Despite the recent influx of self-styled social media ‘experts,’ very few people can predict the future of online connections, social communities, or marketing platforms. While the latest developments in the open web have attracted thousands of gurus and consultants, each more likely than the other to pitch their abilities, it seems that the vast majority of social media users are diving into the platform as a marketing resource without any idea of how to adapt to future changes, developments, and trends.

It is behavior that is remarkably similar to that of the late 1990s technology bubble. Companies kept going up and up in value, despite no real long-term outlook. Eventually, the bubble burst and the self-proclaimed ‘experts’ ran away, seemingly unable to admit that they were wrong about some things. While social media is unlikely to end the same way, primarily thanks to the massive amount of audience and user participation that is taking place, the marketing strategy applied to social media should reflect the events of the late 1990s.

That means that instead of being remarkably optimistic without reason, companies should be relatively cautious and conservative when embracing social media marketing. Rather than looking at the short-term possibilities, companies should be looking at the long-term implications for their brand, should they sink time and money into a form of marketing that does not offer any long-term solution. Instead of hiring the latest and greatest social media consultant to develop a web strategy, businesses should be looking at their own strategy, and incorporating social media platforms as tactics, not as a replacement.

In short, the focus should not be on social media itself, but on the results that it can bring. As much as we have heard about the myriad ways in which Twitter can change the world, there has been relatively little evidence to support any such theory. Sure, brands are making it big on Twitter and plenty of companies are making some serious marketing income, but there’s yet to be anything to suggest that businesses should discard every marketing method pioneered before 2007 to jump on board the social media train.

If your business is looking to incorporate social media marketing into its strategy, there are several questions you should be asking yourself before you invest the time and money. Is your brand compatible with social media audiences? Are you a business that inspires conversation and discussion? Can you build a reliable, solid community around your business? For most, the answer is no, and a social media presence is not the most effective solution.

For some, the answer is yes, and for them it is wise to look at social media as a piece of the puzzle, rather than as the solution. While Twitter can help you sell products and Facebook can help you generate positive feedback and PR, neither can fix a broken business model or a poor product. Social media thrives on discussion, and when there’s none to be had, there’s nothing but resources to be wasted. Study the social media platforms before you dive in, and invest time and money cautiously.

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You’ve seen favicons; you know, those little logos that appear before the site name or URL in your browser window.  These little icons (they’re 16×16 pixels) may seem irrelevant, but they can have a tremendous impact on your website.

Consider your own navigating habits. If you’re anything like me, you probably have a handful of tabs (or more!) open in your browser at any given time. I use a Firefox add-on that shifts my tabs vertically to the left-side of my browser window. So, many times, all I see is the little favicon.

When I go to jump to a new tab, if a site is missing a custom favicon, I have no idea what the site is without clicking or mousing over the tab. It may not seem like much of an inconvenience, but it’s a major fail, in my opinion. Not to mention if you don’t have a favicon for your site, you’re missing out on a quick and easy way to add to your brand.

Here’s a simplified look at the process of creating a favicon:

1. Use an existing logo file or create a graphic from scratch using a generator
2. Reduce the file down to 16×16 pixels
3. Export as a .ICO file (favicon.ico) with your software
4. Upload to the root directory of your website

Ready to create your own? Here are some more in-depth tutorials to give you some guidance:

• Favicon Basics, Mark8t
• Tutorial: How To Create Your Own FavIcon, Essential Keystrokes
• Video: How to Create an Install Favicons, Butterscotch.com

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For busy brands and business people, maintaining a social media presence can be a drain on time and motivation. From the thousands of replies that come in every morning to the endless pitches, requests and questions, keeping up with your audience can seem more like a task than a worthwhile activity. Social media is all about communication, but when you’re forced to communicate with thousands of people at once the entire point can seem lost and difficult to cope with.

That’s why the top social media users optimize their online presence. While it’s essential to know your audience for a good online career, it’s much more important to live a life that doesn’t revolve around serving their every need. If you want to minimize your social media commitment while maximizing the results, these simple optimization techniques can help you decrease the amount of time required to respond to messages, limit your incoming email, and allow you to focus on your projects rather than your audience.

#1: Be clear about your communication limits.
Half of the reason that major bloggers and social media experts receive so many emails and requests is that they don’t specifically and explicitly ask not to receive them. Your audience is going to respond how you let it respond, and without setting limits on emails and personal contact it’s easy for that communications channel to spiral out of control. Focus on what you want from your contact, and make it clear to your audience that some types of contact might not get a response.

#2: Limit your distractions.
Wasting time on distractions and non-essential activities can cost you a lot of valuable time and lost potential income. We’ve all had days that end up wasted in front of the computer, and they’re never the ideal outcome. By limiting your social media distractions you can avoid these productivity nightmares and focus on projects that are more important to you.

#3: Don’t follow everyone that follows you.
When you listen to everyone, it’s impossible to focus on what matters. Sure, they’re your audience and your followers, but two-way contact will always end in missed opportunities and wasted time. To make your audience more controllable, focus on following only the people that you truly want to hear from. If someone out there has a message that’s absolutely essential for you to hear, rest assured that it will find its way to you – those things always do.

#4: If you have to, selectively outsource parts of your social media presence.
Tim Ferriss took outsourcing to new levels in his book ‘The Four Hour Workweek,’ and while it drew controversy, it drew many more adopters. Outsourcing isn’t particularly difficult, and when managed properly it can save you a lot of time. If you’re not a fan of hiring outside help, there are hundreds of programs and plugins that could save you valuable time. Want to alert incoming email that you might not be able to respond immediately? Set up an auto-responder and program it to let people know you’ll get back to messages as soon as possible. Hire a virtual assistant to help manage many of your social media marketing tasks that don’t involve pretending to be you or communicating as you. Small automations and outsourced tasks can end up saving you hundreds of hours of time every year, so be sure to experiment with them.

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Did that title give you pause?  Many people struggle to answer this question.  Sometimes referred to as your elevator speech, or infomercial, having a smooth and easy to understand response will really go far in helping people to know who you are and what you have to offer.

Here are five things to consider in crafting your 60-second infomercial:

1. Who is your target market?  While I can open my informercial by saying, “although I have clients in almost every industry…” – you still want to focus on your niche or target market to help people think of who they know that could benefit from your services.  If you’re still not sure, analyze your current client list and see if there is a particular industry, or type of client that seems most logical to your offerings.
2. What problems does your target market have that you can solve?  Keep it simple.  Come up with one or two things – don’t overdo it – less is more!
3. How do you solve these problems?  Again, don’t come up with a laundry list of products/services, just enough to whet the appetite so they’ll want to find out more.
4. Mention something specific that speaks to results, like: ‘many of my clients say their sales increased at least 20% as a result of working with us’.
5. End with either a memorable tagline, or a question – like – ‘is that something that might be of interest to you or someone you know?’

Once you have it setup, print it out and practice it (and time yourself) several times until you have it pretty well memorized.  You don’t want to come off sounding too scripted, but you will need to get comfortable with all the aspects so that you’re sure to hit all the points you need to in your time allotment.

Once you have this mastered, you will want to cut the content even more, for a true elevator speech – which is usually only 30-seconds in length.

Finally, especially if you attend networking events regularly, you will want to have several different versions for answering the questions numbered two, three, and four above.  This gives people the opportunity to hear more about the additional services/products you provide.  If you only talk about one specific product or service, they’ll believe that’s all you offer and you could be leaving potential sales on the table.

With a little bit of work, and practice, you’ll have the perfect 60-second infomercial that helps people immediately recognize what it is you do, and who they need to refer to you.  Word of mouth marketing is the most cost-effective way to market your business.  The infomercial is the best tool to close the sale!

Jeannine Clontz, IVAA CVA, MVA,  EthicsChecked™, owner of Accurate Business Services is a Virtual Assistant (VA).  ABS provides ‘as needed’ marketing support and consulting to busy entrepreneurs.  Clontz is a writer, author, VA Coach, and speaker on business topics including business ethics. For her free 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit:  http://www.accbizsvcs.com, www.VAbizcoach.com or her book website http://www.entrepreneurialfreedom.com

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For the past year, we have seen the Twitter phenomenon sweep the world in quite an impressive way. In just a very short time, this social networking site that also doubles as a micro-blog has become one of the most popular sites on the Internet. One of the reasons for Twitter’s appeal is its simple and straightforward approach. For starters, account registration is free completely hassle-free. Once you are registered, you can start searching for other Twitter users to follow and invite them to follow you as well.

Most people who use Twitter do so in order to keep in touch with friends and family. They send updates, called tweets, to let people know what they are up to, as well as receive tweets from users they have chosen to follow. However, many people are also using Twitter for more than personal purposes. For business owners, Twitter has become an essential tool for promoting their products and services online.

Although the basic processes of sending tweets and following users are the same, there are a few things you have to do differently if you are planning to use your Twitter account for business purposes. For one thing, you want to be visible to a wider group of followers and not be restricted to people you already know personally. A great way to do this is with the use of @replies.

An @reply simply means affixing the “@” sign before a user’s name and inserting that before your reply. In order to make the most of @replies on Twitter, you have to use Twitter’s search feature regularly. Find tweets related to products or services you are offering and respond to users who posted related tweets by using @replies.

For example, let’s say you are running a party-planning business. Search for tweets of people posting questions on how to prepare for upcoming birthdays or special events. You can respond to a user who posted by sending her an @reply containing a link to your business website or blog. Your response can be something along the lines of, “@busymom for birthday or party planning tips and professional advice, check out <your url here>” Since the user asked a question, you will essentially be just answering her and your post won’t be considered as unsolicited advice.

This is why @replies are very useful. Instead of simply advertising your products or services to strangers out of the blue, which a lot of people don’t really appreciate, you will actually be providing them a solution to a problem they do have. With the @replies, you will also be addressing the user who posted the question directly, making it less of an advertisement and more of a helpful gesture.Another advantage of using @replies is you don’t necessarily have to be someone’s follower in order to send her @replies. On the contrary, you can even use these @replies to further expand your contact list on Twitter. The more @replies you post, the more people will be able to see you. If they find your @replies or tweets to be quite interesting or relevant to their issues, they may even choose to follow you on Twitter.

Since Twitter is a rapidly growing website with more than two million users, the opportunities of reaching potential clients is limitless. If you use the features of the site properly, you can expand your business tremendously in no time at all.

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Using an eZine (Electronic Newsletter) as a part of your overall Internet Marketing plan can be a powerful way to achieve your marketing goals. Less experienced marketers commit a number of common mistakes that may cause your targeted list to opt-out.  Here are several common mistakes to avoid in your eZine campaign.

1) Sending Out Promotions Rather than News

All Internet marketing, including your eZine, should focus on building long-lasting relationships with your subscribers over time. If your eZine message is consistently aimed at prompting an immediate sale, you’ll find a steady stream of subscribers opting out.

To build a loyal following, design your eZine campaign to provide content and resources that will help spark interest in your product or service by subtly providing them with topics that show the benefits of your offerings.  For example, if you’re a business coach, sharing information that your target market could benefit from, will quickly show them you are an expert in this field. This will eventually lead to a positive action on their part, i.e. contacting you for professional business coaching.

2) Not Focusing on Subscribers

When organizing your eZine campaign, provide relevant and up-to-date content written in a way that speaks to your subscriber’s needs, never on your business offerings. People don’t care much about what your business can do for them, but what they can gain by building a relationship with you, that may ultimately lead to working together.  Using our coaching example above, sending valuable resources and information about challenges your ideal client may face would be better than just an announcement about your next program. By providing relevant content in a timely manner, subscribers are more likely to be loyal to your eZine campaign.

3) Making it Difficult to Opt Out

Your eZine success is not driven by the number of subscribers on your list.  The quality, not the quantity of your subscribers is far more important.  Making it difficult for people to unsubscribe can potentially lead to disaster.  Beyond annoying and alienating potential prospects, it will be more difficult to track your eZine results.  Allowing people to easily unsubscribe keeps your reputation intact and allows you to achieve optimum response rates.

It is perfectly understandable for you to want to make the most out of your eZine campaign as quickly as possible, but don’t let that allow you to defeat its entire purpose. Realize that it takes some time for eZine marketing to produce optimum results by making sure it’s implemented correctly. To keep you focused on the desired result, avoid these mistakes that eZine marketers often commit when running their Internet campaign.

Jeannine Clontz, IVAA CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, owner of Accurate Business Services is a Virtual Assistant (VA).  ABS provides ‘as needed’ marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs.  Clontz is a writer, author, VA Coach, and speaker on business topics including business ethics. For her free 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, send a request to:  service@accbizsvcs.com or visit:  http://www.accbizsvcs.com, www.VAbizcoach.com or her book website http://www.entrepreneurialfreedom.com

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There is no doubt that social media is one of the most effective marketing channels around, especially for powerful word of mouth feedback and viral content. From airlines to eateries, thousands of businesses around the world are embracing social media content to further their influence, expand their business, and increase their online marketing power.

However, with the good comes the bad, and there are certainly businesses that are embracing the wrong kind of social media promotion. Marketing is a field that is talked about by many, yet understood by relatively few, and the many recent failed social media marketing campaigns are evidence to the rules that you have to follow when marketing online.

These are the five biggest mistakes businesses make when they market online. From spam tactics to destructive marketing messages, everything that could hurt your online marketing image is covered. Get your marketing plan out, take notes, and eliminate any of the following from your marketing efforts:

1. Don’t just link to your company blog on Twitter.

Twitter users hate just being fed linked content. While it is easy to write off the entire medium as a backlink platform, doing so leaves an incredibly powerful marketing resource completely untapped. Invest some time in developing a real strategy for every social media platform that you use, and don’t just half-use something for backlinks and channel funneling. A much better strategy is to combine different social media platforms to create a tailored, powerful message.

2. Facebook groups are great for cult businesses, bad for ultra-small.

Why? Because the entire nature of a group gets destroyed when there are only a couple of people participating in the discussion. If you are a cult brand that attracts a lot of passion from your customers, users, or clients, a Facebook group is a great idea. Otherwise, it is best to keep your conversation in channels that you can easily attach yourself to. Small businesses benefit highly from blogs and micro-publishing, so a Twitter or blogging presence is much more valuable, as is a Facebook Fan Page.

3. Don’t drop everything to take on social media.

There are other marketing channels out there, and they are often much more effective than social media. For some, social media is their marketing calling card, but that does not mean that is has to be the same for you. Some brands translate better than others across different marketing platforms and formats. While one brand may succeed in a social media world, another might fall flat.

4. Don’t always listen to your social media feedback.

Feedback needs to be approached as a whole unit, not as disjointed units of variable value. When you use social media to spread your word, it’s easy to fall for the fallacy of valuing it higher than it really is. Feedback is valuable no matter what the form, and treating social media feedback as more valuable than a mailed letter is a broken strategy.

5. Don’t spam.

There are laws against email spam. There are laws against mailing spam. At this point, there are no laws about spamming your followers on Twitter. Don’t do it. As much as it can boost your short-term returns, spamming is quite possibly the worst long-term strategy imaginable. Focus on real connections, not the false connections that spamming creates.

Now here are some words to live by in your social media marketing campaigns. Write them down on a sticky, post them next to your computer, and refer to them often….

Lighten up, Share, Encourage, Embrace, Inspire, Converse, Listen, Ask, Answer, Be Real, and HAVE FUN!

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As the Internet evolves from its technology to its software, and changes the way we communicate, it has opened us to a whole new world of social media. Blogging is one such evolving method of communication, and WordPress is one of the foremost accepted platforms for people wanting to get into the blogging action.

Evolving Software

WordPress is free, web-based software that is open source, which means it is available for developers to build upon and alter at will. Over time, its open source flexibility has allowed WordPress to become a content management system (CMS), or a program that creates, edits, and manages website content as well as blog content.

The best part about WordPress is that it doesn’t require knowledge of PHP or HTML code to use it. The blog or website creator chooses the look and rearranges the content simply and without rebuilding whole pages through the code.

While utilizing WordPress to build a website is possible, my preference is to maintain separate platforms for my website and blog by using traditional website development options.  I believe it allows me to take advantage of different options, and search engine optimization methods to capture as many prospects as possible.

Themes and Plug-ins

WordPress has a theme system that allows for easy customization for your blog allowing the creator to change the look of the site as often as they like. WordPress also has features that assist with link management, complex indexing of blog posts, and the ability for multiple authors to add blog or site content. WordPress works well with other blogging services like Trackback and Pingback as well as easy importing of content from other blogs. WordPress also has security features such to control spam and visitor comments, user registration, and password protection for selected posts. There are also hundreds of compatible plugins available that can greatly extend the functionality.

WordPress for Business and Pleasure

WordPress started as a communication tool for the individual, but it also has many benefits to offer to the business world. Since WordPress is so simple to use and maintain, this means less overhead and less time spent for creation and maintenance of the blog platform. The blogging aspect of WordPress also means that companies have an on-demand method for keeping their audiences updated on company business and advertising their products and services. Plus, blogging offers a wonderful method for companies to get feedback from their consumers. It allows you to keep the content fresh, which increases search engine ranking so that the company’s content will have a better chance of audience exposure.

Everyone’s Doing It

With the popularity of social media and the flexible program, ease of installation, and added functionality of plug ins, WordPress provides a way for everyone to be involved and engaged in social media, and utilize the benefits it provides to your overall presence on the Internet.

Jeannine Clontz, owner of Accurate Business Services, a VA practice, is an author, writer, speaker and VA Business Coach specializing in providing professional business coaching to established and start-up virtual assistants (VA’s).  For her FREE audio CD “What’s Holding Back my Business Success?”,  a 2-month trial in her Insider group coaching program, or 1-month trial of her coaching club visit:  http://www.VAbizcoach.com; or contact her at: coach@VAbizcoach.com.

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Social media has worked wonders for marketing. With two-way communication open to almost everyone, every company, no matter how big or small, now has a voice. The problem is that these voices are incredibly hard to monetize. It’s half the result of social media DNA — people don’t like to be marketed to — and half the result of a system that tends to value ‘free’ more than it does limited access.

However, there are several unique ways to monetize your social media presence. From affiliate marketing to sponsored content, the methods by which you can create a profit on social media aren’t complex or all that difficult. With a reliable and dedicated audience, you can comfortably create a social media income, retain and grow your audience, and establish yourself as an online authority. These four methods have worked for the big social media presences, and they can work for you!

#1: Sponsored messages and content.
Much like Google Adsense changed the world for website owners, sponsored tweet and messaging services are changing Twitter for its power users. If you’ve got a sizable following on Twitter, you can earn an income through sponsored tweet programs and advertising circles. This form of income is highly lucrative, however it requires balance and strategy. If you send out nothing but sponsored messages you’ll quickly lose followers and influence. Follow the 80-20 principle — 80% free content and 20% sponsor messages. Whether you believe in the concept of  sponsored tweets or not – it’s a reality and a viable option for some.

#2: Affiliate Marketing.
This is a hugely lucrative way to monetize your online presence, but you really need a strategy to make it succeed. Affiliate marketing can net you commissions of anywhere from .50 cents to $500, depending on what you’re selling and who your selling to. Be very careful about using affiliate links on your Twitter account, as your followers will very quickly disappear if your tweet stream gets overrun with them. Balance them out with huge amounts of valuable content — think of a 95-5 rule — and only ever suggest them if you’re certain it’s a quality product.

#3: Indirectly market your services.
If you’re a popular Twitter presence within your niche, it’s easy to market yourself as an adviser, consultant or service worker. Whatever your field of expertise, network with people in the same area and offer your services through your social media profile. With social media proving a great channel for viewing conversation, you can display other peoples’ tweets, Facebook updates and blog posts on your services, and use them to influence new clients. To monitor influence, set up Google Analytics on your service website and see how much traffic your Twitter account brings in.

#4: Direct traffic to more profitable presences.
There’s a rule for online workers: ‘less is more’. If you’ve got a blog, a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page, it’s not wise to split traffic between them. Instead, focus on the most lucrative resource and use the others to drive traffic towards it. For example, say you run a popular blog which sells advertising space. Instead of splitting traffic between your different accounts, use them to direct traffic towards the blog. This will boost the value of your advertising space, increase your influence, and make you a more attractive selection for online advertisers and sponsors.

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NOW SHOWING: Your Home Movies on ViewThisHome.com

I always get a kick out of watching those YouTube videos that my friends forward to me. Well, someone’s taken this concept and created a more practical application to show and sell homes. Your clients don’t have to be a professional videographer to shoot video of a house, rental property, yacht, mobile home – whatever you can live in!  Simply shoot a video and upload it to ViewThisHome.com.

Show before you go!  This is a mantra for the ViewThisHome.com folks.

Join the video revolution to let potential renters or buyers view properties online and make a more informed decision to either eliminate them from consideration or go check it out in person.  It’s convenient and you can promote it as a “Green Solution” – less driving around, less wasted paper, etc.

Use of the site is free for everyone – just start an account, upload videos and you can begin promoting your properties immediately.

Obviously, this is a great idea for real estate professionals to enhance their brand awareness, interact with clients and gives them the ability to embed the videos into their online marketing materials.

Share this with your real estate clients!  Go to ViewThisHome.com today and see how you can become the “star” of a network of property videos.

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