Let’s face it, the economic recession is sending many retirees and senior citizens back into the workplace, or better yet, some have decided to launch their own business. It’s tough to compete when you haven’t been working for a while, and it’s even tougher if you don’t have adequate computer skills. You have to go beyond Microsoft Word and doing simple searches on Google these days if you want a competitive advantage. Learning social media marketing and networking skills is one way to get customers and employers to consider you as much as, or more, than your younger and social media savvy competitors. A story in the Telegraph, MI5 dumps spies who can’t use Facebook and Twitter, highlights the same issue but from a different perspective:

“MI5 is turning out dozens of its older staff because their computer skills are not sufficient to master social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Mr Evans said: “I think some of the staff perhaps aren’t quite the ones that we will want for the future.”
He added that the programme would include both “voluntary and compulsory redundancies” believed to mainly impact upon older workers.”

An older worker is often classified as someone over 50. If that’s you, and you don’t know anything about Twitter, Facebook and other social media websites, then it’s time to get started. Don’t dismiss this as something just happening in London. The actions of MI5 are indicative of what is taking place in many companies, and we will see more of it in the near future.

Would you be willing to pay to get your tweets listed at the top of search results, based on keywords? That’s the idea behind TweetUp, a venture started by Bill Gross. It’s a search service that readers can use to find relevant tweets based on keywords. Business owners and others pay for the privilege of appearing at the top of the results. The New York Times explored the service further with Gross and reports:

“The gamble is whether Twitter users who have turned the microblogging service into global communications phenomenon will be willing to pay to get their 140-character messages noticed — and whether other Twitter users will view such paid placement as legitimate.

So who does Mr. Gross expect to pay to put something as ephemeral as a Twitter post on top of the charts? ‘I think everyone who is looking to build a following will pay,’ he said. That means companies that want to build their brands as well as individuals who hope to drive readers to their Web sites.”

Similar to Google Adwords, you’re bidding on keywords for higher page ranks. With TweetUp, you’re paying for higher tweet post ranks. Either way, you (or your competitors) are paying to stand out among thousands of tweets.

Whether or not you should pay for TweetUp will depend on how much they charge. Like with Adwords, you’ll want to limit your spending in order to control your marketing budget. If the price is too cost prohibitive, then it’s back to grassroots marketing on Twitter, which has helped many entrepreneurs to boost sales and transition from the workplace to their own business.

If you own a Blackberry, you should use it to market your business as much as possible when you’re way from your computer. Research in Motion (RIM) has a Twitter application to help with that. ITPortal.com reports:

“Users will be also able to send messages in real-time in order to receive instant replies. The Twitter client, which has been optimised for the screen of the smartphone, is also designed to timely notify users about new Tweets and re-Tweets.

RIM, the Canada based smartphone maker, also announced that the Twitter for BlackBerry application comes equipped with a sophisticated search function which will allow BlackBerry users to search for keywords on Twitter.”

What’s cool about the app is that you can run it in the background while you check your email or take care of other tasks. You don’t even have to shorten links by going to a third party website. RIM’s Twitter app does it all for you.

You can no longer use the excuse that you don’t have time to manage your Twitter account and followers. Although, don’t get tempted to overload them with useless information, just because sending tweets is more accessible with the Blackberry. Use it as an opportunity to schedule time to plan and send tweets that market your business and build a following.

If the availability of the app itself isn’t enough, you should know that it’s free. That’s a tremendous benefit to you, if you’re like many business owners these days, strapped for cash.

Scams on Facebook, where marketers offer fake gift cards for a famous company in order to drum up web traffic, provide a great idea for promoting your small business. You can offer legitimate gift cards to your fans and prospective fans, to generate a buzz about a sale or discount in services. Here is how the scams on Facebook work according to a PC World article, Ikea Gift Card Scam Takes in Nearly 40,000 Facebook Users:

“[The Ikea] scam page had taken in more than 37,000 users by 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time, offering [fans] a $1,000 gift certificate in exchange for promoting Ikea to their friends. At that time, the page was gaining new fans at the rate of about 5,000 per hour. The promotion, the page said, was only available for one day.”

To participate, users must become a fan of the fake Ikea page, hosted on Facebook, and then invite all their friends to become fans. They are then directed to an affiliate marketing page hosted by …, where they are asked personal information such as name, address, date of birth and home telephone number.”

You should mimic this Facebook scam, but there is a major marketing lesson to learn and use. Facebook fans are willing to spread the word about an exciting offer exclusive to Facebook fans, if you make a sweet deal. A $1,000 gift card offer to IKEA was “sweet” enough for more than 40,000 users to fall for it. What offer can you make to Facebook fans to encourage them to tell others about it? Some examples to consider:

• One time 50% discount
• Gift cards of smaller amounts
• Free products and services
• Offer gifts from larger companies that offer related products or services.

Give it a try, and measure the results in terms of web traffic to your Facebook page and website.

If you want to grow your business or do some kind of freelancing work or build contacts then social media is the most important thing that you should get involved with. Social marketing is getting very famous nowadays with the help of applications like facebook, twitter, linked in etc. Internet marketing is also being done with smartphones with the evolution of internet and 3G making it more users’ friendly. Although, the task of chatting and getting involved with other activities internet marketing activities is overwhelming. Like you others are also actively involved in these activities so your language and the way that you communicate should be different and gripping so the internet user gets hooked to your message. Also to stand out from the crowd and to establish, maintain and increase contact with people one should know how to engross their readers.

Nowadays, almost all the people who are using internet have profiles on facebook, twitter and many other social sites and networks. Just by making your profile on these sites and joining various networking sites one can get connected to millions of users across the world. All most everybody is using social media. Nowadays, hardly any company is there that is not using social media to build its brand, recruit employees or directly or indirectly selling products and services. One has to find their target audience and know how to reach them as everybody doesn’t have account everywhere on that site. Make a list of all contacts that you want to get in touch with and see on which network they are active on like YouTube, linked in, facebook, twitter etc. Finally make your profile on those sites and get connected easily with them. Now once you are in touch with them develop a plan to engage them and be constantly linked to them. To keep them engaged you have to give them what they need and enjoy.

You can also go through their profile to see what they enjoy the most. For instance if a contact of yours like to engage in conversations on twitter then you should join them there and shine in as many conversations you can with them. Just keep one thing in mind that you should not be invading in their personal space. You have to be subtle. Be interesting so that your contact can’t resist but respond and engage in conversation with you. If any of your contacts has posted something on any networking and social site like a video or a link be sure to give an interesting feedback on that posted material. They will like you paying attention to them and responding. You can use this chance to build relationship with them. The best way to excel in internet marketing is by providing your audience with the content that they need. This content creation can be done by yourself. If you don’t have enough time to provide your audience with the right material then be sure to hire someone who is experienced and an expert in this field. With the right kind of strategy one can achieve tremendous success by social media marketing.

With a well thought of marketing plan, you can generate huge interest from your audience. Apart from being connected with them it is also very important that you run social media marketing promotional schemes at regular time interval. A customer who is happy and satisfied with your content will recommend it to his/ her acquaintance and your product or service will get advertised through mouth to mouth promotion without investing even a single penny. With the evolution in technology the face and way of advertising is also changed big time. If you want to survive in today’s competitive world then you have to constantly change your advertising strategies to remain updated. If one wants to stay ahead of its competitors then you have to keep on changing with the fast world and their needs. Traditional means of advertising have become the thing of the past. Take a good marketing initiative to be on top of the list of search engines, social sites etc.

Today in the world of advanced technology and digitalization the impact of social media in our day to day life has dramatically increased. Today everyone of us instead of calling each person to tell about our achievements and celebrations we prefer to post everything on social networking sites so that our colleagues and friends can be connected with us and also they can be a part of our experience. Today social media is not only use to communicate with our loved ones but also it is used to generate some extra income by using some recommended strategies.

Internet marketing: Now you can utilize community media to generate wide network of marketing across the globe over the World Wide Web and it is one of the of most important investments in your life time and it can help you to make huge profits online. Some of the important social networking sites are Myscape, Twitter, and Facebook. These are famous community networks that encourage you to explore an array of money making opportunities by taking the advantages of other network that are already generated. Moreover, the main motive of the community sites is to be social but you should be cautious enough related to not doing excess marketing therein. On the other hand you are asked to be careful with these sites because these sites are quite unsympathetic in offering treatments, so you should be cautious while using these sites to do marketing.

While using social media it is recommended that you should set up yourself as an authority in the field of your interest. You should try to get to that extend where people see you as an expert in this field. If you make yourself expert then definitely people will follow you along with your writings, also they will listen to your views very carefully because they will start trusting you. Once you gain the position of an experienced person then you can utilize the power to review the products of various manufacturers and producers. Obviously it is not possible to happen in one night, don’t aspect this to happen overnight, you have to do loads of practice and you should have patience too. If you gain this creditability then you will be able to market your own product and also other people’s product through internet marketing.

On the other hand it is recommended that you should always try to select the suitable social media through which you can attract the eyes of millions of people across the globe. On the other hand you should try to use testimonials and referrals which will support your on going business on World Wide Web. So, it is always recommended to use referral and testimonials to enhance the customer base in your business to make huge profits.

One of the most beneficial ways to make money on internet is the affiliate marketing. You should try to be a member of some reputed selling websites like cj.com or ClickBank.com. These websites are the commission based sites. After you register yourself you should try to find out some products of your interest through you can make some extra money. After that you have to post some thoughts in the social media about the product so that your friends and visitors come to know about the product and about its sale and to some extend they may also purchase the product through which you will be able to make huge profits. Everything is dependent on your creativity, show you creativity and money is yours.

Affiliate marketing is really the correct way to make huge profits with all comforts of your house you don’t have to go anywhere and anytime you can do your marketing. The best part is that the returns are quite satisfactory and instant. Apart from this you don’t have to invest anything but you have to invest certain amount of time to do internet marketing so that you can make some profits. The best part is that you don’t have to deal with the clients directly and also you don’t have to generate a product by your own. You just have to find a product of your interest and do marketing for that product which is more than enough to make huge amount of money online.

If you’re going to spend so much time writing a blog for your business, why not convert that same energy into writing a book? In fact, do the two at once. Consider making your blog posts future chapters of a book to showcase your expertise and skills.  It’s not a new idea, we just hope to motivate you a bit to keep going or get started.

Start with an Outline

Start with a rough outline. It’s rough, because your readers’ feedback and comments will help shape your book. You don’t want to leave it totally up to them to decide the topics though, because you’ll lose control and it will be hard to finish the book. While a novel might work well that way, it may not work as well for a business book.

Write 500 Words a Day

After you write your outline, start writing 500 word articles each day on a topic and post them. You’ll compile those articles to make up your chapters down the road, and you may decide not to use some. It’s a win-win for you, because you still have great content for your blog. Make sure it’s search engine optimized, and you can edit it out when you’re ready to make it a book, or leave those keywords in.

Don’t worry about doing the chapters in order. You’ll worry about that when you go to compile the book. The main thing is to form the habit of writing 500 words a day and finish the book that you know you need to write for your business.  Before you know it, on a 5 day a week schedule, you’ll hit 60,000 words in 120 days, which is more than good enough for your first business book.

It’s tough to think beyond the social media theories and statistics when you’re new to social media marketing. Entrepreneurs are in need of real life applications, and are more willing to give it try if they have examples to consider. The following is a list of social media marketing goals set by many entrepreneurs should help you make your own. Some of these goals may seem easy if you’ve been engaged with social media marketing all this time, but it’s challenging if you’re just starting out.

1. Read one ebook, one white paper and one book on social media each quarter, for one year.

2. Increase number of daily unique visitors by 20 percent in 60 days using social media marketing.

3. Publish two blog posts, six days a week that are search engine optimized.

4. Email a bi-weekly newsletter to subscribers with one solid call to action.

5. Write 10 authoritative “list type” articles each month that will make linking to it hard to resist.

6. Respond to every comment and private message on social media channels and blog, including deleting spams, the same business day, for 30 days.

7. Spend 20 percent of marketing budget on social media marketing for 90 days. Measure the results and determine how to continue.

8. Create one video tutorial or other video content every 60 days for one year. Publish it on your website and on YouTube.

Now that was easy…to write down. Actually getting this list done on a consistent basis will help to make your marketing campaign a successful one.

Some entrepreneurs get video marketing, and others hate it. Whether it’s insecurity about their talent or appearance, the thought of showing up in a YouTube video is unnerving. If that’s you, video marketing represents zero percent of your marketing campaign. That’s a shame, because when done right, viral marketing through videos pays dividends, and the bills.

Excuse #1: That’ not My Area of Expertise

Excuse #2: I’m too Fat

There’s really no excuse for not making the time and putting in the effort to incorporate video marketing in your campaigns. It could be key to keeping your business afloat.

Zynga’s FarmVille has dominated Facebook and inched its way into 7-11s around the country.  The beloved pastime that has people trading farm staples and harvesting crops now has its place on the iPhone.  In its earliest stages, the game is available in New Zealand where users can download it from iTunes.  The company has also made it available for download on the iPod Touch

With 85 million plus iPhone users in the world, Zynga has the potential of dominating once again.  The company even has its own forum where it addresses Mobile Users.  Visitors to the website can keep up-to-date on all things farm related and meet up with other “neighbors” by visiting FarmVille’s website.