Tips for Effective Social Media Marketing

These days, in order to be a real success in business, you need to concentrate not only on a great SEO optimized website but also on your social media strategy. Your marketing is what will make your business a success, and by following the top tips for effective social media marketing, you will quickly see the returns on your business.

If you are unfamiliar with the Internet and how it is used as the most powerful selling tool around, then you will need to take the advice of the experts who were born into the computer age. Surely you will have heard of Facebook, and with over seven hundred and fifty million active users, there are few people who haven't. Successful media marketing however is not just about opening a Facebook account or following someone on Twitter; it is about putting you in the limelight and selling yourself on a global scale.

1. Familiarize yourself with social media sites Facebook may be the most talked about social media site, closely followed by Twitter, but they are far from being the only sites around. As well as these giants, you can use MySpace, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and even YouTube to market yourself and your firm or product. With over a billion regular users of social networking sites, you need to realize just how important it is to familiarize yourself with the different options and utilize them to promote yourself successfully.

2. Plan your marketing strategy Just as with traditional methods of marketing such as banners or paper publications, you need to plan your social media marketing strategy, taking time to ensure that you utilize the sites to their full. Many people have become over excited about the wealth of new opportunities around, this resulting in them diving in head first with no plan. For effective marketing, you need to plan and learn ahead so that you will be able to cope with the time you need to devote to your sites as well as the way in which you will manage them.

3. Success comes from preparation as there is a wealth of different social networking sites to choose from; you need to decide which one to use. There is no point opening accounts with all sites as you will not have time to use them all to their full potential. Research your options, look at the user age ranges as well as the nature of the sites and compare them with your product or service. Then confidently open appropriate accounts, sharing relevant information with people who will actually be interested in your content.

4. Promote yourself honestly and in the best light possible Social media marketing is about selling yourself globally, so always sell yourself in the correct light and be totally honest about what you write; one negative tweet could bring your business crashing down. If you intend to sell yourself with video such as on YouTube, make sure you look your best and you prepare your shoot as professionally as possible. By following these effective social media marketing tips, you will see your business grow and flourish in a way that only a decade ago was not possible. Social media marketing is the future, so follow these tips today and you won't get left behind.

Also Read - SMS Vs Email Marketing

Author: Ludwing Hernandez, Social media Writter and guest blogger enthusiast. Follow him @ Mezee

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What Are The 3 Effective Steps Of Social Media Marketing?

The boom in social media has forced every company to incorporate socialmedia marketing in their main stream marketing plan. There are hundreds of social media websites that can create immense business opportunities for both small and large companies.

You will get innumerous internet and social media marketing tips on the Internet. However, it’s very confusing to choose the right advice and ignore the bad ones. Therefore, this article will give you some clear idea of smart social media marketing.

Facebook

This is the biggest social networking website of the world. Its current market value stands at about $60 billion.

You may have an account but you may not know how to use it for business purposes. Businessmen can open a business account. It has a very simplistic design. However, there are several restrictions on such accounts.

You can also make a business fan page. Visitors of your fan page can sign-up as a fan (or a loyal consumer) of your business. Whenever you post or update your Facebook status, it will appear in your fan’s page as well. Moreover, Facebook has hyper-local ads which you can use for greater publicity.

Commercial blog

You have another way of increasing your web-presence by building up an informative blog. There are several free blogosphere (like WordPress.com or Blogspot.com) that you can register.

Once you get a blog domain. You have to regularly post high quality (informative) and unique content. You can even add images, videos, podcast to attract more visitors. Write according to your expertise or interest. This way you’ll stay focused because it’s a long term process. You can add some widgets like TweetMeme button to publicize your blog articles.

Twitter

To get the most out of Twitter, you must learn some of the most advanced web-marketing tools. You have to learn to use tools like Seesmic, Tweetie, TweetDeck, etc. to eastablish yourself in this micro-blogging website. This is because it provides better customization control to implement your social media marketing strategies. Using Twitterfall will help you to catch-up with recent trends.

See How To Delete All Tweets At Once

There are more social media websites like StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, or MySpace that are also extremely useful for personal and business networking.

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Add Google+ Share Button To Your Website/Blog

Another useful tool for social media expansion has been developed by Google+, it is called the Google+ Share Button, it is actually a bookmarklet that allows you to share your articles and articles on other sites that you like to Google+, just like you would with a Facebook Share or a Twitter Tweet.

Google+ had been missing the Google+ Share Button, it was something they needed to add to stay in competition with Facebook.Previously you could only +1 an article and had to share manually.Now you can directly share an article or a blog post using the Google+ Share Button.


Here is the code for the Google+ Share Button, which you can add to any part of your website or blog template.It will appear wherever you place the code.

<!-- Place this tag where you want the share button to render. -->
<div class="g-plus" data-action="share" data-height="24"></div>


<!-- Place this tag after the last share tag. -->
<script type="text/javascript">
  (function() {
    var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true;
    po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js';
    var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s);
  })();
</script>

To add the Google+ Share Button to a Blogger Blog, all you need to do is go to your HTML EDIT page and place it inside the blog post or under the footer of every blog post.

To make things even simpler, you can just add a Widget, and insert the code mentioned above to get the Google+ Share Button.


A similar process can be followed to add the Google+ Share Button to WordPress Blogs.Make sure that you share this on Google+ and circle us on Google+
Must Read - Floating Share Buttons

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Social Media for Small Business

Should a small business care about social media,or are sites like Facebook and Twitter just a waste of time? With more and more people going online to compare products and services before deciding where to spend their time and money, the business that doesn't have at least a rudimentary online presence is turning potential customers away.

Current studies on Internet activity are delivering statistics like these:

• About 4 out of every 5 who have internet access use the web to conduct research on products and services they plan to purchase
• About 6 of every 10 businesses are certain they have gained customers by creating a company blog
• Getting customers to come to you is about 62% less expensive than using advertising and other methods of going to them
• 9 of 10 buying decisions today have been influenced by social interaction
• Consumers trust the opinion of others they know (even if they only know the person online) more than they trust advertisements and company literature

You want customers, both present and potential, to see your offer as favorable and to take action towards accepting it—you want them to buy from you. Much of the influence you have over others, though, is about how they perceive you and your company. They need to believe you know what you are doing, that you back up your products or services and that others have gained from their business dealings with you. To wait for the consumer to put all that together on their own may mean that you attract few customers. The savvy business lets their particular abilities be known to all and easy to discover.

And social media is an excellent way to do that.

What is social media?

The first step towards an online presence is usually a website. Most small businesses need only a rudimentary landing page—a spot where potential customers can find basic information about the company. The primary things people want to know is what you do, where you are, hours you are open for business and how to contact you. That’s it. Those things should be evident and easy to find.

Unfortunately, may companies fall victim to the mistaken idea that they need a flashy or pretty site. The show becomes more important than the message, and the site ends up costing much more than it should but performs much worse than it should.

Beyond the company website

Having a website is fine, and most businesses would do well to have one. Even at its best, though, a website is like a billboard along the information highway. It announces your presence and invites people to contact you to find out more.

Social media, on the other hand, is vibrant and interactive. These internet tools—things like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others—invite communication. And communication is good for you. It gets people talking about your business and recommending your skills to others. And that means more customers, appointments and orders. Social media messaging allows you to dialogue with those who have done business with you in the past and who may want to do business with you in the future.Used rightly, social media works.

How to get started

You probably already know someone who has the knowledge needed to get your company better engaged online. And don't think only young people know about social media, you may be surprised to discover many mature business leaders who have discovered the value of social media interaction and can help you put together a plan.

Don’t launch haphazardly, though. It is easy to start a free account online, but once you start broadcasting you are beginning to form the opinions of others about your business. You are “branding’ yourself. A smart first stop would be the local Small Business Development Center. Check the Small Business Administration website to find the office nearest you. They offer free and low-cost counseling to help grow businesses like yours. Their help can be invaluable.

There are three terribly important things you need to know before making your first post in social media:

1. How will social media help increase the profitability of my business? How will it affect the bottom line?
2. Who am I talking to? Who am I trying to reach via social media?
3. What do I want them to know, and how do I want them to react?

Like all business decisions, your social media plan should align itself with your company mission and strategy. Otherwise, it may hurt rather than help your business. Think about the big picture first—and how social media can help. Then get connected and get involved. You may be happily surprised at how many customers later tell you they found your business online.

Author: Lane Goodberry is a blogger who focuses on health and wellness topics.Read our guidelines to be a Guest Author at TechGau.Org. Image Credit.

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Useful Twitter Tips for Bloggers

Did you know that Twitter is a great medium for bringing in visitors to your blog? Despite Facebook’s apparent popularity, Twitter probably has the bulk of knowledge-seeking or blog-hopping people. Twitter reportedly directs 50% more readers to blogs than Facebook and is also at seventh place for being the best source of traffic.

So you’d definitely want to use Twitter to increase traffic to your blog, right? There are various ways to do so. Don’t worry if you aren’t familiar with Twitter, you will master several Twitter marketing tips by the end of this article. Even if you have been fiddling around with Twitter for some time, there might be something that you haven’t heard of, so read on:

1. Build relationships and a reputation
It is needless to say that you first need to have a Twitter account to start, but once you do, start networking with those within the same industry, post constructive tweets and build a reputation for yourself. Don't mention anything about your blog first in order not to appear that you created the Twitter account just to promote your website!

2. Build a following
Once you have established connections, start to focus on increasing the number of your followers. What you can do to get people to follow you is to first follow them, but be careful not to overdo this. If you follow much more than the number of followers you have, you can be seen as a spammer and your credibility all go down the drain.

3. Mention your blog, discreetly!
Only start linking back to your blog if you have achieved:

• more followers than following
• have more useful tweets than blog-promotions

Every now and then, in between your constructive tweets, you can link or mention your blog. This is when you slowly introduce your followers to your blog. As you would already have built a reputation and following, people are now more convinced to check your blog out.

4. Respond to tweets
Don't just post tweet after tweet without interacting with the other Twitter users, especially those who you are following and are keen for them to return the favor. If you find something interesting, let them know of your thoughts. Pay a compliment but make sure not to overdo it. If possible, try to keep a conversation going.

5. Re-tweet
Re-tweeting is to post a status that another user had already posted earlier. It is not stealing or copying but can be seen as a form of a compliment. It only means that the status was interesting enough that someone wants to share it. If you don't have anything to comment on a tweet, what you can do is to re-tweet it.

6. Inform your readers of your Twitter handle
Focus some effort on your blog too, by mentioning your Twitter handle where appropriate. This way, you will be able to capture your readers who arrive directly on your blog. These readers are now aware that you are on Twitter and then have the option to follow you if they wish to.

7. Tweet regularly
It doesn't make sense to do all the above but let your Twitter account remain idle. Constantly keep your account fresh with new posts (retweets do not count). There are several tools that can help you to manage your tweets; one of them is Hootsuite. With Hootsuite, you can set your tweets to be posted automatically at the times you’ve selected, on top of other features which make tweeting a breeze.

Promoting your blog need not be a difficult affair these days, thanks to the popularity of social networking websites, especially Twitter. If you simply put to use just one or two of the tips above, you can be assured that you will soon see your blog's hits improving. Happy tweeting!

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The Best 5 Facebook Social Network Alternatives

Social networks have become great phenomena and awesome ways to stay connected to people. In many ways, a social network like Facebook is a good place for marketing purpose to promote services and products.

Nonetheless, the internet has many other websites offering the same features with great numbers of active users as well. The good thing is that a user can create an account on each of many social network websites available to improve chances and possibilities for expanding business or simply to broaden friendship relations with millions of other users. Without any doubt, Facebook is outstandingly popular; this site is very well-designed with understandable layout, full of features, and easy-to-use options. The fact that Facebook is a great market to offer services and products is no longer questionable. However, Facebook is not the only place where users can create broad circle of friend and business relationships. In many cases, most people have at least one account on many different social network websites to boost the chances of gaining more profit for their businesses and more friends on the virtual world. Although the interface and features are different in some aspects, all social networks basically provide similar services. The following information contains best Facebook social networks alternatives to try.


Friendster

The social network has been around years before Facebook becomes popular. Friendster is a good place to make new friends or for dating purpose. Users are provided with ranges of options to customize profile, upload photos and videos, and more.


MySpace

The best thing from MySpace is the availability for bands to interact with fans. This special section is frequently used by bands to promote albums and concerts. Users can even download music to their profile pages. In most aspects, this website is similar to any other social network with customization features for profile page, photo and video upload, games, events, and blogs. YouTube and Hulu videos are as well available to watch.


Bebo

In United States, Bebo is not very popular. This social network website is brought by AOL and very famous in Uk. One good thing about Bebo is that users are allowed to customize modules in their profile pages with simple drag-and-drop procedure. Other things are all similar including comments, and photo or video upload.


Mezee

Different from many social networks, Mezee is advertisement free. Members can easily navigate through the features since all major categories are provided in the front page. Mezee also has online chat rooms, apps, and groups category.


Netlog

This website is a typical social network. Netlog is not popular in United States; however, it has millions of users in Europe. All features are greatly similar to Facebook such as profile page, photos and videos, and some basic networking activities. Netlog is advertisement free. When you have at least one account on each of the mentioned Facebook social network alternative, it can be difficult to keep track on all activities you are doing. FriendFeed brings great ways to see all updates and activities in one single website only.

Author: An Article Written by Ludwing.Read our guidelines to be a Guest Author at TechGau.Org

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How To Use Social Networks For Entertainment

The social networks have totally changed the way we use the time we are online. Indeed, the power of the internet cannot be underestimated for it has brought us several platforms that have changed our day to day life.

From eBooks, e-libraries and other forms of education to entertainment platforms and now the social network. It is worth noting that the creative brains behind the social networks we have today deserve nothing but several round of applause. There are quite a number of social networks but Facebook and Twitter standout as the biggest of all.
In fact, internet reports show that these two social networks command a huge following running into millions of people from all over the world. The social networks can be used for several purposes, but this article categorically outlines how to use social networks for entertainment.

1. Although YouTube has no interactive user interface that allows various people to exchange conversations, it is by far the biggest social site that is used for entertainment. YouTube allows people to post various videos after which they can share with millions of people all over the world. Putting into consideration that music is the most favorite form of entertainment for the youth worldwide, it is possible that a majority of YouTube's viewers comprise of the youth. However, the same site is used to air various news videos from media stations all over the world therefore there is a huge possibility that the older people also rely on YouTube for the latest news videos.

2. The revolutionary social networks, Facebook and twitter have as well presented various entertainment platforms. Just like YouTube, Facebook and twitter all people to post and watch various uploaded videos. Nevertheless, these two social networks have other dimensions of entertainment. They provide platforms in which different people sign up and join chat room sessions where they converse with relatives, friends and colleagues from around the globe. Although many may see this as a form of communication, a vast majority of the youth consider it a form of entertainment because the social networks allow them to chat with multiple people at the same time while making new friends and learning about other people's welfare.

3. Another popular way to use social networks for entertainment is by streaming live feeds. Nowadays, it is exceedingly rare to find an entertainment celebrity who has not signed up with either of these popular social networking sites. In fact, most people visit their particular pages to catch up with the latest news regarding them. Actually, a majority of these celebrities stream their concerts and shows into these social networks where their fans and supports simply log in and follow the live proceeding of the event just as if they were physically attending the show.

4. There are other different ways that various people use the social networks for entertainment depending on their tastes and preferences. With the dynamism of the social networks, various forms of entertainment are devised almost on a daily basis. Conclusively, it is necessary to the social networks positively as ways of entertainment.

Related Posts -

• Make The Most Of Google+
• Customer Service Via Twitter? 
• Bing Search Gets Facebook LinkedIn Integration

Author:This guest post by Ludwing Hernandez. Full-time web entrepreneur, Follow me @Mezeeme.Read our guidelines to be a Guest Author at TechGau.Org

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Make The Most Of Google+ : Make Money, Public Exposure

Many people might have already heard about this mega venture designed to walk into the social networking world, called Google Plus. This powerful tool has several unique options for making money online, which will be described in this article.

Initial version of Google Plus was launched in June 2011. At that time, it was available for a limited number of users. Later these users were authorized to send a limited number of invitations to the network in the course of beta-testing process before the website began its existence. Finally, the site became publicly available in September 2011, so everyone over 18 years old was welcome to join the community.

Basically, Google Plus assembled some of the Google’s existing options, like Google Profiles and Google Buzz. Google Plus was also the first community that integrated the idea of social or friend-based groups. Here the users have an option to add their contacts to a special group of friends as they wish. For example, it is possible to create a “work” or “family” group for placing there only Google Plus contacts associated with your colleagues or family members.  Once a group has been created, a user can publish information and make in visible or non-visible to a certain group or groups. This is what many competing social networks were lacking in the past. As for now, Google Plus is too new, and there are not so many clear ways of making money through Google if compared with Facebook or Twitter. However, you can start working on finding as many followers on your Google Plus Profile as you can right now.

It goes without saying that you can not create a Google Plus profile without having a Google account. So, consider creating a basic account with Google if you don’t have it yet.

Then visit https://plus.google.com/ and sign in with your current Goggle account.

- Make sure your first and last name are properly listed in the pop-up section and indicate your personal data, like gender, age, etc. You can also put a photo in your profile. In fact, having a photo is a must for Google Plus profile. However, if you skip this stage, you are still able to insert your photo later.

- Now hit the “join” button.

- Following the next page you will be invited to find other people to add to your contact list. According to your wish, Google will search your friend through Hotmail or Yahoo.

- After passing through all these formalities, you will be redirected to your profile page. Note that Google will also verify your other Google-based affiliations and search for your Google contacts. You will then be able to break them into groups.

Before you start making money using your Google Plus profile, you have to find a sufficient number of followers. Basically, your followers are your traffic and your audience, based on your Google friends and contacts making part of your community. As statistics show, an average Google Plus user is often older than a common Twitter or Facebook user. So, having about 30-40 business contacts would be ok. Another important thing to remember is that a mere fact that you added a contact to one of your groups doesn’t mean you follow it. And vise versa: being a member of someone’s group doesn’t mean it follows you.

In fact, making other people follow you is more difficult than to follow someone else. However, you should gain this object if you’d like to make money with Google Plus. Here are some tips:

- Try to follow as many people as you can and ask them to follow you back in return.

- Use your other social network pages, like Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and others to invite your fiends to follow you on Google Plus. Also put a link to your Google Plus profile page.

- Follow people with similar interests and profiles and ask them to do the same. As a rule, people who work in the same sphere or have similar hobbies will be glad to follow you back.

- Don’t forget to leave comments on other peoples’ posts. People will start following you more willingly if they see you are interested in their thoughts and opinions.

- Always tag other people in your posts or comments. There is an option to “tag” a person when you comment on his posts. When you do this, the person gets a special notification by email which may push him to become your follower.

Finally, your goal is to get public exposure. A true way to achieve it is to respectfully participate in as many conversations and discussions as you can, as this will keep your Google Plus profile attractive and visible to new followers and bring you much profit.

Author’s Bio: My name is Monica White. I work as a financial adviser in an advanced American firm that specializes on fast cash loans. Find more about how they may help you fight with financial difficulties. Read our guidelines to be a Guest Author at TechGau.Org

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LinkedIn Launches Windows Phone Application

LinkedIn, the "Business Social Network" recently launched new applications for Android and Apple devices, which it is following up with a new LinkedIn App for Windows Phones.The LinkedIn App for Windows Phones is rumored to have more functionality and features than the respective apps for Android an Apple.The new application is around 1MB and can be used on phones which are running on Windows 7.5 or above ( Like the Omina M).

The layout of the LinkedIn App for Windows Phones is inspired by the Windows layout on the phones, the app has live tiles and a Metro Style User Interface.The app is said to better equipped to give live updates of contacts and businesses as well as make an up-to date listing of all the available jobs etc.

Tomer Cohen, A mobile product manager at LinkedIn had this to say -

We know professionals rely on their mobile devices every day to conduct business and to stay prepared for their work day,We've been working hard to make this new LinkedIn app best-in-class in the Windows Phone marketplace.You'll find that in some cases (hint: companies and jobs), the Windows Phone app offers even more functionality than its iOS and Android siblings.

LinkedIn is one of the most popular social networks with over 150 Million users worldwide, they are looking to increase this number by releasing a series of apps for the latest generation of smart phone users. 

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Google+ Vs Facebook - Funny Pictures 2012

Here are a series of funny pictures with the central theme being Google+ Vs Facebook.I found most of these pictures amusing and at the same time informative as well.Lets get straight into them -

Here you can see a Plea from Mark Zuckerberg to Google+

Here you can see Google+ carrying the Facebook Coffin

Here Google+ has been depicted as the end point of Social Network Evolution 

Google+ Angry Birds destroying other Social Networks

Here we can see the Time taken by the Social Networks to reach 10 million users

Stay tuned for more funny Tech Pics.

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Facebook Connect Twitter Connect - What are they?

You would have noticed the terms "Facebook Connect" and "Twitter Connect" is many websites online.So what are these options and what happens when you connect to these Social Media websites through other websites?Does our Privacy get compromised?

"Facebook Connect" and "Twitter Connect" are easy ways with which you can join websites, use online applications and comment on different websites (techgau also uses Facebook Comments).There is no risk of your privacy being compromised either, so you can breathe easy while doing this.

Advantages of "Facebook Connect" and "Twitter Connect" -

• Easy Commenting
• Easy membership to sites without having to create a new account on that website.
• A wide variety of apps can be accessed through these options.
• Customize and increase your Social Networks with different websites.

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Viral Video - Everything About Digg! in 5 Minutes

Here is a very interesting video I found on YouTube which tells you the entire history of Digg! in less than 5 minutes.Digg! was the creation of Kevin Rose, which is one of the most popular Social News Breaking sites, which operates on basis of votes by the users, however Digg! has been losing its sheen since the turn of the new year due to near impossibility for new users to get featured on the homepage.

You may also like - 5 Days of Facebook.

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Google to Twitter: @ Symbol Won't be Indexed

Previously we had written a post about how Google+ had integrated with Search, in which we said that Google is trying to do this to reduce the popularity of Facebook and Twitter and increase the popularity of Google+.This is seemingly becoming more and more true as Twitter has come out with a public spat against Google+ and its unfair integration with Google Search.Well, Google is in no way obliged to not integrate them, it is just a moral case as they claim to give the most relevant search results.Twitter feels that with the integration of Search and Plus, Google is not giving the most relevant search results.

Alex Macgillivray tweeted an example of what Twitter have been claiming, When you search for the term @WWE in Google Search, you will get the Google+ Page of WWE ahead of the Twitter page of WWE.While a search of +WWE gives the proper result of Google+ Page before Twitter.If you look at the stats, the WWE page on twitter has almost 40 times more followers than the Google+ Page.This is Twitter's argument about the Google Search not returning the best and most relevant search results, at least regarding the integration of Google+.

Google retaliated by saying that Twitter uses no-follow links in its core and hence not much of twitter can be indexed.They also talked about Facebook and how Google is unable to index the core pages of Facebook due to the fact that these pages are private.Facebook has not made a comment on this issue and are probably trying to stay away from this spat.

Further Google has Declared that it has never indexed the @ sign on Twitter.

Twitter feels they have been hard done by the integration of Google Search and Plus, I too feel that this is a deliberate move to increase Google+ popularity, what do you think?Comment.

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