Why and How to Use Social Media Optimization for Business Promotion

Online Trends:

Online competition is reaching greater heights in recent years and with current economic trends the situation has got even harder to manage for online firms. The importance of internet marketing has increased with such trends and to make things easy, there are different online promotional methods to choose from strategies such SEO, SMO and SEM are the most preferred. Among these SEO is famous for being the most cost-effective and highly targeted traffic method, while SEM is a perfect choice for short term business products, services and offers.

But SMO has always been the forgotten strategy, but in reality it is as equal and effective as other internet marketing methods and to be honest for some business social media optimization is much better and effective than others. This article covers how and why you should SMO for business.

Why and what makes SMO important?How to use SMO effectively?

If we can get the perfect answer for these 2 questions then it gets quite clear that SMO is much more important that we think. So let's waste no time and get to business...

Why and What Makes SMO Important?

The simplest concept of Marketing is "where ever people go you must follow" and it's true, for it makes sense to market your business and products where your potential clients are waiting and watching. Social websites generate immense amount of traffic, for instance there are more than 955 million active users in Facebook as of June 2012(Courtesy Wikipedia). And among those 955 million are your potential clients, and this is a tempting option for both small and corporate business firms to market their brands, products and Services. Apart from lead generation social media presence is also a valuable factor in you SEO campaign and SMO actually helps improve Search Engine rankings.

How to use SMO effectively?

Unlike any other marketing strategies SMO is a regular work, which means your social media campaign should actively interact with as many users as possible in order to get the most of it. Major SMO experts also recommend using graphics to get a better reach on SMO sites as people love to comment, like and share pictures and videos. Experts say a "picture can convey 1000 words" while a video can double that effect and so try using graphics to improve results and increase lead generation and interaction. Keep your page lively and active as people never prefer to follow an empty page, share your activities regularly, just anything presented lively will do. Tell your clients and followers about new offers and new products or share with the about achievements and milestones reached. Remember, advertising too much or being overly promotional will not go well with your audience so give them some fun and pleasure while occasionally promoting your brand or services.

If done correctly SMO will produce far better results than SEO for certain business and products. But always remember one important point, "yes you are there for business, but sharing and speaking of your business and products alone will never work".

Gybatech offers SMO services in India at affordable and cost-effective rates. http://www.gybatech.com/ also offers SEO and SEM solutions to clients in India, UK and USA.

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Using Social Media To Promote Start-Up Businesses

If you are planning to launch a start- up business or have recently started one, you probably have encountered a wealth of information on using social media to promote a business. Though there are millions of social media users across the world, around 900 million of them, it is easy to get carried away by the numbers. Finding the right social sites to promote your business to maximise its potential is essential for business success, and this is where you should concentrate your efforts.

What Social Media Engagement Achieves For Business

Social media in essence is about engagement through sharing, which for business means targeting your product range, your articles, or your services at engaging a potential customer or client base. Collectively, products, services and articles are known as content, and it is through offering quality content that success through your channels can be achieved. Social media has around 900 million users globally, and covers every topic range you can think of. As well as engaging a potential customer and client base or readership, social media is also relevant to search engine optimization. Social media is a unique format as it helps you promote your content directly to your audience, and in turn it generates traffic via people sharing your content with others, and through SEO. Perhaps more importantly than this, however, social media with its online reviews helps a business build trust, and nearly every brand you can think of uses social media for this reason. Consider this: you come across two companies offering the same services; one has 250 Facebook likes, the other 43 - which one would you opt for? So regardless of whether you're an online retailer, an affiliate marketer, offer a service such as tuition, or run a news site, social media can help you build your business online. Google estimates that by 2015, UK consumers will have purchased £40bn of products and services online.

Popular Social Media Sites And Their Uses

Getting to get grips with the nuances of social media's role in promoting your business can cause more than its fair share of headaches. Here is a list of the most popular social media sites and their uses:

Facebook is predominately for sharing. This can be products, articles, or services. In a nutshell, it's for sharing your content with as many people as possible.
Twitter is about sharing news on any subject. Don't let the word news make you feel it does not apply for products. New product launches, new stock ready to be sold - Twitter is good for all of this.
Google+ is in part a combination of the two and has become important for search engine optimization if nothing else.
Blogging is a great way to impart news and expertise to your readership, customer and client base, or followers. It offers a good way to attract visitors on your site via search engines.
YouTube is about showcasing videos to a wide audience. It is being utilised by businesses all the time to sell products and services. As YouTube is owned by Google, videos tend to feature prominently on search engine results. You can also utilise the YouTube ads to make a secondary income stream.
Pinterest and other bookmarking sites are very good at showcasing visual products. If your business is selling something online, albeit a product or service, ensure you are posting on Pinterest and as many bookmarking sites you can find.

Social Media And Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Good positioning on search engines is about unique quality content that is well shared and well linked to from other websites. By sharing your content on social sites, the more chance there is of people liking it on Facebook, retweeting on Twitter, or sharing the pin on Pinterest. Links are important for good SEO and posting your content on social sites provides a link from the social site to yours, and in every case this can be targeted to a specific web page. By web page I mean a specific product, service, or article. This also ensures Google indexes the web page. That is to say, it adds it to its database, ensuring it can be found on search engines.

Finding The Best Social Media Sites For Your Business

To find the best social sites suited to your business, think about what your business is trying to do. If your business sells products or services, then use social sites that showcase pictures and videos to sell the product. YouTube, Pinterest, Delicious and Instagram are all really good for showcasing products. If you're in the selling game, make videos of your products, take good professional photos and get them on these sites, and ensure you link the pictures and videos directly to the content on your site. If you sell on eBay or an affiliate seller, try to link directly to the product page where a potential customer can buy it. Also, put the products on your Facebook page, Google+ page, and Twitter. For service providers, a slightly different spin on social media promotion is needed as, more often than not, a service provider will sit in the middle of visual social media, and text-based social sites. This also applies to affiliate marketers. If you can, represent your services with a picture or icon, and publish the picture or icon on the visual sites. Use videos to showcase your services - if you can get testimonials from clients, well, that's gold dust. Publish regularly on your blog and tweet the articles, together with insights into the industry. This engagement will help build trust with your existing clients, showcase your skills, and help you to be found by people wishing to become new clients.

Social Media Advertising

If you have the budget for it, Facebook offers advertising on a click-through basis like Google AdSense, or it can be used to earn likes. It is often a case of experimentation. For affiliate marketing revenue streams, click-throughs will expose the user to your revenue stream, while a like will ensure every time an article or new product is published they'll be informed. It's trial and error and seems to work well for some businesses, but others have lost faith in it.

Saving Time

By now, you have probably guessed that updating social sites, especially if you publish a lot of daily content, is hard work. Larger businesses employ people to keep on top of it, something many start-up business don't have the budget or the time for. It is possible to automate your social accounts updating using automatic syndication sites.

A Social Media Strategy

Step 1: Create a Facebook Page, Twitter account and Google+ Page For Business

These have their uses regardless of the type of business, and all help considerably with SEO. Ensure you create business pages on Facebook and Google+. This keeps your personal details and indeed social media life hidden from your customers or clients, and it offers better options to promote a business.

Step 2: Identify Social Media Sites That Are The Most Important To Your Business

If your site sells products, make a list of all the online bookmarking and video sites you can find and create accounts. Ensure you use Pinterest and YouTube. If your business is for services, information, or is for an affiliate marketing revenue stream, you want to spread the word in as many ways as possible. Use blogging sites such as Tumblr, Blogger and WordPress.org to syndicate your blog posts and services, and try to create news content if you provide services to show your expertise in your field.

Step 3: Use Social Media Tools Such As 'If This Then That'

'If this then that' or ifttt.com automatically updates your social accounts. This is easy to establish and works by syndicating the information across a host of social sites automatically as soon as one site is updated. This, as you can imagine, saves a lot of time. Be cautions, however, and ensure social sites suited to the business, such as bookmarking sites for online retailers, appear just as you want them to be found. Automatic syndication has limitations and often links and pictures do not appear as you would like them to. Nonetheless, and especially for syndicating blog posts via an RSS feed, it is a very good time-saver for promoting your business via social media. Not all social media can be syndicated in this way, but the sites that ifttt.com syndicates to are well worth creating accounts on to promote your business. The more social media sites you post on, the better.

Step 4: Use #hashtags

Whenever you post your content, ensure you use accurate #hashtags. This will help users find your content when they search for it. So if I'm selling tyres on ebay, #tyres, #cartyres, #car, #tyres is good, and for sports news, #sportsnews, #football #cricket, and so on is good.

Step 5: Once It Starts

Once your content starts hitting the social media world, monitor your accounts for feedback. Concentrate on the sites you've identified as important to your business and respond to questions and comments. When responding, try to be helpful and non-abusive, even if the commentator is not pleasant. Professionalism goes along way.

Step 6: Participation

Twitter and Google+ show trending topics and these are popular subjects people are discussing. It is worth performing the odd Twitter search to see what people are talking about in relation to your business, and making a contribution to the discussion. This is a good way to make connections and hopefully achieve more success.

Step 7: Monitoring Success

Monitoring success has proven to be quite difficult for social media. Unlike SEO results, which can be measured on click-throughs and content engagement, it is not so simple on social sites for a variety of reasons. You may feel if you provide news that 10 comments on one story is a good sign of success, while 100 likes of a product video on YouTube with no obvious link to sales may not be immediately obvious as positive. It is worth remembering, however, that though people may not directly access your main site via social sites, it may prompt them to return later. Always keep in mind that social media is for sharing content, so any like, comment or retweet is positive.

Visit HomeforBusiness for more online marketing tips.

Daughter, Sister, Wife, Mother of three, PR Consultant and Entrepreneur

Like many women on most days I seem to have to juggle all my roles. On other days just three or four. This is why I founded Homeforbusiness. I recognise what it takes to be a working Mum and how to set up an online business from home with all 'pulls' of everyday family life and work.

I have always been entrepreneurial and set up by first corporate communications company, EMA Productions, in my 30s working with big corporate clients such as Texaco, Rank and Boots. Whilst it was challenging and hard work, it was quickly successful. I could focus solely on winning contracts and meeting the clients needs without family distractions and with the support of a fantastic team and office.

I feel very passionate about HomeforBusiness as I believe that lots of people want to create a better work/life balance and work from home, either setting up a new business or working as a freelancer. There are hundreds of genuine opportunities for people but often people do not know how to start. I want HomeforBusiness to empower anyone who wants to work from home profitably. With a panel of guest experts I will share share genuine business opportunities, business ideas, advice on running a business, online marketing, and health and wellbeing tips. I have also put together my favourite free online resources.

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Using Social Media For Marketing Is One Of The Best Things A Business Can Do

Our everyday lives have changed ever since social media came into being. Social networking sites are now a part of what we do each day. If you think for a moment and ask yourself whether you can spend a day without checking your Facebook status or tweeting at least once, or pinning a photograph?

The answer is a big NO!

If we don't used any form of social media for an entire day, it will pinch us and we will go to bed with a restless soul, not correctly knowing why we are feeling uneasy. For businesses, the same theory applies. Presently, they are heavily depended on their different social channels to ensure they are able to reach out to a large customer base. Almost every business manager and marketing head has reduced their budget on orthodox media and are using the same funds to improve their digital marketing prospects. Furthermore, each business establishment is also bent on creating an in-house media marketing team, which can looks after the regular digital media needs.

Using social media for marketing is useful as long as a business knows how to do it right. Otherwise, both time and money will be wasted, but with no positive results being reaped. Alternatively, if ill-planned social media marketing is carried on for some time, chances are that the digital reputation of a given brand can be permanently damaged. Therefore, it's important that social media activities are initiated and managed by trained professionals only. Especially when social media optimization is being done to improve the online image of an enterprise, business managers can't afford to take any chances with the team that is being hired for the purpose.

Using various media sites to achieve organizational goals can turn out to be a huge boon for any particular enterprise, provided it is done systematically and consistently. Care must be taken that the social media marketing mix so created is kept flexible, so as to accommodate new strategies or modify an existing one. I guess it's always wise if a media plan is scrutinized each month, and modifications are made. Sometimes mere scrutiny is enough to ensure the strategy is still effective and the activities carried are still able to provide positive results.

Nowadays, even the most frugal entrepreneur is using social platforms to promote his company. And needless to mention, he's able to enjoy the effects that are following eventually.

Mark Weyland propagates the idea of using social media for marketing and advertising needs. He's also an experienced digital media professional.

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How Confusing Is Social Media Optimization? Learn More!

Is Social Media Optimization Confusing You?

Social media optimization has become a new and revolutionary new way of advertising your business online. And while it's related to search engine optimization or search engine marketing, SMO can actually be a complex process of giving your business a more visual presence online and increasing recognition of your brand and products.

Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing is also a unique way to get your business in front of the same consumers who are actively searching for your specific types of products on the major search engines like Google, Ask, Bing and Yahoo. SEM can also be a complex concept to understand and implement for a beginner to online marketing.

And when you add search engine optimization into the mix, getting your business, product or brand recognized online can easily turn into a very confusing labyrinth of tools and processes to wade through.

What Does It Mean For Your Business?
Basically, each of these processes is a tool for promoting your website or blog to the masses online, and each involves a way for driving more traffic to your site starting with search engines.

However, social media optimization targets traffic and potential customers that rely heavily on social sites like Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg and Tumblr for referrals and reviews of certain products and businesses.

Social media can easily be thought of ad today's "word of mouth" advertising but done online. And if you want your business to gain optimal brand recognition, traffic and sales, it's important to grasp an understanding of how all three of these concepts work together on the Internet to capture the attention of your target audience while they're actively searching for specific products and services.

So while SEO and SEM may use techniques to target consumers who rely on Google and Yahoo for their searches, SMO, or social media optimization, optimizes your website to show up on the same social media sites that your potential customers ultimately go to for referrals and product reviews.

Getting On Page One of the Search Engines
Setting all of the terms aside, what you ultimately want is for your website to show up on the first page of Google, as close to top position as possible, when people search for the types of products or services that your business sells. At the same time, you want your brand name to be recognized across all of the most popular social media sites such as Facebook, Digg and even MySpace.

The tools and techniques used to accomplish these sometimes complicated and time-consuming tasks are best understood by search engine marketing experts who have actually made it their primary business to study these techniques for which processes and tools work best for different types of businesses and brands.

Social media optimization and search engine marketing is definitely not a one-size-fits-all advertising and marketing process by any means. No two businesses are ever alike; each targets a different audience, different demographics and sometimes even a different geographic location needs to be targeted for local businesses.

Since different businesses and brands require a different approach, it's often best left to a search engine marketing firm that has carved out a niche for online marketing specialization to handle the fine tuning and details of a solid marketing strategy for whatever your business is.

Karen Musselman writes about working at home and online marketing, offering tips on a variety of home business topics including the importance of analyzing backlinks to your website or blog. You can visit Karen's blog, Working At Home With KSMusselman at ksmusselman.com for more insightful articles and stop by her YouTube channel too!

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Social Media Power: How African Businesses Can Use Social Media To Grow

Discover the 4 steps on how Social Media Marketing can help you:

· Improve your brand awareness

· Attract more clients

· Improve your ROI

· Enhance your current marketing strategies

Step # 1: Improve Your Brand Awareness

Even though African brands such as Standard Chartered Bank, Kenyan Airways and so on have huge advertising budgets they are still taking advantage of these free Social Media platforms to engage with their existing and potential customers.

Step # 2: Attract More Clients With Social Media

Social Media is mainly used for relationship building. People want to buy from those they Know, Like and Trust.

Before the formation of Facebook when someone wanted to open a bank account with Standard Chartered bank in Africa they would probably incur transportation costs as the bank might not be where they live.

Now with the help of these Social Networks, someone can be a fan or a follower of the bank without having to travel a long distance.

The customer gets to know more information about the company. The information is not just limited to financial information which is normally reported on the news channels but they get to know the social side which is the human side of the company. The customer is now in a position where they begin to feel that they know the company, they like the company and they can trust the company. Standard Chartered Bank on the other hand can now have easy access to their customers. Their customers are liking and commenting on their Social Media posts.

This is great relationship building. Relationship building is also about sharing valuable information about your products and services before attracting the customer. The company can easily win this customer as the customer would feel that the company is part of them. Even if a competitor is offering a cheaper service the customer would still prefer to stay with the one that offered the best service.

Facebook is a great platform to conduct market research as the information gathered are very current and not out-dated.

Kenya Airways asked their fans on their Facebook fan page in January 2012:

"What is an Online Check In?"

They offered a solution and had 29 likes and 9 comments.

You see how effective this marketing campaign can help your business.

You can see from the above example that Social Networking can be used in many ways to get to know your customer. It also will help you in the creation of your products and services. You get to know what they want before you start producing and in this way it saves you time and money and makes you more money.

Do you see how powerful Social Media can be? When you introduce these same strategies in your business you are definitely going to get more business.

Step # 3: Improve Your ROI

The above companies are doing very well online and have taken advantage of these free platform tools. For your Social Media activity to be successful you have to put some things in place. Or else it becomes a complete waste of time, energy and resources and not bearing any results.

To have maximum Return on Investment in your online activities you must have some strategies in place.

Know why you want to be on social media:

· Is it to improve your brand? or

· sell your products?

Draft a plan and work on its execution.

Develop a system where you are able to measure performance and metrics.

Find out what your competitors are doing online.

The above strategies must be placed under different projects to be effective.

Step # 4: Enhance Your Current Marketing Strategies

Incorporating Social Media into your current marketing activities can be challenging in the beginning. Not all your work force will be in support of this Social Media integration and understand its power and the positive impact that it can have in your business. You must be ready for such oppositions but it is useful, as it gives you the opportunity to educate your team about this. It is your job to find out how many people in your team are using some form of Social Media, how many hours they spend a day and who does not use it at all.

If in doubt you can always hire an Online Marketing Consultant.

You are now aware about the impact of Social Media Marketing and how powerful it is in helping brands in Africa. With over 17m African users on Facebook and still growing, use the above strategies and begin your Social Media Marketing campaign to grow your business and enhance your ROI today.

To help you catapult your business using Social Media, visit http://www.tinakyei.com/ and claim your free gifts: Catapult Your Business With Social Media Ezine 7 Day Video Training Series; Top 7 Keys To Attracting More Clients Online MP3 and a FREE chapter of my eBook " Catapult Your Business In 30 Days With Twitter".

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Are You Making These Social Media Mistakes?

Nearly 90% of small businesses network with their customers online, promote services and products and reach out to potential customers. Social media is an essential part of marketing online because there are hundreds of millions of users to be reached.

While social networking is one of the most popular ways to market your company, there are several mistakes that are made all too often by small business owners. These mistakes lead to missed opportunities.

Make sure you are not missing out on getting the most from your social media marketing and avoid some of these common mistakes:

Thinking social media marketing is free.

Sure, social media sites are free to join and use. But if you fail to make any sort of investment in your social networking strategy, then you are going to fall far short of your desired results. You will need to consider spending money on sponsored posts, advertisements, plus establishing a team for the sole purpose of social marketing.

If you are assigning staff members to social network duties in addition to their regular tasks, then you are short-changing both areas of your business. You need to have a person or persons who will be able to focus on engaging and interacting with loyal customers and reaching out to potential customers.

Failing to respond to customers.

Social media marketing is not a one-way street. You cannot simply blast a bunch of product information and call it a day. There are two sides to social media, a give and take. If you want to be successful online, you need to be engaging with the fans. When a fan reaches out to you through social media, you need to respond quickly.

Social interaction online is what Web 2.0 is all about. Start conversations, join in on existing ones and reply whenever someone asks you a question. The more you engage with your fan base, the wider your reach will be.

Find out what your target audience is talking about and use that information to get conversations started. Track your metrics in order to see what is working best and what needs improvement.

Talking business all the time.

It is important to remember that you are reaching out to people, not just consumers. You cannot spend all of your efforts on bombarding your fans with business talk. They want more. They want conversation and fun. Social media is about entertainment.

You can post about your products and services, but don't let that be all you talk about through your social networks. Post pictures and videos. Hold contests and special giveaways. Use your natural tone of voice in everything you post.

Make sure your customers know that there is a bona fide person at the other end of the computer and take interest in what they think and what they say. Use your social media as a way to connect on a deeper level with your customers.

Every business can benefit from social media, so long as you are doing everything you can to get the most from it. Avoid missing out on a strong marketing strategy by planning effectively.

What mistakes have you made with your social marketing? What changes have you made to get the most out of social networks for your business?

Dawn Pigoni of Be Social Worldwide is a certified social marketing specialist and a social media virtual assistant. Dawn offers superb social networking, social marketing and social bookmarking to WAHMs, Small Business Owners, Internet Marketers, Affiliate Marketers, and Coaches who desire to bring stunning internet presence through social networking to their businesses. Get Dawn's free report, Social Networking today & see how she can assist you with being Social Worldwide!

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The Perils of Electronic Socialization

We are social creatures. We are designed that way. Some of us are more social than others. But even the most reclusive enjoy some socializing.

Yet, the convenience of social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, and texting, is limiting good old fashioned social interaction. We don't spend time with each other like we should. Sure, there is the occasional text, "Hey, let's grab lunch", but a large percentage of our conversation is electronic. Will the long term affects change us?

Maybe.

Take Facebook for example. I initially had 300 friends when I first joined. What I liked about that was finding out what was happening in other people's lives who I don't normally see every day, week, or month - and being able to encourage them through "liking" their status update or comment. I soon found it was cluttering my mind with too much information about people and what they were or weren't doing - and even what they should or shouldn't be doing!

Is this how we really want a large portion of our minds to be used every day? It's like one continual soap opera.

What we miss because of electronic socialization:

Facial expressions. When I send something funny electronically, I don't get to see you smile or laugh. I don't participate in the warmth of that moment that can only come from sharing it face to face.Sharing meals. There is really, really something to sharing a cup of coffee or a meal with someone. It's meant to be that way.Affection. A kiss, hug, hand-shake, or hand on the shoulder or back. This is how we're wired. And it translates.

When you use something in a way it wasn't really made to be used, what happens? Over the course of time there will be some noticeable results - even damage! If we are not living the way we are designed, what will our society look like in the future? Robotic?

I shut down my Facebook for 6 months and returned with adding only 20 friends. I had 30 people (some extended family) wanting me to befriend them and I didn't. I wanted my Facebook world to be small: family and a few close friends (and so I could play Words With Friends).

What hurts us because of electronic socialization:

Time. People are spending too much time socializing this way. It affects us not getting things done and therefore, who wants company when you're so busy playing catch up? Not only that, but we're stressed. We are always vigilant. "Ding!" goes the smart phone - someone commented on Facebook.Comparing. Far too many people are comparing what so-and-so is doing or what so-and-so has and can you believe what so-and-so posted? And profile pictures that have us enjoying the thrill of celebrity status.Rejection. If someone doesn't respond to your post, you feel rejected and lonely. Especially when so-and-so got 300 likes and you only got 14. And especially when so-and-so always gets 25 comments and no one pays attention to you.

Life brings progress and change which we cannot and should not prevent. However, it is important to protect the fragility of our humanity through managing how we socialize - and not forget some good old fashioned breaking bread.

Kathy is a freelance writer and has a passion to bring hope to people of all ages who are hurting through disappointment, discouragement, and loss.

She is a member of the Working Writers Club, Writers On The Move, and a monthly contributor to Heartbeat the Magazine.

You can find her at "When It Hurts" - http://kathleenmoulton.com/

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Social Media and Customer Service

Social media, the interaction between people through the Internet, through web 2.0 configurations and programs is in full swing. At least, as far as many of the social media websites and many of the newer versions of software - browsers, smart phones and the like - are concerned. It has been hyped, pushed, used, improved and tweaked no end. And yet, for some major companies, it doesn't seem to have come through yet. There are still many customer service related firms who either do not know the benefits of social media or have not implemented them yet.

Their loss, you may well say, but it goes a little bit deeper than that. It is the customers loss more than anything else. It is the customer who is losing out on benefits gained through web 2.0 simply because they still have to rely on the old contact processes, on contact forms and telephone lines.

Let's just take the two most popular social media platforms as examples: Facebook and Twitter. Both are ideally suited for quick and efficient interaction with the customer base of almost any company, whether it be an international one or just a local firm.

Most already have a Facebook page and use this to promote their products and services through the Like button. You appreciate a certain service or product, you click on Like to tell all your friends that you've found something and that it has worked well. Facebook users can also add comments, critical or otherwise, to the pages of their favorite or less favorite companies with the knowledge that someone is going to see the comment, even if they don't react to it. And anyone else hitting the page will also get to see the comment, unless the company concerned decides to delete it; a bad company practice admittedly, but one used to prevent creating a bad impression when a service or product has failed for potential future customers.

With one billion (Facebook figures) potential viewers it is one of the best contact possibilities available on the web today and has largely replaced the old web site contact.

The second popular social media platform is Twitter which, surprisingly, is underestimated by many companies. It has a potential for growth and contact with a real customer base in much the same manner as Facebook does, but allows for even more possibilities. With Twitter companies have not only the chance to quickly highlight what is on offer and link to their products, but also address concerns quickly and efficiently in a short and clear manner. Using the hashtags (key words prefaced with the # symbol) all manner of potential customers can be reached in a matter of seconds. With Twitter it is also not necessary to continually change from one screen to another, merely updating the Timeline brings new messages on the screen. There is also no need to build a second or third platform for information, a simple link to a web page or a photograph achieves this in seconds. And Tweets, the one hundred and forty character messages, appear on other people's Timeline as soon as they are sent. Replies are also easier, since using the original writer's @ tag - their contact name and address on Twitter - automatically sends the message to them as well as to anyone else visiting the company Timeline. Twitter is, in effect, a far more personal means of contact between firm and customer.

Why is Facebook considerably more popular than Twitter for customer service?

Firstly Facebook has considerably more weight for many than Twitter. A company page shows products with descriptions and photographs. Twitter merely shows links which take the potential customer to another site, although the latest version of Twitter does allow a photograph and some other media to be opened in the Timeline. Facebook has promoted itself considerably better than Twitter and will undoubtedly continue to do so.

Twitter, however, is far more attuned to customer service needs, in my opinion, than Facebook. Promotions with product descriptions are fine, but they do not always address customer needs. When a customer has a problem they wish to gain an answer, or the link to an answer, as quickly as possible. The old system, sending a mail through a contact page on the company web site or picking up the telephone, are no longer in tune with the younger generation. Added to which, telephoning a company to use their customer services is linked in many minds with long waits, with out-sourced help desks and people who do not, can not or will not help quickly and efficiently. Telephone calls are a single person speaking to a faceless single person, they do not allow for input from others who might be able to help with considerably more speed and efficiency than the help desk person, relying on their own experiences.

I recently had to contact a telephone company in Germany, the company which holds the contract for my smart phone. Obviously this is a slightly different case with my personal disabilities, but it highlights a specific need. The telephone company web site is complicated and filled with adverts for new offers and a vast array of rates, contract possibilities and specials which is hard to navigate through when you're seeking a quick answer. A contact mail sent will not necessarily be answered quickly, often not even within two or three days of sending, and the chances are that any reply will be a form reply (building block) which doesn't address needs.

Fortunately this particular company also has Twitter. Sadly, the four people listed as operators for the Twitter account only seem to be putting out (rare) adverts for new products and network upgrades. They do not answer any of the questions and complaints addressed through Twitter messages. The social media platform Twitter is, for Internet customers, useless at the moment. And yet, with four people operating this account, it has the potential to become a wonderful time saving contact medium for the company. Questions could be addressed in a matter of minutes - even with replies longer than 140 characters using a service such as Twitlonger - thus saving time and costs for the company.

How many companies appreciate the power of immediate reply?

Sadly, again, very few. We live in a society where almost everyone believes that they have very little time. We rush from one appointment to another, have our work times and our play times and always something to do. With the immediacy of the Internet, many expect - if not demand - that all the information they need is immediately available, which it could be. Patience, as far as the Internet is concerned, is a thing of the past. If my cell doesn't do what I wish it to do right now, it is useless. If I cannot get an answer on how to change this, the company is useless too, in the eyes of the customer.

Every company of any size which relies on customer contact today has an Internet page, has a Facebook page, has a customer service department, a help desk and someone designated to handle Internet matters. Most customer service departments are linked directly to the Internet so that they can find solutions on their own web site or answer mails when they arrive. Would the addition of an interactive Twitter account be too much of a burden on their working day? I don't believe so. I believe that the addition would be a massive enhancement of their efficiency and, above all, of their customer satisfaction ratings.

Good customer service - after sales, repair, general queries - is a major part of any company today. It promotes company loyalty amongst customers. Good customer service keeps customers, keeps people purchasing the same products. It is a matter of holding a good rating in the market place and, for me, Twitter, as much as Facebook, is part and parcel of the whole.

Viktoria Michaelis is an American student (born July 1992) currently resident in Germany on a Student Exchange Program Intensive Training Course in Property Management, Investment, Insolvency and Executive Management Skills prior to studying Business Studies and Economics at Bremen University. She regularly writes in her personal Blog at Viktoria Michaelis.

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5 Tips for Starting a Career in Social Media TODAY

So I take it you're looking to start a career in social media? Well unless you're one of the lucky few who can "blow up" with a viral hit, it's going to take some hard work and passion. I should know- I'm not writing this from some ivory tower. I'm writing this with the belief that what I'm about to share with you will continue to propel me forward as well. There's a lot of opportunity out there in online marketing and I'm guessing you want in too. Businesses are finally taking social seriously, and now is the time to learn the tools, theories and people to set yourself ahead of the competition. Are you committed? Are you serious? And most importantly, are you ready?

T- TODAY: Is it bad to start an acronym with the word itself? I don't have the answer to that, but I digress... Social media is both an art and a science. To become knowledgeable, you have to both study and practice regularly, starting today. Read up from sources like Mashable or Social Media Todayand listen to thought leaders like Michael Stelzner and Brian Solis. Trust that other people are smarter than you and use the internet to your advantage to learn from the best. After a while, you'll begin to internalize the best practices and make them your own. When the ideas become your own, you can reflect them back into the world and help to grow the thinkers of tomorrow. For all we know, you may even write a book someday- but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

O- ORIGINALITY: If your plan involves being a copy of someone else, why would anyone follow you over them? Instead, bring your own dip to the party and be happy that a career in social media allows your creativity and personality to show through. There's only one right way to change the oil in a car, but there's countless ways to build a following on Facebook or Twitter. Experiment and find what works for you. Though it may take some time to find your niche, you can already cross off copying "that guy" with a million Twitter followers, because what he did to get there has already been done.

D- DATA: Data is your friend with online marketing- Learn to love it. Sooner or later someone is going to want to see behind the curtain of your work and you'll need to come up with sexy-looking reports to show your progress. Previous generations have had to struggle finding and collecting data, so be thankful that now it's just a click away. Find ways to interpret meaning from the numbers and use them to your advantage in future planning. Ask yourself "Why?" again and again, and test your hypotheses to see if you were right. You'll know when you are, because the data doesn't lie.

A- ALWAYS: Here's a list of a few things you should always do: Create what you'd want to see, share your content, cite your sources, being engaging, network with like-minded individuals, stay on top of the trends, accept that your know nothing and continue learning, go to meet-ups, update your profiles, keep it classy, have fun, keep trying and most importantly- be yourself (I said it twice because I mean it).

Y- YEARNING: There are plenty of jobs out there, but is this what you want to be doing? If I were to search Google and ask what you're all about, what would show up? I'd hope to find employable social profiles and see some initiative on your part- Otherwise your talk is just fluff. It's easy to say you have passion and drive, but if you're truly passionate, then start putting your name out there. Spend the time to build a website, show the world the plans inside your head, and develop a deep understanding of all the social tools and the tactics that drive them. Faith is an action word my friend, so take the plunge and get started following your dreams today.

How are you getting started? Tell me in the comments below and share your success stories.

For more information on starting a career in social media, check out Mashable's What Does It Take To Be a Social Strategist? [INFOGRAPHIC]

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Evaluating Social Networking Tools for Events Promotion

A growing debate arose amongst event organizers regarding the usage of social networking tools for event promotions. One school of thought believes in the view that spending time and energy on social networking sites is nothing but wastage of vital man hours. They rely more on traditional age-old methods of advertising which primarily consist of newspapers adverts and telecasting commercials on television and using radio jingles to campaign for the event. However, new age business bees have argued social media has brought about a revolution in the way event promotion used to take place previously. The online strategy is quite fruitful too in diverting web traffic to the event website successfully.

Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social networking website today and will soon have 1 billion registered global users. Facebook allows you the platform to promote your events and company products to millions of people worldwide. It is very easy to use and you can open an account absolutely free! The site lets you search for people related to your industry and potential attendees and customers. You can join groups to network with like-minded professionals and share ideas and suggestions when planning smart marketing strategies for your business. You can 'Like' an event page that looks interesting and informative.

Twitter

This micro-blogging site is a powerful tool to share information and updates of any kind. You can tweet about your upcoming events as well as provide useful online webpage links for the users to click on those to visit the page. Twitter allows anyone to write a message of maximum 140 characters; hence you need to be extra careful to tweet the most important things first. Don't fill up your profile page with unnecessary scraps; rather share your online event registration links or your business website links with fellow Twitter followers. This site helps you get feedback from people in real-time by voting in favor of or against your tweet.

LinkedIn

It is a professional social networking website where you can meet and network with industry experts and specific company executives. LinkedIn increases your event website visibility plus credibility. It lets you establish contacts with like-minded people and in the course of time create new business opportunities and increased event registrations.

Google+

Google+ allows individuals to create "Circles" to allocate contacts into different groups. The chatting feature lets you start a dialogue with anyone -friend or potential prospect, and "Hangouts" facilitate group video chats with a maximum of 10 people joining in a single Hangout session. With Google+, you can initiate discussions with likeminded individuals and in the process begin an interesting conversation with them explaining the reasons for attending your upcoming conference or webinar.

Jonathan is a professional event planner. Event professionals worldwide are increasingly relying on automated software to streamline the online event registration, payment management, and attendee relationship management. Acteva is the market leader in providing event registration solutions at competitive price.

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3 Guidelines to Make Sense of Social Media Measurement

Social promotions can be fruitful only when you are doing it the right way. But the catch is somewhere else. As the social networking sphere is open and free, whatever we do might just seem useful. And quite naturally, some actions might eventually turn out to be more harmful to your business than doing any good. This is why every digital media marketing manager must make an effort to use a series of analytical tools to calculate the success quotient of the strategies that he has deployed, and also to ensure that the level of engagement is not being damaged at any point in time.

Social media measurement can't be treated as a secondary activity in any digital media strategy. Instead, it must be treated as one of the most important aspects of any online marketing plan. However, when into social media measurement, care must be take that you aren't doing it the wrong way. If social media efforts aren't measured accurately, quite naturally, you will get wrong results. And these misinterpreted results might trigger misguided social actions. Either the overall reputation of a brand can be damaged almost overnight, or it will become impossible to make any good with whatever is socially done in the future. Quite interestingly, damage control measures seem to be useless in most cases, as the level of damage is rather profound.

Social media monitoring and measurement of success ratio is possible if you are getting a few basics right. Though, there aren't any prefixed guidelines for the procedure, yet experts believe most of us can get it right if we are doing 3 simple things simultaneously. And believe me folks, I did it their way, and was pretty satisfied with the results.

So I thought it will be good if I can share these 3 pointers with you guys today. They are given below.

When measuring social media activities, make sure you are not pulling out old records and analyzing the same. This will be a wastage of time. You need to work on recent data, and create fresh results. The same reports could be further analyzed to draw a variety of important conclusions.
Double-check each data from at least two different sources. This will provide insurance to the results that come out.
Use at least a couple of social media measurement tools together, to develop a more comprehensive report.

Follow these 3 pointers, and I guess you can create a pretty useful social media activity report.

Mark Weyland is a social media measurement tool developer and a digital media evangelist. He's currently based in Michigan.

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Do You Have A Social Media Monitoring Policy In Your Company?

A single rotten apple in a barrel can spoil the rest if it is not taken out. The case of online brand feedback is somewhat similar. One negative sentiment is enough to throw your brand out of the good books of customers. It may be a comment in a blog post, or a Tweet or a Facebook status update or anything that could damage your company's online social reputation. But in a minute there are about a million activities happening in the web and how on Earth do you expect to find that single comment or Tweet that damages your reputation. Well this is where social media monitoring works magic. It is essential that you keep track of whatever activity or online event that makes a reference to your brand.

So how do you keep track of online reputation of your company or brand? Well it is a 6 step procedure which includes:

1. Find out what is spoken about your brand

Just like you often search your name in Google to see what interesting results pop up, try with your brand name or the product your company offers. Search engines flush out almost everything related to your search keyword. Simple search is not enough; try different related keywords as you do not possible want to miss out on any info.

2. Aggregate the obtained information

You can use various custom tools to identify and group similar sentiments and feedbacks for your brand or its services. You can also make use of several commercial feed readers to effectively aggregate information based on set priority or preference. Aggregating data is important to learn which needs your attention immediately or what you can use to promote your business.

3. Inform the right personnel

The gathered data should be passed onto the respective departments wherein the concerns reported in a particular area are addressed by the best personnel in that department. There are various social media monitoring tools allow ticketing, delegation systems, etc and make sure that whenever necessary an employee from any department can be made a part of the process.

4. Replying with solutions

This is the area where your brains have to work the most. As far as positive comments are concerned a show of appreciation with a simple "Thank You" phrase is more than enough to let the customers know that you value them. However when responding to negative sentiments, then only skilled executives should be allowed to respond to the concerns reported in whatever form whether it be comments or Tweets or e-mail or even direct conversation via telephone or face-to-face ordeal.

5. Follow up to replies

Do not think that once you have responded to comments, it is all over. You may have to answer further questions or queries regarding your solutions or may have to present a different version of the solution to customers who are yet to understand your previous version. You need to employ the services of a powerful monitoring tool to help you keep track of such conversational sequences.

6. Save the comments for future

Once you feel that you have resolved the concerns and rectified the negative sentiments propagated about your brand, then it is important to make a note of the entire process from the registry of sentiment to the rectification so as to help in taking future decisions regarding your brand's growth. Such social feedbacks are effective in pattern tracking and also prove vital for training support staff as to how to respond to a similar event in future.

Hope you were not bored by that long section of how to maintain your brand's existence on the internet. If you did feel so, then just think of how worthy that few minutes would be if you did what was said in my blog. Marketing and managerial Guru's will definitely understand the value of social media monitoring and it is wise if you could also follow suit.

Social Defender is all-in-one social media monitoring tool allows you to manage your multiple social media networks from a single login.

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How Social Media Marketing Can Boost Your Sales

It was only a matter of time before businesses incorporated social media tactics into their internet marketing plan after social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter took the world by storm. Pessimists contended before that the results of social marketing were not measurable. That was before. Now, any social media marketing agency can outline metrics that are tangible, concrete and quantitatively and qualitatively measurable.

Just recently, another breakthrough was achieved by social marketing which will get any social media company excited. According to a report, 36% of consumers who follow a brand in social platforms were prompted to try new products after seeing updates from the company, while 18% of the US market bought a particular product or availed of a specific service because their friends are following them on their social accounts.

What does this mean? This means that SMM agency with a carefully thought of plan and tactics can now bring greater value to businesses beyond customer engagement and brand building. This form of online marketing can now actually impact a business' bottom line through real monetary profits.

Leveraging on Consumers' Tendency to Purchase Spontaneously

It happens to everyone. You're walking in the mall, passing window stores without really intending to buy anything. Then something catches your eye. So, you go inside the store just to "ask." But the sales pitch is just so good. So, you take out your wallet and the next thing you know, you're already in the cashier paying for something without contemplating on your purchase.

Apparently, a social media company can take advantage of this shoppers' nature to buy impulsively. Statistics reveals that 22% of people who are following brands through their social networks were prompted to buy something spontaneously. There's more good news. Fifteen percent said they spend more than they intended because they were influenced by social networking sites.

Increase Store Foot Traffic

Many consumers go to a mall without really a store or a brand in mind. They will walk around and check out several stores before making their decision.

Now, according to research, 44% of consumers with social networks are influenced by social sites when choosing which store to go to. Further, online reviews appearing in blogs and other social channels shaped the purchasing behavior of 43% of social site users. This basically means that a SMM agency can now influence brand preference in the very early stages of the decision making process of consumers.

At the onset, there were a lot of doubts as to how a social media company can contribute to the overall online marketing strategy of a brand. Today, with solid quantitative proofs such as those mentioned above, the business case for SMM is becoming stronger and if these trends continue, social marketing tactics will soon be indispensable.

Author is an Internet marketing expert and wants to share his knowledge with people who are about to hire a social media company NY, New York for their business. He has also given words to many articles where one can find the latest trends popular in SEO and social media marketing companies.

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The Social Media War

Ever since social media has emerged as the socializing tool on the internet, it has become the heartbeat of the internet. Unlike the old days people connect to the internet for the purpose of visiting these blooming social networks in order to connect and chat with friends, or share life events, participate in various fun loving activities or even in fruitful discussions to share their views. In fact social networks have revolutionized our lives by incorporating all the basic elements of a person's social life in one place. This social networking trend has really attracted the masses across the globe and no such trend has seen such a drastic impact on people which spread its wings all over the world.

Therefore, several tech savvy firms as well as certain group of individuals have sensed this opportunity to cater this vast social market with innumerable audience. The best part was that there was no specific market segmentation or consumer demographics required to launch these networks since most of them cater the needs of all consumer segments. Later on changes were being made to target people with specific needs and interests that too were done to gain a competitive edge in this tug of war.

Now that the internet has become more of a social media hub, comprising of a wide range of social networks, there is an intense competition which has rather turned into a social media war. These networks are trying each and every tactic to excel in this war and defeat their competitor. Consider the top two ruling social networks-Facebook and G+. In order to put the other down, every other day we come to know about some drastic changes made by either of them in their networking portal. This has been happening since quite a long time now. Now what the result is? Have they succeeded in their voracious efforts? I don't think so!

Although they have managed to attract a huge number of users from all over the world but in the lust to take market share, they are destroying the consumer experience. Many Facebook users are no more interested in Facebook activities calling them boring and dull. Even the new timeline addition on Facebook did not receive a good welcome from many of the Facebook users which resulted in the adoption of Facebook timeline removal widget, widely supported by its competitor's browser Google chrome.

Similarly on the other hand Google+ also did not have enough support from social networking freaks apart from some pro Google geeks. Google+ is in fact still struggling to reach the top notch when other new networks such as Pinterest and LinkdIn have already grabbed the top positions following Facebook.

This social war does not seem to end in the near future with the emergence of more social networks with better socializing options and innovative ideas. Thus consumers are also more conscious of their social networking choice according to their specific needs.

I wrote this article as my own opinion and observation. However I encourage your inputs and opinions on the topic.

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Social Media Marketing - Drive Traffic With Twitter? Absolutely, YES You Can! Really!

Twitter moves at an amazing speed. The more followers you have on Twitter, the faster that stream is going to fly by. It is amazing the diversity of people that will follow you and watch your tweets.

You want to make sure that you connect your blog to your Twitter account. It's one of the ways that you're going to automatically drive traffic. Each time you make a post on your blog, you can have it tweet the post has been made. One of the many ways to drive traffic back to your blog.

Something many people don't take advantage of is to post your tweet more than once. Now remember we said that the Twitter stream can fly by very quickly. There is an excellent chance that most of your followers will not have seen the original tweet that came out when you initially created your blog post. You need to go back and tweet about it again.

Tweet about it on different days,Tweet about it at different times of day.

One of the things that I like to do is to tweet for five consecutive days after I have made the blog post, but at a different time of day each time.

You want to use your keywords on your Twitter account. Plus use those same keywords to listen to other people on Twitter. When you "listen" to the tweets of other people you will find conversations around your business topics. You can then go in and

comment,answer questions, provide a resource or support someone in getting something done.

You also must remember to thank all of those people who share your tweets; who re-tweet your tweets. We all like to be appreciated, we all like to be thanked for things that we do. When you thank people for RT'ing you also drive more traffic back to your own Twitter account giving everyone another opportunity to see all your different blog posts.

When you are thanking someone for re-tweeting one of your posts, take that time and the opportunity to find something of theirs to re-tweet. Then you can create a wonderful circle of sharing, how good is that? Make that happen with a lot of people, and your blog posts will go really far and yes you will absolutely be driving traffic with Twitter.

Remember the more people who see your posts and who see your offers, the more money you'll make. Be sure that you're creating content that's worth sharing and have fun with Twitter.

And now, I would like to invite you to get your Free Instant Access to 30 Social Media Marketing Tips & Techniques to build your home business using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Go To http://www.butterflynetworking.com/

Here you can sign up to receive specific step by step instructions for using social media to find contacts, leads, customers and clients. You will instantly receive the 30 Tips Workbook, totally free, so that you too can take advantage of Social Media Marketing.

Brought to you by Carla McNeil - Social Media Manager

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Social Media Employment, Work Has a Whole New Meaning!

In light of the high rate of under-employment, down-sizing and temporary lay-offs; people are searching for ways to remedy their cash flow problems. Employment seekers are finding alternative ways to make an income these days and managing a company's social marketing is gaining in popularity.

One such niche that has surfaced in the last few years is "social media employment".

You may have heard of it as "social media management" but whatever you want to call it, social media employment is providing job-hungry people and entrepreneurs alike, a profitable home based business due to the need for companies to stay competitive on the internet.

Social Networking Sites are on the Rise

The amount of social networking platforms, it seems, is growing by the minute. Google+ is the latest to date and companies big and small are seeking how they can promote their brand from popular social media sites.

With roughly 800,000,000 users, Facebook gets larger by the day and has changed the way people communicate and connect with one another.

For some people it has replaced email and even making phone calls - particularly to friends on other continents. Facebook recently modified its format and it has greater potential for being an effective marketing platform.

A company can start things rolling by designing a Facebook fan page and driving traffic to it to get Comments, Likes and Shares. Needless to say, a business can market its products and services very effectively utilizing the social network platforms.

An effective marketing strategy and irresistible brand will produce thousands of comments and naturally, with these social network interactions, it's a tremendous amount of work for even the big companies.

Out-Sourcing Social Media Management

Businesses, from "mom & pop" stores to the big corporations, have turned to out-sourcing the daily tasks of tweeting, commenting, posting, blogging and even uploading YouTube videos to employed and independent social media managers.

Often the only job requirement is being well versed in the social networking platforms, possessing good writing skills and being an effective communicator.

Companies are employing people as well as contracting with home based entrepreneurs to keep the conversation going on the social sites because they want "fans", "likes", and "tweets" to build a loyal following.

Other duties associated with social media employment would be to engage people in conversation about a particular company and their product, as well as monitoring dissatisfied consumer's comments and sending out special promotional offers.

Social network manager positions pay a going rate of $25-$35 per hour and a rookie can expect to make around $40,000 a year working from home.

Social Networking is the Future

Social media is on its way to becoming the primary means for companies to market products and services to their prospective customers. In light of that, companies are rushing to have a presence on the internet and opening more opportunities for social media employment.

So are you seriously looking into the social media employment niche to earn an additional income online or possibly begin a new career? If you believe you have the skill-set to be a social media manager then you possess a skill-set to start your own online sales and marketing business.

Visit my blog and read my review of the Empower Network Blog Business System. No matter what your experience level is, this platform gives you the education, resources and technology to immediately launch a profitable online marketing business.

You would also benefit from reading my article What's the Difference Wealthy and Average. Discover how to avoid 7 self-sabotaging beliefs that will always hold people back from reaching their financial goals!

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Socializing, Challenging, and Rewarding With Social Media!

Some precious opportunities disappear right in front of your eyes if a proper action is not taken in the right time. Social media sites are a fresh resource to generate handsome, respectable income through the internet whilst selling products. Vivid learning sources are available now that have a high degree of confidence and a challenge to join and earn without any technical background or know how. Some of the comprehensive courses offers complete solution to begin with a strategized internet business following their proven steps and time tested methods. These methods are evolving due to the immense popularity of social media marketing over to other methods of internet marketing.

In earlier days people used to surf social networking sites to meet and greet online community of their friends and likeminded groups. Nowadays, a business approach is linked to these social networking sites due to their higher responsiveness to internet marketing. Unique ideas are always accepted widely and are preferred by most due to the high success ratio. Facebook marketing is getting viral and methods devised to streamline marketing are being opted by many to earn handsomely. The power of social media sites is unimaginable and even the sky is also not limit for growth.

When your e-business is blessed with millions of visitors and thousands of potential buyers, you need not look further for any other options to improve business. Twitter marketing is one of the popular sources of internet marketing. Similarly several other sites like Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest ensure to develop the business with their user base of millions of users. In all these sites the tremendous power of the huge user base is highly influential in making or breaking your business on the internet. All the users of these sites arrive at the landing page or the application page through a recommendation of some sort.

Recommendations play a viral magic in social media marketing. Users share content with your links with a comment and all the links to your business page or site passes through thousands of users recommending your products. This ensures quality branding and promotion of your business among potential buyers as only interested users are involved in such interactions. Social media sites offer a viable business opportunity to everyone who has a quality proposition. Gone are the days when businessmen used to get frustrated due to lesser sales. Nowadays, with the right proven methods, people are in a position to earn money even when they are fast asleep.

The author has an immense knowledge on social media marketing. Know more about twitter marketing related info in his website http://www.socialhoot.com/

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2 Tips To Make Money on Facebook

Wanting to take your Facebook marketing to the next level?

Follow these valuable secret tips from the successful Facebook Marketers!

Facebook can be used in a variety of ways to market and promote your enterprise or business. It can be a very valuable asset and tool in your marketing strategy. Facebook provides an effective medium for your business irrespective of whether you are using affiliate products, blog or content marketing or simple networking.

While some marketers rubbish social media marketing, it is, on the contrary, an effective and free marketing tool with great potential. The art is in using the right technique for the right target audience. If you have a Facebook business page, your followers and likes are highly targeted. Imaging you posting your blog, it will be viewed by hundreds of your targeted followers.

Here are two strategies to integrate your multi level marketing and Affiliate marketing with Facebook. What I have discussed here is the broad outline, one will have to fine tune the strategy to address the niche specific marketing needs.

Build Your Down-line

If you are looking to build your multi level marketing down-line, Facebook is the perfect medium for that. You could have multiple business pages representing different niches and your followers or likes are indeed your leads. It is a matter of time that they will become your recruits. It all depends how you attract them to you, marking them hungry to know more. The moment that happens you could take the lead offline and do your prospecting. See how simple it is to convert leads to a recruit?

Having said that I must also put a word of caution. You get your likes for two reasons, firstly the quality of your profile and page and secondly the quality of your content. Your content has to add value, it must relate to the issues that the likes are facing and offer a solution. It must also establish you as a serious and qualified person on the subject... an expert to be precise.

Affiliate Marketing on Facebook

Yes, you could do that. But wait, if I were you I would hesitate to directly market my affiliate products on my Facebook business page. I would not like my page to become a sales page. Once I get that reputation, my followers or likes would not take me seriously. I may be branded as "yet another sales person". Pitching your product directly on any social media platform has its inherent dangers.

Instead, I would post suggestive blogs to invoke reader curiosity, build a hype to know more and then when asked for, slip in my affiliate opportunity as a solution privately to the person interested to know more. This is by far a more effective strategy to monetize Facebook for your affiliate opportunities.

The best way that I attract followers and likes is through a very active presence on Facebook. While I hate people making twenty posts a day to mark their presence, I feel five to six good posts, comments, pictures or thought-provoking sentences should do the trick. There is no definition of how much is enough or how much is less, but you soon understand the number of times you should interact by the response you get on your posts.

In the current economic scenario, Facebook presents an excellent opportunity for people to market themselves and their business in a very effective and profitable manner. It all depends on the user how much he is able to en-cash... the Facebook ATM is ready to dole out cash.

Get Total Financial Freedom Using Facebook? Live Your Dream Life Forever... CLICK HERE NOW or GO TO http://topmlminternetsecrets.com/

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How The Facebook Revolution Changed The World

Facebook is now the number one social network site on the internet. It's really a good environment to keep your friends, relatives and well wishers in touch with you. It minimizes the hard work and makes the way of keeping updates of your near and loved ones flexible. It eases the communication level and makes people come closer. It's revolutionary in the world of social network.

But do we realize the bad side of it?
Let me explain something very clear. Though it lessens the pain of being in contact with your best friend, it takes away the essence. Now-a-days, it takes no effort, to be honest, to wish your best buddy happy birthday. In the past, maybe you called to show your excitement and cheer him up. But what's happening today is that you just go to the wall, type a few emotionless words as a wish and send it. Is there anything real in it? Does the person who receives this wish feel your emotions? Of course not!

The same thing can be told when it comes to relationships or dating through Facebook. In today's world, you can just sit before your computer and simply send a friend-request to someone you like a lot. And after having a chat, you ask her to go out with you and that's it. The courage of stepping on the girl's door and asking her to go out with you face to face, is no longer needed. Also she won't be able to hear your voice obviously, even if your voice sounds loving and romantic and could make a difference.

Facebook is also known to be the cause of many divorces! Without truly knowing someone, couples go for the marriage without giving it enough thought. But after spending some time together, they realize that it was all a big mistake. The free access to conversations with so many different people makes cheating on one another an easy task. And it's happening quite often. Not to mention seeing someone you broke up with recently or someone you cared about kissing and hugging another person.

So what's the point of using Facebook when the only thing that it does for you is to make you feel worse?
Let me tell you, it's because you have no choice. Facebook is the largest social interaction platform in the world and it has become so popular that without it, one can consider himself unconnected to the world.

You simply cannot ignore Facebook.
Because today the girls are so selective and play so hard to get, guys are starting to implement espionage techniques in order to know the girls better and of course to be able to impress them. I remember reading about a system called "FB Inception" somewhere. It is believed to teach you how to take advantage and use unfair techniques for getting girls. They claim that using the system you will not only figure out what a girl thinks, but also that you will be able to plant ideas about you in her mind. How's that people? I'm sure I would enjoy doing something like that one day. We'll see how that turns out.

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Benefits of Marketing Your Business With Social Media

If you're looking to market a particular service or product, then you might want to consider the wide-range of benefits that comes with social media, and its ability to easily connect with wide network of engaging visitors. Most companies can greatly benefit from the way social media is able to open up ease in communication with existing and potential clients. Here are some of the great features which can help with improving on a social marketing strategy -

Added Value - rather than just restricting your promotional effects to talking about your particular services or products on Facebook or Twitter, you might also want to look at adding value to the information you provide. It often helps to refer to or post links to interesting articles or studies in the same industry. Adding any extra information that you believe will be beneficial to visitors always helps with keeping them engaged. Offering tips, valuable or smart content will help with establishing you and your company as experts in the field.

Social Only Discounts - a great way to keep a social media page lively is to offer rewards, free gifts, price reductions or similar, which are only available to those that sign up your fan page or account. Advertising special promotions on just these types of accounts are a great way to entice a lot more potential customers to sign up. If a promotion is well thought-out, then it can quickly be passed around the net and even go viral.

Massive Reach - one of the most significant reasons for a company to sign up to Facebook or Twitter and create a lively and engaging page is the vast pool of people who you are able attract to your brand. When first starting up a company based fan page, get colleagues, friends, clients, and anyone you know to sign, and help in passing the link around to their own contact lists. Just adding you link to a network of accounts that you are able to ask for assistance from, can soon lead to a great following on your own personal account.

Great Customer Support - in much the same way that you are able to comment on your particular services and products, a visitor to a companies fan page can also leave comments, which might not always be to your liking. It is often best to assign a member of staff to monitor your social accounts to keep up to date on what is happening. If comments of a negative nature do appear, you can often use this to you own advantage, by being open and responding direct to a visitor's message. As your response in being made in public, you are able to establish a reputation for being helpful, quick and resourceful.

Visit Search Marketing Group to get a wide-range of information, tips and advice on promoting your website, such as the benefits of Google Place Optimisation.

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Social Media Marketing - Consistency Is Critical, Are You Trustworthy? Of Course You Are

How frequently do you post on Facebook? How frequently do you blog? With a blog, you want to create an atmosphere of sharing, providing great information mixed in with your offers. With your blog, you want people to come back and read your content? Right?

When you don't post very often there is nothing new to see and when people do come back and find nothing new, you will find people won't stay on your site and they won't come back. There's nothing new for them to read. Not only does this mean people won't be reading your content. It also means that the search engine spiders from Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc won't be coming back either. As a result it will be harder and harder for people to find your blog.

So why do you actually want to post in the first place?

1. You're going to attract new customers and you are going to be able to keep you're the current customers engaged. You will demonstrate to your current and potential customers that you are reliable and trustworthy.

2. You're going to be able to inform people of the services and the products you have to offer. You're going to be able to provide your opinions on maybe some products where you have an affiliate relationship.

3. You're definitely improving your search engine optimization. We all know with Google, content is king. When you have new information when the spiders come to call, they make note of that and then they'll start coming back more often. You definitely want the spiders crawling your site. That is a large part of the search engine optimization.

4. You want people to come back to your site. Ask yourself the question, how often do you want people to come back? That will be a really good indicator of how many blog posts or posts you should be doing on your website.

The same holds true with your Facebook page. You definitely want to have that connection between your blog and your Facebook page so that you automatically have your blog posts show up on your Facebook page.

The same principles apply for posts on your Facebook Page.

You want people to be engaged, you want to be providing new information, quality content to keep those readers, customers coming back again and again.

Be sure to have the RSS feed on your website. That way, people can subscribe and they will receive an email that tells them that you have created a new blog post. It's one of the great ways to assist people in returning to your website over and over and over again.

And now, I would like to invite you to get your Free Instant Access to 30 Social Media Marketing Tips & Techniques to build your home business using Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and YouTube.

Go To http://www.butterflynetworking.com/

Here you can sign up to receive specific step by step instructions for using social media to find contacts, leads, customers and clients. You will instantly receive the 30 Tips Workbook, totally free, so that you too can take advantage of Social Media Marketing.

Brought to you by Carla McNeil - Social Media Manager

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Leveraging Social Media for Generating Leads: Is It Useful for Product Sourcing Companies?

As an advocate, social media marketing is extremely useful and effective but only with a good strategy, plan and execution. So should product sourcing agencies, companies, buyers or exporters engage in the social media community?

My answer - a definitive YES. But how and to what extent?

Here are a few tips, guidelines and strategies (categorized by social media platforms) that you can use.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is probably one of the best choices for product sourcing and procurement specialists. LinkedIn is a platform specifically made for professionals, experts and industry leaders to connect, share ideas and insights. It is also an excellent place to find your customers, especially if you are in the B2B business.

Make sure you join the groups. Join groups that are both directly AND indirectly related to your industry but of course also those that interest you but are nothing to do with the industry. You never know who you might connect with that can help grow your business. I personally have joined several in the export, product sourcing, trade and marketing field. This is one I have particular liked (Strategic Sourcing & Procurement) as it gives a lot of insights and advices on sourcing.

Participate in discussions and polls. See what other people are saying and analyze polls. Add in your own insights and listen to feedback. If you are a market research or product survey, casually create a poll and get instant results.

Signup to alerts and newsletters. LinkedIn allows you to sign up or subscribe to news and alerts. Make sure you get those in your email at a daily or weekly basis to stay updated.

Twitter

Twitter is just amazing. I only recently made a personal account that led me to make one for MPN Intertrade. The great thing about Twitter is that everything is in real time and in fact most of my daily news comes from it. It is a superb tool for micro blogging, which means any blogs, articles or news you have, you should definitely "Tweet" it.

Here is how you can leverage Twitter to gain leads.

Use the Search function. The basic search function is extremely useful tool as it lets you save loads of time when searching for any topic or subject. It can be your brand name, the industry you work in (i.e. export, trade, product sourcing) or even your competition. The advance search function can further filter your searches by location. This allows you to monitor what people are talking or "Tweeting" about you or your business.

Post and Share Engaging Content. If you wrote an article, joined a seminar or hosted an event... Tweet it! And don't forget to use the #hastags with your keywords. It makes finding your content easier if people aren't following you. Use the ReTweet function as well if you find interesting content by others. This lets your current and potential followers know that you are an expert or industry leader and can be trusted.

Be responsive. Twitter users often search for services or products. It is a missed opportunity if you are providing it and even if you do not have that particular product or service, you can advise and direct them to the right ones.Being helpful and creating a network of followers might not bring you immediate leads but it sure can increase your chances. If you simply try to sell yourself to potential leads, they will just unfollow you and consider you a spammer.

Download Tweetdeck. A great application that can be downloaded to your desktop or your iPhone/iPad that allows you to monitor, manage and engage your followers. The search function can be integrated into the desktop, allowing you to monitor and reply to conversations in real-time. Hootsuite is another excellent marketing tool that allows you to schedule updates, post your social media messages across several social media sites.

Facebook

Facebook is remarkable for making company or product/service pages, where consumers can interact with your brand. For product sourcing companies it may or may not be the best choice for social media marketing. It really depends. If you are a B2B business like ours, chances are that Facebook won't bring you much in sales or even leads.

However, if you have promotions, extensive product offerings and most importantly your customers are on Facebook, you should definitely create a page. Just make sure you know what it is for: brand awareness, sales, community engagement, etc.

Pinterest

One of the more recent social medias, Pinterest is rising exponentially fast. For product sourcing and export companies, this is quite an interesting platform to look into, but not without some controversies.

This social media allows users to post pictures or 'pins' of just about anything within categories called "boards". So this can be a great place to showcase your products if you are a manufacturer who exports. If you are service-oriented company like us, then Pinterest is probably not the best place to be on.

Top concern for exporting/product sourcing companies using Pinterest

Are the product images being pinned yours? If not, does your company have rights or agreement from both clients and suppliers for posting them? Most manufacturers or clients would not want their product images floating around the web without prior consent or mention.

Get an agreement from each of them to post their products and it might just work wonders for your marketing efforts.

The Bottom Line - Conduct your market research and make sure your target markets are on the particular social media. Engage and provide useful content and not simply try to sell. Find out what 'people want' rather than what you 'want to sell'. Finally, if you have presence on several social media websites, use management applications to integrate them into one location.

For more articles related to international trade, sourcing, social media and more visit http://www.mpnintertrade.com/articles.

If you are interested in sourcing products from Thailand contact me at: shayan.naveed85@gmail.com or sales@mpnintertrade.com

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RebelMouse Initial Review

The number of social media sites that we use continues to grow as the years pass. It wasn't too long ago that we had no concept of a status update, but now most of us have promoted them from just one part of our Facebook profile to the cornerstone of our Twitter accounts. It seems clear that the social media integration is not complete, as sites like Instagram and Tumblr have become more and more ubiquitous. Indeed, the days of social marketing are just beginning.

But already with only a couple of sites, many of us are wondering how to achieve some integration. For those of us with independent websites, we are involved in a near constant existential crisis over our inability to keep our homepages as fresh and new as our Twitter feed. This is where RebelMouse comes in. RebelMouse is a beta site unveiled by former Huffington Post chief tech officer, Paul Berry.

Your own updated and fresh home page

RebelMouse provides you with a homepage that collects all of your social media accounts into one place. And what's even better is that the page is constantly refreshed - without you having to do anything! It gathers your fresh social media content automatically, and then allows you to rearrange your posts to highlight those that you feel deserve it (and demote those that don't).

RebelMouse also provides you with a platform where you can create new posts and content. You can invite people to contribute to your page and follow your page, both of which foster the sense of community found with other social media sites. Analytics are provided that help you to learn about and analyze the demographics of your traffic.

The possible uses are nearly endless. They range from basic attempts to aggregate social media to advanced social marketing. Its features make it a great option for blogging. The format of RebelMouse also makes it a great way to disseminate information about particular topics. For example, a page on categories of products or even famous personalities could group posts and tweets about a particular topic and give you a vast amount of information from a variety of sources. This rich complexity of information seems to be the internet at its finest.

It's a great place for a snapshot of what your connections are interested in and talking about all across all social networks and the site is also a repository of information for what interests you and what you are focused on.

A combination of the best

RebelMouse combines all of the great aspects of other social media sites into one easily digestible feed. The simplicity of Twitter is still present; you can read status updates on RebelMouse. But an additional layer of complexity is added when those Tweets are juxtaposed with other comments, news stories, and pictures that logically belong next to them.

It's visual aspects also allow for fluid movement between pictures and text, all the while in a way that seems to allow you to absorb information very unintentionally. This format, similar to Pinterest, adds another informative layer. It provides an ease of transition between text and images that is hard to find elsewhere.

One of the reasons why this site is so useful is that we find updating our Twitter or Facebook feeds very easy, but when it comes to keeping our homepage up to date, we struggle. RebelMouse does away with that problem and takes all of the difficulty out of having an updated homepage.

"Maria Elena Duron, CEO (chief engagement officer), buzz2bucks | a word of mouth marketing firm, is skilled at making networks "work" and harnessing powerful online and offline buzz, she facilitates online visibility services and word of mouth coaching and workshops - taking companies and professionals from buzz-worthy to bucks-worthy, http://buzz2bucks.com/."

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How to Protect Your Brand's Social Reputation?

Every second across the globe, people are logging on to a social media networks like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. They are staying connected to each other 24x7x365 days, sharing incidents, anecdotes, personal experiences, music, movies, information and much more. With the social media network assuming such expansive proportions, few business owners can afford to ignore their social reputation management strategy.

Whether you own a full-time business or a fledgling enterprise, you just cannot ignore the tremendous reach of the online market. More and more buyers are shopping online rather than personally jostling at the neighborhood market. To tap this huge market successfully, you need the right online marketing strategy, and social media should be an integral part of that strategy.

Why should you take the social media seriously?

A brand is not built-in a single day but it takes just a few disgruntled customers to spoil all that hard work. This is all the more true for the volatile online market where customers have million choices at their fingertips and brand loyalty can be very fickle. Aggressive competition and unethical promotional practices from rivals will force you to take your social media reputation management seriously and be alert about any efforts to besmirch your reputation.

Any news on the social media goes viral instantly. This means, all the latest happenings, including the latest offerings from business houses are relayed to thousands of social media members through an endless network of mutual friends. The relevance of social network in today's world also means that any bad word about your company will take just seconds to circulate among millions of members, thereby causing irreparable damage to your brand.

In today's world of online connectivity, customers are really the king. They have endless opportunities of analyzing and evaluating a company's reputation through logical and critical comments on various parameters. They make optimum use of review websites, self-blogs and social media platforms to reach out to each other and exchange information and advice. Most importantly, customers take each other seriously and respect each other's opinion about a particular company or brand.

How to maintain your brands positive image?

It is vitally important for you to be serious about your brand presence on the social media and make sure that your reputation does not suffer. You must be genuinely interested in having a positive presence on these platforms and reach out to customers in a proactive manner. Make your presence interesting by offering innovative services and useful information. Interact with customers meaningfully and respect their views. Think of ways of making customers review your brand in an affirmative way rather than self-promoting your company. Never re-direct customers to other links for any customer service or for lodging complaints. Offering help shows that you take your customers seriously and are willing to discuss their grievances even after the transaction is over.

Do not leave a standard reply for all customers but personalize your response as each of them will have specific complaints. Customers will consider your company as a genuine brand with great after-sales service and circulate the good review among their friends on the social networks. As part of your social media reputation management strategy, be prompt in your response to complaints. The world is moving at breakneck speed and customers will float away from a company which takes weeks to respond. On the other hand, most dissatisfied customers will have a good word for you if your response is prompt followed by quick action.

Get more information on social media reputation management and the importance of brand monitoring in the present world.

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