9 Ways to Rock Twitter

You can be an awesome tweeter! It won't happen overnight but, with a little time and patience, anyone can grow an audience and build rewarding relationships with mentors, peers and followers. I learned a lot by trial and error but you don't have to do it the hard way. Here are nine of the most useful lessons I learned from my stumbles and from tweeps that rock twitter. 1. Learn the lingo and use proper Twitter etiquette If you want to build a following, don't tweet like a newbie! Take the time to read about Twitter basics and etiquette before you dive in. Here are 3 excellent resources to help you to get started. support.twitter.com/groups/31-twitter-basics mashable.com/guidebook/twitter twittertips.org/ 2. Define your audience Your tweets will be lost in a vast ocean of tweets if you try to be all things to all people. If you are trying to drive traffic to your blog, you should target those who will be interested in your blog's subject matter. If you are selling products and services from a website, you need to focus on those that need them. Choose an audience and focus on their needs and soon they will begin to see you as one of them! 3. Follow people and companies interesting to your audience Imagine yourself as one of your followers and try to find information you would find useful and interesting. Follow experts in those subjects. Follow their blogs as well as their tweets. If you want to keep followers, you have to stay interesting and relevant to them. 4. Stay focused on your subject Staying on subject is critical. It is tempting to chase new audiences and subjects. But, if you want a loyal following, you will need to devote all of the time you can to learning and sharing information that is relevant to them. If you are always wandering around aimlessly, your followers will drop you like third period French! 5. Engage your followers The power of social networking is in the "social". Retweet your followers' tweets. Mention them. Thank them for retweeting. Engage them in conversations. You won't be able to develop deep relationships with all of your followers but, I guarantee that your most loyal followers will be the ones you engage. 6. Tweet original content If you have a blog, keep your content fresh. Tweet about your new posts. Don't just retweet. Read blogs that would be interesting to your audience.You may not be the author of the blog post but, you can be the original author of a tweet that links to the post. Be yourself, have fun, and add something new to the conversation. You will develop your own unique twitter personality. 7. Use Hashtags Once you develop your subject you will want to grow your audience. The best way to get your tweets noticed by those who don't follow you is to use hashtags. Hashtags are keywords that are preceded with the # symbol. Twitter users often use hashtags to search for tweets about topics they are interested in. By using Twitter's search feature to search for hashtags, you can find popular subjects that are getting a lot of attention. If you tweet something about one of the subjects, you can add those hashtags and your tweet will be noticed by a much wider audience than just your followers. For example: "Great article on WordPress security! - wordpress.org/articlename #WordPress #security" You can also create your own hashtags. Create a hashtags to describe special events. If you host webinars you can "brand" them with a hashtag, i.e.: "#TPCwebinar". If you consistently use that hashtag in tweets about upcoming webinars, your followers will soon associate it with you and will be alerted to your upcoming webinar. Use hashtags to generate buzz about a topic, service, event or product. Once you understand a little about them, you will begin seeing how they are used in tweets. Just remember: hashtags cannot contain spaces, and they count toward your 140 character tweet limit. 8. Use lists to organize A Twitter lists is basically a group of people and their twitter streams. You can organize your twitter users into lists based on anything you want such as topic, city, coworkers, family, etc. Lists can be public or private. If you make a list public, other users can follow your list. You can also follow other users' public lists. When you follow a list you don't have to actually be following everyone on the list. A single list can have users you are following, users who follow you, and users you don't follow. A list is a separate twitter stream of the list member's tweets. Its stream is not part of the stream you follow. This is one way to keep from being overwhelmed by too large a stream. Lists can be used in many ways to organize tweets, users and streams. You can provide a curated list of interesting tweets for your followers. For example: I created a public list you can follow at twitter.com/tcledford/cyberzeitgeist. It is a recommended list of tweeps, tweeting about trends and current topics for the technical Internet, software and computer community. 9. Use tools to automate tasks Tweetdeck is an app from Twitter that allows you to arrange multiple feeds in customizable columns. A feed can be a filtered search, a list, or a normal twitter stream. It will allow you to monitor and manage unlimited accounts. Two of its most powerful features are notification alerts for new tweets and tweet scheduling. I usually schedule tweets from two different accounts spread out over a couple of days at a time. Tweetdeck saves a tremendous amount of time. It will even schedule Facebook posts! Be sure and check out the Chrome extensions for Tweetdeck and Tweetdeck launcher too. - tweetdeck.com Buffer makes your life easier with a smarter way to schedule the great content you find. Fill up your Buffer at one time in the day and Buffer automagically posts them for you through the day. Simply keep that Buffer topped up to have a consistent social media presence all day round, all week long. - bufferapp.com Tweepi is an essential part of managing my Twitter account now. The free version allows you to easily flush your "unfollowers", follow your followers, and identify inactive followers. The premium version has many more tools and features that will help you automate Twitter tasks. - tweepi.com Managing Twitter can seem overwhelming when you are following a lot of tweeps. Using tools to automate tasks and methods to organize users and feeds are essential components to your success as a Twitter pro! Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7431040

Twitter Marketing: How to Grow and Expand Your Business

News item from Twitter can help even your Facebook marketing. This is because in most cases, news hits Twitter before hitting the search engines. When you search your keywords on Twitter, you will find conversations in real-time. Twitter will also help you discover trending topics which can drive your content and thus establish your relevance. Drive Traffic to Your Facebook Page Twitter is the best traffic source which you can use to drive traffic to your Facebook page as well as your blog or website. If you want to use Twitter to drive traffic to your Facebook page, post free offers (e.g. e-book, video, etc.) to the page and share the free offers about two or three times a day on Twitter. This is one very good leverage with Twitter; you cannot post so frequently to Facebook otherwise you might get your content labelled as spam. Drive Traffic to Your Blog/Site When most people first post on their blogs, they share the post. But it shouldn't stop at that. You should share your blog posts routinely. You can share a link on Twitter to old contents which you have on your site, every hour. However, how often you link posts on your site depends on how much content you have because you cannot keep linking to the same article all the time. Leveraging old contents from your blog in the right way can increase your traffic by up to 300%. As long as your articles are still relevant and still hold value, use them. Study your audience, know them, identify what they want and give it to them, simple! Schedule Posts Twitter Marketing allows you to use free tools like Hootsuite to schedule posts to Twitter (as well as some other social media platforms) which will appear at different times throughout the course of the day. Remember that you don't schedule the same post throughout the day; you need to tweak them around so you can see what people respond to the most. In order to measure which of your tweets perform better, I recommend that you direct each tweet from Twitter to a particular landing tab on your Facebook page. You will set such tab up to enable people opt-in to your list; that is why I call it 'landing tab'. This is where you are offering something free to encourage people to opt into your list. Monitor the tab to see which tweet attracts the most opt in. Prepare and Plan Content First, make a list of all of your content, review them to make sure that they are still relevant enough for Twitter; edit as needed. Next, set them out and use them in the order of relevance to your post. This means you should, as much as possible, link to articles that connote with your post. Use Hashtags (#) Use hashtags with your keywords when posting your tweets. For example, is you have an article about Facebook marketing, use #Facebook or #Facebook marketing so that people searching for information about Facebook will find your content. Although it is possible for people to find your content without hashtags, but using the hashtag increases the value and 'findability' of your of your content. Hashtag contents have more relevance in searches; people look for hashtags on Twitter. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7824537

Top 5 Tips for New Twitter Users

When you are new to Twitter it can feel like a sparse place to be. Before you begin your follower assault you need to set the scene. Make your Twitter profile look good. No one wants to follow an egg on the standard basic sky blue Twitter background. Go to 'settings' and 'profile' to add a profile picture and your name, location, website and bio. Go to 'settings' and 'design' to change that boring old Twitter background and inject some personality into your page. Recently Twitter has introduced the option to change your profile header as well, so if you are on Twitter, change this up too!!! Don't leave it blank and get left behind!!! 2. Don't fall into the celeb trap... A lot of people sign up for Twitter and search for famous people to follow. The problem with this is that celebrities very rarely follow back. This can leave you with a poor follow back ratio which isn't going to help your Twitter ranking in the initial stages of setting your account up. If you are dying to know what Lady Gaga has been up to just search for her in Twitter and you can see her posts. You can see most people's Twitter posts without following them first, unless they have a padlock symbol which means they have protected their tweets. 3. Tell your friends... When you have no followers and you follow someone you don't know, they can be forgiven for assuming you're a Twitter nobody or even worse they could wrongly think you're a SPAMMER!!! The result may be that they are not going to follow you back. In the first instance the best way to overcome this is to follow your friends and acquaintances that are already on Twitter. You can tweet your friends and tell them you are new to Twitter and ask if they wouldn't mind following you back. Most people will gladly oblige, especially if they get a new follower in the process. 4. Start to spread your Twitter wings... Once you have established that your Twitter account is worthy of some follow backs, (even if they are just follows from your mates), you can then move onto following the people you don't know, but would like to get to know. Use the search bar in Twitter to look for people who share your interests. You can even use the gear icon to access advanced search to refine your targeting even further. 5. Interact... Don't be afraid to start a conversation, after all, Twitter is a social networking site and most Twitter users (with one or two exceptions) are friendly sociable people! When someone you like follows you say thanks! if someone says something funny or something you agree with reply or retweet it. If someone is spamming or saying things that are inappropriate report or block them. If you keep doing this before you know it you will have lots of new followers and you will find that Twitter is a great place to be! Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7539840

Does Anybody Ever Really Make Money Online?

The first thing people say when you tell them you want to work at home on your computer is: 1. Are you crazy? Nobody makes money online. You're just going to lose money trying to learn how to make money online. 2. Don't bother, the only people making money online are the people selling the "How to Make Money Online Books." In addition, they say, it's way too risky, 95% of the businesses fail. And you know what? That is true. But here are a couple of other facts. People do make money online, a lot of it. It's in the billions as a matter of fact: "According to the U.S. Census Bureau, total Internet e-commerce sales for 2008 were $133.7 billion. Additionally, according to PricewaterhouseCooper LLP, for the year 2008, there was a total of $23.4 billion generated by Internet advertising." So the money is there. And speaking of risk? There is very little to none. It's just the opposite. The big risk is in the brick and mortar world. Think about it, the amount of money you have to invest for advertising, rent and education is staggering. My daughter-in-law is a bookkeeper making an average paycheck and she had to go to school for two years just to get a better than average job. Later, when she got her B.A., she made a lot more money, but that was another two years and thousands of dollars later. Not only that, she still had to work for someone before she could start her own business, plus it took quite some time. And that's because the competition is fierce. It's just as tough as online--it doesn't matter what business--nails, massage, photography, music etc. But here's the thing, it's less risky in the online world--no rent to speak of, and advertising plus marketing-you do it all yourself, that's part of the learning process. If you've got start-up money, better yet, you can outsource it. That's the big thing today. But beware if you outsource it before you know how to do it yourself. You just might not know how to manage someone else doing it for you. Why not take the time to learn marketing? So here it is, I'll get right down to it: The three ways for you to learn how to make money. That's right, I said learn how to make money, not make money. If you make money, good, but the point is to learn how to get the infrastructure in place and practice doing it until you're successful. It may take a few times until you get the hang of it. But I want to add a small caveat here: and that is to put an emphasis on trying different strategies and making mistakes. Why? Because you'll learn faster. Not only learn faster, but you will get used to self-correcting more often. And that will make the road to success faster and easier. With practice, there will come a time when you will learn how to advertise, market and sell your product or service. But beware; there is a long learning curve here. Take your time, make mistakes and learn along the way. Now, for those things you can do to make money. 1. Sell the junk you have in your attic and back yard on eBay. That's right, you've got a digital camera, the info is free--get going. 2. If you like to write, take pictures or draw, why not sell that service? Check Google for the services you are passionate about. You'd be surprised at how many there are. And yes, you'll have to work for a lot less until you get established but there isn't much of a risk there either, since you're not putting money into the business. 3. Sell other peoples' products. This is a very good way to make money for people who like to shop. Essentially, you talk about why you like the product and you'd be surprised how many people will be drawn in to you. Resellers or affiliate marketers make good money too. Some, make as high as 50 to 60 per cent. Most of all, what you want to do is listen, read and watch videos to learn how to market and advertise. You can get an invaluable education online--for free--don't underestimate it. Even if your first project fails--and it most likely will--you are learning. And if you are sincere and keep trying, sooner or later you will sell a product. And when you do, you'll have the recipe to sell another one. Or better yet, start another line of products. And here's the best part: you can do it in relative obscurity. Taking rejection person to person is brutal. Use the same learning process for building lists, emailing, and writing ads etc. There's a lot there, but it's doable if you want it bad enough. Once you have it, you know how to take a product or service - any time -and launch a successful campaign. And how good is that? What kind of an education is that? What kind of security is that? What kind of success is that? But most of all what kind of person are you now? Quick recap: 1. People really make money online (in the billions). 2. Making money online is less risky than making it offline. 3. The learning curve for making money online is not difficult but it does require a long time to set up the infrastructure and practice the marketing strategies. 4. Once you get this learning down though, it's good for life. You can do it again and again. It's true financial independence. 5. Not only will you be enriched materially, you will also be enriched knowing you are your own boss calling all the shots. Enough said. So what are you waiting for? If you're serious about wanting to know how to make money online, then you need to head over to http://www.uniquereports.com right now, because online business Expert, Marty Shea, will reveal to you how every home worker, regardless of experience level, can succeed - Today! Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7772968

What Is Pinterest and What's in It for You?

Pinterest is a "pinteresting" game that makes use of an online pinboard in order to visually simulate social bookmarking in a new and unique manner. You've probably used sites like StumbleUpon and Digg in order to get the latest news, most interesting viral content, and the most fascinating sites around (because both sites literally "stumble upon" or "dig" through web content through a voting system from their respective communities, with the most popular material of the day making it to the top pages). Reddit works roughly the same way, actually. With Pinterest, a different tactic is used in order to uncover the hidden gems popping out of the Worldwide Web at present. Visual Presentation of Content Is Pinterest's Main Claim to Fame With that said, Pinterest is arguably the anti-Reddit in the sense that while Reddit is mostly texts and links, Pinterest is more visual with its content presentation. As the subheader suggests, Pinterest is all about visual presentation. If you have no images to share with your content, though, you won't be able to present it on Pinterest. It's visual in every sense of the term, such that if you want to uncover whatever it is the Information Superhighway has to offer at present, you'll have to do so via this online pinboard that pins interesting images together and picking them based on images (a boon for the macro-based Internet culture and their unique brand of memetic humor). Pinterest also makes use of its own lingo, such that it's arguably attempting to create a subculture of its own. Every bookmark you share with Pinterest is called a "pin". Any post you repost is called a "repin" in the Pinterest community. Pins can also be grouped together on various boards... this time called "pinboards" in your profile (like with Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon, you'll need to register an account to make use of the site's features). In short, you've never seen anything like Pinterest before, and even though it technically belongs in the same category of content aggregator as Reddit and Digg, it's a whole different animal altogether when compared to those sites. What's more, each board can serve the same purposes as a real-life pinboard. The Bottom Line When It Comes to Pinterest Pinterest allows you to either upload interest images... not just macros, but any compelling, jaw-dropping, safe-for-work image you can collect... by either uploading it directly to the site or sharing whatever images struck your fancy on the Internet. If the photos, macros, drawings, art, and so forth that you've found truly is interesting, it should be gaining lots of votes and traffic from the pinboard it's categorized in. The "Pin It" button is particularly useful when it comes to sharing any content in your browser from any webpage you go to. Pinterest is one of the most aesthetically pleasing sites you'll ever visit. It's like a pinboard magazine of sorts that you can access online. What's more, although its format is quite different (an understatement) from anything else offered on the web (such that you'll need some getting used to its mostly visual interface), it's drastic and revolutionary setup will nevertheless start the virtual pinboard revolution that mostly revolves around sharing visually stunning photos and similarly artsy, compelling, or world-changing content. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7584655

Pinterest Tips: How To Enhance Your Social Media Presence With Pinterest

1. Invite friends with active presence on Pinterest Invite them and ask if they are interested in pinning your posts and do it on your first day as you try to gain momentum on Pinterest. Asks and posts have been known to go viral and early efforts can make a huge difference. Ask them to pin your content, which your friends will happily do if your content is relevant to their Pinterest boards. 2. Create a graphic title for your photos This is the best thing you can do to motive users to pin and repin your images on Pinterest. While people look for images to pin or repin, they scan through numerous thumbnails. If your photo has a text or graphic title, it becomes easier for them to identify your image and pin it. 3. Pin from your favourite websites Whenever you see something on a website that you like, pin it immediately. You can install your pin it tool on your toolbar within five seconds, which will make it very convenient to pin from any website. These pins will help to direct traffic to your favourite websites. 4. Add meaningful descriptions including keywords and tags Pinterest requires that you add an appropriate description to your pins. Do this carefully so that your narrative describes the pin. You can add further value to it by adding the name of the blog or you can tag someone by adding the symbol @ before a name. 5. Push your posts out through social media You can do this multiple times on your profiles on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. Don't do it for every post, instead only push the posts you really want to promote through Pinterest, a few times. 6. SEO advantages Since Google has indexed Pinterest, SEO must be a part of your social linking strategy and backlinking. 7. Create a community Pinterest users can very easily embed their contact information and social sites into their profile descriptions on Pinterest. This makes users aware of all the avenues through which they can communicate with you. 8. Assess, refine and repeat Evaluate the performance of your Pinterest profile using the source tool provided by Pinterest. Review your top pins and improve and adapt your content strategy accordingly. 9. Write original text for your summary description The worst thing you can do is to copy paste an entire recipe or instructions from an original post into your pin. It reflects poor Pinterest manners and clutters your pictures with unnecessary text. Since original posts are copyrighted, pasting them completely falls in the category of copyright violation. 10. Space out your pins Pinning too much content one after the other will flood your stream and that of your followers. They are likely to feel overwhelmed and might disconnect with you on Pinterest. Max Chohan is an industry professional graphic designer in Dubai working for a leading website design company in the Middle East. At Puzzleworks Design, he has has the expertise to offer advice on successful social media strategies. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7631915

Get 1000s of Targeted Leads From New Facebook Pages - Don't Buy Facebook Fans

Using Facebook pages to capture leads, emails or "likes" is an extremely effective way to build your list fast & get massive traffic numbers which can result in higher affiliate paydays. Some people choose to buy Facebook fans in order to get traffic but I am going explain a better way to get 1000′s of leads, and why buying Facebook fans can blow up in your face. Getting "likes" from Facebook not only gives you the chance to go viral fast, but also it allows you to take advantage of the social interaction, it gives you another avenue to advertise your business, it gives you email marketing capabilities, and best of it gives you viral syndication of your content. But with recent changes in 2012 including Facebook timelines on pages, and new designs, there are few changes in how you turn a Facebook Page into a Squeeze or lead capture Page. One of the main changes that has affected marketers is that Facebook no longer allows you to set a "default" tab for your page. This has drastically changed how you can increase your likes or leads. Before March 2012 you could set a default tab to be sort of a "content lock" so that people were required to like your page in order to get access to the content or freebie. The advantage of this is that if you had a great offer and it went viral then you could get several likes in a short period of time. This worked great. Although you can still do this some things have changed. Why are "Likes" So Valuable? Here are 3 main reasons: 1. You build credibility - this one is simple, the more likes you have the more perceived trust you have. One strategy some businesses use is to buy Facebook fans from people on places like Fiverr. I don't recommend this only because I like to see the real number of people who actually like my information and this allows me to make changes if needed. 2. A targeted audience - One of the main advantages of having people like your page is that they will continue to receive information you send them on their news feed, and since they have liked your page they are likely interested in what you have to say. If you buy Facebook fans then your leads are not targeted, and when you go to advertise to your page you could be paying for impressions that are not targeted! This totally defeats the purpose of getting targeted leads. One advantage of having several likes to a page is that you can set up ads specifically for the people who like that page, and if they already confirmed that they like your page, they are more likely to be interested in related offers. This again will reduce your cost per click when it comes to advertising to this group. 3. Viral syndication - what I am referring to here is the ability to link a blog to your Facebook page. By linking your blog to a Facebook page using a free tool like Facebook Page Publish plugin you can have all your blog posts sent to your Facebook page which then automatically updates the people who like your page. This is all done automatically, and all you need to do is provide useful posts. Building an Email List Using Facebook You can also integrate aweber or other email autopresponder services with your new Facebook pages. This allows you to capture emails from Facebook. The benefits of this are that if you are advertising on Facebook and linking to a Facebook squeeze page rather than your own website, you can get much cheaper clicks, and you can also get more likes. Also, if you are getting traffic from other source not Facebook, the visitor to your page does not have to be logged into Facebook to get onto your list, as opposed to "likes" where the user must be logged in. People also seem to have more trust when they remain on Facebook and therefore are more likely to enter an email as long as what you are offering is something they want. Here are the 4 steps to create a squeeze page to capture several emails: 1. Set up the Facebook Page as you normally would. Make sure you have a professional cover, and nice images and good content. There are several articles online about how to set up a nice Facebook page. 2. Sign up to an auto-responder service. An auto-responder lets you to create web forms or opt-in forms that you can integrate right into your Facebook Page. I use Aweber (my email marketing service of choice) to place a web form on my Fan Page. Aweber is a great place to start and they do have a $1 trial for the first month. There are other places such as get response that allow you to build your list also but I use Aweber because in my opinion it is the best out there, they have excellent email deliverability and it is easy to integrate not only with Facebook but my blog as well. 3. Use a custom Application so you can insert the autoresponder code right into your Facebook pages. In order to get people to enter their email you will need to have something they want and you will need to send them to this page to get it. Many times a free report is not enough. You need to give them more. 4. Now you just need to get traffic to your Facebook page. One of the best traffic sources is Facebook ads, since the people are already signed into Facebook so they can easily like your page. You Tube traffic also works well and can be free. As more and more people begin to like your page you will find that the number of likes will exponentially increase for a while as you post more content to your blog. The more quality content you send the more likely people are going to interact with your page. There are several tricks to learn when it comes to interacting with your fans. Once you have set up your page and it looks nice and you have some content, you can try a few viral tricks like adding a video, or a controversial blog post, or even talk about something is happening in the news or trends. All of these things work to get more people talking about your page, and the more likes you have the more traffic you will get. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7366145

The Business of Viral Videos

Viral marketing, also called viral advertising, refers to a marketing technique that utilizes unconventional means - like websites - in spreading information about a product or service. One of the best ways to do viral marketing is by creating video campaigns. Videos attract a bigger audience because they can be seen on practically every corner of the Internet, specifically on social media and video sharing sites. As these videos are shared across different sites and viewed by various groups of people, they become viral. To use a cliché, they "spread like a disease". Thus, they are called viral videos. A viral video is created for the purpose of Internet sharing via social media, electronic mail and video sharing websites. They developed into trending videos, which means they become extra popular online because of extensive spreading through different platforms. Most viral videos are amusing, entertaining and / or humorous in nature. How the Videos Are Spread Online Video sharing site YouTube is the most popular choice for posting viral marketing videos. Since it has buttons that allow for sharing on social sites like Facebook and Twitter, getting the videos across different niches and audiences is easy. These videos are then picked up by other websites and netizens. Once viral, the videos appear on a video chart. This chart lists the most popular and most recently uploaded videos on YouTube. Some websites even have a separate section or page for their own viral video chart. It basically acts like a viral video compilation. Some people actually prefer browsing through the chart instead of searching through YouTube or other social media sites. How Viral Videos Help Market Products and Services There are four reasons why businesses should consider using viral videos to promote their products and services: Videos attract people. They are more interesting, visually appealing and engaging. Videos offer a definitive answer to what your product or service can do, as well as give a clear picture of what a customer will stand to gain by patronizing such product or service. Videos can be viewed multiple times, no matter what time of day; any day of the week. Thus, they create long lasting awareness for your brand. Videos attract more people to your website. And these visitors will find reasons to stay longer and explore the site. Major Brands Using Viral Videos to Market Products Some of the world's most popular consumer brands have been using viral videos for product promotions. They use videos to introduce a new product or promote a campaign. Some companies even have a viral video series. Here are four enterprises that have made significant impressions with their viral marketing campaigns. *Blendtec's "Will It Blend?" viral video series started in 2006. The videos show the company's product - blenders - blending almost anything, from golf balls to glow sticks to the iPad. Majority of their videos (more than a hundred!) have a million views on YouTube. The glow sticks video has the most views at three million. The "Will It Blend?" website has a chart showing their latest and most popular videos. Red Bull is another company that uses viral videos to get their message across. Its "The Athlete Machine - Red Bull Kluge" video went viral in 2012. At present, it has more than 14.6 million views on YouTube. The video simply shows different clips of extreme or action sports, something that Red Bull is now known for. Nike knows how to make good viral marketing videos. One of its most popular campaigns is the video that features NBA star Kobe Bryant jumping over a car - an Aston Martin, at that! - while wearing his Nike apparels. It has over 2.8 million views on YouTube. How to Determine if it is Trending or Not To find out whether a video has gone viral, you need to track the results by regularly monitoring several metrics or feedback (such as number of likes, comments and shares). Social media monitoring is one way of doing this. Monitor or follow different websites to stay updated with what is happening online. You don't just track social media sites, though; you also monitor forums, blogs and news websites. There are tools that can be used for video monitoring, which will make it easier for businesses to track the spread of viral videos on YouTube, social networks and other online portals. Conclusion Although viral marketing and viral videos can never go mainstream like traditional television commercials, they're here to stay. One reason for this is their ability to capture the attention of a wide and diverse audience. Moreover, as their main means of advertising is the Internet, they are - in some ways - cheaper than traditional advertising. And lastly, since technology is here to stay, viral videos are here to stay, too. In fact, we may be in for bigger video surprises in the future! VVChart.com provides users with real-time analyses and updates on the status and performance of viral videos across various social media platforms such as Facebook, Google +, YouTube and Twitter. Users can also submit URLs of videos and monitor its "trendiness" or activity across several online portals. VVChart.com takes advantage of a quantitative algorithm to combine "likes," "views," "retweets," and "shares" from various social media platforms to determine the popularity of a viral video. This specialized algorithm identifies trending videos, performs a comprehensive cross-platform popularity analysis and presents the results in an easily accessible and useful format for users. VVChart currently has a database of over 1.2 million trending videos and is growing their database by 20,000. Access to the videos, which are organized into 14 unique categories, such as entertainment, music, news and sports, is free of charge. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7740170

Using the New LinkedIn Contacts Feature

Social media users have been using LinkedIn for business networking for many years. It is a place to meet new business contacts online and form beneficial relationships with other people in the industry. LinkedIn is getting ready to introduce the new LinkedIn Contacts feature on its social network. It promises to bring users better functionality that will help improve social engagement and manage online relationships with fellow users. When you are ready to start getting the most out of the new Contacts feature on LinkedIn, here is what you need to do: Import Contacts While you have always had the option to import your contacts from various sources, it is now even easier to do with multiple options. The Contacts feature will also help keep track of the source for each of your contacts. To get set up, click on your LinkedIn profile and choose "contacts." Next, click on settings. If you have already added your face book contacts at some point, you can easily update that list to include anyone you've friended recently on the social network by clicking on the refresh button. Facebook does not allow you to export user emails to LinkedIn, but there is a way around that. You can import your contacts on Facebook into your Yahoo Contacts. When you do that, you can then export your Yahoo contacts into LinkedIn. If they have their email listed, it will also be added to your contacts. Set Reminders to Make Connections How many times have you met someone new at a business event? How many times did you interact following the event? Chances are, not many. We tend to forget to follow up with new contacts shortly after we meet them and this is no different from meeting people through social networks. You can now use LinkedIn to set reminders for yourself so that you can follow-up with the people you connect with. When you make the effort to reach out to someone, it shows that you have a genuine interest in maintaining a connection and sharing information. Consolidate Duplicate Contact Info There are many people on LinkedIn who have multiple accounts set up. This can be for any number of reasons, like creating a new profile and not deleting the old one. LinkedIn will now find what appear to be duplicated profiles on the site so that you can consolidate them into one set of contact information. This helps to keep a cleaner and more organized contact list. Keep Your Connections Tagged LinkedIn typically adds the tags friend or colleague without you having to do it yourself. You should still take the time to add your own tags to each contact. This will allow you to make a more specific message for each of your contact groups and avoid some messages from being marked as spam. Keep Track of Relevant Details Any notes that you make with the notes feature on LinkedIn are kept private. Make sure you are adding any notes about contacts that can be useful in the future. This can be information that you want to share with them, details about their business, or products that you've discussed. LinkedIn is working hard to bring users tools that can be the most helpful with networking business professionals. The new Contacts feature will make it easier for you to keep track of and stay connected to the people you meet. What is your favorite LinkedIn tool? How do you get the most out of each feature? Dawn Pigoni of Be Social Worldwide is a certified social marketing specialist and a social media virtual assistant. Dawn offers superb social networking, social marketing and social bookmarking to WAHMs, Small Business Owners, Internet Marketers, Affiliate Marketers, and Coaches who desire to bring stunning internet presence through social networking to their businesses. Get Dawn's free report, Social Networking today & see how she can assist you with being Social Worldwide! Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7749489

Utilize Effective Marketing Using LinkedIn

Any populated social network is a great source of targeted traffic. Users are divided up by specific demographics and interests with minimal effort by businesses. Some of these networks make it easier than others. LinkedIn is a great example of a social network that is almost intentionally built with marketing in mind. This is a social network geared towards professional individuals and businesses, which means that the user profiles are characterized according to particular categories of interest. How Successful Is LinkedIn Marketing? LinkedIn marketing is not incredibly common and it is often done with the wrong approach. This type of social networking is much different than Facebook and Twitter marketing. The main reason for this is that the website is designed primarily for businesses. Those other networks are made more so for the end users, but Facebook makes it easier to diversify companies and consumers. So, what value does LinkedIn really have for marketers? Simply put, LinkedIn is a network of authority figures. You have business owners, investors, and many other individuals in the same field as you. A large portion of these users are in a position of power with their business. This means that they can make executive decisions, such as implementing your time management software into their office if you can catch their interest. An impressive statistic is that the average salary for a LinkedIn user is over $100,000 and this is definitely much higher in comparison to other social networks. With close to 70 million users, LinkedIn remains as a social network filled with users that have both decision making and buying power - use that to your advantage! 5 Simple Steps to LinkedIn Marketing 1) Get involved with the social network. Simply make an account, fill out your profile, and take a few minutes to browse around and see all the features. It is a good idea to take the time and effort to create a professionally written page for your business and have a personal page with your resume that is linked to it. When creating the page, it is also a good idea to use some basic SEO (search engine optimization) methods as LinkedIn is a highly authoritative website and ranks very well in the big G. 2) Make your company page ready for visitors. Do this by allowing your page to be searched. This is important as your page will be findable through keywords in your page and this helps get targeted visitors. This may be the introduction of your business to an interested individual, so you want to attract them and get them interested in what you have to offer. Any form of testimonial helps as well, especially through LinkedIn recommendations from other users. 3) Get active on LinkedIn and stay interactive with other users. Setting up a page on LinkedIn will make you noticeable, but getting yourself noticed is usually just as important. You can do this by making regular status updates, networking with users, participating in various LinkedIn groups, and contacting users in your network. You can test out LinkedIn advertising campaigns (through LinkedIn DirectAds) and off-site advertising for your LinkedIn page. Paying for an exclusive LinkedIn membership will give you more features that can help with reaching out to prospects also. 4) Stay consistent and relevant with LinkedIn marketing. You should keep your LinkedIn page relevant at all times. Building the page up outside of the network (mentioning it on your website, during webinars, etc.) will attract attention. Even if these are not converting visitors, it will build up the authority and interest for your LinkedIn page and attract more natural and targeted visitors to it. 5) Interact, interact, and then interact some more. The power of the LinkedIn community is incredible and the brief stats mentioned earlier attests to that. There are many examples of networking methods that incorporate LinkedIn activity. The various LinkedIn groups are a great start. For instance, Start-ups Community for Entrepreneurs was made for entrepreneurs involved or interested in start-up businesses and many of these people may be great additions to your network. Also, interacting through LinkedIn Answers allows you to answer questions and provide relevant sources. This builds up your authority and can serve as a direct marketing tool as well. Make the investment of your time to listen in on the conversations and then start your own discussions. After some time you just might build up some followers which could eventually turn into customers. Happy Linking! Pamela Wigglesworth is a Singapore-based American corporate trainer, speaker and Managing Director of Experiential Hands-on Learning, a training and development company. A resident of Asia for over 20 years, she works with companies across multiple industries to enhance their branding, marketing communications, personal communication skills and effectiveness in the workplace. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7651910

Strengthening Your Twitter Relationships

Twitter continues to be a strong social media contender. Facebook and LinkedIn are still extremely strong and they are constantly introducing new features. However, so is Twitter and people should try to find new and improved ways to connect. The perception of Twitter You may still believe that Twitter is a fun, little social media channel that enables you to tell people about what you had for breakfast or which movie you saw over the weekend. However, it is so much more valuable than that for your business. It is a really good idea for you to take a look at how you are using Twitter as well as examining the people on Twitter who follow you and whom you follow. When it comes to your Twitter relationships, it is important to examine the quality of your list of people. Your Twitter relationships may be very lucrative but may possibly take some scrutiny. Not only should you eliminate relationships that no longer work for you but you should also connect with people with whom you feel you can share a mutually beneficial relationship. The many wonderful benefits of Twitter Twitter is an extremely effective social media channel for being educated, listening and sharing information. It is also a wonderful way to have real-time discussions that can turn into more. Comments back and forth can turn into relationships that turn your Twitter followers into clients eventually. However, it is advisable to choose quality over quantity when it comes to collecting followers. It all really depends on how you intend to use Twitter and what you wish to get out of it. You will hopefully find that the Twitter followers with whom you connect will be professionally beneficial to you and your business. The reason that Twitter is so successful is because you and other people take the time to use it. Interaction is key to your business's success in all of its forms among all of the different social media channels. Many of the social media channels work differently but there is one objective that they all have in common. They all thrive on interaction and communication. As is always the case, you will get out of Twitter whatever you put into it. You have it so use it Creating relationships with Twitter followers is, in many ways, the same as creating relationships face to face. Many people created their profile on Twitter because they heard that it was a good thing to do. However, after they established the profile, they didn't really do much with it after that. Many people don't understand how useful it is when it comes to getting your message out there and really building something valuable with other people. When it comes to letting the world in on your offerings, Twitter is a great way to do it. It is not only important for you to get to know other people online but it is also very important for them to get to know you. Your approach You may be asking yourself at this point how you can go about strengthening your Twitter relationships. There are several tips for this. First of all, make sure that your tweets are consistent, regular, and frequent. Timeliness is also critical. If someone asks you a question or leaves an important comment that deserves a response, you have a responsibility to give one and to do it relatively quickly. In the beginning of becoming heavily involved with Twitter, you may want things to happen more quickly than they are happening. Patience is definitely a virtue in this situation. You should also make sure that your tweets are going to the most appropriate people and that your communications are always polite and respectful. Make sure to tweet in the most effective manner possible and if you share compelling information, you will be sure to get positive responses. Conclusion People share relationships on many different social media channels; however, the relationships that they share on Twitter are unique and must be handled and nurtured in a way that respects that uniqueness. Twitter is still an extremely important social media channel for business. You have an obligation to treat it as seriously as you can and to make sure that you get everything out of it that you want. We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. For a free assessment of your online presence, let's have coffee. Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies. Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company's Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity. He also reduced company travel and travel costs by introducing and implementing various collaboration technologies. His expertise includes business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development. Mr. Cohn earned a Master's degree in project management from George Washington University in Washington, DC; and a Master's degree in computer science and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ. Mr. Cohn is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7734096

Speed Networking on Twitter

Speed networking is not just for face to face events. Professionals can benefit greatly and make plenty of connections from online speed networking. Social media outlets can be a source of more referrals, leads and opportunities. The online platform makes it more flexible to connect with more people at anytime, from any location. Login or setup a Twitter account and start following individuals and companies. Pick a diverse group which range by location, industry, product/service, etc. Also, connect with family, friends and colleagues. Once you have set up your account, create a few lists. List key words that relate to your business or career. Create another list of types of businesses or companies you have worked with or worked for in the past. Create another list of key words of products and services that you use or offer. Once you have your lists in order, grab your timer. Set the time for 60 seconds. Next step is to type in your first key word in the Twitter search box. A list should appear and follow the top 5 in the list. Look for overlapping followers or networks. Next, clear the search box and type in another word from your lists and repeat the process. Hopefully, from this exercise, you are able to build your social media platform. Look out for those companies or individuals which start following you. Send out a tweet or message thanking them and introducing yourself. Use key words which represent your brand, personality, business or professional/social ambitions. Mention your commonalities and shared interests and purposes for staying connected. The engagement process is going to be the key factor in your speed networking success. Be consistent and follow feeds and trends. Expand your networks and re-tweet, mark favorite and reply to posts that are relevant. Learn to support and promote your followers. These tips on speeding networking can greatly enhance your endeavors and goals for creating more connections online. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7559330

10 Best Ways To Make Money Online

The Internet provides a wide range of earning opportunities for people around the world. Whether you are a 10 year old girl or a 70 year old man, you can easily find ways to earn money online. There are several opportunities to earn money in diverse fields, and one has to find the right way as per his education, experience, expertise, skill-set and interest. Here we are going to discuss about the 10 best ways to make money online. Infolinks - If you have a website or blog that has good content on any specific topic then you can get your site or blog registered with Infolinks. They provide in-text advertising to their members. You must have seen content text links to different sites in different article directories; they are nothing but in-text advertising. It is a great source of earning money online. Build a Niche Store - It is another simple yet powerful tool to make some quick money online. It provides an opportunity to create content based online stores and make money with eBay affiliate program. It is very simple and people are earning a lot from it. Adbrite - With Adbrite you can sell some vacant space on your website or blog for text advertisement and earn good money from this deal. Amazon Affiliate Program - Being an Amazon affiliate marketer you may either send direct visitors to the Amazon or create a shopping section or a store on your site or blog and easily earn money online. In any case Amazon takes care of your visitors and provides high conversion rate and great commission. Amazon Seller - If you are creative enough to manufacture any specific item which has great demand in the present market then you can easily become Amazon seller and start selling your items online to earn more profits out of them. Yahoo! Merchant Solutions - If you want to create an online store and sell your products or services then you can always trust on Yahoo! Merchant Solutions. They provide good services at low investment. Azoogleads - It is similar to Adbrite. Provide some space of your website or blog for Azoogleads advertisers and earn money. Azoogleads has a good number of well known advertisers which provide great opportunity to earn good money. BidVertiser - It is another great source to earn money and know the real value of your website's advertisement section. Place ads through BidVertiser and earn money with PPC program. You will always see the highest bid for your website advertisement space which gives you an opportunity to earn big. Blog - Apart from creating websites and earning money through different online sources, you have always a chance to create your own blog based on your interest, update it regularly, plan and place good ads, and earn steady money for long time. Commission Junction - It is another world renowned affiliate program site which provides great opportunity to all website and blog owners to come and join for free. Once you are registered with Commission Junction, you can choose from the thousand merchants and display their ads on your website. Based on different performances and terms laid down by merchants, publishers get a good chance of earning money online. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7229132

2 Little-Known Tips For Having YouTube Success

YouTube is a wonderful place online to promote your products and services. If you aren't using YouTube to your advantage today, then you're missing out. There are tons of traffic that is to be gotten from this lucrative source, and in today's lesson, I want to share with you how you can harness this excellent traffic source, and use it to get more leads, customers, and repeat sales in your business. In today's lesson, we will delve into some of the best marketing strategies to implement on YouTube that can give you the best results as possible. If you don't use YouTube right now, it may be hard for you to understand what I am about to reveal to you. But with a little learning, it will become second nature to you. Here's the first tip for having YouTube success. 1) Actually upload your videos Lol sounds simple right? Well, you would be amazed at the amount of people who fail to do this. Most people think that once they finally put their YouTube video up, they will have instant fame and stardom. I totally disagree with this, and if this is how you're thinking, then you need to change your way of thinking. But you can't be lazy. Wake up everyday with the ambition to want to have success and do more with your video marketing. Sure there are other video sites on the internet, but YouTube is a great traffic source that can yield you the views and traffic needed to make your business a success. If you've never uploaded a video to YouTube, then now is the time to learn how to do. Nothing is better than real world experience. You never rely solely on theory alone. Go out there and fail a little bit, and be sure to learn something new after each attempt. Here's another tip for having YouTube success: 2) Promote your YouTube channel You will want to promote your YouTube channel all over the place. On your site, forums, blogs, article signatures, and even on YouTube. Don't make it a hassle for someone to subscribe to your channel. The more subscribers you get, the more people will come back to view your videos - because they will be notified that you have new videos up. This is an excellent strategy. Now obviously once you get these subscribers, you will want to make more and more videos, and encourage them to visit your website to get more good information. It's basic, but promoting your YouTube channel can do a lot of good for you. Luckily there isn't a review process for your videos. Just make sure your videos are sensible, safe, and are about topics that are rational for human beings. Hopefully you catch my drift. Just strive to make videos that deliver great information for the prospects in your niche, and strive to make your video go viral in a short period of time. This is another great way of promoting your videos too. Good luck with having success in your business with YouTube today. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7750326

How To Use YouTube To Make Money!

When I first found out about affiliate marketing and discovered ClickBank, I got very excited about all the products on there promising me millions of dollars. I think I must have bought about fifty products in the first month alone, and it took me a while before I could admit to myself non of them were working. I was just about to give up and go back to school when I discovered Profit Monarch, a software product that uses YouTube to make money. At first I felt screwed again because as soon as I paid for it and took a look at the software it seemed cheap and ugly. And of course it didn't make me as much money as they promised in the video, but for the first time after all those no good products I got a few sales. Back then I didn't know a thing about video marketing, but now, three years and a lot more knowledge later I make a lot of money with it. And I'll share it with you now so you can use YouTube to make money today! The easiest way to make money with Profit Monarch is to promote ClickBank products on YouTube. I pick a product that has a good conversion rate, and I usually try it out myself first (as I've mentioned before, ClickBank offers a lot of garbage). On ClickBank you can search products based on their popularity or gravity so it should be easy to find a good selling product. Then I use the Profit Monarch software to create 100 to 1000 videos and upload the videos to YouTube and other Video sharing sites. This way you can put out a lot of video advertising for the product and get traffic just because of the quantity of videos. The software tutorial tells you how to make the videos and how to upload them, I found that making less fast cheap videos, but more videos of better quality made me more money. And most importantly, do a little keyword research. If you upload a video named "make money" you get no visitors because the competition is too big. If you were to name the video "make money with YouTube" there is a much bigger chance you get some visitors to your video. Use the software included in the Profit Monarch package to give your videos the right name and keywords. I still make a lot of money doing this, every morning I spent an hour uploading videos with this software. But for the big money you need to use it as a link building tool. Websites and blogs need links from other sites or videos to get them ranking higher in the search engines. For every post I put on one of my blogs I spend a few hours building back-links to it. In my blog I'll show you step-by-step how to make money from blogging so don't worry you will soon learn how to use Profit Monarch as a link building tool. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7736656

How to Write an Attention-Grabbing LinkedIn Profile

Most people are part of a social network or two because they see the benefit of connecting with others. Joining a professional network can put you in touch with the right kind of people. When accomplished properly, these connections can and will help you further your professional career. When you belong to a top business network like LinkedIn you have the gain the ability to find experts with answers to your questions and you do the same for others. There is no faster way to connect with the best in your field. It costs nothing to join a great social network for professionals, and the sign up process is simple. Before long, you will be part of a vast network that includes executives from all the Fortune 500 companies. However, there is much more to it than simply signing up. Just joining a popular social network is not going to establish a network. It takes a properly written "attention-grabbing" LinkedIn profile to start the process. You have several options: Do it on your own via trial and error. (Free, time consuming) Take a self-guided step-by-step video course. (Inexpensive, quick) Hire someone to do part or all of it. (Expensive, time required) Each of these options have pros and cons. Time and money are important to everyone. Most of us have very busy schedules and it may be almost impossible to take the time necessary to set up your LinkedIn profile completely on your own. Or, you have the time, but how will you know that you are doing it correctly so that your efforts will bear fruit? Thus, the flaw in Option 1. How about Option 3? Hire someone to take the responsibility to do it for you. Clearly, this is the most expensive option so if money is a concern, this is not the option for you. And when you hire someone else you must still be involved. There will be edits of multiple drafts and it remains essential that your profile reflect YOUR personality and brand. Option 2 may be the most logical choice when either or both time and money are a concern. "Take a self-guided step-by-step video course. (Inexpensive, quick)" As your goal is to write an attention-grabbing LinkedIn profile, you do not want to guess. By following the step-by-step instruction you will know exactly what to do, what fields to complete, what words to use. All the research has been done for you by social media experts. Your training should include step-by-step videos that are direct and to the point. In addition, you are free to watch these videos as many times as you want to. There is power in repetition as it allows information to sink deeply into the subconscious. Once this occurs, you have access to this vital information whenever you need it, and you can never lose or misplace it. This way, you learn at your own pace and get the most from your training. When you are finished, your profile should be on the first page of listings when people search for you by keyword and your company page will be optimized for the major search engines. The power within social networks continues to grow. Just signing up and having a profile on LinkedIn is not going to grow your network effectively. You must create your "personality" and "brand" on LinkedIn. You can do it completely on your own OR hire an expert to do it for you. A reasonable alternative is to get the best of both. Write your "attention-grabbing" LinkedIn profile yourself following the step-by-step guidance from a social media expert. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7809275

10 Good Reasons Why You Need a LinkedIn Profile

Although there are more than 200 million users on LinkedIn, many job seekers still don't have an active LinkedIn profile and many more don't have a profile at all. The fact of the matter is, if you are not using some form of online professional networking, you are not as ready as you think you for this competitive job market, and you might just want to rethink your position on this topic. According to Assist Social Media Blog, "LinkedIn is a place that produces results. Big businesses connect with and reach out to members every day. All kinds of corporations can be found there". Frankly, my friend, whether you are a seasoned professional, a college grad or an active job seeker, you need a presence on this particular platform. Don't confuse LinkedIn with other social media platforms. They each have their special features and uses, but LinkedIn is specifically reserved for professional social networking. So, if you need some convincing about why you should activate your profile here are 10 good ones for you: 1) Your connections on LinkedIn are and should be professionals you know and have a relationship with. When you connect with them, this opens up a vast extended network of other professionals that they are connect to. This is the perfect way to meet and get introduced to decision makers within companies that you are interested in working for. Now you can meet the people you need to know! 2) Major companies are on LinkedIn, and they often post job openings there too. When you find a job posting on LinkedIn you can quickly scan your network to see who works for the company, or who knows someone who works for the company. This way you can learn about the company, its culture, its employees, and perhaps even learn helpful information about the hiring manager or recruiter. 3) Major employers search for candidates on LinkedIn. However, your profile needs to be properly optimized using the right keywords in your skills, your professional profile, and experience. Keywords are very important so become familiar with the lingo of your industry or field and make sure those words can be found throughout your profile. 4) Recruiters and employers will search LinkedIn for your profile if and when they become interested in you as a candidate. Don't disappoint them! Keep your profile up to date just as you would your resume and complete it by ensuring all the sections are properly filled out. 5) You can get involved in discussion groups on LinkedIn. This is an opportunity for you to showcase your knowledge in your field and develop subject matter expertise. LinkedIn's hundreds of groups exist as a way for professionals to engage with each other. Don't remain silent if you want to be noticed. Join the conversation! 6) LinkedIn is the professional networking hub of the 21st Century. This is where professionals across the globe meet to share knowledge and learn about happenings in the world's organizations, great and small. Get with the program! 7) LinkedIn helps you stay connected with current and former colleagues and co-workers. Remember that manager you absolutely admired and wish you could work for again? LinkedIn is quite likely the place where you can find and connect with that manager. You never know what doors this connection could open for you! 8) You can ask for recommendations from former and current peers, supervisors, managers, college professors etc., and make those recommendations viewable so that anyone who checks you out can see what others have to say about you! (Oh, by the way, don't ask someone who does not know you professionally to provide a professional reference! That's not a good idea!) 9) LinkedIn gives you access to a global network of professionals who can answer specific questions for you. If you need to get an opinion about something, or learn how someone else has handled a particular challenge, or even what tools or systems other companies are using to solve problems, you can post all those questions in a group discussion on LinkedIn. When others in your group see your question 9 out of 10 times someone or a few people will post their answers and you'll have tons of great ideas to sift through! 10) Last but not least, LinkedIn allows you to develop and refine your personal brand. Get tuned in to your professional self, and position yourself to attract companies that share your values. Learn about causes and determine what you are passionate about and get connected to others who share those passions. You can become the connected professional you were born to be, have complete control over how you are perceived, and take your career to the next level by using LinkedIn efficiently and effectively! Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7737718

Living The Internet Lifestyle - What You Must Know Before Choosing This Way Of Life

Living the Internet lifestyle will mean different things to different people. It's the life you can live once you are free from working for someone else and have a business that can be run from your home computer, or from wherever in the world you happen to be. Think about the goals and dreams you have set for yourself, the way you are most comfortable working, and what you will do with your time and money once you have created this lifestyle for yourself. Your dream may be to travel the world, to send your children to private schools, or to move to a new city and have a larger home. You may also want to be able to tell your spouse they may quit their job and stay home with the family. Whatever your reasons for coming online and building a business, thinking about your 'Reason Why' will give you the motivation to make it happen. How are you most comfortable working each day? Some people love getting dressed up and going out into the corporate world. Others prefer to work from home in shorts and a t-shirt. If can also be very lonely working from home, so you must decide if the interaction with others throughout the day is important to you. You may want to get started from home on the weekends at first to make sure this lifestyle suits you well enough to leave your day job. Once you have the time and the money to live life under your terms, how will you spend each day? This is the question you must ask yourself now, and as you move closer to your goals. I began by volunteering in my community, and found that I love serving others. Being able to spend time with your family, your friends, and people in your city who are in need is a worthwhile goal to achieve. Your life takes on a whole new meaning when you do not have to think about working at a job as a way to earn significant income. You can see that living the Internet lifestyle is more complicated than it first appears. Talk about it with your friends and family, and then jump in to get started right away. If you are willing to work hard and learn as much as you can during the first year, you'll be able to live the life you choose for the remainder of your life. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7850894

Six Blogging and Social Media Tips

One of the things I really like about blogging is all of the doors it opens up for various kinds of social media marketing. What I mean by that is you should do more with your blog post then just publish it online and wait for readers to find you. Here are six blogging and social media tips you can follow that work well together. 1. Bookmark your post. Get it into social bookmarking sites using Only Wire to bookmark your post into numerous social directories with one click. This is going to take a little bit of time to join the various directories, but it's time well spent in the long run. Every time you bookmark your post using Only Wire you are exposing it to literally thousands of new readers, as well as creating valuable backlinks for search engines to find and follow back your blog. 2. Create a video. Once you've bookmarked your blog post take the blog article and create a video of it. Use a program such as Animoto to create a slide series video you can upload into even more social directories. You can even upload them directly to You Tube which Google really likes. 3. Tweet it. Post a short comment and link on your Twitter account linking back to either the blog post or the new video URL. Twitter has over 200 million active users and this is a great way to quickly create a backlink and potential blog traffic. 4. Facebook page. Set up a separate Facebook page for your blog. Bookmark your blog post onto this page and bookmark your video onto this page as well. 5. Email it. Hopefully you are building an email list. If you're not shame on you and start doing that right now. One thing that really works to drive traffic to your blogs is send an email out to your list with a little snippet of information that creates curiosity. Then post a link back to your new blog article that people can follow and read the blog article in its entirety. 6. Article directories. Use a service such as Submit Your Article or Ezine to get your article into directories and on other people's blogs. Don't just link to your blog home page, but rather link back to your blog posts and mix it up. These are six blogging and social media tips that really do work. It takes a little bit more effort on your part, but maximizing every blog article into various social media avenues is a better use of your time than constantly adding new content that people never see. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7834966

Various Ways on How to Earn Money Fast

Almost all of us want to make a lot of money fast. That is why we study hard, change careers, take our sports seriously, gamble and do other things with the intention that they will eventually pay off and we will make money. There are however, other easier ways to earn money fast online. There are many ways of making money fast, especially on the internet. Below are a few ways on how to make money online. Fill out online surveys This is especially applicable to people who spend a lot of their time on the internet. The surveys do not pay that much, but they require very little effort on your part. If you are able to fill in several surveys daily, then the amount that you make could be quite significant. You just have to look for the many companies offering the surveys and you will be amazed at the amount of money that you will make. Online marketing There are various websites out there that pay people for advertisements. Here you are given ads and links which you are supposed to post to various sites. The work requires very little effort and all you need is a stable internet connection to share the ads. Some sites pay much better than others and others are scams. You should therefore do proper research before wasting your time and energy. Freelance writing If, you are well skilled in a certain academic discipline then you are in luck. There are sites dedicated to connecting people who need your expertise. The work here will involve doing assignments and writing reports that may take less than a day to complete. The pay is usually very good and is a really good way of making money fast. Affiliate marketing Here, you are paid for marketing other people's products. You may be required to generate traffic to their websites where you will be paid a certain commission on any visitor you bring to their site that buys the product. At times the payment may be made based on the number of visitors that visit that website. It is a very simple way of making money. It is therefore very easy to make money fast online. All you need is a stable internet connection and some dedication from your part. Remember, there might be a learning curve to over come at first, but with practice it should be very easy and simple later on, which ever venture you decide to go with. If you are new to making money online or are looking for a relatively easy way to make money, this software is extremely user friendly and will provide an excellent way to make money in itself or can provide a great source of traffic to any online venture. Click Here to view a video on how effective this tool is! Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7841311

How SMEs Can Use Facebook Marketing for Driving Growth

Facebook marketing has opened up a lot of possibilities for small and medium enterprises, also known as small and medium enterprise, to get closer to their desired business objectives. The primary reason for this recent development is the fact that it helps brands reach out to customers in a very effective manner. Till now, email marketing or SMS marketing were the only cost effective ways to get in touch with current and prospective customers. However, Facebook marketing has ensured that brands can now easily get in touch with customers, and vice versa. This interactive platform gives customers the power to express their opinion like never before, and they're certainly hooked on to this new medium of interacting with their favorite brands. The most important thing, however, in this regard is to ensure that the content provided on the page is of high quality. Relevance is of utmost importance. For instance, if it's a fashion chain's page, they can talk about the latest fashion trends, tips for dressing up stylishly as per the season, or even provide updates on their own collection. It's necessary to bring innovation to the page posting strategy and use Facebook marketing to give a voice to the brand, establishing a distinct identity. Targeting the right audience is the next goal in mind, and one can do so via demographics, location, life stage and similar parameters. There are plenty of advanced targeting capabilities where one can upload their data of existing customers and get the right message across to the right target audience. And this brings us to the next point. Oftentimes, more important than reaching out to the right target audience, is the fact that the right message must be broadcasted. Testing and iterating is very impactful and one can get higher Return on Investment if they put in the extra effort in the first go. The best way to do so is to create specific ads for the TG, and stop the ones that are not performing well. Creating more versions of the ones that are doing well is the right way to ensure that more and more relevant customer reach the page. Tracking the performance of the Facebook marketing campaign is, by default, one of the most important aspects of determining the success of the initiative. For instance, page insights will show the content people are responding well to, and this helps invest more in segments people are responding to better than the rest. iAssist247 is an All-In-One Marketing tool which helps you get new customers and retain existing customers by leveraging email marketing, SMS marketing & Facebook Marketing all with a few clicks! Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7830970

Outsourcing For Your Online Business - Grow Your Business Exponentially By Getting Help From Others

Outsourcing refers to having someone else do work for you by the hour or by the job. This will free you up to do the things that only you can do. I'm going to share some strategies with you that have made outsourcing a must for my business, including which types of activities to have others do for you, how to know when you can afford to do this, and how to carry it one step further to grow your business exponentially. In the beginning you may feel like you have to learn how to do everything in your online business. This might include creating content with articles and blog posts, hosting teleseminars and webinars, and creating information products. I know I felt this way and was soon exhausted from working ten to twelve hours each day. I finally decided that I was best at writing and creating information products, but not so skilled at creating websites and doing the technology. I decided to find others who could do these things for me, and it made a huge difference immediately. The biggest complaint I hear from my own students on this topic is that they cannot possibly afford to pay someone else when they are not yet earning much money in their online business. The fact is that this is a business that costs money to set up and run, and having others help you is part of that expense. You may want to barter with others for their services in the beginning. Start with the one thing you need help with - in my case it was the technology - and then see how it goes. Once I had someone setting up my sites and working on the technical aspects I could see my way clear to write and create new products. You can also carry this one step further to grow your business exponentially. I hired someone to submit my articles to the directories, post to my blog using my content, and turn it all into short reports I could sell and give away. Finally, all of that content was turned into books to sell on Amazon and Kindle. As you can see, having help as your build your business on the Internet will be crucial to your success. Find people who are already successful and ask for references and referrals to the people they are using for their outsourcing. Remember that the reason to start an Internet business is to give you the time and financial freedom to live the life you choose. Download free training on building your online business by visiting Getting Started Online to learn how to write viral short reports, blog, become involved in social networking and learn the technology needed to build a profitable online business. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7857040

How to Make the Best Use of Social Media for Business Growth?

Every commercial venture or business is started with the motive of profit and maximum beneficial ROIs. But, this is easier said than done, given the highly volatile and dynamic environment that is witnessed in the marketplace. If you aspire to not only compete effectively with your peers but also come out in flying colors in the rat-race, then it goes without saying that you have to think out-of-the-box. Never mind if you have just started a new business, or you run your organization on a low budget. There are a few techniques that can help you achieve wonderful results within the stipulated time. They are classified into various categories like search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM) and social media optimization (SMO). The essence of using these methods is that you complement the traditional methods of advertising by using popular and fruitful digital marketing techniques. The advantages of using these state-of-the-art Internet marketing techniques can be listed as follows: i. High visibility to prospective customers Through word-of-mouth advertising, the existing customers provide referral service to spread a word or two about your business to their contacts. These contacts are your future prospects. ii. Suitable especially for small businesses In contrast to large business groups, the smaller players enjoy the maximum benefits of social media marketing. This method is suitable for self-employed professionals and new-to-the-market entrepreneurs. They can plan and set up an initial-level Internet marketing campaign to make a start. iii. Effective optimization and cost cutting Instead of relying on experts for optimization, you can use social media marketing strategies to advertise your business all by yourself to reduce costs. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are simple to use. iv. Seamless expansion of network In a matter of a few days, you can place your business in a better position by watching out for new customers by the hour. v. Hassle-free updating of data You can update information about your achievements like the launch of a new product or expansion of your business line very easily through social media. vi. Direct contact with customers You can establish a direct rapport with your clients and make them feel special by adding a personal touch to your business deals. There is an increased scope for interaction and receiving feedback from them. Social media is quite popular among customers. vii. Creation of a distinct corporate profile You can create a unique marketing niche for your products/services. Uniqueness in turn leads to high visibility. viii. Useful tool for diverting traffic to your website With a visible increase in your reputation and market share, you can expect more visitors to your website to inquire about your products/services in detail. In a nutshell, social media marketing is the buzzword of the day as far as gaining a winning edge over your nearest competitor is concerned. YouTube promotions are one of the highly preferred and rewarding tools in social media marketing today. You can achieve the set goals for targeted YouTube views for a certain period based on the location and expected knowledge level of the viewers, the speed of the video while downloading, the popularity of the topic under consideration and many other factors. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7855438

Pinterest Boards Your Business Should Have

Social media has proven its ability as a tool to increase a website's traffic and then later on increase sales. And one of the most used social media platforms these days is Pinterest. Pinterest is a photo-sharing website wherein users can create theme-based boards that work as a folder where they can upload or pin a collection of images about anything and everything under the sun. Because of its features, Pinterest has earned respect in the world of internet marketing and is now used not just for personal purposes but for businesses as well. However, a Pinterest account will be useless if you will not be able to maximize its full potential. It's very important to have the right kind of boards in order attract more followers and keep them coming back. Here are some Pinterest boards that you should create for your business. Attention Drawer Board Get to know who your target audience are to find out what interests them and what's important to them. If you have a food cart business, most of your followers would probably be entrepreneurs or just business-minded people, so topics about business trends or food which are not directly related to your business can still draw more visitors to your page. "how-to" boards A pinterest board should not just be entertaining but educational as well. Make sure that when a user visits one of your boards, they'd leave with new knowledge gained. "How to" boards seem to be getting a lot of clicks on Pinterest these days so creating one is definitely a must. Try to get access on instructional videos and prints that are somehow related to your business and create a board for it. Just don't forget to give acknowledgement to its owners to avoid getting into trouble. Products and Services Board This board will also serve as a catalogue of your products or services. Before a product is released, you may pin information about its features and benefits while asking your followers what they have to say about it. After the product launch, you may then post customers' feedback, reviews and photos of customers who are satisfied with your products. Social Proof Board Social proof is "a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation." That means if you show a video or a picture of a customer satisfied with your product, chances are, the people who'd see the video would think that they'd also be satisfied with your product. If it worked for that person, it will work for me too. What you can do is to create a board that will show some of your customers using your brand or a board that will serve as your customer profile. This should contain their business information or a link to their website so it's best to let them know what you will be doing first. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7855771

Pinterest Boards Your Business Should Have

Social media has proven its ability as a tool to increase a website's traffic and then later on increase sales. And one of the most used social media platforms these days is Pinterest. Pinterest is a photo-sharing website wherein users can create theme-based boards that work as a folder where they can upload or pin a collection of images about anything and everything under the sun. Because of its features, Pinterest has earned respect in the world of internet marketing and is now used not just for personal purposes but for businesses as well. However, a Pinterest account will be useless if you will not be able to maximize its full potential. It's very important to have the right kind of boards in order attract more followers and keep them coming back. Here are some Pinterest boards that you should create for your business. Attention Drawer Board Get to know who your target audience are to find out what interests them and what's important to them. If you have a food cart business, most of your followers would probably be entrepreneurs or just business-minded people, so topics about business trends or food which are not directly related to your business can still draw more visitors to your page. "how-to" boards A pinterest board should not just be entertaining but educational as well. Make sure that when a user visits one of your boards, they'd leave with new knowledge gained. "How to" boards seem to be getting a lot of clicks on Pinterest these days so creating one is definitely a must. Try to get access on instructional videos and prints that are somehow related to your business and create a board for it. Just don't forget to give acknowledgement to its owners to avoid getting into trouble. Products and Services Board This board will also serve as a catalogue of your products or services. Before a product is released, you may pin information about its features and benefits while asking your followers what they have to say about it. After the product launch, you may then post customers' feedback, reviews and photos of customers who are satisfied with your products. Social Proof Board Social proof is "a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation." That means if you show a video or a picture of a customer satisfied with your product, chances are, the people who'd see the video would think that they'd also be satisfied with your product. If it worked for that person, it will work for me too. What you can do is to create a board that will show some of your customers using your brand or a board that will serve as your customer profile. This should contain their business information or a link to their website so it's best to let them know what you will be doing first. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7855771

How to Start a Profitable Local Web Marketing Business This Weekend

Who else thinks that you've got to have years of experience to be a web marketing guru in your local community? If you think you've got to spend the next few years of your life "studying" gimmicks, gurus and "secret" techniques for becoming successful online... THINK again! The truth is, unless you are just starting out, and have absolutely no idea how to do the very basics, you have all that you need to succeed already. As a matter of fact, regardless of what you may read elsewhere, become a local business consultant is probably the BEST, easiest and most evergreen opportunity for people like you who want to earn 6 figures a year... Doing work that you really love. Consider this: If you can register a domain name, pick hosting and install a blog (even using an automated script, which takes 30 seconds) you are ALREADY ahead of 85% of the learning curve, relative to the clients and customers in YOUR community who can't. (and that includes doctors, realtors, lawyers, accountants and all kinds of high priced professionals who don't have the first clue about how to get set up online and are willing to PAY for someone else to do the heavy lifting for them) Or, consider THIS: If you are familiar with how to set up an email auto responder campaign, you can quite literally earn a few hundred dollars an HOUR helping those same high priced professionals start newsletters, and create automated conversational content campaigns that go out to their subscribers. I have a friend and client who literally quit her day job as a medical technician to help doctors and dentists create content marketing campaigns - specifically EMAIL marketing campaigns, and with no experience other than a few months of studying online marketing best practices, launched a 6 figure business from scratch in 2012. (and now gets an average of over $300 an hour from new clients to set up simple email follow ups that just about everyone reading this right now probably knows how to do, or could learn pretty quickly!) The key is, pick a vertical (a niche or industry) that you have a little bit of familiarity with, and then apply your online marketing knowledge to help that audience grow their business. Use free classifieds to advertise. Contact local business listings via email, or use their contact forms. Build PROACTIVE sites in the area that you live,and literally give the sites away... in return for 6 or 9 or 12 month continuity contracts. For example - you can literally register a hyper local domain name in your community that caters to a niche you know, build a blog on it, and then offer to give it away to a professional who works in that business, on the condition that they hire you to do 12 months of SEO for $200 a month. They just got a free website, and a great domain in their local area - and you just got a $2400 client, without much effort at all. You can literally do this sort of thing all day long... and if you're creative, and motivated, and truly want to build a viable, valuable and enduring business, the only thing that stops you from doing what you LOVE from a living is allowing yourself to be distracted by gurus, gimmicks, gadgets, noise and nonsense. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7859359

How to Properly Link to Your YouTube Channel for Maximum SEO Link Equity

t's common to see YouTube videos in various other sites. With the growing popularity of online videos, it's one of the video marketing strategies to promote YouTube channels by linking them to other sites, expecting to maximize link equity as more visitors visit the channel. However, it's not as simple as posting your YouTube channel URL at various sites. What is more important is that you used the correct format of your YouTube channel URL. So, what is the correct format of YouTube channel URL that will maximize link equity? If your channel name is Tumbleweed Team, the channel URL should be youtube.com/user/TumbleweedTeam instead of just youtube.com/TumbleweedTeam and its other versions. You see the four-letter difference? Although the latter URL will lead viewers to your channel, it will not boost its page rank or link equity. In fact if you open your channel at the YouTube site and not from an outside link, you'll see this form of URL on the address bar: youtube.com/user/TumbleweedTeam. So, that's the one recognized by Google or YouTube. Expert Explanation The best SEO practices require that the link to a site should be to the most dominant part of that site. It's important so that all the inbound links go to only one URL and increases that site's ranking. It was also mentioned that the two Tumbleweed URLs can be used to reach the Tumbleweed YouTube channel. So, the URL without "user" deducts from the actual links to the YouTube channel. The ranking would have been higher if all inbound links are credited to the link using the correct URL (with "user") format. In other sites, webmasters use canonical URLs to redirect other versions of the URL. However, YouTube does not redirect 1) /Tumbleweed to 2)/user/Tumbleweed. And version #2 is the default URL for your channel within YouTube as also mentioned. So, the links to URL version #1 does not add to the ranking power of the YouTube channel. So, to be sure that all inbound links add to your YouTube channel's link equity, it's better to use the URL that YouTube also links to. Take note of the format: YouTube.com/user/your channelaccountname when you provide links to other sites online. Is It Really Effective? Based on some reports, videos with changed linking format jumped to as much as 25 ranks higher. It is no doubt a very significant increase. Why don't you try it? Maybe with some more video marketing tactics, more online video marketing successes can be achieved. Oliver Momeni is a serial entrepreneur and life explorer. Online video marketing, personal development, webinars and internet marketing are Oliver's favorite topics to mastermind with you. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Oliver_F_Momeni Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7733982

Top Ten Tips to Build a Stronger LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn is synonymous with interpersonal business connections. Looking at my LinkedIn homepage on any day, mostly what I see is "Harry is now connected to Sally," "John is now connected to David" etc. Only a small minority of LinkedIn members are REALLY using the available tools beyond the easy way of starting connections; more businesspeople need to start posting articles they like, expressing opinions, listing upcoming events, asking or answering questions, commenting on someone else's posting, or (gasp!) using one or more of the free LinkedIn apps. So as a fellow contributor to the global personal learning network (PLN) we all share with each other in LinkedIn, I put into written words selections from educational seminars I have been giving in the New York metro area, to evangelize on the "Top Ten Tips to Build a Stronger LinkedIn Profile." 1. Don't just cut and paste sections from your résumé, that backward-looking document. LinkedIn shows your past experience and more: your present efforts and future aspirations. Describe your rich experience and how it contributes to your current and future abilities, in your own words, as you would to someone you just met. Use short blocks of copy with keywords and rich textual images, in easily digestible bites. Why? Your profile is the primary means of branding yourself as a change agent, an authority, an attractive business prospect to someone seeking your services. Who better to add color and depth to your brand than you? OK, recommendations and referrals also do work wonders, but when a prospective client is comparing you to a competitor, you need to make your profile shine in your own personal way. The most important takeaway from my sessions is that you MUST convey in rich, searchable terms (à la SEO) WHY YOU. Not what you do at your company, but what values you distinctly bring to the proverbial table, with your unique perspective and clear reasons why you stand out from the crowd. A lackluster cut-and-paste job from your website or résumé won't differentiate you. Show how you are the sum total of your past experiences, how your present work is shaping you as a valued business partner, and express your future aspirations in a business development context. Articulate the character you possess that will make people WANT to hire and/or refer you for new business. 2. Borrow from the best marketers you know. Draw inspiration from others you respect. Adapt smart wording you see them using to your own personal style and branding. But be sure to light up your LinkedIn profile with your own color. Use present tense, first person ("I" or "my") and the active voice. In your own words, aimed at the LinkedIn audience of over 100 million business professionals, (a very different audience from that of the internet, your blog, FaceBook, or Twitter), tell WHO you really are. Stilted, artificial techno-jargon turns people away. Tell your story, concisely and articulately. Do you have 2 or more businesses like I do? Wrap the descriptions of each business together in a summary paragraph that paints a picture of yourself as a dynamic, active, yet integrated multi-preneur. Your depth and clarity will immediately increase and reflect well on you vs. your drab competitor's flat LinkedIn profile. 3. Write a dynamic personal tagline. That 120-character line of text under your name that LinkedIn calls your Professional Headline is the first impression you make in your profile. It defines you all over LinkedIn. Your professional headline is your brand, make it intriguing; clearly tell others "WHO you really are" not what your title/company is. Craft it carefully and rewrite it as you change, because you will change. If you think a 140-character tweet is challenging, then 120 characters of self-description on your LinkedIn professional headline can be a real ordeal--and that 120-character limit includes spaces! This exercise in self-definition has been exasperatingly healthy for my clients. The professional headline needs to be keyword-rich (again for SEO) yet easy to digest in a quick gulp, especially as attention-deficit as we have all become. You may be a "VP Treasury at XYZ Corporation," but better said for LinkedIn branding purposes: "Seasoned corporate finance professional with 20+ years' experience in global treasury management" (that's 96 characters including spaces; with room for up to 24 more characters to further express WHO you are!). Doesn't the expanded version tell a lot more about that person than their {title} at {company name}? 4. Put your polished elevator pitch to eve n better use. Your self-description, practiced and refined, is the essence of who you are and succinctly positions what you do. Now convert it for use in LinkedIn's Summary section, to attract potential connections. You have but seconds to capture the reader's attention. A terse and intelligent Summary is your second chance to stand out. It complements the WHY YOU aspects you conveyed before and reinforces your areas of expertise, experience, and why you are further worthy of consideration for the business connection. Sparingly, you can insert industry jargon and acronyms here, if needed. Speak to the audience: "here's more about me, now join me as we dig further, and be sure to read my Experience section too." You're on a roll--the reader is following your explanation and expression, once he/she has determined you are worthy of spending the time. 5. Identify your background and show yourself as greater than the sum of the experience you had. The Experience and Specialties fields drive your personal SEO in LinkedIn searches; knit in Google keywords to improve being found in a search. In describing your past experience, job by job, display your unique abilities in your line of work, personal skills and unique interests, values that round out your professional background and show you as a whole person. Use a note of humor, cite an excerpt from your publication, and express your professional passion. Often ignored, the Specialties, Skills, Certifications, Languages, and Publications section, though relatively new, is another place to add to WHO you are. If you published on paper or electronically, show it off here. If you have earned certifications, or can speak a foreign language for business, say so here. I even had a coaching client who asked if her patent was important to mention. "Heck yes," I told her, "it's a further differentiator, showing a unique developed, earned, contributed aspect of your persona." It directly reflects on the experience she will always possess. 6. You must have a good photo. A clear picture of what you look like, a friendly, approachable face, is a basic, yet underutilized, tool to reinforce your brand. Potential business contacts will sometimes telephone you after reviewing your profile; allow them to speak to you while looking at your photo on LinkedIn. Your photo should make it easy for someone to spot you in a coffee shop for an initial meeting. While you don't have to run out and get a professional headshot, a digital picture cropped it so everyone can see what you look like, is fine and can be a pose that shows what you do, such as a public speaker with his hands extended making a point, or an attorney on the phone. No picture with your kids, dog, cat, or raising a glass at a party--not professionally correct. This is also not a place to put your logo. And worst of all is not having a picture at all. Show what you look like--your face is part of your brand. 7. Further show your ideas and voice, different from the crowd. Use the powerful free LinkedIn apps to showcase your voice. Use SlideShare and/or Box.net, the free LinkedIn applications, to provide easy access to your multimedia marketing materials, adding even more depth to your profile with PDFs, white papers, brochures, podcasts, slide decks, and/or video of you speaking or how you perform your services. Add your portfolio of 2- and 3-dimensional art, photos, architectural designs, and interior design work using Creative Portfolio Display, also a free LinkedIn app. While you are exploring these wonderful apps, look at the all the others and determine if they can help further differentiate you from the competitors; Polls, BlogLink, MyTravel, Events, among others. LinkedIn adds more from time to time so check back to see what's newly available. 8. Make your profile 100% complete; get a personalized LinkedIn URL. Look your very best, fully rounding out your LinkedIn profile to tell WHO you really are. You don't do anything 75% complete, do you? Having a 100% complete profile actually boosts your SEO in Google so you rank much higher, if not at the very top, if someone Googles you. To attain 100% profile completion, show your current position, at least 2 past positions, education, profile summary, photo, specialties, and 3 recommendations by others of you. Personalize your LinkedIn URL, instead of using the default URL you were given when you joined LinkedIn. If you have numbers and letters at the end of your LinkedIn profile URL, you need to personalize it. To learn how to do so, go to Learning Center at the bottom of any LinkedIn page, and search for "personalized URL" and then follow the directions. Now use that URL on your business cards, email signature lines, and all marketing materials so the reader can learn about you, in your own words, on LinkedIn. And for you graduating students and other job seekers, place it on your resume too! 9. Answer questions; ask questions. Thoughtful, purposeful answers to questions raised by others add to your street credentials, pointing more eyes at your profile as an expert. Answering questions to help others is not only a good deed, but also establishes you after enough valued responses, as an expert in the field. Not a bad reputation to have! This reinforces your stature, and builds social capital with your network. Don't hesitate to ask an open-ended question of selected individuals on LinkedIn, all your connections, certain of your LinkedIn groups, or the entire general LinkedIn population; tap into your peers' expertise--the results will amaze you. Ask questions to take the pulse of current thinking in your field. If you get a particularly stimulating answer, take the conversation offline and call or meet that person for a valuable connection now and in the future. 10. Recommend and get recommended. LinkedIn makes it really easy to give someone a recommendation or ask someone to recommend you for some specific aspect of your work. Give recommendations, as a thank-you for great work and add an anecdote to tell what character the colleague uniquely demonstrated. Surprise someone with a recommendation for a true gift. Ask clients, colleagues, vendors, partners for recommendations, guiding the writer to comment in his/her own words, on a specific characteristic, such as your dedicated follow-up on a particular problem to ensure its solution, or your special TLC at an especially difficult time. The "Halpert 2%" rule should apply: 98% of your network should like you and 2% of your connections should greatly admire you so much as to recommend you. Too many or too few recommendations can suggest a misconception about you. Finally, beware that recommending someone and having them recommend you back on the same day looks like a mutual admiration society-not very impressive or professional. Wait a week or 2 in between. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6365045