Real Way to Make Money from Social Networks

A friend of mine built a Twitter following of more than 1 Million followers. One day, I asked him if he was making money from it. Do you want to know what he said? He didn’t really give me an answer. It was something like “going to be soon.” But, how soon is soon?

That’s something I see happening with promotional and web traffic efforts a lot. It seems there is really no goal, and that is why no achievement is being made. Sure, people put work into it, but at the end of the chain, there isn’t really a proper plan for monetization.

What does it mean? Simple. It means you’re just wasting your time and money on something you won’t get anything from: you’re working on something that’s not profitable.

So, what can you do about this? You have several choices:

• One obvious route is to use your social networking accounts (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.–whichever you prefer) to channel traffic to your products and services. You can lead visitors either to your website or to a specific sales page. Of course, for this to succeed, you have to try to make sure that your networking efforts were targeted at the very crowd that is interested in what you have to offer.
• Another way to monetize your traffic is to generate revenue by selling ad space on your site. You can do this directly by selling banner ads, text ads, and other ad space. This is a very lucrative thing once you’re really getting big traffic. How do you use social networks for this? They will be your promotional platforms. You can tweet and post updates about the ad spaces you offer, possible prices, and so on.
• With low or mediocre traffic, you’d better go for a simple pay per click solution, for example put Google AdSense on your site. Once your ads are running, you can start getting traffic from your chosen social networks to your site.

Assuming you’re running a business, whatever you do, there is just one question you need to ask yourself: How will I monetize this business step I took?

If you can’t figure out the answer to this question, then you might want to stop what you are doing for now, reevaluate your position, go over your goals, and then continue once you find a good answer.

How to Get Social Network Members

Before you think about getting thousands or millions of members, you must first aim to get a hundred or more people to join. There are various methods you can employ. Some of the best ways are:

1. Look for members in broad and popular networks like Facebook and MySpace. You can do this by seeking out people who look like good matches for your network and then casually exposing them to the network, so that they can decide whether or not to use it. It will actually be best to persuade your close friends or some acquaintance sharing similar interests to join.
2. Make a “Get More Members” Campaign on Twitter.” TwSince your Twitter marketing campaign will revolve around capturing people who already work in your niche, most of the people who are following you on Twitter will already be good matches for your network.
3. Search for new members on blogs in your network. There will always be people interested in the niche-based social network you have created, and a lot of them will be talking about this interest on their blogs; you just have to find and capture them by commenting on their sites and including a link to your new social network as well as your contact info.
4. Participate in niche forums where your crowd naturally hangs out. Forums are virtual communities where people who share similar interests come together: that is exactly why they are great places to get new members for your social network. Your goal here is simple: you must participate in discussions without blatantly promoting your site. Use the signature and make sure to have a good, catchy line that makes people curious about your new social network. As you build your reputation, start inviting people to become members of your new social network.

Whatever you do, remember that creating and populating a social network is not a trivial task. However, if you decide that it is a good route for your internet business, then make sure you spend the time and resources to make it work.

Make Your Customers a Real Part of Your Business

One of the most important functions of Web 2.0 is that it allows businesses like our to receive and actually encourage feedback from customers and visitors. These feedbacks are very valuable. Why? Because you can use feedbacks to develop your business. You can use it to:

• Establish customer loyalty
• Polish existing products or services
• Create new products or services

But, how can you easily collect feedback from your customers? One of the best way to is by using your Facebook fan page. These are the methods you can employ:

• Post an update, sincerely asking visitors to post or send you a story about how they’ve used your product
• Hold a contest where the person who wrote the best story gets free products or discount coupons from your online store
• Open a discussion thread and let customers air their thoughts

However, not all marketers have enough money or products to give away. If you feel like you don’t have enough resources or you are simply feeling lazy to organize such a scheme, then you have to learn this other “Get Fans and Followers” scheme.

Easy Way to Get More Fans and Followers

Facebook and Twitter have become very powerful marketing platforms, thanks to them being home to thousands and millions of our targeted customers. However, if you can’t get a good number of fans and followers, marketing on these media will be in vain.

Do you want to get more followers for your Twitter account or more fans for your Facebook page? Why not try this approach?

1. To get started, simply ask your readers to tell friends about your Twitter page or your Facebook fan page through a status update or tweet.
2. In your status or tweet, include 2-3 lines of encouraging text. You can simply say that you will appreciate if they recommend your page to friends, should they find your content and resources useful.
3. Let your current friends and followers do the scouting and inviting for you.

For best results, you might want to use any of these tools or posts they can easily use and re-post or re-tweet:

• Tell-a-friend scripts
• Direct links for social bookmarking
• Pre-written e-mail copy
• Facebook update/comment
• Pre-written tweets

You might be wondering: Will this bring instant massive traffic to your Web 2.0 business profiles and primary website? The answer? Probably not, but if you combine many of these tiny steps, which take very little time to do, you will surely reap a combined result that’s worth it!

While it is beneficial to market on both social network, however, in time, you will find that it can be tiring; you will need to post an update in Facebook and then tweet it on Twitter. Logging in and out and doing several tasks twice can be boring, don’t you agree?

How to Save Time When Marketing with Facebook and Twitter

One way to save some time while maintaining your presence on both Facebook and Twitter is to link the two accounts. This way, whenever you post a new tweet, a status update will instantly be posted on your Facebook account. The process it involves is very simple. Aside from that, you won’t need to hassle yourself and move between the two accounts and re-post the same messages multiple times.

Does that sound good to you? If yes, then you should check this out: http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/. Here, you will need to login to directly access the app. Once you are logged in, the Facebook page will present you with a request from Twitter app to access your information.

All you need to do is click the “Allow” button. Once you do, your Twitter and Facebook accounts will be connected. After that, every time you post a tweet, your Facebook account will will automatically be updated.

Using LinkedIn for Web Traffic Generation

How can you use LinkedIn to get more organic web traffic?

Simple. By getting your customers to give you a positive review on LinkedIn.

With each positive review, your profile’s search engine ranking position will improve. And as you already know, getting better rankings for your profile will give you a lot of benefits. Two of the most important benefits you’ll get are the following:

1) It will send more people looking for products or services in your niche to your LinkedIn profile.

2) It will get more people to find your website through your LinkedIn profile.

In either case, you have the potential to capture a great deal of extra traffic from individuals who are highly-targeted and who are interested in purchasing a product or service in your niche from the get-go.

Next step for you:

Now that you know how useful your LinkedIn profile can e, you should begin collecting positive review. Start by sending an email to your customers and ask them to review your business on your LinkedIn profile. If you have a physical store, you can talk to them directly, or you can choose to give them a call.

The Power of Your Facebook Fan Page

Taking some time and encouraging your customers and subscribers to visit your Facebook fan page and to become a fan can be an advantage to your business. It will provide you with various benefits, and two of those are especially vital for your business to flourish.

The two benefits you must aim for through your Facebook fan page are:

• First, you can get additional exposure for your messages besides using the paid mediums (such as Facebook ads, PPC ads, or any paid advertisements)- you can use the money you save for your other ventures or for new software you might need.
• Second, you can market new products and services to existing customers without pitching to them directly- regardless if you admit it or not, customers don’t like getting pitches, especially those that make them feel you’re only after their money. With your Facebook fan page, you can appear friendly and nonchalantly share thoughts and ideas.

If you are able to lead your prospects to your Facebook fan page, even if they overlook your email offers or opt out of your mailing list, you will still have a way to communicate with them; you can readily establish contact through something as simple as a quick status update.

Whenever your customers log into their accounts, even if they have no actual interest in purchasing something from you, they’ll see your status update on their feed. If you don’t spam them (e.g., post updates every half hour), then surely, once they find something you’re offering as useful, they might go and buy it immediately.

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.

Next Step to Take

So, you have discovered how powerful Facebook fan pages can be, and you now want to use it to your advantage. What are you to do? The next step you ought to take is to find ways to tell your customers about your Facebook fan page. Start by sending a link of your fan page to your subscriber list, and then work your way from there.