Entrepreneurs-Journey.com Down-To-Earth Advice For Bloggers and Internet Marketers

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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Press play to begin streaming the audio or right click the text link and choose save as or save link.

Download the MP3 [ 37 Minutes - 9 MB]

Steve Iser has been online since he was 9 years old. Now he’s 21 and makes money using social media sites like MySpace and Facebook as marketing tools to promote products.

I called Steve up to do an interview after I finished reading and listening to his Ready.Aim.Wired information product, which teaches how to use social marketing sites to drive leads, build a list and make sales. The book is solid and presents a system that I can actually see working in MySpace because it uses the same language and “model of interaction” as Steve calls it, to establish relationships.

Just like with email marketing or any form of online marketing, you have to build relationships in order to get a positive result and if you are using sites like MySpace to do so, then you have to use the same language and community behavior. Ready.Aim.Wired is a great introduction to how to execute this concept based on what Steve has done in the past.

In the call I wanted Steve to break things done for us because I still didn’t quite understand how his methods work. Steve explained things really well in this interview, so I expect after listening you will have a solid grasp of what it takes to successfully market using social networking sites. There’s a lot more to it than just broadcasting messages to as many people as you can – spamming MySpace, not surprisingly, won’t work.

Here is a breakdown of Steve talked about in the interview. I think you will enjoy the podcast, so make sure you slot in half an hour on your drive to work or when you go walking to have a listen.

Show Notes

1. How Steve first made money on the Internet
2. Why Steve entered into social media marketing
3. How to use MySpace as a direct response marketing tool
4. The importance of natural communication in a social networking site
5. Steve’s model of interaction for attracting targeted friends (leads) from MySpace
6. Outsourcing your MySpace marketing
7. Facebook as a marketing tool
8. What Steve is currently working on

Click Here to Download the MP3 [ 37 Minutes - 9 MB]