Keeping up with the Tools of Your Trade

Check out Social Media Success FaceBook Page https://www.facebook.com/MichaelBev50?  keep in touch & like the page while there! I will always reciprocate

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Keeping up with the latest tools

Keeping yourself updated with all things Social Media can be tricky as new media apps/ideas/things become available almost every day. New strategies proliferate every hour and everyone thinks they hold the next big thing!  No wonder it can be scary. 

Staying current is about three different components: Keeping up with the newest developments, experimenting with digital tools, and learn as much as you can.

Keeping up with the latest tools is about finding tools that will curate information so that you can easily access and process it. You might be surprised, but this tool is the (relatively old) standby, RSS. RSS, or real simple syndication, was developed to deliver information from the web to people who subscribe to that information. For example, most blog sites are equipped with RSS feeds which allow a user to subscribe to the blog and have the blog material delivered in a variety of formats.

 

Use the RSS reader in Google Reader to manage your subscriptions so that you stay up to date with the most current research and trends in digital media. Though there's a catch. I find the process of logging to access the content to be a little clumsy on mobile devices. Two tools that make that simple. Reading blogs on the iPhone, the Feeddler app is a great resource for you to manage the blogs and podcasts that you plan to read or listen to. The app alerts you when there's new posts to read and you can quickly scan through the titles of the posts to see which ones capture your interest. Second, If you prefer to read posts in a more magazine-like style, especially on my iPad. In that case turn to Flipboard.  Flipboard takes the RSS information puts it into a visual display like a magazine that you can scroll through by turning pages and clicking on articles to read the most recent updates.

Both Flipboard and Feeddler use Google Reader as their source of information, so all of the material that you read on any of these three tools syncs with the others. Therefore, when you mark items that you’ve read in Feeddler, they are also marked as "read" inside Google Reader and Flipboard. I also find it valuable to be able to share an article using Feeddler or Flipboard through Twitter, email, or other vehicles that allow me to connect these articles to my followers, customers and colleagues.

Experimenting with digital tools

Try experimenting with all the tools out there! “the ones you think look interesting or can help your business” especially the FREE ones. And through experiment you will find tools out there that will help you and often become valuable time savers. Experimented with Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Pinterest, Storify, MindMeister, Goanimate, Audacity, and a variety of iPad and iPhone apps, to name a few. All will hold invaluable tools, which help and make your work much easier. 

 

Starting off

Most people start with the big three facebook, Twitter & Pinterest with LinkedIn being the professional users choice, which can reach millions of business people across the globe. I would recommend the three above to start off your business and experiment with the tools that they all offer, gain confidence with the sites and navigation systems they have, once you have accomplished these you can go on and add many more to your portfolio, which in turn widens your audience – all good. It can be mind blowing and there will be obstacles to overcome, but believe me it is worth persevering, just work through at your own pace otherwise you can overload! 

These strategies are my ways of keeping current with the changes in digital media technology and the way it affects my business. We are all learners no matter what age you are especially in this digital world of ours, I’d love to hear about the ways that you stay current – all comments welcome after all we all learn from each other. 

Happy tool hunting! 

Mike Beveridge

 https://www.facebook.com/MichaelBev50?  Check out Social Media Success FaceBook Page for more topical stories

 

Why are UK Business Dragging their Feet with Social Media?

It does seem strange to me why a lot of UK businesses large & small are not using Social Media to best effect? We have some of the best sales people in the world, But do they "Need to Wake up and Smell the Connection" 

Please leave your comments below I would love to know if others agree? 

Check out Social Media Success FaceBook Page https://www.facebook.com/MichaelBev50?  keep in touch & like the page while there! I will always reciprocate

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The UK seems to fall behind the rest of the western World when it comes to using Social Media “Why”

 

Looking at UK business large and small it appears there is still NOT the awareness that Social Media is a great platform to generate new business and promote products. Most companies still don’t have a clue how to use this virtually free Media especially when compared to other advertising mediums. Once you have your ideas, products, company branding in place it takes very little effort or budget to create a strong following for your Brand, Product or even and individual. All companies have these in place for their regular forms of marketing, hence it would be very easy to uplift and transfer this to all formats of Social Media – So why are business not jumping on this Free Marketing?  

 

Is it because companies/individuals feel there not internet savvy? Smaller business with no IT help on site worry about costs, time to achieve, extra work load? No one to dedicate time? Larger business with IT divisions still haven’t caught up with the world of Social Media – although most companies use the internet for business and could not survive without it – so why the lack of enthusiasm for Social Media, perhaps the older managers, CEOs and executives feel it’s a young persons medium! Hopefully not as their missing a trick and after all the younger generations will become customers at some point – their all potential customers.

I have been spreading the word about this Revolution for years now and could always see the advantages for my business “The Greenhouse.brasserie.com” creating a Facebook Page to promote menus, events, new ideas and ask for customer feedback, which involves your customers in decisions and they feel a part of your business and love it when you respond and keep them involved. We use twitter not only to promote, but to congratulate, throw out new ideas, menus, news etc. Both these mediums helped us to create a valuable mailing list, which in turn helps me develop a by-monthly newsletter, which again we promote seasonal foods, menus and special promotions throughout the year – Easter, Mothers Days, Christmas etc.

Yet I don’t see as many companies doing this here in the UK!!!!!

  

Or is it the age old excuse we don't have the time? That’s like saying we don't have the time to find new customers, we don't have the time to talk to our current customers. Yet when given the opportunity to spend a fortune on un-targeted advertising – newspapers, magazines, flyers or mailing lists that possibly gain no more than 20% return if you’re lucky, businesses jump at the chance spending their yearly marketing budgets on the old formats.

Come on UK business, wake up and smell the roses, Social Media gives you a highly targeted audience to both promote to and talk to and does one extremely important thing as far as sales are concerned.

 

"SOCIAL MEDIA BREAKS DOWN BARRIERS AND CREATES TRUST"

Normal sales and marketing techniques cost thousands of pounds and hundreds of man hours, sometimes to just open the door to one good client.

I certainly don’t think you should forget about sales people, on the contrary, customers still like face to face contact, which creates trust and loyalty, but I do think that all sales people needs a greater awareness of Social Media and what it can do for their business and often them as individuals.

So, how about UK business waking up and giving their sales people a hand with breaking down the key barriers. Help them to be able to communicate with existing customers and have the opportunity to find new highly targeted accounts, Social Media does this with ease. And I reckon that a lots of UK business are falling behind on basic training in Social Media within their sales teams.

Why do you think big business have "Find us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter"? Because they want to be in with the in-crowd? I don't think so. They recognise that one like on Facebook can get them seen by millions of potential customers, customers that are interested in their products, a targeted audience.

 

A like on Facebook is as good as you saying I trust these people so it’s OK for you to trust them to, why not add them to your list. That's a third person recommendation and we all know just how effective recommended business is and most importantly how cost effective it is.

Having a Twitter account is like having a search engine dedicated solely to finding people who are talking about your products this very instant. No other system in the world can do that so simply, business needs to get savvy, if you don't have the time to type a few words a day then don't moan if sales plummet.

Facebook, Twitter and other social media are not the sole domain of big business, any business can give even the biggest company a run for their money with social media and it costs very little.

Social Media is here to stay and in my opinion will be the future proof link to all marketing and customer service. Some media sites will not survive if they don't keep up and others will grow to replace them. Social Media will virtually replace traditional advertising over time as it is amazing value in comparison to other forms of marketing or advertising. With one click or tweet you can reach millions of targeted customers, try doing that on your TV or in the papers.

 

So UK business let’s get going and start to build successful marketing and customer service media. If you wait your competition will have your customers and you can’t buy a targeted Social Media presence of any worth, not yet anyway.

So come on UK Business Join the Revolution!!

Social Media Success - You Need To Be A Part of It  https://www.facebook.com/MichaelBev50?ref=hl

Happy Marketing 

Mike Beveridge 

How to Make Money from Your Blog: 11 Powerful Case Studies

Jeff Bullas is probably one of the Best Bloggers our there. He is on the button with all Social Media and is quick of the mark with all new technologies and whats happening right Now! 


Check out Social Media Success FaceBook Page https://www.facebook.com/mike.beveridge.315?ref=tn_tnmn  keep in touch & like the page while there! I will always reciprocate

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This makes interesting reading - Jeff should know he has been blogging for several years now.

n 2005 a Greek American woman started a political blog. As the traffic grew more funding was required. This meant that in August 2006 the venture fund SoftBank Capital was called upon to invest $5 million into the site to hire more staff and to provide the resources needed to make the updates to feed the news cycle 24/7 as the site grew in popularity.

Two years later in November 2008, another $15 million was raised to maintain the momentum as the blog added more journalism resources and local reporting was ramped up across the USA.

The power of celebrity was embraced with politicians, academics and famous power brokers in all areas of business and industry contributing articles to the blog.

It was in June 2011 that the blog’s website traffic passed the doyen of traditional media, the “New York Times” for the first time.

“In just six years new media had disrupted 100 years of traditional media”

Seven years after the first post was published, it was sold to AOL for $315 million to add to its other online blog assets including Engadget, TechCrunch and MovieFone.

Today it’s website traffic is measured at over 77 million visitors per month.

That  blog is Huffington Post.

Tipping point

In the blogging world this was a watershed moment. Never before had so much money been paid for a blog.

New media is replacing and disrupting old media.

The old business model that made many media moguls billionaires and king makers was based upon the rivers of gold which were generated from classified ads. Today it is the website traffic that is creating the cash and the influence is moving online.

Huffington Post was purchased by AOL because of three key elements.

1. Its online and global influence
2. Advertising revenue
3.  Traffic

In one sense this new media is just a variation of old media except that it is online. It is still traffic, eyeballs and advertising.

It just happens to be digital.

The new media models

The new models are not so simple but multifaceted and convoluted. Making money from new media is not a singular approach but often a matrix of multiple opportunities and tactics.

Blogging has evolved rapidly because of the social web and in the past was driven by building email lists which took a lot of time. With the advent of social media their marketing and growth have been supercharged.

Global reach and influence at the speed of a tweet, a Facebook share or a viral video.

To make money from a blog in 2013 you do not have to be a Huffington Post. There are many ways to make a living out of blogging that can enhance your current business and lifestyle that are within everyone’s reach.

Let’s have a look at some of them.

1. Advertising

Just to show that the Huffington Post is not a one off, there are many blogs that generate significant revenue in then millions. One of those is Mashable.

Mashable’s model is based almost exclusively on building huge amounts of traffic that makes it an attractive platform for advertising. Current page views per month total approximately 50 million.  This also means producing a lot of content. To put that in perspective Mashable publishes dozens of articles a day to feed the content beast.

They work hard at optimizing their advertising and  have developed technology for:

• Infinite ad scrolling
• Story telling ads unit
• Content velocity algorithm

This blogging business model is becoming harder as advertising rates fall. But the rewards can be great with some reports that Peter Cashmore is worth nearly $100 Million US and the blog has been valued at over $200 million.

2. Sponsorship

Suzi Dafnis is the clever business brain behind a very successful blog that targets business women in Australia. It is called the Australian Business Women’s Network.  She must be doing something right! It has just won “Best Australian Blogs Competition” in the business Category.

Sponsorship is the main revenue source with sponsors including American Express, Optus and GoToWebinar.

3. Webinars and Seminars

Social Media Examiner was only started 4 years ago by Mike Stelzner and made its first million dollars within 12 months through paid online webinars. Mike (who by the way is one of the true gentlemen of the blogging world) has used his attention to detail, process and savvy business acumen to create a blog that is now ranked in the top 60 blogs in the world in just 48 months.

Mike knows how to shine the spotlight on others and hence they have returned the favour.

Prior to starting the Social Media Examiner blog Mike had run other blogs and businesses including one on how to “Write White Papers”. Mike has moved into producing conferences, with the recent success of the inaugural “Social Media Marketing World” in  San Diego.

If you want an insight into how he made his blog such a success I would recommend you read his book “Launch – How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition”

4. Speaking

Blogs can be the platform that makes you visible. This includes being invited to speak at conferences, workshops and seminars. Guy Kawasaki uses his blog as an online platform to promote his speaking and his books. 

Guy understands the importance of an online platform for building credibility and marketing his personal brand. He also understands the power of social media and has nearly 1.3 million Twitter followers

5. Books

Tim Ferriss is the author of  the New York Times best seller “The Four Hour Work Week”, which was about creating a success lifestyle in a web world. He has used his blog to launch not just one but three books after the huge success of his first book.

Tim uses his blog as his promotion platform for his books and for engaging and sharing his inspiration for experiments in lifestyle design.

6. Affiliate

Affiliate marketing  is the art of either selling other people’s products on your blog or getting affiliates to sell your products.  Brendon Burchard is one of many who have perfected this art and science.

One of the the key secrets to succeeding in this is building promotional partnerships with powerful online influencers and other bloggers who have significant followings online. Some of the pioneers in this space include Frank Kerns and Jeff Walker.

It can supercharge your revenue. For a further insight into how Brendon achieved success his book “Millionaire Messenger” is worth a read.

Another blogger and podcaster that understands how to use affiliate marketing to create revenue and is worth checking out is Pat Flynn, who is the force behind the blog “Smart Passive Income”

7. Consulting

Mark Schaefer is the force behind the awesome blog “Grow“. He uses his blog as his front door and shingle to his consulting, educating and training business that helps businesses grow by tapping into the marketing power of social media.

He is also the author of  several books including  ”Return on Influence” and “The Tao of Twitter”

8. Online Courses

Amy Porterfield is a blogger and a professional Facebook expert who has created and developed online training which is her main revenue stream. Her flagship course is Facebook  Training 101 – FB Influence. 

She understood the importance of her blog as the online portal to her online courses.

9. eBooks

Darren Rowse is the genius behind Problogger. Not only has he made that blog a business success but also started a Photography Blog called “Digital Photography School” with over 1 million subscribers . His eBooks on “blogging” and “photography” have become his main source of income

Darren makes money from his blog in 12 different ways. So making money from your blog is not just limited to one revenue stream. The challenge is working out how you can monetize with multiple channel sources.

10. Premium content – Paid Membership

Timothy Sykes blog is about how to make money on the stock market and his main source of revenue is by selling premium content which is accessed through paying to be a member on his site.

Premium content that is only accessible via monthly membership is a proven model and another one worth checking out is Psd.Tutsplus.com which is a resource and learning site for those who want to learn photoshop.

11. Sell Products

Tucker Max is a blog and brand that is memorable but maybe for all the wrong reasons. If hedonism is your thing then Tucker Max is is your man. He makes money from the blog in a variety of ways. The main source of income is selling his products on Amazon.

It highlights that even a bad image can be monetised. The creativity is up to you!

What about you?

As we have seen, blogging can  be both a business and an online portal to to express yourself. The challenge is deciding what you want it to be and how can you make it into a business and lifestyle that works for you.

So how do you make money from your blog? What types of revenue models attract you?

Look forward to hearing your stories in the comments below.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/05/14/how-to-make-money-from-your-blog-11-powerful-case-studies/#yo7T2VjHbuHuV6wu.99