“People don’t want to be sold to. What people do want is news and information about the things they care about.”
Larry Weber, Author of Marketing to the Social Web

Social media marketing, the process of attracting traffic and customers via social networking platforms, is rapidly becoming a preferred marketing technique. It plays a vital role in the shift toward inbound marketing strategies and, when executed correctly, can benefit almost all organizations.

Social Media Integration: The first step towards effective social media marketing should be to sync the information available. This practice, known as social media integration, seeks to deliver a consistent message across the various social platforms. It allows an organization to develop an approachable demeanor and become increasingly customer centric. Mashable’s Brian Solis considers that it’s about more than the big names in social networking. The likes of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn should perhaps be the first port of call, but the most successful companies understand that they can reach beyond these platforms and seek alternative opportunities to make their voice heard. Strategic visibility is key to effective social media integration and ultimately to subsequent marketing efforts.

Content Comes Before Conversation: The industry is touting the benefits of “The Conversation.” Undoubtedly entering into meaningful dialogue with customers is vitally important but in order to have that conversation there first needs to be content. It’s the content that promotes the conversation in the first place. Content should focus on being engaging, fluid and relevant; giving visitors the chance to engage with the organization. Social media is the perfect medium for this. By utilizing social interaction buttons like Tweet This, Facebook Share and Google+1, you make content easily shareable and allow users to play a part in getting your message out there for new audiences. Don’t be afraid to share other content that your customers will get value from, perhaps adding some insight of your own. Those other providers will more than likely return the favor sometime.

SEO Remains a Factor: Spending time integrating a message and providing quality content doesn’t mean an end to search engine optimization efforts; quite the opposite. It’s still vital to use carefully researched keywords in content, optimize web pages and execute a link building strategy. All these efforts contribute significantly to the new rules of SEO; that content should primarily be about the user experience. Effective SEO and social media sharing acts as a strong signal to the search engines to send more people along that path. The most effective social media marketing and SEO strategies share a common goal and complement each other brilliantly.

Social media marketing represents an excellent opportunity to connect with customers and reap the benefits of direct contact and feedback from the consumer audience. It can be time-consuming but it needn’t be expensive. What’s important is that it happens.

About the guest author: Linda Forshaw is a freelance writer and published author from Liverpool in the UK. She is a contributor to DegreeJungle and specializes in social media, marketing and technology. Contact her on Twitter at @seelindaplay

Related article: Top 5 Social Media Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Whenever people speak about social media and business in the same sentence, the word that relates them in advertising. Most people feel that social media is only used for advertising by businesses. However, there are a number of examples of establishments achieving far more than just advertising. The tools employed are being called as the ‘social media tools’ or the ‘web 2.0 tools’. It has not only improved the communication within the organizations but also made reporting easier. Feedback is given on a daily basis and it is incorporated regularly. This has effectively eliminated the communication delay and brought out results faster than anyone had ever expected.

How A Burger Chain Used Social Networking to its Advantage?

A famous gourmet burger company recently introduced a new line of burgers into its menu. There are 460 restaurants under the company and the company had to get it right in all the outlets or risk the failure of one of its more ambitious introduces. The usual method is mailing out recipe books, taking feedback during manager store visits and making changes from the information gathered. This time, they used social networking for the knowledge transfer and briefings were done on a daily basis. The reactions were discussed on video chat and tweaks were made based on customer feedback. The chain is already introducing four new burgers within a span of a month. Earlier, this process would have taken a minimum of 6 months.

Easy and Fun to Use

The above example is just one of the few innovative uses of social networking for business purposes. The networks are there for the taking. The onus is on you to be innovative and use them to your advantage. According to Marc Benioff, CEO of salesforce.com, Facebook is the most popular application ever. The brilliance of using Facebook for business purposes is that you do not have to teach people how to use it as they will already know. Developers at Facebook keep coming up with innovative ways of using Facebook in a fun way. The ability to obtain information is much better now as it is easy to get information.

Advantages of Combined Usage of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 Tools

When the first generation Web tools were introduced in the 1990s, many companies used it to automate several systems and reduce the human involvement. This not only increased the efficiency of processes but also reduced the error margin. Companies like Wal-Mart used internet to help manage inventories better and in streamlining supply chains. Web 1.0 tools were primarily used for automating routine processes. In today’s world, Web 2.0 tools are being used for organizing workloads, design processes and even for creative work.

Direct Customer Reach and Hiring Advantages

With social networking sites, businesses have been able to reach customers directly and take feedback. Before, it had to be collected at their outlets and then implemented. With the ability to interact with the customers directly, businesses can incorporate the feedback on a regular basis.

The hiring process has also been revolutionized by social networking. HR experts can judge the personality of a person by glancing at their profiles. Your profile has practically become your resume. There have been number of instances where a candidate has been hired with only a single interview because of his/her impressive social networking profile.

The author, Penny, is a local seo expert with extensive experience in local marketing through the usage of social networking sites.

Related article: 5 Simple Yet Effective Tips For Successful Social Media Campaign

Using Data Mining as a Traffic Magnet for Your Blog

Traffic flowing through a blog is like blood in your veins. The more traffic that circulates through will result in a healthy growing blog. If you are a blogger, you know that generating traffic is much trickier than it seems. There are a multitude of techniques and methods you can use.  One of the most successful approaches bloggers use to accomplish this is through SEO.

If your content gets to the top of the list, for certain keywords, there is a greater chance of people clicking their way to your site.

There are multiple options for improving your SEO. Combining analytics and word play, you learn a lot and constantly are up to date with search trends. Based on experience, the most effective way to utilize SEO is through data mining. In this article I will explain what data mining is, but first let’s see the importance of choosing the right keywords in your on-page optimization.

How to enter the right keywords in your content and avoid spam?

Before we go into data mining, there are several points content writers must keep in mind with regards to SEO writing. A common misconception is that SEO is most effective when exact keywords are repeated frequently. While this used to be a valid point, it is no longer the best way to secure high ranking. The secret to ranking well in this area is by using a variety of keywords. Following recent Panda and Penguin updates it is becoming evident that avoiding spam totally is more important in ranking well. The more naturalyour words are tailored towards the target market, the more likely your article will gain ranking.

An example of keyword selection using my weight loss blog

In a website I promote the main keyword is “Bistro MD coupon code” which is diet offer.In the past our SEO content writers resorted to writing articles where the above exact keyword was repeated in a density of 1% or more. This did not sound natural and certainly it made the articles look like spam. Apparently, if we repeated the above keyword 5 times in an article of 500 words now this is definitely seen as spam. We will have to use similar keywords, like “promotions for Bistro MD” or “Bistro MD discounts”, etc, within context, instead of repeating the same keyword multiple times. Keeping this in mind, let us now move onto figuring just how we are going to use this knowledge to our advantage.

What doesData Mining mean?

Basically, Data Mining for SEO is the processing and analyzing of information regarding traffic provided by keywords. There are numerous tools at your disposal that can help you see keyword trends and help you analyze these for your research. Using this data, you can construct combinations of words that will best fit the searches made by your potential viewers. The idea behind Data Mining is that you use the results of your analytics to create a list of long tail keywords.

Using Data Mining to identify long tail keywords

To maximize the benefit of this process, you will have to understand the difference between regular keywords and long tail keywords. For example, if you have a website that covers weight loss, a regular keyword you can use is “weight loss diets” or perhaps “weight loss plans”. Compare this to a long tail keyword such as “weight loss diets for women over 35” and you see the difference in detail. The first batch of keywords is very broad while as the long tail keyword specifies a target of women over 35 years of age.

Increasing traffic from long-tail keywords

If your SEO is targeted to multiple long-tail, low competition keywords, there is increased chance of rating high. The results of this process can multiply traffic to your site exponentially.With several keywords combined in a simple phrase you can get yourself ranked easily on most major search engines. Imagine your results when you combine a variety of words specifically targeting different groups. The potential for a massive flow of traffic towards your site is now a reality.

Taking all this in may be overwhelming at first but rest assured it is a very effective and efficient process you can use. The best way to fully grasp the whole process is to try it yourself. A good way to try and implement this is by following the aforementioned steps. Write an article, choose a regular group of keywords; apply the data mining process to analyze the traffic generated and then use this data to create more specific long tail keywords. Over time, and as you monitor your traffic, you will see for yourself just how powerful this method can be.

About the guest author: Latasri is a passionate blogger who makes a living selling Bistro MD voucher code and Diet to Go promo code. She also likes to share her views on diets like Bistro MD and Diet to Go with fellow bloggers on several social platforms.

Related article: What Is Data Mining in SEO and How It Applied Successfully on a Weight Loss Website?

As powerful as Twitter is for promotion and networking, it can be a challenge to maintain and use it effectively once your network grows beyond a few dozen people.

Since you can’t keep increasing the amount of time you spend on Twitter as your network gets bigger, it becomes important to find tools that can help make your Twitter experience better, faster and more effective.

Fortunately, developers have been busy building new tools that make Twitter easier to use, more powerful and, most importantly, more efficient.

Though there are countless tools that can help, here are three that you will definitely want to check out if you’re a power Twitter user or just someone trying to get more out of your tweets.

Tweepi

Once your following and follower lists hit four or five digits, user management can quickly become your biggest challenge.

Tweepi, however, can help with that.

Tweepi makes it easy to unfollow people who aren’t following back, determine which followers you should follow back and even find all-new people to add.

A free version of Tweepi allows you access to the basic tools but paid versions, which start at $7.49 per month, give you more advanced sorting tools, the ability to see more users per page and additional filters to find others to add or remove.

If you have more than a few hundred people in your Twitter network, Tweepi is an invaluable tool to help you manage your connections and grow your audience.

Timely

Apart from user management, actual tweeting is probably the most time-consuming part of using Twitter successfully. While it doesn’t take long to type out a single tweet, deciding what to say can require some serious brainstorming.

Many people have periods where ideas for tweets are hard to come by and periods where they come up with dozens at once. However, posting all of your tweets as you think of them all can blast your followers. This not only buries your first tweets, but can get very annoying.

While there are a lot of services that will let you forward-post tweets, Timely takes is a step further by looking at your followers and finding the best times for your tweets to go live. Then, it automatically schedules you’re outgoing tweets for those peak times.

Timely is free, but there is a pro plan for $9.99 per month that provides priority support.

Proxlet

Finally, if you follow enough people on Twitter, you’ve probably noticed that there is a great deal of noise in the timeline. This includes automated tweets from various services, annoying apps that put garbage into their user’s timelines and even popular hashtags that are completely uninteresting to you.

Proxlet is a way to filter out much of that noise. It works as a proxy for your Twitter feed, running it through a set of filters you define and removing the tweets you don’t want to see. It can pull out Foursquare check-ins, hashtags and even annoying users. You can also use it to display only tweets with links in its “RSS mode”.

Best of all, Proxlet works just about anywhere you use Twitter. You can use it in Tweetdeck, on Twitter for your iPhone or even on the Twitter site via a Chrome extension. You’ll never have to look at unwanted tweets again.

Proxlet is free to use.

With these three tools, you can manage your network more effectively, tweet more often (not to mention at better times) and focus on the tweets you need. That should go a long way to making Twitter a more powerful and more useful service, ensuring that you get the most return for your time and money spent on it.

However, these are far from the only Twitter tools aimed at power users If you’re struggling with a particular issue or challenge on Twitter, you may want to search around. It’s almost certain someone has developed a tool that can help you out.

This guest post is written by Lior Levin, a marketing consultant for a psd to html company, and who also consults for vacation secrets, a resort vacation site that customizes discounted resort style vacations for individuals and businesses.

Related article: 5 Free Useful Tools to Manage Your Social Media Efforts

It is pretty well known that Windows has the time-saving capacity of remembering Wi-Fi passwords, but it is a lot more effective and easier to be able to export those saved passwords to other computers that one needs to log in to the network with. Apart from Windows itself, there are password manager software like LastPass and WirelessKeyView that help in restoring and transferring passwords, making online browsing more secure and easier.

LastPass

LastPass is a strong password management tool that makes managing passwords effortless, by using a cloud based storage decrypting the password database locally on to the system that can be accessible only by local decryption or by logging in to the LastPass website with a master password. The latest version also supports a feature to import and export Wi-Fi passwords. A LastPass user gets access to the LastPass Vault which can sync the passwords in the computers.

To enjoy this feature, a minimum of LastPass 1.90 or latest version is required.

To import Wi-Fi Passwords:
1) Click on the LastPass icon.
2) Go to the "Import from" option
3) Select the option "Wi-Fi Passwords"
4) Select the check boxes to the left of the specific networks.
5) Click on the "Import" button.

To export Wi-Fi Passwords:
1) Click on the LastPass icon
2) Go to the "Export to" option
3) Select the option "Wi-Fi Passwords"

WirelessKeyView

WirelessKeyView is another solution to manage a lot of passwords. This is free utility software by NirSoft that enables viewing all the passwords simultaneously and also exporting them to a text or an HTML file.

After downloading the software and extracting the .exe file from the .zip folder, the window displays all the passwords in the system.

Select the passwords that need to be exported.
1) Click on the "File" tab
2) Click on "Save Selected Items". This option would export the passwords in a text file.
3) To export in HTML format, Click on the "View" tab.
4) Click on "HTML Report- All Items" or "HTML Report- Selected Items" depending on whether all passwords are to be exported or selected ones. You can now view your passwords in a webpage in your web browser in the html format.

Windows

Even the default Windows provides a method of backing up Wi-Fi settings. One drawback however with this is that, you can only export one Wi-Fi network’s settings at one time.
1) Open the Control Panel
2) Click on the "Network and Internet Option"
3) Click on the "Network and Sharing Center"

To the left of the tab, click on the "Manage wireless networks" option. This will display a list of all Wi-Fi networks in your system.
1) Right-click on the specified network and click on "Properties"
2) Click on " Copy this network profile to a USB flash drive".
3) Insert a USB flash drive when Windows prompts you to do so.
4) Plug this Flash Drive into the computer where the settings are to be exported.
5) Double click on the "setupSNK.exe" file to import the saved network settings.
6) Click on the "Security" tab and check on the "Show Characters" tab to view the password.

Of all the methods of managing Wi-Fi Passwords, LastPass seems to be an ideal solution for those well acquainted with LastPass. The default feature of Windows makes it easier to transfer network settings among computers. WirelessKeyView proves handy in printing the network details as it exports the Wi-Fi Passwords to a text file or an HTML file.

About guest the author: Margaret is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on diyhealth and technology. Beside this she is fond of books. She recently did an article on diy health. These days she is busy in writing an article on gizmo watch.

Ask yourself if you would like to live in a house with poor construction, leaks, rats etc or in a good location with a well built, sturdy, healthy yet modest home. Proper design plays an important part in all aspects of our life, thus it is crucial for websites to have a great design too.

Technology rules this age and many if not all companies, have a good website. If you are a budding entrepreneur in this age; a website is essential for growth and development. A good web design is needed for any site if it wants to be great at some point in time. Professionals need web design which has no flaws along with one which will look and feel modern, trendy and above all; user-friendly.

Previously the beauty in an idea of a website could not be transformed into the real deal online. There would always be limitations of some kind or the idea may not be interpretable in the website. However with the great leaps in technology, software and connectivity comes a new breed of efficient professional designers with sharp tools and sharp minds who repeatedly come to the aid of great ideas, bringing their design into reality every single day. Along with this they help market your site to the best of their skill.

Instead of adjusting and bargaining with designers for features and designs, it is now possible to state your requirements and needs, and get a site custom made for you matching your needs. The price quoted will be directly proportional to the features demanded. Since the best of professionals use this method they put their reputation on the line every time they work and hence can give you a great site at the best price for you.

The best of companies offer a free web design quote to give you an idea of what you need to invest to get the site of your dreams. An example of such a service can be found at atlanta website design. These professional companies can help you along with the design process and feature selection; most times they put your vision before their profit. If you wish for your website to make an impact on every single one of its visitors then you better make sure that it has the best design possible for it to reach new heights every day.

There is a lot happening behind the scene which a normal blog owner is not aware of. The hardware in the form of server is churning out data while the internet backbone is grinding way to deliver web pages from one part of the earth to another. Your blog is not text and images alone – its flesh and blood. Choosing the right host is very important if you want a healthy blog.

What to look for while selecting a web host?

There are three primary requirements which must be fulfilled by a web host – server capacity in terms of memory, bandwidth and tools for extending the capability of your blog. Each of them requires to be examined carefully before reaching a decision.

Server capacity

The hard disk capacity of a server may be in terms of GB’s. However a single server may typically host several hundred sites. This means that the memory gets divided between them. While your blog or website may require only a few MB of space, it may still feel cramped for space because of other sites residing on the same server. To avoid any problem later, you must ask your host provider to clarify on these issues. Overall 80% disk capacity can be accommodated without any outrages.

Bandwidth of your server

While your server may be robust, it will only perform when connected to a high speed internet backbone. Though this topic is quite complex, it is sufficient to know that there are different types of internet backbone through which your server gets access to outside world. The bandw3idth of your server should be big enough to accommodate the data flow from all the sites on the server. If you experience slow download speed of your web pages, it means paucity of bandwidth. Slow speeds can be extremely dangerous for your site and excess stress may even bring your server down.

Internet tools to enhance performance of your site

Many blogs use WordPress. I consider WordPress as the king of   blogging. Every big and small blog is hosted on WordPress. Your host provider must enable use of this great tool. Likewise there are other tools for ecommerce – shopping cart, SSL certificates, SEO etc. which can enhance performance of your blog. You must ensure that all tools are provided by your web host free of cost.

Reading between the lines

There is a lot of difference between what a web host promises and what they actually deliver. The only way I have found to establish credentials of a web host is to get this information from the horse’s mouth. You must ask existing users of the web host provider to confirm all the claims. I am not suggesting that all web host providers are rogues. The issue here is to complement your specific requirements with hosting services. You may not require huge resources and may have a modest budget. You can find a suitable web host to match your pocket.

About the guest author: Mariana Fang Lin spends most of her time writing about the web hosting industry including small business web hosting . Follow her on Twitter here.

Related article: Web Hosting Plans – comparing apples and oranges

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Bloggers put in a lot of effort in writing original content and promoting it over the web on various platforms including the social media. Consistency in blogging and building a blog community to get large number of hits on a regular basis requires planning and successful implementation. As it takes time and effort, it is only fair that a blogger gains monetarily from the blog. Ads remain the biggest money-spinners for blogs but there are other ways too to monetize a blog wherein you need not depend on ad clicks to get paid for the work you put in. Here is how you can go about it.

1. Sell e-books that attend to the changing dynamics of your domain

Large number of hits on your blog and the presence of an active blog community bears a testimony to people’s faith in your domain expertise. Share your views on different topics and make available e-books in accordance with the kind of content that is more popular among readers. You need not change your writing style but make sure that you deal with topics that interest people. Give intriguing insights into the latest happenings. Promote these books as effective solutions that people can put to use.

2. Take up paid reviews

Paid reviews can help you gain monetarily while letting you give your take on products that have been launched in the market recently. If it is a product that you believe in and would have liked to talk about even if you were not paid for the purpose, then you can surely put forth your honest views in the review while getting paid for it at the same time.

3. Get clients for the services you render

The bloggers who are seen as a domain expert or the ones, who are admired for their skills, need not go elsewhere to promote their talent. Your blog serves as the perfect platform for the purpose. Let people know that you are open to freelance assignments or standalone projects. Recommendations are likely to pour in for you to have a lot on your platter giving you the option to choose the kind of work you prefer.

4. Use affiliate marketing

You need not hard sell the product when you take up affiliate marketing for a product. Even subtle hints at the efficacy of a product and how it worked for you can help in directing people to the website. Conversions from traffic coming through your websites pay you for your effort.

5. Refer ad networks

There are several ad networks that allow you the benefit of a commission for referring people to the network. It takes no effort from your side to recommend a network. You benefit if your recommendation works.

When it comes to monetizing a blog, people have for long considered advertisement as the only avenue for the purpose but the virtual world allows you to do more. Harness the power of your creativity to not just build your reputation as an expert in a domain but also to make money out of it.

About the guest author: Margaret is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on environment and technology. Beside this she is fond of books. She recently did an article on eco friend. These days she is busy in writing an article on born rich.

Related article: Top Tips for Making Money from Your Blog

You are at a party or a seminar and overhear bad or untrue rumors going around the place, as the story spreads from person to person another ridiculous lie or detail is piled on and eventually your name is being tossed around the place like a rubber ball. This seems unlikely to happen often but in any case you have the natural instinct to wipe your name clean of all the false negativity as soon as possible. With the proper speech and persuasion it is possible to save your name for the night and keep it clean for a while.

Stated above is a scenario in the real world; however in the virtual world no matter how much you try to avoid gossip and infectious remarks to your reputation it cannot be stopped manually. A small side effect of a medicine prescribed by a certain doctor can become gossip on the internet and can result in the doctor losing many potential customers due to lack of trust. Even worst is that the doctor could lose his license and his livelihood.  Due to various mediums such as social media and instant messaging the old saying that, “good news spreads fast, but bad news spreads faster” is presently a reality.

One of the main reasons the public at large is taken advantage of online is the abuse of their privacy. If a person has not taken any protective measure visits a site which looks shady there is a high probability that on his opening of the site his personal data was sent to 3 to 4 other sites.  At the end of the day an average internet user without knowledge on the dangers of the internet will have 50 to 60 external sites tracking him or her. None of which the individual has ever visited during that day. Professionals have a lot more to lose as their data transactions are of more value to people and thus potential targets for thieves online. At such times it is always better to have someone watching your back. There are many tools and sites online such as reputationdefender which specializes in online reputation management

It is essential that even the common man must have control over the perception of his identity online in this ever changing world where third parties can make money using personal information.