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Twitter and your online business

May 30th, 2009 Informer No comments

Twitter was created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey. It has gained extensive notability and popularity worldwide. It is often described as the “SMS of Internet”.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). Twitter extremely valuable to any e-commerce site.

Simplicity has played an important role in Twitter’s success. People are eager to connect with other people and Twitter makes that simple.

Online business

Most people shop online for convenience rather than customer service. And while inroads have been made into providing better customer service online, the personal aspect is often still missing. It’s the ability to have conversations with customers that makes Twitter extremely valuable to any e-commerce site.

Ø      Listen to Your Customers

One of the best things about twitter is that it gives you a readymade platform, in which the online business can directly communicate with its customers; listen to their feedback & demands. Brick-and-mortar retailers have the benefit of physical presence of their customers when they are making purchases. But, e-commerce merchants may be unaware of customer problems or questions unless they are contacted directly or worse, if the customer publishes a complaint online. With Twitter, an e-commerce business can monitor what people are saying about its brand and products and respond with assistance.

Ø      Be Personable

Twitter also gives the online business to create & build upon their brand perception. Internet shopping is usually impersonal. Ecommerce sites often try to connect with customers via blogs or comments, but Twitter makes it much easier to have direct conversations with customers and also show a bit of personality.

  • A Bit of PR Is Fine, Too

It’s okay to use Twitter to provide useful information to your customers as long as you are clear about your intentions and can do a bit of listening as well. Sometimes customers just want to know when you have a sale. In fact, Dell was so successful in using Twitter to alert followers about sale items that it has now set up a separate Dell Outlet Twitter account that offers discounts exclusively to followers on Twitter.

Ø      Getting Started

The best way to get started on Twitter is to learn as much about it as possible. Sign up for an account, listen to what people are saying and find interesting people and companies to follow.

Ø      Using Twitter for Your Site

Once you’ve decided to use Twitter to promote your online business and website design , it’s important to fill out your company profile and upload an image that your customers will recognize. Make sure to identify the people within your company who will be monitoring and using the account, and the more people tweeting the better. Unless you already have a very reputable and popular brand, your company will probably need to use your Twitter account for a while before people will want to follow it. Encourage your customers to follow you on Twitter by adding a link to your website, your emails, business cards and any other place with company contact information.

Ø      Twitter Tools

There are some tools to make Twitter easier to use. For example, Twitter offers widgets on its settings page which you can use to put your Twitter updates right on your website. You can automatically send updates to twitter by using twitter-feed to import items from any RSS feeds you have, a good way to let customers know about updates from your blog or featured items on your site. Monitor what people are saying about your company and products by using tools like Twitter’s search or Tweet Scan. You might also try applications such as Tweet Deck, twhirl, or Twitterific to post updates and have conversations on Twitter.


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Twitter and your online business

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Make Money Online – 5 Tips to Help You Make Money Online

May 26th, 2009 Informer No comments

Make money online is not an easy business. We present 5 tips that can make the job of making money online much easier. Make money online is the reason why so many blogs or internet marketing websites exist.

Make money online is not an easy business. We present 5 tips that can make the job of making money online much easier.

Make money online is the reason why so many blogs or internet marketing websites exist. Some make money online easily and some struggle to cover the basic costs of maintaining a web presence.

Although many factors are important so as to make money online there are 5 tips or guiding lines that any successful business should follow to make money online. There is no guarantee on how much money can you make but these 5 tips will make your money making adventure more pleasant.

Make money online tip 1: What is the answer to your customers needs?

We do not expect to make a demographics survey or statistical analysis but knowing your visitors or readers if you run a blog is very crucial. Think like your visitors. Does your content make them really have an interest in your offers or products? Out of thousands websites they have visited what is the unique feature of your business that will gain instantly their attention?

How will you convince them that you have what they are searching for? Think of your content in terms of being a potential customer. Would you buy from your website if you were a random visitor?

Make money online tip 2: Who are your customers?

Do you present a generic website for everyone online or does your website is suitable for specific products and searches like geographical restrictions on vacations? You need targeted visitors or just visitors that will browse through your online business and depending on web traffic you will make sales?

Make money online tip 3: How will you make a sale?

Now that you have answered with success to what is your web site about and who are really your potential customers you need to define how will you make in fact a real sale. Do you have a unique offer? Do you have an exclusive product or service? Do you make a gift with any other purchase or have free shipping? What is the link bait that makes your website interesting?

Make money online tip 4: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.

AIDA or Attention, Interest, Desire, Action is a proven sales technique that speaks directly to the needs of any customer increasing the odds that a sale will occur. There are many free articles on the Internet about AIDA approach in sales but the main points are to create the attention of your online visitors from the start, giving them an answer to their search. After all they landed on your pages for searching something, give then in an interesting way grabbing their attention that your website is what they are looking for. You can give then all the information, advice, answers that any visitor to your website is looking for so you save them form time and effort. And since time is money ask them to trust you and buy your goods or services. So ask them for action. The AIDA approach seems very sophisticated while in reality it is very simple and effective. It is like when you want to ask for the first time someone on a date. You can spend days, weeks, months searching for the right words or action while a simple straightforward approach would save you from anxiety and time giving you immediately a positive or negative answer. Simplicity is the key to success and in sales.

Make money online tip 5: never stop searching the web for new ideas.

The Internet offers great information on almost everything and in most time it is for free. Free Internet marketing articles, ideas, web traffic tips, search engine optimisation provides valuable ideas and resources on how to make money online. Make a habit searching often on a schedule that suits you for information on how to make money online in forums, article directories, visiting blogs or special sections on major marketing websites. Information and ideas can help your productivity and the make the design of your website much more effective adding more sales to your annual balance sheet.

Make money online is definitely not easy as many people claim. Having the right resources, ideas or tips presented in this article is an essential step to make the difference in sales and finally give an answer to your top important question how to make money online.


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Make Money Online – 5 Tips to Help You Make Money Online

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Deciding On your Online Advertising Mix

May 24th, 2009 Informer No comments

As an ingredient of online business success, it crucial to decide on the advertising mix that you are going to use.

As an ingredient of online business success, it crucial to decide on the advertising mix that you are going to use. Yet the problem that is faced in online business is that the online business advertising media is not known.

Let us look at it from a different angle. In the offline business world, people who work in Marketing or advertising fields, usually have university degrees in those fields. Meaning, they have got years of training before entering the field, and then they will need to get experience and make achievements before they can move on with their careers.

This is not the case in the online business world. The majority of people who venture into online business are establishing businesses whether with their own products/services or as affiliates without having the slightest idea about how to market online. Accordingly, the advertising tools will be totally unknown. Thus it will be impossible to decide on the online advertising mix.

Therefore, for any person who wants to venture into online business needs to learn all the different tools available for online advertising. Then each tool should be studied to know how to use these tools effectively. Although there are numerous books and e-books written on the subject, they are lost in a pile of scam e-books that basically give no information whatsoever about the subject. Only the lucky ones are able to find a program that walks them one step at a time in the world of online advertising either by finding a real e-book or by affiliating with a program that actually gives such a detailed training and not only a bunch of tools and unorganized material.

After knowing all the tools available, how to use them and costs associated with each of those tools, a person would be able to decide on the suitable online advertising mix. Although the factors affecting the decision to choose the suitable online advertising mix are the same as those affecting the choice of a suitable offline advertising mix, the priority of those factors would differ between the two marketplaces.

The factors are:

1-Type of business
2-Target market/segment
3-Budget availability
4-Skills
5-Availability of resources including time

The priority of these factors when deciding on an offline advertising mix would look like this:

1-Type of business
2-Target market/segment
3-Budget availability
4-Resources and skills are at the same level.

The priority of these factors when deciding on an online advertising mix would look like this:

1-Budget availability
2-Resources, especially time
3-Skills
4-Target market/segment
5-Type of business

Many internet marketers might find the details of this article debatable but they would all agree on the steps advised which are briefly as follows:

1-Get to know all the advertising tools available for online advertising
2-Know the ins and outs of each tool
3-Try the ones that you are able to afford and test their effectiveness
4-Depending on your situation decide on the online advertising mix that you are going to use.

It is important to note here that for the offline business world consider the internet as one advertising tool to use; similarly the online business world consider offline advertising as one of the tools that can be used to advertise online businesses.

It should be very clear that deciding on the online advertising mix does not guarantee success for the mere factor that the mix itself is not engraved in stone and it could be changed depending on the changes that could occur on the above mentioned factors. Deciding on the online advertising mix is the beginning of the online business journey.


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Deciding On your Online Advertising Mix

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