Friday, March 07, 2008

Marketing Your Business with Web 2.0




The Web 2.0 social media revolution is in full swing. Are prospects finding your website?

As an entrepreneur, how do you make your business website stand out amongst 435 million other websites and more than 1 million blogs competing for your audience's attention?

It's not as hard as you might think.

To begin, let's look at the demographics of the basic Web 2.0 social networking sites, this will give you an idea on how to position your message to the Web 2.0 World:

  • Myspace;
  • Facebook;
  • YouTube.

The Web 2.0 Social Networking Revolution

Web 2.0 is a real revolution on the Internet. And this revolution doesn't just consist of college kids...

  • 62% of MySpace visitors are older than 25 (40% are 35+), and 83% are making over $30,000 a year. 19% are making $100,000 and up;
  • On Facebook.com 46% are over 25 and 34% are 35+, and they've got deep pockets. 88% make more than $30,000 and 23% make $100,000 or more.

In the years ahead these numbers will get even more exciting...

  • Social media giant Facebook is currently ADDING a million 25+ (non-student) adults per week to their rosters. That's 52 million new users a year;
  • YouTube gets over 50 million unique visitors per month. That equals over half a billion a year;
  • Facebook and MySpace have the equal daily traffic of Google. Experts predict within the next year they will DOUBLE the daily traffic of Google search.

So your prospects are there, the traffic is there and the spending power is there. So NOW is the time you want to establish your presence on the social networking websites.

Web 2.0 Strategy: Why You Should Be a Connoisseur and NOT a Marketer

As a website owner, how should you position your message in the Web 2.0 world?

The increasingly savvy buying public will quickly shun marketers. Internet readers want information from the Internet. They don't want advertising, marketing, or a "pitch".

According to Schefren in his Attention Age Doctrine, the solution is to become a social media "Connoisseur".

A Connoisseur is a trusted authority, like a friend, on the social media websites. As you gain their trust, your audience will return to you over and over again wanting to invest in your advice.

Five Steps to Becoming a Social Media Connoisseur

Social Media Maven Step 1: Get in the Game

Begin blogging immediately. Create a video explaining how to solve a problem and put it on YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook with links back to your main website. Just those two things alone will establish more Web 2.0 presence than 90% of your competition.

Social Media Maven Step 2: Share your passion

Build your Web 2.0 website around your passions and expertise. Thirty-two year old Gary Vaynerchuk transformed his wine knowledge to his video blog, http://Tv.Winelibrary.com . It now has thousands of subscribers and does $50 million dollars a year in wine sales.

Social Media Maven Step 3: Be Controversial

Your audience will remember you more when you challenge the status quo. Controversy sells. Think like the tabloids and the local news channels here. For example, Web 2.0 Business Coach Rich Schefren challenges traditional marketing wisdom in each release of his Attention Age Doctrine special reports at http://attentionage.net/doctrine .

Social Media Maven Step 4: Create World Class Content

You will drive repeat traffic to your website by offering top notch "how to" information. Gary's wine tastings are highly educational on the benefits of wine, how to cook with wine, and how to choose a wine for your special occasion. Rich's reports teach Web 2.0 marketing principles.

Remember, as soon as your audience feels that you are "pitching" them, you've lost them. So provide content not advertising.

Social Media Maven Step 5: Engage in the Conversation

Web 2.0 is a dialogue, not a monologue. Internet businesses profit more when they observe and listen to their communities first before they broadcast their messages. Savvy connoisseurs such as Gary and Rich encourage their audience to ask questions. The answers to these questions then become part of their user-generated content.

How Marketing in a Web 2.0 Social Media Environment Is Exhilarating.

Visualize it like a big radio or television station or movie screen where you're the star. You're building a fan base so you need to entertain, inform, and deliver consistently for your audience.

You have more publishing power at your fingertips right now than at any time in history.

Use it.

Share your passions.

Reveal your trials and tribulations.

Tell your story.

Watch how quickly your audience builds.


How To Use Facebook to Strategically Build Your Business

Sunday, March 02, 2008

20 Primary Universal Laws - Part 2 of 2


11. The Law of Conscious Detachment. Buddha's earthly teachings are best summarized with one of his statements, "It is your resistance to what is that causes your suffering," and by suffering, he meant everything that doesn't work in your life; relationship problems, loss of loved ones, loneliness, sickness, accidents, guilt, monetary hardship, unfulfilled desires, and so on. When you accept what is, you accept the unalterable realities in your life without resisting them. Some things are facts. They exist, and no matter how much you resist them, there is nothing you are going to be able to do about them. Change what you can change, but have the wisdom to accept unalterable situations as they are, without wasting mental or physical energy attempting to change what you cannot change. Out of acceptance comes involved detachment. The ability to enjoy all the positive aspects of life, but to allow the negative to flow through you with out resistance and without affecting you.

12. The Law of Gratitude. From the perspective of Karma and the Law of One, the more you give, the more you will receive. The more you assist others, the more you will assist yourself. The power of this Law also works in your day-to-day life.

13. The Law of Fellowship. When two or more people of similar vibration are gathered for a shared purpose, their combined energy directed to the attainment of that purpose is doubled, tripled, quadrupled or more. This esoteric awareness has been used by covens, esoteric religions, healing groups, and recently, worldwide meditations for world peace.

14. The Law of Resistance. That which you resist you draw to you, and you will perpetuate its influence upon your life. Resistance is fear, so it is something you need to Karmically resolve. The Law of Resistance assures that you let go of the fear by encountering it until you are forced to deal with it by learning conscious detachment.

· Example: You may have a strong resistance toward people of the Asian race; Black race, Jewish race, your mother-in-law, etc. Your resistance is fear. The quickest way to overcome that which you fear is through direct experience, thus you will reincarnate as an Asian, Black, Jew, or your mother in-law in a future lifetime. When you attain Master of Life awareness and stop resisting [your fear] by consciously detaching from the negativity, the problem will be resolved. Most disharmonious situations are solved through a change in your viewpoint. By changing your perspective, you can usually eliminate the effects of a problem, and if you are no longer affected by a problem, you no longer have a problem, although nothing about the problem situation may have changed. Another aspect of the Law of Resistance states, that which you resists, you become, if not in this lifetime, in a future incarnation.

15. The Law of Attraction. "Where your attention goes, your energy flows." You attract what you are and that which you concentrate upon. If you are negative, you draw in and experience negativity. If you are loving, you draw in and experience love. You can attract to you only those qualities you possess. So, if you want peace and harmony in your life, you must become peaceful and harmonious.

16. The Law of Reflection. This Law says that the traits you respond to in others, you recognize in yourself, both positive and negative. It has four primary manifestations:

· That which you admire in others, you recognize as existing within yourself;

· That which you resist and react to strongly in others is sure to be found within yourself;

· That which you resist and react to in others is something which you are afraid exists within you; and;

· That which you resist in yourself, you will dislike in others.

In other words, you have chosen to incarnate upon the manifest plane to learn to rise above the effect of fear. Those fears will always be reflected in your reactions to others, Thus your goals are very obvious once you recognize how to perceive them. As you let go of the fear, you automatically open to expressing more unconditional love.

17. The Law of Unconditional Love. The expression of unconditional love will eventually result in harmony. Unconditional love is not romantic love. It is the acceptance of others as they are without judgment or expectations. It is total acceptance of others without attempting to change them, except by our own positive example. The law of unconditional love says, "If you go out of your way to express unconditional love, you automatically rise above fear, and, as you transcend your fears, you automatically open to the expression of unconditional love.

18. The Law of Magnetic Affinities. By Astrologically choosing the time and place of your birth, you determine the nature or the effects you will experience in your life. On the other side, before we are born, we make decisions about the lifetime we will be entering into. You chose your parents, other souls to interact with you, and the Astrological configurations of your birth which determine your character, personality, abilities, restrictions, and timing for strengths and weaknesses. If all of this seems too complicated to be real, be aware that you are only using five to ten percent of the capacity of your brain. And the brain-mind researchers say the human brain has 200,000 times the capacity of the greatest computer ever built. Such calculations as I've just described would be no problem for such a computer.

19. The Law of Abundance. You have within yourself everything required to make your earthly incarnation a paradise if you choose to accept that which is your divine birth-right. We live in a Universe of abundance, although the majority of those populating our planet appear to view it as a Universe of scarcity.

20. The Law of Divine Order. If you seek to understand the Law of Divine Order, study the natural balance of nature, for it works very much the same way. Everything is as it should be, although mankind (our energy gestalt) is far from experiencing its potential of total harmony. There are no accidents. Your energy, translated into thoughts, words, emotions, and deeds, causes all your experiences. This assures that you always have the learning opportunities you require to resolve your Karma, and, as with you, the collective thoughts, words, emotions, and deeds of mankind create the environment for us all. If enough souls focus their energy upon peace, we will have peace. If the majority of souls are filled with anger, we may all have to experience war. We are all one, and like the many sub-personalities within you, the dominant traits of mankind (the entire gestalt) will emerge to resolve our group Karma.