MLM and Network Marketing - Blogging

This is the first in a series of articles I'll be doing on blogging. Blogging is one of the most important aspects of setting yourself up professionally in social media. It's the perfect way to introduce yourself, establish yourself as an expert and showcase your products and services. It's your hub, your nerve center - the place to which you want to direct all your social media traffic. So your blog link should be on all your social media sites and you should drive your friends and followers to your blog - and, as you gain followers and prominence, you can generate significant leads to your own products and services.

In fact, blogs have become part of social media and website visitors' expectations - they expect to see a link to your blog. And they're fun! But even more important, they can change your business dramatically. Most mentors will tell you that you must have a blog to be successful in MLM and network marketing. So if you want to be really successful, you'll want to develop your own blog.

It's not that hard. You don't have to be a great author. Start simply and write about things you know - and write in everyday, conversational language so that you are easily understandable. But before you get started, take a bit of time to consider what direction you want your blog to take. Content is king on blogs. So consider carefully what you want to accomplish and what you want to write about. I think it's crucial to formulate your blog's general framework and direction before you really dive in. You want your blog to specifically promote you as an expert, a person of value in your field, so focus on your niche.

I'll be getting into a lot more detail in future articles and especially where to set up your blog. But for now, take some time to think about what you want your blog to be.

MLM and Network Marketing - Social Media - Facebook Part 2

In Facebook, you want to stand out from the crowd. So once you have a really good picture and profile page set up and have started adding your friends (especially from groups in which you are interested), it's really important that you're consistent, have a good message, a powerful unique stance and that you network effectively. Take the time to build relationships with your new friends - and always add value!

Sure, it's a social site, so by all means chat with your friends a bit, but don't get bogged down and addicted. And don't try to do too much at once. Leverage your time. Trickle in your photos and videos, tag people appropriately. Set up links from your blog, You Tube and Twitter (but be careful - if you tweet a lot on Twitter, you probably don't want to link Twitter to Facebook). And make sure you stay up-to-date on your Inbox.

One of the first things you should do on Facebook is to create your own Fan Page. It's easy to do, just click on the pages and ads icon at the lower left of your Facebook page, click on pages and create a page). The beauty of Fan Pages is that you can do things on your page that you can't do on your Facebook profile. And you can have an unlimited number of fans, though I believe Facebook limits the number of pages that you can join to 500. Make your fan page updates interesting and informative, but still do not focus on your new business opportunity - you can be reported for spamming here as well, so be careful. Use you page to direct people to your hub (blog). And remember to invite people to join your fan page when you're thanking them for confirming you as a friend (add your Fan Page link to your thank you note). You can even buy ads for your fan page if you wish.

Another very important aspect of Facebook is its Group feature. You can join groups (I believe the current limit that you can join is 200). Join groups in which you are interested, especially groups with like-minded business people. It's an absolutely ideal way to find new friends and develop relationships with other business-oriented people or those who share your personal hobbies and other interests.

Better yet, create your own group. Again, click on the group icon at the bottom left of your Facebook page, click on Create a Group, and set up your very own (remember to invite new friends here as well). You are the administrator of your own group (you have the option to give that authority to others as well but I don't recommend it). That means that you set up and control the criteria for your group. You want to give this some thought, so draft out your basic purpose and criteria for your group, and what you want to allow members to do. I'd recommend checking out a few similar groups to see what others have done in setting them up.

I use my group to add value and provide informational business content, to announce webinars, post my notes on those webinars and to alert my members to things I find that might either be useful or income-generating. It can be a very handy way of marketing through the sharing of information and free items (e.g., webinars or other presentations).

There's lots more about Facebook that can be extremely useful. And I have another source book that you might find valuable to help you along the way - it's the fifth printing (2009) of Steven Holzner's Facebook Marketing - Leverage Social Media to Grow Your Business - as usual, it's in bookstores or available through Amazon.

MLM and Network Marketing in Social Media - Facebook

Facebook! The mega-gorilla of the social networks, ranked second among sites with 350 million users. Some say it will surpass Google in the not too distant future. So of course, you want to build relationships there if your serious about developing your new business through social media. It's probably the most viral social media site. And it's fun.

Setting up your profile is key. I've talked about it before. Your picture should be professional and friendly, and the information you put in about yourself needs to be transparent, complete, interesting and informative. Don't make the 'About You' section too long, but keep in mind that your profile page is how people get to know you. So you want to convey a likable, trustworthy and personable portrait of you on your profile. Let people get a bird's-eye view of you and your life.

Facebook is an ideal place to post pictures - it's a photo scrapbook. And you should post videos there too. Both are very important tools to grow your circle of friends by showcasing you, your family, your pets, your hobbies and what you are interested in. (More about this later.)

Keep in mind, however, that Facebook is SOCIAL. So don't start beating your new friends over the head with your business opportunities. You'll be designated as a spammer and lose your account. Facebook's rules are quite strict, so be careful. You want to use Facebook to draw people to your hub, your blog - that's where you'll market directly.

Facebook currently limits you to 5,000 friends (there's some indication they may expand that number, but for now, that's the limit). Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Well, quite a few people I know are at that level, and many more are closing in. It's not that hard to build a large circle of like-minded friends. There are plenty of ways to expand this - through Fan Pages and Groups, about which I'll also talk more in a later blog.

Your Facebook page has four labels in the upper left: Home, Profile, Friends, Inbox and to the right side, Your Name, Settings, Logout and a box in which you can Search for people or groups. Once you get set up and select your settings, get started by adding a few friends (you can import your email address book, if you like, or former classmates). But if you are trying to build a business, you want to add friends who are like-minded. So I recommend you use the Search feature. Type in areas in which you are interested professionally - mlm, mlm groups, going green, health, wellness, photography, etc., etc.

Groups are a great place to find friends who have similar interests. So if you type in 'mlm groups,' a list of those groups will come up. Click on any of the groups, join it, go down to the list of group members, click on 'see all' and start adding those group members as friends. But remember to send a message with your friends request (you can set one up on your word files and copy it into your message box)- keep it short and personal, something like "I saw you in the XYZ group and wanted to connect with you. I hope you'll confirm me as your friend." And when they confirm you (and most will), send a direct message back thanking them and starting a conversation (not a sales pitch!). And from here, just repeat the process, but don't do more than 30-40 per day - Facebook won't like it if you add too many friends at once.

Regularly check your Home page and it's NewsFeed and Live NewsFeed and make sure you participate in the conversations. and don't forget to monitor your Inbox and stay up to date on your messages. But, a word of caution. Facebook can be addictive, so don't let yourself get too hung up. Spend an hour or so in the morning and maybe a bit more occasionally throughout the day or evening. But remember, you're developing a business and you need to be focused on that.

More Facebook detail will be forthcoming in my next blog.

Twittering Tips to Build Your MLM & Network Marketing Business

Happy New Year to all of you! I got a bit distracted by all the holiday festivities. But I'm back in gear and ready to move this Basic Guide to Thoroughbred MLM and Network Marketing along briskly this year.

In social media, it really is all about building your relationships with others. And Twitter is a great place to start. It's your billboard - a great vehicle by which you can attract people to you and direct them to other sites and, most importantly, to your blog.

I found a great general resource that has helped me get started on Twitter. It's Joel Comm's book, Twitter Power - How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time, published by John Wiley & Sons in 2009. You can purchase it on Amazon.com (new or used) for under $20, some used versions are around $10 (it retails for about $30+ in bookstores). I strongly recommend it.

As you get started, remember that your goal is to be a quality Tweeter. So use your own name and brand yourself. Set your profile and background up with careful thought - and make sure you have your key link there (your blog or website). Start tweeting with real, personal information about you - you can tweet about your location, what you like to do, food that you like (recipes are great), childhood memories, dreams and goals, pets, music/art/movies/books/politics. Find things about which people are talking and get involved (a good site to use to see what is attracting the most interest is popurls.com). Most important, be yourself and talk back to the people with whom you connect - that's key to relationship building.

Finding targeted people to follow is important and it's easy to do (but keep in mind that you shouldn't follow more than 50 people a day to start and then keep your additions to 10% of the number of your followers each day - Twitter will shut you down if it thinks you are spamming). You can do a general search on Twitter, for example, on mlm, or network marketing, or any area of interest to you. Click on the tweeters who come up and follow them - most people you follow will automatically follow you back. Also, when you follow people, you can see who else is following them and add those people as well.

And start to retweet other people's tweets that you find interesting or informative - that's hugely important because you can get many people to retweet your crucial messages to their followers (it's sort of reciprocal) - it's an incredibly effective way to expand your own reach.

You'll want to be able to shorten and your links on Twitter because of the 140 character limitation to all tweets. Bud.url (open a free account) is a simple tool that will enable you to shorten your links - there are many others that you can also use that also track clicks. Twitpwr.com is one which Joel Comm cites because it not only shortens urls, tracks all clicks and also ranks accounts according to their power. Twittergrader.com is another site I like because I can see my ranking readily.

And you'll want Tweetdeck (to group tweets and followers by subject) and Social Oomph (formerly TweetLater), which allows you to set up automatic follows to people who follow you and to schedule your tweets in advance. One word of caution on Social Oomph, Twitter has discontinued allowing recurring tweets, so all of your scheduled tweets need to be original.

You can get a bit lost wending your way through all the stuff on Twitter, which is why I recommend Joel Comm's book as a starting point. It's got a ton of detail and you can work through it steadily and easily.

Social Media in the New Year - Tips on Setting Up Your Twitter Site

Everyone is looking toward the New Year. I've learned from experience to keep my New Year's goals simple and achievable. Foremost for my mlm and network marketing business is to have a rational mix between my action and learning plans. Taking action is paramount to success, but you really need to have time to learn and evaluate. Most mentors suggest a ratio of 90-10. But I think a start-up in the industry needs a bit more learning time. So I recommend 70-30 for the first few months and a shift to the 90-10 as you gain experience.

Setting up effectively on your social media sites is crucial for your new business. But a word of warning: be careful not to get so immersed in these sites that you don't leave time for critical marketing and other efforts. I limit myself to no more than an hour in the morning and another hour later in the day to make sure I stay in touch with my followers and friends. Now to some specifics:

I really didn't see the value of Twitter at first. The 140 character limitation to my tweets and the text of other peoples tweets impressed me as pretty dumb and useless. I was wrong.

Why Twitter? It's your billboard. It's quick and easy to join and build, and you can point it anywhere. And it's growing FAST. Alexa.com currently ranks it 14th among the top websites and I think it boasts around 7 million users. It's a perfect place to get started. Just go to Twitter.com and join up - it's free and you can set up your account easily.

Remember that your profile is key. Use your own name and brand yourself. Get a quality smiling picture of you - and keep in mind that you probably want to use the same photo throughout your social media sites. Your Twitter profile description is limited to 160 characters, so you need to keep it short, informative and focused. A key is that you can link Twitter to your other social media accounts - but be a bit careful because if you really tweet a lot and you've linked Twitter to Facebook, you can really annoy people and run the risk of being deemed a spammer. Mine is linked to Facebook, but I use Twitter carefully.

What about a background for your Twitter page? Twitter offers several free backgrounds that you can use, or you can develop a customized background. I opted for customization and used twitterbackgrounds.com - it cost me about $100 but I really liked the way they executed what I wanted - and it was easy to get them to correct the copy (if you'd like to see it, go to twitter.com/pamhemmings and note that I include the locations of all my other social media sites).

Start tweeting (remember your limit is 140 characters). Keep in mind that Twitter is a social media site, so focus on getting personal information out that shows your personality and interests - and get some humor in too. People really do enjoy laughing.

Ok. That's it for just getting started. My next blog will focus on some basic tools and building followers. Stay tuned.

And a Happy New Year to all - may we all enjoy success!

Merry Christmas to All My Network Marketing Friends

It seemed more appropriate this week to focus on wishing everyone joy, peace and prosperity than to launch into more details on my basic guide to mlm and thoroughbred network marketing. The spirit of Christmas and the joy of being with family and friends is paramount as we approach Christmas Day, and so I want to share a heartfelt wish for a very

Merry Christmas to all my Christian friends in social media - and the happiest and most peaceful holiday season to all my friends everywhere.

Social Media - Building a Presence for Your Network Marketing Business

Social Media is booming. It's likely to be THE dominant force of 21st century business marketing, with well over a billion people already present on the various sites. And it's growing by leaps and bounds. The sites are multitudinous - Facebook (ranked 2nd in Alexa global rankings with over 350 million users), You Tube (4th), Blogger (7th), My Space (12th), Twitter (14th) Wordpress (20th), LinkedIn (37th), and many, many more.

If you are building an internet-based, mlm or network marketing business, you need to establish a solid presence in as many of these sites as are appropriate for you. Of course you can't do them all at once and you need to keep in mind that 'social media' is, first and foremost, social. Facebook, for example, frowns mightily on people who attempt to sell their business opportunities directly and repeatedly - it's regarded as spamming and can cost you your facebook page. So you need to focus on developing your skills and drawing people to you to grow your business.

So where to start. A good friend of mine, Eric Williams, once described Twitter as your billboard and Facebook as the 800 lb gorilla of social media. I think that's a very apt tag for each site. And I'd recommend you start building your presence on each. And if a picture is worth a thousand words (and Facebook is great for pictures), what price a video? So add You Tube to your repertoire (what's that, you say? "I can't make a video" - nonsense. I was afraid of it too but now that I've made several, I look forward to them - and they're getting a good response too.)

And perhaps most important, consider what your hub is - because that's where you're going to be directing your traffic. And in today's world, your blog is almost certainly the best answer. Even most websites now incorporate a blog or direct visitors to their blogs. And that's where all your links will be, including your business opportunities. Each of your social media sites should link to your blog, and your blog should link back to them. Don't be afraid - you're not expected to be a Pulitzer prize-winning author. Start writing about what you know, keep it simple and try to give it some direction. But get started on a blog now. Remember the Little Engine That Could from one of my earlier blogs - 'I Think I Can, I Think I Can ... I Knew I Could!"

As you get started setting yourself up on social media, I strongly urge you to remember that a good picture of YOU and a transparent, interesting and comprehensive profile are the most important starter steps. Once you have those in place, you can start adding followers on Twitter and friends on Facebook regularly to build your lists - and build relationships with your lists. Concentrate on developing your foundation, master it - and then expand your efforts over time.