Basically, most experienced online business entrepreneurs would suggest that among the best internet business ideas are those that have already been proven to work and earned profits for business owners. Even those who are yet to learn new ventures for internet businesses, many of them already have heard about online selling, either on eBay or Craigslist and many entrepreneurs are even used social networking websites such as Facebook, Friendster, Twitter, and YouTube to sell things directly to their friends this is a great way to advertise their products and services to other people within your network. This is currently one of the emerging internet business ideas that is being explored by a lot of people who are getting starting and many people are take notice. Just like with any other successful internet business idea, it all started from scratch but with careful planning and comprehensive research, your ideas can turn into great profits and income potential for business owners.

If you are planning to use social media as your starting point for the realization of your internet business ideas, you need to conduct comprehensive research as for the products and or services you are planning to offer your target market niche. Do not simply limit your business goals to selling only to those that are within your reach because once they are gone, it will be harder to come up with excellent internet business ideas again to propel your business towards success. If your internet business is focused on selling things that people want, you need to direct your research to finding novice and hot items which you can also buy for affordable prices so you can make a profit.

Depending on which niche you plan to focus on you may need to consider important aspects such as storage and shipping. Since your internet business will have all transactions done online, you need to find a secure yet affordable way to ship your products to your clients in order to keep the cost relatively cheap on the part of your business as well as on the part of your buyers. This has to work both ways in order to keep both parties happy. And in order for you to sell your internet business ideas and establish profit fast, you need to rev up your advertising strategy so your target market will know what products you have to offer to them. Using social media is one way of easily attracting potential buyers and because of the popularity of this media; you can keep your advertising costs low while establishing higher online presence.

There are certainly a lot of things to consider in making your simple yet effective internet business ideas work plus create a profit. But once your internet business idea(s) start rolling and all your plans are put into action, the road to success is within your reach.

The most important person, when it comes to social media, is a Social Media Manager. A Social Media Manger is the person who is in charge of ensuring that your social media marketing campaign succeeds and grows. If you employ a Social Media Manager then you will find that the experience and increased revenue will skyrocket fast in addition to freeing up some of your own time. Your Social Media Manager can compile and advise you on the best strategies that should run hand in hand with the current social trends.

Social media is currently the best way to network and market ideas so that your consumer base can grow and develop. By using networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube etc, you are able to network like you have never been able to before. The days are gone when you had complicated equations and campaigns to highlight your product! Social media takes away all of that and has replaced it with a simpler one to one system that allows the prospective client to feel like their interests are being taken to heart and that the potential product or service you are offering is tailored to them.

To get your business thriving you need to incorporate social media into your everyday workings and the best way to do this is to hire a Social Media Manager. Your Social Media Manager will open, design and handle all of your online social media profiles. With your business name constantly being displayed on your potential customers networking sites they will choose your brand name over other peoples as displays in their sight then creates displays in their mind which in turn leads them to your product or service. Having someone to reply to their questions, messages and posts on the networking site allow them to feel that you really care and you’re not just a name.  This kind of human contact makes them trust you and allows them to be more open and they become a little more willing to listen. All of these efforts help to break down the barriers that your prospects may have at first.

Social Media Managers maintain the pages to keep reminding old and current customers, fans and clients of your presence as well as attracting new customers, fans and clients with giveaways, research interest polls, post interesting facts and special promotions, and service the accounts at all times. With so many different social networking sites out there, hiring a Social Media Manager is a great option since they are right on the pulse of every change, every trend and everything to do with your business, service and/or industry. This allows them to keep your company one step ahead of the competition at all times. Regardless of the size of your company, niche or service, a Social Media Manager can help you to make your business part of the growing world of social media and provide your growing consumer base with a point of contact that fits into their everyday life.

When the Internet evolved into a web 2.0 environment, many found the sheer influx of new social media sites to be overwhelming. When you’re using social networks to help brand and build your business, it’s vital that you have a system in place to organize and manage those tasks, and a social media manager can accomplish that for you.

As an online entrepreneur, you have many hats to wear in your business. You brainstorm ideas, create products, conduct tracking and testing to enhance conversion rates. But you also focus on advertising, and while most marketing costs money, social media is free to those who want to wield its power.

The problem occurs when you start signing up for social networks and realize you don’t have enough hours in the day to manage the operations of it all. So you start looking for someone to outsource the networking tasks to – a social media manager who will be the right fit for your business vision.

You want a social media manager who knows how to immerse himself (or herself) into multi media formats – from text to audio to video. They need to be able to handle blog posts, video presentations and communications with prospective customers on any and all Internet platforms like forums or chat rooms.

Social media managers take on the role of branding your business for you on the World Wide Web, so you want to ensure they don’t engage in black hat spamming and always present your business in its best light.

While you’re busy focusing on the product line and profits, your social media manager will seek out new networking opportunities, have a profile set up for you and begin releasing information to interested viewers about your offerings.

You may notice that most offline companies are now in the process of hiring online media managers to build a rapport with the public. This person will be able to identify your target audience on networking sites and then build a bridge between their needs and your solutions.

They’ll monitor the web to see what buzz is being created about your business and address it accordingly. They will encourage participation and find ways of engaging them in conversations.

Social media managers who are adept at their jobs will easily be able to channel targeted traffic to your website through many of the largest web 2.0 entities in existence – including LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Digg and more. Their job is to create a buzz and circulate information and you reap all of the rewards of those efforts.

I am going to be doing a series of videos on Why Twitter is Important for Your Business.

The last thing your business needs is an empty Twitter account taking up space in the twittersphere. You’ll have wasted your time in setting it up and when people find an empty account they may think your business doesn’t know what it’s doing. While this is worse than not having a Twitter account, you could be missing out on excellent opportunities.

So, before you jump on the bandwagon and setup your business’ Twitter account, or write off the whole social media thing…. Take a few minutes to learn why you need an account.

My next episode will be about how to Find more clients using Twitter.

LinkedIn is a great social media platform for business to business networking. If you want to establish yourself as an industry expert this is perhaps one of the most effective platforms for businesses. Do you want to market to other businesses, network with business leaders and executives? If so, then a presence on LinkedIn is a must! LinkedIn is substantially different than other social media sites because your profile is more like an online resume. As a result, with LinkedIn you really want to be professional.

Some tips on how to use LinkedIn to your advantage:

1. Build a powerful and profile try to make your profile 100% complete by including your education, professional experience as well as an products or materials that you have produced. Your LinkedIn profile is essentially an online resume for you. Add both past and present experience, your full education, honors and awards, an avatar and pay special attention to the summary information.

2. There are thousands of groups on LinkedIn be sure to join several groups and get involved. LinkedIn’s groups feature is also a fantastic engine for networking with people in your professional circles. You can join groups who have similar businesses and services as you, network with college alumni as well as business or trade specific entities. The more networking you do, the more your business gets noticed.

3. This is one of the best features on LinkedIn the Ask and answer questions. You can rapidly establish yourself as an industry expert by routinely checking to see if there are any questions being asked in your area of expertise. If you provide meaningful and helpful answers is a very effective way this will help you build connections which in turn establishes you as an expert.

4. Give and ask for recommendations section is another unique feature on LinkedIn. The Recommendations area is similar to testimonials that you would post on your website.  LinkedIn has a section on your profile for recommendations from colleagues and business partners. Be sure to ask for recommendations but also be willing to give recommendations to others this will build good will.

5. Ask for introductions. Is there a business or a person who you would really like to joint venture with or network with? Ask someone in your circle of connections to introduce you. In general your connections are more than happy to facilitate an introduction this is standard practice on LinkedIn.

As with all social media platforms, the value of LinkedIn is in building targeted connections and networking. LinkedIn is especially valuable for business to business transactions and networking. Be sure to add value, compliment others and establish yourself as an expert in your field and your social media efforts will enhance your business.

You’re probably groaning right now at the thought of having to create more content. The great news is that in Twitter land, content is only 140 characters long. And you don’t want to overdo it. Such as with blogging or website building, content is king on Twitter. If people like your content, they will follow you and tell others about you. If they don’t, you’ll be sitting on your own Twitter island all by yourself.

Fortunately, Twitter makes providing content really easy. You don’t even have to write all of it yourself. You can simply read through the content provided by the people you’re following and retweet to your followers the great content they have written. Or, as you’re reading through your RSS feed for the day, you can tweet about the news, interesting blog posts or controversies that are brewing in the blogging world. If you have an opinion be sure to say something, share your thoughts and ideas..

So your wondering what kind of content should you be sharing?

• Information. If you know something, share it. It might be a bit of trivia of interest to people in your industry or your customers. Or it might be a piece of relevant news.

• Advice. As a business owner, you should know what your customers struggle with. Let’s us me as an example I know that many people struggle with implementing their own social media strategy.  Plus, many need help with creating their own business fan page.  So sharing these tidbits helps my audience. So, provide insight for your customers and they’ll love you forever.

• Answers. Similar to advice, answers are a more direct way of helping people. Watch out for people asking questions about your field of expertise, product, or service. Provide the answers and they’ll remember you – particularly if you just saved them from hours of searching or paying someone hundreds of dollars for the 5 minute fix you provided.

• Updates. Again, I think it’s a good idea to have your blog posts tweeted as updates to your Twitter stream. There are plugins that will allow you to automatically tweet the headline and a shortened link to your blog post. Of course, this assumes that your blog posts are original content and useful to others. If you’re tweeting spam, you’re followers are going to jump ship.

• Contests. Running a Twitter-only contest is a great idea. You can blend the contest with an effort to gather opinions from your followers. For example, if you need to know whether or not your customers will pay for a physical version of your digital products, send out a tweet and include an offer to give away a free copy of one of your products to those who reply.

• Personal tidbits. While it’s a good idea to give your profile some personality, you have to be careful with this one. Talking about a song you’re listening to, or something cool you learned today is fine. Telling us about your indigestion is not! Honestly, we don’t care what you ate for lunch either.

Now that you have some ideas for content, you can plan out some of the elements. For example, if you’re getting ready to launch a product, announce that you’re taking beta testers, run a contest to give away a copy or two, and give out a few bits of information about the product to whet your customers’ appetites. Throw in a sprinkling of personal fun (professionally speaking) and you’ll have a winning combination.

Image via Wikipedia

In the last lesson, I talked about why it’s important for a small business entity to establish some sort of socialization strategy online. Now I’m going to provide you with ten tips that can help you brand your company name, increase sales and build a loyal fan base.

1.) Find out what people most want to know.

Consumers go online to ask questions about products and services. Check out Yahoo answers, forums, and other Q&A hot spots to spy on your target audience and see what concerns or questions they have so that you can provide the answers.

2.) Blog frequently using strategic keyword text for maximum “find-ability.”

Use a keyword tool to download a list of phrases your prospects are using to find products or services in your niche. Use these in your blog titles, web content, and elsewhere to ensure that when they type the phrase into Google or Bing, your site or blog has an increased chance of coming up as one of the top 10 results. Blogging frequently helps Googlebots identify you as an authority figure, and it makes customers want to check back frequently to make sure they don’t miss anything.

3.) Tweet throughout the day – and reply to your followers.

It only takes a few seconds to put together 140 characters and hit the Tweet button and it allows you to generate new interest in your business to millions of potential customers each time you do it.

4.) Initiate and participate in discussions on your Facebook Fan Page.

Some entrepreneurs launch a Facebook Fan Page, post their site link information, maybe their telephone number, and abandon the page from that point on. Your fans or followers want interaction! Visit the discussion page often to make sure conversations aren’t awaiting your participation and if there aren’t any, start some!

5.) Showcase real stories from the company or from customers.

Personalization is important when it comes to using social networking sites online. People like to hear real stories – so tell them yours from the company perspective, or ask customers if you can share their stories. Why do you think so many weight loss products include “real life success stories?” Because people want to relate to the person using the product before they buy it themselves.

6.) Use a multi-pronged approach to your media.

Don’t just type on your keyboard. Text socialization is fine, but there’s so much more you can do to really develop an online personality for your business. Ask customers to submit questions and then create an audio file they can listen to on your site or download where you’re talking. Or, interview an expert in your line of business and record it for an audio lesson they can download.

7.) If bad press gets out there, don’t hide from it.

Whenever you start socializing online (and maybe even before), there will be some people you just can’t please and who will talk negatively about you. Don’t engage in a flame war. Instead, reach out to the customer to see how you can make it right – and do this publicly wherever the bad press was so that it shows you’re not hiding from a problem.

8.) Give more than you plan to take.

This is a good rule of thumb to remember. Don’t sell, sell sell. Instead, give away freebies, poll your customers for their opinions, provide advice consistently. This is all fostering good will with people who may later buy what you have to offer.

9.) Ensure that your audience sees you as a cutting edge company.

Watch the news. Create a Google alert for your niche so that whenever groundbreaking news occurs, you can blog about it and capitalize on it with your customers who will come to perceive you as a company that stays on top of things.

10.) Make viral opportunities available in ample amounts to your customers.

Whenever you’re using social media, you want to encourage a viral response. For a blog, for example, make sure you have a widget that has all sorts of social networking site buttons so that your reader can share your blog post with one click of a button.

Don’t wait until you have everything perfect for your website. You can start socializing immediately with a free Twitter account, free Facebook Fan page, free blog, and more. It won’t cost you anything but time, and the rewards that your company will reap will have an everlasting effect on your business.

Image via Wikipedia

Many small business entrepreneurs are very excited to have an online presence, but they’re missing the mark when it comes to taking advantage of social networking sites to help brand their name and increase awareness for their products and services.

In an offline store, it’s easier to cultivate a relationship with your customer – as soon as they walk in the door. Assuming you’ve hired amicable sales staff, they’ll be there to put a face to the company name, to extend a handshake and friendly smile, and offer to meet the needs of the customer personally.

The problem with online sales is that it’s set up in a very impersonal way. Even with advanced media technology like audio files, a picture of you as the business owner, or a whole video spiel, the visitor knows the presentation isn’t just for him or her – it’s for anyone and everyone who visits your sales page. And if they have questions, they have to reach out to a help desk or contact form.

You have to branch out from your website and venture into social networking sites. Take advantage of all of the social media available to you. Become a peer to your target audience, and not just some company who’s looking to make a sale off of them.

Even top brand names with an establish fortune in sales and the best team of marketing executives in their pockets are utilizing social networking sites to foster a relationship with consumers.

IBM and Sun MicroSystems have blogs where they build a fan following. Starbucks polls its customers to find out what works and what doesn’t. Burger King made Facebook users sacrifice (delete) 10 friends in exchange for a free whopper – it was a huge hit!

Zappos dominates Twitter by posting neat facts and entering into microblogging 140-character conversations with their customers. Comcast uses Twitter as their customer service help desk of sorts – letting everyone in the timeline see just how responsive and concerned they are to cultivate a good customer service reputation.

Graco invites its customers to submit pictures on the social networking photo site Flickr, which it integrates with their company blog. And Dell? Well Dell does it all – from Facebook to Twitter to blogging.

As a small business owner, you want to look at what methods larger companies are using and employ the same tactics – especially when you can do it without having to shell out a single penny for the same amazing return on your investment of time.

In part two of, “Are You Making the Most of Your Socialization Strategy,” I’m going to give you ten tips that can help you interact with your online audience in a way that sends your news viral, helps you develop an interpersonal relationship with your prospects and customers, and increase your conversion rates dramatically.

In my previous blog I shared information about hashtags and what they’re used for. #tags can be confusing but there are some useful, free online tools to help you out. Here are just a few:

Twitag.com lets you group, see and share #tags. According to the website: “This is a useful tool to group posts related to live events (meetings, conferences, games), services (traffic, weather, emergency), memes and so on. ”

Tagdef.com is like a dictionary for hashtags. Input the word, words or letters and you’ll find out what they mean. You also get suggested hashtag words related to your search. NOTE: tagdef doesn’t know all the acronym hashtags (e.g. smss).

Search.Twitter.com: Input hashtags to get the list of posts, or follow some of the hashtag postings currently being discussed when you log in.

Twemes.com: Search for the latest Twitter Themes (“twemes”). You can also click on a topic in the Tweme Cloud and you can also choose timeline for the hashtag tweets (posted in the past hour to up to the past year).

Tweetchat.com. Search for hashtags on the home page. Log in with your Twitter username and password, then key in the hashtag acronym and you will be directed to the hashtag discussion room. You can add a tweet on the topic directly from that site.

Are there any #tag organization tools you use? Please share them with us here.

Image by Search Engine People Blog via Flickr

When you see a pound sign – # – followed by words or letters in Twitter you are seeing what’s known as Twitter Hashtags or Tags. Hashtags offer an easy way to do a keyword search on a topic or to define your posting under a topic. For example, if you tweet about a topic related to Social Media you might want to add #socialmedia to your tweet. People searching for information on this topic will see your tweets, along with others who are tweeting about it.

In some cases, letters or a combination of letters and numbers, are created for a live event so participants can post, in real time, event sharing information with other participants or their followers or anyone who keys in the hashtag name. For example, people who sign up for the annual Social Media Success Summit will tweet about it in real time will tag their tweets with #smss.

According to Twitag.com: “All words posted in messages that begin with a hash (#) are considered a tag or hashtag.” I found it interesting that Twitag.com reveals how hastags or originated. “Hashtags were popularized during the San Diego forest fires in 2007 when Nate Ritter (Twitter user) used the tag #sandiegofire to identify his updates related to the disaster.”

By following hashtag topics you’ll learn about current and upcoming events, and be able to stay on top of the most trending topics, and even get in on the conversation and show off your expertise!

Tweeting about events in real time using hashtags will help your followers learn something new. They can also use a hastag you created as a saved search and reuse your hashtag to follow up, or add information to discussions you created.

In my next blog I’ll share some of the tools you can use to follow hashtag conversations.