Archive for May, 2008

An E-book that includes your marketing message and a link to your website is a proven technique in viral marketing. This method uses the multiplication effect to “explode” the distribution of your message by willing participants.

Using viral E-books as a marketing method is inexpensive. It doesn’t take long to set up a basic E-book. The recent versions of  Word let you create a pdf out of your document immediately. If you need to convert a document to a pdf, use this tool.

It’s even more effective if you use rebrandable E-book software to allow your book to be re-branded by others. Just do a web search to find many rebrandable E-books that are available on whatever subject you are interested in and that apply to your e-business.  Get a few of them and check them out to see how offering your E-book with a rebrander can drive it’s distribution.

One method of distributing the E-book is to offer it to visitors in exchange for subscribing to your newsletter. If they pass it on to their friends and family it will promote your business for you. This also works when you are at a live event. Offer to send the book to them in return for subscribing to your newsletter. Then go back and add them to your subscription list and let the autoresponder send them the E-book.

E-books are capable of reaching a large audience and are limited only by the enthusiasm of the participants.

E-books are fairly easy to create. It’s possible to produce your own E-books by combining articles that you have written or have gotten from public domain sources, such as directories. I encourage clients to start with their frequently asked questions. I’ve found it’s easiest to answer the questions up front. It’s like ready your evaluations after a presentation, then altering the next presentation to address those concerns right up front, at the beginning. An E-book based on your FAQ can do the same thing for your sales cycle.

A common approach is to use material that has Private Label Rights, including articles and reports that have been written specifically for that purpose, for that niche. Using a portion of a larger work that you have prepared such as the first three chapters of a large E-book could also be used as a viral E-book. You can also hire a writer to work with you on the content. Check our archives for more tips on writing your E-book.

Let me know how it goes, by commenting or contacting me.

Ok, another new word, scraping.  I was notified that I had comments awaiting moderation. These comments showed a small portion of my original post, including a link back to my blog.  Usually I check the website address for the comment to see if it’s legit and found that these types of comments were on a useless blog.  I couldn’t figure it out….until today.

I have made it a practice not to approve comments that don’t really add to the blog, that are blatantly bogus. I subscribe to a ton of blogs and I found this post, "One Sure Way To Stop Scrapers From Earning Off Your Blog", from Blog Content Provider.com to explain it well.

Let me know what you think by commenting below.

by Leesa Barnes

Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn. These are just 3 of the many social networking tools available online. They are great for finding new prospects, making new friends and connecting with colleagues.

Podcasters use social networking websites to build traffic and grow their audience. It’s an easy way to share your audio or video content to attract attention and gain new fans.

Despite this, many have forgotten their networking manners. They are pushy and greedy. This type of behaviour is enough to make you hit the ignore button.

Want to make enemies? Here are 5 ways you can lose friends online, and how to make sure it never happens to you.

1. Hard sell during the introduction. Along with saying "Hi, we have some mutual friends, so let’s connect," you include the URLs to your blog, website and everything else you’ve created online. Whether it’s asking for donations to your favorite cause or asking for a visit to your blog, you go in for the hard sell on the first hello.

What should you do instead? Become a friend, then offer a quick tip. I recently became friends with a man, a health buff, who reminded me to stand up and stretch every few minutes if I work at my desk all day. He was being helpful and I appreciated this.

Final advice? If you want to lose friends, do the hard sell. If you want to make friends, be helpful.

2. Bombard your friends with notes and emails with your offer. Whether it’s a teleclass, a workshop or a new book, tell all those in your friends’ list about your product. As many times as you can.

What should you do instead? Create a video offering a quick tip and ask for feedback. My friend, Nancy Mar recently did this. In just a few hours, she got 18 replies from friends providing feedback on her video tip.

Final advice? If you want to lose friends, be egotistical. If you want to make friends, be humble.

3. Send the same message one by one to all your friends. I’ve seen a few people send the same message over and over to different people. How do I know they’re doing this? When you login to Facebook, the front page contains the activities of your friends. Often, I see someone posting the same message to different people’s profile. The only thing the offender changes is the individual’s first name.

What should you do instead? Visit your friend’s profile page and find out if you share any hobbies. If so, share your thoughts on that hobby with your friend. If the person is celebrating a birthday, send a birthday greeting. Anything to make the note much more personal.

Final advice? If you want to lose friends, sp@m people. If you want to make friends, personalize your message.

4. Requesting friendship from everyone, including your contact’s 13 year old son. Some join Facebook and MySpace to be friends with as many people as they can. Their goal? To do #2 and #3 above. They are so focused on numbers, they neglect to check if they’re requesting friendship from teenagers.

What should you do instead? Read people’s profiles, study who they are, then request friendship. This will help you avoid the embarrassment of being called pedophile.

Final advice? If you want to lose friends, focus on quantity. If you want to make friends, focus on quality.

If you focus on being helpful and on developing a few key relationships, people will be so interested in you that curiosity alone will send them to your website, blog or podcast. Practice these 4 tips and watch your business grow as people start to trust and like you.

Award-winning blogger and podcasting expert, Leesa Barnes, teaches insider tips on how to boost your sales and make a six-figure income using a podcast. Visit http://www.leesabarnes.com and sign up to receive 2 FREE chapters from her book, Podcasting for Profit.

As I chat with fellow solopreneurs I often use terms they aren’t familiar with (cause they are rooted in terra firma, not cyberspace) and Twitter is just one of those words. You know the words that make their eyes glaze and roll to the back of their head.

I found a great post on some of the uses for Twitter and how it affects the journalism industry.  Recently I had the opportunity to attend the Vision to Venture Event sponsored by Microsoft Live Small Business. I was able to Twitter what the speakers were sharing during the conference. If you visited my site that day, you would have been able to follow what was going on at the event. Better yet, if you were following me, you got it in real time.

Check out the post at MediaShift.

As I chat with fellow solopreneurs I often use terms they aren’t familiar with (cause they are rooted in terra firma, not cyberspace) and Twitter is just one of those words. You know the words that make their eyes glaze and roll to the back of their head.

I found a great post on some of the uses for Twitter and how it affects the journalism industry.  Recently I had the opportunity to attend the Vision to Venture Event sponsored by Microsoft Live Small Business. I was able to Twitter what the speakers were sharing during the conference. If you visited my site that day, you would have been able to follow what was going on at the event. Better yet, if you were following me, you got it in real time.

Check out the post at MediaShift.

Got An Internet Question? Free Fridays at the Webinar Cafe has the answers!

Join us each Friday afternoon, beginning June 6th, for a virtual coffee break at the Magic In Words Webinar Cafe. You’ll meet like minded soloprenuers and service professionals and you can get some of your internet related questions answered.

• Looking to drive traffic to your site?
• Want to turn your free loading website into a fee loading website?
• Should you participate in Social Networking?
• Need to raise your online visibility?

These are some of the questions you can find answers for at the Magic In Words Webinar Cafe each week. We’ll be bringing in marketing, sales, business and other professionals to help you build your business.

Find out what topic we are discussing this week by visiting the Webinar Cafe. When you register please ask you question, but more importantly give us your website address. During our time together on Free Fridays at the Magic In Words Webinar Cafe we’ll be putting your website up for everyone to see.

Feel free to contact us with any questions, and come and end your work week with a virtual cup o’joe and learn someth

Learn To Become An Amazon Associate

Monday, May 12, 2008
3pm Pacific Time / 6pm Eastern Time

• Looking for a passive stream of income?
• Looking for products to sell?
• Want to make your site work for you?

This is your chance to LEARN how to become an Amazon Associate. To LEARN how to create product links, widgets and online stores. Debra Simpson will teach you how to add product to your website, creating a passive stream of income. Why pay someone like Debra to do the work for you, when you can do it yourself, for a fraction of the cost?

This 90 minute long, hands-on webinar will take you through signing up, creating your product information and grabbing the code for your blog or website.

Sign Up Today, Only $25.00

What are you waiting for? Come and join us from the comfort of your home office, with a beverage of your choice!

Learn To Become An Amazon Associate

Monday, May 12, 2008
3pm Pacific Time / 6pm Eastern Time

• Looking for a passive stream of income?
• Looking for products to sell?
• Want to make your site work for you?

This is your chance to LEARN how to become an Amazon Associate. To LEARN how to create product links, widgets and online stores. Debra Simpson will teach you how to add product to your website, creating a passive stream of income. Why pay someone like Debra to do the work for you, when you can do it yourself, for a fraction of the cost?

This 90 minute long, hands-on webinar will take you through signing up, creating your product information and grabbing the code for your blog or website.

Sign Up Today, Only $25.00

What are you waiting for? Come and join us from the comfort of your home office, with a beverage of your choice!