Ideas for Business

Recently I had the task fo creating a resource for direct marketers on social media marketing and print books are something many people rely on as a portable source of information. The challenge with print sources on internet marketing related topics of course, is that they can become outdated more quickly than other topics.

As a result, I tried to focus on books that would retain thier usefulness to readers over time. The following list was researched from the stack of books on my desk, from the good Tweeple following @leeodden on Twitter and a few private recommendations. Fortunately, we’ve interviewed almost half of the authors on this list, so I’ve included those links as well.  Enjoy!

• Cluetrain Manifesto - Rick Levine, Chris Locke, Doc Searles, Dave Weinberger
• New Rules of Marketing and PR - David Meerman Scott (video interview)
• Do It Wrong Quickly - Mike Moran (Mike’s guest post)
• Join the Conversation - Joseph Jaffe (interview)
• Groundswell - Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff (interview with Charlene)
• Personality Not Included - Rohit Bhargava  (book review)
• Tribes - Seth Godin
• Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky
• Age of Conversation - Gavin Heaton, Drew McLellan (100+ contributors)
• Social Media Marketing An Hour A Day - Dave Evans
• Secrets of Social Media Marketing - Paul Gillin
• Naked Conversations - Shel Israel & Robert Scoble (Video interview with Robert)
• Freakonomics - Stephen Dubner & Steven Levitt
• Buzz Marketing - Mark Hughes
• Radically Transparent - Andy Beal & Judy Strauss (interview with Andy)
• Web 2.0: New Tools, New School - Gwen Solomon & Lynne Schrum
• The Long Tail - Chris Anderson
• The Wisdom of Crowds - James Surowieki 
• Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business - Larry Weber
• Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking - Andy Sernovitz, Afterward by Guy Kawasaki (interview with Guy)
• Social Media is a Cocktail Party: Why You Already Know the Rules of Social Media Marketing - Jim Tobin, Lisa Braziel (TopRank is quoted on back cover)
• Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations - Amy Shuen
• Now Is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs - Brian Solis, Geoff Livingston (video interview with Brian)

And a book that’s coming out in a few weeks that I’m looking forward to: 

• SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate (Voices That Matter) - Joel Postman

What are your book suggestions for learning more about Web 2.0 and social media topics for marketers?

Sponsored By: Follow TopRank on Twitter

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Making the video to promote your website is the easy part of video marketing. Once you have the video or videos, what should you do to make sure they get the best distribution? There are literally tens of thousands of videos on websites like YouTube, so what are the chances of someone finding yours?

Getting links to your video is always a good idea, this will help it appear higher in the search engines. You can do this by linking to it from your website or blog and via article marketing. If you`ve made some good videos that are viral, then other people will start to link to them as well.

Using a good title for your video will help people find it when doing searches. Be sure to add tags that include your keywords, whenever you are given the opportunity. This is an area that is very important since it helps not only people, but search engines find your videos.

Video marketing draws a lot of attention, often far more than text marketing, but it doesn`t mean that you can just upload a video and sit back. Be proactive!

For a long time, almost all the information online was just text. Now, we have photos, audio, videos . . . everything you need to promote your business. Internet marketing is a growing method of promotion and it`s something that is relatively easy to do.

If you`re confused about internet marketing or aren`t sure how to get started, then I`d like to recommend a good resource that I`ve put together on my site. There is a series of videos that show you how to go about starting your internet marketing.

There`s no need to be in the dark and if you find that reading just isn`t doing the trick, then you might find that video tutorials will help you out a lot more. Most people learn better this way, so it`s a good way not only to start learning more, but also to promote your own business.

Get started with internet marketing and watch your business grow.

Photo by alifarid

The key to writing interesting content is being reader focused.

A common mistake in blogging is to only write about what interests you. However, by neglecting the interests of your readers, you’ll miss out on a lot of new traffic and repeat visitors.

If you follow some of the top blogs, you’ll find that they’ll often get comments like “This is exactly what I was looking for” or “I definitely needed to hear this”. Those bloggers understand what their audiences want and they give it to them on a consistent basis. That’s what makes their blogs so successful.

How to Figure Out What Your Readers are Interested In

So, how do you find out what your readers want? Here are a couple practical methods.

Browsing through forums is an excellent way to do research on your target audience. What you want to look for are threads that get a lot of responses. The topics on these threads are perfect topics for future blog posts. Also, watch out for recurring questions. Many people go to forums to ask questions. Writing in-depth blog posts that answer those questions will earn you a reputation as an expert.

While were talking about questions, Yahoo! Answers is another place where people ask questions. Simply search using common keywords in your niche and see what questions people are asking in your niche.

Keyword tools tell you the popular words in your industry that internet users are searching with. Writing blog posts based on these keywords will not only make your blog more interesting but it will increase your search engine traffic. Here are two free tools to try out: Google AdWords Keyword Tool and SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool. Enter in the name of your industry and see what related words the tool gives you.

If you have a lot of traffic or a big enough email list, it’s a good idea just to ask your readers what kind of content they want. If you have little traffic or a small list, you might not get a lot of responses.

You Don’t Have to Guess

You could guess what content your audience finds interesting. But why guess if you don’t have to? A little bit of research before writing can go a long way to making your blog more interesting.

There are so many social networking options out there that it would be a big mistake to sign up for all of them. You would simply be overwhelmed. That`s why it`s important to take your time and decide which networks will best serve your needs.

Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites around. Originally started to help long lost friends and classmates reunite, this website is now used by people of all ages and has turned into a real business medium for some.

While the focus of this social networking site is still on keeping in touch with your friends, you`ll find that many marketers use it to promote their business as well. There are plenty of options available for this. You can set up networks of business contacts, to stay in touch with them and include RSS feeds to your blog right on your profile page.

That being said, Facebook can easily turn into a waste of time. There are frequently newly released applications offered that can do everything from diagnose your love life to full blown RPGs that take up a lot of time. You may start in with the intention of using the social networking site as just a business thing, but if you aren`t careful, it quickly turns into just another time waster.

If you have to choose, I think a site like StumbleUpon is probably more worth your time. Having an account on Facebook is all fine and good, but do try to limit the amount of time you spend doing other things on there, since it can really take away from your promotion time.