Making Money on the Internet from Home - Making Money on the Internet from Home Blog

Twitter Explosion! An Avalanche Of Online Friends and Business Partners

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:56:20 -0800

'Twitter Marketing'

First it was Myspace, then Facebook, now Twitter is the place where everything on the Internet happens. Forget about getting the latest news from your local or global news, you hear everything first on Twitter. Twitter is considered a "quick" blogging site that started as a service for employees at Odeo and has been around since 2006. It really took off towards the end of 2008, as many people have opened up a free Twitter Account, including celebrities, politicians and of course Internet Marketers!

Me being an Internet marketer, using the power of FREE Social Networking Sites to get my story out and as I continue to "brand" myself in this industry, I understand that giving a ton of "value" and information that will help others, I will begin to build and form relationships with many like minded people that have an entrepreneurial spirit, just like me.

You see, I'm just a regular old guy that has been in the home based business industry for over 7 years . Struggling with no success, most of the time, using old school marketing, (taught by my up-line) and just burying myself in a lot of credit card debt.

But, late 2007, I found the power of these Free Social Networking sites and I understood the power of getting my story out and what information and experiences I had to offer and share with people. Since then, I no longer use the "old school marketing" techniques I was taught, very early in my online career.

Web 2.0/Social Media Marketing has completely changed my business structure and the best thing is that I don't spend any money on advertising!

Anyway, enough about my "drama" story...LOL

If you are not using the power of Twitter, what are you waiting for?!

It really is a Twitter Explosion! You will find an avalanche of friends and future business partners that have the same desires and interests as you!

With that being said, below you will find an awesome tool that I use to stay connected with my Twitter friends........Enjoy!

Name: Tweetdeck

'Tweetdeck'

• Purpose: If you’re a Twittercelebrity (even in your own mind) and your main page is being overrun with replies and updates, TweetDeck may bring some sanity to your world. This Adobe Air based program allows you to separate your tweets into topic or subject based information feeds so that you can easily manage, read and reply to them.

Armando Arias

Affiliate Marketing in a Nutshell

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:12:44 -0800

What exactly is affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is the single fastest growth industry on the Internet. It’s also true that affiliate marketing is one of the fastest and most creative ways to make money and have a career on the Internet.

Simply put, affiliate marketing is selling products on a commission basis. You own a business that advertises and sells products for other companies. You may have a product of your own to begin with or not. The things that a successful affiliate marketer must have are:

1. Your website is the jumping off point of all your marketing efforts. So the first step in any successful affiliate marketing business is building a good, credible and professional looking website. You must build a user-friendly website, which will attract your prospects and motivate them to click on the links to the products and services you are promoting and make a purchase. There are companies whose business is building websites that you can hire to build one for you.

2. You must find products to sell, you must be able to determine whether there is a demand for those products and if people will actually buy them. You may either have your own original product or products that are made by others. Which ever way you go, you must believe in the products.

3. It will be necessary for you to become an adept advertiser and be able to tell whether the advertising you are paying for is producing more income for you than the advertising is costing you.

4. It is necessary that you have good mathematical skills. You will need to be able to track your sales and determine profit, as well as, see to it that your suppliers are paid in full and on time.

5. You need the full and unwavering support of your family so that you can devote the time and energy necessary to launch your affiliate marketing business.

-Fred Romero

THE MOST DANGEROUS NEWBIE MISTAKE

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:10:46 -0800

I don't think many of you will argue this one, but I just made one of the biggest blunders that most newbies make when getting started with marketing online. I started yesterday reading through Ann Seig's latest report, then it carried on into today. I read three more books on niche marketing and info-preneuring.

The thirst for knowledge is good, but reading does not make you money. Even after reading Timothy Ferriss's killer book The Four Hour Workweek and agreeing with what he said about not wasting time sitting around reading when you could be working. I still did it.

The problem is that you forget most of what you read within 48 hours of reading it. So it just makes sense to identify what you want to do and find information as you are going along, but don't stop working.

Here's a favorite quote of mine that sums the concept up: "One becomes a beginner after 1000 days of training. One becomes a master after 10, 000 days of practice." -Mas Oyama

It's a martial arts quote, but if you're studying video marketing one shouldn't spend all your time watching videos on how to do it. You should find a few key things to try. Make a few videos and continue the process of finding a FEW (2-3) things to try and then do it. And keep at it:)

-Lis Carpenter

My Story - Success Online in a Horrible Economy

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:05:33 -0800

Hello, My name is Mike Saller Jr and I'm the Co-Founder of

Robin Hood Marketing MasterMinds!

Have you ever had a dream or a goal in life? Have you ever felt like you could accomplish that dream or goal? Would you like to stop the 9-5 rat race known as a JOB? Would you like to have FINANCIAL FREEDOM and be able to spend QUALITY TIME with your FAMILY? Are you Stuck in our current Economical Recession? Are you feeling trapped or like the whole world is coming crashing down on you?? Believe it or not....there is a way to make money during these very difficult times!

IF you answered YES to any of the above questions you are probably like Myself. I am TIRED of living JUST OVER BROKE and I bet YOU ARE TOO!! I would like to take a moment to introduce an OPPORTUNITY to not only FEEL like you CAN obtain that DREAM or GOAL..BUT CAN LIVE IT! Now I know what you have to be thinking....This is a Scam! Pyramid! etc! I myself have been burned and wasted over a couple thousands of dollars only to be told I was in business for myself and by myself! I have tried countless Home Based Business Opportunities and gave into the sales pitches! So I am not going to give you a bunch of BS or Hype. I believe the only true investment you have to be willing to make is on your own SELF DEVELOPMENT. I am here to tell you I have found a group of Masterminds that are all true branded Online Millionaires that are willing to teach you all the basics and even give you a chance to EARN MONEY while you LEARN! Lets face it, Web 2.0 is powerful, but yet complicated to master! If you have ambition and a hunger to succeed I promise you, you will be a success and a leader in this industry! Its all about MINDSET, and Pursuing your Passion. STOP LIVING AN EXCUSE...Procrastination Kills! Your Dreams have to become larger than your FEARS. So.......

Hello Everyone I also want to say thanks for visiting my site, My name is Mike .I was born and raised in Virginia. I have lived here for 26 years now. I myself have also graduated from a 2 year school with my Associates in Applied Science. I have been in Retail for 7 years now and starting to feel BURNT OUT! I enjoy spending time with my wife, video games, and sports. In a few years I want to further pursue my interest in Internet Marketing and to expand my business that I recently started. There’s nothing more I want in life then to have FINANCIAL FREEDOM to be able to spend QUALITY time with my future FAMILY. Now IF this SOUNDS like YOU AS WELL then I INVITE you to JOIN US on our JOURNEY to SUCCESS.

My Story - How I Finally broke through to profits

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:03:32 -0800

Hey guys,

I'm going to be brutally honest when telling you my story about
all the struggles I've had before I finally made any profits.

Here it goes...

About a few months ago I was introduced to the world of
video marketing. This new sensation that would take your business
and turn it from zip to driving insane amounts of free, targeted
traffic to your websites.

This very much intrigued me. So I bought Mike Dillards "Building on
a Budget". Though building on a budget gave me a good head start,
it wasn't too long before I found myself in the dark again.

Then I stood before another issue... fear. I didn't really
want to get in front of a video camera and be seen by all these
people!

...or in my case, about 10 people a month.

But until I finally created something real, something that worked
for me, I was stuck in the dark.

Now to a more recent date, how did Robin Hood Marketing come to be?

Robin Hood Marketing was an idea inspired by a good friend of mine.
Though I thought it would be a good idea to create a social network
where everyone just gives, my friend Mike came up with the perfect
name for it... Robin Hood Marketing.

Which also makes the leaders of the site, The "Robin Hood Mentors".

The creation of RHM was to give back to people. It was to help
newbies in the industry find there way through all that hype and fluff.

I struggled so badly as a newbie in the industry. I would follow other
marketers around trying to figure out what they did to gain so many
video views and traffic...

I would ask them how to make a proper lead/capture page.

But the sad truth is... nobody wanted to help me. The most anyone
ever came close to helping me was some guy who said, "Sign up for my $200 cash gifting program, and then I'll help you"

All I wanted was a few simple tips to get started.

All of which I had to discover and/or create on my own.

RHM was something I vowed to never be like that in any way. Without all
these people shoving their business/products in your face.

Being able to find real, good people who actually want to help you.

Here's a link to some training that I put together for RHM members
only. Its the beginning training video for how to create good results with youtube.
http://robinhoodmentors.ning.com/video/youtube-training-live

Thanks for hanging in there with me to the end.

Wishing you all the Best!
Christian Fioravanti
Founder of the Bulletproof Cash System

What is Email Marketing?

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:55:43 -0800

Email marketing is, as the name suggests, the use of email in marketing communications.

What sort of email? In its broadest sense, the term covers every email you ever send to a customer, potential customer or public venue. In general, though, it's used to refer to:

Sending direct promotional emails to try and acquire new customers or persuade existing customers to buy again
Sending emails designed to encourage customer loyalty and enhance the customer relationship
Placing your marketing messages or advertisements in emails sent by other people

Give me an analogy... You can think of these three main forms of email marketing as the electronic equivalent of:

Direct mail
Sending people a print newsletter
Placing advertisements in subscription magazines and newspapers

There is, however, one extremely important difference - the issue of permission (see later).

Why is email marketing so popular? Email marketing is so popular because:

sending email is much cheaper than most other forms of communication
email lets you deliver your message to the people (unlike a website, where the people have to come to your message)
email marketing has proven very successful for those who do it right

For more information, see the article Why do email marketing?.

Let's briefly review the three types of email marketing:

1. Direct email Direct email involves sending a promotional message in the form of an email. It might be an announcement of a special offer, for example. Just as you might have a list of customer or prospect postal addresses to send your promotions too, so you can collect a list of customer or prospect email addresses.

You can also rent lists of email addresses from service companies. They'll let you send your message to their own address lists. These services can usually let you target your message according to, for example, the interests or geographical location of the owners of the email address.

2. Retention email Instead of promotional email designed only to encourage the recipient to take action (buy something, sign-up for something, etc.), you might send out retention emails.

These usually take the form of regular emails known as newsletters. A newsletter may carry promotional messages or advertisements, but will aim at developing a long-term impact on the readers. It should provide the readers with value, which means more than just sales messages. It should contain information which informs, entertains or otherwise benefits the readers.

3. Advertising in other people's emails Instead of producing your own newsletter, you can find newsletters published by others and pay them to put your advertisement in the emails they send their subscribers. Indeed, there are many email newsletters that are created for just this purpose - to sell advertising space to others.

Where's the catch? This all sounds great of course. Imagine how much cheaper it is to send a message to thousands of email addresses, rather than thousands of postal addresses!

It's not that simple, unfortunately. Quite apart from the complexities of designing and delivering email messages to the right people, getting them to actually read and respond to your message, and measuring and analysing the results, there is the issue of permission.

What's "permission"? Responsible email marketing is based on the idea of permission. This is a complex issue and the subject of intense debate in the marketing community.

Essentially, you need an email address owner's permission before you can send them a commercial email. If you don't have this permission, then the recipients of your mail may well regard your message as spam; unsolicited commercial (bulk) email.

You do not want to send spam!

If you are accused of sending spam, then you may find your email accounts closed down, your website shut off, and your reputation in tatters. In some parts of the world, you may even be breaking the law.

Quite apart from these practical considerations, there is also a strong argument which says that long-term successful email marketing relationships with customers and others can only work anyway if they're permission based.

The big question, of course, is what constitutes permission...and that is the main subject of debate. It's important to remember that it's not your views, or even the views of the majority, that count, but the views of those receiving your emails and those responsible for administering the infrastructure of the Internet.

An example of permission is when your customer buys something from your online store and also ticks a box marked "please send me news about product updates via email". You now have "permission" to send that person product updates by email, provided you also give them the opportunity to rescind that permission at any time.

Educate yourself It's important to stress that anyone considering email marketing must read up on the subject of permission and spam. If you don't understand the importance of permission and the risks of ignoring it, then you could be heading for commercial disaster.

Don't panic, though. It's actually relatively easy to ensure that the address lists you use or build yourself are permission-based. OK, now that you're armed with some brief background information, browse the rest of this site to find the resources you need to develop a better understanding of how email marketing can work for you and your (potential) customers. Or to speed things up, try some of these email marketing tools.

How to Gain Instant Profit Before You Ever Have a Customer

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 05:59:42 -0800

Chances are you have heard about this before, the idea of the funded proposal. There are several ways of designing this system and I am certain that you can think of more and better ways if you remember the goal. In the best marketing systems, prospects flow seamlessly from step to step, in fact they are not even aware that they are being sold. When designing your funded proposal, keep it simple. I will give you a beginner level example to look at, then an intermediate and then an advanced. If you do not currently have a system up like this one that attracts customers into your marketing system then start with the beginner level, move to the intermediate level in a couple of months and then to the advanced one.

        Before I get to the first model, let's get back to you. Who are you going to be to your niche? What will you be the source of? What solutions will you offer to their problems? While I'm on this topic, let's talk about nicknames. Ideally, when you are clever enough to come up with a nickname you will use it for branding purposes not to just give yourself some arbitrary title. It should remind you what you are building, the niche or niches that you are positioning yourself to dominate and communicate to your market what you offer. A title like "The Richest Bahama Dweller" will not necessarily serve you well because your prospects will strug and say to what or yeah and "I'm The King of York!" This is the reason why some marketers simply let their work speak for them. I'm Joe Smith the creator of "Fast Niche Profits" and author of "I Own Your Mind".

FUNDED PROPOSAL MARKETING SYSTEM - BEGINNER LEVEL

        You have to learn to crawl before you walk right? As tempting as it might be for you to start with the advanced level as a new marketer, I have to tell you it's suicide. It's like trying to climbing Mount Everest without a guide. Studies show that one of the main reasons why students fail at learning any new subject is because the level of the material is too advanced. The other two reasons are unfamiliarity with new words and the absence of hands on training. Lets lay the foundation from which you can build into the intermediate and advanced marketing systems later.

        Have you decided on a niche? We won't go too in depth on that subject here because this report is about dominating your niche through the use of social media marketing. But a general guidelines are to choose a niche that has fanatical buyers. You can even create a niche if you see a group of people not be served. An example of this would be a social network of honey farmers. Choose an area that you are passionate about or have a real interest in, however, so that you feel good while you are creating content for your prospects.

        Begin with a marketing center. A destination for explaining and displaying all the content that you will provide for your niche. I recommend starting with a website with social capabilities blogs like the free ones provided by Blogger.com, Ning pages, and Wetpaint pages are some of the best options because they allow for interaction between you and your prospects and do not require lookers to create an account to interact, unless you design it that way.

        If you already have a basic website, good news, you can embed the Wetpaint software to add social capabilities or use another service like Google Friend connect. Every piece of content that you make as well as all of your profiles on social media websites will link to your marketing center to begin.

        Now, go to where your prospects are hanging out already and interact with them by asking questions, and posting content you know they can use.

Great Video Ideas for Niche Marketing on YouTube

1) Piggy-back on popular videos within your niche. Reply with a video to the popular video and use similar tags and keywords.

2) Make Informational Videos. Show your prospects how to do something within your niche using screen capture software or live video.

3) Make controversial Responses to News in your niche. First hook yourself up with the latest news buy using a RSS feed reader service like Google Reader, Bloglines, MyYahoo or a paid service. Do a search within Google News and/or Yahoo News and subscribe to the feed for "products" or "popular key words" within your niche.

>>Perhaps you're clueless on how to discover what your prospects are searching for use: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
or another keyword suggestion service.

If you want you can use Facebook Page or Myspace Profile for your center as well.

Break Down of necessary actions

Create a marketing center

Interact with your prospects at hang outs.

Website

Youtube, niche specific social networks and

Blogs, niche specific forums or chat rooms.

Blog

Social Network or Page/Group

        If you are currently operating without a product you should be referring people to services or products that can solve their problems. And you will know those problems because you will be in the forums or interacting on the top blogs in your niche in order to know this, as well as researching the most popular keyword searches within your niche.

        All the content that you create (which refers people to solutions to their problems) should be available at your marketing center. You can do this by embedding it or actually uploading it to your page/server. Organize each piece of content so that it's easy to find. That means if you're using a blog create a number of categories based on the keywords that interest your prospects. If you are using a social network, create appropriate segments for the forum, and appropriate tabs at the top of the page to help your prospects to quickly find the content they need.

        If you have your own product the process is similar, but a little different because your job is then to educate your prospects about your product so they can decide whether they want to buy it. You will combine the process of offering information about your product with the process of offering great content about other topics within your niche that interest your prospects.

        If all of this seems a tad bit confusing and you want to kick start your social media campaign with a trial of TrafficGeyser. There are two important reasons to begin releasing content with this service: one it creates a sense of urgency for you to create content, and two they have researched the best places for you to post content so that your prospects have an easier time finding you. Using TrafficGeyser will cause people to recognize you faster because it puts you on all the websites your prospects frequent, and you will come up multiple times in the search engine results for your niche’s keywords because search engines love social media.

FOCUS To be seen and recognized in your niche and make a couple thousand friends.

ACTION STEPS Before moving on to the next section you should have…

1) Created a marketing center

2) Established a presence in three popular spots for your prospects.

3) Began interacting by asking questions, answering questions, and posting information of interest to them (with links leading back to your marketing center).

Optional: Get a trial of TrafficGeyser to jump start your profits.

FUNDED PROPOSAL MARKETING SYSTEM - INTERMEDIATE LEVEL

        Alright so you have your marketing center and you have established a presence in your niche. You should be making a little stream of income through affiliate sales or product sales at this point and you want to up the ante. Time to add listbuilding to the process. Now this is a little tricky so pay attention. So what's the best list building service to date, did you say Aweber, Getresponse? Well those "list management" services don't actually build your list do they?

        Twitter.

        More specifically: http://search.twitter.com

        Look for people that are talking about your niche specific keywords and follow them.

        There’s friend adding software for Twitter. There’s friend adding software for Myspace. There’s friend adding software for Youtube, but Twitter is the best place at the moment to build a list because it is growing rapidly and the services for Twitter (i.e. mobile Twitter) make it the place to be online.

        Create a lead capture page using a service like: lead page generator or the free options like: http://www.imfreesoftware.com/p.html
or http://freesoftware.affiliatemarketerstoolbox.net/instantsqueezepagemaker.html

All your links will now point to your lead capture page which will connect to your marketing center.

        Add a subscribe box or link to you marketing center to collect leads. Subscribe boxes, particularly floating ones are ideal, but if your set up does not allow for this just yet go with this process now and you will have the time to simplify later. This link should go to a lead capture page where the prospects can fill in their information.

        Using text that says "subscribe to my newsletter" will not yield as the same result as if you are offering something in return. Some marketers like to offer trainings, some like to offer tips, I favor bundling your own ebook with free updates and tips for life to subscribers. Again if you do not have your own ebook look for membership websites (best) or product/service providers (good) within your niche that have affiliate programs and offer free information for their affiliates to give out. Clickbank is a good place to start your search.

        If you're in a niche like gerbil toys, then you have the unique opportunity to create your own free information to give out! I know you're saying, "Oh...joy", but it is easier than your think. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, just desirable to your prospects.

        Use the Google keyword suggestion tool and type in your niche's key words:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

        Then go back to Google.com and type in those keywords, you will see even more keyword suggestions pop up in a drop down menu. The ones with the highest numbers next to them are the greatest topics of interest.

Get yourself about ten topics from one category of interest and then go back to the social websites you've joined and ask people what they would like to know about those topics. Write about what they want to know about and then you can tell them about your new ebook at a later date.

FOCUS To begin adding prospects to your list and understanding your niche market.

ACTION STEPS

1) Find or create an offer for free information in exchange for your prospect's contact information.

2) Create a lead capture page using free or paid software.

3) Add lead capture link or form to your marketing center.

4) Add text/video educating the customer of the value of them subscribing to your list.

FUNDED PROPOSAL MARKETING SYSTEM - ADVANCED LEVEL



        Sign up with a list management program like Getresponse, Aweber, or iContact. Have a copywriter at Guru.com or Elance.com create an autoresponder email series for you, also called and email drip. Make an account that tracks page views and traffic like Google Analytics.

        Continue dialoguing with your customers to find out their needs and continue to outsource the work to ghostwriters at Guru and Elance. From here you can connect with services like Createspace.com for product fulfillment. The advanced level is about building yourself out of your business and automation.

        Create a high priced item like a DVD or CD series (you can offer digital access with it). Add the freebies from your affiliate programs to your bonuses. You might also look for products or services that compliment your product and strike a deal to offer it free or at a discount after the original sale. Arrange this mutually beneficial cross-promotion of this other product or service by having the other marketer set up their sales page with your product in their bonuses.

        Have a sales page created for the high priced item a freelancer on Elance or Guru. There are instant sales page generators if you'd like to go that route, but you need to have the ability to go in and edit the page later so it makes sense to go with a human and not software on this one. Now embed the code from Google Analytics or Statcounter.com, (there are many paid ones that are better) so that you are able to track your page hits and prospect behavior.

        Now outsource the creation of a series of landing pages, each designed to speak to a different segment of your marketplace. To start with you will need to outsource or find out the demographics of the people that are looking for your products and services. Each segment of your market will speak a different way; have different concerns, and different motivations for buying your products or services. It’s difficult to tell who you are selling to, and this is the most important information for you to have.

        Outsource content creation based on what your prospects are asking for; it also might be a good time to pick up a support team. And periodically, 2-3 times a week give your list of subscribers content they can use. You can move on to promoting complimentary products to your list through informational webinars, mini-trainings and/or a variety of other methods.

        Keep your name and reputation clean by always delivering the best material possible. There are many shady marketers out there, and although the level of trust is being restored to the online marketplace since the anti-spam laws were created, treat your customers as good friends that will buy from your for years not as short-term sources of cash and they will love you, respect you, and tell their friends about you.

        By the time you are at this level you will have branded yourself and your services. You might have a nickname like youngentrepeneur or thelinkbuildingguru but most definitely, you will have learned that you must put in the hard work consistently at first to be able to sit back and watch your income roll in while you’re on vacation or visiting a friend in Japan.

Automation Tools of the Trade

1. Ping.Fm Update your status across social sites using Ping.Fm. I am a huge fan!

2. Posterous.com Offers a similar service to Ping.fm, includes Blogger.

3. TweetLater.com or Hootsuite.com For Twitter.com - Manage multiple profiles and schedule your tweets. It allows you to automatically follow new followers.

4. Twollo Ever wondered how to follow authors or radio show hosts or people who love ball point pens? It doesn't matter - you can type in keywords at Twollo, and it will automatically follow those people who match your keywords.

5. Twitterfeed Uses RSS to send your latest blog posts to Twitter.

6. SocialToo Very similar to tweetlater. It allows you to schedule tweets, automate follows and direct messages.

7. TubeToolbox Youtube friend adder and automated interaction.

FOCUS To have fun increasing your profits by leaving the mundane work to others.

ACTION STEPS Bet you can think of more, and that’s really the point…never stop growing.

1) Sign up for a list management service.

2) Plan your topics for continued dialogue with your customers and keep interacting.

3) Design a high-priced item for your sales funnel.

4) Outsource sales page building and lead page building management.

5) Get your tracking and reporting systems into place.

6) Focus on market segmentation in your marketing, cater to each audience differently.

7) Keep building your reputation within your niche and offline, give, give, and give more to your subscribers and occasionally throw a special offer in there.

Optional: If you don’t mind creating your own content instead of having someone else do it you can try a podcast, vodcast (video podcast) or live show on for size. I-tunes service and Justin.tv are great places to start.

Created by Lis Carpenter and Christian Fioravanti

The Power of "Continuity" with Web 2.0 Viral Marketing

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:56:41 -0800

Whatever business you decide to be in, whether it is entertainment or niche marketing, you are really robbing yourself if you do not enable your customers to join something on a monthly subscription. By nature people like to belong to exclusive groups. These are what Seth Godin refers to as tribes. If you are in a network marketing business, or if you have ever joined one pay attention. If you are an independent business owner pay attention. And if you are just marketing your talents online pay attention here.

        People are looking for someone to follow. People are always looking for one with all their answers on something, and they do not want to take the time and find the answers themselves. Time is too valuable. Money, well they can always make more. Now, this section is not really about list-building as much as it is about business philosophy. Do you have a central website where pre-customers can get instant access to a variety of quality content for free? Google does; why don’t you? Success leaves clues.

        Back to people looking for someone to follow. If you are building a brand on the Internet you are a leader by default. Are you curious about the Obama campaign phenomenon, was it so much that Bush did wrong or what Obama did right? You want to be seen as an authoritative figure you have to be the answer provider.

        You can leverage a movement or your can create one, but to rise above all the noise going on in a prospects mind you must be the answer provider, and consistently. That’s the power of blogs. If you educate your pre-customers on how and why they should subscribe to your blog’s feed. Don’t just create a product, brand it with something that humans deep down desire. VISA “Everywhere you want to be.” NIKE “Just do it.” Ah, the mystery of their success is not so secret anymore. Human beings want to be accepted everywhere like VISA, humans beings what to achieve above the expected level and they want to have the habit of taking action. What is your brand saying to them?

        Have you been to the GEICO website lately? Immediately when you land on it you are being sold on all the things that you want for yourself: strong and stable, financial strength, saving you money... Is it any mystery why they continue to grow? It’s not really the cute little gecko’s accent that makes them so popular. It is the feel that people have when they are watching the commercials or browsing the website.

        What feeling do you want your product and service to evoke in your prospects? Work at it. People buy for emotional reasons. You didn’t by the car and the house you bought class, security, and status. You didn’t buy the Macbook Pro, you bought the feeling of ease and trendiness.



        When you create a piece of content you expect to go viral let it be amazing, life changing, put some wow into it. And focus on making it you. If it is a video that you intend to go viral, start by thinking about the feeling that you want to create when begin to write the script for it. Music is a great tool because it affects moods. Making the video seem personal or as if you are dialoging with the viewer is best because we all want to connect. Humor is good, because we all want to be carefree injecting humor here in there is a tool, you do not have to be a comedian for the entire video. You are just focusing on creating an experience and a feeling within your prospect.

        After you have created your piece of content you want to hand it out to “sneezers”. I did not coin the term. This is how best-selling authors get on the New York Times Bestseller’s list time and time again. This is how Apple gets people to camp outside their stores before a new product release. Leak a notice about the new “life changing” content’s release to a fanatical “sneezer”. A sneezer is a person that has a deep interest in material like yours and a big sphere of influence or a larger number of contacts. The biggest “sneezers” on Twitter have several hundred thousand followers.

        The sneezers start talking about your new content and everyone is listening. Everyone runs to grab a copy because they want to be in the know. They fear being left out or left behind if it is an innovation. A leader doesn’t have to sell anyone on anything. Why do people buy Michael Jackson t-shirts when he’s behind the booth selling them? True leaders inspire their prospects to take actions. When you are done you don’t have to sell your products you just have to take care of the order fulfillment.

        So let me tell you what people are looking for in a leader. They want someone that is forward-looking and thinking. They want someone that appears to be going places where they want to be. They want someone that listens to them. And finally they are looking for someone that empowers them. So, educate your prospects. Show them the power they have, and then show them the power they have together to change their world.

FOCUS Connect the fulfillment of a basic human desire with your brand and give it away in your free content.

ACTION STEPS

1) Think about where you’re leading people.

2) Create or join a movement that people with which people in your niche identify.

3) Spend a couple of days or weeks creating your masterpiece (content with wow effect).

4) Release it to the sneezers in your marketplace and watch it fly.

5) And if you’re feeling ambitious, submit a quick press release to freepressrelease.com

-Social Media Domination Team

A Step-by-step Guide on How to Drive the Best Organic Leads in Less that 30 Minutes

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:37:52 -0800

Maybe you are not the best at creating compelling content, when starting out you can always “borrow” traffic from other highly trafficked areas. Since video is popular. Well use a Youtube scenario for an example while keeping in mind that this technique can be applied on any of a number of social networks or sharing websites.

STEP 1. Look for something popular item in the news for your niche. You can find this by doing a search on Technorati for popular blogs or you can go to the news section of your favorite search engines website and do a search. Upcoming events and new product releases are best.

STEP 2. Choose an item or event that is starting to get a little buzz about it.

STEP 3. Create a video with a shocking title like “World of Warcraft Ruined My Life!” Or “This is Why I-pod Touch Sucks!”

STEP 4. Post it to Youtube as a reply to an “official video”. Or just post it using some of the same tags that the “official video” has listed. Don’t forget to put your URL in the description box before and after the other text.

How to Get Ranked in Google in Less than 24 Hours

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:10:14 -0800

After you have what you’re offering, getting ranked in Google is easy as cutting grass with a rider mower, as long as you’re not driving under the influence getting where you want to go is fairly quick and easy.

Begin with selecting very niche specific keywords, sometimes called long-tail keywords (keyword phrases) are best. Check Google for results if there are less than 500,000 results then you have truly selected a micro-niche. Any more results than that limit the speed of this process. Finally, you want to use Google’s keyword suggestion tool or a better one to get a number of keywords related to your website or niche.

I suppose you could use any number of the top bookmarking websites for this process like del.icio.us, Propeller, or Reddit. But, I recommend starting with Digg and Mixx and then moving on to each of the others. After you have armed yourself with a list of 50 to 100 long tail keywords within your niche, you will simply use each one as the title for your Digg and Mixx posts. Cut a bit of text from your website and put it as the content for your Digg/Mixx post. And then repeat the process using a different keyword phrase. Make sure to put the keywords in the tags and before the text in the description.

This same process can be used with Youtube, but obviously that takes a little bit more work to create video content. There is one benefit however to using Youtube. Net users prefer video content over written content. If you are really interested in staying on top of the search engines, provide video content on your web pages and Digg/Mixx your videos.

Useful Links

How to rank with Digg (click-by-click tutorial on achieving results with Digg)

Google keyword suggestion tool

Google search-based keyword tool (You can find keywords related to websites, especially good to see the keywords that people are using to find top ranking websites in your niche)

FOCUS Get to the front page of Google using the social web.

ACTION STEPS

1) Discover the keywords for your niche using a keyword tool or using tags from other top ranking websites.

2) Compile a list of 50-100 long-tail keywords that your prospects are using to find your competitors.

3) Start with Digg and create an article that links to your website using each of the keyword phrases you just compiled.

4) Cut and paste content from your website to make the process faster, use the keyword phrase for the title, description, and tags.