Facebook – A New Marketing Avenue

Facebook and Social Media – The Next Marketing Opportunity

Marketing as an exercise is all about contacting the appropriate shoppers with the proper products, and the result sought is captivated patrons who are more than willing to spend their hard earned loot to boost your profit. For several years, marketers  their target users
through various means and by trying to get their message across to spread responsiveness about their merchandise.

Traditional Means of Communication

Generally, marketing communications were conducted by means of books, broadcast and such traditional media through disruptive advertising, where advertisements appear in between the content of interest for the customer.

Traditional media does give a large reach to a marketer with its programming of mass appeal. However, the wastage is equally high, since a large portion of the crowd would belong to a different segment than the one that is to be targeted by the marketer.

Enter Social Media and the Internet

The transformation highlighted by the world wide web as a medium took place because of the fact that it really is highly personalized and provides more content on-demand than any other available medium. Social sites proliferated far and wide in their usage for a few simple reasons:

The power to create and distribute content is every bit as available to every operator, regardless of him/her being a customer or a marketer. In the earlier forms of media, that power rested with the editorial staff of the channel or the advertiser, but hardly ever with the user.
The medium is completely personalized, and a user can create or join groups and further create content based on what he/she likes.

Opinions are free and fair. This is one reason why social media is of utmost concern to marketers, since purchasing decisions are no more influenced as much by ad copy. The traditional word of mouth marketing approach has grown extremely well on social networks.

Facebook – At the Center of Social Media

With five hundred million (and growing) exclusive users throughout the world, Facebook is the main social networking site in terms of activity and subscriptions. What started as a garage initiative by Mark Zuckerberg has now become the greatest trend on the net.

A user interface that allows for quick communication and the ability to create fan pages and groups at the click of a mouse button are what make Facebook remarkably trendy. Another important reason for its immense popularity is the huge range of social applications that have been developed and made available within the Facebook environment.

These applications can allow users and friends to do joint activities like playing games that run endlessly, sharing photos, videos, and web links, and many more.

How does this help a marketer?

Generally, media plans were drawn to include TV channels, publications, or any other media that can grab maximum viewing and effectively reach a selected target audience. The science of segmentation and targeting has become only more accurate in the case of social media.

Facebook provides a wide variety of avenues to communicate with the audience, which opens up an entirely different world of possibilities to have a profitable dialogue with customers. Some of these methods used popularly by marketers are:

Advertising: The first opportunity, which is the most obvious one, is advertising on Facebook. The difference, however, is the fact that you can design your own commercial in a matter of minutes and also specify the details of your target group in terms of demographics and types of discussions where you want your advertisement to appear.

Fan Pages: Facebook allows every brand, as well as particular person users, to create fan pages for their favorite celebrities and their own homegrown businesses. Large brands have also created their official pages on Facebook that have a huge, immediate fan following around the world. The fan page has vast utility to convey first hand information about the brand and also to collect immediate and frank feedback from your customers.

Branded applications: One of the most effective ways to engage a user toward your brand is by building an application; this could be a game or a contest, with your branding coming across subtly through it.

What makes Facebook even more exciting is the way it allows you to target your communication sharply just to the customer segment you want to attract. It also provides analytics and page insights that give good feedback and measurement on the activity done.

The options provided by Facebook can be creatively explored and used judiciously for bringing about maximum benefits to any brand.

However, while doing all this, you need to be aware of the fact that customers have an equal say and have the ability to respond immediately to any of your actions with a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Availing the service of a social media consultant to work out a social media strategy may be required so that your efforts will not be in vain.

Get more information here for the best Facebook training available: Facebook Training

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How to Build a Big List Using Social Networking

[MySpace.com - Facebook.com - LinkedIn.com - Friendster.com - Twitter.com]

You’ve likely heard some of these sites and possibly you’ve taken a look at some of their home pages or even signed up for a free account. But tell me this:

Are you generating a ton of qualified leads using these sites yet?

If you’re not pulling in traffic using these sites, you’re certainly not alone.  Plenty of marketers haven’t even touched the social networking scene yet. And many of those that have ventured out into this relatively new territory aren’t matching their strategy or their message to the medium.

You see, you can’t just post a profile on MySpace and talk TO your audience.

These are social networking sites, meaning you talk WITH your audience. In other words, it’s a two-way conversation. And if you try to make it into a static, one-way conversation, you’ll find very few people interested in what you have to say.

To that end, here’s what you need to do to start making the most out of social networking sites:

1) Join and Set Up Your Profile

Stay away from setting up a jumbled profile with lots of images, colors and fonts that make it hard to read.
If people have to struggle to read it, they won’t. And you’ll lose a potential prospect.

On the flip side, don’t make your profile into a “clinical white” corporate-type site. People don’t visit other people’s profiles to read about companies. If they want to look at a business page at all, it’s because they want to find solutions to their problems.

In other words, your profile isn’t really about you. It’s about your prospect.

2) Contribute Good Content

Social networking sites aren’t for blasting out one commercial message after another. And in fact, doing so can get you banned.

However, you can use these sites to establish yourself as an expert in your niche, as well as to attract qualified leads to your site. And to do that, you need to contribute good content on your social networking blog, on the forums and elsewhere on the site as appropriate.

Doing so starts the conversation with like-minded others – and networking is the key to using these sites successfully.

3) Start Now

Today is the time to get started. And that’s because social networking is not only hot today, it’s the future of the web. We’re seeing this evolution right now – and if you start using social
networking sites immediately, you’ll be rewarded handsomely in new customers, new leads, new sales … and plenty of money!

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Submitting Your Article to EzineArticles

Step #1

If you don’t already have an account, create an account at EzineArticles: join

Step #2

Login to your account and go to the article submission area:

Step #3

Fill in the following details:

• Category and sub-category (your main category is going to be”Internet and Businesses Online”, and your sub-category will depend on the specific article you are submitting)
• Article title
• Summary of the article (just use the first paragraph of the article)
• The article itself
• Keywords. EzineArticles will give you ones to choose from based on your article. Don’t skip this one!  I find that EzineArticles is more inclined to accept an article if it has a few keywords inserted in this area. It might have just been a coincidence, but they only take you a few clicks of the mouse to add, so why not do it?
• The resource box – we have this already made for you!

This is how you use them:

First, you must have a domain that redirects to your affiliate link (it has to be a redirect from the domain level. You can’t just post your affiliate link, and you can’t post a redirect that is a page or folder withing your site. It has to be a redirect from the domain level, just like I show you how to get here).

Next, you have to switch the text that says “yourdomain” with your actual domain name, and “Text” with the text you want to appear as the link.

For example, if you registered mypushbuttonwealth.info, this is what you should do:

Are you tired, frustrated, and just want to start making money? Click here -> <a href=”yourdomain”>Text</a>

Stop moving around in circles and discover the online marketing secrets the gurus don’t want you to know -> <a href=”yourdomain”>Text</a>

Turns into:

Are you tired, frustrated, and just want to start making money already? Click here -> <a href=”mypushbuttonwealth.info”>MyPushButtonWealth.info</a>

Stop moving around in circles and discover the online marketing secrets the gurus don’t want you to know -> <a href=”mypushbuttonwealth.info”>MyPushButtonWealth.info</a>

Note: Notice that in the text area I just put the domain name itself while capitalizing acronyms letters and word beginning letters. That is just how I prefer to do it, but you can use regular text in there, like “Push Button Marketer” or “Push Button Wealth”.

Step #4

Review and submit

Now you can review your article and make sure that everything is in check, and then you can submit it.

After your article gets accepped, that is when you take things to the next level by linking to it from social booknarking and content sharing sites, and helping it rank higher in the search engine for your chosen keyword phrase.

Ready-made resource boxes:

Resource box#1:

How would you like to automate your whole internet marketing business? Then you should go to -> <a href=”YOURDOMAINNAME”>Text</a>

This piece of magic software will do absolutely everything for you easily. Check it out -> <a href=”YOURDOMAINNAME”>Text</a>

Resource box #2:

Have you ever dreamed of automating your internet business? Then check this out -> <a href=”YOURDOMAINNAME”>Text</a>

This one piece of software can easily change your life. What have you got to lose? -> <a href=”YOURDOMAINNAME”>Text</a>

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Previous – How To Use Social Marker.com

Social Bookmarking: Traffic Generator or Time Waster?

Today, we’re going to talk about Social bookmarking.

You’ve probably heard alot about it and maybe you’ve even tried it yourself a time or two.

You maybe have come to the same conclusion that alot of other people have come to — that it is a load of old tosh and not worth the hassle!.

And yet you keep hearing the gurus boast about how much traffic they get from these sites.  They talk about getting hundreds or even thousands of visitors in an insane short amount of time.

They warn you that social bookmarking sites and other social media sites are the future – and if you don’t start using these sites now, you’ll be left behind.

Is that true?

To be blunt: Yes.

And that’s why I want you to know how to use social bookmarking sites.

These sites are easy to use, you get instant traffic and the traffic is targeted and warm to your messages.

Here’s how to do it:

1) Join the Top Social Bookmarking Sites

Run a search for “social bookmarking” sites in Google, and you’ll uncover plenty of sites.  You’ll need to focus on two types of sites:

1) the main sites (listed below) that get the most traffic and
2) those sites that are tightly focused on your niche.

Here are some the best social bookmarking sites (that you should join ASAP):

Del.icio.us
Digg.com
StumbleUpon.com
Reddit.com
Del.icio.us

2) Participate, Network, Contribute, Network

You can’t just join these sites, bookmark your own pages and expect a rush of traffic.

Think of it this way: If a stranger came up to you on the street and said “visit this site,” would you?

Maybe.
Maybe not.

But you certainly wouldn’t feel compelled to do so.

Now what if your friend emails you and says, “check out this site.”  Would you?
Probably!  And that’s because you know this person and trust his judgement.

Likewise, that’s why social bookmarking sites are so powerful.  Namely, bookmarked pages have a better chance of being seen by thousands of eager visitors IF some of the well respected members of the community rate them as good sites first.

That means you need to network and become friends with the influential members who are in your niche. And that means you must also become one of these respected members by first voting and commenting thoughtfully on other people’s content.

3) Submit “Buzz Worthy” Content

Once you’ve networked with influential members on these sites and built up your own reputation, it’s time to start submitting some of your own content.

But here’s the catch – you can’t trot out some dusty old content that can be found in a thousand other places online.

It needs to be fresh, engaging and “edgy”.  In short, it needs to be worth sharing – something that people want to read about and pass on to others.

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Social Networks And Your Business

One of the hottest things right now in the Internet marketing world is a social network. Some of the bigger names are MySpace, FaceBook and Twitter.

These are fast becoming places where more and more people are turning for their Internet marketing endeavours. 

Why? Plain and simple — Traffic.

These social networks have a very big traffic base and many members may be interested in what you are selling.

The more people that you can reach, the better chance you have to sell your products. Marketing, though to these social networks, is not easy and must be handled in the right way or you will be banned instantly.

One of the easiest steps is to become a member of these social networks and interact with the people of the network.

Just don’t jump in with the idea of sell, sell, sell first or you will be banned so quickly your head may spin.

Secondly, make sure you join plenty of groups and talk with others and update your page often. The more pages you visit, the more people will come to you.

Make friends along the way, as they will in turn help you out more than you thought possible. Friends tell other friends about you and thus, traffic comes your way.

Slowly ease into selling your business or product. You will find out with social networking the hard sell never works and always backfires very quickly.

Social networks can’t be ignored any more, as the possibilities are virtually endless at what they can do for your business.  It could take years to drive the traffic that is possible to get there.

Many times people don’t realize the goldmines that these are. As more people do, they will find out that social marketing can be very profitable if you go about it the right way.

If you do not, it can be a waste of your time. It depends on which way you go about it. This will determine what degrees of success you will have.

Starting your own group is one smart way to go. This way, as other people join, you can slowly tell them about what you have to sell once you build heir trust.

Trust is a very big factor when talking about social networking, so don’t overlook this important aspect of marketing.

When someone trusts you, they are more likely to believe what you have to say than if you are not trustworthy.

The key to success with social networks is to take your time and don’t rush into selling mode.

Building trust and contacts through social networks can be done, but must be done slowly if it’s going to last (or if you are going to be successful).

Once you start to see some success, you can then add other ways to grow that success. Just remember to build trust and you will be fine.

People from social networks are just everyday people and they are receptive to new ideas as long as it’s not shoved down their throats.

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