Aug
15
Ning Social Networking Sites
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, News, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, blogging, communication | 20 Comments
When Marc Andreessen and Gina Bianchini started their work on the Ning social network back in 2004, online social networking was still pretty much a teen thing. True there were marketers like yours truly making a home on Ryze and other business networking sites, but we were the exception rather than the rule.
Ning once completed would allow people to create and manage their own miniature MySpace-like social networking sites.
Ning’s founders probably envisioned a platform on which families and circles of friends would stay in close contact through their very own private social networking site. However, since launching 18 months ago, Ning has found its way into the business world as well as many other sectors of society.
You can start your own plain vanilla Ning social network for free, or for a fee you can exercise greater control over your site and add lots of bells and whistles.
Examples of Ning Social Networking Sites
In Web lifeline for the troops, the Naperville Sun writes that two local men, Ed Domain and Josh Lowe, launched Troop Space, a Ning-based networking site for the brave men and women of the United States Military. Troop Space “is geared toward US troops, their families and anyone who wants to become more personally connected to the military”.
Jim at medXcentral started his Ning community to network “the medical and health care universe” and to “stimulate great achievements and forward motion towards resolving many issues faced by the medical industry today”.
Diane Hochman built the online headquarters for My Private Classroom on the Ning foundation. I joined My Private Classroom several months ago to learn more about social media and to introduce free and low-cost marketing methods to network and direct marketers.
What I Like About Ning Sites
From a user’s point of view here are some of my favorite Ning features:
- When you make a friend at one Ning site and you each belong to another Ning site, you’re connected at the other site too.
- You can browse friends and friends-of-friends and so forth to see what other Ning networks people belong to. In this way you can discover new and relevant places to network. While many Ning sites are private, there seem to be just as many sites that are open to the public. You can also browse Ning’s list of popular social networks.
- You can broadcast a message to all of your friends at any given site. Be careful not to abuse this privelege. Spamming is not effective, and network administrators will typically not tolerate it. This broadcasting feature has allowed me to attract readers to my blog and gain new subscribers.
- In some Ning networks you can also broadcast messages to fellow members of groups you join. This feature encourages spam and is therefore disabled on many Ning sites.
- You can customize your page’s theme and embed videos and widgets just as you might on MySpace and many other social networking sites.
- Much of your profile content can be taken from an existing site and easily reused when joining a new site.
And What I Don’t Like
Here are some of my least favorite Ning features:
- Most sites have very small memberships that are just a little too cozy for marketers like me building their lists.
- A very high percentage of profiles are abandoned, so you can end up with lots of unaccepted friend requests. At some point you may need to delete some friend requests in order to remain eligible to make new requests.
- Very many sites are not much more than recruiting pipelines and sales funnels for the sites’ owners. I find this aspect of Ning annoying, but I tolerate it. For this reason I’m slow to invite friends and business connections to join me on new Ning sites. I want to wait and see if the site is a safe enough place to bring them.
Show and Tell Opportuinity
You can find many of the social networking sites to which I belong featured on my blog’s sidebar.
Do you have favorite Ning social networking sites? Have you started your own Ning social network? Do you have an interesting story to tell?
Feel free to comment and share with us.
Keep in mind that I’m responsible for the quality of my blog and legally responsible for its content. I therefore reserve the right to edit any comment as I see fit.
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Aug
7
Top 10 Blogging Success Factors
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, blogging | 9 Comments
Nearly every day I hear from people who want to know how to start a blog or how to have a more successful blog.
I admit that I’m still learning myself, but I’ve made great progress in the nine months since I started blogging.
This past month alone my Online Social Networking blog received 5,202 visits including 1,993 visits from search engines.
My Google PageRank is up to 3, and my Alexa traffic rank is 181,032. These stats put my blog in the top 1% of all websites.
What are the critical success factors contributing to my rapid progress?
My Personal Blog Philosophy
There are ten success strategies that shape my blog philosophy.
- Blogging Mindset - Writing and publishing a successful blog is a major project that requires very big commitment. Blogging requires that you move forward at all times. So often people start blogging and give up. They didn’t have the blogging mindset, and they weren’t willing to do what successful bloggers do.
- Research and Planning - Before I wrote one word on my blog, before I decided what to call my blog, before I purchased a domain name for my blog, I did plenty of research. Where should my blog be hosted? What platform should it run on? What will I write about, and which keywords will I optimize for? These questions and more were addressed up front and their answers formed my initial plan of action.
- Bias for Action - Getting started and keeping your momentum going is essential if you want to have a successful blog. While adequate preparation is important, a time comes when you must “draw a line in the sand”, stop preparing and begin writing. Your ongoing research and writing need to become routine. Don’t worry if your articles aren’t perfect. You can edit your posts after publishing them, and it could even help with the search engines to do so.
- Experimentation and Tracking - Every blogging enterprise is different, and you’ll need to find the mix of strategies and tactics that are right for your blog. If you install Google Analytics, you’ll be able to track your blog’s traffic. You’ll know what is working and what’s not. Materminding with friends and mentors is another way to gain valuable insights.
- Correction as Needed - When you discover something that’s not working, you’ll look to refine it or replace it. Ongoing tracking will provide you with the feedback you need to make the necessary correction in your direction to stay on course.
- High Quality Content - Quality content to me means writing with both the reader and the search engines in mind. It means writing well, revising the text many times, proofreading, etc. It also means choosing topics that will make readers want to return to your blog. Please don’t write long run-on paragraphs. Make it easy for your reader to go through your article on the screen without having to print it out… Because they won’t. And one more thing, until you have tons of visitors reading your blog every day, don’t even consider cluttering it up with cheesy ads.
- Online Social Networking - The best way to find readers and subscribers for your blog is at social networking sites. For this purpose you can use most business networking sites or networking sites that cater to bloggers such as Entrecard and MyBlobLog. Carefully inviting site members to visit your blog is a nice way to reach out to them — not at all spammy. Make it easy for your readers to subscribe. My readers have three ways to opt in, registration, RSS Feed and autoresponder.
- Search Engine Optimization - Treat every blog post as a website that will one day stand on its own, because it will. It will eventually works it’s way down and off your blog’s cover page. Use keyword research to find the best words and phrases to use in your articles. Make sure that your main search terms are neither too general nor too competitive to earn you good placement in the search engines. Don’t limit yourself to using only your primary keywords in your text. Using all relevant search terms, even the ones that are hard to compete for, will turn you article into a search engine magnet.
- Social Bookmarking - Using social media sites such as Digg and del.icio.us to anchor and promote your blog posts is very important. Social Marker will help you find more bookmarking sites and facilitate the bookmarking process. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the terms of service of each of the social media sites you use, so that you don’t get banned. Bookmark articles using their individual URL, not your blog’s URL, since each article is its own website, not just a part of the blog.
- Patience and Time - Over time your traffic will increase, so will your credibility, and you’ll gain subscribers. Don’t expect much before three months, and give yourself a full year to become a blogging superstar.
For more articles on blogging, blog marketing and SEO see Blog Marketing and SEO Training.
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Aug
3
Social Media Learning Curve
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, blogging, communication | 13 Comments
The Case for Social Media Marketing
It is becoming increasingly more difficult and more expensive to reach potential customers using mass media. That’s one reason why so many marketers are turning to Web 2.0 social media marketing.
Not only do marketers want to reduce their advertising expense, they also want to connect more directly with people and learn how to better serve their target market.
Social media marketing is especially attractive to small business owners operating on modest budgets, since most social networking sites and other social media sites are generally free to use.
Steep Learning Curve
They read a story such as Beyond Blogs in the June 2nd issue of Business Week, and they rush off to embrace Web 2.0 social media unprepared for the steep learning curve that lies ahead.
The social media landscape is uncharted and sprawling. Social media sites are vying for your attention, and searching the Internet for advice turns up sharply conflicting recommendations.
Need for Mentor
Clearly you need a mentor, somebody smart and knowledgeable with especially strong communication skills. You should find somebody with whom you feel comfortable, because you’ll definitely be getting to know each other. Picking a mentor is difficult.
Effective Communication #1 Challenge
Once you find your mentor mastering essential social media marketing skills will be difficult. To get fully up to speed might take a year or even longer.
That is the bad news.
In my opinion, the hardest part of social media marketing training is learning effective communication, i.e., to write, speak, listen and persuade well and in a professional manner.
There are certainly plenty of technical challenges to overcome, but by far communication is the chief obstacle new social media marketers face. If you happen to have the right mix of communication skills, you’re way ahead of most newcomers.
Your mentor can teach you personal and business branding, online social networking, blogging, video marketing, social bookmarking, SEO and other important skills. He or she can also critique your communication style, but it will be you who will connect directly with your target market and build vital business relationships.
Get Started Now and Learn as You Go
Now the good news.
You don’t have to master every skill, dot every “i” and cross every “t” before getting started.
Find a good mentor to guide you, jump in and get your feet wet. Learn by doing.
As Mike Litman always says: “You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going.”
Your results will serve as feedback to help you to make the necessary corrections along the way… and that is good news.
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Jul
27
Small vs. Large Social Networking Sites
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 15 Comments
Even people who don’t go online and don’t understand social networking have heard of MySpace or Facebook, names that might conjure up fears of predators or identity theft.
However, that’s not my point.
My point is that MySpace and Facebook are so much talked about that they have pretty much become household names, and serious business networkers have or ought to have a presence at MySpace, Facebook and Linked In — and at other major social networking sites.
Many of the important online networking sites are listed for your convenience:
- Mashable’s Catalog of 350+ Social Networking Sites
- 50 Social Sites That Every Business Needs a Presence On
- Wikipedia’s List of Social Networking Websites
There are also industry specific sites. For example if your business is real estate related, consider joining ActiveRain Real Estate Network and Wanna Network, if you don’t already belong.
To find business networking sites specific to any industry, try plugging the industry name and the words “networking sites” into your favorite search engine.
But wait, the story doesn’t end here.
Smaller and newer business networking sites also deserve to be included in your online portfolio. After all, less can be more.
When Diane Hochman Zigs, I Zag
Diane Hochman, the founder and director of My Private Classroom for Marketers, often instructs, “Don’t Follow the Flock”. When others are zigging, you zag.
Diane is a Web 2.0 social media rock star. Many people follow her every move. They go where she goes. They do what she does. They zig when she zigs, and they zag when she zags.
People like Diane Hochman and Mike Dillard have their own flocks. Since I don’t want to follow the flock, nor live in somebody’s shadow, when Diane and Mike zig, I zag.
When they’re hanging at Facebook and Twitter, I’m chillin’ at one of the newer smaller sites such as Sta.rtUp.biz, a site that caters to small business entrepreneurs, or Natural Networkers, a social networking site for proponents of attraction marketing.
I might also be list building at Direct Matches or schmoozing at Yuwie, since they are not.
I think you get the general idea. It fits in with my online social networking strategy and my personal branding strategy. It’s common sense. I have plenty of room to maneuver.
You too might be best off charting a different course than your competition or industry leaders.
Choosing Business Networking Sites
There are many possible criteria for choosing business sites. However, at the end of the day it’s largely a matter of trial and error.
Nevertheless, let me share a few of my considerations with you. Perhaps I’ll share more in a future blog post.
Some social networking sites are funded by membership fees, some by advertising, and some by a combination of the two. I mainly prefer advertising supported sites. I’m not reaching out to a very elite crowd.
I do admit, I’m a paid Executive Member at Direct Matches since 2005. I highly value the package of services they provide for a modest monthly fee, and I appreciate Bill Weber’s personal touch. You may prefer to join Direct Matches for free.
It is the only social site I pay to use at the present time. The other sites I use are either ad supported or offer free memberships that I find suitable.
Some networking sites make it easier to connect than others. I like to reach out to a large audience and prefer sites that make it easy for me to do that.
I like to be able to browse and add friends or contacts by demographic characteristics or by geographic location. When sites offer that option, it’s great. When they don’t, I look to a site’s groups or clubs to find people in my target market.
Short Lived Networking Feature
Some new social networking sites let me send mail to all my contacts or to all members of groups to which I belong. I love this capability and use it effectively without abusing or spamming.
I like to let lots of people know about my new blog posts. If I didn’t have a blog, I’d send links to useful information and thereby build my relationship with fellow members.
Unfortunately, as a networking site grows, spammers inevitably move in and ruin it for everybody. It’s impossible to keep a step ahead of them, so all sites eventually limit or eliminate this wonderful feature.
Don’t Let Spammers Ruin Your Day
I don’t like spammers and wish they’d stick with safelists or classified ads, but I don’t let them ruin my day, nor do I let them dissuade me from using any particular social networking site.
If I can cope with tailgaters and drivers who cut me off on the highway, I can surely cope with spammers.
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Jul
20
My Online Social Networking Strategy
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 11 Comments
How I Use Social Networking Sites
I wouldn’t start a blog called Online Social Networking if I didn’t like social networking sites.
Let’s look at the many ways that I use social networking sites to meet my business networking objectives.
Casting a Wide Net
I join a wide range of social networking sites. I know that even if I will not be active at a particular social site, the profile I set up there will add to my online presence. So if I like the site, I’ll become part of the community. If I don’t, there’s no harm. My profile will remain there as long as the site continues to operate.
Consider the social networking site Yahoo 360°. If you Google me, this networking site will appear in the top search results. Sometimes it will even show up in the top position on the first page of results. Yet, this is a social networking site I rarely visit. It’s not my cup of tea.
When you Google me, you’ll find page after page of results that are me. What happens when people Google you?
Joining a bunch of social networking sites should jump start your web presence. It’ll give you some Google juice. Why not join some of my favorite social networking sites featured on my blog’s sidebar? As a plus, in most cases we’ll automatically be connected as “friends”.
Building Large Targeted Lists
When I like a social networking site, I settle in and become part of the community.
A winning strategy on nearly every social networking site is to build a large targeted list of friends or contacts, generally the larger the better. Thousands are better than hundreds.
For some sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Yuwie there are friend adders, but I don’t like to use them. I prefer the personal touch, and I don’t want to risk losing my profile for suspected spamming. I spend a modest amount of time each day requesting new friends on each of my favorite social networking sites.
There are two ways that I target my requests.
On sites that allow profile browsing by specific demographics such as age, gender, geographic location, marital status, and parental status, I browse to find people to add.
On sites that have groups or clubs I browse the groups that are likely to attract the people I’m looking for.
I tend to accept nearly all add requests from others. I reject blatant spammers, men masquerading as women in order to attract favorable attention, and crazies.
Networking and Attraction Marketing
Social networking sites are meant for online social networking and not for advertising or spamming. They’re a great place to get to know people. You get to know people by asking them questions.
Please visit or revisit my earlier post, Social Networking vs. Advertising, for a full explanation of this absolutely crucial concept.
Social networking sites are also great from attraction marketing. Be the type of person you want to attract, and that person will be attracted to you.
Videos of you presenting useful information or explaining an important idea, not making a sales pitch, can showcase you as the knowledgeable leader you are.
Blogging is a big part of my branding strategy, so when I network online, I invite people to visit my blog, read, comment and register or subscribe. And many do.
I invite people I like on one social networking site to connect with me on another site. I don’t want to lose track of them if the first site closes down or if one of us happens to have his or her profile deleted. And yes, many do… connect that is.
At Direct Matches, I invite people to visit my profile page where I have a subscription form, and people can sign up for my training newsletter. And again, many do.
Every time people go along with my request, they’re opting in another time to our relationship. It’s sort of like dating.
Branding Yourself
Social networking sites, video sites and blogs are great for personal branding. In fact, your whole online presence can serve as a branding mechanism.
Craft your personal branding strategy and develop a web presence that is consistent with your strategy.
Being Consistent and Following Through
Possibly the most important online social networking strategy is to be consistent and follow through, not to expect instant results.
First you need to build your list, and then you need to gain credibility with the people on it.
When I’ve tried to push things, people sensed it. When I’ve been patient, people have often come to me, and what could be better than that?
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Jul
20
Business Week Regrets Missing Web 2.0 Social Media Trend
Filed Under News, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, blogging | 1 Comment
Business Week in their June 2, 2008 cover story, Beyond Blogs, confessed that three years earlier when they wrote, Blogs Will Change Your Business, they completely missed the larger Web 2.0 social media trend that was emerging.
Business Networking Sites
While blogs have indeed transformed business, politics and publishing, online social networking at social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Linked In have impacted an even greater cross-section of businesses and people.
Many businesses have created their own in-house social networking sites to encourage and support staff collaboration.
Social Media Sites
YouTube, a site where regular people post their videos, has challenged the dominance of television in the entertainment and news industries.
Wikipedia, an encyclopedia developed and maintained by users, and wikis in general, have revolutionized the way people work together and share information.
Twitter, a micro-blogging site, lets people and businesses communicate in 140-character chunks called “tweets”.
Read the full article to better understand social media’s impact on marketing, management and collaboration in business today.
Time’s 2006 Person of the Year
One footnote: Time Magazine in their December 2006 cover story, Time’s Person of the Year: You, communicates the full impact and significance of our collective online collaboration called Web 2.0.
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Jul
10
ASD Ad Surf Daily Cash Generator Review
Filed Under Alerts | 77 Comments
Is ASD Real or Just a Scam or Ponzi Scheme?
Reading Down to End of Comments is a MUST !
My May 6 post, The SpiderWeb Marketing System, garnered many readers, especially from search engines.
While I expressed some concerns over the Spider Web program, I never implied that it was a pyramid or scam. My issues with Spider were the hype, the spam and the choice of GDI as a web hosting platform for their blogs. It was the spam over at Direct Matches, one of my favorite social networking sites, that first grabbed my attention.
A recent unexpected development however has dramatically hurt the growth of the Spider Web just as it was starting to gain steam. The SpiderWeb Marketing System is facing some serious competition from a program that may be little more than the latest money scheme and perhaps the next 12 Daily Pro.
Andy Bowdoin Launches ASD at ASDCashGenerator.com
The get-rich-quick crowd has welcomed the new ASD Ad Surf Daily Cash Generator with open arms. With oil prices moving up and real estate prices moving down who wouldn’t want to make a quick buck?
If you could spend a few hours a week viewing ads and make a load of money without having to recruit a single person, wouldn’t you at least want to check it out? I know I would.
So yours truly put on his business analyst hat, transfered $30 to his Alert Pay account, and gave that money over to ASD so that he could report back to you first hand with the inside story.
Here’s the story. You decide for yourself whether ASD is the real deal, another scam or something in-between.
The ASD Business Proposition
ASD purports to sell website traffic and to rebate a percentage of the sale price to qualified members. The rebate percentage is currently set at 125%, and amount tied in to new sales volume and subject change in the future. To qualify, members log on and surf 24 sites of other members daily for 125 days.
My Evaluation Criteria
My research and analysis of ASD Ad Surf Daily Cash Generator focused on answering some important questions.
ASD claims to be in the business of selling website traffic. Is their advertising a reasonable value at the price asked, or would it sell only to people hoping to make money from the ASD rebate scheme?
ASD shares revenue from new business by paying rebates. Can ASD sustain itself without continually recruiting new members? Can rebates adequately compensate members for the use of their funds, their time and for the associated risks?
Traffic Exchange Visits
Website visits provided by traffic exchange schemes are very much untargeted and incentivized. Moreover, such visitors are typically multi-tasking while plodding their way through the required website rotation.
I want to be generous rather than conservative in my assessment. If you could make a perfect match between the ASD viewing membership and your target websites, each visit to your sites might be worth as much as a nickel. While it’s likely to be less, let’s tentatively assess the value of a page visit as $0.05.
ASD charges $1.00 per page visit. There is a large 20-to-one discrepancy between price and value. If you can find me somebody who’s genuinely prepared to spend a dollar for one traffic exchange site visit, put us in touch. I have a bridge I’d like to show him.
Seriously, nobody in his right mind would pay more than pennies for a traffic exchange visitor.
I have to conclude that members are paying ASD for the privellege of making money from rebates or recruiting — and not for website visits. It appears that ASD is in the money business and not in the advertsing business.
If government authorities reach a similar conclusion, they could rule that ASD handles investments and is threrfore subject to the purview of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC). Such a ruling would not be favorable in the least for ASD nor for ASD’s membership.
Sustainability
In a video Andy Bowdoin explains that, unlike 12 Daily Pro, ASD doesn’t make payments to members at a fixed rate, and that it may not continue to make payments in the future. I appreciate that Andy was up front in raising the possibility that ASD as we know it today may not be sustainable long-term.
Andy’s disclaimer may allow ASD to comply with anti-pyramid statutes today and to bow out in the future if new sales ever decline sharply.
ROI Return on Investment
Whether money paid to ASD legally constitutes an investment or not, I’m not competent to decide.
However, to qualify for rebates members need to surf through a rotation of 24 sites each day. Given the slow speed of ASD’s site and frequent hiccups, it takes about three hours per week to run their Cash Generator.
How much is three hours of your time weekly worth to you? $50? $100? More?
If you’re buying rebates, not advertising, you need to figure the value of your time. The amount of rebates you will earn relative to the value of the time you spend determines whether or not ASD is profitable for you.
Your profit threshold will probably not be the same as mine. It might be higher, or it might be lower.
Just as an example, let’s suppose that you would like to earn $35 per hour, and any benefit you get from your advertising you’ll accept, and consider it gravy.
Math-phobics may skip this part if absolutely necessary.
You consider the possibility of purchasing 500 units for $500. Each day you receive $5 which is one percent of the principal.
$4 of the $5 is recovery of principal, not profit. 125 days times $4 equals your original $500.
$1 of the $5 is your daily profit, so each week your earn $7.
You want to earn $105 or three-hours times $35. You’ll need to invest 15 times as much or $7,500.
Invest $7,500 and do the required surfing. You’ll earn $105 profit per week.
Invest less, you’ll earn less.
If you don’t have much money, you won’t make much. If you do, you probably have better things to do with it and prefer not to devote a month per year of productive time to this type of risky project.
Risk Management
Yes, there’s definitely a considerable risk factor. I’m not going to call Ad Surf Daily Cash Generator a scam, but I’m telling you… It is risky.
You might not recover your $7,500 or earn the 25% bonus of $1,875.
You have to account for risk and plan for it — if you can. You can try Lloyd’s of London if you need help.
Sure everybody’s making money now. Some are making tons of money, but will ASD last indefinitely?
Perhaps not.
Every gambler who makes money at Las Vegas faces the same dilemma: cash out or let it ride.
There were many people who made big money at 12 Daily Pro and many other high yield income programs (HYIP’s) that circled the globe a couple of years ago.
And there were people who lost. Some of them lost a lot.
A Few Quirks
Like most other growing sites ASDCashGenerator.com can be very slow. They’re upgrading their servers, but their upgrades will soon need upgrades. You’ll have to be patient.
It can take days for your payment to show up in their system. Perhaps some things are done manually. Submit a support ticket and be patient.
I created a unique e-mail address just for ASD and received an unsolicited business offer from a woman oversees sent to that address a couple of days after registering. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that my sponsor exposed my address when sending a group e-mail.
I requested to buy 30 units of advertising but received only 28. I guess they took $2 as a processing fee.
A Major Fallacy
I hear people explaining that they already made their money back, and that they’re playing with profit as if the profit isn’t their own money.
You can take your profit and do something for yourself or your family. It definitely is your money just as much as your original principal was. If you throw it away, you’re throwing away your money, not ASD’s or anybody else’s.
It Boils Down to Using Common Sense
You don’t have to be a top business analyst to figure these kinds of things out.
If you get down to the basics and avoid the hype, you can make excellent business decisions. As my mentor Diane Hochman, founder of My Private Classroom, says, “Use your common sense.”
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Jul
8
My Personal Branding Strategy
Filed Under Career Choices, Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, blogging | 8 Comments
I cannot be everything to everybody.
I know I can’t.
I realized that a long time ago. I’ve learned to choose who I want to be to the people who matter most to me.
Business Analysis Example
I’m a business analyst. There are lots of business analysts in the world, but how many of them specialize in marketing and customer analysis like I do? Very few indeed.
And how many rely as heavily on intuition and instinct as I do? Even fewer.
Looking for somebody to do your P&L analyses? Not me. Go talk to a finance type. There are tons of them with MBA degrees waiting to hear from you.
Want to assess a takeover target? Again, not me. Go find somebody who’s into merger and acquisitions to help.
Need to track your marketing or determine how much your customers are worth? Now that is me. Give me a call, and I’ll talk your head off for hours about customer acquisition and customer retention, because that’s definitely my thing.
Network Marketing Example
I admit it. I’m also a network marketer.
I have lots of expertise in online social networking at social networking sites, blog marketing and search engine optimization. I was networking online way before it was cool, and I’m continuously sharpening my blogging and SEO skills.
Do I know the three foot rule? Of course I do, but so does everybody else in the network marketing business.
Can I make a list of family, friends and acquaintances? You bet I can — I’ve done it more than once — but is there one successful networker who can’t?
On the other hand, how many network marketers are Internet savvy? How many of them prospect and network online and enjoy it as I do?
I like to learn from teachers such as Diane Hochman and Mike Dillard, because they too have broken away from the pack. As Diane often says, “When people are zigging, you have to zag.” She’s a lady I want to get to know much better. That’s a big reason why I joined My Private Classroom.
Blogging Example
A reader recently complained that my articles were neither timely nor did they provide information she couldn’t have found elsewhere online.
I basically told her that intelligent and thought-provoking were more important to me than timely. Here too I’ve chosen a focus that works for me.
My Personal Brand Management Approach
The point of this post is that I’ve narrowed my focus, so that I could escape the crowds and stand out more readily. I’ve defined my market, so that I can dominate it.
I prefer to be a leader in my carefully selected fields rather than an also-ran in larger more broadly defined competitive categories.
Avis might have been #2 in the car rental industry, but when they said, “we try harder”, they re-positioned themselves as #1 in car rental customer service.
Redefine Your Market
Do you sell mortgages? Travel? Nutritional products?
Here’s some food for thought. How can you position yourself so that people will see you and think of you as a leader in your market and remember you when they are ready to buy?
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Jun
29
Web Hosting for Your Blog
Filed Under blogging | 2 Comments
In Creating a Home for Your Blog I discussed blogging platforms and stated my preference for starting a WordPress.org free-standing blog for greatest control and flexibility. Review that post to decide what’s best for you at the present time.
Blogging communities such as Blogger.com or Wordpress.com, and social networking sites such as MySpace and Yuwie will host a blog for you.
However, if you decide on WordPress.org or another free-standing blogging platform, you must set up an account with a web hosting company.
Make sure to select Linux shared web hosting and not Microsoft hosting.
Here is a partial list of web hosting companies to consider for your blog:
Each web hosting company has its own features and pricing structure. All these hosting companies are mainstream. They’re listed in alphabetical order. Choose the one that best fits your plans.
If you choose a WordPress.org blog, and you have never used WordPress before, ask a freind or colleague to help. You can also contact me, and I will provide you with personal help for a very modest fee.
One side note: If you’re looking to buy domain names, 1&1 Internet offers .com domains with private registration for $6.99 per year.
Don’t miss any posts. Register, it’s easy, or subscribe to my RSS feed! You can also subscribe by e-mail using the form at the top of the home page sidebar.
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Jun
27
New Information Product
Filed Under News, Search Engines | Leave a Comment
Marketing and Keyword Research
I met Marcus Hochstadt several months ago through our participation at one of my favorite social networking sites for bloggers called Entrecard.
I recently previewed and gave a thumbs up to Marcus’ new keyword research home study course which will help you identify niches in both US and international markets.
The training is geared to both newbies and advanced Internet marketers. I got some great ideas from watching the videos.
Marcus shows in great detail how to use a number of free but powerful research tools.
Here’s what I wrote in my review:
I enjoyed your course very much.
I liked your in-depth look at free tools that people can leverage and assess online market potential as well as select relevant keywords.
Your introduction made a case for research, and I was lead to believe that the course would be for beginners. Once I got into the body of the course, I realized that it is also valuable for professionals.
I have experience, so I found your course very valuable, because it took me to places where I hadn’t gone before.
Read the course details and place your order at Marcus’ blog.
Don’t miss any posts. Register, it’s easy, or subscribe to my RSS feed! You can also subscribe by e-mail using the form at the top of the home page sidebar.