Check out some social media marketing tips from online marketing specialist, Lou Bortone. Make your message go viral and touch people internationally! Enjoy!

Lou Bortone is a long-time marketing consultant and branding coach who helps entrepreneurs build breakthrough brands on the Internet. As an online video branding specialist and award-winning marketer, Lou provides services such as video production, brand development coaching, creative support and web copywriting.  Lou Bortone is the ‘One’ to go to for online video branding.  To work with Lou or find out more about his offerings check him out on the Web at http://onlinevideobranding.com/.

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Internet marketing is all about hard results, not generic concepts of branding. Still, if you have a branding goal, there is an effective Internet marketing strategy you can pursue.

Branding refers to the vague notion of creating an identity for a product or name brand with consumers. The classic example, of course, is Coca Cola. Being first on the scene, the company has been able to create such a strong name brand that most people use the word “coke” instead of soda even when they prefer Pepsi. In the world of marketing, all bow before the marketing team that accomplished this branding.

The Internet, however, is a different beast. That same marketing team would be crushed if they went after a similar strategy on the net.

The Internet is so large that branding is an expensive and difficult goal unless you are the first major presence in a niche. Sites like EBay and Amazon were the first major money players in their fields, giving them a huge advantage over subsequent competitors. Unless you are coming to a field with a lot of money and no current dominant site, your branding goal is going to meet with failure or limited success at best. If you want to stick with your branding goal, the only cost effective and ultimately successful Internet marketing strategy is a width search engine optimization campaign.

Search engine optimization is simply an effort to get pages on your site ranked high in search results on the three big search engines – Google, Yahoo and MSN. To meet your branding goal, the best Internet marketing strategy is to identify every single phrase your prospects use to find services or products in your business area. You then build optimized pages for every single phrase and get them ranked.

This strategy has two benefits. First, it will produce free traffic to your site. If you build 200 pages and each gets 50 visitors a day, your site will receive 10,000 visitors a day. The second benefit is your branding goal is met because the site appears in all the top 10 rankings. Regardless of what the prospect searches for, they keep seeing your site. This creates both brand recognition and credibility. As they visit your site over and over, they will also become readily familiar with your unique selling position as presented on the site.

To identify all the phrases being used by your prospects in searches, you must use a tool provided by Wordtracker. Wordtracker is a program that analyzes web searches on the major search engines. You simply enter a keyword and it kicks out every phrase being used by consumers, how often they use it and how many sites are trying to get ranked under it. This information is the equivalent of your Internet marketing bible. Give it a look:

Word Tracker

If you have a branding goal in mind, avoid wasting your money on banners and such unless you are in a niche that isn’t dominated by any single site. Instead, use the width search engine optimization Internet marketing strategy to establish your brand and pick up tons of free traffic.

To read more about Strategic Internet Marketing check out The Marketing Titan.

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How do you get a massive return on the hard work put into growing your business?  Make it visible!  People can’t flock to what they don’t know about!  Position yourself to be seen.  Establish that you have a right to be seen, you know what you’re talking about, and you’re the one to go to for your expertise.  Position yourself as an expert in your area of industry!  Check out a quick video from Allison Babb about ways to do just that!

Allison Babb is CEO of Allison Babb International LLC, and founder of GreatSmallBusinessAdvice.com -  a company devoted to the success of solo entrepreneurs.  Check out her website for insightful resources.

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For your network marketing success you need to understand some basics about human beings. Remember, network marketing is not a sales business; it is relationship marketing. Unfortunately, most network marketing companies fail to teach these basics in training, and their distributors are left struggling. First, you must understand yourself and your patterns of thinking.
Second, for success in prospecting, especially long distance, you must be able to spot your prospect’s pattern of thinking and find his “hot buttons.”
Third, you must understand that your prospects’ patterns of thinking may be completely different than yours. Your network marketing success depends upon understanding the four major personality types. You need to speak your prospect’s language, not your own, and you can discover a prospect’s personality type by listening and by asking the right questions. What turns you on may be turning your prospect off! For example, let’s talk about the “blues.”

• They make up 15% of the population, and they are open and direct.
• They talk too much, they volunteer more information than necessary, they like to have fun, they see the big picture, and most importantly, they don’t like details and numbers.
• Finally, they have difficulty in focusing on one task, and you may think they have a little bit of ADHD. More “blues” join network marketing than any other personality type.

If you are a “blue,” you need to learn to shut your mouth and stop interrupting your prospect; you must learn to listen, and you must learn to focus on your tasks. In contrast, when you sponsor a “blue,” you need to teach him how to listen and how to focus in order to succeed in network marketing. When you prospect a “blue,” let him talk, and tell him about the trip you won and the fun you have with your team in network marketing. Do not give him details. Make sure you follow up closely with him, but send him short and sweet e-mails. If you make the mistake of sending long, detailed e-mails to your blue prospect, he will block your e-mails, and he will screen his phone calls and never pick up. Let’s talk about the “yellows.”

• They make up 30% of the population, and they are open and indirect.
• They are soft spoken, they are the super nice people, and they are very sensitive.
• They don’t like pushy aggressive people.

When your prospect a “yellow”, do not talk about money, and tell him how this business will allow him to be with his family and loved ones, and how your products are helping people with their health and wealth. Dare to focus on the money with them and you lost them forever. As illustrated above, in order to have success in your prospecting, you need to understand the different personality types.

Nabil Tannous Khoury, MD is a medical doctor and entrepreneur.
Visit his website daily mlm network marketing tips for generic practical tips that lead you to network marketing success at:
http://www.networkmarketingsuccesstips.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nabil_Khoury

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Sooner or later, customers go online to find out more about your business and your reputation. What do they find when they search for your name, or your company? How visible are you?

It’s no secret that successful business owners and professionals can now have a strong Internet presence with little cost and without hiring tech staff.

So what do your potential clients find when they “Google” you? Have you checked lately?

Hopefully they find more than a static brochure-style website full of industry jargon, company kudos, and marketing hype.

Think about it in terms of what prospects really want to find out when they research you and your company… Here’s a big clue: what they want to know is: can they trust you?

No hype, no fluff, no dry lists of achievements. Your prospects want to learn more about you, and the people who are part of your organization. And yes, it would be nice if you put a little personality into your web presence. How else do you think they will begin to trust you?

People do business with people, not with companies. On the Internet, all you’ve got are words, design, and your brand. Your brand is more than your logo. It communicates your core message and implies your values.

For us, a business blog is the best platform for communicating to build trust. But are you using your business blog with this goal in mind?

Is your business blog consistent with your brand, your core message, or are you “all over the map?” Are you using the same name, same tag line, and your brand on your blog, on Facebook and other sites? It all goes towards creating the kind of trust you need for effective online visibility.

The Internet is easy, user-friendly, cheap, and effective for getting your business found by the people who need your products and services. But not everyone is smart about building the trust they need with the people searching for their services on the Web.

You and your business needs to be seen everywhere: on your website, your blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. These sites and your branded presence (photo, bio, logo, name) will create massive visibility to get you found by the people who are your ideal clients.

Want to learn more about creating Massive Visibility online? Join our free Facebook group Massive Visibility Mastermind!

This blog post courtesy of Build a Better Blog by Denise Wakefield.  Check out her blog now!

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A direct-selling expert shares what it takes to start out and make it in this industry.

You probably have an image firmly planted in your mind of what network marketing (also known as direct sales or multilevel marketing) is all about–housewives buying and selling Tupperware while gossiping and eating finger sandwiches, or a high-pressure salesperson trying to convince you how easily you can become a millionaire if only you and your friends and their friends and so on would buy and sell vitamins with him.

Both of these images couldn’t be further from the reality of network marketing. It’s neither a hobby nor a get-rich-scheme but an opportunity for you to earn money running your own part- or full-time business.

But what does it take to succeed in this industry? Vincent J. Kellsey, director of member services for the Direct Selling Women’s Alliance, an organization that provides a variety of resources to women and men in the direct-selling industry, offers these tips for making it:

Choose wisely. There are six key elements you should be looking for [when selecting an opportunity]. Number one: stability. How old is the company? Number two is excellent products or services that consumers will use and need more of.

Number three is the pay plan–how even and fair and generous overall is the distribution? This is really crucial as the pay plan represents exactly how you’ll get paid–or not get paid. There are really only two questions to ask [regarding this]: How many pennies out of each sales dollar get paid back to the distributors each month, and how fair is the distribution of these pennies between the old members and the new members?

Number four is the integrity of the company and the management. As much as possible, [investigate] the experience of the CEO, [their] experience in the network marketing industry, and their background. [Have] they been successful in other companies in the industry? Do they have a good reputation?

Number five is momentum and timing. Look at where the company’s at, what’s going on with the company, and if it’s growing.

Number six is support, training and business systems. You may have [chosen] a great company with excellent management, products that make a difference, a pay plan that’s uniquely fair and very generous, and momentum and stability, but if you don’t have a system in place that works, all of that [doesn't matter]. Most companies will have a transferable training system that they use, and that’s where mentorship comes in.

Practice what they teach. [To succeed,] you need to be willing to listen and learn from mentors. The way this industry is structured, it’s in the best interests of the [MLM veterans in your company] to help you succeed, so they’re willing to teach you the system. Whatever [your mentor] did to become successful, it’s very duplicable, but you have to be willing to listen and be taught and follow those systems.

The higher-ups. It can be called various things, but the general term is the “upline,” meaning the people above you. How supportive are they? Do they call you? Do they help you put a plan in place? Are they as committed to your success as they are to their own? You should be able to relate to [the people in your upline] and be able to call them at any time to say “I need some help.” How much support there is from the people above you in the company is very important.

Take up the lead with your downline. There’s a term in the network marketing industry called “orphans”–when somebody is brought in and then the person who brought them in is just so busy bringing in other people that they don’t spend the time to teach and train [the new person]. You should be prepared to spend at least 30 days helping a new person come into the industry–training them, supporting them and holding their hand until they feel confident to be able to go off on their own. You really need to ask yourself, are you willing to do that? Are you able to do that? This is really about long-term relationship building. It’s not about just bringing people into the business and just moving forward. It’s about working with these people and helping them to develop relationships.

On the net. People are utilizing [the internet] as their main marketing tool. [You can set up your site] with autoresponders so when you capture leads, the autoresponder can follow up with that person. One of the greatest keys to success in this industry is follow-up. Many people will have someone call them who’s interested or they’ll call the person and say they’re interested, but then they don’t follow up with it. Automation on the internet has allowed a much more consistent method of following up.

The only drawback with the internet is people who utilize it to spam. If there was one thing I could put forward to say, “Do not do” when utilizing the internet as a marketing tool, it’s spamming because that can give a very bad reputation not only to you but also to the company you’re working with.

Taking care of business. This is a business, and just like if you were running a franchise or a storefront, you [should have an] accountant. You have all the same write-offs tax-wise that you have with running a [full-time] business, so it’s very important to [do your research] prior to getting involved, before you start making money from it. How is that going to affect you tax-wise? What are your write-offs?

It’s important to set up a [support] team around you. I’d suggest seeking out lawyers who deal in network marketing, so they’re very versed in all the laws and how that affects [your business.]. There are also accountants who specialize in dealing with home-based businesses specifically in the direct-selling industry.

Don’t quit your day job…yet. Never leave your full-time position unless you’re absolutely certain that the income that’s coming in with this company is going to be there. [Be sure that] you’ve been with the company [for awhile] and that you know it’s a stable company, and the income that you’re earning is equal to or greater than the income you’re earning from your job before quitting.

Article courtesy of Entrepreneur Magazine Online by Delvin Smith.

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