Rather than using your Twitter and Facebook accounts in total isolation from the rest of your internet business, think about using them as complements.

It’s likely that your web 2.0 accounts and your web sites and blog were created at different times.

So you probably did not have the big picture in the beginning, and you did never plan how to interconnect these different ‘points of contact’ for your prospects and customers.

It is a good idea, though, to do exactly this: connect all your sites and web 2.0 profiles in a useful way. Deepen the connection with your visitors by giving them more ways to stay in touch with you.

For example, it has become common on news channels to refer watchers to company and reporter Facebook profiles and Twitter profiles.

The reason for this is simple: by getting people to follow them through social networking sites, those news stations gain yet another point through which they can advertise and engage watchers.

You can cross promote too:

• If you do print advertising, you might consider using it to channel traffic to your social networking site profiles.
• You can add a badge for your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or whatever account to your web sites and blog.
• You can pull your blog’s newsfeed to your web 2.0 accounts.
• You can add links to your web sites and blogs to your web 2.0 accounts.

If you use this strategy, you can significantly boost the results from your marketing campaigns by sending visitors to your network of web 2.0 properties.

This will allow you to capture visitors by getting them to join your network, so that you can repeatedly pitch to them (rather than only once) in a low-pressure atmosphere.

In Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #4: Create a Fan Page for Your Internet Business on Facebook I recommended you set up a fan page at facebook.

Now it’s time to actually use that business fan page.

Take some time today and Encourage Your Customers And Subcribers to Visit Your Facebook Fan Page and to become a fan.

There are two benefits of encouraging existing customers to become a fan of your internet business on Facebook.

The first benefit is that…

…. you can get additional exposure for your messages besides using the paid mediums (such as Facebook ads or any paid advertising).

The second major benefit is that you can market new products and services to existing customers without pitching to them directly.

They may overlook your email offers, or they may opt out at any time. But then there’s still a chance they stumble upon your Facebook fan page.

You can do this by simply creating a status update on Facebook.

Whenever they log into their account (even if they have no interest in conducting business), they’ll see your status update on their feed. If they find what you’re offering useful, they might just buy.

The best part of all of this is that you don’t have to make a high-pressure sales pitch, which might be awkward to do with existing clients. Instead, you can simply let them choose which pitches interest them; and which do not.

So, next step for you:

Find ways to tell your customers about your Facebook fan page, and, of course, email a link to your fan page to your subscriber list.

Facebook is one of the most promising web 2.0 sites when it comes to marketing your products and your internet business. One good way to use Facebook is to create a fan page on the site; and to use it to draw in potential buyers.

Start by investing some time to create a high-quality fan page.

This page should include…

• links to your site,
• a well-written description of what you do,
• and a brief description of the purpose of your fan page

A sample for the purpose could be: to provide all of your loyal customers with free information about upcoming product launches, product give-aways, and coupons.

How to win “fans” for your facebook fan page?

If you don’t yet have enough “fans” to get the ball rolling, it might make sense to start by giving people an incentive to become a fan.

You could do something like this: offer everyone who joins your fan page a 20% off coupon for one of your products.

You could then say something like “if this fan page has over 5,000 members by July 10^th, every fan will get product X for free.”

But the first step certainly is to create your fan page.

No reason to put it off…it takes only a few minutes.

Login to your facebook account now.

Now that you’re ready to enter the world of web 2.0, it’s important for you to spend some time carefully thinking about your web 2.0 identity.

Before you create a Twitter account, launch a Facebook fan page, and begin to market your business through web 2.0 channels you need to know what image you want to project.

The first thing you will want to do…
…is decide whether you should market your business

• as your business,
• as yourself,
• or as both.

Each of the three options has benefits, but it is ultimately up to you to decide which will work best for your particular situation.

Once you have selected your route, you should create accounts on web 2.0 sites and setup a profile that reflects your choice.

For instance, a Twitter account for your business should focus exclusively on business activities—and not your personal life.

Does internet marketing work? The short answer to this question is yes, but there are plenty of fantastic examples of how it works.

A good one is to consider the election of Mr. Obama.

Regardless of whether you are from the U.S. or not, and no matter what side of the ticket you were rooting for, one thing has to be said. Mr. Obama’s ability to use Internet marketing, including internet marketing methods, helped him win this election, according to many professionals.

Mr. Obama’s campaign is the most successful internet marketing campaign ever conducted.

The e-strategy blog called his campaign “The Perfect Political Storm”.

They wrote:

His brilliant use of the Internet and his get-out-the-vote efforts will be studied as a textbook example not so much of a multichannel marketing campaign as an every channel campaign. The campaign will be studied within the political world for bucking history and actually getting young voters to cast their vote.

Obama used the many, many tools in Internet marketing to help him to win his election because he and his campaign moreover knew the importance and success it could bring.

The world goes to the web to learn what it needs to, in today’s culture. More so, the Internet provides an easy, affordable way to reach millions of people every single day. No other medium offers this.

How did Obama use internet marketing to win the Presidential Election of the United States?

Using internet marketing tools, websites, and even things like GoogleAds helped him to make it happen.

First of all he had his own website.

http://www.barackobama.com

Besides giving information about his campaign the very purpose of this site was (and still is) to get people to subscribe to his email newsletter.

Once you do this you’ll get regular promotional emails. And most often you will be asked to support him with donations.

Before you enter his web site you are forced to see the name squeeze page. (If the president elect can do it, then you can do it too to build a list of prospects.) The design and content of the squeeze page changes often, but the purpose is to get visitors to part with their email address.

Social Networking For The Campaing

Next he (or rather his campaign) created a Barack Obama profile on ALL major networking web sites. That includes the 2 most used web 2.0 sites that we people from the so called ‘Internet Marketing Niche’ are using and promoting: Twitter and Facebook.

Barack Obama on Twitter

In fact, http://twitter.com, a useful tool that allows individuals to put out a 140 character message about what they are doing right now was used by Mr. Obama as one of the many methods of internet marketing.

By gaining a huge following and communicating through them in short clips, he could converse with everyday people, put his message out and do it all without spending a penny for it.

http://twitter.com/barackobama

At the time of writing this, January 5 2009, Barack Obama has a following of 154,537 people on Twitter.

I’m working on it too, hehe. I ‘collected’ my first follower on Dec 27 2008 and today, 9 days later, I’m at 946 followers.
http://twitter.com/ralfskirr

Barack Obama on Facebook

Another example of this is Facebook. Everyone on the web knows that Facebook.com is a haven for younger generation individuals who like to find each other and chat. The trend has grown. In fact, businesses, politicians, and even employers are using it as a tool to connect with others. Mr. Obama’s Facebook page was yet another form of internet marketing that helped him to get his message out.

http://presby.facebook.com/barackobama?q=barackobama&ref=ts

You wouldn’t believe it, he’s already set his eye on the significant year 2012.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/BarackObama2012/40275089374

And here’s me again. http://www.facebook.com/people/Ralf-Skirr/1019486454?

There’s A Marketing Lesson To Be Learned…

I’m not throwing my own accounts in for promotional purpose only. I’m throwing it in to bring your attention to a very important fact:

You and I are nowhere near the multi million dollar budgets Barack Obama’s campaign had, right?

Yet the very cool thing is – we can use the very same web sites that powered his campaign and it doesn’t cost a dime.

I have my own Twitter and Facebook account just like the President elect has, and you can do it too. It’s on a smaller scale, but that’s a good thing because your personal or business goals are on a smaller scale too.

We’ll come back to that in the next part of the IM Strategy series.

Barack Obama’s Personal Blog

Just like many small business internet marketers he’s keeping a blog too:

http://www.barackobama-2012.blogspot.com/

As you can see, there are excellent ways that internet marketing works. For most of the general public, you aren’t trying to win the presidential election. Nevertheless, these tools can still be used to help virtually anyone to gain success in getting traffic to their website.

Here’s just a few of the profiles Obamas internet campaign has created. You could – as part of your own internet marketing strategy – make use of the same networks.

Barack Obama on Facebook
http://presby.facebook.com/barackobama?q=barackobama&ref=ts

Barack Obama on MySpace
http://www.myspace.com/barackobama

Barack Obama on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/barackobama

Barack Obama on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/barackobamadotcom

Barack Obama on Digg
http://digg.com/users/ObamaforAmerica

Barack Obama on Twitter
http://twitter.com/barackobama

Barack Obama on Eventful
http://eventful.com/performers/barack-obama-/P0-001-000000162-8

Barack Obama on Linkedin
http://www.linkedin.com/in/barackobama

Barack Obama on Eons
http://www.eons.com/members/profile/barackobama

Here’s an excellent visual representation that illustrates Obama’s campaign.

It’s worth checking out, you could easily create a similar map for your own campaigns. Pay special attention to the social networking illustration on the right.

See it in full size as PDF.

That’s it for today, tomorrow we’ll finally reveal the 3-step-internet-marketing-strategy. We’ll explore these three parts and find out how you can put them to use no matter what type of Internet marketing business you have.

As usual: Your Comments Are Welcome…

We’ve seen shooting stars like youtube and myspace rake in billions.

Newcomers like Facebook, Twitter and the like are the big hope for marketers and business owners to profit from networking.

All the internet traffic is attracted to the web 2.0 properties like being sucked in a black hole.

If you’re ignoring the trend, you’re bound to lose your business.

How can you secure your share of traffic?

There are 4 main questions about leveraging web 2.0 for your business:

1. Can established web 2.0 sites like Facebook be tricked into sending loads of traffic to your site?
2. Can you make personal contacts to leaders and important people in your industry?
3. Is it possible to gain #1 search engine rankings for your own home pages using the web 2.0 sites?
4. And finally: What about creating your very own web 2.0 site tailored to your business niche? Is it worth the investment in time and money?

The web 2.0 category of Internet-Business-Mastermind is here to answer these questions and inform you about the most profitable web 2.0 strategies.

Make sure to sign up for the newsfeed on the right hand side to get notified about these profit producing articles.