Beware the Dark Side of Social Media

I have written many articles about using social media as a marketing tool. I think it is an awesome way to connect with customers and people you otherwise would have access to in day to day life. Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook have the power to shoot your marketing message around the world within a day or two.

But in the excitement of engaging social media marketing tactics to increase online visibility for our businesses, we have forgotten that like all things there is a dark side to social media. Instead of skyrocketing your business to prosperity, you could end up shooting yourself in the foot if you are not careful.

Social Media and Online Privacy

Online privacy is becoming more and more of an issue these days as businesses wake up to the reality that their customers are online. They are also figuring out that they can get a lot of information about a person simply by doing a quick search using Google or Bing. An excerpt from an article on the Huffington Post spells this out fairly clearly:

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Andy Beal, the owner of Trackur, told the Pittsburg Post-Gazette that many companies–among them, credit lenders and debt collectors–are now using social media monitoring services to “match online profiles with real world identities.”

The online Lending Club, for instance, scans loan applicants’ social networking profiles in addition to performing the usual credit and income checks. What this means, the Post-Gazette reports, is that creditors are realizing how social media profiles can provide unique insights that a traditional credit history cannot. (Continue Reading Lenders Mine Facebook, Twitter for Info on Borrowers)

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There have been numerous reports of people losing their jobs because of statements made on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. In addition to that, college students are finding that future employers don’t really like seeing pictures of them drunk and mooning the camera.

As a business owner, it is important that you remain fully aware of the fact that what you put online can be seen by everyone including your prospects. If you don’t want it seen on the 6 o’clock news then you probably should put it on a Facebook status update.

Social Media and Reputation Management

I’ve written about reputation management before but I can’t emphasize enough the importance of always keeping an eye on what people are saying about you and your brand. While social media can help you spread your sales message far and wide, your enemies can also use it to damage your reputation beyond repair. But oftentimes it isn’t your competitors who are kicking your brand to the curb, it’s your customers.

In 2010, Southwest Airline took a direct hit to their already troubled reputation when they threw actor and director Kevin Smith off their plane for supposedly being too fat to fly. Unlike the average person, Smith has over 1 million people following him on Twitter and he wasted no time in telling everyone “he knew” about how the airline treated him.

The lesson to take away here is that the internet provides customers with a forum to voice their grievances and they know it. You should always be offering good customer service but it is equally important to correct mistakes quickly. And for heaven sakes, use services that allow you to monitor your reputation online so that you are not sideswiped by a poor review.

Hackers, Spammers, and Crazy People

As much as we would love to say it isn’t so, there are people in the world who would throw you under the bus in a heartbeat if it meant they could get ahead in life. There are also a lot of mentally disturbed individuals in the world who are just functional enough to avoid the padded white room. Both of these types of people have access to the internet.

Hackers and spammers are perhaps the easiest to avoid or deal with. It is the manipulators and the unhinged that you have to be careful of. Unfortunately, these people can appear normal when you first meet them. It isn’t until you let your guard down or insult them in some way that their true personality comes to the fore.

The New Year is barely two months old and already the New York Post has an article about a young woman who hit her cousin with a car because a gentleman she liked accepted the cousin’s friend request but not hers. But you don’t have to look very hard to find other examples of this type of behavior.

To keep yourself safe, you must be aware of those you are allowing in your network. Before collaborating with other business owners or working with customers, do a search online and see what comes up. This doesn’t mean you should automatically distrust anyone who doesn’t have a profile or automatically trust everyone who does. It means that you must stay on your toes and pay attention to what is happening around you online.

For the most part, social media marketing is safe and can help you build the profitable business that you want. However, you must also be aware that there are disadvantages to putting yourself online. For more tips on making effective use of social media, please visit my archives.

Marketing through Social Media – Is This Strategy worth Your Time?

Social media has become a common buzzword lately and has gained a lot of popularity in the business world. Social media can be defined as any website where users can upload their own content and share it with the Internet. Sites such as Twitter and Facebook are very well attended and have millions of users connecting with each other day and night.

The big question is if marketing through social media is worth your time. According to Facebook, 50% of their users log onto the site every day; Twitter now has 15 million active members that actively post Tweets; LinkedIn has over 50 million members looking to network. If that isn’t proof positive that there is a huge opportunity in social media nothing will convince you.

What Social Media Offers Marketers

The question is how can you use social media to help grow your business? By being present on these sites, you are opening yourself to more possibilities in your marketing strategy. Facebook and Twitter are essentially viral by nature and if a user happens to like your product or service, they will announce it on their page.

When the announcement is made, it goes out to everybody on their friends list and their friends might announce it to their list, and so forth. By putting up strong content and sharing quality information, you can spread the word about your business very quickly.

Social media also gives you another way to stay in touch with your prospects and customers aside from email marketing and blogging. You will be able to reach more people when the time comes to start marketing your new product or service.

Marketing Through Social Media via your Mobile devices

Social media sites also offer applications that are designed for smart phones such as the Android and iPhone. These applications are used by millions of people and many users check these sites regularly throughout the day by using their phones.

This means that you gain more exposure and it enables you to stay in touch with your prospects and customers more frequently. Other features such as private messaging through social networking sites and SMS notifications also offer another opportunity for Internet marketers.

Using Social Media as Part of Your Overall Marketing Strategy

Social media is not a replacement for your existing strategy; it’s a strategy that can make everything in your business more effective. Many Internet marketers are allowing their prospects and customers to receive their information through multiple channels.

Why do this when you can focus on one? It is because people have different user behaviors. One user may like to receive content on Facebook while another one would like to stay in touch by subscribing to your blog with an RSS reader.

By pushing your content out onto multiple channels, you’ll be able to reach your contacts wherever they are, making your marketing through social media an effective way to promote your products and services.

So to answer the question – marketing through social media is definitely worth your time. Many Internet marketers are combining social media and email marketing as well as blogging to get the most out of their promotions and spread the word about their business very quickly.

Want to succeed as an entrepreneur? Learn the skills and strategies you need to succeed as an online marketer. Get in-depth advice on personal development, online promotion, social media, and web traffic by visiting http://www.hasseandre.com/

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More Marketing With Social Media Articles

Blow out your competition with internet marketing and social media

Let’s face it…the marketplace today is highly competitive and internet marketing and social media is changing the name of the game.  You should always continue to learn and look for new ways to beat out your competitors, but there are 3 ways you can minimize the affect the competition can have on your business.

1. Execute an Internet Marketing Strategy

It starts with building a recognizable brand. It is a can be personal, corporate or even a concept.  Customers are searching everyday on Google, Twitter and Facebook for a solution to their problem. They need a product or service that you may have, but how will they find you.

Rather than following the herd with dated marketing methods, look for ways to advertise that no one else is using. Internet marketing is a great example.  What do you think affiliate and internet marketers use? The internet? Absolutely.  Brainstorm to come up with creative ways to market and drive traffic to you site. Read other blogs and watch videos to get ideas. Have you ever thought about printing postcards to send out to get people to your site?  That is not something you hear about everyday. Had you thought about it?

Video is another very powerful medium. I highly encourage you put some thought into implementing this form of marketing. This will allow your customers to trust you and relate to you. Be sure to SEO optimize you video’s and always include a link back to your website. Submit your video’s to more than just one site for more exposure and backlinks. Tweet, update status with your new video’s. Ask your friends for help to share it and retweet it.

2. Find Niche Markets

While you are learning and establishing your brand, you should be aware and look for niches that you can target. Try to find something your competitors are missing!  Be aware while watching the news, talk shows, reading books and blogs.  Keep a notebook for ideas. you never know when it will come to you. Once you have found something then be sure to research in depth. If it proves to be a great niche market then you are ready to work on your sales copy, and Website to address the specific niche market you have discovered.

3. Become the Expert in your field

Your goal should be to provide value, educate people on your product or service.  You may even want to point out the problem or pain and then show that you have the solution.  Blogging, article marketing and social media will give you the platform you need to build credibility as an expert. Once you have established yourself as an expert then you will be amazed what can happen. You are able to attract your target audience and they will buy from you.

Contact me for more information on social media and internet marketing strategies and be sure to check out my social media video series.

Using Social Media to Promote Your Green Business

As an eco-friendly business, you know that your customers are interested in going green and treating the environment with respect. The problem is that you are having a hard time attracting the attention of your target market. This is not surprising. The going green movement is in full swing and hundreds of green businesses have entered the market hoping to capture a share.

Create a Connected Presence For Your Green Business

In order to compete effectively, you need to go directly to where your customers are hanging out. In today’s interconnected world, this means making the most of social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare to target your customers and get them buying from your business. Here are some tips for using social media effectively to market your green business.

Marketing your green business is just like marketing any other type of business. The key element that will contribute to the success of yours is the development of a brand and making sure your online persona is consistent wherever you go on the internet.

This means creating a blog where you offer content relevant to your audience’s interest, speaking directly with your target audience through a Twitter and/or Facebook account, and participating in forums where people in your target market hang out. Contact me to learn how you can easily get started building a consistent green brand.

Find Ways to Engage People in Your Green Business

Using social media effectively to promote your green business means finding ways to engage your audience and get them paying attention to you. You could have the best product in the world. However, if people don’t know who you are then they cannot buy your green product or service. Social media tools were meant to make it easier to engage your customers and there are numerous ways you can use them to achieve that goal.

What you do will depend a lot on the type of green business you have and the products or services you sell. For example, a green retailer can use Facebook or Twitter to post internet exclusive coupons. Another idea is to use sites like Facebook as a place to gather feedback and suggestions from user about the products and services you sell. You are only limited by your imagination and creativity.

Implement Unique Ways for Customers to Interact

The main reason people use social media is to interact with each other. Therefore, if you want to get them invested in your green business and make your brand memorable, then you need to provide a platform in which they can connect with other people who are into the going green movement as well.

For a green business, this may mean encouraging your followers to post pictures to the company’s Facebook page of themselves doing something green. If you are on Twitter, you can host a Twitter chat every week where you can other green enthusiasts discuss pressing environmental concerns. Even something as simple as developing a forum on Facebook where people can share natural beauty tips encourages interaction with you and other fans.

Marketing your green business is a challenging task but one that social media can help make a little easier. It is important that you take some time to think about the best way to present your company to the world and come up with a marketing strategy that takes advantage of the social tools on the market. If you need help marketing your green business, please contact me for a free consultation.

Criticism is Normal for Every MLM Business Opportunity

Dealing with criticism is a necessary skill to have for anybody who joins an mlm business opportunity. Due to the proliferation of scams that use the mlm business model to perpetuate their illegal activities, it is an unfortunate fact of life that you will have to deal with criticism of your business because many people believe that all mlm business opportunities are the same.

While we know that is far from the truth, it does not lessen the possibility that you will run into someone who says unkind things about your network marketing business. And in a time where one uninformed Tweet can be heard around the world in minutes, it is important that you protect your reputation by learning to handle criticism about your business when it strikes.

Dealing with MLM Business Opportunity Criticism

Stay Calm in the Face of Criticism of Your MLM Business Opportunity

Your first reaction when you read something negative about your mlm business opportunity will probably be the same as if someone jumped from behind the bushes screaming, “Booga, booga, booga”. You’ll either run away from the threat or attack it with all the strength in your bones. Neither is a good response when dealing with criticism leveled at you on a social networking site.

Dealing with criticism requires a clear head so before you do anything take a break. Step away from the computer and do something to calm your nerves. You need to put some space between the criticism leveled at your mlm business opportunity and your response to ensure that you will not say something in the heat of the moment that you will regret later.

Respond with Respect

It can be tough to take the high road when dealing with criticism, especially if the criticism is unfair or untrue. However, if you care about saving the reputation of yourself and your network marketing opportunity, then it is important to remember that the whole world is watching. It is unfortunate but people love scandal. If you succumb to the temptation to give as good as you got, then all you are doing is setting yourself up to be micro-blogged into oblivion.

Instead, respond to the concerns raised in a respectful way. If there was a problem with your product, fix it. If people take exception to your stance on an issue, acknowledge their viewpoint but reiterate your position and why you feel the way you do. Whatever you do, don’t get pulled into an online argument. If you feel things are getting heated or the issue simply cannot be resolved, try to end on a positive note and walk away. You’ll save yourself and you mlm business a lot of grief.

Let It Go

After you have corrected erroneous information about your mlm home business opportunity or have resolved the problem, there is no need to continuously revisit the issue. Don’t go from blog to blog defending your position. Don’t @ everyone on Twitter who makes a mention of it. A scandal can only live as long as someone feeds it. If you go about your business as normal, eventually the scandal will pass and be replaced by something else.

Dealing with criticism of your mlm business opportunity is no fun. However, if you handle it right you can come out smelling like roses and looking like a hero. I have been using social media marketing techniques to successfully promote my home based business. Contact me to learn about other tactics for surviving the social media arena and taking your mlm business opportunity to the next level.

A term only coined relatively recently in marketing terms, viral marketing is the act of business promotion using social networks such as Facebook or YouTube. A successful viral marketing campaign will result in millions of viewers hits on your video, massively increasing your company’s exposure to potential customers.

Though viral marketing is relatively cheap and can be quite effective, it is not that easy to achieve. However, the tips explained below should help you…

The predominant factor that must be adhered to is that your video must be entertaining. The video must be informative, controversial, remarkable or just plain funny. You must cause the audience to want to show their friends or co-workers the video, thus starting the chain.

Money is not important. You do not need an expensive set with big Hollywood actors; you just need a camera, an idea and a few takes.

Even though YouTube will allow you to upload videos of up to ten minutes and one hundred megabytes; a long video will only put people off, depending on the content. Try to limit your video to between thirty seconds and two minutes.

A detailed and precise description will go a long way to increasing your videos exposure in the event of a user search. Making sure the correct keywords are used relating to your video will mean that viewers are more likely to watch it.

Users can easily tell if a video is just a marketing exercise and if you make a video that attempts to deceive the audience into thinking that the video was consumer generated, and you fail, you will have the reverse of the intended outcome to which you sought after; meaning you will possibly gain negative feedback.

One popular way that companies have pushed their way into viral marketing is by creating a series of linked videos, thus enticing previous viewers back and then, ideally, giving them more reason to send the link on.

Probably just as important as making a good video is actually telling people about it. There is no use in making a great video if nobody sees it. Add links to the video from your websites homepage, or other pages, incorporate the link into your email signature and send internal memos to employees notifying them of the existence of the video. You must start the ball rolling yourself, but once it does, it will be a steep slope down!

Find Out More : Viral Videos

With so many people online promoting their business, branding is more important than ever. However, most people don’t have a clue where to turn to even begin the process. MyBrandingSystem steps into that space and allows new business owners to make their mark on the internet quickly and easily. If you are looking to build your brand or learn more on how to do it, then click to listen to my interview with Joe Locke.

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* Why it is important to brand yourself
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Twitter Backgrounds with TwitBacks and Picnik

Easily create free, customizable twitter backgrounds using TwitBacks.com. Choose from over 70 pre-designed templates, add your logo and photo, add a bio about yourself and links to your social network profiles. When done you are given an option to enhance it with Picnik.

Download my free social media checklist (sign up in sidebar) for a daily to do list of all the things you need to do to increase your following. For personalized help, contact me for a free consultation on the best way to market your business online including using Twitter and other internet business tools.

Video Marketing Begins with YouTube

In previous articles, we talked about how video marketing is an effective way to reach customers and even showed you the five steps to producing an awesome video. In this article, I am going to show you how best to optimize your YouTube channel so that it maximizes your video marketing efforts on this video sharing network.

Tips for Video Marketing on YouTube

Customize Your Video Marketing Channel

As the number one video sharing site on the internet, you are competing with over 3 million YouTube channels that are also dishing out content in an attempt to hook subscribers. Therefore, it is essential that you differentiate yourself when it comes to marketing on YouTube and the first place you begin is with your channel.

Do what you can to skin your YouTube channel so that it matches your brand. In addition to writing an irresistible description, create a video that welcomes viewers and make sure it is the first video they see when they pull up your YouTube site. Having a steady stream of subscribers is important to your video marketing efforts so give people a good reason to subscribe.

Upload Multiple Videos

Video is unique in that it can really only engage viewers one time. Meaning, your viewers are only willing to watch that cute puppy video once before they move onto something else. To be successful with your YouTube marketing efforts, you will need to upload more than one video.

Think of it as having your own television show. Each video you post enhances the impression your viewers have of you and encourages them to continue to visit your channel for updates. So before breaking out the camera, make sure you brainstorm enough material to make several videos for your video marketing campaign that will leave visitors wanting more.

Optimize Your Videos for Search

Over 3 billion searches are conducted on YouTube every month making it the second most popular search engine next to Google. Since Google often includes video from YouTube in its search results, optimizing your videos for YouTube searches gives you a chance to earn bonus video marketing traffic through the search engine giant.

Because search engines are not capable of seeing what is on the video, they depend on the text surrounding the video to tell it how relevant it is to what the viewer is searching for. Therefore your keyword needs to show up in the title of the video, the description and the YouTube tags to maximize your video’s chances of being seen by your target audience.

Include Links to Your Websites

Over 107 million visitors go to YouTube each month and watch approximately 65 hours worth of videos apiece. However, this statistic is meaningless if your video goes viral but you don’t have the necessary tools in place to generate sales or produce a stream of high quality prospects.

Therefore, be sure that when you are creating your videos that you include a link to your website or sales page in the video. For example, in many of my shopping videos, I link to my SaveWithStacy.com page that takes people to my online shopping mall where they can put the information I just gave them to good use.

Video marketing is just one of many tactics I use to increase sales and generate a list of qualified prospects for my home based business. Download my free social media checklist (sign up in sidebar) for a daily to do list of all the things you need to do to increase your following. For personalized help, contact me for a free consultation on the best way to market your business online including using video marketing and other internet business tools.