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We all have a tendency to hide when we start out. Becoming one of the gregarious ones often takes a little time. The dipping of the toe into the water of networking is far too à la mode from the onset. I’m only pointing this out because we have all done it.
Blogging, article marketing anything distant from the phone or skype is the best place to hang out as a newbie, it feels good. I’m building a multi-million dollar networking business… Without the slightest bit of networking…
You can build yourself up a big business using these and other longer winded methods of getting people in fromt of what you have to offer, or you can hustle.
The first time that I heard the phrase ‘hustle’ in a network marketing context, was from the seemingly youthful wise man also known as Jonathan Budd. He was all about the ‘hustle’ for the first 3 months or so when he was building his business from his parents basement.
So what is ‘hustling’ in comparison to the comforting time intensive activities that we have all more or less become shyly good at, at some point in the past?
Well, you can break nearly all marketing into two categories -
Active and Passive Marketing
The truth of the matter is, if you want to build up a business with any speed you are going to need to become an officionado at the ‘active’… or the ‘hustle’ as JB put it. Calling people, networking on facebook and moving them to Skype as soon as you can, is active.. aka ‘hustling’. You’re in the game and chewing up the competition and spitting them out.
That might not be for everyone, certainly not the spitting bit, but I really want to make clear what techniques are going to get you ‘out there’ and in the game quickly, and what are the longer methods. The longer methods are not things that you shouldn’t do, but if you want to see results fast they shouldn’t be your focus, they should be more of an after thought.
Putting yourself in front of people, be it in a networking group down the road, or tapping up people on Linked In, is commonly known as real networking… or ‘hustling’ to the romantics of the group.
Sitting back waiting to pick up some leads whom have not been specifically targetted is known as passive marketing. That includes anything from blogging all the way to hoping to snag someone from Twitter on a random tweet. Can be great, but if you want direct results.. You’re going to need to be direct.
Arise over the fear and get out there and meet some new people, 10-15 everyday is a good ballpark to start with. You could tap them up on Facebook and chew the fat, see what they are up to, see if what you have to offer is something that may benefit them.
Remember though no pitching and get permission before you send any links
Just a cheeky little something from the film ‘The Hustler’ and take note
“You know, I got a hunch, fat man. I got a hunch it’s me from here on in. One ball, corner pocket. I mean, that ever happen to you? You know, all of a sudden you feel like you can’t miss? ‘Cause I dreamed about this game, fat man. I dreamed about this game every night on the road. Five ball. You know, this is my table, man. I own it.”
I can’t stop thinking that that guy in the pic is having a pee lol
Anyway, it’s no surprise that engaging your fellow human, when it comes to business, has taken a plethora of different turns in the last 10 years. So many, that most of us are never really quite sure where ‘it‘ is all at.
Think back to the 80′s…
Hardcore business guys riding the crest of the boom, much champagne, many lambourghinis and the sport of choice being hoovering of Columbia’s GDP. Things were banging in the ’80′s (apparently… I was still in school), but on a much less personal level. Advertising was big bucks because you needed to pay the price for premium real estate rental, be that billboards, TV or radio advertising.
Media was much more limited back them, so to get on it took some wedge.
We now live in the 21st century and things are a little bit different, anyone can have an online news column for free, or can go crazy and create their own online premium real estate starting at about $5-7 a month (given some time). Media is everywhere and not now just in the hands of the megacorps (although the Protect IP legislation may well change that). The problem we all now have, as no-one is looking at the billboards, is how to engage people when there is a lesser defined and obvious medium of choice?
As Gary Vaynerchuk points out, people aren’t looking at the billboards because they are all on their smartphones texting people or on mobile social media. The second problem you have when it comes to the new technosavvy oiks is that they are not taking anymore ‘push’ marketing, mainstream advertising media is fading, people fast forward the ads on their pre-recorded shows on their Tivo. How do you get them to see your message… that you just spent a small fortune on encasing in an audiovisual spectacle à la mode?
This is where I highly recommend Gary’s Inc 500 talk, he’s the Ambassador of tackling this point and gives you some great insight to where he believes it is all ‘going‘.
So everyone is moving online en masse, to more modern media, in which to consume information about products and services. They all now have a voice and are listening very closely to each other. The old strategy would be to barge into the conversation and change the subject, but we all know that that doesn’t work, just the same as doing it at a drinks party.
It appears that we all need to connect on a deeper level than just shouting out our message .
But we know that too…
Gary has a point when he identifies the ‘interesting place’ that Google is at when it comes to their algorythm. If Google is going more social, then surely the most social lion in the jungle wins no? He with the biggest network gets the traffic; The most popular guy in school gets the chicks?
I can’t get a straight SEO result without using an external plugin to keep my results ‘clean’ (here’s more on how to do it). If me or anyone in my network has ‘liked’ commented, subscribed, even blinked at a piece of content that contains the keyword that I’m trying to rank for, it’s coming up on page 1. Beware the Google +1 I reckon.
But now also begs the question, and something that Gary would tear me a new one over, is that I have quite a bit of automation going on, especially when it comes to Twitter. I am running a bit of a ‘pushfest’ admittedly, using TweetAdder. The thing here is though, no-one has ever been able to explain why having a load of Twitter followers has been of any use to anyone, but if Google are moving more into the social domain for SEO (presuming it hasn’t been dragged into the ‘Social Media Optimisation’ category) could having a gajillion Twitter followers improve your placements?… because 3 of them just liked your post, are also connected to Mary, whom has just done a Google search for your keyword? Ya see, I think that is quite possible, at least in the early transition (or until TweetAdder launches it’s IPO).
I suppose I should really get back to the point of the article…
Is ‘touchy feely’ where you want to go with your online business? Truth is, as time goes on I think you are going to have less and less of a choice. Word of mouth marketing (WOMM) has always been the most effective means of getting a message out there, but it is hard to track and rely on. The internet is quickly becoming the home of WOMM. People are looking at what other people are doing, Facebook already puts ‘X amount of your friends like this‘ in the top right sidebar for product and fan pages. We are herd creatures, we like to ‘keep up with the jones”, we like to feel incuded.
If Mary’s herd like you, she is more likely to like you too.
Gary has it right, if everyone is going social how do you stand above the noise? As always, go over and above. Fix the problem that your customer or prospect needs fixed and be there with them, then they’ll stay with you for the long haul.
What excites me the most is that the further this moves along its course, the closer brands will need to work with their customers, just like business was done in the old days, but on a global scale. Push it even further and you’ll realise that every sale will be a Social Media Word of Mouth Affiliate Sale and we’ll all be entrepreneurs
Traffic from Facebook – Often when you have just joined an affiliate offer or a new network marketing company, you are left in the dark on how to get people to visit your super new cool website.
I hope to break that for you today and offer the quickest free way that I know to get traffic from Facebook to your webpage.
The key factor here is, yes you can get traffic from Facebook a quicker way but you will probably end up getting ousted from some groups and probably get yourself a label that you don’t want.
We’re not here to annoy people, we are here to help them.
You have probably seen a lot of people trying to get traffic from Facebook by simply posting their opportunity all over, some even have the audacity to do it on your personal page too, which is really annoying. THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER! Can only be seen a few times before you switch off.
Extracting Traffic from Facebook Almost Instantly
The key to what we are doing here is to use an intermediary site when extracting traffic from Facebook, this gives us the opportunity to build up some rapport with the reader before we suggest our product. Also, many of the article directories and Web 2.0 sites will not let you put affiliate links and some capture forms into your content, which obviously defeats the purpose of what we are trying to do!
Remember, we are here to provide solutions to people’s problems, so create something of value for your reader in your intermediary site’s article.
In the video example below I show you how to do all this using the site BetterNetworker, but if you are looking to earn quickly and regularly I recommend using a blog supplied by the Empower Network.
What I fail to go into in the video below is how to entice people to read your article, but that is a whole other story, you will understand the mechanism of extracting traffic from Facebook, although your results will vary depending on what level of copywriting skill you have. Check out this post for How to Write Headlines that Work on CopyBlogger
Check out the video -
The 3 Simple Steps to Extracting Traffic from Facebook
Write an informative article that fixes a problem on a 3rd party website
Put a couple of links to your product/service in the article (which is part of the solution)
Post the article on your Facebook wall and in relevant groups.
I was just looking at the array of tools that I use for my online presence a minute ago, all of which I LOVE, and was thinking that much of them one could consider a luxury for those who are new to internet marketing.
I thought I would write this top 5 (which aren’t actually in a formal order really) of tools and alternatives that are free so that any guys new to internet marketing could join in the fun that we all have online.
If you are new to internet marketing, you may not understand what some of these tools do, or where they fit into the general scheme of things, so I highly recommend bookmarking this page for future use, cos these little bad boys are quite a collection.
Top 5 FREE alternatives for those new to Internet Marketing
Screen Capture Software – One of the best ways to share information online is by having an online presentation. I do a lot of screen capture videos to explain exactly what it is that I am doing in an over the shoulder look at my screen while I do it. The industry standard for screen capture software is Camtasia (which is really quite expensive, but really, really good) but there are a couple of free alternatives that are definitely worth a mention.
BB Flashback Express – Great piece of kit which really works well. It’s only downfall, I find, is that it records in a non compressed format (so recordings take up a lot of space on your hard disk). Tbh, it is the software that I use as it is just as good as any other.
Jing – A smaller screen capture software than its elder brother Camtasia, which I use for still image screen capturing, can also be use to record 5 minutes of video. I don’t personally use it for that, but I know a lot of people who rave about it. (I think I just like to waffle for longer than 5 mins at a time ;p)
Blogs – It’s no secret, but for the guys who are new to internet marketing, it will become apparent that the main arsenal of your internet action plan is more than likely going to revolve around websites. The best and easiest way of having and maintaining a website is to have a blog, although they are cheap to run, there are free alternatives.
WordPress.com – The best blogging software on the planet is WordPress. You could say that I am biased, but then so is every other marketer that I know then. WordPress eats up the competition (in the self hosted version) but you can start a blog using, for all intents and purposes, ‘WordPress Lite’, at WordPress.com (don’t look for WordPress Lite by the way, just start a new blog at WordPress.com). The reason I suggest using this software, for those new to internet marketing, is because at any later stage, when you want to move on to the bigger, badder self hosted version, you can simply export all of your conent and upload it to your new site. (If you want to learn how to set up the bigger, badder version I did a training which shows you how to do all of it – How to set up a self hosted WordPress blog)
One other idea that you might want to take to heart and try out, bearing in mind it is not something that I do, is to start a blog on a niche specific site. The example of a good platform that springs to mind, taking into account that I am in the internet network marketing niche, is Better Networker. If you start an account there you can post videos that you make (using your new screen capture software ;p), post articles and write a blog. The thing that I believe is good about doing things that way is that you will get better exposure straight from the off, as your content will be posted in a public space. When setting up a new blog it can take some time to get much traffic to it, so best post it where the traffic already is
Social Syndication – It’s no secret that I love TribePro, but what with that twinned with Onlywire, can prove to be quite expensive (esp if you want to syndicate everyone in TribePro like I do), and it is not always necessary when you start. Now, getting your content syndicated across the internet is great for your rankings and SEO, but when you start you may not want to spend out on easy ways to do it.
On the smaller syndication end, yet a cool little tool is SocialMonkee. With the Free version you can submit your URLs to 25 different sites (thus creating 25 backlinks) all in one quick shot. If you are new to internet marketing I highly recommend SocialMonkee to give your content a bit of credibility when it comes to the search engines.
In fact I wrote a post detailing the difference between the two and that shares a bit more information. Find it here – 25 Backlinks a Day for FREE
Auto Responders – Now, I’m going to be honest here and let you know that I have not trialled the alternative here so can’t give you a recommendation on it really, I’m just letting you know that there are free alternatives out there, and the one that I’m going to give you looks good from the outside.
For those of you new to internet marketing and don’t know what an autoresponder is, quite simply put, it is an email management service that will let you send out emails to your own database in a variety of different ways. Fortunes have been made with email marketing and I firmly believe that once you understand how to get peoples’ email addresses out of them, you will want to learn how to build a relationship with your list, using email.
The industry starndards in this department are Aweber and GetResponse. I personally use Aweber as there are a whole host of integration type stuff that you can do with it, but I just Googled ‘best free autoresponder’ and, apart from the terrible sales video, ListWire‘s list of features looks pretty good. Let’s just say that if I were looking for a free autoresponder service this would be the one that I would trial first.
Capture Pages – You will find that often when selling something online, especially as an affiliate marketer, all of your ‘pages’ will be set up for you. There will more than likely b, a funnel (capture page, sales page and follow up emails) all ready to go, which you simply need to drive traffic to.
If you want to become a good internet marketer and stand on your own two feet, you are going to eventually need to know how to set some of this stuff up. You can pay people to do it for you, in all honesty, but it is always useful to understand most parts of stuff. You don’t necessarily need to become an officionado, but I do recommend understanding the processes.
The new to internet marketing route that I would suggest though, if you don’t have any money to invest, is to build up your ‘presence’ on a network like Facebook. Facebook ‘Pages’ provide an amazing online solution for pretty much any business. Take a look at my page for instance (which is an ongoing project) The4thMarketeer. What you have here is the opportunity to create a collection of tabs that can teach your visitors about your subject, show training videos and also collect their email information.
When you look at internet marketing this way round, you start to think, ‘why on earth do I need a blog or website anyway?’ One CRITICAL factor that you must keep in mind is that if you are using someone else’s website, for instance Facebook’Remember, you do not own the site and it can be taken down at any point without your say so. You could build up a Facebook presence over 3 years and wake up one morning and no longer have a business because Facbook have changed their TOS perhaps, or any such like. Always best to have your own site and be completely independent. That is not to say don’t have a dominating Facebook presence, just have a place of your own that you can call home.
Here’s a training that I did on how to set up a Facebook Page, but I was just using an app this morning (you will understand when you watch the training what I am on about) called Static IFRAME tab, which appears really quite simple to use and also gives you the option to add multiple tabs.
New to Internet Marketing? – The Lowdown…
The simple truth of the matter is, and something that I really love about the modern world, is that everything is out there for you, and in this case it costs you nothing. Using the tools that I have given you above, you can create an international brand based around what it is that youDO. You can chisel out your own space in the world and educate people in what you know, and all you need is your computer and time (and effort too).
The world really is your oyster! Let’s link minds and start building the future that you want and make the world a better place for all.
If you don’t know what to sell, I recommend starting here
We all have a tendency to hide when we start out. Becoming one of the gregarious ones often takes a little time. The dipping of the toe into the water of networking is far too à la mode from the onset. I’m only pointing this out because we have all done it.
