Posts Tagged ‘web 2.0’

There’s a popular T-shirt that reads, “Your lips are moving, but all I hear is blah, blah, blah.” When it comes to paying prospects, you have to make sure ‘blah, blah, blah’ isn’t the message they’re hearing from you.

How many people do you know who multitask while being on the computer? I know myself, I have my TV on, my daughter’s Princess TV on, sometimes some music playing in the background, and kids running rampant.

When I land on your site, you’d better grab my eyeballs and pull ‘em through the screen or else I’m moving on!

Ever come across a website where someone was trying hard to sell their product or service? You read and quickly realize that while they’re using fancy pictures and a whole lot of words, they’re not actually saying anything.

How frustrating for a consumer!

The marketer failed by not making their point. You want to scream, “JUST SPIT IT OUT WILL YA!?”

Make sure your content says what you want it to say in a way that’s short and simple. There are too many other marketers vying for their attention. Give your customer what they want – answer the Who, What, When, Where and How (or Why) right up front, and then fill in the details.

And don’t be boring, either! Inject some of your personality into your writing and if you don’t have one, GET one!

Take on a dual personality if you want to – have fun with it. Think Rich Jerk. Be someone you always wanted to be behind the safety of a computer screen – or maybe someone you would never want to be in real life.

Tiff

Mention the economy and many consumers groan. They’ve learned to cut back, think twice before parting with their hard earned dollars. But what if your business depends on consumers and in typical trickle down fashion, you’re beginning to feel the effects of the economy?

Unlike the big boys of advertising (the ones with the equally big advertising budgets), you don’t have to be a millionaire to market your business. But if you want to succeed, you DO have to market.

There’s an old saying - If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If no one knows about your business, does it exist? Technically, yes, but without some type of marketing to bring in the customers (and keep them!), it might as well not exist because it won’t for long.

Getting the word out effectively doesn’t have to be an option available only to the bigger companies. One way many smart entrepreneurs are finding ways to cut costs is by turning to social media marketing – the wonderful world of web 2.0.

Social marketing is basically the new, improved version of traditional marketing, but it’s much nicer to your wallet.

Unlike traditional advertising, where business owners easily shell out thousands to ten thousands of dollars for an advertisement that may or may not reach their target audience, social media marketing can be used to put you ahead of the game.

You can reach billions of people with your product or services in a more cost effective manner than the old school way of shelling out more.

For example, now that MySpace is international, your advertising can circle the world in the blink of an eye. MySpace has MyAds geared to fit any budget limit. You choose what you want to spend on the advertising.

You can also grab a piece of advertising pie and let others help you distribute it at no cost to you simply by making a video about yourself or your business. When you’re finished with the video, simply upload it to TubeMogul.com. and they’ll take it from there, seeing to it that your video is sent out to the best sites.

In order to survive business-wise, entrepreneurs have to be like a chameleon and learn to adapt to their surroundings, to advertise outside the box. So when economy changes are not in your favor, rather than sticking with the same old, same old like traditional advertising, you learn to change with it in order to achieve what’s best for your business.

Another perk to using web 2.0 sites for your marketing is that most of these social networking sites carry a hefty PageRank (authority in the eyes of Google) and you can ride the coattails of their hard work.

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…

I have a dilemma I’m sure many of you have, too. I got on Facebook for marketing purposes and tons of old friends found me! So now I have a combination friends list of people from as far back as 4th grade paired with marketing followers.

This makes my participation there a bit harder. On one hand, I want to promote my business, giving good tips about web 2.0, writing, and marketing in general. But then when I post an update on Facebook that says, “Here’s a great autoresponder tool for building your list,” my “old time friends” pipe up and say, “Huh?”

Maybe I should have created two accounts. But it’s too late now. I may have to put a disclaimer for all of my marketing messages.

It doesn’t work both ways, either - well, not really. In marketing, it’s good to let your followers get to know you. I can share news about my family activities with my marketing fans. But what about if an old friend posts on my profile about some wild girls’ night out I had my freshman year in college? (Mind you, I’m being hypothetical here - I would NEVER have been wild - hee hee). In that case, you might not want your marketing fans to see your personal business.

How do you separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak?

Post your tips here!
Tiff