A Golden Rule for Your Social Marketing Campaign: Pay Attention!

In the last three years, a solid social marketing campaign has become absolutely fundamental to the online success of a business in today's cut-throat and over-crowded marketplace. In this context, ‘online success' is measured by the amount of web users who are directed to a business' website via the endeavors of their social marketing campaign as well as the number of these users that ultimately become paying customers. As such, a decent measure of online success takes time, patience and dogged determination. In social media marketing there are few short-cuts and even fewer overnight success stories. Thankfully, with the emergence of social media marketing as a powerful tool for brand communication there has risen an equally strong presence of online advertising firms that have the manpower, resources and expertise to put your business firmly on the virtual map, which saves you, the business owner, a whole lot of time and frustration!

Keeping an Eye on Your Social Marketing Campaign

Most modern business owners hire other people to manage the various departments that make the entire enterprise run like a well-oiled machine. They do this so that they don't have to worry

Getting your Social Marketing Off the Ground

Social marketing is an often misunderstood form of marketing that is reaping huge rewards for website owners who use it. Most webmasters who understand it, even while being very new to social marketing, are seeing results like:

1. Higher search engine rankings for their top keywords

2. More rankings of additional keywords or "long tail" keyword phrases

3. More link popularity from sites linking on their own accord

4. More link popularity from social media sites

5. More activity on their blogs, such as more commenting and interaction

6. Direct traffic from incoming links on social media sites (One good StumbleUpon.com submission can net thousands of visitors alone.)

7. Fast traffic increases and steady growth in unique visitors month after month

8. An increase in subscribers and sales. Social traffic, properly acquired, is very warm to your message and products.

Social Marketing Basics

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social Marketing is made up of many different aspects. The important thing to remember is that anyone wanting to earn money online should be prepared to invest the time and effort required to build a genuine business. Using social media should be just one part of your overall traffic-building strategy, not the entire nor the only strategy you incorporate.

I share 4 key components of social marketing below. Learning the basic principles of social marketing and how it works will go a long way in helping you with not only your marketing efforts, but your notoriety and reader retention.

Blogging is Crucial in Social Marketing

Your blog is naturally a social marketing tool. By using good posting strategies, linkbait, clip marks, utility posts, commenting, growing your audience, setting up social widgets, content exchanges or blog carnivals, and

Create Visibility For Your Business on Facebook: Top Ten Ways

With Facebook recently overtaking MySpace as the number one social networking site, it is definitely worth taking a look at if you are in business.

According to a study done recently by the Aberdeen Group companies are using sites like Facebook to improve the interactions they have with their customers. The study showed that companies that use social networking sites are 17 times more likely to improve customer 

satisfaction than companies that don't use them.

If you already have a profile on the site but aren't sure how to leverage it for networking, brand visibility and gaining feedback--check out these top tips for boosting your reach through this hot social tool.

1) Take special care in filling out your profile: You will want to take the time to thoroughly fill out your profile, especially making sure to include your website address and your interests and activities. People appreciate this type of insight into the person behind the business.

2) Join and contribute to groups: Joining groups relevant to your niche is a good way to reach your target market and share your knowledge. Be sure to comment in the discussions and post helpful tips and links.

3) Start your own group: Taking the group idea up a notch, why not create your own group? Be seen as an authority while forming relationships with other members you have invited. Encourage conversation and participation and include a way for others to find out more about your business when you fill in your info as the administrator for the group.

4) Update often: This doesn't mean you need to spend hours on the site, but for the time you do carve out, update your status and add relevant, helpful links, photos or information to your profile. Because these types of updates show up through the News Feed function for others, you are creating a viral spread of information that helps build your brand and create familiarity.

5) Suggest, recommend and introduce: If you know people you think should be introduced, then facilitate that. Recommend and suggest resources to others. All of these activities create community and contribute to the awareness of both you and what you have to offer.

6) Import your blog posts: You can use the Notes application to pull your blog posts into your profile. NetworkedBlogs is another application that is great for giving your blog exposure.  The posts you import with this app appear in others’ news feeds, adding to your expert status and credibility in your particular niche.

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Do You Know the Difference Between Social Media and Social Marketing?

When I discuss social networking, social media, SEO, SEM and social marketing with small business owners for the first time, many are overwhelmed and confused about what they really are and how they impact their business. They know that they are all important, but not sure why. They know they need to establish an effective social web presence, but not sure how. If you feel similar frustration, let me share a little light on a couple of these subjects.

What is Social Media?
In a nut shell social media is content designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using social tools such as social networks, business networks, forums, bookmarking, video sharing, etc. Social media are web-based technologies that transform traditional broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It allows you to not just talk at your customer; it allows you to talk with and interact with your customer in a way that was never possible before.

What is Social Marketing?
Social Marketing is the actual marketing strategy and implementation of your efforts to effectively market yourself on the internet utilizing social media and social networks as well as related strategies that utilize SEO "Search Engine Optimization" and SEM "Search Engine Marketing/Monetization".

Wikipedia describes social media marketing as

"the act of using social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other collaborative Internet form of media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service. Common social media marketing tools include Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube."

Where I believe that most small business owners run into trouble is that they see the action side of social marketing and not the planning side of social marketing. The action side has two primary components:

1. Create traffic through videos, tweets, or even blog entries that attract attention, link energy, and become viral in nature. Traffic and link energy is the element that makes social marketing

Using Social Networking To Increase Sales and Business Performance

Social Networking has evolved and grow rapidly online, providing huge potential for businesses to market online in a different manner, cheaply and effectively. Those that have used social marketing has proven to improve their business performance online.Social networking sites allow different individuals to communicate with each other and share information.  The social network is filled with individuals and links that connects them together.  It can be a group of family members spread around the country, to governments and even professional groups.  Here are some of the ways that you can profit from using social marketing sites.
Social networking allows for several people to communicate, and one of the fastest modes of advertising is through word of mouth.  If one person gives another a good review of your website, product or service, this second person in turn may stop by to visit your site.  By getting involved with networks that are have similar interests as your product offer is that you can use this social media communication to your advantage.

The difficult part of social networking is finding the sites that cater to your interests that will still allow you to make money from.  Choose a topic that is too broad, and you are sure to have a lot of competition.  Choose one that is too narrow, and you will not have a broad enough customer base to profit on.  You need to find the balance of exclusivity and popularity.

Social sites are also a great place to find new potential clients.  Finding the right customers for your product or service is half of the battle of promoting your product.  Since people that have similar interests tend to stay together, but may operate in different interest circles.  You can use this to your advantage in two ways – one, you already have a core group of potential cleints to start with.  Plus, if they find liking your products or services, they will share with friends in other circles as well, expanding your sphere of influence like ripples on a pond.

Social networking sites also allow your customers to get the feeling that they are in touch with you - and people tend to buy items from people that they know or that they are more comfortable with.  In order to use this most effectively, you have to be a prominent character on the social network site.  Be an active poster in good standing and keep your name as one of the leaders of the group.

Along similar lines, you have to remember that the most successful social networking relationships are long term.  If you want your social networking to be effective, you need to develop lasting friendships with the people in your social networking groups.

Another positive about social media sites is that it allows you to get in touch with consumer wants and desires.  Who better to get ideas from of products to sell or services to offer than the people who will actually purchase them from you?  You may get ideas of products and services to offer that are different than what you currently offer, or ways that you can improve your products and services to stand above the rest of the competition.your business, it is important to know which ones are suitable for your market. You can download a Free copy of Social Networking Directory of over 400 Social media sites for your reference and learn how you can make full use of these social media sites with Internet Marketing Strategies to enhance your business performance online at www.BOBmarketing.com

How To Subscribe to Twitter RSS Feed

How To Subscribe to Twitter RSS Feed


RSS is short for "Really Simple Syndication." This is a simple online mechanism that permits you to read all your favorite web content on one page. For example, consider a blog that you like. You would like to visit it everyday to see if the blogger has updated it. You can simply subscribe to the RSS feed of that blog and read the blog contents on your RSS feeder.
Subscribing to RSS feeds enables you to find out whether a blog or website has been updated or not without having to visit it. You can read the contents of several blogs and websites from a common page.


Twitter’s RSS Feed
Twitter’s profile page, home page, replies page, and public timeline page have RSS feeds. When you are viewing one of these pages, you might have noticed RSS buttons in the page’s sidebar or browser. If you want to track the contents of the page without having the sign in to Twitter every now and then, you can just subscribe to their RSS feeds.


Twitterfeed
Twitter does not have any application enabling users to update their tweets through an RSS feed. However, smart API users have designed an app called Twitterfeed. This app automatically sends any update you make on your blog to Twitter. All you have to do is enter your blog's feed url, input the number of times you tweet. Your Twitter friends will be able to view these announcements. You can access Twitterfeed at http://www.twitterfeed.com/


Twitter RSS Feed
Would you like to read the updates on Twitter without logging in? Then you want to subscribe to Twitter's RSS feed. Check the sidebar of a public profile page on Twitter. You will soon locate the RSS feed button just beneath the pictures of the Twitter users you are following. Now, click on the button and subscribe to it and soon you will be able to read the latest updates on a feed reader without having to log into Twitter.
Your browser’s url field also has the RSS feed button. When you click on this icon, you will be asked to subscribe to this feed. Click on the subscribe button, and you will be able to read all the updates in your feed reader.


Public Twitter Pages
Public Twitter pages, for example a public profile page, can be accessed even by people who do not have Twitter accounts. They simply have to subscribe to the page’s RSS feed and read the updates on their feed reader. In order to respond, however, they need to create a Twitter account

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/social-marketing-articles/how-to-subscribe-to-twitter-rss-feed-1001313.html#ixzz1HuaDcR9f
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