Leverage Social Media To Create Affinity Groups Online

Intelligent research is the first step to launching (or not launching) any new business venture. Thinking like the individuals you are most hoping to influence is the key to developing a successful business model.

I’ve saved clients millions of dollars over the years by identifying critical threats (competitive, legal, moral, etc.) to their proposed new venture, simply by putting myself in the shoes of their target audience, and behaving as they would when presented with the new option being offered. In some cases, I’ve identified far better business models to pursue and directed my clients accordingly. But in many case, I’ve advised existing or prospective clients not to pursue the new venture at all, for reasons discovered through my intensive due diligence process.

Around Y2K, a top cruise industry executive asked my opinion regarding how I might rebrand their primary cruise line to better articulate their marketing message. The first thing I did was search the web to see how all other brands were attempting to sell me on the idea of a cruise, and how they claimed to be different from every other option available of the eighteen or so to select from. I quickly discovered that virtually every brand was claiming to be just perfect for me, without knowing anything about me or other people like me.

Every brand was speaking to me from their own perspective (selling me on their brand), while my own personal concerns centered around whether I would even enjoy cruising at all, regardless of brand. I decided that I might be compelled to cruise if it were with a ship full of other people like me, who I might most enjoy partying with for a week. I also quickly noticed that no cruise line gave me the option to search for cruises based on the types of people I might like to cruise with enough to tip me off the fence to pull the trigger and actually book a cruise.

While every brand in the industry was touting their destinations, size of ship, amenities, service, price, etc., the one thing I was most interested in – cruising with a bunch of other people that I would actually enjoy spending a week with – was not a searchable option. When every brand in an industry tells you they are just perfect for everyone, the entire industry is actually telling you that they don’t know you or care about your wants and desires.

So there it was – the reason why more people weren’t cruising was staring me right in the face, and the ramifications of this revelation were not only significant for the single brand for whom I was consulting, but for the entire cruise industry. An industry that was accustom to broadcasting their marketing message in one direction was about to be confronted with a new paradigm, the requirement for a cultural shift toward two-way dialogue as a marketing necessity.

Under my guidance, the results of these early revelations led to a cultural transformation not only at this Fortune 500 cruise line, but across the entire industry as their competitors responded to our online initiatives. Consumers had found their voice through online social media, and began configuring their own cruises not around brands or itineraries per se, but around groups formed online by others like themselves. We eavesdropped on their conversations as the groups were forming online, anticipated their wants and desires, and delighted them once on board, by honoring their group with a party and memorializing their time together in pictures.

My theory went as follows: Once groups form, and vacations are enjoyed, they plan another cruise, together, with even more of their friends. As the trend develops over the years, groups will double in size each year, and eventually grow large enough to charter entire ships (saving the cruise line 15% on travel agent fees and 100% on marketing costs), and they won’t even care what brand name is on their ship.

As group leaders emerge and find their voice, they may select a different ship or different itinerary for the group’s next cruise, but it was highly unlikely they would opt to switch brands – as such a move is too disruptive to the group. Brand loyalty is a happy byproduct in this case – not as a result of the superior service delivered, but because the switching cost (disruption and angst within the group) is simply too high. As “the group becomes the brand,” the industry can spend less on brand marketing (reduce or eliminate television advertising), and more on delivering the experience at a better value to these devoted groups.

The world of information is at your fingertips, provided you bother to commit the time and effort, and ask the right questions. Before I embark on any new concept, whether for myself or my clients, I’ve been known to spend several days with as many as 15 Google tabs open at one time, in search of total information awareness on all aspects related to the target concept. Every Google search can open a door to new elements that may not previously have occurred to you, many of which are critical to understanding whether your new venture is actually going to be perceived by the market in the way that you think it will be.

Unless and until you are willing to step out of your own shoes and into those of the people you are most trying to influence (at every level of the value chain), you can’t really know whether your product/service, messaging, price point, delivery method, etc. is truly going to result in the only thing that matters, profit.

http://newventurestrategies.com

Google Group Advertising: Secret to Generate Free Website Traffics From Google Groups and Forums

In this article, you will find out the secrets of generating free website traffic and website marketing, online promotion, business marketing, how to get website traffics, free website traffics, forum traffics, website sales secrets, internet advertising secrets, online business promotion that works.

It is an open secret that about 95% of small business owners and individual online business owners have not been making serious money online for about 4 years now because all the traditional website marketing strategies that used to work 6 yrs ago do not work anymore.

Some people have dabbled in Pay per Click (PPC) advertising squandering $1000-$10,000 weekly to make $1000-$10,000 monthly!

Do not get me wrong.

Pay Per Click advertising works, but not for every product or service.

You must have a very unique product/service that very few people are selling which is very difficult to find offline for you to succeed in a big way with Pay Per Click advertising.

It is not effective anymore to depend on the search engines to send traffics to your websites because you must optimize your websites correctly and then compete with billions of websites to get top 10 search result position for anyone to find your website.

Some people have squandered thousands of dollars paying Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services to optimize their websites and submit them to search engines and also get top 10 ranking for them.

There are a few SEO services that are good who could really get top 10 rankings in your keywords and so help you generate sales.

However, the good ones are very expensive.

Some will charge you about $2000-$15,000 upfront fee (depending on the size of your website and the competitiveness of your keywords)

In addition to the upfront fee, they would charge you a maintenance fee of about $100-$500 monthly.

If you agree to these horrendous fees, yes, they can get top 10 rankings for you and you may begin making a lot of sales.

However, there is a problem.

The top 10 rankings do not often last a long time.

The major search engines change their algorithms and the coding of their search engines about every 3 months and when they do, you would lose all or most of your search engines’ top 10 rankings in your major keywords and your sales may vaporize overnight.

I have had the experience where after one of the major search engines changed their algorithm, two of my websites were completely removed from their search engine!

I was wondering what was going on because for about 2-3 yrs, these websites had top 10 rankings in this particular search engine.

Since I am not a search engine expert, it was a conundrum to me.

I decided to phone the search engine company to explain to me what was going on.

How could two of my websites suddenly disappear from their search engine overnight?

After about 45 minutes of giving me a run-around, I finally reached one of their staff who told me that they do not have any technical support for their search engine!

Be reminded that this is a $500 billion dollar company!

In addition, as if that was not enough, he told me that they charge $3.95/hr for any general technical issues that I may be interested to bring up!

I could not believe what I was hearing.

They sell inferior operating system and softwares to you, which are very vulnerable to viruses and malwares.

When you start having problems with it and phone them, they would either give you a run around and refuse to help you or they may give you misleading information after you pay them a fee.

After going through this sordid experience with this nasty company, I decided to give up on them.

I removed Explorer from my computer and installed Firefox, and Yoohoo, 99% of all my computer problems vanished overnight!

I also decided to ignore their search engine.

However, about a month later, suddenly some of my web pages that had been missing for about 6 months began to re-appear in this same search engine. Go figure.

It was at this point that I realized that it was time to consult a search engine expert, someone who owns a search engine to give me the inside SECRET scoop about how to really generate massive traffics to my websites.

One of the tips he gave me blew my mind because I have known about it for 6 yrs, and have used it a few times but later I stopped.

So, what is this all powerful website traffics secret tip?

Posting messages at selected high power forums!

Yep. It works.

But not with every forum.

Some forums do not promote their forum sites.

Therefore, you must choose forums that promote their forums to post your ads.

And one of the most powerful forums is Google Groups.

At the bottom of this article, I have the link of a Google Group forum.

You may start there.

(1) Click on the link to go to this Google Group forum.

(2) If you have not yet created a Google Group account, then do so.

It is easy.

(3) Go back to the link of Google Group forum (listed in the author’s resource box below at the end of this article) and click = sign up= to join in this forum. (See the Google Group link at the bottom of this article)

(4) Then afterward, begin to post your ads about all your online businesses and websites.

Also read and comment on other forum members’ offers as well as post messages about any internet marketing secrets that you may know.

The more messages, tips, ads that you post, the more links you would get in the search engines and the more FREE TRAFFICS you would start getting!

Within a week of doing this, all of your ads, messages and postings would begin to appear in Google search engine and the other ones!

Google indexes all postings in Google Groups fast, so your ads may begin appearing in Google Search engine even in less than a week!

(5) The next step will be to contact us so that we can send to you our FREE WEBSITE TRAFFIC SECRETS e-book (PRAGMATIC ADVERTISING MARKETOLOGY, PAM) which would reveal to you the rest of the WEBSITE TRAFFICS SECRETS that would blow your mind.

Alternatively, you may search for this POWERFUL FREE WEBSITE TRAFFIC E-BOOK in any search engine to go to our website (MAYCHIC) to download it FREE!

THIS FREE WEBSITE TRAFFIC SECRETS WILL REVEAL TO YOU ALL OF OUR WEBSITE TRAFFICS SECRETS WHICH WE OBTAINED FROM ONE OF OUR ASSOCIATES WHO IS A SEARCH ENGINE OWNER, AND WHICH ARE JEALOUSLY GUARDED BY THE FEW WHO KNOW ABOUT THEM, BECAUSE THEY CAN EXPLODE YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFICS AND SALES AND MAKE YOU VERY RICH.

May these POWERFUL, JEALOUSLY GUARDED WEBSITE TRAFFIC SECRETS open your eyes to the possibility of the PROSPERITY, SUCCESS and HAPPINESS that could be yours.

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If you do not agree to these conditions, please do not copy and use this article.

Anyone who violates this condition will be subject to legal action and payment of damages for violation of our copyrights.

Thank you.

Maychic.com

Facebook Marketing – Groups vs Pages

Facebook has become one of the hottest trends in Internet marketing. It has a lot of potential as a marketing platform, if you use it carefully. Among the numerous opportunities to advertise, groups and pages stand out as two of the most effective and easiest methods of brand promotion.

Creating a Group is the original method of community-building marketing. It is still popular and with good reason. A Group can serve as a center for everything related to your brand. It encourages people to participate in discussions and share it with others. A Group also serves as a great way to communicate with your potential and current customers.

Groups also have a few disadvantages. If you have over 1,000-1,500 members you can’t send messages to your entire group (this restriction is slated for removal). This limits your communication ability with your group members. Groups also attract more spammers, and you might find your time being wasted by dealing with this spam.

If you want to use applications and nifty widgets that make your page more functional, you may want to use Facebook Page.

Facebook Page is similar to Groups, but with some crucial differences. Pages are fairly new and specifically designed to help businesses advertise their brand and engage Facebook users. Pages have similar advantages to groups in that Pages allow you to promote your brand and engage potential and current customers.

The first major advantages that Pages have over Groups are the customization and communication potential. Flash, HTML, and Facebook applications can all be added to Pages, whereas Groups have relatively few options for customization. While Groups promote your brand on the profile pages of your group members, Pages stand out more. You can message your entire membership, regardless of how many fans your Page has.

Pages are also visible to people who aren’t registered Facebook members, so they will be indexed in Google and other major search engines. This is crucial if you’re trying to manage your brand and get it showing up in search engines.

Another great feature of Pages is that the URL of your Page is customizable. Having a domain with your keywords and little else can be invaluable for SEO purposes, and simply to make the Page address easier for people to remember.

You can even see visitor stats, create events and invite members, and promote Pages with social ads.

Pages seem to have the upper hand for long-term brand promotion, whereas Groups are better for attracting attention quickly and for a short period of time. It’s faster to spread the word and invite new members to Groups.

So which is better? Each method of Facebook marketing has its own advantages and disadvantages. There is no real answer to the question of which method is better for brand promotion. It all depends on how exactly you’re planning to use Facebook.

Groups and Pages are just two of the many opportunities to advertise on Facebook, so consider starting one or both to promote your brand.