Marketing On-line For FREE

I have been marketing on-line heavy for approximately 5 months. This, by no means, makes me an expert in the field. But, I am a quick study and I am always looking out for tools to help increase my marketing success. As I promised in my last blog post, I want to share the most effective FREE Marketing tools I have found so far. Instead of taking up a whole blog post explaining the tools, I have made an entire website dedicated to this topic. As time goes by, when I find more tools or better tools, I will keep this website updated. So here is the site: FREEMARKETINGTOOLS4U I hope these tools are helpful and increase your success.

I have, also, created a website listing my favorite traffic exchanges. I feel that traffic exchanges can be a good marketing tool in their own way. This is a random way of creating traffic for your personal website. And, of course, traffic will lead to sales. I have listed some of my favorite sites. And again, as I branch out I may find other sites to add to this list. Here is the site: MARKETINGTOOLTRAFFICEXCHANGES

There are enough tools and information on these two websites to keep you busy setting up marketing campaigns for your business. I would be glad to answer any questions and give you assistance if you get stumped on your project. Just contact me at: catherinedwhite@peoplestring.com Best of luck. If you would like to connect with me further, I mainly use Peoplestring as my social network. Connect with me there: CatherineDWhite If you are not a member yet, Join Here and we will automatically connect as friends.

Marketing On-line

I have been learning how to market on-line for about 5 months now. It has definitely been a learning process. Anyone who says you can make $10,000 a month by work 30 minutes a day is either lying or a veteran marketer. I find myself spending, at least, 30 minutes a day just answering messages and emails.

I am learning how to automate some things but I am not a very techie person. So, this in itself is quite time consuming. Teaching yourself how to market and save time actually takes up quite a bit of time. For me, educating myself is the most time consuming task I am doing.

There are thousands of programs out there that claim they are the best at their speciality. Whether it be auto-responders, list builders, splash page makers, banner makers, or traffic exchanges, they all claim to be the best. You could spend days sifting through each of these specific areas trying to find what you think gives you the best quality at the best price. And yes, there are some free programs.

So, how can you save time picking which program is going to work for you? Whatever your business opportunity might be, you need to find a person who is successful in that program and find out what that person is doing to succeed. If you can pick the brain of someone who is succeeding, you are one step ahead of the game. Plus, this will save you loads of time investigating the different programs. I guarantee this person is using good programs.

Let's say you now have your programs picked out. Now you have to learn how to use each program effectively for your personal marketing campaign. This can usually be learned by watching tutorial videos or reading the information. Again, this will take time.

For me, I am learning something new everyday about marketing. While I am learning how to use these programs, I am still finding time to do some on-line marketing. Otherwise I feel I would be at a stand still. So, my business is still growing as I am learning how to effectively market. I guess it is kind of hit and miss for me but I am getting some results.

I feel I am a typical average person who wants to improve my life with extra income from on-line marketing. I have another income but I would like to replace that income with a nice residual income from my on-line business. It's a great dream. I get frustrated because I feel it is taking so long to learn everything. I don't believe in doing something half way or I would just stick with my hit and miss marketing. I want to learn how to do it right. I believe I have found the right tools and I am heading in the right direction. Now, I just have to find the time to learn how to use these great tools.

So, let me close with an old saying "You can't rush success." I don't know who said it or when but it is true for me. Or, what about this one "Patience is a virtue". Wise words that I am trying to live by in my day to day life of learning how to become an effective on-line marketer.

Social Media In One Year

Where will Social Media be in one year? This is a relevant question which is on every ones mind. From the independent Internet ranking company, Alexa, the top 4 sites are social media sites: 1.Google; 2.Facebook; 3.Yahoo; and 4.Youtube. These top 4 sites have been in the top 10 for quite some time now.

Why is this question relevant? Well with the influx of social media sites popping up every other day, at least it seems that way, it is important to know where to spend your time when you are online. Where will you get the most "bang for your buck", as they say. This is a good question. If you are marketing on social media sites, where should you concentrate your time to get the best results?

Twitter is now ranked at number 12 and one time Giant Myspace has slipped to number 18. I point this out because 2 years ago all you heard about was Myspace. That was the number one social media site with not much competition and no one had heard of Twitter. So, will all this competition be good for social media or will it just become a watered down system of random posts? Well, in my opinion, that is what Twitter is all ready. There is not much flow to the posts and they are definitely random. To have a conversation, you have to dm the person you are wanting to make contact with if you want to make sure they see the info. Is Facebook much better? At least at Facebook, you can respond to a post and it will be linked to that specific post. Thus, a conversation is formed.

So, where is Social Media headed in the next year. There are several new companies on the horizon and making a push to get noticed. The flavor of the day is Geostring.(ranked 13,604) They are trying to lure in members by paying them a $10 sign up fee. Of course, you can't get paid until your account reaches $100. Most members will quit before this happens. I am, also, hearing a buzz about Swom.(ranked 2186) They are calling themselves the social network for marketers and home based businesses. I am not sure what that means but I think I will pass.
Then you have the one year old company Peoplestring.(ranked 898) I think this is a company worth watching. Their Alexa rating has climbed over 300 points in the last 2 months. This is going to be the first Social Network to be traded on the stock exchange as a public company. The company is all ready sharing 70% of its ad revenue with any active members. The company will pay its members when their account reaches $25. Plus, the company is now fully integrated with Facebook and Twitter. So, over the next year Peoplestring is the company to watch. I believe 2010 will be the year Peoplestring changes social media as we know it today.

So, if you are a marketing using social media to build your business, I suggest you use the social media site which is paying its members, Peoplestring. You can link your account to two major players in social media. And, get paid for doing what you are all ready doing each day. This is a win / win situation for you. Good luck and happy marketing.

Losing Your Networking Credibility

This seems to be a trap most of us fall in to when we start our networking careers. You decide you believe in the concept of networking and now it is time to pick a company. Most of us probably join the first company which presented the concept of networking to us but then we failed miserably with that company. (That is to be expected since 97% of people in networking fail to build any type of income.) So, what now? You love the concept of network marketing and believe in your soul that it will work. This is where a lot of people mess up big time. When you start joining each and every company that comes along, you will totally lose your credibility with all people who know you. If you are promoting Company X this week and then Company Y next week, people will start running the other direction when they see you coming. It's called the NFL or No Friends Left league.

Not only will you lose your credibility with the people you know but what about the people who did believe you and joined your downline. What are they supposed to think now? They believed in you enough to join your team and now you are switching teams or are you just joining more than one team? See how confusing it can be. I actually had this happen to me recently. My leader in a Company P started promoting another company. I had seen the new company being promoted around different sites but I have to say I was surprised when I received a personal message from my leader promoting the new site. This made me think he wasn't as committed to Company P as I had thought he was originally. So, he lost a little credibility with me.

Now, I do want to say here, it is possible to be promoting more than one company if there is a funnel affect which leads back to your original company. With today's networking and traffic exchange site, it is quite possible to build an income from more than one place.

So where does this leave us? To keep your credibility, you should only promote one networking company. No this doesn't mean you can join one company promote it then join another company and promote it. YOU need to investigate the company and the product and only join if this is the company for you. Then promote, promote, promote and you will succeed. Your friends and your downline will thank you and appreciate what you have to say even more.