Using social media safely for your business is possible. We’ve seen a few pieces of advice previously that will help you do this. Here are some few final tips on this topic that will help you make the most of social networking sites all the while keeping your business safe from hacking and other security breaches.

• Beware of compromised accounts

Just because your account is safe and you follow good security practices, doesn’t mean that everyone else in your contacts necessarily does the same thing, however. Be careful, as your clients, business partners, as well as personal friends accounts could be compromised. While most hacked accounts are used simply for posting spam, there are some other uses that hackers make of them. Beware of any strange links given to you by your contacts, especially if you don’t expect to be sent any links by that person. Very often, these would go to a phishing site, or a site that has been compromised by malware. Be careful about friends claiming that they need to borrow money or that they urgently need you to make a purchase for them on an e-commerce site. These are common scams that target social media users as well. If you’re unsure if the person that you’re talking to is really your contact, then get in touch with them in another way, such as by email, IM, text message or phone call.

• Avoid discussing sensitive information on social networking sites

Don’t publicly post information that should be kept in private messages. For example, don’t post on your suppliers Facebook wall that you’ll be making an order for such and such product. This just gives information about your business to competitors. If one of your clients or partners wants to talk about something related specifically to business between you and them, then it’s better to do this in a more private environment such as by phone or email. Remember, there is always the potential that someone is impersonating a contact that you know on social networking sites, or that one of your contacts accounts has been compromised.

• Keep up with developments in the security and social networking world

Read technology websites such as ZD Net, etc. They’re not just for computer geeks, but contain some very useful information about the latest technologies, in terms of online services, hardware as well as software solutions. You may learn more about a product that you’re currently using, or that you may find useful to get. But the most important reason why you need to keep up with technology news is that information about the latest security threats is reported a lot more quickly and thoroughly on these sites than on “general purpose” media websites. That way, if there’s a security threat such as a loop hole in site security that was found by hackers, or a piece of malware like a worm or trojan that is circulating through social networking sites, you will be the first to know about it and can find out ways to protect yourself from that security threat.

Even though it may have gotten more difficult in recent times, it is still possible to use Craigslist (and other classified ads sites) to promote some CPA offers, and there are still many merchants and networks which allow this kind of promotion. While these tips work for Craigslist, they will obviously be good for any other similar classified ads site out there.

However, many people report having problems, such as getting their ads flagged within minutes, or having their ads not appearing. Here are some tips that will help you get the most out of classified ads sites when used with CPA campaigns.

• Don’t direct link to a CPA offer

While this may seem pretty obvious, a lot of new marketers seem oblivious to the fact that if you put an affiliate link directly into your ad, you will get flagged down rapidly, or your ad will not appear at all. You basically have two ways that you can use to direct traffic from a classified ads site to an affiliate or CPA offer. Either you build your own landing page and register a domain for it, or you have people email you and then reply to them by email. The approach that you will use will vary depending on what you are promoting, but the second option seems to be the most popular and effective for the majority of CPA offers.

• Don’t use an autoresponder

An autoresponder is an email feature which automatically sends a reply with a pre-formatted message to anyone who sends you an email. Autoresponders have their value and are in fact extremely useful for some types of marketing. However, for classified ads, they are not a tool that you can use. Whenever someone gets an automated response to an email that they’ve sent, it automatically shows that something “spammy” is going on. Therefore, you are highly likely to get your ad flagged as spam very quickly if you use an autoresponder. I know that replying to emails personally takes time, but this is something that needs to be done if you want to have success. The task could be outsourced very cheaply as well. If you have to use an autoresponder (not recommended and we will get into more reasons later on) at least use one which is on a delay of a few hours and does not reply to emails automatically as soon as they are received.

• Be creative in your ads

There are certain words such as “make money online” which will get your ad flagged right away. Furthermore, avoid copy pasting ads that you saw in an e-book or in a forum post that details some money making method for Craigslist. These have a high tendency to get flagged right away, since chances are there are many other people who have used them before you. Therefore, the bottom line here is: the ad that you post needs to be creative.

Building backlinks is important to the success of any website. These links help you go up in the rankings at search engines like Google and this will therefore give you more traffic. Building backlinks yourself can sometimes be a time consuming task. This is why plenty of webmasters prefer to outsource the creation of backlinks to an external service so they can focus on other things, such as improving the content of their website.

But in order for your backlinking campaign to be successful, you need to use a service provider that knows what they are doing. Otherwise, you may end up with poor results or they may actually hurt your search engine rankings. Here are some things to look for when selecting a backlinking service provider:

The speed at which the backlinks are done

Google will not like it if a site that only had a few backlinks suddenly starts receiving thousands of them overnight. It will be quite obvious to them that you are trying to “game the system” and go up in search results quickly. Make sure that your service provider understands this and that the posting of the backlinks will be done in a gradual, natural way.

The sites where they post

Backlinks shouldn’t be posted on sites which are plagued with comment spam or are nothing more than a page full of links to other sites. This will probably hurt your rankings more than it will improve them and is therefore best avoided.

The quality of the comments

Posting your website‘s link on blogs is how many service providers build backlinks. However, for them to be effective, the backlinks would need to be posted on blogs which are in the same niche than you. Furthermore, they have to be actually relevant to the post at hand, rather than being generic comments like “Nice site” or “Thanks, very good!”. Comments like these look like obvious spam and will probably end up being removed quickly by the blog owner.

Check their reviews

Many providers of backlinking services advertise their services on sections of internet marketing forums designed for this purpose. This actually is a very big advantage for you. You will be able to see comments from other users who have purchased backlinks from them and see if other buyers were satisfied or not.

Avoid going with a provider that has few or no reviews, even if their prices seem to be the least expensive out there. Many scammers price their offerings very low in order to attract a lot of orders and then do either poor quality work or do nothing at all and disappear with the money they’ve collected. If you have to deal with a new member who doesn’t have any reviews and hasn’t built up a reputation, only make a very small order first to see if they are actually able to deliver on what they’ve promised.

When you are promoting an affiliate or CPA offer, you obviously need to advertise in order to get traffic to your site. After all, people will not magically type your affiliate link in their browser if they don’t know it exists. There are various ways to post ads online, let’s take a look at one of them:

Classified Ads Sites:

Some examples of these sites are Craigslist, Backpage, Gumtree and Kijiji. Of course there are many others but they all have one thing in common: the ability to place classified ads for free. Using these sites to get traffic to your CPA offers has brought great results to many people, but it needs to be done properly in order to be effective. Furthermore, you would need to check with your network manager to see if promoting a certain offer on a classifieds site is allowed. Some networks may ban this type of promotion altogether or restrict it only to certain offers.

There are also a few points to remember if you don’t want to get in trouble.

Don’t post ads that are misleading or deceptive. Some examples of this is posting business opportunity offers in the “Jobs” section and making it appear like you are offering an actual job, then requiring the applicant to fill out a lead form to prove that they are “qualified”, or requiring someone to sign up for a video conferencing trial for an “interview” that will never take place.

Due to complaints to merchants and in some cases investigations by the FTC, networks are cracking down on such “blackhat” advertising.

What you should rather do is post in the appropriate category and explain what the offer is about and what benefits it could bring to the customer. Since many affiliate sites are immediately flagged as “spam”, you will probably be better off getting your own domain name and landing page for your offer.

While this flagging of ads which are not spam and posted in the correct category could get annoying, remember that these sites are mainly there for local businesses to get clients and not to push affiliate offers. If there was no system in place to deal with overposting or postings in the wrong section, these places would soon be over run with hundreds of spam messages drowning out any legitimate content.

On certain offers, such as car loan or mortgage leads, another tactic that works would be having people contact you by email. You would then send them a reply with details of the offer and your affiliate link.

While posting is usually free, some sites allow your ad to be placed on top for a certain period of time or highlighted for a small fee. This will bring some additional attention to your ad and will ultimately result in more clicks for you.

In any case, remember that some networks may forbid advertising on these sites mainly due to past abuses. Therefore, be sure to get the OK from your affiliate manager before beginning.

Whether you’re involved in email marketing or social media marketing, it can be extremely tempting to buy more friends or subscribers. Resist that temptation. A lot of companies offer thousands of subscribers, or friends for one “low low price”, but the ACTUAL price of those new subscribers and friends is much higher than you want to pay.

The first thing to keep in mind is that you have no way of knowing how those subscribers or friends were obtained. In the case of email addresses, the addresses could have been obtained either illegally, or at the very least, fraudulently. If that’s the case, well, we don’t need to explain to you why you don’t want any parts of that.

Social media friends could also have been obtained through nefarious means. If someone is offering you a lot of friends for a low price, it’s possible that all of these friends are either fake accounts, or accounts that have been hacked, and used as part of this deal. Again, if that’s the case, you don’t want any parts of it.

Let’s assume for a minute that all of the subscribers and friends you buy were obtained legally. If that’s the case, then you have no way of knowing how many of those email addresses, or social media accounts are still active. People abandon both every day, and there’s nothing stopping these companies from selling you inactive users.

Let’s assume that all the accounts were legally obtained, and that they’re all active. There’s still no way to know that all of the new subscribers or friends you’re buying will be interested in your products or services. You might very well be buying subscribers and friends that are just going to mark you as spam, and ignore you.

If enough people flag you as spam, then you’ll have a hard time getting your emails to make it to anyone’s inbox, and your social media accounts could get closed. In short, the price of those cheap friends and subscribers could be an extreme slow down in your online marketing efforts. In the long run, it’s just not worth it.

It takes a lot of effort to build up a good list, and once you have one built up, you have to be careful not to lose subscribers. You need to handle your newsletter the right way. The obvious thing to do with your newsletter is to promote your products and services, and while it is a good idea to do so, you have to do more than that. If you just send out sales emails, your subscribers will stop reading your emails, unsubscribe to your list, or even start flagging your emails as spam. To avoid losing readers, there are a few tings you can keep in mind.

Entertain And Inform

Do your best to entertain, and inform y our subscribers with your newsletter. Keep them informed of any interesting news happening in your niche, and if you come across an entertaining video, comic, or other article related to your niche, be sure to share it with your readers. If you can inform, and entertain your readers, they’ll open your emails every time they see one hit their inbox. In other words, you’ll have more eyes on your sales emails when you send them if you take the time to send out informative, or entertaining emails on a regular basis.

Updates To Your Site

Share any information about new features or products you plan to offer on your site in your newsletter. This type of information goes over well for sites that have blogs, or other methods for sharing information about your niche. When sharing information about site updates, it’s important to keep it clear and concise. Don’t ramble on about the changes you’re making, just give your readers the primary details.

Sales Information

You’re going to want to send out promotional emails to your subscribers, but you have to be sure to present that information the right way. If you’re sending out a promotional email, be sure to lead in with your best or most exciting offer. Don’t make your readers scroll through a  lot of information before showing them the best promotion you have to offer. Also, keep your promotions clear, and concise, and don’t leave out any essential details. If there are exceptions to a sale you’re running, be sure to mention them in the sales email. A well constructed sales email will bring in more sales than you might think.

Using your email newsletter the right way can do great things for your website. Keep these tips in mind, and you’ll have a newsletter that your subscribers are happy to read.

Whether you run a local business, or a global one, you might be able to use Craigslist to generate more sales. If you’re not familiar with Craigslist, it’s the biggest set of classified ads on the internet. There are sections of Craigslist with ads for just about any major city on the planet, and even some not-so-major ones. If you live in a suburban area, chances are there’s also a section for your region. In short, no matter where you live, there are Craigslist ads for your area.

If you run a local business, you can generate a great deal of attention for your business by posting about it on Craigslist. There’s a section on Craigslist for just about any type of product or service you can imagine, and that means there’s a section that’s right for you and your business.

If you run a global business that operates primarily online, you can use Craigslist to generate some business. Just pick a major city, and post about your business. Try to pick areas that are going to get a decent amount of traffic – for example, New York gets a lot of attention, so it’s a good idea to post there.

Whether your business is small or large, it’s important to play by the rules when you’re posting on Craigslist. Craigslist is policed almost entirely by Craigslist users, and if your ad breaks any of the official, or unofficial rules, you will get flagged as spam, and your ad will get removed. Avoid filling your ad with a lot of links, don’t post all your information in the form of a single image, and just do your best to sound both friendly and professional. If other Craigslist users get the feeling that you’re ad is fraudulent or spam, they’ll flag you down, even if your ad is legit. It’s also important to post in the right section. If your ad doesn’t fit with the section you put it in, your ad will get removed. Remember, don’t just post  your ad in another section because that section gets more attention. If you do, your ad won’t stay up very long.

Craigslist can be a powerful marketing tool for businesses both large and small. Just remember to post in the right area, and the right section. Keep your ad professional and friendly, and you won’t have any trouble using Craigslist to drum up a little extra business.

If you work with email marketing at all, you know the hardest part is getting your subscribers to trust you. Everyone gets a lot of spam, and as such, most people are predisposed to deleting a newsletter rather than reading it. If you keep a few simple things in mind, you can ensure that they’ll read your emails rather than deleting them.

Be Consistent

If you want your subscribers to trust you you’re going to have to give them a reason to do so. In other words, you’re going to have to keep the promises you make, and you’re going to have to be clear about what those promises are. If you promise your subscribers a coupon for 25% off of all of a certain type of item, make sure that all the items that are supposed to be included in the sale are going for the sale price. If that same sale excludes certain items, be sure to state that clearly in your email. You want the customer to get the exact same message from the email and your site.

Style Counts

If your emails look nice, and are easy to read and understand, your subscribers will be more inclined to read them on a regular basis. Make sure all of the important information is presented near the top of the email. Also, make sure the title of the email is attractive to the reader. Remember, presentation and style matter. If your subscribers

Personality

Make your emails fun, and interesting for the reader. Don’t just send the same boring advertisements and discounts that everyone else is sending, instead, come up with an entertaining way to deliver your message. If your customers are entertained by your newsletter, they will find it easier to trust you. Additionally, they’ll be more likely to open and read each email you send out. If they expect to find something enjoyable in the email, they’ll be far more likely to open it and read it thoroughly.

Email marketing can be hard. Most newsletters get lost in the sea of spam that floods into everyone’s inbox. If you keep the tips above in mind, you’ll be able to get your subscribers to trust your emails. As their trust grows, so to will the rate at which they open your emails,a nd click your links.

Starting a successful newsletter is tough, no matter what type of site it’s for. Most people delete the majority of newsletters that hit their inbox without ever even opening them. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t run an email marketing campaign, it just means you have to follow a few important guidelines while doing so.

First, and probably the most important, is don’t buy subscribers. We’ve all seen the ads that promise tens of thousands of subscribers for one low, low price, but it’s still not worth it. The price might be affordable, but you probably don’t want the subscribers they’re tying to sell you. You can’t be certain how they got a hold of those email addresses, so there’s always a chance they were obtained illegally, or at the very least, by underhanded means. If they were all obtained on the up and up, you still have no way of knowing whether or not they’re active email addresses that get checked by someone regularly. Even if they do get checked regularly, you still don’t want them. There’s no way to guarantee that each email address you bought belongs to someone who is likely to be interested in your newsletter. You might be buying subscribers that are likely to flag your newsletter as spam, and hurt the overall reputation of your newsletter, and by proxy, your site.

Instead of paying for subscribers, ask for them. Put an opt in page on your site, and put an opt in box on the sidebar. Also, if you have a store, give your customers the option to sign up for your newsletter during checkout. By asking your customers to sign up, you won’t get as many subscribers as you would by buying them, but you’ll get subscribers with a genuine interest in your site, and your niche.

Once you have the right subscribers, it’s important to start sending them the right things. Don’t just send out sales emails, try to send out entertaining and informative content as well. If you can entertain your subscribers, they’ll be more likely to open and read all of your emails, including your sales emails.

A successful newsletter just comes down to sending the right information to the right subscribers. If you have subscribers that are interested in what you have to say, and you’re sending them meaningful content, your newsletter will perform well.

Whether you are writing your emails to your clients or you are outsourcing your writing to a ghostwriter, the most important thing is to cater to the audience you have currently.

Not the audience you wish you had.

What is the difference? A lot actually. Some emails that I get from internet marketing folks or even from big box retailers usually do not pertain to me. Sure, maybe I am cynical and a harsh customer, but I expect a lot from people sending me emails, so when they disappoint I usually unsubscribe as soon as I get to the link to click it.

When you have potential clients and clients on your mailing list, you have a problem.

Why? Because one group already knows you and your kick-butt products you sell.

The other needs to be convinced that your products are their best choice if they are going to buy “x” online.

Understand the difference? Good! Then don’t have them on the same list as each other.

Set up two (or more) lists for clients. If you have an opt in for a free report, have that as a “potential clients” list.

Then, if you have people who have bought your product, put them on a brand new list that is “buyers” because you know a few special things about them. They A) bought your product, B) Have money to spend, and C) are interested in your niche/type of products. With this you can market specific messages to them, how to get the most out of your program or other complimentary programs (down the line) that will help them boast their productivity more, or what have you. These can be your own products or products from others that you are an affiliate for.

Another thing you need to be careful of with your email auto responders is to not send them to frequently. Send an email per week and always make sure you include an opt out button at the end. Don’t spam your followers, you should just be happy they signed up for your email list in the first place!

Stay human. Don’t try to get overly complex (unless your product is on nuclear research or something), and make sure you explain everything in your email, so there are no questions left for the user to try and dig up somewhere else, you will lose subscribers easily that way.

Keeping your email opt in page clean and professional is important to showing your users trust and respect. Make sure you emphasize privacy and the purpose of your list. List the benefits of being a member of your email list such as giveaways, free information, gifts, or whatever benefits your list might have. This helps gain trust right away from your users and makes them feel like they will benefit from joining your list, rather than giving away their privacy to a third party. Trust is the most important thing you can build on your opt in page.

The opt in email page takes some time to perfect, but the main objective is to keep the person interested enough to want to give you their personal information such as an email address to offer them solicited information. This is known as opting in to receive the information and allows you to send them related information. Most people will not simply put in their information if they see no incentive or gains that they would receive for doing so. This is where you would provide a free gift for giving you their information. This allows you to provide a free gift as the ethical bribe to earn their email address information.

This means that you will be tasked with gaining the trust of opt in subscribers. The more that you work to gain the trust of the potential subscribers, the more likely they will be to opt in. Once you do get their trust to give you their information you will have to continue earning their trust. Sending them the free gift via auto-response scripts is important to utilize. Do not bombard them with spam and offers they do not need.

Delivering on the join request is very important. You will have to ensure that they will be receiving important information that they will want to read without asking them to buy anything at first. Once gaining their trust has gone on for a few days to a week, your email responses could be tailored to ask them politely to purchase a product. If they do not continue on, the next email should outline why they should buy it. After this, the emails should explain why not using the product is less effective than other products or methods. This will usually provide them with a reason to purchase within a set time frame if their interest is caught well enough.

Facebook can be a great platform to market your business or products on if you do it right. The biggest thing to remember is that Facebook is a social network where two way engagement is important. People who spam Facebook with links, and information that looks like spam are going to be classified as such and potentially ignored or even shut down by Facebook.

The problem with Facebook is that you need to have a very engaged audience in order to be profitable through the social media part of it. That is what we are going to talk about today – the social aspect of Facebook, not the advertising platform.

On Facebook you have two real ways of marketing for free to individuals. The most prominent now is through Facebook Pages as they are called. The other is through Facebook Events.

Facebook Pages are the best way to promote and connect with your readers or fans online, except through mailing lists. Facebook pages are a great way to promote your content because you can easily share links to your website, interact with fans and hold contests and more.

It is important to remember that your Facebook page is only a compliment to your site, not your only site. Due to the interaction levels being so high, it can be easy to use Facebook Pages as your only source of interaction and content creation. Spread the love around to other social networks such as Twitter and see your brand grow even more so.

The best way I have found to get my Facebook page numbers up (right now it is around 1,400 for a pretty small community’s website) is to hold a “fan drive.” A fan drive is simply a plea to get people to “like” your pages in order to achieve a goal. My goal was 1,000 fans in one month and I would donate $150 to the local Hospice. Within two weeks my page had over 1,100 fans and I was writing a check.

Those 1,000 fans are worth so much more than $150, and the cost was well worth it.

Depending on your situation, there are other ways to get people to join if you are not working on such a local level. For example, giving away an iPod or something to a random fan is a great way to get people to join, even small things like books and gift cards are a huge motivator.

Be creative when using Facebook to market your product or page, but remember, don’t be a spammer or you will lose fans a lot faster than you gained them.

Building a successful blog isn’t easy. It takes a ton of work, long hours promoting, writing, submitting to directories, and doing other mundane tasks.

But, luckily building a successful blog is possible. There are so many niches that need a top site still, and the field is wide open. Maybe you are an expert pottery maker, photographer, or management consultant. There are numerous people each day looking for content on your topic avidly online and you can be the site that they come to.

Content
Writing good content is really important to having a successful blog. Content should be aimed at readability for your visitors, but also for search engine optimization.

It takes a delicate balance between writing for the search engines and for your users.

The best way I can suggest to do it is to use keywords as part of sentences only when you need it. For example, if I have a website about chocolate pancakes, I do not need to include that in every sentence or even every other sentence. However, I can use the keyword in the opening sentence or as part of a sentence when needed. The other thing you can do is add your keyword to your content using h2 title tags within the content. You can have your opening sentence or “thesis” at the start of your paragraph even with your keyword in it, as a way to draw attention to your main idea for your reader, and to improve your search engine optimization (SEO) rank.

Marketing
Marketing your blog can be a chore unless you want to do it the right way. Marketing can be a lot of fun — visiting your favorite blogs on your specific niche can be a great way to market your blog through commenting on their recent posts. Engaging with top bloggers can get your name out there and get people to follow your blog when you write engaging comments and participate in discussion.

Another marketing method is to join forums that are related to your niche. Promote your blog lightly, through your forum signature only — or else you will just seem like a spammer.

Start slow building your blog and relationships with your readers. Find and engage your audience, promote it through social media, bookmarking and forums and take your time to build it, it will not come over night so be patient.