The S.W.I.S.S. Money Blog | Entrepreneurship, Online Marketing and Making S.W.I.S.S. (Sales While I Sleep Soundly) Money

The 8 Best Places to Eavesdrop in the Social Media World to Gain a Competitive Advantage

by Adam Kreitman

What’s the most important, yet underutilized social media strategy?

We answered that question in the last blog post – it’s listening.

Here are the 8 best social spots, in no particular order, where you can listen to prospects, customers, critics, and competitors:

1. Twitter Search. Twitter has a search function where you can enter names, keywords and phrases to monitor. Perform a search and you’ll end up with a stream of realtime results for the term you enter.

2. Blogs. Find the blogs from thought leaders in your industry. Don’t just read the blogs, but read the comments section. Often you’ll learn much more there than from the original posts.

3. Facebook Pages. Do a search on Facebook and look for pages related to your industry. Become a fan of the active ones and see what people are sharing and talking about.

4. Social news sites. Sites like Digg, Propeller and Reddit allow users to submit snippets of stories, blog posts and other content from around the web that they find notable or interesting. Take a peak at categories on those sites related to your industry and see what people are talking about.

5. Social bookmarking sites. These are sites like StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, and Mixx that allow users to bookmark their favorite web pages. Similar to social news sites, check out the categories related to your industry and see what’s getting bookmarked and commented on.

6. Shopping and eCommerce sites. Know all those reviews that people put on sites like Amazon about the products they purchase? The information in them can be a goldmine for business owners.

7. Social video and photo sharing sites. Depending on your industry, sites like Flickr and YouTube can provide valuable information as well.

8. Question and Answer sites. People pose questions on all sorts of topics on sites like Yahoo! Answers, LinkedIn Answers, and WikiAnswers. And they get all sorts of answers in return. These sites are a good place to find out what sorts of questions people have related to your area of expertise and what kind of answers they’re getting.

One last tip to leave you with. You can significantly cut down the amount of time required to listen in on all these places by using Google Alerts and an RSS reader like Google Reader.

What social media spots do you like to stop by and listen to the conversations taking place? Let me know in the comment section below…

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The Most Underutilized, Yet Most Important, Social Media Strategy

by Adam Kreitman

I’ll admit it. I’m still a social media skeptic.

Just yesterday I was watching a video of an Internet marketing expert who I admire in which he said being on Facebook and Twitter is now mandatory for businesses.

I disagree. There are many businesses, small and large, who can and are doing very well without jumping into the world of social media, thank you very much.

Having said that, I do believe that when used smartly, social media can certainly be a great tool for small business owners.

Of all the ways you can use social media, however, I think there’s one that trumps all the others. I believe it’s the most important, yet underutilized social media strategy out there.

What is it?

Listen.

That’s it. Just listen.

Listen to your prospects.
Listen to your customers.
Listen to your competitors.
Listen to your critics.
Listen to your fans.
Listen to your industry leaders.

Social media makes it very easy to keep track of what’s being said about you, your company, your competitors, your industry, etc.

Use that to your advantage to address any complaints circulating about your business from unhappy customers.

Listen in on the conversations your prospects are having to gain key insights into what makes them tick (which is immensely important to understand when it comes to effectively marketing your business).

Keep track of your competitors’ products, services, pricing, customers complaints/praise, offers, etc. to learn what they’re doing well that you can incorporate and improve upon and what they’re not doing well that presents an opportunity for you to gain a competitive advantage.

This is no different than in the offline world (Shameless Plug Alert: You can discover why the secret to marketing online is offline by downloading my free report located at the top of the right sidebar on this page). You gain much greater knowledge and insight about how to improve your business from listening as opposed to talking.

Social media tools just let you to listen to a greater number of people and with greater ease than ever before.

In my next post, I’ll share seven of the best social media spots on the web for listening.

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YouTube Secrets: How to Get Viewers From YouTube To Your Website

by Adam Kreitman

It’s surprising that this tip should fall under that category of YouTube secrets. Yet, the majority of small business owners who post videos on YouTube fail to take this simple step that can increase the flow of traffic from their YouTube videos to their websites.

When you post a video to YouTube, you have the opportunity to add a description to your video. A snippet of this description will be displayed to the right of your video on YouTube as well as in the video search results on the site. Most people do take the time to enter some sort of description in this box. (As a side note, make sure you write a compelling, keyword rich description of your video. This helps your video’s ranking in the search results).

But, here’s the little secret that many small business owners miss:

You can insert active links to your web site, or pages within your website, in this description. And the best part is that you don’t have to know any HTML code to do it!

Simply enter the URL you want to include, starting with “http://” and YouTube will automatically turn that into an active link when your video is posted.

A few recommendations I have on this YouTube secret:

1. Put two links in your description. Make one the very first thing people see in the description so they’re sure to see it when watching your video on YouTube. Then put one more as the very last thing included in your description. You may even want to add a call to action with this second link along the lines of “For much more on this topic, visit http://OurFreakingAwesomeWebsite.com”.

2. If possible, send people to a page on your website that has your keyword in the URL. For example, if you’re targeting the keyword “dog training” send people to “http://www.SeeSpotRun.com/dogtraining.html.” Any time you can get your keyword in the description, it will help with your video’s ranking in the search engine.

Web surfers are lazy. Anything you can do to make it easier for them to get to your website, the better off you are. So don’t make people have to take the effort to remember the URL you mention in your video and type it into their browser. Simply put clickable links to your website in your YouTube video descriptions that will get them to your site with almost no effort at all (on your part or theirs!).

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WordPress Problems: Check Your WordPress Blog Sidebars In Internet Explorer Right Now!

by Adam Kreitman

If you’re using WordPress for your website or blog, this post is for you.

I’ve seen this problem twice in the last 24 hours and don’t know how many WordPress users this could be affecting so I thought I’d try to get the word out.

I never use Internet Explorer (IE) web browser, so never bother to look at my blog there. But the other day I was making some changes and thought I’d check it out in IE. To my surprise, the content in my sidebars was nowhere to be found. It was visible when viewing my site in Chrome, Firefox and Flock, but not IE.

I did a little bit of research and it looks like this is not too uncommon a problem. It’s caused when some extra code somehow ends up in the body of one of your blog posts. After doing some digging around I found an easy fix. This fix came in handy today when I was at a client site looking at their blog in IE, and lo and behold, no content was visible in the sidebars.

So how can you tell if you have the problem and what is the fix I used on my site and my client’s site?

To tell if you have the problem, open Internet Explorer and go to the home page of your your WordPress blog/website (in the two cases I saw this happen the sidebars were only missing on the home page, not the pages for individual posts).

Can you see the content that’s supposed to be in your WordPress blog’s sidebars? If so, you’re good and can leave now.

If you can’t, here’s what to do (this fix worked in the two instances I saw this problem, though I don’t know if it will work for everyone):

First, scroll down to the very bottom of your site’s home page. Chances are you’ll see the headline of one of your blog posts but the body of the post is missing.

If that’s the case, go to the Edit Post section of your WordPress site’s admin area and find the post that was cut off on your home page.

Click on that post to edit it and then click on the “HTML” tab when the post is in edit mode. There is likely a whole bunch of code there that makes no sense to you.

To get rid of it, go back to the “Visual” tab in edit post mode, select all the text from the post and copy it. Then go back to the “HTML” tab and delete everything. Lastly, go back to the “Visual” tab and paste the text of blog post that you just copied there.

All that’s left to do at this point is save the post and then visit your homepage again in IE and your sidebar content should be visible again!

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6 Ways to Overcome Click Inertia

by Adam Kreitman

A few months ago I introduced a concept I call Click Inertia.

Click Inertia is the resistance that your prospects have to moving their index finger just that few hundreths of an inch to click on your ad, blog post, email, link, video, etc.

It’s the biggest obstacle to your online marketing success because clicks make the web go ’round.

Here are 6 ways you can get your prospects to overcome Click Inertia:

Be Somebody. Do people know who you are? Have you made a name for yourself in your given niche? If so, that name recognition will go a long way to getting people to click on your links. If they’re familiar with you, and better yet, know you, like you, and trust you, they are much more likely to click on your links than if they don’t know you from, well, Adam!
Tell a Story. People love a good story. An affinity for stories is ingrained in the human brain so being a gifted storyteller is a huge plus for an online marketer. If you can weave your message into an intriguing storyline, watch the clicks come flooding in.
Write Great Headlines. How can you not click on an article with the headline “8 Ways to Make Your Message More Spreadable Than Syphillis in a Slovakian Steamroom?” This gem is from my approachable friend Scott who writes some of the most intriguing, and clickable, headlines you’ll ever see. Writing powerful, attention grabbing headlines is a surefire recipe for overcoming Click Inertia.
Make a Strong Offer. Study some of the great direct marketers like Claude Hopkins, Eugene Schwartz, or Dan Kennedy and learn how to craft a powerful offer. Place a strong, compelling offer in front of the right audience and they’ll be like moths to a flame (in the sense that they’ll be very attracted to your offer and click on it as opposed to flying to their firery deaths!).
Provide Value. Can you provide genuinely valuable information to your prospects? Can you help them solve their most pressing issues? Can you improve their lives in some way? Do that, and do that on a regular basis, and watch your prospects resistance to clicking on your emails, videos, blog posts melt away.
Eye-Catching Images. I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” I don’t know if that’s true or not, but what I do know is using eye-catching photos or pictures (especially in your banner ads) makes a huge difference in whether or not your prospects will notice them and, more importantly, click on them.

Do you have any other ways to overcome Click Inertia? Please share them in the comment section below.

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The 4-Letter Word Missing From Most Social Media Strategies That Dooms Them to Failure

by Adam Kreitman

Small business owners are rushing to the promised land of social media to save their recession ravaged businesses.

They’re frantically signing up for Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and other social media sites because they’re being told they have to be there. And social media experts are making a fortune selling the “secrets” to getting tons of Twitter followers and Facebook Fans/Friends and on and on.

But most of the small business owners flocking to social media are not going to make one penny from their efforts. The reason is because most social media plans leave out one absolutely critical piece of the money-making puzzle.

This piece of the puzzle is a four letter word that seems to get fouler and fouler to most of the population with each passing year. The mere suggestion of it makes most social media experts shudder in their tweets.

What is this vulgar word?

Sell.

Yep, I said it. Sell.

If you want to make money, you have to sell. Whether it’s on the phone, face to face, in print or in the world of the Internet and social media, to make money you have to sell.

Sell yourself.
Sell your products.
Sell your services.

Last year, there was a huge infoproduct launch online about how to make money with social media. The promotions teased prospects with headlines along the lines of “Discover the Secrets of How I Got 4 Bazillion Twitter Followers in 11 Months.”

What I found interesting about the launch of this product about making money from social, however, is that they didn’t actually make money from social media. All the heavy selling was done using time tested direct marketing principles that were delivered using email autoresponders and landing pages with video sales letters and long copy sales letters.

No doubt that using social media and, perhaps more importantly, building a large email list, led to the success of this launch. But the money was made because of the more traditional direct marketing and sales principles that were used.

Yes, you can use social media to connect with customers and prospects. You can use social media to build relationships. You can use social media to get people to know, like and trust you.

But at the end of the day, if you want to make money (and that’s at least part of the reason you’re in business in the first place, right?!), you have to offer something that satisfies a need in a marketplace, you have to know how to craft an offer, and you have to SELL.

[One last note: if the thought of selling makes your skin crawl, you don't (and shouldn't) have to sell in an unethical, sleezy kind of way. My friend Gill is an expert in helping people sell with honesty and integrity.]

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The Secret of the Tactical Triangle

by Adam Kreitman

When it comes to the world of Internet marketing gurus, there are very few I trust and fewer that I follow on a regular basis.

One of the exceptions to that rule is Perry Marshall. He built his reputation as an AdWords expert, but he also provides some phenominal insights in many other areas of marketing. His newsletter is the only one that I’m willing to pay for on a regular basis.

In his latest newsletter, he described a concept called the “Tactical Triangle.” This concept breaks marketing down into three core areas: Traffic, Conversion and Economics.

I read the article a few times because it’s a very powerful concept. However, instead of trying to explain it here, I’ll let you hear it directly from Perry himself because he’s made a good chunk of that article available on his blog. You can read it by clicking here.

It’s definitely worth a look if you do any sort of marketing online or offline.

Note: The link above is an affiliate link. It’s free to read the article, however, if you decide you’d like to buy something from Perry Marshall in the future (which I have done a few times because I think his stuff is that good), I will get a commission from your purchase.

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The Single Biggest Challenge You Have To Overcome When Marketing Online

by Adam Kreitman

It’s the simplest of movements. And one that takes almost no effort at all.

I’m talking about moving your index finger a few hundreths of an inch to click the button on your mouse (or click the touch pad on your laptop).

Yet this simple task is your biggest obstacle to success in online marketing.

The problem is not that the task itself is any more difficult for your prospects to perform than it is for you. The problem is your prospect’s resistance to doing it.

Overcoming this resistance is something I’ve dubbed “Click Inertia” and it is your single biggest challenge as an online marketer.

The dictionary definition of inertia is the “resistance or disinclination to motion, action, or change.” And that’s precisely what you’re up against on your blog, website, social media sites, etc. when it comes to getting people to click.

Your online marketing success in dependent on getting prospects to get past their inertia and click on your email, pay per click ad, search engine listing, video, local business listing, affiliate link, Buy Now button, become your fan on Facebook, etc.

Bottom line is clicks make the web go round and for you to make a sale online takes at least one click, or more likely, a bunch of them.

This challenge of overcoming click inertia is one that’s getting more difficult by that day as the amount content, good and bad, competing for your prospects attention expands at a exponential pace.

So your #1 job as an Internet marketer is to give prospects a real compelling reason to get past their Click Inertia and move their finger than few hundreths of an inch.

How do you do that? Answering that very question will be the topic of my next blog post.

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Online Marketing Lesson From the High Chair

by Adam Kreitman

Meal time is a challenge in our house.

Besides literally being allergic to more foods than not, my daughter is a highly finicky eater. In the course of trying to get her to eat the foods she can safely eat, I’ve made an interesting observation.

It’s not so much the food itself she’s opposed to, but the presentation.

Those peas that are sitting there ignored on the high chair tray? Put them in a bowl and they get gobbled up.

Won’t touch small bite-size pieces of carrots? Cut up some carrots lengthwise instead and they’ll get downed instantly.

Rejecting the applesauce I try to feed her? Put a spoon in her hand and she readily opens up her mouth and finishes applesauce down to the last drop.

Same food. Different presentation. Completely different result.

Your marketing efforts are no different.

If you’re having trouble selling your product or service, the reason may not be the product or service itself. It could very well be your presentation.

If long sales copy isn’t effective in selling your product, try breaking it up and delivering it in a series of emails. Or use videos instead of text.

If you’re not getting any takers on your eBook, maybe converting it into a audio course will do the trick.

If no one is signing up for your membership site, try breaking the material into smaller chunks and selling them as stand alone products.

Technology makes it faster and easier to try out different ways of packaging and presenting products and services to your prospects. So if what you’re doing isn’t working, try changing the way your presenting it and see if that can boost your sales.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go figure out a way to make broccoli appetizing to a 16 month old!

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Google Local Search Update: Lowly PPC Guy Gets A Big Slap And An Important Reminder

by Adam Kreitman

I was kind of expecting this.

When I posted my story about how I out-SEO’d the local SEO firms, I was #2 for the search term “St. Louis online marketing” and #1 for both “St. Louis Internet marketing” and “St. Louis marketing” in the Google 10-Pack.

Then, just 2 days later, I was #6 for “St. Louis online marketing” and not even on the first page for the other two terms.

Why?

I don’t know.

Maybe Google changed their algorithm for the local search rankings.

Maybe a ticked off competitor reported my listing to Google because they didn’t like me using the keyword “Internet marketing” in front of my company name.

Or maybe there’s some other reason that triggered this fall from grace.

In any case, it was fun while it lasted.

And, more importantly, getting “slapped” by Google for whatever reason gave me a reminder of why I chose to focus on PPC instead of SEO in the first place.

Here’s the deal folks.

If your business and/or business’ online marketing efforts relies on free traffic, you don’t have a business. You have a mirage.

Why?

Well, what happens when the traffic stops? (And I say “when” not “if” because it’s gonna happen.)

It could happen because Google changes their algorithm.

It could happen because the competition gets better at SEO than you.

It could happen because you (or your SEO firm) get lazy once you get that coveted first page ranking which causes you to tumble in the rankings.

But whatever the reason, if all you’re doing is relying on free traffic, the effect is devastating. In fact, here’s a story of a local business who fell off the first page of Google and ended up going out of business.

If you know, however, that you can profitably pay for traffic to your website, it’s a whole ‘nother ballgame.

Because you know you can always buy more traffic. If traffic from one source dries up for whatever reason, you can buy it from somewhere else.

When you rely on “free” traffic, however, you just can’t turn the traffic faucet on that quickly.

One of the main reasons I was drawn to Google AdWords (pay per click advertising) in the first place is control.

You simply have more control over your advertising efforts when you pay for them. If you know you can pay $1 in advertising and get $1.01 or $2 or $10 in return, you are in control.

Then your business’ success is not determined by Google or anyone else. Because you can always buy more traffic. From Google. From Yahoo!. From MSN. From web sites. From blogs. Even from offline mediums.

When you know you can convert traffic into sales, you’ve got yourself a solid online marketing plan for your business and have firmly put yourself in control of your business’ success.

Listen, I know how appealing the thought of free traffic is. Especially for a small business. Especially in times like these.

But there are no guarantees with free traffic. You can spend months and months and pay an SEO specialist $1000s of dollars to try to get your business ranked #1 for your chosen keywords.

But you may never get there.

And even if you do get there, one little algorithm tweak by Google can send you spiraling back to oblivion.

To me, that’s an incredibly risky strategy.

Now my point here is not to say SEO isn’t important. It is, and will remain an essential part of any online marketing campaign.

But if it’s all you rely on and if you don’t first prove that you can profitably buy traffic and can turn that traffic faucet on at will, you’re putting your business in a very dangerous position.

Just one last point here. And it’s about diversity in marketing.

If I was relying solely on Google Local Search for traffic and leads for Words That Click, I’d be screwed about now. Luckily that’s not the case for me.

But some businesses do rely on one source to drive all their traffic. If that’s the case for you, my advice is to diversify. Quickly!

It’s critical that you have traffic coming from different sources – paid search, SEO, articles, videos, social media and more.

Yes, there will be one that you probably focus on more than the others and will probably drive more traffic than the others. But if it’s your only source of traffic (especially if it’s free) you’re in an extremely risky state.

So diversify your online (and offline) marketing efforts. Be wary of building an online marketing strategy that’s based on free traffic. And though I don’t plan to devote too much more time to it, I’ve still got a few more tricks up my sleeve so I expect to be back on top of the local 10-Pack soon!