Are you using social media to drive traffic to your website and increase sales? Or are you still sitting in the skeptics camp not certain that social media is anything other than a waste of time?

If you are not using social media to promote your services, products and website, you are missing out on one of the hottest marketing trends in years. And in doing so, your competition is very likely capturing sales that could be yours.

Social media is opening doors for entrepreneurs and businesses worldwide. Through social media you can:

• Formulate joint venture partnerships with someone you otherwise would have never connected with.
• Interact with customers and clients in real time offering support and guidance.
• Interact with people who are interested in your product and services and in you.
• Drive traffic to your website, squeeze page and brick and mortar or online store.

And, if all that isn’t enough to convince you to incorporate social media into your strategic marketing efforts, the costs of social media most likely will.  Aside from your time to network and connect with friends, followers and connections, nearly all social media tools and applications are free. Affordable and powerful strategic marketing…NICE, huh?

Ready to get started?

Click the “Add to Cart” button below and find out whether Twitter, Facebook, and/or LinkedIn are the right social media platforms for you and your business. Learn social media best practices and how to avoid the pitfalls of social media marketing. And get a list of tools that will help you make the most of your social media efforts.


16 Page PDF…..$4.50
Wait! Before you click that button you should know that our mailing list subscribers get a 50% discount on all our special reports. Subscribe now.


Our product link (Why tell?)

Click here to see other available business guides.

Downloads are processed through our carefully selected 3rd party shopping cart service, e-Junkie.com.
Payments are processed through PayPal even if you don’t have a PayPal Account.
To view and print these files you will need a PDF reader. If you don’t have one, you can get Adobe Reader for free here.
Note: Every effort has been made to accurately represent our product and its potential. Each individual’s success depends on his or her background, dedication, desire and motivation. As with any business endeavor, there is an inherent risk of loss of capital and there is no guarantee that you will earn any money. Click here for complete terms of use and disclaimer.

There’s no doubt Twitter is becoming a very popular social media tool for both business and personal use. It’s easy and fun. If used properly it can help you build your direct sales business by connecting you with prospective team members and potential customers. If used improperly it can be a waste of time and even damage your reputation.

Lisa Young (Follow @lisarobbinyoung on Twitter) offers these tips to get you started on the right foot:

Twitter Tips For Direct Sellers
By Lisa Young

As a target marketing specialist for direct sales reps, I spend a lot of time testing new strategies to help direct sales reps reach and serve their customers. My current favorite is twitter.

Twitter is an obvious choice for connecting real time with friends or followers. It’s quick and relatively easy to navigate. Simply create an i.d., and start looking for people to spread your message.

The trouble comes when a person is brand new and has no idea how/where to begin.

Twitter is not a platform for heavy selling. Rather, it’s a great place to introduce yourself, share more about who you are, and then open the door to potential business ventures. Heck, you only have 140 characters per tweet, and if you want people to share those tweets, you need to keep it under 120!

In the interests of etiquette, here are a few simple tips to help direct sellers make the most of twitter:

1. Be genuine. This is at the heart of everything twitter represents. Select a user name that reflects who you are, rather than your product or company name. In fact, most companies prohibit use of their name in that manner anyway, so why risk it?

People will gravitate to who you are first, THEN to what you offer.

2. Provide value. You’ve heard me say this time and again. People are always asking themselves, “why should I believe/listen you?” We are deluged with thousands of “advertising” messaged every single day. Your tweets need to stand out, provide value to your market and serve the very people you’re trying to reach.

3. Be personal. By that, I mean resist the temptation to automate your folowing/unfollowing or direct messaging.There are appropriate ways to use automation with twitter. I’ve tested dozens of applications that were developed to maximize the efficiency of twitter. My results conclude that autofollows and autoDM’s just cause trouble.

Take the time to make the connection manually – which will avoid the need to unfollow at a later date. Yes, it means your number of followers may grow more slowly, but you can be sure that the followers you do have are actually INTERESTED in what you have to say.

4. Be patient. If you’re being true to who you are, you’re not likely to get a million followers overnight, but you WILL generate a following of people that know like and trust you. Word will spread as your followers share your message with their followers.

This is why I stress that social media and online marketing does not replace your home party business, but is an additional marketing component to running your business like a real business. Yes, there are people who have all but retired from doing home parties, but it didn’t happen overnight.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that a twitter account (or any single marketing strategy) is the fastest way to riches. It can help increase your reach dramatically, but it’s certainly not an overnight solution.

==========

© 2009 Lisa Robbin Young.

Want more help understanding twitter and how to apply it to your business? Explore Lisa’s new course: Twitter Secrets for Direct Sellers [http://www.homepartysolution.com/twittesecrets].

The only certified Direct Sales Marketing Coach in the WORLD, Lisa Robbin Young helps demystify the business side of running a direct sales business like a real business instead of an expensive hobby. Register today for her free member community & target marketing program for direct sellers at http://www.homepartysolution.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lisa_Young
http://EzineArticles.com/?Twitter-Tips-For-Direct-Sellers&id=2673303

In a recent post about using Facebook as a direct sales tool, Jennifer Fong (@liajen) identifies a very important key to social media marketing success. The post is full of great tips, but in my opinion, this one section sums up the secret to becoming a direct sales consultant worth befriending and following:

“Folks, recruiting is a one on one activity that is accomplished after LISTENING. Your status update is not the place to broadcast your opportunity to the world. If you really want to recruit people through social media, build relationships and find people that actually need what you have to offer. Then share your opportunity privately, in a way that meets the needs of the prospect.”

From Annoying Facebook-ers, Direct Sales Style

Being social and personable, and not all business, will help you build lasting relationships that can benefit your business in many ways.

Admittedly, I struggle a bit with mixing personal with business. I don’t share a whole lot of my personal life online. But I think it’s very possible to be sociable without being too personal, which is my goal. It’s a little like how I get to know people in real life. Perhaps we meet at a social function or our kids’ school and exchange small talk at first. Later when we see each other again we ask about the kids and work. We find we have some interests in common and we decide to meet for coffee. A relationship develops. When it’s just the two of us, we share more personal stories and information.

Whether you choose to be more or less personal in your interactions, social media can be a powerful tool for online direct sales recruiting. But as Jennifer points out, you don’t want to become the person that everyone tries to avoid. It’s extremely easy to un-follow, un-friend, and block spammers and other annoying people in Facebook, Twitter, and the like. Be careful not to push people away by doing nothing but blasting your business offers.

Every Friday users make recommendations for who to follow on Twitter. It’s a fun way to find new friends. It’s a bit like a who’s who among your followers.

Of course I think all of my friends are worth following, but here are a few suggestions to start with (in no particular order):

And in a category all his own… @RoyMontero
who I suspect would really rather talk to you on Skype than Tweet.

There are many more people I can recommend and I’ll do so in the weeks
to come by adding to this list regularly. On July 17th I consolidated the list and from now on, when I add friends they are marked NEW for a week. Comments dated before July 17th refer to earlier versions of this post.

If you aren’t already following me, please do.

Choose a free graphic from Twitter Signature Styles and gather Twitter followers from your message board signatures, blog, or website.

Here’s my favorite

Claim yours at Twitter Signature Styles

I’ve been using Twitter for just over a year now and had developed a fairly productive Twitter habit. But then as easily as I got into the habit, I took a week long break last month and completely broke my Twitter habit. I haven’t been “social” on a regular basis in almost a month.

Why do I want it back?

In the few weeks that I’ve neglected social networking and marketing, my website visitor stats have dropped, resulting in a loss of income. Can I prove without a doubt that the loss is a direct result of my lack of participation? No. And in fact, I’d guess that in the same time period, I also spent less time on other marketing methods. But I am sure my absence has had a greater negative effect than cutting back on my other marketing techniques. Social media marketing is not as passive as other methods. Success depends on being social and providing high quality, information and interesting interaction on a regular basis.

So I’m working on getting back in the social media marketing habit. I try to check in with my Twitter friends and followers most afternoons during the work week. See you there!

Do you have a Twitter habit and has it helped your bottom line?

A few days ago I posted that “I Finally Understand Hashtags on Twitter.” But I spoke too soon. After posting that, I tried to use one of the Hashtag commands listed on the original, referenced blog post – specifically follow #twitip. I have been unable to figure out where to use that command… it doesn’t work in Twitter and there doesn’t seem to be a way to enter it at Hashtags.org. Without being able to follow a specific Hashtag in Twitter, I was back to asking my original question, “What is the advantage of Hashtags over just a regular Twitter search?”

After doing more research (that I should have done before adding that original post; I apologize to my readers for not being as thorough as usual), I think there are some cases where Hashtags can be much more useful than a regular search. (Although I still haven’t found any way to use the listed Hashtag commands.)

Disclaimer: I am by no means an expert on Hashtags and I haven’t used them myself. I’ve simply spent a good deal of time over the past couple of days trying to figure them out. I welcome your comments to correct any misinformation or add any additional information.

As far as I can tell, there are 3 ways to sort Tweets using Hashtags.

1. Hashtags.org – Basically a repository of Hashtags that are being used. Tweets containing Hashtags are indexed in real time so you can search for and follow conversations for a particular group. Unfortunately, the site is very busy and my browser times out frequently.
2. Twemes.com – Also real time tracking of Tweets containing Hashtags. Although sometimes slow, presumably because of heavy use, it hasn’t timed out for me yet.
3. Twitter Search – Search for a specific Hashtag and bookmark the page to easily return for updates.

The other advantageous uses I found are:

• Using a Hashtag to distinguish a common term that a group is using. For example, #Humor is a popular tag that further refines a search that would result in many more results when searching for just humor. However, a term like o2litmus doesn’t seem to produce many more results than #o2litmus.
• In my opinion, the biggest advantage to using Hashtags and the best way to follow them is by subscribing to a group via RSS at Hashtags.org or Twemes.com. Even non-Tweeters can follow via RSS.
• Hashtags have been very useful to victims and their families during disasters such as the terrorist attacks in Mumbai (#Mumbai) and California wildfires (#sandiegofire).
• Conference organizers and attendees often use Hashtags to communicate as a group.

I have also seen reference to Hashtags for SMS and instant messaging as well as mention of TwitterGroups and Twitter Tracking. There may be additional advantages for these applications that I haven’t yet discovered.

So there you have it… everything I learned about following Hashtags. They seem to be more and more popular and my guess is that Twitter and others will likely improve existing tools and develop new ones. In the meantime, I think following a Hashtag via RSS is your best bet.

Please add your comments. Do you use Hashtags in your Tweets? Are you following any groups by Hashtag and if so, what following method are you using?

Editors note: A few days after posting this, I researched more information about Hashtags and updated my understanding in the new post, More on Understanding Twitter Hashtags.

Thanks to Kelly’s post at Profitable Mommy Blogging and TwiTip’s explanation I finally understand the use of Hashtags on Twitter.

Before reading those posts, I couldn’t figure out the advantage of Hashtags over just a regular Twitter search. Why would I want to search for #wahm (with the #-sign) instead of just plain old wahm? It turns out that Hashtags are about much more than search. With Hashtags, you can follow topics in addition to following people, or even follow a specific topic for a specific person. And by using Hashtags you Tweet to groups who are interested in the specific topic.

Clear as mud? TwiTips explains it much better than I. Check out their post at the link above.

Do you follow or broadcast using Hashtags? Which are you following and which are you broadcasting to? I’m off to find some groups to follow.

Maybe not… read my comment below. :/

A good 30-day challenge can be very productive, but the time commitment is sometimes difficult. How about joining me for a 30-second challenge?

Write a 30-second speech that you can use when networking or to answer the question, “What do you do?” Make it clever or interesting enough to get people to ask you questions about your business.

Post your 30-second (or elevator) speech in a comment here and we can offer constructive feedback for each other. I’m working on mine and will post it soon.

Over the past couple of days several popular bloggers are discussing the value of social media services like Twitter. They are asking themselves and others to evaluate their goals for the service and decide if it’s a marketing tool or a just social interaction. Or can it really be both?

The beauty of a service like Twitter is that it becomes what the community wants it to be. And like any community, as it grows, smaller groups and sub-communities separate themselves, mix, overlap, and continue to evolve. I think we’ll all be able to find the balance that works for us.

In her post, Social Marketing Pitfalls & The Twitter Time Suck, Lynn Terry’s definition of “social” explains exactly how I’ve tried to conduct myself in business all along; by being personable and not so personal. Lynn wrote,

“…But when it comes to marketing or networking, the word ’social’ pertains to being personable (vs personal), which – in my opinion – should be accomplished while still retaining an appearance of professionalism.”

It’s how I’d like to continue to conduct myself in the social media services.

But for others, online social media holds a much different appeal. In part, I think it’s just another aspect of a whole new communication era. Personal communication is becoming less and less private. The cell phone often makes at least one half of what used to be totally private conversations, public. Video cameras are everywhere and events that once might have been a temporary embarrassment witnessed by a few, can become a worldwide humiliation replayed over and over again. It’s a chicken and an egg question. Are our expectations of privacy so diminished that we’re willing to share more? Or has our willingness to share more led to the proliferation of opportunities to do so?

As others have suggested, we each need to define our social media goals and find a balance. While I wish I had done more planning before I started, I’m not sure I could have clearly defined what I wanted until I had some experience. I’ll approach the services differently now and hopefully find my balance.

Where do you stand? Are social media services marketing or socializing?

Follow me on Twitter