View this cartoon and others by David Horsey

Joel Comm is one of the world’s leading experts on web-based, money-making strategies. He is author of the New York Times bestsellers, The AdSense Code and Twitter Power.

Today he is releasing his new book KaChing: How To Run and Online Business That Pays And Pays.

Click here to get a copy and find out all the cool bonuses he has in store for you!

Here is a terrific audio interview I did recently with Joel Comm…

Three Biggest Mistakes Business Owners Make With Social Media

For more Social Media Superstar interviews and posts click the top social media tab.

The following post is excerpted from YouTube Expert, Julie Perry’s chapter in Success Secrets Of The Social Media Marketing Superstars.

Scoring lots of video views on YouTube is only useful to you if you can get your audience to take an action step once they’re on your channel and enjoying your videos. So how can you increase the chances they’ll make their way over to your main website, blog, or other online content?

1. Insert your website domain into your videos using video editing software. Remember that the sharing mechanisms on YouTube might lead to your video being embedded elsewhere online, such as in a forum or on someone else’s blog. Since those off-site viewers won’t have immediate access to your YouTube channel or a video’s title and description, you want to be sure your main website domain appears at the beginning, middle, and end of your video. Consider adding it via a watermark so it’s always visible (just don’t obstruct the view). You can always outsource such video editing tasks, or take a stab at using the free video editing software that should have come installed on your computer: Windows Movie Maker for PCs or iMovie for Macs. More expensive video editing programs are also available, such as Pinnacle, Final Cut, and Premiere.

2. Get your website domain into your videos using the YouTube Annotations tool. If you don’t have time or money to delve into video editing, your domain can be added to the beginning, middle, and end of your videos using YouTube Annotations—a way to add interactive commentary onto your videos from within the YouTube interface (and without having to use any video editing software of your own). Add such annotations after your video is uploaded. You control what the annotations say, where they appear on the video, and when they appear and disappear. You can even create a live link from an annotation to another YouTube video, channel, or search result. Annotations will also show up on YouTube videos embedded elsewhere, off of the YouTube site.

3. Ask and You Shall Receive. As I mentioned earlier, it never hurts to ask your audience to do what you want them to do. My “Ask and You Shall Receive” rule goes beyond simply flashing your website domain on the screen. Say it out loud several times, and for goodness sake, tell us what all we’ll find when we get there. “Visit my website at www.xyz.com because I’ll give you (more information, a free report, a downloadable coupon).” Or just drop hints to tempt us to go there.

4. Hyperlink your website URL as the first item in your video description. Why first, you ask? So it will always be visible, even if visitors don’t click on the “more info” link on the description that accompanies it. You also want to signal to prospects that this video wasn’t made by some hobbyist, but by a professional with a full online presence.

5. Treat the description area of your YouTube channel like it’s a mini sales letter. Start by telling your audience about you and your level of expertise within your niche area. Be sure to also discuss some of the benefits people will gain if they venture over to your main website. Don’t forget your URL, not only in the spot YouTube designates for you to do so, but also in your channel description.

6. Bribery often works. Within your video offer something free, include a cliffhanger, or hold a contest. For viewers to take advantage of your offer or have their curiosity satisfied make them head over to your main website. Meanwhile, think of ways to offer extra value to your audience, and they’ll become loyal fans who promote your videos for you.

7. Call-To-Action Overlay ads. These are semi-transparent pop-up overlays that link viewers to any third-party website you choose. For example, you could run an overlay on your own video inviting YouTube viewers to click and sail right through to the corresponding website you’re promoting. This is incredibly handy for generating engaged, well-targeted traffic to your website.

This is an excerpt from my presentation at Entrepreneur Magazine’s Boost Your Sales With Online Marketing Event in Chicago.

In this cluttered marketplace  it is more important  than ever to keep your message simple. People just don’t have the attention span to work hard at  understanding what you have to offer.   Consider Google’s core message as they sought out venture capital years ago.

“Google provides access to the world’s information in one click” .

Can you do that with your business?

I hope you join us at one of our live events or online programs (stay tuned for a new program)

“Perhaps the very best question that you can memorize and repeat, over and over, is, “what is the most valuable use of my time right now?”  — Brian Tracy

Building and training teams of qualified people to help you is a wonderful way to leverage your time – because it allows you to focus your energies where they can achieve the most meaningful impact.

And, in my opinion, one of the best ways to do this is by outsourcing work – i.e. hiring other people – employees, bookkeepers, contractors, etc. – to work with you.

Here’s an illustrative example.

Let’s say Sally is a consultant who charges $250 an hour to advise and develop deliverables for her clients. Then let’s assume that she regularly sets aside four full hours each week to generate and mail her client invoices, which means that she unable to bill her hourly rate ($1,000) during that time.

The way I see it, Sally’s losing a lot more than a few hours. Since she could hire a part-time booker for $25-$50 per hour, it’s actually costing her $800 or $900!

Keep this in mind as you continue to develop your online business and look for ways to delegate ongoing administrative duties and focus your energies on revenue-generating tasks or ones that play to your strengths and passions. That’s why I pay an hourly fee to someone else… they’re trustworthy, reliable and far more knowledgeable. And it frees me up to write books; advise clients and market my online businesses.

Here are some professionals you can hire to help out:

1. Bookkeeper - If you’re not good with numbers but want to keep your bank account under control get someone to do your invoicing, reconciliations and billing.

2. Virtual Assistant - These are people who can help you with administrative duties or in many specific areas of your business. With all of the technology available today, they can easily be located almost anywhere in the world. They can answer phone inquiries, manage email and schedule clients, among many other things. And as your business grows, you may even consider using your assistant as a kind of “gatekeeper…” one who can provide people with appropriate information and “shields you” from routine calls that might take up large chunks of your time.

3. Webmaster - Unless you are somebody who really believes that the core revenue-generating activity in your business is developing and modifying web pages — which for some people it is — then hire a webmaster, even if it somebody who organizes, maintains and updates content that you’ve already put in place. Even though you may be skilled in cyberspace technologies, it may not be the best use of your time.

Managers are people who never put off until tomorrow what they can get somebody else to do today. Unknown

If you are ready to take the leap, here is a simple roadmap getting started…

1. Create a system for outsourcing… Figure out what you want them to do, what they need to know and what method you’ll use to train them.

2. Create a checklist for all the tasks they’ll be responsible for performing

3. Practice an effective way to communicate with them and make sure you’re prepared to provide with the tools they need to succeed

4. Develop benchmarks for measuring their success and a system for tracking it… that is, communicate very specific objectives and timelines for completion and make sure they agree that they’re realistic and “doable”

5. Test out your hiring and training methods by hiring one person at a time… work out the bugs slowly, especially in the beginning

6. Streamline your hiring processes and learn to leverage… Use templates, develop manuals, and record training sessions… you’ll save time and money in the end.

adapted from Mastering Online Marketing by Mitch Meyerson and Mary Eule Scarborough

Since 1999 I have trained and certified hundreds of Guerrilla Marketing Coaches. This post is a collection of Guerrilla Marketing wisdom to help grow your business without spending hardly any money at all.

If you want start a new business designed for tough economic  times, our next  starts July 5th. Guerrilla Marketing Coach Certification

7 Guerrilla Marketing Tips (click on the links to read each insight).

1.  Build the Human Bond: Learn To Turn Strangers Into Friends

2.  Develop Fusion Marketing Partners and Know How To Approach Them Correctly

3.  Reach Your Goals Using Unconventional  Means

4.  Use Your Imagination and Be Creative

5.  Give away useful free content.  Example

6.  Be consistent and lead with your passion!

7.  Four Ways To Grow Any Business

If you found these insights useful I hope you will re-tweet them.

The following is an excerpt from Mari Smith’s chapter of  Success Secrets Of The Social Media Marketing Superstars (Entrepreneur Press August 2010)

Facebook is the brainchild of Mark Zuckerberg and co-founders Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin. The college friends launched Facebook from their Harvard dorm room in February, 2004. For the first two years, Facebook was only available to colleges. Then, gradually, Facebook opened their doors to the general public along with opening their API up to third party application developers. The newest gold rush began!

Since 2006, Facebook has continued to increase in popularity and always seems to stay one step ahead of the competition such as LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, even Google – in terms of being the most popular site for connecting with friends, family, colleagues, etc.

I have great admiration for Mark Zuckerberg. He’s a modern day visionary – I often liken him to Bill Gates back in the 1980s.

Mark’s mission for Facebook is “to give people the power to share, and help make the world more open and connected such that world problems might be solved.”

Social networking, particularly Facebook, has completely changed the way we do business and the way we connect, build, and maintain our relationships on both a personal and professional basis.

These are my “rules” for succeeding on Facebook – you’re welcome to adopt them if they speak to you:

1. Always be yourself.

I often talk about a concept I created called “ABM” which stands for many things, including: Always Be Me, Always Be Mindful and Always Be Marketing. Two words that are frequently used in the social media world are “authentic” and “transparent.” To me, when you apply ABM, you’ll always do the right thing anyway.

By being mindful – realizing you never know who might be observing your updates, posts and photos on Facebook, for example – you can be in full control of how you build your reputation and perception among your strategically chosen Facebook friends.

The part about “always be marketing” essentially means every time you show up online or offline, even if you’re having a conversation with one person while all your followers/fan/subscribers observe, you are still marketing yourself.

There is a widespread fear when it comes to using social networks, and that is PRIVACY. Just how much personal information should you reveal about yourself? Here’s the thing – you get to choose. Sure, the lines are blurred between our personal and professional lives, but you still get to maintain a private life.Fortunately, of all the social networks, Facebook has the most granular privacy settings.

2. Stay Focused

We live in an attention-based world now more than ever. Social networking has accelerated the amount of information available and the demands for our attention. People often just have a nanosecond to see you go by and decide whether you’re a fit for their network or not.

Across all social networks, it’s important to display total clarity in what you do, who you help and how you help them in your bio. Be careful of overdoing the links on your Facebook profile – I recommend just showing your website/blog along with a link to your Twitter profile, YouTube channel and LinkedIn profile, as appropriate.

On your Facebook personal profile and on your fan page, there is a small field under your photo that I call your “mini bio.” Here, you can fill out a succinct sentence or two and possibly include a call to action and a link such as I have in the screenshot to the left.

3. Have an abundance mindset.

I truly believe there’s enough for everyone and there’s no such thing as competition, particularly when in a service-based business. And, essentially, even if you sell a commodity/widgets, you’re still selling them with a degree of service.

4. To be an authority, you must be an author (writer/publisher of content).

Facebook gives us tremendous opportunity to publish a wide variety of content types, from photos, videos, links, notes, comments and more. By regularly updating your Status (ideally once per day at minimum), you can literally deliberately manage how you’re perceived among your network. In other words, everything you post should be with strategic intent. The more content you produce, the more authority and credibility you will command. In fact, author Gary Vaynerchuk talks about how every business should get into the content business!

5. Be generous. Give your best stuff away.

If you’re passionate about your topic, you’ll never run out of content. By giving your best stuff away for free in your Status update and imported blog posts, for example, your network will think that if you’re this knowledgeable and generous with your free stuff your paid stuff must be awesome!

6. Lead by example.

Stay informed – look for ways to stay just one step ahead of others in your industry and lead with a sense of confidence and grace. It’s not a race, per se, but you do want to demonstrate you’re on top of your game, knowledgeable… and that you’re human and still have a life! In other words, you don’t really need to try and appear like you’re online 24/7 – it’s important to set up realistic expectations among your friends and fans.

7. If content is king, connection is queen.

For some time, my motto has been “Relationships first, business second.” Since social networking has become so popular, we’ve shifted the way we do business… both online and offline. Consumers expect companies to be more approachable, human, engaging. Content does matter for sure, though it’s often the connection and conversation around that content that really brings it to life.

When the marketers move in, the members move out.” So the secret, therefore, that has certainly worked very well for me is to be a member! Of course, you’re a strategically-thinking member!

8. Implement “Radical Strategic Visibility.”

I created the concept of radical strategic visibility in 2007 and it’s worked extremely well for me, my clients and students. Essentially, you are seen by all the right people, in all the right places, at all the right times. People come up to you and say, “I keep seeing you everywhere.” And you reply with, “Great!! My marketing is working!”

While it’s vital to your business to have a vibrant presence on Facebook with an attractive and active Fan Page, you need to also have a presence on other popular social networks such as Twitter and YouTube. And then there is a whole range of ancillary sites that affect your presence on WordPress blogs, for example, like Gravatar.com, MyBlogLog.com and BlogCatalog.com and Google Friend Connect.

9. Take imperfect action and be patient.

Facebook can be overwhelming to really grasp and optimize for measurable business results. My advice is to get set up with a Facebook Fan Page and begin to add content. It’s not realistic to expect you’ll have a ton of fans right away – unless of course you have a large mailing list and can easily blast out to them and have a surge of fans. In any case, go for it and remember Facebook is just one piece of your marketing pie.

10. Have an objective, strategy and means of measurement.

Let’s say your initial objective is to get your first 1000 fans on your Fan Page. But even then, you should have an additional objective as to what you want those fans to DO. Perhaps you’re simply building community for now, so you want the fans to keep coming back and interacting. Or, maybe you want them to opt in to your email list to access a free gift. Strategies for adding fans could be broadcasting to your existing email list, writing blog posts, purchasing Facebook social ads, launching a campaign of tweets and more. And to measure, simple counting the number of fans is easy.

Dubbed “the Pied Piper of the Online World” by FastCompany.com, Mari Smith is an in-demand Social Media Keynote Speaker, Trainer, and Consultant. She has a strong background in the world of relationships and Internet technology, and has been a passionate leader in social media since 2007. Mari is also President and co-founder of the International Social Media Association – an organization dedicated to best practices, quality education, and social media certification programs. Connect with Mari at www.marismith.com

By Barbara Rozgonyi (excepted from Success Secrets of The Social Media Marketing Superstars. Aug 2010 Entrepreneur Press)

At over 50 million worldwide users, LinkedIn is the place to search for, connect to and develop business online. To transform your LinkedIn profile into an always-on global networking hub, follow these 12 steps.

1. Use Keywords to Help People Find You.  Keywords are the search terms people use to find information online. The keywords people use to find you and your business might point to your profession, service, location, area of expertise or even the problems you solve. Optimize your LinkedIn profile with keywords in your headline, summary, expertise and your job title and descriptions.

2. Upload a Flattering Profile Photo that Matches Your Image
Worth at least 1,000 (maybe 100,000) words), a LinkedIn profile picture conveys your business image to the world. Are you casual, relaxed, authoritative, intellectual?

3. Write a Catchy Headline that Grabs Attention
Your headline describes who you are and what you do. This isn’t necessarily the title on your business card. Sort of a personal tagline, your headline stands out when people see your profile.

4. Summarize Your Talents into Sound Bites
The summary section is the place to make your personal brand statement. Given that attention is shrinking down into text-message and tweet-size sound bites, it’s important to be concise, informative and engaging. Use bullets to make your main points.

5. Cover Every Position for Maximum Exposure
Expand your connection potential by listing all relevant former companies and positions. Break up your current experience into categories like speaker, consultant and author to broaden your skill set. Then, people can recommend you for each individual position.

6. Route Traffic to Three Destinations
In addition to a place for your twitter ID, LinkedIn lets you list three websites. Consider including your company website, a link to your Facebook page and another to a landing page that collects database information. Use the URL or, better yet, a phrase that describes the site.

7. Hail Alma Mater to Connect with Other Alumni
Listing schools you attended pulls in connections from students and alumni. Even with decades of distance in graduation years, a common alma mater opens the door to a shared experience in LinkedIn alumni groups.

8. Spice It Up with Specialties and Interests
Like a dash of spice to adds flavor, your specialties and interests lists spark up your profile with keywords and tangents that set off your personality.

9. Make it 100% complete Complete profiles rank higher in searches and let you make the most of LinkedIn’s profile opportunities. Is yours 100% complete? If not, see what you need to do to fill in the gaps.

10. Add Applications for Personalization and Promotion
Applications update and round out your profile with presentations, blog posts, free articles, travel plans, book reviews and events. You can also use applications to collaborate and share files.

11. Promote Events and Invite Guests
LinkedIn’s event center lets you create, RSVP and comment on events. Event creators can invite contacts, edit details, see who’s interested and monitor comments. Events show up on search engines inside and outside of LinkedIn.

12. Upgrade Your Account and Get More Features
A basic, free personal LinkedIn account gets you started. Investing in an upgraded personal or business account improves functionality, reach, access and customer service. To see the options, check your account settings.

LinkedIn:
Barbara Rozgonyi

Mitch Meyerson

What Are Affiliate Programs?

Affiliate programs are the Internet’s version of a retail company’s commission-based sales program.  Simply put, you refer a customer through your affiliate link and get a check.

The beauty is that as an affiliate you won’t physically handle products, create marketing tools, set up the sales process or collect the money. It is all handled by the affiliate manager.  You just refer a potential customer (via email, social media, website or blog promotion). Nice and simple.  It is a perfect way to start developing multiple streams of income which is essential in these economic times.

Some Points to Remember

• Promote products you truly believe in and that are relevant to your target market. Ask yourself: What other products and services do my customers need?

• Pre-sell prospects with your own testimonial. It is important that you use or a very familiar with this product and truly believe in it (For example I resell my shopping cart because I use it daily and know others need this e-commerce solution too).

• Be transparent and tell prospects you are an affiliate (The FTC mandates this)

Some Excellent Affiliate Programs (there are hundreds of great products on these sites)

www.CommissionJunction.com

www.ClickBank.com

www.AffiliatePrograms.com

Your Action Steps:

1) Go to the websites above and find one that has products your target market needs

2) Sign up for their affiliate program (sometimes called associate program or resellers program)

3) Read their promotional instructions and place your affiliate link (or graphic they provide) on your website
or in your promotional emails

4) Wait for your first check in the mail

Affiliate Programs are a terrific way to generate multiple streams of income– a very smart move for anyone building a business online.

P.S. Here is a video I created on this topic as well as my affiliate programs: www.PartnerWithMitch.com

People purchase products and services, but they buy dreams. Products are merely the delivery vehicles for them.

In other words, consumers purchase benefits – beauty, safety, financial freedom, island vacations, homes, popularity, sex appeal, and glowing health – not features – horsepower, sleek design, house color, or size.

Savvy marketers recognize that their single most important goal is to help their customers achieve their dreams. So, they find out exactly what their target audience is searching for, articulate it, and then deliver on their promises.

Many small business owners mistakenly talk more about themselves than their prospects! In other words, the public isn’t too interested in how long you’ve been in business, whether you’re family owned and operated, or if your warehouse is large or small.

They don’t want to hear a story about you, they want to hear a story about them. They want to know how you can help them save time, make more money, find their soul mates, improve their relationships, get promoted, reduce pain, or make them laugh.

Smart marketers know that their target audiences’ desires are usually not lofty, enduring, or huge. One valuable e-course, one shirt, one painting, or one tube of lipstick aren’t likely to have significant or lasting impact on their lives – but they may for a moment or two. And that’s okay, because for that brief period of time they shared a positive experience. And even though their customers might forget about the product, they will remember the feeling.

Savvy entrepreneurs realize that they’re not the only show in town and the main reason consumers buy from one company over the other, is because they have confidence in the seller. They have confidence in their ability to solve their most pressing problems. They have confidence that they won’t be abandoned after the sale. And they have confidence in their products’ quality, value, and selection.

Yet, if you can’t talk to them about these things, you might as well hang up your hat because you’ll just waste a lot of time, money, and energy.  The good news, however, is that you can learn to communicate more effectively with your intended audience if you study the masters and practice improving your communications every day.

Adapted from Guerrilla Marketing On The Internet by Mitch Meyerson, Jay Levinson and Mary Scarborough

The next Guerrilla Marketing Coach Certification Program is starting this summer.