So when it comes to deciding which social media platforms make the most sense to use, the options can be overwhelming – if you let them. However, with a little focus, guidance, and strategic thinking, you can just as easily simplify your choices.

What follows draws from our 6-week “Social Media Kick Start” Virtual Boot Camp, which expands on these topics with self-paced learning modules.

Let’s start by keeping these two very important questions in mind: Where is your audience now? And where are they going to be?

Even if your target audience isn’t on a particular social network right now, consider the fact that involvement is social networks is growing exponentially. (Heck, if Facebook were a country, it would have the 4th largest population in the world!) Not everyone was on the Web 5-10 years ago, but you could see where the trend was going. Same thing with social networks. Here’s how to dive in confidently.

1. Start with the Big Three.

That’s LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. The odds that your audience is on one or more of these platforms right now is very high. And if they’re not on there, they will be by the time you finish reading this. Now, of the three, LinkedIn is the only one that doesn’t get tarred with the “It’s just for kids goofing off” brush. But consider this: The measurement company ComScore reported in April that the majority of Twitter users are 35+, and the 18-34 age group is growing as fast as the 55-64 age group. As for Facebook, InsideFacebook.com reports the largest group of users is between 26 and 44 years old, and the fastest growing demo is women 55 and over.

2. Budget your time and money.

These are your resources, and if you’re a small business owner, you’re using them with care these days. A platform like Twitter is about as simple as it gets – 5-minute sign up, a few communication conventions to learn as you go, then the Twitterverse is your oyster. Facebook, on the other hand, goes about as deep as they get in terms of customization opportunities. Consider learning and growing in this platform as a work in progress, and add, edit, expand and refresh as you go. Even LinkedIn has a lot of detail possibilities, too, but they also have a very helpful tool that tells you how complete your profile is, which can guide you through what options you need to finish to take maximum advantage of its features.

3. Follow the FUN!

It may sound frivolous at first, but there’s sound business sense behind it. First of all, as you play with each of the Big Three platforms, you’ll learn more about your own communication style, and how you like to experience your friends, contacts, and colleagues. Twitter presents quick snippets of insight, links, conversations, and opportunities to brainstorm on the fly. LinkedIn is more professional, following traditional and formal conventions. Facebook is all over the map, with nooks and crannies that’ll surprise you even after months of frequent use. In other words, if control is what you want, Facebook may be your nemesis, but if you dig spontaneity and possibilities from any direction, then hop on board.

The bottom line: if you pick a social network that you dread going to, you’ll find a way to put it off. If you’re not participating in the social network, then you won’t get much value out of it! What’s more, if you hate doing it, that’ll come through in your interactions. No one wants to connect with an unpleasant person. It’s just not good for business.

On the other hand, when you “follow the FUN,” you’ll make time for your social networking. You’ll laugh at the countless pathways – and diversions – available, and you’ll be able to get focused on the results you’re after with confidence and nimble clarity.

Then, as you expand beyond the Big Three, you’ll have a better sense of how to play in the social arena, and what features support your goals and style. Love taking photos? Love talking? Want to try out video? PowerPoint wiz? There are networks that support all media channels.

Some say at least 537, and counting.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

%%3 Tried-n-True Ways to Decide Which Social Media Tools to Use%%

3 Tried-n-True Ways to Decide Which Social Media Tools to Use

In the 1970’s groundbreaking research was done resulting in a much greater understanding of how the brain functions. The work of a Bulgarian scientist called Georgi Lozanov in the 1960’s laid the foundation for what the West would later call accelerated learning. Various dominant learning modalities were categorized which included audial, visual, and kinesthetic. Although our brains absorb information from all our senses, it was discovered that every individual has a preferred learning modality. Identify it and you can learn must faster.

But now, here is a critical statistic. It was also discovered through many tests that a majority of people like to learn visually. They like to see things as they absorb information. Some studies even put the figure as high as 65% of the population who absorb and recall information best by seeing.

Now can you see where this fits in when we talk of why you should add video to your web site? Pictures can make a huge difference in the way your message comes across. You can state something but when you show a picture of it, well, the effect is immediate.

In the late 1870’s experiments were done with moving pictures. Using 24 cameras, an English photographer by the name of Eadweard Muybridge, photographed a horse in fast motion. The series of photographs settled a debate of the day as to whether all four hooves leave the ground when a horse is running. The resulting ‘movie’ proved conclusively that they do.

From those humble beginnings, motion pictures developed to what they are today. Who can argue that motion pictures have not had an incredibly substantial impact on the 20th and 21st centuries, not only in the arts, but also in technology and politics.

This presents an amazing opportunity for the modern day marketer. Add video to your web site and you capitalize on this highly successful modern medium to get your message across. A large number of people think in pictures. So if you have a video presentation highlighting aspects of your products and services, think of how your sales conversion rates can increase.

Also, when you add video to your web site, you keep visitors there longer. Isn’t that another key aim of any webmaster? Using a tool like Google Analytics, you can measure the average time spent on your web site or on your web page. The longer a visitor stays on your site the greater the chance they will take action, either by browsing further on your site, or clicking on the link that will lead to the action you want.

As an experiment, why not add a video to your web site on one page, and then make a copy of that page without the video. Then do a split test and track the visitor behavior over a period of days or weeks. You may be astonished at the results.

Here’s another idea. In addition to adding video to your web site, why not add video to your blog or ebay auction? You may see your sales or signups soar as a result.

So to boil it all down, why add video to your web site? To make money. Why keep spending out trying to get more traffic when you can increase the sales conversion ratio of the traffic you already receive. Make your web site ’sticky’ by adding video so your visitors will not just click away but engage and actually stay a while. The longer they stay the better for you.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Add Video To Your Web Site: The Number 1 Reason

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Well in this article I’m going to give you some great links to what I think are the best free keyword research tools on the web to help you with your keyword analysis. They’ll give you some great stats to work with and hopefully do the job you were hoping for.

There’s just one thing I want to mention about these free keyword research tools below and that is they only give you the amount of searches for that given keyword phrase. What they don’t give you is your competition for those given keyword phrases.

But what we’re really trying to do here is find out if there’s a market for your interests and passions before you start building and marketing your website.

So with that said here are the free keyword research tools I think are the best for you to get started with and are very easy to use.

Lets start with the first one.

1) Wordtracker

With this free keyword research tool all you need to do is enter a starting keyword to generate up to 100 related keywords and an estimate of their daily search volume.

Go to: http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com

2) Google Adwords

This keyword research tool I think is by far the best because it allows you to enter keywords for analysis or a website URL(Hint: Great for analysising your competitors sites).

Go to: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

3) SEO Book

SEO Books keyword research tool is powered by Wordtracker’s API, plus it cross references Google and Yahoo search results to give you a detailed view of your keyword analysis.

Go to: http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

4) NicheBot Classic

With NicheBot Classic which also uses Wordtracker’s API allows you to insert your keyword and will give you the TOP 50 keywords and there daily search count and competing pages in Google, MSN and Yahoo.

Go to: http://www.nichebotclassic.com

5) Good Keywords

Good Keywords is a free Windows software for finding the perfect set of keywords for your web pages. Good Keywords is completely free. No registration, no payments and no nag screens.

Go to: http://www.goodkeywords.com

So there you have it, 5 of the TOP free keyword research tools available to you on the web for free to get you started with your keyword research.

There are of course paid services and software that give you more detailed keyword analysis but if you don’t have the money to spend these are a great starting point for you.

It all starts here with your keyword research because what’s the point of starting a website or paid advertising campaign without this valuable information in your hands.

I hope this list of free keyword research tools helps you and the best of luck with your websites and advertising campaigns.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

TOP 5 Free Keyword Research Tools For Web Developers And Online Marketers

While there are numerous platforms to choose from for managing a blog, few can compare with the immense flexibility offered with WordPress, and at a cost of free, the price can’t be beat either.

Google likes fresh new content, and setting up a blog on your site, assuming it is updated often with interesting and relevant material, can be one of the best things you can do to help out your search rankings. The beauty behind WordPress is that there is a wide array of totally free plug-ins you can easily install that will make your blog totally search engine friendly.

The following are some basic guidelines and essential plug-ins you should consider when you install your WordPress blog.

Template Design
The first configuration you need to do is work on customizing the design template to match your existing site. I suggest finding a template that matches as closely as possible to the look you are going for then work on tweaking its graphics, colors, and other particulars till you achieve the desired appearance.

Most of your changes will occur in the header.php, footer.php, index.php, and page.php files in the theme editor, however, the theme you install will dictate which files actually need to be updated. You will also need to make some adjustments to your CSS file. These changes all involve working with code and graphics, and are most likely left to a professional.

Once you have your design set up, the rest of the customization is considerably less technical. The following are suggestions that most people can do themselves and you probably will not need an expert to help you here.

Settings

Permalinks
The next thing you need to do is customize your URL’s. You do not want the default post URLs (”pageid=#”) as they are simply not search friendly and you want your default names to have some meaning to them. While you can customize your URL’s with various plug-ins, you may not always think to do this, so be sure to have a default you can live with.

Under the settings tab in your dashboard, click on permalinks. Here I suggest choosing one of the settings that includes the post name. Including the month and year is totally optional as it will have little to no impact on your search rankings, but you definitely do want to include the post name.

WWW or no WWW
With WordPress, there is no need to worry about the www vs no www redirects. It is handled for you, but you do need to select which variation you want, and it’s very simple to do. Under “General Settings” you will see two fields; one for “WordPress address” and the other, “Blog address”. Ensure that both these fields include the “www” (or not), whichever you prefer, and that’s it. (I always recommend using the “www” version of your URL as most people linking into your site will use it, and this will help keep a consistency among your site.

Required Plug-ins
There is an almost endless supply of free plug-ins out there that you can add to your site ranging from photo galleries and spam protection, to social media integrators for Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and others. While many of these others will benefit your blog and search rankings, the XML Sitemap, and SEO plug-ins are truly essential.

SEO Plug-in
When setting up your new installation, the first plug-in you need to install is one that will allow for totally customized title, meta description tags, and page URL’s. There are a number of tools that do this ranging from the widely popular “All in One SEO Pack” to a relative newcomer “HeadSpace2″.

While I personally have yet to try HeadSpace2, it is high on my list, as it has been recommended by many industry professionals as the best WordPress SEO plug-in. For any new blog installation I highly recommend this plug-in be installed right away.

XML Sitemap Plug-in
To the best of my knowledge, HeadSpace2 does not have an XML sitemap option, and as such I highly recommend “Google XML Sitemaps”. This plug-in will automatically generate XML sitemaps for you on the fly and submit it to Google every time you add, remove, or update a page or post. This helps ensure that Google has the latest information at all times. It’s a very simple plug-in to install and configure and once setup, you can forget about it and it will do the job for you.

A well optimized site loaded with relevant content can do very well in Google if setup correctly. The power of WordPress can make this process incredibly easy so all you have to worry about is writing those great articles and selling your customers. The plug-ins and functionality of WordPress are endless and when installed correctly can make the optimization of your blog considerably easier, increasing your chances for top rankings.

Scott Van Achte is the Senior SEO at StepForth Web Marketing Inc.; based in Victoria, BC, Canada and founded in 1997. You can read more of Scott’s articles and those of the veteran StepForth team at http://news.stepforth.com or contact us at http://www.stepforth.com

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Blogs, WordPress and Google

Every month people are finding new ways to connect their marketing efforts to Twitter and while many of these Social Media sites eventually disappear, it seems Twitter will flourish.

The problem that most people have is finding how to make the most of Twitter and even understanding all its features. Although there are many tools available, we will only cover a few here and spend most of our time on how to use Twitter to improve your social networking status.

Step 1: Setting Up Your Twitter Account

If you already have a Twitter accounts don’t skip this section because there may be something you missed. Go to: https://twitter.com/signup and create your account. It is a simple process.

Now this is not a step by step tutorial, but rather a guide to give you some ideas of the things you can do. Creating an account is a pretty straightforward process that takes about 20 minutes to:

1. Complete the registration form
2. Connect with people you know
3. Create a profile to your main website and a bio about you or your company
4. Set your location, how you want to be notified of friends, updates and more

Take the time to go over all the settings as they are easy to follow.

Step 2: Customize your background

This is where it gets interesting.  You simply login, click on “settings” and the click on “Design.” Then you can either choose a design that’s available or upload your own image. If you have a designer or are talented with Photo Shop you can create an interesting layout for your profile. Here are a few examples of some custom layouts:

1. http://twitter.com/nytimes
2. http://twitter.com/lookielookies
3. http://twitter.com/remotedatabase

As you can see, the possibilities run from design to even some marketing messages. Take the time to customize your theme or take the time to hire someone who can.

Step 4:  Add friends and follow people

If you didn’t do this when you first signed up, use the friend features provided. You’ll be given 3 options to find friends:

1. Find on Twitter – You can type in names of people you know, companies or even famous people. Who knows, you may meet a celebrity online or at least someone who claims to be one.
2. Invite people from other Networks – Connect to your hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo mail or AOL mail and see if anyone in your current contacts is using Twitter so you can start adding them as friends
3. Invite by email – Add a list of emails you have on file to connect with friends.  You can add them all in one area and send to all of them instantly.

Keep in mind that if you invite people to be your friend, they don’t have to be a member. They will either already be one or they can become one by using method 2 or 3. Spend about 20 minutes doing this the first time and then about 10 minutes after that as often as you can.

Step 5: Connect your Twitter to your blog

There are many tools out there to use for your Twitter page, but I just love this one.  Alex King has created a great plugin if you are using WordPress that will automatically create micro blogs for your blog posts . Go to: http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress to read all about it and http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/share-this/share-this.2.3.zip to download it.

Read all the instructions and support issues involved if you blog on a regular basis. It’s better to not have to post twice and it is a great way to get mini blogs on your Twitter account.

Step 6: Use another Twitter clone and connect it to your main Twitter account

There are many Twitter clone sites popping up and to use them all is a waste of time, but using just one is well worth the time and effort.

SiteProNews.com has recently created a Twitter clone account and has spend many hours perfecting this program and even going beyond the program’s scope to bring you a version of Twitter that puts all the others to shame.

You can create an account at: http://microblog.sitepronews.com/tw/home and in your profile settings put in your Twitter.com account so that when you post to your Twitter clone account it also posts to your Twitter.com account. This is a great way to gain exposure on Twitter and also a way to utilize another site with other features that Twitter doesn’t have.

Step 7: Monitor Your Twitter Grades

This is a fun tool that shows you how you rank in Twitter and how you fair against the Twitter giants! Go to http://twitter.grader.com/ and enter your user name to see how you rank from 0 – 100 possible points.

Twitter Grader bases their numbers on:

• Overall Rank
• Followers
• Following
• Updates

By staying active you can see how high you can rank.

Step 8: Build Links To Your Twitter Account From Social Bookmarking Sites

Why not take the time to build up your social networking account with Twitter by bookmarking it to your social bookmark accounts?  You might as well put a lot of effort into this Twitter movement and play to win.

Bookmark your site on your favorite bookmarking sites like Digg.com, Propeller.com, del.icio.us, dropjack.com and more.

Step 9: Use Twitters Advanced Search Features

This is going back to Step 4, but taking it a bit further. If you really want to connect with people related to your industry and target market, then you need to use Twitters Advanced Search features. Visit http://search.twitter.com/advanced and look at all the options. You can search keywords, names, locations and more.

Connect with people who truly relate to what you are doing. Be picky here and find those who have high grades and write great information. Find people who are active and will respond to your requests to be friends.

Watch your social status change as you optimize Twitter and take advantage of all it can do for you. Again, this is not a step by step guide, but an article helping you to see the potential in building up an online social networking site the right way.

Darren Dunner – Editor for SiteProNews, the leading webmaster news resource online. Follow us on twitter and our twitter clone. If you have any questions or are in need of services to have a site or blog setup properly feel free to contact me editor@sitepronews.com

Twitter for Marketing

If marketing entails everything you do to place your product or service in the hands of potential customers, including all communication, relationship building, and brand recognition – Twitter makes it instant.

For this reason, it is the perfect social networking platform for announcing sales, specials, and promotions. Many larger companies, such as Dell, have a Twitter account to announce sales as soon as they become available. As a small business owner, you can harness the power of Twitter this way too!

If you can get hundreds, or even thousands of people interested in your niche to follow your company’s tweets, you have a targeted líst of prospects at your fingertips. Simply tweet a brief detail or two about the special, and include your link. It’s that simple!

A líst of businesses on Twitter:

http://www.twibs.com

As a marketer, you know that the speed at which you can get your message out to your potential clients before your competition can reach them essentially determines your success. Twitter affords marketers the advantage of communicating with thousands of new prospects at the speed of light, and allows them to see your offer in real time.

Twitter for Customer Service

Many companies are designating human resources and time exclusively to enhance their customer service via social networking. Companies can find out the challenges, questions, and troubles that their clients are facing by reading their tweets to others.

Customer service representatives or public relations liaisons can immediately resolve any problems by engaging themselves in the conversation. Customer service representatives who engage their clientele via Twitter improve their company’s transparency, and show that they not only are concerned about their customers, but they also care about their brand.

Twitter for Product Development

Twitter can be used as an instant survey tool for product development. You can simply ask the likes and dislikes of others with a simple tweet and can incorporate or improve your current products or services.

It’s catching on. In fact, software development corporation Eclipse is working on a Twitter plug-in called Twitterclipse, which will tweet announcements, findings and questions within their development team. It is faster and more convenient than email, and also avails an RSS feed for posting their development updates within the Eclipse website.

Twitter for Free Publicity and Brand Awareness

As you know, free publicity is priceless – and it can be difficult for a small business to get access to the media. Companies regularly pay millions of dollars to imprint their brand in the minds of prospective clients.

With Twitter’s personalization features you can place your brand or company logo on your Twitter page. Because of the viral nature of Twitter, traffic and publicity comes for free.

People will associate your Tweets with your company, and their trust will grow in your products and services.

Twitter Gives You Access to Important People

No other media gives you direct access to leaders in your market like the internet does. Twitter gives you personal access to leaders and mentors that you have only ever dreamt of connecting with.

I bet you didn’t think you would ever get the chance to be 1-on-1 with Brian Tracy on Twitter, right?

http://twitter.com/BrianTracy_

—
Editor’s Note: Several Twitter related sites provide a means to identify Twitter users in your geographical area or relevant to your business:

http://mrtweet.net
http://www.twellow.com
http://justtweetit.com
http://www.twitterlocal.net
—

Simply follow them, and open up the channels of communication with your tweets! The leaders of your field impart valuable knowledge that you can apply to your online business, and can be a great source of free marketing tips.

Improve Every Aspect Of Your Business With Twitter!

Twitter is extremely simple, but this fact also adds to its versatility. You may not realize the effect of Twitter on your business when your followers are at a single digit – but just imagine the scope of your business reaching tens of thousands of followers! Many online businesses are using Twitter now… what are you waitíng for?

About The Author
Abe Cherian is the founder and CEO of AdClickMedia.com, an online advertising network and a subsidiary of Multiple Stream Media.

For those of you who don’t know, an opt-in list is a collection of emails that have been obtained by permission. Unlike spammers, you have the consent of these people to send them offers, messages and information relating to your Internet marketing business. Because they opted in, they also have the ability to unsubscribe to your list at any time.

You’ve undoubtedly heard of how important list building is in the world of online marketing, and there’s very good reason for it. It’s been said that it takes a potential customer an average of 7 times to see something before they make a purchase on the Internet. The best way to capitalize on this is through your list. By sending several well-written promotional messages over a period of time, you build their trust in you and increase the chances of making a lot more sales.

As your valuable list increases into the hundreds or thousands, you’re developing an extremely powerful resource that you can tap into every time you want to promote something new. You have already gained their trust and selling to them is a lot easier than selling to anyone else. Can you imagine having the ability to exclusively broadcast to your own email list of thousands at anytime? It’s a pretty big advantage that can really boost your income online.

Creating an opt-in list isn’t a difficult thing to do. There are many websites offering tutorials on how to do it step by step. You can even invest in an autoresponder which you will eventually realize to be a necessary tool as your Internet business grows. Autoresponders make it easier to capture emails and are a great way to manage your list especially when it becomes to large and complicated to handle by yourself.

Once you’ve got your website setup to build your list, you need to offer some sort of an incentive for them to sign up. People aren’t just going to hand over their email addresses to you. Most marketers online offer free Ebooks, newsletters or any type of valuable and useful information in exchange for visitor’s contact info.

It’s important to continually build and maintain the trust of the people on your list. Don’t jeopardize that by selling their emails to anyone and resist contacting them too much as all of this can be seen as spamming. There’s nothing that will shrink your list faster than being accused of practicing spam. Developing a trusting relationship with your subscribers is key to maximizing your income with them.

If you’re not attempting to capture emails on your website, you are letting money flow rapidly down the drain. An opt-in list allows you to build a relationship with your visitors over a period of time. That’s extremely hard to do with a website alone, especially when you only have one chance to impress your visitors enough to return again. A nicely maintained opt-in list has the potential to generate a substantial portion of your income online.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How To Keep Your Website Visitors Coming Back For More

The sad part is that many of these failing online businesses fail for readily identifiable reasons. Often the business owners are even aware of the reasons but do nothing about them.

Let’s look very briefly at four of these reasons:

1) Selling The Wrong Products
Once you have identified a profitable niche, one in which customers happily spend money to solve their problems, then the next step is to identify what is it that they really, really want.

If you offer your customers what they tell you that they want, and what they are already buying, then they will buy it from you.

If you try to convince your customers that they want something that they’ve already told you that they DON’T want, then you’ll soon be out of business.

Many failing marketers simply need to drop “a loser,” and start marketing something that is WANTED!

2) Trying To Do Everything Yourself
In “Think And Grow Rich,” Napoleon Hill taught nearly a century ago that “specialized knowledge” is a success essential. You need to find one or two things that you do really well, and that people are willing to pay for, and then you need to do only those things.

Everything else involved in operating your business should be done by someone better at doing those tasks.

The disconnect we run into there is that, as a business owner, your job is to grow and manage the business. So what if that’s not what you’re good at? Then you may need to find a way to market whatever it is that you ARE good at. You may also need to hire a business or operations manager!

In a recent mastermind call with Rich Schefren, where he interviewed a dozen top Internet marketers, most earning over $1 million a year online, we all shared that our greatest business growth started when we stopped trying to do everything ourselves.

If you’re still trying to do all of your own programming, copywriting, graphics, customer service, database management, script installations, article writing, video creation, traffic generation, product creation, audio/video editing, pay-per-click management, etc., then you are so bogged down in the minutiae of “working in your business” that it’s impossible for you to even identify which things are essential for “working on your business.”
This is a tough decision for many of us, but you absolutely have to identify the things that you MUST do, and then you need to outsource most of the rest. As an example, my talent seems to be copywriting, so copywriting is really the only thing that I focus on aside from planning and managing business growth.

I do plan product launches for client, but that still falls under planning and managing business growth.

3) Very Poor Time Management
Dan Kennedy once observed “You will never finish all of the things on your to do list.” That tells me that I shouldn’t try to, but should instead frequently ask which things I personally need to do, which things I need to get others to do, and which things don’t really need doing at all.

For the online marketer, good time management is really just establishing some new habits, and breaking some old bad ones. Common habits that need changing include:

• Don’t let email dominate your time. Many online marketers spend many hours each day just digging out from under the deluge of email. For help in that area, I highly recommend that you checkout http://TamingTheEmailMonster.com
  • I spend about 30 minutes per day on email. The course at the url above is what allowed me to take back control of my life.
• Turn off the television during work hours. If you were working for someone else, say in an office, I’m sure that you wouldn’t expect to be allowed to sit in front of the television all day with your laptop perched on your lap.
  • Unless you are VERY different from me, you cannot focus on your work while watching television. Not only that, but watching a lot of negative programs (news included) will completely zap your energy and shift you out of a productive mindset.
• Establish work hours. Tell your family and friends when you’ll be working, and let them know that when you’re really focused on work, you shouldn’t be disturbed any more than you’d expect to be disturbed if you worked at a regular job.
  • Explain to them that you can get more done in one hour if you really concentrate that you can in five hours with frequent interruptions. Explain that letting you really focus at designated times gives you MORE free time to spend with them… and you’ll have more money to spend on them too.

4) Too Many Projects That Are Never Completed.
My friend Mike Filsaime likes to point out during seminar presentations that if you have a dozen projects started but not completed, you’ll make less money that having just ONE project completed and on the market.
CHOOSE one project that you want to get completed and on the market. Focus exclusively on that one until it is finished before doing anything else.

Since you are an entrepreneur, and probably come up with a new idea “once every five minutes,” keep a note pad handy to jot down new ideas. When you get a new idea, jot it down on the note pad, and then knowing that it won’t be lost, go back to what you were working on previously.
Another option if you’re an idea person, or great at starting projects, is to partner with “finishers.” Instead of letting projects bog down, and never reach the market, partner with someone who will push it through to completion, splitting the profits with them.
If you don’t like that idea, consider how much those unfinished projects are making you. Would you prefer 50% of whatever that finished project makes, or 100% of nothing (which is exactly what most of your unfinished projects earn).
We’ve just looked very briefly at four reasons why most Internet marketers fail miserably. Now that you have acknowledged that these ARE problem areas for you, the question becomes what are you going to do about them.
Sadly, many people will read this article and then choose to do absolutely nothing about these problems. Nothing will change! However, you’re different, and therefore destined for online success.

Willie Crawford is founder of The Internet Marketing Inner Circle a membership site where he frequently brainstorms solutions to problems such as those discussed in this article on the discussion forum. Join that discussion now http://TIMIC.ORG

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

4 Reasons Why Most Internet Marketers Fail Miserably

But I’ve had a few epiphanies along the way that have changed my thinking. The general background is on my professional blog with link above, so I won’t repeat it here. I also posted a piece on my Fastcompany.com blog. The bottom line for me is that Twitter is a great news source, a great place for learning about social networking and a great place for tracking general noise in the blogosphere, whether it is about you, your company, your competitors or any topic of general interest. If it is worthwhile, someone will be tweeting about it. And the noise level behind something is a good indicator of general interest.

There are two major things that you can do right now via Twitter from a metrics standpoint. The first is, measure what is happening with your tweets. The second is, what is the noise about your clients?

Using Twinfluence.com, one can get the equivalent of a research run, showing reach, velocity and social capital of leading Tweeters. Barak Obama shows up with the most “reach” (followers and their connections at one degree) at over 15MM. However, he has not sent a message since the famous post-election victory declaration and now the question is whether in fact it was him or his PR machine. Blogger Jason Calacanis is #2 with over 13.5MM “reach”. Due to a factor called retweeting, Twinfluence rationalizes that the followers of followers could quickly be reached through an important message being forwarded or retweeted. In fact, many of the rankings of importance of Tweeters take retweeting into account. (When they retweet you, your ranking goes up).

Some other metric companies include TweetRush, which can give you an idea about the total volume (running about 300k people per day with about 5 Tweets per person); Tweetlists, which shows the most popular “conversations”; TweetVolume, where you can find the volume of a word or brand; TwitterGrader, which measures your rank (happy to say I am in the top 5% based on reach and authority); and Twitterrank, which for some reason does not rank me as high as TwitterGrader. (By the way, my Twitter address is mediadls.)

As mentioned above, another major use of Twitter is following noise about clients and client campaigns, as well as your own company. The easiest way to follow the noise about your client is Twitter search, which is search.twitter.com. Type in your company, a client’s company or a competitor and see what the chatter is. If you click on the advanced text link, you can add keywords to do with a campaign or many other factors. In fact, when the rockets started shooting from Gaza, I searched for “within 150 miles of Gaza.” Very interesting to see the tweets from both Gaza and Tel Aviv on one page. This parsing of Twitter is key to the future here.

In the future, we should be able to measure the metrics of individuals on Twitter and understand how much traffic they are getting, setting up the potential of an Adwords-type situation where the writer and Twitter share in revenue. We should also be able to do the same for individual topics written about, thus facilitating keyword advertising. Technologies for both of these situations exist today; it’s just a matter of Twitter deciding to open up APIs and to determine what this small company of 25 people who have achieved major influence wants to be when they grow up.

David L. Smith is CEO and founder of Mediasmith, an internationally recognized digital media agency with expertise in targeted media planning, execution and measurement.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Twitter Metrics

I recently saw this comment on a blog: “I’ve been tweeting but… from what I’ve seen in the last couple of weeks, it’s either a ‘look at me’ or a ‘look at this’ arena.”

Sure Twitter is a great communication channel and as such, you do find a lot of self-promotion and name dropping. But there is so much more to Twitter. The comment got me thinking, would the critics feel the same if they could see more innovative ways to use it?

So I decided to put together a list of some of the more unique and inventive uses for Twitter. Some already exist while others are my own ideas.  Here goes:

1) Community Help Desk – I’ve already used Twitter several times to investigate an issue I’ve been having with my computer, or a problem one of my clients has come across. Just yesterday I was able to pinpoint the source of a domain redirect issue because my followers in other countries could reach the site even though I was being redirected.

2) Write a Collaborative Book – you and a bunch of your favorite Tweeps could write a novel, one sentence (tweet) at a time. The results could range from hilarious to Shakespearean. I thought of this while reading about the popularity of Japanese novels composed via mobile text messages, but it turns out that some attempts have been made at this already e.g. 140 Novel and Good Captain. You could do a similar thing with song lyrics.

3) Live Webinars/Tutorials – you could create a new Twitter account with protected updates and ask invitation-only participants to follow you. Then you could hold a *closed* webinar at a pre-arranged time using Twitter for delivery instead of expensive webinar solutions. Twitter allows you to live chat, post links, photos, videos, audio files and text so there is no need for any plug-ins. You could even use a Twitter buffer like Twuffer to space out the content of the webinar via tweets over a specific timeframe.

4) Free Market Research – Who needs to pay expensive market research companies to learn stuff about your latest product? Just send a link, a free sample or a short survey to your followers and watch the feedback flow in.

5) Online Reputation Management – Twitter is ideal for tracking what people are saying about you, your company or your product. You can use Twitter Search to enter keywords or hash tags. Or you can use purpose-built widgets such as TweetBeep which work just like Google Alerts and send you regular emails containing any discussions involving your chosen Twitter accounts or hash tags. These work well for competitor tracking too.

6) Laugh a Day / Therapy – I’m consistently amazed how many long-term Twitter users fail to use the favorites option to bookmark tweets that they like. Whenever I read a tweet that makes me laugh out loud, I favorite it immediately. Then, whenever I am feeling a bit flat, stressed or sense a bad mood coming on, I turn to my favorites list knowing I will be giggling in no time. You can also rely on your followers to sense when you’re down and cheer you up.

7) Competitions – Companies like Zappos and Hand Bag Heaven have been holding competitions on Twitter for a while now. You basically elicit a response from your followers in exchange for the chance to win something. You could ask a question about one of your products or ask followers to find something on your site to win a gift certificate. But with a bit of ingenuity, you can be even more inventive.

DVDQuotes posts questions starting with WMITF, (which stands for Which Movie Is This From?) and gives away random DVDs to the Twitter user with the first correct tweet. Actor and Comedian Stephen Fry declared December 1 to be Oscar Wilde Day and asked his 30,000 plus followers to post Wildesque tweets using the hash tag #oscarwildeday for a chance to win downloads of his audio book. The competition took on a viral quality and earned the comedian at least 2,000 new followers within 48 hours.

Virtual Alarm Clock – Did you know you can use Twitter to set appointment reminders for yourself or others? You can use tools such as the Retweet Timer and Twittercal to tweet events from your Google Calendar as @replies to your Twitter profile at pre-set dates and times.

9) Idea Sharing / Community Mind Mapping – So this amazing business idea comes to you in the shower and you are busting to make it happen. But you want to be sure that your stroke of brilliance is fabulous and not folly. This is where your Twitter followers come in. Whether you tweet publicly or DM only your most trusted followers to keep it under wraps, you’ll get unbiased and practically instantaneous feedback on your big plans. Would you use it? Could it work? How much would you pay for it? What features should it have? Tapping into the combined brain power of your Twitter community is a great way to flesh out a business plan.

10) Competitor Tracking – You can use Twitter to monitor the activities of your enemi… er competitors without alerting them. Simply create an anonymous Twitter account and start following them. If they bad-mouth your company, or tweet about a product that may threaten your market share, you’ll know immediately.

11) Bug Testing – Along the same lines as 4), you can use your Twitter followers as live BETA testers when you roll out a new product or software version. Your followers will often report bugs faster than paid customers because they *know* you and want you to succeed.

12) Become Your Favorite Character – Ever idolize a particular movie star or TV character? Why not create an account for them and tweet in character? A few tweeps have done this already, with hilarious results e.g. Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie and wheelchair-bound Andy from Little Britain. Just make sure you don’t step on the toes of the official sites representing the character in question.

13) Sport / Treasure Hunt Aid – With it’s 140 character limit, Twitter is the perfect medium to deliver clues for online and offline scavenger hunts and popular sports such as geocaching.

14) Live Presentation Aid – Presenting at a conference or other event with Internet access from your laptop? You can tweet on the big screen to a) make a point b) elicit a response from Tweeps in the audience c) conduct live research d) gain instant feedback on a topic or question. I’ve used Twitter this way in the past and not only is it entertaining for the audience, but it’s also a great way to overcome stage fright.

15) Build a Twitter Application – Despite not being monetized yet, Twitter’s phenomenal growth has spurred the development of hundreds of applications that make money from Twitter either via advertising or donations. Why not build your own application around Twitter and make your fortune?

About the Author:

Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running a daily Search Engine Advice Column, Kalena manages Search Engine College – an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and other Search Engine Marketing subjects.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

15 Innovative Uses for Twitter (That You Probably Haven’t Thought Of)