Sunday, January 31, 2010

adsense strategies!

adsense strategy!

If you know how to use Google Adsense correctly

you can really make a killing and steady streaming residual income.

Google Adsense has been proven for many who are looking to make money online.

Google Adsense works like this: Google Adsense lets you place ads on your website.

Every time a visitor clicks on an ad, you make money!

Simple huh?

Well it may sound simple, but if you don't know what your are doing, you won't make squat!

If you've ever tried profiting from Google Adsense before, you know it takes more than just setting up a website to start seeing any cash.

Google Adsense can be very profitable if you know what you're doing.

The mistake that many make when using adsense is, they don't make a content site. They just put them on their regular site.

If you don't have a content enriched site, chances are your ads won't get clicked on. And another thing is you need traffic and without content you won't get traffic!

OK, but having 400 to 500 users per day how much you going to earn from Google adsense?

Let’s put some figures into the above equation and see what the income is. The figures below are for a single day:

Click through Value a 30 cents or $0.30 (The advertiser pays 30 cents per click for the Ad, to Google)

Payout Rate a 50% or 0.5 (This is an assumption based on what many experts believe to be the current payout rate for most deals)

Click through rate of the Ad a the ad is displayed 100 times within the day and clicked by 9 people a the click through rate would be 0.09

Webpage traffic a 150 visitors during the days

Frequency of Ad a 100

The Income per day from a single ad would be = 0.30 * 0.5 * 0.09 * 150 * 100
= $202.5

If you consider this to be the average income per day, the total revenue generated within a month would be more than $6000. This is incredible, considering you basically did nothing to earn that money. We know of cases where people have earned even more than $25,000 a month with AdSense, which is a large sum to anyone.

The point about content and its relation to having success while using Google AdSense is absolutely right because websites with no or limited content pages would not even get many visitors and instead, the information rich sites can have many daily clicks on their ads displayed.

Google Adsense can help you earn a lot of money on a regular basis if you have some real traffic on your website

what do you mean by some real traffic ? how to get this kind of traffic to your blog because its too hard to keep so many contents on your blog and the exposure to them is not a easy task

If you learn how to use Google adsense and harness its power, it can work wonders!

Sometimes people can't arrange the ads in the right manner, and ended up annoying the visitors who wants to read the content. I think everyone should learn to do it properly.

First get real traffic to the website or blog. How can we know website got real traffic?

Real traffic can be generated with the contents. If you have good contents and the tags i mean keywords you used for the post of article video bla bla and your posting to the online directories like blog catalogue and digg stumble upon and many more i really likes digg.com because it really works I'm not satisfied with others and yeah post you blog and website to the search engines like Google, yahoo, and msn so that the people can search your blog :)

Fact number 1: Kids in high school are making thousands of dollars every month with Adsense.

Fact number 2: Housewives, retirees, mom and dads, who are just staying at home and have never made a dime on the internet have created full-time incomes by simply placing Adsense ads on their web site or blog.

These are just some of the “super Adsense earners”. You may have already heard about their story for they are among the few who are on their way to making millions worth of cash just by promoting Adsense sites.

Anyone, any age and gender can become money generating Adsense publishers as long as they have what it takes. How does one go about this Internet advertising?

Writing articles for Adsense is the way to do it. Using the right keywords in your articles and having Google ads on a certain site has become the most profitable way of marketing that anybody can get into. No experience and level of education needed. If you are not using this strategy, or may not be aware of it in the first place, chances are you may be losing thousands of dollars worth of extra income and still do not know it yet.

This is one of the many reasons why writing original quality content articles is now the latest in marketing buzz. Content and links. When combined together becomes a really powerful tool to a successful web site and richer individuals. Many internet marketing professionals are already aware of the value of an original quality content and how using keywords can drive targeted traffic into their sites from the search engines.

So why don’t all these web site owners write and submit their own articles if that is what is important?

The simple and understandable answer is that it takes time to write articles, submit them and get targeted traffic to their websites. That is why they get the services of those who can spares sometime to write the articles that would cater to their site purpose but still turn out as a good quality and unique piece of work.

To get into the Adsense marketing business and start earning some good cash, ask yourself. Did you enjoy writing when you were in school? If you answer yes to this question, you already have an initial advantage over most internet marketing business owners that wants to make money online and doing it at home.

With the boom in the Adsense market comes the need for sites to want fresh, quality and original keyword rich content. This way, web site owners can have a steady supply of articles with the proper keywords that they relate to their site contents. The result of this is seen in the sites page rank when indexed by the search engines. Which, in turn, gets more Adsense ads to show above, below or next to the article on their website with targeted traffic.

What do people have to do?

Write quality and original content, keyword or phrase rich articles with links to your website in the resource box. Then build a website or web page with targeted keyword or phrase rich original content for the targeted traffic that originates from the articles you wrote. Finally, you will have a Google Adsense ads that are targeted to your keyword or phrase rich original content site where visitors will get to visit when they come looking for information.

A win-win situation if you think more about it. A favor for persons looking for quality content and information. For the persons writing the original content articles. And the person with the quality original content rich website. Of course, the search engines and its advertisers are getting targeted traffic and sales but so what? As long as you are getting something in your favor, it does not really matter what the others are getting for themselves.

So who else wants to start earning money with Adsense. You. Everyone. Anybody. Internet marketing has many opportunities wide open for this people. Writing articles and using Adsense for your kind of internet marketing strategy is one sure way of getting a piece of that action and cash.

Better not be left behind. Many are making millions already!

Adsense is a very powerful way to earn but if you have some experience to get to a level so that you understand what exactly it needs to up your income.

Google adsense only works when you have a lot of visitors per day.

if you have a lot of visitors and you have some skill to use adsense then

You can get much revenue from adsense.
To make money with adsense It seems that you need a good keyword for your site that delivers lots of traffic. Is there any site that teaches how to make money with adsense?

5 Ways To Improve Your Adsense Earnings!

If webmasters want to monetize their websites, a great way to do it is through Adsense. There are lots of webmasters struggling hard to earn some good money a day through their sites. But then some of the “geniuses” of them are enjoying hundreds of dollars a day from Adsense ads on their websites. What makes these webmasters different from the other kind is that they are different and they think out of the box.

The ones who have been there and done it have quite some useful tips to help those who would want to venture into this field. Some of these tips have boosted quite a lot of earnings in the past and is continuously doing so.

Here are some 5 proven ways on how best to improve your Adsense earnings.

1. Concentrating on one format of Adsense ad. The one format that worked well for the majority is the Large Rectangle (336X280). This same format have the tendency to result in higher CTR, or the click-through rates. Why choose this format out of the many you can use? Basically because the ads will look like normal web links, and people, being used to clicking on them, click these types of links. They may or may not know they are clicking on your Adsense but as long as there are clicks, then it will all be for your advantage.

2. Create a custom palette for your ads. Choose a color that will go well with the background of your site. If your site has a white background, try to use white as the color of your ad border and background. The idea to patterning the colors is to make the Adsense look like it is part of the web pages. Again, This will result to more clicks from people visiting your site.

3. Remove the Adsense from the bottom pages of your site and put them at the top. Do not try to hide your Adsense. Put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between Adsense locations can make when you see your earnings.

4. Maintain links to relevant websites. If you think some sites are better off than the others, put your ads there and try to maintain and manage them. If there is already lots of Adsense put into that certain site, put yours on top of all of them. That way visitor will see your ads first upon browsing into that site.

5. Try to automate the insertion of your Adsense code into the webpage using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your Adsense code in a text file, save it as “adsense text”, and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then using SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website.

These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. It is important to know though that ads are displayed because it fits the interest of the people viewing them. So focusing on a specific topic should be your primary purpose because the displays will be especially targeted on a topic that persons will be viewing already.

Note also that there are many other Adsense sharing the same topic as you. It is best to think of making a good ad that will be somewhat different and unique than the ones already done. Every click through that visitors make is a point for you so make every click count by making your Adsense something that people will definitely click on.

Tips given by those who have boosted their earnings are just guidelines they want to share with others. If they have somehow worked wonders to some, maybe it can work wonders for you too. Try them out into your ads and see the result it will bring.

If others have done it, there is nothing wrong trying it out for yourself.

Google adsense is good for making money but the thing is that they have so many strict policies, even minor mistakes can get your account banned.

One of the most important points regarding the placement of the AdSense units is where they have been placed and in which format. For example, on websites with 728x90 ads running at the top and having loads of useful contents many clicks could be anticipated.

There's a lot of other PPC sites besides Google Adsense/Words.

As far as I know, in today's world there is no one better than Google adsense i have tried adbrite and webbucks and many more but Google adsense really works if you have nice contents and nice traffic as well.

I have great success with contextual ads particularly with 250*250 and 336*280 Ad formats

For the last couple of months, Google Adsense has dominated forums, discussions and newsletters all over the Internet. Already, there are tales of fabulous riches to be made and millions made by those who are just working from home. It seems that Google Adsense has already dominated the internet marketing business and is now considered the easiest way to making money online.

The key to success with Adsense is the placing of ads on pages that are receiving high traffic for high demand keywords. The higher the cost-per-click to the advertiser, the more you will receive per click from your site. Obviously, it does not pay to target low cost-per-click keywords and place them on pages that do not receive hits.

With all the people getting online and clicking away everyday, it is no wonder why Google Adsense has become an instant hit.

For some who are just new to this market, it would be a blow to their pride knowing that their homepage is buried somewhere in the little ads promoting other people’s services. But then, when they get the idea that they are actually earning more money that way, all doubts and skepticism is laid to rest.

There are two major, and clever, factors that some successful webmaster and publishers are learning to blend together in order to make money easier using Adsense.

1. Targeting high traffic pages on your website. If you check on your logs, you will discover that many of your visitors are taking advantage of the free affiliate marketing resources and eBooks that you are offering on your site. In simple words, your ads are working effectively and are generating more clicks. It also means more money for you.

2. Placing Adsense links on pages that are producing little, or better yet, no profit. By placing Adsense on a free resources page, you will reduce the amount of potential customers being lost to other sites. Tricky, but effective nonetheless.

When learning to work effectively, these two factors are actually a good source of producing a minimal amount of revenue from a high traffic page. Many people are using this strategy to pick up some extra cash with Adsense. This is also especially rewarding to informational sites that focus their efforts on delivering powerful affiliate link free content to their visitors. Now they can gain a monetary return on their services.

With the many techniques that people are now learning on how to make the easiest money by their Adsense, it is not surprising that Google is trying everything to update and polish their Adsense in order to maintain their good image.

The possibility of adding is 2nd tier in Adsense is not impossible. With all the people spending more time in their Adsense now and still more getting into this line of marketing, there is no doubt about the many new improvements yet to be made. Imagine the smiles on the faces of the webmasters and publishers all around the world if ever they sign up for sub-affiliates and double or even triple the amount that they are already earning.

The one particularly handy money-making feature that is available with Adsense now is the ability to filter out up to 200 urls. These gives webmasters the option to block out low value offers from their pages as well as competitors to their websites. Talk about taking only those that are advantageous and discarding the ones that seem “useless”.

With Google Adsense, the possibilities are limitless. Yet there is also the possibility of someone taking advantage of the easy money process that this internet marketing is doing. If you think more about it, these negative factors may force Google to break down and thrash Adsense in the process. If that happens, people would have to go back to the old ways of internet marketing that does not make money online as easy as Adsense.

For now, however, Google Adsense is here to stay. As long as there are people wanting to earn some easy cash online just using their talents, the future ahead is looking good. Besides with all the strict guidelines that Google is enforcing over Adsense, it will take awhile for the Adsense privileges to be spammed and even terminated.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

defending my online business…grr!

my defense

Has the reputation of online home based business become so bad that it
has come to this? I really do not believe so, even though there are many problems and concerns that we all are facing as we run an online business.
I do think that this was an isolated incident. Although people are somewhat
skeptical about home based business, work from home, and make-money online programs, I do

not think that it has turned to extreme panic and distrust. However, we do have to
be aware that there are a lot of scams and schemes in cyberspace that do give the
good ones a bad name. This is actually a shame, because many good businesses are now having to defend their good name because of the unethical practices that many online businesses have.

I am hoping that in time, there will be more policing of these scams, schemes, and
internet robbery. I do hope that it does not have to get worse before it gets
better.

The honest ones who run their businesses will just have to be patient and improve our status online although frustrating at times but as you feel on your good days it's worth it.

As the internet is ever changing we know that the scam artist and the fly by nighters aren't going anywhere so we have to work harder on building relationships where people trust the serious marketers.

Let me give you an example of a bad one. New startup, this marketer is promoting like crazy. He introduces me to it. I politely tell him the things that doesn't make it legitimate. I try to contact the owners but he insists that it's a good program. The program never gets up and running so who loses, The honest promoters of legitimate programs.

I think that a lot of times our defense of our home based business happens
because of all of the scams that are abound on the internet. The problem
is that many of these scams look good and are advertised with beautiful web
sites complete with fabulous sound and graphics. Another problem is that
these big gurus are promoting these scams because of their strong advertising dollars and resources!

I think in a sense that you are correct but don't just blame it on the gurus because today anybody can proclaim they are a guru just by association.

Often I see how much this industry is hurt by the scammers (hit and runners) and the so called marketers who just sign up to a community to try and promote their product or service but don't have any input in the community. When people who do participate start communicating and talking the truth they up and go somewhere else.

Have you noticed the people who look for help but they want a quick fix or want someone else to do the work for them? They don't realize that they can be successful if they would put some time and effort into it. They don't realize how long it really takes if they don't have the right leadership and tools and it shouldn't cost them an arm and leg.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

nah…seriously??

is it possible to earn more than 5k a month?

Oh yes you can! Anyone can really..
The trouble is no one is willing to teach anybody else how.

It's like you have a secret formula to make millions but if you shared it with people you would'nt make as much more anymore. So clearly when someone finds the formula to make thousands online they are not just gonna give it away. I make about $100-200 a month using 2 sites.

The main way I make money without paying anything is by articles promoting affiliate products. You have to be a good writer. Anything is possible, but it will not happen overnight. Making money online takes lots of hard work and time.

It depends on what type of program you choose to become involved with, but generally speaking, it is very possible to make 6k per month on the Internet doing anything as long as you put in a lot of time and effort, and maybe even some money to get it off the ground. You could make much more than that if you got involved with a good program, but no matter what way you want to go about it you are in the right place to learn how to make money online.

It is more than possible but to build an stable monthly residual income it can take few years.

You will also need to read a lot and stick to one or two companies only.

You will need to learn advertising skills and work A lot.
I suggest, Affiliate Marketing or MLM both are very stable but MLM is better for monthly residual income, Affiliate Marketing is more for Retail Sales. BE CAREFUL with some MLM companies. Some of them give the legit ones a bad name.

Yes, it is possible. I know some guys who earned more than this. All it takes is some effort and commitment to the work.

Capital YES to your question. Before you begin to reap $$$ you must have done a lot of hard work. Making money online is not as easy as a lot of people paint it but there are big rewards for working hard and will generate a lot of $$$.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

this is why you’re not!

reasons for submitting articles!

1) You want to build credibility and by submitting
articles,

you will eventually be known as an expert in your topic.

This will enable you to compete with your competition.

2) Many publishers often pick up works from other authors to

use on their homepage as content. It they do this and use

your resource box it will give you additional exposure.

3) You’ll be able to brand your website and yourself by

submitting articles to e-zines. You should always include

your name, business name, your credentials, Web site

address and email address in your resource box.

4) Many of the e-zine sites are free to advertise in the

sites.

5) Some times e-zine publishers archive their files. If they

do then when visitors revisit those articles, you will

continue to get exposure for years to come

6) You might be able make money writing articles or books

for others if people like your work.

7) You could allow e-zine publishers to publish your

articles in their free e-books.

These are all good methods but the problem is it takes too

long to submit articles to 20 e-zine sites and hundreds of

other publishers.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

ebay isn’t what it used to be…

is ebay still profitable?

Selling products on eBay, your own website or other auction sites used to be one of the best ways to make money online, however things have changed in the past few years. It seems foreign scammers have quite a solid grip on the market, and they're quick to con inexperienced sellers into sending high priced electronics and other in demand products to Nigeria and Indonesia, never to be seen again.

Their cons have gone from sending phishing emails, to convincing unsuspecting sellers with a sob story and how they need a high priced camera or laptop shipped by super ultra extra fast express mail to some hole in the wall, in Africa, to sending almost exact replicas of payment processor emails convincing people that they have paid for a product when, in fact, they haven't.

We would like to get a thread going about this issue, what do you think auction sites like eBay should do about the scammer problem? Do you think scammers can truly ruin the online buying & selling experience?

That's why you don't send products out without being paid first, always have the money in your acct before sending anything!

Many individuals nowadays prefer to have a home-based business rather than working at a job eight hours each day in the office or somewhere else where you have no control over your own working life. Some people are also into franchising and this may sound good but if you want to become a successful entrepreneur, then it is better if you don’t have to focus entirely on franchising. You should consider other business ideas that you can venture into.

Yes franchising is becoming more & more popular, especially with businesses which have plowed through the recession.

Selling products online, you need to find a reliable supplier first. The supplier must be capable of serving you the right products. If you choose the right products, you are sure to make money! Just do it!

A reliable supplier is key, unless you're into affiliate marketing :)

I think the rating system is good. If you deal with someone with lots of good ratings you know he will most likely not scam you. I have been buying and selling on ebay and never have been scammed so I don't think this problem is that bad.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

blogging for a living?

is blogging the answer?

To generate money online of course we need a tool to realize it. One absolute tool that we need is a website. Many people interested in making business online but many of them don't have a website. As a substitution to websites we use blogs to build our own website because most of blog services are free.

The question is how powerful can blogging be? Can it generate income?

As an example, I have 3 websites and 3 blogs.
Adsense earnings - my blogs generate more revenues than my websites.
Affiliate earnings - my websites generate more revenues than my blogs.

Conclusion : my websites generate more income for me although the adsense income from my blogs are not too far behind.

The best thing you can do is to work parallel simultaneously. Referral systems are good to a certain extent but depending on your blog's traffic it may generate some revenue. Don't expect miracles though.

I'd build up at least 20 articles (short, to the point) and only than publish it. There's too many ads on a single page which makes it a bit clogged. Perhaps you should focus on getting the content first, traffic will follow and after that getting more ads. Otherwise, people will be put off a bit. Hope it helps.

affiliate marketing the answer?

is affiliate marketing the answer to making money online?

ADVERTISING! Advertising is the only thing you need to do to get RICH through affiliate programs. With HUGE traffic flowing to your site everyday, chances of a visitor or ‘potential customer’ will buy your product is definitely higher! Likewise for signing up of downline for MLM (or Internet Marketing which sounds nicer)

Research had been made and it shows that normal affiliates tend to make a sale with a percentage ratio of 0.5% – 1% (Sometime lower, depending on the products/service sold) to visitor. With appropriate advertising method + correct niche market, it is possible to increase the ratio to 5% - 10%. So what actually is advertising? What should you do (advertise)? And where should you place your advertisement to promote your product/service/site?

Online advertising, also known as internet marketing, is a form of communication to inform potential customer about your products and services, either by text base or graphic base. Many of you already know what advertisement is, but they often lack of 2 essential element. Without the 2 elements, putting your advertisement blindly in the internet/website is just a waste of time, as well as money.

First, you need to target your niche market. You must know very well where are the most potential customer located at in the internet. Research has also proven that placing advertisement in the right market with lesser traffic flow EARNS more profit than those who advertise in a site where millions of traffic flows in everyday. Secondly, you need marketing strategies. There are so many types of advertising, which one works the best? Which method cost the least but with the same effect? And also the secrets or legendary of internet market

Below are a few lists of most popular advertising methods and the after effects:

PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
This type of advertising should be your top list of market strategies. There are basically 2 major companies in the PPC industries, Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing. How does it works? You would ask. PPC is one of the advertising methods where you bid for the keywords or key phase. Your desired keywords might have a higher or lower bidding depending on the popularity. Advertising in Google Adwords is better because Google is the number one search engine used by surfers, especially online shoppers. You ads will appear on Google, Google Directory, Google Groups, Google’s partner sites, etc. The procedure of advertising in Google Adwords is actually also very easy.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO is the process of improving the volume and quality traffic to a web site from search engine. Usually a site that has higher ranking will have more searchers to visit their site

SEO requires some knowledge in the same field. There are a lot of e-books teaches how to make use of SEO and improve your ‘ranking’ in the search engine. There is also 2 ways of doing it, namely ‘white hat’ & ‘black hat’. With ranking of TOP 10 in the search engine, you don’t really have to worry about advertising. You will be seeing HUGE traffic flowing to your site everyday.

Other Advertising methods
There are also other cheap and fast advertising methods like Traffic Exchange, putting up Classified Ads, Safelist, Buying Impression or visitor links and ETC.

Are there any ‘SECRETS’ in internet marketing or advertising? For me, I would say YES! Many Top affiliate earners have their own source of advertising. They often hide their ‘secrets’ so as to prevent the loss of profits. While many affiliates say NO because advertising depends greatly on Targeted Niche Market. Different products or services suits different advertising methods. What they mean was 1) Locate targeted niche market 2) Create text base stunting ads or graphics attraction ads.

In this way, you actually discovered the legend of internet marketing!

Lastly, I bet you have seen this paragraph numbers of times, but I would still like to highlight. Never ever QUIT this industry! (Be it a part time or full part job) If thing doesn’t work out in the way you want to be, AMEND your marketing strategies. If it still fails, I would suggest changing different affiliate program and try everything again. Sooner or later, you will find yourself on the track, without noticing.

If you learn how to do effective Internet marketing the possibilities are endless for the amount of money you can make, and it can be applied to any type of business, especially an affiliate or mlm program.

Have you noticed the people who look for help but they want a quick fix or want someone else to do the work for them? They don't realize that they can be successful if they would put some time and effort into it. They don't realize how long it really takes if they don't have the right leadership and tools and it shouldn't cost them an arm and leg.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

three marketing mediums compared…

forums vs chat vs blogging

Everyone knows there's a wealth of information in forums, especially when it comes to making money. But what about blogs & chat rooms?

I would have to say forums is your goldmine for information. You can start new threads, read what others think, etc

Blogs are a from a single source and reading comments are inconvenient.

Chat rooms are kind of random and unless you have a specific question it's not that helpful.

Forums are great places to read threads to gain information then ask questions regarding what you just read.

VITAMIN B6 DEFICIENCIES!

Vitamin B6 is an essential nutrient. If we have a B6 deficiency it can bring with it terrible consequences. For instance:
• Anxiety
• Stress
• Depression

It is a proven fact that women can easily become deficient as they get older. What food are the best to consume this vitamin naturally?
• Potatoes
• Bananas
• Red meat
• Poultry

These are just my opinions. You should do your own research when trying anything on this site.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

social media marketing

Think of all the ways that companies use branding to build awareness of themselves or to promote their social awareness and customer service values. A few things come to mind such as greeters at the entrance of <strike>your</strike> my favorite store, go-green awareness issues, charity drives that "give back" to the community for every purchase made, TV screens playing music videos or news as you wait in line, and the list goes on.

None of these things lead directly to conversions but they do lead to higher company awareness and the good old fashioned fuzzy-feelings we get when we know that that we are valued as a customer. Most times we are probably not even be aware of these things on a conscious level. But the effect shows as we have a tendency to patron these companies more frequently than the other alternatives.

Branding is a viable marketing strategy

Businesses worldwide invest millions of dollars in branding campaigns each year. In fact, let's put aside pure branding campaigns. If you think about it, providing good customer service is branding too. The quality of customer service a company provides (good or bad), causes an image of that company to be branded into the consumers mind. Over time, a little here and a little there builds up into a solid perception of that company. Whether they like it or not they have established a recognizable brand by doing little more than going about their business.

When it comes to realizing the benefits of branding, most companies will tell you that it is valuable. But increases in sales can rarely be traced back to a single customer service or branding event. But that doesn't negate the value or stop companies from investing their money into these types of campaigns. The lack of trackable ROI on a per-sale level doesn't make branding (or good customer service) an unnecessary expense. In fact I don't think any consumer would argue against the necessity of excellent customer service.

So what's all this have to do with social media?

Social media is branding

Over time Target may see an increase in brand awareness and overall sales due to their clever TV commercials that do little more than show people dancing around a red target symbol, but I doubt they can trace any sales increase to a single commercial spot. I'm sure Wal-Mart can't track a single purchase to the addition of the elderly employee standing at the entrance greeting customers. But when we walk through those doors, we feel that Wal-Mart cares just a little bit more about me, the customer. So goes social media.

When we engage in social media and online social networking, we similarly don't see any immediate, trackable results. But, like branding and customer service, we don't need to in order to understand that it's valuable. When companies engage in social media they can't think of it as a traditional marketing expense with a return on investment that can be shown on paper. Results won't be seen immediately and usually only after a very long period of time, and you'll not likely be able to pinpoint a single new sale or customer on a particular branding campaign.

But social media is still important. It provides a way for companies to get out there and get noticed. It's an opportunity to go where the consumers are and create a presence. Like a TV ad, you don't have to wait for consumers to find you, you go where they are. But instead of forcing yourself on them while they are watching their favorite TV show, social media let's you actually hang out with them. You're not the ad on the wall, you're the guy holding the drink telling stories that your audience finds fascinating.

Social media is better than branding and customer service

Because of the direct interaction social media affords the client with their customers, it truly is better than any branding campaign, including one-on-one customer service. Customer service means that the target consumer has to become a customer first (or at least be very close to becoming a customer) before you can make a good impression.

Social media, however allows you to brand yourself long before anyone becomes your customer. And it can often be the catalyst that brings them over. And why wouldn't they? You've already become a part of the group. In fact, if you've done your social marketing right, you've already become their friend. This is interactive branding at work.

So don't be afraid to participate in social media just because you don't see the ROI. You're not likely to, at least not immediately and not in a way you can pinpoint one event causing another. But over time, you can build your social reputation. This leads to credibility. And over time that credibility and awareness will very likely lead to an increase in your customer base.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

the third richest man on earth!

Read what Warren Buffet, the world's third richest man's got to say to young people and future investors:

1. Money doesn’t create man, but it is the man who created money.

2. Live your life as simple as you are.

3. Don’t do what others say. Just listen to them, but do what makes you feel good.

4. Don’t go on brand name. Wear those things in which you feel comfortable.

5. Don’t waste your money on unnecessary things. Spend on those who really are
in need.

7 Never invest in a business you cannot understand.

8 Always invest for the long term.

9 Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls-Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.

10 If you’re doing something you love, you’re more likely to put your all into it, and that generally equates to making money.

11 Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can’t buy what is popular and do well.

12 In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run it is a weighing machine.