With unemployment running sky-high, a recession that continues, and no real end in sight, many people are starting to look at starting their own company. The statistics aren’t in your favor – many fail. Many major corporations aren’t doing so well at the moment as well, however. You job is to find a strategic niche market and creative methods of marketing this product or service you have.

For almost anyone starting a business today, this is probably going to involve the Internet, a web site, and social marketing – Twitter, blogs, Linkedin, and more. With this strategy you are selling to a very targeted audience. This is very different from television advertising, periodical advertising, and even email in which you are reaching a large, broad audience and the hits are few and poorly qualified.

With the strategy mentioned here using a web site (or multiple sites), your company targets a small niche – you identify a need that isn’t been met, then start fishing in this highly qualified market.

A few warnings as we start. There is risk. You need to be a self-starter. You will get discouraged at times and you will need to deal with that. It will also take more money than you expect and more time. You’ll also have more fun that you ever had. Starting a successful business is the American Dream. See how qualified your are: http://youtubemarketingcoaching.co.cc/benefits-of-using-youtube-for-business/are-you-suitable-to-start-your-online-home-business/

Here’s another good one from Chris Brogan: http://ht.ly/2vmpm
Here’s another by Tim Berry: http://bit.ly/bVHdyX

The Vision

Start by defining your vision. What is your goal? What product or service will you be offering?

What are your strengths relative to this? Your weaknesses? How can you resolve those weaknesses (educational classes, partnering with others)?

1. How competitive is your vision? Try a search on a relative keyword phrase in Google. Google will return the number of competitive pages for that keyword phrase at the top of the list.
2. How popular is your vision? How many people have searched on a relative keyword phrase in the last year in a group of search engines partnered with Wordtracker.com? Go to http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com and search on your phrase.

What you are really looking for is a keyword phrase with a minimum of competition that many people are using for searching: search count high, competition low. That, to quote Robert Allen, is your “school of fish” where you want to drop you bait. That keyword phrase, or a small collection of them, is one of the most valuable things you have for launching your business. If you really want to do this professionally, you could go to http://www.wordtracker.com and set up a trial keyword search membership and repeat this to see the number of searches in Google in the last year. The trial is free for a week, or you can buy a month for about $60. Lots of tutorial stuff there.

Your site will reside on a host system somewhere. You have to purchase the hosting and your domain name. We can set all that up if you wish.

Legal

There are many, many questions involved in setting up your business legally. In America, your best step to work with this is to start at the web site for the Small Business Administration at http://www.sba.gov. You will find an encyclopedia of information here: choosing a business name, what type of business structure you should use (corporate, LLC, etc.), how to write a business plan, how to get a loan or grant, and much, much more.

You do need a mentor – someone who has business experience, believes in you, and cheer you on when things get tough. You may find this person in your church or your circle of friends. You may also be able to locate this person through your local SBA office. There are also other volunteer organizations, such as SCORE (http://www.score.org/findscore/index.html) , that have helping you as their mission.

If you are going for a grant, the competition is high and you should have an experienced person helping you with this or perhaps take a grant-writing class.

You should also arrange for an accountant and get advice from this accountant on which bookkeeping software to use to minimize his work.

The Big Secret

You probably are use to using the Internet to help you find solutions as you develop your product or service. Now you need to take the next step in learning how to use the Internet to market your product or service. In fact, I just used the wrong word. “Marketing” is a dirty word here in this age. If you try mass emails you will get a major bad reputation and few results. We kill the hosts of the spam traffic that comes in to us. That’s the only option I have until I can vote enough politicians out until I get one that can hear me.

The magic words are “social networking”. The basic strategy is still to build your web site and optimize it on your keyword phrases for good SEO. That hasn’t changed. You want very high quality content on this site. Establish yourself as an authority. Give information away. That doesn’t sound like the old days, does it? I’ll tell you a secret. This isn’t the old days. You need to establish authority. You also need to tell stories. I won’t build a web site for a client unless they have a testimonial. If it’s an e-book they are selling, how has somebody used it for success?

You next step is to add a blog to your website. Why add a blog? Google will pretty much ignore your web site at the start. You may see it the first day you put it out, but then it disappears for weeks or maybe months – it’s called sandboxing. The site also needs to have quality links into it from other sites. That’s the way Google finds it. If we develop your site we will add a link from our web site to yours, but if you develop the site you are on your own. We can also show you how to get Google to find your site quickly. If you add a blog, however, the search engines see the blog pages as social networking, web pages that from their perspective are updated frequently and need to be indexed frequently. To find blogs on a subject of interest, simple search on the subject plus “+ blog”. For example, to find blogs on starting a coffee business search on “How to start a coffee business” + blog. A single blog will have multiple pages, or postings.

To add a blog, in most cases it is as easy as installing the free WordPress blog software on your host. Then add a link to it from your web site’s menu.

Now you can niche “market” from your blog, using postings with multiple keyword phrases. Remember – direct marketing in the traditional sense will turn people off, even with a blog. You are networking. Your blog posts should have content, not an overt sales pitch. Lead people from your blog posts to your web site.

The next step is to open a free Twitter account. Over 100 million people use Twitter. One advantage here is that any posting to Twitter is indexed immediately in the Twitter index. Newspapers love this for finding news, as I often find a news item in Twitter before it reaches CNN, Fox News, or local newspapers.

Twitter postings are limited to 140 characters. This means you have to use various tricks to tease the user from your Twitter post to your blog or web site. Look at this one from John Maxwell in Twitter:

The secret to gaining trust is ______. New post on
John Maxwell on Leadership. http://dld.bz/thGQ

Notice how he leads you into his web site. It’s not an overt sales pitch – he’s going to give you content with an ad on the side. He used a web site (such as http://bit.ly) to shorten his URL and save characters.

Since this is a social networking post and your post is indexed immediately in Twitter, Google and other search engines will need to capture this quickly stay competitive with Twitter’s instant indexing.

So the strategy is to update your blog very, very frequently AND update Twitter frequently.

Another social networking site that is important is Linkedin.com. This is more of a business site that networks people based on common interests.

Another social networking site is good for social networking is often used but has very little security. Facebook has over 5 million subscribers, and I have friends that see it as very important; but I do like to control my security. Whether you use it or not depends on what you are doing. The name of the game is often to increase your influence. The number of followers is not important. How many are you influencing, and what tools serve you best at this?

A very good book on social networking is The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott. A Businessweek best-seller and highly recommended.

We provide consulting in this area. If you need it, contact us.

We just finished battling an editing problem in WordPress, only to discover the problem was with Microsoft software, not WordPress. Praise God for open source software. Boo Microsoft. Here’s the basic strategy for blog problems:

1. If you have recently modified the WordPress code or settings, remove the code or restore the former settings first and see if this fixes the problem. Always start from your most recent change or system modification. Also, verify your host hasn’t made any changes, such as moving your site to another server.
2. Check answers in the DOC files at http://www.worldpress.org. (This generally won’t help much.)
3. This step involves using the WordPress forum. But first: this step is like this: Back up WordPress database -> Upgrade WordPress as necessary -> go to the forum ->check for previous postings on your problem -> Post your problem. Before doing anything else you need to back up your WordPress database. I added the plugin DBC Backup. It runs automatically every evening. Run it before tinkering with WordPress. Remember your postings are in a MySQL database. Copying your WordPress software is not a backup. You need to backup the database in addition. That’s where all your postings are located. The plugin backs up only the database. After backing things up, go into WordPress and update your version if necessary. Your Dashboard will tell if what version you have and if another is needed. If necessary, click the link to update and it will start. Forum people don’t like to talk to you unless you are using the latest version. On the forum, first search to see if your problem is there and resolved already. If not, post your problem.
4. While waiting for forum answers, disable all WordPress plugins. See if the problem is resolved. If so, activate the plugins again, one at a time, until the problem returns. Some plugins can interfere or can even be malware.
5. If the problem is still there, change to the default theme and see if the problem is still there. If the problem is resolved, the issue is in your new theme.
6. Try your blog on another browser. If the problem goes away with another browser (such as Firefox), the problem is with the browser. Our problem was with Internet Explorer 8 and went away when we went to Firefox. Don’t call Microsoft on that. They’ll tell you it is an IE8 addon you are using. Microsoft won’t take the fall. I don’t have any addons. (Hooray for open source software like WordPress and Firefox. Boo for Microsoft and other companies that make you pay for a new copy of your software when they update Windows. They require you to purchase a new copy – not an update. Both Adobe and Microsoft pull that trick. )
7. If you still have an unresolved problem in WordPress, try your blog on another computer. If it works there, check out your computer – run a virus/spyware checker and register cleaner as a start.

Then there is always the master guru, grand wizard, and dragonslayer at http://www.netadventures.biz.

Remember that when you enter a posting, or tweet as they are called, to Twitter that you are broadcasting information to anyone that meets either of these conditions unless you have secured your tweets on your profile.

• Those who are following you will see the tweet as soon as they go to Twitter and log in.
• Others will be able to see it if they search on the relevant subject area.

You will receive only the tweets from people you are following unless you are searching on a subject. When doing that, you receive the tweets relative to that subject.

Security Issues:

You should exercise caution when entering your posts if your postings are not secured – the default mode. If you are leaving on a trip, don’t advertise it on Twitter. There are those who scan Twitter to see who won’t be home for awhile and take advantage of that. DO tweet about your trip when you get back. If you are getting a divorce, one of the first things your lawyer will do is scan your postings to see what you have been doing online. If you are looking for a job today, there is about a 50% chance the prospective employer will scan the Internet for information about you. In the same way, it is not wise to post company information or your concerns about your employer.

Many people violate this rule. I try to honor it. Even if I’m out for the evening, I tweet about it AFTER I get back.

You can set the security of your tweets so that only those who follow you can see them from your Settings option. If set to private, only followers can see your tweets and Twitter will not index them.

More tips:

Setting Up Your Account

• In setting up your account, use some variation of your first name. Using a variation of your last name is not personal enough on something like Twitter. And keep it short, which gives you (and those that reply) more message space. And your Twitter account name is important in the optimization of your tweets in the search engines.
• Use a picture that shows a close-up of your face is normally best for your avatar. Smiling face, of course. With only the default clipart picture Twitter uses, don’t expect people to follow you.
• Be sure to fill out your bio information. Use your full name. Use keyword phrases there that will trip those you want to meet. Share your personality here. You have 160 characters.
• If you set the tweets to private, only your followers can see them. In addition, Google and Twitter Search will not index them.
• When twittering for a company, these rules still hold. Use the logo as the background. Use a personal photo as your avatar. Let the bio show the company’s identity. Post as a person, not a depersonalized organization. Be sure to follow company policies on your tweeting for this account.

Using Twitter

• Click the Reply button in the lower right of a tweet to reply only to that individual. Click the Retweet button if you wish to tweet their tweet to all your followers.
• You have only 140 characters for a posting. Use them wisely. Tease and motivate the reader, then lead them to Facebook, your blog, or your website. To save characters, use web sites such as http://bit.ly to shorten the URL for the destination.
• Use your cell phone as an extension of your computer postings. The twitter address is 40404;. For example, to send an direct twitter message from your phone to another Twitter account, you would enter: (To) 40404; and (body): d accountname message. Great for keeping up with friends when traveling! You can also send to a list.
• You will quickly learn the abbreviations your friends are using: great becomes gr8, before becomes b4, you becomes u.
  Keep your postings interesting. Who cares what you had for breakfast? If something relational happened at breakfast, you should tweet on that.
• When someone tweets that they are following you, send them a thank-you, you will see this in your normal email. Reply to them direct mail from within Tweeter. (Remember you cannot direct mail someone unless they are following you.)
  You will notice that some of your followers occasionally will tweet a posting that is a thank-you to a list of friends. Looks boring, but it is important. Scan their list in their post – you may find a new friend there and you can click and follow. The reverse is also true. If someone helps you on Twitter, thank them.
• How often to tweet? Everyone has their own answer on this. Don’t tweet just to be tweeting or your people will quite following you. If you don’t tweet for a day or two, watch your visitor traffic fall off to your account, the web site, and your blog. Keep your life interesting and tell people about it.

Save tweets you wish to explore or use later. To do this, click on the time line that is under the tweet that shows how long ago the tweet was initiated. This brings up the tweet. The URL that is displayed now in the browser is the URL for that tweet. Save it in the browser Favorites. Another alternative is to save that tweet URL in an external program such as delicious.com or related tool.

• To find if someone is on Twitter from Google, search on firstname lastname Twitter. Use caution here. The results returned may not be a real person (C. S. Lewis, for example, is no longer alive but has a fan page.) Or it may not be the person you expect. Or a fake account on a real person.
• There are lots of good plug-ins for your Twitter account, but use caution. Some plug-ins are malware. Check with friends and get reviews first.
• Here’s a good URL to find tools for Twitter: http://oneforty.com/. Twitter’s mobile web site is http://m.twitter.com.
  If you are running a conference on Twitter, Have everyone agree to a hashtag and tweet against that using an application such as TweetDeck.
• Use http://MrTweet.com (@mrtweet) to find other interesting people to follow.(At the moment this is down until 9/10/2010.)
• Link your web site to Twitter. Link Twitter to your web site on your Twitter profile page.
• Check your “grade” on twitter at http://twitter.grader.com.
• Use Twitter to tease people into your blog. Twitter entries are indexed immediately.

Need consulting help on this or related issues? Contact us! http://www.netadventures.biz

Adding a blog to a web site is almost essential for a web site today. For most of our clients, we can add a blog to your web site for almost nothing – a small installation charge is all that is necessary.

Here are some tips, however, to enable that blog to give you that major visitor traffic that you want.

1. Define the purpose for your blog. What do want your blog to accomplish? If you are blogging as part of an organization (business, church, nonprofit), you need to build consensus as to the purpose of the blog in your organization; but your blog writing should be personal.
2. Budget the time to keep the blog updated. Starting a blog and following the other tips here will give you that traffic quickly, but if you get tired and fail to keep it active, traffic will fall off just as quickly. Try to stick to a regular posting schedule.
3. Don’t rush your postings. You’ve just seen a great movie and you want to post on it while the media is hot about that movie. Take a few days to look at your posting. How can you make your post unique? Is the spelling right? Grammar? Did you proofread your post?
4. Give your opinion. People read your post to get your opinion. Give it to them. Don’t be afraid of controversy. That only builds interest and invites comments, getting more interaction. What does your post say about and issue (movie, political issue, book, etc.) that others don’t?
5. Respond to comments. If someone is commenting and interacting with you on your blog, respond to them.
6. Comment in other blogs in your niche. That’s what this social networking is all about. Put links to your site and/or in the comments in other blogs if that blog’s posting relates to the subject of your blog.
7. Be personal. People don’t want to network with an organization, they want to network with people. Be honest, share your opinions. Don’t post as “Administrator”. Post under your name with your personal photo. If you are a blogger on a church site, you will find most GenX and Millennials have much difficulty relating to an institution. The institution of the church has failed them, and these generations also are highly relational. Use your name and not the church’s, but link them to the church web site.
8. Monitor your stats. What postings are getting read? Is visitor traffic going up or down? We provide all of our clients with a free traffic monitor system. See Postrank.com.
9. Stay legal. Don’t copy other people’s stuff. Use lots of links to other people’s stuff, but make your content with these links unique. Be particular careful on copying graphics. Many graphics are copyrighted by image companies.
10. Provide a full fee RSS. That means your RSS sends a full copy of your post to your blog subscribers.
11. Use Twitter as a gateway to post very frequent comments, and occasionally bring them into your blog from your tweets when a blog post is relevant. Use tools like htt://bit.ly to shorten your URLs and tease them in from the Twitter post. As your followers grow on Twitter, you will gain a rich understanding of the personality of each, their needs, and you can blog to your network more effectively. I promise – you will meet some very interesting people.
12. Write to people – don’t write to Google (banging your keyword phrases) or an organization. Your keyword phrases should flow naturally.
13. Don’t use a self-hosting blog such as blogspot.com or WordPress.com. With these you don’t look professional and can’t choose your theme. Also, your security is less.
14. Get a professional theme for your blog. This will cost you some money in all probability; but looking professional makes all the difference in your visitor traffic.
15. Write like your talk. Use your personal vocabulary but be nice, thank people who help you.This adds personality to your blog.
16. Watch your post headlines. Make the headline catchy. Be sure your keyword phrases are there. Tease the reader with the headline.
17. As others link to you, compliment them by linking to them.
18. Don’t blog for money. Remember this is social networking, not selling. An occasional plug for you new book is fine, but lay off the sales stuff or people will leave your blog. If you are a good restaurant, post your recipes. If you are a publisher, tell how to write a good book and get it published.
19. Use lists, bullets, and subheads in your posts. This will give better search engine optimization.
20. Keep your post on-brand. What is the purpose of your blog? Stay on that track.
21. Use an photo in your comments that shows your face or personality. I prefer a facial photograph – not a distance shot or clipart.
22. Drive content from passion. See: http://freelancefolder.com/the-difference-between-fluff-and-interesting-content/.
23. If your post is out to tear something down (political, religious, educationally, health), build a vision of what the vision should be and how to get there. Give the reader vision, hope, and strategy.

Here are some good CSS3 code generators:
http://designshack.co.uk/articles/css/20-free-css3-code-generators

Here is good overview of designing a landing page for Facebook. You have examples and links to step-by-step instructions.
http://stevefogg.typepad.com/blog/2010/07/how-to-create-a-facebook-landing-page-for-your-church.html

Tips for designing a Twitter background.
http://www.psd2html.com/blog/design-custom-twitter-background.html

Great resources for learning typography:
http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/resources/learn-typography/

Here are some great resources for using Linkedin:
http://om.ly/pLLz

Here’s a great site for making you Twitter work harder:
http://mashable.com/2010/07/25/improve-twitter-experience/