A lot of my clients don’t understand or are easily overwhelmed by the “pressure” of social networking.

“I don’t know what to say?”
“What kind of content is appropriate”?
“How much time do I have to spend on there?”
“Isn’t this a waste of time?”

Here’s what I tell them. If you’re not instantly drawn or attracted to social networking, then don’t make this marketing strategy part of your business YET. Concentrate on the ones that are easy to you and those strategies will automatically build your social networking.

For example, if you love to write articles and content, concentrate on article marketing and blogging. Develop the skills to be great at article marketing so that you can produce tons of articles and blog posts. (I recommend Jeff Herring and his products; he is the best and provides lots of free resources to get you started.)

Once you have your articles written, this opens up so many other marketing avenues, such as;

• Repurposing the content into an e-book or special report
• Creating Tweets and Facebook Status Updates when you add them to your blog (this can all be automated)
• Building traffic and recognition of your expertise through the articles and your “Call to Action” box.
• Growing your list by redirecting people to a squeeze page from your articles

For those of you that hate writing, but love to speak you can create recordings and have them transcribed. You can give away the recordings or post them on other sites for listeners to download. Then, have your virtual assistant transcribe and edit them to turn the audio into articles!

Game Plan: Do setup your social media networking profiles and post to them when you have content or something to say/contribute. Meanwhile focus your time on the marketing strategies that are most attractive to you, these will help you generate content and topic ideas for your social networking accounts. You don’t need social networking to build traffic to your website or find clients, but it can certainly help. To start getting comfortable build your other strategies first, and use them to help you generate content for the other avenues that you’re not so comfortable with. Let’s say you post your new article on Twitter, other people will re-tweet it and start talking about it and you can then join in on the conversation.

I just got done doing some research for a client who is starting a teleseminar series this month, and I thought I would post my findings. I’m sure some of you maybe looking for this exact information.

Ideas to Market Your Teleclass/Seminar

1. Tweet about it on Twitter! You can also develop a few phrases and have your VA post a tweet periodically letting your followers know about the event.
2. Update your Facebook status with class details and a tinyurl for signup.
3. Write a press release about the teleclass (e-mail me for a list of top ranked press release websites).
4. Ask other people who have ezines or a mailing list to advertise your teleclass; in exchange, you can offer to do the same for them
5. Post your event in the websites below for even more exposure.
6. Write a blog post about the teleclass/seminar.

Websites to list your teleclass/teleseminar event

www.teleclass.com- sign up for this one in advance as you will have to go through a training course in order to list your events on their website.

www.cculearning.com- this site requires you to post a reciprocal link on your website in order to have your teleclass listed.

www.planetteleclass.com- pretty straightforward, just sign up and follow the links to register your class

Do you have any other tips on how to promote a teleclass or seminar?

So many of our clients asks us, what do I post on Twitter? I have no idea what to write! Well, if you are experiencing Twitter-block, here is a great formula to overcome it from Karri Flatla.

Just remember to “pOST” and you can’t go wrong (and no, that’s NOT a typo):

p – Promote your wares. Let’s not kid ourselves. While it gives us all a warm fuzzy to reach out and tweep someone, social media is the raging success it is today because it helps the bottom line. Whether you’re promoting an idea, a pair of shoes, a brand or all of the above, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you sandwich self-promotion between tons of other juicy tweets that give, give and give some more; thus the lower case “p” in the pOST acronym. Just a little “p” is all you need.

For example, you might post 50 tweets about everything BUT what you sell or write about or whatever before you post just 1 or 2 tweets sharing the latest and greatest thing on your website.

Bonus Tip: Always finesse your promotional tweets should be less a slap in the face and more a tap on the shoulder. Skip the all caps and multiple exclamation marks, okay?

O – Offer to help. Newsflash: if you’re not a very generous person, twitter probably isn’t for you. In fact, you might want to ditch the whole social networking thing completely. People who aren’t helpful are dead weight in the twitterverse. They just blab on and on about what they do, who bit the dust on American Idol and how much they miss their dead goldfish.

So get over yourself and get into what your tweeps are doing. Someone always needs help somewhere with something. Chances are, someone in your target demographic needs just the kind of tip or advice only you can give. And if you’re quick on the draw, all the better. (i.e. don’t respond to a 3-day old tweet for help. That’s just lame.)

Bonus Tip: If you use twhirl or Seesmic Desktop twitter applications, you can enter keywords into the search utility so that whenever someone types them into their tweet you will be notified. Talk about instant gratification for everyone.

S – Share good things. This relates closely to “O” except now you’re not so much demonstrating your super human ability to rescue tweeps in need as you are demonstrating your super human ability to discover greatness in others. That is, when you uncover something useful, interesting or downright entertaining on the web, tweet the link. People will retweet these golden nuggets. And-to borrow a page from Thomas the Train’s playbook-that makes you look like a really useful engine.

Bonus Tip: When posting a link to twitter, briefly describe whatever it is you’re sharing. This not only encourages retweets but clickthroughs as well. That’s good twitter karma.

T – Talk it up. “Talking” on twitter is where most tweeps mess up, so it’s important to find your groove and get it right. It will take practice. Some days you won’t feel like small talk. And if you’re just getting started, get okay with the fact that every twitter newbie reads like a lost idiot for at least the first 100 tweets. That’s normal and we’ll forgive you.

Just keep at it. No one is born knowing how to spark titillating conversation every time they open their mouth. Nor will you always have something mind blowing to tweet about. We just want to know you’re human and you have a personality behind the pixels.

You can read the full article here; http://ezinearticles.com/?id=2785703.

If you haven’t heard by now, here it is. AOS (Advantage Office Support) is announcing a brand new service offering! We are proud to provide our clients with Social Networking support. Social networking is such a bid deal these days. Everyone has a profile on myspace or Facebook. It’s an excellent (and FREE) way to network online, meet potential clients, join discussion groups, and increase your online presence for easier visibility to your target market (provided you join the groups they frequent).

Having a customized profile (appropriate colors, logos, website links, contact info, company history, photos, etc….) is a non-threatening way to let the world know about you and your business. If someone visits your page, they are going there for one reason, TO LEARN MORE ABOUT YOU! Continue Reading »