Archive for the ‘Web 2.0 in General’ Category

Web 2.0 media mindset still escapes many marketers. You’re trying to tout your products and services on social networking sites, but you haven’t yet realized that it’s not the place for a hard hitting sales pitch.

Peer influence is far more apt to get your consumer to take action than sales copy is. I can read ads all day long about a new restaurant opening up down the street, but I may or may not go unless a trusted friend raves about it.

Here’s how to master peer to peer influence in web 2.0 atmospheres:

1.) On every social networking site, have a profile that conveys you’re a real person. Tell more about yourself than what domains you own. Tell about your home life, your passions, your quirky silly aspects that make you likable.

2.) Don’t be stuffy when you write. I try to hammer this into the brains of all of my eBook guide customers - write with contractions (this means instead of “you are here,” you would write, “you’re here”). It’s just easier to read.

3.) Write to solve problems, not to sell. If you don’t know the difference, then pretend you’ve been hired to write an informational piece for a news magazine. Pretend you don’t have anything to sell. After you’ve completed your writing, THEN go back in and create hyperlinks in your anchor text to the sites where you sell from.

For example - let’s say you want to write a Squidoo lens or Hub Page about dog training because you either have an eBook about it yourself or you’re an affiliate for one. Instead of writing about your PRODUCT, write about dog training problems your prospective buyers will have such as, “How Do I Stop My Puppy from Peeing on the Carpet?” When you finish, hyperlink the words, “puppy potty training” that should be in your text to your website.

4.) Socialize with like-minded people. If parenting is your niche, befriend other parents on the web 2.0 site. Get to know them. Doesn’t take long to post a quick friendly hello - and you should do this kind of growth slowly.

5.) Let your content stew before you include links. I’m gonna throw this out there even though I disagree with it. Some of my customers will tell me they create their web 2.0 pages without one single backlink to that it gets shared more and indexed better. Then they go back in a few weeks later to include backlinks. I would feel like I’d lost potential sales, but it’s important for you to hear all recommendations, not just my personal preferences.

Expand your peer influence in the world of web 2.0 today by following the above tips. You’ll be developing your branding as the go-to person for your niche topic!
Tiff

I wrote a free short report on blogging.

You can download it free below!

Tiffany Dow’s Blog Report

Enjoy!
Tiff

That’s right. The increasing number of web users are tuning into various niche-relevant social networks instead of using Google to tap into dirty pages on the ‘net.

But there’s a little catch.

While social networking site traffic is on the rise, a portion of those members are using the social networks for the sexual purposes or online match-making (not the same thing, but you know what I mean).

The good news is, social networks are being harnessed by everyone – from celebrities to politicians, from the ‘tween to the Baby Boomer. Even anti-social people are creating social networks about how much they hate social networking!

There’s a Delete Your MySpace Account network, an Enemybook (anti-friends) site, and more. You can even rent a friend from FakeYourSpace.com if you’re hard up to build a list of contacts in the web 2.0 arena.

Monks are using YouTube to recruit other monks.

Musicians are finding backup singers on social networks.

If you’re not on or creating a social network, you’re out of the loop.

Right now I use Ning for my Building an eBook Empire community (it’s closed to buyers only, sorry).

I use Squidoo for social marketing and as my soapbox for issues I find important.

I use Hub Pages for the same thing.

Which social networks do you see pulling you in or do you wish they had?

Tiff

I read about this on the Squidblog and it’s really neat! It’s called addictomatic and apparently, it grabs everything new about a topic and displays it for you all on one page from a variety of authority sites.

So for instance, this is what it shows you when you type in web 2.0:

http://addictomatic.com/topic/web+2.0

Neat, huh?

Oh! Maybe I’ll addictomatic my name. lol

tiff

With Halloween upon me, I began building Squidoo lenses the fast and furious way. Traffic built and built, culminating with the 70 or so Christmas lenses I built which did very well for me on Squidoo.

Nut now that shopping’s done, I wonder how my lenses will fare in traffic. The Halo lenses, which my son sold, saw an increase before Christmas, but have since died down. I expect as kids open their gifts and get into their new Halo games, wanting to know the tips and tricks to master the game, it’ll grow more.

I’m also experimenting with Hub Pages now as I build my eBook on that topic. Want to get lots of real case studies on it before I release anything. So how’s your web 2.0 traffic? Growing or Going South?
Tiff

Got my email like everyone else from John Reese about Income.com’s new BlogRush tool. As you can see when you scroll down my blog on the left side, I have a BlogRush widget on there. It promotes other people’s blogs. My own blog will be promoted on other blogs, too.

I like this free traffic exchange. I signed up under Lance Kading when he sent me the link. Even though I already had a direct link from Income.com, I wanted to give someone else the chance to build their traffic by me signing up under them. So now, if you follow this link: http://www.tiffanydow.com/blogrush.html and sign up under me (for free), both Lance and I will benefit from YOUR traffic.

And whoever signs up under you helps you get traffic.

Kind of like free MLM in the the web 2.0 world. I like it. You gain credits for exposure. We’ll see how it goes, and although it’s Javascript, I’m hoping Squidoo somehow finds a way to put it into lenses for us.
Tiff