Internet Business Mastermind .com » Web 2.0 Marketing

3 Shockers From Michael Stelzner’s ‘2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report’

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:33:22 +0000

I’ve just finished reading the “2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report” and for me 3 facts really stand out on the surprising side. In case you never heard of it: The “Social Media Marketing Industry Report” is an annual report from SocialMediaExaminer.com on “How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses.” The “Social Media Marketing Industry Report” answers questions like: What are the top 10 social media questions marketers want answered? How many hours per week do businesses invest in social media marketing? What are the 9 most important results marketers are achieving with their social media efforts? Which ...

I’ve just finished reading the “2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report” and for me 3 facts really stand out on the surprising side.

In case you never heard of it: The “Social Media Marketing Industry Report” is an annual report from SocialMediaExaminer.com on “How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses.”

The “Social Media Marketing Industry Report” answers questions like:

What are the top 10 social media questions marketers want answered?
How many hours per week do businesses invest in social media marketing?
What are the 9 most important results marketers are achieving with their social media efforts?
Which social media platforms businesses are using, and how is their usage changing this year?
Which is the number 1 social media site people want to learn more about?

And many more…

If you haven’t seen the report yet, go and download. It’s free until April 19.

Download Page: 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report

Shocker #1 – Only 40% say they’re getting sales through social media

On a list of 9 benefits of social media marketing, 'improved sales' ranks last. (see page 9)

At the same time, 59% say they’re getting leads from social media.

What’s wrong with that picture?

If 19% of businesses are getting leads but no customers, they need to seriously look at their marketing funnel. (59% getting leads, 40% getting customers)
If 85% of businesses are aiming at increased exposure, but only 40% get customers, they need to ask themselves: What are we getting from increased exposure?

I believe the culprit here is a lack of goals and strategy, especially with smaller businesses.

They got the idea they need to be on social sites. They opened an account. They started posting.

And from there, things just happen coincidentally. You spend some time daily to visit the sites, post stuff, and interact. You post an occasional promotional link every now and then.

Mh, so who am I to cast the blame?

Look at my profiles, and you’ll find random, non-strategic social posting is just what I do.

But I find it costs more time than it’s adding in value to my business.

That’s why I have signed up for Mari Smith’s ‘Social Midas Course.’

If you feel you’re putting more work in than you get out (in leads and sales), sign up for Mari’s course, and build a streamlined, successful social media strategy this month:

http://ibmm.com/mari

Sidenote: Strangely, Mari’s course doesn’t seem to have a social or community component. I’d be happy to have a private discussion, or even a small mastermind group, with anyone who joins the program. Message me through my contact form or through google plus if you're participating at Social Midas.

Shocker #2 - Most businesses leave major marketing channels untapped

How will businesses change their social media marketing and non-social marketing in the future?

The big picture is easy, use of marketing channels falls into 2 groups:

1. Planning to increase use above, or near, 60%

Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Google plus, LinkedIn
SEO, Email marketing, Event marketing

2. Planning to increase use below, or near, 40% - all of these are also below, or near, 50% of current use. (see page 34 for current use)

These methods are ignored by half or more of all businesses:

Photo sharing sites, Forums (big mistake!), Social bookmarking, Geo-location, Daily Deals
Online advertising (shocker!), Press releases, Webinars (hey, they sell your products like hotcakes!), Sponsorships
And way down: Direct mail, Print ads, Radio ads, Television ads. I agree with that!

(see pages 24-30, and 35-39 for planned increase)

Let me be brief on this one: I know each marketing channel costs time and money – but more channels means more customers.

Re-evaluate for your business at least these 3 channels:

Forums in your niche are pre-build communities that deliver you potential customers on a silver platter.
Online advertising is the easiest form of marketing where you can measure money spent and money earned. Cut the losers, continue the winners.
Webinars build better relationships than ANY other form of marketing, except live events.

Shocker #3 - Most businesses get their priorities wrong.

Here are the platforms businesses are using for social marketing, in order of importance:

Facebook 92%
Twitter 82%
LinkedIn 73%
Blogs 61%

(see page 21)

Businesses prioritize Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn higher than their own Blog?

That’s completely upside down.

Always remember: Any third party web site can change their rules anytime. (Think Squidoo)
Always remember: Any third party site can suspend your account anytime. (Think Google)
Always remember: Any third party site can turn loser anytime. (Think MySpace)

You don’t know what happens with other people’s sites in the upcoming years, but you always have full control of your own web site or blog.

Besides, you don’t want to support their business, you want to support yours. And the best way to support yours is to support your own site and blog.

True: short term, getting engagement on Facebook and Twitter is MUCH easier than getting engagement on your own blog.

Also true: long term, you’ll profit more when using social sites to support your own blog, not the other way round.

Using social media to support your blog will put a solid foundation under your own site. It will help with popularity, sustainable Google rankings, and keep your content alive.

In internet marketing, your own web site is the center of the universe!

My takeaways from Michael Stelzner’s ‘2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report’

These are not recommendations taken from the report, but my own thoughts about where businesses can improve, based on the report's statistics.

1. Refine your social media marketing goals and strategy. Putting customer acquisition on top of the list might be a good idea. Exposure in itself is useless. Consider Mari Smith's Social Midas.

2. Evaluate unused marketing channels. Social media marketing is trendy, but there are lots of other profitable channels. Are you missing out on other trends and easy access to customers in your niche?

3. Make your own site more important than any other. Prioritize your own site for content, use social media to support your site.

Do you agree with my ideas? Why is social marketing going wrong for so many businesses? Let me know in your comments.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #77: Get Close to Your Readers

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 20:05:17 +0000

No matter how many great strategies you use, if you do not really intend to reach out to your customers, there will be no point in starting an online business. Every business involves selling, and if you can't socialize with your customers, try to understand them, and get ideas from them, you are destined to fail. There, the final general rule of thumb is to always put importance to get the conversation started, no matter what form of Web 2.0 you are using. Whether you’re firing off an @reply on Twitter or discussing some important topic on your Facebook fan page forum, it is important to take the initiative to get people involved. While a lot of people tend to come off strong on the internet since they are not meeting others face-to-face, there are still a lot of potential customers who will not ask or say anything unless encouraged. That is definitely why you must always make the first move. When you first start your web 2.0 marketing efforts, the only person who will be invested in your business is you. You must accept this and understand that growing your network of followers is ultimately your responsibility and no one else’s. If you do a good job, the responsibility will slowly shift over time from you to people who will become heavily invested in your network and will want to play a role in making it happen. Starting an online business and using various Web 2.0 marketing strategies can help you attain your goals, but only if you are careful and wise. Always create a plan before you act, be patient, and surely, you will achieve success.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #76: Google Plus is In

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:45:17 +0000

Google Plus. Are you familiar with it? It is a social networking and messaging system integrated in Gmail, and it is now one of the things you should not forget if you want to use Web 2.0 to your advantage. Google Plus is a continuously rising network that will allow you to easily interact with your customers, business partners, and family. It is a strong rival to Facebook and provides innovative takes in features such as friend and post segmentation. As of this writing, Google Plus is still in beta phase. Nevertheless, new features are being added ...

Google Plus is a continuously rising network that will allow you to easily interact with your customers, business partners, and family. It is a strong rival to Facebook and provides innovative takes in features such as friend and post segmentation.

As of this writing, Google Plus is still in beta phase. Nevertheless, new features are being added and adjustments are being made based on feedbacks gathered. Some current notable features of Google Plus that you can take advantage of are the following:

Circles- this feature guarantees that specific things you post are shown only to a certain group. For example, family matters are shown only to your family circle, and so on.
Hangouts- regardless if you are starting a mini-conference with friends or business associates, this video chat system will be of help.
Games API- a lot of marketers like us doesn't really appreciate getting bombarded by game updates. This nifty tab helps us get rid or, at least, effectively and easily ignore them.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #75: Get More Facebook Fans with a Facebook Ad

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:10:15 +0000

Your Facebook fan page is a great medium to get more traffic to your site, establish your online presence, and generally achieve success. However, without anyone knowing about your site, achieving any of your goals is next to impossible. That is why once you have your fan page in place, you must consider promoting it with a Facebook ad. Since Facebook can capture a tremendous amount of demographic information about its users (because they freely post it in their profiles), you can drill down carefully to determine which types of profiles your ads should be placed near. The great thing about this is that it is both an inexpensive and highly-targeted strategy for bolstering the ranks of your fan page. If you have just created your fan page and are looking to make it grow faster, then I highly suggest that you promote it with Facebook ads to get the ball rolling.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #74: Proving It All with Your Facebook Fan Page

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 01:43:12 +0000

Some people are very hesitant when it comes to availing products and services online, even when it has now become a safe and easy method for everyone. However, you can't blame them as there are still a lot of thieves and deceitful people lurking online. That is why you need to calm them; you can do it easily with your Facebook fan page. Another way in which you can use your Facebook fan page is to promote fan photos and testimonials. As I mentioned earlier, you should make a concerted effort to extract testimonials, photos, and relevant artwork from your customers and visitors; this is one of the reasons why you should. Once you get them, you have to add then to your Facebook fan page (if they’ll allow it). This will provide you with some evidence that you are running a legitimate business and selling good products. With such testimonials and photos, you can rest assured that people will be more willing to accept your friend invites, join your fan page, and give you traffic and sales.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #73: The Power of Your Facebook Fan Page’s “Insights”

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:27:09 +0000

There are a lot of features on Facebook that you can use for getting more traffic. However, some of them are left behind, even when they can produce great results if used wisely. One of these often-ignored features of Facebook fan pages is the “insight” feature. This feature lets you break-down your fan site traffic in great detail. It provides you with traffic info such as: Location IP addresses Likes and dislikes Other details about your fan site traffic. This information can prove extremely useful if you are trying to analyze your visitors to determine what types of people buy your product ...

Location
IP addresses
Likes and dislikes
Other details about your fan site traffic.

This information can prove extremely useful if you are trying to analyze your visitors to determine what types of people buy your product and have an interest in your niche. Try it today, and see how your business is doing and how you can improve it to get better traffic and sales.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #72: Get More Interactive with YouTube

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 01:43:06 +0000

YouTube is a great medium when you want to offer tutorials. After all, it is always easier to see how things are done compared to imagining it while reading an article. However, that is not only the great thing about YouTube. Another good use of YouTube is to make live announcements. This is not for everyone, but if you decide to use it, it has the potential to lend a significant amount of credibility to your business. Now, before you actually start creating the video, whipping out the webcam and getting to work, you must first spend some time planning out how your video will look. What do you want to communicate and how do you want to organize your message? These are important things to ask and answer before delivering a scatterbrained or confusing video message. You do not necessarily need to create a script; you just need to prepare an outline, which you can easily look at while filming.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #71: Share More Love with Twitter and Facebook Buttons

Ralf Skirr — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 15:40:31 +0000

Digg andReddit are not the only sites you can create buttons; you can also create similar buttons for the two most popular social networking and microblogging sites--Facebook and Twitter. Another thing you may want to consider doing to get more traffic to your site is adding a “Tweet This” and “Post This to my Facebook account” button to your blog posts. Facebook and Twitter are very popular media people use to share ideas, photos, and videos; if your post is interesting, this will become your number one marketing tool These buttons will make it easier for visitors ...

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #70: Spread the Love with Digg and Reddit Buttons

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 01:40:29 +0000

Have you tried promoting your business in social bookmarking sites? Social bookmarking sites can be great source of traffic and sales, just like Facebook and Twitter. As I mentioned before, it’s always a good idea to try to get your customers and site visitors to follow you on Facebook and Twitter. However, those are not the only websites you can get a lot traffic from. It is also worthy to try to get your customers to help you promote your internet business through sites like Digg and Reddit. These are the top 2 social bookmarking/news-sharing sites, taking pride in gaining millions of daily visitors For your customers to easily promote your business, you have to create buttons. This buttons have to be posted on your blog posts and on your site pages to allows visitors to “Digg It” or "Vote Up." The more diggs and votes you get, the higher your posts will rank on the respective social bookmarking sites. The higher the rank you get, the higher your chances of getting massive web traffic as well.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #69: Twitter as a Quick Website Updating Tool

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 01:35:10 +0000

Twitter only lets you submit 140 character updates or "tweets." Nevertheless, we can't deny the fact that Twitter is the best and fastest way for us to update customers, colleagues, suppliers, etc. If you have not done it yet, then you are getting left out. It is best to start using Twitter to promote recent updates about your website. You can give links to articles or reviews you have made, new products you have to offer, or even the maintenance schedule. In this case, you don’t have to say anything blatantly commercial. Instead, you can simply point out ...

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #68: Creating Smartphone Apps

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:47:07 +0000

The real secret to becoming a successful marketer is discovering all the possible marketing platforms and wisely using them. If you've chosen the path of Smartphone apps creation, then there is one thing you need to keep in mind: you must create apps that work for various operating systems. Once you’ve completed your iPhone application, the next thing to do is to modify it. By doing this, you can easily distribute your application for use on other platforms such as Palm OS, Windows, and Android. In many cases, programs that allow you to create applications uses a drag-and-drop interface. This lets you create versions of the app for multiple platforms. In this case, the process will be relatively simple; you just have to follow the instructions laid out in the program. If this is not the case for you, then you may want to consider hiring a programmer to make the adjustments. With a professional programmer, you might have to spend some more time and money. Nevertheless, the resulting Smartphone app will be feature-packed and easy to use. If you are unsure where to find a good programmer, you can start by looking at freelance sites such as Elance.com.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #67: iPhone App for Promoting Your Online Biz

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 01:35:04 +0000

In a previous tip, we have discussed the benefits of creating a Facebook app. Today, we will talk about a similar topic--creating a great iPhone app. As I’ve mentioned before, some of the tips we will cover are broadly applicable while others are not. It may be best to take some time to read the process before deciding whether or not this is beneficial to your and your business. The idea here is to create an iPhone application that showcases your web 2.0 campaigns. For instance, you can create an iPhone app that allows people who download it ...

Follow your blog RSS feed
See your tweets
View your Facebook update status.
Have a calendar for your internet business that provides product, sales, and coupon updates.

It’s important to note that you don’t need any programming experience in order to create a great iPhone app. You can do it using a program such as the following: http://www.taplynx.com/.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #66: Boost Your Traffic with Twitter Contests

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:33:46 +0000

Twitter has now become a very popular marketing platform. You can use it not only to directly promote your products but to create a buzz to get more traffic and further establish your online presence. One recent trend in this web 2.0 site is to create “re-tweeting” contests. The idea behind these is both simple and brilliant. If you can do this properly, you can rest assured that your Twitter account will get a tidal wave of new followers. Creating a "re-tweeting" contest is very easy. Here are the steps you need to take: Start by coming up ...

Start by coming up with a sufficiently desirable contest prize. After all, if you are not willing to give good prizes, you won't be able to convince anyone to join. Some prizes you might want to offer are: $150, free products, or a gift card.
Once you have decided on the prizes, then you can already announce the contest. You have to discuss the details of your contest. You have to say when it will happen and how the winner will be chosen. Ideally, you can give prizes for free via a raffle. There is a catch here, however; in order to enter the raffle, a person must a) be a follower and b) must re-tweet your contest announcement.
Hold the contest on the scheduled time and date. Tweet reminders every day, for the last 4 days before your contest. Once the day and time arrive, start drawing raffles and discussing prizes with the entrants.

The idea behind this, as I’ve said, is simple: each entrant in your contest will re-tweet to tens, hundreds, or even thousands of followers. The followers of your followers will see the re-tweet, become your follower and then re-tweet to others. This is a viral strategy that allows you to gain not only more followers but a lot more potential customers.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #65: Web 2.0 Cross-Promotion

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:21:44 +0000

It is great to promote your website and gain traffic from Facebook. The same goes for Twitter as well as Digg. However, if you have, say, Facebook and Twitter, it is best to cross promote on them. As a rule of thumb, it is always a good idea to cross-promote your web 2.0 marketing campaigns. Let us use the example above. Say, you have a Facebook and Twitter account. Every now and then, you can post a link of your Facebook account on your Twitter. You can also publish posts about your Twitter account on Facebook. Doing ...

Increases exposure in both campaigns
Increases your chances of getting sales from both campaigns
Increases your customer engagement

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #64: Attract Attention with a Splash Page

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 01:33:39 +0000

Sometimes you can't easily attract attention with just some bits of info regarding your business and your products. At such, you might want to change the default settings on your Facebook fan page. This is so your Facebook fan page visitors will see something more entertaining and will be easily swayed to join your page. Frequently, businesses and organizations will leave their “info” or “wall” pages as the default arrival page. However, one recent trend is to make a “splash” page as your default page. Splash pages are basically initial pages wherein info about the website (in ...

Coupons
News
Sales information
Product inventory information
Upcoming events
Awards, if any

Creating splash pages is beneficial if you want to easily attract fans. After all, who can resist a page that offers not only great information but discounts to products they are longing to have? Try creating splash pages for your Facebook fan page today, and start seeing the difference.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #63: Traffic-Building with Facebook Fan Page Forum

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 01:31:04 +0000

One of the best and easiest ways to drive traffic to your site is by creating a discussion forum on your Facebook fan page. You can then channel the forum traffic you get to your site. Facebook fan pages allow you to create a forum section. In this forum, you can create threads where you can better interact with your business fans. You can discuss your old and new products. You can answer common questions your customers have relating to your offers. With every post, you can provide a link to specific parts of your website where they can get more information. You can easily create forum threads by adjusting the settings to the “discussion” tab on your Facebook fan page. This is a feature of Facebook fan pages that is most underutilized. Today, forums are a hit as they allow members to share their opinion freely; this is something you must observe on your discussion page. Do not just allow your members to reply on threads you yourself have created. Rather, encourage them to start their own threads and provide your own thoughts. If you are able to fully use this feature, you can gain a lot of benefits, some of which are as follow:

Ideas about new products
Solutions for problems existing customers are having
Ways to develop your marketing strategy, products, prices, etc. to better appeal to your target audience

The discussion forum on your Facebook fan can be very handy. Try using it more, and you will soon see how it ca help you and your business reach success faster.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #62: Attract More Customers with a Facebook Application

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 25 May 2011 15:31:01 +0000

In many situations, this simply won’t apply to you, as it does not make sense for most businesses to create an application on Facebook. Nevertheless, if you have the right business model and products, creating a Facebook app can be a great way to increase your business’s presence online. If you don’t know anything about creating applications, don’t worry; we will discuss the basics of Facebook app creation today. While you might be eager to create a Facebook app, keep in mind that you don’t actually have to program the application yourself. Rather, you can simply work ...

Facebook App Creation

One: Create a Facebook app draft. Before anything else, there are several questions you need to answer. These questions will determine what kind of application you will create. These questions are:

What is the purpose of your application?
How do you want your fans to interact with it?
Do you want them to play an interactive game?
Do you want it to serve some other purpose?

Two: Review your plan. If you leave your Facebook app plan and return to review it after a day or two, you will find that there are things you will want to change, things you want to add, and things you simply want to polish. Go through your plan thoroughly, so that someone who knows nothing about your project can understand it. Three: Post your product on Elance. As mentioned earlier, you do not exactly need to be the one creating the Facebook app. Once your Facebook app plan is complete, you can simply post it on freelance sites like Elance and allow programmers to bid on it. Provide some time to gather bidders, and carefully consider offers that are at or below your budget. Visit the bidders' portfolio and settle on the one who has the greatest examples. If you work through this process, you should be able to get a good Facebook app at a reasonable price. From there, it will be up to you to promote it not only through Facebook but through your blog and website as well. You can even write an article and press release about it, if you like.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #61: Successful Product Launch with Facebook

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 18 May 2011 18:30:58 +0000

Will you be launching a new product? Do you have somebody who is planning a product launch who you want to support? There are various ways in which you can support a product launch through Facebook. Nevertheless, one I personally recommend is to creating an event. After creating the event, you can then promote it by inviting all of your business’s “fans” to participate in the event (i.e. your product launch). The success of your product launch is crucial to your achieving business success. With the help of social networks like Facebook, you can easily reach out to hundreds or thousands of people with a few clicks. By creating a Facebook event, you can easily tell people about your product launch's itinerary. It’s important that you spell out exactly what it means to participate in the launch event, so you will have to give specific details. Aside from the date and time, you can also describe what the launch is all about. For instance, you might explain that on the launch date, you are going to hold a variety of contests and award prizes, ranging from cash awards to coupons for products. It is also vital to remind fans that they must confirm if they are attending the event in order to be eligible to receive prizes in the contests. This will create a buzz about your event and possibly encourage new people to become fans. Depending on how many people are attending, you can plan different sets of prizes: smaller ones if you have, say, 50 attendees or less, or bigger prizes when you are able to get hundreds of confirmed attendees. It is also best to post reminders on your Facebook page to ensure that your business fans will not miss your product launch.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #60: Get Feedbacks with Your Facebook Fan Page

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 11 May 2011 15:45:54 +0000

In addition to sending updates to your customers and colleagues with your Facebook fan page, you can also use it to gather information from your fans, as I’ve mentioned previously. There are specifically three things that you should try to request from your fans. Three Things to Get from Your Customers with Your Facebook Fan Page Filled out survey form about your internet business. To adapt to the changing needs of your customers, to triumph over your rivals, and to continuously gain attention, reputation, and sales, it is best to learn what your customers feel. If you ...

Three Things to Get from Your Customers with Your Facebook Fan Page

Filled out survey form about your internet business. To adapt to the changing needs of your customers, to triumph over your rivals, and to continuously gain attention, reputation, and sales, it is best to learn what your customers feel. If you can get your fans to fill out surveys about your products (perhaps by offering some incentives), you have a good chance of capturing vital information that you can use to create, market, and fix your products. This is a surefire way to make your road to success smoother.
Photos or art related to your internet business. There are not a lot of cases where this can be applied, especially if you are focused on creating and selling virtual products like ebooks. However, if you can collect these, you can rest assured that you will have powerful proofs of your products' or services' excellence. To do this, you might want to ask your fans to post pictures of themselves using your products; this can be a very useful way to draw in additional people on Facebook.
Testimonials. Regardless what kind of business you have started or what niche you are targeting, testimonials can play a vital role in improving your credibility. For this reason, you should make a concerted effort to get testimonials from your customers through Facebook. You can post a link to a testimonial form or leave an email address where they can freely send their thoughts about the improvements your product or service has brought to their lives.

There are a lot of things you can do with your Facebook fan page. Getting feedbacks is just one good way to use it to enhance customer experience and help yourself achieve success.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #58: Creating a WordPress Blog

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 13:27:13 +0000

In web 2.0 marketing many people rely only on web 2.0 sites like Blogger and Tumblr. Well, you can't blame them. After all, these sites are popular and acquire massive traffic every day. However, there is something yo must know: when it comes to dominating Web 2.0, trying as many options as possible is key. Besides that, you must remember that while those are great sites where you can gain potential traffic and sales, youmust not rely all your promotional efforts on OTHER PEOPLE's SITES. What if they go out of busines, put your articles way back down the archives, or simply decide to ban your content any time in the future? It's crucial to focus your efforts on YOUR OWN WEBSITES that you have complete control over. An easy way to get your own website is to get a domain and install a blog from WordPress. Most web hosts offer a 1 click installation that requires just about zero technical knowledge; check the features of your chosen web hosts to determine if they can do this for you or not. With 1 click installation, your WordPress blog will be set up in minutes, and you will be ready to go and post content to your own site. Later, you can promote this new blog through other Web 2.0 properties that you've already build. Wordpress takes pride in its vast range of plugins and designs (the latter called "themes" in the WordPress world). You have to take advantage of these themes and plugins to make your new hosted blog relevant, professional, and protected against threats such as spams. Here are some other thoughts that might be of help:

If you do decide to start a Wordpress blog, I personally recommend installing a good SEO plugin for starters. This will allow you to increase your chance of getting search engine love. (More good traffic is equal to more sales, so you can't miss this.)
After you do that, it’s a good idea to begin filling your blog with relevant content. You can do this by writing yourself, hiring a ghostwriter to create your blog entries for you, or taking free content from article and ezine directories.

Are you unsure whether WordPress is good enough or not? There's an easy way to test Wordpress before getting your own website. You see, it has a counterpart. Wordpress.com , another Web 2.0 site, is a free publishing platform. Hence, it is filled with user generated content. Here, you can sign up and create your own blog using their wordpress platform. Try out different themes, look at how plugins work, test how possible content will look, and analyze whether all of what you see and experience will be good for you and your business.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #57: List Building With Twitter

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 01:27:09 +0000

Twitter and Facebook are today's hottest social network and microblogging sites. Having a member base consisting of millions, there is no wonder why they have become great marketing platforms as well. That is exactly why, in an earlier Web 2.0 marketing tip, I mentioned that you can use your email list to grow your Twitter follower list and your Facebook fan base. However, doing the reverse can actually be very beneficial as well. That is to say, you can use Twitter and Facebook to grow your email list. Can you just imagine it? With Facebook and Twitter, you can reach out to hundreds of thousands of prospects; getting even a mere 5% of those you are able to befriend will already give you a big mailing list. You can then use this list to continuously promote your products and services. But before we get too excited, let us see how this will work. First, you need to deal with your marketing campaign and mailing list. To make best use of email marketing, you need an autoresponder. Everything else is just too much work, especially if your list grows over time. This is how autoresponder works:

If you don’t already have an autoresponder, get one such as Aweber.
Create an email series that includes several product pitches.
Begin capturing subscribers.

Once you have setup your autoresponder, you can announce this on Twitter or post a status about it on Faceook. You can't simply just say "Subscribe to my email course today!" or something similar. Rather, tell your fans and friends (on Facebook) or followers (on Twitter) that you are giving free, useful content through a free subscription. Once they subscribe, you can send the promised to them and start sending pitches and informative emails after.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #55: Use Twitter To Sell Your Products

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 01:21:51 +0000

When it comes to Web 2.0 marketing, you will find that Twitter is one of the most popular media to use. Not only that, but Twitter is also one of today's most popular social networking sites. There is no wonder why Twitter has become a great tool for marketing just about any kind of products today. Have you tried using this powerful tool yet? Twitter for Promoting Products It is quite easy to start promoting and selling products on Twitter. What you just have to do is to gather followers, which would be composed mostly of your ...

Twitter for Promoting Products

It is quite easy to start promoting and selling products on Twitter. What you just have to do is to gather followers, which would be composed mostly of your customers, prospects, and colleagues. You can then start tweeting. Naturally, most of your tweets should be quality information about your industry. However, it makes complete sense to use Twitter for selling your products and especially create buzz around product launches. When you have a new product coming out, you should also tweet frequently to let people know about the upcoming launch. You can tweet reminders every few days and every day, five days before the actual launch. You can also upload twitpics and start re-tweeting contest. There are a lot of things you can do to make sure that Twitter will help you profit with your product. Of course, there are certain things you have to keep in mind. One thing you must remember is this: Obviously, you should have your Twitter account(s) in place looooooong before your product launch or promotion. Why? Simply because you need to have followers to get your promotion seen. Aside from that, it will also help you if you have already established your online presence and credibility before you start selling with your Twitter account. So, create your account early and start building up your followers. Also, you must know that this article relates not only to your customers but, especially for newly launching products, to JV partners as well. When planning a product launch, consider early enough how you can use Tweets to drive customers and JV partners to your related web sites. Don't make the mistake to mix customer and JV promotions, though; each has its time, and each has its own communication channels.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #54: Turn Social Networks into Money Generators

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 01:21:48 +0000

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter is creating a lot of buzz not only among regular folks who love to keep in touch but also in the internet marketing world. Well, it is unavoidable as these websites are teeming with millions of our potential customers. Are you using these networks to gain profits? If yes, are you really making money? 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 ...

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.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #53: Draw In Members

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 01:21:44 +0000

In the previous Web 2.0 marketing tip, we talked about creating a social network of your own. Have you decided on creating one yet? This step can be very beneficial for you and your business. However, this step can be very tricky. After all, the question still stands: How do you get thousands of people to join? 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 ...

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:

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.
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.
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.
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.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #52: Creating a New Sensational Social Network

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 01:21:43 +0000

It is always cool and beneficial to use existing and popular social networks for the advance of your business. However, if you want to feel more fulfilled, then you might want to start your own social network. Doesn't that sound more exciting? Do you want to create a social network of your own? You might think it is tough, but nowadays, it is actually a relatively easy task to accomplish. This is made true by the fact that there is now software you can use to make the social network creation smooth and easy. ABC: Make a ...

ABC: Make a Social Network For Me

One software you can use to create your own niche-based social network can be found at www.phpfox.com. It makes creating social networks relatively easy and allows you to do so entirely through a user-friendly control panel. Although there are many products that now allow you to do this, phpfox is one of the best and allows a great deal of customization. I can't exactly narrate all the steps for creating a social network with phpfox. However, let me just give you some friendly reminders:

Before you venture into creating your own social network, it is probably a good idea to spend some time thinking about whether this approach is compatible with your current internet business.
Carefully consider whether you can come up with a good strategy to monetize the social network you will create in the long run.

Creating a social network can be your very key to success, and with phpfox, there is no doubt that you can build a network in as short as a couple of hours. However, before you go on and create your own, think of the future and decide whether it is really going to be your stepping stone toward fame and fortune.