Posts Tagged ‘small business’

How to Get a Huge Following on Twitter

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Twitter has evolved from a way to tell people what you had for breakfast into a powerful marketing tool. If that is something that interests you, the first thing you’ll want to do is amass a huge list of followers. These steps will show you how.

1. Start by creating a great bio. You only have 160 characters to do this, unlike the 140 limit in tweets, so think carefully about how you will write your bio. Make sure it includes your website address.

2. If you’re just getting started on Twitter, create about 10 interesting, relevant tweets. Give people a reason to follow you.

3. Links to interesting websites, articles and videos make great tweets. Because the URLs will be too long for Twitter, you’ll need to create a short version. You can do this at tinyurl.com. Copy the long link and paste it into the appropriate window there and it will generate a short link that is suitable for Twitter.

4. Humorous and inspiring quotes make great tweets and are among the most popular. Lots of sites post great quotes for you to use. Find them with a Google search.

5. Search YouTube for videos that relate to your topic or area of expertise, then tweet about them.

6. Help others by re-tweeting their tweets. Many will return the favor, which will expose you to other people who may then decide to follow you.

7. Join the conversation. Reply to other people’s tweets, give them a compliment or thank them for sharing. These people may also decide to send you @ messages, which will also make their followers aware of you.

8. When people re-tweet you, be sure to thank them. It shows good manners and it increases the chances that they will do it again.

9. Participate in Follow Fridays by recommending others on Twitter to your followers. In turn, many of the people your recommend will then recommend you, which can grow your list of followers.

10. Follow all of Twitter’s rules about following and un-following. Don’t become too aggressive or your account will be suspended.

11. Try to limit the number of marketing tweets you post. You should do about 10 regular tweets for every marketing one.

Danek S. Kaus is a veteran journalist and publicist, and author of You Can Be Famous! Insider Secrets to Getting Free Publicity. Learn more Publicity Secrets and his Publicity and Writing Services

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What you Should Know About Chiropractic Consulting Groups

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

There’s been a tremendous amount of talk recently about how the internet has evolved into a chiropractic new patient powerhouse. This is simply because more and more people are getting online every day to do business and find professionals of all walks. If you understand basic and advanced strategies to position yourself properly in the virtual world then you’ll be able to step in-front of the flood of traffic.

There are a lot of theories and tactics out there about internet chiropractic marketing, so where do you start? Most chiropractors turn to a consulting coach to take care of their marketing, because they just dont have the time or energy to deal with it. But listen, most of these groups know nothing about the cutting-edge methods being used today on the internet.

Many chiropractic consulting groups have the “jack of all trades, master of none” mentality today. Believe it or not, this can do you harm if you’re thinking of venturing into online marketing for your practice. Reason being, most begin to look to paid services like Google Adwords or Yahoo Search marketing.

Not only are some of these consulting groups totally outdated, but theyre charging chiropractors thousands of dollars a month just to maintain the measly amount of business that they already have! The very methods that you think are your life raft are actually drowning you with their weight. So, if you decide to do it yourself, your first thought is perhaps Pay Per Click. PPC can be effective, but if you have no experience then youre probably throwing money down the hole with no results.

To change with the times, you need to become more aware of the times. Notice how things have changed in the past several years, and youll see that social media sharing sites have absolutely taken hold of the internet and peoples personal lives. Every week, millions of new users hop onto these Web 2.0 sites, and theyre looking to network and meet people.

So, what is the impact of social media on your chiropractic marketing strategy? Bigger that you may be aware of, that’s for sure. In no other place has it ever been as easy to connect with such specifically targeted people like you can on these mediums. It’s literally networking on steroids to put-it bluntly. You can get into the nooks and crannies that have been eluding the postcard and telephone marketers for quite some time. It’s also never been easier to brand yourself and your message with social media chiropractic marketing.

Video marketing is really the goldmine method that is taking the social media sites by storm, and it makes perfect sense. When people can not only read about your practice, but see you being your natural self, they feel like they already know you and can trust you before walking through your doors. When you adapt to the times, and put your natural image and practice out into the spotlight, the potential for new patients is startling.

Only a chiropractic internet marketing specialist can show you the simple and profound tricks to successfully brand yourself, and milk the social media sites for all the gold that theyre worth. When you go with a specialist, youre going to escape the long experimentation period that will only cost you more time and money. There’s a good chance your current consulting group is unfamiliar Web 2.0 and social media marketing. It could be why your chiropractic practice is in a slump.

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Free or Low-Cost Marketing Tips

Friday, August 28th, 2009

The economy has forced both large, corporate marketing departments and small businesses to reevaluate and reduce their advertising budgets. The Association of National Advertisers reported in August 2009 that 74% of marketing departments were reducing their marketing budgets. At the same time, it is likely you are seeking new customers to replace those that may have left for economic reasons. We have ideas for you to continue marketing for little or no money!

There is no need to completely eliminate your traditional marketing efforts like print advertising or direct mail. But now is a good time to try some of the new methods also. Right now, you need to be trying everything out so you can see what works and what doesn’t. With these methods, there is no harm or loss in trying!

If you aren’t leveraging social media as one of your small business marketing tools, you are missing out on a fun and free way to find and build relationships with new customers. It is also a way to interact and become more familiar with your existing customers as well. While interactions on Facebook or LinkedIn take persistence and patience, they have paid off for many entrepreneurs.

As a small business owner, you should know that every time you lose a customer and have to replace them, it costs you real money. Take care of the customers you already have! A simple thank you card in the mail, a phone call or visit go a long way in reminding them that they truly are appreciated. It also goes along way in making sure they think of you when someone asks for a referral.

Build a referral network. What is this exactly? Essentially it is a network of individuals who refer business to one another. Let your accountant, your attorney, your doctor, your computer maintenance person or anyone else that you do business with know that you are looking for new business. Let them know you’d be glad to refer to them if they would do the same. Feel confident in those people you refer business to! But be sure to let your trusted contacts know you are seeking referrals.

Get involved in your community. Working for Habit for Humanity, at your local church or other community organization benefits everyone. The bonus of is that you build relationships by being a community go-to person. And wherever you meet people, they will ask “So, what do YOU do?”. You get to answer and sell yourself.

Be prepared to answer the question “What do you do?” This is known as your “elevator speech” and is called that because it should be short enough to give on a short elevator ride. If you are in a traditional business like HVAC or plumbing, don’t just say “I’m a plumber”. Say something like “I own a company that excels at both residential and commercial plumbing contracting and we are known for our stand-out customer service”. Practice and be polished.

Spend some time making sure your blog and website are search engine optimized (SEO). SEO improves your rankings on major search engines like Yahoo and Google and is improved through using links, changing your category titles or using good keywords. You can do much of this yourself. If you lack confidence, get some help. I can give you insights into this and have articles on this topic on my website.

Continue to check out my blog and other articles for more free or low-cost marketing insights.

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Social Media is How the Business Relationships of the Future Will be Built

Monday, August 24th, 2009

As the world changes, so do the ways in which we should do business: it’s a simple fact of life. One of the biggest opportunities for innovation-and necessitators of change-to hit the business community and society in general has been the internet; there are simply countless new ways to proceed that weren’t available or viable before the advent of the web.

Of special interest to the business community is the advent of Web 2.0, particularly the various utilities of social media outlets at present. As is plain to see, these social media are among the most far-reaching and efficient ways to create a web or relationships and a considerable reputation for your business.

Social media websites have flourished on the web at a rate that makes them seem almost like a plague-but this is one infection that any savvy business person will be sure to want to have! The basic reason for the burgeoning of social media online is that there is no single legitimate way for people to relate, online or otherwise-any site offering people a way to communicate with each other and a slurry of other interactive features is going to get users, though not necessarily as many as others.

This desire to “socialize” on the web is simply impossible to contain and permeates all social strata, making it a literal dreamland for creating and developing business relationships. Overlooking the importance of social media today is, therefore, something to be done at one’s own risk, and he who does so is his own worst enemy from a business point of view.

Regardless of whether or not certain people seem to think that social media sites are for kids and don’t have much use, there is absolutely nothing that could possibly be more incorrect: despite the fact that some may use it so, that is not the defining feature of social media. In the end, these media platforms permit a businessperson to found a solid brand name, show their professionalism and raise the chances of people becoming their customers.

Beyond the fact that innumerable prospective customers lurk in social media sites, one of the main reasons to take advantage of this unique means is the fact that it is free! You heard correctly: a remarkable tool for expanding your business that is not being charged for. The internet never ceases to surprise us all.

Through constant and concerted upkeep of a business’s social media accounts, it is possible to turn a 10-minute-a-day effort into the backbone of your company’s networking (and by default marketing) campaign. Such efficiency really can’t be beat, especially outside the realm of the web.

At the moment, the giants of the social media scene include but are not limited to: Technorati, Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, YouTube and LinkedIn. Insofar as a business owner uses these media to get their message and brand out there on the market, the more their market impact will be-though a bit of prudence is in order for balancing depth and scope in this regard.

All in all, the potentially exponential growth in brand recognition and network connections that a business stands to gain via the use of social media means that these technologies will continue their drive at the heart of business priorities.

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A Hard-Hitting SEO Strategy is Critical For Your Online Success

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Since the introduction of the web in the late 90’s, it’s growth has been explosive with an impressive 25% of all people on the planet using it. Worldwide, Internet usage seems to have grown roughly 340% since the beginning of the millennium.

So what does all of this mean? It means that nearly 1.6 billion people worldwide are surfing the web today, and a fair number of them are likely to be using the Internet to research products and ultimately, to buy them. Records show that in 2008, over $133 billion dollars were spent in America buying products online. Thats more revenue than international stalwarts like AT&T, IBM, or Bank of America were able to generate last year.

Want your share of that $133 billion dollar pie? Then your small business needs to find ways to drive online traffic to your website on a daily basis. Think you can make that happen with traditional pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaigns? Think again. Many PPC advertisers find that sales dont keep up with PPC costs, so they wind up shutting down the campaigns in frustration, and often their websites right along with them.

Small businesses that want to maximize their web presence realize that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a much better resource over pay-per-click advertising. They might now know that SEO better be more than just keyword research and metatag improvements. SEO should focus on getting the maximum exposure possible from many different Internet resources.

These resources can be identified by a reputable and ethical SEO firm, and the goal will be to increase exposure and visibility for your website using a combination of:

Optimizing each and every individual page on your website. Lots of folks don’t know this but website don’t rank in the search engines for just the domain name - every single page of your site is available to rank - this means leveraging more pages and more keywords. It significantly increases visitor volume and ranking potential within the search engines.

Backlinks. Clicks that come through to your site via links embedded in other sites improve search engine rankings. A good SEO firm will work hard to secure backlink opportunities and will do so in an ethical and professional way.

Understanding the Competition: Your business will find hidden ways of driving more traffic to its site by understanding what keywords the competition is going after - often times you will find keywords with little competition that have high-relevancy and “buying” potential. You can easily rank for these keywords since your competition missed them!

Social Media Marketing Services. Strategically harnessing the explosion in online social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc) will work to further expand the exposure your site enjoys.

Detailed Reporting. No SEO program can be properly assessed without comprehensive and timely reporting of results.

These are just a few of the expanded tools that effective SEO companies have at their disposal to help you expand your business. Selecting an SEO firm is an important decision for your small business, because competition for sales is hard enough in good times, let alone when markets are shrinking.

Thus far, in 2009, the pace for ecommerce (compared to 2008) is only off by about 5% - this is nothing compared to the double-digit decline of retail sales in the last 365 days!

In todays turbulent economic conditions, such a modest decline puts the ecommerce world ahead of most businesses. And with a properly managed SEO strategy, your small business could very well avoid participating in the current recession altogether.

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Review Of Unique Article Wizard: Article Marketing Submissions

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Unique Article Wizard: What Is It? Unique Article Wizard is an article marketing tool that allows you to submit articles to a variety of blogs, directories, and submission sites. Unique Article Wizard has a number of sites that belong to it’s directory, so finding relevant web sites that will list your article is usually no problem.

How Does Unique Article Wizard Works? A person may write an article, submit it to an article directory, and then link back to their web site or blog with relevant information. If you’re submitting to a niche site with quite a bit of traffic, this method is great for getting lots of quality traffic. If you’re looking for backlinks for SEO purposes, though, you’re stuck with only one or two backlinks. With Unique Article Wizard, though, you’ll be submitting an article to a variety of web sites by picking categories and topics that your article is relevant to. As a monthly subscriber to Unique Article Wizard , I have used it to pick up a number of backlinks to my site, as well as to rank on the first page of Google *quickly* for a number of terms.

How Can Unique Article Wizard Help Me Rank For Specific Keywords: After you write an article, you’ll be able to write an Author Resource or “BIO” box. In that resource box, you can also include html. So for my web site, the resource box may look something like this: Business Name provides a variety of KEYWORD 1 and KEYWORD 2 resources. Where keyword 1 and keyword 2 are, those would be html links and you wouldn’t see the code. By distributing your article to upwards of thousands of blogs and article sites, Unique Article Wizard is placing keyword anchor text for you, something that could take hours if you were to do it yourself. You have the potential of placing hundreds to thousands of targeted anchor text on high PageRank and trafficked sites, increasing your chances of ranking for the keywords you are targeting.

How Fast Will I Begin Ranking For The Keywords I Am Targeting? Unfortunately, that’s not a question that can be easily answered. If you’re trying to rank for a highly competitive term, it may take quite a bit more than article marketing to rank for the keyword. I have, however, ranked for competitive terms by solely using Unique Article Wizard. My site already has links pointing to it, but my technique consisted of pushing out 1-2 articles per DAY. If each article is posted to 800-1,600 sites (per the category I was targeting), that’s a potential of 8,000 links a week, on the low end! I make sure to switch up my keyword anchor text, though, using a variety of phrases and pages so that all the links count, instead of being counted as duplicates.

How Will I Know That My Site Is Benefiting From Using Unique Article Wizard? After a few days, I take two steps: 1. Run a Rank Check Report: Using Aaron Wall’s free SEO Book plugin, I type in the keywords that I was targeting in the article and see where I currently rank. Over approximately a week period, if I’m aggressively distributing unique, informative articles, the ranking will steadily increase. 2. Check In With Yahoo Site Explorer: After a week, backlinks from your article marketing should begin showing up. I use Yahoo’s free tool to find out how many links my site now has, and I use tools like SEOPro (free) to find out the PageRank of those sites, the anchor text that is pointing to my site, and whether that anchor text link is nofollow or not. Yahoo Site Explorer is a quick way to confirm that, yes, my article marketing is getting me backlinks, while other tools are more time intensive way to confirm that, yes, those links are providing value.

Is Unique Article Wizard Really Worth The Money? That’s also a hard question to answer without knowing your situation. For me, the answer is YES. Actually, it’s MOST DEFINITELY YES. Unique Article Wizard will cost you $67 a month via PayPal. If that’s not in your budget right now, then obviously it’s not worth it to you. If you’re on the fence about ordering it, the nice thing is that Unique Article Wizard IS a monthly subscription, and you can cancel at any time.For me, Unique Article Wizard provides benefit in that I am at no loss for new article topics, and Unique Article Wizard makes it easy for me to distribute those articles to relevant sites AND get quality backlinks back. I submit anywhere from 1-10 articles a DAY via Unique Article Wizard, albeit for a variety of sites and client web sites. If you are only going to use Unique Article Wizard once a month or so, the cost may not be justified. You can easily submit a few articles to sites like Ezine Articles or Go Articles, but you may not get as many backlinks.The other thing about Unique Article Wizard, the thing I want to make ABSOLUTELY clear, is it’s not an end all be all for link building. For a link building strategy to be successful, you need to partake in a variety of methods: press release distribution, directory submission, blog commenting, forum commenting, image alt text, link bait, AND article marketing. Article Marketing may quickly get you to the top spot for a long tail keyword, but for competitive keywords and niches, it’s only going to nudge you a few pages. What article marketing and Unique Article Wizard CAN do, though, is push you to the top if you’re ALMOST there - maybe a few links behind your competitor. Your competitor will have to work extra hard trying to find new links, not knowing that a few articles are all it took to get you thousands of links and to the top of the rankings.

I’m Not A Writer. How Will Unique Article Wizard Work For Me? This is where I tell you to outsource. I, in fact, outsource the writing portion of my article marketing tactics for a few of my affiliate sites that would take me hours of research for one 500 word article. For subjects I’m passionate or knowledgeable about, I can knock out a few articles a day, but there are a variety of places to find credible writers at. Check out a site like FreelanceSwitch or FreelanceWriting for writers that know their stuff - you may pay a bit more, but the quality of the article will be a lot higher. There are a lot of article marketing services that claim they provide quality articles at $3 per article, but I’ve found that you do often get what you pay for.

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What Is Social Networking? | Social Media Marketing On Steroids

Saturday, June 20th, 2009

So what is social media marketing and how can you measure your return on investment when it comes to social media marketing campaigns? This article will outline what I believe needs to be said when it comes to social media marketing.

This would apply to any model, Non-profit, Campaigners, Affiliate Marketers (not so much if your using their domain,however some great ways around that topic, but that another article), Entrepreneurs and Business Men in Corporate Equations.

Social media platforms come in all shapes and sizes but have one thing in common and that is in their ability to rank highly in the search engines. What this means is quite simple. If you’re the little guy out there battling to stay afloat online you can leverage the power of social bookmarking sites, forums, microblogging sites and link to your website by providing quality content.

Attraction marketing as it has become known added to conversation marketing will be the platform for your social media marketing campaign.

Use good keywords to target your customers with quality articles and a clear article structure within the social media platforms to attract customers to your product or business. Then develop a conversation around your brand to build trust and respect with your customers. This can be done through microblogging sites or facebook groups or within private forums.

You can leverage off the back of social networking sites like HubPages to gain high page rank but equally your articles can gain popularity within social media platforms like facebook where the 200 million or so users have access to you directly. This is very powerful and can mean Google search isn’t even required for certain campaigns.

It all comes down to research when working out what your content should be if you want Google to rank you in the searches. Target your market and use specific keywords to attract customers to your site via the content you put out there.

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