BE Successful in SMM

In order to be successful in SMM: Social Media Marketing, a person needs to have the following.

• The Ability to Never Give Up.

Those who succeed in MLM have the ability to not give up. They recognise the law of increasing returns (that every new person they introduce results in a doubling of their growth potential). Thus they know it requires them to put in effort over a period of time, that growth in the early stages will be slow but will accelerate over time.

• The Ability to Find the Right Product.

Successful MLMers believe in their product. They know their product. They know why they wanted it. They know why others want it. They believe in the growth potential of their product and use their product. The have search the MLM world and found the BEST product.

• They have found the right reward system.

An MLMer can only be successful if the MLM system gives them a good system for rewarding them. This doesn't mean that the reward system has to give a huge reward for each customer, but ideally the reward should be ongoing over time and be affordable for everyone. Further the reward system needs to go down many levels to exploit the law of increasing returns.

• They have to be able to educate those below them.

A successful MLMer educates those below them. They educate them in the product, educate them on how to market, educate them on being successful. They celebrate their team members success as their own (because in MLM it is). In fact a great MLM sponser is like a parent - they want their children to be more successful than themselves.

• They have the ability to sell to strangers.

Often network marketers fail because they only approach their own network - family and friends. To succeed in MLM you have to sell to strangers. These people ideally don't stay strangers - in an MLM they become team members and friends, but they start off as strangers.

• They understand how to market.

The have to understand how to market, advertise and spread their product and opportunity to as many people as possible.

• They celebrate their successes.

Successful MLMers love telling everyone how successful they are. They know their own sucess will attract more people. People love winners and want to be associated with winners.

• They act on Opportunity.

Successful MLMers understand that the earlier they start in an MLM company the better. Thus they recognise the opportunity before them and act straight away.

• They never give up.

Yes I know I said this, but they recognise MLM success requires time and effort. The are willing to put in effort over years. Most MLM millionaires got so over a period of years, not days - be realistic.

50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.

2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.

3. For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.

4. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.

5. Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.

6. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.

7. Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.

8. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).

9. Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.

10. Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.

11. Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.

12. Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.

13. Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.

14. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.

15. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).

16. Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.

17. Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.

18. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.

19. Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.

20. Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email me for a calendar).

21. Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.

22. Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.

23. Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.

24. Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.

25. Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.

26. Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.

27. Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?

28. Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.

29. Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.

30. Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.

31. Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.

32. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.

33. Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.

34. Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new.

35. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.

36. Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks.

37. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.

38. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.

39. Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.

40. Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).

41. Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.

42. Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.

43. Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).

44. Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.

45. Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.

46. People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.

47. Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.

48. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.

49. Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.

50. Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too.

5 essential steps to achieve your GOALS

Here are five essential goal-achieving steps to help you achieve your goals.

1. Write out goals in detail

The act of simply writing down goals sets the process in motion and provokes emotion, which is an essential key to activating a new belief system—so be very specific. Instead of writing, "A new home," write, "I am enjoying a 5,000-sq ft home on three acres of lakefront property with vaulted ceilings, five bedrooms, three baths and a private boat dock." The more detailed information you include the more you can associate yourself into the probability of that outcome. By being emotionally detailed you will activate your subconscious brain to work for you in the most efficient way possible. After all, your brain is the most powerful resource available to you in the universe.

2. Make your goals consistent with your values

Most people don’t do what they value first and therefore find themselves out of alignment and lacking motivation. When you create a list of your highest values and then align your goals with them; you will have a sense of being on purpose and are more likely to be motivated naturally and become more consistent.

3. Every goal must have two things

First, you need a detailed plan to achieve your goal (conscious brain), and second, you need the right beliefs and mindset (subconscious brain). It’s the combination of both of these that will help you achieve your goals verses just setting goals. To get your subconscious brain working for you consider, meditation even 5-10 minutes a day of focusing on your indented goals. Visualization is when you imagine a vivid picture in your mind’s eye of what you will be thinking, feeling, hearing and experiencing having achieved your goals. Lastly, positive affirmations stated out loud daily “as if they already are true,” will further support overriding the subconscious brains old defaults. All of these methods individually or together will help you rewrite your old beliefs into new ways of thinking that are in alignment with your goals.

4. Review goals daily

This is an important part of achieving your goals, and it must become routine. Review your list every morning when you wake up. Visualize your completed goals and how your life will look and feel as a result. At the end of each day, repeat the process. This is a great way to train your brain to expect your goals to materialize. A good example is when you set sales goals, you first create your sales plan and then review the plan each day to make sure you're on target. This process sets your subconscious brain in motion through visualization to move you towards your goals on a daily basis.

5. Finally, don't get discouraged

You will either achieve your goals as you imagined or receive the insights into what may be necessary to reach your goals. This is not a setback; rather, its feedback of what you may need to do more of, less of, or not do at all. That insight is all part of your forward progression. Stay focused on what you want to achieve and you will find ways to solve difficulties or break through barriers. Celebrate every success and memorialize your accomplishments so that you can begin to see how you are moving towards and in fact achieving your goals. This supports anchoring positive emotions that are the glue to changing the subconscious.

No one knows for sure how long it takes to incubate an idea or a goal. Applying these five steps to your goal achieving process will help you better understand how to develop the right mindset and strategies to help you realize your goals and dreams sooner.

Social Media Optimization Techniques

SMO or social media optimization is a system in which by using the attributes of
search engine optimizations your web site is optimized amongst the most
happening online communities. This can either be done by strewing links all
across the community website to facilitate backlinking or by strengthening the
interaction podium by writing numerous blogs and constantly updating their
content. This will serve to recreate interest in your blogs amongst your regular
visitors and have them coming back for more; though with additional company.
This therefore is a more effective method of drawing traffic to your website.
So by now it is clear that if you have to popularize your brand you need to
popularize your website. The guidelines below will simply help you a little in that
endeavor.
Join a social media platform, for example---Digg, Delicious, twitter, facebook or
Technorati. Besides the obvious advantage that your website will be looked up
as a very ‘in-thing’ it will also improve the ranking and stature of your page in the
tech community.

Tag your article in the correct way to increase visibility. Don’t be stupid enough,
to tag an article as Acne when it deals with the more specific issue of acne scars.
Make your voice heard and opinion counted, by the tactful use of tagging.

Focus on quantity as much as you would on quality. Keep on adding articles and
white pages so that you give your visitors more than enough to chew on. If you
do not update your website regularly they will soon lose interest to visit your site
in the long run. This tactic therefore assists in adding to the linkability of your
website.

The most significant requirement is to provide for methods that simplify ‘tagging’
and ‘bookmarking’ for your customers. This can be done if you provide easy
quick buttons or ‘add to del.icio.us’. Allow for tag lists and notes for links to
cumulate visibility.

Reward the incoming links as a sort of inducement to make them come back for
more. This will not only bring in the existing customers but also pull in more
traffic, who would want to get rewarded as well.

Offer downloadable files from your website in the forms of downloadable pdf. files
,audio and video files and make them available to your customer either for free or
at a negligible cost. An additional propaganda mechanism can be by sending
their copies to various other websites.

Social media optimization has immense potential of escalating the ranking of
your website to great heights. Let us now move over to the other technique of
social media marketing.
So I hope by now you’re convinced of the power of social media marketing and
also what’s it and how it works. If you’re determined to make it big this 2009, you
must make full use of social media optimization. Indeed there are several social
network sites only but in the next chapters, I have discussed about the top 7
social media namely – Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Myspace, linkedin, Squidoo,
podcasts and how you can use each of these and generate more traffic to your
business.

10 Free Social Media Steps to quickly Start Your Business.

1. Google your business name and find out what comes up। Do you come up? Is it what you want to see? Does your business site come up or maybe a Yelp listing, or listing on some other site? Are those links correct, if not some of them allow you to “claim” your business so you can and correct the info, add pics and so forth. Are you satisfied with your placement or do you have work to do?
2. Set up a Google Profile for your personal name so people can find you and your business. Add all of your websites or links to it.
3. Add your company or “claim” your business on Google Places which puts you on Google Maps and adds your link to the top of a search page. YUou can describe your business, add reviews and add photos. Complete all of the profile to maximize your benefit and the data should match what you have on your website since Google knows.
4. Ask your friends/employees/clients to give you feedback on your current website. Get a free consultation on your current website from a web designer who builds content management websites. There are new technologies available ( WordPress for one) that make it easy to have a great site that you can maintain yourself and use as the hub of your Social Media activities.
5. Sign up for Google Alert on your business name or brand. What are people saying about you or your business?
6. Set up Social Media Sites. Definitely start with a personal Facebook, a Twitter and a LinkedIn account and go ahead and fill out your entire profile to include a real photo of yourself. On your personal Facebook page do not make it only about your business, these are your fiends and they want to hear about you. Then add a Facebook Fan Page for your business. Describe your business and regularly promote your products. Work it. Have posts on your website automatically post to Facebook and LinkedIn. Promote other things you come across, whether it be a great blog post or news item that your readers might be interested in. Recommend people you have worked with on Linked-In.
7. Get a Hoot Suite account to direct your status updates to Twitters or your Facebook Fan Page, ( multiple Twitter accounts and to Facebook Fan and Personal pages) and have full function of bity urls and pics on your tweets. This is a huge Time saver. It is command central for your Social Media.
8. Create an e-mail signature that contains your contact information including social media addresses, blogs, websites and logo. You can add this pre-formatted signature to each and every e-mail you send out. You can easily add a text signature but we have a great post on adding a photo to your Gmail signature.
9. Google Social Media and find a few people that you like what your hear। Subscribe to their blogs or follow them on Twitter. Ask people who you admire who they follow.
10. Go to the Gravitar ( globally recognized avatar) website and add your profile picture. This photo will appear whenever you leave a comment on a Gravitar enabled website. Use the same avatar everywhere, on all of your profiles. Better to use you then your business logo.