Posts Tagged ‘content’

How Social Media Can Help Your Business

Sunday, May 8th, 2011

I get lots of questions from different people on “How can all this social media stuff like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Squidoo, Digg, YouTube, Blogs help me?”

So lets first define Social Media, with Wikipedia’s Definition: Social Media is a form of internet marketing which seeks to achieve branding and marketing communication goals through the participation in various social media including writing content that is remarkable, unique, and newsworthy. Lastly Social Media utilizes social networking and user-generated content platforms to promote a product, service or content.

Now that being said…necessary tools for Social Media are bookmarks, blogs, forums, podcasts, networks, communities, wikis. Important and versatile sites are places like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Myspace, Digg, Stumbleupon and Squidoo.

The number one point to remember is this

..Due to Social media marketing being so easy to implement and it being so affordable, it is of significant importance to small businesses.

So where do I start?

By a long shot, Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook were the top four social media tools used by marketers, with Twitter leading the pack. All the other social media tools paled in comparison to these top four. Download Social Media Marketing Industry report.

How do I measure the effectiveness of social media?

A significant 81% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated exposure for their businesses. Check out Social Media Marketing Report. Improving traffic and growing lists was the second major benefit, followed by building new partnerships. A rise in search engine rankings is also an evident increase, as well as a reduction in your overall marketing expenses. Now that is some GOOD news…if your not involved in Social Media Marketing…then it’s TIME!

StartupNation does make a valid point when it says that many small businesses have failed to embrace the opportunities in social media marketing.

If that’s you, then speak with an Internet marketing consultant or do your own research of how social media marketing can help you. It would be beneficial for you and your company.

Last year in February, an article came out on “Social Media Will Change Your business

It’s a good read with some great links for blog writing. One of the paragraph talks about “grabbing you by the collar, and shaking you into action” and that was written LAST YEAR! All in all there is some important information for newbies and veterans alike. The story of the google employee that got fired is one of them…because it shows how fast social media can work.

Another way Social Media can help your business is the customer relationship.

As a business you would be interested in creating a dialog, direct and immediate feedback benefits, and to learn directly from your customers on what has been successful and what areas need focus and enhancement. Sharing content is the real power and the advantage of using social media. Businesses can keep their online community up to date with news, events and what the business has to offer.

Ezine @rticles has some great thoughts on Blogging, Relationship Marketing, Customer Voice and Social Marketing. Customer Voice is a huge one this year which is where Twitter or blogs have been the most efficient.

Customers want voice in your business…give you feedback.

Relationship Marketing

Is also top in 2009 as a tool to build loyalty, along with a timely response, or you can have a blog and a Twitter account as these all have interaction with the customer. These also allow you to create a personality for your business as well as develop an image as a forward-thinking company that is responsive. Responses include Tweeting back on Twitter, a FaceBook response, sending a personable card, thank-you card and a quick thinking of you card. A top of the line online card system that is extremely affordable and saves you time and effort is SendoutCards. The fastest, most affordable Relationship Marketing tool online with over 13,000 cards available along with gifts and gift cards. You write it, they print it, stuff it, stamp it and mail it for you. Can’t beat that deal!

Facebook for Business!..

Yes you read that correctly…Facebook for business is very real…read this artlcle: Facebook’s Latest Design Update Helps Businesses part of it reads “With the latest evolution, Facebook makes its service more valuable to businesses.”

Here’s another good one to check out: 30+ Apps for Doing Business on Facebook great read from Mashable The Social Media Guide.

What is LinkedIn? and why should I be a part of that?

If you’re running a small Internet business or have a regular brick-and-mortar business, “knowing” the right people and being able to ask and answer questions significant to your business will help you build your network with contacts. Someone you know in your line of business is already on LinkedIn. You just need to set up a profile, start introducing yourself around, join groups and discussions, start discussions with any questions, or answer discussions with your expertise in your area. What a wonderful way to reach beyond the limits of time and travel to someone else who is like minded and able to discuss important things, answer questions all in a few lines.

Never heard of a Squidoo lens before?

A Squidoo lens is a free web page that states what you are interested in…it could be as simple as a recipe if your a restaurant, to as complex as how to take the perfect picture. Along with links to anyplace you want, you can join groups, be a lens master, create as many pages as you want and get the word out!..

StumbleUpon…great name…what does it do?

Here’s how it works. Install the toolbar, identify some categories you like on the web, then hit the Stumble button. The service takes you to a web page that is popular with people who share your interests. You’ve got the option to give that page a thumbs up, a thumbs down or just leave it by hitting the Stumble button again. Over time the service learns what you like and integrates that into the decisions it makes in sending you someplace new when you hit the button. If you’re a small business with very good content, submit that content to stumbleupon. When these people finally will shop they will shop in their local area and an most of them will use Google to do it. Yes you will stand out with a Stumbler in this sea of 10. Try it…you’ll be surprised!

What has Social Media done for me?

I really enjoy meeting new people, creating new relationships, networking along side people with like interests, and using the tools available to generate opportunities and provide insight to help others. As a business owner, I have enjoyed the benefits of Social Media, it’s simple approach with countless of avenues. I also enjoy presenting this knowledge for others to use as it would benefit them by building relationships with other like-minded businesses and entrepreneurs along with keeping their customer base informed of products, generate better customer relations and service.

Social Media has opened a whole new door for businesses and individuals alike.

Social Media is the solution for your business…have you gotten on board yet?

Visit here for more Social Media Stuff:
http://coriburkhert.wordpress.com

Article Source:

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Corinne_Burkhert

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Business Consultant Internet Marketing Small Strategy – Article Submissions

Sunday, January 30th, 2011

Running a business consultant internet marketing firm is one of the best types of businesses these days. In here, you assist other business establishments in making their names flourish in the industry. Now, who would have though that you can make money from lending others a helping hand? If you are running a similar business as this one, pay close attention to the business consultant internet marketing small strategy that I will be providing you with in here. Make sure to take note of the advantages that article submissions can offer you and your small business consulting firm.

Here are a few of the advantages that article submissions can offer you and your business consulting firm:

1. Articles submissions show your credibility to your target market.

Writing a few articles in a day about your personal experiences will allow your readers to know about your credibility and expertise in the business. Articles can become a medium that you can make use of in spreading the word about how good you are in the business.

2. Article submissions enable you to become uncovered in a lot of search engines on a variety of conditions.

One of the strategies of content submission is usually to intersperse your primary website search phrases into your write-up to ensure that your content articles will aid you in improving your look for engine ranking on your search terms. This will help you in getting organic targeted visitors on your web site on an array of keywords and phrases. You will discover that nearly all of these would have certainly not occurred to you as search conditions. Nevertheless, these conditions will be present in one or more articles or blog posts that you will write. Now, your goal in here would be to produce a call to action on your individual post pages to improve the number of subscribers to your newsletter, which serves as the primary call to action on your website.

3. Article submissions establish you as an expert.

With this, I will give an example about my personal experience. I submit 10 to 12 articles within a month through the use of a content submission service. Anyone seeking content articles that I have written in any of the major content banks will possibly locate at least 10 that I have authored. These days I searched my name, and observed numerous sites have listed me. I would say that about 98 percent of the results refer to me, and that a huge portion of those varieties are links to content blogs, articles banks, and ezines publishing my content articles.

4. Article submissions encourage joint ventures or strategic alliances with organization owners in other industries pursuing exactly the same target market.

I have been previously approached by a variety of other organizations who are seeking link exchanges, strategic alliances, and referrals solely based on reading about me. I have decided to pursue some of these, and I would have certainly not had the opportunity without applying article submissions as a way to spread the word out about my services and my firm.

There are a lot of internet marketing strategies out there that you can employ to get your name out for your prospective clients to see. Grab a few of these strategies from this small business consultant internet marketing site and bring your business to a whole new level of success.

Article Source:

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Austin_Hatcher

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Why New Business Owners Rely On the Experience and Expertise of Website Developers

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

One of the first things most people do when they start up a new business is have a website developed. Whether you’re a business that provides information to online visitors or you sell products or services, having a website can make the difference between an average business and a highly productive and successful business.

There is a lot involved in developing a website. Firstly, the owner of the new company must decide what is to feature on the website, how it should be presented and how they want to portray their message to the online visitors. Quite often the owner will accumulate some images and create their own content. After all, it’s the owner who knows the most about want they want from their website.

One of the first things the web company will do is establish from the owner how much they’re willing to spend. This will obviously determine just how good the end product is. There is so much functionality that a website can have, so it’s a matter of the website owner deciding what they need and what they don’t need.

Once the website developers are informed of the objectives of the site they can begin to work on the functionality of it. This includes things like shopping carts, booking forms, newsletter functionality and blog integration.

Most people will need to have the power to make changes to their website, whether it is to update content, pricing and/or images. A Content Management System (CMS) will enable you to do this yourself, which means saving costs in development time in the future. Website developers mostly run one type of CMS and they’ll provide you with basic training on how to use it to your advantage.

If you are selling products online then it is very likely that you’ll require a shopping cart facility. This enables online visitors to select products and purchase online. This can be one of the more expensive features of a website, but it does allow your users to complete their shopping in a few simple steps. If you are only likely to sell small amounts of products, then you might just consider having a “contact us” page where people can find your details and call you to place an order.

There are a lot of other aspects of a website that need to be taken care of. To find out what else is involved simply jump online, type in “website developers” and you’ll find a huge number of options to choose from.

Limelight Online Ltd – We understand the importance of creating websites that not only look great but are appealing to visitors.
With our website developers expertise we work with you to ensure that your website will differentiate you from your competitors by offering visitors a better online experience. You will also experience our powerful, easy to use Content Management System.
The search engine marketing team at Limelight Online are experts in their field and are dedicated to ensuring that your website reaches top of first page search engine rankings. All in all, we offer a full range of online experiences. We look forward to talking with you. http://www.limelightonline.co.nz/

Article Source:

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Suzanne_L_Carter

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How to Launch a New Business with Articles

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

Starting a new business requires a marketing plan. You must decide how you will advertise your site before you launch a new business. This article shows you how to launch a new business with articles to build sales and revenue from the get-go.

Use Articles to Promote Your Site
There’s only so much that word-of-mouth advertising can do for a new business. Tell everyone you know about the business and share the link to your website with every business acquaintance and new person you meet. Talk about your new business till you’re blue in the face. That will only go so far to help you build your business, though.

A better and more effective method is to use articles to promote your site. Don’t confuse article marketing with providing quality content for your site, though. Sure, your site needs content. One way to stay on top of the search engine results pages and to get a higher ranking is to provide well researched, informative articles on your website. Providing content on your site grows your business based on people finding you in the search engines.

To reach a larger audience, however, article marketing is the way to go. Basically what you do is write an article that is directly related to your site. You won’t post it on your own site, though. Submit this article to an article distribution site. Once the article makes it through the editing process, it becomes available for websites across the net to pick up and use as content on their sites.

The benefit of distributing your article across the Internet is huge for you as a business owner. It creates a ton of back links to your site. These back links do two things. They send targeted traffic to your site and they improve your search engine ranking. This is good news and a lot of exposure for someone who is launching a new business.

Using Article Marketing to Launch a New Business
Article marketing is a great way to launch a new business. Draw a large number of readers and customers to your web page right from the beginning using these simple steps.

Step 1. Create a website for your new business. Make sure your website is aesthetically pleasing and it is filled with informative content to draw new readers in.

Step 2. Write (or hire someone to write) a search engine optimized article based on the topic of your new business.

Step 3. Submit your informative article to an article distribution service. Pair your article with an effective title that draws people in. Build in a little teaser to lure readers to click on your article. Your business’ web page link appears in the author box.

Step 4. Continue to add content to your website and submit articles through article distribution sites to promote your site and have a successful launch for your new business.

Now you know how to market with articles. Article marketing is a simple and effective way to get word out about your new business. It’s easy once you understand what publishers are looking for and you can tailor your articles to their needs.

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Promote Your New Business with Article Distribution

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

Starting a new business is a scary and sometimes overwhelming adventure. The success level of your business is yet unknown. It’s important to create excitement about your new business. To launch a new business without creating a buzz with article marketing would be a big mistake. One of the best ways to promote your new business site is with article distribution.

The Difficulties of Promoting a New Business
I know firsthand how difficult it is to promote a new business. I had a lot to learn when I first started out on the Internet. I launched my website and created content for it regularly. Back then, I thought traffic would just start flowing in and my sales would go through the roof.

Sales for my new business did pick up a bit in the beginning and then it leveled off. No one likes to see their business on a plateau for a long period of time. It took a lot of research before I found out about the power of article distribution. My sales took off again once I started using article distribution to promote my new business.

The Power of Article Marketing and Article Distribution
You don’t have to go it alone when it comes to promoting your new business. One of the first tactics that I tried to promote my business was exchanging links with other individuals like me. Now I know that you can take this a step further and use article marketing to promote your site links.

Article distribution sites are available to give people content for their websites. It really is a win-win situation. Publishers get the content they need and writers get to promote their site by including qualified links in the author box at the bottom of each article they submit.

The reason this is such a powerful strategy for promoting your new business is that there is a potential for thousands of publishers to pick up your article and post them on their own sites. This technique places a link to your website on each of these remote sites. Readers who click on your link are already interested in your topic and are looking for more information. It’s the closest thing you will find to a guaranteed draw for targeted traffic to your website.

The other reason to promote your new business with article distribution is because of all the back links you’ll get. The back links these remote sites provide for you look good as far as search engines are concerned. One of the ways that search engines use to rate your site is to gauge how many qualified back links you have. You gain a higher page ranking with search engines due to this high level of back links.

Article Distribution for Your New Business
Learn how to submit articles for article distribution and you’ll get the maximum exposure for your new business. You won’t be alone on the web if you use article marketing to help promote your site. All you have to do is write an informative article that meets the standards of the article distribution service, submit it and let the distribution service take care of the rest. Regularly submit new articles and watch your new business grow.

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FTC Guns for Blogger Shills, Are Online Writers Trigger Happy?, Rupert Murdoch vs. Google – CrankyGeeks Episode 188 – H.264 Version

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

Today’s Guests:
Sebastian Rupley, Co-Crank, Editor, GigaOm.com
Jason Hiner, Editor-in-Chief, TechRepublic
Tom Merritt, Executive Editor, CNET

The Topics:
Rupert Murdoch Says Google is Stealing His Content
AT&T Concedes Network Challenges
FTC Guns for Blogger Shills
Are Online Writers Trigger Happy?
Dvorak’s Apple Tablet Theories

alt : http://m.podshow.com/media/19439/episodes/192010/crankygeeks-192010-10-14-2009.movhttp://m.podshow.com/media/19439/episodes/192010/crankygeeks-192010-10-14-2009.mov< ![endif]-->

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Google vs. Facebook, The Cult of Busy, Is the Kin a Loser?, The Future of Journalism, Hulu Goes Subscription, and more! | CrankyGeeks Episode 225 – H.264 Version

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

Today’s Guests:

Andrew
Eisner
, Content/Community Manager, Retrevo

Vanessa
Fox
, Founder, NineByBlue.com

Chris
DiBona
, Open Source Manager, Google

The Topics:

Google vs. Facebook

Can Apple Doing Any Wrong

YouTube Weighs in on HTML5 and Flash

Is the Kin a Loser?

The Cult of Busy

alt : http://m.podshow.com/media/19439/episodes/238199/crankygeeks-238199-06-30-2010.movhttp://m.podshow.com/media/19439/episodes/238199/crankygeeks-238199-06-30-2010.mov< ![endif]-->

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Want To Write Quality Business Articles? Start Building Your Business One Article At A Time

Friday, June 18th, 2010

By William Lezubski

I’m sure you’re reading all over the Internet that content is one of the most important components of building your business, and in my opinion I agree that writing an article and posting it throughout the Internet is an essential way to finding your desired targeted traffic.

If you have never written business articles before, you have to remember key things to make sure your article is a success, and attracts the readers searching for your information. Take the approach of writing one article at a time, and don’t worry about how many you need to create to get the exposure. Just like developing a business plan, you want to ensure that you do all your necessary research, compile it in an easy to read format that you know will allow your readers to follow without losing the message half way through!

I read so many business articles that lose me by the second paragraph, because I notice their intentions are to promote their business, and not offer any valuable information that I’m seeking to help me. This may be done intentionally, but sometimes I truly feel these writers are trying to do too much in such little time, and they want to produce and send out as much as they can at one time, not realizing that they are compromising the quality of their article and the message they want to get out to the readers.

If you’re in business for a short-term, that’s fine, you can produce useless content and spread it throughout the Internet. However, in my opinion, I would rather take the time and create an article that when someone reads it, they will say that it helped them in some way.

Your expertise, and if you’re promoting a web site business can be jeopardized very quickly, so don’t ever underestimate the people reading your article. They have vast knowledge already, they do their research, but sometimes they need that little bit of information to get them back on track, and if you can provide them the information they’re looking for, your one article will be on its way to being very successful!

Once you’ve finally developed that keyword rich, informative article explaining how your business products can help make people’s lives so much better, you will also notice that your well-written business articles will be quickly picked up by some of the top ezine and content publishers.

This is important, because you want to get your message out to as many people as you can, and this is achieved by sending them to top directories that distribute your content for you. If you create a poorly written article, chances are these content directories will not touch it. This is a very good indication that your company has to go back to the drawing board and start revamping your article!

When you take the time to create an article that many readers will take your information and use it to help them better their lives, you will have achieved something that many bad article writers don’t, and that’s business authority, and respect. In the long run if you stick to developing more value-based articles rather than a large volume of badly written articles, you will surely build a successful foundation for your business for many years to come!

About the Author: William is the Author and owner of http://GobalArticle-Business.com A free article directory source for Business and Marketing Authors, Ezine Publishers, and Webmasters looking to exchange and share their industry experience and knowledge in one convenient place.

Source: www.isnare.com

Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=71816&ca=Marketing

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Freelance Writing Opportunities – Opportunities Online For Freelance Writers

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

By Steve Phipps

Freelance writing opportunities are on a rapid rise these days and one may think that is a crazy statement since newspapers and magazines are going out of business in record numbers.

The reason I say that freelance writing opportunities are on the rise is due to the sheer amount of content on the internet.

Think about the billions of websites and blogs online that require a constant feed of written content to keep visitors coming on a daily basis. This actually presents more opportunities in freelance writing than were ever available in the off line print world.

The key is finding legitimate opportunities that require writing work from freelance writers. There is actually more work out there than most people realize and the reason you cannot find it is because you have to weed through the maze of scams and junk.

Many online business owners and even bloggers these days rely on the skills of freelance writers to provide a daily stream of content to their sites and blogs.

The reason for this of course is because we have become and “instant society”. The second a news story breaks or anything happens anywhere we want to know right now.

We also turn to the internet for information about a wide range of things we are interested in or want to learn.

Writers have to create all this content. Now maybe you can start to see there are an incredible amount of opportunities for freelance writing and beyond writing for others you can use your skill or passion for writing to make money in tons of other ways.

A great way to start taking advantage of freelance writing opportunities is to find a group of online business owners or site designers that simply do not have the time or skill to write their site content.

You can simply perform the topic research and craft article content for those business owners on a pay per submission basis. This approach alone could keep a writer busy on a full time basis while earning a very nice income.

Blogging about any topics you desire and adding in some paid advertisments can bring in a nice part time income and even grow into a six figure business as has been the case for many who started out freelance writing.

You have to be careful because there are a ton of “online informercial” type programs that target those who are looking to get paid as writers with opportunities that are not so great.

Either they pay pennies and you will literally have to write 10-12 hours a day to equal even a low paying hourly wage or they are simply a waste of time.

Just remember there is an entire world of website and blogs out there. Someone has to provide the content that visitors come to read. This means an incredible amount for real and legitimate freelance writing opportunities for skilled writers as well as those who simply have a passion for writing.

It can be a awesome way to make a living.

About the Author: Steve Phipps is an online business man that got his start as an online freelance writer. He has put together a nice video site and free newsletter for anyone interested in real legitimate freelance writing opportunities. You can visit his site at: http://www.authorsnook.com

Source: www.isnare.com

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