The Bulls Roar » Marketing

Why Does My Business Need A Facebook Page?

AnnieInfinite — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:07:18 +0000

: Image by luc legay via Flickr

Just this week I had a little idea and put it into action immediately, I created a Facebook Page to help my clients and other locals Buzz Up their businesses on Facebook and Twitter.

Now what has come out of this for me was the astonishing number of people who have created a personal profile in their business name!

When I did ask a few of them why, I recieved a number of answers including:

“I didn’t know how to make a page”
“I wanted to be able to comment as my page”
“It was just easier”
“What’s the difference?”

This post is for you! All of you who do now know how much you can get out of having a page on Facebook, most especially if you have a website!

Facebook ‘Like’ Pages or Fan Pages as they used to be called are Facebooks answer to business profiles and they are created to represent a business, an identity or brand. In fact they are the perfect answer to doing business on Facebook, as there are a number of hidden perks for your business and your website in having a Page.

Pages are indexed by search engines, yes your Facebook comments, links and posts will show up in the search engines as being a representative of your brand, business and website and also serve as high quality back links to your site.
You can have mutiple Pages, all linked by Favoriting each other and this creates a web of indexible links back to your site.
You can have unlimited fans for a Page, but only 5,000 friends.
The box provided under your profile image can be filled with keywords which will also be indexed by the search engines and this includes your site URL
The “Like’ factor is like a vote for your page, the more ‘Like’s’ the more votes, and the higher ranked your Page and your own website which is linked to your fan page will be. This is great SEO for your page and your site!
When other pages Favorite your page, this is like another vote for your page and your ranking goes up even further and a pic of your Page shows up on their Page under the term Favorite Pages!
You can get away with a lot more marketing from a Page than you can from a profile, in face Facebook can and does ban you if you’re are caught using a personal Profile for marketing, too often.
You are allowed to message all fans at once, whereas on a personal profile you are allowed at most 20 people at once, and if you message the same message more than twice in batches your account can be suspended.
You can create a Welcome Tab for your Page which can look just a like a mini version of your website, and can gather readers for your blog, or Optins for your material.
It looks much more professional for your business than a using a personal profile, and it looks like you know what you are doing!
You can send every post on your Page directly to Twitter automatically
There are loads of great apps created just for pages!

You cannot get any of this from a personal profile and if you tried you might find Facebook Admin breathing down your neck!

If you have a business on Facebook, please do yourself and your business a favour and get yourself a Page!

The Zen Bull

Websites and Marketing

More Meat, less potatoes!

Creating and Optimizing a Facebook Fan Page for Your Business (slideshare.net)
Dummies Guide to Creating Facebook Pages (labnol.org)
3 Reasons Facebook Trumps Twitter for Business (socialmediaexaminer.com)

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Business, Facebook, Facebook Page, Marketing, Twitter, Web search engine, Website

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Corporate Social Media Must Haves!

AnnieInfinite — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:21:43 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

After a conversation with one of my best clients yesterday, I was shocked to hear that some businesses and corporations still seem to think that social media is just a passing fad. Social Media is in fact taking the world by storm and proof of this is that some of the biggest corporations are not only taking it on they are excelling at it! Look at big brands like Coca Cola, Burger King, Ford, Dell and of course the meteoric success of Starbucks all using social media well.

There are of course some brands who are missing the mark big time and the reasons for this are many, with the main reason being that they are using an old mindset to use new tools.

Old mindsets that miss the mark are:

Social Media is just a passing trend: not with the numbers on social media steadily rising every day and more social media sites popping up weekly.
Social media is too time consuming: a social media strategy needs only to set one or two times a day to be on social media and choosing the right sites on which to put your profiles is a part of the strategy.
Social Media is viewed as just another advertising channel: social media is anything but this, in fact we must look at it in an entirely new light. Social Media for corporations needs to be put in its own more autonomous category altogether as part of a larger marketing strategy.
They think that it isn’t worth setting up a central strategy: Social Media is about having a global strategy and global audience, but this must be both created and monitored by the international head office of the corporation.
They aren’t trying to build communities: using your social media profiles as just another place to advertise, sending out link after link or sales pitch after sales pitch with no conversation is not what social media is about at all.
They don’t see the long term view: social media is exponetial and can grow very quickly, BUT it can take little while to generate the trust and respect needed to allow fans to connect with a big brand and this takes time!
They can’t track it properly so they don’t trust it: the metrics are there, but as old mindset marketers everywhere bewail – none of it is entirely definitive – this is people and trend driven and unless big brands are keeping up they will go down.

What Corporations who miss the mark are missing:

Social Media is SOCIAL: it’s about building relationships based on trust and respect for the person handling the profiles, this means one very important thing – you MUST have trust and respect for the person you have handling those profiles. Do they post in ways that authentically represent the brand? Do they have the integrity and sense of enthusiasm necessary to show passion for the brand? Are they incentivise to create a worldwide audience? Starbucks could not have done what they did with social media if they hadn’t had someone handling their social media who filled this criteria, who is handling your social media strategy?

If this was farmed out to young Sally because she understands Facebook and Twitter, you may want to rethink this. Social Media is a profession and it needs a professional to handle branding and dissemination of your marketing messages and brand awareness, if this is not possible it needs to be someone who is passionate about the brand and has the best interests of it at heart. Social media is fast becoming the ‘voice’ of the world, you not only need to know what they’re saying about you, you need to be listening and responding. Because it is the ‘voice of the world’ who is going to be deciding if your corporation makes it or not, yes social media is just that powerful. If you doubt this just take a look at what is happening with BP right now, or what happened with Nestle, Pampers and of course the makers of Mortrin.

Social Media Requires Transparancy: now this is a big one for many large corporations, the idea that the marketing message is going to be in the hands of ‘the people’, and worse that they may recieve negative comments on their social media profiles where everyone can see them. Here’s a hard fact – both of these things are happening anyway and with no listening ear or social media presence what can you do about it? Nothing! The lessons from Domino’s and other brand who were caught out on social media are profound, when you can hear and converse with your market, when you are in a relationship with them you can create enormous good will and word of mouth by admitting you were wrong and finding a way to settle any disagreements with style and flair!

Not only this, but this kind of transparency also helps to create brand advocates and even evangelists who see your brand as trustworthy, just because your brand was there on the spot admitting you were wrong and settling the dispute online right in front of the world. You can gain such amazing charisma from these small acts of kindness, proving that your brand is still listening to the little guy. This is your opportunity to take the BIG out of BIg brand and bring a warm and fuzzy feeling to your customers that will translate into bottom line win/win for all.

Social Media Means Sharing: Yes, we’re back talking about ‘warm and fuzzy’ things again. Sharing means listening, communicating and collaboration with your customers, which also means you will be right at the coal face and able to ask your customers what they want from your brand. Talk about the simplest way to ‘test’ the market, think of the opportunities to raise your brands worldwide profile! Starbucks have this down pat, asking their audience to ‘design’ the next coffee or the Technorati asking their audience to help them design their new logo. This kind of sharing means trust is a two way street and this builds even more trust, this kind of mutual trust and admiration can only translate in higher profits.

Social Media is About Being Authentic: Now this comes back to a point I made earlier in this post about who you trust to handle your social media branded profiles. Because social media requires an authentic mindset from everyone and I mean everyone, corporations need to have someone who understand who your brand is, what the brands vision and mission is. What personality your brand has, because your brand needs to be HUMAN! People want to do business with people, social media is to blame for this as it makes every brand more accessable. This is key! Only humans can be authentic, corporations cannot, the human you have as your voice on social media needs to be authentic and authentically representing your brand.

Social Media Requires Consistency: There is no set and forget in social media, someone needs to be online daily or at least very regularly, in fact the bigger your corporation the more often you will need to be there. This will mean you must have a strategy, a team of people who know what they’re doing and scheduling, goals and outcomes in place. Social media is constantly changing and growing and you will need someone in charge who is on top of what’s happening and what’s trending and what to do next. Someone who understands that social media is all about trickle feeding your social media profiles consistently, answering questions and complaints daily, praising and rewarding your brand advocates and evangelists and coming up with innovative and creative ways to engage your online audience.

Social Media for Corporations needs to be set up by someone who understands your brand and how best to use the different social media platforms for maximum effect, which ones will work for you and how to create initial and continuous engagement for your corporation. Corporations need to start now, social media is not a trend that will die out, in fact it is a steadily growing trend that sees no end to its exponential growth, look at Facebook now topping 500 Million users by mid-July – the world has found its voice and it is has no intention of losing it again.

Get ready for a whole new world or get left behind.

http://statistics.allfacebook.com/pages
http://mashable.com/2008/12/24/free-brand-monitoring-tools/

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Business, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter

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What Facebook’s new ‘Likes’ and ‘Interests’ Means for Marketers

AnnieInfinite — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 07:50:31 +0000

Unless your head is stuck in the sand you will have noticed that Facebook no longers allows you to ‘Fan’ a Page, but rather to ‘Like’ a page and while most people are trying to get their head around this new change and figure out what it means I can tell you one thing, it means that marketers are applauding.

Why, I hear you ask?

First of all go take another look at the ‘Info’ tab on your profile, if you’re like many FBer’s you hardly ever look at your own ‘Info’ tab, you will see that now all the information you filled out on that page concerning your interests both business and personal have been attached to new pages with their own Thumbnails, some of these thumbnails have no real pages – yet.

What this means for marketers is that you can now target your marketing according to all this new information which is being indexed and geo – tagged via Google!

Let me run that by you again – everything that you fill out on your Info tab is now not only indexable and targetable it is being used by Facebook to do just that! That’s why we do not ‘Fan’ pages any more, this is why we now like Pages – because we can now target those ‘likes and interests’ and market directly to the people who have clicked on them.

No longer are fans only targetable by their own pages, they are targetable via their own profiles and the ‘likes and interests’ that are catalogued on their profiles as well. Now every time you click you ‘LIKE’ something: e.g. a movie, book, music, a news story or an FB Page – this data is added to the general social search engine that is Facebook and this updates your permanent Facebook profile at the same time.

Now I want to make it clear Facebook does not expose your data to everyone – only to those people you’ve have given permission to as a friend will actually see your profile as always, but the collated data us now being used by Facebook Advertising to target marketing more specifically to those who have shown an interest via the ‘likes and interests’ including FB Pages on their profile.

This makes FaceBook Advertising rival Google and perhaps be even more influencial, FB are not relying on keywords but rather YOUR likes and interests, now that’s a step forward in the evolution of online marketing!!

For more information check out this Mashable post: http://mashable.com/2010/04/19/facebook-pages

and this one is a video from Mark Zuckerberg himself on Facebook Changes to expect: http://mashable.com/2010/04/21/zuckerberg-video/

Facebook’s New Ad Targeting Knows What You Read (hubspot.com)
Facebook Ads Will Use Your Web History (mashable.com)
What might Facebook’s new Link to Profiles and Pages mean for Bloggers? (socialmediatoday.com)

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Business, Facebook, Google, Marketing, Social network, Target market

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Do You Know These Social Media Personalities?

AnnieInfinite — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:40:29 +0000

When you play and work on Social Media for as long as I have, you realise that there are some social media types you come across regularly, now I could just tell you what to look for, but I thought I would have some fun with this and give you a little more insight at the same time by using dogs as my reference

So sit back and enjoy this post and gain some inights into the characteristics of some of the most prolific social media personality types:

The Puppy - the total newbie to social media, this personality type makes mistakes however they are endearing and learn from watching other more experienced personalities. When you meet a newbie it is a good idea to be a little patient with them until they learn the etiquette, when they make a mistake because they have been watching and modelling their comments on the ‘wrong’ type, guidance is the best option until they learn the ropes.
The Chihuahua - This personality type yaps often and yet seems to say very little, there is no substance, rhyme or reason for their tweets and posts they can be seen typing things like: “sitting watching tv and chillin’ with ma bro” or the classic “gotta go pee” Yapping all day long about nothing in particular trying to get noticed.
The Miniature Poodle - These posts can be classified as sickly sweet, this SM personality like quotes and fires them off one after the other in quick succession and has little or nothing to say at all other than “I just love my life” etc.. , again no real substance or conversation. This is the cream puff of the social media world again nothing of real substance however occasionally they post a quote worth reposting or retweeting.
The Doberman – now this SM personality is all business and no nonsence, they are there to advertise their product, service and brand and do not bother with any real world conversation. Their posts are characterised by no-nonsence marketing which is often sent out via autobot so they don’t have to bother replying or conversing at all. The all business character of the SM universe and often blocked by me even though I too market online.
The Mongrel – it is interesting what types are attracted to social media and this type loves to bad mouth others, cause trouble and gossip, they will find any user and treat them to a post denegrating their personality, looks, and posts in a rude and uncouth manner and are best blocked at your earliest conventience for good. Obviously have no other way to gain the fame they seek and have a bad attitude.
The Basset Hound - this type tells you every little thing about their lives, they are often looking for sympathy and they post pathetic comments and tweets hoping that you will be reeled into their lives in a way that you will feel you need to help them in some way. This creates the very attention that they crave. They love playing the victim and often ask for help in ways that are downright rude “I am so low at the moment the only way I feel better is when I write my story, I cannot type and so really need someone to buy me a voice recorder – this is the one I want LINK” (a real post I saw on my Facebook wall recently)
The German Shepherd - now this personality is worth knowing, although they are there for business they also understand the need to converse and be social on social media, they will openly edify other businesses and people and are up for a cross marketing opportunity or two. They often post items of interest from all over the web and are generally business-like and social at the same time.
The Golden Retreiver – This social media personality truly gets social media, they create relationships and friendships at the same time as cultivating their business and marketing relationships. They will openly post about their life while not becoming completely boring and are great at cross marketing with those they are ‘friends’ with, even their direct competition, understanding that competition is only an untapped market. Look for the Golden Retrievers they are focussed on creating great relationships and helping you to become successful as they understand that reciprocity is a key component of social media.

Have you got any Social Media personality types you would like to add to this list? Leave me a comment and tell me about them..

The Zen Bull

DISCLAIMER – I love dogs and at no time am I saying that any of the dog types mentioned in this post are unloveable or not worth having, this is just meant to be a bit of fun. At no time were any dogs harmed during the creation of this post.

8 Stages of Social Media Psychosis (philbaumann.com)

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Business, Facebook, Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, Social Media, Twitter

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Gary’s Social Media Counter Proof that SM is Huge!

AnnieInfinite — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 01:43:38 +0000

This is cool! If you do not believe that social media is changing the way we do business this very cool Social Media Counter will prove it to you. Just watch the numbers roll!!!!!!

Thanks to Gary from Personalize Media

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Branding, Business, Marketing, Social Media

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Are You a Purple Cow or a Plain Brown One?

AnnieInfinite — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:03:17 +0000

: Cover via Amazon

One of the most influencial marketers for me I have to say is Seth Godin, his approach to marketing is no-nonsense while still being quirky and that so totally appeals to me. His book “Purple Cow” if you haven’t already heard of it is a book I can highly recommend, and it certainly gave me insights into marketing I never got out of a text book.

This one book I credit with changing my whole philosophy of marketing and I believe listening to Seth Godin via his concise yet remarkable blog posts a must for anyone in the marketing industry no matter how big or small your organisation is.

Here’s an exceprt from his book, “Purple Cow’ and what it means to be the purple cow in your industry or niche:

“You’re either a Purple Cow or you’re not. You’re either remarkable or invisible. Make your choice.
What do Starbucks, JetBlue, Krispy Kreme, Apple, Dutch Boy and Hard Candy have that you don’t? How do they continue to confound critics and achieve spectacular growth, leaving behind former tried-and true brands to gasp their last?

Face it, the checklist of tired ‘P’s marketers have used for decades to get their product noticed – Pricing, Promotion, Publicity, to name a few-aren’t working anymore. There’s an exceptionally important ‘P’ that has to be added to the list. It’s Purple Cow.

Cows, after you’ve seen one, or two, or ten, are boring. A Purple Cow, though…now that would be something. Purple Cow describes something phenomenal, something counterintuitive and exciting and flat out unbelievable. Every day, consumers come face to face with a lot of boring stuff-a lot of brown cows-but you can bet they won’t forget a Purple Cow. And it’s not a marketing function that you can slap on to your product or service. Purple Cow is inherent. It’s built right in, or it’s not there. Period.”

Godin writes that you should review all your P’s (product, price, promotion, positioning, etc.) and figure out where your edges (advantages) are and where the competition is located and go where they’re not. Godin uses Jet Blue as an example of getting over the edge of service and pricing. This airline company delivers what none of the competitors possess and manages to make a profit doing it.

Marketers are farmers on the “purple cow farm.” In order to create a cow, a marketer must be involved in the entire process. Godin writes that marketing is the “act of reinventing the product, the effort of designing it, the craft of producing it, the art of pricing it, and the technique of selling it.”

The whole theory of being a purple cow is summed up in this phrase, “the act of building things worth noticing right into your product or service. . . . If what you’re offering isn’t remarkable, it’s invisible.”

Now ask yourself, what’s remarkable about your business? What’s remarkable about you? Those are the things to build on, not fitting in, not making everyone else comfortable with who you are or what you represent – be bold, stand out!

Don’t be a brown cow – get purple-ised!

Now tell me how you’re going to do that in a comment on this post – I would love to hear your purple cow story

The Zen Bull

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Business, Marketing, Online Marketing, Purple Cow, Seth Godin

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Branding You and Your Business Pt.2

AnnieInfinite — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 02:28:50 +0000

: Image by Nicola photographs……. via Flickr

Carrying on from Part 1, this list will grow in length and intensity according to priority. Be prepared to find some real gems in this list and some things that just might push a button or two.

11. Do good and Make a difference: create brand awareness for doing good in your niche, your community or globally. Host a community event, donate a part of every sale to charity, sponsor a scholarship, change the face of your niche by leading the way. You never know you could end up with television, newspaper headlines and more… plus the feeling of knowing that your organisation has made a difference.

12. Speak up: Get out into your community and speak to groups, associations and give valuable advice, become known for giving great advice not just speaking in generalisations or hinting at an expert tip as so many speakers do. Your company will gain respect as a trusted source of expertise – invaluable!

13. Be unforgettable: create a unique experience for your clients or customers. Do something so unexpected that your customers spread the word (in a good way). Throw in something for free, add in a free glass of champers somewhere unexpected – like when having your windscreen changed or serenade your customers as they wait for their oil change. Create that unforgettable experience and good will and your business name will be spread far and wide.

14. Allow your customers to market for you: Create opportunities for your clients/customers to be a part of your marketing, use video testimonials and let your customers tell the world why you are better than your competition. Play these in store, and on your website – nothing beats the power of genuinely happy customers.

15. Utilise the WOW factor: Push the boundaries (without offending your customers), surprise your customers, get them to think, “WOW that’s gutzy!” Again this uses the power of the unusual to keep your company’s brand on everyones’ lips.

16. Use competitions: give your customer the chance to compete in your arena. I once played a new Playstation game instore and ended up with the highest score of the day and won the game. Everyone else who played also bought the game, and most of the audience did too because of the enjoyment, the spirit of competition and the excitement creating just the right atmosphere that everyone wanted to take that new game home. How can you create the same marketing vibe through a competition in your business?

17. Ask what your customer needs or wants: the simplest way to find out what your customer needs or wants from you is – to ask them. Find out what causes them pain, what lights their candle and create a campaign or product that addresses these issues. Knowing your customer and responding to their needs is vital for establishing a rapport with them that will create a loyal customer base. That way even if your prices go up, your customers will stay and pay just to know that their needs will be met.

18. Add spiritual element to your marketing: Set your organisation apart from the rest by showing your company as caring, heart centred, trustworthy and conscious.

19. Don’t sell!: People never buy products they buy relationships, let people get to know you before pitching to them. Offer your business as a recommendation in response to something in the conversation rather than pitching it up front. In face if you are really game, you can avoid talking about your business altogether until they ask and even then say little and ask instead how you can help your new aquaintence to build their business. Your rep will grow amazingly and everyone will want to do business with you.

20. Be the brand: let you as an individual stand as the brand of your business. When you allow your real authentic self to represent your company, your company never has to hard sell itself. You will never need to advertise, merely market as an aside to standing in your truth and allowing the passion you have for what you do spill over into everything you do and everyone you meet.

Let me know if you can add to this list by commenting below, I would love for these posts to become a real resource for everyone who has ever had a question about branding.

Brand Booster 21 Day 19: Get Out There & Nuture Your Brand (smallbusinessbranding.com)

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Advertising and Marketing, Brand, Business, Competition, Customer base, Marketing, Website

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Branding You and Your Business – Get Noticed! Pt.1

AnnieInfinite — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:25:52 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

As we all know branding is very important in business, however your brand is not just your logo or company name, it is who you are percieved to be on and offline.

It is the sum total of your identity your company’s identity and your own, you cannot have one without the other. Do you know how your company is percieved? What about yourself, do you know how you are percieved by your clients and customers?

If not find out and if you are not completely happy about your ‘branding’ take steps to change it to one you do want your company and yourself percieved as. This may mean making more effort to figure out exactly what your intended company and personal profile is, what you would like people to be saying about you and your company.

Once you have done that you will be able to use some of this list to -GET NOTICED!

1. Be Unique! – Decide what your company’s USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is. What is it about your business that differentiates it from all the other businesses in your field? If you haven’t got that figured out you have no basis to begin branding yourself. I have seen some very strange branding in my time (e.g. “The Go Getting Granny”, “The Lazy Entrepreneur”) but even strange branding is better than no branding!
2. Be Yourself! – Please stay yourself, be real, be authentically you in all that you do. Be honest and ethical at all times. Creating trust in you and your brand is more than half the battle when it comes to marketing, if people don’t trust you they will not recommend you and word of mouth marketing is marketings holy grail. Please don’t brand yourself as unethical, dishonest and therefore untrustworthy.
3. Support Your Customers! – A great man once said, “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” -(Zig Ziglar ) You can do this by supporting your customers business, cross marketing with your customers and investing in your customers success. Look for win/win outcomes in your dealings with them.
4. Create a Value Niche! – Get together with others and brain storm ways in which you can create a unique value add to your product or service. Make it something you know everybody needs or wants, find a way to add such value to your selling proposition that it is impossible to say no.
5. Be your Company’s Best Asset! – Do whatever it takes to be your company’s best asset, educate yourself, be outgoing, make sure you connect with your customers personally in some way. Doing this means that your customers feel important to you, get out and do your own presentations, answer questions on social media, be available in some way to your customers. One of the best examples of this is Richard Branson who makes it his mission to shake hands for 20 mintues or so at each of his airports every year and holds parties annually in each major city for members of his airlines frequent flyer clubs.
6. Know what you customers want and need and then give it to them! - Do this whether you have the product or service they need or not. If you cannot personally provide the product or service make sure you and your company become a resource for your customers by forging alliances with firms all around your niche and recommending them and they you, this will pay off in spades!
7. Put the extra in Extraordinary! – Offer a package of products or services out of those that are often purchased together. If needed JV with another company to offer something outstanding that is offered nowhere else. Make your company the most convenient option.
8. Become a Movement! – Turn your company into a movement rather than just another business. We brand ourselves as ‘The Authentreprenuers Resource’ a place where you can educate yourself on authentic marketing and business strategies and ethical hosting and website design. Our mission is to change the face of online marketing and create a new paradigm where authenticity is the new norm and hype a thing of the past We attract everyone who wants authenticity as their bottom line vision for their businesses therefore we are a business that is a movement.
9. Be the Guarantee! – simple and totally effective. You and your company guarantees your guarantee! When you make a promise you and all of your employees do what you said you were going to do and do it when they say they were going to do it.
10. Anticipate your customers needs and wants! – Know what the upcoming trends are and offer them before anyone else. Know what products or services are most often needed together and offer those as a package, know when your clients or customers might need to update, renew or reschedule the product or service and send them a reminder.

Part 1 – part 2 coming soon!

How To Develop a Unique Selling Proposition (digitalprintink.wordpress.com)
Four reasons why new websites flop (woorkup.com)

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Advertising and Marketing, Business, Internet marketing, Marketing, Richard Branson, Unique Selling Proposition, Website, Word of mouth

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How to Get Yourself Banned from Facebook

AnnieInfinite — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:09:50 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

Facebook regularly bans users for all sorts of reasons, the main ones are spamming or lying – so take care that you don’t.

I educate people via workshops, presentations, blogging and online webucation about social marketing and one thing I can be heard to say every time I talk about social media sites is this: Be authentic, be real and be seen to be a real person not just a business! Social sites are social and are meant to be about conversations and relationships – marketing has to be secondary to this.

Building and branding yourself, yes you, as a trusted expert is far more important than advertising your business in ways that will not only get you banned, but ignored and blocked by other users.

Here is a list of the ways you can get yourself banned from FB:

Don’t use your real name (or at least a name that you are known by all over the web): of course I was not born Annie Infinite however it is the name I use all over the web and it is on my business cards and I am known as Annie Infinite off and online. I had a great experience with FB over this as someone convinced me to try going back to my unused married name and I did and immediately regretted it. I told FB the story and they were kind enough to reinstate my real name of Annie Infinite for me after some checking on the web (they googled me), this kindness has endeared the FB team to me forever.

Friend too many people: yes you can have 5000 friends but please don’t try to get them all at once. Be discerning and make real friends, real connections with people just as you would in real life.

Post too many messages on your wall: this is even more important if you are marketing you can be banned for “excessive evangelism.”

Join too many groups: this can look awefully suspicious and even more so if you are posting lots of messages or links to your sites, or fan pages on the group walls.

You use the same message too many times: I know someone personally who thought they could get away with spamming via private messages they sent the same message out to their whole friend base in groups of 20 people (you are only allowed to message 20 friends at once). She was banned within 15 minutes!

Set your dog, cat or business up with a personal profile: you must be human – animals and businesses cannot have a personal profile, yes you might get away with it for a while, but you will be found and you will be banned. The FB algorithms are getting better every day..

You are too young: if Fb find out that you are under 18, either via your information, your actions or your language – banned!

Write offensive material: this is terminal almost instantly! No second chances.

Steal information off FB: again instantly terminal! pulling content via script, stealing content and reusing it elsewhere (unless you are the author), they will find you.

Spam people: with your app, your links, your business page, via poking, message etc…: basically excessive use of any of these will result in being banned.

As I always advocate, be real, be a person your marketing will come from being a trusted source of information, a real caring person, and truthful!

The Zen Bull

Advantage of Facebook marketing (va4growth.com)

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Advertising, Blog, Business, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Spam

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14 Benefits of Affliliate Marketing

AnnieInfinite — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 01:58:21 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

Lots of people have heard of affliate marketing, many people are making a living this way, but do you know why you should signing up as an affiliate? I thought a list of the benefits might help you make up your mind that this business which can eventually earn you a living even in these so-called ‘tough times’ could be worth an hour a day of your time.

Yes, that’s right, as little as an hour a day.

1. You do not have to come up with or develop a product yourself – for those of you who have no product, or find it difficult to come up with something you could market of your own this is the perfect compromise, find a product you are passionate about, it can be anything at all as long as you love it and market it and earn commission on every sale! This being said, please make sure that your commission is worth it, don’t settle for a measly 1 to 5%, you could and should be earning more than that.

2. There are no geographic limitations – affiliate products are usually able to be sold in any country in the world that accepts PayPal or other payments systems used by the owner of the affiliate program. I personally like my money to come in regularly through Paypal as it guarantees the safety of your information online and you are not waiting for checks to ‘come in the mail.’

3. Low or No cost set up – with social media of all sorts you can now (as long as you know what you’re doing and don’t get banned) market basically for free all over the internet. If you do get an authority site to use as a hub for your affiliate deals, you can usually go for one that is in the basic range as all your shopping cart etc.. are handled by the Affiliate sites themselves.

4. You can market pretty much ANYTHING – Some very big names including Dell, Sony and even Kmart have affiliates and smaller sites and products can create an amazing income for you. The Zen Bull is taking affiliates who wish to market our Content Management Software right now.

5. No sales or marketing experienc is required – although it is a great idea to get a handle on internet marketing, especially using social media. Often some of this education will be provided by the very companies you are affiliated with.

6. You are your own boss – now doesn’t that sound good! You get to decide how much time you wish to spend and how often you work. Of course the more you learn about affiliate and internet marketing themore streamlined and less time consuming your job as an affiliate becomes. So put some time into your education.

7. No stock or inventory to keep – Have you ever had to keep stock on hand for your business? You garage becomes filled and you have nowhere to keep your car, you have to package it up and send it or deliver it yourself – Bah! With affiliate marketing you never have to keep stock again!

8. No admin or processing – you do not have to worry about admin duties, no invoices, no order reciepts – all you do is allow the money to pile up in your Paypal account and download it into your bank account every now and then – too easy!

9. No customer service – yes that’s right, you do not handle any of the customer service issues that can take massive amounts of time and energy from your real task of marketing and sales. No need to handle difficult customers or customer complaints.

10. Money while you sleep – well that works for me, how about you? If you do your marketing right, your sites will earn money while you sleep as they are open 24 hours a day 7 days a week whether you are there or not.

11. Travel and make money at the same time – Yes you can work online anywhere there is an internet connection and even if you are not online every single day your site is. What more could you ask?

12. Little or no risk – No long term contracts, no back lash and if you don’t make money from this company or product there has been little or no outlay – so take it down and try another one. Yes, it really is that easy.

13. Potential for massive income – if you pick the right product in the right niche for you, one that you can be a passionate advocate for, with a great company the potential for rapid and massive income is not only possible is it probable. Your income is only limited by your passion, effort, determination and imagination. I don’t know about you, but I can imagine pretty big!

14. Most of the marketing is already done for you – you don’t have to come up with slogans, logo’s, banners, adverts etc.. they are all given to you along with your affiliate link when you sign up, and often there is a free site thrown in as well. All you have to do is tell people about it.

Why not begin your affiliate business today, and sign up here for our affiliate program we will be adding more products to the list as we grow so get in now.

The Zen Bull

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Affiliate Marketing, Business, Marketing, Paypal, Webmaster Resources

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