I would like to take a minute and talk about the nuts and bolts of social media sites and how they can work for the independent internet marketers out there running their own home based business.

Sites like Twitter.com and Facebook.com and even still myspace.com offer a valuable resource for marketers in that those sites can be used to build instant credibility if your content is worthy of further research by your readers.

Here is how I would recommend people use each of these resources from what I have learned by trial and error.

With Twitter.com, I would recommend automating as much of the twittering as you can so that it frees up more time to be more productive. If you have a large list of followers like I do, it’s often times very difficult to actually respond to every comment or email you receive on twitter.

I will tell you this… there are A LOT of affiliate marketers that are successfully using twitter.com to list-build, make sales, and even create mini-viral marketing campaigns that do both – build their list and generate substantial income.

Being creative and thinking outside the box on twitter is one way to really capture your reader’s attention. You should be trying to CONVERT your reader to either a.) signing up for your list or to receive something from you (so you can list build). Or B.) you should be trying to make a sale and convert your reader that way.

Of course, you can use these same internet marketing strategies on all of the social media sites, but if you can master twitter and gain a great following, you will in effect have a list in waiting that you can test things on and see what type of results you will get.

I have always sort of had a problem with marketer’s marketing to other marketers. It can turn into a cess pool of buy this buy this next and then buy this just because someone says to. I don’t think that’s good marketing. Of course, one great way to stay on top of internet marketing tools and resources is to subscribe to someone’s list or multiple lists, and keep an eye on what other affiliate marketer’s are promoting.

The home based business market is booming right now as more and more Americans are finding themselves unemployed and without income. Finding the right type of person to follow and learn from is key. There are plenty of people in cyberspace who claim to know what they’re doing, but in reality lots of those people are trying to make a quick buck off of you.

Here’s how to tell if someone you may be following is viable or not. Ask yourself, “Does this person provide valuable free content that actually makes sense?” If whatever you’re reading isn’t stimulating your mind or getting all of your cylinders to fire, and get you thinking creatively then you’re probably going down the IM rabbit hole.

Make sure that you look at a person’s site, determine if it’s content is valuable, and make sure you’re learning something.

With social media in particular, it’s quite easy to build a large list of followers if you are providing valuable content. They say content really is King, but they don’t explain it. By providing valuable content you are building a site that is going to be heavily indexed in the search engines, thus giving you more traffic, and more opportunities to actually convert your “lead” or “reader” into a “customer” or a new “opt-in” to your list.

Myspace.com is a little more tricky to actually use since the code is always changing, and myspace really doesn’t make it easy for the internet marketers out there. I would use it to build a list of followers but unless you have a special event that you could bulletin or post a blog about, I wouldn’t depend on myspace traffic actually turning into many leads or buyers. This is from personal experience.

Youtube.com on the other hand, is a great way to virally build your online presence if you have access to create content-filled savvy videos. If you can build a lot of video content on youtube, and use the appropriate keywords to describe whatever it is you’re talking about in your video, and use “lower thirds” to link to your site, you’ll be building a viral advertising campaign free in and of itself.

Imagine if you had 100 videos and they all received just about one view per day for an entire month. That’s over 3,000 possible leads all for free. And if your videos are catchy, smooth, and invite people to share your content, you could have a stampede of traffic coming your way – again – if your content is valuable to your reader or “lead”.

Facebook.com I’m learning about right now myself. It seems that most people on facebook tend to want to keep their networks somewhat small on there since it’s so hard to keep up if you have a larger list of followers or contacts. The site itself does offer advertising on there, where you could run your own IM related ads, but honestly, I haven’t tried it out yet so I don’t know if that’s viable or not for my business. It could be for yours tho so check it out.

In reality, the bottom line to all of this is to get you thinking. Actually sit down and think about ways you could drive leads to your site. Think of your online business as an automatic machine you are building where everything works for you as automatically as it can… so that you can have the freetime you want to do the things you really love.

If you can master the social sites, you’ll really be mastering yourself and your business. Free traffic from sites such as these mentioned can be the deal-breaker between a successful campaign and a failing campaign.

To recap, always remember to provide valuable content to your readers with a call to action. You want your readers to “do something” whether that’s opt in to your list, or view a salespage of something you’re offering. Make sure to state your call to action clearly.

-Todd Doyle lives in south-eastern Ohio and runs several online websites. You can find out more about Todd by visiting one of his websites: InboxMillions.com or Whizkidsecrets.com

Filed under: LGN Revolution elite

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