Last week, I had a chance to talk to you about how you can make money blogging. Today I am going to focus on making money through affiliate marketing. As I said yesterday, making money through affiliate programs has been around for a long time and it is one of the best ways to make money. However, in order to be successful with affiliate marketing, you must work really hard to carve out your niche. If your web site is all over the place, you will not be successful with your affiliate marketing.

How to Make Money – Affiliate Marketing Tips

Your blog or domain is a great source of income- many webmasters and bloggers often fail to give attention to this fact. It is every bloggers goal to make his or her blog the gem among the pebbles in the vast blogging world. However, working hard for your blog or your website doesn’t end with having a steady stream of readers and followers. The challenge lies in converting this traffic significantly- and what could be more significant than earning decent money.

Affiliate marketing is a very popular method of making money online. The affiliate marketing train keeps getting longer and crowded every minute with lots of people jumping in. Affiliate marketing is relatively easy – all you need is a few minutes of your time for signing up, and sometimes a very basic knowledge of HTML.

Affiliate Marketing Defined –  In this mode of making money online, your blog becomes an avenue for other e-commerce entities to advertise and campaign their own products or services. In much simpler terms, you help these business entities earn- and get a commission or percentage from their sale at the end of the day. Thus, it is a necessity that your blog or your website should have a decent number of traffic in order for the advertisements to become efficient.

Where To Find Them? Looking for affiliate marketing programs is not an intricate task anymore as they can be found almost everywhere. Among all the available affiliate marketing dedicated sites, Clickbank.com is proven to be on the a-list because of the variety of products to choose from.

Basically, your task is to become an affiliate by marketing the product in your blog or website. Becoming an affiliate allows you to post links of certain products (those you have chosen) in your own site. Every time a customer purchases a certain product through your link, you get a commission for it. You can make more money through affiliate marketing than Google Adsense. If you are using Google Adsense, you are referring potential customers to another site that may be affiliated with a product of some sort. You will probably get 25 cents per click through but if the website make a sale, the website owner may make anywhere between 5% to 50% plus. This means if the product he or she sold is $10, the website owner has the potential of making anywhere between 50 cents to five dollars. This is much larger than the 25 cents (or closer to it) per click through you’ve received. This is why affiliate marketing is better off to make more money online.

How To Market Effectively – Marketing the products you are affiliated with should not end with merely posting their links on your site. You have to be creative and resourceful- make use of available resources in the internet.

One very important and widely-used means of marketing affiliated products is through online magazines, e.g. Ezine Articles. These online magazines, just like tangible and real life magazines, are common sources of information, advertisements and reviews about products or services. Normally, people would dig into these sites and see which product would be better off purchasing.

Online forums and discussions are also good avenues of marketing affiliated products. With the help of these sites, you can directly identify the persons who are in need of products which you are affiliated with, thus leading to a more productive affiliate partnership.

You can also purchase advertisement through Google Adwords and or other similar advertisement programs to market your product. If you believe that you can convert certain percentage of your visitors, then you should try this sort of marketing. You will definitely make money if you can predict and calculate your outcomes.

I hope you find this information useful. Please don’t forget to leave a comment below.

Nowadays, the notion of a world-wide-web being considered no more than a means of communication, acquiring information and stuffs akin, is by now outmoded. The internet has gone a long, long way since its birth in the 1980s. If we would be tracing the timeline of internet as to how it was used before, and compare it to the “modern” way of taking advantage of it, the gap would be wider than we could envision.

The internet has a wide array of usage. Communication, information, socialization, entertainment, news and current events- almost everything we do in real life has a virtual equivalent. But among all these, probably the most important thing that keeps the online world in a fast paced revolution is the fact that the internet is virtually a gold rush. Fortune can be found on the internet and millions can attest to that. Everyday, people are making money on Internet through selling used items on eBay, making money through trading domains on NamePros, making money by freelancing through elance.com, etc, etc… This is just a quick glimpse of what is out there and in this series I am going to show you how you can also make money.

Well it may sound a little embellished but in truth, the internet can be a good spring of profits- no matter how old or how naive you are, no matter where you’re from, or what background you have. The internet is a portal of earnings and without a doubt, one can make money online easily through several verified and tested money-making methods. Here are some of the most vastly used techniques. In this part 1 of the Money Making series, I am going to talk about Making Money with your Blog.

Blogging Your Way – Make Money Blogging

It has swept the entire world-wide-web and probably, still the most used form of expression in the internet. Yes, we are referring to blogging. But blogging is not anymore considered only as a means of exhausting one’s feelings and stating one’s opinions about anything under the sun. Blogging is an effective means of earning money. Who would have thought that this previously simple leisure-pursuit of keeping one’s daily activities posted online could be a great spring of income?

Earning money through blogging is not an overnight process. Before one starts to earn a decent amount of money in this venture, it takes some weeks to months in order to have your blog established and recognized by readers.

Know Your Niche. First step is to identify a certain alcove of expertise in which the contents of your blog will revolve around. If home and gardening is your forte, creating a blog out of this flair could turn out great for you. Next thing to do is to sign up for a blog of your own- there are many sites available in the web which allows you to set up your own blog free of charge like Blogger, Wordpress, and the like. If you want to be an instant webmaster and set up your own webpage, consider those cheap but reliable and efficient domains. You should take a look at my previous article on Niche Marketing Research: Finding Your Niche Market to learn more about how to research a niche and identify a niche. Once you identify a niche for your Blog, everything should fall into place. Don’t get started if you don’t have your Niche carved out. This would be one of my important advice to you on Blogging. You need to know what you are blogging about. If you don’t know, then you are going to be all over the place. Hence, you will not be successful.

Update Your Blog Regularly. After having your blog signed up for “operation”, next thing to do is to create contents and publish them regularly. Keeping a steady stream of contents is very nourishing to your blog as food is to human beings. Bear in mind however that there are some things to keep in mind in creating contents. You should refer to my previous post – How to get More User Engagement on Your Blog to Make Money – to help you get users on your blog. You need to write good content to gain Authority on the specific niche you’ve identified in the previous step.

The Power of Keywords. The most important tip in creating sizzling contents is to search for keywords which are pertinent to your content/ topic but at the same time, has a great “search” potential. Meaning, it is a must to inculcate keywords which are popular among the online community. This increases the chance of your blog or your article to be enlisted in any search engine’s top search results. You should learn to use Google Adwords Tool to gain access to the information on how many times a keyword has been search for over a time period. This information will give you an idea of what people are looking for. Then you can cater your Blog to satisfy their need.

You will soon notice that the number of readers who pass by your blog increases over time. The challenge now lies in making this traffic a significant one- that is, making money out of this traffic in your blog.

Here are a Few Ways for You to Make Money Blogging

As I said to you over and over again, you can make money from blogging. It can help you pay your bills for sure. Blogging can work for everyone but you have to be dedicated. I will repeat this again, if you are not dedicated, you will not make money blogging.

Adsense Your Blog

Once you have a specific niche and you are getting regular users, you can setup Google Adsense on your blog. This will generate money when people click on Google Ads that will be displayed on your site.

Introduce Affiliate Programs

By promoting affiliate programs on a blog, you can make more money than Google Adsense. For example, if you are only getting fifty cents per click through on Google Adsense, then it is going to take 100 clicks to make $50. However, if you join an affiliate program through Amazon or ClickBank, they may pay about $10 per successful sale. You may only need 25 click through with five people completing a purchase to make $50. The opportunity is greater with affiliate program but you must focus on offering products that are a good match for your own niche.

Pay Per Post for Blogging

You can make money by charging others to review their product, website, etc on your blog. Once you have a decent amount of traffic to your blog, other people may want to take advantage of your traffic. So they may offer you money to review their products or sites. This is simple and anyone can do this, but you need to make sure you are not just offering product and site reviews to your readers. This may be a turn off for your readers.

Sell Your Own Product (recommended)

I would encourage everyone to look into this way of monetizing a blog. If you want your blog to make lots of money, you need to offer your own product. It can be an eBook, a physical product, or even an opportunity. Once you establish a blog and you are ready to make your big move, think about what you can sell on your own to your readers. Imagine you sell a product for $25. It could be an eBook on your specific niche. You only need to sell two eBooks to make $50. Now, isn’t that easier than getting 100 people to click on Google Ads? I think so.

Direct Advertisement

You can sell direct advertisement on your blog and charge those that want to advertise on your site. This will work if your blog is established. Traffic is king for this sort of monetizing strategy.

Good luck to all of you. Look forward to Part 2 of this so you can learn how you can make money online. Please let me know if you find any of the methods that I’ve explained to you useful or if you have feedback for me on how I can provide more information on a specific monetization strategy. Your feedback, through a comment below, will help me provide better content in the future. So please don’t forget to leave a comment.

ONLY A TINY PERCENT of all published blogs in the online world becomes a magnet of earnings. The rest either gets lost in the online space or gets read a little but left miserably untouched after some seconds of being read half-hearted. While many bloggers contend that the success of a blog greatly depends on the topic being written about, whether it’s hot-stuff or not; the truth is, whatever topic a blogger writes about, a blog can be a big thing when it is written perfectly and strategically.

Why then do most blogs fail and get lost into oblivion, and sometimes, even left untouched by online users, except of course the blogger himself? In order to understand fully the right things to do when blogging, it is necessary to give a rundown of the most common errors a blogger commits. Here are some of them.

Why Do Most of the Blogs Fail?

Blogging Without Direction

The most common mistake a blogger commits is not knowing the purpose of his own blog. While most blogs are purely intended for exhausting one’s feelings, opinions and points of view, there are also blogs meant for business purposes like SEO (Search Engine Optimization), sales and marketing, advertising and the like. With a purpose in mind, one can make the right blog which can attract more readers, and eventually, more flow of cash.

Writing For No One

Failure to identify the target audience is another gaffe of a blogger. Once the purpose of a blog is determined, definitely, the target audience should be identified. By identifying the right people to “converse” with in a blog, your blog becomes more “personalized” in a sense, and appears as though you are speaking with your readers in person. This make the readers “connect” with you personally, making your flock of readers steady going and increasing as time passes.

Hypo-Blogging

This is another common mistake of a “fledgling” blogger. In all cases, maiden blog posts do not make huge cash instantly. It takes time before one establishes his blog and makes a name in this hugely-contested market. Because of the “adaptation” time needed for a blogger to make a name, many bloggers give up after blogging a little- seeing no improvement in his blogging career.

The truth is, in order to adapt into this competitive blogging environment, one needs to publish a regular “dose” of blog entries. This increases viewership and “fans”, so to speak. And luckily, by word of mouth, your blog can earn good reputations.

Blog Clutters

Everyone wants order. Practically nobody wants to scour over a much cluttered blog as it would eat up too much time. Internet users are fonder of being spoon-fed with contents and very rarely you will find a successful blog without any tags or categories. In keeping you blog organized and clutter-free, it is necessary to make use of available blog features such as tags and categories. More importantly, one should see to it that the tags used are properly constructed.

It still remains, however, that no person is born a perfect blogger. Many of the most successful bloggers today have acquired the perfect mix of skills in blogging through experience. And now that we’ve had a quick rundown of the common blunders of a blogger, it is important to apply these things when you make your next blog.

How to Make Your Readers Stay on Your Blog

A normal reader stays on a blog post and attempts to read the first few lines of it. If nothing on the early part of the blog post is found interesting or worth reading, the user leaves and looks for other articles. Some researches say that an average user initially reads less than twenty percent of the words of the entire blog post. This means that the introductory parts of the blog is very crucial, and plays as a determinant in the readership of an article.

Apart from that, the overall appearance of the blog is also a pre-cursor as to whether the article will have a good number of viewership. A blog that appears to be very dragging will most unlikely pique a reader to stay and read further. The same thing applies to blogs which is underwritten- say for example a blog with only two paragraphs or so.

Excited to create your own blog post? Wait up a second- knowing the blogging no-no’s is not enough. You should first learn the right things to do when blogging. Here are some of the most vital tips one should learn to make blog posts with impact!

Right Title= Good Readership

The title of your blog should be catchy. It should be constructed in such a way that out of the hundreds of blogs which a user can choose from, it would stand out and shine. Your blog post’s title is like a “free taste test” of your creation and it should be made a delectable as possible in order for customers to bite in and eat the whole lot.

Shaping the Body

As much as the introductory part of a blog, the body is also equally important. Although it is not the part which is initially read by users, some if not most avid readers skim through the body in order to get a partial gist of the entire article before reading in details. The length of the body, as mentioned earlier is also a thing to give focus to.

De-Jargonize Your Blog

Too much jargon and highfalutin words does not make any sense for an average user’s perception. It’s plain flaunting and nothing sensible can be acquired from it. Readers need something their intellect could grasp. If you are to write about teeth whitening solutions, it would be impractical to write about the major chemicals structure of the teeth and give all sorts of dental and medical lecture. No one would dare to read this, and if read, probably users would swear never to read again from your blog. Normally, one would not want to spend on something which would not bring them good information so present something worth reading- an article which can bring information to average readers.

Focus, Keep It Straight and Shoot!

An introductory part containing 300 to 500 words is a dragging article. Readers don’t want endless introductions and beating-around-the-bush, most especially avid readers who have, more or less, background knowledge on the topic they have in mind.

Sometimes, a blogger gets too enthusiastic and so into blogging about something in mind. This is a double edge as it can make things either better or worse. It would be productive if the blogger makes a perfectly written blog; it would be otherwise if the blogger has been too obsessed writing, to the extent of being less focused and topic-oriented. This way, the blog becomes a hodge-podge of information, a salad bowl of ideas which go into all directions.

This instance may happen even to those who have developed blogging proficiency because enthusiasm hits anyone at any point in time. In order to prevent these blogging blunders from happening, it is an alternative to create another blog post in deviation to the original blog. This way, the writer exhausts his enthusiasm without sacrificing the quality of the original blog.

Breaking Your Paragraphs

Sometimes, a paragraph becomes too long making it look too lazy to read, it’s like swallowing a huge piece of cake in one bite which makes you too full to eat another piece. Short and precise paragraphs are better to look at and easier to read, it’s like offering readers just about a piece of everything, making their reading experience worth the while.

Making use of paragraph headings, bullets or enumerations is also advisable. It helps the blog post look more organized. By this, the reader can understand the blog post in an orderly and organized manner.

Double Check Before Hitting the Button

A rule of thumb is never get too hasty. Sometimes, due to so much fervor, a blogger just blogs his way without any second thoughts about double-checking his article. This is a gaffe which should be avoided. Check everything first before heading into battle. Imagine the jungle there is in the online world- your blog would compete with millions of other blogs published on a daily basis. Certainly, your blog should be armed with good content, proper grammar and spelling and perfect construction.

Keeping Things In Order

A steady supply of blogs in your site will eventually create an online “library”  where interested users can spend their time reading your blog posts. Creating an orderly online archive of blogs is necessary so that users will not get virtually lost in your blog. With the help of tags and categories, users can have a smooth experience in browsing through your contents. This way, readers can be more enticed to find more and dig deeper into your archive.

Taking It To The Next Level

Now that you have created a well-constructed blog, it should be ready for publishing in the world-wide-web. However, the journey doesn’t end with just an endless cycle of creating blog posts and publishing them.

By publishing a steady stream of correctly written blog posts, you will notice the viewership of your blog increase day by day. And if news and reputations about your budding blog spreads like wildfire, it would be to your advantage. By this time, you should have kept your blog uncluttered and organized (as mentioned earlier on) to add more “reputation” to your site.

Blogging Bonuses on How to Make Money with Your Blog

Next level blogging also implies making something out of blogging. What makes blogging more interesting than other routines in the online world is that through blogging, one can earn a significant amount of earning.

After mastering the art of blogging, you should consider writing about the hottest topics and most-searched keywords. These blog posts may be just about anything from flower arrangements to best vacation spots- practically anything will popular will sell.

By writing about these terms and keywords, your blog might just make it big and may yield a big chance “clickability”. There are many affiliate programs in the world-wide-web which may offer you a chance to make something out of blogging.

“Adsensing” Your Blog

Google Adsense is a good example of a money making scheme which can be inculcated in your blog. In Google Adsense, your blog will be tweaked in order to contain links which are related to your blog posts. These links are directed to some websites which offer services and products. For every click your readers have made, you get a fair amount of commission or earning. Thus, your article should be a little more flaunting and promoting. You should keep in mind however the difference between advertising a product and nonsense spamming. Spamming can greatly hurt your reputation so be extra careful in publishing articles meant for advertising.

At this point, you are practically ready to blog. Remember that it takes time to make it big in the world of blogging, as it is a highly contested market. By keeping in mind these simple but very crucial steps in blogging, who knows, you might steadily climb up the ladder where contemporary blog celebrities have passed through painstakingly. Just learn by heart that the best blogs are founded on the best contents and are tested through time.

Happy New Year to you! May it be your best one yet! I hope you are enjoying the first day of the New Year and is excited about the changes to come… As an year end tradition at StartupBooster, I have picked out a few of my best blog posting throughout the year to help you achieve your financial goals – to make more money online!

This will be my last post for 2009… I have many new plans for 2010 and I hope all of you will share the excitement with me. In 2010, I will be focusing on helping startups make more money online. Many startups are going under everyday without making a penny. My goal will be to help every startup make some money; enough money for them to pay for their own expenses so they can keep going for a little longer. To give them a little boost so they can keep trying for a little longer. I hope you will help me help others this year. This is my New Year’s resolution… What is your’s?

List of the best postings of 2009 at StartupBooster

1. Five Basic Rules for Startup Success
2. How to Start a Startup
3. Is a startup the same for every entrepreneur?
4. All You Need to Know Before Buying a Website – Part 1
5. All You Need to Know Before Buying a Website – Part 2
6. You Need to Stop Trying to Make Money Online
7. Startups – How to identify Niche Markets
8. Internet Startups – What Makes a Successful Entrepreneur
9. Internet Startups – Testing is Crucial to Maximize Your Revenue
10. 21 Words All Entrepreneurs Must Eliminate To Be Successful
11. Entrepreneur: Keep Your Heads Up and Think Outside the Box
12. Entrepreneur: Know Your Customer Better to be Successful
13. How to Make More Money: Making Money with Your Website – Part 1 (there are four parts)
14. Entrepreneurs: Believe It or Not, You Are Always Right
15. First Principle of Marketing: Give Before You Ask

I hope you find this list useful. If you do, please share it with your friends.

Again, I wish you all the best in 2010. Have a wonderful day.

FRIENDSTER, MYSPACE, FACEBOOK, TWITTER – what more can we have in the coming years? These social networking sites have been setting the whole online world ablaze for several years now. Today, new words have been lexiconized like tweet, digg, wall posts, aggregator, atom feeds, blog and the like. Many of these have become household names to some extent.

The comfy lifestyle and convenience that these social networking sites have brought to internet savvy users have become much priceless that tens of millions of people have been signing up, updating and maintaining their social media pages daily or to some extent, even 24/7. Several years back, on the early conception period of these online social media sites, the situation was much different than it is today.

To say that social networking sites have improved is an understatement. In all fairness, the social networking market has grown and heightened by light years in a span of a decade or so. To measure the extent of improvement that social networking have achieved and surpassed, it is necessary to open the book of its times of yore- how was social networking in the past decade and how far has social networking trekked in that span of years?

A brief history of Social Networking sites would be a good place to start off before we get into how Social Media has evolved.

Social Networking in the Pre-90s Era

Many people would think that the first online social networks appeared in the 90s decade, being the moment when internet service providers were on the loose. The truth is, the use of online social networks has actually been used since the 70s through the innovativeness of Ward Christensen, a former IBM employee and Randy Suess.

Source: Wikipedia - Ward Christensen and the First BBS

  Initially, they envisioned a place where they can immediately contact their co-employees for announcements, i.e. meetings, reports, and other affairs, rather than making multiple phone calls, distributing memos, and the like. They were looking into creating a computerized bulletin board, which is why they named the program CBBS (Computerized Bulletin Board System).

Soon enough, more and more employees came chipping in with their ideas and comments in the said online community. That event was a momentous episode in the history of computer and internet. It was the birth of online social networking.

Luckily, the CBBS platform was made known to other companies and luckily, has been used for specific purposes. It’s breaking into the mainstream was inevitable and sooner than they thought, the Bulletin Board System was expanding largely.

The Rise of the Dot-Coms

It was during the rise of the Internet Service Providers during the early 1990s when social networking sites began to flourish. Along with the availability of internet service to people, many people rummaged to have themselves acquainted with this new technology.

With the fast response of people to the budding internet community, the bulletin boards which were usually used by companies have started to expand their roles by offering their service to more people around the globe.

More and more people joined the bandwagon with the innate goal of creating an identity in the online space and at the same time exploring the vast place that is the internet. Because of this many internet savvy companies gave what people wanted- getting to know more people and sharing common interests and points of view; that is through websites where they can socialize, websites which we now call SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES.

The Birth of the Forerunners

BEVERLY HILLS INTERNET, which was eventually named GEOCITIES, was probably one of the earliest most popular social networking sites. It was initially created to allow users to create free homepages in specified cities/areas which the users would choose from. It was bought by Yahoo for several billions only to lose it in the third quarter of this year.

During the reign of Geocities, many other similar sites mushroomed. Sites like TRIPOD and ANGELFIRE came into existence and soon, these sites came competing face off. Practically all of these sites provided users with the same features and user-experience, being able to create their own identity on the web, connecting with people of similar interest and getting to know more people online.

CLASSMATES.COM was a very wise move because it targeted not only those youths who are enthusiastic about the internet, it made possible the participation of adults by giving them the chance to reunite with their old classmates and buddies, see how their ex-crushes were doing and the like. This flavor which Classmates.com has added was an ingredient never present in the previous social networking sites, thus making classmates.com as one of the earliest most successful online communities.

The same way other sites have gone through, classmates.com suffered from hard blows left and right, rooted from their monthly subscriptions, spams, and other ambiguities on the site.

The Internet Bubble Era 

This era is referred as such because of the increasing demand for internet services in different sectors of business. The role of the internet during this era is growing by exponents it was followed by the internet boom- an era of steady internet growth in the market, and eventually the Bubble Burst which hurt both established and fledgling internet companies.

During this era, one of the best things that happened in the history of the internet is the discovery of Instant Messaging. It greatly shaped the mode of communication and up to these days, IM is still and probably will forever be widely used.

REUNION.COM, started to redo what classmates.com had done while expanding the latter’s function and features. However, everything remained very liquid before and the life of a social networking site is highly contested by mushrooming sites with similar purposes and functions.

SIXDEGREES.COM, on the other hand, was also conceived at this era. The said social networking site is considered a forerunner in the field of social networking as it has many similarities with the social networking sites popular nowadays. Basically, sixdegrees.com created circles of friends via online registration and matching-up of likes, dislikes, interests, or what have you.

The Golden Period of Social Networking

Social network reached the almost-pinnacle of success with the launch of the then very popular FRIENDSTER.COM. Creator of Friendster Jonathan Abrams concocted a perfect mix of popular features from earlier social networking predecessors. Friendster became an instant celebrity and gathered about three million members who signed up in its early months of launch.

As years passed, Friendster reached an overwhelming hundred million users from all over the globe. With much demand from its users, Friendster unfortunately got out of hand and suffered from too many glitches in the server. Today, Friendster has been announced as a newly owned entity of a Malaysian Company, and outshone by present social networking sites but still remains to be patronized most especially in Asia.

The conception of MYSPACE.COM opened the internet users to vast opportunities of self-expression which includes wide control over a user’s profile content. Practically different people from all walks of life have dedicated pages in MySpace- may he be an artist, a budding rock star, a preacher, a politician, whatever background he has. In MySpace, users experienced the best of creating unique identities to show to the online world.

MySpace remained as the uncontested favorite among all the social networking sites until 2005 when it met its future competitor in the market. Soon enough, MySpace created additional features like application, mobile features and the like in order to keep up with the latest trends in the online community; and at the same time be at par with the growing popularity of contemporary social networking sites, more specifically the next thing in line.

Face-Off with Facebook

Facebook started as a local social network made for the students of Harvard. Being Mark Zuckerberg’s brainchild, Facebook was actually made by hacking Harvard’s database containing ID images of students. The initial idea was actually to compare students’ faces with images of animals, for entertainment purposes. However, due to the potentially damaging contents of the site, the creators decided to put it down before it catches the attention of school authorities.

Although shut down, the idea of creating an online community of students came to existence. The platform was then improved and sooner than they expected, Facebook was released in campuses other than Harvard. Thereafter, high schools were already starting to get attracted with the idea of having online communities, thus opening the site to the younger population.

It was in 2006 when FACEBOOK.COM ultimately offered the opportunity to the rest of the world. As 2007 approached, the registrants reached an overwhelming digit- roughly a million dozen. Facebook has grown to become the biggest and most popular social networking site today with a population of about 350 million active users, surpassing the entire American population of 307 million. With 70% of the Facebook population outside the US, Facebook has indeed set the online world on fire.

Growing Social Networking Trends

Other social networking sites continued to appear in the scene. Blogging sites like BEBO, MULTIPLY and many others came into view. MICROBLOGGING partnered with social networking became popular with the launch of TWITTER. In Twitter, online users can post their Tweets, basically a 140 character phrase or line about what they have in mind.

With the help of API (Application Programming Interface), microblogging sites like Twitter and Tumblr and other dedicated sites like Flickr, Photobucket and many others were able to connect with popular social networking sites, making an unending link of information in the World Wide Web.

Waiting For the Next Rocket to Come

Social networking sites have changed the way people live and interact for more than a decade’s existence. People from one corner of the planet can reach out with others in real time, artists can be created and re-created even without the director’s lights-camera-action spiel, old friends meet again, and new acquaintances occur every second of the day. Lifestyle has been radically altered by social networking sites, all to the benefit of the majority.

What these social networking sites hold for us in the years to come? We still haven’t got any idea but one thing’s for sure; social networking sites will continue to improve the lifestyle of online people in the years to come.

Evolution of Social Media and Social Media Marketing

Today people around the world are transforming how news is broadcasted throughout the world. Social Networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, etc, etc, are providing live broadcasting of real life events as they take place. This is really putting a lot of financial pressure on traditional media market.

People using their platform created on one of these social networking sites are able to broadcast to thousands of people within minutes of an event taking place. Those that are receiving the information can then disseminate that information further to their own viewers/followers. The news tends to spread like a wildfire and before you know it millions of people across the world is talking about it. This is the new information super highway. User generated content played a larger role in spreading the news in 2009; however it is expected to play even a larger role in 2010 and beyond. It will be interesting to watch the evolution of Social Media.

As consumers are spending more and more time defining their own content and distributing their own contents, the marketers are taking advantage of the situation to market their products using social networking sites. This concept is called Social Media Marketing – using sites such as YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and other sites to market, sell and to provide services such as customer care.

Social Media experts are able to take advantage of the people power and create a buzz around a product or a service they are marketing. Using this buzz, they are able to get the word out to thousands, if not millions, of people in a matter of hours. This sort of marketing is cost effective and tends to reach many more consumers than traditional marketing.

Today, according to a survey done by CMO Survey, about 3.5% of the marketing budgets is spent on Social Media Marketing. This figure is expected to grow to 13.7% within the next five years. Therefore, you can expect more and more players entering the social media market and as a consumer you should expect to take part in it. You should be able to make money with Social Media. In order to do that, you should build a community around you. You should have your own fans and people that follow you. If you don’t have a community around you, I suggest you start one today either at Twitter, Facebook or even setup your own blog. It will definitely help you down the road.

Understanding and making proper commitments and keeping them are important to your success. If you commit to something, you should follow through until it is completed. If you are new at building your reputation for your online business, it is important that you fulfill the mission of your online business. Many people today make commitments that they can’t fulfill themselves. If you want to grow your authority, then you must focus on keeping your commitments.

The cost of “not keeping” your commitment could be much higher than you expect. Make time to understand what is at stake before you make a commitment. You need to fully analyze the implications of you not keeping the commitment. What will be the financial implications and what will be the social implications of you not keeping the commitment? Sometimes the financial implications are something you can live with but the social implications are something that would be of higher cost; something that you can’t win back easily.

Anyone who desires to be successful with their business must be like a fine craftsman. You must commit to excellence. A craftsman always works with care; always inspecting in finest details; and always wants to be better at what they do. In contrast, those that aren’t committed to what they do, they find excuses in their tools and other stuff for the sloppy progress they make.

Here is How You Can Manage the Discipline of Commitment

Once you make a decision to commitment to something, you must remind yourself daily of the commitment you’ve made. You need to remind yourself that you need to see this commitment through. You need to successfully complete the task at hand while life throws unnecessary things at you daily. To do this, make a note of your commitment and place it in your office where you can see it everyday or place it at home closer to a place where you would get to read it first thing every morning. By reminding yourself daily, you can refocus on the tasks required to fulfill the commitment. This way you can decide the tasks at hand everyday to achieve the commitment.

Don’t be a Quitter

You need to understand that keeping a commitment is not easy. You need to understand that you will have obstacles to overcome. You need to stay focus and you need to make the right decisions that will take you to the end. Many people fail in business because they call it quit too soon. For example, there are many people who want to make money blogging but they don’t have the patience to see it through. They setup a blog and expect to make money the second day. It doesn’t happen that way. If you setup a blog and you committed to provide quality content to readers, then continue posting quality content regularly; the money will eventually come. Don’t call it a quit early on.

Today I came across a blog post by Darren Rowse @ Problogger who is giving away books that are sitting on his shelf to his readers. Unlike many of his other blog posts, there are over 1200 comments on this post. The requirement to win one of his book is to post a comment and tell him which book you are interested in. I’ve found this very interesting and wanted to share it with all of you. I think it teaches all of us a lesson on the power of giving and how it could help you grow your business.

Three Things You Can Gain by Giving

First you gain is user engagement on your site. You are engaging your users by asking them to take an action, which is to comment on the story, to win a prize. You are basically getting your users to do something more than they would otherwise do. These participants, all those that comments on Darren’s post, are all excited to take part on his giving away challenge. They don’t all expect to win a book but they are hopeful.

Second – you can get free promotion out of this. Look at this, I am writing a story on my blog with a link to his. He is getting free promotion by all of his regular visitors. I would bet that this story, which really doesn’t have a story, is probably going to get more visitors many of his other well researched blog posts. Visitors must also be going back to his site multiple times to check if he has an update or not. This again will add more traffic to his site.

Third – you can build a community around this by making all of the users feel appreciated. Darren can choose to do a few follow up posts and engage users further and get them to take further actions to win more prizes. This will only help the website and make it feel like it is a community. Your visitors know you exist as a blogger. They know you are real. Hence they tend to come back and participate in future postings.

So I believe you will have a lot to gain by giving this holiday season. If you have something similar to offer to your customers/visitors, I think you should give it a shot. Try it out and see how the community reacts.

Today I was contacted by the founder of My Corporate Logo, a site dedicated to improving your corporate identity as you enter the business world. Vineet Kothari, the founder and CEO of My Corporate Logo, had he following to say about his startup.

Since 2005, My Corporate Logo has been offering logo design and corporate identity design services to startups, small and mid-sized organizations. Our creative team of over 25 designers and more than 100 years of combined experience can effectively deliver any message across a wide variety of media. Over the years, we’ve developed the right set of research, creative and design skills to further your existing brand or develop a new brand strategy that builds the strongest possible connections with your customers, employees, and partners.

My Corporate Logo has successfully designed thousands of logos catering to the needs of almost every industry imaginable. Besides, we have also designed hundreds of websites, brochures, letterheads, business cards, and envelopes for our clients. Our support team is always accessible via email and phone for any technical support or consultation.

My Corporate Logo is a business of Digital Avenues Limited – an integrated web solutions organization that helps advance web businesses by combining its expertise in Technology and Creativity.

While there are a number of other custom logo design companies and the market seems saturated, My Corporate Logo is both profitable, and has the potential to grow and touch thousands of businesses. We are able to tap into a pool of highly skilled designers and artists with years of experience behind them to service the needs to businesses looking to get a logo designed.

While My Corporate Logo is a paid service, start ups and small businesses can benefit significantly. Our logo design services are reasonably priced, we offer unlimited revisions, 100% money back guarantee and more importantly, the quality and creativity of our work ensures that our customers are happy. Satisfied customers can always come back to get all their web needs taken care of under a single umbrella.

The start up is an extension of an established web business and hence we are able to keep our costs low while at the same time leverage the parent companies infrastructure and pool of quality resources and processes. The focus of the business is also going to acquire as many logo customers with the ultimate objective of converting them into larger customers by offering a wide variety of services like web design, web application development, mobile applications, rich internet applications and other creative services.

As My Corporate Logo evolves, we intend to setup a local American office for pre-sales support, after sales account management and a support team to make quick enhancements based on our client’s feedback. This will enable us to provide 24-hour availability to our customers and ultimately assist in improving our clients’ experience in working with us.

Are you in need of a facelift for your startup? Drop by My Corporate Logo and find out what they can do for you.

Please don’t forget to leave your comments below.

adflyer, yet another classified advertisement system is trying to fill the gap that exists in the marketplace at the moment. They claim their goal is to fill the big gap that exists between good classified system and all the good shopping sites.

Recently, I was contacted by Ben O’Brien from UK regarding his new startup. Ben wanted me to take a look at his website and mention it to all of you. When asked why he came up with yet another classified system, the said, “we already know that there are a number of classified sites out there, but the more we researched the market, the more we realised that there was a big gap for a site which combined the best of classified  ads with all the good points of shopping website.”

I had a chance to to ask Ben a few questions regarding his new venture.

What is your vision? (what are you offering to your visitors?)
adflyer offers a simple but effective classified advertising service. adflyer is not just aimed at private sellers to online retailers too.

What is your business plan or model?
adflyer is aimed at both the public and business users who want to buy and sell new as well as second hand.

Why did you start this website?
adflyer was created because of the frustration of ebay – fee’s were always increased and too many scams

How are you planning to market it?
adflyer plan to launch a major PR campaign in 2010 – to date marketing has been down to word of mouth and search engine optimisation

What is the name of the founder/creator of the site?
The two founders are Ben O’Brien (25) Sam Naylor (25)

Where is the location of the website (country, province or state) ?
adflyer are currently based in Birmingham England UK

When was the site launched?
adflyer launched September 2008

Why is your site different than your competitors?
adflyer differs in a number of ways  – to name a few, merchants can sell through their own payment processing system, users can select from new and second hand items, free to list items.

Any other information that you believe is relevant to your startup?
adflyer are constantly looking to partner with high trafficked websites to offer an orange label service (similar to a white label) – this partnership is designed to be highly beneficial to both parties. adflyer has already partnered with a radio group in the West Midlands.

Cover of the book mentioned

I am sure all of you know that in every junction, the decisions you make is essential to the success of your business. You have to make the right decisions to compete with other businesses; you have to make the right decisions to make it through the initial startup stage. You have to know the game you are playing…

Are you playing the right game?

How do you know you are playing the right game? Are you successful with your business and are you satisfied with where you are? Do you know what you need to do so you can be successful with your business? Do you know whom you need to friend with and whom you need to strategize against? Like I said in my opening paragraph, these are all the questions that go through the minds of a typical Executive or a Manager on a daily basis. You need to know at all times, if you change the way you provide a service or if you add an incentive for the customer, how will that change your game and how will it change the game for the market participants. Now who are the market participants? These are your suppliers, competitors, customers and affiliates.

I recommend you read the book “The Right Game – Use Game Theory to Shape Strategy” by Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry J. Nalebuff. The Game Theory explains the importance of focusing on others. In this book, the author uses game theory to explain and map the interdependencies among the participants in your marketplace. It is important for you to understand who is playing the game with you and what values they add to the game. If you have all of that figured out, you should be able to make strategic moves that will benefit you or even the whole industry.

For example, let’s say you operate a blog. Your blog provides information on all of the new movies as they are released. It is an established blog and you are able to get in front of the line to get real-time interview with the stars. However, there are about 5 other sites that do the same thing. One day you woke up and decided you want to change the game. You want to gain a higher market share and provide more information. So you take the steps to understand the current marketplace. You spend time understanding the value provided by other sites. You spend time understanding the audience. You spend time understanding the success rate of getting an interview with a star.

Once you have all of this information in front of you, you can use Game Theory to map it all out. You can give points to each possible move. Your moves can be to go aggressive or try to partner with other sites. Your aggressive move can be something like offering an incentive for your customer such as free movie passes or coup0ns for snacks. You can also give your customers access to live interviews. Introduce something that will put your competitors at a disadvantage. Before you do this, you need to figure out how they will react to this. Are your competitors large enough to provide the same kind of incentives? In your mapping exercise, you need to map all possible scenarios so you can figure out the best move that will either place you in a better position than where you are today or it will place the hold industry in a better position. You probably won’t want to make a move that will hurt your business.

Once you map it all out, you should be able to decide which move will make you even more successful. This sort of exercise is much better than holding status quo. As an Executive or a Manager, you need to always  think about this. You need to know the game you are playing and you need to know what moves you have in your fingertips at all times.

You should read my previous post on “getting to know your competitions.” This story should help you identify your opponents well.

Please let me know if you have any views on this. Thank you.