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Do You Hate This Email as Much as Me?

By Christian

I just got this email and felt compelled to share with you. Many business owners using social media are convinced this is what “selling” means. It means, well…this…

bad email

I accepted a friend request from this person, and this is what I got in reply. This isn’t selling. This is yelling. This is clinging. This is spam.

What action would you take on this? You’d make sure to visit all the sites that have been suggested, right? You’d make sure to take the time to get back with this person and initiate a conversation, because they obviously have a lot of valuable insight to share, correct?

Or would you, like me, delete it…and probably never talk to this person again? Let me know what you think!

By the way, I greyed out the urls and user name because I don’t feel any need to spread any ill will. I feel most of the time, poor use of social media is just out of ignorance. We all make mistakes. But to the user who sent this to me (surely you recognize this message, lol) no, I wont’ be visiting any of these sites, and sending emails like this isn’t doing you any favors 😉

Something about the “Let’s network!” line cracks me up though. Just sayin.

How often do you get emails like this? How do you respond?

Quick Start to Internet Marketing

By Christian

Many people out there are looking for a quick start to internet marketing. I understand. Most people in my network are business people, and we are the kind of people who want to get things rolling quickly. You know being online and marketing yourself with blogging, internet marketing and social networking is essential, but you don’t know the best way to go about it, and you have a million questions.

This massive access to information causes what’s called “paralysis by analysis”. In other words, we’re so fixated on learning what we need to do, we fail to act. This is death for business. You need to act, but you don’t want to screw things up. So here is a quick start to internet marketing checklist that will give you what you need to get started. It contains a little philosophy and a few specific actions that will get you off and running.  There is a lot of value in knowing you’re starting off on the right foot, so I hope this helps. If you have any questions, let me know by commenting or contact me!

Quick Start to Internet Marketing

  1. Make the decision that your focus is going to be building a real business…or extending your existing business. Do not allow your sole focus to be making money. If your focus is on building a real business, creating a good reputation and brand and creating value for others, it’s hard to screw things up. It’s when we decide to focus solely on making money that we start doing crappy, spammy things that we will regret later…and that will not do us any good. This is the first step, and it’s easy. Just decide that your focus is going to be on creating value for your customers, not just selling stuff. With that, you have already cleared half the hurdles. Believe it or not, it really is that simple!
  2. Start a blog. Don’t over think it. Don’t dwell on it for more than five minutes. Pick a platform, and fire it up. If you want my specific advise, I recommend using WordPress, and I recommend having a professional set it up for you. I can do it for you, or you can have any number of other professionals do it for you. WordPress can easily be search engine optimized, and it is highly extensible. Some of the most successful blogs on the internet use WordPress, and for good reason. That said, it’s more important to have a blog than it is to make absolutely certain that every detail is perfect. Your blog will serve as the hub of everything you do to market yourself online. It is your home. You need a place to hang your hat. You need a blog.
  3. Post to your blog regularly. The more you blog, the more you will learn. The most important thing is to get started. I could write for 10,000 words easily right now about how to do this. And if you want to solve any specific marketing issues sooner rather than later, I recommend using my consulting services to jump start your efforts. That said, this is not rocket science, and if you put in the effort you will learn everything you need to know simply by doing it. You get out what you put in. Again, if you’re focusing on creating value for your customers, your blog will be on target.
  4. Get on Facebook and Twitter. Are there other social networks? Heck yes there are. Is there value in checking them out and learning about them? Heck yes. But this is a quick start to internet marketing guide, right? So let’s keep it simple. The fact is that Facebook is huge, and Twitter is massively important and an indispensable tool. You can do a lot of damage with just these two. Just as with blogging, use them regularly. An inactive profile is worthless to you. Just like if you leave your house unattended…it will deteriorate over time, this is true for your internet property as well. You have to maintain it for it to grow and remain valuable. Use your social networking profiles for being social and meeting people. Sure, link out to your blog posts and such, but keep the content you produce 99% social. Believe it or not, people know you sell widgets even if you don’t tell em. It’s linked up on your page, see? So they know already. You don’t have to tell them every five minutes. Meet people and concentrate on getting to know and learning from others with similar interests. After doing this for a while, you will start to get these mysterious messages in your inbox. They will be coming from people who have visited your site and are interested in what you’re selling, and you’ll wonder where all this magical activity is coming from. Some of it’s coming from Twitter, believe it or not. And it will have all happened without you having to hard sell anyone. This stuff works really well, if you work it. Let it take time. It’s fun anyway, so why turn it into hard work?
  5. Let it take some time. Like I mentioned in the previous step, this stuff doesn’t happen instantly. One thing about internet marketing is that people often expect immediate results. I’m not sure why that is. It must come from a misconception about what’s happening. When you give someone a business card at a social event, do you expect them to buy something from you right there on the spot? No. You meet 28 people that night, and 9 of them call you back over the next few weeks. You build it from there. This is how it works. Social networking has become confused with being this new phenomenon, and we think it’s complicated. It’s not. Social networking is people with common interests hanging out, talking. This has been going on for ages. It’s how business is done. And building a business takes time.
  6. Read and learn. Study what you’re doing. Read other blogs. Look at other websites, especially within the same field as you’re working. Apply the CASE principle of success I’ve described in a previous post. Never stop this. Learning and stealing ideas from your competitors is another age old business principle that is not ever going to go away. Use it to your advantage.
  7. Don’t quit. Be consistent. As I say so many times, things take time. As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Of course I don’t consider this quick start to internet marketing checklist an ultra-comprehensive tool. After all, it’s a quick start checklist! However, I would love your input. Do you have anything you’d add?

In upcoming posts, I will be posting some of my top resources. Articles and tools I’ve used to learn this business. It’s only fair for me to share all my secrets with you, seeing as how everything I’ve learned about internet marketing is online…imagine that 🙂

How to Really Screw up Your Business With Social Networking

By Christian

As spamming continues to grow on Twitter and other social networks (I’ve been noticing it a lot this past few weeks more than ever), I’m compelled to mention again how easy it is to do more damage to your brand than good when using social networking tools.

Twitter and Facebook are great networking tools, but they’re being treated more and more like get rich quick platforms…as if such a thing really existed. I’m seeing a lot of ads for programs on “How to Use Twitter to Make $10k a month Starting NOW”…and other B.S. like this.

Does anyone actually subscribe to this mentality? I’m taking care not to mention any users or companies specifically. You’re not going to catch me bad mouthing anyone, but you and I both have seen this activity. Here’s the thing:

I think most of these users are more concerned with making money than anything else. They’re not worried about damaging their brand, because they’re not even trying to build a brand. They’re not even TRYING to build a business. They just want to make a few bucks.

I think this kind of shortsightedness is a shame. But the more I see this kind of activity, the more I think this is true. I hope the readers of this blog can see further down the road. Building a real business is NOT that big a deal! Anyone can do it. I hope you can see the truth…spamming out affiliate links and offering no value to your contacts is not a way to build a business. And ironically, it’s also not a good way to even make a few bucks!

When was the last time YOU clicked on a blind link in a piece of spam email you received? When was the last time YOU bought a product through an affiliate link that someone blasted out through an auto-DM on Twitter?

Sensible people don’t buy things this way. It’s just not how it works. If you’re building a real business that you want to be profitable and sustainable, this is the absolute last type of activity you should be involved with.

If people would stop looking for fast money and start actually getting to work, there would be a lot less crap out there. That’s for sure. And they would also learn that making REAL money is not all that difficult.

Have you seen this spamming activity or is it just me?

Do you subscribe to the idea that simply blasting out affiliate links is a way to make money?

How to Use Social Networking Sites for Business

By Christian

I like to keep it simple. Simple is good. Know why? Because it works. Social networking for business is not rocket science, but for some strange reason, many of us WANT it to be! Perhaps it’s human nature. Perhaps if we think it’s complicated, then we will be able to figure it out…and after we figure it out, it will be easy. And our lives will then be easy. And money will fall into our laps without us ever having to lift a finger, because we’ve figured it out. We know the secret!

Perhaps that’s just too much of me running my mouth about this issue! But there’s something real here…something that most of us do not want to admit. We WANT there to be a secret to success in most cases. We WANT there to be some hidden key buried somewhere, and if only we could find it, dig it up, or somehow otherwise discover the key…then all our troubles would be over. We would finally get it, and financial freedom would then be ours. We would arrive. We would be successful.

Here’s the TRUTH:

Success is hard work. Social networking for business is not a get rich quick tool. Social networking has many powerful tools that can greatly enhance your business, but they are not magic. You have to work them if you want results.

Isn’t it just so refreshing when someone takes the time to NOT B.S. you about this stuff? Anyway, you absolutely can make huge gains in your business and sales through using social networking, but you can also waste a lot of time if you do it wrong. So in the name of keeping it simple, here are a few pointers on how to use social networking sites for business.

How to Use Social Networking Sites for Business

  1. Be social. Duh?
  2. Don’t force your growth. It takes time to build a quality network. Do you really want thousands of “friends” who literally don’t know who you are? It just takes time. If you have ONE real, quality, targeted and engaged contact on Facebook, that’s WAY better than 10,000 who are not even cognizant of who you are. Let it take time. Quality, not quantity.
  3. Don’t expect immediate results. When you meet someone at a party, do you expect them to sign a contract with you, hire you or in any other way buy something from you that very night? No, not unless you’re a real sleaze. That’s not the way it works in real life, and it’s not the way it works in social networking.
  4. Don’t hard sell. This is killer. You can do more damage to your brand than anything else. If you’re on Facebook solely to market yourself, shut your account down now. It’s a social site. Branding and selling happens all day long there, but it’s a byproduct, not the primary concern. Allow it to remain a byproduct of you being there, and you will do fine. Once selling and promotion becomes your priority, you will start losing ground immediately.
  5. If you’re using auto-DM on Twitter, turn it off. Seriously. If you think you’re using it tactfully, you’re wrong. If you don’t know what this is, don’t even look into it. You’re better off not even worrying your pretty little head over it. Again, seriously.
  6. Linking out to your site is cool, but don’t do it constantly, and it shouldn’t be the ONLY thing you’re doing. C’mon, who likes a guy or girl who just constantly talks about themselves all day?

Short list, I know. Like I said…it’s simple. If you want to know how to use social networking sites for business, this is as far as you need to take it. Sure, you can get way more complex than this, but why? You don’t over think it when you go to a networking function in real life…guess what, in social networking you ARE networking with real people. It is real life.

You can reach massive numbers of people this way, and social networking is free. What more could you ask for? Let it be simple, let it take time, and go out and rock it!

Do you have any to add to this list? Let me know what you think!

Should You Post Affiliate Links in Your Facebook Status?

By Christian

In a word, no. You shouldn’t.

This is exactly the behavior that results from NOT having a marketing plan. I’ve been seeing this a lot lately, and that’s why I’m writing this 🙂

People think that if they blast enough spam out there that some of it will stick and they’ll make some money. The theme of Next Level Blogger is surely how to make money online with your blog and social networking, but if any of you are going out and just blasting people with affiliate links and calling that a marketing plan, you do not have my support!

A well-thought out marketing plan takes time. The thing is, you actually have to provide value to other people consistently over time, and THAT is what’s going to sell people on what you do. The thing that sucks is this: spam works. To a small degree. It’s kind of like those suckers who play the lottery incessantly. Or those suckers who sit in front of a slot machine all day long. You win just enough to keep you hooked, but you’re not creating anything of value, and you’re not making enough money to ever be able to do anything productive with yourself.

Please, don’t post any more affiliate links to your Facebook status; do you really think you’re doing anyone any favors with this? And stop tweeting out things like “hey! check this out! tinyurlasf90.com” Do you really think I’m going to click on that crap? Much less actually buy anything? This is not marketing. This is not business. It’s spam.