Nick Bullimore's Internet Marketing Blog

How can Twitter become a tool for your products and services
promotions?

How can it generate traffic back to your business website?

Sure enough, you want to have a clearer view of how all this can
be possible. After all, you have decided to try out online
marketing so you can earn more money.

There is no denying that the social networking websites nowadays
are taking over some of our lives. So many of us are into
different forms of social networking media.
Even your collegue in the office is actively sending tweets to
his or her followers! Everyday people from all walks of life get
news feeds from these short messages called tweets.

Alright, let get things straight. Twitter is the networking site
which lets you connect with others. You get to interact with
them, give them updates, and even turn them into customers. Yes,
you got that right! Your followers can be converted into
potential customers.

The key to all of this is for you to create a Twitter account, be
visible, and be sociable. It doesn’t end after you have opened up
an your account at twitter.
You need to build your community of followers, most of them
should be those who share the same interest or similar interests
as you.

You need to focus on those whom you think will be the best ones
to respond to your alerts. So basically before starting out on
Twitter, you must already know your target market.

Keep this mindset that Twitter is a major source of traffic. It
is not only a place that lets you chat with other people via the
use of the 140 characters messages that you can send anytime of
the day. In fact, you can optimize your tweets so that they can
securely direct traffic to your websites.

Also, posting your tweets should be done frequently. Your
consistency in sending messages to your community of followers
plays a major role in the generation of traffic. If you just
surface once in a month, then, don’t expect anything in return!

Links are very essential. Some say that you should never include
links in your tweets that isn’t necessarily so. If your going to
send links to your followers only do so at a very minimal rate.
Don’t flag them with all these or else they will turn their backs
on you.

Send invitations. Apart from informing them of what’s buzzing in
your business, invite them to check out new products and offers.
This will keep them really interested.

Let them check out your blogs. Be sure to provide them with good
quality content so they will get to know the benefits that you
can actually provide.

You need to be an active user of  Twitter. Remember that your
visibility and consistency always help build trust and confidence.
 provide your followers with quality content, not to many links
and you can expect to generate a good flow of  traffic through
your tweets.

Do you feel stressed or discouraged at the thought of having to add social media to your business advertising mix? If you do, then chances are you are one of the secret minority who have vowed never to join Twitter, and you’re sick of hearing about Facebook (that thing your teenager haunts).

Relax. Social media doesn’t have to mean huge learning curves and wasted hours, all in the name of networking. Once you realize that business networking isn’t wasting time at all, it might make a whole lot more sense. Mind you, you might have to work a little at that shift in mindset… but you can do a few things to cut down on your social media climbing without losing valuable opportunities for free advertising.

Start Small…

You can’t get much faster than Twitter for social media networking. Compare the three hours you spent writing that article; then the frustratingly glitchy load time, uploading it to your marketing directory… and waiting 4 or 5 days for it to be approved… Now write out a sentence like this (in less than 140 characters):

“10 ways to French-braid your hair”.

Add to it a shortened link to your blog post.

Voila. You’re done.

The best way to shorten that link? There’s 2 schools of thought…

Some say it’s better if you used an optimized post title leading directly to your blog, like so: “http://www.just-an-example.com/brainstorming.html“. Keyword-wise… yes, it is.

But most people shorten their posts with bit.ly, because it allows you to add a button to your browser bar, and check your click-throughs instantly. (And remember, social networking is driven by sharing, interest and need; not by carefully-optimized keywords.

In fact, in the time it took to write this post, you could have easily published several tweets to Twitter – each of them like little mini-advertisements. (Just don’t make the marketing too blatant – remember: You’re supposed to be hanging out, sharing and swapping.)

Of course, it’s best if you don’t stop there: But if you’re truly busy, Twitter is a good place to start. You can post 3 highly-relevant tweets a day, in less time than it takes to water your houseplants. And you can even send your tweet while waiting at the doctor.

Twitter is truly the place for people who hate social networking.

And it’s like having your own personal mini-advertising campaign!

If you have a blog, don’t assume it will translate perfectly to
mobile: Chances are, it has at least 2 columns, and runs ads,
graphics and is set for a screen width that’s (at absolute
minimum) 760 px wide.

Besides, even if it was able to load in and emerge with a
readable format, you need to remember that many people are paying
heavily for each megabyte downloaded on their mobiles (not to
mention for the time)… and they’re not going to wait twenty
minutes for all your graphics and plug-ins to load.

One superb and very user-friendly plug in is WordPress Mobile
edition. If you can’t find it by searching the plug-in section
via your blog Dashboard, you can easily download it from
WordPress.org’s plug-in section. (It even allows comments -
something that is often a problem.)

One word of caution: If you have one of the smaller mobile
phones, avoid the popular Carrington theme recommended on the
WordPress.org Wordpress Mobile editions page.)

According to WordPress.org, this plug-in works particularly well
on Blackberries, iPhones, Androids, touch phones, all wireless,
and PDA.

Advertising, Anyone?

If you want to display ads, the Mippin Mobilize plug-in (also
found at WordPress.org) is a configuration-free plug in. It works
by redirecting other mobile users to Mippin’s rendering of your
blog. This is a nice plug-in, because it scales photographs to
conform to your mobile site visitor’s screen width, and converts
vides to 3G format.

Customization, Anyone?

If you’d rather customize your blog theme somewhat, a plug-in you
might like is MobilePress. This one isn’t available at
WordPress.org, but you can find it on its home site,
mobilepress.co.za/.

It’s biggest benefit: Allowing you to use customized themes, and
it also allows specific themes for the iPhone, as well as the
Opera Mini browser and Windows CE Mobile. (Surprisingly simple to
install!)

So there you have it: 3 fantastic plug-ins to help your WordPress
blog go mobile.

(Perhaps the new mobile technology is going to end up being
easier to adapt to than we think!

http://nickbullimore.com/blog/MobileReadyWebsites

You’ve most lightly heard every marketer some time or other
preach to you that you got to have a List right or wrong?

They usually ramble on something like this…

** You gotta have a your own list how else are you going to
contact people with offers and use it as your cash generator!**

I do agree that a list is most probably the most valuable asset
to a business, it CAN be the means to creating immediate traffic
to an offer real fast…

I will try to explain that your list is more than that!
And…without a doubt shouldn’t be used as a S-P-A-M tool.

I want to shed some light on a different way of thinking about
the “list”.

Firstly if you you don’t know what a list is here’s a quick
explanation.

In a nutshell a **List** consists of prospective customers with
a common interest in your Offer or Service who you can Contact!

Normally with Online business, it is a list of names and email
addresses.

You will have seen offer’s where you are asked for your Name and
email address in return for a free report!

Having your own list or database allows you you to contact your
prospects any time you wish with news, information that you know
may be of use to them, or any special offers you may have.

If you are a marketer that is fantastic news..

You need people prospects to contact, put into your sales
funnel. to be honest that is the basic make up of business.

You have to realise that a list is not just limited to a
database of names and emails anymore, it is your way of reaching
people.

Of course email is not the only means of reaching prospective
customers.

There are benefits of having a list that I will go into a little
bit later on.

Building your own email list is just a part of the process of
building something bigger…

And the bigger thing is…having a FOLLOWING your Own
Following…beginning to get the picture?

There are many ways of building a list no a following of people
who want to hear what you have to say

I’ll give you a few ways to create a following besides an email
list…

1. Blogging (RSS subscribers) 2. Twitter (followers) 3. Youtube
(channel subscribers) 4. Facebook/Myspace (friends/groups)

…there’s Hundreds of other of social sites that let you have
friends, followers and subscribers!

Thing to understand is that no matter how you build your
following, it’s a following.

You know that a good following can be a reliable way to get
traffic whenever you share a link with them.

So you need to get your self a reliable Auto-responder I will
give you what I consider to be the best it isn’t Free but hey
what’s new…

Here are just a few benefits of using an autoresponder such as
aWeber….

The Major benefit of Email list building is AUTOMATION!
AUTOMATION! thought I would say it twice it makes things so much
simpler…

* You can collect new subscribers automatically.

* You can follow-up with them automatically. Have a series of
10, 20, 30….or unlimited emails programmed to go out
automatically even set the date and time wicked or what….

* You can send them personalized emails with their name on.

* You can mail them whenever you want. Alert them of a new
offer. Give them a free gift.

* You can build a lasting relationship with your subscribers.
Offer them subscriber Only Deals.. Keep them following you so in
turn they will be looking out for your offers etc.

Having an email list gives you a lot of freedom and it’s a
powerful marketing tool.

Seriously an email list gives you a lot of freedom and is a
powerful marketing tool you won’t want to be without.

Right then DO You Need a List?

Damn Right You Do! YES.

Does it have to be an email list?

If you want to reap the Benefits like I mention in this post it
would be a GOOD idea!

Is an email list all I need?

No, remember this, it’s all about “the following”and the most
efficient ways you can build that list and communicate with them.

To be Honest the more ways you can build your following the
better but just get building get your list starting Now…

http://arc-ezine.com/aWeber

Nick
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