June 3, 2009

All of these items are published as I find them to my Twitter feed. For real time notification of trends and resources, follow me on Twitter!

Related posts:

1. Best in Social Media - April 25, 2009
2. Best in Social Media - April 18, 2009
3. Best in Social Media - May 25, 2009

May 18, 2009

All of these items are published as I find them to my Twitter feed. For real time notification of trends and resources, follow me on Twitter!

Related posts:

1. Best in Social Media - April 25, 2009
2. Best in Social Media - March 28, 2009
3. Best in Social Media - April 18, 2009

May 14, 2009 - Thank you so much Dan for speaking up - I have a blog post in draft on this very topic!

May 12, 2009 - Yay Market Samurai team! Always innovating, improving and delivering an indespensible product.

May 12, 2009 - If you're new to internet marketing, the Thirty Day Challenge is the place to start. It's free & the content is unparalleled.

All of these items are published as I find them to my Twitter feed. For real time notification of trends and resources, follow me on Twitter!

Related posts:

1. Best in Social Media - April 4, 2009
2. Best in Social Media - December 12, 2008
3. Best in Social Media - December 5, 2008

That’s the initial thought process when someone considers social media marketing.

And it’s dead wrong.

People aren’t on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube to BUY YOUR STUFF.  They might, as a byproduct of seeing you there - Twitter referrals consistently convert well for my products, for example.  But heading out to a social media site to “get” people to BUY YOUR STUFF won’t work.  Here’s why:

THREE PILLARS OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

There are three “pillars” or methods one can use in their social media marketing attempts.  The best strategy uses all three.  The weakest and least affective uses the first only (and it’s, unfortunately, where most people get their feet wet, decide it doesn’t work and give up).

Pillar One: Broadcasting

When you’re broadcasting, you’re talking about yourself, your product, your service, your website.  You’re using the social media sites as a way to transmit your (marketing) message to others.

Yes, it’s necessary.  Customers, web site visitors, prospects have friended you on the various social networks and it’s another way in which you can (and should) update them when there’s something worth updating.

But it’s still just you yammering on about yourself.

And social media isn’t about the “me” (me talking about myself) it’s about the “you” (your customer, prospect, reader.)

And that’s where the next two pillars of social media marketing enter:

Pillar Two: Customer Support

No, not just helpdesk kind of stuff (although that can be a part of this pillar).  But supporting the people who have friended you by providing tips, info or news related to your niche. If doesn’t always (and shouldn’t always) have to link back to your site, and it doesn’t always have to have a link at all. You’re a dog trainer? You’ll help folks out with training their dogs. A real estate agent? Tell folks the myths about buying foreclosures.

What’s relevant to the people who’ve friended you? Talk about it.

Having opened yourself up to your niche in this way, those who are following you will often ask questions which you should, of course, respond to (support them!).

Now you’re having a conversation. You’ve built a seedling of a relationship. When people say “social media is about relationships” that’s what they mean. Not you yelling from the rooftops about “ME ME ME!” (Pillar 1) but you SUPPORTING the people in your niche.

Do you think someone is more likely to visit your website, buy your product, etc. if they’ve had a little conversation with you before? Of course.

That’s why social media click-throughs convert well for me.  I talk to people. I try to support my friends on the social media platforms, they know me a bit, many of us have had conversations.

But there’s another pillar that will bring the effectiveness of your social media marketing way up:

Pillar Three: Round Robin

You’re broadcasting.  You’re supporting your followers  by providing them interesting and relevant information and responding to their posts (and maybe even initiating conversations when you see people talking about your niche).

Now you take the “Me” out of the equation all together. You don’t exist.  It’s your customers / web site visitors talking about you, your product or service to their friends and followers.

This is when social media marketing gets REALLY powerful, but it’s unlikely to happen if you don’t initiate the process with the first two pillars.

If you create a positive experience for your social media friends in Pillar 2, they naturally want to “give back” to you (this is the “Law of Reciprocity”).  In Twitter, this can be in the form of a retweet or unsolicited mention of how great your product it. Or in blogging, it’s a link back from their site to yours to a great blog post you wrote.

And when it’s OTHER people talking to THEIR friends about how great you are, rather then you broadcasting to people who are already following you, the effect is MUCH bigger.

Someone posts that they really like my product, Crowd Mountain, to their friends.  Their friends check it out. They’ve gotten a personal recommendation from someone they trust (not me, the seller) for the product.  Are they now even more likely to buy? Of course! And that’s the REAL reason why social media converts so well for me - because it’s not about ME it’s about YOU.

It’s not because I’m so awesome and so is my product and I tell people that everyday, it’s because other people are telling that to their friends everyday for me, without my intervention or my solicitation.

You need to educate the people you’ve friended to make this happen. How? By doing yourself exactly what you want them to do.  Retweet an interesting blog post one of your friends has posted. They’ll see that you did, your other followers will see that you did, and will follow your example. Like a product? For no reason at all, without an affiliate link, tell people about it in a blog post - they will follow your example and perhaps choose to recommend your product.

Model the behavior you would like to see, and if you’re being a leader in your marketplace by being informative, helpful, supportive and opinionated (Pillar Two) people will do as you do. Evangelize for folks you support, and people will evangelize for you.

——————————————-

These are stages - it’s near impossible to get to pillar three without having mastered one and two. (Unless you’re Apple and already have had evangelists drooling over you).  It’s an evolution from the least effective to the most effective, and you can learn as your grow.

Stop being a broadcast-only social media marketer (what’s social about that anyway?)! Move towards SUPPORTING your friends and followers, and then lead by example in teaching them how to evangelize for you.

CLICK HERE to Tweet this blog post.

(You can review it before you send it out).

Related posts:

1. John Says “Social Media is Garbage!”
2. Social Media Marketing and Spam Concerns
3. 2009 Internet Marketing Predictions

May 10, 2009 - Yep - free niche marketing keyword research for the taking, courtesy of me and the amazing Market Samurai software!

May 6, 2009

May 6, 2009

All of these items are published as I find them to my Twitter feed. For real time notification of trends and resources, follow me on Twitter!

Related posts:

1. Best in Social Media - April 25, 2009
2. Best in Social Media - May 25, 2009
3. Best in Social Media - March 28, 2009

Watch the video below to find out the magic keyword!

We use:

• Market Samurai - to do our keyword research super quick
• Clickbank - to find affiliate products to promote

For more in-depth keyword research information (plus site building and traffic generation) visit Crowd Mountain. To run your own keyword research as quickly as I did in this video, download MarketSamurai.

Related posts:

1. Steal This Niche - Intro
2. Best in Social Media - May 11, 2009
3. Getting Google Traffic Webinar: Part 2

May 3, 2009

All of these items are published as I find them to my Twitter feed. For real time notification of trends and resources, follow me on Twitter!

Related posts:

1. Best in Social Media - April 25, 2009
2. Best in Social Media - May 25, 2009
3. Best in Social Media - March 28, 2009

In the “Steal This Niche” series you’ll learn how to do niche research by watching as I do it - and at the end of the video, you’re welcome to STEAL THIS NICHE and build your site around it.

We use:

• Market Samurai - to do our keyword research super quick
• Clickbank - to find affiliate products to promote

For more in-depth keyword research information (plus site building and traffic generation) visit Crowd Mountain.  To run your own keyword research as quickly as I did in this video, download MarketSamurai.

Related posts:

1. Steal This Niche - For the Shortys
2. How-To “Trim the FLUFF”
3. Best in Social Media - May 11, 2009

Some key features that make this Wordpress plugin a must have:

• Ability to flexibly insert ads all over your blog without editing your theme’s code
• Split test ads (find which performs best and later only display that one)
• Rotate ad placement within your blog posts to prevent “ad blindness”
• Works with opt-in forms, banner ads, text ads, widgets - whatever you can imagine

In the video below, which was originally published inside Crowd Mountain, I go over some of the main ways one can use Max Banner Ads with their blogs and how it can optimize your sites’ monetization:

There is a discount available for my readers, to access that discount click here.

Related posts:

1. How-To “Trim the FLUFF”
2. Live Q&A Gone In 24 Hours + Launch Deconstruction
3. Updates Available

April 18, 2009

All of these items are published as I find them to my Twitter feed. For real time notification of trends and resources, follow me on Twitter!

Related posts:

1. Best in Social Media - May 25, 2009
2. Best in Social Media - April 11, 2009
3. Best in Social Media - April 18, 2009

A sneak peek inside the Crowd Mountain member’s area.

Related posts:

1. Crowd Mountain Lifetime Membership Winners Announced
2. How-To “Trim the FLUFF”
3. Crowd Mountain: What You Need To Know

March 20, 2009

All of these items are published as I find them to my Twitter feed. For real time notification of trends and resources, follow me on Twitter!

Related posts:

1. Best in Social Media - April 25, 2009
2. Best in Social Media - March 28, 2009
3. Best in Social Media - March 14, 2009

April 9, 2009

All of these items are published as I find them to my Twitter feed. For real time notification of trends and resources, follow me on Twitter!

Related posts:

1. Best in Social Media - April 25, 2009
2. Best in Social Media - April 18, 2009
3. Best in Social Media - May 25, 2009

They tell you to “build a website” but don’t show you how.

Or they’ll show you how to put up a great search engine optimized site but will skip the part about monetizing it.

Maybe they cover monetization but monetization is no good without traffic generation.

And then there’s the programs you get that say it’s a “system” but that system involves buying another $500 worth of “stuff” to make it work - or worse, they want you to spend on PPC advertising.

What customer wouldn’t be mad and jaded?

Instead of bouncing from program to program (and throwing your earnings down the drain looking for the “secret”), you can get everything you need to build a successful online business in one place.

The training: building optimized sites, configuration, plugins, market and keyword research formulas, monetization strategies, traffic generation, content creation, social media domination.

The tools: Hands-free link building, niche market spying, global task management for all your domains, RSS submission.

The advanced techniques (since you’ll have mastered the basics)…

It’s all in one place and it’s waiting for you at
http://www.crowdmountain.com

You won’t spend another dime on training and tools after logging into Crowd Mountain because you won’t have to - that’s my promise to you.

Watch the video I made for you at http://www.crowdmountain.com and I’ll see you on the inside!

I won’t even ask you to take my word for it - check out what Crowd Mountain members are saying:

(These comments were unsolicited & uncompensated and can be seen at http://likaholix.com/michellemacphearson/633937/crowd-mountain )

Best membership site I was ever part of - Debbie Vera

Michelle certainly knows how to trim out the “fluff” and deliver
focused training for getting your social presense established and
maintained. - SwiftPoint

The training provided in Crowd Mountain is awesome, tasks that at
one time seemed overwhelming are explained and broke down into easy
steps that a person can truly take action on - Michelle’s teaching
style ROCKS! - Erica Rueschhoff

Crowd Mountain is the defintive guide to IM and social media. -
Jack White

Great tools and great teaching techniques for Internet marketers. -
Nikki Backshall

Michelle’s Crowd Mountain program is phenomenal. I don’t think
there’s a program that can match the training, resources and
information she provides. Great for new AND advanced internet/niche
marketers! - Katherine Saunders

Visit http://www.crowdmountain.com and join these folks.

Related posts:

1. Live Q&A Gone In 24 Hours + Launch Deconstruction
2. Win a CrowdMountain.com Lifetime Membership
3. Max Banner Ads Demo

Created by two former Google employees (FriendFeed is an ex-Googler venture as well) it’s worth grabbing an account on and establishing a presence.

Get your Likaholix Beta Invite here.

Related posts:

1. Testing Aweber v. 1ShoppingCart For Deliverability
2. Rarw - Pownce!
3. Best in Social Media - February 14, 2009

April 3, 2009 - This was a fun live show I was honored to be a part of honoring @successfool’s 1 year anniversary. Lots of excellent internet marketers contributed.

April 2, 2009

April 2, 2009 - Another reason why “long copy” salesletters and salesletters w/ video tend to convert better - the potential buyer’s questions are being answered so they can make an informed decision.

Some great ideas on illustrating your product here.

April 2, 2009 - Now you know.

April 2, 2009 - I asked about this on Facebook but folks there disagreed. For me, I have less need for news RSS feeds as any big news gets Tweeted. Any news outlet I’m interested in I can follow on Twitter. And many of my fav bloggers publish updates on Twitter.

No, Twitter won’t kill RSS - but it makes some feeds, at least, more of a “backup” in case you miss the Twitter post when it’s originally published.

April 2, 2009 - Back when blogging was shiny-new everyone was sold on the “community” aspect of it - being able to connect with other people like you, tell your stories, share and share alike. Linking to those other bloggers with whom you shared a common interest was big part of creating that community.

Nowadays, most bloggers, even newbies, know about the potential to “make money blogging” and are less likely to link to one another.

Blogging isn’t as much about community anymore - we have Facebook or Twitter for that. Blogging is now about the “ME”.

And I totally could’ve blogged this response, but instead added it to my Google Reader Shared Items where it will automatically be posted to my Twitter feed and then my blog at the end of the week.

It’s too easy to publish content on other platforms than to blog it. Ask @Scobelizer.

April 2, 2009 - Please take this to heart folks. Autofollow creates NOISE, not connections, not even clicks on your links or interest in your products/services etc.

March 27, 2009

March 26, 2009

March 28, 2009 - Have noticed that as well - and I, a Tweeter, like the new Facebook too! What do you think?

March 24, 2009

March 28, 2009 - The commitment the Market Samurai team has shown to continually developing, adding to, improving and expanding their product is incredible. And because of that effort, they’ve got the best keyword research tool out there.

March 23, 2009

All of these items are published as I find them to my Twitter feed. For real time notification of trends and resources, follow me on Twitter!

Related posts:

1. Best in Social Media - April 25, 2009
2. Best in Social Media - March 14, 2009
3. Best in Social Media - April 18, 2009

• Twitter Giveaway - Acer Aspire Netbook (and more)
  Posted on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 in Social Media Optimization - Comments: (65)
  To celebrate the successful launch of Crowd Mountain, I’m announcing a new Twitter contest with some great prizes anyone can use and enjoy!  It’s super easy to enter:HOW TO ENTER1. Follow @MichelleM (that’s me) on Twitter2. Tweet this to your friends: I just entered to win an Acer netbook - follow @MichelleM & retweet to enter too! http://is.gd/oD1ECLICK HERE to send the Tweet out to your Twitter friends automatically.
• Twitter Contest: Acer Aspire One Netbook
  Posted on Sunday, March 29th, 2009 in Social Media Optimization - Comments: (12)
  The Twitter Contest for the Acer Aspire One netbook is nearing a close - but there’s still time to enter.The contest officially ends at midnight on March 31 - which means (ironically) that the winners will be announced on April 1 (April Fool’s Day).For full details on the Twitter contest, a look at the prizes and rules, click here.But if you know you want in, here’s how to enter:1.
• Facebook Marketing Actually Gets Interesting
  Posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 in Social Media Optimization - Comments: (5)
  I’ve not been a huge fan of Facebook for marketing purposes because having a crapload of friends makes it quite difficult to interact with them and manage your Facebook experience.Facebook made an announcement yesterday that actually makes Facebook marketing viable for the average person.  Facebook “fan” pages just got revamped and behave more like a regular profile page (except you can still message all your fans).
• Live Q&A Gone In 24 Hours + Launch Deconstruction
  Posted on Sunday, March 1st, 2009 in Internet Marketing - Comments: (4)
  You must sign in to Crowd Mountain within the next 24 hours or you’ll miss the ability to submit your personal questions to the Live Q&A session on: Brainstorming niches Generating keywords people actually use Exact competition & traffic numbers to target How to find room in super competitive niches What’s too long when working the long tail? Picking up easy type-in traffic.
• What Do You Think About “Spam” Marketing Emails?
  Posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 in Internet Marketing - Comments: (3)
  I really want to know your opinion on this one.Ed Dale, Lynn Terry & I recorded episode #12 of Internet Marketing This Week and in it, all 3 of us have a little hissy fit (ok, Ed’s hissy fit is a full blown PO’ed rant) about “spam” marketing emails.  Now, before you jump to conclusions, download the broadcast (click here to get it directly in Itunes).

Related posts:

1. Twitter Contest: Acer Aspire One Netbook
2. Twitter Giveaway - Acer Aspire Netbook (and more)
3. Best posts on Social Marketing from Feb 2009

The contest officially ends at midnight on March 31 - which means (ironically) that the winners will be announced on April 1 (April Fool’s Day).

For full details on the Twitter contest, a look at the prizes and rules, click here.

But if you know you want in, here’s how to enter:

1. Follow @MichelleM (that’s me) on Twitter

2. Tweet this to your friends: I just entered to win an Acer netbook - follow @MichelleM & retweet to enter too! http://is.gd/oD1E

CLICK HERE to send the Tweet out to your Twitter friends automatically.

I look forward to sending you a DM letting you know you won!

Related posts:

1. Twitter Giveaway - Acer Aspire Netbook (and more)
2. Best posts on Social Marketing from Mar 2009
3. Win a CrowdMountain.com Lifetime Membership

March 28, 2009 - So true… There is no spam when you’re opting in. Some folks don’t opt-in and just willy-nilly follow everyone - then complain about the tweets they receive from those people?!?

All of these items are published as I find them to my Twitter feed. For real time notification of trends and resources, follow me on Twitter!

Related posts:

1. Best in Social Media - April 25, 2009
2. Best in Social Media - May 25, 2009
3. Best in Social Media - April 18, 2009

HOW TO ENTER

1. Follow @MichelleM (that’s me) on Twitter

2. Tweet this to your friends: I just entered to win an Acer netbook - follow @MichelleM & retweet to enter too! http://is.gd/oD1E

CLICK HERE to send the Tweet out to your Twitter friends automatically.

The giveaway ends March 31, 2009 at midnight PST. Three winners will be picked at random (one for each prize) and notified via Twitter DM. If notified, you will have 24 hours to respond and claim your prize, at which point it will be given to another contestant.

PRIZES

For prizes, I’ve chosen a few of my “favorite things” (queue Oprah theme music).  These are handpicked, items that I own, adore, love, learn from and use.

Acer Aspire One 8.9-Inch Netbook: This Model comes with Windows XP, a 160 gig harddrive (unlike some of the netbooks out there - hello Dell? - you can actually store a few files or programs on it) and the 6-cell battery, so it’ll run for about 5.5 hours (what a netbook is for - being able to work with it on-the-go and not charge it up all the time).  Of course it’s got wireless and USB ports and whatnot, and has consistently been among the top performing netbooks by review sites.

Snowball USB Microphone: I replaced my old, $14 mic with this model about 2 months ago and love the sound quality.  Plus it looks cool - and there’s something to be said about cool looking equipment!  It definitely gets comments from anyone who visits the office.  Installs like a dream, has switches on the back to adjust the way it picks up sound - good for group vs. individual recording and adjusting for the sound qualities of the room you’re in.

Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat: This book (that I originally was referred to by Rich Schefren) has given me a kick in the arse - really!  A must-read for ANYONE with their own business (internet marketing or not).

Related posts:

1. Twitter Contest: Acer Aspire One Netbook
2. Best posts on Social Marketing from Mar 2009
3. Win a CrowdMountain.com Lifetime Membership