More on using Social Media Sites for Business

Some other ideas to use in your Social Media Sites. In an earlier post, I talked about Social Media Sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc., and how to use them to build YOUR BRAND. Today I thought I'd offer a few ways to tie them all together so that one leads to another and then to another and so on.

First, let me get this off my chest. I think most of you can relate with me on this.

I see alot of people throwing out links to their opportunities, mainly on Faceboook and Twitter. That is the FASTEST way to annoy people and get them to not read anything from you. After-all... why should they read your posts if all they are is advertisements they don't want in the first place. How about some substance for a change.

Toss in a few quotes or a funny video or two. Maybe even a quiz or poll. Even links to an interesting article or blog post would be better than a link to XYZ company or product. The whole point in Social Sites is SOCIAL. You may have heard this said before, but I think it bears repeating: If you were at a party and someone had walked in with a handful of business cards and started interrupting others' conversations by handing out those cards, do you REALLY think that person would be welcome for very long? Well, that's kind of the same thing with those that like to toss their links out in the Social Sites.

Ok, on to the subject at hand.

Let's say that you use Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. You can substitute any of these with any sites you currently use... there are hundreds if not thousands out there. Twitter, as you may know, allows you to only send out 140 character messages. This can force you to be creative when "tweeting". Connecting all your sites together, so that anyone wanting to can connect with you on multiple levels, I think, would also be considered "fair play".

Make an attractive Twitter profile page and put up urls to your other sites to allow people to connect if they choose. People are always looking to grow their list of friends, followers, etc. In fact, do this on all your sites. The whole purpose is to connect with others and get to know them as they get to know you. You are trying to build YOURSELF as a knowledgeable individual in the sea of infinite others.

You can use twitter to bring others to your Facebook or YouTube page, where you might have an informative video awaiting them, or some other piece of useful information. THAT's what people want... something they can use. The more you can offer that, the better your chances of gaining a loyal following, and possibly then you might begin to offer links to your programs. You have to build that trust first.

I know I have been guilty of posting useless links myself. Let me rephrase that. I've sent out links to things I was excited about, but others found useless, because that was NOT what they were looking for. Let's face it. Most of the people on our lists are already involved in some program or other, and most of those do not want to get involved in another.

Just remember...use your sites in conjunction with each other, and always use them to build that relationship of trust FIRST, and The more you help others, the more you help yourself and good things will follow.

As always, comments welcome.

Review of ViralURL

So you have finally stepped into the world of making money online. You too, like the others, have decided to start with the affiliate programs. Also, you must have heard that it’s not a big deal to make good money with affiliate marketing, provided you choose the right programs and do some strategic planning while promoting your affiliate products. So far so good.

Whether you are promoting other people’s products or promoting your own products – that doesn’t matter because after all it is nothing but your own business and your means to earn good money. So whichever be your case, I am sure you would not want to leave money on the table and invite others to steal your share of profit.

Even though the industry of affiliate marketing is pretty competitive but if you are cautious and are strategic in your marketing techniques then, it could be very profitable for you.

Take a close look at the industry, you will see that not every one who gets into affiliate marketing is successful. People who are doing well leave no room for failure and take all security measures and understand its importance.

Yes! Security is one of the key factors in affiliate marketing. If you do not adopt proper security measures, then your business will be at high risk. One of the most important way to restore security is to protect your affiliate links. Do not take them for granted. A bit of carelessness on your part in regards to affiliate links may cost you a lot of dollars.

Do you know the long complicated links that you send to your prospective customers not only look convoluted but they can create a lot of problems too! If you send such an affiliate link to your customers, then the smart ones will definitely figure out that you are promoting someone else’s product and they would rather visit the parent company. Also, if your link does not function then your customers have to type a really long URL into the browser, which will definitely put him or her off.

You could be a victim of even a worse situation. What if some devious Internet pirates steal your affiliate links and replace them with theirs. If they do that, then you get no commission at all.

Did I scare you off with all of the above possibilities? Well, that certainly wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to open your eyes and state facts that actually happen in the world of Internet. It happened with me until I came across ViralURL , that brought a revolution to my online ventures.

So, if you are not getting the desired results out of your affiliate marketing,don’t lose hope. There’s definitely a remedy to this problem and that is ViralURL.com

Do I hear you asking, what is it and how can it help in averting any adverse situation for an affiliate marketer like me?
Be patient and read on, if you love your business.

ViralURL is a link cloaker that protects you in the truest sense. There may be many unethical people lurking around, who might play with your affiliate links by cutting them off or replacing them with their own etc. How much effort you put in towards building your business and advertising your business, if your links are tampered with, then all your hard work will be rendered useless.

In order to avoid such a rip off, ViralURL gives you full protection and sees to it that your affiliate links never get exposed to others.

So save yourself from getting ripped. Get all the commissions to your account that you rightfully deserve. All this is made possible by ViralURL.com

It is a blessing for every affiliate marketer like you and me, who wants to achieve success in their endeavor.

Is ViralURL limited to only link protection?

NO!

It does much much more than that. Let’s see what ViralURL can do for us:

*ViralURL helps us in protecting commission.
*ViralURL helps in building mailing lists.
*ViralURL helps in tracking statistics.
*ViralURL helps in earning extra ad credits.

In short, ViralURL allows us to create massive business leverage.
I don’t see any negative aspect associated with ViralURL. All you have to do is join it for free, then cloak your links, promote them and see your business soaring higher and higher.

You can get all detailed information about the program from the site www.ViralURL.com . There, you can find several unsolicited testimonials from various users of ViralURL. So if you want to protect your business and see your earnings grow, try ViralURL. You have nothing to lose with it.

Off-Page Optimization - Links to Your Page

If you can get your offpage tactics done properly, you can dramatically increase your site's rank on Google and other search engines as well.

NOTE: This is time consuming. This step is vital to your site's success, but if you don't want to spend the time on this portion, you may want to think of out-sourcing this.

Here are the things you want to look at when working on offpage optimization:
*Number, type and page rank of websites linking to your site
*Title of pages linked to you
*Anchor text of the links pointing to your site
*The quality of links linking to the website that’s linking to you.
*The number of outbound links on the website that is linking to you
*The total number of links on the website that is linking to you
*Whether or not the websites linking to you are deemed by Google as an authority website.

Copy The Top Ranked Websites For A Particular Keyword To Get A #1 Position - analyze the linking strategy of the top 10 ranked websites for our keyword.

Open up a spreadsheet (I use Open Office, but you could use Microsoft Works, or Excel if you have it) and create the following columns:
* Linking Website - This is the site that is linking to the site you are currently researching
* Anchor Text used - exact text used in the link
* Page Rank - Download the free Google toolbar to find out page rank
* Link Popularity - number of links pointing to the page that links to the focused page
* Page Title - Title of the page linking to the focused page
* Number of Outbound Links - number of links on page that links to focused page

NOTE: You will want to make a spread sheet for EACH site in the top 10 for the keyword you use. It'll be easier to understand why as we break down each column.

Visit Google and enter your Keyword into the search box. Open Notepad and make a list of the url's for the top 10 results. This is what you will be focusing on.

Next, we need to find all the pages that link to our top 10 list. You can do this by entering "link:www.linkedsite.com/page" into Googles search box. To get more results you can do the same in Yahoo's search box. (make sure you use "http://" for Yahoo. ex:"link:http://www.linkedsite.com/page") This gives you a list of pages that link to your focused page. Enter these in the "Linking Website" column on your spread sheet.

Next we want to fill out our spread sheet with all the info from these pages, for each page listed. Once that is done, we can figure out the linking strategy that we will want to use and improve upon to rank very high on the search engines. Let's see how we do this.

First, we need to calculate the percentage of your Keywords in page title

Then, we need to calculate the percentage of your keywords in anchor text

For each of these, all you need to do is divide the number of pages that have the keywords, by the total number of pages in your spread sheet. You will want to get as close as you can to these numbers for your site as possible.

You will want to contact each webmaster and ask to be linked to their website and in turn, you will link to them. Make this e-mail personal by stating something specific about their site that you like.

NOTE: There is software that can make this process less cumbersome. If you have the money, I would suggest choosing doing a search and finding one that suits your needs.

Social Media

As Featured on ArticleCity.com


Yes, there are alot of us that are in business and Social Networking is a great way for us to stay in contact with each other.

No doubt Social Media sites and networking is here to stay. It allows one to be very responsive to their colleagues and customers, and let them know how much they care. Social Media is like viral word of mouth. Although very few use it effectively. An overwhelming majority of Netprenuers are just throwing links out there like nobody's business with no useful content to anyone. And I'd be willing to bet that the ones that are NOT having a lot of success are guilty of this practice. What you should be focusing on is helping others, and the rest will follow. The goal is to project yourself or your company as professional.

You have to remember that Social Networking Sites are for making contact, building relationships, and earning credibility and trust, NOT SELLING YOUR OPPORTUNITY. Your object with social networks is to build YOUR brand. The more people see your logo, tag line or avatar, it builds their awareness of your practice, who you are and the value of your information or opinion. You must establish value, credibility, and trust with those in your circle if you want to be successful with your business. To that end, there is an etiquette that you must adhere to, to make it effective.

Engage in conversation with your contacts. Find out what they lack and/or are looking for as far as info they can use to build their business. Establish yourself as a leader, and people will flock to you in droves. You can do that by selling yourself as a knowledgeable source of information for those you network with.

Contribute regularly in your communities with solid content, helpful links, and generally anything useful. Be consistent in the time you spend on the sites and you will gain a following of others looking for what you offer due to the viral nature of Social sites.

Everything you do MUST be done with quality, and authenticity. You are developing relationships and must stay focused on that aspect.

Through the value of your information you will develop credibility and develop trust, which will turn and observer into a follower, then into a fan. A fan will turn into a lead, then and only then should you think about turning that lead into a customer. After all, a majority of those in your circle already have an opportunity that they are involved in.

Remember, people buy from those they trust, not just because you have the greatest product out there. Heck, ask anyone in business and they have THE best products on the net.

Now then, here are a few tips to help you get the most out of the Social Media:

**Figure out your goal – (Connecting with family or friends, marketing your brand or company, staying on top of industry trends). Write it down. Place it in a visible spot where you can see it every day. Believe me, this works and helps you to stay focused.

**Make social media a tool and not a distraction – (sometimes hard to do with everyone seeming to only plaster their opportunity with no real useful content.) When someone posts some useful content, by all means look at it and read it. It may just be the one thing you have been looking for to give you that boost you need. However, pass on the urge to click on every link posted. Most are just another opportunity, and you should really concentrate on your primary opportunity if you are just starting out.

**Set boundaries – Although it is a powerful business tool when used correctly, it should be focused on in moderation. You can either set tasks to complete or set aside a time block. Take Twitter for example – Start off by replying to direct messages and save clicking on irrelevant links for when you have the time.

**Become an Authority in your network – You can do this by continually learning and passing what you learn on to others. This creates value and develops your credibility. Remember to add quality and substance to your posts.

As always, comments and discussion are welcomed.

PLR Content

I've been doing a lot of reading lately about Private Label Rights (PLR) content. I used to think that it was only for lazy people who didn't want to do their own writing. But as I learn more, I've come up with lots of great ways I can use PLR in my own business.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, PLR is content that you get from the original author along with their permission to use it as your own. So you can get a great report, put your name on it and have your own product to sell or give away!

The first couple of products I created using PLR only took me about half an hour. There have been a few sales so far from them so that was definitely time well spent.

When searching for PLR content to use, I found there were a lot of different types of sites available. Some offered monthly memberships and others offered just one time purchases. So be sure to look around before you decide where to buy.

The site I found that was by far the best was PLRWholesaler. Not only do they have an unbelievable amount of content, but it's completely FREE. Most sites charge an arm and a leg for the amount of content that this guy is giving away.

And although I haven't been through everything yet, what I have read is very good quality. It's stuff you would actually want to use as your own.

Since it's free, I highly recommend that you check out PLRWholesaler and see if they have anything that you can use in your business. There just may be an ebook or audio recording that you could quickly brand with your information and start selling to your list.

Check it out and let me know what you think...

PLR Wholesaler

Placing Ads

Concentration: Don't over extend your ads by scattering them all over the place. Concentrate them in a small few and see if or how they grow. If no desired response, then try other avenues.

Reach: You want your ad to reach as many people as possible, for as long as possible.

Frequency: Absorbtion of your message can only be achieved from repetition (minimum 6 times). Go for several simple messages over one flashy big ad.

Play the competition - Don't try to compete with bigger firms. Instead, narrow your target or create a niche.

Test, test, and test again - Ask people where they saw your ad. Track by key codes if possible. Keep running a winning ad until results are no longer reached.

Stimulous response - It's not what you say...it's what they hear.

Surprise - Ad an element of surprise in your first ad if you can.

Emotion - Use human emotion in your ads if space allows. You'll get higher impact and greater retention among your customers.

Appeal to your customers self interest - Put yourself in your customers place. Leave no doubt about what they get if they choose you.

Marketing Strategies

With the economy changing as it is, we all need to focus on our marketing strategies. Are they working? What's working and/or NOT working? Looking to attract new customers? Worried about losing current customers?

These are questions you should be constantly asking yourself, to keep tabs on how your marketing strategies are keeping up.

The bottom line is, people have to know you are out there. If they don't, then they will never find you. Ok, they MIGHT find you, accidentally, but you should make it very easy for your customers to find you. One way to gain new customers is to give away stuff. E-books, articles, and e-mail courses are just a few things you can give away. You can also allow others to include your article in their newsletter or e-zine, or allow others to link to your free e-book to give away to others. This creates traffic to your site....and without traffic, there are no customers.

To keep the customers you already have, you should constantly looking into what it is they need or want, and find ways to give it to them. One simple way to do that is to ask them to fill out a survey.



Other things that YOU can control is, your website, your brochures, business cards, sales letters, and ads.