Social Networking Stuff

How to Effectively Use Social Networking For Your Online Business
By Bill Knight

The way we do business online is evolving, and at the forefront of this change is social networking. It was only ever going to be a matter of time before business crept into the realms of Facebook, MySpace and more recently Twitter. And for any self-respecting Internet marketer it has been an obvious move.

It stands to reason that where there’s a crowd, there’s money to be made.

But social network marketing is a brand new concept and many “traditional” marketers are failing to grasp the real opportunities it offers. It’s going to be a case of “back to school” for many of these social misfits and it’s going to be “back to the drawing board” for many of their ill-fated marketing strategies.

So can we mere mortals unravel the mystery of successful social network marketing?

Yes of course we can. Just as long as you can implement the theories relevant to reverse psychology and fully understand the principles of viral and affiliate marketing, then you should have no problems whatsoever.

What does this mean for the typical Internet marketer of today? Well, to a degree it means no more automatic sales machines pumping out cash 24/7. Why? Because you’re going to have to start communicating with people, and that means you’ll have to make yourself available.

People don’t want to be treated like a “prospect” anymore. They don’t want to be seen as just another sales figure. They want to be able to meet their seller, talk to them and befriend them.

They want to know that you are a genuine person. And they want to know that if anything should go wrong with the product or service they have purchased from you, you will respond to their problems in a timely and courteous manner.

They also want to know that they can count on you for help and advice. So if you want to stay in business and grow your business, then you are going to have to learn to talk to your customers. It’s back to basics.

That understood, how then do you create new business through the social network channels?

The answer is, create a formula or a system. Every successful Internet marketer knows that to generate a lot of business you need a system. It’s as well to remember that people don’t make money, systems do.

So, let’s look at what is needed in order to create an effective business generating system.

Obviously you will need a product or service, which you will have already established that your prospects will want. Don’t worry, if they don’t want it you’ll soon find out.

Next, you need to start socialising. For the sake of this demonstration, I recommend you open an account on Facebook and Twitter. Use Twitter to get as many followers as you can and don’t stop getting new followers every day. Build that list!

Make sure that your “Tweets” are interesting. Talk about what you know and try to get people to join you on Facebook, where you can offer more in-depth information about yourself, your business and your products and services.

Start a blog and write about your business, then tell your followers on Twitter and Facebook each time you post to your blog. Offer free advice, free information and even free products.

Now, at no time should you try to convince people that they should visit your website to buy your products, even though this is what you obviously and ultimately want them to do. Instead, offer free and valuable information about your products or services. Your goal is to get people asking where they can buy such a product or service. And of course you will have the answer.

If you can become an “expert” by offering free information and advice, people will fall over themselves just to get to you. They’ll beat a path to your website and they’ll beat your front door down and buy everything you suggest.

Don’t stop giving your customers freebies. For example, create a report, which need only be 10 pages long and include links to your website or affiliate products throughout. Tell your customers that they can give it away for free from their websites, their blogs and their emails.

Encourage them to give it away to as many people as they can. It needs to become viral, so make sure the report contains valuable information or links to free downloads.

Now make sure that your main product or your next product can make money for your customers. As part of your “system” you need to create an army of affiliates. Start an affiliate program and recruit resellers like there’s no tomorrow. Use Clickbank or PayDotCom to handle everything for you.

But don’t ever, ever try to recruit affiliates on your social network circuit unless they have expressed an interest or have bought from you already. You must first nurture your prospects. Give them help, advice, guidance and valuable information so they practically fall in love with you. Then they will buy your products, and tell everyone else how great you are.

Remember, this is SOCIAL network marketing. Make friends first and the sales will follow.

Bill Knight is a highly respected International copywriter based in the UK. He specializes in creating hypnotic online sales letters, ads and email marketing campaigns for clients from all over the world.

Visit his website for more information about the full range of services he offers to individual entrepreneurs, small businesses and corporate clients.

http://www.knight-writer.co.uk

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Crossing the Social Networking Chasm
By Scott Allen

Simon Rogers has uncovered over 1 million British pounds in potential revenues for his company 2Delta, a reseller specializing in project management software, as a result of his participation in Ecademy, an online networking site. After just four months in business, he has been introduced to more than 16 opportunities, each worth 75,000 pounds or more. He’s already closed four deals, including one “nicely into six figures.” For him, Ecademy is a significant business accelerator.

“It is early days,” Rogers says, “but this is startup No. 5 for me, and I know I am miles ahead of where I was with any of the others, and I built each of those businesses into $5 million annual revenue before selling them. I have high hopes.”

When asked whether a social network like Ecademy works for people wanting to build a business, he answers, “Absolutely, but it needs to be ‘worked’ with a process and a view to sharing the rewards. I plan to make money for the people who help me. The word will get around that Rogers is a good man, that his proposition is a good one, that 2Delta delivers the highest quality service and has delighted clients, who give us all repeat business.”

The tech media, perhaps burned by its spoiled love affair with the dotcoms, is now ready to dump online social networks after only a brief fling. Until late 2003, the coverage consisted of, essentially, “Why are all these VCs investing all this money? Where’s the business model?” For a year, there was romance. But now, some pundits are saying that the wave has passed, that the bubble has already burst.

Meanwhile, LinkedIn has topped 1 million users. Many more socially oriented sites crossed the million-member point a while ago, including Meetup, Friendster, and Tickle. The band REM recently announced that they will be previewing their new album on MySpace. OpenBC has gone truly global, supporting German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Chinese on their site. Enterprise-oriented tools from Contact Network Corporation and Leverage Software have already garnered multiple paying customers. And tens of thousands of people are developing business relationships in ways they never did before.

And yet most Internet users still haven’t even heard of them.

To put this in perspective, Classmates boasts over 38 million members; Reunion.com, 22 million; and craigslist gets 6 million unique visitors a month. Clearly, there’s a lot of room for the new crop of social networking sites to grow, as well as a demonstrated precedent that people are willing to pay to connect with each other for a variety of purposes.

The potential market for business networking is enormous. Over 20 million businesses worldwide are members of local chambers of commerce. Add to that all the marketing, business development, and non-retail sales professionals, plus hiring managers, recruiters, and job seekers, and the number gets very large. Generating revenue and supporting other business processes via relationships are as compelling reasons to connect as finding old schoolmates or potential dating partners. This technology is still in the early adopter stage and has a ways to go before being truly mainstream.

The ultimate question that’s going to determine mainstream adoption is simply, “Do they work?” At the moment, the answer is twofold. Yes and no.

Business networking sites are not living up to the expectations of many people. They don’t effectively represent electronically the complexities of interpersonal relationships. They create awkward social situations that don’t exist face to face — such as how to deal with an explicit request to be someone’s friend, something most of us haven’t had to deal with since third grade. And they don’t prevent spam.

But the fact that they’re not yet living up to their potential shouldn’t blind us from the real immediate benefits to be gained. Let’s look at some of the unique benefits online networking sites offer that traditional face-to-face relationship building does not:

Searchable directory

Where else can you easily search for people by industry, geography, title, and personal interests? It’s the yellow pages on steroids. You can be highly focused in a way that’s impossible in person.

High visibility at low cost

Most of the sites let you create a profile for free. Sure, there’s a limit to how many you can actively participate in, but you can participate passively in dozens of sites. The trick is to keep a document with a master copy of all your profile information so you can easily copy and paste it and set up your profiles quickly. As UCLA Professor Phil Agre says, “The most fundamental way of finding people online is to help them find you.”

Receptive audience

While no one likes to be approached inappropriately, you’ll find people in networking sites more receptive to an informational phone call or email exchange. On LinkedIn, for example, you can specify whether or not you’re willing to accept contacts regarding deal proposals, and you can limit your searches only to people that are. In the discussion boards, blatant advertising may not be allowed, but you won’t be accused of making a sales pitch just for sharing your expertise.

Easy group-forming

Growing a discussion list or forum on your own site is no easy task. In the social networking sites, there’s a built-in audience looking for groups to join. Groups have a visibility within the larger environment that simply doesn’t exist with an independent community, or even on a broad open site like Yahoo Groups. People really will start signing up almost immediately after you create your group, if you offer value to them.

Get visibility into the networks of your connections

The ability to see your connections’ connections, and to determine who you know that can make an introduction to the person you’re targeting, is very powerful and has no direct parallel in face-to-face interaction. In fact, it’s so powerful that entire products are created just around this ability. As Contact Network founder/CEO Geoffrey Hyatt says about his company’s product, “It’s a one-trick pony, but it’s a very valuable trick.” Jeannine Solanto, CEO of Foundation Systems, reports that her company has cut their sales cycle by 15-20%, on average, by using Leverage Software to gain access and influence within target accounts.

You can realize these benefits immediately with the existing technology, regardless of its imperfections. In many cases, you can just use the free service, but even the premium memberships only run a few dollars a month — chump change if you’re actually generating business. So the real ROI question isn’t whether they’re worth the money, but whether they’re worth your time. The answer is “yes” — not because the sites themselves are, but because the relationships are.

Online networking sites simply help you manage more relationships with less effort.

David Teten and Scott Allen are coauthors of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online, the first business guide to sales, recruiting, and business acceleration with online networks, and joint contributors to TheVirtualHandshake.com resource site. They write a monthly column about online networks for FastCompany.com, where this article originally appeared.

David Teten is CEO of Nitron Advisors, an investment research firm which provides institutional investors and law firms with direct access to frontline industry experts. To participate in paid consulting opportunities, join Nitron’s Circle of Experts. Scott Allen is the About.com Entrepreneurs Guide, providing free resources and guidance to help entrepreneurs as they start and grow their business.

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How Can Social Networking Help You?
By Michael Corbin

In spite of the vast success of a lot of social networking websites, billions of people haven’t eventually determined the rewards of it. Maybe it is owing to the inconvenient spots where users feel themselves suspicious of the friendly relationships proposed by strangers exactly like when we were in junior high. However, social networking may propose a lot of profits that may aid you and your business. Present are a few of these profits you will love if you utilize these social networking web sites in just the right way.

• Neat research: Exclusively these sites provide online users with a research directory that you will be able to utilize to locate special individuals or groups. You will be able to explore by classes like localization, industry, interests and additional specific tastes. With this method, you don’t knock off your time and resources building connection with masses you and your business enterprise have zero in common with.

• Inexpensive visibility: As most of these websites are costless, you must maximize them. Make certain that the profile you make will be absorbing for the reviewers. As well, you should construct it more individualized from contributing gripping articles, pictures, videos and regular surveys of your merchandises.

• Hospitable Members: The conception of these sites lies in at the least one thing in mutual. As of this, it’s not amazing that you will welcome messages from folks you don’t actually acknowledge or as well, you may be involved in making contact with any of the members who could interest you.

• Intrinsic Group: Beginning a discussion isn’t hard on social networking sites equated to developing one on your web site. With the billions of visitors and users, you’ll have no trouble with pulling in participants. Discussion groups are as well the finest space to do some delicate trading. You will be able to achieve this by contributing your expertise about specific topics.

• Build up Network Easily: The key to laying down a flourishing internet business enterprise is being available to others outside your electronic network. The truth that you’re associated to these people because of an active association with one of your middlemen, score an extra mark for you of being dependable. Equated to approaching somebody on the street, these websites would offer you with extensive commercializing advantage.

You should take acknowledgment of each of these social networking advantages because they will indicate you the limitless openings that may be offered by these sites. Its function has developed as a mass medium where genuine friends contact and fresh human relationships are made. Nowadays, internet businesses regard these sites as the finest resources of fresh thoughts in addition to its expected customers.

Are you a newbie or have been really doing well on social networking websites? Willing to expand your contacts with friends, family and associates? Visit Pikatcho Online Community. Easy to sign-up and catch up with your new and old associates. Try now!

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Social Networking Women
By Liz Lichti

If you are one of the many work at home social networking women then you know how time consuming it can be ‘tweeting’ to make potential business connections and keep up. I find too it’s hard to stay focused with all the interesting people on Twitter and links to cool sites. Fun, yes. Profitable? Not so much.

I often wonder how these people who have thousands of follows have the time to attract them let alone keep up with them. I know I have spent my share of late nights following new people, tweeting and direct messaging to feel too burned out for any kind of marketing the next day or to meet the demands of my family.

Have you noticed? It seems as though every other person on Twitter has a link in their message to increase your followers in one week, one month, 60 days, while you sleep,… and the list goes on.

Have you noticed? There are Twitter accounts that have actually generated tens of thousands of followers within an incredibly short time. They appear to be the large businesses with a staff doing the tweeting for them or celebrities who don’t even follow anyone yet have over 100,000 followers.

So, how does a smart entrepreneurial woman work from home and play in the big league without compromising her family obligations or bank account?

The solution? Good social networking software tools and by good I don’t mean those free viral, multilevel programs that everybody else is signing up for.

If you want something that works, do your research and be prepared to invest a little bit of money in a program that will not only increase your followers, but that will also teach you how to market to your new followers in a hands off, highly effective approach.

That way you can be a social networking mama and manage to do it all, make decent money and still have time for the most important things in life.

Start doing your research now, so you can start saving time. With the right program I believe you can be among the top most successful social networking women and get big league results on autopilot.

If you wish to skip the research part you can check out a product that I just happened to stumble on while, you guessed it - on Twitter!

It’s new and absolutely cutting edge and the proof is in the results. I was skeptical as always, but the people promoting it were real people like you and me doubling their followers (this is conservative) within one week and making money doing it.

Now, I’m not a die hard Twitterer, but I was impressed. I thought this information was worth my time to share it, but you be the judge. Click here to learn more.

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5 Easy Steps to Develop a Social Network
By Kelsi J Guidry

So you want to develop a social networking website? That is Great! You have come to the right place to learn how to develop your own social network. The following article will assist you by creating the step by step process you should take to reach your goal.

But first, let me explain that there is much thought that must go into creating a social network before jumping into development mode. You MUST take the right steps to plan your path.

So You’re Ready To Get Started? Great! Let’s get started by getting the definition of what a social networking website really is.

An online social network is an online community of people who share interests and or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. A social network also provides a variety of ways for its users to interact with each other.

From reading the definition, we have come across the first few steps needed to begin.

Step 1) Selecting a Niche Topic for people to share their interests and activities. This is the first big decision and the first point everything can go wrong. Make sure you select a topic for your niche social network website that you are passionate about but that others are passionate about also.

Step 2) Determine the Functions You Want for your users to be able to interact with each other. Almost all social networks have the same set of features which are considered essential to qualify as a social networking service. This includes personal profiles, member comments, privacy settings, blogs, photo albums, groups, forums, uploading videos, applications, and widgets. There are many other functions that can be added and created for your specific social networking website. The sky is the limit on the types of functioning applications that can be built for social networks.

Step 3) Build Your Social Networking Community by choosing one of the three solutions by which you can make your own social network. The first two categories include “White Label” solutions which is software you can brand and integrate tightly into your existing domain or create from scratch. The final category is a custom social network that can be created from scratch or by customizing one of the first two solutions.

* Social Network Platforms

* Social Network Scripts

* Custom Social Network

Step 4) Creating Content is one of the first and most important things you must do once your social network has been setup. Content can be articles, posts, tools, videos, audio or links. You should first learn why and how to create unique, quality content. Many people rely on their visitors to create content, but this is unlikely to happen if there is nothing to draw them to the website in the first place. You must create the base content for your users to build upon. You should spend the first month or so with your website developing content. You want to keep in mind that the content you create should:

* Be informative and engaging.

* Accurately portray the mission of your website.

* Provide multiple ways for users to locate your content.

* Create plans to release a continues stream of content.

Step 5) Building traffic to your social network is the most important of all. If people don’t know your website exists, no matter how good your content, you won’t build an audience. It is content plus marketing which will build traffic to your website. Marketing via communication channels are what bring people to your website. The main reason the majority of websites fail is because of a lack of marketing. The following is a list of easy to use marketing tips, and the best part is, most of them are FREE.

* Network to bloggers

* Participation in other websites

* Create social media accounts

* Article submission

* Traditional online advertising such as purchasing ads

* SEO

DesignWants.com content is produced by Kelsi Guidry, a social media entrepreneur from Louisiana. Kelsi has created, and managed MyWants Inc., an internet social media business which operates the iWants.com network. Kelsi has been working with social media for over five years. As a social media consultant, Kelsi is always on top of the most important topics in social media web development technologies and strategies. It is his job to show people how to make their business strive from using social media.

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