Posts Tagged ‘social media networking’

I love to network!  Of course, I love being around people, so it makes it very easy for me to network.  When you are just starting to grow your business, networking is crucial to your success.  I know it was mine!

These are the top three ways I network to keep my business growing, meet new and interesting people and keep my sanity as a home-based business owner!

Join Local Networking Groups like:

• Business and Professional Groups
• Groups targeted to your niche
• Local Chamber
• BNI/REO or other organized referral exchange group
• eWomenNetwork Luncheons

Form your own Mastermind Group

• Invite others who are looking for connections, support and brainstorming opportunities
• Build from each other strengths
• Share each person’s business with your list and ask them to do the same
• Look for ways to work together as partners to grow your business, i.e., teleseminars, joint venture partnerships, affiliate partnerships, etc.

Social Neworking (This is my favorite!)

• Establish your profile on as many social media sites as you can effectively manage
• At least, start with Facebook and move to Twitter
• Give and share on these sites
• Don’t come out of the gate, asking for the sale
• Drive traffic back to your website through the many tools available using social media
• Have Fun!

These are just a few of the things I do to grow my business and it has been working pretty successfully.  So give it a try!

Want to send a message to your friends on Facebook, but don’t know how?  Here are simple steps to help you send messages through your Facebook Inbox and other helpful tips for sending messages in Facebook.

• Type the person’s name into the Search box at the upper right of any Page.  When the search results are returned, click on the “Send a Message” link to the right of the result.  A box will open to type in the subject and message.  When finished, click “Send.”
  
• Open the Inbox and click on “Compose“  the same box will open to type the specifics of your message
• To learn how to send a private message on Facebook, visit my YouTube Channel to view a short video where I walk you through the entire process.

Here are other tips to help with sending messages on Facebook:

• You can message up to 20 friends per message
• If you have a Group or Fan Page, you can send to all of your Group Members or Fans with one message
• Users can receive messages from anyone on Facebook, regardless if you are friends or not.  To avoid this, go to Settings/Privacy/Search and under “Search Result Content” uncheck the box for “A link to send me a message.”
• Photos, videos and links can be attached to messages
• The Inbox is not intended for “live” conversations.  The Chat option can be used for instant messaging others on Facebook
• Be careful of promoting a product or service or any type of advertising to your friends through the Inbox as it is considered spam and against Facebook policies
• The Inbox has search features for finding messages by sender, keywords, recipients or Friend Lists
• You can manage your Inbox notifications by going to Settings/Account Settings/ Notifications.  Here you can select which information you would like to see in your Personal Email Account.  For example, if you use Microsoft Outlook for your email management, you will receive an email each time you get a message in your Facebook Inbox.  You can uncheck this notification to stop those emails from going to Outlook.

The Facebook Inbox is a great communication tool when used properly.  It is just another alternative for connecting with your online friends and business contacts.

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 wanted to share some very exciting news about the new Online Social Media magazine that Michael Stelzner just launched, the Social Media Examiner.

It will offer some of the best tips and advice on how to use social media for your business.  There will be articles, videos, case studies and the latest industry news in the magazine.  And the best part is that you can have it delivered free directly to your Inbox!

Go grab your subscription of the Social Media Examiner, today!

Be careful little eyes, what you see. Be careful little ears what you hear. And be careful little Twitter users what you Tweet!

Now that Twitter and Facebook have beefed-up their search capabilities, all of your Twitter and Facebook posts are easily searched and found by others.

Such is the case of a business that was in a dispute with their marketing firm and said some “not so nice” things about them on Twitter and Facebook. The marketing firm is now suing the business for breach of contract related to the use of promotional materials without permission, along with some other things. But really, had the business not been so vocal with their comments through social media, this might have been easily rectified.

So the lesson is, to be aware of what you are saying on social media sites.  Use the “count to 10″ rule if you’re angry before you post a comment.  Just because it doesn’t show up on your computer screen, doesn’t mean it isn’t still hanging around cyberspace.

My philosophy is…if you don’t want the world to know what you are saying, don’t post it on Twitter!

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 just spent the weekend with about 3000 girlfriends!  Man, what a slumber party!

Here are some of my Knoxville girlfriends in OUR limo on our way to dinner.

It was the 9th Annual eWomenNetwork International Conference in Dallas and to say I had a great time is quite an understatement.  This event was loaded with incredible speakers, trainers and thought leaders who freely shared their expertise and their road to success with us.

From sessions on finance to personal growth, social media and publishing to how to change your Brain to succeed; these breakout sessions were worth thousands of dollars if attended separately.  However, it was a girlfriend’s weekend and it was all given freely.  New friendships were made and existing ones were made stronger.

Not to brag (too much!) but one of the highlights of my weekend was the unveiling of the eWomenNetwork Facebook Fan Page that I developed and will be managing for eWomenNetwork!  Yea!  How exciting!  The intention is to have this Fan Page as an outlet for eWomenNetwork members, as well as potential members, to have a voice directly to Founder, Sandra Yancey and President, Kym Yancey.  They will both be commenting on the site and will answer questions as they come up.

As with most conferences there was an exhibit area where vendors gave away samples and promotional items.  They were all great.  I stopped by the Best Buy/Geek Squad booth looking to charge my cell phone because I had left my charger at home.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have a charger to fit my phone (which is one reason I’m getting a new one), but they asked me to drop my card in for the 42″ Plasma TV they were giving away.  So I said, OK, but I never win anything.

After I got off the plane and was driving home, I checked my voice mail and heard a message from the Geek Squad that I had WON the TV!   Now that was too cool!

So overall my weekend was Great!  I gained many new friends, some awesome ideas on maximizing my business and a new TV.  Can’t get any better than that!

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