Maria Reyes-McDavis

Direct traffic is something often missed by internet marketing and online business owners.  Many chase internet marketing statistics and the various forms of new traffic they can get from everything -- blog marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization -- but they miss the massive information found in the direct traffic statistics, as well as what it means when you lack or have an abundance of direct traffic.

Learn more about how you should pay more attention to direct traffic as an internet marketer or online business owner...

And, it works very well.  The benefit is taking the best of both worlds, social media and internet marketing -- to reveal a great hybrid 2.0 marketing system that socializes and captures leads as you build relationships.  Auto-responders are a great automation tool, to help you manage your new social media relationships more efficiently and effectively.

Check it out:
Blog Marketing and List Building Auto-Responders Work to Increase Conversions

Maria Reyes-McDavis

www.Hybrid20Marketing.com
www.MarketingMastersGuide.com

Great tips for helping your blog or website get consistent traffic, rather than those spikes and valleys that most get. The original post from ProBlogger is a great read, with notes from the Marketing Masters Guide about key points that really work.  The whole point is to build consistent, targeted traffic -- and not rely on the action for traffic equation that most bloggers and website owners get into.

21 Ways to Make Your Website or Blog Sticky

Maria Reyes-McDavis

www.Hybrid20Marketing.com
www.MarketingMastersGuide.com

… period. Okay, for the newbies, let’s cover what social media marketing really is. Not what the buzzards online say, but what it is and what it is not:

• Social media marketing is not necessarily new technology. Yes, the way we use and the technologies all have tweaked, but its basically the way we social media market that has changed. Video, audio, communities, blogs, forums, and more have all been around — now they are being integrated by leaps and bounds to create totally interactive experiences for the user and marketers.
• Social media marketing includes an entirely different mindset with regards to how you think of your audience. Social media marketing engages your audience in conversations and interactions, that ultimately lead to many marketing benefits.
• What makes social media marketing special? As with anything in business, the money is in leveraging. Leveraging the power of other peoples’ money has made millionaires over the last centuries. Leveraging the power of a VA, has given more solopreneurs to have time to develop and grow their business. In a similar way, social media marketing helps marketers, solopreneurs, authors, writers, coaches, consultants, and other online entrepreneurs leverage the Internet’s social media technologies to market on a whole new, much more expanded level.

What are examples of social media marketing?

• We all know the staple, MySpace, but have you considered such social networking communities as Facebook, Live Spaces, Bebo, and LinkedIn among others. Social networking sites allow you to “network” online with your audience. Initiating conversations, branding your products/services, and gaining online visibility are all key functions of these sites. Not to mention, you can get some great back-links from your efforts, which will help when trying to get your website ranked in search engines.
• Micro Blogging Sites - these are a cross between blogs (which search engines love), instant messaging, and social bookmarking sites. Twitter and Pownce lead the pack in this category. The great thing about these sites? They allow you to not only connect like a social networking site, but also micro blog - sending updates to your connections. As well, Twitter allows you to auto-update your blog posts. While each are not heavily ranked by Google, yet. They both allow you to communicate in meaningful ways with your connections. Companies like Dell, JetBlue, Carnival, and even news networks (think CNN, MSNBC) use micro-blogging sites to communicate with their audiences.
• Mutlimedia sites: Sites like YouTube and Revver, provide an excellent way to interact with your potential audience in mutlimedia forms (audio and video). And, if you haven’t noticed lately, videos have been getting great top rankings in Google. They are also great for easy embedding into your blogs and websites. People also share these videos.
• Social Bookmarking sites: Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, OnlyWire, among others, allow you to interactive with your audience by sharing your favorite online stuff. Everytime you bookmark a great site, blog, or whatever, not only does your entire connection list have access to your bookmarks (to love and share, hopefully), but they also give you great marketing leverage when you recieve more votes. The point is to get your online related materials into the front of your potential audience.

This certainly isn’t an exhaustive list, and I’m sure there are many more developments on the horizon. The point is, social media marketing, as a whole offers more opportunities for online marketing, online branding, building online publicity, ensuring full online visibility, building expert status, and increasing conversions based on credibility. Each of these is critical, as a component to an overall strategy, to achieve your online goals.

Many of social media marketing’s opportunities are free or low-cost, as well. Except for the time involved (or money if outsourcing), social media marketing is a very cost-effective way to create an overall, long-term strategy to online marketing.

The greatest part of social media marketing - its open access. From big to small, all online entrepreneurs can find a mix of social media marketing tools that would benefit them. The goal? To find locations online, where your audience can be found, to initiate conversations and encourage interest.

The key? Doing it right. As with anything online, social media marketing, has alot of immitators, quick-rich schemes, and other ploys that can be costly and time-consuming. Always remember your audience. If they are not there, is it really a conversation?
Maria Reyes-McDavis
www.MarketingMastersGuide.com
www.Hybrid20Marketing.com

Let's connect:
http://twitter.com/websuccessdiva

Sorry to disappoint… chew on this.  The fact that your reading this blog, is likely because you’ve read that headline (probably a ga-zillion times online), and some little twinkle of hope comes to mind that this may be the time, the headline fits, right?  Again, my apologies for disappointing.  But you’ve proved my point.

Huh?  Okay, if you can’t see where I’m going, here’s some questions for you, you know, just to get the gears grinding:

• How many “make money online” ebooks do you own?
• How many teleseminars have you signed up for, opt-in lists, etc?
• How many un-finished projects do you have sitting stagnant?  Or maybe a better question, have you ever found a “make money online” idea and actually made money?  (I’m not talking about a $2, $14 check here and there)

My point… yes, I promise I have a point… but, first… here’s the real question:

• Do you actually believe that by following the “next big secret” in online money making, hopping from one “secret of success” to another — that your actually going to build an online money-making empire???
• More importantly, do you really think these gurus give everything they got to help you make money online and if, they really did share a so-called secret, do you think you’re the only one their sharing it with?

I’ve recently read a great post by Caroline Middlebrook that outlines my point - stop following the next secret, special sauce mix to success and get to doing the work, like the rest of us!  “Keep Your Dirty Little Secrets to Yourself!” is an awesome read and definitely will give you something to think about.

To Your Success,

Maria Reyes-McDavis

The Solopreneur’s Online Marketing Success Coach