There are many FREE blog hosting sites around, however if that company goes out of business there goes your blog and your content.”All your hard work down the toilet”.

With that said, I don’t want this to happen to you so I created a step by step resource guide to help you set up your own hosted blog and start making some money from it.

Here are the topics that will be covered:

1. Create Blog Note File
2. Picking a Domain Name
3. Sign Up with a Web Host:
4. Add Domain to Web Host.
5. Install WordPress
6. Login to WordPress
7. Install WordPress Theme
8. Set Up Permalinks
9. Install Plugins
10. Set Up RSS with FeedBurner
11. Set Up Google Analytics
12. Making Money – Set Up Advertising
13. Getting Traffic to Your Blog
14. Can Someone Do This For Me? Yes!

What Is a Blog Really?

A blog is a website that has some automatic features included in it. Your theme, the look and feel of your website, will be consistent on every page. Your readers will find navigating your blog very easily.  And you can make money all while offering your content free to your readers. How?

Can I Make Money with my Blog?

Blogs make money through having advertisements on them and also by selling products or services. If you are persistent in building your blog, your content, and your readership, over time you will have the potential to make good money. How much?

Some people make very little and give up. Don’t do that! When starting out, you might only make a few dollars a month while you are building your readership. Over time you could quite easily earn an extra $1000 per month from advertising revenues. Some top bloggers make a full living off their blog earning 5 or 6 figure incomes. Your income potential is only limited by your belief and the work you put in.

Of course you will need to be persistent and stick with it even when it seems like things are going nowhere. Build your network of blogging friends over time and compare notes, ask for feedback and share learning with each other. And, of course, continually provide great content for your readers and they will reward you with loyalty and referrals.

Setting Up a WordPress Blog

The steps for setting up a WordPress blog, customizing it, getting traffic to your blog, and how to make money from your blog will be disclosed to you just keep reading. I promise to offer details that are only necessary and will help make things simpler where there is already a lot of complexity and confusion. There are other blogging platforms out there, but none compares to WordPress. It is the most popular and the easiest to use. It is also free. (Your only costs will be domain registration – about $10/year and web hosting – about $6.95/month.)

Okay here we go.. Let get started!

Easy Steps to Setting Up a WordPress Blog, Building Traffic, and Earning Money

1. Create a BLOG FILE.

This is where you will keep all the usernames, passwords, affiliate codes, login URL’s, instructions and anything else relating to your blog so that you can reference them whenever you need to. There will be a lot of them, so start this right away and be diligent about putting every new item into it.

The easiest way to do this is to create a text file or a Word document. This way you can just copy and paste the information into your BLOG FILE. If you want you could also just use a notebook instead or any other method you like.

For each item that you enter into your BLOG FILE, type a title of what the information is. (Example: “Web Host Username and Password”) This will make searching for the information easier in the future.

2. Choose a Domain Name.

This is the name of your blog (www.YourBlogName.com). You can check on availability at GoDaddy.com . You can also purchase your domain name there. That is where I get my domains.

GoDaddy.com is a low cost provider with excellent service ($10/year).  When you do purchase, it’s important to know that Google search engines give more favor to sites who have bought their domain for longer than 1 year.

When choosing a name think about how you want to brand your blog. You can choose a name related to your blog’s theme, you could choose to brand with your own name, or you can make up a name that sounds cool. Or you could do some combination of those. Usually “.com” is preferable to other extensions such as “.net” or because it makes it easier for people to remember. Everyone thinks “.com” but if you can only get “.net” with your favorite name that should be fine. Just keep an eye out for when the .com will become available, some individual fail to renew there domains causing them to loss they domains and making domain become available for purchase.

When it comes to picking a domain name I suggest brainstorming on paper first. Get feedback from some people about the names you’ve picked. Then click over to GoDaddy.com to check availability. You may need to modify some of the names you thought of. Godaddy.com will also make suggestions for you too.

3. Sign Up with a Web Host.

A web host is the company that will store all the files of your blog and serve them via the web to your readers. I recommend using Godaddy.com as your web host. They are #1 on WordPress’s web hosting in my book. Here’s some info about Godaddy.com:

• $7.99/month (get $1.99 specials)
• unlimited hosting space, unlimited file transfers, and unlimited domains.
• 24/7 Support via phone, online LiveChat, and Support Forums

They offer an excellent deal. Once you sign up, be sure to put all the info they send you into your BLOG FILE.  And it is super easy to sign up right online.

4. Add Your Domain to Your Web Host.

Once you are signed up with your web host, you now need to tell your add your domain to your hosting…

1. Go to GoDaddy.com and login using the user name and password they sent you in an email.
2. Go to Hosting and click Launch
3. Click on “Your domain” manage site domains
4. Click on “Add Domain”
5. Your all done! You have added your domain to your hosting account and now you will be able to in your wordpress application.

5. Install WordPress.

This process is where you install all the WordPress folders to your server at your web host (Godaddy).

This is very easy too because Godaddy has a one click install! There are a few steps but most of the steps only take 3 seconds to do. It goes pretty fast.

To Install WordPress on Your Hosting Account

1. Log in to your Account Manager.
2. From the Products section, click Web Hosting.
3. Next to the hosting account you want to use, click Launch.
4. On the Hosting Control Center home page, click Your Applications.
5. Click the Blogs category on the right, and then click WordPress.
6. Click Install Now.NOTE: The Install Now button displays only when the selected value application is compatible with one of more hosting plans in your account.
7. Select the domain name you want to use.
8. If don’t have a Go Daddy Community profile, enter a display name, agree to the Community terms of service, and then click Next.
9. Enter a database description and password, and then click Next.
10. Choose an installation directory, and then click Next.NOTE: To install WordPress in your root directory, leave this field empty.
11. Enter the Admin Name, Admin Password, Email and Blog Title for your WordPress installation. Click Finish.

WordPress will be installed to your hosting account with the options you selected. When it is complete, you will receive a confirmation email.

6. Login to Your WordPress Dashboard.

This will bring you to the place where you control almost everything about your blog including writing posts and customizing how your blog looks.

1. To login go to: “YourDomainName.com/wp-admin” in your browser.
2. Enter your WordPress Dashboard Login username and passsword that you just set up in Step#5.

If you don’t land at your dashboard, just give it a couple more minutes while your web host is installing WordPress to your site. When it is installed this is what you will see:

7. Install WordPress Theme.

Where to Find Free Themes

In this step you will choose the overall look of your blog. There are many free WordPress themes. The best place to search for one is right from your dash board.

• Go to Appearance and then click on themes.
• Now click on Install themes.

Most themes can be customized with different colors, fonts, font sizes, layouts and more. However, you should look for one that is pretty close to what you like unless you are comfortable changing the coding in your theme.  You’ll be able to check on this at the theme view.

Steps to Install WordPress Theme

1. Click on the theme you like.
2. Check Install
3. Click Activate
4. Your Done!

8. Set Up Permalinks.

This is a small little step that will make your posts more likely to show up in search results. You want this so that you will get more traffic. Here’s what you do:

1. In WordPress Dashboard, click on “Settings” in the left hand navigation panel.
2. Click on “Permalinks.”
3. Click on “Day and name” option.
4. Click “Save changes.”

That’s it. Takes less than 1 minutes and it is well worth it!

9. Install Plugins.

These add functionality to your blog. The install is the same process as installing your theme (Step#7). You download, and Activate.

Once uploaded, go to “Plugins” in your WordPress Dashboard and click on “Activate” to enable each plugin. For each plugin, there may be additional instructions for usage that you will find on the page where you downloaded the plugin.

At this point, you could write your first post if you wanted to. If you want to wait until everything is in place then keep taking the next steps.

10. Set Up Your RSS Feed with Feedburner

This will allow your readers to subscribe to your blog via a reader or via email for free. It will also allow you to monitor the growth of your subscribers!

Steps:

1. Sign up for free at FeedBurner.
2. “Burn” your feed by typing in your feed URL (http://www.yourDomainName.com/feed). Feedburner will then give you a new RSS Feed URL that will allow you to track your subscribers. (Put this new feel URL into your BLOG FILE!)
3. Enter your Feedburner RSS feed URL into the plugin called “FeedBurner FeedSmith” to enable tracking.
4. Add “Email RSS Form” to your Blog with the next steps:
5. In Feedburner click on your feed.
6. Click “Publicize” tab.
7. Click “Email Subscriptions”
8. Copy code for the subscription form.
9. Go back to WordPress Dashboard.
10. Click on “Appearance”
11. Click on “Widgets”
12. Choose the sidebar where you want to put this mini-form.
13. Click “add” on “Text” widget under “Available Widgets.”
14. Drag the widget to the location you desire. (Usually at the top)
15. Click “edit” on the Text Widget
16. Paste the subscription form code in the main box. You can also give the Widget a title or leave it blank.
17. Click “Done.”
18. Click “Save changes”

Now you can go and visit your site to see how it looks. That is the basic process for adding any widget, so you might want to copy and paste these instructions into your BLOG NOTES FOLDER.

11. Set Up Google Analytics

This will allow you to monitor and analyze the traffic to your site. It’s very powerful and it’s FREE! Here are the steps:

1. Go to Google.com/analytics. Sign up for free account.
2. Copy the code they give you and paste it into the Google Analytics plugin you installed.

That’s it!

12. Making Money – Adding Advertising

There are several ways to make money. I will go over few ways here.

The best way to figure out what works best for your site is to test, measure the results, and then test other options to see if it is better or worse than a previous set up.

Contextual Ads

These are ads that display on your website that are related to the content of your site. The most popular is Google Adsense and is probably all you need.

It is important to note that youshould be sure to follow Google’s rules closely because if you don’t you can find yourself kicked out of their program will no chance for appeal. (You need to actually read their rules and understand them.) Being banned from their program could be a really bad thing if a lot of your income comes from them.

That is why a lot of super top bloggers look to find ways to diversify or replace that income over time so as not to be so dependent on an income source that could be taken away at a moment’s notice.

How to Set Up Google Adsense on Your Blog

1. Sign up with Google Adsense. It’s free.
2. Create the ads you want with Adsense’s tool.
3. Copy the code they give you.
4. WordPress Dashboard ->Appearance->Widgets
5. Add “Text” Widget to desired sidebar.
6. Drag widget to desire location in sidebar.
7. Click “edit” on widget.
8. Paste in Adsense code. (like you did in Step#10- setting up your RSS)
9. Leave title bar blank.
10. Click “done.”
11. Click “Save changes.”
12. Check how the changes look on your site.

There’s a lot more that goes into doing Adsense right. You might want to check out either or both of these books which describe how to maximize your profit from Adsense:

Affiliate Ads

When you become an affiliate for a certain product or service you receive a “commission” whenever you refer a sale. Sales are referred by your readers clicking on a banner ad or a text link ad that takes them to the company’s website.

Here’s an example. Let’s say your blog is about dogs. So readers who come to your site are interested in dogs, so you will probably do well by having a few key affiliate products that you advertise on your site.

The quality of the affiliates ads you have on your site reflect on your website so it serves you well to choose high quality products and services.

Once you find products and services that you think are good quality and that your readers would be interested you will seek to join their affiliate program. Most products and stores have an affiliate program.

Once you join the program you may promote their product with a banner ad in your sidebar. You set this up similar to setting up Google Ads by inserting the affiliate code into a text widget.

You can also promote affiliate products directly in your blog posts. This can be more effective because you can give a description and personal recommendation of the product. In this case you simply link to the product using your affiliate link.

Just like Google Adsense, with affiliate programs the product or service provider does all the tracking of sales and will usually send you payments automatically and electronically.

The other way to find affiliate programs that fit well with your site is to join an affiliate network and browse for products and services with which you can become an affiliate. Here are a few well known networks:

• Amazon Associates
• Clickbank
• Commission Junction

Ad Networks

These are networks that work as a middleman. They secure the advertisers and you provide the advertising space. The way they come together is by placing their ad code in a sidebar text widget. When you sign up with any of these they will give you the code you need and instructions for placing it in your blog.

They will keep track of all sales and they will usually pay you monthly either through ACH, PayPal, or a check.

• Text Link Ads
• PeopleJam
• Blogher.com

Selling your own products/services

This is pretty self explanatory. You come up with the products and services that you want to sell personally. Then you design the text or banner advertising to go along with it. You place the promotion for your products and services into blog posts and/or into your sidebar with text widgets.

You can also outsource the production of products that you’d like to sell and have them drop-shipped to your buyers so that you never have to handle inventory or shipping. One example is CafePress that will produce t-shirts, mugs, and other items with your artwork on them.

13. Getting Traffic to Your Blog

The number one rule is to create valuable content. This is really important. You want people to keep returning to your site. But, how do you get them there in the first place? Time and lots of effort. If you keep at it, using these suggestions below, you will grow your site. I’ll cover both online and offline strategies. Try them both. The easiest to start with are the online ones.

Offline Strategies to Get Blog Traffic

1. Tell all your friends.
2. Create flyers or business cards to give to everyone you meet.
3. Write a press release.
4. Do some interviews on TV, Youtube, radio or in newspapers.
5. Post flyers in places where your target audience frequents – also try libraries, the post office bulletin board, supermarkets, and community centers.

Online Strategies to Get Blog Traffic

1. Email all your contacts that might be interested and ask them to pass the info to their contacts that might be interested.
2. Social Networking. Join the top social networking sites and grow your network of friends who are interested in your topic and who are willing to support your writing with votes on social network sites. I cover this in more detail in the next segment.
3. Comment on other blogs. Every time you leave a comment you will get a link to your blog and people who read comments might come visit your site. Seek out blogs that are similar to your and have a large following which you can tell by the number of subscribers they have and the amount of comments the blog gets.
4. SEO: Optimize your site for search engines. This practice is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short. (it all albout keywords)
5. Write guest posts at other blogs for exposure to new readers.
6. Build links to your blog by commenting on blogs that have “dofollow” links which means that search engines will see those links. This helps you get more search engine traffic eventually.
7. Write really good content. Write really good content. And write some more really good content.
8. Brand your blog for success.

Social Networking Basics

There are so many social networking sites out there that it can become dizzying trying to figure out which ones are best given our limits on time. So I will give you some basic advice that should really benefit you while keeping it simple.

Here are the basic and most popular sites you should consider joining:

• Twitter
• Facebook

• Delicious
• Digg
• Reddit
• StumbleUpon
• Youtube

I recommend starting out with Facebook, Twitter and Youtube

Can Someone Do This For Me?

Yes! if you are to busy and just don’t have the time you can hire someone to do all this for you plus more. 

I hope you enjoyed this post! And I wish you much success in making money from your writing. With practice of your writing craft and persistence in building traffic to your blog, you will definitely succeed!

Step 1: Define Your Niche
Before you create a blog, it is important to decide on the theme or subject area your blog will cover.1 Two main factors should be considered when picking a topic to blog about, your audience and what you are passionate about, be it work or pleasure.

Determine Your Audience
Who your audience is will determine which type of blog host you use, the content of your blog, whether or not you publicize your blog and what success means for you in respect to your blogging endeavors. To determine your audience, ask yourself these questions:
Are you creating a blog primarily to keep in touch with family and friends?
Do you want to create a blog for people in your profession or who share your interests?
Is your blog an extension of your business?

Decide on a Subject

If you want your blog to be more than an online diary or a means of staying connected with family and friends, you will need to decide what subject matter your blog will cover. How focused your blog is on a particular subject is entirely up to you. Your blog can simply cover the stuff that is interesting to you and need not be defined beyond that. If, however, you would like to target your blog to a particular niche or audience, here are some things you might consider:
What are you interested in?
What are you an expert in?
Would your occupation be an interesting subject?
What do you think is currently missing online?
Do you have a goal that you’re trying to achieve that could be documented online?
Will you be able to blog about the subject matter consistently over a long period of time?
How many other blogs exist on the subject matter you’ve chosen? Do you have a fresh take to stand out from the rest?
If you need some inspiration, check out some of the most popular blogs on the internet through Technorati’s Popular Blogs page or the Webby Awards’ list of blogging nominees.

PLEASE NOTE: Take heed if you choose to blog about your workplace. Unless you password protect your blog, it is a public document. Most employers are web savvy, and even the most well-intended comments could run afoul of your workplace’s rules and regulations. Time and time again bloggers have been disciplined and even fired for negative or improper comments about their job posted on their blog.

Do you have

• an ugly blog that makes small children cry and your dog cover his eyes with his paws?

• a boring blog with zero zing?

• or a blog that fails to stand out in a sea of sameness?

It doesn’t have to be that way! Massive Lifestyle can help you.

Massive Lifestyle is now offering to critique your blog. Why? Two reasons.

1) We’re kicking off our own Remodel-Blogging services to help revive your blog.

2) There are countless blogs that could greatly benefit from a simple helping hand.

If you want your site exposed to a no-holds-barred, honest critique with a helping of humor at your blog’s expense, post a comment here with your blog address and simply ask.

Along with our reviews, we will offer a few tips and tricks to make your blog awesome. If you decide to hire us to help, we’ll even give you a discount!

What we will do

Check out your site for design and visual appeal. Does your site hurt our eyes? Does it look like one those AOL pages from the late 90’s? We’ll tell it like it is and spare no feelings.

Look over your site’s content. Are your posts too long? Is your site’s purpose immediately clear? Do you have lots of obvious errors?

Review your site’s layout and usability. Is your site’s design intuitive or do first time readers have to jump through hoops to figure things out? Is your blog full of clutter? We will tell you what your friends won’t. The unbiased truth.

We have no idea how many people will take us up on our free offer, so we’re going to take them on a first come, first serve basis. In some cases, blogs on life support may get rushed to the front of the line. In other words, if you’re in a rush to get your blog reviewed, you may want to hire us.

If you would like a private consultation, our services can be had for a small fee of $50 via PayPal. You can choose whether you want your review publicly posted on our site or private, sent to you via e-mail. And, if you pay us, you can choose how you want your advice: Straight up and a bit kinder (for those who don’t appreciate criticism) . We definitely understand a lot of people don’t have the time or skills to devote to making their blog pretty and would never want to make anyone feel bad.

If you decide to hire us for a consult, we will deduct $25 from your first custom design order.

Some of the things we can do to make over your blog

• customize your WP Thesis theme

• Install Thesis on your self hosted WP site

• create custom banners and other site graphics

• custom SEO and landing pages to help your blog be found by search engines and readers

• devise a custom color theme for your WP blog

• help you determine which items to keep on your blog and which to get rid of

Got more questions or want to hire us? Contact us at 866.538.0868 or e-mail support@massivelifestyle.com

http://www.youtube.com/v/IUA1N840Bkk&hl=en_US&fs=1

Friend Request- Stalking
http://www.youtube.com/v/mvuNEojfDJc&hl=en_US&fs=1

Friend Request “Chat Windows?
http://www.youtube.com/v/zq3oRXOIgJw&hl=en_US&fs=1

There are no surprises in that first piece of research: we all know we’ll probably attract more people if we have something interesting and intelligent to say, but — let’s face it — few of us regularly have anything that’s particularly interesting and intelligent to say about ourselves.

People want to listen when you’re saying something they could learn from — something that exposes them to new possibilities or expands their perceptions. Thinking of this every time you send a message out may be one way to attract more followers.

Of course, the second piece of research would suggest that more followers isn’t the aim of the game after all. The quality of followers is key, whether you’re angling for a new job, a new project, or looking to build your profile within a given industry. How can we make better-quality, better-connected followers and contacts through social networks?

This question really has two parts. One is about getting people we want to follow us on board — convincing them to add us to their list of contacts. The answers to that question lie in interaction and participation — responding intelligently to their updates, answering questions they ask, making valuable comment on their articles or blog posts, following their activities on other sites and in other media, and so on.

But before you can do any of this, you need to identify opinion leaders. You might have some good ideas about who’s an opinion leader in your field … but then again, you might not. After all, the web is a big place and few of us restrict ourselves to our local area, or people who we have already heard of or interacted with.

Using search to find and follow trends is an essential first step. Find out who’s talking about the topics associated with your field, and what they’re saying. Identify those who provide new information or are pushing the envelope somehow. Obviously you’ll follow those people who have something interesting to offer, but after that?

From the Bottom Up

What we’re looking for is the best-connected people, with the best connections. If you’re working to build your reputation among high-end Apple users, you might have trouble getting Steve Jobs’s attention, let alone convincing him to follow you. A more useful approach may be to target the people Steve Jobs follows or listens to, or the people they follow or listen to. They might not have as many contacts, but they may more “strategically” placed for spreading news to the right people.

To identify these individuals, you might want to start by looking at the people who say what you believe are the most interesting things in your field. Find out who they are, what they do, and who they follow and are followed by. On Twitter, see how many retweets and referential or direct tweets they receive, and look at who’s retweeting and referencing them.

Looking more closely at the people who are following or talking about the individuals you’ve identified, or who work with them or at the same level in the industry, might provide further clues about who the influencers are. You’ll might also be able to identify media outlets or other information sources that the influencers use, and depending on what you offer, these sources may provide another means by which you can get in front of your target contacts.

A Top-down Approach

Another approach could be to work backwards, finding your industry’s biggest names and thought leaders, looking at their interactions on social networks, and identifying the people they respect. If you can target those individuals and engage with them, or target the people they follow, you might have a better chance of getting the attention of your industry’s biggest opinion leaders.

From here, you start to follow those contacts you feel will be most useful, work out what information is most interesting to them, and engage with them  intelligently through the media they use. Straight-up compliments on the work of someone you respect are less likely to be as effective in convincing them that you’re worth following than are comments that indicate they’d have something to gain — to learn or enjoy — by following you.

Simply following the biggest names, or the people with the greatest number of followers, is unlikely to be your social media salvation. If you’re the type to think strategically about the way you use social media, and the roles it can play in boosting your professional profile or garnering the right sort of attention, these may be some useful starting points.

What tactics do you use to try to build an influential network of followers on social networks?

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of social media, and I’m reminded of where we were in the mid-90s with the advent of the web. I lived and worked through Web 1.0, and am feeling a sense of déjà vu as we play out the same routines with Web 2.0 and beyond: social media is getting the same basic adoption patterns, the same reactions and overreactions. It’s just different tools and terminology. We have a long way to go before everyone and their cousin uses social networks more than they email, or tweets more than they call, but nobody can deny the way we communicate has once again been changed forever.

Here’s how I’d illustrate where we are in terms of social media tool adoption and integration into the fabric of our work and lives, as compared to early web adoption:

When I listen to people get all excited about social media as if it were some newfangled discovery, I keep wanting to say “It’s just online community. We’ve had that for over 20 years now. We’re just getting it via new applications with more integrated features. But it’s community!” Friends, fans and followers? We used to call them community members or our online friends.

Despite having been in this same place before, I have to admit I’m still excited about the possibilities. My concern is where things could be headed if we’re not smart about how we use the new tools at our disposal — we could end up repeating many of the mistakes made during the Web 1.0 years. With that in mind, here are my ten things to avoid in social media:

• Avoid the fishbowl syndrome. Those of us “in the know” are starting to like the sound of our own voices, but we’re really just preaching to the converted (yes, just like I’m probably doing now). Just because we know about social media doesn’t mean everyone does, or even cares about it. We need to jump out of our fishbowls and smell the air of reality. Get out into the world beyond your tweeps. It will do you good.
• Avoid glut and overload. Just because it’s there, it doesn’t mean you have to be on it. It’s our own fault that we are overloaded by every new social network or social tool out there, because we keep joining them. We don’t need them all and neither do our clients. A few strategically and thoughtfully selected networks, applications or tools can go much further than dozens of them. You don’t have to be everywhere.
• Avoid knee-jerk reactions. Don’t be so fast to say “yes” to social media, but don’t be so fast to say “no” either. Like with any good business — or life — decision, take your time, weigh the aspects and options, do your homework, turn to trusted friends and advisers, then make a deliberate decision. Don’t get a Facebook Page just because everyone else has one. Understand what you are trying to achieve, research if your audience is not only on Facebook but actually paying attention to anything other than their virtual farm crops, then plan your approach. Planning takes time.
• Avoid overreaching and overstating. Just because we feel social media is important doesn’t mean it is to everyone else. Those of us using the tools are doing so for a myriad of reasons, so we can’t lump everyone on a social network or with a blog into one box. Good communications and good customer service are still where it’s at. The delivery methods have changed rapidly, but it still boils down to the Golden Rule: the “Please” and “Thank You,” and the smile.
• Avoid the shingle phenomenon. Don’t join the people who add “Social Media” next to their title or company name and suddenly, they’re an expert. Or worse, they shell out a few thousand to someone else who claims to offer Social Media Certification, then they sucker in a bunch of unsuspecting clients and bring them on a reckless ride after only 40 hours of “intensive training.” Just don’t do it.
• Avoid the big plunge. I’ve always advised my clients to dip a toe into the water first to see if it’s warm. Don’t just pull out all the stops with social media. Use a phased approach to adopt new tools, technologies and tactics. You need to warm up, work out the kinks. Jumping into the deep end before you can swim only means you’re likely to drown.
• Avoid the quick hit. Social media is not a campaign; it’s a commitment. Plan for the long term. Take your time, and be deliberate about your actions. Measure. Evaluate. Improve what you are doing. Listen. Respond. Interact. Connect. Be there for the long haul. Learn and grow with your audience, your customers, your constituents. You now have unprecedented access to your customers. Use wisely.
• Avoid the numbers game. Sure you can use automated following tools and maybe get a slew of people following you back. But they’re not listening. They don’t care. I’ve always said that I’d rather have 100 friends, fans or followers who care than 1000 who ignore me.  Social media is not about the big numbers but what you do with the numbers you have — and what they do in return. Devoted actions of a few can have an exponential impact, far greater than inaction by many.
• Avoid the silos. Do not relegate social media to an afterthought. Do not get your communications or marketing team together, and then give the social media team the notes. Someone with social media savvy needs to be at the table from the start. Their knowledge and experience can better inform your brainstorming, can open new doors, can enhance old tactics or eliminate them all together.
• Avoid one-size-fits-all thinking. What’s good for your neighbor may not be good for you. What is good for one of your clients isn’t necessarily the right thing for all the rest. While it is tempting to squeeze social media into a formula or to make a template and mass produce campaigns, each company or organization or individual deserves a plan customized to their needs, tailored for their distinct audiences, and made to fit their capabilities. Greed drives automation, and automation drives mediocrity at best, expensive failures at worst.

Where do you think social media is right now? And what are you definitely trying to avoid?

Social marketing, a new-ish Internet marketing tool, can be a great asset if used properly. The beneficial effects of social marketing for a business can be tremendous, but one must remember that it must be used in the most efficient way possible. Social marketing allows businesses and websites to gain popularity over the Internet by using the different types of social media available, such as blogs, video and photo sharing sites, social networking sites and social bookmarking websites.

Why harness social networking?

There are five distinct advantages to social marketing make it a vital tool to any marketing campaign. Here they are:

1. Better Targeting

If carried out properly, social marketing can draw a highly targeted segment of Internet users to visit your business or Website. This can be done by using the various parameters elements and tools on social media websites, enabling you to increase visibility of your content on both a local and global level. Many small business can not only benefit from this global audience, but increase their brand by bringing in a more select local audience.

2. High Return on Investment

ROI (Return on Investment) is one of the most important criteria of most marketing campaigns. For small businesses with low budgets, the marketing ROI needs to be good for it to work. Social marketing is one of the cheapest ways of marketing currently available. And practically all the social media you can use to market your business either costs nothing or costs a very small amount. This low investment means low risk to even the smallest business. Considering that most businesses gain a big pop in visibility after using social networking tools, the advantage is ultimately getting good publicity for free.

3. Does not require specialization or vast technical skills

One of the best advantages of social marketing is that anyone can take advantage of it, even from their own home. Also, it does not require you to learn a coded language or anything of that sort. Most social networking sites are visually oriented and pretty straightforward, which means that practically anyone who understands how to use the Internet can use social networking tools.

4. Works better than online ad campaigns

Because most Internet users are bombarded with ads every day, as a whole society has become so used to them people generally do not click on them. Banners and even link ads are losing their charm because many people do not trust an online advertising campaign backed by money. With social marketing, you can provide a more human touch to attract potential customers.

5. Increased visibility

Social marketing, like blogging, can help to spread information. This information can then be correlated to your site, increasing your site’s popularity. Create new content that people really need and you’ll have no problem drawing people to your site.

Conclusion

All businesses aim to increase their audience. Before the Internet, many spread the word through word of mouth. Social marketing has now taken over as the online version of word of mouth. Harnessing it in the right way results in more customers, more sales, and a higher level of visibility online than ever before.

There are no surprises in that first piece of research: we all know we’ll probably attract more people if we have something interesting and intelligent to say, but — let’s face it — few of us regularly have anything that’s particularly interesting and intelligent to say about ourselves.

People want to listen when you’re saying something they could learn from — something that exposes them to new possibilities or expands their perceptions. Thinking of this every time you send a message out may be one way to attract more followers.

Of course, the second piece of research would suggest that more followers isn’t the aim of the game after all. The quality of followers is key, whether you’re angling for a new job, a new project, or looking to build your profile within a given industry. How can we make better-quality, better-connected followers and contacts through social networks?

This question really has two parts. One is about getting people we want to follow us on board — convincing them to add us to their list of contacts. The answers to that question lie in interaction and participation — responding intelligently to their updates, answering questions they ask, making valuable comment on their articles or blog posts, following their activities on other sites and in other media, and so on.

But before you can do any of this, you need to identify opinion leaders. You might have some good ideas about who’s an opinion leader in your field … but then again, you might not. After all, the web is a big place and few of us restrict ourselves to our local area, or people who we have already heard of or interacted with.

Using search to find and follow trends is an essential first step. Find out who’s talking about the topics associated with your field, and what they’re saying. Identify those who provide new information or are pushing the envelope somehow. Obviously you’ll follow those people who have something interesting to offer, but after that?

From the Bottom Up

What we’re looking for is the best-connected people, with the best connections. If you’re working to build your reputation among high-end Apple users, you might have trouble getting Steve Jobs’s attention, let alone convincing him to follow you. A more useful approach may be to target the people Steve Jobs follows or listens to, or the people they follow or listen to. They might not have as many contacts, but they may more “strategically” placed for spreading news to the right people.

To identify these individuals, you might want to start by looking at the people who say what you believe are the most interesting things in your field. Find out who they are, what they do, and who they follow and are followed by. On Twitter, see how many retweets and referential or direct tweets they receive, and look at who’s retweeting and referencing them.

Looking more closely at the people who are following or talking about the individuals you’ve identified, or who work with them or at the same level in the industry, might provide further clues about who the influencers are. You’ll might also be able to identify media outlets or other information sources that the influencers use, and depending on what you offer, these sources may provide another means by which you can get in front of your target contacts.

A Top-down Approach

Another approach could be to work backwards, finding your industry’s biggest names and thought leaders, looking at their interactions on social networks, and identifying the people they respect. If you can target those individuals and engage with them, or target the people they follow, you might have a better chance of getting the attention of your industry’s biggest opinion leaders.

From here, you start to follow those contacts you feel will be most useful, work out what information is most interesting to them, and engage with them  intelligently through the media they use. Straight-up compliments on the work of someone you respect are less likely to be as effective in convincing them that you’re worth following than are comments that indicate they’d have something to gain — to learn or enjoy — by following you.

Simply following the biggest names, or the people with the greatest number of followers, is unlikely to be your social media salvation. If you’re the type to think strategically about the way you use social media, and the roles it can play in boosting your professional profile or garnering the right sort of attention, these may be some useful starting points.

What tactics do you use to try to build an influential network of followers on social networks?

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of social media, and I’m reminded of where we were in the mid-90s with the advent of the web. I lived and worked through Web 1.0, and am feeling a sense of déjà vu as we play out the same routines with Web 2.0 and beyond: social media is getting the same basic adoption patterns, the same reactions and overreactions. It’s just different tools and terminology. We have a long way to go before everyone and their cousin uses social networks more than they email, or tweets more than they call, but nobody can deny the way we communicate has once again been changed forever.

Here’s how I’d illustrate where we are in terms of social media tool adoption and integration into the fabric of our work and lives, as compared to early web adoption:

When I listen to people get all excited about social media as if it were some newfangled discovery, I keep wanting to say “It’s just online community. We’ve had that for over 20 years now. We’re just getting it via new applications with more integrated features. But it’s community!” Friends, fans and followers? We used to call them community members or our online friends.

Despite having been in this same place before, I have to admit I’m still excited about the possibilities. My concern is where things could be headed if we’re not smart about how we use the new tools at our disposal — we could end up repeating many of the mistakes made during the Web 1.0 years. With that in mind, here are my ten things to avoid in social media:

• Avoid the fishbowl syndrome. Those of us “in the know” are starting to like the sound of our own voices, but we’re really just preaching to the converted (yes, just like I’m probably doing now). Just because we know about social media doesn’t mean everyone does, or even cares about it. We need to jump out of our fishbowls and smell the air of reality. Get out into the world beyond your tweeps. It will do you good.
• Avoid glut and overload. Just because it’s there, it doesn’t mean you have to be on it. It’s our own fault that we are overloaded by every new social network or social tool out there, because we keep joining them. We don’t need them all and neither do our clients. A few strategically and thoughtfully selected networks, applications or tools can go much further than dozens of them. You don’t have to be everywhere.
• Avoid knee-jerk reactions. Don’t be so fast to say “yes” to social media, but don’t be so fast to say “no” either. Like with any good business — or life — decision, take your time, weigh the aspects and options, do your homework, turn to trusted friends and advisers, then make a deliberate decision. Don’t get a Facebook Page just because everyone else has one. Understand what you are trying to achieve, research if your audience is not only on Facebook but actually paying attention to anything other than their virtual farm crops, then plan your approach. Planning takes time.
• Avoid overreaching and overstating. Just because we feel social media is important doesn’t mean it is to everyone else. Those of us using the tools are doing so for a myriad of reasons, so we can’t lump everyone on a social network or with a blog into one box. Good communications and good customer service are still where it’s at. The delivery methods have changed rapidly, but it still boils down to the Golden Rule: the “Please” and “Thank You,” and the smile.
• Avoid the shingle phenomenon. Don’t join the people who add “Social Media” next to their title or company name and suddenly, they’re an expert. Or worse, they shell out a few thousand to someone else who claims to offer Social Media Certification, then they sucker in a bunch of unsuspecting clients and bring them on a reckless ride after only 40 hours of “intensive training.” Just don’t do it.
• Avoid the big plunge. I’ve always advised my clients to dip a toe into the water first to see if it’s warm. Don’t just pull out all the stops with social media. Use a phased approach to adopt new tools, technologies and tactics. You need to warm up, work out the kinks. Jumping into the deep end before you can swim only means you’re likely to drown.
• Avoid the quick hit. Social media is not a campaign; it’s a commitment. Plan for the long term. Take your time, and be deliberate about your actions. Measure. Evaluate. Improve what you are doing. Listen. Respond. Interact. Connect. Be there for the long haul. Learn and grow with your audience, your customers, your constituents. You now have unprecedented access to your customers. Use wisely.
• Avoid the numbers game. Sure you can use automated following tools and maybe get a slew of people following you back. But they’re not listening. They don’t care. I’ve always said that I’d rather have 100 friends, fans or followers who care than 1000 who ignore me.  Social media is not about the big numbers but what you do with the numbers you have — and what they do in return. Devoted actions of a few can have an exponential impact, far greater than inaction by many.
• Avoid the silos. Do not relegate social media to an afterthought. Do not get your communications or marketing team together, and then give the social media team the notes. Someone with social media savvy needs to be at the table from the start. Their knowledge and experience can better inform your brainstorming, can open new doors, can enhance old tactics or eliminate them all together.
• Avoid one-size-fits-all thinking. What’s good for your neighbor may not be good for you. What is good for one of your clients isn’t necessarily the right thing for all the rest. While it is tempting to squeeze social media into a formula or to make a template and mass produce campaigns, each company or organization or individual deserves a plan customized to their needs, tailored for their distinct audiences, and made to fit their capabilities. Greed drives automation, and automation drives mediocrity at best, expensive failures at worst.

Where do you think social media is right now? And what are you definitely trying to avoid?