Marketing

March 6, 2010

Social Media Experts- The Real Thing

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.

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 20, 2010

Deliver What You Promise: Avoid Bait and Switch

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

January 23, 2010

Why Attend Seminars- The Reason WHY

One of the best ways for people who are interested in improving their skills in any area of interest is attending continuing education events.

If you are a dentist or a doctor or a chiropractor you are used to regularily attending c.e. events to update your skills which update you and your professional educational education. Some visit for keeping their professional licensing intact.

As business people it is the same philosophy that can do wonders for us. In internet marketing this education is a valuable constructive activity. You have two great benefits .

You will learn new methods of marketing, how,when and what technology to use and strategies that will grow your business.
Above all you will be in the company of other successful people that have travelled the same route as you, have similar goals and can share their successes and failures with you.

Coming out from behind the keyboard is valuable as you can grow your list of friends who share a similar philosophy, and meet others who you can then share ideas with after you leave the conference or seminar. You will also be able to make contacts to do business or Joint Venture .
But what if you are tight for time , can’t get the travel time to work or have family obligations. You can still be there in spirit by purchasing the videos or recordings and seminar materials from the organisers of the event.

2010 01 23 1840 300x157 Why Attend Seminars The Reason WHY

Online Revenue Workshop

As I write this I am attending the Online Revenue Workshop in Las Vegas. This event featured Dr Jeanette Cates, Connie Ragen Green, Lisa Suttora and Suzan Schmitt are discussing technology,marketing, product development and entreprenurial mindset. I have picked up many new ideas and made several new contacts.

You can find ideas and improve your continuing education and business also at the Continuing Education Works like I have. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Filed under Internet Marketing, Marketing, Training by robmet

December 20, 2009

Online Revenue Workshop |January 22-24 2010 |Make Money Online

: Image via Wikipedia

The Online Revenue Workshop will help you make more money online.

My two friends Connie Ragen Green and Dr Jeanette Cates are holding a teaching and doing workshop in Las Vegas on January 22-24. This first Online Revenue Workshop will be an interactive and profitable learning experience. These two women have achieved success themselves with their internet online and offline marketing efforts. Connie recently participated in Armand Morin’s AM2.0 Group and competed against other members of this group in the Best of The Best contest held in Vegas at Morin’s Big Seminar Event. The $25,000.00 prize and the admiration of her peers demonstrated to all present that she knows her stuff and can convey her messages. Likewise Dr Jeanette Cates who operates the Techtamers family of sites, has a wide variety of teaching products such as Online Success Basics who will talk about how to host,create and implement webinars, to help you achieve online success and allow you to make money online.

Connie Ragen Green provides courses such as From Idea To Ebook HomeStudy Course to Internet marketers and small businesses that want to grow and is famous for her simplicity and empathy. She has derived a 5 Prong Approach which is blogging, articlemarketing, social networking ,teleseminars and affilliate marketing and has trained many marketers on how to make money online.

I have taken and participated in both ladies course offerings and highly recommend them to you. I also participate in their affiliate programs as well.

Filed under Internet Marketing, Marketing, social media marketing, teleseminars by robmet

December 18, 2009

Monetize Your Twitter Assets- Publishers and Advertisers

: Image via Wikipedia

I just discovered a new Toronto startup that is helping Twitter users monetize their Twitter feeds.
Here is an interview with the founder of Assetize that I picked up from the Techvibes blog.

“As many of you know, Toronto is a brewing with young tech companies. And with social media becoming more mainstream by the minute there are even more companies looking at how various applications can be properly monetized. Enter into the picture hot start-up Assetize. Assetize proposes to partner content publishers with advertisers…on Twitter. I recently had the oportunity to interview Assetize founder @Saif Ajani:

assetize

Thanks for doing this Saif.

Saif: My pleasure.

What exactly does Assetize do?

Saif: In short, Assetize helps publishers monetize social accounts, and helps advertisers connect with their target audiences through this new medium.

For example?

As you know, on Twitter, a publisher can take on many forms. The type that immediately comes to mind for most people are newspaper publishers and large bloggers, who still create valuable content on different mediums and are now using Twitter as a distribution channel. However, as we’ve seen social network activity grow over the last few years, each user is truly also a publisher. For example, while Techvibes produces some great content for the site, your personal account also produces and distributes valuable content for its followers outside the Techvibes networks.

Our goal is to enable all social network users monetize their content. We’ve recently signed an agreement with a large sports agency to help tier 1 professional athletes monetize their accounts, and are currently also in a trial with a large Canadian newspaper publisher.

Does Assetize only do this for Twitter accounts or do you also help monetize content on other social networks?

Saif: Today, our focus is on Twitter because it is by far the biggest opportunity in front of us. However, as we grow, we do plan on branching out into other networks. For example, if someone has creating a Facebook Page for Michael Jackson and has attracted millions of ‘Fans’, they should be able to monetize their work as well. Another example would be Ning: If someone has created a great social network for a niche like new moms, they should also be able to monetize this network by allowing advertisers the ability to target this highly valuable audience.

At this time our focus is purposely narrow so that we can become great in one area – Twitter monetization – before expanding outside.

Can you give an example of how Assetize would help a publisher monetize their Twitter account?

Saif: Sure. Here are 3, for the different types of publishers we’re currently working with:

The individual publisher. There are some users in our system with hundreds of thousands of followers, and do a great job of keeping their audiences engaged by providing them with valuable information. When they register with Assetize, they provide us with a key to publish in-stream ads into their Twitter accounts.

Any type of ads?

We’ve placed a high importance into ensuring that the messages that our publishers’ followers receive in-stream is relevant, and we do this through a patent-pending system that we have developed. On an ongoing basis, we constantly monitor our users’ accounts to see what they’re discussing and extrapolate what would be relevant to their audiences. We then use an algorithm to match each account with an ad that would be relevant to them. This proprietary analysis and targeting engine is something that is unique to Assetize, and is what makes us different – and better, we feel – than some of our competitors.

Second are media companies. We’re working with a large Canadian newspaper publisher now who wants to monetize their Twitter stream just as they have monetized their news website. For these types of publishers, we have created a platform that allows them to sell Twitter sponsorship directly to their existing or new advertisers. By using Assetize, the destination page for each of their links would have a top bar, similar to the ones thatow.ly links show, but these would instead be branded with the publisher’s logo and have ad space for their sponsors. In other words, just as all Techvibesow.ly links have Techvibes branding, but ads for Hootsuite/ow.ly, publishers that use Assetize would have their own branding with ad space available to their existing or new sponsors.

Finally, athletes. This is currently in stealth mode, but we recently signed a deal with a US-based sports agency to help their athletes monetize Twitter. Just as athletes have offline sponsors, we would bring sponsors to their Twitter accounts as well. Not only does this provide obvious value for athletes, but also really democratizes athlete sponsorship. As you know, to date, most athlete sponsorships have been done by large conglomerates because they’re the only ones who could afford it. However, with Twitter, where local and international followers are so engaged with the athlete, it’s now possible for local SMBs to sponsor an athlete’s Twitter stream for a limited time and on a budget. We think this is a game-changer, and are in hot pursuit of businesses looking to enter into tier 1 Twitter sponsorships.

Let’s take a step back. What was the impetus for creating Assetize?

Saif: The impetus for creating Assetize was the thesis that social accounts have a lot of untapped value, and the best analogy to draw to them was domain names. If thebusiness.com domain name could sell for $7.5M, then, in theory, twitter.com/business should also have some real financial value. And by extension, the owners of these social accounts may also be looking for ways to monetize these accounts.

When we first launched in May, we performed a really quick experiment that proved to be very insightful for us: Assetize’s first incarnation was actually a marketplace for social account names – if you search for us, you’re bound to see TechCrunch and New York Times articles from June that reference this marketplace. Although Twitter and Facebook weren’t happy about there being such a marketplace, the thousands of users that registered with us really proved that yes, our thesis was correct: social network users are looking for ways to monetize these accounts.

So we started building other methods for users to monetize accounts and drew some parallels with history. In the past, every time there has been a new distribution channel for content, these content creators and distributors were able to monetize by partnering with ad networks. This was true for individual blogs, websites, and even all the way back to radio and television. Twitter is really no different, and we saw a real gap in the market for ways to monetize this new channel.

Can you tell our readers what you were doing before Assetize?

Prior to launching Assetize, I was in business school at Cornell, and my Co-Founders, Mike Rhemtulla and Minaz Abdulla, were consulting to technology companies. We’ve worked on startups on a part-time basis before, but Assetize was the one that truly excited us and we decided to focus on this full-time.

What is your vision for Assetize?

Saif: The vision for Assetize is to really become the platform for social account monetization – across all networks, for all types of publishers, and for advertisers of all shapes and sizes looking to reach their target audiences.

Social networks like Twitter have not only democratized ideas and opinions, but also given an opportunity for all sorts of niches to develop and take shape. And for each of these niches, there are organizers doing a lot of work who deserve to be compensated, and there are advertisers who are looking to reach these audiences. Matching these two groups is the only way that value, not only monetary but also content, will continue to be built on these networks. How sustainable is a network where value creators are not compensated? We don’t think it is.

Wow. That’s a bold vision!

Assetize will be the platform that enables this, either through our own site, or by working with the different parties to extend our services to them.

Why is Toronto a hotbed for tech start-ups?

Saif: Toronto is an under served market in many ways, which is what makes it such a hotbed. With some excellent schools in the city, and 1-2 hours from here, there is certainly no shortage of really great talent. We’ve hire interns and have been blown away by how great they are at what they do; and being close to other startups and Xtreme Labs has further confirmed this.

There’s also a real movement here – through incubator/accelerator programs like Extreme University, groups like Techvibes, and events like Startup Drinks – to promote the startup community. With such a close-knit community, there’s a real feel that Toronto’s entrepreneurial spirit is being awakened and it’s great to be right in the middle of it. We’re constantly running into people who are thinking about starting something new, and the ecosystem is growing daily.

Any advice for young people wanting to get started in their own business?

Saif: I don’t know if I’m in a position to give advice yet – just had a lot of luck along the way – but there’s a great quote that I often think of when working on Assetize: “If you’ve never missed a flight, you’re spending too much time in airports.” I don’t know who first used it, but I’ve heard it attributed to various people including Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal. I think the point is , if you’re always playing it safe, waiting until your product or environment are perfect, you’ll end up missing great opportunities. We’ve made many mistakes with Assetize, but are proud of the fact that when we failed, we failed fast, learned from it and built an even better solution.

Saif, thank you so much for taking the time for this. Best wishes for the holiday season and 2010.

It was my pleasure, and all the best to you too.

Twitter

Company:
Twitter
Website:

http://www.twitter.com

Location:
San Francisco, California, United States

Twitter is a privately funded startup with offices in the SoMA neighborhood of San Francisco, CA. Started as a side project in March of 2006,… [more]

Assetize Inc.

Company:
Assetize Inc.
Website:

http://www.assetize.com

Location:
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Assetize exists to help users turn accounts into assets. Your online account more than just a virtual identity. It’s an asset. Currently, Assetize… [more]”

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