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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A Good Article Marketing Strategy

I have a very love-hate relationship with article marketing. On one hand I come from a public relations background, so I’m a big fan of focusing on building visibility and authority status in a niche. Article marketing does that. On the other hand I hate seeing the Web filled with spammy, rehashed articles that people obviously wrote only for the backlinks. Article marketing does that too.

So where’s the line? How can you reap the benefits of article marketing without cheapening your own image on the Web? Let’s start with the basics.


What is Article Marketing?
In its simplest form article marketing is really nothing more than publishing articles. The marketing aspect refers to the fact that your by-line and / or a link to your website are included in that article. This way the articles bring name recognition, demonstrate expert or authority status in a niche, and might also bring in backlinks (for better search engine rankings) and targeted traffic.


Basic Article Marketing
When most people hear the phrase “article marketing,” they tend to think of article directories. Here’s what basic article marketing might look like:

1. You write ten articles in your niche.
2. You run those articles through a spinner to get five different versions of each (optional, but common and why basic article marketing can come across as search engine spam).
3. You add a resource box to each article with your name and link.
4. You publish those 50 articles to an article directory like EzineArticles.com.
5. You wait.

Once your articles are published to article directories, you give other people the right to publish them (as long as they include your link). That gives you 50 backlinks from the article directory (and you’d probably submit them to more than one article directory), plus more links over time as publishers and bloggers pick up the articles. The strategy is straightforward — it’s all about quantity.


Advanced Article Marketing
What I refer to as “advanced article marketing” is really nothing new. It actually predates the now more common form of article marketing. In the past it was just good old fashioned PR — still is.
Here’s the key difference: You focus on quality rather than quantity. You also have to look beyond the Internet alone (and yes, you’ll still get links — higher quality ones at that). Here’s what an advanced article marketing campaign might look like:

1. You write ten high quality, authoritative articles in your niche or industry. You have two options: features (evergreen material that won’t get outdated) or timely stories (playing on the news value). In some cases you’ll complete step two here before writing.
2. You compile a targeted media / publication list (trade magazines, industry websites, blogs, etc.). If you’re serious, you’ll even take the time to find personal contact information for the appropriate editor and you’ll review any writer’s guidelines they might have.
3. You write a brief pitch letter.
4. You pitch your articles to those publications.
5. They publish your articles (usually first rights, but sometimes exclusive rights).
6. You wait.

Most people I know who frown on this approach don’t like it for two reasons: they assume it will be too much work, or they can’t get over the difference in quantity (10 articles published versus 50 published in more than one place). Then again, I’ve never known someone to try this approach, do it right, and go back to basic article marketing (and I’ve helped quite a few clients do just that). Here’s why:
Advanced article marketing might mean fewer pieces are published, but there’s value in exclusivity. If you can be found on every Tom, Dick, and Harry’s website with the same content published and the same links tossed in, you’re really not contributing to the niche beyond the first article on a topic. Readers do get around, and if they see the same material all the time it becomes unsolicited clutter — search engine spam basically.


Advanced Article Marketing and Building an Authority Status
When it comes to building authority, it’s not about the number of sites your articles are posted to. It’s about which sites (or offline publications) pick up your content, and what their reach is. Let’s look at it this way:
We need to pick a niche, so let’s say you’re a personal trainer (there seem to be a lot of them publishing on article directories). You want to publish fitness articles to promote a new workout DVD series, or book, or whatever amazing new weight loss product it is you’re trying to unload at the moment.
What’s going to bring in more sales?

1. Publishing 50 articles (plus lots of reprints on sites barely anyone reads) to get quick incoming links, in a spammy kind of way that can make you look like a sleazy salesman to some members of your market, or…
2. Publishing ten unique articles on high traffic fitness sites or women’s sites (let’s face it, weight loss products sell like hotcakes with a female audience)

Hmmm…
Experience tells me quality will get you much further. Even if you focused on print publications the same is true. Why? Because they’ll often include your URL for readers to check it out, and if nothing else you’re credited (and authoritative publications and sites do much more to build your own authority with your audience). On top of that many, if not most, print publications also have a Web presence these days where they’ll post resources from their print editions (and sometimes even republish the print article online in full).
So let’s examine it again: 50 links from Susie Q’s blog and similar unknown sites looking for free content or ten articles found by readers in places like Self, Woman’s Day, Fitness magazine, iVillage.com, maybe a relatively high traffic network site like a fitness site on About.com, and a few top blogs read by women or those looking to lose weight. Which makes you look like a more authoritative source? I’ll give you a hint. Nobody cares about Susie Q’s blog in comparison. If you want authority status, you need to target true authority sources in your niche (and of course you have to actually have expert knowledge and not just rehashed content).


Advanced Article Marketing Leads to More Targeted Traffic
For the same reasons I mentioned above, you can see how advanced article marketing can lead to more traffic. More importantly, the traffic is often better targeted. That’s because Woman’s Day, for example, has a certain type of readership (and a nice-sized readership at that). When people really trust a site or publication, they have a better reason to trust you because the editors thought your information was worthwhile.
Let’s look at it this way: Now we’ll talk about doctors. I’m always amazed at how many doctors think they’re doing anything good for their credibility by spamming the Web via article directories in a desperate search for attention and links. Yuck. Does that really make you respect someone as a medical professional? Not me. In fact, they immediately lose credibility points with me if that’s where the information comes from. Why?
Article directories have no serious editorial control (and I don’t mean the auto-rejections if you have too many keywords — I mean real editorial control where you can be assured the information has been fact-checked and reviewed by another professional before being fed to consumers as the gospel truth). What that means is this: anyone can publish anything on an article directory. It doesn’t speak to their authority in the slightest if a kid down the street could reword their article (copyright infringement in some places so don’t do it unless you have permission folks) and publish it as their own “expert” knowledge. Without the backing of an authority source (as in the site or publication releasing your article), you really don’t know who’s doling out that medical information.
Therefore when people come across those types of articles, they don’t necessarily carry as much authority. That means they don’t instill as much trust. And that means your chances of getting targeted traffic who actually trust you after reading your article and who click your link and who then go on to buy, well, they’re just not as good.
Will you get traffic? Yes. Will you make sales? I’m sure you will. But you won’t likely maximize your return that way. As a businessperson it’s your responsibility to get the most out of everything you do, and advanced article marketing does that — it gives you more. And of course there’s that little thing about authoritative sites simply having more targeted traffic to send your way to begin with.


Advanced Article Marketing for Better SEO
SEO is about building awareness / gaining visibility. It’s really nothing more than basic PR — raise awareness, start building an image with audience (it starts with even simple things like your choice of title and description), and build a relationship from there.

Credit: Svilen Mushkatov (vis Sxc.hu)

Awareness isn’t about quantity any more than authority status is — at least not in terms of how many backlinks you get. What’s far more important is that you go back to quality. Yet again, articles on authoritative sites with larger audiences tend to have more value than the smaller types of sites that will pick up content from article directories. And that goes beyond the fact that relevant authority links can help your ranking more than other types. Here’s why:
In basic article marketing you essentially treat the article directory as the “authority” site. It’s not though. It might have a high pagerank, but that’s not enough – it’s not a truly relevant link (not to mention that your article will likely be pushed into the archives relatively quickly). You do it because you hope others will see it there and re-publish.
You do the same thing with advanced article marketing, but the results can be much better. Let’s say a major site in your niche publishes a timely article by you. Chances are very good that others in the niche are then going to see it and potentially cover that topic. That generally involves linking to the authority source to cite it, and then adding to the conversation in some way (if they’re not just passing the link along as an interesting read).
The more authority your original article has (based on where it’s published and your credentials), the better your chances are that the article will go viral. You’ll also likely have your name credited on those secondary, trickle-down sites leading to more exposure. Those links also increase the rankings of your article itself (if online), which means your own backlink there may eventually carry even more weight and also lead to more targeted traffic as more people are directed to your article (and therefore directed to your site).
Not too shabby for ten articles and some pitching, is it?

Advanced Article Marketing Challenge
Advanced article marketing isn’t for everyone. If your article marketing is designed to drive traffic to a relatively generic MFA site for example, then you may simply not have the credentials to get picked up in larger publications. In that case, hey, stick to basic article marketing if it does what you need it to do. I don’t advocate it unless you can manage to do it without spamming the search engines with repeat garbage, but I’m not naïve enough to think most people will stop. If, however, your site makes any effort to focus on readers rather than solely rankings and ads you can benefit (even if you just target more popular blogs than your own with guest posts).
For those who do have real credibility in their niches and who want to focus on article marketing tactics that will help them improve their image, forward their authority status, reach more targeted readers, drive higher quality traffic, and build higher quality and more relevant backlinks, I challenge you to give it a try. You may just be surprised where you could be published.
For those who do want to give it a shot, here are a few final tips for you:

1. If you’re not a decent writer (decent enough to be published on those larger sites, in trade magazines, etc.), then hire a writer. Preferably, hire a writer who specializes in your niche.
2. You don’t have to spend money on expensive media directories to find trade publications and their editors’ contact information. Get a copy of the latest Writer’s Market instead (or subscribe online at www.WritersMarket.com for a few dollars per month). It’s a less expensive option that targets writers who want to sell articles to these publications. Your edge is that you’re offering the articles for free. It’s a good resource for telling you how certain publications and websites like to be pitched.
3. Always read the writer’s guidelines of a publication before submitting anything. They’ll tell you what word counts they need, what topics they do and don’t cover, and what their policies are about self-promotion in the article. You won’t have a problem finding publications and sites that let you include a URL and your company name.

Now go ahead. Give it a try. Pitch even one publication. The worst that can happen is that they say “no,” and you learn something about pitching. Talk to a publicist if you need help with pitching, or try to find a pitch letter template you can adapt. In time though, you’ll get the hang of it and you’ll find it easier to get accepted. Use your credentials to your advantage. Remember, you’re looking for the best return you can get when promoting your business, product, or service. If you could be doing better, then it’s time to do something about it. Give advanced article marketing a try.
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5 Social Media Strategies to Expand Your Business

A great social media campaign creates viral exposure with the community performing most of the communication.
When you share in social media, if your goal is just to get more people to see your links, you’re on the right track, but at the same time, you’re limiting your potential. You may think that getting explosive results from social media will take more time, energy and money, but this doesn’t have to be the case.

If you’re a business owner, you know that working harder doesn’t necessarily mean better results – what if you’re working hard on the wrong thing?
Sometimes the remedy is working smarter. Here are a few small changes you can make to your social media approach that can propel your social media results from lukewarm to smoking hot.

Strategy 1 – Great Content
The cornerstone to any social media campaign is the content. Content is king on the Internet. If you get this component wrong, it doesn’t matter if all other elements are perfect. Study what’s hot in your market and find an angle so you can distribute the best content.

Strategy 2 – Niched Network Nuances
The more tightly focused your submissions to social media sites are, the more likely they are to go viral, whether they are links you share by other people or yours.
People follow other people with similar interests. They’re on sites like LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Delicious and Digg actively looking for new content. Put those two things together and you are on the right track.
Having 5000 connections on Twitter or Facebook is useless if you are connected to people who don’t want your broadcasts, and you’re just as useless to them if you don’t want theirs. If my interest is in improving my existing business and you’re trying to get me to sell your network marketing products, it doesn’t matter how many times you ask me. If I’m not interested, your continued broadcasts will be ignored.
The worst part is, if someone is not spreading your message, then the whole concept of this marketing goes out the window. If you are in network marketing, why not go after people who love the network marketing concept but can’t seem to find the right company? That’s a perfect match.

Strategy 3 – Simplify Sharing
You’ve got great content. You’ve got a massive, niched network. Why feed them content that’s hard to share? Does that report have to be in PDF format? If so, does it have to be behind an opt-ín wall if you’re spreading it among people who have Already opted in? Anyone connected to your business through its Facebook page, or your Twitter stream is also part of your opt-ín list. Yes, it would be best if they were on your email newsletter list, but what faster way to get them there than to show them you don’t need to hold them prisoner there?

If your whitepaper is of such high value that you don’t want it to spread, well, that’s something different. But if you’re sharing it so other people will spread it, make it easy for others to share.
Send your su.pr link so all they have to do is click the Thumbs-Up button, put a few sharing links on your page, make it easy for them to Retweet, the easier it is for them to share, the more likely they are to do it.

Strategy 4 – Consistency
It’s one of the things I know I need to do, but I haven’t quite gotten the hang of how to brainstorm, create and distribute quality content consistently, and still give the best possible service and support to my customers and clients.
The other thing that helped a lot was getting over my perfectionism complex. Release your content as soon as you can. I can’t tell you how much money I’ve left on the table from my old fear of the typo and grammar police. Not to mention the fact that I felt like I was leaving my audience hanging.
You subscribe to something because you want to get regular updates. If your favorite daily news show started coming on once a week, you’d probably switch channels. If you’re inconsistent without explanation, your audience numbers will drop and your network will fade.

Strategy 5 – Think Engagement
Measuring your results by page view alone is a thing of the past. When the web was mostly text and images, it made some sense that how many pages a visitor viewed at your site was a true measure of engagement.
Nowadays this isn’t the case. You want to look instead at how long people are at your site. The exception, of course, is when customers are coming to your site to buy, and the order processing system takes them off your page. But if people aren’t leaving your site because they’re ready to buy or subscribe, you truly must look at why they aren’t paying more attention to your content, and what changes you can make to get them to stay.
This is critically important in understanding which content will go viral naturally. What posts are people staying on your site to comment on? When do they take a few extra seconds to retweet? Are they watching your videos all the way through?
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Boost Traffic With Facebook

Are you on Facebook? You should be. Despite the stigma Facebook has as being a social networking sites for school kids it is a powerful ally for your marketing arsenal. Facebook is being utilized by online marketers young and old, and for you to benefit from the same you need be there.

If done right, you can boost traffic to your site with the help of Facebook time and time again. Facebook is the largest social networking sites on the planet and has even outgrown Google’s traffic numbers.
Below are some ideas to help you boost your traffic with FB:

Facebook Ads

Facebook PPC ads are a cost-effective way to market your business. Bear in mind that the TOS are pretty strict and not every type of business is allowed to advertise. Work from home and MLM schemes will find it tough to get approved as there is so much rubbish among them.

Facebook Pages

If you run any business, regardless whether it offline or online based you should have a Facebook Page. You can design them at no cost to you. Once your Page is designed and launched you need to find fans. You can do so by inviting your existing Facebook contacts to take a closer look.
You can also network on similar niche forums on the site to grow your circle of influence over time. As more people take notice of you, they will join your fan club.

Facebook Groups

Joining Facebook groups is as easy as doing a keyword search for a related niche. If you are “peddling” electrical contracting you can join groups with like-minded people to extend your reach. By helping others for free you are likely to gain a steady following of people over time, people who will become your avid readers and eventually your clients.

Install Tracking

When you promote your message on Facebook make sure you use some kind of tracking stats to determine what works and what doesn’t. The easiest way to do this is by signing up for a free bit.ly account. You can use specialized URLs and track how many clicks you get, where the traffic came from and much more. Unless you know what works you will be wasting your time.

Network with Top Marketers in Your Niche

If it is possible to network with top marketers in your niche, do it. You need to understand that you can’t simply send them messages saying “hello,” “great to meet you,” and stuff like that. For you to be noticed by a top maggot you need to offer something; your time, your energy, your support, free work, etc. These guys are busy and they simply won’t respond to every Tom, Dick and Harry who happens to seek their friendship.

Design a Killer Profile

Unless your profile stands out among the competition you will only ever be another number in the crowd. The best way to stand out is to make your profile page in-your-face. Be outspoken, be hilarious, be grumpy, be different. Whatever it takes to achieve this. Today, it is getting harder and harder to be a unique entity because of the sheer number of people who market online.
Having said this, it isn’t impossible. You can put on your creative hat and start thinking about ways to attract people’s attention without being nasty, aggressive or abusive to them.
Have fun!
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How To Get More Traffic To Your Blog

Today I’m continuing with answers to the questions presented to me by my customers and readers. And question we will work with today is equally important to the blogs of every size because it deals with most important aspect that determines blog success – Targeted Traffic!

In the image above you can actually see the less common variant of problem from a blogger who already gets decent amount of visitors and simply need to expand and continue with the growth. Overcoming traffic plateau is EXTREMELY important as each and everyone of us will have to deal with it, at one point or another…

How To Overcome Traffic Plateau And Get More Targeted Traffic?

First I want to say – Congratulations!
If you are facing same “problem” as a customer who submitted question above – you have managed to achieve already more then many blogs ever will. 1800 unique visitors per day is nothing to sneeze on and quite an accomplishment! In fact in some niches it might be close to maximum of what you will see, unless you start taking more direction actions…

Step 1 – Evaluate Where Most Of Your Current Traffic Coming From

This will be the most important step as we need to know exactly What Works for you right now! And in order to get this done – we need some form of Stats Tracking implemented that provides us with fairly detailed information.
I personally prefer and teach my Expert WordPress customers how to integrate Google Analytics, as it is free, easy to add to your blog (just insert their javascript before the closing tag in footer.php) and provides decent level of stats.
If you haven’t been using Google Stats before – you need about a month worth of stats to get more or less accurate picture on where most of your visitors are coming from. Once you identify your traffic sources – move to step 2

Step 2 – Isolate 3 Traffic Sources And Identify What Promotion Associated With It

Time is precious and for us to increase amount of visitors coming to your blog we need to identify which of your promotional efforts or perhaps SEO strategies work right now and concentrate more effort on it.
Implement Rinse And Repeat Strategy!
If something is already working for your blog it only makes sense to do more of the same to get even more traffic. Couple examples could be:

• Search Engines show up as major traffic source but when you look at what content brings most of the traffic you find that you have many posts deliver a bit of traffic each but combined create a large Volume!
  Conclusion – Your SEO Efforts work and each post properly optimized for search engines delivers traffic even though only just a bit each post individually.
  Action Plan – Do a long tale keyword research, write more posts optimized for ranking for long tale ranking.
• eZineArticles.com shows as one of the biggest Direct Referrals.
  Conclusion – your article marketing works as designed and article directory delivers you not only the traffic you need but also new loyal readers and blog subscribers.
  Action Plan – Continue your article marketing efforts and simply increase number of articles you submit. If you simply double the number of submitted articles you should effectively double the number of new visitors from that source.

And same principal can be applied to ANY traffic source. All you have to do is Identify The Source, Associate Promotional Effort Responsible for it, Rinse and Repeat but increase intensity!
In my personal experience 80/20 rule applies perfectly to the traffic driving strategies – 20% of your efforts will deliver 80% of your traffic and in this portion I simply ask that you identify what 20% of your Traffic Driving Effort produce results, cut out the other 80% and then…

Double Your “Proven To Work” Efforts – Double Your Traffic!

Now you still left about 60% of promotional efforts left unused after you cut out what is not working and doubling what does. So lets put this effort into…

Step 3 – Finding New Sources

While strategy above should help you overcome the traffic plateau and effectively get a lot more of visitors, it is based on idea of simply taking advantage of what already works and ignoring the fact that these sources might have their own limits.
Reality is – if you don’t branch out and continue to search for new sources of traffic – you will eventually hit the plateau again. Unique Visitors number might be a lot higher but problem will still be same – luck of growth.
You simply must continue to grow, don’t settle on any single strategy and when you find one that works – add it to your 20% of the “working efforts” and continue to search for new ones. This will obviously be different for each blogger as it will be determined but what you currently do that works. Here are some of the more common:

• SEO
• Article Marketing
• Social Marketing
• Forum Marketing
• Video Marketing
• Blog Marketing
• Link building
• Your own strategy here…

You get the point!
And here is what I have found other bloggers say about Traffic Plateau and How to Overcome It:

• Darren Rowse in 6 Reasons Your Blog Traffic Might Be Declining [And What to Do About It] stated: “While we all want to see our traffic rise the reality is that every blog has days, weeks and even months where traffic levels out or even decreases. This can be quite distressing for bloggers who have big hopes and dreams for their blogs.”
• Tibi Puiu in Get Your Blog Moving: Break The Plateau! writes – “And just like life a blog will pass through several stages of existence from birth, to its moment of climax, to its inevitable death. During its lifetime, if it’s long enough of course, a blog will fluctuate numerous times on up-down scales and ever so often you’ll find that for a limited time it doesn’t go up, nor does it go down, but just stagnates. This is called a plateau.”
• Daniel Scocco in 4 Steps to Increase Your Blog Traffic shares – “Just make sure to execute the 4 steps as planned and to spend the two hours and a half every day (obviously if you have more time available you can expand the time spent on each of the four steps proportionally)”

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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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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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5 Tips To Make Viral Money

We've all read, seen or heard something that we simply had to pass on. When things go viral, they can generate enormous amounts of traffic. And from massive amount of traffic, cash can be earned. So if you want to make money online you should think viral. But what rules can you follow to improve your chance of creating content that goes nuclear? I've taken a recent example from Wikinut, and analyzed why it attracted so much attention.
One of our users wrote a page about a campaign they were waging against a UK high street chemist for selling unproven homeopathic remedies - you can read it here. This sounds like a niche topic, but following its publication this page received a huge amount of traffic, generated lots of external links and received lots of feedback from readers. Let's look at the reasons for the massive spike in traffic this page received.

Amuse me
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The page, which has a comic twist to a serious subject, offers readers a chance to laugh. A piece of potentially dry subject matter has been given a sprinkling of humour. Jokes are one of the oldest forms of viral communication - think of all those "have you heard the one about...?" gags. Most people are surfing for entertainment, so give them what they want.

Stay on topic
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Twitter is a great illustration of how certain subjects can trend, and other media outlets have similar obsessions each day. If you can exploit one of these spikes in interest, your page will have a far greater chance. Remember it is easier to ride the wave, than create your own ripples. This page followed other high profile campaigns in the UK on the same subject matter, and so latched onto the surge.

Be original
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Firstly, and perhaps most importantly the page described an idea that was original - never attempt to promote copied content virally, as it will flop. But this doesn't mean you need to be completely original, so don't panic. Seeing an existing idea in a new light, or from a different angle is the best way to brainstorm some ideas.

Draw me a picture
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A picture is worth a 1000 words, and perhaps double that when it comes to online viral marketing. This page's photo of the rogue flyer in-store grabs the attention, and draws the reader in. Many virals are indeed only photos - but remember this means that they can then be passed around the web without reference to the original site... which means no advert revenue. So it's best to try and give the user a reason to pass on the URL of your page, rather than just the content.

Be f***ing controversial
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Most gossip is based on controversial subjects, and the same applies to many of the best viral ideas. You want to stimulate interest and debate, and it ultimately doesn't matter if your reader loves or hates your opinion so long as they pass it on. So perhaps this page's message to subversively drop flyers into the store struck a nerve with the audience.

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How to Make Money Online by Picking Keywords

Every moment of every day, millions of dollars are spent over the net. Type in a keyword, click, and a ‘personal shopper’ called a search engine has scanned thousands of data bases and found just what you’re looking for. And, the only ‘legs’ needed for this virtual shopping expedition are keywords. From anywhere in the world, people are searching a global mall where their choice has been narrowed down to a few top rated web sites—and all this, because someone somewhere knew how to make money online by picking keywords.


Keywords Make Money

Anyone who knows the net understands the enormous marketing and advertising impact of keywords. Every day millions of dollars are paid to the people who create, develop and disperse keywords. Whether by advertiser cost-per-click, blogs, or creating links to a well-written hub, the people who know how to make money on line by picking keywords are making lots of money. And although content is important, in some cases, it is not automatically ‘king.’ If an on-line marketing company is tasked with helping to restore an individual’s or company’s reputation, their chief concern is to implant keywords throughout the text, ‘the story is not important. What is important is that the anchor text is worked seamlessly into the narrative 3 times.’
Location, Location, Location

To find the best keywords, know exactly what the customer is looking for; what is their Unique Selling Point? What words are triggered for example, if people are looking for ‘how to make money online by picking keywords’? If an aunt or uncle were looking for information about this topic, what words would they use? Once discovered the keywords should be placed within every piece of text. Notice some stores have the same goods located in different areas throughout the store; keywords are just like that; they must be everywhere a search engine might look. The same keywords need to be mirrored in the web content, blog and every article submitted or linked to hubs.


Window Shopping is Good Advertising
Of course, every article needs to be useful and informative otherwise people won’t be bothered to read it. But if the text doesn’t have the keywords embedded in it, it’s a waste of time as far as the virtual shopper is concerned. Keywords are the highlighted passages; which clearly mark the way to a web site. Without them, potential visitors will be left searching in the dark and they may never find what they are looking for. Keywords also help keep the text remain focused and to-the-point. If the text is vague or ambiguous people will get lost. If the text is about ‘lower left back pain remedies’ it’s no good putting in a keyword about hot-tubs (unless that is the specific remedy), so keep keywords relevant, and specific. Finally, for people who are interested in how to make money online by picking keywords they need to be word smiths. A client may want their text to be ‘not promotional, self-serving or comparative.’ In other cases they may want, ‘a story which reflects the subject in each hyperlink. Whatever the style of writing in all cases it keywords are critical.

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Six ways Twitter can make money

A web 2.0-sized boatload of buzz has surrounded Twitter, the addictive service that allows its users to answer one simple question: what are you doing? The service has made appearances in everything from your friend's blog to the New York Times, and everyone seems jazzed about how fun tweeting is. While we're all having a good time, however, its creators, Obvious, keep hinting at how many practical uses they have up their sleeve for Twitter. Even though they haven't revealed any of their cards just yet, the rest of us are left wondering: how is such a seemingly frivolous service going to make money?

As a user who has taken the Twitter pill hook, line and sinker, I've been mulling this question for some time now. I came up with a few strategies, but then I figured: why not run them by the Twitter crew themselves? The least they could say was 'no comment,' but fortunately Evan Williams, one of Obvious and Twitter's founders, responded with a few of his own. Read on for my attempts at making Twitter some money (I'm waiting for my job offer Ev), as well as some choice words and ideas of his own from Evan.

• Twitter Pro - This is one obvious move. Twitter Pro could be a paid service that offers more features, unlimited tweets vs. a 'standard' account that receive a daily/weekly limit. It could also include a mobile phone/Windows Mobile/BlackBerry client with more robust tweeting/following tools that use the web to transmit tweets, avoiding those nasty SMS charges. It could also allow tweeting pics and videos from around the web with a Tumblr-like K.I.S.S. philosophy.
• Merchandise - A while back (though I admittedly can't find a link right now), Evan said merch was a big revenue generator for Blogger, and Twitter has worlds more buzz surrounding it right now. Heck, they even rolled out a small batch of shirts for SXSW, over which users seemed to be pretty excited. As ready as we may be to plunk down some cash for the privilege of using a t-shirt to tell people where we waste most of our time, Ev directly replied to this one: "RE: merchandise - It was, at one time, a noticeable part of Blogger's revenue, but that's when Blogger was just me, scraping by; my guess is it wouldn't make a blip in Twitter's costs today. Unless we figured out how to be a trendy new apparel brand." Sorry everyone, but it sounds like apparel isn't exactly on their list of features to roll out in the next update.
• Twitter for Business a lá Google Apps - Customized, secure software that businesses can run on their own intranet. BlackBerry and WinMo clients are a more apparent option here. Obviously, this could become tremendously useful if Twitter built in some hooks that work like Stikkit and Google Calendar, allowing employees to easily tweet appointments and tasks to a centralized PIM system, and automatically be subscribed to their team's tweets without any extra effort on their part.
• Twitter Forums, ad-supported - Finally, an innovation brought to the aging discussion forum format. Sort of a Twitter approach to Yahoo! Answers, allowing users to post questions and follow threads they're interested in, with the Twitter format forcing everyone to keep things simple and on-topic. Instead of ads, this could also possibly be just for Pro customers. One of the catches here is that Twitter users only see tweets from people they are following. When submitting a question to a Twitter Forum, you would be able to see all replies to the question, even the ones from users you've never met and aren't following.

Evan didn't let me have all the fun with brainstorming, however, and he offered two of his own ideas which I would assume are a good bet the company is working on, since he shared them with this lowly blogger:

Two more-straightforward ideas: 1) Ads on the site. We have a little AdSense on there now, but we haven't really tried. As the traffic grows, some tasteful sponsorships might be sellable. 2) Charging companies who are using it for marketing or other commercial purposes. If an organization finds Twitter to be a valuable communication tool with their customers/constituents/etc -- especially if we're sending lots of SMS's for them, which cost us money -- it seems viable to make an offering around that.

So there you have it: six ways Twitter can make money, two of which are straight from the lion's mouth. Judging from the sheer magnitude of buzz surrounding the recently-incorporated company, I wouldn't be surprised if these six are but a drop in the bucket. There's good news for those who fear change, however: no matter which way Twitter decides to start paying their exponentially growing bandwidth bills, Evan assured me that: "Our top concern when it comes to monetization will be to do so in a way that does not negatively impact users." Good show guys; your users will appreciate being able to spend their time tweeting about how they're spending their time, with the least amount of distraction.

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How to Make Money Writing For HubPages

HubPages is a great site that offers freelance writers the chance to make money by composing blog like articles. Writers make money on HubPages through ads from Google Adsense that are listed all over their hub (as the page is called). Freelance writers for HubPages can also earn money through affiliate marketing with companies like Amazon and eBay.

1. Visit HubPages homepage at http://hubpages.com/ (or link to it in the resource list below this article). Take a look at the first page...you can either choose to sign up right away with HubPages or 'take a tour' to learn more information on writing hubs and making money. If you take a quick tour of HubPages, you'll find information on everything from what a hub is, what to write about, what kinds of writing tools are available, how you can interact with other hubbers, and how to make money on HubPages. I recommend taking this tour to help you decide is writing for and making money with HubPages is for you.
   
2. Once you have all the information you need to understand HubPages, you can sign up for free by clicking the green 'sign up now' button. You'll need to choose a user ID and password, as well as agree to the terms of use on HubPages. Make sure that your user ID is something unique to you and one that you'll be happy with because it will be how others and the Internet community recognize you...and you can't change it after you've chosen one. When you are finished, click submit and check your email for a confirmation of your HubPages account set up. You'll need to click on the link in the email to verify your account and get started on HubPages.
   
3. You'll need to enter your personal contact information on HubPages so that the company knows who you are and how you want paid for your writings. This information remains confidential and no one outside of the HubPages staff sees this anywhere. It's important that you put in your account information so that you can start making money on HubPages immediately. You'll need to sign up for a Google Adsense account (if you don't have one) and sign up for the other affiliates listed in HubPages (Amazon & eBay) if you want paid by them as well. See the resource list below for links to these sign up pages. Simply click the link and follow the directions to set up an account under each site.
   
4. Next, you'll want to set up your profile and pay careful attention to your 'about me' page. Creating a good 'about me' page on HubPages is important because it's the first thing people see when they visit your profile. Your 'about me' page should be detailed and interesting. Tell visitors who you are and what you enjoy doing. Let them know why you are writing for HubPages (and not just because you want to make money) and what you'd like to share with the world. Explain any experience and education you have for writing hubs and what hobbies you enjoy. It's important to paint a good picture of yourself in your 'about me' page on HubPages so that readers want to visit your hubs often. A good 'about me' page makes more visits and more visits makes you more money.
   
5. Pick a good photo to upload on your HubPages profile. Choose a picture that explains who you are as a writer and a person. If you aren't comfortable putting a photo of yourself on your HubPage profile, pick one of your pet, your house, your car, or a unique picture that draws visitors to your hubs. An interesting photo is one that encourages visitors to ask questions. For example, I use the picture of my kitty Gavin for all my profile photos. It prompts people to ask me about him and if he is my pet. They are also inquisitive as to why I'd choose that photo. My picture of Gavin gets people to interact with me and ask questions. Then, they become curious about who I am and it makes them want to read my articles.
   
6. You can write about anything your little heart desires on HubPages. The site is easy to use and writer friendly for getting hubs done in a fast amount of time. You can also choose to use articles you've written for other sites and make them into hubs on HubPages (hubs, after all are just pages with an article you write). However, know that you cannot make a lot of money on articles you recycle. HubPages does not allow for affiliate marketing on these hubs and will mark them 'duplicate' when the site finds your article elsewhere. But, you can still earn money from Google Adsense ads. Your best choice is to start fresh and put new articles on your hub pages. Draw people in with something interesting just as you would do when writing for eHow or other 'how to' sites.
   
7. You can check the status of your money making progress on HubPages under the 'statistics' link. Simply click on 'my account' at the top of the HubPage website. And click the link marked 'statistics' under the 'your hubs' heading. You'll see a page marked 'hub page statistics'. This page shows you all the hubs you have written, how many times each hub has been viewed, and how many comments each hub has received. It will also show you the date each hub was published. You'll use this statistic information often to find out how much traffic is being drawn to your articles. It will also help you to know whether you need more views and comments. You can usually get more views and comments by searching through other HubPage writer's hubs and viewing and commenting on them. You can also sign up for other writer's fan mail and get them to join yours.
   
8. To find out how much money you're making on HubPages, you'll want to view your affiliate settings. Simple click on 'my account' at the top of the page, and then click on 'affiliate settings' under 'your account'. The affiliate settings page will show you the list of affiliates you are signed up with and those that you can sign up with to make money. After going to each affiliates homepage (listed in the resource list at the end of this article) and signing up with them, you'll want to come back to this 'affiliate settings' page in HubPages and input your affiliate ID numbers. You can find them on your Google Adsense, Amazon.com, and eBay.com affiliate pages under your 'settings'. Once you have all this information put into the 'affiliate settings' page on HubPages you can start to assess your money making progress by coming to the 'affiliate settings' page under 'your account' in HubPages as often as you like.
   

Tips & Warnings:

• Write, write, and write some more to make the most money on HubPages...the more content and hubs you have, the better chance you have of making a good amount of money on HubPages.
• Ask other writer on HubPages for input...all the hubbers on HubPages are very helpful and can offer some great advice on your money making adventure on HubPages...don't be afraid to ask for help when needed.
• Check out other writer's work to get noticed...viewing and commenting on other hubs is one of the best ways to get traffic to your own hub and make more money.

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