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Web 2.0 and Social Marketing

April 15th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

What is all this Web 2.0 and Social Marketing talk?

What is it for many people is confusing.  Some Gurus rave about it and some dismiss the concepts.

I am here to tell you that Web 2.0 and Social Marketing are here to stay.

Today, we will talk about what Web 2.0 is and is not.  We will also discuss how it can help you as an internet marketer.

Web 2.0 is a term used to describe  sites that are built on user interaction, or at least encourage contributions from the user.

Examples are Facebook, Squidoo, MySpace, and Twitter. Blogs are also web 2.0 sites.  Why should you be interested in Web 2.0, well the answer is traffic.  No traffic equates to No Sales.  Facebook and MySpace now get twice as much traffic as Google.
The best thing about Social Marketing is that it is totally free.  There is no excuse not to be taking advantage of this concept.
Understand that one cannot attack the community.  As a marketer in these Web 2.0 communities, you must become a part of the community before you implement your subtle sales tactics.

Embrace the opportunity, but understand the differences in the venues.  Read the terms and conditions of the individual communities.  I will discuss in detail some of my favorites and how to use them in coming weeks.

How to Generate Targeted Traffic Using MySpace

December 28th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

MySpace is “a place for friends.” People sign up looking for friends who are interested in the same things they are interested in. If you share their interests and have information products or services that can enhance their lives, it’s your duty as their “friend” to let them know about you.

You do that most effectively when you create at least 10 different profiles. MySpace limits the amount of friend requests and comments you can send per profile per day, but they don’t limit the number of profiles you can register. By starting with 10 profiles, you should be able to generate at least 1,000 targeted visitors to your site every day.

Remember that with each profile you register, you should seek to be a great friend first. Make your space attractive by posting a variety of pictures. Don’t forget to add a little humor to your profile and give away lots of free, helpful information. That’s what friends are for!

Your main picture is your most important asset. Most users will authorize or reject you based on the quality of your picture alone. So choose a picture that captures your personality.

Then invest in friend management software. Considering you have no advertising costs, this software will soon pay for itself and is well worth the time and frustration it will save you from marketing your site manually.

This software gives you the power to be social, so take advantage of it by inviting 350 people per profile to become your friends each day. And once you start gaining friends, be bold. Comment on 225 friend spaces per profile each day. Include a link to your site every time you post a comment. This is how you get traffic!

But to avoid being flagged as a spammer, do not exceed the MySpace limits of 400 friend requests and 225 comments a day per profile.

And while you’re inviting friends and commenting on other people’s spaces, test, test, test. Test your pictures. Test your headlines. Test your friend request messages. Test your html comments. Test your text comments. Test everything. The more you test, the more you’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t. Then you can stop doing what doesn’t bring you traffic and start doing more of what does bring you traffic.

Finally, join groups in your target market. Visit the members’ spaces and read their profiles as well as the comments posted on their sites. These spaces take you into the hearts and minds of your customers. By understanding how they think and feel, you can tweak your copy to reach them more effectively.

Above all, be consistent and persistent. Make requesting friends and posting comments a part of your daily marketing routine. By sticking with it and learning what it takes to gain friends in this social network, you will start to see a steady flow of free traffic come your way each and every day.

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Glen Hopkins is an internationally renowned Internet marketer and
the #1 Best Selling Author of, Lucrative List Building.

Glen specializes in helping online business owners build large,
highly profitable opt-in email lists. Get his “Top 10 List Building
Secrets” Report (valued at $97) for free at http://GlenHopkins.name

How to Convert MySpace Comments Into Traffic

December 28th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

As an Internet marketer, you should know how to take advantage of every free source of traffic available to you. One such source is the popular social networking site, MySpace.

To make this tactic work for you, you need to set up at least 10 different accounts and join groups in your target market. Visit the members’ spaces and read their profiles as well as the comments posted on their sites. These spaces take you into the hearts and minds of your customers. By understanding how they think and feel, you can tweak your copy to reach them more effectively.

Then using a friend management software like Friend Adder or Friend Laser, start asking these targeted prospects to be your friends. With 10 profiles at 350 requests each, you have the ability to send 3,500 requests a day.

A good response rate (which depends on the quality of your picture first and your message second) gets you 250 friends for every 350 you request, so you have the potential to gain 2,500 friends each day.

Within a matter of days, you should begin to see the friend sections on all of your spaces fill with pictures of your new MySpace friends. And having friends means you’re ready to start commenting on their sites and driving traffic to your website.

Here are some basic things to keep in mind when leaving comments no matter which program you use:

1. Write several Comments in both html and text only format.

a. For users that allow html comments, the best way to drive traffic to your site is to use an image that, when clicked on, leads people directly to you. Test several images as well as the copy that accompanies the image.

b. For users that do not allow html comments, write at least 5 comments in text only format. Here you’ll have to include your actual web address for readers of the comment to copy and paste in their browser.

c. Include a tracking tag in all your comments so you can track the click thru rate.

2. Limit your comments to 225 per day per profile. If you attempt to send more than 225 comments (which is the current MySpace limit), you could be accused of sending spam. If that happens, your accounts will be deleted.

3. Leave only comments that are relevant to the group you are targeting.

4. Target users who allow html comments first.

5. Make commenting on your friends’ sites a daily habit.

Now that you know the basics, let’s do the math to discover the kind of traffic you can expect from the comments you post.

By sending 225 comments for each profile, you’re actually posting 2,250 “ads” a day. Since each comment is viewed an average of 10 times a day, 22,500 targeted people are exposed to your information every day.

Because these are targeted viewers, you should be able to expect a 5% response rate from a deceny post. That percentage translated into an actual number gives you 1,125 visits to your site a day.

How’s that for a great source of free, targeted traffic!

So make requesting friends and posting comments a part of your daily marketing routine. By sticking with it and learning what it takes to gain friends in this social network, you will start to see a steady flow of free traffic come your way each and every day.

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Glen Hopkins is an internationally renowned Internet marketer and
the #1 Best Selling Author of, Lucrative List Building.

Glen specializes in helping online business owners build large,
highly profitable opt-in email lists. Get his “Top 10 List Building
Secrets” Report (valued at $97) for free at http://GlenHopkins.name

How to Locate Your Target Market on MySpace

December 28th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

After you set up your MySpace account, you need to find friends in your niche to market to. The good news is that you can easily locate your target market. All you have to do is to your account and click Groups on your MySpace toolbar. You’ll see 34 main categories listed, and tens of thousands of groups in each category.

You can either click on the category that best describes your niche, or you can type a keyword into the search box below the category listings.

If, for instance, your niche is fitness, type “fitness” into the search box. Then all the groups related to your topic are displayed.

Pick a group to meet friends in and click. The people you see in this group are your potential customers! They’ve already shown an interest in your area of expertise by joining this group, so you know this is your target market.

You could then click on each person in the group and individually invite them to be your friend. Once they approve you, you have the opportunity to comment on their space and lead them to your website.

OR you could invest a small amount of money and invite hundreds of friends in the time it takes you to invite one.

What I’m talking about is “friend management software” designed for the purpose of enhancing your marketing capability with MySpace. Without this type of software, driving traffic to your site with MySpace is going to be a slow and difficult process.

Some of the programs available for you to choose from are:

• Friend Adder
• Friend Laser
• MySpace Friend Bomber

The programs range in price from $19.95 to $49, so you’ll need to choose the program that’s right for you based on your budget.

When choosing a program, you need to make sure it can do two things for you: send friend requests and send comments. That’s it. Those are the fundamental aspects of this marketing tactic, so remain focused on the basics when deciding which program to purchase.

Also, some programs allow you use multiple MySpace accounts while others charge separate activation fees for each account. So keep that in mind as well when deciding what “bot” to buy.

Regardless of which friend management program you use, the basic process for inviting friends remains the same:

1. Write several Friend Request messages.

a. Compose at least 5 catchy subject lines that relate to the particular group you are targeting.

b. Write at least 5 brief one or two sentence messages requesting users to add you as a friend. Remember, the goal is to build relationships, so write messages that comes across as personable.

c. Test and track your subject lines and message content to determine which copy results in the most accepted friend requests.

2. Limit your friend requests to 350 per day per profile. Currently, the maximum number of requests MySpace allows for each account is 400. By remaining under the max, your accounts shouldn’t be flagged by the MySpace traffic patrol as spam.

3. Target the largest groups in your niche first, then work your way down to the smaller groups.

4. Keep a spreadsheet of the groups you have sent friend requests to in order to prevent you from sending repeat requests.

5. Make requesting friends a daily habit.

Be patient while waiting for friends to accept and add you as a friend to their space. It’s going to take time for them to get your requests, then decide whether or not to authorize you.

And don’t take rejection personally. Not everyone is going to authorize you, but that’s okay. It’s not about authorization or rejection; it’s about sifting the good prospects from the bad. A good prospect will add you as a friend; a bad prospect will not.

Besides, the numbers are on your side. With 10 profiles at 350 requests each, you are actually sending 3,500 requests a day. A good response rate (which depends on the quality of your picture first and your message second) gets you 250 friends for every 350 you request, so you have the potential to gain 2,500 friends each day.

After just one week, you could potentially have over 17,000 friends!

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Glen Hopkins is an internationally renowned Internet marketer and
the #1 Best Selling Author of, Lucrative List Building.

Glen specializes in helping online business owners build large,
highly profitable opt-in email lists. Get his “Top 10 List Building
Secrets” Report (valued at $97) for free at http://GlenHopkins.name

Make Your Space on MySpace Attractive

December 28th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

Being a great friend on MySpace is the best way to make your space attractive and thus drive traffic to your site. And you become a great friend by posting pictures, grabbing attention with your headline and making your About Me section entertaining.

The pictures you choose to post are the most important factor. Especially your main picture.

When you invite someone to be your friend, the first thing they look at is your picture. If it’s a dull, stuffy, business-like picture, the chances are that person will not approve you as a friend.

But if you look like a real, friendly person, your chances of being approved increase dramatically. In other words, the better the picture, the more friends you’ll have.

Your main picture does need to be a picture of you, and you can use the same picture for all ten profiles. I recommend, however, that you test different pictures before choosing one to represent you.

To test, experiment with different types of pictures. Take head shots, upper body shots and full body poses. Take pictures in your yard, at your office or on your bike. Have fun with it. Remember, this is a social site. Look like a sociable person!

Upload a different picture to each account, then track how many friend requests you send as well as the approval rates for each picture. If you find that one picture averages a higher approval rate than the rest, make that picture your main photo for your accounts.

What do you do with the rest of the pictures? Add them to your space!

Adding pictures makes your space more attractive. You add pictures by going to your home page and clicking Add/Edit Photos to the right of your main picture. Here you can upload pictures of your family, your pets, your house or anything else you find interesting.

The more pictures you have, the more friendly you appear.

The next step to making your space attractive is to tell a little about yourself. To do so, click Edit Profile on your home page.

For starters, just fill in the Headline and About Me sections. Eventually you’ll want to go back through and fill in the other sections to showcase your personality a bit more in depth. This strengthens your image as just another MySpace user rather than a marketer, so people will be more willing to add you as a friend and allow you to comment on their spaces.

And you want to be able to comment on lots of spaces.

Like with your pictures, test different headlines in each account. And like with any headline, write something that grabs the attention of your target audience. Write something funny about yourself or comment about something your group is interested in.

If you have a great picture but a lousy headline to go along with it, your friend approval rates will plummet.

In the About Me section, write a few sentences about yourself. Humor is a great tool to use in this section, especially self-deprecating humor. Making yourself the butt of a joke disarms visitors, creates laughter and builds relationships.

When people see that you can laugh at yourself, they see you as a real, likable person who would make a great friend.

Basically, have fun with your profile. Don’t worry about trying to sell people or be uptight about driving them to your site. The more relaxed you are, the more real you are. The more real you are, the more traffic comes your way.

Take advantage of all the media types available to tell people who you are. Post videos, audios and lots of pictures.

Show off your family, your pets, your vacations. Share your background, your interests, your goals, your dreams. Relate to people so they can relate to you.

Be helpful as well. Give away free information on your space. Your generosity shows your “friends” you want to help them learn and grow. So share your knowledge.

The more you give, the more you’ll get.

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Glen Hopkins is an internationally renowned Internet marketer and
the #1 Best Selling Author of, Lucrative List Building.

Glen specializes in helping online business owners build large,
highly profitable opt-in email lists. Get his “Top 10 List Building
Secrets” Report (valued at $97) for free at http://GlenHopkins.name

How to Create Your MySpace Account

December 28th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

Driving traffic to your site with MySpace comes down to one thing: comments.

The comments you leave on your friends’ spaces serve as ads for your website. So don’t think of them as comments. Think of them as concise, catchy, attention-grabbing ads that link directly to your site.

Ads that you pay $0 to post. The only catch is that you can only post 225 comments per day per profile. So to generate a significant and worthwhile amount of traffic, you need at least 10 different accounts.

Think about it. The more profiles you have, the more friends you can have. The more friends you have, the more comments you can post. The more comments you can post, the more traffic you bring to your site.

But before you can start leaving comments that link to your website, you have to grow your network of friends.

Before you grow your network of friends, you have to find friends to invite.

Before you find friends, you have to make your space attractive.

Before you can make your space attractive, you have to register your accounts.

Setting up an account is free and easy to do. All that’s required is a valid email address. As long as you have that, you’re ready to begin the sign up process:

1. On the MySpace.com home page, click Sign Up.

2. Enter a valid email address, your name and other basic information like your country, birthday and gender.

3. Check the box to agree to the Terms of Service, then click SignUp.

4. Verify you are human by typing the letters you see displayed in the box. Click Continue to My Account.

5. Upload a picture of you to use as your main picture on your home page. When choosing a picture, keep in mind that the majority of people accept or reject friend requests based on the picture of the person sending the request. You don’t have to look like a model; you just have to look friendly and likable.

6. Once you upload a picture, you’ll be asked to Invite Friends. You’re not ready to invite friends yet, so click “Skip for Now” at the bottom of the page.

7. You should now see your picture on your home page and a list of editing options to the right of your picture. Find Account Settings and click.

8. Check the box beside “Do not send me notification emails.” If you don’t modify this account setting, your inbox is going to be flooded with emails from MySpace notifying you every time someone adds you as a friend. Receiving such notifications are unnecessary to your marketing plan.

9. Repeat the process 9 more times. The only thing you need to change in each profile is the email address because each account requires a unique and valid email address. If you don’t have 10 different addresses, you can easily sign up for free accounts through Yahoo or Hotmail.

10. Confirm your email addresses for all 10 accounts in order to activate your accounts.

That’s all it takes to create MySpace accounts. Once you have your accounts set up, you’re ready to start inviting friends and driving traffic to your site.

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Glen Hopkins is an internationally renowned Internet marketer and
the #1 Best Selling Author of, Lucrative List Building.

Glen specializes in helping online business owners build large,
highly profitable opt-in email lists. Get his “Top 10 List Building
Secrets” Report (valued at $97) for free at http://GlenHopkins.name

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