what has been done in the real-world. Social Media Marketing is never an innocent act. It is time-consuming and will incur expenses. Being precise about the campaign will definitely decrease the burden. As said earlier assess the main objective and methodology. For example, you may need to totally revamp your actual website so as to allow SM integration and SMO. Make your campaign stay SMARRT - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Relevant and Time-bound. Either go for Awareness or Sales or Loyalty. One at a time! Don't try to aim for all objectives in one go. Remember! Stick to your company's marketing and communication policy.

 
2. Assess and understand your campaign's environment. RESEARCH and don't stop til' you get enough! One surely doesn't want to jump into dark waters without basic precautions and headlamps. So do you with your Social Media Marketing Campaign. Diving recklessly into Social Media can spell TOTAL MESS especially when dealing with building awareness and product reputation. Building an effective Online Social Strategy implies thorough knowledge of the competitors' doing's on common platforms (of course)... but above all, take an humble preview of how others from different sectors have done or are doing. Get into both successful and failed case studies. Learn more about technical potentials of each and every Social Network and platform.

 
3. Identify these platforms and toolsets that are relevant and positively responsive for your roadmap. Social Media Marketing is about delivering the same consistent message through the whole spectrum of interwoven Social Networks. The intertwined winning triumvirate is made of the Blog, Facebook and Twitter, to which you would add a YouTube account if you would have video clips uploaded on a regular basis. Choose strategically. For example, you might feel the need of Slideshare and LinkedIn accounts instead of a Foursquare one, if your product or service is more into pitch-intensive B2B. Your toolset should also be made up of listening and monitoring wares.

 
4. Realistically budget and size your Online Advertising. Use the full potential of Google AdSense and Facebook's advertising platforms, but make sure to target wisely. Goal-tied Marketing Campaigns mean nothing without proper advertising. Intuitive Online advertising is now accessible through a few clicks and will definitely unleash its power to communicate about your brand on a global basis. They can also enhance diffusion to limited zones. Think about identifying and assessing your targets on geographical grounds. This will help at optimizing your online advertisement budget. Choosing PPC or CPC is up to you accordingly to your basic roadmap requirements.

 
5. Setup a Social Media taskforce from within your staff and look for an outsider to operate as a Community Manager. The web never sleeps. Social Media Marketing is a 24/7 perpetual roll-on. As such it is time and resource-consuming. One should never expect to be capable of handling a Social Media Marketing campaign alone, especially if other primary company duties are at stake. Instead, invite some of your staff to engage into social networking on your business's behalf. Be choosy though! Those indulged in such a sensitive and interactive task must write well, be tactful, creative and loyal. Outsider Community Managers are seldom biased and are limited to the sole responsibility of consolidating your taskforce's activities over relevant Social Networks. In any case you should build a team whose main goals and capabilities are to listen, learn and reply in tactful manner.

 
6. Prefer influential relationships. Get your team to identify major Bloggers and mainstream Social Media activists who fringe with your zones of interest and industry. This task is one of the hinges of success for your campaign. Getting to talk to Social Media heavyweights is like hiring evangelists when relationships get entrusted. Getting Lady Gaga to like your pair of boots is like tapping straight into a sea of opportunities as wide as 9 million individuals who would just follow Gaga's recommendations. Getting her to buy one would mean immediate success. CAREFUL however! The adverse effect is also proportionally as big as your contact's notoriety. Be sure of what you sell to him or her. A successful Social Media Marketing campaign starts here.

 
7. Identify relevant measuring and benchmarking tools. They are proof of your campaign's success or need for fine tuning. For example, the increase in the number of likes on Facebook or followers on Twitter is an indicator of your campaign's health. Getting to know how many times your brand is mentioned across the web and rating these comments help at fine tuning the campaign. You should also be able to keep track of your on-growing relationships and traffic that comes from Social Platforms. Identifying prospects for future opportunities helps at developing better strategies. Beware! At the actual state of affairs, Social Media Metrics can be tricky! In fact you will need a very wide array of results coupled to trending reports to be able to depict the exact snapshot of your on-going campaign.

 
8. Identify offline components that will be needed to complement your Online Social Marketing. Offline events are powerful conversion tools when geared the proper and relevant way. Offline components may also mean socializing with people off the web, in the real world, offering real-world prizes and gifts, organizing rallies, bar camps, conferences and seminars... etc Determine how these components can enhance your target's brand experience and how they will relevantly fit into your Online Marketing Scheme.

 
9. Urge for quality relevant content when posting articles, multimedia and comments. Praising your 270hp 1974 red Corvette when you advocate for ecological products on your blog isn't the best of strategies. Be sure to lay editorial rules that will define consistent cross-platform content production both in terms of easy-reading literature and technical specifics. Should an uploaded video be in HD both on YouTube and on Facebook? How long should be an article? Should an article contain a generic common byline for multiple authors or should it bear the actual author's name and on what grounds? One should always define these lines accordingly to the targeted audience.

 
10. Urge to stay HUMAN at every stage! Putting up a Social Media Marketing strategy is about building your brand's Social Media presence where your quality accessible content will be delivering values of your organization. Social Media is about... Socializing first! People are touchy when it comes to attitudes and postures. They don't like to bullied or taken as immature consumers. Being too techy, too commercial, demotes the social experience. Simple language and "real-worldlike" politeness are the bases for the best of approaches. It is sometimes more fruitful to start a discussion that may seem miles away from your product and its campaign objectives. With the will to listen and the power to communicate clearly, high conversion rates are never far ahead.

Conclusion

Whoever engages into Social Media Marketing is bound to find himself pulling on very many strings at the same time. Assessing, understanding the campaign's environment through research and pre-dive learning is a must. Although the marketing process might seem similar to the real-world thing, the Online Social Experience entails mastering every stage with even more precision, because you can never see or analyze real-time behaviors, except for what the prospect writes from behind his monitor, should it be true or false. A Social Media Marketing Strategy is simply the result of the conjunction of human competences and webtools that allow social interaction, interchange and sharing to the profit of a brand. It is a two-way traffic by which the seller has an on-spot obligation of being a psychologist, sociologist or an ethnologist. Be reassured you do not need to be these actually because you're a human being who is supposedly used to human social codes in general.

http://ezinearticles.com/?10-Checklist-Points-Before-Engaging-In-Social-Media-Marketing&id=6188149

Having a Millionaire Mindset

A human mind is a very powerful tool. There is a quote by Anton Chekhov "Man is what he believes." If you wish to be successful and rich, you will first have to change the way that you perceive wealth in your mind.

Having a limiting belief that you cannot achieve high wealth status will sabotage your road to success. If you do not believe that you will be rich and successful in the future, do you think that you will design a work plan and take specific action to your success? I absolutely doubt so.

You will find all sorts of excuses not to take action, rather than spending your precious time to plan and work towards your goal. I understand that just having a right mindset is of no use if actions are not taken. But if you are open minded enough, it will really kick-start a lot of things.

Just imagine that if you know that you will not fail to become a very rich and successful person, what actions or steps will you do to work towards it then? I bet that you will think of whole lot of ways just to reach your goal.

I have come across a book titled "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki. In one of the chapter, he encourages the readers not to have limiting beliefs such as "I cannot afford this", "I cannot do this". Instead of telling yourself you cannot do this or that, try asking yourself "How can I afford this?", "How I can achieve his?"

While you ask yourself the word "HOW", it will open up your mind to think of all the possibilities of achieving what you want.

So people, start thinking like millionaires now, and let's work towards our goal together.

Cheow Yu Yuan,
Co-Founder www.HomeBizGears.com

http://ezinearticles.com/?Having-a-Millionaire-Mindset&id=356831

The 3 MOST Powerful Forms Of 'Viral Marketing' That Will PUT Your 'Opt-In' List Building Efforts On

EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it.

"The Money Is In The... LIST!"

I bet you've heard this catch phrase once or twice while surfing around on the Internet.

I know I have.

But, the question that usually arises is... "How do I effectively build one that won't cost me an arm and a leg in the process?"

Well, today's your lucky day because I'm going to highlight 3 of the MOST powerful ways to build your targeted 'Opt-In List' by using the Power of 'Viral Marketing' as your engine.

And the best part about using these 3 'Viral' methods I'm about to mention are... they cost virtually Nothing to produce, are Highly targeted, give You INSTANT Credibility and are in constant demand by website owners.

So, with that said, let's move on to what these 3 'Viral' methods are and how they will benefit you and your List Building efforts.

Method #1. Writing 'Special Reports'.

- Special Reports work great because they allow you to go into more depth about the Topic or Problem in question where you'll then be able to lead them to how your Product or Service(or Affiliate product) can fix there current problem.

- They give you Instant Credibility, which builds trust in your customer that you are knowlegdable in your industry.

- Website owners are always looking for quality **Free Stuff** to give away or offer to there Visitors and/or Subscribers.

This is where you could CASH-IN, especially if you make your special report 'Brandable'. This gives the website owner even MORE incentive to give your Freebie away if they can make Money in the process.

- And your Contact Information will always be inside, no matter what. Meaning, as your report is being passed around the Internet you'll always be able to lead your potential customer back to your website where they could sign-up for your newsletter and/or read up more about your Products or Services you offer.

Method #2. Putting Together A 'Free eBook'.

- Free eBooks work great as well and have the same benefits as I outlined through the special report.

The only difference using this approach is, you can put together a free ebook in less time then it would take to produce your special report simply because it doesn't even have to be your own material inside, it can be someone else's.

Just make sure you put together a free ebook with quality information inside.

- And they also allow you to target more then one Product or Service inside because free ebooks are usually a compilation of related articles targeting a particular problem leaving you room to diversify.

Method #3. Writing 'Articles'.

- Writing Articles is probably ONE of the Best and Most Effective Ways to produce a wave of Viral traffic to your website because every website owner needs FRESH content to feed to there visitors and/or subscribers.

- They also allow you to Target your audience's problem specifically that they're dealing with.

- And at the end of the article you have a spot called the 'Resource Box' to insert your personal Bio and/or Website information.

Just imagine if your article were to be picked up by some Newsletter Editor with a large list or High Traffic website and they use it as a 'Featured Article' in there publication, you could see an INSTANT Surge of targeted traffic to your website overnight.

That's where your 'Resource Box' comes in.(Take a look at how mine is formatted at the end of this article.)

Well, that about sums it up for the 3 MOST powerful 'Viral Marketing' methods being used today by most Internet marketers, and for good reason, because they work.

Now, with all that said, what do these 3 'Viral' methods all have in common that'll put your List Building efforts on 'Auto-Pilot'?

- They're in HIGH demand by website owners.

- They're HIGHLY Targeted.

- They give You INSTANT Credibility in your industry.

- They have YOUR Contact Details leading to Your website.

...and Most important of all, they're all FREE!

Just think for a minute, by using only ONE of these methods listed above, how it could put your Opt-In list building efforts on 'Auto-Pilot'.

This article represents just a summarized version of all the different List Building techniques available online, But, in my opinion, these 3 are the most effective.

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-3-MOST-Powerful-Forms-Of-Viral-Marketing-That-Will-PUT-Your-Opt-In-List-Building-Efforts-On&id=78342