Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

Update: The links in this post now point to the sale page for the SMARTS program, since the program went live. If you haven’t seen the video yet, here’s the link: Going Natural 2.0 Video.

Also I called Don Crowther “Dan” in this article and have since fixed it - sorry Don!

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StomperNet have released a new video that provides a fantastic discussion of what Social Marketing is, why it’s so critical to the future of Internet marketing and ends with three (well four really) practical ways you can use social media sites to drive traffic to your site.

Here’s the link -

Social Marketing: Success without SEO, Pay-Per-Click or Affiliates

The video is long - 50 Minutes - and the tips start about half way through, but it’s worth watching from start to finish, especially if you have not looked into using social media and Web 2.0 sites as a means to market your blog or business.

Social Marketing Is Huge

I don’t know about you, but I can’t keep up with all the social media and Web 2.0 talk lately.

Not a day goes by where I don’t get some notification from Facebook and given the growth numbers the site is putting up, it won’t be long until Facebook rivals MySpace, the current traffic leader.

Then there’s YouTube, the video sharing site that apparently every single American who uses the Web goes to watch at least once every day.

…And that only skims the surface. There’s social networking sites like LinkedIn, bookmarking sites like Digg and Delicious and collaborative resource sites like Wikipedia. Plus every day a new Web 2.0 site is born offering yet another way to connect with people and drive traffic back to your site.

It’s so overwhelming, most of the time I just take a quick look at the few sites I frequent or keep profiles at, then go back and post an article to my blog.

However every now and then something comes out about social marketing that I take notice of because I don’t want to be left behind and I trust the source of the information.

The “problem” with social marketing is how different it is to traditional marketing. You can’t even smell like you are trying to sell something or just using the site to build links or traffic back to your site, because as soon as you do - BOOM - you are banned.

To make social marketing work you have to…well…be social. Yeah, not surprising, but very true.

Social marketing is about community participation, but you can have a business agenda. You are there first and foremost to be an active and valuable member of a community and if you are smart, use your profile and connections to drive traffic and links back to your site.

Everything has to be organic and friendly - it’s actually a wonderful way to market a business because it’s like talking to friends. There’s no hard sell because hard sell simply doesn’t work - it’s not even permitted.

How Do Top Marketers React

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When I first started a “real” business I was already in a position of positive cash flow, but it wasn’t because I had inherited money or because my parents had funded my business project, it was because of two reasons…

1. I had successfully generated a few hundred dollars a month from hobby projects - these were not things I considered real businesses, just websites I loved to work on that made a trickle of money.
2. I had a casual job.

I was 19 when I first became interested in computers (before that it was all about console gaming) and by my early twenties I was capable of putting together a website. My sites were not well designed, but functional, just text wrapped inside a few tables and basic graphics. My beginner training was with the free hosting service Geocities, so just getting text and pictures to appear were you want them to on a page was a challenge.

What I did have during this period was ample time, and that was definitely my biggest advantage. I lived at home, had minimal expenses and was attending university. As many college students understand, your university days can be very flexible depending on how good your work ethic is, and my work ethic was not directed at my textbooks or assignments, it was focused on the Internet.

After a few years playing around online, I settled on a few projects long enough that I made money. As people who have read my business timeline know, my first “cash cow” website was MTGParadise.com. I used the income from this site, plus money from my casual job at a computer helpdesk at my university, to fund my next business, BetterEdit.

During this period I started several other businesses, including an English school called Aussie Tutor, and plenty of different website projects, all of which failed in a traditional sense - they cost more money than they made. I never borrowed money to fund any projects, I used my energy and creativity, income from my job and the steadily increasing cash flow from my website and went from project to project.

You Must Have Something You Can Leverage

If you are considering starting a business you have two resources you can leverage -

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It’s Monday morning in Australia and I’m about to have a group meeting at my house with my team to begin work on something new.

For most of my Internet business career I worked solo - and I really mean solo.

I built my website myself, created marketing materials like flyers and posters, promoted my websites, located and managed sponsors and provided customer and sales support. The only thing I didn’t do was actually provide the services, I had contractors do the editing when it came to BetterEdit.com my proofreading business and I had writers write the content on my first successful online venture, MTGParadise.com (although I did a lot of writing myself on that site too).

It’s amazing how far your enthusiasm and work ethic can take you in business. I’m proud of my achievements as a solo entrepreneur and I’m amazed at what I did manage to get done by myself. However after about 7 years of working without any support I realized that I couldn’t keep it up for ever, plus there was another pressing reason to get help - I had reached a ceiling point in my growth. Your business can only get so big if it’s just you doing the work.

With typical timing, it was around this time that Rich Schefren came to town with his first ground breaking report, the Internet Business Manifesto. I read Rich’s report and found myself agreeing with everything he said. I wasn’t exactly shocked by the revelation as some Internet marketers were when they first read the report. I knew I was working too hard and doing too much by myself, my problem was lack of action to change the situation.

Things finally did change in 2006. With my blogging business growing and my cashflow increasing I knew I could realistically outsource tasks to other people. With a looming trip overseas I decided I to do two things -

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I was thinking the other day about the niche of Internet marketing. It’s one of the most crowded niches on the Internet, yet so many people generate an income selling products related to making money on the world wide web. The reason is obvious - there’s a hungry crowd out there eager to make money and more and more budding web entrepreneurs are born each day.

You can segment the market into many sub-niches. There’s the AdSense expert, the pay per click expert, the affiliate marketing expert, people who buy and sell websites, email list builders, and of course the professional bloggers who use blogs to earn a living - and that’s just small handful of the areas people are making money in.

The laws of marketing dictate that these crowded industries will further segment into smaller sub-niches with the hope that you can carve out your own little piece of the pie by breaking things down to distinguish yourself from the rest. For example there’s no specific expert I know of who focuses on being the expert at affiliate marketing just with blogs or the professional website trader who only focuses on buying and selling a specific type of site, like forums.

For beginners, the issue of choosing what to sell, or in the case of blogging - what to write about - is the hardest choice. I know the thoughts that go through your head -

• I’m not good enough at anything to be an expert
• That guy or girl already dominates that market
• I’m not entering the make money online niche - it’s too crowded

The problem is about positioning and until you get comfortable with what you want to be to other people, it can be a very confusing time in the life of a young start-up business or a new blogger.

What Really Is Unique?

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