Aug
3
Social Media Learning Curve
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, blogging, communication | 11 Comments
The Case for Social Media Marketing
It is becoming increasingly more difficult and more expensive to reach potential customers using mass media. That’s one reason why so many marketers are turning to Web 2.0 social media marketing.
Not only do marketers want to reduce their advertising expense, they also want to connect more directly with people and learn how to better serve their target market.
Social media marketing is especially attractive to small business owners operating on modest budgets, since most social networking sites and other social media sites are generally free to use.
Steep Learning Curve
They read a story such as Beyond Blogs in the June 2nd issue of Business Week, and they rush off to embrace Web 2.0 social media unprepared for the steep learning curve that lies ahead.
The social media landscape is uncharted and sprawling. Social media sites are vying for your attention, and searching the Internet for advice turns up sharply conflicting recommendations.
Need for Mentor
Clearly you need a mentor, somebody smart and knowledgeable with especially strong communication skills. You should find somebody with whom you feel comfortable, because you’ll definitely be getting to know each other. Picking a mentor is difficult.
Effective Communication #1 Challenge
Once you find your mentor mastering essential social media marketing skills will be difficult. To get fully up to speed might take a year or even longer.
That is the bad news.
In my opinion, the hardest part of social media marketing training is learning effective communication, i.e., to write, speak, listen and persuade well and in a professional manner.
There are certainly plenty of technical challenges to overcome, but by far communication is the chief obstacle new social media marketers face. If you happen to have the right mix of communication skills, you’re way ahead of most newcomers.
Your mentor can teach you personal and business branding, online social networking, blogging, video marketing, social bookmarking, SEO and other important skills. He or she can also critique your communication style, but it will be you who will connect directly with your target market and build vital business relationships.
Get Started Now and Learn as You Go
Now the good news.
You don’t have to master every skill, dot every “i” and cross every “t” before getting started.
Find a good mentor to guide you, jump in and get your feet wet. Learn by doing.
As Mike Litman always says: “You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going.”
Your results will serve as feedback to help you to make the necessary corrections along the way… and that is good news.
Don’t miss any posts. Register, it’s easy, or subscribe to my RSS feed! You can also subscribe by e-mail using the form at the top of the home page sidebar.
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Jul
27
Small vs. Large Social Networking Sites
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 15 Comments
Even people who don’t go online and don’t understand social networking have heard of MySpace or Facebook, names that might conjure up fears of predators or identity theft.
However, that’s not my point.
My point is that MySpace and Facebook are so much talked about that they have pretty much become household names, and serious business networkers have or ought to have a presence at MySpace, Facebook and Linked In — and at other major social networking sites.
Many of the important online networking sites are listed for your convenience:
- Mashable’s Catalog of 350+ Social Networking Sites
- 50 Social Sites That Every Business Needs a Presence On
- Wikipedia’s List of Social Networking Websites
There are also industry specific sites. For example if your business is real estate related, consider joining ActiveRain Real Estate Network and Wanna Network, if you don’t already belong.
To find business networking sites specific to any industry, try plugging the industry name and the words “networking sites” into your favorite search engine.
But wait, the story doesn’t end here.
Smaller and newer business networking sites also deserve to be included in your online portfolio. After all, less can be more.
When Diane Hochman Zigs, I Zag
Diane Hochman, the founder and director of My Private Classroom for Marketers, often instructs, “Don’t Follow the Flock”. When others are zigging, you zag.
Diane is a Web 2.0 social media rock star. Many people follow her every move. They go where she goes. They do what she does. They zig when she zigs, and they zag when she zags.
People like Diane Hochman and Mike Dillard have their own flocks. Since I don’t want to follow the flock, nor live in somebody’s shadow, when Diane and Mike zig, I zag.
When they’re hanging at Facebook and Twitter, I’m chillin’ at one of the newer smaller sites such as Sta.rtUp.biz, a site that caters to small business entrepreneurs, or Natural Networkers, a social networking site for proponents of attraction marketing.
I might also be list building at Direct Matches or schmoozing at Yuwie, since they are not.
I think you get the general idea. It fits in with my online social networking strategy and my personal branding strategy. It’s common sense. I have plenty of room to maneuver.
You too might be best off charting a different course than your competition or industry leaders.
Choosing Business Networking Sites
There are many possible criteria for choosing business sites. However, at the end of the day it’s largely a matter of trial and error.
Nevertheless, let me share a few of my considerations with you. Perhaps I’ll share more in a future blog post.
Some social networking sites are funded by membership fees, some by advertising, and some by a combination of the two. I mainly prefer advertising supported sites. I’m not reaching out to a very elite crowd.
I do admit, I’m a paid Executive Member at Direct Matches since 2005. I highly value the package of services they provide for a modest monthly fee, and I appreciate Bill Weber’s personal touch. You may prefer to join Direct Matches for free.
It is the only social site I pay to use at the present time. The other sites I use are either ad supported or offer free memberships that I find suitable.
Some networking sites make it easier to connect than others. I like to reach out to a large audience and prefer sites that make it easy for me to do that.
I like to be able to browse and add friends or contacts by demographic characteristics or by geographic location. When sites offer that option, it’s great. When they don’t, I look to a site’s groups or clubs to find people in my target market.
Short Lived Networking Feature
Some new social networking sites let me send mail to all my contacts or to all members of groups to which I belong. I love this capability and use it effectively without abusing or spamming.
I like to let lots of people know about my new blog posts. If I didn’t have a blog, I’d send links to useful information and thereby build my relationship with fellow members.
Unfortunately, as a networking site grows, spammers inevitably move in and ruin it for everybody. It’s impossible to keep a step ahead of them, so all sites eventually limit or eliminate this wonderful feature.
Don’t Let Spammers Ruin Your Day
I don’t like spammers and wish they’d stick with safelists or classified ads, but I don’t let them ruin my day, nor do I let them dissuade me from using any particular social networking site.
If I can cope with tailgaters and drivers who cut me off on the highway, I can surely cope with spammers.
Don’t miss any posts. Register, it’s easy, or subscribe to my RSS feed! You can also subscribe by e-mail using the form at the top of the home page sidebar.
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Jul
20
My Online Social Networking Strategy
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 11 Comments
How I Use Social Networking Sites
I wouldn’t start a blog called Online Social Networking if I didn’t like social networking sites.
Let’s look at the many ways that I use social networking sites to meet my business networking objectives.
Casting a Wide Net
I join a wide range of social networking sites. I know that even if I will not be active at a particular social site, the profile I set up there will add to my online presence. So if I like the site, I’ll become part of the community. If I don’t, there’s no harm. My profile will remain there as long as the site continues to operate.
Consider the social networking site Yahoo 360°. If you Google me, this networking site will appear in the top search results. Sometimes it will even show up in the top position on the first page of results. Yet, this is a social networking site I rarely visit. It’s not my cup of tea.
When you Google me, you’ll find page after page of results that are me. What happens when people Google you?
Joining a bunch of social networking sites should jump start your web presence. It’ll give you some Google juice. Why not join some of my favorite social networking sites featured on my blog’s sidebar? As a plus, in most cases we’ll automatically be connected as “friends”.
Building Large Targeted Lists
When I like a social networking site, I settle in and become part of the community.
A winning strategy on nearly every social networking site is to build a large targeted list of friends or contacts, generally the larger the better. Thousands are better than hundreds.
For some sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Yuwie there are friend adders, but I don’t like to use them. I prefer the personal touch, and I don’t want to risk losing my profile for suspected spamming. I spend a modest amount of time each day requesting new friends on each of my favorite social networking sites.
There are two ways that I target my requests.
On sites that allow profile browsing by specific demographics such as age, gender, geographic location, marital status, and parental status, I browse to find people to add.
On sites that have groups or clubs I browse the groups that are likely to attract the people I’m looking for.
I tend to accept nearly all add requests from others. I reject blatant spammers, men masquerading as women in order to attract favorable attention, and crazies.
Networking and Attraction Marketing
Social networking sites are meant for online social networking and not for advertising or spamming. They’re a great place to get to know people. You get to know people by asking them questions.
Please visit or revisit my earlier post, Social Networking vs. Advertising, for a full explanation of this absolutely crucial concept.
Social networking sites are also great from attraction marketing. Be the type of person you want to attract, and that person will be attracted to you.
Videos of you presenting useful information or explaining an important idea, not making a sales pitch, can showcase you as the knowledgeable leader you are.
Blogging is a big part of my branding strategy, so when I network online, I invite people to visit my blog, read, comment and register or subscribe. And many do.
I invite people I like on one social networking site to connect with me on another site. I don’t want to lose track of them if the first site closes down or if one of us happens to have his or her profile deleted. And yes, many do… connect that is.
At Direct Matches, I invite people to visit my profile page where I have a subscription form, and people can sign up for my training newsletter. And again, many do.
Every time people go along with my request, they’re opting in another time to our relationship. It’s sort of like dating.
Branding Yourself
Social networking sites, video sites and blogs are great for personal branding. In fact, your whole online presence can serve as a branding mechanism.
Craft your personal branding strategy and develop a web presence that is consistent with your strategy.
Being Consistent and Following Through
Possibly the most important online social networking strategy is to be consistent and follow through, not to expect instant results.
First you need to build your list, and then you need to gain credibility with the people on it.
When I’ve tried to push things, people sensed it. When I’ve been patient, people have often come to me, and what could be better than that?
Don’t miss any posts. Register, it’s easy, or subscribe to my RSS feed! You can also subscribe by e-mail using the form at the top of the home page sidebar.
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Jul
10
ASD Ad Surf Daily Cash Generator Review
Filed Under Alerts | 76 Comments
Is ASD Real or Just a Scam or Ponzi Scheme?
Reading Down to End of Comments is a MUST !
My May 6 post, The SpiderWeb Marketing System, garnered many readers, especially from search engines.
While I expressed some concerns over the Spider Web program, I never implied that it was a pyramid or scam. My issues with Spider were the hype, the spam and the choice of GDI as a web hosting platform for their blogs. It was the spam over at Direct Matches, one of my favorite social networking sites, that first grabbed my attention.
A recent unexpected development however has dramatically hurt the growth of the Spider Web just as it was starting to gain steam. The SpiderWeb Marketing System is facing some serious competition from a program that may be little more than the latest money scheme and perhaps the next 12 Daily Pro.
Andy Bowdoin Launches ASD at ASDCashGenerator.com
The get-rich-quick crowd has welcomed the new ASD Ad Surf Daily Cash Generator with open arms. With oil prices moving up and real estate prices moving down who wouldn’t want to make a quick buck?
If you could spend a few hours a week viewing ads and make a load of money without having to recruit a single person, wouldn’t you at least want to check it out? I know I would.
So yours truly put on his business analyst hat, transfered $30 to his Alert Pay account, and gave that money over to ASD so that he could report back to you first hand with the inside story.
Here’s the story. You decide for yourself whether ASD is the real deal, another scam or something in-between.
The ASD Business Proposition
ASD purports to sell website traffic and to rebate a percentage of the sale price to qualified members. The rebate percentage is currently set at 125%, and amount tied in to new sales volume and subject change in the future. To qualify, members log on and surf 24 sites of other members daily for 125 days.
My Evaluation Criteria
My research and analysis of ASD Ad Surf Daily Cash Generator focused on answering some important questions.
ASD claims to be in the business of selling website traffic. Is their advertising a reasonable value at the price asked, or would it sell only to people hoping to make money from the ASD rebate scheme?
ASD shares revenue from new business by paying rebates. Can ASD sustain itself without continually recruiting new members? Can rebates adequately compensate members for the use of their funds, their time and for the associated risks?
Traffic Exchange Visits
Website visits provided by traffic exchange schemes are very much untargeted and incentivized. Moreover, such visitors are typically multi-tasking while plodding their way through the required website rotation.
I want to be generous rather than conservative in my assessment. If you could make a perfect match between the ASD viewing membership and your target websites, each visit to your sites might be worth as much as a nickel. While it’s likely to be less, let’s tentatively assess the value of a page visit as $0.05.
ASD charges $1.00 per page visit. There is a large 20-to-one discrepancy between price and value. If you can find me somebody who’s genuinely prepared to spend a dollar for one traffic exchange site visit, put us in touch. I have a bridge I’d like to show him.
Seriously, nobody in his right mind would pay more than pennies for a traffic exchange visitor.
I have to conclude that members are paying ASD for the privellege of making money from rebates or recruiting — and not for website visits. It appears that ASD is in the money business and not in the advertsing business.
If government authorities reach a similar conclusion, they could rule that ASD handles investments and is threrfore subject to the purview of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC). Such a ruling would not be favorable in the least for ASD nor for ASD’s membership.
Sustainability
In a video Andy Bowdoin explains that, unlike 12 Daily Pro, ASD doesn’t make payments to members at a fixed rate, and that it may not continue to make payments in the future. I appreciate that Andy was up front in raising the possibility that ASD as we know it today may not be sustainable long-term.
Andy’s disclaimer may allow ASD to comply with anti-pyramid statutes today and to bow out in the future if new sales ever decline sharply.
ROI Return on Investment
Whether money paid to ASD legally constitutes an investment or not, I’m not competent to decide.
However, to qualify for rebates members need to surf through a rotation of 24 sites each day. Given the slow speed of ASD’s site and frequent hiccups, it takes about three hours per week to run their Cash Generator.
How much is three hours of your time weekly worth to you? $50? $100? More?
If you’re buying rebates, not advertising, you need to figure the value of your time. The amount of rebates you will earn relative to the value of the time you spend determines whether or not ASD is profitable for you.
Your profit threshold will probably not be the same as mine. It might be higher, or it might be lower.
Just as an example, let’s suppose that you would like to earn $35 per hour, and any benefit you get from your advertising you’ll accept, and consider it gravy.
Math-phobics may skip this part if absolutely necessary.
You consider the possibility of purchasing 500 units for $500. Each day you receive $5 which is one percent of the principal.
$4 of the $5 is recovery of principal, not profit. 125 days times $4 equals your original $500.
$1 of the $5 is your daily profit, so each week your earn $7.
You want to earn $105 or three-hours times $35. You’ll need to invest 15 times as much or $7,500.
Invest $7,500 and do the required surfing. You’ll earn $105 profit per week.
Invest less, you’ll earn less.
If you don’t have much money, you won’t make much. If you do, you probably have better things to do with it and prefer not to devote a month per year of productive time to this type of risky project.
Risk Management
Yes, there’s definitely a considerable risk factor. I’m not going to call Ad Surf Daily Cash Generator a scam, but I’m telling you… It is risky.
You might not recover your $7,500 or earn the 25% bonus of $1,875.
You have to account for risk and plan for it — if you can. You can try Lloyd’s of London if you need help.
Sure everybody’s making money now. Some are making tons of money, but will ASD last indefinitely?
Perhaps not.
Every gambler who makes money at Las Vegas faces the same dilemma: cash out or let it ride.
There were many people who made big money at 12 Daily Pro and many other high yield income programs (HYIP’s) that circled the globe a couple of years ago.
And there were people who lost. Some of them lost a lot.
A Few Quirks
Like most other growing sites ASDCashGenerator.com can be very slow. They’re upgrading their servers, but their upgrades will soon need upgrades. You’ll have to be patient.
It can take days for your payment to show up in their system. Perhaps some things are done manually. Submit a support ticket and be patient.
I created a unique e-mail address just for ASD and received an unsolicited business offer from a woman oversees sent to that address a couple of days after registering. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that my sponsor exposed my address when sending a group e-mail.
I requested to buy 30 units of advertising but received only 28. I guess they took $2 as a processing fee.
A Major Fallacy
I hear people explaining that they already made their money back, and that they’re playing with profit as if the profit isn’t their own money.
You can take your profit and do something for yourself or your family. It definitely is your money just as much as your original principal was. If you throw it away, you’re throwing away your money, not ASD’s or anybody else’s.
It Boils Down to Using Common Sense
You don’t have to be a top business analyst to figure these kinds of things out.
If you get down to the basics and avoid the hype, you can make excellent business decisions. As my mentor Diane Hochman, founder of My Private Classroom, says, “Use your common sense.”
Don’t miss any posts. Register, it’s easy, or subscribe to my RSS feed! You can also subscribe by e-mail using the form at the top of the home page sidebar.
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Mar
24
Social Networking vs. Advertising
Filed Under Favorite Posts, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 8 Comments
I just made my first video, a replay of my August 8, 2007 conference call.
It’s too long to upload to YouTube, so I uploaded it to Google. I learned how to make the video in My Private Classroom for Marketers.
It’s all about offline and online social networking, and about how networking differs from advertising. Hope you like it!
I recommend looking and listening, especially if you’ve ever used Direct Matches or any of the other social networking sites. Without further ado, here’s my video.
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Blog Syndication
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