Social Networking and Your Home Business
July 8, 2009 by admin
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Social Networking is extremely popular right now. It brings worlds together with a few mouse clicks and a keyboard…or even your phone! We can build friendships with people thousands of miles away. Social Networking is also something that can also be beneficial for businesses.
Tips to Use Social Networking for Business
Twitter.com. Twitter is one of the most popular forms of social networking. It is like having an IM with the world. You can use Twitter to promote your business, self or service. The key though is to be active and unselfish. You cannot make it all about you. Relationships must be built. People on Twitter are like the rest of the Internet world…they despise spammers! Do not DM links or self promos. Save that for your live tweets. I would suggest 1 self promo tweet for every 7-10 non business tweets.
Ning and others like it. Ning.com is a social networking platform that is usually categorized in different niches. For example, you may find a network for writers. Writers will go there and discuss their crafts and share what they are doing. The cool thing about places like ning is that each “member” of the network gets their own page. On their page they can have links and other self promoting things for their business, product or service. Members also have their own blogs that other members can come and read. Again, you must be careful not to be labeled a spammer. Join the community and build relationships. Stay in your niche and never make it all about you.
Facebook. You can get similar results with MySpace. However, for a more professional look and mature audience, Facebook is the best choice for business promotion. Create a personal page and be sure and add your link. Find people you know and people to network with. You can also create a page specifically for your business. Facebook is another way that you have a platform to promote you and what you do. As with anything though, do not be a spammer. Build relationships.
Blogging. Blogging can also be a form of social networking if you are doing it correctly. You can use your blog to promote what you do 100%. Make it interesting and fun though. Build friendships with other bloggers. Link exchange. Comment….no spamming…actual involvement type comments on other blogs. Before you know it you will build a readership and clients for your business. Bloggers are very loyal to their own. If you do it right and make it less about you and more about building relationships, you are more likely t find success with blogging.
There are also various linkage sites and many more ways to get in the world of Social Networking. Google it. The point is to get involved. Participate and build relationships. Oh, and NEVER spam.
One last thing I would like to mention…all the social networking types listed above is FREE! You can join free and start your own for free. F-R-E-E! What better way to promote your business, product or service??
About the Author Lara Velez
About the Author: Lara Velez is a Christian wife and homeschooling Mother of two. She is a published writer (homebusinessresourcedirectory.com/blog), web designer, and Mom of Faith (momsoffaith.com). She enjoys cooking, writing, scrapbooking, and web design
Five Hot Tips to Build Your Email List
February 25, 2009 by admin
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by Ms. Liz
You’ve heard it said a thousand times – the money is in the list! It’s true- you need a good strong email list if your marketing efforts are going to pay off.
The question is – what can you do to build that list? There are specific steps you can take to increase the subscribers to your list. Some take a little time, some take just a minute and pay off over time.
If you’re ready to start building your email list, don’t wait any longer! Start putting these ideas into practice today and watch your list grow like wildfire.
1. If you want subscribers, ask for them!
Put an opt-in form on every page of your website and your blog. Make it easy to find and easy to fill out. At this point, the only information you really need is their name and their email address. If your form requires subscribers to include their physical address and telephone number, they will be less inclined to sign up. By keeping it simple, you encourage people to opt-in.
2. Offer an incentive to encourage sign-up.
People hesitate to sign up for email lists for a couple of reasons. Most of us have busy inboxes and worry about adding to yet more email.
Other times, people just hesitate to share their email address without a little incentive. By offering a free gift, such as a download, you let them know you consider their email valuable enough to be worth something in exchange.
You can offer a free special report, an MP3 or special access to a teleseminar or membership site. The point is to give them something of real value in exchange for allowing you to contact them with your emails.
Providing an incentive is one of the most successful tips to encourage people to opt-in to your list. Once you have their email address, don’t abuse it with a barrage of sales pitches. Instead, blend your sales pitch with helpful tips, advice, interesting news and perhaps a little humor. That will go a long way in keeping your subscribers on board and interested.
3. Spend some time optimizing your website to increase traffic.
Once you have added a sign-up form on every page of your website, increased traffic will lead to more subscribers to your email list.
By investing some time into search engine optimization, you will raise your site’s page rank and draw more targeted visitors to your homepage. If SEO isn’t your thing, it is well worth your investment to hire someone to do it for you. There are plenty of excellent SEO professionals available on the Internet. Search around and ask for recommendations to find one who has experience. (Hint: their own ranking in the search engine results page is an excellent indicator of how well they know their stuff!)
4. Don’t forget about social medial marketing!
Social media websites are some of the hottest places to reach prospects. By engaging in regular, relationship building social media efforts, you will also increase traffic to your website- and subscribers to your email list.
Sites like Facebook and Twitter allow you to post a link in your profile or bio, so link to your free download opt-in page to add subscribers to your list.
5. Joint Venture opportunities
These are great ways to build your list fast. However, choose your partners carefully. You’ll have much greater success with partners that have a reputation for integrity, authority and a large following.
Building your email list doesn’t have to be a chore. These five suggestions will leverage the time and effort you put into growing your email list with lots of potential customers and consequently more sales.
How would you like some of the industry’s closely guarded professional email marketing secrets? Get them here — for free!
Facebook in 15 Minutes a Day
February 24, 2009 by admin
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by Donna Gunter
I’ve often said that social networking can take up your entire day, if you allow it. You sit down at your desk in the morning, and you see several Facebook event invites and friend requests. As you log into your account, someone’s Facebook status update catches your eye, and before you know it, 3 hours have passed while you’re reading and responding to social networking messages. How can you possibly get any work done in your business or for your clients at this rate?
Facebook doesn’t have to be a time hog. As a matter of fact, you can actually handle most of your Facebook tasks in as little as 15 minutes per day. Here’s what I do when I log into my account each morning (thanks for wonderful training I’ve received from Facebook guru Mari Smith for these great tips):
1. Update your status. This is the first section that you’ll see on your homepage when you log into Facebook. While you can do this from your Facebook account, I prefer to update my status in Ping.fm, as this service will update my status in all of my social networking sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and MySpace. However, if you’re using only Facebook for social networking, then go ahead and use the status update there.
2. Review your news feeds. This is the first tab on the right on your home page. In this review, you’re seeking stories on which you can share your expertise and on which you can comment. Some of your comments may be personal in nature, but this is a great opportunity to showcase your experience in your field and industry.
3. Review news feeds of your friends. This feature is available from the home page as the down arrow on the far right of the home page tabs and permits you to view the feeds of your Friends Lists. Friend Lists allow you to create private groupings of friends based on your personal preferences. I’ve got my lists created by industry, i.e. Coaches, Virtual Assistants, Marketing Professionals, People to Watch, etc. Pick one list and comment on those feeds just as you would your own.
If you have no Friends Lists, here’s how to create them: , Click Friends at the top of any Facebook page. From the following page, click “Make a new list” on the left. After typing in the title of your list, you can add friends to your list by typing your friend’s name into the “Add to List” field. You can also click “Select Multiple Friends” to the right of the field, which will allow you to select many friends from your entire list. After making your selections, click “Save List” to store your changes.
4. Review status updates. Take a quick moment to breeze through the status updates of your friends, and click on those on which you feel compelled to comment. Many people feed their blog posts into their status updates, so this is a great way to get out and comment on the blogs of others without having to search out relevant blog posts. In this case, I comment on the blog itself rather than the Facebook status update. I usually only go through one page of these to ensure I remain within my time constraints.
5. Acknowledge birthdays. These are listed under Events and Birthdays on the right side of your homepage. When you click on the birthday person’s name, you’ll be sent to their wall, where you can write your personalized birthday greeting (make more effort that just simply saying “Happy Birthday!”). I also take this opportunity to find out a bit more about the friends on my list by clicking the “Info” tab on their home page and quickly scanning their profile. This helps me start to put names and faces together and get better acquainted with my network of friends, And, I take this opportunity to add people to Friends List as appropriate.
6. Review friend requests. Add friends as you see fit, or according to any guidelines you have set for yourself. Facebook guru Mari Smith suggests setting up a “Friending Request Policy” in which you write down the conditions under which you’ll accept friends (i.e. picture must be on profile, have to have other friends in common, have to have submitted a personal note with the friend request, etc.) and to help you in your decision-making.
7. Respond to event invitations. Your friends will be sending a myriad of invites to various events (most of my invites are to teleclasses), so take a few moments to scroll through those and see if any are of interest to you, or if you have further questions about them.
8. Respond to group invitations. Most of these I ignore, but occasionally I’ll join a private group, usually related to a program in which I’m enrolled. Or, if it’s a group run by someone with whom I want to connect or from whom I want to learn, I’ll accept the invite to the group. If I have time, I’ll also visit one of the groups to see what’s going on and respond to any messages here.
9. Add friends. Facebook does an amazing job of suggesting people I actually know to add to my friends list in their “People You May Know” section on my home page. If I happen to see such a suggestion, I send out a request to add that person as a friend. When requesting to add a friend, I ALWAYS send a personalize request, letting them know how I know about them.
10. Review notifications. The notifications icon is on the lower right side of your home page and lists what’s going on in your account (friend requests accepted, notes on your wall, etc.). This is a good prompt for you to write on someone’s wall when they accept your friend request or to respond to posts on your own wall.
11. Eyeball your own profile. Make sure your profile appears as it should, and take the opportunity to catch up on anything you may have missed with your other steps.
12. Check your inbox. Many of the emails in your inbox are duplications of event and group invites or group emails. When I look at this, I’m seeking out any personal 1:1 emails that I might have received from someone on my list. I’ve discovered that many people I want to contact respond better to their Facebook emails that through emails sent to them (or an assistant) via their website, so I often email them through Facebook, instead.
If you devote 15 minutes per day, or at least 15 minutes 3 times a week, to updating Facebook, you’ll begin to see results from your social networking before you know it
Online Business Manager and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. Follow Donna on Twitter.
Easy, Auto-Pilot Ways to Promote Your Blog
by Michelle Shaeffer
Put your blog promotion on auto-pilot with these “set it once then forget it” promotional strategies.
Submit Your Blog to Blog Directories
Once you’ve requested a listing, you’re done!
blogcatalog.com
bloghub.com
blogarama.com
blogexplosion.com
blogflux.com
blog-search.com
blogbunch.com
iblogbusiness.com
quickblogdirectory.com
bloglisting.net
blogrankings.com
weblogalot.com
Ping When You Post
If you’re using WordPress, it’s probably already set to ping rpc.pingomatic.com Add that to your ping list if it’s not there already. Ping-O-Matic will receive your ping then let lots of other sites know you’ve updated your blog.
If you can’t ping directly from your blog, try Feedburner’s Pingshot service.
Offer Your Readers an RSS Subscribe
Techno-savvy readers love RSS feeds they can subscribe to.
Your blog may have this built it just waiting for you to link to. You can also sign up with Feedburner or Feedblitz.
Be sure to add the code to your blog once you’re setup so readers can subscribe.
Add Social Bookmarking and “Tell a Friend” to Your Posts
Sociable and Share This are two great plugins you can use to easily add social bookmarking and “tell a friend” capability to your blog.
Just download, install, setup, and then the plugin of your choice will add the social networking icons to every post on your blog.
Connect to Social Networking
Using social media you can syndicate your blog content to reach your social networks.
If you Twitter, you can tweet your blog posts with TwitterFeed.
If you’re on Facebook, try the WordPress Facebook App.
These five strategies take a few minutes to setup but once you’ve got them up and running they’ll promote your blog for you. Strategies 2 – 5 will promote your blog every time you post!
Work at home mom extraordinaire Michelle Shaeffer publishes The Muses Brainstorm, a weekly ezine with tips to help you balance, manage, and market your home based business. If you’re ready for inspirational guidance and bright ideas sign up free at www.thesmallbusinessmuse.com
Blogging Bootcamp to Maximize the
Profitability of Your Business Blog
7 Twittering Tools for Twitter Users
January 13, 2009 by admin
Filed under Marketing Tips
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My Top 7 Essential Twitter Tools
By Donna Gunter
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you have probably heard something about the new microblogging platform, Twitter, and how Twitter has taken the online marketing world by storm. The phenomenon has even spawned a new lingo, with new your new tweeps (followers) tweeting (making posts) you and discussing the state of the Twitterverse (you get the idea here).
While Twitter is pretty easy to use, there’s an overwhelming amount of tools, plug-ins and applications being developed to support it. I ran across one blog that listed over 100. How can you determine which ones will best support you in your use of Twitter?
I’ve tried to sort though all of the junk, and come up with my 7 essential Twitter tools:
1. TwitterFox. This is actually a Firefox browser plug-in that permits you to keep up with your tweets and any direct (private) messages that come your way. Tweetdeck and Twhirl similarly help your manage your tweets and tweeps and have gotten rave reviews from users, but I prefer the simplicity of Twitterfox. All I have to do is check the Twitter logo in the lower right corner of any browser window to check my Tweets and to reply to any of them that I want.
2. TweetLater. The primary function of TweetLater.com is to permit die-hard Twitterers to stock up Tweets that can be scheduled to be posted over a period of time. However, the reason that I like it is that I can forward the emails about who is following me to my TweetLater email address, and my will automatically get a direct message from me. I just love it when I can automate my marketing tasks!
3. TwitterFeed. This service will enable you to feed your blog posts to your Twitter account. You can control the frequency with which Twitter displays your blog post, as well as the text used to preface your blog feed. I use “Blog update” to preface my posts.
4. TwitterSearch. This site offers a quick way to search what people are posting about particular topics or keywords in the twitterverse.
5. TweetBeep. This is the equivalent of Google Alerts for Twitter, which permits you to track mentions of your name, products, company, or anything else you want to track.
6. LoudTwitter. LoudTwitter is the bridge that posts your daily Tweets to your blog Your blog takes care about the archiving of your tweets along with your other posts, which give more context. After all, if you have a blog and a Twitter, your blog is probably the core place where you want to be found and tracked.
7. Png.fm. While technically not a Twitter tool, I quickly tired of manually updating my status settings at all of my social networking sites. So, I began using Ping.fm. When you update your status at Ping.fm, the service will automatically update your status on all of your social networking sites, like Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, Pownce, to name a few (there are 21 you can update). Depending on the number of networks you use, it will take you 10-50 minutes to connect your Ping.fm account to your various social network accounts. However, once everything is set up, you simply log into your Ping account, post your update (no more than 140 characters), and your status is automatically upgraded on all of your social networking profiles. I use this tool to post Tweets, but use Twitterfox to post my @ replies to my followers.
Even though Twitter initially seemed like a fad, it’s not going away. Use these tools to maximize your use of Twitter and enhance your social networking!
Online Business Manager and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. Follow Donna on Twitter.
How to Use Microblogging to Grow Your Business Online
posted by Home Business Success
A Blogging Solution For those Who Have Little Time to Blog
by Marie Ynami
Microblogging has been the “hottest” thing these days in cyberworld. What is it exactly? Well, the shortest and simplest definition I can think of is that microblogging is like text messaging except – instead of sending your text to just one person, you are sending it for cyber-world to see. Note though that you have an option of having your microblog posts available to everyone on the web or a selected private group.
So … how do you microblog?
While a traditional blog requires you to log-in and post your entries online, you can “microblog” using both your cell phone or your computer – thus microblogging presents that benefit of portability. One thing to remember though – microblogging only allows you to blog brief posts (usually limited to 140 to 200 characters) at a time. So before you start typing your post, you need to really think about how you can make the most out of your words. You can microblog as often as you want as long as you do not post spam. You can even build a following or your own microblogging community. You can connect with other microbloggers and get quick replies to your microblog posts. The fun thing about microblogging is that you can send your messages in text, audio or even video.
Below are some advantages of microblogging:
- It is very easy to post your thoughts in cyberspace using microblogging. Microblog to share your events, promote your business or just to share links worth checking out.
- You can build your own community by microblogging and have others subscribe to your feed – a great way to promote yourself. You can then make a connection with others.
- Microblogging is portable. You can use your cell phone and still be connected to your community even if you are on the go.
- You can microblog using text, audio or even video so there are a lot of possibilities here – you can let your creativity come out!
- The fact that there is a 140-200 character limit in microblogging, you do not have to worry about providing lots of content in your microblog post.
There are some disadvantages too and they are listed below:
- It can be really addicting and if you do not use it properly, it could be a great time waster.
- If you are not careful about what your post on your microblog – for example posting about your “ideas”, your subscribers can easily “adopt one of your ideas and pass it as their own”.
- If you work online and are microblogging for the most part of the day, it can be really disctracting and it can take away your focus on projects that you need to complete.
About the Author
Ready to start microblogging? Let Marie Ynami show you how. Here is a free video on how you can get started – www.ynami.com/ad/microblogging.php .
Click here to visit A Woman in Business’s Microblog
