March 6, 2010

Social Media Experts- The Real Thing

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Seems like everyday I hear from a new Social Media expert on the Internet. I prefer the people who actually do it and have done it than those that just talk about it. I follow several people religiously in this space out of interest and to discover new ideas and ways to make these conversations better for me. My social media favorites include Chris Brogan, Amber Naslund, Joel Comm, Rahaf Harfoush, Shannon Paul,and Amber Macarthur. I discovered this post on Buzz less than an hour ago on the Amex Open Forum by Ambermac . I have known Amber for about three years from her weekly audio podcast with Leo Laporte net@night, her video podcast Command-N, as well as her numerous television credits such as CP24, Webnation ,Girls Gone Geek, and the Tech TV Show Call for Help. She is a very popular speaker on the speaking circuit across North America and is represented by the Lavin Agency, a credit to her message and her experience in the social media, web 2.0 and business with her company MGIMedia . Very little grass grows under this new media specialists feet. In fact she has a new book coming out in June called Power Friending.

I thought I would reprint the article for you with credit to the Amex Open Forum.

” Mar 05, 2010 -

A lot of the buzz about Buzz has died down, but this conversation service from Google is just beginning to experience a surge of traffic. If it’s like many social media tools, it will take a while for users to hop on board—after early adopters charge forward first. When I heard that my colleague, tech guru Leo Laporte loves Buzz, I knew that I had to get up-to-speed on how it works. Here is what I’ve learned that will help beginners get Buzz-ing in no time.

1.

Find and follow. When you first log in to Buzz (which you will find in a menu item that sits below your Inbox in Gmail), Google’s smarts shines through. The search engine giant has carefully selected a list of people already active in your email community, and it suggests that you start with them as your first Buzz follows.

Although there were some people in this list that I don’t communicate with on a regular basis, for the most part it was an excellent group of people to kick-start my account. If you want to add or delete anyone from this list, simply click the View and edit link and you can modify it. You can also search for people to follow and there is an additional list of suggested Buzz friends. You can also see a list of users following you, and choose to follow back if you like.
2.

Start a conversation. Once you have your list of follows set up, go back to the main Buzz screen and start a conversation. The big blank box at the top of the page is where you can post what you’re thinking, what you’re watching, or link anywhere on the web.

Unlike Twitter, which forces you to communicate in 140 characters or less, on Buzz you have ample room to communicate. One feature that works well is the option to share YouTube videos, which are embedded directly within your post (this means that your followers don’t have to leave their Gmail inbox to check out your content).

Once you do add a link or write something in the big blank box, you can post it immediately so that it is available publicly on the web for anyone to find or see. You can also choose to keep your post private, sharing it with a select list of people that you manually add.
3.

Join a conversation. If you’re not ready to start a conversation, it’s even easier to join one. Back on the main Buzz screen you’ll see a stream of buzzes from your community. At the bottom of each post you’ll find three options: Comment, Like, and Email. On the upper right-hand side of each post you’ll find a pull-down menu that has these same options, but it also allows you to view all posts from this one person, mute this post, stop following this person, or report abuse.

In most cases, you’ll simply want to comment on a post, share that you like a post, or email a post. This last option is pretty handy since with one click your email compose screen appears on the Buzz page so you can send a post to anyone already in your Gmail contact list.

Over time you’ll notice plenty of other useful features in Buzz, but the three simple steps outlined above should be enough to get you hooked. As Leo mentioned to me in a recent chat, Twitter is a great tool for broadcasting to the world, but Buzz is an exceptional service to converse with the people in your community that you care about the most. In my next Open Forum post, I’ll address how to tweak your privacy settings in Buzz so you’re information is safe and secure.”

I know that this is only the tip of the iceberg with Buzz but she has her ear to the ground with both the Gen X and Gen Y generation but is also closely watched by myself and my Baby Boomer friends.

You can get in line at Amazon and other booksellers now to get her new book Powerfriending which is due out June 10. I have got mine reserved.

Filed under Marketing, social media marketing by robmet

February 28, 2010

Search Engine Optimization

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SEO or Search Engine Optimization is an important set to learn when marketing online. It has many twists and turns and all sorts of ways that you can use to improve on your ranking and get more eyeballs in front of your content. Phoenix SEO Expert Rachael Butts had done several good videos on her site. Below is one of them of a series you can find on SEO Techniques from Rachel who is also a very talented WordPress Designer

.

Rachael studied at the Art Institute of Colorado and besides SEO and WordPress Designer talents she also does web design locally in Phoenix. This video series will help the beginning or novice marketer. Make sure you look on her site for the others.

Filed under SEO Search Engine Optimization, Training, Video, WordPressTools by robmet

February 26, 2010

PPC Management- Avoid Mistakes and Profit

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PPC Management requires you to be on top of your game. When you make mistakes you may not achieve the conversion results and end up wasting money.

Here are some ideas to avoid the mistakes

1. Not doing good keyword research. Good keyword research using free tools like Wordtracker, Wordstream or Google’s own Keyword Tool will provide you the right words to target. See what successful and long standing advertisers are doing and emulate their keywords that should be in Line1,Line2, and Line 3 of the ads.

2. Having a slew of keywords,Organize your keywords into ad groups of one per keyword, with the three variations broad,phrase and exact. Have (2) separate ads in each grouping. This will give you the maximum granularity to discover the winners and improve your ads.

3. Lackluster Ads. Write compelling ads that are not about your business or product but about the exact item the searcher is looking for. For example:
{Pilgrim’s Pride Turkeys}
{ Pilgrims Have the Best Birds}
{PilgrimsPride.com}
is an bad example where the ad
{Premium Turkey at Discount Prices}
{Succulent Turkey for Your Family}
{ premiumturkey.com }
would be better as it addresses the solution that the consumer is looking for.

4. Experiment with Variations of the Ad in each ad group with small changes. Perhaps add a? mark at the end of the First Line.

5. Deliver what you promise in the ad by matching it with the copy on the landing page you are sending it to. Make it easy for the consumer to buy from you by providing clear navigation. Do not send them to a general information page when they are looking for a specific item,. When you deliver what you promise your quality score should be optimal, improving your position and lowering your costs while you are meeting the searchers needs.

6. One Campaign for all. Split your campaigns into search campaigns and Content Network Campaigns. They behave differently and reach different targets. Maximize your effectiveness by crafting different messages for each network and testing the results.

7. No Negative Keywords.Use negative words to weed out and refine your campaign to buyers. For example in these examples the word Free, Chicken,Fowl,Pheasant,Recipes,Gravy, or the country of Turkey which might come up may qualify the buyers you want versus general interest.

8. Test,test and Test. Always be Testing your copy,offers, fonts,colors and positioning. Be aware of your conversion metrics. Free tools such as Adwords conversion testing or Google Analytics and Website Optimizer make it relatively easy to use.

These are just a few tips you can use to save you time, money, and give you the best bang for your Adwords dollars. Pay Per Click is a dynamic advertising tool so you cannot afford to stop learning in the world of Pay Per Click marketing.

Avoiding mistakes is the key to better PPC campaign management. I advise you to constantly be aware of your buyers view.and would invite you to continue learning cool tips and better techniques for your Adwords management tasks and constantly be learning about PPC Management Strategies to keep you at the top of your game.

February 20, 2010

Deliver What You Promise: Avoid Bait and Switch

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I received an email solicitation in my email box this morning to subscribe to a new Internet Marketing Product.. I am always eager to see new pitches to learn from them; the good ,the bad and the ugly.

This one got my attention because I received the email from someone I knew. It was a Clickbank product with a guarantee attached to it.

It made a promise for something free. It was marked down in price, a marketing tactic from marketers to induce buyers to think they were getting a deal. I bought at the 49.95 price after the usual scarcity ploys and time limited reduced price offer. After getting to the product download page from the CB payment page. I enrolled in the membership, providing my email and confirmed the link.

The free something was there, but it was a garbage piece of PLR and several One Time Offer Upsells. The upsells guaranteed additional units. They too were not so useful PLR. After three attempted upsells to more crap I was fed up and asked for a refund through Clickbank to exercise my guarantee. They had captured my email in their squeeze but had thoroughly annoyed me with their tactics. I would not be in their value chain, as no doubt many others would not be.

Why, because they failed to deliver on their promise in their sales letter. In fact they delivered such crap that I would not consider buying again from this marketer.

As PT Barnum said ‘There is a sucker born every minute”. More like caveat emptor in “shame me once.Im the fool; shame me twice..I am not so nice.

Avoid doing this to your customers and you will live long and prosper.

Filed under Internet Marketing, Marketing by robmet

February 4, 2010

Willie Crawford Says Jump- Who Says How High?

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My buddy Willie Crawford, that wily retired US Air Force guy is up to a interesting promotion for this Peter Drew product. And I usually listen when Willie comes a calling because he is a straight-up first class kind of guy. This I why I think Brute Force SEO :EVO2 might be something you could profit from in your SEO.

Willie Crawford

There’s a saying that goes “The Proof Is In The Pudding”. Now what the hell THAT means exactly, I have NO idea.
But I know where the proof on Peter Drew’s Brute Force SEO: EVO2 is… SEO Fight Club Forum. And the doors have swung wide to the public, sothere’s not a moment to lose: BruteForceSEO

Here’s just a tiny sample of the success other marketers are having with this insanely powerful membership, direct from the Fight Club: “I
ran BFSEO, I went to bed, and when I woke up, these were my results:

Search Term = (Ebook name) Competition without quotes = 320,000
Competition with quotes = 2,800 RESULTS: Keyword in quotes [Google
Position/Site]: ================================ 4 wordpress tag **5
money site** **6 money site[indented]** 9 feedagg 10 dailymotion 14
howcast 15 badrss 16 revver 21 metacafe 22 badrss(tags page) 26 feedest
40 wordpress tag(different keyword tag) 41 howcast 44 dailymotion 55
wordpress site Keyword (No quotes): ================= 7 wordpress 9
money site 16 feedagg 17 dailymotion 25 howcast 34 metacafe 40 rss2 46
badrss 47 rss feed submission

I was pretty excited when I woke up to this because I started imagining what I could be doing with this over
the next little while :> This thing is going to be a RIDICULOUSLY HUGE time saver. I don’t think it’s enough to say it does a weeks worthof work in just hours, because chances are you’d get sick and tired of the weeks worth of work 1/3 of the way through it.

One of the users who we will call Mike started OWNING the first 50 listings in Google. In a matter ofHOURS. But the telling statement is his next-to-last one: “I don’t think it’s enough to say it does a weeks worth of work in just hours, because chances are you’d get sick and tired of the weeks worth of work 1/3 of the way through it.”

Do you see the Raw Power in that statement? Want to see a few more?
Check this out:
http://evo2jv.com/testy

Not only will EVO2 do all the work FOR you, he will make it so brain-dead easy you won’t be able find any excuse to delay whatsoever-
unlike probably dozens of other things cluttering your hard drive

If you see the power here, then GET it. BRUTE FORCE SEO

Remember, a limited number of slots are opening on February 2nd…After that, you’ll wait (and lose out on insane rankings and indexing
power) at Least until spring- and who’s to say there will even be any drop-outs in February or March?
If they have 100% retention (which is quite possible- it’s happenedbefore), they may decide to keep the membership CLOSED for Months.
And that would just put you further behind the smart money, so I urge you to grab your slot while you can.

Your entrance fee is ZERO for a full seven (7) day trial. If you don’t think it’s for you? That’s fine! Simply cancel your PayPal subscription (YOU Have The Control) before your trial is up, and you will pay NOTHING. Nada. Zip.

It is dead easy to cancel. YOU control your subscription. But if you’re like 68% of the people that come on board with them, you
WON’T. In fact the excuses they hear for canceling (although they don’t ask for your reasons) are things like “I can’t afford it right now, but
I hope to in the future.”Well, I always cringe whenI hear that, because every time slots are
opened in BFSEO: EVO2 they just get MORE expensive.

So the time and place to seize the moment is Right Now…Right Here.