4 Social Analytics Tips to Improve Your Social Media Marketing

Would you like to find out when your social media followers are most active?

Do you want to know which social network drives the most leads to your website?

There are many social media statistics you can track, but it’s important to track the data specific to your business’s use of social media.

Track the right metrics for your community and you’ll better understand how and when to share information, as well as what type of content drives the most traffic to your website.

In this article, you’ll learn how to track and measure four important social media metrics to help you improve your social media marketing.

#1: Determine the Best Times to Post Updates on Twitter and Facebook

Twitter

Because Twitter moves at such a rapid pace, tweets get buried quickly. Knowing when your followers are online plays a crucial part in your tweet’s visibility and success.

Luckily there are some great tools to analyze the activity of your followers.

Tweriod looks at the recent tweets of your followers and provides you with analytics and data that show when your followers are the most active.

Once you connect your Twitter account to Tweriod, it runs an analysis and summarizes the best hours of each day for you to reach your followers with your tweets. The report is delivered to you by email or a DM when the results are ready.


Tweriod results show the optimal times for you to tweet.
Besides recommending the best hours of each day to tweet, Tweriod also gives you an overall analysis you can review to get a sense of your community’s most active days.


Tweriod analytics show your followers' daily activity.
Tweriod also gives you the ability to synchronize this data with your Buffer account to automatically update your auto-scheduling hours.

Tweriod is free for accounts with up to 1000 followers and offers a monthly subscription if you have more followers or are interested in premium features.

Use the data from Tweriod to adjust the days and times you post on Twitter.

Facebook

With Story Bump, EdgeRank and the sheer volume of posts that roll through the general news feed, it’s getting difficult to make sure your fans see your page posts. To maximize the lifespan of your posts, you need to know when your fans are most likely to see them.

Facebook Insights offers a simple way to find out when your fans are most likely to be active on Facebook.

To find the best hours to share updates on your Facebook page, pull up the Insights dashboard, click on the Posts tab, and choose “When Your Fans Are Online.”


The Posts tab in Insights shows when your fans are most often online.

Here, Facebook shows you easy-to-read graphs of your fans’ diversity, including the average number of fans who saw your post in any given hour.


Insights has easily readable graphs.

That’s it. Now, you just have to post during your strong hours and highlight your most important posts during your peak exposure times.

#2: Find the Magic Number of Facebook Posts per Day

Many studies show the average brand should post about 1-2 times a day on Facebook. You need to know if that’s true for your page.

Find the magic number of posts to share on your page, and you’ll dramatically affect your engagement and community growth.

Facebook’s new Insights dashboard gives you information about your recent posts and the frequency of engagement. To view the information, click on “See All” from your page to reveal the Overview tab.


Access your Insights dashboard.
Now, export the Overview data into a spreadsheet file directly from the dashboard by selecting “Data Type: Post-Level Data.”


A view of the Facebook Insights dashboard Overview tab.
In the spreadsheet, group the posts by day and compare the average Lifetime Post Total Impressions and Lifetime Engaged Users columns.

For each day, look for the lower engagement numbers to discover which post count is decreasing the average metrics you measure.

That is your magic number of posts to share each day.

#3: Measure the Click-through Rate

If you’re active on social media, you’re likely to share a lot of content from your blog, website, YouTube channel or other media platforms.

When you share a link to your various platforms, your goal is to have people click on your link. The click-through rate (CTR) your links receive is most likely your primary metric for measuring success.

To measure your CTR, you need a URL shortener to track clicks.

Bitly is a free URL shortener with a set of tools to create shortened links, share your links and measure the CTR on your links.

You can shorten links from within the Bitly dashboard or use an extension for Firefox or Chrome to automatically shorten and share links straight from your browser.

After you’ve shortened a link with Bitly, click on it from the library at any time to get detailed information on its CTR, click sources, geographic distribution of clicks and more.


This Bitly dashboard shows a CTR of 44 and other data on platforms and demographics.

This map shows where the clicks on a Bitly link originate.

On the Bitly stats dashboard, you get both aggregated and individual statistics about the links you share from Bitly. Aggregated stats show complete global activity on a link and individual stats show activity specific to your shares of the link.

There are other tools to measure your CTR, but Bitly’s analytics give you more detail than most, for free.


Bitly shows you click-through rates on every link you shorten.
Spend some time analyzing the data behind your Bitly links to find trends in CTRs and shares that will help you deliver content suited to the needs and interests of your community.

#4: Compare Lead Sources and Conversion Rates

Most brands’ social media strategies use more than one social media platform to drive traffic to their websites and generate new leads.

Although each platform has its place in your strategy, you won’t receive an equal ROI from each one. You’ll want to find out which platform generates the best ROI so you can put more effort into your marketing on that platform.

UTM Link Building and Google Analytics can help you track the leads and conversions from each social network. UTMs are tags you add to a URL that make it easy to track and monitor in Google Analytics.

Use the Google URL builder to create a measurable URL that Google Analytics can segregate into campaigns.


Google's URL Builder.

Google’s URL Builder page has some helpful hints on how to use each of the UTM parameters:

• Campaign Source. This helps Google Analytics identify the source of your traffic as a search engine, newsletter or other referrer.
• Campaign Medium. This specifies whether the link is used in an email, a CPC ad or another method of sharing.
• Campaign Name. This associates your URL with a specific product promotion or strategic campaign such as a spring sale or other promotion.

Build unique URLs for any landing page on each of the social networks used in your strategy. You’ll be able to differentiate among leads that come from your Twitter bio, your tweets or Facebook.

If this seems too complicated, you’ll want to get the help of someone with the appropriate technical skills.

To see which social network provides the most leads or conversions for a specific campaign, go to your Google Analytics dashboard and check out your campaigns.


Google Analytics Campaigns overview.

Set up your goals, then look under Traffic Sources > Campaigns to see which source and medium drives more leads to your various landing pages and the conversion rate from each of them. Eventually, you’ll see which source (social network) brings you more leads or more signups or sales (conversions).

Anytime you share an inbound link on social media, measure it with custom UTM parameters to get full ROI information on leads and conversions.

Summary

You can track many metrics on social media, but the metrics you choose to measure should reflect your business goals.

I recommend tracking these social media metrics because they give you the information you need to better market your business and products.

What do you think? What metrics do you track to measure the success of your social media efforts? Are there tools you have found to be helpful? Join the conversation below and let me hear your thoughts!


Author: Lior Degani
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/learn-about-your-community/

3 Strategies for Finding Customers With Social Media

Do you need a strategy to reach your ideal prospects with social media?

Are you overwhelmed by all the social media options?

If so, you’re not alone. Social media overwhelm is one of the biggest challenges businesses face.

In this article, I’m going to show you three social media strategies so you can focus your efforts on the channels that best align with your business objective and target audience.


The Simple Solution
Fortunately, there’s a simple solution for it: only focus on where your customers are.


Where are your customers on social media? Image source: iStockPhoto.

Once you find out where your customers are on social media, it becomes easier to come up with a strategy that will help you find your future customers.

Here are three strategies you should consider:

Strategy #1: Ask Your Customers

Asking is the low-hanging fruit that’s easy for small business owners to overlook. It’s such a simple thing to do and allows you to further cement the personal connection you have with your customers.

If you have a brick-and-mortar business, when your customers visit your location, ask whether they use social media. If you have another type of business, figure out the best time and place to ask your customers whether they use social media.

If they do use social media, ask them what channels they spend their time on. Is it Facebook? Pinterest? Maybe it’s LinkedIn.

Maybe they don’t even use social media. By asking, you’d know.

If your customers are using social media, take it a step further and ask them how they like to be engaged on those channels. This will give you invaluable insight into how you can best add value in a way they’ll find useful.

You can also take the same approach if your business is online.

Most online businesses have an email list. Send your customer contacts an email and ask the same questions. It doesn’t have to be the subject of an entire email, necessarily; just a simple “P.S.” at the end of your weekly newsletter or part of a quarterly survey you send out should work wonders.

Ask you using a P.S. in your email.

Implementing this strategy can separate you and your business from your competitors, because so few businesses make the effort to ask. Asking removes any assumptions you may have about where your customers are hanging out online and shows them how much you care.

This is an easy way to get the important information you need to set up a successful social media strategy for your business.

Strategy #2: Use Google Alerts

I’m sure you’ve heard of Google Alerts, but are you using them?

If not, you’re missing a simple and free way to monitor what’s going on in your industry and find where your customers are online.

Google Alerts are updates you can set up in Google that allow you to keep track of a specific topic anytime it’s mentioned on the web.

For example, you can monitor if you or your business is mentioned across the web or keep track of industry news. When there’s a mention of your topic, you receive an email with a link to that search result.

How does this help you find your customers on social media?

Say you’re a small toy company that specializes in locally made wooden toys. You have an online presence but want to expand it and you think that social media might be an effective strategy. You’re unsure, though, which channels your target audience is using.

You could use Google Alerts to find this out.

You decide to enter “birthday gift ideas for kids” as a search query in Google Alerts. And the results show Pinterest boards and articles on “mommy blogs” that are relevant to your business.

When checking out the Pinterest board, you also find several other boards that are similar to your niche. Bingo! Pinterest may be one social channel you want to focus on.

Here’s how to set up your Google Alerts:

• Go to Google Alerts.
• Enter the term or phrase you want to monitor in the Search Query field.
• Choose the type of results you’d like to get in the Result Type field. (I recommend starting out with “Everything.” You can always change it once you see the type of results you’re getting.)
• Then choose how often you want to receive the results, how many results you want (I recommend “Only the best results”) and the email where you want to receive them.

Google Alerts require a little market research, but can get you the valuable information you need to find the social media strategy that works best for your business.

Strategy #3: Use the Search Function Within Social Channels

Sometimes you may want to take a deeper dive into researching your customers on a specific social media platform. Or you may love using a certain social platform and want to know whether your customers are there too. You can use the platform’s search functionality to quickly find out if your customers use the same one.

Each social channel has a search function that gives you the opportunity to instantly determine whether your customers are using it. And this can be as simple as entering the names of some of your customers in the search box on the social platform.

You can also search on things like your niche topic, relevant industry leaders, brands within your niche and any competitors you might have.

Using the search function is another simple and effective strategy that’s often overlooked, yet it will give you great insight into whether your customers are actively using that platform.

If you have a large customer base, consider pulling together a short list selection of the typical customers you want to reach on social media, and then search for them on a social media platform. This would give you information to work with.

Use the Google+ Communities Search:


Google+ Community search.

Or use the LinkedIn Search:


LinkedIn search.
Twitter’s Advanced Search is especially effective because not only can you search by all the attributes mentioned above, you can also search within a specific geographic region.


Twitter Advanced Search includes geographic locations.

Remember to stay up to date with changes on your favorite social platform. For example, there have been developments recently with Facebook Graph Search.

Conducting a little research on your customers using the search functions on the social platforms can help you determine where you should invest your social media marketing.

Finding Your Customers Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated

Use these simple, effective (and free!) ideas to find which social channels your customers are using.

As a business, if you’re not engaging with your customers on their terms, you’re missing a huge opportunity to add value and ultimately grow your business.

Focus your efforts on the few channels that align with your customers and business objectives and let your competitors be overwhelmed by thinking they need to be on every social media platform.

What do you think? Have you used any of these simple strategies to find out which social channels your customers are using? What other strategies have you used to find where your customers are online? Let me know in the comments below.

Image from iStockPhoto.
Tags: email strategy, facebook graph search, google alerts, google+ community search, linkedin search, rick mulready, social media, social media channel, social media engagement, social media platform, social media strategy, social media survey, twitter advanced search


author: Rick Mulready
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/3-strategies-for-finding-customers-with-social-media/

How to Choose the Right Type of Facebook Contest

Are you thinking of launching a Facebook contest or giveaway?

Is your goal focused on recruiting new fans? Collecting qualified emails? Engaging your existing fan base?

How can you be sure the type of contest you choose fits your Page and your goals?

Choosing the right type of contest to run on Facebook can be a challenge.

To help you decide what will work best for your goals, here are six types of contests you can run on Facebook.

#1: Sweepstakes Campaigns

A sweepstakes is a great vehicle for collecting email addresses from existing or new fans.

Participants enter and a winner is chosen by a random draw on a specified date.

A sweepstakes campaign shows your participating friends and provides various sharing features.

Sweepstakes are the contest of choice if you want to maximize the number of participants without spending a lot of time on the effort. But it has its drawbacks. Here’s what you need to know:

The pros: Sweepstakes are easy for the Page admin to set up and easy for participants to use. An excellent choice to engage your existing fan base and recruit new fans. The entry process is generally fast, which helps you to convert a higher percentage of participants and get more fans through the process quickly.

The cons: The user experience is a non-event. And they aren’t always as fun as some other promotion formats, so your participants’ experiences may not make an impression for your brand. A sweepstakes contest is not good for leveraging viral reach through share, invite buttons and any other of Facebook’s automatic sharing options.

If you want your participants to remember you next year, this is not the contest for you!

#2: Instant-Win Contests

Instant-win contests are an excellent choice for recruiting new fans and they engage your existing fan base.

Instant-win contests are almost as simple as a sweepstakes, except the contest works like a slot machine. So users know immediately whether they’ve won or lost, and are encouraged to return for another chance.

An instant-win contest where you can see the latest winners.

Due to the fast-paced user experience, you’ll convert new fans more quickly. This promotion format is a little more fun than the sweepstakes, so it’s slightly more memorable and may leave a lasting impression for your brand.

The pros: Instant-win contests are easy for the Page admin to set up and easy for participants to use. This format is a good choice for maximizing the number of participants without your team spending a lot of time and effort on management. The user experience will likely be more memorable than the sweepstakes, as participants will not have to wait to know if they have the winning ticket!

The cons: The instant-win contest still doesn’t cut it as the ultimate brand awareness tool. Given the nature of the contest, you’ll probably not experience high virality through share, invite buttons and other Facebook automatic sharing options.

Choose one of the more “fun” contest options below if you want a contest to help you create brand awareness.

#3: Photo Contest

You’ve got a hot product, and your fans can’t wait to share what they’re doing with it! If you’re looking to engage and reward your existing fan base while driving up interactions on your Page, look no further: Facebook loves photo contests!

Facebook frictionless sharing will share each participant’s vote on their timeline and on their friends’ ticker and newsfeed. Make sure your contest has frictionless sharing built in.

As votes play a role in the selection of the winners, some people will try to game the system. Be sure to choose an app that has built-in fraud protection and moderation.

Here's an example of a photo contest.
In the image above, the MV Agusta Brutale Page allows fans to showcase their bikes through a photo contest.

The pros: Photo contests are relatively easy for Page admins to set up. An excellent choice to engage your existing fans who must take an active role in the game by submitting their entry and/or voting for others. Fans will remember their experience more than with a contest that does not make them part of the process. Every vote a photo receives will contribute to your Page’s viral reach as the vote is shared on the voter’s timeline, ticker and newsfeed.

The cons: While fans love photo contests, the necessary effort required to enter may inhibit participation of existing and new fans. Poor fan recruitment also means poor email collection. If your goal is to collect a lot of qualified emails, stay away from the photo contest.

Managing a photo contest will require more time and attention than other promotion formats. You’ll have to monitor the game closely, which means you’ll have to spend much more time on the contest than on a simple sweepstakes or instant-win campaign.

#4: Let Your Fans Vote

Fan vote is the win-win contest for engaging your fan base. You’ll get helpful insights from your customers on your newest product or idea, and your fans get to participate in creating their next purchase.

Simply provide some examples of your next product model, color or menu item, and let your fans choose which one they like best!

A fan vote can also be just for fun: this fan vote contest lets you choose your favorite president during the 2012 presidential election.

While not as time-consuming as photo contests, fan vote contests come with the same great viral reach opportunity. Every vote will generate a story on Facebook.

The pros: Fan vote contests are easy for Page admins to set up and manage. This type of promotion is easy for fans to participate in, requiring just one vote to participate. An excellent choice to engage your existing fan base. Fans who participate are generally interested in the outcome and will remember their experience. Every vote will contribute to your Open Graph viral reach.

The cons: Fan votes offer poor fan recruitment as there is usually nothing to win, but this can be improved by integrating a sweepstakes among your voters.

#5: Quiz Your Audience

So far we’ve drawn a line between engaging your fans and recruiting new ones. A quiz does both.

Though quizzes generally don’t have the same draw as a photo or fan vote contest, they can offer a fun experience to the fans you already have. To drive up participation, you may need to offer a mixture of prizes to random participants and your highest scorers.

An example of a quiz to find out if you’re a Facebook marketing expert.

The pros: Quizzes are excellent for recruiting new fans (for popular organizations or themes) and engaging your existing fan base. The format offers a positive and memorable user experience and promotes viral reach through Facebook sharing options as participants share their score and challenge their friends.

The cons: Quizzes are time-consuming for the Page admin, as they have to write the copy for questions and answers as well as find one visual per question. Quizzes also require more work for setup. Because participants are asked to invest a few minutes of their time to answer questions, participation may suffer.

#6: Take a Personality Test

Personality tests are another popular contest for fan engagement.

Brands can create personality profiles that reflect facets of their products and services and fans who take the quiz are given a brand-related personality profile based on their answers.

Participants and their friends love to discover and share each other’s profiles, so you can rack one up for viral reach.

A personality test to discover which kind of Facebook marketer you are.

The pros: Personality tests work well for recruiting new fans and engaging your existing fan base. The format gives each user a positive and memorable user experience. Viral reach is extended through Facebook sharing options as participants share their personality and invite their friends to participate. With a little creativity, this type of contest can be a really fun experience for your fans.

The cons: As with a quiz, a personality test will be more time-consuming for an admin as they will have to write the copy for the questions, answers and profiles, as well as find one visual per question. This format also asks participants to invest a few minutes of their time to answer questions so participation may suffer; presenting a creative and/or fun test will be key to getting a good conversion rate.

Don’t approach this type of contest unless you have time to draft creative profiles and questions to associate with them.

Use the Contest That Best Suits Your Needs

Facebook contests are a great way to engage your existing fan base and recruit new fans. The contest you choose should depend on the experience you want to give and the goal you’re trying to achieve.

People who don’t know you well will be more likely to respond to something quick and easy. So when it comes to recruiting new fans, the simpler the contest process the better. The less effort required for people to enter, the bigger the number of participants you’ll have. Aim for a sweepstakes or an instant win.

Think about the experience your contest participants will have and what they will respond best to. When it comes to offering a “fun” experience, contests such as a quiz or personality test are much better options than a sweepstakes or instant win that offer hardly any experience at all.

What do you think? What is your experience with Facebook contests? What contest type do you love or dislike? Let us know in the comments section below!




author: Emeric Ernoult
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-choose-the-right-type-of-facebook-contest/

5 Mobile Social Media Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Business

Your customers and prospects are using smart phones.

Have you figured out how to connect with them using mobile social media marketing techniques?

Mobile is not as difficult as it may seem, especially when you access it with the social media tools you’re already familiar with.

With that in mind, I’ll reveal 5 ways you can use social media to integrate mobile marketing into your business.

#1: Connect With Prospects On LinkedIn Mobile

The LinkedIn mobile app brings a streamlined version of the desktop site to your smartphone or other mobile device. You’ll have access to all the key LinkedIn features, including updates, your profile, messages and groups.


An example of the LinkedIn home screen on a smartphone.

From your LinkedIn home page, tap on your profile photo to access your profile screen to see who has viewed your profile recently. If someone has viewed your profile, it’s a good indication that they might be interested in hearing from you.

With the mobile app, you can reach out to them from your phone or tablet. Just tap on their profile photo and say hello to them via LinkedIn.

Allowing the app to send you push notifications is a great way to stay in touch with your LinkedIn connections, even when you’re away from your desktop computer.

#2: Build Your Brand on Instagram

Many people think of Instagram as nothing more than a photo-sharing app for personal use, but you can also use it to promote your corporate or personal brand.

In addition to sharing photos of his own travels, Dave Kerpen, author of Likeable Business and CEO of Likeable Media, uses Instagram to build brand awareness by posting pictures of the Likeable foam hand at baseball games around the country.


A picture of the Likeable foam hand from Dave Kerpen’s Instagram feed.
Shelly Kramer, founder of integrated marketing firm V3 uses humor to extend her brand’s personality when she shares Instagram photos with her clients and followers.


Shelly Kramer posted “More evidence of my really bad, terrible, horrible day.”

When you post images from your mobile device to Instagram it can help you form a strong connection with your audience and build a visual representation of your brand. Consider using similar tactics to promote your brand and build awareness through this popular social platform.

#3: Use Promoted Tweets to Target Mobile Users

Did you know that 55% of users who log into Twitter every month do so at least once using a mobile device? You can reach these people by using Promoted Tweets to display your tweet to users who access Twitter from a mobile device.

Sprint uses promoted Tweets to capture the attention of potential customers who are using Twitter from their smartphones with a tweet that offers $100 to people who switch to Sprint as their mobile carrier.


Sprint’s Promoted Tweet is surfaced only to users viewing Twitter on a mobile device.

Mobile targeting on Twitter will let you tailor tweets to appeal to prospects and customers who use smartphones. You’ll want to keep this tactic in mind as mobile usage continues to grow.

#4: Drive Traffic to Mobile Sites With Facebook’s Promoted Posts

Unlike Facebook Ads or Sponsored Stories, which display in the right sidebar, Promoted Posts are visible to mobile users because they display in the Facebook news feed.

Below is an example of a Promoted Post that drives traffic to a landing page on the company’s mobile website. The image on the left shows an ad that’s integrated into a user’s Facebook stream. The ad drives prospects and customers to a landing page on the company’s mobile website, as shown in the image on the right.


Use Facebook’s Promoted Posts to show ads in the news feeds of mobile users.

Retailers, e-commerce sites, mobile app developers and traditional businesses have all used Facebook’s native advertising to acquire new customers cost-effectively.

#5: Use a QR Code to Increase Your Social Audience

Research indicates that 27% of all smartphone owners have scanned a QR code. And, while QR codes aren’t going to be around forever, they’re still a great way to connect with people using social media on their mobile devices.


Use a QR code to grow your Twitter audience.

Here’s a simple technique you can use to get more Twitter followers using QR codes. Copy the URL and visit Mobile-Barcodes. Paste the URL into the QR code generator and hit Submit. Instantly, you’ll have your very own QR code, which can be saved to your desktop.

Now you can add the QR code to any printed materials—business cards, brochures, posters, even T-shirts. People who scan the QR code will be driven to your Twitter page, where they can follow you from their mobile device.

Go on, grab your smartphone and scan the code.

There’s no such thing as social or mobile anymore. There’s just social and mobile.

Today, approximately 40% of all Internet activity happens via mobile devices. It won’t be long before the majority of your prospects will be connecting with your company via mobile.

These five ideas on how to use social media to connect with people on their smartphones are just the beginning.

What do you think? How are you connecting with your customers on mobile devices? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Tags: brand awareness, instagram marketing, jamie turner, linkedin connection, linkedin mobile app, mobile, mobile marketing, mobile strategy, promoted post, promoted tweet, qr code, smartphone, social media marketing



Author: Jamie Turner
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-mobile-social-media-marketing-ideas-to-grow-your-business/

Why Affiliate Marketing Is the Perfect Online Starter Job

Affiliate marketing is one of the first things that I really got into when I started.
Why? Because I had heard so many great things about it. Most people that I would follow online were making money with affiliate marketing and I knew that I could too. Now, the only thing that I wish I knew when I first started was that it would take more time than just a few hours to setup.

Affiliate marketing is something that you should only get into for a long term gain; it is not much of a short term payout because it does take a while to get going.

One thing that you need to know right now before you jump into affiliate marketing is that you need to have an online presence. I say this because many affiliate marketers don’t have a name built online and because of that it makes it that much harder to make any serious money.

Do yourself a favor, create a website, build your social media presence and always stay connected with the people you meet.

Why Affiliate Marketing Makes the Perfect Online Starter Job

Easy To get Into
– The nice thing about affiliate marketing is that it is really easy to get into. All you need to do is go to certain product pages or software pages and click on their affiliate link. Most of them will ask that you sign up through email but others will just give you a number to promote. Something that you need to understand is the better affiliate programs/products will ask that you have a website and these are the ones that will eventually make you more money.

No Upfront Costs Involved 
– Did you know that with affiliate marketing you don’t have any costs upfront? I wanted to bring this to your attention because most people assume that they have to pay something in order to get started. Just know that affiliate marketing has more of a time investment than anything else and that is why some people fail so quickly. As long as you put in the time you will be just fine.

Easy To Get Help From Others –
When a friend of mine first started affiliate marketing he found somebody to help him online. My friend was introduced to marketing manager for some company in the Philippines, who taught him everything that he needed to know and even how to outsource parts of his work. It is because of all the people out there that want to help that he was able to get further along than I did when I first started, and he didn’t have to struggle with all the roadblocks that I had to deal with. This is the reason why I always suggest you find somebody that can help lead you along the way.

Luck Plays A Big Part In Your Success
– With everything I do I always ask myself whether I will make it because of hard work or luck and this is one thing that I do that has just as much luck as hard work. Yes, you still have to work hard but in the end luck will make a difference.

If you are looking to make more money than you currently are, then affiliate marketing is a great place to start. Something that most people don’t realize is that there are millions of products/services out there in which you can be affiliated with and all of them will pay you a commission for your referrals. You may be a little hesitant to start this right now, but there is really no better time to start than right now. Trust me, give it a try for 2 months and see how well you actually do.

Author: Warren Wooden
http://www.business2community.com/marketing/why-affiliate-marketing-is-the-perfect-online-starter-job-0488235

Maximizing Your Small Business Potential Through Email Marketing

A lot of businesses have been using email marketing for a while, and it has become so common that you might not even think about it as “marketing.” Nevertheless, every time you open an email newsletter, promotional offer or even a “thank you” for buying a product, you are on the receiving end of an email marketing campaign. So let’s get right down to the basics of what email marketing is and whether or not it’s right for you and your small business.

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing, in the most general sense, is exactly what it sounds like. It refers to marketing campaigns driven by email. But what does that mean? Think about this: every time you’ve ever received a promotional pamphlet on the street, or been handed a coupon for spending X amount of dollars at a retailer, or even simply read a magazine, you’ve been participating in “paper marketing.” Now imagine that instead of being handed a pamphlet, a coupon or a magazine, you receive in your email inbox a promotional message, a printable 10% off coupon, and a company newsletter from a small business. That would be an example of how email marketing works.

Why Email Marketing?


People use email marketing because it works, and it works extremely well, if done correctly. Email marketing allows for a secondary outlet of direct sales, data-driven results, and fosters the relationship between you and your customer. You may have to spend a little bit on email marketing software applications or services, but the amount of money that you save by not using paper and stamps, as well as the proven efficacy of the approach, makes it more of an appealing venture for most businesses. In fact, many small businesses use email marketing in conjunction with social media campaigns as well as; Quick Response (QR) code campaigns and experience great success with this multilateral approach. To top it all off, all of these campaign ideas are environmentally friendly.

Are There Any Downsides to Email Marketing?

There are a couple of downsides if you do not engage in email marketing correctly. A lot of users might label marketed emails as spam, which is something that you do not want. In fact, there are certain situations in which you might be unconsciously breaking the law by not adhering to specific anti-spam guidelines while email marketing!

For example, you cannot send emails to people that have not already agreed to receive them by other means. Fortunately, there are ways to drive reputable email marketing campaigns that adhere to all of the guidelines and do not get you or your small business blacklisted as spam. Unfortunately, without that know-how, you are looking at either studying up or hiring a third party. And to top it all off, you have to make sure that the emails that you are sending are relevant, effective, and aesthetically pleasing. This means design, layout, editing, etc.  Without these skills you may be hiring out-of-the-office help, and that can get to be a bit expensive.

Is It For You?

I would definitely suggest looking into it. The numbers don’t lie (you can see them here), and plenty of small businesses profit from the switch rather than suffer from it, as long as they do it correctly. As mentioned before, email marketing utilized in conjunction with social media sites can be a great way to enhance and stimulate your base of loyal followers by sending out printable coupons and exclusive promotional information. However, you may find that the cost outweighs the benefit for you and your company when it comes to email marketing.

There are free trial versions of email marketing software out there as well as more professional programs to use.  My suggestion is to try out one or two of these, explore it a little bit, and use that to make your decision.  There are pros and cons to this marketing approach, so make sure that you take both into consideration and weigh them out when deciding the future of your small business.

Do you use email marketing for your business?  If so, which email marketing provider do you use?  If you don’t use any email marketing, do you have any questions you would like answering?  Let us know by leaving your comments below!

http://onlineincometeacher.com/business-tips/maximizing-potential-through-email-marketing/
author:Miles Hall

5 New Ways to Improve Your Facebook EdgeRank

Brands have learned that success with a Facebook page isn’t just about fan numbers, but also about how many fans see their posts. Facebook’s news feed algorithm — called EdgeRank — controls that visibility.

Of course, optimizing a news feed so that it bumps up your EdgeRank is a complicated recipe that varies with each brand, the kind of content it posts, and its fans. There have been hundreds of blog posts written about this subject, but here are five completely new ways to get better results.

1. Post Photos

The Facebook news feed algorithm appears to be calculated both per fan and per type of post. That means a person might see Coca-Cola’s photo posts, but not the company’s link posts. There are six post types: a text-only status update, a photo, a link, a video, a platform post, and a question. The first four are the most commonly used.



After some research, its clear that a Facebook page gets more fan engagement from photos than links, statuses, or videos. In fact, photos get as much as twenty times more engagement.
So, even when you need to post a link to your website, you should post a photo with that link. You might also consider posting a thumbnail of your video and a link to the video, rather than featuring the video itself. To do that, enter the status update and link first, then hit the x to cancel the video preview, then click on “photo/video” and choose the image file you want to attach.

Posting everything with an image will increase the percent of fans you reach. In all these cases, your status and link will show up above the image. My experiments show that you can get a good amount of clicks on links above photos. For example, one post (also amplified by sponsored story ads) reached 114, 434 people and engaged 619 people (0.5% of reach), while the link received 311 clicks (0.27% of reach and half the engaged users).

You can get creative with your message by taking things that might have started as status updates, and adding the same message into an image. Someecards is a popular and funny e-card website, and it allows you to create your own. Just choose a background color and one of their line drawings, then add your text. You can save the image and post it on your Facebook page. Do this manually to make sure it’s a photo post-type. A great example of this comes from The American Heart Association. They used a card to humorously promote children eating vegetables.



It’s not the funniest image you’ve ever seen, but many big organizations can’t be as edgy as others. It’s better than no humor at all. As you can see, it got a good amount of shares.
You can also use memegenerator.net to glom onto some of the latest and more edgy memes, or even use Photoshop to make it yourself.

2. Create Photo Albums

The World Health Organization’s Women Create Life program aims to improve women’s rights internationally. One way they do this is by creating great photo posts or great photo albums like the one below.

In the last month, out of 11 posts the organization created, three of the top four most-viewed posts were photo albums. Photo albums show one big photo and several smaller ones. They look different from other posts in people’s news feeds, so they get attention. People click in to see all the photos. This gives you an advantage over all the other people and pages you’re competing with for your fans’ attention. Also, although Facebook hasn’t confirmed this, clicks on links or into photo albums probably impact EdgeRank to some degree.



3. Write More Text

Women Create Life takes a magazine approach to its posts. The organization doesn’t use a separate website. Instead, they put all their text into the posts. Sometimes that’s as much as 800 words (the current limit is 5,000 characters).

As a result, there is always a “see more” link to click to read the rest of the text. Women Create Life also added a Spanish translation at the end of each post. According to Facebook, clicks on “see more” are counted as a consumption under the “other consumptions” category.

Again, this may feed into EdgeRank, although Facebook has not confirmed it. Either way, this approach also helps followers to see you’ve put significant time into your posts, which can lead to more shares.

4. Push Your Network to New Posts

Can you front-load engagement to convince the news feed algorithm to show the post to a larger audience? It’s hard to say how much impact doing this would have, but here’s how you do it:

1. Go to the photos section of your Facebook page and upload an image.
2. There is a “post” button at the bottom, but you can change the album name and just exit the tab once it has uploaded the image.
3. Go back to photos, you’ll see the image there.
4. Copy the photo URL, or look for the URL they give you on the album page.
5. Promote the album and/or photo via Twitter, email, LinkedIn, and any other distribution networks you have in place.
6. Take this even further by spending some money on the post. Either promote the post directly, or create a sponsored story in your Facebook ads to increase visibility and likes early on. After you have some likes and comments, post it out to your news feed, too. To do that just go to the album and upload a new image, and it will prompt you to post out.
If you keep adding a new image, it lets you publish each time. So seed the album with two photos, promote, then add more, then publish. Because you start off with extra engagement, it spikes the post. If you leverage your entire distribution network, this may increase your reach. The more people interact with a post, the more of your fans Facebook shows it to. Every post has a lifespan, and you have more posts you want to get out, so getting more engagement early is key.

5. Use Post Targeting

The new post-targeting feature, still being rolled out to all Facebook pages, allows you to segment your fans by criteria previously only available to advertisers. This includes age, gender, interested in (likes), relationship status, all education information, workplace, plus the old options like language, country, state, and city.

You can use post-targeting to your advantage in a couple of ways. First, you can target a post to the segments of your fans most likely to interact with it. The more tarted you get, the fewer people you’ll reach, but a higher percentage of the people you do reach will engage. If there’s someone who wasn’t that into your page, but really likes the topic you posted on, and ten of their friends comment on a particular post that hits that interest or demographic, then EdgeRank shows your page to that person. It’s like a snowball that picks up momentum and just keeps rolling because it’s so concentrated.

Second, you can divide your audience up and release multiple posts at one time. This content customization increases your chance of getting more people in each fan subgroup to see and engage with your posts.

see also Sorry, Marketers, You’re Doing Facebook Wrong

author: Brian Carter
http://mashable.com/2012/08/30/improve-facebook-edgerank/

How to Make Money From YouTube

YouTube recently announced that its users upload 72 hours of video per minute. Although mind-blowing, such an astronomical number could potentially discourage YouTube fame-seekers.

When you pair that number with the 4 billion hours of video we watch per month, it’s clear that entertaining and valuable content is in high demand. And now that the YouTube Partner Program is open to everyone, monetization is actually more feasible than ever.

 Even if you never reach Justin Bieber status on YouTube, you can join the plenty of people who successfully make a living off the platform. Just know that it requires the right preparation, execution and equipment — but most importantly, patience.

We asked three YouTube stars — Tyler Oakley, Chris Thompson (SupRicky06) and Craig Benzine (WheezyWaiter) — to give advice on how to make a successful YouTube channel. 

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Getting Started
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First, you must set up an account. If you already have a Gmail account, you can log in using the same name and password. However, it’s helpful to keep your email separate, so consider creating a new account strictly dedicated to your channel. (You can always sync your email so YouTube-related messages forward to one address, if you prefer.)

When creating an account, think carefully about your username — the handle will essentially become your brand name, so make sure it’s something you’re really comfortable with. 

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Content Is King 
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Each of the YouTube stars in the above video mention that producing quality content is most important — now, more than ever. YouTube recently updated its video discovery features to focus on watch time versus number views, effectively filtering out videos that get clicked and abandoned.

SEE ALSO: Secret Sauce: What Does It Take to Create a Viral Video?

Before you register an account, outline a plan. Think about the type of content you wish to create. Is it going to be a video blog? Tutorial? Talk show? Sketch comedy?  Or it could be a combination of things. Chris Thompson marries music and comedy, producing a variety of a cappella songs, covers, original sketches and parodies.

Secondly, YouTube requires that you select a category (among many) that describes your topic of interest. Some of the categories include beauty, education, entertainment, cooking, comedy and music. You can browse more categories here.

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Be Original
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The big difference between creating recreational YouTube videos and hosting a channel in the Partner Program is original content. We all know that YouTube is a melting pot of cat videos, remixes, autotunes, etc., but it’s much more of an investment to put a personal stamp on video content.  

YouTube states that to be eligible for monetization, “you must own all the necessary rights to commercially use all visuals and audio, whether they belong to you or a third party.”

Copyrighted videos and playlists of another YouTube user’s videos does not qualify for monetization.  Before opting your content into monetization (by clicking the labeled tab when uploading a video), make sure you have all of the necessary rights to use the content commercially — and that includes the background music.

You can clear rights to use third-party content on YouTube by submitting written permission from the rights holders.

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Patience and Consistency
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 Don’t expect thousands of views right off the bat. To begin earning those precious views, you must be a reliable and professional content creator. Most YouTube filmmakers have plenty of days or weeks where they don’t feel like making a video, but subscribers crave dependability. They expect a video on a fairly regular basis, so don’t expect success if you only post when you feel like it.

Benzine started uploading videos in 2007, but it took two years of delivering regular content to a small audience to get noticed by the YouTube community. He began producing even more consistent content, and in 2010, was able to quit his waiting job and make videos full-time. Today, Benzine has nearly 400,000 subscribers.

In short, this had better be something you’re passionate about, because soon you’ll be talking and thinking about it — all the time.

SEE ALSO: YouTube Fame Requires Hard Work … Or, Dancing in a Turkey Suit [VIDEOS] 

 Tyler Oakley is known for his comical observations, opinions and how-tos. In his most popular video to-date, Oakley lip-syncs to Nicki Minaj. But in one of his first big moments, he was recognized by YouTube for his social commentary on derogatory views of the homosexual community.

 Oakley started on YouTube to keep up with his hometown friends while in college. To his surprise, his charismatic videos garnered the attention of nearly 100,000 subscribers within a couple months. Today, his channel has earned more than 26 million views.

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Promote Yourself
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 Every 24 hours, YouTube’s algorithms rank videos and channels, according to highest views, ratings, comments, favorites and video responses. In other words, even the best content needs some promoting to get featured in the “most popular” category lists.

Connect your channel with Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to automatically post your videos to multiple accounts once you’ve uploaded. Consider promoting on other social platforms, like Pinterest, too. Viewers want to feel engaged with the content you are producing.

Use these platforms to engage with your viewers or to ask for future video suggestions. These are the people you want to want to entertain, so why not determine what they like throughout the process?

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Equipment
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 You don’t need a studio budget to maintain a successful YouTube channel. Quality cameras are now advanced and affordable — many YouTube users have created compelling content simply by filming with a phone.

 Filmmaker Jeremiah Warren suggests flip cameras, webcams or cameraphones for basic videos, like vlogs. You can also purchase adapters to hook mics into an iPhone.

 For more professional videos, Warren recommends a DSLR camera. You can attach a microphone directly, or if you really want to invest, purchase external recorders, such as the Zoom H4N ($300) to manually adjust and monitor audio.

 Lighting is equally important. You can do basic shooting with natural light, but halogen lights and reflectors run around $14-$20.

Lastly, computer and editing software is important. YouTube has a one-click editing feature, but reserve the tool for quick and simple fixes. Macs and PCs come with default editing programs for basic editing. Otherwise, for professional editing, you’ll need software like Adobe Premiere, Final Cut X or Sony Vegas, depending on your budget.

 Any current Mac or PC laptop with an Internet connection is adequate for editing and uploading content to YouTube. Warren suggests one with at least 2GB RAM and, for bigger projects, $250-worth of HDD space.

 Once you’ve developed a production routine, experiment with content, style and marketing. The advantage of having a new channel is being able to test what works and what doesn’t.

Eventually, you’ll gain subscribers and begin to ponder why you sold yourself short of Justin Bieber.

Image courtesy of Flickr, rbbaird
Author:Christine Erickson
source:http://mashable.com/2012/08/24/how-to-make-money-from-youtube/

Top 7 Best Ways to Make Money Online

One of the popular things that have become a growing trend these days is finding the best ways to make money online. Indeed, the internet has not only become an easy and convenient avenue for shopping, banking and researching. It has also become one profitable avenue to do your business and make profits.

If you are one of those trying to find out the best ways to make money online, here are a few things that you may find profitable online.

1. Become an affiliate.Especially if you don't have products to sell online but you are good in selling, you can actually make good profits online by becoming a super affiliate. Signing up as an affiliate is simple. You just have to sign up in an affiliate program and get approval, choose products you want to promote and earn commissions as soon as you get a sale of the product. Keep in mind that profits in affiliate marketing may not be immediate but they can be long-term.

2. Make money in blogging. Blogging have evolved from online personal journals into moneymaking websites. If you have a flair in writing, or if you have something to share to people online like your passion and interests, then you can start up a blog, accept advertisers or write sponsored entries and reviews and make money from it.

3. Be an author and write your eBook. Another one of the best ways to make money online is to write your own eBook and sell it online. Without the cost of printing, you can actually write your own book and sell it right away without the burden of printing and binding.

4. Put up an eBay business. Online auctions like eBay have become one of the popular sites online where you can sell just anything. You can rummage into your basement or your closet for some items that you do not already need and sell them on eBay. When you are familiar with how eBay operates and how to win good bids on eBay, you can also venture into a much bigger eBay business as well.

5. Go into internet marketing. As businesses and companies are going online to expand their reach, you can also take advantage of this trend. Learn internet marketing and for sure, you can find a lot of companies and individuals who would want to avail of your services. Just make sure you know the latest in online marketing to be able to produce results.

6. Venture into foreign exchange online. If you are a risk-taker and you love to venture into highly profitable ventures, one of the best ways to make money online is through forex trading. However, it is important to understand that making business in the currency market can be risky and you have to have what it takes to be a good trader as well.

7. Put up an online consultancy. If you are skilled and adept on a particular topic, idea, practice or a certain skill, you can also put up a consultancy business online. Credit consultancy, law, accounting and a lot of other things can be a good start to a profitable online business. Even your musical talent and skills can put into good use online and a profitable investment as well.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com
Author:Carolyn Anderson

Social Media Marketing - Your Success in Social Marketing, 3 Steps to Make That Happen

Social media marketing is here to stay. It is an excellent tool to add to your marketing tool belt. It can be free, do it yourself or there are companies and services coming onto the market all the time that can assist you with all the different aspects individually or they can just do it all for you.

Your success in social marketing is dependent upon 3 action steps that you must follow, they are...

1) Find People Interested In Your Product or Service

Social Media Marketing is an excellent way to find people interested in your product or service. You can easily find discussions and join in the conversation. Keep an eye on the conversation, drop in when you see where you can add value, offer tips and resources However do yourself a favor, Be Social! If you wade into the conversation with constant "buy my stuff" you will be ignored.

2) Deliver Quality Content

You can create blog posts, share pictures of your products, ask questions, conduct surveys, write articles, share teleseminars and webinars. There are 100's of ways to share quality content. However in the beginning it can be challenging to know just what to post. You can find information that others have posted and share it. Remember this content does not always have to be yours,but please do give credit where credit is due. Make sure you name who created the content, they deserve the credit.

3) Gather Their Information

You may be creating a list of followers on Twitter or a great group of friends on Facebook, remember that information belongs to Facebook and Twitter, it is not yours. They could shut down or god forbid, block you. You must have a way of gathering the information of the people who are interested in your product or service. There are many services out there such as InfusionSoft, 1Automation Wiz or Mail Chimp that can enable you to collect the names and email addresses of the people who are interested in your product or service. These systems will also enable you to follow up and stay in touch consistently and easily

People ask me "just how do I make money with social media?" That would be similar to asking "How do I make money with a yellow pages ad?" Social media is where you find people who are interested in your product or service and where people find you. Take the time to learn it yourself or find someone to do it for you.

Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com
Author:Carla McNeil

How to Make Money Online Free

The Internet is a wonderful place to make money and to realize your financial independence. The problem is that there are millions of people out of work looking for opportunities online and there are lots of less than credible people looking to take advantage of them and exploit their desperate nature.

In this article on going to talk about how to make money online free, no scams whatsoever.

The first of these methods for how to make money online for free with no scams and very quickly at that is to go to a micro-job site like Fiverr.com. On these sites, everyday people can list jobs which they are willing to do in the marketplace of that micro job site and potential clients browse these websites looking for these micro-jobs so they can hire someone to perform that job for them typically on a one-time basis.

The person doing the job receives payment immediately through a payment processor like PayPal and the great thing is you can make money from really anything you can think of in terms of jobs as long as there's a market for it. Click on this link for how to make money with Fiverr for more information on this.

I prefer affiliate marketing, personally, however. Affiliate marketing means that you are taking someone else's product or service and marketing it for them online. When you generate sales of that product or service you receive a commission or a piece of that sale as a reward. You can adapt affiliate marketing to any kind of niche because there are offers and programs tied to virtually anything you can think of. This means you can take any passion and interest or hobby which you have and turn it into your payday.

There are dozens and hundreds of different affiliate networks which you can utilize to find offers to promote. There are a lot of different ways to promote these offers as you can make reviews of them or just provide via information on them so that when someone clicks on your affiliate link they are taken to that products web page and you receive a commission for every sale which you generate in this way.

Article Source:
EzineArticles.com
Paul M Ventura