The Top Ten Reasons Why Every Small Business Should Be Using The Free Tools Online

We have all heard of the amazing success stories of companies using the world of social media. In fact, Inc. magazine says that the nation’s fastest-growing private companies are making use of social media. Forbes magazine calls social media a foundational shift that is here to stay.

The question still remains, is it appropriate for a smaller business? It may be great that JetBlue is using Twitter for customer service, Dell has an incredible Facebook presence or BestBuy is training all sales associates to use social media. But what about the 20+ million companies in America that have no payroll? How about the companies that have employees, but no significant marketing budget? Is social media appropriate for them?

The answer is yes. Social media is a new marketing fundamental that encompasses strategies that no company should operate without. There are tremendous opportunities for every business with the knowledge and desire to use social media as a competitive advantage.

Below is part one of a list of the Top 10 reasons why social media is a marketing necessity for ALL companies – from solopreneurs all the way through to Fortune 500 companies.

1. Getting Ranked High In Google Is A “No Brainer” For Your Business

People don’t surf the net, they search. 40% of all consumer spending and 85% of all B2B transactions begin today with a web search. Every business needs to come up within search engine rankings for those keywords that surround what it is that you do or offer as a company. There are over 18 billion searches that happen each and every month in this country. If you are not represented in the search engine rankings, you are missing out on one of the largest opportunities that is proven to embody people searching for brands that have the right products and services to meet their needs. They are hot prospects!

2. Marketing Exposure For Little To No Budget

Most people and companies have in common two extremely precious treasures, their money and their time. In this economy, for many companies, placing more money behind marketing is no longer an option. Thus, ideas that can be implemented with just the appropriate know-how and simple elbow grease are critical. This is the case for social media and why it is such a hot topic. Tremendous new marketing opportunities are unfolding daily for every business through the use of social media. And all they require is an understanding of the ever evolving online tools and how to get started.

3. Social Media Prospecting Is Easier Than Ever

Finding the right highly targeted audiences is easier than ever with social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. People identify themselves and their needs by what they say online. If you are using the tools to listen well, you can intersect with them at the time of their need. This is a highly relevant way to find the highest quality of leads…and with tools that are the best at then following up and starting a conversation. These tools are social networks aren’t they, specifically designed towards one-on-one and viral communications!

4. It Is One Of The Fastest Ways To Build Your Expert Reputation

As long as you have been successful in business and have customers or clients that believe in you, you have the means to establish credibility, and trust in your brand online. These are critical factors to closing your fair share of the prospects discussed above. One out of two new people you meet in business will search for you online. The search engine results are a third party opportunity for you two shine by controlling the top page of rankings with everything you want people to know about you. Top page rankings aren’t as hard to “own” as you would think because the combination of your name and business name are not only the most popular search combinations for you, but are very low competitive search phrases. Thus, it is very easy to manage what people see. Especially those that you are directly prospecting!

5. A 180 Degree Change from Traditional Marketing

I call it PUSH versus PULL marketing. Traditional marketing (radio, newspaper, direct mail, etc.) is like casting out big marketing nets trying to catch the right people, or pushing your message at intended recipients. Sure, you can target using demographics, past behaviors, geography, etc., but how can you ever tell if you are reaching those prospects that are truly interested in what you offer as they have determined that they need it most? And traditional marketing costs money to reach each and every prospect, no matter their value to your business. In social media, interested prospects find you by typing keywords into a search engine or by you listening to what they are saying. They PULL themselves towards you by taking a specific action on their own that identifies their needs. This is a highly qualified prospect versus one blanketed by traditional marketing. They are literally raising their hands and identifying themselves as great prospects for your business. And the best part is that with social media, these hand-raisers don’t cost you a dime. Prospecting, blogging, writing articles, posting video, etc. are all free social media strategies to intersect with highly qualified prospects, allowing people to pull themselves towards you.

Look for the second half of the Top 10 reasons to to be posted soon!

Advanced SEO Strategies That Will Help With Search Rankings For Your YouTube Video And Your Blog!

Last Thursday night’s webinar is now up and archived with all the latest information about how to use video for search engine optimization that will amaze you. If you have not seen this webinar before, then you are not going to want to miss it! Click through to the YouTube Training Webinar now!!

This is one of the most popular webinars, and one of my personal favorites. What you can do so simply to help promote your business is no less than astonishing. – Steve MacDonald

Click here for more YouTube Training resources.

A Solo Entrepreneur’s Best Place For Getting Started Right With Social Media

This Social Media Training webinar is meant for anyone who is just starting out, has been dipping their toes in the social media waters, or is more advanced…but feeling overwhelmed! Social Media Marketing for your business doesn’t have to be complicated, but there certainly is a recipe for success.

If you have never had an overview of how social media works, the right tools, their unique and individual roles, how they work and integrate together, and how they should each be deployed on behalf of your business…then this is absolutely the right place to get started!

We will explain everything that you need to know in order to have the best chance of succeeding with social media for your business, including a detailed explanation of the “7 Elements of Social Media Success.”

The total length of the Webinar is just over 46 minutes. You may have to wait 30 seconds to a minute for the video to start playing. After watching the webinar, please make sure to review the recommendations below for how to plan out the training for your next two months. And remember, month one is all about setting your social media foundation. Month two is where you actually start prospecting!

Below is a timeline For laying out your first two months of activity. Make sure to follow them in priority order!

Things You Do Once (your first month)

Week #1 – Review the webinar on Branding Strategies. This will show you how to create your brand (even providing templates to fill out), how to identify your target market niche and develop your keyword strategy.

Week #2 – Take the time to refine your brand strategy, target market and keyword strategy!

Week #3 – Watch the webinars and create your Facebook personal profile, YouTube and Twitter accounts. Even if you have these accounts already up and running, you will still want to take the time to review these since they are focused on using these tools for business! Make sure that you are providing the right information on each account so that it is a balanced reflection of both you as the individual and you as the business owner.

Week #4 – Review the two webinars listed below which will help you create a rock solid reputation online, and help bullet proof your credibility as a businesowner that people can trust!

• Google Training Webinar – 20 Minutes To Top Page Google Rankings
• Yelp Training Webinar – The Top 5 Strategic Uses Of Online Reviews You Can’t Ignore

Your Second Month (all about prospecting)

Week #5 – Start reviewing the three Prospecting Training Webinars in the University. This will give you an extremely solid foundation to start generating new business leads!

Week #6-8 (part one) – Continue to refine your prospecting strategies and tactics as you put the University’s lessons into action. Make sure that you have hooked up with an accountability partner during this process. If you need one, we can help!

Week #6-8 (part two) – Start to build your blog. As you will learn in the training, this is the hub of your social media activity! You will find a complete Blog Training series for your review. This may take you past the first two months, but is well worth the effort!

FINAL NOTE: If you spend the time to dedicate to your success through social media marketing, you will find all-new ways to achieve growth for your business that you never even knew existed before. As you will find as you go thru our training…Your personal brand, influence and ability to find and convert prospects from anywhere, anytime will be easier to accomplish than ever before.

Click through to return to the Getting Started series home page.

How Any Small Business Entrepreneur Can Get Started Right In The World Of Social Media Marketing

August 25th from 4-5p PST

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What You Will Learn From This Social Media Training 101 Webinar

• What should my expectations be to create a successful social media campaign for my business?
• What are the elements that I would need to create?
• What is the priority order?
• How do I create success with limited time?
• What are the few things that will make the biggest difference?
• Success stories?
• Why you can do it, with nothing more than a computer and a good connection to the internet!
• How to do it all, for very, very little out-of-pocket costs!
  

One of the most daunting tasks for most small business entrepreneurs is simply knowing where to start! If this is your situation, or you are already well under way, but don’t feel like you have a game plan…then this is the webinar for you!

This is the webinar where it all comes into one clear picture. And we guarantee that this webinar will include things that you have never hear of before. We don’t stop with the popular social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we dig deeper for things you just can’t miss in your road to success.

You are not going to want to miss out on this webinar!

Additional Marketing Strategies For Your YouTube Video (Annotations) And Channel Customization Techniques

This YouTube Training webinar is going to cover the exciting area of YouTube annotations. Never heard of it before? No worries! Annotations are ways of adding searchable text and interactivity to your YouTube videos. You can insert speech bubbles, titles, areas that are spotlighted upon roll-over and more. Not only can they help with adding depth of knowledge to your videos, important SEO backlinks and references to other important URLs (i.e. your blog), but also to better search engine optimize that particular video. For very little effort, there are some all around great advantages to using YouTube annotations.

You will also learn in this video how to fully customize your YouTube channel (where all your videos are aggregated). Your channel not only says a lot about you and your business, helps to present your videos more professionally, but can also add SEO value to outside sites while helping to cross-promote your other social media properties (like Facebook) at the same time.

These are easy or one-time strategies that you’ll WANT to know for your business!

This webinar plays for about 29 minutes. You may have to wait 30  seconds to a minute for the video to start playing. Also, it can be very helpful to view the webinar all the way through once and then keep it up in another window to refer to while following the recommendations. Enjoy another segment of your YouTube Training!

NOTE: Others that have watched this webinar also liked the webinar on “Advanced SEO Strategies That Will Help With Search Rankings For Your YouTube Videos And Your Blog!”

[Access protected for members only. If you are a member already, please log in and return to this page. If you are not a member, then please click on any "Enroll Now" links to see current enrollment specials. ]

Click here for more YouTube Training resources.

Advanced SEO Strategies That Will Help With Search Rankings For Your YouTube Video And Your Blog!

This YouTube Training webinar is going to demonstrate the benefit areas to your business from YouTube that you never could have imagined even existed!

You will learn how using video sharing sites like YouTube, can give a shot in the arm to your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. The great thing is that after you have created and uploaded the YouTube video, you are about 85% of the way there! The additional 15% of your time will get you so much more in return.

If you only knew about the power of YouTube and other video sharing sites.

The total length of the webinar is about 35 minutes. You may have to wait 30 seconds to a minute for the video to start playing. Also, it can be very helpful to view the webinar all the way through once and then keep it up in another window to refer to while following the recommendations. Enjoy another segment of your YouTube Training!

NOTE: Others that have watched this webinar also liked the “Demystifying Keyword Strategies And Search Engine Optimization” webinar.

[Access protected for members only. If you are a member already, please log in and return to this page. If you are not a member, then please click on any "Enroll Now" links to see current enrollment specials. ]

Click here for more YouTube Training resources.

Prospecting with YouTube – Reaching More High Quality Prospects For Your Business

This YouTube Training webinar is going to show you how to prospect with YouTube, the most passed over, important lead generation opportunity for solo entrepreneurs.

Yes, this entire webinar is devoted to YOUTUBE prospecting. We all think of YouTube now as the second largest search engine with vast amounts of video content. We don’t think of it as a prospecting goldmine for our target market niche. You will certainly think differently after watching this webinar.

Every market niche that you can imagine is represented on YouTube!

We take your through the ways to find your target market niche, search for the right viewers and then a complete how-to on the best way to connect that ignites new relationships that work in your favor.

The total length of the webinar is about 29 minutes. You may have to wait 30 seconds to a minute for the video to start playing. Also, it can be very helpful to view the webinar all the way through once and then keep it up in another window to refer to while following the recommendations. Enjoy another segment of your YouTube Training!

NOTE: Others that have watched this webinar also liked the “All-In-One Prospecting Webinar,” focusing mostly on Facebook and Twitter.

[Access protected for members only. If you are a member already, please log in and return to this page. If you are not a member, then please click on any "Enroll Now" links to see current enrollment specials. ]

Using YouTube, The Second Largest Search Engine In the World, For Business

Most of us don’t think about YouTube as one of the top four social media marketing tools, right up there with blogging, Facebook and Twitter. This YouTube Training webinar will change that misconception!

The benefits span the range from greater exposure for your business on both YouTube and Google, to impacting the conversion rates at which you close new prospects. And the best part is that it is easy to use, easy to create videos, easy to edit and thus easy to get started.

In the webinar, we will show you specific examples and case studies of how all these benefits and more can become a reality for your business. And the best part, they have incredible staying power. Google loves YouTube video, and it is not uncommon that you will see videos from years ago still in the search rankings.

It’s time to get started on your YouTube Training by clicking through and WATCHING THE WEBINAR!

Click here for other YouTube Training resources.

And What You Can Learn

About six months ago, Starbucks held a “Free Pastry Day”, and attracted over one million people to their stores. How? Social media. Twitter and Facebook captured the buzz about the event and people went searching for a free pastry.

Starbucks is a leader in effective social media marketing. Starbucks has over eighteen million fans on Facebook. The company’s MyStarbucks Idea has also generated over 80,000 ideas, and the Vice President of Brand, Content and Online, Chris Bruzzo, credits Twitter for the success of the project. Starbucks was also the first company to offer a nationwide Foursquare deal.

So, where did Starbucks get their social media smarts? The company listens to their customers. Starbucks works on engaging a dialogue, and considers social media as a relationship, rather than a one-way promotion. Also, Starbucks uses social media to tell a story about their brand, via stories and videos. During the Haiti disaster, for example, Starbucks used videos as part of the Haiti outreach campaign on both YouTube and Facebook. Customers were able to donate to Red Cross in stores, and learned that Starbucks cared.

Alex Wheeler, Director of Digital Strategy at Starbucks, calls their social media approach “scrappy”.  As one of the first companies to really embrace social media, figuring out what worked and being open to different options was what led to their success.

As a small business entrepreneur, you can learn from the company’s social media activity. You can use social media to start a genuine conversation with your customers. It’s not about marketing as much as it’s about relationships (though, the relationships will lead to sales or clients).  And remember, your relationship is one that constantly gives value, and expects nothing in return.  Your are there to help and tell your story along the way!

This is yet another reminder of just how important your brand is to your social media success.  For more on this subject, please look over our lead article on “The Importance of Your Brand To Your Social Media Success.”

YouTube Videos Made Easy!

YouTube Training – YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, which makes it a very important part of any online marketing campaign.  But there is still a general fear factor of what it will take to make a video.  Fear no more!  I make most of my videos by putting a $99 point-and-shoot digital camera on the window ledge in front of my desk (great for lots of natural lighting), reaching over and pressing record.  I then hook up the camera to my computer with a USB cord (came with the camera), and trim the front and back of the video in about 2 minutes.  Then a quick upload onto YouTube and I’m done.  Not too difficult!  You can also upload videos directly to YouTube taken on most all smart phones (trimming software included).

One of the best video ideas is to use screen capture software for your computer.  These can be great for “how-to” style videos, which are extremely popular on YouTube.  The program simply takes a video of what is happening on your screen.  You can use it for creating a demonstration, review a powerpoint, scroll through images or anything that helps convey your business message.  For more info on how to take screen capture videos and other educational opportunities, then check out out YouTube Training for a full set of how-to articles and webinar courses.