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We spend oodles of  time talking about increased exposure for your company or personal brand while using social media. We spend countless hours reading about tips to gain attention and pull users into our content. Personally. I spend quite a bit on  Google Reader trying to stay ahead of the curve and consume the next big idea. Many small business owners concentrate on one aspect of social media: the  attention of the users. It is mainly the increased exposure to potential clients that starts the interest wheel turning. This is the old marketing strategy of… the more content you share the more eyes you will hit. We need to take it a bit further than just building brand recognition. It is hard to measure brand recognition in terms of return on investment. Initially when entering into a social media marketing strategy companies need to think about the attention gaining concepts for the plan. Whether you are doing a contest, being productive on social networks , or launching a new blog it is important to initially focus on the attention aspect of social media. What is truly important (in a business sense) is the action the user takes to buy and/or become interested in your product. You have all the attention you can muster! How do you turn the user’s attention into action. 4 Ways to Change Attention to Action 1. Free eBook: Write a short book about your expertise. Are you an accountant? A business coach? Maybe you are a plumber who is just getting involved online? Write a quick page turner on some topics that will be beneficial to your readers. Offer it for a free download and capture their email address. This will allow you to build your database while already zeroing in on interested prospects.  Chris Brogan has done an excellent job at this. 2. Blog or Email Subscription In everything you do in social media it is extremely important to always have a  subscription box for users to subscribe to your thoughts and offerings. A great email tool for wordpress is  FeedBurner Email Subscription . 3. Promotional Banners or Links to your Profile Always have a link present (image or text) that offers a discount on your services. You can also have a link directed to your company website that allows users to invest more time in learning about your services. This is a huge example of way to drive your attention users to your website and sell them on your services. 4. Gain Their Trust You need to become involved in the communities that potentially may be a revenue source for your company. Take the time to respond to questions, ask questions, invest in writing great content, and helping people out. This is a huge aspect of changeing attention to action. The steps towards the buying pattern of a user has a lot to do with trust in the social media environment. Gain their trust and offer them something to hard to put down. Gaining the trust of a user is the more important of the four steps listed above. User’s attention is not a bad thing but in order to measure your  ROI  you must take some of them to the action steps. 5. Use Intense Debate to Encourage Further Conversation. Intense Debate is an AWESOME comment plugin that allows for intense comment functionality for your blog. The features include: comment threading, reply-by-email, email notifications, commenter profiles, moderation/blacklisting, reputation points, widgets, and Twitter integration (to new a few). Related articles by Zemanta Social search and Sidewiki – not game changing, but the game is changing (blogstorm.co.uk) Social Media Marketing for Event Planners – Part 2: RSS Feeds & More About Blogs (eventcoup.com) Technology and the Real-Time Web: Blog World Expo 2009 (slideshare.net) You Know You’re A Cool Geek When…. (thenextweb.com)

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5 Ways to Change Attention to Action in Social Media

SEO secrets to boost your Google Local rankITBusiness.caYou've done your best to get your business site optimized for Google's organic search listing and you're also deep into an AdWords campaign. … addthis_url = 'http2F2Fwordpress2F'; addthis_title = 'SEO+secrets+to+boost+your+Google+Local+rank+238211%3B+ITBusiness.ca'; addthis_pub = '';

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SEO secrets to boost your Google Local rank – ITBusiness.ca

Sydney Morning Herald Google sues work-from-home scammersSydney Morning HeraldHe said most AdWords campaigns were valid forms of advertising with editorial review processes in place to vet new search terms and adverts. …Google sues work-at-home scammersCNNMoney.comCompany Sued by Google Also a Web HostWeb Host Industry ReviewGoogle Goes After Impersonator ScammersSecurity PronewsTechDay.co.nz

Plaxo? huh? I know at least two of the eyeballs reading this post thought… “Why is he writing about Plaxo?” Frankly, I don’t hear or read much about Plaxo. Why not? It is still a viable tool to be used in terms of business networking. , I thought I would put a list together to help with the use and optimization of Plaxo. The following 10 tips are things I have learned by using Plaxo and what I have gained by reading along the way. 1. Upload a picture. This should already be common knowledge for the majority of you. We want to see a face. No more excuses. Scan a college or beauty picture is you have to! 2. Feed your blog into your profile. Go to Edit Profile–> Websites. You want to be able to share your content into any type of site… as much as possible. It helps with recognition andt traffic to your website. 3. Add your powerpoint (via Slideshare) to your Plaxo feed. If you are a speaker and want the world to know what you are talking about… add your slidedecks to your Plaxo feed. To learn how check out: Add SlideShare to your Plaxo Profile . 4. Synch your Address Book. Plaxo Plaxo has the ability to synchronize with address book from Outlook Express, Hotmail, Windows Mobile, AOL, LinkedIN, Windows Mail, Mac, and Google. If you make a change in one of the multiple address books… the change is made universally across all platforms. 5. Maximize Plaxo Pulse. Plaxo Pulse is the social stream you can find on your profile page. Every social media site is starting to have the waterfall-effect-social-stream (see: your Facebook wall). 6. Invite Your Trusted Connections to Join You on Plaxo. Notice I underlined TRUSTED. Do not import your entire address book to Plaxo because they ask. Of course they ask! They are wanting as many invitations to leave your hands as possible. Only invite the people that will not be offended by you spamming them with Plaxo invites. 7. Automate Your Plaxo Status Bar with Ping.FM. If you are using multiple networks like LinkedIN, Facebook, and Twitter you can automate a status update using a site called Ping.FM . Ping lets you send one status update that will hit all of your networks. This will save you a small amount of time in the long run but remember to keep personally visiting the sites as well. Add that human flavor into the mix! 8. Use Plaxo to Connect to Other Users. There is one HUGE benefit of using Plaxo to connect and market your business and services…. not very many people do it. 9. Build More Information about Prospects. Plaxo helps you very easily build your prospect database further because it’s easy to extract contact information from it. This technique can have negative and positive ramifications associated with it. Be smart or be sorry. Feed your email list and build out information about prospects to help in the selling process. 10. Advanced People Search and Plaxo Pro. (From Plaxo blog): Plaxo announced recently the launch of ProMail and Plaxo Pro . Once you find the right people, whether through Advanced People Search or your Company Navigator, you can use our all-new ProMail system to message them directly. Plaxo Pro also includes all the advanced address book features of Plaxo Premium, including Outlook Sync, the De-Duper, unlimited eCards, automated backup and recovery, 24/7 support, and more. Plus, we’ll remove the ads from your Plaxo Profile! Related articles by Zemanta 25 Tips to Choosing a Social Media Consultant (kylelacy.com) Plaxo: OK free, not worth paying for (billbennett.co.nz) 5 Tips to Make People Care About Your Stupid Little Start Up (vccafe.com) Web 2.0 Summit: Our photo gallery of the top moments (digital.venturebeat.com)

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10 Ways to Maximize Plaxo

VentureBeat Google sues over scams using its nameSan Jose Business Journal… and permanently disabling the AdWords accounts that "provide a poor or harmful user experience, whether or not they use Google's trademarks illegally. …Google goes after "Google Money" scammersVatorNewsGoogle Takes Google Money Scams To CourtSearch Engine Roundtable (blog)Google sues over alleged work-at-home scamsCNET NewsReadWriteWeb (blog)

CNET News Google Favorite Places coming to window near youCNET News… called "Local Listing Ads," which was designed as a simple entry into Google that didn't require the business to manage a regular adwords campaign. …and more

In the new economy there is one major truth that stands above the rest… trust equals revenue . If you are a small to mid-sized business it is the amount of trust you can build between clients that strengthens your brand. With trust comes happy clients and with happy clients come referrals. Trust is a fundamental building block to all businesses. With that in mind… marketing is built under the assumption that stories can create an emotional bond between a consumer and a brand… a client and a service. Can you tell a story… create a service and en experience that builds trust? Social media can help you build that trust. 1. Content Content is the number one way you can build trust with potential clients. By creating meaningful and thought provoking content you are building a bridge to later sell that person on your services. Talk about what you do on a daily basis. When I say you.. it means you are writing and communicating stories that happen to YOU and not your industry. Create a blog on WordPress and get started. Want a paid system? Try Compendium. 2. Be Transparent Being transparent is extremely important when writing content and when participating in the social networks. Be human. Customers are people too. The people who are interested in your thoughts and suggestions want to know about you as a person.  They want to know how you helped LARRY the plumber or Susan the accountant. 3. Picture of Your Day When you are using social networks make sure you put up pictures of your daily life. If you have a cell phone with a camera take some pictures  and share them with your connections. Just don’t over do it. We can only look at so many professional business or glamor shots in a day and no pictures from the shower! 4. Picture of You Use your real picture.  Don’t use your logo. There is only one exception to this rule. If you are using Twitter for your business and personal (see my company @Brandswag for an business example and @kyleplacy for a personal example). 5. Saying Thank You If somebody helps you share information or decideds to retweet a post.. make sure you thank that person. They are helping you spread the word… they are your online evangelists.. If you miss a thank you.. don’t let it kill you.. but try to make the most of the people that help you out. 6. Do Not Auto-DM on Twitter See my post… I hate Twitter Auto-DM 7. No Hard Selling I don’t care about your enewsletter or the new lotion you are selling. Also, just because I reply to a tweet or a message does not mean you can message me back and sell your wares. Social media is a long sell process. You are developing content in order to gain an order of trust with people in your area of influence. We are now experiencing a relationship driven economy… get on the train. 8. Time is Important Remember that you are building relationships.. do not trust the people that tell you to add 1023920 friends and make $10,000 a month. It is a load of crap. Build your following slowly… create relationships in an online environment that can be transferred offline. 9. Criticism is Important You will be criticized. It is a truth of open communication. Take it with stride and respond. If you are debated… make sure you debate back. Stand up for what you believe and you will gain trust with the people who are listening…. and watching. 10. Have fun Good Lord… is it that hard? You have the ability to connect with thousands… and thousands… and thousands of people from every nationality… and life experience. Just imagine your ability to expand your knowledge base and learn?! One thought: If you are not enjoying and having fun with what you do… quit… go find something else.

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10 Ways To Build Trust with Social Media