Internet Marketing with Josh SpauldingMaking Money through Ethical Internet Marketing.

Understanding Social Media Marketing

I’ve gone over certain aspects of social media in several different posts over the years, but as far as I know I’ve never done an “all-in-one” type of post, explaining the differences that exist with Social Media and the different ways you can leverage them.

Social Media is growing like no media has ever grown before. MySpace was one of the first mass social platforms, then Facebook, Twitter and the list goes on and on. As Internet Marketers Social Media is a relatively new, HUGE market and opportunity, but it’s far from a secret!

There are millions of sites dedicated to leveraging Social Media to do this, that and the other. It’s a marketing machine, but only a small percentage of marketers are really benefiting from it because most are just confused by it all. This post is my attempt at clearing up that confusion.

Let’s start off with the definition. Wikipedia says:

“Social media is content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies.”

That’s the “book” definition, but it really all comes down to the first word “social.” Any site that is driven by user-generated content is a social media site!

With that being said, let me tell you something that most people don’t realize for a WHILE, which causes them to waste time bugging legitimate users and spamming those users… eventually getting their accounts suspended: There are MANY different types of social media sites and each one has it’s own benefits to you as an Internet Marketer.

Some can be leveraged in the same basic way. Some provide the same benefit if leveraged properly, but all are different!

For instance, social bookmarking sites like Digg and Stumbleupon are best leveraged as direct exposure tools. Good, viral content that you produce can gain thousands, even millions, of new visitors from these sites when your visitors bookmark them. But, you don’t go to Digg or SU to build links (it’s all nofollowed) or to network. There are other social bookmarking sites that will give you a followed link. There may even be some that are good for networking. That’s where my point comes in. They are all different!

LinkedIn is a social site that is all about networking. Meeting other people in your niche. Making friends, which is really what networking is all about!

Facebook and Twitter are useful for direct exposure and networking. And as a side note, I recommend creating separate accounts for business and private use.

There is a big problem with many social media sites and spam, especially Twitter. This problem comes from confused marketers who don’t understand that each site is different. The problem is spam. But this spam isn’t coming from dirty, unethical scammers like most spam comes from. It’s coming from “newbie” Internet Marketers who are getting very broad info regarding the topic and acting on that info without any real clarity.

I get direct messages on Twitter on a daily basis from people talking like we’re best friends even though I have never talked to them in my life. They don’t understand that Twitter (for instance) is just like real life. Use it to make friends, talk NORMAL to people. Get to know them, help them…

Things like this happen on just about all of the big social sites. Each problem is unique to the site it occurs on, but it all comes from users trying to use a social platform in the wrong way.

So how can I be different and provide a clear solution? Unfortunately the best advice I can give you, or anyone can give you for that matter, is to look at each site differently!

Every time a new social media site begins to gain popularly I create an account and start using it HOW IT’S MEANT TO BE USED. Once I understand it, I then start to think of ways in which it can benefit my business, if any.

It comes down to this. Most social media sites are best leveraged by using them EXACTLY HOW THEY’RE MEANT TO BE USED! Don’t push URL’s onto people you don’t know. Don’t bend or break the rules of the sites. Just sign up, figure out the purpose and intention of the site and use it. Marketing isn’t always about ads and pushy sales talk. It’s also about making friends, sharing ideas and information, helping people and just being active.

image credit: Matt Hamm

How I Make Money Giving away Free Stuff

About a year and half ago I wrote a blog post outlining how I make money with free reports. I go over the basics of how I do it in that post, but since then my strategies have evolved and I’m making MUCH more money with my freebies.

So instead of editing that post, I decided to write a new one for you.

What I’m about to explain to you is actually one part of my overall Info-Product Success Formula, the exact formula that I’ve been using for years to make hundreds of thousands of dollars. But, the free report [...] Continue Reading…

Should you Build links to your Article Directory Articles?

This is a question I received today from a customer of my Article Marketing Ebook and a question I’ve been receiving on a weekly basis for years. Amazingly enough, I believe this is the first time I’ve answered the question publicly, other than maybe in a few post comments here and there.

The answer to the question is 98% of the time, no. And 2% of the time, yes.

Many people believe that if they build links to the articles that they’ve submitted to article directories, those articles will then receive more authority, causing them to rank higher and drive even [...] Continue Reading…

Website Flipping 101 – 10 Steps to Quick VRE Cash

This is a guest post by a friend, former student and successful “Site Flipper,” Michelle Adams. Michelle has been flipping Virtual Real Estate (VRE) for a while now with a great deal of success. If I were looking to get into that business model, Michelle is who I would take advice from on the subject.

If you’re like most people who are keen to make money online you’ve more than likely been focusing on methods that will generate passive income: income where you do the work once and get paid over and over again. Passive income is arguably the best [...] Continue Reading…

WordPress: How to Remove the Sidebar from a Single Page

You may come upon the situation where you need/want to remove the sidebar for one particular page on a WordPress bog. There are many situations where this may happen. In one case, if you use Google Custom Search (within Adsense) for your blog search and you want the search results to match your blog (highly recommended) the minimum width for the results page is 795 set by Google. That means, with most themes, the ads on the right in the search results are going to overlap your sidebar.

So, here is the solution:

WARNING: Always make a backup of any file [...] Continue Reading…

Internet Marketing Tax Deductions

It’s the last day of 2009, which means tax season is just around the corner. That is a good thing for some and a bad thing for others. Whether it’s good or bad for you, one thing’s for sure, you NEED to be sure you claim all of your yearly business expenses!!

(NOTE: I am not a certified financial adviser of any kind! Always consult with a CPA or some sort of finance professional before putting any advice I provide into action.)

Hopefully you kept track of your incoming and outgoing for the entire year. I know I DIDN’T my first [...] Continue Reading…

How to Make more Money with Adsense

As we’re coming up on a new year (at the time of writing) many of us start thinking about goals for the new year. I’ve never been one to sit down and write out all of my goals, although I probably should, but I do try to set them and keep them in mind throughout the year.

One of those goals is to bring my Adsense income back up to where it was a couple years ago. At one point I was earning a few thousand dollars a month via Adsense. Since then I have shifted my business model to [...] Continue Reading…

Using Uncommon SEO to Boost Traffic

One of the biggest problems Internet Marketers face is a lack of traffic. The more traffic the better. No traffic means no money. Because of this, new and experienced Internet Marketers alike are constantly working to build traffic and looking for new ways to do so.

That’s a good thing… we should always continue to work on that. But… in many cases these same individuals completely ignore one of the easiest ways to boost the traffic from the sources they already have. It’s called “optimizing.”

When you think of “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO) you probably think of building links, creating a [...] Continue Reading…

Introducing “QuickScrib” – My Latest Creation

About 6 months ago I was driving down the road in Greenwood, IN as I came up on a traffic light. The light had just turned yellow
and I was at that spot to where I could either slam on my brakes in order to stop for it, or just go through it while it’s yellow.

I decided to go through the yellow light. Well, there was a guy in an SUV coming from the other way in the other lane who wanted
to turn left, crossing my lane, but he was stuck in the middle of the intersection and his light [...] Continue Reading…

The 3 “Key” Characteristics of an Effective Article Signature

When I started marketing with articles, several years ago, I went about it blindly. I didn’t do any keyword research. I didn’t put much thought into the body of the article and worst of all I had no idea what an effective signature, aka author resource box, looked like.

No keyword research is bad, but you can still get lucky and get some traffic from it. The body of the article should contain quality, but even decent articles can still drive traffic. But a bad signature will completely ruin any chance of that article driving traffic to your site!

There are [...] Continue Reading…