Twitter is an absolutely amazing online business tool, and it has, on several occasions, staggered a little bit under the weight of its explosive growth – and occasionally, when a major news break happens, “tweeters” from around the world spring forward and crash their servers. It’s difficult to think of anything that has had such an amazing growth curve as this upstart social networking platform. Twitter didn’t even exist at the start of 2006, yet now it’s widely considered to be the 25th most important website in the world by numerous visitors, and it currently has many millions of very active fans.

Twitter does shatter the usual trends in a variety of ways, insofar as anything relating to social networking has an established “trend” of course. Twitter allows you to post messages, either through a web portal or on your mobile phone, letting everyone know what you think, where you are or what you’re doing. Your message is limited to 140 characters or less, so it’s always short and to the point. You have the option of selecting who you want to talk to, and who you want to hear from – known as “followers” or “following” in the world of Twitter.

At this still early point of its development, Twitter doesn’t really have any kind of online business model in place. You can sign up in just moments and start “tweeting” your messages for free. Marketers take a long hard look at the viral possibilities provided by this service and they begin to salivate. All sorts of amazing opportunities await those who work toward harnessing Twitter’s incredible power.

Twitter is perfect for communicating business news or interacting with your friends and family. You can send a message strait from your mobile phone utilising one of their readily available applications, without even needing to go to a computer. It’s difficult to estimate the actual number of users because of the fluid nature of the platform, but many experts do caution that the number of avid users, or those who actively follow and get followed, represents a very small proportion of the total user base.

While the number of engaged users may be only a few percentage points of the total user base, the Twitter platform can still be viewed as having good marketing potential. Internet marketers need to approach the task of soliciting followers carefully. Whatever your niche, the first thing that you need to do is to seek out other experts who are regular “tweeters”. You can do this by using a simple search within the program. Once you find these experts, take a constructive look at their list of followers, as your job is to try and add friends or followers to your Twitter feed in a concerted and sensible way.

As it appears that the vast majority of members do not actively keep up with Twitter, it follows that there is no point in adding followers without trying to qualify them. If you can see that the potential follower has an active list of people who he or she is following and, in turn, is being followed by, then they are potential targets for you.

Try and build a list of followers by initially following those who you suspect may have an interest in your product or service. If you have qualified them and you find that they follow you back, you are on your way.

While you might just simply include your information in the profile supplied by Twitter, most experts will recommend that you also create some sort of banner or template instead of using a stock wallpaper background. This should also contain your branding, logo and a catchy message of some kind – it’s something all serious marketers maintain.

As is the case with any form of Internet marketing or website development, make sure that you do not spam and that your messages are always relevant, informative and/or entertaining. There is a time and a place for you to include your marketing message, and you must always do this in a subtle way. Happy Tweeting!

Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, an accomplished Executive Virtual Assistant Service which helps companies of all sizes reach their commercial targets. Want to get more information about online business building success strategies that really work? Contact VMF today!

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YouTube for Business: Online Video Marketing for Any Business

Viral marketing is a term which has recently acquired some renown in the world of online business as new strategies in social marketing have been making their mark on Internet commerce. In short, it’s a marketing method or strategy that encourages people to spread the word. When this word is pro-actively spread, it has the chance to grow exponentially and reach a huge audience, just as a virus might be spread during a bad influenza outbreak.

There are quite a few internet marketers out there who are trying to initiate a viral marketing strategy, or they’re doing everything they can to make their products or services “go viral”, but most of these people just don’t realise that this is possible only if they pay particular attention to the essential elements which are necessary for this to work.

To start with, you must have a product or service that is saleable and scalable. You can create a “buzz” about anything and everything, as we have seen from examples within the popular media. For instance, who would’ve ever thought that several million people would log onto their computers and then go to a specific web page so that they could watch the video from a webcam streaming a pile of cute puppies sleeping in someone’s bed? Although most of the time, in real marketing terms, you need to start off with products or services that can inspire a great deal of excitement.

There are quite a few people out there who believe that the best way to get a viral marketing campaign going is to begin with something that’s completely free. The word “free” is of course one of the most powerful in our language, and it almost always creates attention of some kind. Consider giving something away for free in the knowledge that should your marketing campaign become effective, you will have the attention of large numbers of people to whom you may promote and potentially sell other products.

Whatever you’re selling, you need to be able to sell large numbers of it through your website development strategy. The ability to scale easily from small to very large is essential, as is your transmission method. You must plan ahead of time if you’re serious about creating a viral marketing campaign – and remember, scalability is very important. If you are not able to keep up with the demand, your initiative is dead.

If you really want to create a buzz about your product or service, it should have a certain element of “coolness” to it. What sets it apart – what is its unique selling proposition? Find something to create that spark, and you may also be able to feed off some current trends to help you. Consider researching “Google trends” online – it’s a great resource for learning about what’s hot, what may even be volcanic or what’s not.

Your viral marketing project should be able to utilise existing communication networks. Networking is very hot these days, and social networking within the Internet world even more so. Place your message succinctly into the correct networks to achieve your goal. If you really want something to go viral, you should try and take advantage of another network’s network. Construct great press releases and sew a seed in that particular area, for example.

Whatever product or service you’re using to initiate a viral marketing campaign, you must make sure that you have correctly implemented your back end operation. It’s no good giving something away for free or at reduced cost – creating a great viral marketing explosion, if it doesn’t lead you to significantly increase the sales of your keynote product or service. Many people have successfully initiated viral marketing exposure, but haven’t really benefited from it, as they didn’t have a clear overall strategy in place!

Michelle Dale is Chief Executive of Virtual Miss Friday, an adept and highly-proficient Virtual Assistant Service which works closely with enterprising people who really want to succeed in their chosen field. If you’d like to learn more about online business building success strategies that are tailored to your needs, contact VMF today!

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Let’s talk content.

Content creation is the BANE of many webmaster’s existence.

You KNOW the search engines (particularly Google) absolutely *LOVE* it when your site has lots of fresh, updated and quality content.

And you might also be one of the many people (like me!) who doesn’t really like writing all those articles.

….I don’t blame you. If you wanted to be writing all day, you would’ve become a writer!

One of the cool things that makes it a lot easier for you is that the search engines really like multimedia content – sometimes even more than they like traditional “article” type stuff.

So you can increase your rankings by:

1. Writing & publishing new, quality content on your site more often
2. Publishing multimedia content to your blog more often

Me? I prefer to publish multimedia content rather than write a big ol’ blog post. It’s less work, right?

So one of the things you can do is go to Flickr and find photos that are licensed for commercial use, and use them (always attribute the author)… There’s a tool to do this very quickly. And you can go to YouTube and embed videos into your blog that are relevant to your niche.

Just add a couple of sentences to describe the picture or video so that there are some words on the page, and you’ve got it made.

Making 7 of these kinds of posts & scheduling them to post in the future (for a whole week of fresh content) should take you 30 minutes to an hour, if you’re really picky. A whole week’s worth of content that quick? Perfect!

With this method, you’re not only posting content more often, which Google ADORES, but you’re also posting multimedia content, which makes them think you’re the cat’s meow…

And as you do so, your site rises in the rankings, you get more traffic, that traffic clicks through to buy and you make more.

We cover these and other content creation strategies inside Crowd Mountain – get your $1 trial RIGHT NOW and peruse the member’s area for the secrets and tricks to make this work for you with even less work.

After you’ve got your CrowdMountain account, turn an eye to your site and put together a weeks worth of posts using the method outlined above.

When you’ll have the week free to dive into the first Bootcamp Module!

In the member’s area you’ll find extra solutions for content creation, here’s just two:

1. A private, not-available-to-the-public plugin that will help you stay on track when creating your content, making sure you’re targeting the most relevant and profitable keywords each and every time, while picking up the long tail without any extra effort.
2. The “Cheap-O-Content Creation Series,” where we talk about how to get actual article content drip fed to your site for as little as $0.25 an article – on any topic.

We just added a new feature too – “Crowd Mountain Connect.” Details are inside the members area, I can’t wait to see you there!

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1. Social Media Riches: Review
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3. Social Spam Avoidance

A business may look at the more recent media like Facebook and Twitter, and wonder whether there’s even a use for company blogs any longer. But past experience has shown that there is still a place for such a tool. In the past, many companies recognized that their websites were not very friendly to customers, as they looked more like pages from their Annual Reports than anything else. When they changed their sites, often including a blog, customers began to respond enthusiastically and a new interaction was born.

It’s well known in the business blogosphere that Dell Computers led the way, being one of the first companies to make such a change. Even as successful a business as Dell was, a barrier still existed between the company and its customers, many of whom had frustrating complaints that weren’t being addressed. When the company set up to receive blog entries, the turnaround in its relationship with customers was remarkable. General Motors, too, had a similar experience.

And for anyone considering building a home internet business the benefits of blogging can be enormous.

A business blog can provide a supplement to regular email newsletters as well, although some customers might still rely on the emails for updates and never think of visiting the website, while others are more proactive and check blogs regularly to find current information. Businesses need to engage customers in several ways. If it’s updated regularly, the blog can provide fresh information that won’t vanish down the page quite so quickly, say, as the more ephemeral tweets on Twitter. Up-to-date business news can be posted in a friendly, casual fashion, allowing customers to ask questions or make suggestions. And their remarks won’t vanish down the page either.

Businesses do need to be cautious about raising customers’ expectations, however. While an almost one-on-one relationship might be possible between a small business and its customers, larger companies may not be able to respond to all queries or complaints, and this could damage its reputation if it’s not careful.

But another use for blogging, and one that businesses might not even consider at first, is for internal communication. Even though employees can keep in touch via email, meetings or conference calls, an internal blog can focus on one department or a single project, providing a central place for a team to receive regular updates or make an informal record of their progress. This will keep these employees up to date without their own email inbox piling up to an unmanageable level.

Blogs are the elder sibling in the social networking world, and are still better at providing information and feedback in a more permanent form. Once blogging software made it possible for a business and its customers to interact in this way, the lines of communication opened widely. The company can provide up-to-date information about products and services, and customers can respond, thus both sides of the relationship benefit.

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Take a look at Seth Godin’s somewhat humorous clip on social networking:

Episode #70 – “Apparently, Common Sense isn’t that Common”

Websites and resources mentioned in the show:

Infusion (Download the free guide from Infusion)

Outsourcing Webinar with John Jonas (replay)

PDF to Word (Converts PDF acrobat documents to editable Word or RTF formats)

NiftyClicks (Discover the very latest web tools and resources)

Get a Private Telephone Consultation with me (to Help YOUR Business)

Buy This Week’s T-Shirt (from National Media Services)

For all those people who can’t figure out how to wrap a towel around themselves, some bright spark has come up with the ‘wearable towel’ – the towel with arm openings! Whatever will they sell next? Is existing towel technology really that hard to figure out?! Check out the promo video in the show, and let me know if YOU would buy one.

There’s a profitable scam going around from “Domain Renewal Group”. They try to get you to renew your existing domains with them, even though you’ve never done business with them before. Watch out for that one!

GotBiz.tv is officially launching 9-9-09, and this week I show you the brand new trailer promoting GotBiz.tv. I’m excited to launch this new network for you, especially as all the shows will be free.

The outsourcing webinar with John Jonas is Wednesday August 26, at 9pm EST – you can view it by here: Outsourcing Webinar

The question this week is all about problem customers. What would you do in the situation described? Let me know by posting a comment below.

I’m impressed with PDFtoWord.com, a free online service that converts PDF files to editable Word or rich text format documents. Very cool.

There’s a new section of the show this week! It’s called ‘Success Stories’ and each week I’ll be featuring someone who has taken positive action from what they’ve learned from the show. You can win a cool prize from my travels – just submit your story using the ‘ask andrew’ link at the top of the page.

The BIG marketing lesson comes from Hyatt hotels who are using social media to engage with their customers – specifically in this example, it’s Twitter. See how you can use the same idea in your business. Look for creative ways to enagage with YOUR customers.

If you’d like to share YOUR favorite little known website, simply write a comment below!

Enjoy the show!

Regards,

Having trouble viewing this video? Try the QuickTime version.

Rather than start with an affiliate product and see if there are potential keywords to build a site around, in this episode of Steal This Niche my insomnia and late-night infomercial watching gave me a great niche idea I just had to share with you.

We uncover a profitable niche, with high traffic and low competition… But what’s even more exciting (to me at least!) is that this particular topic is being covered on TV, right now – which means that those search numbers may well grow over time as more and more people learn about the topic and go to Google to find more information.

Watch the video to learn what this niche is, and what the profitable keywords are in it!

As always, we use Market Samurai to find these little gem keywords quickly and easily.  To learn how to build and promote a site around this keyword (or any other niche you’re interested in) visit Crowd Mountain.

CLICK HERE to Tweet this blog post.

(You can review it before you send it out).

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3. Steal This Niche – For the Shortys

Got a quick question for you – pick up to 3 niches that you’re in below.  (You’ll be able to view the results when you’re done).

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

(Vote to view results).

Need more traffic or sales in your niche? Check out Crowd Mountain.

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WHAT IS GOOGLE CAFFEINE?

Google announced they have a “next-generation architecture for Google’s web search” and want you give your feedback.  They’re calling it the Google Caffeine Update and it will impact how sites rank in the search engines.

Basically, they’ve been tweaking and modifying the algorithm that ranks sites; if you’re involved in any kind of marketing that uses search engine optimization to drive traffic to your site, you should be paying attention to the changes Google Caffeine could bring to your rankings.

Watch The Social Media Slap video for more information on how Google algorithm changes can effect your ranking.

WHERE IS GOOGLE CAFFEINE?

To test the Google Caffeine Update, go to http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ and enter your search terms.  You may or not notice a difference in results from the regular Google homepage.  Any results you do notice are indicative of the changes that Caffeine has implements.

WHAT CHANGES DOES GOOGLE CAFFEINE BRING?

• Google Caffeine is faster.  I never really thought the “old” Google was slow!
• The index size – that is, the number of pages that are returned when one does a search, is typically much larger.
• Universal search results – when image or video search are embedded in the regular results listings – are less prevalent.  Some suggest this is due to the Caffeine update still being in beta and Universal Search will be introduced later, but that remains to be seen.
• Real time information (Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook) seem to rank higher than previously.  This could indicate that Google feels searches want to most recent (and relevant) results rather than older information, and could also be a reaction to the ever-growing numbers of people joining and publishing content on social media sites.
• Google Caffeine seems to index more individual pages on sites than “old” Google (when running the “site:” command) in some searches, less in other searches.

PUNDIT-SPEAK

What do the experts say?

“Google Caffeine Test Suggests Too Much Emphasis on Real-Time Indexing” -Andy Beal

“…my guess is that it likely does what Google search does, but better. And the foundational elements of having a crawlable infrastructure and compelling content remain.” -Vanessa Fox

“We’ve been shooting to get them [the results] pretty close [to "old" Google], so most people won’t notice a difference.”  -Matt Cutts video interview

GOOGLE CAFFEINE TOOLS

• Google Caffeine Bookmarklet
• Compare Caffeine results with regular Google results side-by-side

HOW DO I PREPARE FOR GOOGLE CAFFEINE?

The Google Caffeine update will be rolled out in the coming weeks and months.  What do you need to do now to prepare for it?

Nothing.

Of course, SEO’s will continue testing, tracking and reporting on changes they see in the algorithm.  But as many have mentioned – the results aren’t all that different (yet).

Your best bet to maintain your rank as the Google Caffeine update rolls out is to simply keep doing what you should be doing anyway – putting out good content with an eye towards low-competition, trafficked keywords.

Since there does seem to be a lot of emphasis in the Search world overall on “real time” and social media results I’d also suggest you maintain accounts at Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, etc. (Yes, I know Facebook bought FriendFeed, but it’s still there and tends to rank well) – just in case those kinds of results become even more prominent than they are now.

And most of all?  Don’t panic!

photo credit: Yodel Anecdotal

CLICK HERE to Tweet this blog post.

(You can review it before you send it out).

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