A lot of people shun away from Social Media and Social Marketing, because many associate Social Marketing with just sites such as Facebook and often consider this a ‘waste’ of time spent chit chatting. The majority are not aware of how effective Social Marketing is to build a fan base, to brand yourself as an expert in your niche and to generate more traffic to your business. But this is only guaranteed if one knows how to use Social Marketing the right way.

In this article I am going to go over the several different types of sites that make up Social Media, and categorize them in 5 sections.

1. Social Networking (Community Sites):-
These sites are where one enters to network with different kinds of people. Each site is usually for a specific group of people.
 Facebook – student communities
 LinkedIn – manage and share your resume (CV)
 MySpace – friend site
 MeetUp – find common interests and organize meetings
 Twitter – update your followers what you are up to

2. Social Bookmarking (Social News Sites):-
These are the user-submitted and voted news sites where anyone can post stories and take advantage of the traffic flowing through the sites to get targeted visitors. Communities can share their favourite bookmarks, articles, videos, etc – anything that is news.
 Digg – submit links and stories; vote and comment on the content
 Technorati – find what people are saying
 Del.icio.us – store, share and discover web bookmarks
 Reddit – submit, rate and rank news
 StumbleUpon – discover great websites that match your interests

3. Content Sharing Sites:-
Websites where you can generate your own content and share it with the community.
 Wikipedia – contribute and get smart (can create a Wiki for your site)
 Squidoo – create pages (called lenses) for subjects of interest
 HubPages – submit magazine-style articles which are posted as individual webpages (referred to as Hubs)
 Gather – share, earn and gather information
 EzineArticles – expert authors share their best quality original articles

4. MultiMedia Sharing Sites:-
Websites which specialize in all kinds of media sharing and creation.
 YouTube – upload and share your video
 Flickr – manage and share your photos
 SlideShare – upload and share publicly or privately PowerPoint presentations
 JamGlue – create and personalize audio. Upload, record music and remix it.

5. Blogging Sites:-
Blogging platforms allow you publish content directly onto your blog, to communicate and share your knowledge with your customers.
 Blogger – a free blog publishing tool from Google for easily sharing your thoughts with the world.
 WordPress.com – another free blog publishing tool
 Movable Type – build websites, blogs and communities on a single platform
 WordPress.org – own your blog and install on a domain name of your choice

In future articles I will be showing you the different ways of how I use the above multi-faceted marketing strategies to promote my businesses (internet marketing business, service provider offline business, and service provider online business). In the meantime start contributing to the places and get links. Just do it responsibly and the way the other members of each community do it to keep from getting banned. You do NOT want to spam these places.

Be aware – this Social Media trend is HUGE and is extremely under utilized by the majority of online business owners, offline business owners and network marketers. However, be warned… there is a right way and a wrong way to use Social Media and Social Marketing to get massive levels of exposure – including more traffic and more leads – for your business.

If, on the other hand, you are aching to learn immediately the correct way of how to use Social Marketing Strategies, so as to start implementing the strategies ASAP to market your business, then Click Here if you would like to generate leads for your MLM business or Click Here if you would like to generate traffic for your Online, Offline or Small Business, especially if it is service related. You would need to input your e-mail to get access to some phenomenal training, and a chance to have a coaching session with me where I will personally show you the ropes and how to specifically use Social Media Marketing for your particular business.

To Your Success

Related posts:

1. How to Market Online To Generate an Income
2. Attraction Marketing – how to have a stream of eager prospects contacting YOU
3. David Wood – A Review of the Article Marketing Rockstar

Whether you are involved in a Network Marketing Company (MLM) or you are a service professional or you are a small business owner, internet marketing can help you explode your business. However, one has to have a strategy in place for the marketing to be effective.

Branding YOU as the Expert

The NUMBER ONE rule of thumb is that you have to Brand You and Your Company as a leading thought in your industry, to succeed on the internet. You have to respect the ‘law’ that first you help people before asking for their business. It is human nature that when people start viewing you as an expert in your field, they automatically do what you tell them to do – as they have come to respect your opinion and trust you that you are advising them for their own benefit. You have become a source of authority in their life – so they buy from you, they ‘hire’ you as their service professional, they follow your guidance, …

To become known as an expert in your niche, you mainly start by helping people. You have to earn their trust, by showing them that you are a leader in your industry and you know what you are talking about. But first they have to experience first hand that you know what you are talking about and that they can trust you. Hence, a complete no-no is pitching your sales talk at first sight. Rather at the first meeting offer some tips on how they can better their situation.

Let me give you an example for all this to be clear. Let’s say you are a florist by profession and have a store (can be online or offline). You are in an online forum when someone complains that they bought these flowers and after just 1 day they died. So you would write in the forum about tips how to make your flowers survive longer than 1 day – you would go into how to choose flowers when buying, if to cut the stem or not, how often to change the water, what room temperature should the flowers be and so on. At the end of your comment, you would write your name and your website address. This would position you as an expert, and people would come to visit your website and then your store. Compare the above to instead leaving a comment and writing something like this: ‘Buy your flowers from www.FxLxOxWxExRxS.com – guaranteed to last you for 10 days.’ I am sure you realize which comment will generate more traffic.

Who can Market Online?

Anyone who is alive and breathing can use the power of the internet to market and brand oneself and one’s company.

If you are a Service Professional or a Solo Entrepreneur, you can use the internet to brand yourself as an expert in your field. Set up a blog and market yourself as a thought leader in your niche, by writing articles and giving free knowledge to your readers. For example if you are an accountant you can write articles on how to calculate your yearly income tax, how to save on your taxes, simple tips for business owners, and so on.

Same goes if you are a Small Business Owner – use the internet to brand your business as the leading company in your niche. If you are an owner of a hairdressing salon – write articles on how to have a hair cut that suits your features, the latest trends, 5 easy tips on how to ensure healthy hair, and more.

Let’s now look at someone who is involved in an MLM company. You were given a generic company website, you were not taught how to market effectively, and hence you are suffering from a lack of leads. So you turn to the internet to brand yourself as an expert in your niche, and hence start generating endless leads. Let us say that you are involved in a company selling vitamins. So you create a blog where you market yourself as an expert in vitamins – you write articles on why vitamins are important, how many vitamins a day is needed, what vitamins to avoid if you are breast feeding, and on and on. This will brand you as an expert in vitamins, and people would automatically follow your advice and buy vitamins from you. Now in Network Marketing, one makes a living from selling but also from recruiting. So it is also important to brand yourself as an expert in recruiting. You can do this by targeting those individuals who are aspiring entrepreneurs. (Note: not your friends and family, nor the strangers at the mall, nor the leads that you call off a list, but aspiring entrepreneurs who have always dreamt of being their own boss). You would write articles to teach them on how to start their own business, how to market online, how you recruit people, and so on.

One thing I have to emphasize is that the information that you supply to people has to be the truth – as otherwise if someone finds out that you have been tricking them, then your reputation and business takes a quick downhill turn.

How to Market Online

Your next question must be how do I market online and brand myself as an expert?! You have to use marketing strategies to generate traffic to your website – some of them are free and others are paid strategies. An easy-to-understand example, which many of you are familiar with, is offline marketing – stores and other businesses use different mediums, such as newspapers, magazines, press releases, postcards, radio, TV to advertise and generate traffic to their store or business. Exactly the same goes on in the internet. There are different marketing strategies that you can make use of to advertise you and your business, to generate traffic to your online store (your website) and / or your offline business.

One of my favourite marketing strategy is blogging, and hence article marketing. I am sure that you have realized that having an online presence is a must nowadays for any business. If you don’t have an online presence, you are invisible to the world, and generating business would be harder. Some businesses choose to have a static website, however I strongly prefer a self-hosted blog where you are constantly updating information and constantly communicating with your clients. (Note: creating a self-hosted blog is easy to setup – no knowledge of HTML needed, and you can set up your own self-hosted blog with one 90 minute training webinar. You can Click Here for the free training) With blogging comes article writing, where you can even submit your articles to different directories – this marketing strategy will help to continue branding yourself as the person-to-go-to in your niche, and will help to promote your blog as a platform to your business.

Other marketing strategies include using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn to brand you as an expert, and direct people to your blog, and hence to your business (can be online store or offline business). Using paid strategies such as Pay Per Click ads and Paid Press Releases is another form of generating traffic to your business. Leaving comments on other blogs, participating in forums and interacting on the internet is also effective, especially in the beginning. Advertising for free on Craigslist and Backpage is another option. E-mail marketing is another effective way to keep a correspondence with your list of readers and clients.

As you can see, there are many ways one can ‘advertise’ on the internet. But MY ADVICE TO YOU is to choose one marketing strategy, or maximum two, and stick with it till you start seeing results. Keep tweaking and testing till you become an expert in that marketing strategy, and your conversions start pouring in. Always follow the mantra ‘expect to give before expecting anything in return’ – give out free valuable information (not spam and not pitching your sales story) that will brand you as a leader in your niche, and eventually this will earn you big bucks. And also keep in mind that using the internet as a medium to brand yourself as an expert takes time – so be patient but consistent – your determination will eventually pay off big time.

I personally use MLSP as my marketing system – it is my educational platform where I constantly learn effective marketing strategies that brand me as an expert in my niche, strengthens my reputation, and consequently gives me great leverage and power to explode my business. If you would like to test drive the same system, then visit www.BrandingYouandCo.com for more information.

To Your Success

Related posts:

1. Attention All Service Professionals – 5 Simple Ways How to Create an Online Presence to Generate More Business
2. Social Media Marketing – is it worth your time?
3. How a Podiatrist Blogs to Generate More Business For His Practice

This is a short post from me for today, but if you are a service professional and would like to see a ‘live example‘ of how a podiatrist (foot doctor) created a blog to:
* syndicate his offline business with an online presence,
* get more clients for his existing, offline business – his clinic,
* be viewed as the person-to-go-to for any foot problems,
* be seen as an expert in his niche.

Take a time today to visit Dr Andrew Schneider’s Blog and read through some of his interesting and informative articles, such as:
<< Ten Important Foot Facts for 2010 >>
<< Is That A Bunion On TOP Of My Foot??? >>
<< Why Suri Cruise and All Children Should Not Wear High Heels >>
<< Five Items Every Runner Should Have On Their Holiday Wish List >>

Thanks to Laura Roeder for the tip to check out Dr Schneider’s blog!

To Your Success

Related posts:

1. Attention All Service Professionals – 5 Simple Ways How to Create an Online Presence to Generate More Business
2. How to Market Online To Generate an Income
3. How To Create Raving Fans on Facebook to Generate Leads For Your Business

All of the top achievers I know are life-long learners… looking for new skills, insights, and ideas. If they’re not learning, they’re not growing… not moving toward excellence. ~ Denis Waitley

The attraction marketing system that I personally use: MLM Lead System Pro hosts a valuable training call every Wednesday at 9pm EST (New York Time) to its members and their guests, that will keep you on the cutting-edge in the industry. Clear your schedule now and make time for these very important webinars.

Some of the previous training calls were:

* Retired Cable Guy To Successful Entrepreneur with Larry Beacham
* 7 Habits of Successful People With Erica Combs
* Psychology of Prospecting With Jeffery Combs
* Recruiting Training with Cedrick Harris
* Blogging 101 with Jeff Hoffman
* Facebook Marketing with Jim Chao

As you can see, these are valuable training calls that will definitely take your business to the next level…
… and there is ABSOLUTELY NO REQUIREMENT that you have to be involved in a multi-level marketing (MLM) company to join and benefit, as the training’s main focus is always on how to market effectively and successfully – to BRAND YOU – mainly using the power of the internet, regardless of your company or profession. Hence, any aspiring entrepreneur would definitely benefit…

So make sure to sign up below to be invited to this Wednesday’s training call…

P.S. If for whatever reason you can’t attend any of the webinars, maybe because of time difference, then you might want to try out the trial membership here, where you will find all the training calls archived in the back office.

To Your Success

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Imagine your cell phone going off. It is the 5^th time today. You take the call and you hear:

“Hi Claire. My name is Jack. I have been checking out your website for the past hour and I’m interested in working with you.”

 Imagine getting an e-mail:

“Hi Claire.

This is Anne. I have been doing some research on the internet and came across your website. I have studied it really well and have decided to join your company. I am ready to get started now.”

This is every marketer’s dream. In this article, I am going to discuss how by using attraction marketing for your business, you are taking big steps towards making this dream a reality for you.

Traditional Selling

On reading the above, most people say:

“Common Claire. I just wish that happens to me, but it sounds too good to be true!”

And I don’t blame you for not believing in the power of attraction marketing, if you are used to using outdated dinosaur ‘old school’ techniques, that upline trainers still teach, to promote your business, such as:

• chasing family and friends
• making lists of warm leads
• prospecting at malls
• using the ‘3-foot’ rule
• buying leads
• cold-calling
• sending out e-mails to people not on your list (in other words – spamming)
• putting up signs on telephone poles
• handing out flyers
• wearing embarrassing buttons and pins
• doing presentations and meetings
• organizing parties.

You have been given a replicated website, taught the ‘art of duplication’ and have been urged to sell aggressively. And most probably, along the way, you have experienced painful rejection, humiliation, frustration, wasted time, and little or no results to show for all your hard work and money.

This can all change if you embrace ‘the science’ of attraction marketing.

Understanding people

Grasping the philosophy of attraction marketing can be difficult, especially for traditional marketers. To understand the law of attraction, first we need to learn about people and change our focus.

• People don’t like being sold to. The more you sell, the more people resist it. The more polished you are the more they will resist your approach. Don’t sell them, use attraction marketing :-)

• People don’t like the feeling of being handled. They like being free to choose, and to shop around without being pressurized.

• People like to buy. It’s always exciting to go home with a shopping bag or to wait for an item in the post. Also people love the experience of shopping – if it is enjoyable.

• People like being in control. They need to be in control of the whole buying process. They like building relationships and would come back repeatedly for the pleasant experience – to feel good.

So, nowadays people don’t just buy because they need something, but rather they buy into the experience. Attraction Marketing is all about creating a long term relationship with the customer.

What is Attraction Marketing?

Attraction Marketing is the way you project yourself, which makes people want to do business with you. It makes them keep on coming back to you for more. The more value and knowledge you give, the better the chances of conversion are (from leads to customers).

The benefits of Attraction Marketing:

• doesn’t waste your time nor does it waste the time of uninterested customers.
• in many ways it takes the pressure off you (the seller) and does not put any pressure onto your customer.
• your time will be spent talking to those who have a genuine interest in purchasing from you or doing business with you. Remember, your customers will come to you now.
• implement a system that will allow your customers to get to know and trust you. In their eyes you will become an expert in your field. Helps to build your credibility, and draw interested and targeted prospects to your site. Automatically creates deep, personal and emotional relationship between you and your prospects before they talk to you.
• brands YOU, which ensures that you never go out of business.
• gives customers the ability to contact you. (In return, you should return emails and phone calls promptly.) Now the tables have turned – it is they who are contacting you, as opposed to you cold-calling uninterested people. You have become the hunted instead of being the hunter!!!
• no more selling or painful rejection.
• uses automation to enroll customers and distributors (almost effortlessly). Hence your business becomes more profitable.
• generates quality leads – prospects will be giving you their contact details, thus building your own profitable list. Ever heard the saying – ‘the money is in the list’?!
• puts the fun back into your business
• in essence, attraction marketing gives you the tools to deal with those who are now well informed about your business and ready to make a purchase.

So now the trick is how to attract people and get them to chase you?!

First of all you need to have a web presence. The website has to be unique to you – it has to be YOUR website. It has to brand YOU. Ideally you should purchase a domain name and host a wordpress blog on your own server. This gives you total control over your blog, and positions you as a person who knows their stuff.

Then your aim is to direct traffic to your website – to promote your website. You can use different marketing strategies such as social media marketing (facebook, myspace), video marketing (youtube), article marketing, pay-per-click, and even offline marketing (direct mail). The list is endless. You have to choose 1 or 2 marketing strategies that you are good at, and focus on those.

The more links you have online, the more prospects you will attract to your website. The more traffic you get to your website, the more visible your website becomes and the more you will be looked at as an authority in your niche. You need to make sure to provide your leads with valuable information, so that they want to keep coming to you and so your name will get out there.

Summary

For many, understanding attraction marketing can be a real shift in their way of thinking.

In traditional marketing, you go out and aggressively tell people what you offer. On the other hand, attraction is a more indirect way of bringing prospects to you based on their getting to know you, trust you and value you.

In the attraction approach, you have to add MASSIVE value to people (usually for free or cheap), and then they’ll trust you enough to spend significant money for even more value. The hint here is – instead of thinking about selling, focus on serving. To have long-term success in your business, give value before you expect to receive.

Now, attraction marketing doesn’t replace your current marketing campaigns; it rather enhances and compliments them. It can actually be adapted to any business, whether you are promoting a network marketing opportunity or selling a specific product or service.

Promoting using attraction marketing is a long term strategy – it might not give you immediate results in terms of conversions, however, it is powerful in branding you and your business, and building life-long relationships based on trust and value, where prospects keep coming back to YOU because they view you as an expert in your field.

To Your Success

P.S. Are you still hoping for the big break? If you are sick and tired of chasing people, with no break in sight, then it’s time to take control and change your action plan. Uncover my secrets to generating free leads and signing up more reps than I can handle on complete autopilot using social networking marketing. Go here NOW! => Give Me The Secrets

Related posts:

1. AutoResponder Service – why your business needs an e-mail marketing campaign?
2. How to Market Online To Generate an Income
3. I’m new to Internet Marketing – what’s my first step?

‘Where a Nobody Prospers’

In this blog… Educational, Inspirational, Empowering training on:

How to Use Internet Attraction Marketing Tactics To Create Your Own Raving Fans!

 Have you been trying to use Internet Attraction Marketing to brand yourself and market your business on the internet?
 Have you tried using Facebook as your marketing strategy, then after a few weeks of not seeing any results, you decided to switch to Twitter?
 Have you been switching from one mentor to another trying to search for answers to succeed like they did?
 Have you been buying one ebook after another, trying to find the secret to breakthrough?
 Have you been wanting to quit, but yet you hang on?

Well, I have the answer for you…. if you have arrived so far, then you are a fighter. Allow me to show you the marketing tactics that I use, and follow my step-by-step training so that you won’t get distracted anymore, and to stay on the right track of your success. Stay updated by subscribing to my blog so that you will immediately be notified of the latest posts.

Click Here to Start Your Step-by-Step Training

To Your Success

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