Social media has delivered incredible potential to build relationships, increase organizational effectiveness and grow brands. Yes, social media was built with the idea to bring like minded individuals together, connect friends & families and to remain in constant communication regardless of your location or availability.  But, the “Opportunities” to put your product or service in front of millions of people is astounding.  Think Viral Marketing for a second … you have a service that appeals to 5 of your “Friends”, they talk about it within the social realm, which drips down to 1,000 other people (based on the math that average people have 200 friends). 20% of those 1,000 will post about your service and the cycle grows and grows.  The simple math would be to apply the 80-20 rule.  80% of your prospects are going to come from 20% of your friends, networks or groups that you associate with.

Rather than bypass the social media opportunity, organizations should embrace it while taking steps to educate their team about internal guidelines and best practices.

Click here to sign up for your FREE 15 minute coaching call, where we can discuss how Social Media can benefit you and your business.

You know how to market your product or service, but do you know how to market yourself?

You are the critical factor to successfully selling your product or service, so make sure your marketing and message aren’t outdated.

It’s not just social networking.
Facebook is no longer a site only used for reconnecting friendships or indulging your teenager’s need for constant communication. As of April, Facebook now has 200 million users, and its fastest growing segment is 35 years old and older. If you don’t have a page on Facebook, you’re missing out on an easy advertising medium. It takes just minutes to create a Facebook page, and soon, you can be establishing yourself as a leader in your field, developing your personal brand and creating more visibility for yourself, your product or your service.

Sign up with LinkedIn so you can easily be found with a Google search. LinkedIn is a business networking site where you can personalize your own page, broadcast your professional history and post testimonials from others. The contacts you link up and interact with, the more expansive your network. View LinkedIn as an opportunity to build your contacts, expand your network and increase your credibility.

Twitter began as a way to easily stay in touch with family, friends and business contacts by answering a simple question: What are you doing? But, now, Twitter also can be a marketing tool. Users “tweet” by sending short messages via mobile texting, instant message or the Web. Savvy business owners tweet to draw attention to a product, event, resource, blog or Web site. Use Twitter to find out what people are saying about a competitor or you. Show the human side of your business by discussing the good things people in your company are doing. Find out your contacts’ interests, or share some of your own. Get feedback on a problem or answers to questions. Organize meetings or “Tweetups.” Or, follow your mentors by seeing what they are tweeting about.

Don’t throw in the kitchen sink.
If you are pulling out your résumé or portfolio to land that next big project or make a career shift, focus on accomplishments and work samples related to the position you are seeking. Prospective employers or business partners don’t want to be inundated with a chronology of everything you’ve ever done. Follow the same process for your references. Specifically select those relating to what you’re pursuing, and don’t use the same three references for every new opportunity. Take time to tailor your self-pitch.

Be yourself.
People can sense fake a mile away. Skip the stilted business-speak and give a real sense of your personality with natural conversation and writing. If you think it doesn’t sound like you, it probably isn’t you.

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Q: Do you need guidance with setting up your Personal Brand?

Q: Do you have questions on How, What, Where and Why?

Q: Are you afraid that your personal information will end up in the wrong hands?

If you can answer YES to any of these quesstions you need to schedule a FREE 15 minute conference call with myself to discuss your concerns, fears and reservations with social media. Embracing the technology is part of the battle, but let me assure you that you will reap the benefits of having the ability to showcase yourself as a Brand, targeting millions of businesses and people that need your services or products, even if they do not know it yet.

Click here NOW!

You may be a casual user of social sites, or a seasoned veteran that is addicted to updating your 140 character “what are you doing?” status, or you may use social sites for business development and networking. By sticking to these 7 secrets below, you will make the social environment more exciting.

Thank you to Perry Belcher for taking the time to slap this together.

1) Be Remarkable
2) Be Fun
3) Be Helpful
4) Be Supportive
5) Be Controversial
6) Be Resourceful
7) Don’t be an Ass!

The new “digital landscape” is dramatically different from the environment into which TV, print, and radio ads were launched no more than two decades ago. Even today’s Web 2.0 environment is different than the Web 1.0 environment of a decade ago. As the Internet led to the more facile accumulation and dissemination of information and as social networks brought even mainstream consumers online, the power of consumers has increased significantly relative to advertisers. For example, they will search for information when they want it and ignore all other forms of interruption media pushed at them. They will look for independent and objective reviews of products or services and distrust brand messages put out by advertisers touting their own virtues. And they will rely on the actions of the community to help them filter and prioritize the best “stuff” from the ocean of available content.

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Keyword mining and research – Make sure you are targeting the right keywords. Do not guess at what keywords/phrases your potential customers are searching with.

Keyword & strategic placement – Make sure you put your keywords in the title, description and everywhere else the search engines like to see them. Do not spam and watch out for keyword density.

Fresh and original content - Search engines like fresh content, that’s why blogs are so important. Develop a posting schedule and stick to it as much as you can. The spiders will learn your habits of posting and come back more often.

Web directories – Submit your site to web directories. Think relevance and lots of it. Directories can provide a great deal of targeted leads and most of them are completely FREE.

Put your content online – Write original content for your site or blog. Duplicate your content into articles and white papers for potential customers to download. Remember … relevance matters.

Be social – Comment on blogs, participate in online conversations and join social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Linked-In. These social sites will drive highly targeted traffic to your site and will allow you to network with like minded people.

Be patient – Everyone is impatient thee days. Be patient because search engines are not going to make you priority #1 until you prove to them that your site is worthy of page 1 results. Even so, it takes weeks and sometimes months to see progress.  The battle is tough, but it is worth the wait. You may get bruised along the way but if you stick to the basics and maintain a high level of relevance you will be victorious.

If you are looking to hire a firm to manage your Organic Search Engine Optimization, please do not hesitate to contact us. Call us today and schedule your FREE 15 minute conference call.

There is also the flip side of the new design and how some users think that the only reason for the new design is to allow additional opportunity to push more targeted advertising. Yes, I am sure that is part of the strategy.  I am sure all the “new design” users have seen the “thumbs up, thumbs down” icons underneath all of the ads presented.  This is another concept taken from the books of Google-isms as it forces its advertisers to step up the method of delivery and to be more relevant/appealing. If an ad receives too many thumbs down it will be removed from the list of ads to be displayed. That alone is a big step towards Facebook only wanting to display ads that receive positive feedback and are friendly to the users.

Zuckerberg and Facebook will remain on the top regardless how many people petition against the new design. Friends, families, businesses and micro-niche marketers will have no choice if they want to continue to ride the wave of social media success.

Comments are welcome.

How many of your friends are going to potentially become clients? I don’t know about you, but I do not solely look at friends and family as a viable revenue stream.

BUT …. You never know which of your friends may have a friend that could utilize your service, be interested in your product offering or have an interest in listening to a podcast, download a white paper or buying into a subscription based model. There truly are an abundance of opportunities out there.

The underlying focus of these social environments is to position yourself to be noticed and let your friends be the engine for your viral marketing campaign.

Now…. Go be social.