Often as we start a new business or perhaps we're an existing business we get comments from friends, family and/or other business associates such as:-
"You need Social Media for Small Business"
OR
"Are you on Twitter - Facebook - LinkedIn?"
OR they're told by the same people
"You should be on Social Media Sites for your Business such as Twitter - Facebook - LinkedIn" it is important for your business bla bla bla...
Unfortunately what they don't proceed to do is to help or even just to guide them on the dos and don'ts - or - they don't elaborate on how to use the sites - hence - the drop off rate is phenomenal - because - they use these sites blindly - they get bored because they don't know what they're doing
My Twitter Friends at Gold Coast Social Media - are great at helping businesses with their Social Media Optimising skills - Get you on the right track in using Social Media For Small Business.
A couple of pointers for the new users of Social Media sites
1. It is an idea to look at what other people are saying then comment if you like it or RT if you're on Twitter
2. Do your best to thanks people who @ mention you or RT your Tweets and/or posts which have been shared by them onto their wall etc
3. Take your time maybe install Tweetdeck or People browser or something similar where you can see more if you like to use Twitter
4. Talk to people on a social level not just post your own - buy this - buy that - look at this - look at that -
5. Post some jokes or quotes or something maybe even a link to recipes just to be different to what your business is about.
6. Recommend people to other friends in your network - but be choosy as to who you link with who - don't just send all your friends to each other - you need to read people and see if their personalities match or their businesses match - have common interests - however it is ok to say things like hey check out this awesome person but not direct them to anyone in particular
My recommendation is -Social Media For Small Business - is very important to the Credibility Puzzle - not only of your business - more so - you as a person. If people don';t like you they possibly won;t use your services or products
I know personally regarding the sites I am on - I do my best to respond to all who take the time to @talk to me on twitter or refer our business - make comments on my Stumble Upon Blog - Gather Posts - Facebook Wall Posts - Of course this is not an easy task - I have time to do this - this is my job/business I take 1 in the morning 1 hour middle of the day and 1-2 hours in the evening - even if you have to get wife/hubby/older kids to just go into your sites and thank people for mentioning or thanks or the RT - comment etc.
It all comes down to building credibility of you then your businesses credibility will follow.
I highly recommend Social Media For Small Business and Lager Businesses too.
If you are needing assistance with Social Media be sure to contact Gold Coast Social Media for your individual social media needs
My name is Urzay G - I am COO of Take The Plunge Coffee.com - Since being online - meeting new people - I found myself learning more and more about the internet, online business - and free targeted traffic to our website at http://taketheplungecoffee.com - where I supply first class coffee to Australian residences and businesses delivered via Australia Post.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
The State of The Internet
Some interesting statistics on video as to the "State Of The Internet"
by JESS3 plus
1 month ago 1 month ago: Mon, Feb 22, 2010 6:58am EST (Eastern Standard Time)
JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.
Urzay G is my name - I am COO of Take The Plunge Coffee.com - Since being online - meeting new people - I found myself learning more and more about the internet, online business - and free targeted traffic to our website at http://taketheplungecoffee.com - where I supply first class coffee to Australian residences and businesses delivered via Australia Post.
by JESS3 plus
1 month ago 1 month ago: Mon, Feb 22, 2010 6:58am EST (Eastern Standard Time)
JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.
Urzay G is my name - I am COO of Take The Plunge Coffee.com - Since being online - meeting new people - I found myself learning more and more about the internet, online business - and free targeted traffic to our website at http://taketheplungecoffee.com - where I supply first class coffee to Australian residences and businesses delivered via Australia Post.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
URL Shorteners for Newbies
Today - I'm going to talk about URL Shorteners - for Newbies - Mainly because I just read a 2 part Blog Post at Lunametrics Blog, which prompted me to write this post - as there are so many different tools available the naive newbies - they have a hard time choosing what is best for their needs
I personally use 2 URL Shorteners as well as StumbleUpon (Tweeting directly from StumbleUpon uses their own URL shorterner, which does not get the Page Rankings we need if we were to use other tools).
The first one I ever heard about was TinyUrl - I was told this was a great one to use by a former coach - being new at the time and knowing absolutely nothing about the internet at all - I struggled with that - I'd also heard about budurl which seemed easy enough to use so I used that for a while. Then I was lucky enough to be shown bit.ly URL shorteners and how to use them - - I was saved - - this to me was the best thing on the planet as far as URL shorteners and I was concerned. Remember I was so new to this, I used to struggle doing searches on Google for anything. I laugh when I look back only a year ago - I knew zip about the internet.
To learn more about TinyUrl you can visit - Wikipedia for full definition and the pros and cons of using this particular URL Shortener
I will briefly describe for you budurl - Quoted taken direct from BudUrl.com -
"BudURL was designed from the start to give small businesses and marketers insight into previously invisible click traffic. Not everyone has access to Google Analytics and most of those that have it don't know how to use it. BudURL makes link tracking amazingly simple. Shorten the link, put it somewhere, and watch the clicks roll in. It's that easy!
BudURL is easy to use! Just paste in a large, unruly web address in the box above and click the "Shrink It!" button. You'll get a unique BudURL™ that you can use anywhere you'd like such as social networks, instant messages, emails, ad campaigns, electronic newsletters, etc."
What I like about BudURL and Bit.ly is that they can track how many clicks each shortened URL gets. Both of these URL Shorteners also give you the option to customise your URL which I only recently found out - heck it was under my nose after all!
Example I have this long URL
http://www.petsplus.com.au/i_pet-shop-shipping.asp I wish to shorten this for my Tweets lets say (also great for Affiliate URLs BTW) - petssplusship
http://budurl.com/petsplusship ---This is much nicer and clearer don't you think? You may need to click on images to enlarge. As an example I went over and clicked the shortened URL to show you how the stats work.
Bit.ly is much the same not as colourful - however a lot more user friendly - In my opinion that is. Here I will use another example of one of my existing URLs which I shortened so as I could tweet for a friend of mine in Twitter - here is the long URL -
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcj6x7_rob-smith-fort-collins-co-social-me_tech
Now here is the custom URL I chose - RobAdvert - Note you may need to do a little experimenting as the first choice is not always available. I was chasing a custom name of 'VideoMarketing'- not available.
http://bit.ly/RobAdvert
I then posted this "Target your customers with social-media-video-marketing....http://bit.ly/RobAdvert" to Twitter - directly from bit.ly with the share button - Easy Peasy!
Ok now let's have a quick look at the stats using bit.ly URL Shorteners.
As you can see by this you get stats with both. You can keep track of traffic to your websites or pages - You're able to customise your links - I have since customised several of my Website's URLs such as
http://taketheplungecoffee.com/Fairtrade-Organic to this http://bit.ly/FairTradeOrganic.
If you have any questions on this subject feel free to comment below - I will get back to you.
Combined with a great Twitter Tool such as Tweetomatic Profiteer - You're sure going to have fun with making money as an affiliate with one of the URL Shorteners and ClickBank
Urzay G is my name - I am COO of Take The Plunge Coffee.com - Since being online - meeting new people - I found myself learning more and more about the internet, online business - and free targeted traffic to our website at http://taketheplungecoffee.com - where I supply first class coffee to Australian residences and businesses delivered via Australia Post.
I personally use 2 URL Shorteners as well as StumbleUpon (Tweeting directly from StumbleUpon uses their own URL shorterner, which does not get the Page Rankings we need if we were to use other tools).
The first one I ever heard about was TinyUrl - I was told this was a great one to use by a former coach - being new at the time and knowing absolutely nothing about the internet at all - I struggled with that - I'd also heard about budurl which seemed easy enough to use so I used that for a while. Then I was lucky enough to be shown bit.ly URL shorteners and how to use them - - I was saved - - this to me was the best thing on the planet as far as URL shorteners and I was concerned. Remember I was so new to this, I used to struggle doing searches on Google for anything. I laugh when I look back only a year ago - I knew zip about the internet.
To learn more about TinyUrl you can visit - Wikipedia for full definition and the pros and cons of using this particular URL Shortener
I will briefly describe for you budurl - Quoted taken direct from BudUrl.com -
"BudURL was designed from the start to give small businesses and marketers insight into previously invisible click traffic. Not everyone has access to Google Analytics and most of those that have it don't know how to use it. BudURL makes link tracking amazingly simple. Shorten the link, put it somewhere, and watch the clicks roll in. It's that easy!
BudURL is easy to use! Just paste in a large, unruly web address in the box above and click the "Shrink It!" button. You'll get a unique BudURL™ that you can use anywhere you'd like such as social networks, instant messages, emails, ad campaigns, electronic newsletters, etc."
What I like about BudURL and Bit.ly is that they can track how many clicks each shortened URL gets. Both of these URL Shorteners also give you the option to customise your URL which I only recently found out - heck it was under my nose after all!
Example I have this long URL
http://www.petsplus.com.au/i_pet-shop-shipping.asp I wish to shorten this for my Tweets lets say (also great for Affiliate URLs BTW) - petssplusship
http://budurl.com/petsplusship ---This is much nicer and clearer don't you think? You may need to click on images to enlarge. As an example I went over and clicked the shortened URL to show you how the stats work.
Bit.ly is much the same not as colourful - however a lot more user friendly - In my opinion that is. Here I will use another example of one of my existing URLs which I shortened so as I could tweet for a friend of mine in Twitter - here is the long URL -
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcj6x7_rob-smith-fort-collins-co-social-me_tech
Now here is the custom URL I chose - RobAdvert - Note you may need to do a little experimenting as the first choice is not always available. I was chasing a custom name of 'VideoMarketing'- not available.
http://bit.ly/RobAdvert
I then posted this "Target your customers with social-media-video-marketing....http://bit.ly/RobAdvert" to Twitter - directly from bit.ly with the share button - Easy Peasy!
Ok now let's have a quick look at the stats using bit.ly URL Shorteners.
As you can see by this you get stats with both. You can keep track of traffic to your websites or pages - You're able to customise your links - I have since customised several of my Website's URLs such as
http://taketheplungecoffee.com/Fairtrade-Organic to this http://bit.ly/FairTradeOrganic.
If you have any questions on this subject feel free to comment below - I will get back to you.
Combined with a great Twitter Tool such as Tweetomatic Profiteer - You're sure going to have fun with making money as an affiliate with one of the URL Shorteners and ClickBank
Urzay G is my name - I am COO of Take The Plunge Coffee.com - Since being online - meeting new people - I found myself learning more and more about the internet, online business - and free targeted traffic to our website at http://taketheplungecoffee.com - where I supply first class coffee to Australian residences and businesses delivered via Australia Post.
Friday, March 5, 2010
First Things First Using Stumble Upon
It's not uncommon for many to wonder how to use the Social Bookmarking and Social Media sites effectively, especially when you're new to the Internet or Internet Marketing world. StumbleUpon is one of my favourite Social Bookmarking sites.
Like most, I was unable to understand the true benefits of it's huge power - that is another subject where you can find the best information on why StumbleUpon is great for social media here at - Windmill Networking where Neal Schaffer states:-
"There are 4 compelling reasons why you should start using StumbleUpon"
1) StumbleUpon Helps You Discover the Best of the Web…in Less Time
2) StumbleUpon Helps You Find Interesting People to Follow
3) StumbleUpon has a Unique Advertising System: You Can Buy Traffic to Your Website
4) Yes, Using StumbleUpon Will Lead to More Traffic to Your Website…Organically
Since learning more and more of the power of this great social bookmarking site - I have had a couple ask for some tips - as I proceeded to answer an email I found myself getting so involved with the response - it led me to write this blog post
So First Things First Using StumbleUpon - (this is after you've signed up of course)
1. What you need to do is download the StumbleUpon Add-on for your browser, if you haven't already got that - this makes it so much easier to share your stumbles as well as save them.
2. Be sure to set all your stumbling preferences on your settings page under heading- manage interests.
3. Whether you're looking to stumble great sites, meet people, or maybe you're here for business reasons, like many others - it is highly recommended that you write something about yourself - what you're about - what you do - your interests etc. this, in-turn, might encourage like minded people to subscribe back to your SU Blog. See diagram below
4. Start Stumbling Websites and other Stumblers directly from your toolbar or surf the net and start saving favourites of interest to you. ***Tip*** the more favourites you have - the better for you - it shows that you're active here - people will look at what you're stumbling at - regardless of how long you've been here - especially if you've been here a short time and you have hundreds of favourites saved - they tend to like that (this is only my opinion though) - if you have your own blog posts - thumb those too - then share with your SU friends. But be ware people are not happy for you to continually asking them to thumb your own things. Share your own things maybe once or twice a week and let them decide if they want to thumb and/or review - most times if you say something like "This is my latest post let me know what you think - or maybe I just posted this today thanks. Just use your own words but don't be pushy. A fellow stumbler told me not to mention thumb review like directly because it might damage the chances of you getting ranked with SU. I did not know this till last week either.
The "All" tab on you SU browser toolbar - is where your preferences are saved so you can click on this to stumble - Videos - Photos - Websites etc
To Stumble other stumblers from your tool bar - click on the "All" tab - drop down to "Society"--> Click on "Stumblers"
To share from your tool bar you can only choose one stumbler at a time - however if you're on your favourites' page you can click "share" from under the particular favourite - where you will find that a drop down box of all your "Allow shares to my Toolbar" subscribers are, from there you may click on however many of them you like to share something with. You are also able to save friend's email addresses at the browser toolbar - people who are not SU users - to send them a direct link of something you think they may be interested in - from the site you're on. Pretty neat I think - I just discovered this one the other day.
When the friends that you've ticked "Allow shares to my Toolbar", send you something - to the left of the thumb up - will be a little white square and a number next it - when you click on this you will get a narrow drop down box that may have a message or not but will tell you who it is from. From here you're able to reply to the friend. (this is the same type of thing we all see when we send and receive from SU browser button) toolbar
(FYI - I only "allow from toolbar" the ones who reciprocate shares direct - you can do what you like - it is personal preference - not a requirement)
So there you have the First Things First Using StumbleUpon in a nutshell - feel free to leave your comments and advise if anything is needed to be updated as I am writing only from experience and not of a qualified StumbleUpon Techie - I hope this helps even 1 person - I would be happy.
Urzay G is my name and am COO of Take The Plunge Coffee.com - about a year ago I followed Ewen Chia video course, which I received as a bonus from one of my many internet purchases. This was where I initially learned about StumbleUpon, although only a small amount of its huge potential. But since being online - meeting new people - I found myself learning more and more about the internet, online business - and free targeted traffic to our website at http://taketheplungecoffee.com - where I supply first class coffee to Australian residences and businesses delivered via Australia Post.
Like most, I was unable to understand the true benefits of it's huge power - that is another subject where you can find the best information on why StumbleUpon is great for social media here at - Windmill Networking where Neal Schaffer states:-
"There are 4 compelling reasons why you should start using StumbleUpon"
1) StumbleUpon Helps You Discover the Best of the Web…in Less Time
2) StumbleUpon Helps You Find Interesting People to Follow
3) StumbleUpon has a Unique Advertising System: You Can Buy Traffic to Your Website
4) Yes, Using StumbleUpon Will Lead to More Traffic to Your Website…Organically
Since learning more and more of the power of this great social bookmarking site - I have had a couple ask for some tips - as I proceeded to answer an email I found myself getting so involved with the response - it led me to write this blog post
So First Things First Using StumbleUpon - (this is after you've signed up of course)
1. What you need to do is download the StumbleUpon Add-on for your browser, if you haven't already got that - this makes it so much easier to share your stumbles as well as save them.
3. Whether you're looking to stumble great sites, meet people, or maybe you're here for business reasons, like many others - it is highly recommended that you write something about yourself - what you're about - what you do - your interests etc. this, in-turn, might encourage like minded people to subscribe back to your SU Blog. See diagram below
4. Start Stumbling Websites and other Stumblers directly from your toolbar or surf the net and start saving favourites of interest to you. ***Tip*** the more favourites you have - the better for you - it shows that you're active here - people will look at what you're stumbling at - regardless of how long you've been here - especially if you've been here a short time and you have hundreds of favourites saved - they tend to like that (this is only my opinion though) - if you have your own blog posts - thumb those too - then share with your SU friends. But be ware people are not happy for you to continually asking them to thumb your own things. Share your own things maybe once or twice a week and let them decide if they want to thumb and/or review - most times if you say something like "This is my latest post let me know what you think - or maybe I just posted this today thanks. Just use your own words but don't be pushy. A fellow stumbler told me not to mention thumb review like directly because it might damage the chances of you getting ranked with SU. I did not know this till last week either.
The "All" tab on you SU browser toolbar - is where your preferences are saved so you can click on this to stumble - Videos - Photos - Websites etc
To Stumble other stumblers from your tool bar - click on the "All" tab - drop down to "Society"--> Click on "Stumblers"
To share from your tool bar you can only choose one stumbler at a time - however if you're on your favourites' page you can click "share" from under the particular favourite - where you will find that a drop down box of all your "Allow shares to my Toolbar" subscribers are, from there you may click on however many of them you like to share something with. You are also able to save friend's email addresses at the browser toolbar - people who are not SU users - to send them a direct link of something you think they may be interested in - from the site you're on. Pretty neat I think - I just discovered this one the other day.
When the friends that you've ticked "Allow shares to my Toolbar", send you something - to the left of the thumb up - will be a little white square and a number next it - when you click on this you will get a narrow drop down box that may have a message or not but will tell you who it is from. From here you're able to reply to the friend. (this is the same type of thing we all see when we send and receive from SU browser button) toolbar
(FYI - I only "allow from toolbar" the ones who reciprocate shares direct - you can do what you like - it is personal preference - not a requirement)
So there you have the First Things First Using StumbleUpon in a nutshell - feel free to leave your comments and advise if anything is needed to be updated as I am writing only from experience and not of a qualified StumbleUpon Techie - I hope this helps even 1 person - I would be happy.
Urzay G is my name and am COO of Take The Plunge Coffee.com - about a year ago I followed Ewen Chia video course, which I received as a bonus from one of my many internet purchases. This was where I initially learned about StumbleUpon, although only a small amount of its huge potential. But since being online - meeting new people - I found myself learning more and more about the internet, online business - and free targeted traffic to our website at http://taketheplungecoffee.com - where I supply first class coffee to Australian residences and businesses delivered via Australia Post.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Twitter Lingo - Continued
Twitter Lingo Continued thanks to my StumbleUpon/Twitter Friends' suggestions
Michael B - On Twitter - http://twitter.com/SearchBuzz
Neal Schaffer - http://windmillnetworking.com/ AND Twitter - http://twitter.com/NealSchaffer
J.Michael Edwards - Twitter - http://twitter.com/jmichaeledwards
Carole Hatem - http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/Hatemswife01/
:D = The Big Smiley (maybe laughing)
BRB = Be Right Back
;-P = Smiley with Tongue Poking out
JK = just kidding
IDK = I Don't Know
GTG - Got To Go
FWIW = For What It's Worth
IMO = In My Opinion
FYI = For Your Information
WTF = What The F#$% if you are so inclined
Urzay G is my name and I'm an eCommerce Coffee Website owner with interests in Internet Marketing Techniques including SEO - Social Media - Social Networking for Internet Traffic Generation - I like to use minimal site for this - so I chose Twitter/TweetDeck, Stumble Upon, FaceBook and Gather.com as my favourite Social Media/Networking sites - I also dabble a little at Digg.com and Del ici ous.com
Michael B - On Twitter - http://twitter.com/SearchBuzz
Neal Schaffer - http://windmillnetworking.com/ AND Twitter - http://twitter.com/NealSchaffer
J.Michael Edwards - Twitter - http://twitter.com/jmichaeledwards
Carole Hatem - http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/Hatemswife01/
:D = The Big Smiley (maybe laughing)
BRB = Be Right Back
;-P = Smiley with Tongue Poking out
JK = just kidding
IDK = I Don't Know
GTG - Got To Go
FWIW = For What It's Worth
IMO = In My Opinion
FYI = For Your Information
WTF = What The F#$% if you are so inclined
Urzay G is my name and I'm an eCommerce Coffee Website owner with interests in Internet Marketing Techniques including SEO - Social Media - Social Networking for Internet Traffic Generation - I like to use minimal site for this - so I chose Twitter/TweetDeck, Stumble Upon, FaceBook and Gather.com as my favourite Social Media/Networking sites - I also dabble a little at Digg.com and Del ici ous.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
