Archive for the ‘social media marketing’ Category

Hey,

If you didn’t have a chance to hear my friend Perry Lawrence talk about Direct-to-Web TV Shows and Podcasting… You missed it.

BUT Perry is allowing me to share the replay link with you.

Direct-toWeb TV Shows and Prodcasting

Go now and listen to a great webinar on how you can create a web series that sets you apart in your niche or industry.

Perry really delivered the goods and this webinar has already created a stir. Search twitter using #directtoweb to see the buzz.

So go watch the replay here and learn how easy it is to become the authentic authority in your niche.

As most online business owners, I produce my newsletters through email.  I specifically use Constant Contact to produce my newsletters and manage my contacts, open and bounce rates and now for all my events.

As a business partner with Constant Contact, I am privy to early information and I just learned that Constant Contact has an iPhone app called QuickView.

It’s the iPhone app built specifically for Constant Contact® Email Marketing. QuickView lets you:

• Check the status of your email campaigns
• See who clicked, opened, forwarded, bounced, and unsubscribed
• Create a new email list on the go — you’ll see it when you’re back at your computer
• Add a new contact while you’re out networking — your account updates automatically
• Search your contact database
• Update any contact’s individual record — your changes will save to your account

All you need is an iPhone or iPod Touch and your Constant Contact username and password. It couldn’t be easier or more convenient.  I just downloaded the app to my iPhone and have added some new contacts and checked the status of my most recent email open-rate.  I love it!

Email Marketing by Constant Contact® is the easy, effective, and highly affordable way to get your message out to your customers, clients, or members—and build strong, successful, and lasting relationships with them. You’ll create high-impact email newsletters and promotions in minutes, no technical expertise necessary. With more than 300 easily-customized templates, a simple point-and-click tool, and award-winning free customer support, you can create professional, compelling messages your audience will act on. And it’s easy for you to manage your contact lists, sign up website visitors, track your clicks and open rates, and send automated communications to new subscribers.  You can even try it Free for 60 days!  Click this link Free 60 Day Trial to get started.

Facebook has just released it’s Promotions Guidelines that detail how and where you can use contests, sweepstakes and promotions on your Facebook Profile and Fan Page.  In a nutshell,  Facebook has put the brakes on doing any of these without prior written approval and I’m thinking that’s not going to be easy to obtain.

Here are a few of the highlights of the new guidelines:

• You can’t promote any contest, competition or sweepstakes that require people to become a Fan of your Page to be entered
• You can’t use Facebook Fan Pages, your profile, chat, or messages to notify winners of any contests you administer
• You can’t require content on Facebook as a condition for entry in any sweepstakes or contest
• You can use third-party applications for entry into contests when content is required
• You can allow your Page Fans to access a Tab on your Page that contains the third-party application
• You can use a third-party application to collect an email address or mailing address in order to contact the winner of a contest

To fully understand these guidelines, how they effect your Facebook accounts and learn how not to be an “offender” you should print them and keep them handy.  Click here Facebook Promotions Guidelines to review all the details.

Twitter has just added a great feature to the popular micro-blogging site.   Twitter Lists are the latest and greatest feature offered by Twitter.  To know if you are eligible to begin using this feature, you will see this announcement at the top of your Twitter Page.

With Twitter Lists users can organize the people they are following into specific lists for easy recognition and communication.  For example, I have set up two lists, so far.  One is call “bizbuddies” and included in this list are the people that I follow related to my business, affiliate partners, clients, and others that I have a business relationship with.  My second list is called “social media.”  This list is made up of all the people I follow that have some connection to social media. (My Twitter ID is @avirtualbiz if you want to add me to your Lists)

Now when I want to hear the latest “scoop” in social media, I simply click on my Social Media List on Twitter and I can be updated very quickly with the latest industry information.

Another great feature with Twitter Lists, is that you can search for lists that you would like to follow and with just one click, you are following the entire list. To see the top lists and to recommend your friends and business associates to a list (and even yourself) go to Listorious.  You can search on hundreds of keywords, and industries to find lists that you would like to follow.

You can have up to 20 lists and each list can have 500 people in it.  So set-up your lists and each time you follow a new person on Twitter, add them to one of your lists or create a new one.

This is just another step toward simplifying and streamlining our social media experience without sacrificing the quality and benefits of social networking.

What are you thoughts regarding the new List feature on Twitter?

P.S. If you would like to recommend me to a social media list on Listorious, I’ll recommend you back!!

Want to stay up-to-date on all the current news related to Social Media?  Take a look at this video.

http://facebook.com/socialmediatraining

Facebook is not just for kids, contrary to popular belief!  In a recent update from Experian^® Hitwise^® Facebook users 55 and over, increased by 108% from September 2008 to September 2009.  As more baby boomers are taking advantage of the many features of Facebook to connect with friends and family, market and grow their business relationships and even develop an online presence through Facebook for a new business, it is clear that Facebook is no longer just for the kids.

The 18-34 year old age group still leads the way in using Facebook, but the boomers are “hot on their trail.“  And overall Facebook grew 194% within a year.

So, do you have a presence on Facebook?  There are more than 300 million others who do.  Experian^® Hitwise^® data reveals that Facebook is 2nd only to Google in the amount of visits to their site, and Facebook is #1 for social networking sites.

So again I ask, do you have a presence on Facebook?  Everyone wants to be found in Google searches, and it looks like the next place to be found is Facebook!

Don’t know how to get started?  Check out this easy to follow, step-by-step guide The Start Here, Now Do This Social Media Guide, to establish your Facebook presence, or just give us a call!

I just found this very interesting video about social media.  It is filled with statistics.  Some I know are accurate, others I’m not sure, but it’s still very powerful and speaks to the fact that social media IS here to stay and we should all embrace it and make it work for us and our business.

Take a look!

I have just returned from an incredible trip to San Diego with a business associate of mine, Sue Painter of  The Confident Marketer and some other friends where we learned some amazing Internet Marketing secrets to really explode our businesses. (and yours!)

We were at the Paid For Life conference in San Diego with Mike Koenigs and Brenden Bouchard and a host of other speakers such as Russell Brunson, James Malinchak, Paul Colligan, John Carlton and others.  These thought leaders shared massive amounts of information with the participants on ways to grow your online business and the one recurring theme was Video.

With Google’s recent purchase of YouTube, it stands to reason that video is a SEO booster.  We came away from the conference with a passion for making videos of just about everything we do.  Trainings, speaking opportunities, how-to videos, video testimonials from clients and more.

If you haven’t started using video for your online marketing – now is the time!  You can easily get started for less than $100 with a Flip Camera.  Carry it with you everywhere.  You never know when a marketing opportunity will present itself for you and your business.  Point – Click – Record!

As you know, the business of blogs has grown and evolved significantly over the last 24 months. A quote from the WordPress.com site puts it best…

“Blogging is growing both in the US and especially internationally. Tens of thousands of new WordPress blogs are created every day – by regular bloggers, companies, large media publishers, and many others. In addition, we seeing a trend that’s potentially even bigger than blogging: Publishers are starting to use WordPress as a platform to create all kinds of sites beyond blogs – large and small company sites, online magazines, social networks, travel sites, scrapbooking sites, contact managers, startups, multimedia archives, video sites, sports sites.”

Isn’t this cool? Ten of thousands of blogs being created DAILY! Businesses are using blogging technology to create company websites, social networks, video sites, membership sites and so much more.

The sad reality is that a good portion of these blog sites won’t last more than a year as they are lacking some key success strategies for optimizing and marketing their blogs.

Well now there is a great remedy for that problem….

VAClassroom.com has recently launched a new 2-week mini-course titled, “Blog Marketing Tips, Tools & Tactics”

As I have reviewed the course, I see two valuable reasons for taking this program:

1.  This blog marketing mini-course will give you some advanced and current marketing and optimization skills that you can offer as a high value and “in-demand” service to a fast growing base of blog site owners.

2.  Many of you may currently be using a Wordpress blogsite as your primary online business presence, which is very smart! This two-week training program will essentially provide you with a blog marketing tune-up and blueprint for your site, so that you can increase your targeted traffic, business visibility and new client leads.

This two-fold purpose will have a strong impact on both your business visibility as well as new income opportunities!

The two-week training program is scheduled to begin on August 10, 2009 and will finish up on August 24th. The program includes both self-paced and live components.

The registration doors are officially OPEN NOW and seats are going fast. They have 60 seats available for this training program.

To get all the details on this important new training program, just click on the link below:

Blog Marketing Mini Course

Also, take advantage of this $10 discount off an already very reasonable price. Here is the discount coupon code: VABLOG

Were you one of the millions of people who counted down the clock in anticipation of grabbing your Facebook username?  Did you get the name you wanted or did you have to settle for something you’re not happy with now?

Good News!

Facebook is now allowing users the “one-time” opportunity to change your username to something you will be happy and content with from now on.

To change your username,

Go to Settings, and then

Scroll down the page to Username and

Click Change

Input your NEW username request and check Availability

If it’s available, Great!

Remember…you can only change it one time.  Be sure you like this one!