They are all used primarily to promote my Social Marketing efforts, so feel free to post your own below, and to add me as a friend to your own profiles.
If you post yours in a comment below, I will be happy to add you to mine as well.
Always a pleasure to interact with my blog readers, whether it is here, or on twitter, Pownce or Digg!
A Few Web 2.0 / Social Marketing Tools Just a quick post to let you all know about a some Web 2.0 / Social Marketing tools to make your internet life a little easier and maybe a bit more effective.
First off is Social Marker. This is an interface that will allow you to move straight through each of your Social Bookmarking sites automatically signing you in, and autofilling most common fields.
I especially like their widget, which you can see at the bottom of each of my posts, right after my digital signature. Well worth the time to check out and use as they are hooked into 46 different Social sites and services.
Very simple to use. Just fill in your username and password for each of your accounts once, and allow it to verify your data and you are ready to roll.
There is some great info by a gentleman named Sean Mize. His articles garner quite a bit of attention and rightly so. He is brief but his writing serves it's purpose.
I found it interesting that he is very open about not really worrying about how many people read his articles, as he is mostly looking for added Search Engine results.
We get so busy that we forget to take the time to be sure we know the best (or even sometimes just the basic) ways to do the things that we take for granted as basic tasks.
I got thrown for a loop today by something as simple as the new cPanel upgrade. Not really a big deal, but when you are a SemiLiterate Marketing Thug with emphasis on the SemiLiterate for technical stuff, it seems like a really big deal...
I was so focused on some changes to be made to one of my Thank You Pages, that it took me quite a few minutes to stop, take a breath and just look around. Once I did, I found that I could still use the old File Manager by selecting Legacy File Manager.
Once I took the time to look around I found that I like the upgrade. I like the wysiwyg HTML editor. Lots to appreciate, and I got the changes to my page made far quicker because I took the time to just breathe... Read... and Implement.
Seems basic huh?!
But I'll bet you do it too.
I have folders full of information that can make my work easier, more effective, and even more pleasant.
Case in point:
I do a lot of Social Bookmarking, as well as other forms of Social Marketing almost continuously as an integral part of blogging, articlemarketing and a host of other online endeavors.
As a result of my experience with the cPanel upgrade I took the time to start reading this report:
Grab it. No cost, but read it right away, as you will no doubt save yourself time, as well as get more out of your efforts by implementing what you learn.
Overall what I want you to take away from this post is to slow down a bit and make sure that you utilize the resources at your disposal.
You will get more done, with more ease, and get far more results from almost whatever you do...
Launching Your Own Product - A Necessary IM Step At some point this is a step that you can and should take. Even if you see yourself as primarily someone that is engaged in affiliate marketing, having your own products will make it possible for you to engage in internet marketing and social marketing in manners that just aren't possible any other way.
This is nothing to be scared about. Just another step in the direction that we all are taking. In all likelihood your first product will by one that comes from PLR packages. Here is one of mine:
This is a great piece of software that is quite easy to install and use that will do exactly what it says it will:
Create self-generating websites.
It has a great pricepoint at $17.00 and I am promoting it through PayDotCom.
You can promote Blog Spider Pro by signing up HERE, and make 50% of the sales price (less fees).
Why am I doing this?
Well, beyond the obvious profit that I can make from selling the product I will also be able to interact with other Affiliate Marketers at PayDotCom in a way that I cannot do without having my own product.
I can also market other products on my ThankYou page, which will get more traffic as my affiliates make sales for me too.
Do you think I will be able to promote my future products to affiliates that are already making fungolas selling this product? I do too!
My next projects will be reworkings of things I already have in place, but I will also be launching some new and totally original products in the near future in ways that you can do as easily as I.
I'll be sharing the methods here as these progress.
Michael Cheney, one of the most-respected names in Internet marketing, has been online since 1995 and is the man behind the 6-Figure launches of AdSense Videos and 11 Days To List Profits. He has unveiled a new videos product - "Michael's Traffic Videos" which covers everything to do with traffic and comes with 100,000 instant ad credits and a tailored Fast- Track To Traffic Action Plan.
We managed to grab some time with him recently and quiz him on his favorite topic - traffic.
You'll get a lot out of this interview including a killer 40-page E-book on traffic that Michael has written to help you avoid the Top 20 Traffic Disasters!
So let's get started.
Q. Firstly Michael, thank you for joining us today in your busy schedule.
A. Hey no problem. Good to be here.
Q. We all know that traffic is important but could you just explain a bit about traffic for the beginners out there?
A. Sure. Traffic is the lifeblood of any business online. Without it you just die. We all know that. But what a lot of us don't realize is that just like everything else on the Internet traffic changes very quickly. That is, the methods of getting traffic are changing all the time and that's where people get caught out.
Q. What do you mean by "caught out"?
A. Well people fall into the trap of thinking that just because they know one or two traffic generation methods that they are some sort of traffic master. In reality just because you know how to start a pay per click campaign or a little bit about search engines doesn't make you anywhere near a traffic expert. I'm trying to spread the word that there is a massive array of traffic tactics that most people aren't even aware of, let alone using or mastering.
Q. Can you give us some examples?
A. Sure. Offline for example. You might immediately think that getting traffic is a purely online activity but the truth of the matter is that there are lots of things you can be doing offline to get people into your website. And it's usually these sorts of areas that are being under-utilized and therefore there is less competition for that traffic as well.
Q. So by offline you mean advertising offline?
A. Not necessarily. That is one method, yes, but I'm thinking of more creative ways to get people into your website. It all comes down to the fact that having asked people on my list it came as no surprise that most people want to know about free rather than paid traffic sources. I've had to become an expert in free ways of getting traffic in my time online.
Q. What do you mean - I thought you were running a successful online business with lots of cash flow?
A. I am. But it's not always been this way. When I first started out in 1995 I had nothing. No money to play with. Just my own initiative and imagination.
Q. So are you saying you're against paying for traffic online?
A. No. No I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying i s that, especially when you first start out, you always want to focus on the free methods. You get the traffic in for free, make some sales and then you can reinvest some of that money into paid methods of getting traffic. This speeds up the process.
Q. So what particular offline methods are you referring to - can you give us some examples?
A. There's one tactic I used that costs nothing to implement, is relatively quick and ended up getting me thousands and thousands of targeted visitors into my websites. When I've shared this tactic with other marketers at seminars they've started laughing and slapping their foreheads when they saw how easy it was. They were also embarrassed that they had failed to use this tactic. It was quite amusing.
Q. So are you going to tell us what this method is?
A. No! (laughs) It's in my course! I truly believe in rewarding those people that are most eager to learn so instead of giving away all my traffic tactics in interviews like this I've put some of them in an E-Book I've written. It is free though if people want to get it.
Q. So how can people get hold of it?
A. It's called "How To Avoid The Top 20 Traffic Disasters" and you can get it by going to Michael's Traffic Videos - you'll see it mentioned on that page.
Q. What's in it?
A. Well I really wanted to raise the bar on a free E-Book so I spent a lot of time creating it. It's 40 pages long and stuffed with juicy content on what NOT to do when it comes to traffic. As far as I'm concerned too many people out there tell you what you should do but not what you shouldn't do. That's where this E-Book comes in.
Q. Okay. I think we're about done is there anything else you want to tell everyone?
A. Just that if they are serious about getting more traffic into their website they need to goto Michael's Traffic Videos and get that free E-Book.
Q. Cool. Well thanks for your time Michael and speak to you soon.
A. My pleasure. Speak soon.
That's it for now, hope you enjoyed this info from Mike...
This post will hopefully open your eyes to an ever expanding world of Social Marketing opportunities.
Slumgullion was a dish that my Dad used to make for out family on the few occassions when he cooked for us. His description of what Slumgullion is was simply that it was a vibrant mixture of whatever inspired him at that moment.
Which is exactly what the following videos are...
Watch them and I guarantee your outlook will expand and expose you to a multitude of new and exciting Web 2.0 and Social Marketing ideas, products, projects...
You get the idea!
Let's start with a mind-blowing overview of just what this whole Web 2.0 experience is:
While your mind is still reeling, and you ask yourself how we fell down this rabbit hole, watch this:
This is what it is all about. Whether you call it Web 2.0 or Social Marketing or even Slumgullion, that tag line is appropriate:
"The audience is up to something..."
Now watch and listen to seth Godin, author of Meatball Sunday and founder of Squidoo, as he talks Marketing. When Seth talks marketing, anyone that markets, listens:
So now ask yourself:
"What is my Purple Cow?"
Here is one company's:
Nothing will ever be the same in the marketing world again. Web 2.0 means that to a greater extent than anyone would have thought possible, the market is now in a greater position of control than ever.
For the first time, the dog is wagging the tail, and not the other way around.
The winners of the Web 2.0 - Social Marketing game will be those that work with the flow and respond to that market.
By definition, the only way to respond to anything or anyone is to be a part of the conversation. Will you be?
These guys found a way to be:
Being a part of the conversation means speaking in the language it is taking place in. YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook, blogging, social bookmarking and forum posting are all parts of that language.
Now, take your purple cow, and translate it into that language!
My own first foray into the world of Article Marketing was fraught with anxiety, and needlessly so.
The idea of publishing articles alongside the Internet Gurus that I had learned from made Article Marketing seem like I was assuming way too much about my own knowledge.
So I did what many did and rounded up a bunch of PLR stuff and spun the content, and voila'! I was an Article Marketer!
Of course I didn't get the results that I'd read about in all of the reports and ebooks on Article Marketing I had read either.
That was then, and this is now...
Article Marketing is something that anyone endeavoring to make an online income needs to be doing. Maybe our words are not as noteworthy as a Mike Filsaime's or an Alex Mandossian's but they have an inherent value that cannot be ignored.
Why is that?
When you put your own experience into words, that has a power that can be gotten no other way. Marketing with Articles that contain your own struggles, victories and yes even your defeats will motivate people to look at your sites because they are real.
If you think that your grammar or punctuation are not up to par, and that will make your articles look less professional, then write them in Word and watch the prompts. Your Articles will look sufficiently professional to get visitors to your sites.
It is also not really necessary to submit your Articles to hundreds of Article Directories. In most cases I just submit to EzineArticles.com. This is the most widely accessed Article Directory by far, so it's reach is sufficient.
Okay, if you really want to use more of a shotgun approach you can get your Article submitted to over 600 Article Directories at ArticleMarketer.com.
Article Marketing allows you to build traffic, links back to your site, and a reputation as someone to listen to in your market.
Article Marketing is a vital part of your Web 2.0 activities.
Article Marketing builds links back to your blog, website, Squidoo Lens, HubPage or any other webpage you are promoting.
Article Marketing builds your reputation within the online community of your niche.
Article Marketing is something you need to begin doing now...
This blog had gotten to the top of Google for some fairly competitive keywords. One of these is online income blog.
This is probably the least competitive of the keywords that I was getting Google and Yahoo! traffic from, but the only one unaffected by what happened next...
Just a few hours later, Blogger locked down my blog as a possible Spam Blog. Huh?! Boy was I confused.
This had happened to one of my other blogs a little while ago, and took quite a while to get unlocked. Fortunately it took just a couple of hours this time. Mostly because I found a post in the Blogger Forum that allowed for a much faster review.
Unfortunately the results on several of the keywords that I had ranked high on before...
just... plain... disappeared.
So there it is. The two edged sword. We enjoy a bit of an edge using Google's own Blogger and get favorable treatment by their spiders, but with an interruption of our status, that advantage disappears mighty fast.
This got me to thinking about what it was that got me ranked for these keywords in the first place.
The flat honest fact of the matter is that I had been doing the basics of SEO work all along, but what had really pushed my results over the edge had nothing to do with meta tags, keyword density or pagerank.
What had finally pushed me up there in the rankings was:
Social Marketing!
How do I know this?
Elimination.
I got no results like this when my PageRank was higher, and no Google traffic at all when I used various submission services, or the SEO service(s) duJour.
The plain fact of the matter is that traffic begets traffic begets traffic... And so on.
The more hits I get from my Social Marketing activities, the more I get from Google, Yahoo!, MSN and the rest of the SE crowd.
That is also the good news. It means that I'll rebound quickly from my own Google slap. All I need to do is keep at what I am already doing.
Social Bookmarking.
MicroBlogging.
Squidoo
Posting to forums and blogs.
What got me where we all want to be was Social Marketing or Web 2.0 if you prefer, and that is how it should be.
What works, and will continue to work for the forseeable future is to be involved in your market. So you'll see me out ther swinging in my own "Semi-Literate Marketing Thug" way.
It ain't slick, and often it ain't pretty, but it will be me...
Interacting in the niches I choose to market to, and making mistakes along with a few fungolas along the way...
I am really curious as to what others think on this, as it seems to me to be at the heart of the whole Web 2.0 experience. If we market using any Web 2.0 strategem are we then spammers?
The following is a canned review for SpinSuccess, which purports to be an SEO service that will get you traffic, signups and sales for just $29.95/month.
Their ads are all over the place. I have gotten emails, PMs in forums, seen them in sig files and even had a close IM friend give them a thumbs up (turns out he believed another friends endorsement).
The fact of the matter is, you can never find these folks that are getting all of these great results. The two PPC ad networks that they give you "$100/month in Free Credits" for have so little traffic to sell you that their own search feature shows that the term "PPC" has no searches and "Pay Per Click" just has 3.
Sorry guys, this one is a pass:
Okay, you have created an affiliate website and are all set to generate your additional income from there. But hang on – only half the job is done so far!
In order to create an all new success story in affiliate marketing what you need is successful and consistent traffic generation to your website.
This is not a thing of less import, because unless and until you get success in driving in your prospects to your website, you can rest assured that no one is going to know about the products and services you have at offer.
This becomes even truer in the most competitive scenario of today, where there are millions upon millions of other contenders of your cause.
Search engine submission services, like the most effective SpinSuccess, comes to your rescue here.
They not only pioneer in delivering you the best search engine optimization services but also guarantee regular search engine submission at the most valued search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo!.
Their team consists of expert Internet marketing professionals with a cumulated experience of over 30 years in marketing and research, ensuring you never-before services in delivering you over your expectations.
They will hand submit your website to the search engines stated above along with auto-submitting the same in over100,000 other search engines, equipped to generate millions of traffic units only for your website.
It is a grand success story with masters like SpinSuccess with you, where you can never tire counting the amount of real money generated from your website.
Their services include a complete extensive analysis and review of your website and monthly reports and updates regarding the submission status of your website to the search engines.
Their 24/7 customer support system is always prepared to assist you with no additional charges. They also offer you $200 worth pay-per-click fund that is not only free but also replenishable when needed.
Their overall services include full website reviewing, hand and auto-submission to all the search engines, monthly account updating and complete technical support, free GoodKeyword Pro copy, $100 each credit with pay-per-click search engines like LookSnap.com and QuestClick.com.
You get all these and more – services combines worth no less than $700 – with SpinSuccess at the most humble price of $29.95 as monthly membership subscription charges for a limited period.
They also offer you a 7 night vacation for the two of you with more than 1000 breathtaking destinations to select from.
The primary motto of the SpinSuccess team is to ensure your one hundred percent satisfaction and pleasure. They are definitely the most effective advertising for the price they charge, with the guarantee of rating your website among the top ten rankers in any search result.
This increases your visibility to your prospects and makes it a lot easier on their part to hunt you out. More than 90% of people find what they are looking for through the search engines.
The SpinSuccess team understands this and delivers you the services that will never fail you. Do not believe it?
Just take a look at what their customers have to say about them.
Visit SpinSuccess today to increase your traffic and sign-ups:
My regular readers, followers, Digg friends and other assorted Web 2.0 cohorts have already been exposed to this information so I'll try to be brief...
More and more of my activities online are creating traffic for me without my having to think about it or even do anything extra just because of this little program.
And it's FREE! Even to Upgrade to Premium!! (I know, I know. Enough with the exclamation points.)
For those not yet familiar with the process here it is:
1. Run your affiliate links, your blog post urls and any other web address that you promote through Russell Brunson's LinkBrander.
2. Run the resulting link through whatever HTML Cloaking software you are using. (If you don't have anything, then use mine here at no cost whatsoever)
3. Cut and paste the resulting piece of code into a text document like Notepad and "save as" a .html file.
5. Use these urls whereever and whenever you are promoting that site, blog, program or whatever.
6. Also use these urls to access the programs themselves. (I use the url in Step 4 to access LinkBrander and get ad credits for just going in to create new branded urls)
I know that this program works, as I have made three purchases this week myself because of the text ads at the bottom of my own urls.
The beauty of this whole thing IMHO is that your traffic begets more traffic begets more traffic...
It's not just viral it's circular, if you get what I mean.
Most of the time now as I am working I have a tab opened to LinkBrander and another to my Cloaker.
Okay, so I wasn't brief. But hopefully enough of you will get the point now that this is really something that we all need to be doing as a matter of course.
In spite of my best laid plans, much of what I had scheduled to accomplish this week; life did in fact prevent me from getting to the bulk of these projects.
Between a death in the family, one broken digit and a multitude of less major emergencies, my keyboard time was almost non-existent.
Wait a minute though...
What are all of these emails about?
Yep! Sales kept happening, and fungolas kept flowing into my accounts...
Aah yes. This is why we all got onto this treadmill to begin with. Recurring & residual income ROCK!
This is another "Butterfly Marketing" style program that offers Rebrandable EBooks, as a "Free" offering and then proceeds to tempt you with an OTO (that's a "One Time Offer") and then a monthly option as well. I frequently go "Free" on these types of offers as I plan to promote them more than use the products but something made me pull that buy lever...
Cowabunga! Am I glad I did...
This one will take a while to implement, but is worth the time and trouble to do so.
The first thing I noticed in the backroom was the wide variety of promotional materials. Banners, graphics, articles, Thank You pages videos...
Again it will take a while to get through it all and decide when and where you want to deploy this bounty of marketing tools. You will be happy to say the least.
If I have to say something negative about this program it would be that there really may be just so much there that people will get analysis paralysis trying to decide exactly where to start.
I found all to be well organized, and the interfaces very self explanatory. It isn't dumbed down by any means, but doesn't assume too much either.
There are a few bugs here and there, but Jeff has a killer help desk set up and his skilled staff helped me through the one thing I couldn't muddle through myself.
If I was only going to purchase one program to promote and implement this year, then this would be in the top 3 I would choose from.
First, I have to say that this site is pretty ingenious when you think about it. Branded, high quality reports you get to give away - and make money from.
When I actually checkout out a few of the reports, I found that they were much more than just "thrown together trash". In fact, quite the opposite.
Along with the reports supplied by the staff writers of the site, members can also contribute their own reports. As a free member, you can contribute one of your original reports every month.
After a while, once you have contributed a few reports, you will see how viral this concept really is.
I've seen an increase in my traffic, as well as seen my own credibility as an expert shoot through the roof.
As always, check it out now and then make your own decision:
