Twitter is growing in popularity because it is a way for small businesses to cut back on marketing costs, reach  national or international audiences and keep their existing customers up-to-date on what is happening within their business.

Twitter Small Business Case Study #1

In Albany, there is a Toyota car dealership where  this rather large, boisterous small business owner who is known for the tagline of ‘it’s huuuuuuuuge’ (as in the savings). He was smart enough to have his commercials direct people to the company Twitter account ( http://twitter.com/iamhuge). When you browse through his tweets you can’t help but chuckle. He is as cheesy on Twitter as he is in his commercials and that is the secret to his success online. He keeps it real and keeps it true to form. For him Twitter is a non-stop commercial and it works for him.

Twitter Small Business Case Study #2

Curtis Kimball owns a crème brûlée cart in San Francisco that moves from location to location on a daily basis. He was amazed one day to find out from a customer in line that they had read about his cart on Twitter. He immediately signed up for an account (http://twitter.com/cremebruleecart) and now has over 7,000 followers who wait everyday to hear where his cart will be located and what the flavors of the day will be. His business went from a part-time hobby business to a full-time business thanks to Twitter popularity.

In these economic times when advertizing budgets are tighter and sales may be declining, finding low cost sources for bringing in new customers is essential to staying afloat. These Twitter case studies demonstrate that the small business owner can compete if they are creative and learn to Twitter correctly.

Internet Marketing for Small Business | Niche Marketing Course | How to Find Profitable Niches

When the dotcom era arrived it was difficult to replicate that same customer satisfaction and referral process. You either had to satisfy the search engines for higher placement or you had to purchase expensive advertizing for your website. People stopped using the traditional ways of finding local products and services and turned to the internet as their source for shopping information.

There was no real way to let anyone who found you online  that you had a great product or the friendliest service in town. You could put testimonials on your website, but people soon became wise to the fact that 90% of those testimonials were fake. Then came sites like Twitter and FaceBook and MySpace.

These social sites are a gold mine for the creative small business owner. A creme brulee cart operator in San Fransisco grew by word-of-mouth via Twitter and within a few months the owner had to quit his day job to keep up with the growing demand of his little cart. (“Mom and Pop Operators Turn to Social Media”, Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, July 23,2009)

This goes to show you that the word-of-mouth era has returned but with a technological twist. It is now possible for your happy customers to bring you more business to your brick and mortar small business as well as your online business. A wise business owner will recognize this and grasp the golden ring. Encourage your customers to “Tweet you right”.

Be creative in asking your customers to give you that valuable referral. It may be something as simple as printing up a little sticker with “If you love me Tweet me” on it to put on your products or sales receipts in your store. Make sure if you are an online business you include your URL and a Tweet request on every product you ship out.

You will be surprised at how well this works. Most times your customers would not Tweet you because they never thought of it. Simply asking them to do it may be all you need to do. If you don’t ask you will not receive.

You could even turn it into an in-store contest. Offer a free product or service to a random customer you find Tweeting about you. There are many ways you can cultivate link love from your customers. Just be creative!

Be visible on Twitter yourself. This is a great platform for your small business to let your potential customers get to know you. Just be sure you know how to use social media effectively. Learn internet marketing for small business and you can reach a whole new level of success.

Internet Marketing for Small Business | Niche Marketing Course | How to Find Profitable Niches

A good article will answer a question, provide information or deliver news within your niche. If you are stuck for a topic for your article you can go to places like Yahoo Answers to find out what information people are looking for. This is a great place of not only inspiration but also a great place to find information yourself on any given topic.

If I am researching an article, I often will post a question on Yahoo Answers and then use the answers people have provided as a means of gathering information to include in the article. In essence, other people pretty much write the article for me. I just put it all together into a nicely flowing story.

Another source for inspiration are article publishing websites themselves. What are other authors writing about? Spend a little time in the article sites and you will quickly get a sense of what makes a good article. Was it an entertaining or informative read? This will give you an idea of what your articles should look like.

Do not ever, under any circumstances, directly copy another article and claim it as your own.You might take the basic principles of an article and rewrite it in your own style with your own opinions added.

It is certainly okay to re-publish an article. Most authors hope you do; but be sure to also publish the author’s full credit as supplied by the article website. These articles are great for niche blog content and newsletters.

That is precisely the reason you are writing the article in the first place. You want people to read it and share it because it will have your website link in the author’s credits. This is a way for you to get the most back links to your website or blog without having to go out and search for them yourself. You do the work of writing the article and submitting it to the article publishing site and then it becomes a set-it-and-forget-it way of generating traffic and back links for you. Every article you publish about your profitable niche will become mini traffic generators for you. The growing back links will help you boost your page rank in the search engines.

Another benefit of article marketing is that the article publishing sites rank very highly in the search engines. You may be struggling at first to gain page ranking and search engine placement. Your published articles may out-perform your website when it comes to search engine positioning so while your niche website might be sitting on page 5 of the search engine results, your article may be on page one for your keyword.

In the next lesson of the niche marketing course I will cover the basics of writing effective articles for your profitable niche.

Today’s action: Visit Yahoo Answers and several article publishing sites and gather ideas for articles within your niche market. Get at least 5 ideas for articles and read articles to determine what makes them good or bad.

Lesson 14

Why should your small business have a blog?

• The first reason is to build trust with your potential buyers. When they read your blog they can get a feel for your personality, ethics and workmanship. You become a real person to them and therefore more trustworthy.
• The second advantage is the ability to interact with your present or future customers. Ask for feedback or get their opinions. A blog invites people to leave comments. This is particularly useful if you are testing a new product or trying to improve the buyer experience on your website.
• The biggest advantage is the value it adds to your website. From a search engine’s perspective, their product is information. They want to deliver the most up-to-date information to their customers (ie: searchers). Each post you add to your blog counts as fresh content or another page added to your website. Google and other search engines thrive on fresh new content and will give your site more value than any site that is not blogging.
• Effective use of keywords and SEO for each blog post can skyrocket your website to the top of Google and other search engine rankings.

But how do you blog effectively? There are many free or paid internet marketing courses online that will show you the art of blogging for small businesses. There is a science to it but thankfully it is not rocket science. Anyone can do it once they know how. Find an internet marketer who has experience and is willing to teach and mentor you to the top. The best ones will teach the basics of internet marketing your small business for free so you will be making sales online before paying for more advanced lessons.

Internet Marketing for Small Business | Niche Marketing Course | Finding Profitable Niches | Social Media Marketing

The key is to understand that, as a business owner with a product or service to offer, you possess one of the most sought after items on the internet. That product is information. If you really think about what people use the internet for on a daily basis you will realize that the average person does not go shopping everyday online. Unless they have a very specific item they are looking to buy, most purchases result from stumbling across an item that they cannot do without but did not realize they needed.

The majority of searches done on a daily basis is the search for information on a wide variety of topics. They research problems they have. They look for information to comparison shop. They search for ways to improve the quality of their lives.

If you do not currently have a product that you can sell to the masses to grow your small business online, all you have to do is create a simple information product or report that you can sell online. The key is to know what product to create. You will find this out by researching your market and finding a profitable niche that is ready and waiting for the information you can supply.

In my niche marketing course I use the example of a small business that installs laminate flooring. This person is not likely to go outside their region to sell a job and laminate flooring is not a product that would lend itself well to shipping to customers outside their local area because of the cost of shipping.

So how could this small business owner grow his bottom line through niche marketing? We all know that home renovations and do it yourself projects have become a very hot market. This small business owner could get out his video camera and do a little do-it-yourself instructional video teaching people all of the tips and tricks of an experienced installer.

I know if I was a homeowner about to tackle installing a floor for the first time I would do my homework and find as much info as possible. I would not hesitate to pay a reasonable price for advice and instructions from an expert. And I am not alone. Many people would pay for that information.

The best part of this situation is that once your instructional video is created, there is no more work on your part to create any additional products. You have one product that you sell over and over again on autopilot to as many people as you can reach.

The next questions is how do you reach buyers? Again you do the market research and find targeted niche keywords that have low competition and you begin to build the foundation of your marketing campaign. It really is drop dead easy if you have the proper information.

I used the exact same niche marketing principles and took my small seasonal business and turned it into a 12 month per year money maker. It isn’t rocket science and it isn’t difficult. It just requires the right information to get you started. Once you understand how, you can continue to grow your bottom line anytime you want to add more revenue to your small business.

Internet Marketing for Small Business | Niche Marketing Course | Finding Profitable Niches | Social Media Marketing

What is a Twitter Hog?

A Twitter Hog is someone who tweets almost non-stop. They fill your pages all day long with their tweets. They are not effective marketers. They are not much better than spammers or at best Twitter junkies. Sure, they may not be posting about their business every time, but their ever-presence and page domination is just as in your face as a spammer. Their sole purpose is to take up your whole page as often as possible making it almost impossible to follow the tweets of anyone else. They think that is an effective way to market and brand themselves.

They are that one person at the party who has to be the center of attention at ALL times. They don’t realize that tweeting too often is the fastest way to getting ignored. A wise man knows that saying a little is more effective than saying too much.

Use your manners when tweeting. A little goes a long way and is far more effective when marketing your business. If you want your followers to keep following you then you must be kind to them. Don’t forget that your tweets go on their page and you are not the only one they are following.

So when it comes to business on Twitter, if you have something important to say, share it. If not, silence is often better than drivel. Don’t be a Twitter Hog.

Internet Marketing for Small Business | Niche Marketing Course | Finding Profitable Niches | Social Media Marketing

Here is a video I did on a little secret trick I use on my small business website that drastically increased the number of leads I capture on my opt-in list. The tip also increased my conversion rates 100%, increased my page rank and improved my bounce rate. It just doesn’t get any better than this!

If you like this video please feel free to put it on your blog or share it with your subscribers.

Leave me a comment to let me know your thoughs.

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Website owners able to integrate with social platforms including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace with Gigya Socialize Drupal module

Posted via email from Cathy’s posterous

Internet Marketing for Small Business – Copywriting

This is a very interesting article from a fellow internet marketer named Sean Donahoe of ManicMarketer. I think we all get stuck sometimes when it comes to copywriting and it is handy to have a great list of power words when our own words fail us…….

Have you ever been scratching your head to come up with just the right way to title a marketing sales letter or email? It happens to anyone who is a copywriter. Sometimes you just get a mental cramp and just can’t think of the right thing to say.

Well this massive list of incredible Marketing Power Words may help you craft the perfect text you need to rake in your next round of profits

http://themanicmarketer.com/1565-marketing-power-words-phrases-boost-sales/

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Leave me a comment to let me know if you have found this as helpful as I have.