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!

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, Upwork and upWork

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.