Are You Missing The “Social” Part Of Social Media?
Posted by Mitch on Mar 1, 2010
Okay, I get it. Twitter and Facebook can be used for business purposes. I know; I use them for business as well. Not that often, but obviously I do. Every blog post I write shows up on Twitter. One of my blogs shows up on Facebook every time I post. When I’m holding office hours I announce it on Twitter; never done it on Facebook, but I guess I should.
Yes, money can potentially be made from both Twitter and Facebook. But is that the only thing people can think of to do with it?
Remember when I wrote about Twit Cleaner a week ago? Man, that thing took off by storm. Not from my post, but from a lot of people who discovered it and decided to check things out. There were a lot of Twitter folks who suddenly saw their numbers drop drastically. I’m betting some of them have no idea why it happened, and think Twitter penalized them for something. Truthfully, all any of those people had to do was to look at their Twitter account every once in awhile and they’d have seen that many of their followers were talking about it, and looking through their accounts to see who was talking to them and who wasn’t.
Is it too much to ask for people to try to be social at least some of the time while they’re either on Twitter or Facebook? Do I have to keep repeating myself often enough on Twitter about not being selfish? Do I have to write my posts here and there about why Facebook seems to be lame as a social media entity?
I was reading another blog earlier today where a commenter wrote that people have no right to tell others how to use social media, and that if all he wants to do is use it to market his services and products that it’s his right. I don’t dispute that, though I hate it. What’s also people’s right is to be able to find a balance between being able to just talk to people and occasionally seeing something that they might be interested in that might also be an ad.
For instance, I’d have to say that I’ve gotten stricter in determining who I’m following when it comes to internet marketing or SEO topics. I don’t want to have to visit a site, then put my name and email address in to find out what something is about. Nope, not falling for that anymore; been on the internet way too long. These people are irksome enough to begin with, but on Twitter, since everything changes to a tiny URL, you never know where you’re going to end up.
Maybe I’m just being curmudgeonly; what are your thoughts on the social aspects of social media? Am I asking for too much?
Marketing Or Advertising Your Business
Posted by Mitch on Feb 13, 2010
Yesterday I gave a presentation on the above topic to a consultant’s group I belong to, The Professional Consultant’s Association of Central New York. I’m also on the board, write the monthly newsletter, and I’m the webmaster of their website.
Anyway, it was interesting talking to these folks, most of whom are older than I am (scary since I’m 50), and though I got through it all, it seems they all got hung up initially on social media and just what its purpose was. One guy kept asking the question “did you get any business out of it”, to which I could answer to each one “yes”. He didn’t ask if I got a lot of business out of it, but he was missing the point.
The idea of doing things online isn’t always to immediately get a return on your investment (ROI). Yeah, that would be pleasurable, but the truth is that unless you’re already well known, or fill a need that the market has nowhere else to turn to, it will take some time before you really start making money. Sometimes it takes years, but I digress.
The basic thing about marketing a small business as opposed to a large business is that you probably don’t have a budget set for advertising. Oh yeah, let’s get the definitions of the two terms out of the way, just to be clear. Marketing is planning for how you want others to learn about your business and products. Advertising is money spent on producing materials to help you market your business and products.
Small businesses usually start out doing the same thing because it’s the only thing we know. We buy a lot of business cards, which isn’t so bad except often we haven’t fully defined ourselves before we buy the first batch. We either buy or make brochures, which means we spend a lot of money buying supplies or paying someone else to design and copy these suckers. We buy a lot of paper and envelopes to attack things that way. And we try to make endless calls (well, those who have the mettle to do it; I don’t) trying to talk to people who won’t return phone calls. It’s a tough life sometimes.
What we all eventually find out is that, through some kind of networking, we finally have a chance to make some money and do some business with others. It can be a long struggle for some of us, whereas others find success pretty quickly. There is no one way that it happens for everyone.
It’s the same with marketing online. We have read some of the stories of marketers who seemed to hit the ground running into success with internet marketing, and that’s good for those folks. But that’s not the norm. Even Darren Rowse didn’t make money initially, and it probably took him a couple of years to really ramp up his empire, so to speak. And here’s the next part; almost none of these guys continued making money the way they started out making money.
Don’t believe me? Joel Comm started out making money through Adsense; he’s moved on from there. So has Darren Rowse, who actually makes his money through many other services rather than just blogging. Lynn Terry and David Risley make most of their money in other ways than blogging, and John Chow has always said he makes more money from other sources than just blogging. Everyone has to be ready to diversify in some fashion to keep making money; you can only prime this particular pump so many times before the effect wears off. Think about 10 big name internet marketers from 6 years ago, then think of how many of them you still see on a regular basis, unless you’ve stayed on their mailing list forever. If you need to, check out Gurudaq, which I wrote about back in October 2008.
Enough of that. I figure that some might be interested in my outline for the presentation, and at the risk of someone stealing it, well, I really don’t care this time around, although it seems some of my content has been stolen by a site calling itself Lua Cheia (they stole an entire article from my business blog; I wrote them and they said it’s a version of Digg & Stumble Upon, only I got no attribution; here’s the link to it if you want to see it, but I’m not making it an active link: http://luacheia.soup.io/post/44468305/When-Protecting-Your-Reputation-Isn-t-Worth). Anyway, here’s the outline; enjoy, and do NOT ask me where I got the statistics from, as I just took the first stat I found on each of these from wherever I could find it.
Traditional Marketing Ideas
1. Mail
A. Letters
B. Flyers
C. Postcards
2. Printed Materials
A. Flyers
B. Brochures
C. Business Cards
3. Networking
A. Join Groups
B. Get On Committees
C. Work on getting people to know you
4. Hire someone to market you
A. Agency
B. Sales people
5. Phone calls
6. Media
A. Magazines/Newspaper
B. Radio
C. Television
New Ways Of Marketing
1. Email
2. Websites
3. Blogs
4. Social Networking
5. Speaking/presenting
Costs of Advertising
1. Printed materials can cost a lot of money
2. Cost of postage
3. Costs of joining groups
4. Costs of labor in hiring others
5. Websites can be expensive to create, but are easy to change
6. Blogs are inexpensive to create and maintain, but still need to “advertise” in another way
7. Social media is free, but can be time consuming
8. Email is free, but some people don’t respond well to it
Effectiveness/ROI
1. Mailings only convert at an average of around 1%, and only if you submit in high volume
2. Business cards only convert at an average of around 2%, but once again, volume drives the figures
3. Websites have a 2.5% conversion rate, based on high traffic
4. Blogs can help conversion rates go up by 3% if you have a niche market
5. Email converts at less than 1% for people you don’t know, around 25% for people you do know
6. Phone calls convert around 2 to 3% for product based companies, less for service based companies
7. Speaking engagements convert around 1% initially, but can increase to 5% over time for some
8. Networking converts at around 1% short term, but can increase to 5% over time for some
9. Advertising on media depends on product & location; products always do better than services
10.No figures on social networking yet, but people have gotten business from it
What Personally Affects How / What We Do
1. Comfort level
2. Finances
A. What can we afford to spend on stuff
B. How much in need are we of making money “now”
3. Control
4. Knowing our market too well / too little
5. Trying too hard / giving up
Big Question – What do you do in marketing/advertising & how does it work for you? Are you missing ways that might be beneficial to you long term?
Why I Show Products At The End Of Posts
Posted by Mitch on Jan 20, 2010
Here’s the questions. How often do you go to the store and end up buying things you didn’t initially go there for? How many times have you been looking through a catalog or advertisement, saw something that interested you, then decided to check it out and saw something else you liked instead?
I belong to a lot of affiliate marketing programs and advertisers. Most of you know that I’m a member of Commission Junction. They have almost 3,000 different advertisers that you can choose from, some big names, some not so big. Every time you see an individual post on this blog, at the top you see a Commission Junction banner, via one of their rotating banners programs. I’m also running one of their little applets on the left side.
Many of the advertisers allow you to post their products on your websites as well. The template you see below is their template, which I kind of use for other things, such as my book and webinar there at the top left. That’s just standard HTML, which I already knew, but their version was just so clean I’ve co-opted it. Some of the advertisers don’t have specific products you can purchase, but have services instead. So, when you see a banner, those are usually companies that offer services.
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But not always. I also participate in the Linkshare affiliate program, which also has some advertisers like Commission Junction, just not as many. The same goes for ShareASale, but I’ve only hooked up with a couple of those. Most of the pictures you see on this site in a post are actually images you can purchase in some form from them. I also always have at least one image to the left side. I could do it more often, but I don’t always think images fit my posts, though some people swear by them.
And many other affiliate programs I’m associated with also don’t have products I can specifically hawk, but I still want you to know about them. So, I’ll throw those banners on here every once in awhile as well. Just so you know, I didn’t join all those programs because of this blog, but since I still belong to them, it makes sense for me to cycle them in here from time to time.
Here’s the thing. If I highlight something like the rowing machine below, what I’m showing is a sample of the types of things you can find at that particular site, which in this case is called BigFitness. Now, you can go directly to the site and purchase it and cut out the middleman, but if you’re nice ( 
) and want to help a brotha out, you’ll buy it from me. But maybe you’ll go to the site and see something else you like instead. No matter what you buy, if you buy something from the site, I’ll get credit for it. And suddenly it’s just like the flat screen TV you saw in the Sunday flyer that got you to the store, and instead you walked out with a GPS unit. The store only hopes you bought something; kind of what I’m hoping as well.
There you go. And sometimes, if you find something on another site that you want, if you come back and ask me about it I might have a coupon that will get you a discount of some kind, even if it’s only free shipping. Hey, saving money never hurts either, right? If that’s what happens, just go to my contact link above, see my email address there and write me.
It’s a very passive form of marketing, I know. Does it work? Well, in two years I think I’ve made two sales for CJ stuff and a couple for other products. So yes, I’ve made some sales. Not a lot, but that’s okay. You make no sales for any products you don’t try to market, right? 
I’ve been asked often over the years why I have any products on my site that aren’t just making money things; that’s why. And that’s why I never beat up on anyone who’s marketing anything on their site. Sometimes I even take a quick look at it. Never hurts to look.
Beyond Blogging; The Video And Affiliate Program
Posted by Mitch on Dec 24, 2009
Yup, time for the next stage in promoting the Beyond Blogging book, for which you can read my review of here. You can also lay your hands on a special report talking about the book by clicking on The Truth About Blogging In The Next Decade.
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The next step in the promotion of the book is the Beyond Blogging Video, which is pretty neat and gives you a little bit more information about the book. I’m telling you, I really believe you’re going to like this book, and the video just might be what puts you over the edge in saying “I gotta have that.”
Now here’s the next thing. Initially all the affiliates were invited to join in, which of course I did. Now they’re opening it up where we can invite other people to sign in as 2nd Tier Affiliates. This means you not only get to make sales, but if you do I earn 10%. And, if you get anyone to sign up under you and they make a sale, you get 10% of their sales. I don’t think I get anything extra out of that deal; that would seem to be a bit much, and there’s nothing that says that would happen. So, if you’re looking to join the group marketing this program, sign up now.
Now y’all get to check out the video, sign up as an affiliate, get the free report, and then relax and enjoy Christmas and know that you now have a few free days where you won’t hear me talk about this again until Sunday, the day before the book finally goes on sale. This product launch thing is kind of interesting, and it’s being run way better than when I tried the same thing back in April 2008 with my book. I’m learning a lot.
I hope you check these things out; if you read my review, you already know how I feel about it. Thanks!
Trying To Understand Squeeze Pages; Trial One
Posted by Mitch on Dec 11, 2009
I keep reading about this concept of squeeze pages, and I’ll admit that I don’t quite have the concept down.
Yes, I know what a squeeze page is. Basically, it’s the main sales page which you hope to drive people to so that you can potentially sell your products.
Where my issue comes in is that I’m never quite sure what the look is supposed to be. I’m one of those people who really doesn’t like those long sales pages that have all the pictures and keep pumping the product over and over. I keep thinking that people aren’t really crazy about that type of thing.
However, I think I might also be incorrect on that front. I just don’t know. So, I want to look at this in stages, and I’d like to ask y’all to help me out, which, in a weird way, helps you out as well. I’d like you to comment, in general terms without hurting my feelings (yup, don’t make me come there), on two pages. Yes, it’s a product I’m marketing right now, which I actually have over there to the left, which is my very first book Embrace The Lead. I’m not asking you to buy it, unless you have a compelling reason to do so once you look at both pages.
The words are the same on each page. What’s different is the look of the page. On the one page, which I actually link to right now, it looks just like ever other page of my business site. I did that because I thought it was the more professional thing to do. On the other, it’s the first sales page I ever created, and it was based on what I’d seen many other sales sites do.
To be truthful, I’ve probably made the same number of sales from each advertisement, which isn’t a high number. So, it may not be the squeeze page or sales page at all. But it’s a good test, if y’all cooperate and take a look, and maybe we can learn this thing together.
Here’s the sales page I use now.
Here’s the original sales page.
Which one works better, and why? Thanks for playing; it should be interesting.
Be Sure You Know Your Audience Before You State Your Case
Posted by Mitch on Dec 10, 2009
You know, since September, I’ve decided to be a bit more personal in how and what I write about on this blog. I feel it’s served me well, and since my subscribers went up, I guess y’all feel okay about it. I sometimes take on controversial subjects, as I’m wont to do because I don’t shy away from stuff that’s getting on my nerves. I’m ready to put myself out there and state my opinion, and not worry all that much whether someone agrees with me or not.
However, I do have a limit. For instance, if I believed dogs and cats should marry and move in with each other, I might not write on it because I’d know from the get-go that it would be a controversial thing to say (or funny, but go with me for a minute here). Or, if I decided to get on my high horse and spout something about that I thought I’d find a lot of agreement on without thinking about it first, such as if I said that I believe Tiger Woods didn’t have sex with nearly enough women (oh man, there goes my Tiger-free zone cred), while I knew the world was pretty much thinking that he’s a horn dog who doesn’t appreciate the hot wife he already has (that, plus his choice of women after that certainly shows a lack of taste and discretion), and expected everyone to agree with me just because I said it, I’d be living a delusion that made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Such is the case for an internet marketer named David Risley, who I guess is also a professional blogger. I have to admit that I’d never heard of this guy until yesterday, but supposedly he’s a big time blogger. Our friend Sire wrote what I thought was a great post called Why I No Longer Link To The Likes Of Problogger And John Chow, where he basically said that these guys are so big that he doesn’t need to go out of his way to support them any longer, since it seems they don’t appreciate their readers enough to ever comment back to any of them. Now, he is going a step further than I am in not even reading their blogs anymore, but I agree with the sentiment that it’s nice for even the top guys to respond to their commenters every once in awhile, especially since they hope these commenters are also buyers of their products from time to time.
Anyway, someone mentioned David’s name, and I guess he’s got something set up where whenever his name is mentioned, he gets notified through Backtype, something else I’d never heard of, but after looking at it actually looks pretty cool overall. I’m not going that route, because I get way too much email already, but I also use Google Alerts to tell me whenever my name is mentioned somewhere; well, my websites and blogs anyway, because whenever it finds Mitch Mitchell it’s that other guy, and people are still talking about him way more than me.
Anyway, someone mentioned his name and he popped over to Sire’s blog and left a comment basically defending these guys, and himself, for having the right not to respond to comments because they see their blogs more as a business than as a “fun” or less serious blog. Of course, I got into it myself, being nice in my way, and we bantered back and forth, as he wanted me to quote where he’d said something and I wanted him to quote where Sire had said something; stalemate. My main point overall was that both of the guys Sire mentioned have written in the past on their blogs that responding to comments is the way to build up your community, and both seem to have forgotten that.
A quick disclaimer here. I have noticed that every once in awhile Problogger will respond to a quick comment early on in a post. He actually responded to something I wrote once when I was one of the top 3 responders because I kind of, in my own nice way of course, went after him for saying something in his blog post that, in my mind, seemed to run counter to what he was doing on his own blog. Sometimes one just has to call a… no, I’d best not go there. lol
Today, David went the next step. He decided to kind of write a blog post about it, and he put up a video explaining his position. Then he asked the people what they thought about what he had to say. Lo and behold, at least at the time I looked, being alerted through Twitter about it, only one person supported his position. Even in his response back to these folks, it just seems that he’s somewhat missing the overall point, that being people want to feel like they’re part of a community, no matter who it is.
Now, to his credit, he did respond back to people, though I don’t know if that’s a regular thing because, at least for now, I don’t see myself subscribing to a blog where I know someone feels they have a right not to respond to anyone, whether they do or not, as long as he’s making money, which is also why I’m not giving a link to his blog through here, but you never know long term. You can find it on Sire’s blog, I believe, or he’ll tell you if you ask him where it is so you can see it for yourself.
Now, I respond to almost every comment I get here. Every once in awhile, I’m not sure what to say back to someone, so I’ll just let it hang, especially if it’s a one line comment that I don’t believe is spam. And, after engaging someone, I’ve learned that I don’t have to always have the last word on this blog, so I’ll let some of those go also. I think that’s only fair.
But it’s funny how folks can forget some of those simple lessons in life. One, don’t forget where you came from and how you started. Two, don’t ask people to support your position without really knowing that people will support it; if you care, that is. Be controversial, yes, at times, because controversy can be fun. But try not to be “right”, only to find yourself being very wrong in the court of public opinion unless you’re wearing your position on your sleeve.
Now here I go; right or wrong?
Traffic And Buyers
Posted by Mitch on Dec 7, 2009
Our friend Sire and I have had some interesting conversations lately on two topics. One is the concept of trying to drive more traffic to one’s blog. The other was how to turn people into buyers, especially if they’re actually clicking on your links.
Let’s address the first topic of traffic first. I’ve actually broached this subject many times, in different ways. I asked what people would do to get more traffic. In that post I talked about those websites that you can pay that supposedly will send you lots of traffic. It’s not targeted, and you’re not sure any of those people actually clicked and read your stuff, but you’re somehow getting traffic.
I mentioned free traffic exchanges, which comes from Pei Profit. I mentioned the concept of better SEO and organically driving traffic to you and your site. And I mentioned myself the idea of blog commenting to drive traffic as well. I like the last two the best, although SEO can take awhile and blog commenting is a lot of work.
Of course, there was my rant against those folks who write all these posts about driving massive traffic to one’s blog but copy what everyone else has been writing; I hate that kind of thing. I also have shared something where Alvin Phang talks about how he drives traffic to his blog. And I also have asked people how far they’re willing to go for promotion, although that wasn’t specifically for traffic, but if you promote yourself well you’re probably going to get better traffic.
The reality is that it’s hard getting traffic to come to your site unless you can figure out a way to stand apart. It certainly doesn’t have anything to do with content anymore; sure, content adds value, but I’ve been to some blogs where the entire post is two paragraphs, or is a lot of nothing, and that post will generate 50 comments. It might have something to do with blog commenting, because people see what you have to say and if they like it they’ll visit you. I think this thing Kristi does every Friday called Fetching Fridays is a wonderful concept, but wow, what a lot of work! However, it generates lots of visits because the people she highlights love it, and people who drop by get to see lots of topics and visit blogs they may never have heard of that have articles they want to see. No, I won’t be doing anything like that on a regular basis, so you’ll just have to deal with my occasional highlight of websites you might not know about.
One other thing. This concept of niche blogging is a good one, but just selecting a niche isn’t going to get it done as far as driving lots of traffic, or even making a lot of money. Today I posted my 201st post on my finance blog, Top Finance Blog, as today is the blog’s anniversary (200 posts a year there, 300 here… man, I’m tired!). The niche is finance, which one would have thought was a big issue in this past year with the terrible economy, but it’s generated very little income, few visitors by comparison, and not all that many comments. So, it really depends on picking a niche that you know everyone else is really interested in, then being able to consistently write on that niche without being boring or stealing from others for inspiration.
In other words, other than blog commenting and figuring out how to promote yourself better, I have nothing to add on how to drive traffic to a blog or website; at least not fast.
Now, on to the topic of turning people into buyers. Sire stated on his blog that he believes it could be tied into getting more traffic. I disagreed with that assertion. We both put up our monthly income stats. I made nothing for Commission Junction in November, but I had 283 people actually click on the links, which means they checked out products or the websites. But no buyers. Sire had around 170 or so, and the same thing. Most sales professionals will tell you that you should average at least 1% sales; we both missed that.
One of my friends, Monique, wrote to say that she felt if one actually talked about the product then marketed it that it would generate sales. I didn’t totally dismiss it, because that does sound like a great strategy, but I’ve done that. I talked about my Casio watch and even put the watch I bought at the bottom; no clicks. I’ve written on other products, and I’ll be writing on another product soon; nothing. I’ve actually written 2 posts on the ebook 20 Ways To Make $100 a Day, and never gotten a click, even though I bought the book and it’s what’s led me to my latest career in writing and blog writing for others.
Is it a matter of trust? Well, this guy named Todd asked if people like and trust you, and I commented that I hoped so, but I wasn’t really sure. I get visitors, have subscribers, but no buyers. So, does that mean people don’t trust me, or just that I’m not offering anything that they need? Do folks know that I can find almost any product they’d be looking for and possibly get it for them at a discount through my Commission Junction affiliate program? Well, you do now!
Then I said to Sire that we had to look at each other to see what makes us respond to buying things. And we really don’t have an answer for that; I think that’s interesting, and something worth exploring. Actually, I asked people before what makes them buy stuff, and got at least a few comments on it. I’m asking again, because I’d love to hear from more people on the subject. And of course the question comes up as to the types of ads people respond to better, banner ads, product ads, or text ads. I’ve tried them all; still no idea.
Either way, it’s probably the question of the ages for anyone trying to market themselves online. I have a lot of questions, but not all that many answers. Anyone figured out the full formula yet? Let us know. Oh yeah, it’s also the last day of my wife’s pillow blanket holiday special; gotta keep promoting the wife, you know.
I'm Just Sharing is where I share my thoughts on internet marketing, writing, blogging and many other things. You never know what I'll be posting on. So keep coming back, read, enjoy, and buy! ;)
