To all my readers. Whilst ViralKing is a good concept, I feel I can post better on my own domain name as I can share much more related to all niches.

Please Visit and subscribe to my RSS Feed there as that is where I will make most of my posts now: http://www.colinklinkert.com/

What can you do to become a pro-blogger?

Well, you need to get a lot of traffic to your blog.

And now you thinking….’I already know that, but HOW am I going to do it? I have some trade secrets to let you in on. By using these trade secrets, you too, can become a pro blogger.

Today, you are going to learn some great tricks of the trade to grab the attention of StumbleUpon, and use their platform to set your blog on fire. These tips and tricks will get you anywhere from the hundreds up to the thousands of StumbleUpon visitors each day.

StumbleUpon does lean toward some niches more than others, and you need to use this to work for your advantage. You will find that StumbleUpon can be one of the greatest viral marketing tool out there. So here are some tips:

• If you do have a niche that is lacking in the mass appeal, StumbleUpon will be a great boost for you where the others won’t. Digg uses a broad forum which keeps their power from weakening in traffic. StumbleUpon works a bit differently by creating more specific categories, providing a more targeted audience.

• Write posts that appeal to the particular social media, if you go for the general appeal, you are going to lose your followers. For instance, Del.icio.us likes anything that their users prefer, Digg likes the appeal of the masses. You have to have content that is going to get thousands of hits, or you won’t become a pro-blogger.

• When you are writing for StumbleUpon, you don’t need to worry about pleasing the masses, matter of fact, you benefit more by sticking with your niche, yes, even your small ones, and this will bring you some highly targeted traffic.

• So, write your content for your niche, not for the general public. By doing this, you will increase your chances to your post will be submitted to receive more traffic in a more specific category.

In another blog, I will go into the types of posts you should and should not be making. I will go into the types of content and the things you can do to make your blog more appealing to StumbleUpon.

You Know About SEO, But, Do You Know About SMO?

SEO is Search Engine Optimization, which is known to most Internet marketers throughout the world. But there are many who are not totally aware of SMO, which is a new term than SEO. SMO is a branch off the SEO tree, but there are many who are in the Internet marketing business that are not aware of this wonderful tool to increase their popularity in the search engines.

What is SMO? It is Social Media Optimization

As you would use SEO on the search engines, SMO will work on the social media sites. As you may well know, the Social Media sites to not focus on the business aspect of the Internet, but they do focus on social interaction such as the blogs, forums, communities, video websites, music sites, etc…

Search Engine Optimization is great in providing long term ranking to your websites, whereas, SMO’s are great at creating a viral marketing buzz to your business. You can look at this as a great gossip columnist spreading the buzz or news about your site, and watching the buzz take off like fire. You will be creating not only a buzz, but bringing in visitors just out of sheer curiosity.

Are There Any Disadvantages of SMO I Should Be Aware Of?

Yes, there is a drawback and that is the speed of which it takes off then fades. This works like the news, it comes out, hits the papers, then becomes old news. SEO, however, is very effective and permanent, giving it a higher ranking among Internet marketers.

But what happens when you combine the two, SMO and SEO? You then create a great partnership linking your website to some high quality content, while the website is named on the social media sites. You will be creating a win/win situation, using great content which is essential to both the SEO as well as the SMO techniques.

There are a number of websites that are social media sites which include rich content. One of these sites is Yahoo! Answers. This site answers queries while promoting their own websites indirectly.

It is important to have search engine optimization in promoting your website and making it visible to the viewers, however, coupled with social media optimization, you will reap the rewards of higher results than SEO techniques alone.

How To Get SMO Going For You

I am going to recommend you using Google Gadgets, which are tiny bits of code that can be downloaded for free right from Google. You can apply these Google gadgets as your own signature as you post on blogs or forums, attracting interest to your website, all at no cost to you.

Another option is to visit a few of the social media network sites and create your own page. This is simple to do and won’t take up a lot of your time. You may find that there are more people on the Internet that share your same interests. Send them a note with your cute Google gadget in your signature.

Social marketing is an ideal way to get a target market. If you want to direct people to your website, you need only visit some of the different social network sites on the Internet and make a page. This can be done in a matter of minutes. Then find others who share your interests and send them a note with your own personal signature, complete with a cute little Gadget. Gadgets can be customized and make a fun signature at the end of your post. They can be used to link others to your website.

Visit relevant websites and forums, creating your own ‘buzz’ just by using SMO. And as you search out relevant blogs and forums, don’t limit yourself, take a chance on the .org, .gov., .edu and so on…there is more out there than just the dot.coms. As for the .edu sites, these are a great market as they are typically the colleges and Universities.

CONTENT IS KEY!

Create excellent and keyword rich content which will help you with search engine optimization, which will also help you in your brand marketing. You want to use the Google Gadgets, providing ample exposure to your website, creating your own ‘buzz’ and increasing your ranks on the search engines. You will create your Google Gadget for your product or website, use it as your post to the relevant forums and blogs. You will soon be the hot topic on the web.

When do Internet Marketers become Rabid Dogs?

When a high quality product of extreme, real value is created and launched by a very well respected and successful industry figure, who offers great backend prizes and affiliate commissions…. Thats when!

No doubt over the last 12 hours you have got 10 or more emails about a new product offering, heck I guess i’ve got over 15 in that time. but why, that is the question?

Well, for starters, marketers that respect their lists, only want to promote the best to them, in this case, I personally paid a tonne for the information now being given away free.

The next reason is the incentive, in this case, backend OTO’s are shown ranging from lower cost up to $800, these all pay 50% to the affiliate, not to mention the fact that Mike in this case is giving away cool prizes for those ‘big’ enough to get up to the top of the promotional table so to speak (I think top 10 get in there)

Third, Mike can afford to do this, as even though it is a free product, it could well be his most successful and profitable ever. Lets assume 10,000 signup – now forget about the OTO’s (which would bring in a lot of fast cash) it is also a continuity program, meaning that until you cancel, you will be sent a magazine with some quality information each month. Assume a 50% drop out rate, that leaves 5,000 members each netting Mike’s company $15 a month (after expenses)  Thats  $75,000 a month recurring income. Not too bad I wouldn’t have thought but Mike is in a position to do that because of the incredibly awesome information and products he has created and is able to pass on as value.

So the customer gets a 7 figure education dirt cheap, the affilite gets good rewards and the creator is well taken care of, Win-Win-Wins like this tend to turn the industry upside down for the period of the launch.

I know it did for me, I don’t expect to get in the prizes, but I still booked a domain name: http://www.7figuresecrets.org and then went to work building inbound links and getting listings in the search engines. If you search on google for:

7figuresecrets
7figure secrets bonus
7figuresectres review

you will see that my site is up there with many listings in google. I will be releasing through a series of blog posts how you too can do this in the near future.

For Now… If you still haven’t signed up after getting BOMBARDED with emails about it, do so now, trust me, its worth it: 7 Figure Secrets 

This post is a follow on from the post I made a few days ago, click here to read it first

Get That Business Coming Your Way!

You like the idea of an online newsletter, and you are beginning to see how this will help you bring in more business to your website. But you do have a few concerns, which is perfectly natural. You need to know that everyone who starts something new, has their own concerns and fears.

Some of the most common question are;

1. What if I don’t have anything interesting or relevant to write?
2. Can I keep the quality up over a long period of time?
3. How do I make links from my pictures to my website?

These are just a sample of the questions that are asked…but never fear! This is so much easier than it sounds.

The thing you need to be concerned about IS WHEN you are going to DO IT! Stop with the excuses, just begin and you will realize how simple it really is.

1. You do need to remember that you must always offer something that is of interest or very useful to your reader.
2. Keep your newsletter fairly short. So many these days have more than enough emails to read, and they don’t have time to read a long newsletter. They will like the fact that they can read it quickly and get something from it.
3. You want the best format possible for your follow up emails, so put some thought into this process. You want a model that you can use week after week, which by the way makes your job easier.Below are a few ideas that you can use as your standard format, choose one or combine them, whatever fits your personality.

   I. Tip of the Month

   Here you will come up with some great tips that focus on your main products. Do a bit of brainstorming giving you two or three months of content. If you are focusing on an area that you are familiar with, it should be easy. Some of the topics can be offering and explaining the problem, then offer a tip that will solve the problem.

   II. The Famous “Top Ten” list

   This format is so popular because it works. If you are an expert in Doll Collecting, then write your article about “Top Ten Reasons to start Doll Collecting”. Keep your sentences short.

   III. Three Different Ways to….

   Sometimes it can be difficult to find ten ways to do something, but you can always find three ways to do it. This can be done alternately with your Top Ten newsletters.

   IV. The “Before and After” approach

   You can use this much like you would the “Tip of the Month” format. You will introduce a problem with the solution. This format works best when you can include case studies which is an excellent way if interacting with your customers on a direct level. You may even ask your customers for some examples of their ‘before and after’ and if they will give their permission to share it with your readers. If your format is in text only, you can include a link to show pictures on your website.

   V. What about “Checklists”

   If you want to share something new with your readers, a great way to do this is with checklists. Be sure to include all the steps, and these check lists will help save your readers a lot of time, which they will love. You will begin by writing a short paragraph which introduces your topic, include your list, the end it with some final tips. You can format your entire newsletter on the checklist formula, or present it randomly.

   Now you can see that online newsletters aren’t as difficult as you first thought. Get your list and get started, no excuses.

Bring in Even More Business!

Today I want to talk about online newsletters and how these can bring in even more business for you. This is a very cost-effective way to market and will not eat up all of your time.

Whether you are mailing your newsletters out through the post office, or sending them out via email, this is a great way to increase the recognition of your brand, bringing in repeat business and sharing your experience and story and success with your readers.

1. You are going to first put your list together of your current customers along with any potential customers. Any names that you have collected from inquiries, direct mail response cards, etc…that you have from the beginning of your marketing endeavors, will be the start of your list. If you don’t have a list, and you have some money set aside, you can purchase a list, giving you names of the best potential customers.

1. If you are doing an online newsletter, it is best to include a content manager system. This will make your editing much easier with a newsletter template, your graphics and giving it your own style. You will have a little bit to learn, but you will have a lot of fun doing it. If you need help through the process, call a college student, they will be a great resource. Another option would be to hire somebody at Guru.com at great cheap prices.
2. Next you want to have a feature that allows you to track bounce back emails to help you manage. your list, deleting these names from your list. It is really important to keep your list up to date. Now, your goal is to increase sales, but you need to make this an easy process for your readers because they all have very busy schedules, so you need to show off your products in the very best manner.\Below are some tips to help you do this and achieve greater financial success from your email marketing.

• Include pictures all throughout
• Show details in these pictures
• The pictures need to be bright and cheery
• Make the picture a link to the sales page or product information page.
• Be sure to add a text link which is associated with your product picture which links to the online product page
• Include the ability to order directly from your newsletter with purchase buttons
• When you have a new product, make sure you have direct links in the website, making it easy for them to get there without any extra navigating.If you still have concerns about your new online newsletter, …just know you can do it…I will go over tomorrow some of your biggest questions..such as “What do I say?”, or “How much time will this take?”, or “How do I set up the links?”. Well, we will answer these questions in our next blog. Stay tuned…..

ARE MUSICIANS TAKING ON SOCIAL NETWORKING ON THE WEB?

If You Would Like to Connect With Some of the Top Musicians and create your own Social Network at the same time; Then Read On…

If you are one that loves music, and would love to network with these artists, then you just may have your opportunity. Many of the artists, such as 50 Cent, Ludacris, Kylie Minogue and many more have decided to move away from the vast space of MySpace, to a new alternative site, a site that is destined to be a star on Web 2.0. This site is Ning, a place where you can connect with some of your favorite artists.

How Does Ning Work and Will It Benefit My Viral Marketing Campaign?

Ning was founded by Marc and Gina Bianchini in October 2004 to provide an opportunity for you and me the ability to create our own social networks for anything and everything. Ning is the power behind the largest number of the Internet’s social networks, and social networking is all about viral marketing.

You will have the opportunity to use the latest and greatest in social networking, features that are truly customizable by you to fit your needs. This is a platform that provides all the features you need to be a success in the social networking arena. The only thing you need to bring to the table is your time and determination. With this you will be able to build your own social network. This is not a prefitted site, this is one you create yourself.

What is the Purpose of Ning?

The founders first started Ning on a very simple premise, they wanted to provide a way for anyone to create their own social networking site. They were expecting some amazing results and they got that and so much more! They have artists, athletes, musicians , educators, journalists, students, alumni, hobbyists, and any other group of interests you can imagine. The diversity of these groups is amazing and quite profound.

As you check out the Ning website, you will find a very informative FAQ section, where you can learn about their Network Creators community.

Are you a business or company that wants to promote your private label? If so, check out Ning for Business.

You will find these features on the Ning website as posted there:

# Members can invite new members, meet new people, and make new friends on your network.

# Full message center with address book importing from Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail.

# See your network members when they are online now.

# Customizable profile pages just for you.

# Photo slideshows, video players, music players, and network badges, that can be embedded anywhere on the Internet, seamlessly funneling new people to your network.

# Set your own different privacy settings for every photo, video, group, or blog post they contribute.

# RSS feeds of your network’s features, such as members, discussions, photos, videos, music/podcasts, and blog posts.

# Got a logo or brand? Add it to make your network totally unique.

# Choose your own theme from the options provided then customize them to make them your own.

# Public or private, that is totally up to you!

# Choose how your photos, video player, music players, and network badges appear on your site.

# Do you want to ask your members some profile questions before they join? You get to create this, and the questions will be private as well as the answers, for your eyes only.

# Do you juse Facebook? Enable “one-click” Facebook Promotion so your members can add photo slideshows, video players, and music/podcasts from your network seamlessly into Facebook.

# You have the ability to moderate photos and videos before you post them.

# Choose from a set of supported languages (English, Chinese, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spanish) or translate your social network into any unsupported language by changing one file in the code.

# Member profile questions created by you for your network.

# Member blog posts with photos, files, and widgets.

# Manage blog posts and moderate comments.

# Choose the option to publish in the future.

# Ability to customize the appearance of member profile pages.

# Option to add widgets to profile page.

Take advantage of this great social networking platform and create for yourself an even bigger and better network and keep your viral marketing campaign on fire!

Hey You! Give Me A Hi5

Another Social Networking site to check out!

Hi5 has just announced the birth of its developer platform as a well supported open social network. This is extremely popular in Latin America, and has become a founding member of a non-profit organization “OpenSocial Foundation”, which was announced last week by Google, MySpace, and Yahoo.

Hi5 has a very interesting platform in which this is the first OpenSocial supporting network that offers API messaging.

This means that this site can include invitations, notifications, friend updates, and any other methods that will benefit your viral marketing techniques. This is a function that is not currently being offered on MySpace.

Mark Pincus of Zynga, who is a maker of social gaming, makes this comment to the press, in where he stated: “ “hi5 is taking the right approach to launching their platform. By opening some reasonable viral channels and making the social map available to developers and their users, hi5 is highly likely to become one of the biggest application platforms and see widespread user adoption. This is key for social games, such as Poker and Triumph, which quickly enables users to start and play games with their friends.”

So far, hi5 has announced that almost 8,000 developers have registered to build some great applications on this site. They are able to do this through their canvas pages.

According to Mashables edition on March 31, 2008 — 06:10 AM PDT — by Adam Ostrow — he stated; “One additional stat from hi5 that piqued my interest: despite having a reported 80 million users, hi5 claims that it has only 25% active user overlap with any other top social networks. This isn’t especially surprising given the network is usually cited for being popular outside the US, but highlights the significant reach OpenSocial offers.”

There are several categories and groups to be found on hi5, and according to Adam Ostrows article, they are;

Alumni, Schools and Education (336883)

Automotives (17163)

Business (22215)

Cities and Neighborhoods (70942)

Companies and coworkers (16651)

Computer and Internet (19928)

Countries and Regional (23975)

Cultures and Community (63502)

Entertainment and Arts (72743)

Family & Home (13821)

Fashion and Beauty (31554)

Games (34396)

Government and Politics (16056)

Health and Wellness (9560)

Hobbies and Crafts (29674)

Music (161750)

Pets and Animals (17226)

Religion & Beliefs (36762)

Romance and Relationships (206525)

Science and History (7972)

Sports and Recreations (91579)

Other (194086)

We need to welcome our new neighbors in our Internet Community, and their company name is Zloop.

According to Mashable: ZLoop provides nearly unlimited enterprise-like collaboration and social interaction functionality in a free, mass market solution everyone can use.

Who In The Heck Is Zloop?

Zloop is social interaction site that allows an unlimited amount of loops whether they be in your business, friends, family members, any type of group you want to put together. There are many social interaction websites that are fun, like Facebook or Myspace, but they aren’t great for creating real productivity. Ning is a great site for community interaction on a single basis, but for group interaction, it’s not the best solution. This is a new beginning as far as online collaboration tools are concerned.

On Zloop, anyone can join, create their own social network, and allow anyone .to enter. This can be a group that is based totally on business, or just casual family. That is the great feature about Zloop, you can transform it into whatever you want it to become.

You Set The Terms For Membership In Your Loop

Because it will be your site, you set the criteria as far as members and user contribution. You decide what content is shared, including files, notes, images. This is a site that functions on the functionality of the group instead of relying on third party applications or widgets.

You will also find that this site is easy to navigate through, encouraging activity on all levels. This is going to be a great productivity tool over the networks for collaboration. Ning will not be focusing on this aspect, rather keeping it on a simpler level.

This is so easy to use that anyone can do it. Each member will establish own account, then once invited to a group, they can join it. Each member also has the option of starting their own loops. This is really a great interaction tool to help your business grow.

What you will be getting from your loops is more relationships, which in turn creates centralized aggregation with identity management and privacy in your interaction. This provides you a fantastic model for bringing together many through daily interaction.

How Does a Loop Work?

You will create your own loop which will be your own online community. You can use your loop as a folder for interaction with others in your community. You can have a loop as large as 10,000 people and as small as 3. This program is designed to support many hundreds and even thousands throughout the coming years. You may have some that are continually active, and some that may sit inactive for a while, but will keep a record of your past interactions.

How Does Zloop Work for Relationships?

As you and I know, relationships are your communication with another person, and Zloop gives you a place to foster these relationships, keeping tabs on colleagues, staying in contact with friends and acquaintances. You also have the options to interact with one another with multiple content types.

Can you imagine trying to navigate between hundreds of different loops, trying to keep relationships going in every direction? You wouldn’t be able to do it if you had to do this independently, however, Zloop provides an inbox that lets you know about any activities happening in any of your loops. You will be able to respond instantly as well as interact in any of the activities. You will also have the ability to control what information you receive from your loop.

What About Privacy?

You will have the ability to create any identity you choose, and submit your information to each loop according to your wants and desire. Each loop is a single network, and your interaction will remain only in that loop.

From what I can tell, Zloop may be another great way for you to enhance your viral marketing and create your buzz. Zloop is a new beginning of a more enhanced marketing venue.

You Think Message Dance Is Awesome, Check It Out Now!

I recently wrote a blog about MessageDance. Now I have even more information for you and how to take this great tool to a new level.

You now get to take advantage of MessageDance from anywhere and everywhere on your own blog.

What is Message Dance?

MessageDance began as a portable message wall, such as for comments, guest book entries, like your Facebook Wall.

In my first blog about Message Dance, you learned about the many possibilities of this new message aggregator which was used on Facebook and other social networks. You had the ability to use their new portable You Tube playlist which enabled you to share your videos across the social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. You could use your MessageDance widget to share your updates via email or through MessageDance.com.

GREAT NEWS!

Well, the great news is that now they have progressed out of the message widget and moved up into the world of social media with a slew of sharing options which still include your You Tube playlists.

You are now able to join the world of blogging and use your MessageDance widget to display your blog posts.

You have a variety of ways to submit your blog posts; you can use Facebook message tool, Amazon, Iphone, YouTube, Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and your Google Reader! Wow, this is exciting!

You may be thinking yeah…this is just a blogging integration platform which uses the submission process, but you are not correct in that assumption. You are able to create a blog post from many media sites as well as email clients. MessageDance, however, can be your existing blog on two of the major platforms which are WordPress and Blogger. You will also be able to use their media attachment tool which will enable you to turn your content into an incredible rich media blog.

We know in this business that blogs are very powerful, which is why you see so many. If you are a social network user, I am sure you have a blog of some sort. Blogs are a conversation, and they keep us informed on the world and what’s going on. But as you know, this is a big job keeping it updated for your readers.

MessageDance has created a huge theme which allows its users to blog content from any social networking site they happen to be on. You get to take advantage of their blog posting capabilities from all the popular social networking sites.

Watch this great video on MessageDance and learn how simple it is to use.

So what you have now is no longer just a message aggregator, but an ever-growing broadcaster which can be used across a variety of networks. You will love the re-publishing tools which are totally automated.

Continue to watch MessageDance evolve and grow and watch your own viral marketing campaign grow right along with it.

Have You Heard of Message Dance?

Another Great Way To Enhance Your Viral Marketing Strategy…

You may have heard of a new message site called MessageDance which was launched a few months ago. At first the site didn’t have a great integration option for multiple users, but they did have a great underlying concept as well as huge potential for its application methods used on a variety of web services.

Now, MessageDance announces some new feature updates that goes great with their added integration with Twitter.

Today, MessageDance is announcing a few more new feature updates to its service that go along nicely with its recently added Twitter integration. For starters, there’s a new portable YouTube Playlist. This lets you share videos with your friends across various networks, like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. Updates can be displayed in your MessageDance widget, and it can be shared via email, or blasted to everyone, using the ever-handy “friends @ messagedance.com.” Images have been added too, along with documents, all for sharing purposes, through MessageDance’s expanding portal.

Will this approach work, or is this incorporating too many life-streaming tools into an existing third-party service? I imagine that such integration doesn’t hurt. It looks to compete, on varying levels, with social browsing, micro-blogging tools, ShareThis options present on blogs and websites, Box.net, and even Yahoo’s latest Life hub (which has yet to launch).

I think MessageDance is still finding the best way in which it can fit into social media as an accessible tool that makes sharing easy across the web, so the new features, many of which have been requested by users, should further MessageDance on its journey.

What’s the buzz?

As you know, the Internet can be a very fickle place. The news changes, as well as the interests and trends, on a daily basis and it is difficult to keep up with it all. When you are trying to keep up with the interests of your readers, staying on top of the hot topics, you need to be able to find this information easily and quickly.

One of the great sites to visit and catch up on all the gossip, news, trends, etc…is YahooBuzz. Here you will be able to see the most popular searches on Yahoo.

You will be able to find the most popular stories based on votes, searches and many other vital factors. You will them neatly arranged in their own categories for your convenience and ease of search.

If you come across a story you like, vote for it. The more votes a story receives, the farther up it goes on the list.

What are the Internet Marketing Trends?

As with anything else, the Internet market goes in trends as well. I am sure you also know
that these trends are constantly changing. There are three trends that offer you the best opportunities to move ahead in the Internet marketing business.

Even though the Internet has been around for a while now, the market is still pretty new.

You will be surprised to find out that only 18% of our world’s population even has Internet access. This is changing however, mainly in Asia right now.

Any market that has anything to do with technology are at the top, which will include the entrepreneurs or what some may call the ‘Internet geeks’.

Next the market will flow into the mainstream which is the largest portion of our population, and where most of the opportunities are.

Internet marketing seminars are gaining more and more favor with the masses. It used to be the ‘geeks’ and computer ‘gurus’ that only were attending these functions, but not anymore…you will find people of all interests there who are totally new in the Internet marketing business.

According to Michael Fortin, a well-known copywriter on the web, stated that he was amazed at some of the questions being asked at this last years convention. There were people asking how to create simple text files, or wanting to know what an auto responder was.
There are many of us that are in the online marketing business, some of us seasoned, some brand new with very limited Internet skills.

Many of the veterans in our industry, the cream of the crop so to speak, are now retiring, and there is a huge market of newbies on the rise.

One of the trends that you want to keep any eye out for is the new way the ‘gurus’ are advertising to the ‘newbie’ market. The latest trend is actually marketing offline.

You may want to look into offline network marketing and how these campaigns are being conducted with some very impressive results.

The offline trend is really affecting those people in Asia who are coming online in large numbers. Believe me when I say that this is going to be a huge and very lucrative market.

Watch for these 3 Internet Marketing Trends in 2008

1. The Asian market
2. Offline marketing opportunities
3. Newbies to the online business

So, watch for the Buzz in these markets, workout some Internet marketing strategies, stay on top of the current buzz issues like on Yahoo Buzz, and you will reap the rewards.

What’s Going On With Yahoo and Microsoft?

First, I want to let you know that Yahoo has rejected the unsolicited offer from Microsoft, which was a $44.6 billion dollar offer, however, according to the Times of London they report a possibility of Yahoo merging with AOL.

Microsoft’s $31 per share cash and stock deal where AOL merger looks to be more profitable for them. But Yahoo is concerned about convincing their shareholders that a merger with AOL is a good option.

Viral Marketing through Social Networks Still Going Strong!

Tomorrow the stats are to be released by comScore letting us know how the social networking sites are doing as far as traffic in the US, while the time spent on these sites is actually leveling off. MySpace shows a growth of 11.6% growth from year to year in unique visitors, and Facebook has shot up 78.6%, but the average amount of time spent on the site dropped 10.4%. The average amount of time that visitors are spending on Bebo is off 63.6% here in the US. But you need to realize that the US is a very small part of the social network market.

From the statistics gathered, the still seems that MySpace users are spending more time on that site than any of the other social networking sites. As of January, the average visitor was spending an average of 203.9 minutes on MySpace, which is a 13.7 increase when measured month to month, and Facebook visitors are spending 172.1 minutes, an increase of 1.6%, which is down from their high of 199.9 minutes in February ’07.

As you can see, their has been a significant decline on Facebook in the user minutes, which adds to a theory that the interest in these applications is starting to drop. However, there are some new Facebook-like additions like the friend news feed as well as photo galleries which seem to keep people on MySpace, while as Facebook prepares to launch its own platform next month.

More Numbers on the Social Networking Front!

YouTube has more than doubled in their visitor numbers just in the last year. There were 61.3 million viewer just in January ’08, with an increase in page views of 277%.

Flickr was up 88.5% with their number in visitors reaching almost 14 million. They were up 266% in their page views with 340 million in January.

Yahoo 360 is not doing as well, they dropped by 53.4% to 2.2 million. Their page views were also down by 54% to 52 million.

Facebook dropped in unique visitors by 2.3% from December. They have basically been flat in their numbers since August which was 33.7 million and January having 33.8 million.

It is plain to see that YouTube has benefited tremendously since they were bought by Google and have integrated their searches, whereas Flickr continues to grow under Yahoo. As you can tell, Yahoo 360 is not doing so hot, which is not a huge surprise. Yahoo has had an ever-shifting networking strategy which has not seem to find it’s happy place yet.

So What Do You Think About the New Blogged.com ?

This week, Blogged.com launched providing us with a fantastic online directory for every blog in the world. You already know that there are a lot of search tools such as technorati which is great providing you real-time content an any topic you are interested in, but Blogged.com works like a catalog revealing not only only topic content, but the entire blog itself with all of its content.

Here is a list of some blogs you can find:

1. Society (19,363)
2. Entertainment & Recreation (16,717)
3. Personal Blogs (9,115)
4. Technology (7,793)
5. United States (7,192)
6. Business (6,548)
7. Art (6,319)
8. Family & Home (6,285)
9. Culture (6,027)
10. Internet (5,553)
11. North America (5,507)
12. Books & Literature (4,272)
13. Government (4,089)
14. Politics (4,081)
15. Religion and Spirituality (3,890)
16. Sports (3,381)
17. Humor (3,324)
18. Travel (3,302)
19. Computers (3,127)
20. Education (3,087)

Blogged.com has a number of feedback tools and ratings that are found throughout the site. You will find bogs that will discuss a particular topic on a regular basis, which would be to your advantage when you focusing on a particular niche or solution on your blog.

This as mentioned before, works as a Blog Catalog, whereas Technorati works an Internet search engine that competes with Google and Yahoo and which focuses more on image thumbnails more than the blog results. Blogged.com is focused on the web user to find blogs on any topic. Mashable found that this site is a great way to bring the blogs and websites to the typical consumer, allowing them to find even greater amounts of information. This will help the bloggers to become more on the forefront in viral marketing.

In the case of viral marketing, right now this site works well as search and discovery tool. You will find some great tips to help you take advantage of this forum and using this as a self-promotion tool. You need to create a profile, list of blogs that you visit. You are basically becoming a personal recommendation service, which will increase your reader audience and bookmarking. Go to Blogged.com, sign up, get your blog on there and market yourself.

More Great News For Viral Marketers Like You!

Our wonderful friends over at MySpace have sent us an announcement that they are now providing a great feature allowing you to advertise and promote your products or content with your MySpace profile. This is just want you need; that is if you are someone in the business of Internet Marketing. This will be a very helpful feature to promote your content, increasing your opportunities for successful viral marketing.

You want to spread your content and get your brand on the web virally on the coat-tails of MySpace, the largest social network? This is exactly what you will be able to do. You cannot beat the benefits of using the social networks for your viral marketing campaigns, which by the way, is an easy way to get your brand out there. This can be one of your greatest viral marketing tools, but there are some tricks to really making it work.

The very first thing you need to do is to get your content inside the social network of MySpace, and this utility is just now being released, making this an easy task. You will be allowed up to one thousand characters which can be posted directly to your MySpace profile. There will be information you can post on the “About Me” section on your profile, and another space on the Bulletin. These are two excellent places to promote your content, great ad space!

You just watch! This will soon be in the next version of every ShareThis!

Your instructions can be found here. Check this out, start implementing it, and you will be on your way to applying more great viral marketing methods to your business. By now, you can see viral marketing is the most successful method to promote your sites and products.

MySpace is a great place to begin your viral marketing campaign!

Become an active user of MySpace, take advantage of this great opportunity, especially now when this is brand new to MySpace users. You know as well as I do that MySpace is the largest social network on the web. This is why you need to take advantage of this along with the other viral marketing methods we are teaching you here.

Let’s Talk About Outsourcing…

One of the biggest blessings to SEO is the ability to Outsource from doing everything yourself. You may be a one person business or a small company, either way, you can greatly increase the growth of your business. You can obtain many of these services through specialized websites. Some of the tasks you may want to outsource are;

1. Directory submission
2. Link building
3. Search engine Optimization
4. Writing content for websites
5. Article writing
6. Keyword analysis
7. Competitive research
8. Website analysis

You will find that outsourcing will provide many benefits, leaving you more time to work on the things you enjoy and do best. Also, outsourcing allows you to put your focus on the business end of things rather than the many little things that take up so much of your time.

As you know, Time is something that seems to slip away from us so quickly. We as Internet Marketers have had to learn how to budget our time wisely since we are working on our own schedules without having to punch in a time clock.

There are many Internet Marketers who have been able to build great success by focusing on the important tasks of generating income. You will outsource different tasks, hopefully having them completed in a timely manner, making your business run smoothly.

When using SEO Outsourcing, you need to make sure you do it correctly, and there are some limitations, as there are with anything. You will find that you will have certain expectations, but in the real world, not everyone will meet those expectations. Plan for the bumps in the road, give yourself some time for ‘corrections’ or ‘do-overs’.

You will notice that SEO Outsourcing in on the rise which is due to the ongoing growth of Internet Marketing. More and more marketers and companies are outsourcing different jobs, and therefore, there are more specialty companies or persons who are offering their services online.

Once you find a great Outsourcing help, hang on to them, they will help your business grow and let you put your time where it’s really needed.

Someone I use for outsourcing and highly recommend is: Annette Jensen

Other options are: Guru, Elance and oDesk

Note: Firstly, sorry for making you wait 4 days for a new post! I was meeting my business partner and working on a new project… You can watch my first EVER video online HERE …

LinkSpank Spanking?

I have come across another great tool for your viral marketing strategy and it involves a bit of ‘spanking’. No, not the kind you are thinking, this spanking is not the naughty kind, but actually a way to share your content that you like. When you find a page, product, or service that you find interesting, you “spank it”. LinkSpank is a new form of social bookmarking!

This is a fun new way of voting for your favorites or sharing by sending these sites through email. You can also post it to your wall, adding items such as videos, which will all be an additional spank. You will be encouraging users to develop some deep discussions around the items you have submitted and all throughout LinkSpank.

You will make a LinkSpank profile and this profile will be your Inbox where you will be able to receive and send your favorites between your friends. You will be sending these through your email and will be receiving spanks from your friends. If you find that you are getting too many spanks, you can adjust your settings.

There is always the bad with the good, and we have found the kind of bad with LinkSpank is the way they share the content. You can relate it to UPS where all the packages are sent to the central warehouse or hub then sent out from there. Basically, you are collecting your favorite content in LinkSpank and emailing them from there. This is quite different from the way you normally share things such as on Facebook or sending an email directly.

But this is actually what LinkSpank is trying to accomplish by doing it this way:

1. This is a catchall for any content that you want to share
2. It is organized and easily accessed for anytime in the future
3. You can find your content through a simple search
4. Works a lot like your email inbox

This is not a replacement for the other social bookmarking sites, but an additional way to get your products and services known.

There is a buzz word going around now called permission marketing. Permission marketing is a privilege that you have to send messages to to people who actually want to receive them. The best and most effective way to make your viral marketing campaign work is when you first have the permission of the recipient of your marketing material. This is not only sending something to someone who wants it, but you are showing great respect and this is the best way of getting their attention.Attention is another key word that you need to focus on. A permission viral marketer knows that when someone gives you their attention, they are giving you some they cherish and that is their time. You are taking up their time in reading your content, giving them a chance to decide if what they are reading, hearing or watching is worth their time and will add value to their life.

When you have obtained someones email through a website or sales page, you have their permission to send them content. They are expecting to receive some valuable content from you. Now if you want to make sure that your product is marketed, then you need to assure that your content is worth their time. Once they receive it, review it, and find that it was what they were hoping for, or even more than what they were expecting, they will want to pass it on to their friends, their co-workers, and their family.

Once you have their permission, then you need to make sure you follow through on a continuous basis with something of value. Don’t start throwing gimmicks their way, or trying to get them the buy something with each message, give them something, make this be about what you can give, not what you can get.

When someone subscribes to the newspaper, they are expecting content daily, and they are looking forward to it. The newspaper has their full attention, because they have their permission to drop off this content on a daily basis. They have earned the trust of the recipient and therefore, can still drop off a paper daily, and the ads will be read, merchandise will be sold.

So, think of yourself as someone who is willing to gain the trust of your recipients, that you want to have their permission to show up in their email once a week, or however many times you plan on delivering quality content. Once you win their trust, you have them for life, and you will see your viral marketing campaign take off.

I have been talking a lot about viral marketing…and the reason I am doing this is because it works! This a great way to expand the growth of your business without having to pay for advertising and spending the time to do it. You do this simply by offering your product or service for FREE along with your sales copy. Now the plan is that your product will be read and shared with friends and family…and they will share it with clients, prospects, visitors to your sites and those who have your product.

A good way to do this is with a trial or lite version of a software program. Everyone loves something for free, and getting a free software is really fun to get. When they have used it, see the benefits, they are going to want to share it with everyone they know. You want to make sure your customers know to share the software with anyone and everyone. If you need some help in developing some software…you can hire help at Elance.

Next, you should start using discussion boards. Set up a discussion board on your website, and post it up at the top by your banner ad. Then you want to encourage your readers to provide a link to this on their own websites.

What about Ebook’s? This is another great strategy that will make your viral marketing a success. You are going to give away your Ebook with the traffic that comes to your site. You want to advertise your best product line with a captivating full-color ad including your contact information. Remember…tell everyone who gets yourEbook to share it with their visitors and their contacts.

Article writing!

Write articles that coincide with your niche or product. In your byline, you will put your contact information along with your website. Then, give permission to anyone to publish your articles as long as they leave the byline in the article, and without changing it. Your articles will soon be in article directories such asEzine, in newsletters, on websites and anywhere else that can bring you attention to your site.

Another way to do this is through web hosting. Find a small business and make an offer to host their websites on your server for free. In return, you place your banner at the top of their site.

Another great marketing technique is using templates. You can create templates and give them away as a free download, which needs to include your own marketing information. Make them easy to pass along from your recipient to their contacts. You have a few techniques here to try out…see which one works out best for you. When you are using viral marketing techniques, it shouldn’t take long for you to start seeing some successful changes happening.

Check out this article at USA Today regarding Viral Marketing. You will see here why this is such a successful marketing tool. Also another great resource that I have found is the Online Marketing Blog.

Here are some Viral Marketing Tools you need to see and take advantage of!

There are a number of Social Marketing networks and platforms for you to spread your name and get your brand out and known. As you know, we have been giving you some great tips on social marketing and how to use these great tools for your benefit. One to give notice to is Utterz which allows you to use your cell phone to post voice, videos, pictures and text mashups to your blogs at anytime, anywhere right from your cell phone. You can post to one site or all your sitesl at once. Utterz is free to use, does not require any special software for your cell phone, and can be done conveniently whether you are traveling, or just away from your computer.

Another one of the fastest growing communities is CafeMom. This is a site that was launched November, 2006, and has since become the most popular site for women. They have become famous for their photo-sharing, widgets, micro-blogging and more. If you are marketing for the female audience, this is a great place to be.

Here is a site to add to your viral marketing plan, it is coComment. This has been the leader of blog access and comment, aggregation, and tracking technology. They have provided a great hub enabling conversations online, ability to track and share comments anywhere on the Internet.

Get Your Marketing Going Quickly and Effectively!

Another stop on your travels online needs to be FaceySpacey, which is a leading Social Media Marketing and Development Company. They specialize in flash widgets, Facebook Aplications, social networking sites, Rich Internet Applications, YouTube-style sites, and yes, viral marketing! They started sites like OganicIncentive.com, ReelProperties.tv and so many more. FaceySpacey is the shopping mall for Social Media.

Another stop on your Social Media Marketing tour is KickApps and KickDeveloper. This is a great on-demand social media application which enables marketers and web site builders to monetize quickly and easily an online audience. This has a SaaS platform with user generated content, social-networking, viral widgets, and online video players.

Because it Works! Viral marketing can be done in many different ways, but when you decide to make the leap, it is best to pick on a particular strategy and focus on it. This will be the best way to get the results you are looking for. If you are using an article marketing strategy, you can turn some of your articles into an Ebook or report

Because you have already put the articles together, it won’t take a lot of time to develop them into something that can bring in some traffic and sales for many years to come. You will gather your articles, compile them into a single document, and then maybe do some rebranding, make it look nice and appealing.

The key here is not to focus on the advertisements or the marketing components of your product, but to add value to the reader. This is about them, what they will be looking for. A popular technique used is adding a few products in your niche. You can include them as your own affiliate links, but consider cloaking them to make them less obvious.

When you are ready to distribute it, this can be done in one of many ways. If the publication you have put together is good quality, you may want to sell it. If you want to make it viral, you need to include reprint rights. You will get the sales from the product as well as having it spread around.

Now, if you really want it to go viral, then you should give it away for free and encourage others to do the same thing, with the provisions that nothing is changed in any way whatsoever. This way you can advertise your giveaway in emails and forums. Another place that is often forgotten is on the download page of any similar products that you sell. Everybody loves bonuses, and the unadvertised bonuses are even better, and when it is on the download page, it becomes a part of the actual order, and then most readers will download it.

When it comes to cost, viral marketing is considerably less expensive than traditional advertising. Remember that viral marketing is only one component of your marketing strategy. You need link it with other strategies like your opt-ins and setting up squeeze pages. This will all help to generate traffic to your site, developing a solid customer base and increasing your sales.

If you are just getting into the online marketing business, there are a lot of ways to start your journey. I am not going to tell you that the road is easy, the road is actually a bit bumpy…but it is also a lot of fun and very exciting. The first thing you are going to learn is the importance of research. Research will be the key to your success. Find out what you are interested in…what appeals to you. Are you interested in creating your own products, or maybe you like the idea of selling products for others for a commission, such as Clickbank products?

You will find a lot of options and even more hype. This is why it is so important to do your research. There are many who just start on the journey, and that is where the bumpy ride begins, so you can save a great deal of that by knowing how you are going to do this. So, do your research.

If you don’t have a product of your own, then you can sell information products that belong to other people. But before you do this, test the product. Don’t sell something that you haven not personally tested. Think of it this way…if you are going to buy a product, who would you buy the product from…Seller A who knows nothing about the product, or seller B who has firsthand experience with the product and can share his own experience and success with the product? Well, you know the answer…so test the product before you sell it.

Be honest with your customers, let them know that you are someone they can trust and that you have integrity. Integrity seems to be something that is indeed lacking in the Internet Marketing business. If you are honest in the way you portray yourself and your products, then you will have return customers and referrals. This is a key to viral marketing, your reputation will follow you for a very long time….so protect it.

Let’s talk a minute about Email

Email is wonderful! Or IS it? Email comes in many shapes and sizes, and it is sent and received instantly. Email comes in HTML, plain text, and even “rich media”. Email can be a major tool to marketing online. You can use it for advertising, newsletters, and to reach business contacts as well as friends. But as does everything, it has a flip-side. This flip-side would be SPAM. No one likes that four letter word. Sadly to say, spam is a form of email marketing, if you think about it in technical terms. For you however, the legitimate email marketer, it poses as a threat.

Not everybody has the same definition of spam, but typically, it is email from a source you did not request the information from. There are dangers of sending spam, one being the legal consequences, but another very important consequence that is often overlooked is the credibility of the sender. There has been companies that have had their credibility ruined just by sending out spam. So, before you become a “spammer”, know the consequences and the risks you are taking, it could mean “the end”.

Note: You need to be targeting a list of members that have opted in for information from you and are in your niche. They need to be able to opt out at any time too. We have provided a solution called: ViralUrl where you can build an optin list and even instantly have a list of 3,000 by upgrading to Gold. You never have to worry about spam with our program. Check it out.

Viralurl is a site that I founded. Frank and I teamed up and launched the site exactly 3 months ago today! We launched on the 23rd October 2007 whilst I was in France watching the Rugby World Cup, which my team, South Africa, won! It was an amazing feeling being there to witness it live and the amazing feeling continued when Viralurl proved to be such an amazing success.

It is hard to review your own product from a neutral standpoint but when coming up with the concept, I wanted to create a truely Viral tool that would benefit everyone that used it. The concept was to cover the important aspects of marketing online:

* Protecting Your Affiliate Link

* Building a List and Downline

* Opening up a new stream of income

I feel that we really managed to achieve this and if you look at what our members are saying, the feedback has been nothing short of exceptional with many claiming we offer the best upgrade value for money they have ever seen! That is a big claim and whilst it gives me a warm, tingly feeling inside to hear people say that, it also re-affirms my own belief that this site truly is for all Marketers!

Visit ViralUrl today and get started, it is free, but as mentioned above, it has an amazing OTO offer that you can’t go wrong taking. For all members it will perform the above main features as well as secondry methodsof advertising your product through text ads on the Viralbars of fellow members and the option to add text ads and banner ads to your site. This site really will help you, free or upgraded and really only takes 5 minutes or less to get going with:

Visit Viralurl Today

What Viralurl does it cloaks your links to protect your commissions from being stolen, whilst, at the same time, placing a bar at the bottom known as the ‘Viralbar’ that has your built in affiliate link and opens in a new window. So you promote your affiliate links to other programs as normal, but cloaked with the Viralbar, it opens up the list building and income stream for you Automatically!

When a user joins under you, you are able to mail them, and when a user upgrades you are paid a commission. This system uses a mass amount of LEVERAGE so please check it out

Visit Viralurl Today