Social media has significant potential for marketing, but it can also be used as a means of keeping tabs on your extended family members. Today families are linking together in social media for the purpose of keeping in touch with a cyber focal point. The results are an unusual bit of family connection in an online environment. Interestingly some parents are getting MySpace or FaceBook accounts to keep track of their teens and those they hang out with in a behind-the-scenes way. Social media provides an unprecedented opportunity for parents to peek into the lives of their children. Your children will do better with this scenario if they know in advance that you will be monitoring their online adventures.
This allows them to be more reserved online knowing you are checking in.
It also allows you to read the candid replied of their peers and help your teen to learn how to handle situations they might not even think to bring up to you, but may be important in their personal development. You will find your child’s peers very open and honest in a social media environment. This can help you track trends that may not be helpful to your teen’s outlook on life. There was a time when parents could not really follow their children everywhere, but social media allows your child a sense of freedom with the bonus of allowing you to view their lives through a different lens. That doesn’t mean you have to get on their case about every conversation they have, but when an appropriate time arrives you can help steer them in a better direction. With online security being a problem for parents and threatening emails being sent in cyberspace it just makes sense for parents to be more active in monitoring their child’s online activity. Most teens adjust easily enough and may not feel that your observation of their social media site is an overt intrusion and may even come to welcome your perspective. As with all rules there are exceptions and some children may not be happy with your online involvement. Your concern, however, may not be as welcome by your teen’s friends, but they too will get used to the idea that you will be a mostly silent observer.
The use of social media is a no cost means of understanding your child, monitoring their friends and stepping in when absolutely needed. You may be surprised. Your teen may actually supply a backhanded compliment to you in a post – or it might just be flattery because they know you’re reading. Obviously the sooner you start this the easier it is for your child to accept the fact that their online lives are being monitored, but the alternative may be learning of problems too late and dealing with unexpected consequences instead of proactive parental guidance. The use of social media may seem foreign to some parents, but it can be a perfect tool in maintaining a discrete distance while stepping up to the parenting plate when appropriate.
Blogspot, known more commonly as Blogger, is a free platform that allows users to create and host their own blogs. It has become quite popular because the service is so easy and inexpensive. But as fun as blogging is, wouldn’t it be even more fun if you could earn money from the readers that visit your blog? Many people have learned to monetize their Blogspot accounts effectively, which has enabled them to earn a passive income stream for something they enjoy doing. Here are some tips that will help you join them. Choose a Niche The most profitable blogs focus on a particular subject and rarely stray from it.
This strategy serves two purposes.
First, it gives your blog a consistent appeal to readers who are looking for material on your subject. Secondly, by focusing on one niche you are much more likely to be listed highly in the search engines for the subject. This means that all of the traffic generated to your blog from search engines will be highly targeted and interested in products related to your content. Find an Appropriate Affiliate Program If you have targeted the content of your blog correctly, then you will know exactly what types of items your readers will be looking for. A simple search in Google for “affiliate programs” will return a number of vendors who will pay you a commission to sell products on your website. The key however is to find one that offers products related to your blog. Perhaps the most popular is Commission Junction, which literally has affiliations with hundreds of companies across thousands of niches. But no matter which program you signup with, do some research to make sure they can meet your expectations. Marketing Effectively There are two primary ways to bring attention to affiliate offers on your blog. You can take the easy route and post a simple banner in your sidebar. This works well with high traffic blogs, but may not be effective with limited traffic. The recommend marketing strategy is to highlight your advertisers within your blog posts.
This means reviewing and discussing the amenities of your affiliate products while including links to the products. The ultimate goal is to get readers to click on your affiliate links where they will then make a purchase, and give you commission earning in the process. Be Creative Always remember that consumers have become blind to saturation of internet advertising. For that reason, the bloggers who are the most creative are often the most successful. Just throwing up any old banner and hoping it will attract shoppers might work once in a awhile, but in the long run a little experimentation can yield extraordinary results.
Find ways to make your affiliate offers attractive to readers and you will undoubtedly see the returns. Blogspot is a fantastic way to build your own web presence without much money or technical knowledge. Of course the whole experience can be enhanced by learning to make money with Blogspot. While nothing will ever replace the value of experimenting with different offers and programs, following the basic guidelines in this article will help you get started quickly.
What did the writer’s strike in 2007 mean? Were the writers just hungry for additional capital for their skills? Certainly there are some that think so, but the primary reason for the walk out had to do with an understanding that video streaming on the Internet caused a wrinkle in their contract.
In most cases Hollywood writers are not granted payment for video streaming of content they helped to create. As more and more content is made available online the writers felt that they needed to do something to help establish a precedent that would allow them to receive an equitable share of proceeds for video stream downloads. Now that movies and a host of television shows are becoming available to download via the Internet many speculate that the traditional television and computer will mesh into a singular unit. Not quite the WebTV of the past, but certainly a highly interactive experience that blends the connectivity of the Internet with the quality if Hi-def TV. This is the world writers saw prior to their strike. They understood that there may be ‘gold in them thar computers’ but they weren’t being offered a paycheck for the work they contributed to mining that gold. Television and movie execs said it was premature to begin awarding writers funds because they just weren’t sure what impact video streaming downloads would have on earnings. The writers seemed to understand there is a fear of the unknown and that each side will react to the issue in their own way. The studios wanted to take a wait and see attitude while the writers were interested in ironing out details prior to a more concerted push toward online video streaming of popular media. The creativity needed in video production is developed foundationally from the writers who develop plot twists and develop great stories while the studio executives seek to market the work for consumption by the general public. It would seem apparent that the studios are excited about the prospect of fee based or advertising supported video streaming downloads. It could be argued that the studios have the most to gain from the shift in program availability. Is it possible studio execs are forgetting the talented group of writers that help move the shows along? The writer’s obviously felt slighted and their strike was a call to the studios to help find a place of equality in the brave new world of video streaming.
Of course there is always a more organic form of video streaming that does not cost anything to view. These videos can be downloaded through large video sharing sites like YouTube. While there is merit to the equality of professional video streaming visual consumers will still be able to find amusing, entertaining and educational video streams to meet their needs. As video streaming concepts continue to diversify it is important to remember that the Internet made it possible (and even cool) for the average citizen to become their own video producer, writer and star.
There may not be any pay involved, but many amateur video streams are gaining a significant following.
John Navata #1: Depend on the tried and tested essentials of Internet marketing These key strategies for marketing your business online have always been effective, but are now much easier to apply.
Things like… Designing a web site that sells: As in the early days of the ‘Net, your web site needs to have clear navigation and a good sales process to be effective; however, it’s now much more important for your site to look professional. Today’s web surfers have clear expectations of how a commercial web site should look and perform. Luckily, new tools and resources, such as the free web-building software Nvu, make it a breeze for you to create a good-looking, fully functioning business web site. Discovering a profitable niche market: Providing a solution to a problem for a narrowly-defined niche market is still extremely important — maybe even more so with the increased competition. But now, advanced tools such as Yahoo! Search Marketing’s Keyword Selector Tool and Wordtracker can help you pinpoint exactly who your market is and what they’re hungry for. Multiplying your profits with additional income streams: If you want to pile profit on top of profit, combine several revenue streams. The host of e-commerce opportunities that are now available mean that you have an almost limitless selection of these profit-boosters: from moving merchandise on eBay to creating free web pages with Google pages that will be quickly indexed by the search engines, to selling on-demand merchandise on sites such as CafePress.
com. Expanding your reach — and profits! — with an affiliate program: An affiliate program can still ramp up your income while exposing your site to a wider audience. But instead of recruiting an «army» of affiliates, these days it’s more important to attract «super affiliates» to your program — a few affiliates who will be responsible for generating the bulk of your sales. These superstars can be attracted by a generous commission structure and payouts for sales generated long after an affiliate’s referral. Of course, some areas of Internet marketing have changed more than others since our first course made its debut in 1998. Let’s take a look at some of them… and the tremendous opportunities they offer. #2: Make sure your e-mail gets delivered… the critical changes you need to be aware of E-mail marketing is still highly profitable. In fact, we made $2.4 million last year from e-mail marketing alone! Not only is it a great — and inexpensive — way to establish relationships with your customers, but your promotions and follow-up offers can be completely automated. However, while you used to be able to send e-mail to absolutely everyone, these days you have to be very careful. Spam — a growing problem on the ‘Net — cost US businesses an estimated $17 billion in 2005 (Ferris Research) and now accounts for 57% of all e-mail (Ipswitch 2006)! The consequences of spamming have grown far beyond a slap on the wrist from your Internet Service Provider or a few nasty e-mails from angry recipients. For example… Internet Service Providers now filter all incoming e-mail for spam by blocking messages that contain particular combinations of words or phrases and shutting out ALL e-mail from the domains and IP addresses of known spammers. So if you get mistakenly labeled as a spammer, as much as 50% of your e-mail may be «filtered» and never reach your subscribers. And it can take weeks or months to resolve the issue! The CAN-SPAM Act (January 2004) introduced laws that allowed spammers to be prosecuted if specific guidelines aren’t being met.
Under this Act you can be fined, and even jailed, if your e-mails don’t meet certain requirements, such as an «unsubscribe» link in the body of each e-mail you send out. The bottom line is that if you want to take advantage of the profit-boosting power of e-mail marketing, you MUST make sure that your e-mails comply with the CAN-SPAM Act. You can read the full text of the CAN-SPAM regulations at www.spamlaws.com/federal/can-spam.shtml. Once you’ve made sure your e-mails will be delivered, you need to think about their content. In the face of overflowing inboxes, your e-mails and newsletters need to be particularly appealing and valuable if you want them to be opened. #3: Keep up with the search engines and take advantage of FREE sources of traffic The search engine landscape has changed dramatically since we published the first edition of our course. We used to recommend getting listed on eight major search engines: Altavista, Excite, HotBot, InfoSeek, Lycos, Northern Light, WebCrawler, and Yahoo. Today, clear leaders have emerged, narrowing our recommendations to the top three contenders: Google: The most important of the three, Google has a 49% share of the search market. Yahoo: A distant second, Yahoo has a 22% market share. MSN: With 11% of the market, MSN is still worth focusing on. With fewer search engines, keeping on top of their ever-shifting algorithms has become critical. If you can get a top listing on Google, for example, you can double your potential customers! A new way to drive free traffic to your site is to write short articles related to your industry and post them on e-zine article directories such as Ezinearticles.com. Include your tagline at the bottom of each article you write and watch your traffic increase exponentially — as well as your inbound links (which the search engines consider when ranking your site!).
Take advantage of as many FREE sources of traffic as you can to drive tons of targeted traffic to your site! #4: Instantly boost your traffic with pay-per-click advertising Paid search has exploded, becoming a widely accepted way to drive qualified traffic to your site — fast. And with each passing year, it becomes more sophisticated, allowing you to zero in on your target market with greater precision. Today, the major players are… Yahoo! Search Marketing (http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/): Yahoo’s sponsored search lets you advertise your site in the search results of the following search engines: MSN, Yahoo, AltaVista, InfoSpace, AlltheWeb, and NetZero. Google AdWords (https://adwords.google.com/): With Google AdWords, you can have your ads show up in sponsored search listings for certain keywords — and you can also advertise on other sites that match your audience. MSN AdCenter (https://adcenter.msn.com/): MSN has recently entered the arena of paid search with MSN AdCenter. So far, it’s the only PPC engine to offer keyword-based demographic targeting. Paid search is one of the fastest ways to drive qualified traffic to your site… and if done properly, won’t break the bank.
To learn how to profit from pay-per-click advertising in three simple steps, check out my blog post.
#5: Promote your business with the technologies that have changed the face of Internet marketing Technology has been furiously advancing since the first edition of our Insider Secrets course — paving the way for new and highly effective ways to promote your Internet business. Let’s look at some that have had the biggest impact: Audio and Video: The Internet has come a long way since its text-only roots! Programming languages such as JavaScript and programs like Macromedia’s Flash have allowed for web video and audio, slide presentations, and other interactive elements. Our testing has proven that using audio and video as part of your sales process can now have a dramatic impact on your bottom line — if done right. Use short audio and video clips of you and your customers to personalize your site and reassure visitors that you are a credible business. Blogging: Blogs are informal web forums that invite feedback and discussion. They’re free to set up and use, and so simple that they can be created in minutes using sites such as Blogger.com. As a result blogging has exploded in popularity over the last few years. With a business blog you can reach a wider audience, generate better search engine rankings, boost your revenue, and develop a rapport with your customers — to name just a few benefits.
And because blogs are updated frequently, search en
gines LOVE them. Podcasting: Podcasting, the delivery of audio files — typically MP3 files — via the Internet, is one of the hottest new technologies to hit the market. It allows you to publish audio content that interested listeners can subscribe to via RSS “feeds” — so they can automatically receive your audio broadcasts without having to go to your web site. Direct-to-desktop technology: Direct-to-desktop technology is a way to deliver information straight to your subscribers’ desktops — without having to wrestle with e-mail filters, bouncebacks, or your competition! Once your customers sign up, they don’t have to check their e-mail or visit your web site to get your latest news or updates. A flashing desktop icon alerts them as soon as they receive your message — and all they have to do is click to read it.
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