* "Only connect. . ." E.M. Forster, Howard's End

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Online Marketing Through Social Networking Sites (Part 2)

Keep it Real
Just as with every new communication technology, there are those who use the medium in overbearing, unwanted ways. Social networking sites are no different. The key term here is “networking,” give and take. According to Bob Baker, author of MySpace Music Marketing, social networking success stories have one thing in common: “They’re all about the ping-pong effect ? It’s you sharing yourself with and getting to know dozens, and then perhaps hundreds of people. In turn, those people mention you to their friends.”


It’s NOT about posting, sending and otherwise spamming hundreds or thousands of others. Because interaction is a key feature of these sites, the potential for backlash is enormous. Social networking sites are back-and-forth communication forums, not broadcast media. Annoy or abuse people and they’ll tell the world.


So what can you do on these sites? How exactly does one share his/herself and get to know people?


Basic Online Marketing Principles
There are certain basic online marketing principles that apply when networking online. Among them:
- First and foremost, no spam. Communication should be individual and meaningful, not bulk, impersonal nonsense.
- On a related note, do not use automated software to post generic comments or messages in bulk.
- When emailing or messaging, unobtrusively remind people of what you do through your signature. Include your name; clickable Website URL; tagline or short mission statement; and/or other contact information in the signature.


Finding Connections
—– Sidebar on Terminology. Those you connect with are termed differently across different social networking sites. “Friends,” “connections,” your “network” and “subscribers” all describe online associates. Here, I use “network” and “connections.” —–


A critical component of successful networking (both in the physical and cyber worlds) is finding quality connections. On social networking sites, first think about the types of people you want to connect with (see “Whom to Interact With” in part 1. Then use a variety of methods to find them:
- Use the site’s search features to find connections by their psychographic or demographic features (religion, age, gender, geographic location, interests, likes/dislikes, etc.)
- Each time you find a new connection, look for additional connections in her or his network.
- Study comments on your connections’ pages ? or those outside your network with similar interests ? for potential new connections.


Approaching People to Become a Part of your Online Network
After finding potential connections, approach them about becoming part of your network. Ways

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Online Marketing Through Social Networking Sites

Social networking online is one of today’s hottest trends. Many, however, wonder how social networking can help their careers or businesses and exactly how to get started with this online marketing technique. Here in part 1, I will help you get started. In part 2, I will explain some techniques for expanding your presence and building a quality network of online contacts.


What is Online Social Networking?
From a conceptual standpoint, online social networking is no different than traditional networking and socializing. You meet people and get to know them by sharing information about each other. Those you like and/or share interests with become part of your “network.” The marketing magic kicks in when those in your network start talking about you. Your reputation spreads by word-of-mouth.


The Internet and related technology have taken networking to the next level, expanding each individual’s reach and exposure through online marketing. Where traditionally people gather in person to network–at the same time and place as others–members of online networking groups are not limited by time or geography. Each group member can interact 24/7 from any location worldwide. Consequently, online networking techniques are very different from in-person networking.


How To Interact Through Social Networking
Ways to interact are numerous. The first order of business is to decide what your marketing goals are with respect to social networking. While “finding new friends” is a sufficient personal reason for social networking, business marketing goals need to be more specific. Are you an individual looking for a job or freelance work? Do you want to gain exposure for your product, brand or company? Are you looking for potential employees or contractors? Do you want to get prospects interested enough to visit your Website or contact you? Your goals will dictate what you put on your profile and social networking home page, as well as who you look for to become part of your network.


After you’ve decided on your purpose for online networking, choose which social networking Website(s) you will participate in.


Where to Network Online
You can find a comprehensive list of social networking sites here, at Wikipedia. I am familiar with those listed below. They will give you an idea of the range of opportunities you will find at social networking Websites:


Yahoo! 360 (360.yahoo.com): Yahoo!’s social networking site is in beta as of this writing. The unique feature here is your Yahoo! 360 space is cross-promoted with other Yahoo! products, such as with your reviews on Yahoo! Local and your Yahoo! Groups. Like many social

Friday, July 29, 2011

Social media butterflies just can’t take a break

Even on vacation, they feel pressure to feed the Facebook and Twitter beasts

As a full-time mother, Yara Marquez doesn’t have a boss. But when she goes on vacation, she has work to do beyond caring for her 1-year-old son. “If I’m not on Facebook, I don’t feel like I’m doing my job,’’ said Marquez, 22, of Waltham.


If she takes a few hours off - at the insistance of her annoyed grandmother - her personal taskmasters are quick with negative performance reviews. “Why haven’t you hit me up?’’ friends write on her Facebook wall. Or: “You’re lost!’’


For years, employees have been complaining about bosses who expect them to respond to e-mail or meet other online demands even when they are on vacation. But now some people are feeling social pressure to stay on the grid.


“People expect you to be available,’’ said Rich Ling, author of “New Tech, New Ties: How Mobile Communication Is Reshaping Social Cohesion.’’ “It’s become taken for granted you are accessible.’’


Statistics on holiday travelers who feel compelled to feed the Twitter beast or respond to friends’ texts are hard to come by. But smartphone penetration has hit 35 percent of the adult population, according to a study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.


And in a recent online survey of 1,000 US adults, 54 percent say they use social media on vacation, up from 28 percent in 2010. The survey was commissioned by Marriott.


Expectations for staying in touch are so high that some people feel the need to send out a preemptive variation of the “out of the office’’ auto response.


“I’ve seen people declare, ‘I’m going to be gone for two weeks, so you won’t see me on Twitter or Facebook,’ ’’ said Andrew J. Rosenthal, an MBA student at Harvard Business School. “They’ve built such a strong day-to-day relationship with their followers they need to let them know when they’re leaving town.’’


Few are better positioned to see vacationers’ fear of falling out of the loop than Joe Fernandez, the chief executive and cofounder of Klout, an online firm that measures users’ influence on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. He regularly hears from people who are despondent, or even angry, that their Klout scores dropped while they took a break.


“Leave town for 3 days for a funeral and my @Klout score drops 8 points,’’ tweeted @asimpson920. “How quickly I am forgotten.’’

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Social Networking: How to Wordpress Blog Posts Auto-loaded to Facebook Notes Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/social-marketing-articles/social-networking-how-to-wordpress-blog-posts-autoloaded-to-facebook-notes-622265.html#ixzz1SkdZLTEb Under Creative Commons License: Attribution No Derivatives

FaceBook is at the top of the list whenever Internet marketers mention social networking. The news feed alone makes FaceBook a worthwhile place to be. Now you can share your blog posts with your FaceBook friends without a single keystroke. By setting up this blog feed, your friends will be just one click away. That means hundreds, even thousands of opportunities for new contacts to access to your information.


Setting up a blog feed is easy. Just follow these simple steps:


1. Log into your FaceBook account.
2. Go to your Profile Page.
3. In the center of the page is the status box where you can tell everyone what you are doing. To the right of the status box, just beneath the blue rectangle that reads POST, you’ll find a tiny link saying, “Settings” and a tiny asterisk beside it. Click Settings.
4. Under Stories Posted by You, is a line reading, “You can automatically import activity from YouTube, Flickr, and Other Services to your profile.” Click Other Services.
5. Click on Blog/RSS, and a new box will open up.
6. Place your blog’s RSS feed link in the box. In WordPress, the blog RSS feed URL is http://YOURBLOGNAME.com/?feed=rss2
7. Click Import.


Now when you post to your blog, the entire post will come up in the Notes of your profile page and a news feed will announce the note. You can go to the Notes page and click on SHARE to tag friends in the Note. You can also place the link for the Note into your FaceBook groups’ pages.


Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/social-marketing-articles/social-networking-how-to-wordpress-blog-posts-autoloaded-to-facebook-notes-622265.html#ixzz1Skd4kKHE
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution No Derivatives

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Blog Posting Tips - Get Maximum Exposure When You Hit The Publish Button Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/social-marketing-articles/blog-posting-tips-get-maximum-exposure-when-you-hit-the-publish-button-5027682.html#ixzz1SkaIktTM Under Creative Commons License: Attribution No Derivatives

You're just about ready to hit publish but before you do I want to give you some blog posting tips so your post can get ranked higher in the search engines.


When you are blogging you want to get as much exposure as you possibly can and to do that you need to be in front of as many people as possible. These blogging tips will take you absolutely no time at all and all of them are free.


These are things you should be doing daily anyway but we are just going to change the time that you do them. Out of all the blog posting tips I have this is my favourite part about blogging. You have spent a lot of time already doing your keyword research for SEO and your done with your article writing for SEO. Now comes the moment when you publish your post to the world.


Here Are My 4 Blog Posting Tips


· Your post is written so now go to the bottom of your page and fill in the details in All in one SEO pack. Put your title and your keyword rich description. Add your keywords at the bottom and include your name as you want people to find you. This is important because this is what Google will use in the organic search and also what Facebook will pull from your blog.


· Check that you also have your categories set and your tags are set ready to go. Also make sure that you have an image and it is linked to your capture page. Remember people like clicking on images.


· Head over to Facebook and open up about 30 or so groups all on your tabs. Also open one up for your Twitter account and one for whichever ping site you use. Planning is important with this but in the long run it will save you time and bring you more traffic to your blog. Save the blog post URL into a notepad document with a small title ready to copy and paste.


· OK this is it you are ready to go. HIT THE PUBLISH BUTTON NOW! Just give it a few seconds to publish the post then head over to Facebook and start posting the link into your groups that you have opened. I would suggest doing 10 then head to Twitter and post the link. Back to Facebook for another 10 and then ping the link. Head back to Facebook and add a couple of

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

5 Reasons to Search Engine Optimize (SEO) Your Website

If we had just launched our website, we must go to the second step: get the most visitors! There are several options are available:


• Either we choose to pay using, for example, Google Adwords.
• Either we are interested in free solutions.


Optimizing your website is part of this second solution.


If we go through this article, there are 5 reasons which would be the reason for optimizing your website.


1. The most logical reason is: if you do not make the top 10 or top 20 results, it is as if your site was non-existent. It is rare for a surfer to do research beyond the second page. If this page looks is already very well for you. Only work on the optimization can help you glean places and so you put the top search engines.


2. Target multiple keywords and make sure to rank highly on these keywords is the only way to attract more visitors. It is difficult to accurately predict keywords used by your potential customers. That's why your site should not be frozen at risk of gradually reduce the number of visits. When you set up your optimization strategy, try each week to target a new keyword. After several weeks of work, you may be able to dominate a niche. To improve your credibility, it's a good point.

Monday, July 25, 2011

3 Different Writing Styles of Bloggers

In general most bloggers have 3 different writing styles they use when posting that tends to make their content unique. The first thing that attracts most visitors is that the blog content itself is about a subject with which they already have an interest. After that it is the way in which most blog updates are presented that keeps people coming back for more!


Here are 3 popular ways most bloggers use when updating their platform that helps make their content unique and more interesting to readers!


Opinionated
This type of posting borders on ranting insofar as it takes existing topics or issues and injects a more 'personal' take or perspective along with reasoning as to why. People love these type of blog updates because it offers them a 'view' they may not necessarily agree with or a twist they may not have formerly considered. Updating in this way tends to rattle the cages of certain people who feel strongly against the opinions offered! This usually stimulates quite a bit of feedback/debate and this is great for bringing people together in a interactive type of way on the site! This is a GOOD thing!


Insightful
Everybody has a tendency to view things differently and sharing your 'perspectives' can be very thought provoking for readers. People love to be provoked in this way since it helps them view things in a different light thereby 'stretching' their own beliefs or way of thinking! This type of blog content can even help the reader 'grow' insofar as giving them a broader perspective or even deepen their understanding. You can imagine how much someone may enjoy this affect when it pertains to subject matter with which they have a personal interest!


Knowledgeable
The really 'pillar' blog content is the type that teaches people new things about subjects of interest to them! Whether it may be personal experience or the result of research any information that serves to teach and inform is generally regarded as quality information. On the flip side however this type of updating is difficult to maintain continuously since new information is not always available! On the other hand whenever something 'new' does arise the blogger should 'run with it' since content unique in this way can easily go viral online!


For the most part there are 3 different writing styles people tend to use when posting blog updates to their site. These styles, as discussed above, serve to make a bloggers content unique which is obviously important in order to keep people returning to the platfor


Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/blogging-articles/3-different-writing-styles-of-bloggers-5006186.html#ixzz1SkWwKIsU
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution No Derivatives

Sunday, July 24, 2011

How to Make Your Blog More Visible Online

In order to make your blog more popular online you will first need to get traffic to your site! By doing so, provided what you offer is interesting and unique content, your site visitors will then refer others as well! Capitalizing off the 'bounce' this viral effect will offer, you can now more rapidly build your visibility and traffic! So it comes right down to attracting and/or directing people to your blogging platform.


Here are 4 ways in which you can get traffic to your site that also offers the benefit of an additional viral bounce as well!


Networking
Collaborating with other bloggers in your niche is a great way to quickly build momentum. Exchanging links is a great way to get traffic to your site. These contacts can be developed by leaving stimulating comments on their sites. You can also offer your services as a guest blogger or even accept requests left at your blog from people offering their own writing services! Online or off a network saves legwork and when you branch out within your own niche word travels quickly!


Article Submissions
Writing article and submitting them is another great way to attract site visitors back to your blog. By enticing them with articles of relevance to your theme and links back to your platform you have now captured their interest in your writing skills. By offering even more unique content to them on your blog you are well under way towards developing a loyal reader! Having your articles circulating around online will help to maintain your exposure thereby generating even more traffic.


Post
Remember if you want people to visit your blogging platform with thoughts of returning you need to give them a reason to do so. Besides the more you update your site with content that is relevant the more search engines will help you by directing additional and targeted traffic your way as well!


Social Sites
By simply sharing links to your latest updates on any social sites you are involved in you can

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Search Engines prefers websites with plenty of words

The "experts" in the field say that a page in a website, should not have less than 500 words to have a chance of competing for a place in the Search Engines. This is only 1 aspect of the problem of being visible in the Search Engines of course, but it is a good start.


When you decide how you want your website to look like, keep in mind that design might not be the most important factor, writing enough of copy for the search engines to be able to find you, might be more important.


You need to have a good amount of copy for Google and other Search Engines to pick up what your website is about and what it is that you are offering.


Don't put too much effort in shortening your copy. My clients keep saying to me that people don't want to read too much text. This might be right. So keep the most important information at the top of your website and maybe more outstanding than the rest. However, you need words for the Search Engines.


Try to implement as many headings and sub headings as you think would look good and work with your copy. Google reads them as something very important, so use good keywords for your business.


Text that is bold will also be picked up by the search engines as more important information. Try sometimes to make important word within your copy highlighted if it makes sense.


Link important keywords in your copy to different pages within your website. Links are read by the search engines and they are important.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Initiating Web Marketing Efforts

Web or Internet Marketing strategies form the cornerstones of your online business, and outline in general terms what is required to make your business a success. The foremost step, prior to initiating any campaign or marketing scheme is adequate research; without which, even the best of the strategies would fall flat on their face. Any marketer must be willing to spend some time on studying and researching the market and learning the basics prior to starting up any program on web marketing. Post the research is over; care must be taken to set up an online page or a website that would serve as a platform for potential customers to know more about you and your business.


Contrary to popular perception, a website must be more user friendly than aesthetically beautiful to look at as any visitor would first notice how easily information is made available on the website than how good the graphics are or how pretty the arts are. Since, most of the users have slow dial up connections; hence more the number of images and graphics would be there on your website, the page would take more time to upload; it would further bother the visitors who are looking for some worthwhile information on your web page.


There is no doubt that over time, ecommerce sales have continued to rise as more and more people turn to the internet for their shopping. It's much easier to take a quick commute to your computer, surf the net for a short while, and purchase what you are looking for than it is to go out to a store for the same thing.


The website must be created with a view to save time and provide useful information as quickly as possible and any banners, logos and graphics that are coming in the way of accessing your website, they should be done away with. Respecting the visitor's time and reducing the number of imagery and utilizing the many optimization tricks of web design to keep the visitors hooked. Constantly improving your website usability isn't time-consuming, nor is it expensive and it's certainly not difficult. It simply involves common sense and dedication to the task


Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-marketing-articles/initiating-web-marketing-efforts-5049027.html#ixzz1SkT0zAwP
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution No Derivatives

Thursday, July 21, 2011

How to Attract Social Media Traffic

Are you disappointed that you aren't getting substantial amounts of traffic to your website? You work very hard on creating the very best content you can but the traffic numbers don't seem to be improving. It's always a trickle, never a wave, not even a splash. Well, there's only one reason why this would be the case. You aren't doing enough to drive the traffic yourself. Don't get us wrong. Content is still king but if nobody sees it, it's as good as nothing. And you probably aren't taking full advantage of the power of social media traffic. You see, social media sites are among the most-visited websites on the internet. Millions of people log in to these social sites every single day. If you are not leveraging social traffic, then you are missing out on a lot of opportunities to drive amazing traffic to your website.


Here are some tips on how you should go about in attracting social media traffic towards your site:


- Choose the social media sites that are appropriate to the type or nature of website that you have. First of all, there are numerous popular social media sites out there. Of course you can try to just go and use every single one of them but this is a bad idea. You won't be able to maximize the results you get if you do this. With that said, its best that you focus on just the sites that you can really focus some effort and time on. For instance, you can just focus on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn which are three of the biggest social networking sites as of today.


- For better results on enticing traffic, you must create complete and engaging profiles for you and your business on the social media sites that you chose to use. There's nothing more off-putting scenario at these sites than seeing a user with an incomplete profile. The biggest mistake you can make would be not uploading a professionally-looking profile image or avatar. So always make sure that you fill all the blanks in your profiles. This not only make your profile look great, it also builds trust within the viewers of your profile.


- Participate. This is the most important aspect. You have to be active in the conversations and discussions being made among your circle of contacts.


Social media traffic isn't that hard to get as long as you know which social sites are suited to your website and how to actually use and leverage them for your advantage.


Are you looking for more information regarding social media traffic? Visit http://www.howtosocialtraffic.com today!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_A._Jenkins
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6399177

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

A Crash Course on Social Networking

If you are unfamiliar with social networking it can be a bit intimidating at first. There are numerous sites online that you might find that you're at a loss knowing which to sign up for, how to use them, and what each is about. This crash course will help you to learn about each social network before you even begin.


Facebook
Without a doubt this is the largest social networking website either in the US or Europe. Main features include the ability for you to add friends and keep in touch while at the same time being able to see a constant stream of news to keep you abreast of what is going on with those around you.


The phrase "Facebook me" has become a common thing to hear. Facebook enables you to keep in touch with other people with whom you might have lost contact with.


Twitter
Using quick, sound-bite sized 140 character messages called Tweets. These can be made up of anything from business tips to general life titbits.


It makes use of what is called a "following" system meaning that you can "follow" others by viewing their Tweets and they in turn can follow yours.


Blogging
This option means that practically anybody can publish a website without much hassle. Blogging allows people to start a website and soon rank in the search engines. They can publish their ideas and so be of help to many other people who read what they write.


The word 'blog' is short for 'Web Log' and is essentially an online journal. Compared with other sites blogs tend to be updated more frequently.


LinkedIn
This option is basically like Facebook for professionals. Here you can upload your resume, employment experience, references, testimonials, and enjoy professional online relationships.


A LinkedIn profile can actually be even more relevant than you physical resume in certain cases, especially for those who are involved in tech related industries.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

What Is Social Media Marketing? Read More About I

This is a question that gets thrown a lot these days as more and more people try their lucks online. People from all walks of life are seeing the potential of the internet as a business platform so they are joining the bandwagon. The problem is that so many of these people are clueless about marketing their businesses online. So if you're one of these people who are beginners when it comes to social marketing, please read on. We are going to teach you the basics of social media marketing and how it's done.


So what is social media marketing? Well, in the simplest of terms, it's an internet marketing strategy that leverages the influence and power of sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. to build traffic towards a website as well as build such website's online reputation. So if you're posting a link of your website on Facebook, or tweeting it on Twitter, or making a video on YouTube about your website, you are basically doing social media marketing.


It is no secret that social sites are among the most influential entities online. Take social networking giant Facebook for instance. It has over half a billion registered users worldwide. It is the only site to ever achieve this kind of numbers. And that is for Facebook alone. What if you add to this number the users of other notable social sites like YouTube, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. These are the reasons why as a webmaster or website builder, you should never ignore and underestimate the power of social media. You should use it for as long and as often as you can. Yes, it can be very time-consuming but it's totally worth it. If you play your cards right, you can easily drive thousands of web traffic to your website using only social media. Thousands of webmasters are doing it on a daily basis. If they can, then you can as well.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Advanced Facebook Search Tips

Chances are you are familiar with using Facebook's Search form to find friends, but there are more uses and specific options that you can use to improve your marketing


With Facebook's Advanced Search you can narrow the results with the following options:


All Results
People
Pages
Groups
Apps
Events
Web Results
Posts by Friends
Posts by Everyone
Posts in Groups
The above options are shown on the left side of the screen after doing a basic search. You can narrow down by clicking on any of the them.


I'm going to work down the list explaining each search option. But, before I do that, one quick note, there is no way to orient the search results. You just get whatever Facebook has decided is the most desired way of looking at them. When this is important, I'll explain it.


OK, now lets look at each option...


All Results shows a few items from each option with links to focus in on individual options. This is the default Facebook search, and really only has value in drilling down to a tighter search.


People is how you search for new friends. It's not hard, you just type in your friend's name, and Facebook will show you people with that name. The results are oriented with people sharing friends with you are at the top.


If the person you're looking for doesn't share friends with you, you can add terms like the city and state, employer, or schools they attended.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

See a Video of Photovine, Google’s Mysterious Photo Sharing Service

After appearing merely in the form of a short description and a support page, Google’s upcoming photo sharing service Photovine now has a little bit more to offer: a registration form and an official teaser video.


The registration form currently accepts invite requests, and the confirmation email claims that Photovine will be “slowly rolling-out invites starting later this month.”


The video (below), however, tells us a little bit more about how Photovine works. A user starts out a theme or a topic with a photo – in the video, the topic is called “warm and fuzzy” and starts with a photo of a dog that fits the description. Then, other users chime in, and after a while you get a lot of “warm and fuzzy” photos, which explains Photovine’s motto: “Plant a photo, watch it grow”.


The service seems incredibly simple to use, but there’s a lot we don’t know: how do you manage your friends on the network, how do you share photos on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+, and so forth. We’ll have more as soon as we try it out.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Five Things You Should Know About Web Analytics

Web traffic alone doesn't generate sales. Answer these questions as you track your web-site metrics.


As an online marketing strategist, I continually come across business owners who rave about the number of visitors coming to their website. The irony is that website traffic alone doesn't generate money.


I ask these business owners questions: Where is the website traffic coming from? What Web pages are visitors landing on the most? What percentage of visitors return to the site? How many visitors convert into customers?


Their lack of answers shows they're concentrating on volume and not on quality, and I guarantee their sales are suffering as a result. It doesn't matter how many people visit your website if those people are not the "right" people -- the type of people who will buy something from you someday.


Good website analytics take the mystery out of wondering who's visiting the company website and why. You don't need to be an online marketing strategist to use them, either. There are plenty of website analytics packages for sale on the Web, but you can get started free through Google Analytics.


The Google service provides you with a line of code to plug into each of your website pages, and you can then start tracking. You can get a breakdown not only of how many visitors came to the website, but how long they stayed, what site they previously came from, what search terms they used to reach the website, and which pages they visited the most.


Here are five points to consider as you start delving into the numbers:


1. Do your website visitors already know you? The whole point of the website is to link you with potential new customers who have never heard of your business, not people who may be merely looking up your address. A well-designed website should only have a small percentage of visitors, maybe 5 percent, who have used the company's name to find it.


2. Are you bringing in potential customers? Let's say you're a tennis gear provider. People who find your website searching for "tennis" probably aren't going to help you. They likely won't help you if they searched for "tennis racket." You want the people who searched for "Dunlop tennis rackets," or better yet "Dunlop Aerogel Titan." They know what they want, and they will buy from you if you're offering the best deal.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Embrace Social Media, Or Watch It Pass You By

The fear sparked by social media can be great. It runs contradictory to everything marketers have previously been taught. Marketers are used to scrambling for the largest megaphone to talk with the masses. Social media relies on a more individualized approach.
Many people are resistant to change, and that is understandable. They don't want in, until they are 100 percent convinced that whatever it is, is here to stay. They will only partake because of the realization that whatever it is will pass them by.
There have been stories in the news recently about Facebook peaking. Do not confuse this with
Facebook dying. This simply means that Facebook is running out of potential customers. With the web site hovering around 700 million users worldwide, it's natural that growth would begin to trickle off at some point. That number is more than twice the population of the U.S.

There are still people voicing their opposition to mounting a social media campaign for their business, despite this astronomical growth. For these people, social media is either a passing fad, or they have tried it in the past and it just hasn't worked. Either way, their fears are misplaced.

People have grown used to connecting with their friends online. They can talk, seek answers to questions, and come to know people in a whole different way than was ever available before. Social media turns a big world into a small one. We have grown used to the intimacy that comes with this phenomenon.

The ability to stay connected with friends is no longer a passing fad. We can quickly talk with

Thursday, July 14, 2011

3 Ways Social Media Improves Your Web Presence

Social Media outlets are more than just additional ways for a company to communicate with the world. They can have a dramatic impact on your overall web presence. I have highlighted three of the main ways you can use Social Media to your advantage.

1. Interaction with peers and customers everywhere they are talking

This tactic is at the heart of any social media strategy, and with good reason. Conversations are happening everywhere… and they are talking about you. Why not join in? Interactions with others in a variety of different online settings increases both the amount of unique content relating to your company online and your overall online reach. Your website should not be the only place for anyone to reach you. With social media they COULD go to your website, or they could visit one of the other dozens of places where you are actively involved with the online community. It might be your blog, Facebook, Twitter, an industry forum, or even a review site. The goal is to encourage as much positive conversation about your brand as possible, and in doing so, become more visible online.

2. Improve Page Rankings

Every time Google sees a mention of your brand and your industry combined with a link back to your website or other social media profiles, it gives a little bonus to your page rank. Your page rank is essentially what Google uses to determine your popularity. And popular pages are what people want to see and what show up on search engine results pages (SERPs). The simple way of thinking of this is that every time any profile or page you own gets mentioned, it is more likely to be visited in the future. The more involved you are in your social media, the more likely you are to be found in the search engines. Even when links have a "nofollow" command


Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/social-marketing-articles/3-ways-social-media-improves-your-web-presence-4968144.html#ixzz1RR2mRZTG
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Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Integrating Social Media into Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Everyone now has a Twitter profile, a LinkedIn profile or a Facebook page and the list goes on. This is fantastic and organisations are starting to follow suit.
The transparency and genuine honesty that comes through when you use these media works wonders with how people perceive you.
So, how can you integrate your social media into your email marketing campaigns?
Here are 5 simple tips to get you started:


1) Include social media links in your email campaigns

Your subscribers can then easily and quickly share your email. Use tools like Tweet this, Digg this, post to Facebook, etc. If you want to be very clever, link online versions of each article in your email campaign. This will give you a clearer understanding of who's sharing what and gets people onto your website.
Pros: Quickly share your email with a larger network than your subscriber database alone.
Cons: Writing valuable content for your email does take more time and effort but the benefits far outweigh the time.

Don't forget: This means you'll have to write valuable and interesting content consistently to get your subscribers sharing.

2) Do the same on your website

Keep it quick and easy for people to share your content using standard, easy to recognise images and text based links. In addition, pop online versions of your email campaigns onto your website as well.
This increases the valuable content contribution on your website without actually writing anything more. (In addition, adding fresh content on your website will have benefits for your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as well, bonus!)
Pros: Sharing your content with everyone who visits your website increases your chances of return visits. You're also positioning yourself as an industry leader and this will ultimately aid your sales funnel
Cons: This could take longer to implement if you don't have a content management system (CMS) for your website and need to send content to your web master to upload. Just plan ahead and you'll be fine.

Don't forget: Include a ‘subscribe to our newsletter' link to every page of your website to increase your subscriber database.

3) Watch what gets shared (and what doesn't)

Use your reports. Most Email Marketing reporting systems are set up to provide valuable data on your subscriber database such as what link a subscriber clicks, when and even how many times (if this is a high number, this can indicate sharing through an email forward).
This can give you a clearer understanding of what your database wants to hear fro

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

What is SEO ?

The term "SEO" is the abbreviation to Search Engine Optimization. This is not about optimizing search engines, though. It is about optimizing websites for search engines. But why one needs to optimize a website? To answer this question we need to understand what a search engine is.
Search engines as the way to find an info on the web appeared in the middle of 90's. They crawled websites and indexed them in their own databases marking them as having one or another keyword in its content. Thus, when someone put some query in the searchbox of that search engine, it quickly searched its database and found which indexed pages corresponded to that query.

So, the more keywords of a query a website had, the higher it was shown in the results of a search. We don't know who was the first guy realized that he can make some changes to the pages of his website to make it rank higher, but he was truly a diamond!SEOis a technique which helps search engines find and rank your site higher than the millions of other sites in response to a search query.

Whenever you enter a query in a search engine and hit 'enter' you get a list of web results that contain that query term. Users normally tend to visit websites that are at the top of this list as they perceive those to be more relevant to the query. If you have ever wondered why some of these websites rank better than the others then you must know that it is because of a powerful web marketing technique called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

SEO is a technique which helps search engines find and rank your site higher than the millions of other sites in response to a search query. SEO thus helps you get traffic from search engines.

This SEO tutorial covers all the necessary information you need to know about Search Engine Optimization - what is it, how does it work and differences

Monday, July 11, 2011

What Google Images are Associated with You?

Nowadays, the power of Google cannot be denied. Everyone is "Googling" everyone else to find out information. When you apply for a job, when you meet someone new, when you connect with someone, when you're a potential client, business partner or suitor, people are typing your name in Google Search and reading all the information that's associated with your name.

Though you may have Googled yourself recently and looked at the top websites coming, when did you last look at what Google Images are associated with you? What pictures come up when you do a Google Search for your name?

A picture is worth a thousand words and one reputation 
 
As important as the top websites in Google when you do a personal search, the top images are almost as crucial.Think about this – if you applied for a position in a company, and the employer Googled your name, and the first images that come up are drunken pictures of you in wild parties, do you think that may affect his first impression of you as a potential employee?

It might. It may even come up during the interview, and you'd find yourself scrambling for an excuse or a story to explain away those drunken pictures.

Mistaken identities belong to you, too 

It could also be that the first images to come up aren't pictures of you, but pictures of a person with a similar name. It may become the case of mistaken identity if people assume that's you even when it's not.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Facebook Marketing - Tips for Getting Started

Millions of people spend time online every day so it makes sense that Facebook marketing would be very effective. In a sense, using Facebook is the modern way to get your business known through "word of mouth" because your "fans" will voice their opinion about your company for all to see.
Using Facebook to market you business is especially useful for small companies but any business can benefit. It's a free way to make your online presence known and reach out to an unlimited number of potential customers. Facebook marketing makes it easier to get noticed by potential clients that have a real interest in the products or services you have to offer by targeting a specific audience.
Here's how to get started:
  • Set up your Facebook page.
  • Select the category that best describes your company.
  • Fill out the required information.
  • Wait for the template for your pages that will be sent to you by Facebook.
  • Use the template to customize your page by adding specific information about your company and a photo.
  • Invite friends and family to "like" your fan page to begin creating a "fans" list.
  • Add the link to your Facebook fan pages to all of your marketing tools to make your presence on this social networking site known.
Once your account is completely set up, take a few minutes to create a post that welcomes your fans to your Facebook page. This will help to get things going.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Why Facebook Marketing Works

If you are a business, small or large, looking to increase your marketing exposure, then Facebook marketing is an essential tool to add to your arsenal. Social media can make an excellent marketing tool, especially if you are trying to bootstrap your business. When done correctly, it can be extremely effective.


A study from Utpal Dholakia and Emily Durham of Rice University was published in the March 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review and discusses just how effective this type of marketing can be. The studies shows what we already know to be true- that companies that use Facebook fan pages to market themselves to their customers greatly increase their sales through word of mouth marketing. It will also help to increase customer loyalty.


Facebook marketing can lead to more sales, increased visits by customers, increased customer loyalty and brand recognition. Facebook marketing is very cost-effective as they are virtually free to set up (unless you hire a professional to help with the process). Facebook is free to use and it doesn't cost anything for your fans to sign up.


One reason it is so effective is that it connects you directly with the customer. According to a 2009 Nielsen survey of over 25,000 consumers from over 50 countries, "90% of online consumers trust people they know, while 70% trust consumer opinions posted online."


These figures show you that there is a large increase in customer choice when it comes to them making the decision to purchase a product or use a service. When you communicate with customers via Facebook, and those happy customers "like" your posts or deals and join your fan page, it increases the perceived value of your company. The more people join and like a fan page, the more it can catch on

Friday, July 8, 2011

Using Facebook fan pages for your business is an innovative way to make your online presence known. Facebook allows you to create a public profile where you can reach out to potential customers by presenting your products or services to them and by providing useful information about these items. If you have a business, big or small, you can benefit from using a Facebook fan page.


Now, you may be wondering what makes Facebook marketing such a valuable tool for all businesses? Why should you give it a try? For starters, it gives you the means and opportunity to build a community for both your current customers and future prospects. Why is this important for your business? Why should you use Facebook fan pages to promote your business?


Here are a few good reasons why using fan pages to market your business is a good idea:


It's a free way to reach an unlimited number of potential customers.
It's easy to customize your design so you can target a specific type of audience that has a genuine interest in what you have.
Fan pages provide you with an easy way to promote your products and/or services, announce special events and keep your fans updated on all the latest news.
It's a great way to create new leads and encourage repeat business. A number of tools are available that can provide you with information about your fans and how they interact.
It gives customers a sense of trust and helps your business establish credibility.
You can add as many photos and videos as you want to help promote your business.
It's a fun and interesting way to interact with potential customers by giving them a way to talk with you.
It gives you an easy and convenient way to provide clients with company updates, information on special events and promotional offers.
It can give you a huge advantage over competitors.
Creating Facebook fan pages provides a friendly environment that makes clients, current and future, feel more comfortable. It gives you a way to keep the communication lines open in a friendly way that shows customers you care about what they think. After all, you are providing them with a way to voice their opinion about your business.


Using this powerful and well-known social networking site can enhance your business and increase your client base. It's an excellent way to present your best qualities to potential customers in such a way that they take notice. The bottom line is, using Facebook fan pages is a smart marketing tool that will make your company's online presence known through one of the most popular social networking sites of today.



Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/social-marketing-articles/why-use-facebook-fan-pages-for-you-business-4989406.html#ixzz1RQyBzgIi
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Thursday, July 7, 2011

Submitting Your Website to Search Engines

Submitting Your Website to Search Engines If you have a web-based business enterprise or if a significant portion of your business enterprise is accomplished on the web by way of your website, then the most beneficial advertising and marketing and advertising is completed by submitting to a search engine. No amount of press release, newspaper or radio ad, banner ad, spam email or newsletter will accomplish the identical results, although, possibly effective in a small proportion. Beware of firms that promise automatic submission of your site to hundreds of search engines which are but only false promises. The very best way to submit your website for search engine ranking and inclusion would be to do it yourself or to employ an expert to do it manually, by contacting the search engine firms and directories. Just before you begin to submit your website to search engines ensure your internet sites are thoroughly created to the expert good quality working with the best key words, great graphics and images and also the relevant content.


Don't submit sites that are incomplete. Though submitting to a search engine, ensure to offer details about your website, keywords and any other info that may possibly be pertinent, which includes the name and get in touch with facts of your business enterprise. Mere submission to search engine firms does not guarantee that your web page would be right away listed and the ranking might be high. Due to the fact you will find thousands of new web sites coming up each day and it may well take really sometime before they take up your website for review by human editors. One critical factor to remember while submitting web site would be to contain a web-site map of your site which makes the crawling uncomplicated for the internet robots. Search engines like ‘http://www.google.com' hardly considers submissions with out sitemaps.


There are many on the web organizations that accept search engine submission services. You could decide on to do it your self with a software package and service like this one: http://www.webposition.com/order/trial.asp?WT.mc_id=google:{ifsearch:search}{ifcontent:content}:{creative}:trial:{keyword}&WT.srch=1 Or when you want professional help try the following sites: http://www.addpro.com/professional_submission http://www.submitawebsite.com/aboutus.html Don't use the automatic submission services. Here is a list of the most popular Search Engines and directory organizations: Search Engines Go.com/InfoSeek AltaVista Google, HotBot Excite/Webcrawler Directories AOL Search Inktomi Lycos Open Directory MSN, Yahoo! LookSmart Snap Apart from the above there are actually thousands of search engines and directory providers, where you may submit your website to as several corporations as possible.


The following links gives info on other search engines and directories: http://websearch.about.com/library/searchengine/blsearchenginesatoz.html http://websearch.about.com/library/tableofcontents/blsearchenginetableofcontents.html


The Importance of Referrer Logs Referrer logging is used to allow internet servers and web pages to identify where people are visiting them either for promotional or security purposes. You can find out which search engine they used to find your web-site and whether your customer has come from a ‘linked site'. It is basically the URL of the previous webpage from which your link was followed. By default, most hosting accounts don't contain referrer logs but could be subscribedd for an extra monthly fee. If your web host doesn't give a graphic report of your log files, you could still view the referrer logs for your website by logging into the host server working with free or low-cost FTP software program, like these:


FTP Explorer: http://www.ftpx.com/ LogMeIn: http://secure.logmein.com/dmcq/103/support.asp SmartFTP: http://www.smartftp.com/ FTP Voyager: http://www.ftpvoyager.com/ The log file is available on your web server which can be download into your computer later. You'll be able to use a log analysis tool, like those mentioned below, to create a graphic report from your log files so that the files are easier to understand.


Abacre Advanced Log Analyzer http://www.abacre.com/ala/ Referrer Soft http://www.softplatz.com/software/referrer/ Log Analyzer http://www.loganalyzer.net It is possible to view the files working with Word, Word Perfect, txt or WordPad files even should you don't have the right tool. This information and facts is very crucial to your small business and advertising and marketing plans and is not advisable to neglect it. In addition to identifying the search engine or linked web page from where your visitor arrived, referrer logs can also tell you what keywords or keyword phrases your client used for searching. As referrer information and facts can sometimes violate privacy, some browsers allow the user to disable the sending of referrer facts. Proxy and Firewall software can also filter out referrer information, to avoid leaking the location of private websites. This can result in other problems, as some servers block parts of their web page to browsers that don't send the right referrer information, in an attempt to prevent deep linking or unauthorized use of bandwidth. Some proxy software program gives the top-level address of the target web page itself as the referrer, which prevents these problems and still not divulging the user's last visited site. Since the referrer can easily be spoofed or faked, however, it is of limited use in this regard except on a casual basis.



Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/social-marketing-articles/submitting-your-website-to-search-engines-4991355.html#ixzz1RQxgUCdU
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