The Entrepreneurial Spirit is ALIVE and THRIVING in Perth, Australia.
Last week, Head Coach of Web Business Academy Jennie Armato presented the Academy’s Web Success Financial and Marketing Blueprint at our one day “Web Success Workshop” – Perth, also being held in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne soon too.
During the free one day web success workshop, Jennie revealed the blueprint for maximum web coverage for your online marketing as well as how to develop and diversify your income streams using the most popular web sites, with millions of people visiting them every week, to provide your traffic for you. She revealed the future of business and the successful business people of the future – “The New Economy Business and Entrepreneur“.
Here’s the underlying framework of what Jennie teaches at the Web Success Workshop – don’t be alarmed if you do not understand, that is what this free web business workshop is all about – enlightening and inspiring you to greater heights of web success.
This amazing free gift of one entire day of FREE internet marketing coaching and web business success mentoring was met with gratitude and excitement by the people of Perth. Here’s a moment during the day when Jen captured on film their entrepreneurial spirit and excitement about what was just revealed:
The remaining capital cities of Australia, already scheduled in are Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. A limited number of seats remain at each of these events. To claim your own FREE Internet Marketing Coaching and Web Business Success Mentoring from Australia’s leading internet marketing specialist, who runs the best coaching program available today for anyone wanted to get started on the internet but has no business or website and for any existing business owners who want to increase your results 3 or 4 times over your current success on the web.
Claim Your AMAZING FREE GIFT from the Academy right now! Here’s how:
PLEASE NOTE: THESE ARE ONE TIME ONLY EVENTS, SECURE YOUR TICKET TODAY!
We apologise in advance if FREE tickets are not available when you attempt to book. The full ticket price of $247 will be charged instead. Click the Ticket to claim you free gift right now.
Want to know how fast Social Media and related information services on the internet are really moving? Get ready to get blown away.
I thought our world, at Web Business Academy Headquarters ’spun fast’, but check out the combined power of the people across social media outlets and services and how much data (information, images etc) is being transmitted second by second.
Gary Hayes of http://www.personalizemedia.com/ has produced these incredibly informative aggregated metrics on ‘information transaction and movement across the internet.’
The speed of this information (data) is represented in real time, meaning what you’re watching is ‘in the moment’ transmissions and transactions – fascinating and edifying for web business owners who choose to be the providers of the products and services purchased through these various communication media and mediums.
(Note you can switch counters by clicking on the tab in the top right hand corner “Social Media”, “Mobiles”, “Games” (in green, red and yellow respectively).
Here is some of the supporting data that Gary has used to create this counter.
I quickly built and coded the app based on data culled from a range of social media sources & sites at the end of Sept 2009. The design will be finessed and I will be adding extra functionality (such as week, month & year lookahead/backs plus dynamic data input).
The social web has exploded in the last year and below are some of the key data points that the ‘Gary’s Social Media Count’ is based on (many will be updated!).
20 hours of video uploaded every minute onto YouTube (source YouTube blog Aug 09)
Facebook 600k new members per day, and photos, videos per month, 700mill & 4 mill respectively (source Inside Facebook Feb 09)
Twitter 18 million new users per year & 4 million tweets sent daily (source TechCrunch Apr 09)
iPolicy UK – SMS messaging has a bright future (Aug 09)
900 000 blogs posts put up every day (source Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2008)
YouTube daily, 96 million videos watched, $1mill bandwidth costs (source Comscore Jul 06 !)
UPDATE: YouTube 1Billion watched per day SMH (2009)- counter updated!
Second Life 250k virtual goods made daily, text messages 1250 per second (source Linden Lab release Sep 09)
Money – $5.5 billion on virtual goods (casual & game worlds) even Facebooks gifts make $70 million annually (source Viximo Aug 09)
Flickr has 73 million visitors a month who upload 700 million photos (source Yahoo Mar 09)
Mobile social network subscribers – 92.5 million at the end of 2008, by end of 2013 rising to between 641.6-873.1 million or 132 mill annually (source Informa PDF)
SMS – Over 2.3 trillion messages will be sent across major markets worldwide in 2008 (source Everysingleoneofus sms statistics)
The counter also has mobile and games added – soon to be included will be ‘heritage or traditional’ media (films shown in cinemas, TV shows being shown globally etc:). The statistical sources for the mobile & games counters are added below (even though they are in other posts).
Some of the sources for the mobile counter
TechCrunchies – Mobile Video Viewers Statistics
AdMob June 2009 Mobile Metrics Report
PortioDirect Mobile Factbook 2009
Mashable – CITA report – 4.1 Billion SMS Messages Are Sent Daily USA
iPolicy UK – SMS messaging has a bright future
Research and Markets Global Mobile Broadband – Statistics and Trends
Smartbrief Sharp Increase in Mobile Internet Adspend…
ABI Research In 2014 Monthly Mobile Data Traffic Will Exceed 2008 Total
HotHardware Huge Growth in Daily Mobile Web Access
Ecoustics
Cio GPS Enabled Mobile Phone Shipments to More than Double Over Next Five Years
Nielsen Americans Watching More TV Than Ever: Web and Mobile Video Up too
Some of the sources for the games counter: 50 million daily users of Zynga social games$2.8 bill generated yearly by China MMOG players16 million quests per day completed by WoW players$22 Billion US games revenue in 200950 000 person to person auctions per day on Gaia1 million currency transactions per day in Eve Online9 games sold every second 2007$5.5 bill spent on virtual goods globally4.1 million new MMORPG subscribers 2009$125 mill advertising revenues in Social Virtual Worlds575000 log into Fantasy Westward Journey per day250 thousand virtual goods created on Second Life per day$594 million invested in Virtual World companies in 20081.5 million new 3-11 US children subscribing to Virtual Worlds annually1 million message board posts per day in Gaia online7.5 million per month use Habbo$2.45 billion per year revenue made from World of Warcraft13.4 million portable game units sold in 2007936 mill Chinese user hours per week in online games (78 mill @ 12 hrs pw)1250 text messages sent per second in Second Life465 million user hours in second life over the last year50 million daily users of Zynga social games (Inside Social Games 2009)
$2.8 bill generated yearly by China MMOG players (Raph Koster 2009)
16 million quests per day completed by WoW players (Maximum PC 2009)
$22 Billion US games revenue in 2009 (IDE Agency 2009)
50 000 person to person auctions per day on Gaia
1 million currency transactions per day in Eve Online (MMORPG.com 2009)
9 games sold every second 2007 (GrabStats 2007)
$5.5 bill spent on virtual goods globally
4.1 million new MMORPG subscribers 2009 (MMORPGChart.com 2008)
$125 mill advertising revenues in Social Virtual Worlds (GamineExpedition 2008)
575000 log into Fantasy Westward Journey per day (Seeking Alpha 2009)
250 thousand virtual goods created on Second Life per day (MarketWire 2009)
$594 million invested in Virtual World companies in 2008 (Engage Digital Media 2009)
1.5 million new 3-11 US children subscribing to Virtual Worlds annually (GamineExpedition 2009)
1 million message board posts per day in Gaia online
7.5 million per month use Habbo
$2.45 billion per year revenue made from World of Warcraft (Edge Online 2008)
13.4 million portable game units sold in 2007 (Grab Stats 2007)
936 mill Chinese user hours per week in online games (78 mill @ 12 hrs pw) (Futures of Learning 2008)
1250 text messages sent per second in Second Life (Linden Lab 2009)
465 million user hours in second life over the last year (Linden Lab 2009)
I encourage you to connect with Gary and his innovative approaches to understanding the true power of social media and the internet. His website is http://www.personalizemedia.com/
Have A Great Day – from Jen and the Team at Web Business Academy.
Jennie Armato can be found on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more. She is a best-selling Author, Public Speaker, Director of Auto Web Business .com and Head Coach of Web Business Academy .com – a coaching consultancy service for small business owners wanting to do more for less, far easier than ever before.
WAIT!! Before you go … please rate this post and leave your comments and feedback below.
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Did you know … Your site might be violating the website standards set by the online authority for website coding!
This can be costing your web business credibility in your marketplace and also with the Web’s biggest players online – who YOU DEPEND ON … like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and more.
If you care about being compliant and want to be a leader in your Industry and Market, check your website code is compliant with the Web Consortium- the Global Web Standards and Guidelines bodies (headed up by the inventor of the w-w-web, Tim Berners-Lee).
This video explains the history and purpose of the W3 Consortium:
Visit their site, check your home page url. If you have errors, get your webmaster to fix them pronto!
This is costing you credibility with the Web’s biggest center’s of influence. http://validator.w3.org – there is no excuse for poor coding – NONE!
Your site’s poor coding could be wasting your hard-earned time and money in ‘trying to win the respect’ of the search engines and others. Take the presentation of your web business seriously – it’s not only important to have a good LOOKING website for marketplace credibility, it’s equally important (and maybe even more important) to gain the respect of the biggest players online today by having your coding LOOKING right too.
Have A Great Day – from Jen and the Team at Web Business Academy.
Jennie Armato can be found on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more. She is a best-selling Author, Public Speaker, Director of Auto Web Business .com and Head Coach of Web Business Academy .com – a coaching consultancy service for small business owners wanting to do more for less, far easier than ever before.
WANT TO LEARN MORE FROM JEN and The TEAM at WEB BUSINESS ACADEMY?
CLAIM THIS AMAZING FREE GIFT, RIGHT NOW!
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WAIT!! Before you go … please rate this post and leave your comments and feedback below.
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Attention Forward-Thinking Web Business Owners – Lead the Way with Internet Access and Improvements!
Stop for a moment and think about how you got to this website. You came to your computer – connected to the internet and your serfing led you to this page. Access on the internet for many of us is done so easily and readily we forget the privilege of the process and access we have and the power we possess with a medium and media such as the World Wide Web. Access and power like you have as a web user and more importantly as a web business owner is a challenge for many still, for various reasons. In particular there are entire places in the world where resources, access and therefore power is limited and in some cases non-existent.
As a web business owner you may be thinking this has nothing to do with you. You could quite easily ignore ‘the bigger picture’ and just think only about you and your web site. On the other hand, Forward-thinking Web Business owners who want more traffic understand that if you can be part of making the web and your website more accessible to more people YOU and your Web Business will benefit. The true impact of the power and influence you possess lies in understanding this basic truth about the internet and world-wide-web:
“Peoples’ lives now are as dependent on the Internet as they are on the basic services and provisions like roads, energy supplies and running water. We can no longer take that for granted, and we must advocate for the Internet politically and support its vitality personally.”
This video, although a tad cheesy says it well:
An official day – ONE WEB DAY – has now been created to celebrate, educate and activate ways to make getting on the web and using it easier for everyone.
Background Snap-shot of One Web Day.
In 2006, Susan Crawford, Cyberlaw Scholar and now Technology Policy Advisor to President Obama, launched the concept of One Web Day – a day for those in a position of power and influence, including Web Business owners, to consider what we can do to contribute to making the internet and world wide web more accessible – both for you as a web user and also as a website owner.
Taken from the official OneWebDay (OWD) website – www.OneWebDay.org – It’s like an Earth Day but for the internet. The idea behind OneWebDay is to focus attention on a key internet value, focus attention on local internet concerns (connectivity, censorship, individual skills), and create a global constituency that cares about protecting and defending the internet. So, think of OneWebDay as an environmental movement for the Internet ecosystem. It’s a platform for people to educate and activate others about issues that are important for the Internet’s future.
At the same time, we’re suffering from enormous digital divides. Lower-income and rural communities don’t have adequate connectivity. Senior citizens and minorities are often left out. Skills are inadequate, and there is a lot of fear of using the Internet still to be overcome.
OWD is an annual global celebration of the Internet and Web Business owners are perfectly positioned to be a part of the future direction and experience people will have when you and they use the net.
Here’s some remarks from true web industry leaders, (your equals in web business) and their perspective on One Web Day …
Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, said: “OneWebDay reminds us that the net really is a democratizing medium, that everyone gets a chance to participate. If you want, you can stick your neck out and speak truth to power.”
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, added: “OneWebDay is about ‘one web’… Let’s celebrate, and let’s constantly work to make more, better, cleaner, stronger, deeper interoperability across the planet.”
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The evolution of the internet will continue around you. Today is your day to be a part of the future direction it takes by completing a few simple steps.
How You can Help Improve the Web on OneWebDay
Update or Upgrade Your Web Browser. Use a standards-compliant Web browser like Firefox or Opera. They’re free, fast, and protective of your privacy. And because they conform to Web development standards, they make things easier for people who make Web sites.
Test your websites are compliant with the w3c’s Markup Validation Service. This ensures they are easy for search engines and vision-impaired people to accurately ‘read’ your web pages. If you have errors in your website coding, get this fixed by your webmaster pronto!
Edit a Wikipedia article. Teach people what you know, and in doing so, help create free universal knowledge.
Take steps to ensure that your computer can’t be treated like a zombie. Computer viruses can steal your personal information. They can also cause major network outages on the Web, slowing things down and making sites inaccessible. Vint Cerf estimates that more than 150 million PCs have already been zombified, and are now awaiting their next order, which is designed to harm you and others too. To learn more about the threat of zombie computers, read this article.
Help someone get an advert on the web – this will be a good way of doing service for someone to experience online exposure for the first time and promote that they consider getting a web presence too.
Join the Web Business Academy client community:- Claim your free gift to our global ‘one day web success workshops’ and learn cutting-edge site and selling strategies and tactics and become an affiliate and help us promote the Web Success Wizard – ‘easy to do’ website creation and management tools.
Contribute to the Official One Web Day Cause. Visit the site, make a donation and sign the pledge to end the digitial-divide between us and people less fortunate.
And if you want to do more than that, think about how you can use this as a marketing tool for your customers too. An example of this is happening today in the Phillipines - I-CAFÉ Pilipinas, an umbrella organization of internet shop associations, will invite internet shops nationwide to offer FREE tutorials for an hour, or even one whole day on Sept. 22. So webshop owners will be encouraged to share something for free as part of the One Web Day celebration. What could you do too that will also be an effective marketing strategy to generate new customers, while supporting OneWebDay?
“The web has transformed the way we do business and has helped us empower thousands of people around the world – Quicker, Cheaper and Easier than ANY other communications medium and media EVER in the history of business. That’s worth Celebrating, Nurturing, Influencing … and Protecting!”
Happy One Web Day for You and Your Web Biz from Jennie Armato and the Team at Web Business Academy
Jennie Armato can be found on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more. She is a best-selling Author, Public Speaker, Director of Auto Web Business .com and Head Coach of Web Business Academy .com – a coaching consultancy service for small business owners wanting to do more for less, far easier than ever before.
Please rate this post and leave your comments and feedback below.
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FREE REPORT + AMAZING FREE GIFT FOR YOUR WEB SUCCESS
“Where is The Future of Online Business -
Could Celebrities be showing mainstream business the way?”
AND Have Your Competitors Already ‘Caught On” and already Talking to Your Customers in this latest marketing evolution for Web Success? (And are they doing it Auto-matically and VERY Cheaply!) SO MANY Crucial Questions (and Great Gifts too). Read on …
FREE REPORT and AMAZING FREE GIFT by Jennie Armato, Head Coach, Web Business Academy .com
The following Report is the Cover Story in the current edition of “Australian Business Solutions” magazine“YOU WILL DISCOVER HOW CELEBRITY MARKETING STYLES ONLINE LEAD ‘AUDIENCES’ TO WANT TO BUY RATHER THAN THE CONVENTIONAL BUSINESS APPROACH OF SELLING AND CLOSING. YOU WILL DISCOVER VALUABE, INFACT ESSENTIAL INSIGHTS AND IDEAS THAT EVERY MARKETER, ENTREPRENEUR AND BUSINESS OWNER MUST NOW EMBRACE!”
GRAB YOUR AMAZING FREE GIFT – A TICKET TO A WEB BUSINESS WORKSHOP NEAR YOU!
FREE REPORT (WARNING: THIS REPORT MAY FRIGHTEN YOU … IT WILL DEFINITELY ENLIGHTEN YOU!)
There is a buzz around on the television news, radio, in the print media, at business networking groups and meetings and especially on the internet right now. There seems to be a shift of focus for how people look for products and services and then decide how they spend their money.
In terms of influence and power, the new way people search for products and services and make their buying decisions online could even rival the search engines. And it’s been said that this buzz could be the single biggest thing to happen in business since the industrial revolution!
Sounds over the top, but is there enough evidence (for you) to be a part of it too? And is this buzz a fad or could it be here to stay?
If you’ve watched TV news or listened to radio or brought a newspaper in the past 2-3 years, you will have noticed references to websites in both stories and advertising, where you can find out more – including how to get more information about a product or service and/or how to buy instructions. In more recent times nearly every news presenter, TV show host, journalist and celebrity are also promoting how you can ‘follow’ their lives, interests and activities online too – and it all seems to be centred around websites such as Facebook.com, Twitter.com, YouTube.com, MySpace.com, Digg.com and more, collectively known as Social Engines.
Celebrities are using these sites to raise their profile, build their brand and most importantly, solidify their popularity and [hopefully] longevity in their profession and industry. AND, these sites enable their audience (loyal army of fans) to talk directly back to them. And this is at the heart of the buzz and current shift – and why it’s so very important you read on and learn more.
On the Social Engine Twitter.com, Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more followers (fans) than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama. Their brand awareness and popularity building is personal, although as that increases, so too does their value to corporations looking for product endorsements to drive their market penetration and increase their market share.
Sporting stars like celebrities have broadened their talent base too, becoming more entrepreneurial and business savvy, seeing their name, brand and product value increase, in many cases, to a higher income level than the actual core sporting talent. In other words, acting, playing a sport, being a comedienne or whatever is their core talent is no longer their only talent. They have embraced the concept of brand building (and protection), marketplace communications and conversations – opting for direct contact via sources like online Social Engines. Here they can touch far more people quicker and easier than say a traditional autograph signing exercise.
A true business woman, leader and entrepreneur, celebrity Oprah Winfrey instantly connects and updates a loyal army of over 2 million+ people that follow her on Twitter. Her power and influence is no surprise or revolution in itself, but her army of followers are able to directly provide instant feedback and ideas to her too -and marketplace feedback is a life blood to your business growth and long term sustainability. (Try ignoring it and see where your business goes.) Everyone wants to be heard and Social Engines give you, your business and your customers a voice.
A loyal army of followers can also provide a viral effect to disseminate information quickly too, meaning they can ‘spread the word for you’ if you ask them to – this can be particularly useful if you want to spread good news and conversely if your brand comes under attack via other mainstream media mechanisms or on the Social Engines themself.
Although it might be hard to fathom, could celebrity entrepreneurs like these be showing more traditional businesses how to connect, behave, build our brand, increase our marketplace value and build our business too using these Social Engines?
Is this a valid idea and model for mainstream business or not?
Firstly, the power of Social Engines extends far beyond Twitter.com alone. Some of the other leading Social Engine sites sprout some pretty impressive visitor and member statistics, as well as services.
Facebook.com- If it was a country rather than a website, it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia.
On Facebook there are more than 250 million active users and more than 120 million of them log on to Facebook at least once each day and more than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide). The fastest growing demographic is 35 years old and older and within that, the fastest growing segment is 55-65 year-old females. Do people 35+ and women influence the buying decision for your products and services? This is worthy of your attention.
And there’s more … more than 1 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared each week on Facebook alone and more than 2.5 million events are created and advertised each month. More than 45 million active user groups exist on the site and more than 50 language translations of that content are available on the site. The people supplying all this content include business owners and professionals, some of whom are surely in your industry and probably your competitors. And if you think because you’re a localised business that this doesn’t count, you’ll find this statistic most enlightening- 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States.
All of those statistics are just for Facebook alone (source Facebook.com/press/statistics).
You can also purchase Pay Per Click and Pay Per Impression advertising on Facebook (and other Social Engines). They take your spend to a whole new level of value and ROI with their member data allowing you to display your adverts for keywords AND additional, specific demographics of the member base. For example you can display your advertising message to women, 55+ in Melbourne who are single. You can even target people specifically on their birthday with a relevant offer.
This video tells you more about how YOU should be using Facebook:
YouTube.com – take a look at YouTube (which is owned by Google for good reason) – People are watching hundreds of millions of videos a day on YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily. In fact, every minute, ten hours of video is uploaded to YouTube –including promotional videos, education, product consumption/direction videos and client testimonials for business. Plus every video you add to YouTube includes a spot on the webpage where you can put a link back to your website. PLUS you can add these videos to your blog posts, making them more interesting to your blog readers on other Social Engines too (more about blogs in a moment).
YouTube’s user base is broad in age range, 18-55, evenly divided between males and females, and spanning all geographies. Fifty-one percent of users go to YouTube weekly or more often, and 52 percent of 18-34 year-olds share videos often with friends and colleagues.
And could this be the good reason Google brought YouTube? It’s the 2nd largest search engine in the world today, 2nd only to Google.com. If you want to connect with your marketplace on volume, this is worthy of your attention.
Twitter.com– let’s take a statistical look at that quickly too. Twitter’s footprint has expanded impressively in the first half of 2009, reaching 10.7 percent of all active Internet users in June with 83.1% of users over the age of 25. In July 2009, the Twitter website recorded 23,284,395 unique visitors – who else wants to be ‘front-of-mind’ to an audience of that size? Does your target market include people 25+? This is worthy of your attention.
Twitter has been described as the “Pulse of the Planet” given its instant, viral spread-the-word-to-the-world-instantly nature. It has boosted box office numbers and it’s killed them too, just ask the makers of the movie “Bruno” – overnight ticket sales dropped by more than half thanks to the frank and instant feedback from those that had just seen it. It was so quick too because 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices. People update anywhere, anytime – imagine what that means for bad customer experiences and you!
Do you let your customers walk away with a bad experience, only to stand out the front of your store or hang up the phone and blast their frustration and disappointment to hundreds, thousands maybe millions of people –in the ‘heat of the moment’?
The true power of Social Engines is not to be feared, it is to be embraced and when done well, you can influence large numbers of people in the ways you want them to know and represent you. This is worthy of your attention.
Understanding the nature of Social Engine participation is important and the question to answer is – What are people doing on these Social Engines? They are looking for ideas, insights, invites, offers, information, inspiration and conversation.
Savvy business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals are providing it all to them and at the same time, in a more passive or softer way than conventional advertising, promoting their business, building their reputation and ultimately getting more leads and customers to their web sites. These business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals are using resources within services like Facebook that include a Personal Profile Page, Business and Product Pages, Fan Clubs, Groups, Time-sensitive Events/Promotions, Classified Advertising (PPC) and more … and the really smart ones are sharing content direct from their website blog feed too (more about that in a moment).
Then there are sites like LinkedIn, a professional social network and directory of business owners and professionals who can communicate quickly and easily with one another. In a 2009 survey, 80% of businesses and companies who are members were using LinkedIn as a primary recruitment tool to find new employees. This is worthy of your attention.
On these Social Engines, people can say what they want about you and it’s uncensored. What do you do about it? Ignore it and hope the customers and prospects that really matter to you don’t see it? Should you take a proactive approach and start by monitoring what’s been said about you and then start providing your brand of information, insights, ideas and inspiration to your marketplace and control the information flow you want through them?
We are living in an era now where what happens in Vegas goes ON and STAYS ON YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and more.
“Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, WORD of mouth has become WORLD of mouth.”
Love them or hate them, social engines are here to stay simply because ‘the people’ love them and trust others on them. Facebook and MySpace are among the most popular destinations on the web. And even though they can be extremely annoying, there is one inescapable fact: the most irritating thing about Facebook is the 200m-strong army of people who use it.
And here’s the final enlightening point- Social Engine participation has overtaken pornography as the #1 activity on the Web.
SO Do you get involved or not? And if so, how do you do it easily and cheaply but still ‘play the game’ like a Celebrity with a 2m+ loyal army of followers?
The reality is that even if you’re not involved, your customers and prospects AND competitors probably are – and they’re talking to one another, perhaps about you and without you so the sooner you start, the better chance you have to becoming both a part of the conversation and then lead it.
The answer for businesses, entrepreneurs and professionals is automation – this is the single biggest break-through strategy and tactic that very few people have worked out, including many larger corporations who are successfully using Social Engines but they are not leveraged with automation, also known as things happening ‘auto-magically’.
In many cases, businesses are employing specialist online staff on top of web masters and advertising/SEO experts. With automation, you can do a whole lot for very little extra time and virtually no money.
HOW DOES IT ALL WORK?
At its essence or core are six words that will transform the way you generate leads and make repeat sales online – those words are YOUR WEBLOG FEED PLUS SOCIAL ENGINES.
A Weblog or blog as it’s more commonly known is a type of website or part of an existing website that allows you to add content as blog posts or articles and display them on your website – content like information, ideas, insights, offers, news, invites, images and more and you can create blog posts quickly and easily without ever needing to get a webmaster to do it for you.
There are over 200,000,000 Blogs online today and that number grows every day. Again, not all blogs and blog owners are equal, many are neglecting to include automation and leverage and integration with Social Engines so there are many nay-sayers about blogging, but that attitude is changing as more people are enlightened.
A Feed or RSS Feed as it’s more commonly known will distribute your blog posts well beyond just displaying them on your website. Feeds permit subscription to regular updates of your blog posts, delivered ‘auto-magically’ via a web portal, news reader, or in some cases good old email. Feeds also make it possible for your content (information) to be packaged into “widgets,” “gadgets,” mobile devices, and other technologies as shortened or full length messages, which Social Engines happen to LOVE. Your Feed makes it possible to display blog posts just about anywhere on the web or web connected device and most importantly directly to the millions of people online every day.
That means a Blog with an RSS Feed can ‘auto-magically’ distribute information you create about you, your business, your products and your services quickly and easily across thousands of sites on the web. And you only have to create your pieces of content once!
A blog is a powerful code (invisible to the human, non-techie eye) and every time you add content to an existing or new blog post, like you would add content to a word document, it is distributed around the web in seconds and is fed directly into the biggest marketplaces and communities of people online every day.
What makes a blog with a feed even more powerful is that it reaches the biggest sources of people (leads) online – who by the way are not just using Search Engines anymore to find out about products and services, they are also using the “Social Engines”. PLUS your Blog Feed can also ‘auto-magically’ update Google and Yahoo about your site too, so you still stay connected with the Search Engines for no more extra work, or money.
Now if you’re anything like me, when I first heard about these Social Engines, I dismissed them as not being a viable business and marketing channel because they appeared to be for personal networking and friendship (and they are indeed used for those reasons). Whilst many businesses, entrepreneurs and professionals are using these engines and winning new business – only a handful are doing it easily and quickly, because most of them do not know about the power of connecting your Weblog RSS Feed and how it fits in with using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg and hundreds more Social Engines.
In my own experience, I was wrong to not get involved with Blogs and Social Engines sooner (like many business owners and professional managers still are) as my competitors began to build an edge I did not have with my marketplace, simply because I did not understand and connect these two key points about connecting your blog directly to Social Engines. If you want to find new customers quickly and easily and build better sales from existing customers:
Your website must be a Blog with a Feed and/or include one as part of your website
Your online marketing mix and strategy must include sharing your blog post information with people on Social Engines like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg etc.
And here’s why…
Your competitors have possibly already figured out that social engines are where they can connect with people who include your customers and potential customers because the Social Engines are where your customers and potential customers are going online – and they’re going to these Engines regularly and for long periods of time. And people are making buying decisions based on the conversation they are having and the feedback they are hearing.
Even if you [believe you] have no competition, you’re not connecting with your marketplace as directly and as easily as you can, if you are not using the true power of Social Engines. These online sources or marketplaces attract people 24/7/365, who stay for a while each time. How could you NOT promote you, your business and your products and services there?
Every time you add content to your blog, it is circulated out to many Social Engines, once you set up a FREE account with them … people at these Engines who have an interest in what your business offers then come to your website to find out more.
Here’s an example of how your website Blog, its Feed and these Social Engines work together. (Note this diagram also includes the two largest Search engines -let’s not forget them. Using your Blog and RSS Feed, you can ‘auto-magically’ update them too.)
How Your Blog Works Automatically with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, Yahoo + more
At the centre of this relationship are your website blog and its RSS Feed. Every time you add content to your blog, the Feed distributes it out to the Social and Search Engines with a link back to your website. People on the Social Engines instantly see a summary of your blog post and a link back to your blog/website. If they are interested in you, they click on the link and follow it back to your website to find out more about you and move forward with you.
“Although we like to feed information to the Search Engines for free listings, the Social Engines outperform them in providing INSTANT, FREE traffic (people) to your website … meaning Social Engines host millions of people live online at any given time who are exposed to your blog post instantly … and not only will they follow your link back to your blog/website if they are interested, they also have the power to make your Feed ‘viral’ – voluntarily passing it on to their friends who in turn pass it on … and so on.
The Social Engines and the people on them help you grow your prospect and customer base quickly, easily and cheaply – you can’t get any cheaper than free!”
The Social Engines are places where people go to and stay at; whereas Search Engines are places people only pass through ‘in search of’ a final site destination. This is the major difference and the significant extra power you’re missing out on if you are not involving your business in the Social Engines. Remember though, the Blog Feed is vital to ensuring your participation is mostly ‘auto-magic’ otherwise participating in them could over run your day, your week and your life!
The Blog Feed allows you to ‘auto-magically’ update the Social Engines, minimizing the ‘air time’ you personally allocate to this.
So, who’s already taking this seriously and using Social Engines as a powerful, quick, cheap and easy tool and media to generate free leads quickly too?
Firstly, no matter your business, products and services, you’ll find prospects and possibly existing clients already participating in these sites on a regular basis. You are bound to find your competitors there too, it makes good business sense to be present on an Engine where millions of people congregate, converse and seek out people with the products and services they require – someone in your industry is probably joining them and being ‘front-of-mind’ and it should be you.
Everyone that gets it commits to it. These world-wide companies, brands and industry leaders have dedicated resources to connect and cultivate relationships with prospects and clients on the Social Engines with reportable, measurable results:
Motor Vehicle Industry: Chevrolet, Ford, General Motors, Honda
Travel and Tourism Industry: JetBlue, Southwest Airlines, Luxor Las Vegas, Marriott International Hotels and Resorts, Carnival Cruise Lines, Hertz Car Hire
Sporting Teams: Chicago Bulls, Detroit Pistons, Portland Trail Blazers, San Diego Chargers
Entertainment: 92Y, The Travel Channel, ComCast, Marvel Entertainment, Direct TV, Pop Caps, TV Guide
Finance: Wachovia, H&R Block, Intuit
Retail: Best Buy, The Home Depot, American Apparel, Rubbermaid, Whole Foods, Zappos.com
Food and Beverage: Starbucks, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Popeye’s Chicken, Tastidlite, Kraft Foods (see Vegemite Case Study below)
Other Global brands: Dell Computers, EMC and Kodak – all benefitting by directly connecting with their target marketplace – whether that’s existing customers and/or potential customers.
Case Study:
Kraft Foods have taken an interesting Corporation-Consumer collaborative approach to product promotion and development using Social Engines. Here’s what they say about their social engine strategy:
For many of our strong brands such as Vegemite – we acknowledged that we are simply (proud) brand custodians and that the brand is owned by ‘the people’. We focused our first two years of social engine participation on simply listening and asking questions.
Two of these questions were:
How do you individually like your Vegemite?
If there ever was to be a Vegemite variation what would this be?
Recently Kraft launched their latest product “Name me” a vegemite plus cream cheese experience. Here’s how they are using Social Engines to develop it.
“This is a work in progress; we spent two years listening and now with the product on shelves the Kraft Communications team is engaging with Vegemite loyalists and cynics alike on the 12 top social engines. They are engaging and getting samples out on and off line– and encouraging debate on the new products. There are a number of Facebook groups sitting in the following camps: pro original, pro new flavour and anti new flavour.”
This is just one way Social Engines are helping businesses already to grow brand, product and corporate awareness. There are many other ways to use it too that can and do lead to direct and immediate sales. No matter the size of your business and marketplace, Social Engines, like the internet at large give you a level playing field with industry leaders like Kraft Foods and the others mentioned here.
Your website with a blog and feed will provide regular content to the Social Engines ‘auto-magically’. You need to support that by also visiting the main Social Engines and engaging people on a weekly basis, as it forms part of your marketing, CRM and all the other pay-offs mentioned previously.
Adding content regularly to your Blog Feed, ‘auto-magically’ keeps you in touch and front of mind to millions of people around the world, on the Social Engines (and Search Engines) so they can access your business, products and services quickly and easily.
The buzz appears to be more than a fad so for your business it becomes not a question of ‘if’ these Social Engines are going to be a valuable marketing tool for business. Rather, the question now is:
“How quickly will you get your business on the Social Engines
… to Capture Your Competitors Clients too?”
HOW TO GET STARTED
Here’s a checklist to help you get started with your new, exciting and FREE Social Engine Strategy:
1) Get a Blog website with a domain name of your choice OR if you already have a website, get a new sub domain or folder added called blog
2) Open an account with at Google, Feedburner, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, and LinkedIn.
3) Install an RSS Blog Feed and set up a Pinging list on it then add your Blog feed to the Search and Social Engine accounts you created in the step above.
4) Create content-rich education videos that can be added to your YouTube account and your Blog – that is then ‘auto-magically’ added to your Search and Social Engine accounts.
5) Actively participate in or create new Facebook Groups, Events and Pages.
6) Make promotional videos about you, your business, your products, how you help and support people and upload them to your YouTube Channel then add them to your blog posts.
To really make this all work well for you, you need to know there is a big secret in succeeding with growing your business using Social Engines. You’ve read this far, so here it is: Social Engine success rest largely with you getting to grips with:
Being a ‘face’ of your business and allowing people to connect with your ‘authenticity’ as a person ahead of a product, and
the need to ‘listen’ to your marketplace, innovate with change to meet their ever-changing needs and then share information that will help them, rather than push product.
Millions of dollars are spent monthly with pay per click advertising on these sites and more millions are paid to ‘search engine specialists’ who supposedly help you reach number 1 ranking on keywords relevant to your business. It’s a fierce fight between serious players for top spots on search engines, both free and paid listings. An entire industry is built on it and around it. But you now know how to become a leader in your industry on the most powerful Social (and Search) Engines online today and how to do it Quickly, Cheaply, Easily and Auto-Magically.
In some cases, target market demographics may not be using Social Engines; therefore it would not be worthwhile. Consider these statistics when making your evaluation:
78% of consumers trust peer recommendations. Do you rely on 3rd party endorsements to build buyer confidence? If this is not a necessary part of your marketing and sale process, you may be able to ignore Social Engine Marketing.
Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy – Listening first, selling second. Would your competitors be prepared to connect and listen to your prospects and customers directly to discover what they want, and then give it to them? If not, then you may be able to ignore Social Engine Marketing … and least for a little while.
The worst part is the first part. When you start, your ‘following’ could be small but that is far better than not monitoring what’s been said about you at all! The only way to change that is to get in the game!
Get started right now, before your competitors do –it’s the future of marketing your business online, because that is where the people you want as your customers are going online. It’s only a matter of time before someone in your industry emerges as the leader on the Social Engines – get you and your business front-of-mind first. Enjoy the experience and I’ll ‘meet and tweet you’ on the Social Engines of the World!
Jennie Armato can be found on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more. She is a best-selling Author, Public Speaker, Director of Auto Web Business .com and Head Coach of Web Business Academy .com – a coaching consultancy service for small business owners wanting to do more for less, far easier than ever before.
WANT TO LEARN MORE FROM JEN and The TEAM at WEB BUSINESS ACADEMY?
CLAIM THIS AMAZING FREE GIFT OF EDUCATION, RIGHT NOW!
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Could Social Media be the SINGLE BIGGEST thing to happen to commerce and business since the Industrial Revolution? It’s happening right here, right now – what are your clients saying about you? How do you find out?
Watch this video – you’ll be frightened and enlightened – be sure to take action!
Here are the statistics from this video:
By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers and 96% of them have joined a social network
Social Media has overtaken pornography as the #1 activity on the Web
1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via a social media site
Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia
Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
% of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama
80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices. People update anywhere, anytime – imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé… In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and more …
The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them
78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
Only 14% trust advertisements
Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
90% of people that can TiVo ads do
Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone
According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available
24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
In the near future we will no longer search for products and services they will find us via social media
More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second
Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser
IF YOU LIKE THESE INSIGHTS, YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY AN EARLIER VERSION, LOOKING AT ISSUES AND OPPORTUNTIES BEYOND SOCIAL ENGINES HERE
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This is a great quote at the intro to an article from Entrepreneur magazine about Web 2.0 – the next evolution revolution for communications on the internet.
You’ve probably heard of Web 2.0 but do you REALLY understand what it means to us as a community both in our personal lives and our businesses. Discover what this new version of the internet means for your business. Jennie Armato is a world leader in “How to Win Business on the Web Using Web 2.0 technology”.
Check out this video and discover how you can be part of this new era on the web, allowing you to take a more collaborative approach and be more interactive with prospects and clients, using the power of the internet Check out this insightful and very poignant video explaining Web 2.0
Want to know How To Get More From Google – FOR FREE? Take 10 minutes to find out how Google can improve your internet marketing and web business success by Jennie Armato, Head Coach of Web Business Academy.
Please leave your comments below so we can continue to provide meaningful and insightful ways for you to improve your online success with our internet marketing coaching and web business consultancy – all provided for FREE!
Recently we held a tele-class where we explained How You Link together your Website Blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg and iTunes into one automated marketing strategy for free leads from the Social Engines but also for the Search Engines (and the Spender Engine of iTunes too).
This gives your blog posts massive online exposure and we urge you to get hold of the recording asap and review the strategy.
To provide you with all the ‘pieces of the blogging / social engine / search engine / spender engine strategy, our tech team have been working all week on upgrading your Blog so you can take advantage of this new strategy and boost your business to new levels.
Without going into all the ‘techo’ details (leave that for our team to take care of for you) a quick snapshot of some of the benefits to you from what our guys have done (all with our compliments):
* Your Blog is updated with all the latest ‘plugins’ which will help generate more traffic.
* Direct connections to the social network sites (by helping link your blog to sites such as twitter and facebook). Make sure you have set up your Facebook and Twitter accounts if you haven’t already. It’s all FREE.
* More community involvement by implementing a more effective comments box, making it easier to build relationships and get the search engines reward you.
* Even Faster to use with the new blog admin layout requiring less clicks to get the job done.
* Enhanced security and s~pam control.
There are more fantastic benefits to you from what the team has done with this project but the best way to be able to utilize this is to firstly listen to the Teleseminar recorded on this topic (go to the “Live Coaching” link in your Wizard) and start taking the right action.
We wish you great success as you move forward … beyond 2010.
FREE VIDEO RELEASED BY ARMAND MORIN Is Now Linking DIRECTLY to Armand Morin’s “Internet Marketing Newsletter”.
As a member of this Free Subscription Newsletter, Armand will still give you access to the FREE Google Adwords video too.
Secure a free membership to the Internet Marketing Newsletter, which includes access to the Google Adwords Video by Armand Morin at http://alturl.com/jjn2
Membership includes the free video from one of Armand Morin’s most recent seminars sharing his latest strategies and techniques for making lots of money with Google Adwords and Membership Sites.
What’s the catch? No catch except for the fact that it’s only going to be online for FREE for a limited time (he may sell it after that).
Not many people know about it and right now it’s still free.
2 weeks ago : We are at the Web Business Bootcamp, the room is full of highly motivated people who are ready to make a difference to their business online
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