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Marketing with Facebook: Why Using Facebook for Marketing Is a Good Idea

Posted on by Yvonne A Jones

Statistics

Facebook is currently the #1 social media platform with over 850 million active profiles. Statistics released by Vabsite reveal that Facebook users clock over 700 billion minutes on that site every month. In addition, approximately 10,000 new sites integrate with Facebook daily.

Although these are amazing statistics, many entrepreneurs and small business owners are still not convinced that they need to be marketing with Facebook. They still wonder, “Why using Facebook for marketing is a good idea? Do they really need to have a presence on Facebook?”

Fan Pages

One of the most powerful features of the Facebook platform is that it allows businesses to create Fan or business pages where businesses can engage with their customers and prospects. Business owners can readily provide information on their products, using the written word, pictures, and videos, while building a relationship with prospects in order to turn them into customers. You goal with your customers is always to turn them into raving fans. You can build your own Fan Page or you can hire a professional who has extensive knowledge about Facebook marketing

Advertising Benefits

People do business with those whom they come to know, like and trust. If you are a business owner with a ‘local offline business’ it’s important to look at this from the perspective of being able to reach a local, regional, national, and global market, if your products and services allow for your reach to extend that far. Where else could you enjoy that magnitude of advertisement without incurring significant costs?

Many of the people who use Facebook are active offline and they are the same people who use Facebook to check out local businesses, such as, restaurants, salons, flower shops, dress shops, etc. before they go offline. You want to be sure to be among the results they find. You need to be actively promoting your goods and services on this platform.

Marketing with Facebook Fan Pages

Like any other form of marketing online, you cannot build your Fan Page and expect that people will automatically find you. You have to let people know that you have a Facebook Fan Page by effective marketing. Facebook allows you to invite people you’re already connected with on your Profile, but you can take your marketing further by placing an icon on your website, especially if this is the website that’s linked to your Fan page. You can also include a Facebook logo in your print advertisements and any other marketing methods you use.

Avoid Discouragement – Focus on the Benefits

You may not have large numbers of fans immediately, but do not allow that to discourage you. Continue to build a strong foundation by adding valuable, relevant information that give your prospects and customers reasons to engage with you, and that your target audience will enjoy. Marketing with Facebook is essential to building and expanding your online business.

Michele Scism, the Results Lady, shared some additional strategies in her presentation, “Your Fan Page Strategy in 3 Easy Steps.” You can listen to Michele and 11 other presenters in the Expert Series at http://takeaquantumleapin2012.com.

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Posted in Social Media | Tagged building relationship, marketing strategies, marketing with Facebook, Michele Scism, the Results Lady, Yvonne A Jones | Leave a comment

Lead Generation Blog – What to Post to Attract Prospects

Posted on by Yvonne A Jones

The goal of your lead generation blog should be to educate your readers, while allowing them to get to know you. You may be a Network Marketer (Direct Sales or MLM) or you may be an Independent Insurance Agent, for example. The company you represent, in all likelihood, has a large advertising and marketing budget. They promote themselves through their own advertising channels and editorials. You must promote yourself, not just the company you represent.

Regardless of how your prospect found you online, you are one of thousands of sales people/distributors/ who are promoting the same service or products? Why should they choose to work with you or join your team? What sets you apart from everyone else?

In your blog you have an opportunity to show that you are an expert in your niche. Even if you are brand new you can achieve expert status by becoming an avid learner yourself. You show other favorable qualities when you say to someone, “I don’t have the answer right now, but I’ll get it for you.”

You show that you care about people by responding quickly to questions and or comments on your posts and willingly give information. This will set the tone for people to want to work with you. There is nothing more frustrating than a new recruit/team member who’s unable to get information from their upline so they can move ahead!

Stay on Topic

Be careful to keep on topic. If your niche is supplemental insurance, don’t talk about your golf game unless it’s relevant to your topic, or you purposefully introduce that topic to connect on a more personal level with your readers. This can be a great strategy, if used correctly. For example, you could talk about the fact that being your own boss allows you to play a round of golf in the morning before you get back to your office and start contacting your clients. You use what could be time commuting to work to and from work to do something you enjoy.

Talk about how you help

You can tell your readers what you can do for them. Let people know through your lead generation blog that you’re willing to speak with them over the phone to answer their questions, or if they’re local, you’re willing to meet with them for a complimentary information session. Establishing a solid foundation of building relationships even before a person joins your team makes for better relations later on.

You will often find that there is a difference in the relationship between you and a new associate who came to you online or other means, but with whom you’ve not yet built a relationship, compared with one where you both got together and talked, questions asked and answers given. You’ve had time to get to know and like each other, even if only through a few conversations. With the former, you have to work harder to get that person to know, like and trust you personally, although they make like the business opportunity.

Talk about others

You can talk about members of your team, with their permission, and their accomplishments. Praising people to success is a great model. Often, the only time people are noticed is when they do something wrong. When prospects see that you’re not only concerned about your success and receiving accolades for yourself, this will often appeal to them.

Using your lead generation blog effectively can definitely attract prospects who are looking for more information on the company you represent. There are still other platforms that you can use to attract leads to your business, like creating Squidoo lenses. We’ll talk more about those in a later post.

Have you created a lead generation blog? Please share your link so my readers and I can get access to it.

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Posted in Blogging, Business Owner/Soloprofessional/Entrepreneur, Local Business Marketing | Tagged build relationships, lead generation, Yvonne A Jones | 3 Comments

Marketing and Lead Generation with a Blog

Posted on by Yvonne A Jones

In my post on identifying better ways to obtain lead generation the benefits of creating a blog specifically for this purpose was mentioned:

“A blog allows you to create categories and write posts that show your expertise. Because you know who your ideal prospect is and the type of information they need, your posts will be geared to providing answers to questions that are generally asked by people who are interested in learning more about your network business. What’s more, since your blog should be your home on the Internet, by allowing visitors to read your content and ask questions, they get to know, like and trust you.”

Your blog is your home on the Internet because it’s through your blog that you will be able to reflect your personality, as well as be able to share your expertise with your readers. Through your blog you will build the know,like and trust factor. People can decide if they want to work with you.

As a Social Media Manager and Consultant I work with offline entrepreneurs, including persons in Direct Sales. Of all areas, marketing and lead generation with a blog is where I get the most resistance, largely because it involves writing regularly. There’s no way around it! If you want your blog to be a success, you must be prepared to post and update the content regularly. There are many benefits to doing this:

Your content will be fresh. Your goal for this particular blog is for marketing and lead generation. Therefore, for you to attract prospects to your business through your blog, they will come to expect that content will be added on a regular basis. A point to note is that your content can be in writing, audio, or video.
Posting every day would be the ideal, and keep in mind that they do not have to be very long posts, but may not be realistic for many.
If you can post only two times per week, it’s recommended that you establish this pattern so that your readers and prospects will know when to return to your site.
Search engines love fresh content and you do want to attract the search engines so they will record your new content quickly. In this way, if you’ve done other things like making sure to include your keywords, your posts will appear in the organic searches, with higher rankings.

What are some things you can include in your posts when you do marketing and lead generation with a blog? We’ll discuss that next.

In the meantime, if you’re just getting started, you may like the Checklist I have for getting your business started quickly at http://getyourbusinessonlinetoday.com

See you soon!

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Posted in Blogging, Business Owner/Soloprofessional/Entrepreneur, Local Business Marketing | Tagged lead generation, marketing and lead generation, marketingstrategies, Yvonne A Jones | 8 Comments

Where to Create Content: 3 Key Points to Keep in Mind

Posted on by Yvonne A Jones

As you do your research to decide where to create content to attract your ideal prospects, here are 3 key points to keep in mind:

1. Create interest. Be aware of what questions your prospects are likely to want answers to and provide content in a way that makes learning fun! Statistics are basically numbers, but they can be presented in such a way that they become real; they take on a life of their own when you tie statistics to benefits.

For example, “Facebook has over 845 million active users” or “Facebook has over 845 million users, …% of whom are men and …% are women between the ages of …. Within this number of users are persons who’re looking for what you’re offering. Here are some strategies to identify where your ideal clients hang out.” Now your prospect can see the connection between the numbers or statistics and the benefits of having an active presence on Facebook.
2. Build a relationship with your subscribers and potential associates or team members. Create a dialogue that leads him/her to buy into you and then your business because you understand what she needs. Be sure that you go through your site where to create content and ensure there are no obstacles. I’ll give you an example of what not to omit doing.
Recently I created an optin box and tested it to check that everything was working, and it was. But then I made some changes and forgot to test it again! When my subscribers opted in, instead of being taken to a “Thank You” page, they were taken to an Error page. Not a good way to start a relationship, so check, check, and check again.
3. Are you a Perfectionist who has to have everything perfect before they begin? If I say “Lose the perfection” that may not mean anything to some people because they’ll insist on it anyway, but it’s more important to get started. You can always revise as you go along. Provide value that over-delivers. This will assure your prospect that you will give them the information they need to work at their own pace, whether it’s to go step by step or to go full speed ahead.

So deciding on where to create content and with these 3 key points in mind, you are ready to take the next step. So where will you start? How about with a blog? We’ll talk more about blogging in the next post.

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Posted in Business Owner/Soloprofessional/Entrepreneur, Local Business Marketing | Tagged creating content, lead generation, Yvonne A Jones | Leave a comment

Lead Generation – There Is a Better Way to Attract Prospects – Part II

Posted on by Yvonne A Jones

In the previous post on MLM Lead Generation we discussed the traditional methods of getting recruits/associates/team members into your MLM or Direct Sales Business. There is a better way!

Social Media platforms allow you to present your information and optimize the content so that people who are looking for what you offer can be directed to your various websites through organic searches. Through these platforms you can provide content that they can absorb at their own pace. The content may be in the form of articles and posts, as well as PDF files that they can download, so that when they are ready they can contact you, the Direct Sales Consultant, rather than you hounding them.

Where are some places you can provide content?

1) A Blog: A blog allows you to create categories and write posts that show your expertise. Because you know who your ideal prospect is and the type of information they need, your posts will be geared to providing answers to questions that are generally asked by people who are interested in learning more about your network business. What’s more, since your blog should be your home on the Internet, by allowing visitors to read your content and ask questions, they get to know, like and trust you.

2) Article Directories: Writing articles and submitting these to the Article Directories is a great way to get exposure for yourself by positioning yourself as an expert in your market. The article directory that I’d encourage you to get started with is ezinearticles.com. It must be noted that ezinearticles.com does not allow you to do any self-promotion in the body of your article, but you can use the body to provide valuable, specific, targeted information. The Resource Box at the end of each article gives you the opportunity to talk about yourself and direct your readers back to your website.

Types of Websites: Social Media allows you to have lots of choices on where to direct your reader to get more information. It is important to keep in mind, however, that while you have many choices with social media sites, they are not owned by you so while you can send your readers to various sites, you always want to make sure that there’s a way to get them back to your blog. What are some of the sites you can create?

1) Squidoo lenses

2) Hub pages

3) Facebook Fan Page or Business Page

4) There are other social media platforms that you can utilize, but if you start with these three, your blog, and article marketing, you can build a network of information so that people will be able to find you in the search engines.

There are steps you need to take to make sure that your websites will appear in organic search results. What are these steps? These and more details on the social media platforms will be considered over the next few days.

I invite you to share if you’ve used any of these platforms and what results you’ve experienced.

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Posted in Local Business Marketing, Social Media | Tagged direct sales, mlm lead generation, Yvonne A Jones | 3 Comments

MLM Lead Generation: How to Reach Serious Prospects – Part I

Posted on by Yvonne A Jones

Are you a Direct Sales Consultant or Multi-Level Marketer (MLM)? If you are, you know that your success depends on having an active downline or team that is actively duplicating your efforts. MLM lead generation is critical to your success. But how do your acquire those associates? How do you identify the people who want to and are willing to do what you’re doing? How do you separate the people who are serious about making money with the products or services you promote from those who are just curious, or even worse, from those who have absolutely no interest in what you’re doing?

This takes us to the traditional way of recruiting that many of us who at one time may have been in Direct Sales, as well as those who still are were told. One of the first things you were probably told to do was to make a list of everyone you knew and you would begin your prospecting there. Another method is the ‘3-foot rule.’ That rule basically is that everyone who comes within three feet of you is a potential prospect.

Unfortunately while many Direct Sales Consultants and Multi-Level Marketers have had success using these two methods, the majority of persons have not experienced a great deal of success with these methods as MLM lead generation. Instead they’ve experienced a lot of rejection, avoidance by family and friends and rude comments from strangers.

There are several problems with these two methods:

1) When you approach strangers, they don’t know you and they don’t have a relationship with you. People do business with people they know, like, and trust. You had not established any of those criteria.

2) Studies indicate that people will buy from you or do business with you after many touches. Some report 3-5 touches; others 7-10; others even more. Would it be logical to expect that most people are going to respond favorably the first time you come in contact with them? People vary, and you will find from time to time that first contact could lead to a long-term relationship, whether as a customer or a team member, but that’s not the norm.

2) The biggest problem though in these methods could be with you, yet it may not be your fault because you were not trained to do this. Why do I say that? Here are some questions to ask and answer yourself: Do you know who your target market is? Do you know who you would really like to work with? Have you identified the qualities you would like to see in your team members? Are you prepared to train and provide motivation so that your downline will stay motivated and succeed?

Are you in any MLM or Direct Sales? What challenges do you experience to find team members or associates? Over the next few days we will discuss solutions to some of the challenges raised above, so keep coming back to this blog as we discuss better ways to achieve results.

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Posted in Local Business Marketing | Tagged direct sales, mlm lead generation, multi-level marketing, Yvonne A Jones | 9 Comments

Facebook Timelines Change: Are You Ready?

Posted on by Yvonne A Jones

In February 2012 Wikipedia reported that there were over 845 million active users on Facebook. At the rate of growth Facebook has been experiencing that number is now closer to 850 million. Seventy different languages are supported on Facebook, and reports indicate that 95% of time that’s spent on social networks is spent on Facebook.

The above numbers indicate how many people will be affected by the Facebook Timelines change as of March 30^th.

Facebook Changes – Timelines

On March 30^th all business pages will automatically be changed to the new Timelines layout. If you’ve been active on your page, you’re aware that Facebook began introducing Timelines at the end of February, and has given page owners the opportunity a month to learn about the changes, test them and update their pages.

No More Landing Pages: The default landing page was where page owners could send users when they wanted to advertise their brand or promote something. This was also the the place where page owners asked users to Like their page before giving them access to their wall and other information. With the upcoming change, no one can be forced to like a page. Instead page owners must work at providing value so that users will want to click the LIKE button.

Cover Image: The most notable change is the introduction of the new Cover Image. This is where people can display a wide image of the brand. Remember Profile pictures that were long and narrow on the left-hand side of your page? Those will no longer be there. Instead the Cover Image will be front and center and will take up a large amount of space on your page.

Do’s and Dont’s on your Cover Image:

1) Page owners may not display any ‘calls to action’ or contact information on the page cover. Nothing that is considered over-promotional is allowed on the new cover image.

2) You may not tell users to Like or Share your page. Neither can you use your cover image to invite people to sign up for a newsletter.

3) You can use this immense space of 851 x 315 pixels to represent your brand and make your images stand out.

You can create Contests, send your visitors to Custom pages using the tabs under the cover. You can create apps that will be connected to the thumbnails.

There have been so many articles written about the new Facebook Timelines, I decided there was no point in writing all the additional details, many of which are covered in this post by Pam Moore, “15 Must Know Tips to Rock Your New Facebook Timeline Business Page.”

Have you updated your Facebook Page with your new cover image? Are you ready for the Facebook Timelines change? Visit my page at http://facebook.com/SocialMediaandCustomerService to see my new cover, and while you’re there, you may choose to Like my page and leave a comment. Share your page and I will go over and Like yours as well.

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Posted in Social Media | Tagged cover image, Facebook, Facebook Timelines, Yvonne A Jones | 2 Comments

Local Marketing Online: Setting Up Your First Website – Choosing a Domain Name

Posted on by Yvonne A Jones

First things first

Setting up your website is an important step in increasing your visibility online, but before you you can do that there are some important steps you should take:

Decide on the goals for your website. As a small business owner or solo-professional you may already have a beautiful, magazine-type website, but you may decide to create another website that’s a blog so you can interact with your clients and customers. You can also use your blog to keep your clients and customers updated on new products and services.

Identifying these goals will help you decide whether you use a keyword-rich domain name, a catchy phrase, or even your name or the name of your business.

If you decide on a keyword-rich domain, use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to do research. Incorporate that keyword or phrase in your domain name.

While doing your research make a list of at least five potential domain names.

Put yourself in your ideal client’s place or in the minds of readers in order to
decide which terms they’re likely to use to search for your topic so your website will more readily appear in organic search results.

Use a tool like http://instantdomainsearch.com to instantly check domain names availability.

Try to avoid domain names with multiple repeat letters as these are often spelled incorrectly. For example: http://workshopssuccesssolutions.com

Your domain name should flow easily off your tongue so that it’s easy for you to refer someone to your website, even without a business card. At the same time, it should be easy to remember.

It’s important to know ahead, so you don’t become frustrated, that short, keyword-rich domain names are harder to find and you may need to become creative. One way is to add a relevant word at the end of the keyword phrase to make it unique; for example “today” or “now” or “online.”

You’re now ready to purchase your domain name from a domain registrar. I recommend GoDaddy.com or 1and1.com. You next step is to select a hosting service for your website.

Do you have questions on domain names? I’ll be happy to answer them for you.

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Posted in Local Business Marketing, Uncategorized, Website | Tagged domain name, increase your visibility, local marketing online, Yvonne A Jones | Leave a comment

Lead Generation Blog – What to Post to Attract Prospects

Marketing and Lead Generation with a Blog

Where to Create Content: 3 Key Points to Keep in Mind

MLM Lead Generation: How to Reach Serious Prospects – Part I

Local Marketing Online: Setting Up Your First Website – Choosing a Domain Name

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