How to Use Twitter to Grow Your Online Business

By Dan Lyne

Today it seems like so many newscasts (radio or TV) encourage their viewers or listeners to communicate with them through Twitter. The visibility for Twitter has grown worldwide. At the end of 2008, it was estimated by Forester Research that approximately 5 million users were on Twitter. Some estimate that number has grown by another million in just the last 3 months. You may be surprised to know that Barack Obama tweets. In fact, at the end of last year, Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs conducted a worldwide press conference via Twitter where they took questions from the public about the war against Hamas in Gaza. Because twitter is so spontaneous, it provides users with a means to find out about the latest industry news in a particular niche or activity within minutes of the actual event/occurrence. The purpose of this article is to discuss this new social marketing phenomena and how it can be used to promote your online and offline businesses.

Twitter is a “microblogging” service that continues to grow in popularity. Twitter posts, known as “tweets” can only be a maximum of 140 characters. Updates or Tweets are shown on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive these tweets. Getting subscribers or followers on Twitter is a goal of many who use the service. People who subscribe to your tweets, will get your whole tweet at once, instead of having to go to your website. Companies like Apple, Intel, Cisco and even the White House are all on Twitter.

In theory, if you gain more followers on Twitter, then you should be able to drive more visitors to your website and generate exposure for your businesses. This is because, if done right, Twitter can be a mechanism to send information to these potential customers and marketing your website. However, Twitter involves engaging other users. If you want to gain and keep a large percentage of your followers, don’t use spam tactics. One such tactic is to simply “blast” anyone and everyone on twitter with a notification that you are following them. Many people will simply follow those that send them notification that they are being followed. However, these people that “blindly” follow others, usually don’t actively engage many people. Following are some proven tips on how to grow your network on Twitter and how to use this service to gain exposure for your online business.

First you need to consider Why would people want to follow me? What can I provide them with that’s of value? Considering that there’s literally millions of twitter users, you need to determine what sets me apart from them? Market your strengths.

1) Build your profile

If you read through numerous expert blogs on Twitter and how to grow your network, they all start with the same/strong recommendation to provide a strong profile. Consider your profile as a breathing organism that should be continually built up. Treat your profile like your website or blog’s about me page. Try to update your account with content that appears like it’s written by a human. This means, include interesting comments/observations. You’ll need more than a sentence or two that describes who you are and what you do. Unless you’re a celebrity, you’ll need a detailed and clear profile. In one of the steps below, outside promotion is discussed. Directing traffic to your profile page is an excellent way to gain followers. In fact, this strategy of continually building up your profile and regularly driving visitors to this page on Twitter is one of the most effective means to gain followers.

Since you’re directing people to your Twitter profile, you should ensure your Twitter account’s background, avatar and overall design are consistent with your website. Although directing traffic to your profile page is a subject for another article, a few ways include: a) using Twitter as a customer service or support tool, b) include links to your profile page on your forum, blog and other social media posts.

A great way to attract people who may be interested in the content on your website, is to use the same keywords in your profile that you do on your website. A few examples include:

“I am interested in fitness and working out. I share weight loss tips on my website ” or “I’m a professional guitar player who loves to teach music, check out 5 tips to playing guitar on my website” or “I’m a successful financial adviser who can help you reduce your debt, sign up for my free newsletter when you visit my website.” These are all nice short bios that tell visitors about yourself. Note that we give them a reason to visit our website. It’s also a good idea to include some useful tips on your profile. This way potential followers will more strongly consider you. Always include a hyperlink to your website (include the “http” to ensure that it’s clickable)

2) Sync your website with your twitter account

This ensures new posts or articles appear as updates in your twitter account. If you’re driving traffic to your twitter account, people will see your numerous posts. This helps generate long term traffic, provided your content is of interest to your visitors. Use a twitter tool called TwitterFeed, to automatically post your latest blog posts titles.

3) Post questions as tweets

Examples of questions can be seeking information or recommendations. The result may be that your network could direct you to other twitter users with whom you may converse and ultimately gain as followers. Also consider questions where you’re seeking feedback on your website(s) or seeking a course of action for a given scenario. Your goal with questions is to generate a conversation and engages your Twitter followers with the responses from your followers.

4) Manually “pick” your followers.

A great way, but admittedly a bit time consuming, is to search Twitter using keywords of interest. You can simply type in any words or phrases and attempt to connect with others who share that particular interest. You will have to sift through the search results and look at various profiles along with their related Tweets. Next you can add people you think you can engage in conversation. This can be a very effective way to connect with people that would be interested in your website. This brings us back to point 1), develop a solid profile. If you build a profile with strategically placed keywords, people who are searching twitter, may land on your profile and follow you.

5) Retweet often (but not too much)

You want to optimize your exposure on twitter. In addition to the above tactics, you want to re-Tweet (sometimes called @ reply). The reason why you gain followers when people re-tweet you is that your username is exposed to people who haven’t heard of you. When you do this choose the right keywords or phrases. Other Twitter users enjoy engaging and thought provoking conversations. If you tweet and re-tweet with your followers, others notice. Your keyword rich (but not overdone) tweets can get picked up in twitter searches.

6) Understand How Twitter Works

Twitter should not be another marketing tool to be over manipulated. Although some will try, Twitter should be considered as a social marketing tool useful to those who are a part of the community. Don’t spam and don’t over-actively promote yourself.

Your goal should be to build a network within the community by replying to other tweets (retweeting), sharing observations, news and even direct your followers to a blog post, filled with useful information, and only then use that post to get followers to take action. Trying to take people out of Twitter right away and into a sales pitch will get you labeled as a scammer.

7) Review your followers and revise your strategy if necessary

If you’re using twitter to grow your online business, it’s a good idea to track the number of your followers. If you are losing many more followers than you’re gaining, review the content of your tweets to ensure it isn’t offending or “turning away” your followers. Consider having an unbiased third party take a look at your tweets to provide you with feedback.

Other ways to gain a twitter audience

To build your network above and beyond your initial contact list, you’ll need to look both inside and outside Twitter.

Outside of Twitter, placing a link to “Follow me on Twitter” in your email or forum signature, website, blog posts, and any other way that you communicate with people (where appropriate, of course)

Inside of Twitter, it’s all about following people. You can find other users that you admire, and see who is following them; you can also see who is following your friends. In order to do this use Twitter directories to find members who have similar likes. You can do this by using the search feature to find profiles of people you want to follow – and follow all of them. In most cases, they will, in turn, follow you.

There are more great strategies to grow your online business with Twitter. In addition to Twitter, you can easily grow your business with numerous other Social Networking sites. One way to find out about these strategies and more is through a Portal Feeder membership which includes training and the most powerful set of tools, resources and support to get you started making money online in 30 days.

Dan Lyne has numerous highly visited blogs and websites. He frequently contributes to numerous online resources. Click on the link to find out how you can grow your online business and how Portal Feeder can help you start your most successful year ever.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dan_Lyne

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Youtube Phenomenon

By: Andrew Jones

If you browse the web, you’ll come across many websites that has one or more video clips embedded in it. News websites such as BBC and CNN fall in this category. But, what about a website that has only video clips and nothing else? This is exactly what the Youtube Phenomenon is all about. To those who have not heard about Youtube, it is a video sharing website where one could upload, share, and watch video clips – Youtube videos – for free. It is owned by Google.

Here is a bit history of what all went behind in the making of Youtube.com. Little had the three former PayPal employees – Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim, and Steve Chen – anticipated about the growth and fame Youtube would achieve in less than one year since its inception, when they first planned such a video sharing website. An out-of-the box idea, Youtube.com was launched as an unknown new website on February 15, 2005 with virtually no promotion. The website with its full features become operational few month later; the first preview of the website was offered in May 2005 and its official debut in November the same year. As it had been with many great path breaking projects in the past, the incubation days of Youtube took place in a modest garage in California, much like its present owner’s – Google – beginnings, who started their journey from a leased space in a Menlo Park garage in 1998.

The beginnings of Youtube was pretty modest and its creators more than once at least went through a cash crunch as the visitors to the website grew and the need for better infrastructure and technology became inevitable. Irony it may be that the first helping hand they got which had pulled them out of the financial crisis was that of the venture capital firm Sequoia, the very same firm that had funded Google in its early years. Sequoia invested $3.5 million initially in Youtube, the stake which they upped to $8 million few months later, realizing the vast potential Youtube.com has in the fast growing world of infotainment in the near future.

Another development that had immensely helped catapulting Youtube into the forefront of online entertainment industry came from rather unexpected quarters, in the form of new software tool – the Flash Player 8 by Macromedia – that enabled people to view Youtube videos directly from their web browsers without having to download it into their PCs and view it with the help of third party software programs such as Windows Media Player or RealOne Player. In fact, it not only eliminated the need to view downloaded files in third party tools, but also provided a far improved video quality than its predecessor, Flash Player 7. Had it not been for the new Flash Player, the Flash Player 8, it is unlikely that Youtube.com would have taken off this fast, in such a short span of time.

As of today, Youtube.com, under the umbrella of Google, is the fastest growing video website in the globe and the 10th most popular amongst all websites in the cyberspace, according to the latest Alexa ratings. Nearly 100 million video clips from Youtube are seen by netizens daily and around 65,000 new Youtube videos are added every day into the database. The number of netizens visiting Youtube every month is thought to be anywhere near 20 million. No wonder, Youtube.com is described not as a website, but as a phenomenon by market experts.

The website www.topyoutubevideos.com provides a one-stop destination where you could find the best and interesting You Tube video clips. Our team daily search amongst the millions of video clips available in Youtube.com and categorizes and lists only the best, latest, and funniest amongst them for the netizens to watch and enjoy. In that respect, topyoutubevideos.com can be viewed upon as a free video website that provides only the selected best from Youtube’s ever expanding database of funny videos. Also, all the amazing videos that are listed under the different categories are updated daily so that the user would get to watch the latest additions to the funny Youtube videos database all the time. You won’t be disappointed or bored at the variety and freshness of entertainment you could find in topyoutubevideos.com !

About the Author

Wirnik – owner of www.TopYouTubeVideos.com : Most amazing YouTube videos on Earth.

(ArticlesBase SC #95129)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ – Youtube Phenomenon

Facebook – The New Internet Marketing Frontier

Facebook – The New Internet Marketing Frontier
By Jim DeSantis

It takes getting eyeballs to see your product or service, millions of eyeballs, and Facebook is an untapped marketing resource. Only a handful of Internet wise guys know how to use it. Here are some tips.

Facebook, Inc., runs a leading social networking web site, Facebook.com. Initially launched by undergraduates at Harvard University for college students, the site was soon expanded to include alumni in the corporate world as well as high school students. Membership was opened to anyone with a valid e-mail address in 2006 and it has grown into the millions since.

The key to marketing on Facebook is this: A members full profile information is available only to other members who are somehow connected. The resulting “connections” is what makes Facebook a billion-dollar idea that offers fat bank accounts to marketers who know how to be one of “them”.

A news feed feature, controversial at first, allows sponsors to push ads to highly targeted audiences in ways never before imagined. The value of these online connections that imitate those in real life is also reflected in classified advertising and that is where marketing is done, for free, among those connected “friends”.

Forget about trying to spam the system. Friends tell their friends about spammers and global searches of all registered users are not possible, limiting the possibilities for SPAM and other abuses.

Facebook has features to stay relevant in the Web 2.0 world. It leads the generation of interactive web sites designed to make it easy for users to share video, music, and other multimedia content. And, for marketers to reach those people in this sharing model.

Facebook ranked as the sixth or seventh largest social networking site. It was on top in some key metrics, according to ComScore Media Metrix statistics quoted in Fast Company. It led the country in photo sharing, a capability at the heart of the Web 2.0 challenge. In 2007 the company signed up with Comcast to produce a webcast called the “Facebook Diaries,” based on video contributed by users. Opening membership to the general public swelled the membership rolls and shifted the demographics away from the college age crowd. Interestingly, more than one-quarter of users were outside the United States.

Some marketers saw this shift to an older, more affluent, user base and moved in to make Facebook a steady source of steady income.

Some of the site features these marketers are using include:

…….. The Wall

The Wall is a space on each user’s profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see. One user’s wall is visible to anyone with the ability to see their full profile, and different users’ wall posts show up in an individual’s News Feed. Many marketers use their friend’s walls for leaving short, temporal notes. More private discourse is saved for Messages, which are sent to a person’s Inbox, and are visible only to the sender and recipient(s) of the Message, much like email.

Facebook users are allowed to post attachments to the wall, whereas previously the wall was limited to textual content only. Marketers are wisely using this feature.

…….. TheMarketplace

In May 2007, Facebook introduced the Facebook Marketplace allowing users to post free classified ads within the following categories: For Sale, Housing, Jobs, and Other. The market place is available for all Facebook users and is currently free. You can guess how valuable this feature is to marketers.

…….. Pokes

Facebook includes a “poke” feature which allows one user to send a “poke” to another. Facebook defines it as – “a poke is a way to interact with your friends on Facebook. When we created the poke, we thought it would be cool to have a feature without any specific purpose. People interpret the poke in many different ways, and we encourage you to come up with your own meanings.”

In principle this is intended to serve as a “nudge” to attract the attention of the other user. Friends often engage in what is known as a “poke war,” where the poke is exchanged back and forth continuously between two users by using the “poke back” feature.

There are several new applications such as “X Me” and “SuperPoke!”, that allow users to put any action in place of the word “poke.” Again, smart marketers have found ways of using this feature as well.

…….. Status

The “status” feature allows users to inform their friends and the Facebook community of what they are up to. Facebook prompts the status update with “(User name) is…” and Facebook users fill in the rest. Status updates are noted in the “Recently updated” section of a users’ friend list. How about “Mr. blue is working on a new ebook.”?

…….. Events

Facebook events are a way for members to let friends know about upcoming events in their community and to organize social gatherings. This can be used for seminars, meeting, courses, podcasts, etc., but, used very carefully to avoid being tagged as a spammer.

…….. Applications

The “Facebook Platform” provides a framework for developers to create applications that interact with core Facebook features.

Among the most popular applications are “Top Friends”, which allows users to select and display their favorite friends; “Graffiti”, which gives users a visual version of Facebook’s wall; and “iLike”, a social music discovery service that features concert information and a music trivia game, similar to the one featured on the iPod. Even games such as chess and Scrabble are available.

…….. Facebook Video

Users can add their videos with the service by uploading video, adding video through Facebook Mobile, and using a webcam recording feature. Additionally, users can “tag” their friends in videos they add much like the way users can tag their friends in photos. This feature was expected to increase competition with MySpace. However, the Facebook Video Application does not allow sharing videos outside of Facebook.

Users are not supposed to be able to export or download videos from Facebook. I say “not supposed to” because a Greasemonkey Userscript was posted on Userscripts.org which allows both the downloading of Facebook Videos and the embedding of Videos on sites outside of Facebook’s website. Another marketers dream tool.

Get educated about FaceBook marketing today. Jim DeSantis is an Internet Publisher and former TV News Editor who provides information about FaceBooking for experienced and newbie Internet Marketers at http://www.answersplus.info – AnswersPlusInfo. Check the sidebar for “FaceBook Advanced” and FaceBook for Newbies.”

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jim_DeSantis

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Blog Promotion, Your Efficient Internet Marketing Tool

By: James Langer

Blog Promotion is one of the most impactful tactics of internet marketing. Though, the common definition of blog is “written version of an individual’s personal thought” but nowadays, it has become a fruitful aid for internet marketing professionals. Blogs get an early listing from search engines; hence, internet marketing expert are commonly using them as an enhancing agent for traffic count of websites as well as for product promotion. But, bloggers are not allowed to write a marketing content in their blogs; instead, they spread information. So, bloggers, who are intended to do online marketing with their blogs, fulfill their purpose by giving an informative edge to the written piece. Some examples of an efficient blogging are mentioned below –

• Since, blogs are widely read by people, many companies mobile application creator companies promote their different applications and solutions by providing review of different phones. As an instance, if a company is developing application for android phones, it can promote its business by offering information on several android mobile phones; thus, the company would be providing information as well as promoting its product.

• Blog Promotions can also be used to boost business of an internet marketing expert, as almost everyone wants to know more about internet marketing and its complimentary term ‘SEO’. Hence, if an internet marketing expert provides information on search engine optimization and other internet marketing service, he/she promotes his/her business along with spreading information.

An expert blogger implement various tactics to make his/her blog popular. Some of the most effective strategies are creation of blogs at the most famous blogging directories, enabling of the option of ‘two way comments’ in blog, link exchange with other bloggers, including a lot more strategies. Content also matters in providing a better traffic to blogs. So, it is very important to put genuine as well as quality content blogs. Since, ‘information’ is considered the chief motto for blogs, it is important to write content in reader friendly language. One should avoid using jargon words in blogs. Blog’s topics should also been coherence with recent trends, as people tend to search for information on recent topics. Therefore, an updated blog would obviously enjoy better traffic.

About the Author

Author is talking about most impactful Internet Marketing services like Online Email Marketing, blog promotions, article marketing, pay per click marketing, article marketing and website banner marketing and many more.

(ArticlesBase SC #1611925)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ – Blog Promotion, Your Efficient Internet Marketing Tool

How to Achieve Your Internet Marketing Goals

How to Achieve Your Internet Marketing Goals
By Brian Garvin and Jeff W

If you get on the Internet and start doing business online, you may have a hard time at first trying to focus and wondering where you will start. This is perfectly normal, since there are so many different ways to earn money on the internet that it can be very confusing for someone new. If you are new the best thing you can do is don’t commit to buying anything just yet and do a lot of reading and research.

But be careful not to get caught up in “Professional Researcher” mode or you may never take any action. While you’re looking at free Internet Marketing Articles, try to visualize what project you would like to take on long term. Everyone has different work habits, needs and desires so it’s hard for anyone to make this decision but yourself.

If you keep searching around and browsing different categories, you’ll eventually find something you like. You might want to release a ClickBank Product. Or you may like Internet Retail Marketing and want to run a niche store. Perhaps you are a natural writer and would like to start a blog for yourself. These are all viable options for earning extra money online. Keep researching until you find exactly what you want to pursue.

After you do this its time to formulate a plan on how you are going to meet your goals. If you are running an Internet Retail Store your goal in a year for example would be to build it and get it to 300 unique visitors per day. If your goal is to start blogging your goal might be to create one good post per day for a year and start monetizing it with Affiliate Programs and Google AdSense. If you want to create your own product for ClickBank your goal would be to release it within 90 days.

Whatever you decide to pursue to make extra income for yourself on the Internet, just make it a point to be consistent in your actions to build your personal online empire. Keep up with the current trends of your trade by signing up to free newsletters in your area of expertise. Take advantage of free webinars offered and get on them. If there are free Internet Marketing Seminars in your area try to make an extra effort to attend them.

Let Brian Garvin & Jeff West teach you more about Banner Ad Blueprint and Banner Advertising.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brian_Garvin

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Twitter and Local Marketing – The Marketing Wave of 2010

Twitter and Local Marketing – The Marketing Wave of 2010
By Jenny Rodgers

Twitter gets a bad rap by a lot of older people. Really, it does. They believe it’s all about celebrities and utter-nonsense-gabbing all day long about absolutely nothing. Fiddle sticks, these older folks may think. But, the truth of the matter is that if you’re a local business owner and you’re not using Twitter in your marketing efforts, you competition can blow you away. Why? Because local marketing and Twitter are like bread and butter or peas and carrots, they simply go together hand and hand.

Of course, the majority of local small business owners aren’t yet aware of the power of Twitter. In fact, even the big corporations and advertising agencies have only caught on to the power of Twitter marketing within the last 12 months or so. Things move fast in today’s day and age. And, as a small business owner you’ve got to move fast too.

It’s not hard, folks. It’s really very intuitive and it’s dirt cheap. There’s a very low barrier of entry into the world of Twitter which should make you nervous and at the same time excited because if you’re using this stuff and the guy down the block isn’t you’re going to be one happy camper. I don’t think it’s an over statement to say that you could put them out of business within 12 months. I’m dead serious, it’s that powerful.

People have limited attention spans, probably always have, but even more so today. You need to constantly keep in touch with them, remind that about you, and stay in their face. But you should do it in a way that’s fun and light-hearted. That’s “ninja marketing”, and that’s the wave of the future. Imagine running simple promos for your small business on Twitter. It’s entirely possible. You could call it the Twitter Special or the Twitter Deal of the Day. That would be perfect if you owned a restaurant, people would eat that up…pardon the pun.

If you’re an auto mechanic you could “tweet” (Twitter update lingo) about your monthly special on oil changes. Whatever. Just get them in the door and keep getting them in the door, your business can easily double with this stuff, again, I’m deadly serious. And, again it’s so cheap. Twitter is all about getting in touch with a lot of people about a lot of things lightening fast without a lot of set up and hassle. It’s really that simple. It’s a game changer and it really levels the playing field for the small local business owner.

Each and every time somebody gets a tweet from you and sees your page it’s like free advertising. Out of sight out of mind the saying goes. With the proliferation of mobile devices you can now get in front of your customers 24 hours a day 365 days of the year. You can’t do that with a lousy billboard, can you?

Social networking advertising is something special and it’s only a matter of time before small local businesses across the country catch on to it’s usefulness. Be one of the first on your block to give it a test drive and forget about Twitter as a useless yak site, this is powerful marketing at it’s best.

For more a much clearer picture on how local SEO can dynamically increase your small business go to: Atlanta Internet Marketing.

Here is our website: http://www.peachtreeseo.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jenny_Rodgers

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What is the Buzz on Online Marketing?

By: Sarah Folgea

Well, online marketing for products and services has really taken off in recent years. In fact, it is one of the reasons that business is booming upon the internet. Doing online marketing really is a simple process of placing advertisements with certain keywords in them on a search engine and linking them to the product website. The more the words are used, the more hits that you will have for the web site. This increases your chance of getting and keeping business. It also means that you stand a better chance of surviving and thriving with your online business.

Since the internet is such an untapped goldmine, more and more people are making their living doing online marketing. They are making a very good living with what they do. With the advent of the internet, more and more people began to realize that to market their goods and services properly, that online marketing would suit them better than most traditional ways of marketing that the physical store would need. In this case, online marketing would definitely benefit all online business, no matter the products sold online.

The ease of doing online marketing is also one of the attractions of doing this type of marketing. It is cost efficient and with the correct key words in the correct order, then the will just raise your chances of being effective in whatever you are choosing to sell over the internet. In fact, classes are given in this type of marketing. That is how popular this particular type of marketing really is. It is also cost effective and time efficient. This is a big boon to those who have a lot of things that they need to do in order to do business.

A savvy online marketer will be able to attract customers from near and far and bring them to the web site.  The right words chosen can mean the difference between success and failure as far as an internet service or provider goes. This is crucial as there are many other online markets trying to market and sell their products and services to customers. To stand out from the crowd isn’t an easy feat. These online marketers have to be on top of their game to be able to get their product or service to stand out and stay out in order to have a successful business on the internet.

You may ask “Just how successful are these online marketers?” In reality, these are some of the best online marketers in the world. They fully understand how to use the system of online marketing to constantly produce results. This nets them a hefty pay check every week and makes their way of living much more comfortable. This is a skill that can be learned very easily and within a very short amount of time, a person can be up and marketing their internet product or service just like a pro.

Once the process is fully understood and absorbed, even a child would be able to get online, set up a business and run it using online marketing. It is simply that easy to do. The rewards are great for these types of online marketing gurus. It is simply put, a fantastic opportunity to make a living doing what they love and getting rewarded for it. With that thought in mind, the nest time that you go up on the internet and see all the internet ads, you can be certain that someone with a talent for online marketing has been there and profited.

About the Author

Sarah Folgea from aceinternetmarketing.ie specialises in writing articles relating to
Internet Marketing, Website promotion, Website Development,SEO etc.
For more information visit her website at www.aceinternetmarketing.ie

(ArticlesBase SC #461108)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ – What is the Buzz on Online Marketing?

Rules Of Social Media Optimization

Rules Of Social Media Optimization
By Justin Brooke

Before you can put any of these rules to use, you may want to understand a little more about the differences between social media marketing and social media optimization.

SMM = Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing is strategically using the big social sites to spread your brand name or drive traffic back to your web presence.

SMO = Social Media Optimization

Social Media Optimization is adding key elements to your websites or content that make them easy to spread across the big social sites.

Rohit Bhargava Developed Social Media Optimization Rules 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

1. Increase your linkability

Linkability is the willingness of other websites or articles to link back to your site. One way to increase your natural Google listing is to increase how many authority sites link to you, so to increase your linkability with social media optimization is to make your site more informative and useful to others. You can do this in many ways; blog, white papers, press releases, keyword targeted articles, RSS feeds, etc. This is the most important step in Social Media Optimization and should be your first priority.

2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy

The act of tagging is to bookmark the website to social bookmarking websites. For example, if you like the content or services provided at a website you tag it. This will show others that you approve of this site and they will check it out, making viral traffic. To include social media optimization tagging on your site, you can add tagging links such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Technorati, etc. Also, add the tagging links to other pages in your site (not just the homepage) and when visitors click the tag button make sure that there is a suggestion box to help your visitor list a relevant tag and notes.

3. Reward inbound links

As I mentioned before one way to increase your natural listing with Google using social media optimization is to get more back links. You can do this by rewarding people/websites that link to you (inbound links). Inbound links are links that send people to your site from somewhere else. One way to reward people for linking to your site is to have a “Recently Linked” that lists all of the websites that have linked to you.

4. Help your content travel

Social media optimization focuses on providing useful content to your market. When you publish content such as an article, video, or audio file you must help it reach as many people on the web as possible. You can do this by submitting to relevant high traffic websites. When the word gets out about your great content (no matter what format) you’ll receive backlinks to your site.

5. Encourage the mashup

To mash up is to use two websites content and mash them together. For example, Youtube makes it easy to mash their content (videos) onto your site. In addition, because it is so easy you have added a video to your site that has a Youtube logo on the video as well as a link back to you tube. So to encourage a mashup with social media optimization is to make it easy for other websites to use your content and reference it to drive traffic back to your site.

Jeremiah Owyang Developed Social Media Optimization Rules 6 and 7

6. Be a User Resource, even if it doesn’t help you.

One thing all visitors appreciate is honesty. With social media optimization you should include links to other websites that will help your visitor reach their goal or find the information they want. Do this, even when it doesn’t benefit you. By linking to competitors or information not created by you, you reap the benefits of having the all inclusive information on a particular topic. In the end, more people will link to you because you have lumped all information (or links) on a topic on one location.

7. Reward helpful and valuable users

Valuable users are your best friends. A valuable user can be determined in many ways; they may send traffic to your site, add valuable content to your site, or assist visitors at your site. No matter what their doing, if it benefits you, your site, or your service you need to reward them. This could be by sending a personal message thanking them for their dedication. Other ways to reward your valuable users is to create reward systems, advertise for them or promote their efforts on your homepage.

Cameron Olthuis Developed Social Media Optimization Rules 8, 9, 10, and 11

8. Participate

With Social Media Optimization you can participate by joining on the conversation about your topic (or targeted keyword). Simply posting articles and sharing content isn’t going to keep the buzz going. You should continue to share information on other websites. This participation will share your knowledge with more people. One way to do this is to find people that are blogging on your topic and to give input on the conversation. Also, participate in forums or other social groups that are discussing your topic. Read comments on your articles, videos, and audios and respond to them.

9. Know how to target your audience

Social media marketing is about sharing content/information. Not everyone is interested in your topic, so be sure to do your marketing research and post your information and knowledge where it will be understood and appreciated.

10. Create content

Content is considered to be any form on information that benefits a visitor. Content can be a white paper, article, video, audio, widget, the list goes on. Your job is to find a piece of content that will spark interest in visitors. No matter what market you enter there is always a form of content that they will share with others. Find out what it is and give it to them. This will in turn have them coming back for more useful content. If this happens, then you know that your social media optimization is successful.

11. Be real

Internet users are searching the web for specific content. If you are providing content that links back to a website, be sure that the website is relevant. You will not be rewarded for coaxing a visitor to a site that has nothing to do with the content they just read (or watched depending on the type of content you provided).

Loren Baker developed Social Media Optimization Rules 12 and 13

12. Don’t forget your roots, be humble

It’s easy to let popularity get to your head. When you become the shining star in your market be sure to recognize those that helped you get to the front of the pack. (this ties into #7 a little)

13. Don’t be afraid to try new things, stay fresh.

Any one on the internet knows how quickly things change. Keep up with new media content, new types of websites, and new interests in your market. By staying on top of new information you can maintain top rankings.

Lee Odden developed Social Media Optimization Rules 14, 15 and 16

14. Develop a Social Media Optimization strategy

Social Media serves multiple purposes. You need to identify what your purpose is and then publish content that will promote that purpose. Some purposes for Social Media Optimization include: branding, reputation, charity, increase traffic, build reputation, increase sales, credibility, etc. Make sure that as you develop content that you are publishing and creating with that purpose in mind.

15. Choose your SMO tactics wisely.

Of all the content available on the web only about 10% of people on the web are content creators. The other 90% are consumers and are willing to share your content. Make your content easy to consume and spread. Also be sure to create content that will have the most impact on your original purpose (which could be any of the following: branding, reputation, charity, increase traffic, build reputation, increase sales, credibility, etc).

16. Make Social Media Optimization – SMO part of your process and best practices.

We all know that there are specific Search engine optimization tactics that every website should include. Just as you include keywords in your title tags and keywords in your H1 tag, you should find ways to include social media optimization aspects into the building of your website. This can be small details like including social bookmark tags on your site or encouraging incoming links with the “recently Linked” list I covered in #3.

17. Don’t be afraid to let go of a message or idea and let others own it.

Finally, when you create a movement, spark and idea, or develop a new topic don’t be afraid to let others run with it. Collaboration is key. Others can improve upon your original idea and give you credit for the start. Be sure to give credit where it’s due.

Justin Brooke started with just a $2/day marketing budget and grew his business past 6 figures in just 1 year. At just 25 years old he has been Vice President of a multi-million dollar company and nominated “Best Marketer of 2007″ by the American Business Awards. Justin’s award winning social media optimization company wants to handle your social media marketing needs.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Justin_Brooke

http://EzineArticles.com/?Rules-Of-Social-Media-Optimization&id=778274

Why it is Important to Be Social in Social Media Why it is Important to Be Social in Social Media

Source: Ezine Articles

By: Kevin D. McNabb

If you are like me, you have become fascinated with the popularity of social media and the diversity of its involvement into the mainstream of our lives.

All you have to do for social proof is to take a look at the Alex ranking of the Top 20 most visited websites on the Internet and you will see that 5 of these sites are social media sites (#2 Facebook, #4 YouTube, #12 MySpace, #15 Twitter, #20 Bing)

So I think it is comfortable to say that social media is here to stay and if we are waiting to see if it is a fad or a force, I am here to help, it is a FORCE.

Now if your thought is to get involved in ALL the social media sites, you are biting off more than perhaps you can chew. Why? Because there is literally hundreds of social media/bookmarking sites available to us that offer similar and in some cases distinct options.

My recommendation would be to join three to four at the beginning and really master the use of the site before moving on to the next one and the next one.

One of my observations as I virtually travel through these sites is the lack of “social” etiquette used by some users within these communities.

What I mean by this is that each and every social media site is a community within itself. It has its basic structure and rules and regulations. The community as a whole will help others stay within those guidelines using various methods such as; gentle hints in posts, deleting of comments and in some cases pretty nasty communication.

So if we are interested in joining a community, then it is my recommendation to learn the dos and don’ts of that community.

The first thing I recommend that you do when you join a social media site is to fully complete a profile and upload an appropriate picture of yourself.

I don’t know how many people on a daily basis try and offer me, sell me, connect with me, etc… within a social media community and do not even have a picture uploaded.

This actually boggles my mind.

Why would I want to connect or do business with anyone that does not have the decency or credibility to upload an appropriate picture of them? Answer: I wouldn’t. For me any communication I receive from another member of the social media site that I am a member of that does not have an appropriate picture uploaded is immediately deleted.

Now let’s talk about what an appropriate picture is within a social media site. Well that depends on what you are using that site for. If you are using the site strictly for social interaction and non-business connecting than any picture that you choose to represent you is of course at your discretion. In some examples that I have come across, some people do not necessarily use any discretion.

So, the question that remains is what is an appropriate picture for one to use within a social media site if one is choosing to conduct business? Answer: A picture of you that your grandmother would be proud of.

We have all seen the examples of pictures used on a social media site that are at best questionable and yet the individual is expecting to have credibility with their audience.

Personally, when I coach someone about personal branding, the first two things that I review are the picture and the information being used in a profile.

It starts with your picture. That is the first thing that people see of you. It should represent you in a positive manner. Now, I am not suggesting that it shouldn’t be fun, what I am suggesting is the “one” picture that you choose to represent yourself in that social media site should be appropriate for your chosen use for that site. Hint: I recommend putting the fun pictures within the appropriate sections of the profile.

In closing, the most important part of social media is to be “social.” Think of it as you walking into a room of people that you have never met, but want to get to know. Ask yourself this question, “How should I present myself if I want to attract people to me?”

Kevin D. McNabb has been a professional network marketer since 1985.

During this time he has been able to build an organization in excess of 60,000 people in over 37 countries. His goal is to help create 100 millionaires through network marketing.

For more information about how to explode your presence on social media or Kevin McNabb (The Responsible Network Marketer(TM)), please see http://RNM.KevinMcNabb.info

Using Social Media to Strengthen Customer Relations

Source: Ezine Articles

By: David S Baxter

Social media began to be prevalent around 2005. Today, it’s sites like Facebook and MySpace that are prevalent among all age groups, although they began with a focus on young people as their main audience, to keep in touch. Today, corporations use these sites to improve customer relations. As of 2009, social media has begun to revolutionize the way corporations are managing their customer relations altogether.

According to IT research and advisory company Gartner, by 2010 60% of Fortune 1000 companies will be using social media in some form as a way to improve customer relations. That’s the good news. Gartner also posits that over half of the companies using web 2.0 sites for this function will do it wrong and actually harm customer relations. Gartner suggests that companies focus their analysis on customer online buying in order to offer a direct calculation of return on investment in terms of sales and customer loyalty coming through social media sites.

Gartner has said that there are four steps that businesses need to pursue so as to use social media successfully as a means to improve and manage customer relations. The first step is to clearly define what the purpose of the social and media initiative is. The second step is that a company must be willing to surrender some control over social media as a means to customer relations, because the public at large wants to “own” part of the relationship as a reward for their participation.

Companies then have to reward those customers that participate socially. This may mean allowing them to vote on, or otherwise rate contributions and information on the site. Finally, companies must appoint someone in-house who has the skills to head up a social media customer relations initiative. Using web 2.0 sites for customer relations should never be an afterthought. In fact, it should probably have someone specifically devoted to it full time, with their own staff if necessary.

Social networking has indeed changed customers’ and prospects’ behaviour, in critical mass. Gartner has stated that these customers can no longer be described demographically in a way that is entirely accurate or adequate; demographics are the usual means of measurement when it comes to corporate customer relations’ effectiveness.
However, with that said, don’t spend a lot of time or effort in trying to use social media as a focus with any great effort unless you know it will pay off by driving truly valuable traffic to your website.

Non-linear Creations did a year’s study of five social media sites, and their effects. These web 2.0 sites were Stumbleupon, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. It was determined after that year that social media sites drove about 18% of its site visitors from referring sites in aggregate.

In the Case of Non-linear Creations, Linkedin and Facebook outperformed the other social media site. That’s important, but it isn’t the whole story. What about conversion rates? Non-linear Creations measured conversion rates by whether visitors downloaded one of their white papers, subscribed to their blog or newsletter, or contacted them by phone or email. In this case – driving real prospects – Linkedin outperformed the other sites. Traffic from Linkedin was much more likely to convert than the average site visitor. Other web 2.0 sites actually underperformed the average.

There’s no guarantee that Linkedin will give your company the tangible results that Non-linear Creations got. It probably depends on what type of business you have. It is not quite understood what the less tangible benefits are of reaching customers online in a way that makes them feel as if the brand is listening and cares enough to interact in the way they desire. One of the things people dislike about customer support call centers is their anonymous feel. It keeps them from feeling a sense of relationship to the brand. So far no obvious downsides of using social media for customer service, so it would seem to be in any company’s best interests to use this form of outreach.

It certainly isn’t hard to create accounts on web 2.0 sites. The hard part is in actually interacting with customers on them, listening to them, and analyzing your online visitor numbers to see which sites give you the most return on investment in terms of online sales or some other metric. At that point you’ll have to determine how much effort to put into making under-performing social media referrers more effective.

Learn more about Social Media. Stop by David Baxters’s site http://www.SmartMediaInnovations.com where you can find out all the latest data and information about Social Media and how you can use it to improve your customer relations today.