Five Ways You Can Build Your Reputation With Social Networking

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Five Ways You Can Build Your Reputation With Social Networking
By Bob Jenkins

Are you using social networks to build your reputation online? Whether you already are or you are just getting started with sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Ning, building your online reputation is your biggest responsibility.

Here are five ways to make sure you do it right.

#1: Be Proud Of Being You

The first thing is, you have to be yourself. You have to be who you are. Because although you can get away with being fake for a little while, as soon as one person realizes that you’re not who you say you are, your reputation is destroyed almost instantly because of the power of social networking.

So be yourself. And don’t be afraid of being yourself. Realize that you have some gifts and some knowledge that people need to know about, and those that want to learn from you are going to gravitate towards you. Those that don’t think you’re worth listening to are basically going to ignore you. And it’s at their peril, so don’t worry about them.

#2: Transparency – Never Hide From Your Audience

The second thing about your reputation is you should try to be transparent at all times. This means you keep everything real with your audience.

For example, over the last year, I used social media to show you my move from Maryland to North Carolina, including drama with the movers, picking the house, and getting it set up. I also pulled back the curtain to show what it takes to run a product launch.

When I did my last product launch, I was Twittering every day what I was doing to get ready for this site. Most of the gurus out there would keep everything under lock and key, and I was being very clear, saying, “This is what I’m doing to get ready for this launch.” It actually helped me have a better launch, even though I told everybody exactly what I was going to be doing.

They didn’t think that they had some surprise or whatever like most people teach; they just were excited to be part of it and part of the story. So be transparent. Let people know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, and they’re going to learn how to trust you.

#3: Be Positive For Positive Results

The third way to build your reputation is to be positive.

There are folks out there who generally can do a good job of being negative. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find that to be a very long-term profitable strategy.

It may get you some attention at first and spark some controversy, but that’s not the way to go. Be looking forward to the optimistic of your industry, of your business and what the results are going to be.

It would be easy for you to go onto Twitter or onto Facebook and talk about how you’re having a bad day or this product sucks or this week sucks or this relationship sucks. But you’re not really there for a support network, per se.

You’ll find some of that. If you have something bad happen in your life, sharing it with your followers will be very therapeutic for you and you will get a lot of support back. But when you’re just blasting negative things out, you’re going to get negative things in return, usually.

So try to be positive as much as possible and look for the opportunities that are out there and look at them from that positive perspective.

#4: Build Your Reputation And They Will Come

The fourth thing you must do is to be patient. This is because, initially, your reputation is going to be built only by yourself and the first initial people who get to know you. But as time goes on and you get more followers and you build a larger network of friends and peers, your reputation will solidify to allow your business to grow.

Once it hits a tipping point, your reputation and business accelerates at a very quick pace.

So be patient and let it happen. Don’t try this stuff out for a week and then come back to me next week and say, “Well, it didn’t really work. I didn’t really get any results yet.” You’ve got to let social networking play out over a few weeks and then a couple months and so on. A year from now your business is going to be tremendously different compared to where it is right now.

#5: Contribute To The Conversation – Every Day!

The fifth thing about your reputation is you need to be someone that people look to as a contributor, not as a leech, not as a mooch, as a contributor.

You have to be willing to be involved in the conversation, and you have to be willing to give as much or even more than what you’re going to get in return. The people who do that are growing so fast it makes my head spin.

I feel that I’m a pretty giving person but I see some other folks out there that just keep on giving, giving, giving and they just build up a huge following and that social capital is a real asset to your business. So you need to make sure that you’re contributing as much as possible to the conversation.

I don’t mean that as just go around randomly and try to help people. Within your specific task, your specific industry, the things you know well, you need to be at the forefront of letting people know how to do what you know how to do without charging them money at first.

They’ll come and find your site and your products and they’ll pay you for that as time goes on and their needs grow. With social networking you need to be building your reputation up first.

If somebody has a question, you should be one of the first people who answers and you need to answer without reservation not just, “Oh, I answered that in my eBook; go buy it”. They’re going to find your eBook if you just talk to them and give them solutions to the problem they are struggling with at that moment.

Give people your input, your encouragement for them to get better at what they are trying to do.

Any little quick free advice you can give, give it.

Actively Build Your Reputation With Social Networking And Reap The Rewards

You’ve got to be in this for the reason of having fun and really building that relationship. Dollars will come, there’s no doubt about that. But first, connect with people and really help them out. Understand that they’ll become loyal followers of what you do and see you for who you are.

Follow these 5 steps to building your reputation online and you’ll not only beat your competition, you’ll have more fun doing it!

Bob Jenkins teaches business owners how to use internet marketing strategies effectively to attract more customers and get more sales without spending a fortune on advertising. Get more free social networking lessons at www.DiscoverSocialNetworking.com.

How To Choose The Best Autoresponder – Deliverability Matters

How To Choose The Best Autoresponder – Deliverability Matters

TrafficWave Delivers

(By the way, I have a very special offer for you below.)

I was going to write a piece about this myself, when I came across this article by TrafficWave TrafficWave Delivers. The fact is, EVERY company, large or small, MUST HAVE an autoresponder. You need to work efficiently – autoresponders give you the freedom to do just that.

I use TrafficWave (TW) myself – I actually have two accounts – and very good it is too.

There’s a lot more to TrafficWave than just an autoresponder. (An autoresponder is a program feature that sends an automated reply to incoming email. For example, when customers send email to your sales@yourdomain.com address, a standard message could be sent back to them. It also lets you send out regular messages to a list of subscribers as well as ad hoc ‘broadcast’ messages.)

As well as an autoresponder, you can set up your own FFA Ads Site – like this one: ACMEAdvertising

Do you want to track your ads? Well, TW has an AdTracker for you.

TrafficWave lets you set these up at no extra charge. It even tells you why you need them – and for the FFA site the answer may surprise you. Lots of tutorials and articles to show you how to do things and their support is top notch too.

If you have an autoresponder, check out TW, you may find they are a better deal. They will even help you move subscribers over.

If you are looking to get an autoresponder, then you need to see what TW has to offer before you commit. (Don’t do what I did and use another program, only to have to transfer everything to the better TrafficWave later.)

Oh, and they have a great affiliate program too, so it could mean you don’t pay anything at all for your autoresponder.

Here’s the link to their main page: TrafficWave Main Page

SPECIAL OFFER

If you sign up to TrafficWave through one of my above links and contact me to tell me that you will use it long-term, I WILL PAY YOUR FIRST MONTH’S SUBSCRIPTION!

But you must commit to doing the same for your downline too.

It’s called ‘Matrix Buster’ and uses the PAY IT FORWARD concept.

Why would I do this? Because I’m looking for people like you that are ready to work with me to create a Fast Track to the kind of income most people only dream about. By working together as a team we can all benefit a lot more (ie make money) than if we do it alone. find out more about the Matrix Buster plan with TrafficWave –>> CLICK HERE.

To your online success

LyndaH

PPC Web Spy – One of those MUST HAVE tools

PPC Web Spy – One of those MUST HAVE tools

[I've just brought this article over from my other blog - lynda-hill.com - where I am changing the theme etc. It was first posted in January 2009.]

Really, if you do any kind of affiliate marketing, then you MUST, MUST, MUST get PPC Web Spy.

This little tool, which needs Firefox BTW, let’s you see the keywords while you are browsing. But it doesn’t stop there. In fact, I’m so excited about PPC Web Spy that I’m off to do a Squidoo lens right now!

The standard tool is free, but when you see the one time offer to upgrade to Platinum, you won’t want to by-pass it.

If I have any doubts, it is how effective this tool will be once everyone is using it – so why wait? Jump on board now – it’s all legal, decent and honest – and as it’s free, pass it round.

PPC Web Spy – CLICK HERE

–L

PS   Hint: Take the PPC Web Spy OTO!

Top Five Programs You Need to Run Your Internet Business

Top Five Programs You Need to Run Your Internet Business

[I've just brought this article over from my other blog - lynda-hill.com - where I am changing the theme etc. It was first posted in December 2008.]

It doesn’t matter what type of internet business you are working at, these programs will serve to help you do everything more efficiently. Here’s one take on the programs you cannot do without.

No. 1   Roboform

You must have a password management program. It isn’t enough to use the same password with variations, you need to also keep your full login details. What’s easier than clicking one button which then takes you directly to the website (in a new window/tab) and logs you in? Roboform will do that and more. Works with Internet Explorer and Firefox. You can try their free trial for up to 15 logins.

No. 2   OneNote

Microsoft have great products – despite the fact that Wordperfect was 10 times better than Word! MS OneNote is a brilliant product. Yes, you have to pay for it if it isn’t part of the suite already, (but Amazon have good deals). OneNote is your ’swipe’ file, organiser, filing cabinet, book writer, ideas file, scrapbook. All tabbed and saved instantly without the need to work out where to put them and under what filename. Easily searchable, so as long as you can remember a phrase or word, you’ll find it. Brilliant! You can get a 60 day free trial directly from Microsoft and then buy the license from Amazon.

No. 3   Ashampoo Magical Snap

On first using this very simple program, you really will think it’s magical. Instead of printscreen or highlight/copy/paste, use Magical Snap to copy a whole web page, a section as a rectangle, a section as a squiggly outline – then paste it into… you guessed it, your OneNote. Each item is stored as an image or you can print it out directly. Magical Snap works like a breeze and is you right hand man for your business swipe file and writing books is a breeze as you can simply slide the chapters around if you have a change of mind. It doesn’t matter how many monitors you have either – copy exactly as much or as little as you want.

No 4   Firefox browser

It takes people a long time to move from Internet Explorer to Firefox. But almost everyone who does wishes they had made the transition sooner. There are so many add-ons available that almost everything you will ever need can be found somewhere. It works fine with Roboform too. You can look at Safari and Google Chrome, but Firefox takes the gold medal right now.

No. 5   Eset Security Suite

Perhaps this should be top of the list. Anti-virus and PC security software are absolute essentials these days. No longer is it sufficient to run a virus check once a week and download updates to your AV software once a month. These must be run on a daily basis if you are to not only keep your computer safe and secure, but also protect your contacts from being infected by a virus sent out by your machine! Unlike other AV suites, Eset Security has very low impact on the speed of your system and doesn’t impinge on other programs unless it finds an infestation somewhere. It runs totally in the background so you will hardly ever need to touch it – just let it do its job.

These are the very first five programs you should consider putting onto your computer before you get started in your internet business. That’s not to say they can’t be used for anything else, but I think you will find that the ease they bring to managing all the information which passes through your virtual desk every day, will make them priceless.

Online advertising

(I’ve just brought this post over from my other blog as I’m changing the theme over there (lynda-hill.com). It was written in October 2008.

Yesterday I mentioned a new business opportunity called Succeed In 30 Days. Now I’m not going to go into that right now, but what I would like to do is mention how it has opened my eyes to a whole new way of advertising online.

The advertising needn’t be for businesses either; you can advertise anything and everything as long as it’s ‘legal, decent and honest’.

I’ve been using Pay Per Click for my business so far – which is another phrase for ‘Google Adwords’ and Yahoo Search. PPC is quite complicated to set up (until you learn how) and it can prove very expensive. A strange statistic is that Amit Mehta, one of the top Super Affiliate Marketers in the world is making $2.4 million a year right now – BUT – he’s paying anything from $5,000 per DAY on Google Adwords. Am I missing something? Simple statistical analysis makes me wonder if it’s worthwhile!

They say you have to pay money to make money and I understand that. I’m quite happy to pay my advertising fees, but sometimes setting up the right Keywords can be very complex – I won’t go into that now, other than to say that there’s a brand new program Pay Per Click Classroom 2.0 which has just been released (and it’s not expensive either). BTW, that’s not my affiliate link; I’ve decided not to join this time round as I have other projects I want to complete right now. I did learn a great deal just from watching the three pre-launch videos though. I digress.

The reason for this Blogpost is to mention the other advertising methods recommended by the Succeed In 30 Days program -and I’ll throw in a third as well.

Sometimes we see something but it doesn’t actually mean much. Then along comes someone else who says exactly the same thing and the penny drops!

Wealthy Affiliate University, of which I am a member, mentioned the first method, but I thought nothing of it. It’s USFreeAds.com. It’s an online classified ad system. Frankly I was amazed. The free option lets you run 2 ads at a time, but for the princely sum of $10 – PER YEAR – you can run up to 25 ads concurrently. These ads last 40 days and each one will automatically renew if you want it to. There is a lot moreof course, but I’ll leave it to you whether you click through.

The second method I’d heard about but hadn’t considered yet. It’s a means of getting an ad distributed via safelists to ezine readers. For $12.50 I set up an ad to go out to 100,000 readers. What’s good about safelists is that they have double opt-in subscribers – which means people want to get them. So you can be reasonably sure the ads will be seen. You just need to decide how much you want to pay. The program I was pointed to for this purpose is MBPAdvertising.com. Go check it out.

And what’s the third method?

It’s something I haven’t used for years because you can waste a lot of time surfing! It’s called TrafficSwarm and you can sign up for free. The idea behind it is that you view – ’surf’ – the advertisers pages and earn credits, usually between 1 and 5, for each page you view. You need to stay on the page for 20 seconds before you click for the next one. As these credits build up you can use them to advertise your own site or sites. If you sign up (and pay) for the Pro version you get better deals. I think I must have done that years ago. I’d completely forgotten about TrafficSwarm, but I hadn’t closed my account, so imagine my surprise when they wouldn’t let me register a new account! The upshot is that I paid $40 to top up my account by 2,000 credits and they gave me 2,200 for being a Pro member. So far I have 5 of my websites being advertised.

So, there you are. Three different forms of advertising.

USFreeAds.com – for mainly classifieds

MBPAdvertising.com – for ezine ads, banner ads etc

TrafficSwarm – ad rotator for targeted readers

None of them is particularly expensive which is why I am more than happy to recommend them to you.

Let’s see what I come up with in my next Blogpost.

‘Bye for now

–Lynda