Online Social Networking

Marketing and Keyword Research

I met Marcus Hochstadt several months ago through our participation at one of my favorite social networking sites for bloggers called Entrecard.

I recently previewed and gave a thumbs up to Marcus’ new keyword research home study course which will help you identify niches in both US and international markets.

The training is geared to both newbies and advanced Internet marketers. I got some great ideas from watching the videos.

Marcus shows in great detail how to use a number of free but powerful research tools.

Here’s what I wrote in my review:

I enjoyed your course very much.

I liked your in-depth look at free tools that people can leverage and assess online market potential as well as select relevant keywords.

Your introduction made a case for research, and I was lead to believe that the course would be for beginners. Once I got into the body of the course, I realized that it is also valuable for professionals.

I have experience, so I found your course very valuable, because it took me to places where I hadn’t gone before.

Read the course details and place your order at Marcus’ blog.

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Yesterday I was asked how it is that I’ve learned so much so quickly about social media marketing and search engine optimization.

My response was simple.

I learn from reading many books, e-books and blogs, and from speaking frequently with friends and mentors. Having mentors has greatly shortened my learning curve.

I do admit that I am a much more focused learner than the average person. I was able to finish high school math at 15 and by 19 I was one of the top chess players in New York.

As an adult I’ve gone on to acquire skills and expertise in many areas including business analysis, social media marketing, search engine marketing, and online social networking at social networking sites, the original motivation for this site.

One of my greatest teachers and mentors was Eric Marder, founder of Eric Marder Associates and my employer for 23 years. One fundamental thing he taught me about business was that I should always seek the truth.

At 56, I still place a very high priority on continuing education, personal development and masterminding with my mentors and peers. You can ask any of the friends with whom I consult most often, David Alexander, Ivo Jackson, and Tom Long.

Other friends and mentors whom I wish to acknowledge:

• Bill Arnold of Network Success Builders, a marketing genius
• Bill Weber of Direct Matches, who taught me to build it right
• Diane Hochman of My Private Classroom who develops leaders through her training
• Mike Litman who taught me that You Don’t Have to Get It Right, you just have to get it going
• Also Ann Sieg of The Renegade System, Mark Wieser of Surefire Sponsoring, Mike Dillard of Magnetic Sponsoring, and Tim Draayer, a master blogger

Bill Arnold of Network Success Builders and Diane Hochman of My Private Classroom, like myself, offer free tele-seminars and webinars. To receive announcements and invitations to these classes, join my e-mail list at my free social media training site.

Make a commitment to read at least one business or marketing book each month. Choose mentors to guide you and then set aside time each week to learn something from them.

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I strive to write upbeat online social networking posts. However, sometimes I have to publish a bad report.

I told you that I had found the social networking site Wowzza Disappointing. I decided to withdraw during Wowzza’s 10-day grace period, and I expected to receive a refund.

When my refund wasn’t issued after more than a week, I contacted Jim Vigilante, the site’s founder, who said that he would look into it for me.

Last week I wrote him again. This time I did not receive a reply.

If I eventually receive my refund, I’ll post a comment to this article to let you know. As of now both social networking sites, Wowzza and Zion 5, are suspect.

If you already belong to either of them, enjoy! No need to quit.

But if you haven’t joined them, you should consider taking your online social networking business elsewhere.

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History Repeating Itself

Pay It Forward for Profits, a quasi downline club pretending to be a funded proposal, collapsed last year. I hoped people would learn a lesson from it.

Members were funneled into marginal programs such as GDI and Empowerism for the sake of the income streams they provided — and perhaps too because the Pay It Forward founders had a prior interest in those programs. Members had sought to promote their primary businesses when joining PIF4P, but that idea typically got lost in the shuffle.

As Diane Hochman teaches in My Private Classroom webinars, marketing systems are simply not sustainable. They implode once a large enough number of users adopt or tout the system.

Rather than develop or teach systems and shortcuts, Diane Hochman and I teach key leadership skills and offer excellent social media marketing training.

After all, isn’t it better to invest a few months to develop strong marketing and communication skills that will serve us a lifetime than to invest the same effort in a system that might make us a few fast bucks if we’re lucky?

It’s not good to rely solely on a marketing system to build a business, but when the system itself is the product, as was the case with Pay It Forward for Profits, then the ultimate end comes quickly, usually within a year or two, and the program is completely wiped out.

Unfortunately most people don’t learn. They blame their result on bad luck or external circumstances and jump on one of the next bandwagons to come along.

As Alexander Pope said, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” and new marketing schemes appear every week.

Caution Recommended

What’s astonishing about The Spiderweb Marketing System is how closely it resembles Pay It Forward. When I signed up and looked inside, I could hardly believe my eyes. There was GDI front and center, just as it was in PIF4P.

That’s where the automated blogs are set up. Global Domains is the first paid component of this free system.

Hmm. Did I just say that?

I guess the system isn’t free. Users buy overpriced web services for $10 per month from GDI in order to use The SpiderWeb Marketing System.

When you get to the Direct Matches* sign up, you really can sign up for free. However, if you do, you won’t be able to implement the Direct Matches piece of the traffic system — better pay another $10 per month for that. I think I’m beginning to see a pattern here.

Ever hear of bait-and-switch?

Sorry. Let’s call it upsell.

There are multiple income streams — some pretty good. And there’s no made-up story about funded proposals like with Pay It Forward for Profits — also good. However, I wish they were up front about the cost. Spider Web is not a free system.

Many people will join Spider looking for multiple streams of income, but instead they’ll find themselves saddled down with multiple streams of outgo.

Oh, there is one other thing. In addition to clogging the Direct Matches MyMail system with spammy messages, The SpiderWeb Marketing System is a proponent and proliferator of automated blogs.

An automated blog is a system generated blog. The system creates the blog and pumps posts into the blogosphere faster than you can say “global warming”.

I just though of a name for this new phenomenon, it’s a blog infestation.

Okay. Needs some work. Give me some time. I’ll think of a better one.

All kidding aside, I can’t understand why somebody would want to spend hours spamming members at Direct Matches and Yuwie while polluting the blogosphere on auto-pilot.

There’s a moral issue too which I hope to discuss in detail in a future post. For now, consider this. When somebody visits a blog, they assume that it’s the journal of a real live person — not the fiction of a computer program. How can this type of impersonation be right?

Kimball Roundy, creator of the Spider System, has given us something interesting to watch. We’ll get to see how Google and the other search engines cope with his quasi-blogs and how visitors react to them as well. We’ll also get to see if automated blogs are really scalable and if a substantial numbers of people actually make money with them.

Meanwhile please be careful. If you see a low hanging spider web, duck!

Speaking of ducks, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck. I wish we could still say that about a blog.

*Direct Matches happens to be one of my favorite social networking sites. Too bad it’s going to be overrun yet again with spammers. I was so relieved when Pay It Forward fell by the wayside. Now I’ll have to put up with another wave of spamming for a year or so until The Spider Web Marketing System runs its course.

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One of the social networking sites I’ve used recently is Zion 5.

I’m writing this post to let you know that the site’s founder Darren Merrett did not pay me my Pro commission for March despite several attempts to contact him late April.

I think it’s fine to use the site as a free member or even as a Pro Member as long as you don’t care about your commissions.

If there are new developments, I will let you know.

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My tongue in cheek April Fools post Alphabet Wars was right on. Owners of social networking sites are increasingly facing tough naming choices that strain the 26-letter alphabet.

One of the newest players on the online social networking scene is Wowzza. The name tells us little more than that perhaps somebody’s keyboard tends to stick on the letter z. Why another social networking site? What’s different about this site?

Wowzza is an exclusive members-only site, not a free social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or Yuwie. All members are premium members.

Founder Jim Vigilante’s aim is to attract serious marketers and entrepreneurs. Jim is also playing up the referral income potential of Wowzza’s 3×9 forced matrix payout.

In an upcoming post I’ll explain why I am not networking at Wowzza.

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Qassia is a new social media site that can help you promote yourself and your websites.

You contribute tidbits of information or complete articles called intel and you rate other users’ intel. In exchange you receive direct exposure to your links, quality backlinks to your sites, and potential ad revenue from your intel pages.

Qassia is completely free. Visit the site, become a member and start exploring to find your niche.

As of this writing, I have contributed more than 15 intels, and my Online Social Networking blog is ranked #21 among their Top 50 Sites.

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I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

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Here goes, my longest post to this blog so far.

Many of my readers will recall that late in August I discussed money making opportunities in the online social networking industry.

I said that the industry was hot, was growing, and was worth some attention and speculation.

I suggested promoting Yuwie, a free MySpace-like site that paid a share of its ad revenue to users. I rejected paid membership sites, since the trend indicated that sites were giving more and more to members without any charge.

I was right about two things. One, the industry is hot. And two, you can certainly keep your credit card in your wallet.

The industry is so hot that new sites with the most exotic names are cropping up daily, each looking for a piece of the pie, and many willing to pay members to use and promote them.

The market is expanding with new users, but I don’t believe that it is expanding rapidly enough to support the proliferation of sites.

My prediction is that the lion’s share of new industry players will fail to reach the critical mass required to sustain themselves long term.

Whether any particular one will make it or not, your guess is probably as good as mine. However, let me offer you a plan of action.

1. Use social networking sites to network, to make new friends, to make new business contacts, and to make deals. Do not use them only to get paid by them. If you want to make money, doing business through these sites has much more potential than creating income streams from the sites themselves.
2. Join, use and refer people to sites that you enjoy, that offer the services you want, and that attract the types of people you wish to network with. Do not join sites because you are impressed by their hyped-up revenue sharing plan.
3. Avoid paid membership sites unless they are the only ones that provide the services you require and attract the clientele you seek.
4. It’s tempting to join loads of cool sites and spread yourself thin. Do not do it. Limit yourself to just a few. If you spread yourself too thin, you’ll miss the opportunity to get to know people on any of the sites, and you’ll be no more than a virtual social butterfly.
5. Invite people you meet on one site to join you on another site, especially a well established site such as MySpace. This way your friendship can survive a site’s demise. And not only that, when people connect on more than one site they tend to establish a stronger bond than when they connect on only one.
6. Take stock often of the situation to determine whether you need to change your strategy. When you drive a car, you need to be looking beyond the car ahead of you. Here too you must try to anticipate trouble ahead.
7. Don’t hold it against me if I recommend a site to you that doesn’t work out. After all I can’t see into the future, and I’m making educated guesses based on what I know presently and my strong sense of intuition. (This is my disclaimer.)
8. Have fun! Yes, I said that. Social networking online or offline ought to be fun.

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