How to Market Your Business on Facebook

We all used to think Facebook was for kids; I'm with you I used to think the same thing as well, but it's time to change our thinking. There are many companies using Facebook to market and seeing success in doing so.
Consider the following statistics provided by O’Reilly Media:

• The number of Facebook users between the ages of 35 and 44 increased by 51% since September 2008
  
• Facebook users among the ages 45-54 grew by 47%
  
• Facebook users ages 26-34 increased by 26%
  
• More than half of the 140 million Facebook users are out of college
  

As you can see Facebook is no longer for just college students. Why should you use Facebook as a marketing tool? The answer is easy; you can use Facebook to gain new clients, stay in touch with current clients and promote new products and sales offers. You can also use it to create buzz and PR that is specific about your business.

How do you do this? Facebook offers you many tools, to be successful in marketing your business you must have an understanding of these tools. In this article we will look at two in particular:

• Facebook Pages
  
• Facebook Groups
  

Facebook Pages

Facebook offers you Facebook Pages. What does that mean? You can use Facebook Pages to create and give your business their own profile on Facebook; the best thing is right now they are free. These pages give your business an identity on Facebook which strengthens your brand. Current customers or even potential customers can become fans of your page and by doing so this allows them to follow you and receive any updates that you post to your page.

The great thing about Facebook Pages is that every time someone becomes a fan of your page all of their friends see that they have become a "fan." This often attracts other followers as well as creates a buzz regarding your business and of course your Facebook Page.

You can use your Facebook Page to not only share your company information, but you can also use it to post photos, videos, applications and messages. Any activity that you perform on your Facebook Page is then broadcast into the mini-feeds of your followers.

When creating your Facebook Page, there are things to keep in mind. You will be given a choice of three options when you start out. You will be asked whether your page is about:

• A Local Business
  
• A Brand or a Product
  
• An Artist, Band or a Public Figure
  

Which are you? Good question. This depends on what you want to promote. Do you want to promote your business locally, do you want to promote your brand or a product or are you working to promote an artist, band or public figure?

Each of these categories will provide you with an opportunity to complete your "basic information", "detailed information" or your "contact information." Each option will provide you with a page that enables you to provide different ways of showing your information. It's important to realize that you cannot edit your page type once you select it, and also remember that the page type that you select will categorize your page with other like pages in that category; this is why you want to make sure you select the correct category to be displayed in.

Your Facebook Page, when done correctly can be used to bring in new customers as well as to help you maintain current customer relationships.

Facebook Groups

Facebook Groups, carry a similarity to Facebook Pages, the difference is they are built around a group of people rather than your business or your brand. You must be a member of Facebook to create a Facebook Group. In order to create a group just login to Facebook and then click on the Groups link in the main menu on the left hand side of the page.

You can use Facebook Groups to create awareness, but they do not have the feature that allows users to become fans, they only become members. The downfall of this is it will not share as much information with friends of "group" members as they interact with the group.

Which One is Right for You?

The question I hear most when it comes to marketing on Facebook is "Alynetta, do I need a page or a group?" The answer depends on the goal you want to achieve with marketing on Facebook. The truth is you will gain more exposure from a Facebook Page, because it can be seen by unregistered users, but a group page can only be seen by registered Facebook users.

Now, that feature alone should make it easy to decide, right? Wrong. You must also consider that when you send a message to Facebook Page members, they will only receive an update notification, but if you are sending a message to your Facebook Group they will receive the message via their Facebook inbox. If you goal is to be able to communicate in a personal way, the Facebook Group option may be a better fit for you.

Visit my facebook page

Joint Ventures and Synergy

Everyone seems to take it for granted these days, but I remember the time before the Internet. Besides providing us with countless sources of entertainment, and information (some credible, some less so) the Internet has brought us one very important thing: opportunity.
The power of the Internet lies in forging relationships between entrepreneurs; relationships that are highly-profitable because there’s synergy between the partners.

What, you ask, is synergy?

The word comes from the Greek, sunergia, and is defined as the interaction of two or more cooperative agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects. A synonym for synergy, at least in the realm of Internet business, could be the phrase: joint venture.

Just what are joint ventures?

The phrase really describes a relationship–hopefully a mutually advantageous one–between two (or more) parties to undertake a singular economic activity together. Joint ventures are just a combination of your efforts with those of others to reap substantial profits for both.

A joint venture is not a merger, a general partnership, or ongoing business agreement. It’s not you buying someone’s company or them buying yours. It’s not an equity sharing or equity position in anybody’s company. It’s not a private placement.

It is a single-purpose shared business activity, between two or more business concerns. In fact, joint ventures can create massive profits:

* Without a lot of expenditure on your part
* Without a lot of tooling up in terms of equipment, staff, or facilities
* Without taking all the risk/work on your own shoulders

To put it plainly, Joint Ventures are simply:

* the fastest way to make a fortune
* the easiest way to make a fortune
* the safest low risk way to make a fortune
* the best way to create and leverage business relationships that will make you a fortune

Normally, it is common to come across people from different business sectors while conducting your own line of business. You establish rapport with other business people over time and at a particular stage, you can combine your marketing and sales efforts through a contracted, orchestrated and monitored joint venture.

To be truly successful, any joint venture you take on should be well-thought out, and the parameters should be spelled out in a signed contract. The plan of action needs to be monitored, as does the income generated. These are all points to be covered in this ebook.

The fine part of this is that a joint venture is, by its very nature, short-term.

You can try a joint venture for a trial period of few weeks or months. New joint ventures can be refined from this initial effort and any joint venture arrangement you make proceeds only if it works to the advantage of both parties; otherwise, you could terminate the relationship–and we’ll tell you how to do that in the concluding section.

Most Internet marketers function through such joint ventures, however not all of them are as profitable as initially hoped. This is often because there has been insufficient due diligence on the part of prospective JV partners and the ‘match’ was not–to use an old adage–made in heaven.

Even when the partnership has merit, failure often stems from inefficient, ineffective communication between the parties. We’ll address many of the ways to avoid the communication pitfalls in the sections on operating the joint venture.

You can approach different businesses, Web sites, or companies to find suitable alliances. Our staff has compiled a checklist of activities and tools you’ll need to successfully ‘pitch your JV’ to prospective partners.

Always continue to search for the opportunity to join forces with others; workable deals take time to mature and finalize and therefore, you need to identify and enter into joint ventures with more than one partner.

This is also true because as not all alliances are profitable, you need to keep up your efforts to arrive at a truly rewarding joint venture.

Most joint ventures are unique, and the best joint ventures will be created by applying your own imagination and creativity to form the best win/win situation for you and your partners.

The success of any joint ventures is limited by only six things:

1. Your own creativity
2. Your own sense of what’s possible
3. Your pre-programmed limiting beliefs
4. Must be profitable for all involved
5. Must meet legal guidelines
6. Must operate in an ethical manner

Otherwise, the sky is the limit! And, I mean that sincerely. To be honest, the most powerful limitation is purely the result of the combination of your limiting beliefs, and a lack of vision about the unbounded possibilities.

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Online Marketing for Beginners: 5 Ways to Promote your Web Site Without Going for Broke

Increasing the visibility of your web site starts from getting a top listing in search engines which in turn increased traffic to your site which results in increase in sales.

Here I will outline 5 methods of increasing traffic and promoting your web site site without costing an arm and a leg!

Create good content: On the internet Content is the king Create high quality content on something you have enough expertise on. It might be a niche are like candle making or opening a wine bottle without a cork screw or it might be on some general topic on “How to successfully run a a franchise”. Whatever your area is try stick to that. Remember you cant be everything to everyone. Select you niche audience and make sure they like you enough to keep coming back again and again. Remember the 80:20 rule in marketing. 80% of your business is generated by 20% of your visitors. Find them out and retain them like crazy.

Usabilty Design: while making the site make the site user friendly. Make a site map so that visitors clearly know the navigation path of the site. Avoid heavy animation and graphics in your site. Though the site might seem attractive when you employ rich and heavy designs however they will take greater loading time which most users do not like. Make a links page and provide hyperlink to the internal pages and homepage as well so webmasters know the exact way to access your links page.

Link Building: Links are the key to search engines listings. No matter how beautiful and attractive your your site is, If it does not have any incoming link, which is if your site is not linked to any other web sites it simply cannot get ranked ins search engines. Building links are like building a foundation structure for making a skyscraper.

Start looking for your industry competitors and see who is linking back to them. Find out their contact and send them a mail and ask them if they could have a look at your site and link back to you. Reciprocal links helps your site to gain credibility and ultimately they help is getting citations from other sources which helps in search engine rankings and also increase traffic to your site.

Search Optimization involves makes the site user friendly to search engines. While site usability makes the web site user friendly to an average visitor, search engine optimization aims to make the site easier for the search engine crawlers. For better optimization do not have your link page more than 3 clicks away from your homepage. Most search engine crawlers do not crawl a page deep enough than 3 pages. Provide a title, description and keywords for each pages of your site. These are some of the factors and parameters that search engines employ to rank a web site according to the keywords that are being typed by users.

Use an Analytics tool to track Visitors. You need some analytical tool to track your visitors. You need to know which page of your web site is bringing you the most traffic, you need to find which search engine gives you maximum referrals. Track where are visitors going once they come to your homepage. If you are into online selling you should find out what is the conversion rate of product. Try to think of innovative ideas to increase your conversion rate You could use a testimonial of someone who knows you and have used your product many times and use this to your advantage.

Online marketing is no different than offline marketing. Your need a product or service to sell which is your content. Your distribution channels are search engines, external referrers and directories. You need to promote your site at a certain price . Writing articles and Press Release are some of the other methods to promote your web site further.

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Free Way to Grow Your Business - Social Networks

Online Social Network Communites are a Fun, Simple
and FREE Way to Build Business!!!!!!!!

ShreveportBlackPages Community Space
ShreveportBlackPages Business Space
ShreveportBlack Women Speak
BlackPlanet.com
MySpace.com
BlackRefer.com
BlackinAmerica.com
Black Preaching Network
Tag Team Marketing
iZANIA
Afro Chat
FaceBook
Friendster
RYZE.com
Direct Matches
Tagged
YouTube

Top 9 Reasons to Buy Black

1. We invest in ourselves, our communities and our future.

2. We participate in a Black self-love fest by putting our financial resources where our mouth/interest is.

3. There is a higher likelihood of finding culturally specific products for our unique needs.

4. Our dollars will stay within our community for a longer period of time when Black businesses also employ Black folks who spend with one another.

5. We will have a greater chance of influencing the decisions makers where we shop.

6. We will receive respectful customer service and high quality products.

7. We contribute to the building of business institutions that can be handed to the next generation.

8. We contribute to becoming an independent group/nation able to sustain ourselves.

9. We become a force to be reckoned with and able to affect change.

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10 Tips for Using Affiliate Programs on your Blog

1. Consider your Audience - It almost goes without saying - but it’s worth putting yourself in your readers shoes and consider what they might be looking for as they surf by your blog. Are they shopping for specific products? Might they be looking for related products or accessories? What would trigger them to purchase? Start with your reader in mind rather than the product. If you take this approach you could end up doing your reader a favor as well as making a few dollars on the side.


2. Genuine Recommendations and personal endorsements always work best. There are literally hundreds of thousands of products and services for you to choose from to recommend to your blog’s readers but making money from them is not as simple as randomly adding links to them from your blog. Your blog’s readers come back to your blog day after day because something about you resonates with them - they have at least some level of trust and respect for you and perhaps the quickest way to destroy this is to recommend that they buy something that you don’t fully believe will benefit them.

3. Link to Quality Products - We all like to make sure we’re buying the best products money can buy - your readers are no different to this and are more likely to make a purchase if you’ve found them the best product for them. Choose products and companies with good reputations and quality sales pages. There is nothing worse than giving a glowing review of a product only to send your reader to a page that looks cheap and nasty.


4. Contextual Deep Links work Best - When I started using the Amazon Associate Program I naively thought that all I had to do was put an Amazon banner ad (that linked to Amazon’s front page) at the top of my blog. I thought that my readers would see it and surf over to Amazon and buy up big - thereby making me a rich man. Nothing could have been further from reality - I was deluding myself.


I always says to bloggers that I’m consulting with that they should learn something from contextual advertising when it comes to affiliate programs. The secret of contextual ads like Adsense is that a reader is reading a post on a particular topic on your blog and when they see an advertisement for that same product they are more likely to click it than if they saw an ad for something else. The same is true for affiliate programs. A banner to a general page on every page on your site won’t be anywhere near as effective as multiple links throughout your blog that advertiser products that are relevant for readers reading particular parts of your blog.


So if you’re writing a blog about MP3 players and have a review for a particular product - the most effectively affiliate program that you could link to from within the content of that page would be one that links directly to a page selling that specific model of MP3 player. This is how I use the Amazon program today. It is more work than contextual advertising because you’re not just putting one piece of code into a template but rather need to place individual links on many pages - but I find that it’s been worth the effort.


5. Consider positioning of links - One of the things I go on and on about with Adsense optimization is the positioning of ads. I tell bloggers to position their ads in the hotspots on pages (like the top of a left hand side bar - or inside content - or at the end of posts above comments etc). The same principles are true for affiliate advertising.


6. Traffic levels are Important - While it’s not the only factor - traffic levels are obviously key when it comes to making money from almost any online activity. The more people that see your well placed, relevant and well designed affiliate links the more likely it is that one of them will make a purchase. So don’t just work on your links - work on building a readership. Not only this, consider how you might direct traffic on your blog toward pages where they are more likely to see your affiliate links.


7. Diversify without Clutter - Don’t put all your affiliate efforts into one basket. There are plenty of products out there to link to so there is no need to just work on one. At the same time you shouldn’t clutter your blog up with too many affiliate program links. If you do so you run the risk of diluting the effectiveness of your links and could disillusion your readership.


8. Be Transparent - Don’t try to fool your readers into clicking links that could make you money. While it may not always feasible to label all affiliate links I think some attempt should be made to let people know what type of link they are clicking on. I also think consistency is important with this so readers of your blog know what to expect. For example here at ProBlogger usually put a note beside or under affiliate links to simply let readers know that that is what they are. On my Digital Camera Blog I don’t do this because of the large number of such links make it clear by the text around the link that clicking on it will take them to some sort of shop or information where a purchase is possible (ie a link my say ‘buy the XXX product’ or ‘get the latest product on XXX’.


9. Combine with other Revenue Streams - Affiliate programs and advertising programs are not mutually exclusive things. I’ve come across a few people recently who have said they don’t want to do affiliate linking because it will take the focus off their Adsense ads. While there is potential for one to take the focus off the other - there is also real potential for both to work hand in hand as different readers will respond to different approaches. You should consider the impact that your affiliate links have on other revenue streams - but don’t let one stop the other.


10. Track results - Most affiliate programs have at least some type of tracking or statistics package which will allow you to watch which links are effective. Some of these packages are better than others but most will at least allow you to see what is selling and what isn’t. Watching your results can help you plan future affiliate efforts. Keep track of what positions for links work well, which products sell, what wording around links works well etc and use the information that you collect as you work plan future affiliate strategies.