Social Network has been the top buzz in internet business world. As we know, Web 2.0 has already changed the internet world and it enables common people gain access to the online world and their opinion and comments are highly valued. Social bookmarking, social networking, blogs… are all the ways people use to get connected, exchange ideas and share information.

We use use social networking sites to help us grow our online business. But what site to use? There are several to choose from, such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, OpenSocial…. Paul Dunay from BuzzMarketinfortech.com suggested to use solely Facebook. Well, as the No. 7 most visited website, Facebook has almost two million new users from around the world sign up each week, according to Facebook. This number is appealing for any online business.

Paul Dunay in his post ” Get a Facebook Strategy ” even showed how to use Facebook as a means to promote online business.

Use Facebook as a clearinghouse for everything you are doing online for your “community” by filtering content you find on the Web. To do that:

• add the Twitter application – so others can see what you are doing
• add the Del.icio.us application – so others can see what you are tagging
• add StumbleUpon – so others can see what you are finding interesting
• add zuPort for YouTube – so others can see what videos you posted

Start a group on Facebook – either for an area of interest or for your brand

• The Seinfeld group started with just 10 members, but by the very next day it was up to 2000 members!

Paul Dunay recently wrote another post ” Facebook Marketing Success Stories for Businesses” to tell us some success stories for business using Facebook. I would like to quote two examples:

* Bryce Gruber is the 23-year-old owner of IntenCity Global, a five-person marketing and public-relations firm in New York. She says Facebook works well for her and has brought tangible results. She recently drew more than 300 people to an opening party for a clothing store that she expected would only attract 150 to 200. And the people who learned of the party through Facebook bought several thousand dollars in merchandise. Her approach is to post information and reminders about her events regularly, and upload plenty of party pictures afterward. Each day, she gets 20 to 30 messages on her Wall and keeps that going with quick replies. The effort means she shows up often in her Facebook friends’ news feeds, where people are notified of their friend’s activities on Facebook.

* On the company page of Rootsgear’s, which designs T-shirts with political and social messages, people can look at the firm’s designs and see a calendar of upcoming events. The company stokes its group membership of about 1,400 by every few months sending out invitations to join to new Facebook friends collected by cofounder Sunmit Singh. Mr. Singh says the Facebook page drives more traffic to Rootsgear’s e-commerce site than Google’s search engine or MySpace, another social-networking site where it has a presence. And Facebook has helped the year-old company’s sales.

Yes, it seems to be quite promising. Using Facebook or not is not that important, but using a social network site seems to be an effective and cheap way. What we need is creativity and diligence on our side and a little bit luck.

Wish you success in the coming new year!

Post from: Internet Business Tips

Twitter is so popular now. More and more people are using it to stay in touch with their friends and family. But what is it? There is an excellent intro video.

Post from: Internet Business Tips

Post from: Internet Business Tips

You must have heard of Linkedin.com, a place for professionals to manage contacts, build and maintain a network. But, does it function only as a connection community? Below is a video which will let you take a different view at your connections in Linkedin. Actually with the help, you can rediscover your network and get things done.

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by Cynthia Minnaar

Have you reached the stage that you are sick of the rat rate and having to centre your life around getting to work on time, being dictated to by a boss, joining the rush hour to get home and then repeating the process day in day out? Or, perhaps you need a second income to cope with the rising costs. Affiliate Marketing could just be the feasible route for you to take.

So what is affiliate marketing? Basically it is a business opportunity that enables the home business entrepreneur to earn passive income by marketing products for other businesses. You can earn commissions from your direct sales as well as, in some cases, from other affiliates that you introduce to the opportunity.

If you feel that affiliate marketing may be just what you are looking for, here are some important tips to ensure your success:

1. The importance of choosing your niche

The best way to choose your niche is to determine where your interests lie and make a list of the types of products you are interested in. Then search for affiliate companies that sell the type of products you are interested in marketing. It is really important that you choose the best affiliate company or products to market. Ideally you need to look for long standing, reputable, high paying ones.

2. Set-up your website or blog

Once you have chosen your products you then need to display them on a website or blog. Don’t be tempted to just put a whole lot of banners on your site. Remember that people are looking for information so write reviews of each product and be sure to give clear instructions on how they can order the product or sign up as an affiliate too A video is also a great way to let your visitors know about the benefits and how to use the products. Be sure to optimize your website for the search engines with carefully chosen keywords too.

3. Offer your website visitors a freebie

Everybody loves to get something for nothing so offer your website visitors freebies too. It could be in the form of free report, articles, or an ebook. You can use useful, free content to spread the word about your products and opportunity and therefore they translate into more referrals and sales for you.

4. Generate targeted traffic to your website

It does not matter if you have the best affiliate products and programs on offer, the most informative information or the most fantastic website on the internet, without targeted visitors you will not get anywhere.

How do you generate targeted traffic? Okay, so you have optimized your website now you need to do off-site optimization which is also called link building. You can use internet marketing methods such as article marketing, blogging, word of mouth, social networking, forum posting, submitting your site to the online directories, all of which will, in time, attract targeted visitors to your site.

It will be hard for you to fail as an affiliate marketer if you follow all of the abovementioned affiliate marketing tips.

About the Author:
Cynthia Minnaar runs her own successful online affiliate business full-time from home and is also a staff member of The Niche Power Group. Discover how they can help you achieve success with affiliate marketing.

Post from: Internet Business Tips