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The latest internet marketing trend has been for people to use sites like MySpace to market their business opportunity or product, but many people have not been happy with the results of these so called untapped regions of the internet for new prospects in the social networking communities.

Many internet marketers who have used these ways to promote their websites have come forward and claimed that they have not received any real targeted traffic from these social networking sites, or made any sales. They have concluded that the social networking websites like MySpace are a waste of time and don’t really produce any good results. Being a member of some of these popular social networking sites, I believe that the internet marketers do not really fully understand the power behind this marketing tool.

Where many marketers have gone wrong is joining these websites just for the purpose of selling their product or promoting their business opportunity. If you decide to go this route your marketing approach should be way less aggressive. Your main goals should be to build one-way backlinks from a high page rank authority website, and brand yourself so that prospects can find you.

You have to start off by building your presence online. If you are new to internet marketing, you have to build a presence in your target market and a very big one at that if you want to have any chance at being found online. Many people are stuck with the belief that they can build one website after another and it will be found with little or no marketing plan. This just is not the case and failure is one hundred percent with this attitude. Because the website traffic on social networking websites is so high, you have a much higher chance of building a web presence then your competitor who is not utilizing these methods.

The next important reason to get involved on these social networking websites is building quality one-way backlinks to your website. The search engines love these authority sites and are always spidering them. If you want to get your new web pages spidered quickly then build a profile on one of these social networking communities and the search engines will come and your prospects can find you. I am always posting free classifieds on sites like Craigslist. Even though the conversion rate is so poor from the free classified sites, a one way link from Craigslist can bring lots of organic search traffic. You have to remember not to try and blatantly sell something to someone. Try and build a profile that talks about yourself and your business, and include links to all of your websites or blogs. You can also try and SEO your profile by repeating keywords in your profile, the search engines will pick this stuff up and send you traffic if you pick the right niche keywords.

Finally, you need to brand yourself in your niche. By becoming an expert on a certain subject, people will start to trust you and associate you with a product or topic. When you write articles and post them to the social networking sites, you let other people become informed of your products and opportunities. By contributing to the social networking sites you are building lots of value for yourself and trust in other people. Basically, the key is to not blatantly sell to someone and use a more softer approach. Build your credibility and your traffic and sales will increase over time.

I hope that you have become more well informed on social networking as a tool to market your business. With a little patience and persistence you too can utilize this new marketing tool to build your website traffic and sales.

About the Author
Daniel Cassidy is a online networker who spends time on sites like DirectMatches, a “MySpace” like website for business. Daniel is also the webmaster of Money Making Ideas, helping people find profitable home business opportunities online.

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Social Networking Websites As A Tool To Market Your Business

Social networking in a very subtle manner has embarked on a prominent position in the overall market endeavors of any firm or individual. The entire marketing world has been secretly harnessed by the elegance and dignity imparted by this tool. Network marketing in the social circle has made things far easier and comfortable. Getting a few minutes with the who’s who of the corporate world is not possible with such ease as rendered by social networking. Business social networks if used tactfully can go a long way in deciding your career path as a successful marketer.

In addition to providing business leads and the much-desired marketing pitch, social networking also plays a fundamental role in direct marketing of products and services. Your network could be an important consumer base and the implicit marketing pitch done on an informal note within the established contact base can generate more demand by word of mouth, than any other marketing tool.

Business Network Applications
Information technology is a mandate for almost any sphere of life. Why let social networking be an exception? The outcome of the much anticipated overlapping of information technology and social networking is the business network application. This application has made the search of referrals and contacts faster and more accessible. All you need to do is search for the desired person’s contact or referral list by making entries in the search form. These automated applications reduce the associated time factor and impart easy searches, recording, and web marketing facilities through various processes including e-mail and direct mail, landing pages, forms and analytics and CRM systems.

Differentiating The Personal And The Professional
Social networking has a basic risk that pitching or deploying personal contacts for professional reasons might end up adversely affecting the private life. However, while marketing to or through these delicate personal contacts, it is important to tactfully convey the things desired. Sensitive relations must be managed with caution wherein your friends and family must believe in what you say. While pitching for a desired contract or an opportunity convey to the intermediary that this could benefit the target contact. Let them know it is good.

Another way to indirectly spread out a word among personal acquaintances is by way of distributing business cards. Make sure that you are reachable and everyone around you knows your business domain and associated benefits. You should be the first person to be contacted for your specific set of offerings.

Recap
Social networking has been growing as an important facet of the overall marketing strategy and it therefore must be deployed in a smart manner to benefit the user. This form of networking among your family and friends can lead to the twin advantages of creating a marketing channel and acting as a demand creation outlet.

About the Author
David Gass is President of Business Credit Services, Inc. His company publishes a free weekly e-newsletter on Small Business Consulting at their web site http://www.smallbusinessconsulting.com.

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How Social Networking Helps Network Marketing

A weblog (or simply blog) is a website that ‘publishes’ or features articles (which are called ‘blog posts’, ‘posts’, or ‘entries’), written by an individual or a group that make use of any or a combination of the following:

�Straight texts
�Photographs or images (photoblog)
�Video (videoblog)
�Audio files (audioblog)
�Hyperlinks

Usually presented and arranged in reverse chronological order, blogs are essentially used for the following purposes:

�Online journal or a web diary
�Content managament system
�Online publishing platform

A typical blog has the following components:

�Post date -the date and time of the blog entry

�Category – the category that the blog belongs to

�Title – the title of the blog

�Main body – the main content of the blog

�RSS and trackback – links the blog back from other sites

�Comments – commentaries that are added by readers

�Permalinks – the URL of the full article

�Other optional items – calendar, archives, blogrolls, and add-ons or plug-ins

A blog can also have a footer, usually found at the bottom of the blog, that shows the post date, the author, the category, and the ’stats’ (the nubmer of comments or trackbacks).

There are numerous types of blogs. Some of them are the following:

1. Political blog – on news, politics, activism, and other issue based blogs (such as campaigning).

2. Personal blog – also known as online diary that may include an individual’s day-to-day experience, complaints, poems, and illicit thoughts, and communications between friends.

3. Topical blog – with focus either on a particular niche (function or position) that is usually technical in nature or a local information.

4. Health blog – on specific health issues. Medical blog is a major category of health blog that features medical news from health care professionals and/or actual patient cases.

5. Literary blog – also known as litblog.

6. Travel blog – with focus on a traveler’s stories on a particular journey.

7. Research blog – on academic issues such as research notes.

8. Legal blog – on law (technical areas) and legal affairs; also known as ‘blawgs’.

9. Media blog – focus on falsehoods or inconsistencies in mass media; usually exclusive for a newspaper or a television network.

10. Religious blog – on religious topics

11. Educational blog – on educational applications, usually written by students and teachers.

12. Collaborative or collective blog – a specific topic written by a group of people.

13. Directory blog – contains a collection of numerous web sites.

14. Business blog – used by entrepreneurs and corporate employees to promote their businesses or talk about their work.

15. Personification blog – focus on non-human being or objects (such as dogs).

16. Spam blogs – used for promoting affiliated websites; also known as ’splogs’.

Blogging is typically done on a regular (almost daily) basis. The term “blogging” refers to the act of authoring, maintaining, or adding an article to an existing blog, while the term “blogger” refers to a person or a group who keeps a blog.

Today, more than 3 million blogs can be found in the Internet. This figure is continuously growing, as the availability of various blog software, tools, and other applications make it easier for just about anyone to update or maintain the blog (even those with little or no technical background). Because of this trend, bloggers can now be categorized into 4 main types:

�Personal bloggers – people who focus on a diary or on any topic that an individual feels strongly about.

�Business bloggers – people who focus on promoting products and services.

�Organizational bloggers – people who focus on internal or external communication in an organization or a community.

�Professional bloggers – people who are hired or paid to do blogging.

Problogging (professional blogging) refers to blogging for a profit. Probloggers (professional bloggers) are people who make money from blogging (as an individual blog publisher or a hired blogger).

Below are just some of the many money-making opportunities for probloggers:

�Advertising programs
�RSS advertising
�Sponsorship
�Affiliate Programs
�Digital assets
�Blog network writing gigs
�Business blog writing gigs
�Non blogging writing gigs
�Donations
�Flipping blogs
�Merchandising
�Consulting and speaking

The following are a few things that you need to consider if you want to be successful in problogging:

1. Be patient. Problogging requires a lot of time and effort, not to mention a long-term vision.

2. Know your audience. Targeting a specific audience or group is a key to building a readership.

3. Be an ‘expert’. Focus on a specific niche topic and strive to be the “go-to” blogger on that topic.

4. Diversify. Experiment with various add and affiliate programs that enable you to make money online (aside from blogging).

5. Do not bore your readers. Focus on the layout. White spaces, line spacings, and bigger fonts make a blog welcoming to read.

Certainly, it is possible to earn money from blogs. One just needs to take risks, the passion, and the right attitude in order to be a successful problogger.

About the Author
Jeremiah Patton has been utilizing blogging to gain traffic and interest for his work at home business opportunities website at http://www.2ndincome4u.com

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Problogging Making Money From Blogs

Today anyone who has writing ability or is dreaming to be a writer has written a blog in the net. There are blog soft wares that are simple and easy to use and a technically inclined and challenged individuals can easily acquire a blog online.

For some individuals, blogs are their projects of every day living, as they talk about their daily episodes as well as make tribute to friends and family. Furthermore, blogs assume a profound meaning written to compose and assemble political statements, endorse a product, supply information on research, and even offer tutorials. Any subject that are of your interests, you can be sure that someone has written a blog about it.

Blogs are now being written by musicians, politicians, sports figures, novelists, newscasters as well as other known figures. It is this blog fever that has raised controversy. The fact that anyone can compose and regarding any subject matter under the sun, complaints about certain write-ups are an issue. In a lot of blogs, names are being mentioned; do bear in mind that although you are entitled to write anything that interests you in a blog, you have to be very careful and take in a lot of responsibility. Do not make any statements which can become controversial; or else, be very prepared.

Why a Blog?

1. For personal acquaintances, relationships and hobby. A person can write a blog about his daily activities, what’s going on with his life as his way of telling his family and friends the things that goes on in his life. Likewise, one may also write a blog just so he can express what he feels about himself, or about a certain subject matter that is of interest to him.

2. Topical. Some blogs are committed to a precise topic, like computer hardware or politics. These are frequently read like magazines.

3. For marketing. Corporations are too, into blogging; when well written and implemented, this kind of blog can be a powerful instrument for business communications, forming eagerness and anticipation regarding their products and services offered, or used as tool within the company, keeping employees well informed about company issues and news.

Why someone else’s software?

A lot of Web designer and creators will laugh at the belief and idea of utilizing the software of someone else. This is can be correct especially when each software greatly differs from the particular requirements that a client may have. Yet on the other hand, when it refers to a Weblog software, there is no reason for apprehension in the use of a package that is pre-written, as most packages were developed through years of study; not just knocked together over a couple of days.

In addition, one may study its feature set. For a developer, it would take a lot of time and effort to write and compose from “nothing at all” every single feature in the Weblog software packages of today. For most people, a blog is there for the main reason that chooses to publish or make known your literature and texts on the Web, so you want to spend your time more on writing than coding.

Hosted Services

If one wishes to start broadcasting on the Web, yet does not have web hosting, one can consider looking into a hosted service, which includes Blogger, TypePad, Live Journal, and more.

These services are operated or handled for an individual, so there is no need to concern one about technical upkeep of one’s Weblog; instead, one can concentrate on his blog’s appearance and content. In just minutes, after signing for an account, one can readily start his own blog. Many such services are offered free, such as blogger. TypePad charges a minimal amount for monthly service fee.

Self-Hosted

When one has Web hosting on hand, or is eager to buy hosting, in which one feesl that the advantage will prevail over the problems of keeping up your own blog connection and installation, then you may want to take into account a package that is self-hosted, which includes Movable Type, Textpattern and WordPress.

Other hosting companies did construct the process of installation easier, permitting installation with just a click from a control panel that is browser-based. It is important that you check with a hosting company so you can view if this function is offered. Similar to hosted services, some self hosted packages are made available either for free or for a certain fee which is dependent on the type of package that you choose as well as the basis why you are using it.

About the Author
Jeremiah Patton has been utilizing blogging to gain traffic and interest for his work at home business opportunities website at http://www.2ndincome4u.com

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Blog Software For All Your Blogging Needs

Like many important people before you – perhaps you’ve underestimated the power of blogging. Blogs can be used, not only as the single easiest way to get a listing in the search engine for your desired keywords, but also serve the fantastic purpose if building a relationship with your quickly growing list of readers, listeners and viewers.

After a light lunch today, I was left in the greatest mood. So I figured I would sit down and share with you 10 ways you can share my success and popularity using blogs.

1. Use a keyword specific blog title and description. When creating your blog, I just used the free service www.blogger.com you’re asked to title or name your blog and give a short description. Take this chance to think a little.

Ask yourself:

a) Who do you want to read your blog?
b) What is your interest or topic – what will you enjoy writing about?

If you have a poetry blog for example – use the word poet or poetry in your title and description. You can research the popularity of your keywords use Overture’s free tool here: http://inventory.overture.com

2. Try to update often (short daily entries work great) using hand written or bot generated keyword rich informative content. Give your visitors something they want to read. I love to write so I create all my original posts, but if you have a site that needs traffic or a topic that you don’t know much about you can set up an automatically updating feed using other people’s blog posts, or articles. Each entry is seen as its own html page, so the engines see your blog as a multi-paged site, that is updated regularly and rich in links and keywords.

3. Create an interesting profile. Searchers and fellow bloggers love the fact you’re a real person, this helps to build personal relationships. Again, put a little time and effort into this one. Tons of people peek at your profile, and Blogger.com keeps track of all your views, so open up and share a little. Everything on your profile page is taken as a searchable keyword. Things like: what you like to do, your favorite movies and music, etc. Each one will get you listed under that topic in the blogger.com directory.

4. One way to jump right in and get visitors and feedback immediately is by posting to similar blogs and linking back to your blog. Say you have a poetry blog: you can use Blogger’s search tool and your keyword – in this case “poetry” or “poet.” (Another way to get a quick high listing is to search Google for example “poetry blog.”)

You can post a comment on their blog, just a short personal remark will do. Keep it polite, no one wants to hear negative criticism. Blogs are more personal than chartrooms or forums, and often contain personal views and opinions of the author, so don’t go stepping on toes. The point is to make contact, build relationships, and exchange links. More links to your blog equals more free targeted traffic for you.

5. RSS is your friend! Create an RSS feed, by hand or using Feedburner. This gives your readers the option to subscribe to your blog with just a click. What this means to you is 100% deliverability of all the content you write by the readers request – your posts are sent directly to your subscribers via their RSS reader otherwise known as an aggregator. They are personally notified every time you post to your blog. And best of all, no spam complaints ever, and they get every update you make – no blockers or filters. Total word freedom!

6. Spread your feed by submitting to RSS directories. This is a one time deal, and you can either search and do it manually or use the tool I used: RSS Automator (it finds and submits to tons of different directories for you).

Only submit each blog once. This is a lasting deal that could mess up your good standing if you do it multiple times. So to be sure you get a listing, only submit to directories once. (This is not the same thing as pinging; you can ping every time you update your blog.)

7. Ping your blog every time you update using pinging services like pingomatic.com and pingoat.com. This lets the directories know you have updated and added a new post to your blog.

8. Create a personalized or branded RSS reader/aggregator. Talk about top of mind awareness. You don’t have to be a programming genius for this one (though it helps.) There are a couple services that for a small one time fee will customize a reader for you, with your logo, header and graphics, and preload it with any media you want. So with this you’re sure to be seen and remembered every day. Check out one of the best services here: http://www.tristana.org/publishers/specs

9. People love to read you, but hearing you is even better. Give Podcasting a try – there are tons of ways to get started here. I would personally recommend http://www.Libsyn.com for all your Podcasting needs. It uploads, stores, hosts, and sets up the RSS and pings for you. Like Podcasting for dummies. Then just submit your podcast to different directories and readers like Apple iTunes, and ipodder.org.

10. Radio is great but now you can create a following by imitating the idiot box. Give your subscribers another way to obsess using Video-meets-Blogging or “The Vlog.” This is a medium that is far from saturated. The possibilities are endless, and you’re only limited to what you limit yourself. Though it has not been promoted too widely, the new Apple iTunes Podcasting feature supports Vlog subscriptions as well.

About the Author
Skye Mangrum is the author of RSS for Artists, Bloggers, Podcasters, Vloggers,and Ninjas. Learn all about Skye and her unique uses for today’smodern technology by sending a blank email to: NetNinja@Aweber.com

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Top 10 Ways to Get Awesome Web Traffic Using Blogs