Thursday, June 19, 2008

How To Begin Social Marketing

Social marketing is a relatively new form of online marketing and is often misunderstood yet it is reaping big rewards for website owners who have begun using it in their overall marketing plans. Social marketing is truly an effective and cost efficient method of building your brand and your web site. It doesn’t require any special skills and it’s quick and easy to get started.
These social networking sites are primarily used as a tool that will enable people to connect with other people. Most Internet users have joined at least one of these social networking sites with the biggest being Facebook.

Successful social marketers tap into people’s emotions and highlight the benefits that they might feel are most important. So, for example, a campaign to promote the practice of breastfeeding would be more effective if it builds on a woman’s desire to be a good mother and provide the best for her baby, or highlights the bonding between mother and baby that it provides, than for the rational reason that it provides beneficial nutrients and antibodies,.

Here are some Steps for getting your Social Marketing Campaign off on the right foot.

1. Schedule some time each day to work on it and then actually follow through on it.
2. Sign up for one or two social networking sites: FriendswinFriendswin,




ApsenseApsense, or

Giblink Giblink.

Make sure you fill out your profile completely. Be a real person and be natural, participate, make comments, getting a general sense of what members think is good and bad content, don't try to push your own content onto the networks you belong to.
3. If you don't have a blog, you need to start one. On today's web it is essential to have a blog and Wordpress is the format choice of all serious marketers. It can be downloaded free and installed by you or your webmaster. Wordpress download
4. Once you have your blog set up, you should join some blog communities which will help you generate visitors, gain some authority, and links. Most bloggers belong to some like MyBlogLog.com or BlogCatalog.com. Join groups, make friends, and interact with other bloggers especially people who write about similar things or have an audience similar to yours and who would benefit by knowing you. 5. Start a blogger.com blog and put up some good content, just not good enough to go on your main blog. This will allow you to use more of the great content you find and it gives you another place to link back to your main site, increasing traffic and link popularity over time.
6. Search for social networking sites that are geared toward your particular market niche. There are a lot of new social sites popping up which have a much more focused market and their membership might be far warmer to your information.
7. Make sure you track your results so you will know what is working and what isn’t.

I know you have other things to do so your social networking needs to fit into your current business and marketing efforts. Focusing on the interaction with people that are relevant to you and vice versa will make your experience a good one but you need to know it cannot be conquered over night. It is a gradual process you manage with all your other responsibilities and grow as time allows.
Web 2.0 social marketing technology has opened up a whole new avenue of marketing for your network marketing opportunities. Anybody with a computer and the Internet can use web 2.0 social marketing but to be successful you need to focus on quality and be consistent.

“Social marketing helps build your business”

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Article Marketing, a very effective tool…

Article marketing is another marketing method that for little or no cost can dramatically improve websites presence on the internet and increase your sales.

The most common purpose for article marketing or writing articles and offering them to directories for publication is to get those all-important back links from the directories. Although this is essentially a free way to get a quality link, it does come with some work. You must be able to write a content rich article on a topic related to your site. These articles can increase your websites popularity by improving your Google Page Rank and with each link comes another doorway for traffic to find you. So how does one do it?

By writing your own unique articles on topics related to your websites niche and submitting them for publication to the best article directories you are letting the public know you have expertise and knowledge on the subject. Most article directories or Ezine sites (online magazines) do not mind giving you the opportunity to get your name out there but you need to provide them with well written articles that capture the reader's attention and offers them something. Your articles have to be of a minimum length at least 500 words and of a certain standard if you want them to be listed by the search engines, especially Google. Be sure to consult and follow the guidelines of any article directories in which you decide to submit articles.

Do not advertise in your articles if you plan to submit them to a directory, instead fill them with quality, well written information. Leave the advertising to your author's resource box. There place your URL which must be one related to the article, and if you make it your blog, that is even better. Then you could place links on your blog to all your other relevant online ventures. Many sites offer two or three links in the author's resource box which allows you to present links to different pages on your website, or to different related sites like your Squidoo lens.

Most people write their articles using Microsoft word, or some other word processing software that uses its own formatting code embedded in the article. This formatting can be seen by the search engines and could be detrimental to the listing of your article so when you have finished writing your article save it as a text file before submitting it to any directories.

If you are looking for a way to increase traffic to your web site, and most of us are because we realize that traffic is what will make us successful then articles marketing is something we need to be doing. It is a very powerful tool if used properly which can take your online business to another level. First and foremost, it allows you to link to your site from your articles resource area and again it provides a chance to show off the knowledge you have in your field. Increased traffic to your web site i.e. sales is the result of an effective, consistent, properly run article marketing campaign.

“Article marketing increases traffic i.e. sales”

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Affiliate marketing can be a growing source of revenue

Affiliate marketing is a web-based marketing practice in which one or more affiliates will promote products and services for a partner business and is rewarded for each visitor or customer brought to that business by the affiliate's marketing efforts. The concept of sharing revenue or paying commission for referred business started before affiliate marketing and the Internet but affiliate marketing has grown quickly since its inception in the late 90’s.

Merchants like affiliate marketing because in most cases, it uses a "pay for performance" model, meaning that the merchant doesn’t incur any marketing costs unless a sale is made. Some businesses owe much of their success to this marketing technique, a notable example being Amazon.com.

There are many steps to take when you are trying to make money online through affiliate programs and there are millions of products and services to choose from. If they don’t find you, you can find them through Affiliate Directories. So how does one get started and how do you know what to promote to make money?

1. Begin by reading everything that you can on the different paths that are available. Knowledge is power.
2. You should always choose a product that is in a similar niche to that of your website. Ie: a website that is based on marketing should not have ads and affiliate programs about meds or dieting.
3. Always try to start with a product you have used. You want to suggest a product that you know and love. You are recommending these products to your visitors, and you want them to be pleased after they have purchased it like with my Veretekk SEO and marketing services. You can sign up and get a Silver system free.
4. Start with just one affiliate program and put all of your efforts into making your first affiliate program a success, before moving on to others. Trying to do too much too soon can be a recipe for disaster.
5. The most important step will always be the marketing aspect and often it will be the most time consuming and difficult yet it is the only way to be successful.

After you have gained knowledge through your first website, you can begin to apply the same techniques to duplicate your success. However, you should not forget to check back on your websites, ebooks and blogs, and always keep up to date on the new affiliate marketing techniques that are available.

Affiliate marketing is often driven by entrepreneurs who are working at the forefront of internet marketing and affiliates are often the first to take advantage of new emerging trends and technologies. Affiliates take risks and "trial and error" is probably the best way to describe how affiliate marketers are operating. To really be successful with this type of marketing you will often have to move quickly to be a part of the first wave where most of the money is made though some programs are successful for years.

Whatever you choose as an affiliate program, always be honest with your customers that way they will grow to trust you and the products you promote.

“Affiliate marketing builds your business”