Social Media Can Only Help Internet Entrepreneurs – The Home Business Of The 21st Century: Part 4
One of the biggest challenges for the Internet home business owner today is figuring out how to integrate social media into their online portfolio. This can be a very daunting task, but it can pay huge dividends for your business. Social media is the best way to present yourself as an expert to your audience and niche. It handles one of the most important obstacle faced by Internet marketers today…the credibility gap. This simply means that your prospects need “proof” that you are who you say you are and social media is that proof.
But the real question now is “what exactly is social media and what are the best forms of social media that you need to be taking advantage of?”
First, social media lets you communicate with particular communities on the web. The Internet is one “huge” community that consists of tons of mini communities called niche markets and social media allows you to present yourself as a leader or expert in your niche market. And you are going to be able to penetrate these communities with things like blogging, video marketing, article marketing and even social networking. These are all very powerful sources for the home business entrepreneur or any business person for that matter to present themselves as a person of authority.
More importantly, social media allows the Internet entrepreneur to be more transparent and more accessible to their following. This is huge especially if you want to gain the trust of your readers, viewers, fans, followers, friends or whatever you’re after.
Social media is all about personality and creativity. Its 100% up to you. A little piece of advice though….Be yourself. You will come off as more authentic and real. So many new Internet entrepreneurs try to be exactly like a top earner in their company and soon realize that its hard to be someone their you’re not. Be yourself and you are well on your way.
A little word of caution: you must be careful with social media and the things you claim that you can do. If you are new to the Internet or just learning about a community of online entrepreneurs, do not claim to be an expert online entrepreneur. It will not take long for you to be discovered as a fake and nobody will talk to you and that’s all I have to say about that.
Anywho, moving on…
Krysti and I have two favorite forms of social media that we use on a daily basis: Blogging and Video Marketing. These are the two most powerful forms of social media available today and both are very easy to get started with right away.
First blogging… There are over 200,000,000 blogs on the web right now according to Socialnomics. Pretty crazy, right?
When you blog, you will regularly be writing about a topic or a niche market that you’ve chosen and you get to share your knowledge and expertise along with real life experiences. This is what makes a blog come alive and feel real and relatable. Providing value to your readers becomes the most important thing for you as you want to keep pumping their minds with good information. Here’s a thought…why not start a personal blog talking about the different experiences you go through to become a successful home business Internet entrepreneur. That’s pretty targeted, wouldn’t you say? You’ll be attracting people to you that are facing the same challenges you once faced in your journey.
Video marketing is the other form of social media that we focus our energy on because we are completely exposed to our viewers and we like it like that. There is no hiding behind your words which can make for some pretty interesting video footage. YouTube is the fourth most trafficked site on the entire Internet according to Alexa.com. If that doesn’t get you excited, then I don’t know what will. But video is one of the most powerful and most transparent forms of media on the web today and will no doubt be there forever. People actually get to see you, hear you and judge you. Plus you can embed any of your videos on any of your websites or even your blog to get more traffic and build more trust and get more sales. That’s the point, right?
Article marketing is another really simple way to present yourself as an expert within your niche. Writing value packed articles and submitting them to at least EzineArticles will drive traffic to your opportunity while building trust in your readers. You don’t have to be a professional writer to write good, informative articles; you just have to offer value to you readers.
A very easy thing to do is to write a blog post and then in turn write an article on the same topic (much of it you won’t have to rewrite anyways). Most of the time you’ll even be able to do on a video on the same topic. Pretty simple way to maximize your content creation and production.
Now, don’t forget about the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter because building relationships are a great way to attract people to you through social media, but lets not get ahead of ourselves. We’re going to be covering Social Networking Marketing tomorrow.
To stay informed of what’s going on the in the social media world, check out Mashable, which is “The Social Media Guide.” They give people the latest news on Social Media but also teaches them how to use it.. They are the #1 social media blog on the net.
Also check out social media expert Brian Solis. We’ve been reading his posts for a while now and even though they can be a touch lengthy, he gives you a lot of great value… he really knows his social media. Listen to this guy and start following him on Twitter to see what he’s saying about social media.
Remember, with social media, we are working to build trust in our followers. Do not sell your product or service to someone right off the bat with social media…you won’t make too many friends that way. This is about being creative, giving tons of free value and building relationships.
So let us know what your experiences with social media and how it can or has impacted your online business from home or anywhere…
Check out the next part of “The Home Business of the 21st Century” on Social Networking Marketing tomorrow…
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