- attract new visitors,
- promote your products/services,
- create fun for your readers,
- make your blog sticky and
- create new content.

That is IF you do it right.

Freelance writer Alvina Lopez has 4 tips for you to host a contest successfully.
I’ll let her do the talking.
Enjoy!

Photo Credit: Ariaski

A great Internet marketing strategy is to host a contest on your website or blog.

Contests for your readers and customers, or really for anyone who happens to come to your blog, can be a great way to create buzz about your product or service while also making a connection with your current set of customers.
Hopefully, you can even get some new clients out of the whole contest!

So, what are some good ideas to host a contest on your blog?

Well, I’ve thought up a few that I’ve seen in the past and posted them below!
Please let us know if you can think of other ways to spice up your contests. If you’ve run a sweet contest on your blog or for your company, let us know as well.

Find a Cool Sponsor

If possible, you should do your best to find a sponsor for your contest, as your sponsor might be able to provide cool gift prizes in exchange for having its name advertised when you talk about the contest.

You can use your blog connections to other bloggers to help find a sponsor.
And, of course, a sponsor doesn’t have to be a big company either. It could simply be another blog, perhaps one more established, or it could be an artist or someone else.

The point is that you might be able to work an exchange out between the sponsor and yourself for some contest swag that your readers might like.

Give Away Unique Prizes

If you can’t find a sponsor, you can still come up with creative prizes to give away.
For example, you can offer the winner a chance to guest post for a week at your blog. Or you can give away ad space on your blog. These kinds of prizes won’t really cost you much money, and they’ll serve to better develop the relationship between your blog and your readers.

Use the Contest to Create New Content

One great way to use a contest is to turn it in such a way that your readers help you create new content for your blog! You can ask your readers to submit their favorite blogging lessons, or you can ask them to produce a short video how-to.

Tell them that your five favorite entries will receive certain prizes and be published on your blog. You benefit from your readers, and they directly benefit from your contest.
It’s a win-win situation for everyone.

Get a Guest Judge for Your Contest

A great way to bring more entrants to your contest is to ask a reputable blogger or other industry expert to serve as a guest judge for your contest. That way, people will see this great name of a blogger with a good reputation and they’ll want to try to be associated with that blog by winning the contest.

Furthermore, the reputation of that blogger will carry over into your own reputation as a blogger with connections!

By-line:
Alvina Lopez is a freelance writer and blog junkie, who blogs about accredited online colleges.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopezATgmail.com. (replace AT by @)

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So far 4 tips to host a contest on your blog.
Any comments?
Post them below!

4 Tips on How to Host a Contest on Your Blog is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

I started selling ads in October 2009, using BuySellAds.

That was long after I started this blog, so I had a good number of visitors to become successful with this new venture.

The trigger to sell advertising space was to make more money with my blog.

Until that point, I only made money by reviewing and recommending my own and other people’s products, thus receiving net income and affiliate commissions.

But something told me I was leaving money at the table.
And although I was afraid of overloading my blog with ads, I gave selling ads a try.

I started displaying an Adsense ad. I tested the best one and decided to keep it. It’s displayed at the top of each article, making me a modest monthly income.

Then I tried to sell advertising space in my sidebar.

At first I looked into a script (OpenAds) to manage to sell advertising space myself. But I quickly found that would take way too much time to manage my ads and to find advertisers.

So I signed up for BuySellAds after reading a review on Problogger.

This way of advertising is an addition to the three revenues models mentioned in How to Sell Advertising Space on Your Website, because BuySellAds works with flat monthly fees from which they withhold a nice 25% commission.

That’s a trade-off!

I absolutely don’t spend any time finding advertisers, changing and maintaining the ads, checking (recurring) payments and so on. All I had to do was placing a little piece of code into my sidebar.
So, as I don’t have to lift a finger, I’m happy to pay BuySellAds a nice commission.

Ok, on with the story.

After signing up, I first looked around to see what others were charging.
Keep in mind, that I only want to sell 6 small 125×125 banners and nothing else to avoid cluttering my blog with ads. In my opinion, too many ads makes it very difficult to keep your readership. Therefore I am very careful.
A third reason to keep the number of ads limited is, that IF they are successful, I can raise my price.

I also considered the niche I’m in. I expected many ads about traffic and make money opportunities, cause that’s what most people in the IM niche are crazy about. In order to get the most serious advertisers, I didn’t want to set my fees too low.

I decided to go for a 60 dollar monthly fee for 6 ads.

It took me one year to get them filled up. Right now, at the time of writing this, all spaces are sold. I’m trying to consolidate this for a little while before raising the price.

I like the quality of the advertisers. Each time you sell an Ad, you have to approve the advertiser. Until now, I’ve never refused one.

All in all, I’m very happy to sell advertising space on my website using BuySellAds.com.
I wholeheartedly recommend them!

How about you?
Do you sell advertising space and if yes, how do you do that and are you satisfied with it?
Post your comments below.

How to Sell Advertising Space on Your Website – BuySellAds is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Which means leaving money on the table.

It’s not that difficult though.

David Murton of Wireless Internet has some great ideas on how to sell advertising space, so I’m publishing his extensive guest post today.

Here goes.
Enjoy!

—–

An effective way to earn a passive income is to sell advertising space on your website, but it can be confusing for those with little advertising experience.

Advertisements are one of the easiest ways to make money online, but they often generate relatively little profit. To maximize your money-making potential from selling advertisements, you should familiarize yourself with the fundamentals of online advertising.

Online Advertising Basics

There are a few different kinds of advertisement revenue models:

• Cost per Impression (CPM)
• Cost per Click (CPC)
• Cost per Action (CPA)

A CPM advertisement awards the host every time the advertisement is viewed. Alternately, CPC’s pay out each time the advertisement is clicked, while CPA’s award money when a user completes a special action such as filling out a survey or purchasing a product.
Each type of advertisement comes with its own advantages and setbacks, so choosing one that works for your website is crucial.

There are some other decisions you need to make before you start to sell advertising space on your website.

For instance, you must decide what type of person you plan on advertising to. The demographic you select should inform your decisions regarding what kind of advertisement you sell and whether it should come in text or banner form.

If you can estimate how much bandwidth you will need to handle extra traffic based on your demographic, you should select an advanced hosting plan that meets those needs.

You should also present some advertisements on your site before you actually start selling them, even if you must use mock-ups. Doing so shows potential business partners that you are already prepared to sell advertisements and have considered how you plan to do so.

Visitors and Advertisement Profits

No matter how carefully you plan your approach, you will not earn significant profit from selling advertisements if your website does not attract enough visitors.

However, the level of traffic needed depends on the nature of your website, the likelihood of visitors clicking on an ad and how much advertisers will pay you per click.

An advertisement on an especially popular niche website can often generate $100 after a few thousand page views while an ad on a more general, less focused website may not see a comparable sum until the number of page views hits 50,000 or even 100,000. Consider where your website falls on this spectrum to best estimate potential advertising profits.

Advertisement Format and Placement

Where you place an ad and the size and format you use can have surprising effects on how much profit the ads generate.

Current trends in online advertising see ads most frequently appearing on the top and right side of a page, although Google suggests that website owners place them directly under the navigation bar as well as on the bottom and upper left side.
Consider the layout of your website and pick a spot that provides visibility without becoming annoying to visitors.

The most popular format for advertisements is a thin, rectangular banner. The exact dimensions of a banner ad can vary, but 468×60 and 728×90 are particularly popular sizes.
After banner ads, medium and small sized rectangles are the common format, appearing in sizes such as 300×250 and 88×31. Again, you should plan the size and format of your ads based on the layout and design of your website.

Advertisement Pricing

Figuring out how much you should charge for advertisements can be difficult. Expecting too much can prevent you from attracting any advertisers, while charging especially low rates can significantly cut profits.
Before you can easily settle on a suitable price, you should consider the factors that commonly determine advertisement costs.

Perhaps the most important factor is the number of visits that your website gets. A website that enjoys over 1,000,000 hits every month may be to able to sell a moderate sized advertisement for $1,500 while one that gets 300,000 monthly visits would likely be unable to sell the same advertisement for much over $500.

Factors such as a website’s Google PageRank, Alexa rating and RSS subscribers also affect potential advertising prices, generally serving to increase a website’s visibility and total number of hits.

Being the most authoritative website in a specific niche helps boost advertisement prices as well. Advertisements on a website with many highly-trafficked competitors is typically much less lucrative than those on a more targeted, well-regarded website.

Crafting an Advertisement Page

Once you have prepared your website to start selling advertisements, you need to start making yourself known to advertisers and informing them that you have ad space available for purchase.

One way to do this is to simply contact your potential clients directly. Explain to them why your website is a good fit for their advertisements, detailing your website’s niche and the type of content it contains. It can also be helpful to contact your website’s competitors in order to understand their relationship with advertisers and gauge their ad pricing schemes.

You should not rely exclusively on direct contact to sell ad space, however. Consider adding an advertising page to your website that is focused on persuading potential clients to advertise on your site as well as providing them with useful information.
This page should begin with a description that provides a brief overview of the topics, concepts and goals involved with your site. The page should also plainly tell advertisers why they should buy your ad space.

Explain how your site can help target their advertising to a desirable consumer group. Make your unique visitors and page view data clearly visible to provide advertisers with a sense of your website’s traffic.

A good advertisement page should also include such information as available ad space, accepted sizes and formats, and pricing options. Be as exact and descriptive as possible. For instance, you could display a screenshot of one of your pages, circling the areas where you plan to place advertisements.

Provide exact pricing figures and acceptable ad dimensions. Doing this ensures that advertisers have all the information they need, and it also tells them that you conduct an orderly business and are properly prepared to sell advertisements.

Advertising Campaign Maintenance

Once you have successfully sold advertising space, you should focus your energy on maintaining positive business relationships with your advertisers. Contact them occasionally to make sure they are satisfied.

Ask if them they need assistance with anything. If they have been a particularly good client, consider offering them a small discount as incentive to buy more ad space.

You should keep a clear line of communication open between your advertisers and yourself at all times. If you are expecting downtime, let them know immediately. Even if nothing can be done, your advertisers will appreciate the extra time and energy you spent to keep them informed.

—–
So far David’s suggestions.
What do you think about it and how do you sell advertising space on your website?
Post your comments below.

How to Sell Advertising Space on Your Website is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

It’s getting more and more popular these days.

But would you do mobile marketing?
And maybe give up Internet marketing?

In fact, how does mobile marketing compare to Internet marketing?

Natasha Mesty has some answers and that’s why I publish her guest post today.
Here goes.
Enjoy!

Photo Credit: futureatlas.com

Over the years the advancement in the technology has boosted and benefited the field of marketing.

Now, you’ve got a trillion ways to effectively market an idea, product, or a service. It’s not just about the television, newspaper and radio ads any more. A number of different mediums have been added to the list of available mediums, and these new ones are proven to be very effective for promotional purposes.

First it was Internet, and now it is the mobile marketing, which is getting the attention of businesses, and some marketing professionals believe that mobile marketing will soon take over the internet marketing because of a constant growth in the number of users who are surfing the web from their smart phones.

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion; however there are some factors that suggest that mobile marketing is not going to be as effective as web marketing as far as ROI (return on investment) is concerned.
Let’s take a look at some of these factors …

Limitations:

The characteristics and the features available for the marketers are very limited, especially when we compare them to the various mediums and tools available to the web marketers.
For example, the interface in many instances is very limited and quite often, the operating systems on smart phones do not support browsers. This limitation can lead to a problem where the user will not be able to see or access some features.

Whenever a customer tries to look into the details of the product or service you are looking to promote, they need to have a wider screen and a joystick, which might not be available in the customers’ sets.

These limitations can also create problems for the developers and designers, because the viewing size for every user varies and so do the browser, and the operating system.

Privacy Issues:

Remember, many people think of mobile phones as a private device, and not many users will appreciate the idea of having to deal with lots of advertisements while surging the internet.

Also remember that many users will get on to the internet in search of some quick information, in such cases getting ads on a mobile phone may turn out to be a little too irritating for the consumers, in fact it will create a negative impact instead of fulfilling the purposes of promotion.

Inconvenience:

Despite of an amazing momentum of progress, both in terms of devices and the operating software, the internet surfing is not very convenient for the users, especially when we compare the surfing on mobile phones with internet surfing on computers or laptops.

When we compare all of these limitations and restrictions with conventional Internet marketing, we can see that the marketing professionals don’t have to worry that much about the interface and the operating systems requirements.
The ever increasing popularity of social networks has made Internet marketing even more favorable. It is quite a far fetched idea to suggest that people who access internet through their mobile phones will supersede those who are logging in from their computers or laptops.
We can safely assume that even though mobile marketing will continue to grow little by little, it is not going to take the place of conventional internet marketing anytime soon.

Natasha Mesty writes for Extreme Sports Trader, which is offering flip flops at amazing rates.

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So far Natasha’s guest post.
What’s your take on mobile marketing?
Post your comments below.

Why mobile marketing will never be as effective as Internet Marketing is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

That would be very interesting for local stores or service providers, and even for big companies who just want to attract local clients for their local departments.

Michael Cash has a few great ideas about this topic, which he shares in his guest post below.

I’ll let Michael do the talking.
Enjoy!

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The Internet allows nearly any company or organization to conduct business internationally.

For example, consider the case of orb audio, which is a high-end home theater equipment company that was founded in 2003 in New York City.

In 2008, the company began to use Internet ads and country-specific web pages to market their products overseas during a time when the U.S. dollar was beginning to decrease in value.
Within 18 months, international sales rose from 10% of Orb Audio’s business to 35%, and they found themselves doing business in places as diverse as Australia, Finland, Zimbabwe and even Easter Island.

However, while going global is certainly advantageous, it is absolutely essential for a business to stay involved in the local sector. Business relationships with local clients can prove to be longer-lasting due to their personal nature.

A business can interact with local clients by conducting face-to-face meetings and by allowing the client to see their operations and meet employees. Strong relationships formed in this way can ultimately lead to more profit.

Many Internet companies have realized this, and sites like Groupon and LivingSocial have become extremely popular by working with local businesses to provide special discounts to customers in specific cities.

Your business can similarly thrive by attracting local clients through the use of traditional advertising and networking.

Traditional Advertising

There are plenty of traditional methods for advertising your company’s services.
For example, you may have a company that specializes in graphic design, providing services such as logo creation and web site design. While you could certainly do business almost exclusively online, there are likely many local clients that would do business with you if they were aware of your services.

Some of the most surefire advertising methods include outdoor techniques such as:

• Posting flyers around town
• Setting up a booth at relevant festivals, markets or expos
• Renting a billboard
• Advertising on public transit

Getting a booth at a local festival or business expo can provide the most personal way to interact with potential clients. Sticking with the graphic design example, you could attend a small business expo in your area and personally show other business owners some of the web sites your company has designed, if the festival venue has wireless internet.

If you ran an office supply store, you would be able to attract local clients by allowing them to handle the actual products you sell, which is an option that long-distance business relationships cannot provide. Look for these types of social opportunities by checking with the local chamber of commerce.

Other typical forms of advertising include:
• Local radio spots
• Television commercials
• Cold calls to potential clients
• Sponsoring local school functions

These types of advertising can potentially give you the most local exposure.
Sponsoring a local sports team, school yearbook or music concert is a great way to advertise your company – especially in more rural areas.
If you offer Internet-related services, be sure to mention that your business is located in the area and is interested in helping local companies.

Online and Offline Business Networking

Being in contact with other businesses can be a huge advantage when trying to attract local clients. The businesses can be clients themselves or they can refer their customers to your company if you’ve made your presence known.
For example, a business that sells networking hardware may have customers that need to get one or more web sites up and running in the near future.

If you’ve done some business networking, that company may refer those customers to your web design company for help. Offline networking tactics include:
• Business card distribution
• Joining local professional organizations or associations
• Joining the chamber of commerce
• Volunteering with non-profit organizations that could be clients

Of course, the Internet provides some excellent networking opportunities, even for networking with local businesses. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter can allow you to easily network as well as attract many local clients.

For example, Facebook lets you to list any networks that you are a part of (college, city, region), which in turn allows you to browse and contact any Facebook member or business in your local area.

A good way to gain some attention on a social networking site would be to offer special discounted rates/deals to people who follow your business. For example, the Hotel Max in Seattle, WA attracts local attention by sending out Tweets such as this:

Other social networking sites such as Meetup.com and Foursquare have a very local focus, and it would be very advantageous to participate in those sites in order to network and attract local clients.

Michael Cash works in the field of Internet marketing and local business. With a passion for helping people and writing, he also enjoys writing for various websites and businesses

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So, how do you attract local clients?
Post your comments below.

How to Attract Local Clients is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Many people have a Twitter account, but lots of them do not know how to use them successfully to get more business.

Raine Parker, who writes for Accounting Degree, has a remarkable Twitter marketing strategy that may solve this problem.
She wrote today’s guest post.

I’ll let her do the talking.
Enjoy!

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How Helping Someone Learn Twitter Can Help You Develop a Business Contact

We all know that a Twitter account can be a beautiful thing for Internet marketing and creating a brand.

It lets us connect with many other people. It lets us share our thoughts, our daily news, and anything else going on in our lives with our many followers.
It allows us to keep track in real-time of what’s going on in the world and in whatever niches we are interested in. And, most importantly, it can help us market our services or spread our brand to potentially many people.

But a Twitter account can also be a confusing thing to many people, especially business people who are not familiar with the online world.

In fact, those unfamiliar with Twitter often ask

“Why would I want to know what someone is eating for breakfast?”

Others who have heard about the ways Twitter can be abused point to examples from the news:

“Did you hear about the burglars who follow you on Twitter and wait for you to Tweet that you’re away from home?”

Of course, these fears aren’t unfounded; however, they deserve to be dealt with honestly. Exaggeration only makes things worse. After all, many of those thieves are people within the victims’ own social circles, and not everyone on Twitter Tweets about what they had for breakfast!

So, if you know a contact in your business circle who is thinking about joining Twitter, and if you are someone who is active online and relies on the Internet in order to conduct business transactions or interact with other people in a community, then you should definitely consider helping them to work with Twitter as a useful tool to building their own personal and/or business brands.

What do you get out of it? Well, you get a stronger connection, the chance to show off your expertise, and maybe a client down the road who might seek out your services as an internet marketer managing that very same brand.

When helping someone new to Twitter set up an account, you should try to think of all the ways you see Twitter accounts abused and all the ways you see Twitter accounts being put to good use.

What do these two areas come down to?
Clarity of purpose guides the best account users in their Tweeting and confusion regarding branding and audience hurt the worst account users. This is the most important thing you can tell your Twitter newbie about: he or she should strive to use Twitter in a clear and precise way.

This will avoid creating confusion in their feeds and in their Twitter accounts. This means that you can help them develop and follow a plan regarding how they will use Twitter and stick with that plan.
Their consistency will be a good way to keep readers interested in their business, because readers will know to expect relevant links, interesting thoughts, and a good discussion.

Once you have helped them set up an account, do your best to keep in touch with them, monitor their feed occasionally, and send them little tips every now and then.
After all, you’re trying to cultivate a relationship with someone who may want to pay for your services later on.

Raine Parker, regularly writes on the topics of accounting degree.  She welcomes your comments.

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What do you think of this Twitter strategy?
Post your comments below.

A Twitter marketing strategy with a twist is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Nitin Aggarwal, founder of Offshore Ally, is an advocate of incorporating YouTube in your social media marketing plans. He wrote today’s guest post about the topic.

I’ll let Nitin do the talking.
Enjoy!

Photo Credit: pedrosimoes7

While the words “social network” is nowadays usually synonymous with “Facebook” and “Twitter,” YouTube, though not as synonymous, has actually emerged as one of the most popular social media sites around as well.

Furthermore, it is gaining more and more features that users can quickly identify as belonging to the kingdom of social features.

The question is- how can you use YouTube if your interests, whether personal or business have absolutely nothing to do with videos?

For one thing, having your own videos is not a requirement to participate in the YouTube social network.
However, it is an advantage especially videos related to whatever industry you happen to be in. In the meantime, you can leave comments on the videos and channels of others, share videos you come across, create a unique playlist of share-worthy videos you come across, star rate videos, and finally have a section on your account for your favorite video content.

These activities make you visible to other users whether or not you have actually posted a video. On the other hand, you can create a simple video pertaining to your specific industry. For example, a “how to” or even a presentation snatched from your last PowerPoint.

After all, sharing content of value is encouraged on YouTube with all the various social sharing options that are the realm of blogs and social networks now found on YouTube. What’s more, you can share YouTube videos (whether your own or someone else’s) on Facebook and Twitter as well as post them on your blog via cut-and-paste.

All-in-all, you can actually aggregate all the power of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and your blog for effective inbound and outbound campaigning over multiple platforms with having to be too tech-savvy.

On the other hand, with all the social activity, how can you measure the effectiveness of your YouTube presence? To measure success on YouTube, you need to be wary of how your target audience responds to your video content or video content you share or have as favorites. Feedback can be left as direct comments or a 5-star rating.

Furthermore, YouTube features an indispensable (and free) tool called Insights.
Insights is YouTube’s reporting system that gives deeper data on each view your video collection is receiving, including viewer demographics, overall popularity, and communities your viewer fits.
You can use this data to further deliver content relevant to viewer and community. Furthermore, your video is dissected to where viewers stop watching (lose interest) and also as this performance rates against similar length video.

That is a lot of useful statistics at no cost. However, the real value of this data is what you do with it.
Finally, for new sites or blogs with little to no traffic, YouTube is a great way to get a jump start in visitors. You can link your channel and video to your blog or site.
This also applies to Search Engine Ranking as YouTube and social networks seem to show up in Search Results before your own website SEO efforts.

Even if YouTube is currently keeping it low-key compared to Facebook and Twitter, all the above tidbits are reason enough why YouTube is a key part of your social media marketing plans.

Author Note: Nitin Aggarwal is the founder of Offshore Ally- A Company offering virtual assistant and call center services. He is a passionate blogger and Internet marketing enthusiast. You can contact him via his Twitter account.

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So, how about you?
Is YouTube part of your social media marketing plans?
Post your comments below.

Why YouTube Must Be In Your Social Media Marketing Plans is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Especially the perception that people have of social media and subsequently their thoughts about possible achievements in this area is an interesting topic.

Brian Jenkins is an expert in this field.

He is a writer at BrainTrack and that is the Web’s oldest and most complete directory for university and college search. Click that link to discover their authority.

So I am very happy with Brian’s guest post and I let him do the talking.
Enjoy!

Photo Credit: Anyaka

According to Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School,

“Very often our perception of social media, and what we can and can’t do using social media, is very much tinted by what we think our favorite person is doing – and our favorite person is usually ourselves.

So it is about getting students to understand that the empirical skills are absolutely necessary, because whatever they think is intuitively correct, is probably about themselves, but nobody else.”

This statement led to a lively debate at an Internet marketing seminar.

If a social media based Internet marketing competition took place between Mikolaj Jan Piskorski and a few self-taught, savvy Internet marketers, who would win?
It’s hard to know, but the documentary could be entertaining and useful.

A Skeptic
Branding blogger Samir Balwani has his doubts about the effectiveness of classes that focus on Facebook and Twitter.

He thinks learning about the experiences of professors and professionals would be useful, however he wonders if it’s feasible to make Internet marketing a college course given that social media and online marketing are ever changing.

He stated,

“It might happen that things would drastically change during the class.”

He also wonders if there is any benefit for people to specialize in online marketing. It may be more useful for them to take more general classes in communications, statistics, mathematics, and computer science.

Rejoinder to a Skeptic

• Thanks to the Internet and other sources, students have the opportunity to discover and then discuss the rapid changes in social media and online marketing with classmates and their instructors.
• Good professors will likely stay current on the latest trends in social media marketing. Taking the time to find a good professor can ensure this.
• Students in social media marketing classes gain valuable experience by developing great marketing strategies in social media.
• Students receive advice from professors with real world experience.
• Students learn how businesses utilize online communities and influencers to enhance their marketing messages.
• Students learn through best practices case studies.
• The classes provide networking opportunities.
• Social media marketing classes enhance a resume.

Available Courses
Here is a list of some of the available social media marketing-related courses worthy of your consideration:

• Columbia: Provides four Internet marketing courses, including a class on social media and one on media and technology.
• The University of Alabama at Birmingham: Offers a course called “Social Media and Virtual Communities in Business.” The class covers what the course designers call the four pillars of social media: Communication, entertainment, collaboration, and education. It explores how the pillars can enhance a business’ marketing strategy.
• Emory University: Subjects in the class include “The Power of Social Media” and “Social Gaming and Learning.”
• UC Berkeley Extension: Offers an online course called “Strategic Marketing 2.0 — Social Media and Other Innovative Technologies.”
• Drury University: Provides a two-week certificate program in social media. Anyone with a bachelor’s degree can enroll. Students learn through seminars, research, and hands-on experience.
• The New England Institute of Art: Provides a Social Media networking course.
• The University of San Francisco: Offers an online certificate in Advanced Social Media.

Free Social Media Marketing Course
Laura Lake, a marketing consultant, social media marketing strategist, and an About.com guide, offers a free 7-day online crash course in social media marketing. (It should be noted the author has no connection with the instructor or the program.)

Social media has become a significant element for many Internet marketers. Some schools now offer courses which focus exclusively on social media. Courses taught by successful Internet marketers may be worthy of your consideration if you think they will help you along your career path.

Brian Jenkins, a BrainTrack writer since 2008, writes about a variety of topics, including degree programs and careers in marketing.

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What’s your take on this topic?
Post your comments below.

Can Social Media Marketing Classes Help Online Marketers? is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Think about that number for a minute.

That implies, that your page has a reach of about 250 million potential Facebook customers.

If only 0.1 percent of these users are in your niche market, you’re talking about 250,000 potential Facebook customers.

Imagine being able to reach only 10 percent of that market for your own product or service.
That could mean more work than you can handle and thousands of dollars in revenue.

Now, I don’t say it will be that easy. Your Facebook account must be worked on, corrected, amended and evaluated, just like any official webpage.

Despite the fact, that Facebook is a social network, it’s always wise to first thoroughly plan about what impression your business page has to convey.

Should that be a hint of fun, whimsicality and excitement that will appeal to your potential Facebook customer?

Or a jot of corporate professionalism as an extension of their traditional office?

Or should your page be used to answer informal questions and inquires, thus acting simply as a customer service area?

That’s not an easy choice and largely depends on your company’s profile and the demographics of your potential Facebook customer. To find out more about the latter, you can try to enter your main keyword in Google and find the demographics of the top 10 search results using Alexa.com.

Whatever your goals are, you should always set up your Facebook page with the same eye for details as you would your official website.
No clutter and only showing the absolute necessary things. Especially with social network pages, because these mediums call for it, you often just have to resist the temptation of being too personal

Some more tips to provide value for your Facebook customer:

• Get customer testimonials

  Encourage customers to write their feedback on your Facebook wall. Clients testimonials and feedback are the best ways to assure prospects of the quality of the product.

  Especially on social networks the most common interests of individuals is checking out a person or business’s Facebook wall. That’s a human habit and businesses can take advantage of it.

  The best way to get these testimonials is if they are delivered voluntary, but that doesn’t happen too ofter. So you can offer a little extra related to their purchase in order to get them, but keep that as objective as possible. Don’t bribe people in exchange for their recommendations.

• Interact with potential Facebook customers

  Make sure you get back immediately to prospects who make inquiries about your products or services. Addressing their questions and issues right away, will make a good impression.

  If you’re not able to answer them right away, tell them so, apologize and tell them you will get back to them later. Even if you don’t know an immediate answer, let them know and that you will do your best to get it for them as soon as possible. That’s service!

  Put the answers to the most frequent asked questions on your business page. If there’s not enough space for that, then open a Notes Page or a similar app.

• Show relevant pics

  Some business use pseudo shops, others use the photo pages to feature their products and services.
  In any case, always use photos of high quality. After all, your products will get low-end impressions if you show low-end pictures.

  Give as much detail as essential. Zoom towards areas where there are complex details visible that highlight a product’s quality.

Keep these simple tip’s in mind to provide value for your Facebook customer. Then you will be sure you are building a Facebook page that will server your business well!

So, how do you deliver value for your Facebook customer?
Post your comments below.
And please, click the Like-button below if you liked this article.

Facebook business: 8 Value for your Facebook customer is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Let’s discuss that topic today, because it’s important for your Facebook for a business strategy.

While most people online are aware of proper Netiquette to some degree, the start and evolution of social networks like Facebook have taken the whole issue to another level.

You should always realize that the internet shapes society.
To a lot of people it even means a social network can make or break relationships. From parents trying to befriend their children and people finding out about their partner’s affair to employees ranting about their bosses.

So, before using any Facebook application, study it carefully. New rules apply here.

Here are some important issues to realize when you interact with your Facebook friends and fans, more so if you’re using it professionally.

• Keep private what needs to be private

  This is the primary rule Facebook – or any other social network – users forget, as ridiculous as it may sound.

  While the ‘voyeurism sensation’ and the real time interaction is highly tempting, you should realize that publishing private issues have a tendency to backfire sooner or later.

  Others can easily misunderstand a bitchy comment that only was supposed to be an inside joke between friends. And you definitely wouldn’t want your clients to see you puke on your weekly Late-Saturday night adventures.

  Point is, the Internet is eternal.
  (Well, maybe not, but time travels fast online ).
  Professional contacts may stumble upon these private matters in the future and if your private life is an open book, having to explain these affairs over and over again may get terribly complicated.

• Stop publishing those game updates now

  If you’re on Facebook for business, getting those untidy game updates will tend to annoy your prospects.

  Remember that you can turn publication of these updates off. What may seem fun to you, may seem far to juvenile to others.
  When you’re trying to build up solid credibility online, you should avoid things like this at all times.

• Stop unnecessary (text) posting

  ‘TY 4 yr ordA. mch appreci8d’ just doesn’t fit in your business strategy.
  You have a functioning keyboard at your disposal, containing all the characters necessary to create nice posts. Also there’s no limitation in characters, so USE that keyboard.

  Text posting is a bit too frivolous for many people. It can harm your online business. Not to speak of drunk posting and gibberish or vague posts.

  And please stop posting just for the sake of posting. Sure, you have your rights to your own piece of cyberspace, but these matters have a trend to terribly annoy other people in the long run. That’s not exactly the sentiment you want to conjure up in people.

• Choose your Contacts Well

  Facebook maintains a 5,000 contacts limit. Therefore you shouldn’t be too trigger happy and reward the friend requests for those who you think really deserve your approval.

  Direct contacts can be accepted right away. Do a bit of research about other contacts and make sure they deserve it. Un-friending contacts later on is a nasty matter.

  Finally, remember that all news and information posted will appear on the wall of all of your contacts. Even their contacts will have the chance to see it. Don’t make many mistakes here.

Well, that’s how to interact with friends and fans. More information is available here.

Make sure you look for your next issue soon. We are going to talk about using Facebook to provide value to your prospects and customers.

Meanwhile post your comments below.
And if you like this article, why not give the Like-button below a push.

Facebook for a Business – 7: Interact with friends and fans is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.