While a lot of people just think of the standard subscription membership, there are actually lots of different ways you can use a membership site.

• Create a free membership site with members-only content as a way to build your mailing list
• Add a members area for coaching or consulting clients
• Ongoing content membership for a fee
• Protected download area for a course
• Modular course delivery system – great for courses or products that allow multiple payment options for clients. They can get immediate access to portions, as they make their payments.
• Online Employee or Team Project Management System

I came across a great interview with Chris Garrett (a high profile blogger) and he was interviewed on how he has developed several membership sites using WordPress. If you’re interested in some of his tips for building a successful membership site, check out the interview. Best part, it’s free!

Post from: Marketing Geeks, Inc.

.

What do you think? Do you follow brand-new Twitterers if they don’t have any updates at all? I’d love to hear feedback from other active Twitter-folk.

And of course, connect with me on Twitter!

Post from: Marketing Geeks, Inc.

Programs: (used at least daily, usually)

• Firefox
• GimpShop – open-source version of Photoshop. Takes a bit of use to become familiar, but they do have fantastic forums
• KompoZer - open-source version of Dreamweaver. If anything, it’s much easier to use and figure out and has a more intuitive WYSIWYG editor.
• Skype - use for chatting with other team members, subcontractors, clients, etc. Also use for free Skype-to-Skype calls anywhere in the world!
• Digsby - fantastic tool that aggregates webmail like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL, your IM (except Skype, unfortunately), and all your social networking sites. I love it!
• Core FTP – free ftp tool, never used another. Never needed another.
• Jing - I love this little ball of sunshine that sits at the top of my desktop! It lets me quickly and easily take screenshots images or quick screencast videos and save, share or embed.
• Roboform - saves password so I don’t have to remember them, and don’t have to depend on my browsers’ cookies

Other good ones:

• Audacity - good open-source audio editor for podcasts, audio welcomes, etc.
• Camtasia - while Jing is great for short 5-minute or less videos, Camtasia is the best option out there for taking and editing screencasts. Trust me, I’ve looked!
• BoxShot3D - create rendering program to create ebook covers and more
• CommentHut - tool for speeding up the process of locating blogs to comment on.

These are just the programs I use daily. Later this week, I’ll cover (most) all of the online tools I use daily. After all, we provide internet marketing support!

[tags]Rebecca Zwar, internet marketing virtual assistant tools, social media marketing virtual assistant tools, online marketing tools[/tags]

Post from: Marketing Geeks, Inc.

Wow!

So what does it all mean to me?

• The human race is amazing! And potentially terrifying.
• One person can’t succeed alone. You must outsource, network, accept change, learn, grow.
• I’m not a second-class citizen because I don’t have a college degree. I’m more up to date and educated on what is currently working, and what changes are on the horizon than most of my traditional degree friends, who can’t quite seem to catch up. Their time was spent learning outdated info!
• Information overload is okay. Take what you need, and move on!
• I’m excited and scared to see where we go from here. What can still be invented that hasn’t been? What will we learn that we’re clueless to right now?
• Those that aren’t making the effort to keep up won’t even understand how far they’re behind in 6 months or a year.

These are my ramblings and opinions. This is one of those thought-provoking videos that can really change your perspective on things. What do you think? I’d LOVE to know!

Post from: Marketing Geeks, Inc.

But if your conversion rate is 1% because half your readers aren’t even getting your emails, you have a lot of room to improve without having to make any other changes to your copy, product, website, SEO or anything else.

SPAM is a big problem, but so are SPAM filters for legitimate businesses. So here are 5 tips to take back control of the original online form of communication:

1. Start off with good content. Now, I know I said you don’t have to make changes to your copy. But if you’re sending out stuff nobody wants to read to start with, well, stop here. Seriously, make it something they will want to subscribe to.
2. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here are some the technical things you can do to help get to that 95% deliverability rate. Get an ESP (Email Service Provider). Don’t send emails out straight from your inbox, get a professional company to do it on your behalf. Some good companies are Aweber, Constant Contact, and iContact.
3. Double opt-in. Just do it. In the long run, you’ll end up with a more responsive list.
4. Authenticate your domain. Now, this is a technical discussion outside of this post, so you can read more about DomainKeys and Sender Policy Framework, but just know that you will need to involve your hosting provider or your server administrator. But, it’s worth it because it will help whitelist your domain with many major ISPs.
5. If you’re serious about top-notch email delivery, then sign up for a 3rd party Reputation Service that can verify to ISPs that you’re a legitimate company sending legitimate emails. A few to consider – Habeas, Bonded Sender, and ISIPP.

Email marketing can still be very effective, but not if it doesn’t get to your readers. So if you’re serious about using, start by doing it right from the beginning.

[tags]Rebecca Zwar, email marketing, virtual assistant for internet marketing[/tags]

Post from: Marketing Geeks, Inc.

But it doesn’t have to be. You just need a plan.

Here are what I consider the Top 10 Habits of those that use social marketing efficiently and effectively:

1. Participate. Obviously. But really, update your status. Add some photos so friends feel like they get to know you a little better. Mix personal with professional, comment, share, etc.
2. Find and USE tools that save you time. Ping.fm and HelloTxt.com are both tools that let you broadcast your status updates to most of the different social networking sites you may be a part of. Forget logging into Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, and Plurk, etc. every time you want to update your status.
3. Have a set time limit for your social marketing efforts. It’s much too easy to look up and realize you’ve spent two hours catching up and chatting with friends, and haven’t gotten anything else done (guilty!).
4. Connect with people across several sites. This lets you establish a presence on the web. Heck, they’ll see you everywhere! And when they do, you’ll stand out in their minds just that little bit more. They’ll automatically feel they know you better. And they just might come to think of you as the expert, when they see you interacting and sharing valuable information with others.
5. Find an experienced social marketing/internet marketing virtual assistant. Now, this may sound like shameless self-promotion, but hear me out…It’s much easier for us to go in and take care of a lot of the little tasks that take up time, without getting distracted. We know how to make the most of your social marketing efforts, and can make suggestions for improvements. So think about it, okay?
6. If you’re into submitting news stories to boost your social news site profile, find a news story is popular on one site and consider submitting it to another site that it would do well on. This works well on niche sites, that do not have quite the same level of activity as the larger, general news sites.
7. Find the sites that are working best for you, and concentrate on those. Just because I’m encouraging you to be social doesn’t mean you need to be active daily on every single site that exists. Focus on the most important ones, and drop by the others as you get time.
8. Take advantage of tools like RSS Readers. My preference is Netvibes. Instead of browsing from one blog, to another, to another, you can focus on headlines, and finding the stories that are important to you. You can then click through to comment or submit, stumble, etc. Use tabs in your reader to separate out different subjects. Then you can focus on one subject at a time, and not get distracted.
9. Do unto others what you would have them do unto you. Want more people to comment on your blog posts? Go out and actively comment on others (see #8 above to avoid distraction!). Want more Stumbles, Diggs, social bookmarking submissions? Regularly submit quality content of others to these sites.
10. Last, but certainly not least, know why you’re there. Maybe this should even be #1? What is your intention for the site? Are you looking for more newsletter signups? Do you want more exposure for your teleseminars? More clients? Make sure you know why you’re doing it before spending any time. Then set your profiles up to focus on that. Have your updates geared towards that. The more diluted your message, the fewer results you will see.

There you have it. What I think are the Top 10 Habits of Super Effective Social Marketers!

[tags]Rebecca Zwar, social marketing virtual assistant, internet marketing virtual assistant, social networking virtual assistant[/tags]

Post from: Marketing Geeks, Inc.

While I think web 2.0 and social media can be a fantastic resource for businesses looking for a new way to get the word out, are these employees using it as a business tool? Having spent time in the corporate world, I have to think these employees are hopping on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for personal play-time.

Hmm…

Hardly a productive use of time, in my book.

Instead of an hourly employee, who gets paid regardless of what their time is spent on, why not hire a virtual assistant? You get extremely efficient use of time, billed to the minute. You have a skilled professional that takes coffee breaks on their own time. And, if we’re on Facebook, we’re there to build your business and drive traffic to your site!

Sounds like a no-brainer to me!

[tags]Rebecca Zwar, ways to use a virtual assistant, internet marketing virtual assistant, social media virtual assistant, Read Write Web[/tags]

Post from: Marketing Geeks, Inc.

When you are branding yourself online, does your message match up with the visuals your visitors are getting? I think an effective brand “package” covers not just your slogan and your logo, but your message, and all the other visuals on your website as well.

Whether you have a fun, creative, serious, technical or *other* tone to your copy, check our your website. Do all the pictures, logos, slogans, and even the font convey that same feel?

When every aspect of your website works together, your branding is that much more effective.

Not entirely sure about your brand’s “feel”? Try this 30 second test from Conversation Marketing:

• Imagine you’re hiring your very first employee.
• Figure out three phrases that describe the perfect hire.
• Make sure they’re more specific than ‘fast’ or ’smart’

For me, when choosing someone for my team, mine are “creative/entrepreneurial thinking”  “extremely comfortable with technology”  and “Fun!”

What are yours?

[tags]internet marketing, branding, Rebecca Zwar, virtual assistant team[/tags]

Post from: Marketing Geeks, Inc.

It’s always a good idea to spend a little time tracking and watching the way your visitors use your site. If your readers are often “bouncing” right off your site, then there’s a disconnect somewhere that you need to fix. A great way to use analytical tools is to create “more of the same” of whatever you see if most popular with your visitors.

This tells you what topics are bringing people in and let you add and expand on these posts. It also tells you what subjects people don’t care about, so you can stop wasting your time!

I’ve compiled a list of some of the top analytical tools for your blog. Some are free, some are not, but all offer some good features. Obviously, you’re not going to want to use them all, or your site may never load! But pick a few, find which ones give you the information you’re most interested in, and then narrow it down to just one or two.

• GetClicky – Offers statistics on your site, as well as stats on your feed and Feedburner. Has free & paid versions
• Hittail – Suggests topics for your blog from keywords used in referral traffic
• Crazy Egg – Offers live reporting, overlay and heat map statistics
• StatCounter – More free web stats
• Co.mments – Lets you track comment threads starting on your (or any) blog and follow them in a feed
• Blog Tracker – Free from IceRocket, has limited information.
• MyBlogLog – Basic blog visitor stats and social networking. Free & paid versions.
• Feedburner Stats – Gives you more stats on your site and feed. Free & paid versions.
• Wordpress Stats – Free basic blog stats plugin for Wordpress blogs
• Google Analytics and Feedburner Stats – Another free plugin for Wordpress blogs
• RobotReplay – Allows you to record visitor actions on your site and play them back

[tags]Rebecca Zwar, blog analytics, social marketing topics[/tags]

Post from: Marketing Geeks, Inc.