The number of customers using Facebook's online-advertising system has more than tripled in the past 12 months. This means that more and more small- and medium- sized businesses are now using Facebook as part of their online marketing strategy. Lots of local businesses are now finding success in this advertising model. Facebook launched its advertising program in 2007.
The ads, which appear on users' Facebook profile pages (wall, info, photos etc.) allow 25 characters in the title and as many as 135 characters in the body of the text plus an optional photo. The targeting behind the ads is driven by the personal profiles of Facebook users. If you list The Simpsons as your favorite TV-show, you will probably see an ad from Foxtel sooner or later.
Wired's Fred Vogelstein thinks that Facebook is poised to take over display advertising the way that Google has dominated search advertising. Internet users behave differently on Facebook than anywhere else online. Most of them use their real names, connect with their real friends, share their real thoughts, tastes and news. This is what makes Facebook audience so appealing to advertisers. You have real people with personal qualities who can be divided into exact consumer categories. Google, Yahoo and other search engines, on the other hand know little about of its users other than their search histories and some browsing activity.
Doubling its membership in March, Twitter is growing even faster than Facebook. As you might remember, at the end of last year, Facebook tried to buy Twitter for $500M but failed miserably. If Facebook had secured Twitter's huge stake on the real time user generated information, they could have secured the dominant position in user generated live content. More and more Internet users are transferring their social habits to Twitter and Facebook from sites like Friendster and MySpace. In May this year, Facebook surpassed MySpace in the US, which was the last strong hold for the News Corp owned site. According Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg Facebook's revenue may climb 70 percent this year. Also last month, Russia's Digital Sky Technologies paid $200 million for less than 2 percent of Facebook, valuing the company at $10 billion. Earlier Microsoft had secured a 1.6% stake for $240 million.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
How to Make Money Online by Turning Your Blog Into a Money-Maker
You’ve heard about the profit-making opportunities found online and you want in. But how do you get started? Where can you learn how to make money online? An internet marketing course will give you ideas and techniques for many different approaches. One of the simplest ways for beginners is to turn their website or blog into an online money-maker.
Also referred to as “monetization”, the process is simple:
1. Nearly all services have programs to help with design, so you don’t need to know any code.
2. Fill it with useful content- Make sure your content is useful and relative to your topic. Choose your keywords wisely and produce or choose well-written content.
3. Sell ad space- The simplest way to make money is to sell ad space through a service such as AdSense. This allows you to leave the ad management to someone else as you collect the money. Another option is to sell or trade space with other website owners hoping to promote their sites and/or create backlinks.
4. You’ll make money for every sale that comes through your site.
5. As you browse through these endless opportunities, you will learn how to make money online with greater efficiency – and you may even have fun doing it!
You’ve heard about the profit-making opportunities found online and you want in. But how do you get started? Where can you learn how to make money online? An internet marketing course will give you ideas and techniques for many different approaches. One of the simplest ways for beginners is to turn their website or blog into an online money-maker.
You’ve heard about the profit-making opportunities found online and you want in. But how do you get started? Where can you learn how to make money online? An internet marketing course will give you ideas and techniques for many different approaches. One of the simplest ways for beginners is to turn their website or blog into an online money-maker.
Also referred to as “monetization”, the process is simple:
1. Nearly all services have programs to help with design, so you don’t need to know any code.
2. Fill it with useful content- Make sure your content is useful and relative to your topic. Choose your keywords wisely and produce or choose well-written content.
3. Sell ad space- The simplest way to make money is to sell ad space through a service such as AdSense. This allows you to leave the ad management to someone else as you collect the money. Another option is to sell or trade space with other website owners hoping to promote their sites and/or create backlinks.
4. You’ll make money for every sale that comes through your site.
5. As you browse through these endless opportunities, you will learn how to make money online with greater efficiency – and you may even have fun doing it!
You’ve heard about the profit-making opportunities found online and you want in. But how do you get started? Where can you learn how to make money online? An internet marketing course will give you ideas and techniques for many different approaches. One of the simplest ways for beginners is to turn their website or blog into an online money-maker.
You’ve heard about the profit-making opportunities found online and you want in. But how do you get started? Where can you learn how to make money online? An internet marketing course will give you ideas and techniques for many different approaches. One of the simplest ways for beginners is to turn their website or blog into an online money-maker.
How To Protect Yourself So To Not Get Banned By Facebook
Nothing could be worse than getting your account suspended from Facebook. I mean there is surely other things that could be worse, but getting banned from facebook wouldn't be that great either. There is a ton of people that are in their late twenties that have been on Facebook since thier college years and would be devistated to get their accounts banned. To make sure this never happens to you, we will go through some of the things that you must be careful of what not to do.
It should come as no shock that Facebook despises spam as much as you may . Because of what had happened at Myspace, it should make Facebook even more aware and anal of the possibilities of spam on their website. A lot of people left myspace to go to Facebook because of this very issue of having to deal with a bunch of spam.
Here are some of the top reasons why you might get banned inside Facebook.
Make sure that you are not trying to add a lot of friends in one day. Typically if you add over 100 people or more a day that may be a little too many. Try to keep the amount of people that you add to around 50 or less, unless they were suggested friends .
The next thing you will want to make sure that you don't do is sending out the same thing on every one of your friends walls. Anybody who had a myspace account can remember this, getting all kinds of wall posts about random spammy looking things. This happened when one of your friends accounts go hacked and then the spammer went in there and posted random spammy wall posts. It is possible that you have something to say to all of your friends, but if this is the case just post whatever it is in your updates.
Another important thing that you want to be careful doing when you are trying not to get banned from Facebook is sending out identical emails to all of your friends. There is a limit in Facebook on how many people you can send an email to that is identical. If this is something that you still really want to do, just make sure to change the title of the email so that it reflects differently to some of your friends.
The fourth thing to be careful about in being considered spamming Facebook, is sending out mass pokes or promotional links. It can be that you feel like poking all of your friends for fun, but just don't do it.
If you would like to learn more about social media issues and topics then visit our blog at Orlando social media consulting .
It should come as no shock that Facebook despises spam as much as you may . Because of what had happened at Myspace, it should make Facebook even more aware and anal of the possibilities of spam on their website. A lot of people left myspace to go to Facebook because of this very issue of having to deal with a bunch of spam.
Here are some of the top reasons why you might get banned inside Facebook.
Make sure that you are not trying to add a lot of friends in one day. Typically if you add over 100 people or more a day that may be a little too many. Try to keep the amount of people that you add to around 50 or less, unless they were suggested friends .
The next thing you will want to make sure that you don't do is sending out the same thing on every one of your friends walls. Anybody who had a myspace account can remember this, getting all kinds of wall posts about random spammy looking things. This happened when one of your friends accounts go hacked and then the spammer went in there and posted random spammy wall posts. It is possible that you have something to say to all of your friends, but if this is the case just post whatever it is in your updates.
Another important thing that you want to be careful doing when you are trying not to get banned from Facebook is sending out identical emails to all of your friends. There is a limit in Facebook on how many people you can send an email to that is identical. If this is something that you still really want to do, just make sure to change the title of the email so that it reflects differently to some of your friends.
The fourth thing to be careful about in being considered spamming Facebook, is sending out mass pokes or promotional links. It can be that you feel like poking all of your friends for fun, but just don't do it.
If you would like to learn more about social media issues and topics then visit our blog at Orlando social media consulting .
How To Generate High Volume Automated Traffic From Social Networking Sites
Marketers and big companies are raking in millions of dollars on sites like Twitter, Facebook, MyBlogLog, MySpace, Hi-5, Linked-in and FriendFeed, etc. Dell reported earning over $3 million from direct marketing on Twitter. What do these social sites have in common? Traffic and lots of it. What makes them so popular and how did they get all this traffic? HOW can you duplicate their success and high traffic stats without allocating hundreds and thousands of dollars for marketing? How can you achieve their ranking?
Internet marketing these days states that there should be a right blend of the traditional marketing forms and the latest social networking methodologies in order to obtain the best of both the marketing strategies. Though both the marketing forms are extremely different and unique in their own ways, there are a few advantages that social networking enjoys over the traditional marketing method. Lets see what these advantages are:
It is absolutely free: while some of the traditional marketing techniques like PPC, CPM etc, are paid services, there is no service in social media that is paid. It vows for completely free Internet marketing solutions
. This is one of the primary reasons why social networking has moved a step ahead of other marketing fundas.
Targeting your market is much easier in the social media than it is in the traditional internet marketing practices. Moreover, social networking provides an opportunity to the marketers to get up and close to their target so much so that they can even communicate directly with them asking for their feedbacks and suggestions. Here are some ideas for incorporating social networking into your mix:
1. Creation of social networking profiles—Register and create profiles with the heavyweights like MySpace, Facebook, and the other usual suspects, but also do create profiles with business-oriented such as LinkedIn and industry-specific sites. Don’t forget to look for local and regional, too!
2. Participate in these communities—One of the best ways to get the most out of social networking is to become an active participant in these communities. Just make sure that your posts add something of value to the communities so that other members are inclined to take you seriously. Most of all, take care to observe the written (and unwritten) protocols of these sites, and don’t feed trolls by rising to their bait.
3. Include your URL in your signature—After you’ve established credibility with the other members of the community, include the URL of your site in your signature. It’s a great way to increase qualified traffic, especially professional traffic, to your site.
4. Start your own community on your site and update it often to give your readers a reason to check your site regularly. Consider adding a forum where customers can ask questions and get feedback from you. Your blog posts can range from informative to promotional to humorous and you can whet your audience’s appetite to check back often by introducing exclusive coupons and sales.
Optimize your blog posts—This is a major aspect of search engine marketing. Optimize each blog post to make it as easy to find in a search engine as possible, but always remember not to overdo it. Obvious and repetitive keyword stuffing will reduce linking opportunities and turn off your regular visitors.
Include social bookmarking tools—When a reader likes your content so much that they want to share it with other communities, make sharing as easy as possible by putting popular social bookmarking tools at the end of each post. These include digg, StumbleUpon, MySpace, Facebook, and others. Pay special attention to the newer, industry-specific bookmarking tools, too.
On a more practical ground, it is seen that it is always much more advantageous to have a unison of the two or more online marketing strategies in order to ensure that your website is receiving complete online marketing treatment and showing positive results too.
Marketers and big companies are raking in millions of dollars on sites like Twitter, Facebook, MyBlogLog, MySpace, Hi-5, Linked-in and FriendFeed, etc. Dell reported earning over $3 million from direct marketing on Twitter. What do these social sites have in common? Traffic and lots of it. What makes them so popular and how did they get all this traffic? HOW can you duplicate their success and high traffic stats without allocating hundreds and thousands of dollars for marketing? How can you achieve their ranking? To find out how to generate traffic from social networking go to:
http://mysmartphoneapps.blogspot.com/2009/09/generate-automated-traffic-from-social.html
Internet marketing these days states that there should be a right blend of the traditional marketing forms and the latest social networking methodologies in order to obtain the best of both the marketing strategies. Though both the marketing forms are extremely different and unique in their own ways, there are a few advantages that social networking enjoys over the traditional marketing method. Lets see what these advantages are:
It is absolutely free: while some of the traditional marketing techniques like PPC, CPM etc, are paid services, there is no service in social media that is paid. It vows for completely free Internet marketing solutions
. This is one of the primary reasons why social networking has moved a step ahead of other marketing fundas.
Targeting your market is much easier in the social media than it is in the traditional internet marketing practices. Moreover, social networking provides an opportunity to the marketers to get up and close to their target so much so that they can even communicate directly with them asking for their feedbacks and suggestions. Here are some ideas for incorporating social networking into your mix:
1. Creation of social networking profiles—Register and create profiles with the heavyweights like MySpace, Facebook, and the other usual suspects, but also do create profiles with business-oriented such as LinkedIn and industry-specific sites. Don’t forget to look for local and regional, too!
2. Participate in these communities—One of the best ways to get the most out of social networking is to become an active participant in these communities. Just make sure that your posts add something of value to the communities so that other members are inclined to take you seriously. Most of all, take care to observe the written (and unwritten) protocols of these sites, and don’t feed trolls by rising to their bait.
3. Include your URL in your signature—After you’ve established credibility with the other members of the community, include the URL of your site in your signature. It’s a great way to increase qualified traffic, especially professional traffic, to your site.
4. Start your own community on your site and update it often to give your readers a reason to check your site regularly. Consider adding a forum where customers can ask questions and get feedback from you. Your blog posts can range from informative to promotional to humorous and you can whet your audience’s appetite to check back often by introducing exclusive coupons and sales.
Optimize your blog posts—This is a major aspect of search engine marketing. Optimize each blog post to make it as easy to find in a search engine as possible, but always remember not to overdo it. Obvious and repetitive keyword stuffing will reduce linking opportunities and turn off your regular visitors.
Include social bookmarking tools—When a reader likes your content so much that they want to share it with other communities, make sharing as easy as possible by putting popular social bookmarking tools at the end of each post. These include digg, StumbleUpon, MySpace, Facebook, and others. Pay special attention to the newer, industry-specific bookmarking tools, too.
On a more practical ground, it is seen that it is always much more advantageous to have a unison of the two or more online marketing strategies in order to ensure that your website is receiving complete online marketing treatment and showing positive results too.
Marketers and big companies are raking in millions of dollars on sites like Twitter, Facebook, MyBlogLog, MySpace, Hi-5, Linked-in and FriendFeed, etc. Dell reported earning over $3 million from direct marketing on Twitter. What do these social sites have in common? Traffic and lots of it. What makes them so popular and how did they get all this traffic? HOW can you duplicate their success and high traffic stats without allocating hundreds and thousands of dollars for marketing? How can you achieve their ranking? To find out how to generate traffic from social networking go to:
http://mysmartphoneapps.blogspot.com/2009/09/generate-automated-traffic-from-social.html
Three SureFire Ways to Get More Friends Online!
I am always amazed at how many friend requests I receive on social media sites that contain absolutely no context. In some cases there may be mutual friends that we share in common, but beyond that there is often no other clue as to why the other person wants to connect with me.
Many times it will not make or break whether I accept the request, but it is always nice to know the reason why someone is reaching out. Because it is such a simple thing to do, I encourage people to take the brief moment it requires to explain a bit about what has prompted their request.
With that in mind, here are a few tips that will help you stand out from the pack:
Always personalize. This applies especially to a site like LinkedIn. There, you can send your request with the option of leaving the canned, generic response in the message body. This is something along the lines of "I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn." Pretty unremarkable, right? However, the majority of requests I receive use it. It seems to say that the person couldn't be bothered to add a personal touch to their message. At the very least, address your request using the person's first name.
Explain why you want to connect. This is probably the most important part of a request. Online, it's common to associate with people you might not necessarily know "in real life." This is all the more reason to let the other person know why you think it's a good idea to connect. A simple message saying you noticed you have several mutual friends, or you admire their work, or that you are interested in finding out more about their industry will suffice. As long as you are shedding some light on your motives, the other person will usually be more than happy to accept. It's just good social etiquette.
Follow up after the acceptance. This tip is for bonus points. Don't let your interaction stop after your request has been accepted. Take the time to comment on or send a message regarding your newly formed connection. This can go a long way towards making you stand out from the rest in the other person's mind. They are more likely to remember someone who expressed appreciation for your newfound relationship--instead of simply boosting their number of connections, never to be heard from again. Now that's building "social capital."
Many times it will not make or break whether I accept the request, but it is always nice to know the reason why someone is reaching out. Because it is such a simple thing to do, I encourage people to take the brief moment it requires to explain a bit about what has prompted their request.
With that in mind, here are a few tips that will help you stand out from the pack:
Always personalize. This applies especially to a site like LinkedIn. There, you can send your request with the option of leaving the canned, generic response in the message body. This is something along the lines of "I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn." Pretty unremarkable, right? However, the majority of requests I receive use it. It seems to say that the person couldn't be bothered to add a personal touch to their message. At the very least, address your request using the person's first name.
Explain why you want to connect. This is probably the most important part of a request. Online, it's common to associate with people you might not necessarily know "in real life." This is all the more reason to let the other person know why you think it's a good idea to connect. A simple message saying you noticed you have several mutual friends, or you admire their work, or that you are interested in finding out more about their industry will suffice. As long as you are shedding some light on your motives, the other person will usually be more than happy to accept. It's just good social etiquette.
Follow up after the acceptance. This tip is for bonus points. Don't let your interaction stop after your request has been accepted. Take the time to comment on or send a message regarding your newly formed connection. This can go a long way towards making you stand out from the rest in the other person's mind. They are more likely to remember someone who expressed appreciation for your newfound relationship--instead of simply boosting their number of connections, never to be heard from again. Now that's building "social capital."
Social Marketing Applied
Health promotion campaigns in the late 1980s began applying social marketing in practice. Notable early developments took place in Australia. These included the Victoria Cancer Council developing its anti-tobacco campaign "Quit" (1988), and "SunSmart" (1988), its campaign against skin cancer which had the slogan Slip! Slop! Slap!.[2]
WorkSafe Victoria, a state-run Occupational Health and Safety organization in Australia has used social marketing as a driver in its attempts to reduce the social and human impact of workplace safety failings. In 2006, it ran 'Homecomings', a popular campaign that was later adopted in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, and named the 2007 Australian Marketing Institute Marketing Program of the Year[3]
DanceSafe followed the ideas of social marketing in its communication practices.[citation needed]
On a wider front, by 2007, Government in the United Kingdom announced the development of its first social marketing strategy for all aspects of health.[4]
Two other public health applications include the CDC's CDCynergy training and software application,[5] and SMART (Social Marketing and Assessment Response Tool).[6]
Social marketing theory and practice has been progressed in several countries such as the U.S, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK, and in the latter a number of key Government policy papers have adopted a strategic social marketing approach. Publications such as 'Choosing Health' in 2004,[4] 'It's our health!' in 2006; and 'Health Challenge England' in 2006, all represent steps to achieve both a strategic and operational use of social marketing. In India, especially in Kerala, AIDS controlling programmes are largely using social marketing and social workers are largely working for it. Most of the social workers are professionally trained for this particular task.[citation needed]
WorkSafe Victoria, a state-run Occupational Health and Safety organization in Australia has used social marketing as a driver in its attempts to reduce the social and human impact of workplace safety failings. In 2006, it ran 'Homecomings', a popular campaign that was later adopted in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, and named the 2007 Australian Marketing Institute Marketing Program of the Year[3]
DanceSafe followed the ideas of social marketing in its communication practices.[citation needed]
On a wider front, by 2007, Government in the United Kingdom announced the development of its first social marketing strategy for all aspects of health.[4]
Two other public health applications include the CDC's CDCynergy training and software application,[5] and SMART (Social Marketing and Assessment Response Tool).[6]
Social marketing theory and practice has been progressed in several countries such as the U.S, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK, and in the latter a number of key Government policy papers have adopted a strategic social marketing approach. Publications such as 'Choosing Health' in 2004,[4] 'It's our health!' in 2006; and 'Health Challenge England' in 2006, all represent steps to achieve both a strategic and operational use of social marketing. In India, especially in Kerala, AIDS controlling programmes are largely using social marketing and social workers are largely working for it. Most of the social workers are professionally trained for this particular task.[citation needed]
Get lot´s of highly targeted visitors with Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking is a fantastic way for ranking well and direct traffic both direct traffic and good rankings. Social bookmarking sites directly show what people are looking at. They are aware marketers use it but know most sites that are bookmarked multiple times are genuinely useful.
Taking advantage of this will help to get your sites ranking well for their keywords.
Firstly, you need to open an account on some social bookmarking sites. Adding manual social bookmarks will take a lot of time, so look at software such as OnlyWire which automates the submission process. This will make your life a lot easier.
When you have your account set up, find some other marketers, friends or family who can set up their own account with Onlywire.
Then you merely swap bookmarks. You bookmark their site and they bookmark yours.
Most marketer's sites are only bookmarked once, with the occasional one gaining more than one bookmark. The search engines will know this and so pay attention to sites with multiple bookmarks.
This simple method can easily get you several bookmarks and will give your sites a boost in the search engines.
You can easily outsource social bookmarking your sites. This will very quickly add up if you are creating a lot of sites. You can find people on forums such as Digitalpoint who will do it very inexpensively for you, but it is still going to add up.
You can use the same technique to web sites such as Stumbleupon and Digg, both of which are potential sources of massive amounts of traffic. The sites expect their content to be more newsworthy and interesting. It is possible get the thousands of visitors in a few hours with a well written article.
Setting up multiple social bookmarking accounts yourself and bookmarking your sites is possible. However, these sites are smart and will realise what you are doing unless you hide behind proxies. This can be done, but often the hassle isn't worth it, particularly when it is easy to network with other marketers.
Networking with other marketers and trading bookmarks also has a side effect of building your network of contacts. Potentially, these could become lucrative joint venture partners in the future.
Social bookmarking is a great way for you to get traffic from both the search engines and social bookmarking sites. This will increase your search engine rankings and from this, your traffic.
Taking advantage of this will help to get your sites ranking well for their keywords.
Firstly, you need to open an account on some social bookmarking sites. Adding manual social bookmarks will take a lot of time, so look at software such as OnlyWire which automates the submission process. This will make your life a lot easier.
When you have your account set up, find some other marketers, friends or family who can set up their own account with Onlywire.
Then you merely swap bookmarks. You bookmark their site and they bookmark yours.
Most marketer's sites are only bookmarked once, with the occasional one gaining more than one bookmark. The search engines will know this and so pay attention to sites with multiple bookmarks.
This simple method can easily get you several bookmarks and will give your sites a boost in the search engines.
You can easily outsource social bookmarking your sites. This will very quickly add up if you are creating a lot of sites. You can find people on forums such as Digitalpoint who will do it very inexpensively for you, but it is still going to add up.
You can use the same technique to web sites such as Stumbleupon and Digg, both of which are potential sources of massive amounts of traffic. The sites expect their content to be more newsworthy and interesting. It is possible get the thousands of visitors in a few hours with a well written article.
Setting up multiple social bookmarking accounts yourself and bookmarking your sites is possible. However, these sites are smart and will realise what you are doing unless you hide behind proxies. This can be done, but often the hassle isn't worth it, particularly when it is easy to network with other marketers.
Networking with other marketers and trading bookmarks also has a side effect of building your network of contacts. Potentially, these could become lucrative joint venture partners in the future.
Social bookmarking is a great way for you to get traffic from both the search engines and social bookmarking sites. This will increase your search engine rankings and from this, your traffic.
How to Increase Internet Traffic with Twitter
Learn how to increase traffic to your internet marketing home business http://www.webbizmarketingtips.com
Guaranteed to be The Easiest Way to Generate FREE Website Traffic
Maybe you haven't been told this but traffic doesn't simply come to your site after you have built it. You have to direct traffic to it. There's hundreds of ways of doing this and the more ways you use the better.
New Internet Marketers are unfortunately left out in the cold when it comes to traffic generation. Gurus inform Newbies what to do but many times, don't inform them of the HOW, WHEN or WHERE. Sometimes, I hate to say, that is on purpose. Personally, I cannot see the sense in it as there is plenty of Internet out there to go around!
The way Twitter works is, normally if you follow somebody, they will more than likely follow you back. This is what we want happening BUT we want to ensure that we get targeted followers. The only way you can do this is by being picky about who you follow first.
Being picky about who we follow just means that you only follow those who you would want to follow you in return. Don't just go willy-nilly and follow everybody that is in Twitter, unless of course, the product you are selling on your website is so generic that it is something everyone would want. Which is most likely not the case.
So we do what is called selective following which means that you only follow those who you wish to have following you back. You wouldn't just go crazy and follow everybody that is in Twitter, unless of course, the product you are selling on your website is so generic that it is a product that belongs in everyone's home. Which is most likely not the case.
The first thing to do when creating a Twitter account that can generate traffic for your website is to get as many followers as possible. The more you have - the more traffic you can generate, the more traffic you can generate - the more you can increase your mailing list. But there are healthy and not so healthy ways to generate a following on Twitter.
New Internet Marketers are unfortunately left out in the cold when it comes to traffic generation. Gurus inform Newbies what to do but many times, don't inform them of the HOW, WHEN or WHERE. Sometimes, I hate to say, that is on purpose. Personally, I cannot see the sense in it as there is plenty of Internet out there to go around!
The way Twitter works is, normally if you follow somebody, they will more than likely follow you back. This is what we want happening BUT we want to ensure that we get targeted followers. The only way you can do this is by being picky about who you follow first.
Being picky about who we follow just means that you only follow those who you would want to follow you in return. Don't just go willy-nilly and follow everybody that is in Twitter, unless of course, the product you are selling on your website is so generic that it is something everyone would want. Which is most likely not the case.
So we do what is called selective following which means that you only follow those who you wish to have following you back. You wouldn't just go crazy and follow everybody that is in Twitter, unless of course, the product you are selling on your website is so generic that it is a product that belongs in everyone's home. Which is most likely not the case.
The first thing to do when creating a Twitter account that can generate traffic for your website is to get as many followers as possible. The more you have - the more traffic you can generate, the more traffic you can generate - the more you can increase your mailing list. But there are healthy and not so healthy ways to generate a following on Twitter.
How can social media marketing help your brand?
As part of an integrated marketing plan
, social media is the online marketing element that can best be described as the new word-of-mouth marketing. In the past consumers didn’t have any control over marketing messages but new technology gives consumers power by allowing them to decide which brands they want to engage with.
This shift in power makes it vitally important for brands to entice consumers to want to engage with them. Social media present brands with the opportunity to engage with consumers and get them to spread the brand message. When this is done correctly, social media can turn brand ambassadors into brand evangelists.
With so many platforms available anyone with Internet access can become a publisher through networks like Facebook, Twitter and so many others. Consumers can publish their opinions, experiences and thoughts whilst choosing who they want to interact with. Thus, social media gives consumers the power to have their voice heard.
Social media ties in with other online marketing elements like search engine optimisation (SEO) and online reputation management (ORM) as part of an online marketing strategy. It’s a mistake to think that social media and search are mutually exclusive. Twitter or Facebook profiles and blogs are showing up more frequently on the first page of search engine results, whether the group, fan page or blog is owned by the brand or not. In terms of your “Google CV” it looks good if the group or blog post is of a positive nature, praising the service of a brand, but it is a completely different story when it is negative. For instance on the first page of Google’s search results for “SAA” the blog “SAA Sucks” is listed. This of course is where Online Reputation Management (ORM) is all too important to include as part of your social media campaign strategy.
Unfortunately, social media is not as easy as setting up a Twitter account, creating a Facebook fan page and ticking social media off on your marketing to-do list. Social media requires continuous activity and engagement. Amongst other things, social media platforms can be utilised to execute ORM. For instance, by using search.twitter.com brands can see what is being said about them in the Twittersphere. Vida e Caffé is one of the South African brands using Twitter to their benefit. Others include Virgin Active South Africa, First National Bank and iBurst. These brands use Twitter to respond to questions, complaints, compliments and offer advice.
You don’t have to be everywhere, but it is important to have a presence on the more mainstream social networks like Twitter and Facebook. When a brand decides to engage with its consumers through social media there are a few generally accepted conventions to which one should adhere, for instance:
- Do not spam your readers and followers with marketing messages and promotional offers - Encourage dialogue and be interactive, remember it is a conversation! - Always respond to questions, queries and comments, whether it is good, bad or ugly
When a brand offers valuable content it is sure to see ROI from social media. Social media marketing can be complicated to execute, especially when it comes to closing the loop, maintaining consistency and starting a viral effect. If you would like to know how social media can enhance awareness for your brand as part of an online marketing strategy, contact AlterSage for a consultation.
, social media is the online marketing element that can best be described as the new word-of-mouth marketing. In the past consumers didn’t have any control over marketing messages but new technology gives consumers power by allowing them to decide which brands they want to engage with.
This shift in power makes it vitally important for brands to entice consumers to want to engage with them. Social media present brands with the opportunity to engage with consumers and get them to spread the brand message. When this is done correctly, social media can turn brand ambassadors into brand evangelists.
With so many platforms available anyone with Internet access can become a publisher through networks like Facebook, Twitter and so many others. Consumers can publish their opinions, experiences and thoughts whilst choosing who they want to interact with. Thus, social media gives consumers the power to have their voice heard.
Social media ties in with other online marketing elements like search engine optimisation (SEO) and online reputation management (ORM) as part of an online marketing strategy. It’s a mistake to think that social media and search are mutually exclusive. Twitter or Facebook profiles and blogs are showing up more frequently on the first page of search engine results, whether the group, fan page or blog is owned by the brand or not. In terms of your “Google CV” it looks good if the group or blog post is of a positive nature, praising the service of a brand, but it is a completely different story when it is negative. For instance on the first page of Google’s search results for “SAA” the blog “SAA Sucks” is listed. This of course is where Online Reputation Management (ORM) is all too important to include as part of your social media campaign strategy.
Unfortunately, social media is not as easy as setting up a Twitter account, creating a Facebook fan page and ticking social media off on your marketing to-do list. Social media requires continuous activity and engagement. Amongst other things, social media platforms can be utilised to execute ORM. For instance, by using search.twitter.com brands can see what is being said about them in the Twittersphere. Vida e Caffé is one of the South African brands using Twitter to their benefit. Others include Virgin Active South Africa, First National Bank and iBurst. These brands use Twitter to respond to questions, complaints, compliments and offer advice.
You don’t have to be everywhere, but it is important to have a presence on the more mainstream social networks like Twitter and Facebook. When a brand decides to engage with its consumers through social media there are a few generally accepted conventions to which one should adhere, for instance:
- Do not spam your readers and followers with marketing messages and promotional offers - Encourage dialogue and be interactive, remember it is a conversation! - Always respond to questions, queries and comments, whether it is good, bad or ugly
When a brand offers valuable content it is sure to see ROI from social media. Social media marketing can be complicated to execute, especially when it comes to closing the loop, maintaining consistency and starting a viral effect. If you would like to know how social media can enhance awareness for your brand as part of an online marketing strategy, contact AlterSage for a consultation.
Using Twitter in Your Business
More DIY videos at 5min.com
www.virtualassist.net/elearning. This "mini-class" is just a small part of my class "Social Marketing Success in Under 30 Minutes a Day". Learn about how you can use Twitter to market your business, and see some of the Twitter tools to make your life easier.
5 Innovative Marketing Tips For Success On Twitter
The simplicity of Twitter is what helped make it one of the most popular and powerful online social media sites today. If used well, Twitter can be an effective and invaluable marketing tool that will let you reach a vast audience of potential customers and clients. The 140-character limit imposed on tweets forces your messages to be concise, and in this media-saturated culture, that is exactly the type of easily digestible format that people crave. Here are 5 tips for taking advantage of Twitter in your marketing strategies.
1. Enhance the reach of your business blog
The more popular your company’s blog becomes, the higher its standing will be in search engine results, and thus the more exposure your brand name will get to potential customers. Twitter provides a great way of increasing your blog’s reach. Use twitter feed to give your followers immediate access to your main blog page.
2. Engage your audience in conversation
Engaging members of your target audience in conversation is one the key pillars of a good marketing campaign. It’s not enough just to shout your slogan at them. You have to see what they have to say so that you can deliver your message in more effective and unique ways. To see what other people are saying and to respond to their tweets, use TweetGrid and TweetDeck. Look for relevant topics and add your two cents to the conversation.
3. Valuable, concise tweets
The 140-character limit that’s at the center of Twitter’s success forces you to really think carefully about your tweets. The trick to gaining a good following is to put out immediately valuable messages that are concise and compelling. This is what will get you new followers and retweets.
4. Keep up on your market’s trends
One of the key elements of good marketing is to know what’s going on in your industry. Twitter Search and Monitter makes it easy to look up important industry topics and see what the market is currently leaning towards.
5. Build interest groups
By creating compelling interests groups you can initiate discussion about specific industry topics that are relevant to your marketing campaign. Building interest groups on Twitter is easy and is a great way to generate followers and buzz.
For more internet marketing information and SEM services please visit, http://www.bestrank.com, a Portland SEO agency
1. Enhance the reach of your business blog
The more popular your company’s blog becomes, the higher its standing will be in search engine results, and thus the more exposure your brand name will get to potential customers. Twitter provides a great way of increasing your blog’s reach. Use twitter feed to give your followers immediate access to your main blog page.
2. Engage your audience in conversation
Engaging members of your target audience in conversation is one the key pillars of a good marketing campaign. It’s not enough just to shout your slogan at them. You have to see what they have to say so that you can deliver your message in more effective and unique ways. To see what other people are saying and to respond to their tweets, use TweetGrid and TweetDeck. Look for relevant topics and add your two cents to the conversation.
3. Valuable, concise tweets
The 140-character limit that’s at the center of Twitter’s success forces you to really think carefully about your tweets. The trick to gaining a good following is to put out immediately valuable messages that are concise and compelling. This is what will get you new followers and retweets.
4. Keep up on your market’s trends
One of the key elements of good marketing is to know what’s going on in your industry. Twitter Search and Monitter makes it easy to look up important industry topics and see what the market is currently leaning towards.
5. Build interest groups
By creating compelling interests groups you can initiate discussion about specific industry topics that are relevant to your marketing campaign. Building interest groups on Twitter is easy and is a great way to generate followers and buzz.
For more internet marketing information and SEM services please visit, http://www.bestrank.com, a Portland SEO agency
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