Archive for the ‘Social Marketing Junkie’ Category

People often wonder if social marketing is really all that vital to Internet marketing success. The simple answer is yes! Social marketing is one method of getting the word out about you and your business that shouldn’t and can’t be overlooked, and here’s why:

Effective social marketing puts you in the spotlight like no sales page can. It helps you build a strong circle of online friends and associates who are interested in what you’re doing. It gives you several ways to communicate. It offers many different avenues for developing your personal brand – something that is absolutely essential for success!

Social marketing brings traffic to your websites. That’s what you want. You need to get your target niche audience to come to you and look at what you’re offering, which is yourself as a brand, along with your product or service.

True, some of the traffic you get will be tire-kickers, but you’ll also get people who will be intrigued and will stick around to learn from you long-term.

Besides bringing basic traffic to your site, social marketing is excellent for spreading your word like an octopus spreads its tentacles. Social marketing is far reaching and provides you with links and more traffic from those links, and traffic from tagging and bookmarking as well.

If you’re producing really great content that spreads virally through the marketplace, you’ll get even more traffic.

You can see that social marketing is all about creating traffic and making a real name for yourself on the Internet (branding). And it’s a very reciprocal type of marketing. You get plenty of chances to help others, just like people have helped you by tagging or bookmarking your article, blog or site.

You get to build more relationships and the cycle perpetuates itself.

Someone recently said they liked social media but not social marketing. Well I believe it’s because they’re doing it wrong. They’re still in the mindset of talking TO their prospects instead of having a two-way conversation with them.

They still don’t get it.

Some of the best lessons I’ve learned, the best resources I’ve found, and the greatest customers I’ve acquired are from reaching out and being interactive with others on social networking sites. You can’t go around being a social snob and expect the get good results in the future.

Tiff

I’ll admit it - I’m an addict. And I know many of you reading this are, too. Look at you sitting there, your index finger twitching on your mouse just waiting to click out to Twitter or Facebook. Why you oughta be ashamed of yourself!

Or should you?

I know for many marketers, social networking addiction can actually become a bad thing. Someone sidles up next to you and says, “Come on, have a little hit of Facebook - everybody’s doing it!” Off you go to get your own account and next thing you now your ignoring your kids and spouse, neglecting your business so you can post an update, and wasting hours looking at pictures of you that have been tagged from 1989.

That’s the downside.

The good side of this highly addictive virtual drug is that it can help you make a LOT of money and position yourself as the creme de la creme of all things in your niche. The key is knowing your limits, putting restraints on yourself so you aren’t crashing and burning every day with your web 2.0 addiction.

I’m going to be your pusher - prodding you on to get signed into certain social networking sites. But I’m also going to wear the hat of interventionist to make sure you don’t OD and wipe out your business in the process.

A social marketing junkie has to be weaned off the hard stuff and taught how to manage their addiction so that it doesn’t interfere with earnings - and LIFE in general. If you feel you’re wasting too much time with web 2.0 or don’t see the results you want from your efforts, then sign up for my FREE 14-day Social Marketing Junkie course that will help you achieve the results you desire.

Funnels. That’s where we’re headed. I was so excited when ordinary people got access to quick social marketing avenues such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and more. It brought the web 2.0 peer-to-peer platform to a whole new level.

Instead of just reading customer comments on Amazon, which was a move from the made up testimonial you saw on a static sales page, we’re now able to tap right into the lives of those we wish to follow on the ‘net.

We get to hear about John Reese washing his Lamborghini baby or Rick Butts being stalked by a pretty young thing (what’s a guy to do?). It’s fun – it makes them real people.

We’re all in this work at home “cubicle” we’ve chosen and without the current web 2.0 environment, we would have no water cooler to head to for gossip, casual small talk, and camaraderie.

It can’t all be about work (boring)! We need to have that element of socialization through WORK. You can turn to your spouse and start saying, “Man, it’s a shame Michel Fortin’s Copywriters Board shut down, isn’t it?” But they won’t understand. You have to use web 2.0 to discuss with like-minded people.

But it’s getting out of control, isn’t it?

There are too many people to follow. I can log into Twitter and spend a good half hour reading and Tweeting and catching up with NicheLady and Dana_Willhoit and NicheProf but then I also have to log into Facebook and see what Seth Godin’s up to, what Kevin Riley’s cooking up, and what madness Jason Moffat’s stirring up.

Then (whew, getting tired), I have to log into YouTube to see what Ed Dale’s posting, and so on. If I really want to keep track of everyone, I’m wasting a lot of my day logging in and out of various places and seeing who’s doing what!

Likewise, I want my followers to be able to check in with my various blog posts, Facebook, Twitter messages, and more without having to visit every one of my sites.

FriendFeed to the rescue. I’m on it. Ed Dale’s on it. Everyone’s doing it. It’s perfect for the social marketing junkie in all of us. Give it a try and subscribe to my feed there.

OMG you know what this means? My friend Lewis Smile will be laughing an evil laugh. He’s been trying to convert me to be an RSS user for months and I’ve always refused. But FF makes it SO easy…I’m heading to the dark side. Join me!

Tiff

Pssst: Guess what’s on MY horizon? Stay tuned…