Starting Your Own Small Business and How to Make it Work

There are a variety of reasons you may consider starting your own business, including gaining freedom from the "daily grind" that sees you working hard for someone else, as a means of self-fulfillment, to capitalize on a great idea or even because of an innate entrepreneurial drive. Regardless of the reason for starting a new business, however, there are a series of steps that new business owners can follow during the startup phase to ensure that they succeed. Just because most small businesses fail within one year of their startup does not mean that yours has to be one of them.

Surround Yourself with a Great Team

This is advice that you may or may not hear often, but it’s probably the single most important thing that a small business owner can do. By "team," I mean the team of professionals with whom you work. This will typically include an accountant, an attorney and a technical specialist. For those whose specialty falls into one of those areas, you can of course serve in place of another professional in that area, but trying to "wear too many hats" is a common failing of business owners.

Make no mistake, you will be responsible for everything from writing the company business plan to taking out the trash at the office and making copies, but when it comes to the specialty areas, don’t skimp on accounting, legal and technical services. A good accountant and attorney tandem can assist with setting up your business’s structure, i.e. - a sole proprietorship, LLC, "S" Corporation or other, and can advise you on things such as tax write-offs, financial reporting, intellectual property and a host of other issues that you will likely face as a small business owner, regardless of the industry in which you will be operating.

Make Sure to Network - It Works

For those who hate to "schmooze," being a small business owner may be a painful experience. Unless you’re starting your small business with a partner who will handle this aspect of the business, it is crucial to get out and network with like-minded people. The number of business opportunities that can arise from casual meetings, a brief meeting over coffee and more formal events cannot be overstated.

Take the opportunity to look for events sponsored by your local Chamber of Commerce and local business associations, then go to the events to get in touch with people who also own small businesses in your area. You may not gain something from each trip out, but sooner or later the continuous contact will lead to some deals for your new company.

You Must Advertise to Succeed

It is generally said that businesses are "growing or dying." If you want to avoid being the latter, make sure to advertise, in addition to networking, to make your business continue to grow. While it depends on your business what types of advertising will work best, a website is a key component almost regardless of what your business does. Likewise, there are a number of online advertising techniques that can be used by a small business owner to establish a web presence that contributes meaningfully to the success of the business. For those with a bit more of a budget, television, print and radio ads may work as well, but in this instance it will likely be best to seek the advice and assistance of a professional.

You’re Probably In for Some Long Days (and Nights)

Needless to say, starting and operating a small business can be exhausting and all-consuming. Even in the evening, when work is supposedly "finished" for the day, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to escape entirely. While there is a certain freedom from operating your own business, keep in mind that you’ll likely be working longer hours than you did in your "real job" - at least for a while. With some hard work, and adherence to the advice above, it really can work.

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How to Write Magnetic Headlines

Your headline is the first, and perhaps only, impression you make on a prospective reader. Without a compelling promise that turns a browser into a reader, the rest of your words may as well not even exist. So, from a copywriting and content marketing standpoint, writing great headlines is a critical skill.

Here are some interesting statistics.

On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. This is the secret to the power of your title, and why it so highly determines the effectiveness of the entire piece.

Remember, every element of compelling copy has just one purpose — to get the next sentence read. And then the sentence after that, and so on, all the way down to your call to action. So it’s fairly obvious that if people stop at the headline, you’re already dead in the water.

The better your headline, the better your odds of beating the averages and getting what you’ve written read by a larger percentage of people. This 11-part series will provide you with concrete guidance that’ll have you writing better headlines in no time.

1. Why You Should Always Write Your Headline First
2. The Cheater’s Guide to Writing Great Headlines
3. Do Key Words in Post Titles Really Matter?
4. How to Write a Killer “How To” Post That Gets Attention
5. 7 Reasons Why List Posts Will Always Work
6. Why Some People Almost Always Write Great Post Titles
7. 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work
8. 9 Proven Headline Formulas That Sell Like Crazy
9. 7 More Sure-Fire Headline Templates That Work
10. Warning: Use These 5 Headline Templates at Your Own Risk
11. The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines

For the other fundamental elements of writing great copy, check out Copywriting 101.

BACKLINK-  CLICK HERE

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Should You Post (or Buy) Ads on Twitter?

Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

I’m going to be up front with you. I’m not a fan of advertising on Twitter. I’m even less of a fan of posting ads to my own Twitter account. So I clearly have some bias. Twitter advertising can be a hot button issue for some though, causing followers to flee or advertisers to come a-calling. Some love it because it’s a way to monetize something they do anyway, or reach a new targeted market. Some hate it because it causes unsolicited clutter and “invades” real relationships. I fall squarely into the latter group.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-advertising in general. And I’m not saying that advertising has no place in social media. But Twitter is an exception for me. Here’s why:
It’s Not What I Signed on For
Twitter is primarily a networking tool. It’s a place for conversations, no matter how abbreviated. For most Twitter is not a tool for simply broadcasting commercial messages. Now I’m not one to say that everyone should or has to use a social media tool in the same way. That would be both ignorant and self-centered. But I will say that everyone has a responsibility to their followers.

Are you conversing or just broadcasting? - Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

Twitter can be used in an editorial or conversational way. And yes, it can be used for advertising. But unless you were already regularly advertising via your Twitter account when I agreed to follow you, those ads are 100% unsolicited. If you were already advertising, I could see that up front, and I knew it when I chose to follow you, that’s another story entirely. But in my network on Twitter, that’s rare.
No matter where you’re interacting with your audience, you have a responsibility to respect them and provide what’s reasonably expected to some degree. Behaving in one way to get followers, and then in another way once you have them is misleading at best. I consider Twitter advertising to often show a lack of respect. In my particular network, it’s not the norm. And to litter my stream with ads for (often irrelevant) products and services is a matter of wasting my time. As if there isn’t enough noise on Twitter already.
I’d “forgive” the occasional Twitter ad in general if the person usually shares great tweets or stays personally involved. But I have my limits, as do most. And those limits are fairly low. I won’t hesitate to point out and criticize behaviors that waste my time or show no forethought. I have very little respect for the companies buying these ads knowing they’re intruding on a largely conversational medium of people who have some level of trust for each other (we aren’t talking about blogs here where there are sidebars and headers to tuck ads into separate from the content, or where we have plenty of room for full disclosure). And quite honestly I have less respect for the colleagues who advertise for third parties using their tweets (although I have no objection to them promoting their own books, albums, or sites within reason given that my network is based on primarily professional connections — in a more personal network, that might be a bit different).

The Lame “Just Unfollow” Argument

I know what some of you are thinking — “If Twitter ads bother you so much, just unfollow the person.” I’ve heard that argument a lot. And do you know what? It’s a completely bullshit argument.

Are your Twitter followers HAPPY followers? - Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

Unfollowing someone should not be the primary recourse for having unsolicited ads thrown in my face. And I shouldn’t have to eliminate someone from my professional network just because they make occasional poor decisions about what they choose to advertise or how often. As I already mentioned, it’s about respect. And everyone using Twitter or any social media tool has the responsibility to know their audience well enough to know when what they’re doing could be deemed disrespectful.
Remember, just because people aren’t moving in droves to unfollow you, it doesn’t mean they’re okay with your new Twitter ad posting behavior. It just means they like the other things you say enough to stick around (or your ads are buried quickly within other Twitter noise, and they just haven’t seen it yet). But that says nothing about the potential damage you’ve done to your reputation in their eyes. Still subscribing to what you say doesn’t mean they care as much about your opinions. So think about where your “real” money comes from before deciding to make a few bucks on Twitter, and ask yourself whether those income streams could take a hit to your reputation. If they can, by all means, post away.
There’s nothing wrong with diversifying your income streams. I don’t begrudge anyone an income from what they do. Just don’t forget to have some tact. At least a little….
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How to make money with paybox.me?

What is PayBox.me? 

PayBox is developing an online currency and payment processing service to make buying and selling online easier, more secure and available to everyone.
  They are designing the service with the help of a dedicated group of EarlyBird users who are contributing ideas and feedback.

Stages of development planned to launch in 2011:

• Person-to-Person transactions.
• Small Business integration, including payment processing modules for all popular shopping cart software.
• Mid-sized Business integration.
• Major Online Store integration.
• Debit Card linked to your PayBox account.
• Currency exchange with all major world currencies.  

YOUR JOB

As an EarlyBird user of PayBox, it's your job to...

• Log in frequently to see where they need your help.
• Participate. Share your opinion and complete tasks which can be done from the comfort of your home or office computer.
• Subscribe to their blog. Their blog is the primary channel they use to communicate news, updates and information to our EarlyBird members.
• Be an advocate. You may invite your trusted friends and family to join PayBox.

They'll add new tasks as they continue to grow. With each new task, you can always choose to participate (and get rewarded) or not.

 I ran into PayBox.me a few weeks ago and decided to take some time to quickly go over what it is all about. PayBox offers a pretty steep $50.00 sign up bonus. To me, this raises a red flag not just because $50.00 is a nice bonus for a sign up form that will take you less than 1 minute to fill out, but because I have to wonder how long it will take to actually physically get that sign up bonus.

PayBox.me initially makes itself out to be an online currency and payment processor site where you can send money to people, but I believe this is what they eventually want to become. At the current moment PayBox looks more like a task website where you get paid to complete various tasks online. I’ve also seen a couple surveys to participate in.

Of course, like all websites, you get paid to refer others. They claim to pay you $5.00 for every referral you bring in. The only problem is that they are claiming to give you all this money, but ask for nothing in return. Kind of sounds like they might not be in business very long unless they find ways not to pay there loyal members.


Why you should join today... 

• You start with a $50 balance and it's free.
• PayBox will add up to $20 per day to your account for participating as we prepare to launch our new service.
• You get $5 per person you refer to PayBox.
• You'll be an EarlyBird user—before PayBox opens to the public.
• You'll help shape the development of the best payment system ever designed for the Internet.
• You could have hundreds or thousands of dollars in your account by the time we launch, without ever making a deposit!

 CLICK HERE TO JOIN

If PayBox can pull all this off, they might have something going for them.
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Article Marketing Strategy: How To Get The Biggest Return Out of Your Articles

Article marketing is the original form of website promotion that has been around since the dawn of internet marketing. Many people believe that it has lost its effectiveness, but that is simply not the case. It just takes a little more work then it use to.

Article marketing has the ability to drive traffic to your site and boost your search engine rankings at the same time. When done properly each article you write has the potential to drive in hundreds of visitors to your site every day.
The average person will submit one or two articles to one or two article directories and sit back and wait for the traffic to start pouring in, and when that doesn’t happen they give up and dismiss article marketing as an effective marketing strategy.
They don’t get the results they were hoping for because they did not give their articles enough exposure to be effective. When you write an article, you want to get it in front of as many people  as you possibly can so you can generate as much traffic as possible to your website, sales page, opt in page, etc.

Here are the Steps to Explode Your Article Marketing Campaigns

1. Write a great article (350 – 500 words). Don’t just say anything or put down nonsense, really add some value for the reader. You want to build trust and respect in the readers eyes so that they want to hear more from you and become much more responsive to your sales letters.
2. Develop a good author resource box directing traffic back to your site using your target keywords in your links
3. Submit your article to EzineArticles.com for approval (can take up to 2 weeks) then once its approved bookmark it on all the social bookmark sites out there.
4. “Spin” your article so you can submit a unique version to other article directories
5. Submit your uniquely spun versions of the articles to as many article directories as you can find, but not until it is approved and posted on EzineArticles.com. Then, social bookmark those articles as soon as they are approved.
6. Submit a unique version of your article to social media sites like Squidoo.com and Hubpages.com and be sure to include a link back to your site using your target keywords. Then social bookmark them as soon as you get them posted. Notice a pattern here
7. Contact related blog owners and ask if they would like unique content for their blogs and give them a unique version of your article to post and then, yep you guessed it, social bookmark the articles as soon as they are posted.

You are probably thinking that is a lot of steps and must take a lot of time to complete, well your right. If you were to try and do all this manually you would probably never finish. Just manually setting up one account on all the social bookmark sites can take a full day.

But, don’t worry I am going to show you how you can get all this done in a mere fraction of the time it would take to do manually, but first you need to understand why we are going to all this trouble in the first place.

What do you mean by “Spin” my articles and why do I need to do that anyways?

It would be great if you could just write an article and submit it to as many places that would take it. Unfortunately, Google has something called the duplicate content penalty, that penalizes sites that display the same content that is found somewhere else on the web word for word. Many article directories are human moderated and reject articles that are already displayed on another site.

There are two ways around this problem.

• You can write a different article for each article directory you want to submit to.
• Or you can “Spin” your articles so that they are not picked up by the duplicate content filters.

The first solution is extremely time consuming or, expensive if you out source your article writing and is not a practical way of doing it.
The second solution is still somewhat time consuming, but in about the same time it would take to write one brand new article you can literally turn your original article into thousands of unique articles that you can submit all over the web with out fear of the duplicate content filter. That is what Leveraged Internet Marketing is all about, getting more return for less work.
Spinning an article means to rewrite it in a way that it will not trigger the duplicate content filters.

Submit, Submit, Submit
The next step would be to start submitting you unique articles to as many article directories as you possibly can. This can be a painstakingly tedious and long process when done manually and even if you use an article submission software that helps automate the process, you still have to spend hours, day after day, submitting articles.
I would venture to say that you don’t have that kind of time to devote to submitting articles, no one does.




Fortunately There is a Better Way
There are a few good services out there that will submit your articles to thousands of article directories and blogs all over the web, automatically. All you have to do is upload your spun article to their site and they do all the work for you. Asides from them writing your articles for you as well, it doesn’t get much easier than that.

• Unique Article Wizard: Submits articles to primarily article directories, but also to blogs and other sites that request articles from them for content for their sites. They send daily submission reports and weekly search engine index reports so you can keep track of the whole process. Each article I have submitted so far has gone out to 1000+ directories and other sites.
• Article Marketing Automation: Submits articles to only blog and other content sites, no article directories. They offer the same tracking and notification services as UAW. Articles submitted here usually go out to around 500 – 1000 sites.

Why do I use both services? Because by using UAW and AMA together guarantees my articles complete coverage across both the article directories and blog networks maximizing its exposure and my benefit.
On a side note, it is a good idea when using services such as UAW and AMA to set it up so that they submit your article at a frequency of about 50 per day, so that you build back links over time to appear more natural to the search engines.

Bookmark Like Your Business Depends On It. Because it Does
The next thing you need to do is ensure that your articles are found by potential buyers and the search engines.  The easiest way to do this is by social bookmarking your articles across all the social bookmarking sites.
This ensures that your articles will be indexed by the search engines quickly and allow your articles to start ranking for search terms as well as start passing the link juice back to your linked sites within the articles and help it rank for its target keywords even faster.

There are 3 ways this can be done

• Manually sign up for all the social bookmark sites and then manually submit all you articles on all the sites that they appear on. Doing it this way would eat up every last second of your time, every day and just isn’t humanly possible.
• A better alternative to manual submissions is by using the free service at SocialMarker.com which helps to automate the process so you can submit one site across about 60 social bookmark sites in a period of about 15mins. But, you still have to manually sign up for memberships to all the sites and you still have to be involved throughout the entire submission process which still eats up a lot of your time.
• The best way to get all your articles bookmarked is by using an automated submission software. I currently use Bookmarking Demon and love it. This software save hours upon hours of my time. It automates every aspect of the submission process. I can create multiple accounts across about 100 social bookmarking site in a matter of minuets and it has the ability to submit multiple sites at once completely hands free. It also has a built in feature that allows you to bookmark from RSS feeds and randomize the accounts it uses to submit your sites to. This helps keep you from being banned from the bookmarking sites for being a “self promoter” and help your submissions feel more natural.

Well that’s it for now, I hope that this article on getting the most out of your article marketing campaigns was helpful and allows you to kick some article marketing ass,  get more traffic, and make more sales in the process.
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Marketing Tips to Promote Your Business

After a tough 2009, the majority of small businesses have high hopes of emerging from the sales doldrums in 2010. Some 86% of small business owners expect 2010 revenues to be equal to or higher than 2009 figures,

according to research firm Ad-Ology. However, despite that glimmer of confidence, most small business owners don’t plan to increase their marketing budgets in the near term. In a February 2010 survey of small business owners called the Merchant Confidence Index, 46% of respondents said they expect their marketing expenditures to remain stable over the next three months, while just 29% expected to increase marketing spend.

Just because you don’t have a lot of extra money to spend on marketing and advertising doesn’t mean you have to sit back and hope for the best in 2010. In fact, there are many free online marketing methods small businesses can use to connect with potential customers. Below are eight proven marketing strategies you can use to boost customer acquisition and increase sales in 2010 – which will cost you only your time.

1.       Create a simple, clean website. There are dozens of self-service website creation services, such as Weebly, BlinkWeb, and Squidoo, which allow non-technical users to create simple, functional sites for free. Your site should include key words about your business so that people looking for your products or services can find you. 

2.       List your business on all free directory sites available to you. MerchantCircle, Google Local Business Center, Angie’s List, Yahoo! Local, Yelp, YellowPages.com, SearchLocal, and SuperPages are some of the online business directory services that allow businesses to create a free listing. If the site already lists your business, you can “claim” it by adding more details to the listing, such as your company website URL, a map, phone numbers, or business hours.

3.       Use email to stay in touch with your best clients/customers. You likely already have the email addresses of your best clients or customers, so use them! An email newsletter is a great way to connect with your loyal customers. Create an email that includes a quick update on new products or services, and perhaps a printable coupon or promotional code. You can also add an image, a link to your website or a video you’ve posted on YouTube, or a link to you’re a business directory page that includes lots of positive customer reviews. 

4.       Create business pages on Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites. Social networking is here to stay, so your company needs to join the fray. Start by creating a Facebook business page and a Twitter account in your company’s name; both are free. If you have video content about your business, create a free “video channel” on YouTube, while B2B companies should also create a LinkedIn profile that details your business profile, lists key contacts, and provides information about your products and services. Make sure to encourage customers to sign up for your pages by printing your Facebook address and Twitter handle on all business materials. 

5.       Get creative with promotions. Everyone loves a bargain, and people are increasingly price sensitive after recently living through one of worst recessions in decades. Try offering different types of promotions: downloadable and printable coupons people can bring into your store or office; online coupon codes redeemable for a one-time discount; a 10%-off coupon for signing up for your email newsletter or Facebook Page; a refer-a-friend discount; or a discount for writing a review of your business on a directory site like Yelp. You can promote these discounts via free or inexpensive advertising options: your email newsletter, in-store banners, Twitter, and Facebook.

6.       Search online for all businesses like yours. Use Google, Twitter, Facebook, and other search engines to find similar businesses in your city and in other areas to get a sense for what marketing tricks your competitors are using. Check out their social networking pages and their websites, and try searching for their latest promotions. Sign up for their email newsletters. Armed with this free competitive intelligence, you can see what’s worked for companies you admire, and fine-tune your own marketing strategies to compete with them.

7.       Show your expertise. There are many sites where experts can provide answers to people asking questions about anything under the sun. Yahoo Answers, MerchantCircle Answers, and LinkedIn Answers are some of the most popular question-and-answer sites. Search all of these sites for questions related to your business or service expertise, and then provide answers to them. Offer thoughtful, expert advice people can really use; that’s great PR for your business in and of itself.

8.       Create some online marketing videos. Most people prefer to 'see' something rather than 'read' something – so create some videos for your business! There are several sites, such as Jivox and Spotzer, where you can create simple marketing videos for free using stock footage, then add your company’s URL, phone number, address, and clickable coupons. You can also shoot marketing videos yourself using an inexpensive hand-held camera, and then polish them with free online editing tools like JayCut. Post your videos on your Facebook Page and on YouTube, and use them on your website and in your email marketing campaigns.

Small business owners are a creative and hard-working bunch, used to doing a lot with few resources. In 2010, take the time to invest in the growth of your business, implementing a few creative marketing strategies that deliver real results in return for just a little elbow grease.

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Best Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing

Best Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to improve Their Marketing:

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.
2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.
3. For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.
4. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.
5. Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.
6. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.
7. Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.
8. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).
9. Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.
10. Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.
11. Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.
12. Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.
13. Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.
14. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.
15. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).
16. Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.
17. Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.
18. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.
19. Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.
20. Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email me for a calendar).
21. Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.
22. Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.
23. Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.
24. Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.
25. Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.
26. Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.
27. Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?
28. Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
29. Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.
30. Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.
31. Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.
32. Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.
33. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.
34. Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.
35. Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.
36. Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.
37. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.
38. Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.
39. Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).
40. Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.
41. Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.
42. Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
43. Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).
44. Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.
45. Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.
46. People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.
47. Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.
48. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.
49. Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.
50. Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too.
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10 Ways Social Media Can Help Your Business

Social networks are vibrant and constantly evolving. Yet the fact today is that Social media is beyond adding friends and sharing status. More and more people are getting involved in this area to perk up their business. Be it small business or huge, the adoption of social media is just augmenting with time that because of the outcome it has to offer. Some of the reason for businesses to get involve may include, getting new customers, increase awareness and stay connected. According to Jody Nimetz, author of Marketing Jive, there are five major uses for businesses and social media: to create brand awareness, as an online reputation management tool, for recruiting, to learn about new technologies and competitors, and as a lead gen tool to intercept potential prospects

We also know some companies that have made excellent use of social media to establish themselves. If you are selling products/services or just publishing content for ad revenue, social media marketing is an effective method that would make your site profitable over time. So the important factor here is to know why any company would need to incorporate social media into their ideas and strategies. Once that is clear your quantifying gains become a much simpler task. Let’s now have a look at some of the reasons why a company might use social media and how the approach is different:

10 Ways Social Media Can Help Your Business
1. High Traffic and Links
By using Social Media methods you can bring high traffic to your site. They are of two kinds one is primary traffic where you get direct visitors from social networking sites and then we have secondary traffic, which is actually indirect referral traffic from websites which is linked to and send you visitors. By becoming popular on top social bookmarking sites can boost your site traffic visibly and bring you large number of links, sometimes may not even be relevant, yet useful.
2. Cost Effective Method
A wide-ranging Social Media Marketing (SMM) strategy could certainty provide a full or at least partial replacement to traditional advertising at fraction of costs when compared. Social media, which tends to have lower costs than other forms of marketing could be beyond doubt cost effective for those required to get customers spreading and sharing messages. Then again, marketers should be careful, because doing it in a wrong way would result in more work, and at times, brand backlash.
3. Direct Conversation
Conversation is the most important part in any kind of business and Social Media is a source that let you to have direct conversation with your customers. One way it will help you is by providing the products and services they desire and secondly you can get their feedback and ideas to improve further. And these days as social media is more about demographic so marketers are more viable to get new target audience, or new people to do business with. Chrisbrogan writer of Trust Agent shares 50 ways marketers can use social media to improve marketing.

4. Powerful Recommendation
Anybody rather than buying from a company who is faceless would prefer going by some recommendation. Yes, of course even in our daily life we believe to purchase in what is been recommended to us. As we know that influencers play a vital role in buying process, one way you can reach your audience is with Social Media. Once you are popular and trusted there, your brand will automatically be suggested to other connected links. Understand it is not about pushing your message, but putting forward a positive image always, building trust and value, and attracting the right clients to you like a magnet.
5. Shaping Relationships
There are ways you can be social without social media , but the initial goal behind networking online is to build relationships that can be the most effective way towards successful business. You can look at bloggers who are making the best use of it by the RSS feed reader, where one can read the post as soon as published on the blog they admire, which can further be commented on. But through Social media – especially Twitter and Facebook, you can have direct conversation with many bloggers and audiences to shape your relations further in also about 140 characters. That’s the power of social networking for business.
6. Chance To Improve
With Social Media sites you have the biggest market research company at your finger tips. Can there be a better way to improve your offering than by getting direct feedback from your consumers? Obviously not, because with valuable feedback from the customers you have a chance to improve your product and services carving their needs. But be careful while working on their wants, it could be difficult to filter out pointer and work on the valuable ones.
7. Enhance Brand Exposure and Loyalty
Social Media is the quickest way to enhance personal branding, which also makes it easy to track social media buzz around your brand and monitor it. You have higher exposure to your brand with online networking, and with spread you can gather hundreds if not thousands of prospect, and among them at least one web 2.0 company will become a loyal customer for your ongoing annual revenue. Don’t forget to take personal care of your customers, even by adding online events and responding to your users can build loyalty.
8. Time Saving Element
It is always said that everything on Social Network is quick and that holds true for any kind of business too. SMM is unquestionably cost effective from monetary point of view, because it actually does not cost anything and it is also effective from time perspective when compare to traditional marketing methods. All that a business owners need to do is their homework and to make sure they are spending their time in the top social sites in their particular industry niche and their specific business requirements.
9. Get Connected To Your Peers
Social Media again gives you a quick chance to get connected to your peers when required. For example, a web designers, developer and programmer can get help for any related issues just by a tweet message on twitter or status update on Facebook. You can always count on Social Networks for help on any particular issues at the same time you can offer help when required by your peers. While it might take time to get connected to people on other sources, social media work like cream!
10. Obvious ROI
It goes without saying that if you focus on your audiences, customers and add value to their lives, you will surely attract followers. They will soon become your fan and start trusting your brand, which in turn gets you more leads. So all you need to do after that is to measure your Social Media ROI.
It’s Your Turn
So let me know, which of the social media sites you love? How do you use it for your business and how does that help? What’s your strategy and idea? Please leave comment
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3 Basic things you have to know about Internet Marketing

There are more internet marketers making money online without any issue. There is no secret hiding on the internet marketing all of them simply following same strategy for being a successful Internet Marketer. But remember that they are coming in different ways. You need to keep in mind about only three things:

Web Traffic

The first step to be an internet marketer, you need to get a web traffic so that your visitors know that your blog is live on web consortium. The stream you need to drive traffic from the advertise pages. Remember that there is no fixed money for Internet marketer. The more you have traffic you can earn more money. The successful marketer is only depending upon the targeted traffic. The first and best way for long time traffic is search engine traffic, and there are many other ways to drive traffic like Google adwords, diggs, stumble, facebook, twitter and so on. These all will only help you for short-term traffic. You need to find your visitors interest so that you can get the returning visitors and you can also make good money.

Monetization

How you monetize your Page will show you the results in traffic and money. You need to work out with your page to drive traffic, the best place that will help you to promote any type of products or services or third-party ad networks is above the fold of your web page. Figuring out the best place will help you to get more impressions on your blog.

Optimization

Optimization takes place the last part of your work. You need to optimize your blog to the particular page. It may be your Advertising page or any other webpage. The corresponding page must be optimized well by doing the above two tactics. Best thing you can optimize your page by merging the current hot products to your old products. Only optimizing increases your overall earnings for your blog. You should randomly optimize your blog so that it will return you the steady income to your profitable niche.
Conclusion
Once you are strong in these three things then you can start Internet marketing as your own. There are many articles flowing related to this topic, learn more about them. I hope you will read more about it, if you are not reading it then you are loosing the great chance on blogging as well as Internet marketing. It will be tough in starting but once you got first $$ then you can improve your goal accordingly. Remember that, online marketing and blogging is a slow process. But it will return you good amount of money for long time. I used to follow one simple formula which is derived by me. The formula is
Hardwork + Time = Money.
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How to Tackle Criticism on Your Blog?

A blog is an open platform that is used by bloggers to inform/rant/teach to readers who are interested in the niche. A blogger who wants to express his mind knows that using a blog is one of the most powerful tools, which is available for him to articulate and shout out his thoughts. At the same time, a blog is also open to criticism. All articles are open to comments and most of us now have a “contact” form which ensures that a visitor who wants to let you have a piece of his mind will be able to do it with ease.
A blogger is open to all sorts of criticism. The most criticisms that I have seen around in the blogosphere are that of wrong information, copied content, strong reaction against your opinion etc. Copying content is definitely wrong for a blogger to do, but I have seen that readers who feel that even if the content is loosely similarly to another article he has read some where- they call it copied. This is a poor judgment by the reader since, the Internet being what it is today there are a few articles that relay the same information but in different words.
Bloggers are humans and there is a high chance that there may be some error in the information that you provide in your articles, mostly there are big problems for bloggers where there is data concerned. Data is something that can really be varied and may be your own source may be incorrect. So I have seen readers who will quickly shoot you an email or comment telling you to stop misinforming information-seekers.
As far as your writing or blog design etc. is concerned there may be also some criticism regarding that. So as you can see criticism can be tough to handle for a blogger and he must be ready for it. The first thing to tackle criticism on your blog is to never take it personally – so that you can focus on the problem and give an appropriate reply.
Secondly, when you are wrongly accused of stealing content I would suggest making a post out of it by using the commentators name and comment or copy-paste his email. In the post you can explain that your content is 100% yours. It will also stop others from wrongly accusing you in future.
My final advice is those take criticism constructively, use what you can and throw out what you don’t require.
What are your ways of handling critics? Let me know below.
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VigLink: Easy way to make money from content links

There is an easy way to make some extra cash from the content that you put on your blog. It’s coming from VigLink, which is a content monetization company. Every time you write about a product or service on your blog, VigLink will convert the normal links for that product or service into an affiliate link automatically. All you have to do is just add the Java script code VigLink offer before the closing body tag in your blog template and keep the rest to this content monetization company.
Whenever we write a positive review about some product or service on our blog, are actually motivating our blog readers to purchase that. And if any of our blog readers make a purchase, we actually become eligible for a commission if there is some website offering affiliate program for that product. VigLink has actually tied-up with more than 12,500 affiliate networks and will collect our performance across these networks. They will send our collective payments from all affiliate networks and keep 25 percent of our earnings as their commission.

VigLink Installation

VigLink accepts all major blogging platforms like Blogger, WordPress and TypePad into their content monetization program. And for start making money from VigLink, create a publisher account on VigLink and install the Java script code provided before the closing body tag. Once you have successfully installed the JS code, VigLink will convert all normal links into affiliate links for each product they find an affiliate. Suppose you linked to a product available on Amazon or Ebay during your blog post, all VigLink will do is convert that normal link into affiliate link for you on that network. You will also get free from the tedious process of account creation, affiliate link addition on your blog from various affiliate networks.
There is no cost for joining VigLink network. It will take 2-3 minutes of time actually to setup your publisher account successfully with them. Here is a small video from Oliver Roup, CEO of VigLink about how this network actually works:

Insertion of VigLink script does not chance your blog readers experience at all. They will not be adding any pop-unders, pop-ups, underlines etc to your links. All of your links will look clean as they were before the insertion of code from VigLink website. Blogger official blog Blogger Buzz has coverage about VigLink and monetization method here.

VigLink payment system

VigLink send payments via Check in US and through Paypal in countries where it’s applicable. $25 is the minimum payout and they charge 25 percent of your earnings as their commission and send the rest to you via check or Paypal.
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The complete guide of NEOBUX

A guide to start earning money with NeoBux.

So, what is NeoBux?

NeoBux is a website which pays its users to view regular Internet ads. This guide helps you to get started earning money with NeoBux without spending a single cent.
The key to success with NeoBux is referrals, which means referred members (from now on called ”refs”). If you don’t own any refs, you won’t make any money.
The easiest way to obtain refs is to rent them directly from NeoBux. In other words you rent another member from NeoBux (no programmed bots) without this persons knowledge. This way you earn money each time any of your refs clicks an ad. If you rent an inactive ref, who doesn’t click ads, this person won’t generate any money for you. Therefore you can choose to recycle a ref and replace it with a new one, but more about that later.
The only ”catch” is that you won’t make 20 dollars per day in the beginning, it will take some time to get started. You will only make a few cents to start with – but be patient! When you choose not to invest any money, you will have to wait a little longer until you reach larger amounts. If you choose to invest, things will naturally speed up, but it’s entirely up to you.

Step 1

The first thing to do, is of course to register at NeoBux official website. Registration is free of charge and works like any other common website registration.
Pick a time in the 24-hour period in which you log on everyday to NeoBux and view every ad available (later, you won’t get paid for the clicks made by your refs if you don’t view every ad yourself) by clicking on the text “View Advertisements” in the top right corner of the viewport. As a standard member you get to view a maximum of 4 ads per day (which takes about 3 minutes).
When you have earned 0.75 dollars you have the opportunity to rent 3 refs, but don’t do that just yet! It takes some time (about 3 weeks) to reach 0.75 dollars just by clicking each day, which makes many members eager to buy their first refs as soon as they have their 75 cents. Then you can’t afford to maintain your refs and eventually they will be gone because you won’t be able to pay for them.

Step 2

Don’t rent any refs until you have earned 3 dollars (if you want things to go faster you can, of course invest some money). Transfer your 3 dollars from your “Main Balance” to your “Rental Balance”. You now have 1 dollar per ref and you won’t have any problems with recycling the inactive ones and/or with extending your refs.
As you probably figured out by now, it will take some time before you have earned 3 dollars, but it’s better to wait so you don’t have to worry about not being able to recycle your inactive refs with new active ones. This will be a perfect time to familiar yourself with the website and to read the FAQ and the Help pages, and to take a look at the forums, which I highly recommend.

Step 3

When you have purchased your first 3 refs, you should enable “AutoPay”, which is a very good tool. Referrals cost 30 cent to extend for one month, but with AutoPay enabled all referrals who clicks on ads that day will automatically be extended for 1 day. It will only cost you one ad, or 1 cent (if a ref view 4 ads you will get paid for 3 of them and get to keep the ref for another day). You could say that the refs pay for themselves, but only if they’re active. For example, if one of your refs doesn’t click any ads one day, you won’t have to pay for that ref that day.
It might sound a bit confusing right now, but after a while you will understand how everything works.
So, click on “Enable” next to “AutoPay” on the same page as your refs are located.

Step 4

There are many different ideas and methods of how to best use the recycle tool. A good strategy in the beginning is to recycle any ref that hasn’t clicked on any ads today, yesterday or the day before that and has a “Click Average” (the amount of clicks per day in average) below 2.0. If a ref has a Click Average between 2.0 and 4.0, you should wait 4 days before recycling it. You should wait a whole week before recycling a ref with a Click Average above 4.0. Maybe he/she went on holiday and it would be unfortunate to recycle an otherwise great and very active ref.

Step 5

With less than 20 days remaining for a ref AutoPay will not work, which we of course want to use. So, as soon as any of your refs gets below 20 days to the next payment (you can find “Next Payment” on the same page as your rented refs are), you should pay for another 30 days for that ref.

Step 6

One could easily believe that NeoBux is too good to be true, for example, if you request a payment you will get paid to your PayPal or AlertPay account instantly. That’s why many makes the big mistake to cash out their earned money too early, just because they want to make sure that NeoBux is indeed legit. This is a bit foolish. That money should have been used to maintain your refs. NeoBux is a very serious PTC (Paid To Click) program and you WILL get paid.
Instead, keep on transferring money to your Rental Balance each time you reach 3 dollars and buy new refs, which you maintain in the same way as I mentioned before. When your earnings start to increase, you can buy larger amounts of refs each rental time.

Step 7

Keep on with this strategy until you reach 500 referrals. Now, stop renting new refs and maintain the ones you already have. Things will move a lot faster now, and it won’t be long until you reach 100 dollars.

Step 8

This is the great part about NeoBux!
Now use 90 of your 100 dollars to buy “Golden Membership”. When you have a Golden Membership the money you earn each day will DOUBLE.
Now it’s time to rent new refs again. Things will move a lot faster now, and when you have about 2000 refs you can start cashing out all money you’re not spending on maintenance and recycling. You will be able to cash out approximately 20 dollars per day!
CONGRATULATIONS!

Finally…

…there’s something called “Direct Referrals” (members who are directly referred by you). When you have been a member for at least 30 days and have at least 100 clicks, with a special link (like this one) you get paid for everyone who registers through you and views ads, exactly as with the rented refs. So, spread the word about NeoBux to your friends and family. Attach the link as a signature in your e-mail, post it in forums. Use every free method you can come up with to refer members. They will then register through you and you will get paid for them as well – as a bonus!
Hope you enjoyed the guide and that it will help you to succeed with NeoBux!

Register with NeoBux here.

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Top 5 ideas for Beginners to Make Money Online

There are some ways to make money online for beginners. At most you require a blog or a website. Moreover, you do not have to invest or spend any amount of money from your side. Here are top 5 ideas:

Idea 1: Freelance Writing

This is the best way for a person to earn money as a beginner. Freelance writing is a work on the web which offers a lot of money making opportunities online. You can also improve your writing and researching for topics. Also, you should be comfortable in generating content for almost any niche. There are ample opportunities on the internet for freelance writers and they are paid quite well.

Idea 2: Web hosts/Domain Name Selling

This is a lot like affiliate selling but many webmasters have a site especially dedicated towards web hosting reviews and domain name selling. They sell products related to web hosting and domain names. All the web hosting companies such as Hostgator, Dreamhost etc. give very high commission to their affiliate sellers.

Idea 3: Making Affiliate Sales

You need not be a pro-blogger if you want to sell products on your website. If you have a website with enough organic traffic then affiliate marketing is a good way to make money online. The best sites that can be used for affiliate products are commission junction, Amazon, ClickBank. Most successful affiliate marketers who sell affiliate products do so from these listed sites. The trick is to market your product by writing great posts and selling quality products you have, your audience will also like. The affiliate products you sell should be related to the niche/theme of your blog or website. Making money online from affiliate products is highly profitable as it requires zero investment and provides high returns.

Idea 4: Social Discussions

Did you know that there are many social networking sites that pay you to simply discuss your favorite topics? Websites like mylot, Yuwie etc. which pays you for getting socialized. You can earn a lot depending on your level of participation. They usually have a low payout about as low as $10. These social networking sites basically pay you to start topics and respond to discussions. Apart from paying you these websites are also good to provide exposure to you and your own websites.

Idea 5: Sell unwanted stuff on Ebay

Ebay stores have made many people rich. When you start an online Ebay store you can sell used or new products or both. Millions of visitors come to Ebay for buying products. You can take a share of the pie. The key is to sell products that you do not require and provide a competitive price at the Ebay market place. If you do some research you can find great tips on how to make money online using Ebay.
Would you love to implement any of these ideas especially if you are a beginner in money making niche?
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