Posts Tagged ‘Internet Marketing’

It is always exciting to uncover hot and profitable new niches to tap into for your Virtual Business.  Well, Internet Marketing, Ecommerce Support and Social Media Marketing continue to be very in-demand” service niches and will continue to be for quite some time, I am particularly excited about this new niche emerging in the Virtual Event Industry.

I personally believe that the “Virtual Events” field is one of the hottest avenues to building your business right now, especially in this down economy. The statistics are clear: There is currently a significant increase in the number of participants attending virtual events such as webinars, tele-events, live podcasts and web TV shows.

However, there is a corresponding decrease in those attending offline events and conferences partly due to the economy, but for a host of other reasons as wells. The reality is that Virtual Events are more cost-effective to deliver and attend, have the capacity to reach a larger audience and can be re-broadcast for continued exposure.

Businesses are keenly interested in running Virtual Events right now, but many lack the knowledge and time to effectively set-up and implement the Virtual Events successfully. As a result, this has presented a very timely and unique opportunity for Virtual Professionals to position themselves as a “Virtual Event Specialist“!

On September 16th, VAClassroom will be hosting a “must attend” event with Craig Cannings and Virtual Event Expert, Michelle Schoen titled,

“Building a Profitable Niche as a Virtual Event Specialist (Even in a Down Economy)!”

They will be exploring the crucial skills required to effectively deliver Virtual Event Set-up and Management services to your clients.  In addition, they will be sharing some exciting news on our upcoming training program: The Virtual Event Specialist Certification.

So, go ahead and click on the below link to watch a short 5 minute video and then sign-up to receive some special bonus information including more details on the upcoming event on September 16th!

Click Here: Virtual Event Specialist Video

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

With Twitter being the fastest growing social network, I’m sure you have set up an account and been “tweeting” about What You Are Doing.   Right?   Well, if not, then you better get started.

Twitter currently has 8 million members and is projected to continue in a “growth explosion” throughout 2009.  Nielsen just came out with some very impressive numbers on their blog.  According to Nielsen, “Unique visitors to Twitter increased 1,382 percent year-over-year, from 475,000 unique visitors in February 2008 to 7 million in February 2009, making it the fastest growing site in the Member Communities category for the month.  Zimbio and Facebook followed, growing 240 percent and 228 percent, respectively.”

Obviously Twitter is here to stay and the place to be.  So let everyone know how to find you on Twitter by placing a Twitter Button on your blog, website, email signature, and other sites you have a presence in.

Here’s my new button:

By Free Marketing Directory

Just click on it and you can follow me on Twitter.  And I’ll be sure to follow you back.  This is just one of many buttons that are available from Twitter Buttons.  So get yours and start promoting your Twitter Profile.

Oh and did I mention the buttons are free?

Just when I was getting good at setting up Fan Pages for my client’s businesses and services, Facebook has gone and changed the design!   At first I really freaked out and panicked.  But as I begin to see what they have done and downloaded the February 2009 edition of “Facebook Pages” I was pleasantly surprised.   All they have done is make the Fan Page look like your User Profile. 

Some of the features include:

• Easier Publishing through an Enhanced Wall
• Update and Share with statuses
• Tabbed Structure similar to your Profile
• Additional tracking of visitors through Insights

When designing your Facebook Page, here are some key elements you should consider:

• Select a name and category.  These can’t be changed.  If you find you don’t like them later, all you can do is delete the page and start a new one.  So be sure before you set them up.
• Upload a picture or logo
• Enter a short statement about your business, product, band, etc.
• Select the Tabs you would like on your Page.  The default is Wall, Info and Boxes.  You can have six tabs on your Page
• Then decide which applications you would like under your Boxes Tab.  There are many to choose from or you can develop your own.

I have gotten my Page and one client Page re-structured, and it wasn’t too bad.  Facebook is giving us a heads-up that we need to go ahead and work on the re-design before they pull the trigger for the switch-over.  So if you need help, just let us know.

All of this information was compiled from the Facebook Pages Guide.

I had the opportunity to attend a teleseminar this morning by L. Drew Gerber CEO & Partner of PressKit 24/7.  It was part of the Big Fish Nation program I am a member of.  Big Fish empowers women entrepreneur’s to take their business to the next level through hard core business skills with a spiritual approach to success.  Today’s teleseminar focused on Online Press Releases.

Drew shared with us that he defines PR as, Your Relationship with the Public and that you should begin using PR from the onset of your business.  It will increase brand recognition, and boost your sales of  products and services.  90 percent of reporters are getting their information from the Internet, so an Online Press Kit is essential to your Online Business Success!

As part of his company, PressKit 24/7 he has established a source to bring potential media opportunities right into your Inbox.  PitchRate.com is the name of this site and it’s completely free!  You can register, include a profile, select your area of expertise, along with subcategories and daily you will receive a digest of media opportunities.  You can also search on the site for keywords relative to your business.

Drew loves games, and so do I!  So he has offered the participants of today’s teleseminar an incredible prize for the person that gets the most people to sign up for PitchRate.  That’s where I need your help!  If you would like to get daily feeds of media opportunities and grow your business through online press release marketing, please sign up for this free service.  And then send me a quick email to (terri.avirtualbiz@gmail.com) and put your name in the subject line.  And of course, I’d love to get your feedback to share with Drew.

It’s very important that you send me an email, otherwise, I won’t know that you signed up and can’t count you in my group.  I’ll follow up and let you know if YOU helped me win!

I am constantly amazing by the number of plugins, widgets and features that are available for my WordPress Blog.  I actually have this one and I have a static page that I have set-up through the blog platform for my Tasting The Internet, One Byte at a Time Program.

I am hosting a Free Webinar on February 26th at 2 pm eastern, “Why Should I use Twitter?” and I needed a sign-up form for people to register for the webinar.  After checking with my friend and colleague, Rebecca Zwar with Social Web diVA and Invisible Assistant, she shared an incredible plugin called GWA Autoresponder for WordPress.

I have been very pleased with this plugin so far.  People have registered for my webinar and they receive an automatic autoresponder with some freebies that I’m giving away and then I’ll be able to add them to my newsletter list and communicate all the details of the webinar.

If you are looking for a easy to set-up, fast to learn and effective autoresponder for your blog, look no further than GWA Autoresponder for WordPress.

Oh, and by the way, there’s still time to register for my Free Webinar, “Why Should I use Twitter.”

At the end of 2008, I had an opportunity to read many blog posts from Internet experts making their predictions for 2009 and guess what was at the top of their list: Social Media Marketing. It is anticipated that Social Media will grow at unprecedented rates in 2009 and beyond as more and more businesses seek to leverage this powerful new marketing channel.

A further prediction is that Social Media Marketing Services will be in very high demand through 2009! Most businesses either lack the time or expertise to effectively carry out all the necessary Social Media Marketing Activities and will be seeking to delegate these tasks to skilled Social Media Marketing Specialists.

VAClassroom.com has recently released a high calibre 7 module training program based on the seven hottest Social Media Marketing Services requested by businesses today including:

- Social Media Strategy and Action Planning
- Social Networking Profile Set-up and Management
- Facebook Marketing
- Twitter Marketing
- Online Video Marketing
- Online Reputation Management
- Social Media Content Distribution

The Social Media Marketing Specialist Training Program offers a self-directed training system for Virtual Assistants and Online Professional seeking to offer these in-demand services to their new and existing client base, or anyone looking for more knowledge of Social Media Marketing. The program features 8 modules, 30 videos, an interactive and supportive learning community, comprehensive resource guides, assignments and a Social Media Marketing Specialist Certification.

Claim your seat now Social Media Marketing Training and don’t miss out on one of the most important training opportunities you will take this year.

Happy Birthday Facebook!  Today is the 5th birthday of Facebook and they are offering a “free gift” that you can give to your friends, fans, and group members.    Of course, it’s a “virtual” gift.

You can get the complete story at The Facebook Blog or at Mashable

So share your love of Facebook by giving a gift to your friends!