Video marketing has been a rising trend, as more and more users are going online to view streamed content. Just as a picture is worth more than words -- a video can have even more impact on the viewer. By creating strong videos that are easily accessible to users, you will be able to engage more of your clients and prospects who are searching for your business or looking for the products/services you offer. We've heard that YouTube is the second most popular search engine (after Google). If there are so many people out there looking for videos, it would benefit the growth of your business to create some that your target population will be able to find.

Now, if you're asking this question about why you should get involved in YouTube, your next question will probably be "HOW can I get involved with YouTube"? 

First, you will want to learn how to make videos. Second, you will need to know what to do with those videos and how to get them on YouTube. A good resource is Stacia Hopkins' blog and her video training. In her guide for beginners, she explains how to outline an effective script in seven steps (from using a "hook" to closing with a call-to-action), offers recommended products and services related to video marketing, and provides a 10-step video-marketing checklist on what to do to start gaining "massive exposure." 

One way you can get out there, is to post a video about your small business in the My Business Story gallery. You can find an "amateur" video of Inkwhy by searching on YouTube for "Inkwhy, Inc." There are also more professional videos that provide advice on how to shoot your own videos, such as the one below.

Communities are important, as small business owners understand. As you work on building your presence online and through videos, having the support of others will help you get farther, faster.  Let's pool our resources, and help each other grow.

Manta.com is a small business directory site that's tied to social media. It offers advertising options and additional resources to help businesses increase their online exposure. For more specific information about Manta, see their FAQ page:  http://www.manta.com/coms2/page_faq

At this point, most small business owners are probably pulling out their hair and asking "What?! How am I supposed to know what to do with all these sites? There's not just Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn -- now you're saying there's Yelp, and Manta?!" Yes, not to mention StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Chime.in, Mightybell, Foursquare, Tumblr, and countless other networking sites... The short answer to the question as to whether Manta can help your business, is "Yes." However, the longer answer is that Manta and other sites can also be a distraction if you are being pulled in too many directions -- and end up lost in the forest of social media sites.

As with multi-tasking, the more you do and the more you try to take on at once, the more diluted your efforts become and the less effective you become at each task or site with which you become involved. The key to your success is to learn to master each one individually, and to focus your efforts where you are seeing the most positive responses. Also, a lesson to remember is that everything takes time. You cannot expect results overnight; if you keep casting your net and then pulling it up right away, then the likelihood of your coming home with any fish is slim.

Instead, begin building a strategy and focusing on how you can take advantage of the various sites out there. Do some research to find out the type of populations that use different social media sites (for example, Reddit has a higher percentage of male participants, and Manta targets business owners) -- and observe the behavior of the people in these networks before jumping in and trying to "sell" to them. Strong relationships require many conversations and actions that build trust, and this is no different online than it is in person.

It may be a good idea to wet your feet in different social media sites to begin spreading the name of your business and what you have to offer. However, you will likely fall flat on your face if you try to hit the ground running.

If you can afford it, seriously think about finding someone with more experience who can help you manage your online presence and social media profiles. However, if you're on a budget and looking to teach yourself how to better market your business on the Internet, make sure not to create an Information Overload roadblock for yourself. Instead, wade through each site slowly, explore the resources out there and learn at your own pace. Or if you're up for a challenge, think about going on a Social Media Diet to fast-track your way to being an online marketing guru.

Consider some basic principles on how businesses grow and succeed.

• The quality of the customer service and the experience or product you offer are key ingredients to making your business successful.
  
• You can offer the most outstanding customer service and experience/product, but your success will be limited if nobody knows about it.

Based on the two aforementioned principles, try to focus your business-building efforts on these three tasks:

1. Improve your offering to distinguish yourself from your competitors.
   
2. Elevate the service level you provide to clients so that your customers are happy.
   
3. Leverage your happy customers to spread the word about what you offer and the top-notch service you provide.
   

While much of the work you do to build your business is based on internal processes and your business acumen, several aspects of the three tasks listed above can be outsourced, which will allow you to focus your time on areas where you are most skilled (e.g., selling, presenting your product/service, or executing the offering). To improve your offering, you may need to call on additional experts in your field. To improve your service level, you may need to hire an assistant and/or other qualified service representatives. As for spreading the word about your business, you can access marketing and social media consultants who can help your brand and offering gain more recognition.

One social media consultant offers advice on how to use Yelp.com to grow a small business (see 7 tips here: http://www.thegetsmartblog.com/7-ways-to-use-yelp-for-small-business-marketing). Posting discount offers, getting and responding to customer reviews, expanding your network, and hosting local Yelp events are just some ways you can grow your business through Yelp. Also, consider using a single control panel to manage your fans and link your accounts (e.g., http://www.fanminder.com).

For more info about Yelp, see their FAQ page and Official Blog: http://www.yelp.com/faq and http://officialblog.yelp.com. 

Think about following a "Social Media Diet," a process that we're recommending for anyone who wants to streamline their activity online and make the most of social media. As we are currently looking at The Dukan Diet to help with our own weight loss goals, we came up with a matching four-step process to help you get to where you want to be in terms of online usage and social media.

1. Social Media Attack Phase: Spend a short period of intense focus on key Internet tools, eliminating the "extraneous"
   
2. Social Media Cruise Phase: Introduce additional computer activities, but still primarily use core, productive tools
3. Social Media Consolidation Phase: Bring back some of your old Internet habits, but structure your time carefully 
4. Social Media Stabilization Phase: Give yourself more freedom to do what you want on the WWW, but keep some of the new good habits that you've learned -- and look for expert support and guidance to keep you on the right track

Key aspects of these phases are maintaining consistency and maximizing your time and resources. 

In Phase 1, you'll want to eliminate time spent on things that are not productive (shopping and browsing online stores, playing games, chatting, etc.) and focus on learning all you can about how to use social media and online tools to accomplish your goals -- which might include increasing the revenue for your business, creating more awareness of your brand, finding out more about what your clients want, and reaching more prospects. Depending on what your goals are, spend 100% of your time online and on social media doing activities that will help you get closer to what you want to achieve from a business perspective. These activities can include: educating yourself about the tools available at sites like Social Media Examiner, working on a blog with content that will differentiate yourself from your competitors, posting information and interacting with your contacts in meaningful ways on the most popular social media channels (Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter). Also, set up an auto-responder and opt-in service such as the one offered by Aweber (example of an email opt-in box is at the top right of this blog) so you can better manage your business contacts and begin connecting your email promotions and newsletters with your social media activity.

In Phase 2, work on other building up your repertoire online, creating additional accounts on less widely used social media sites and looking for other ways to make new connections. For example, explore the directory at Mevvy, a resource that features a collection of powerful Internet tools.

In Phase 3, you can start doing some of the other fun, but not-so-productive activities that you eliminated in Phase 1, but keep it  at a minimum (e.g., allot yourself an hour twice a week). 

In Phase 4, you can spend the time however you would like online, but maintain a cadence with your productive social media and Internet activity (e.g., posting some new content at least once every other day), and allot a regular time at least once a week to focus on the intense activity and tools that you learned in Phases 1 and 2.

Finally, consider hiring a Social Media "Personal Coach," or someone who can offer customized, online business consulting. It will free up your time to do what you do best (selling your products, offering another type of service, or whatever else you do). By outsourcing Social Media set-up and maintenance tasks, you may be better able to leverage the power of the Internet. 

If you are feeling like you're being gorged with information overload, try our "Social Media Diet" -- and register to get access to additional resources to help support you. For a limited time, new registrants on our site will receive a personal email and offer for a free 30-minute social media phone consultation tailored just for you and your business. 
Sign up below:

There are several methods to promote your business online and, with the rising population of Internet users, the impact of your efforts can have a far wider reach than traditional methods of promotion. In this post we'll share some action steps; feel free to skip over ones you've already done, or choose the ones you feel will have the most impact to your business.

Before outlining our ideas to get started with online and social media promotion, we'd like to share a couple of videos that showcase the influence of social media and provide a visual description of social media.  Sayitvisually.com's video highlights that the key to social media is the 1:1 relationship -- emphasizing the conversations we have at a personal level.

Now that you are convinced that social media is the right way for you to promote your business, your first action step would be to set up accounts (profiles and pages) for you business on the major social networking sites that generate the most traffic:

1. http://www.facebook.com (set up a personal profile for yourself as well as a page and a group for your business)
2. http://www.youtube.com (create an account where you can showcase your business through videos)
3. http://www.twitter.com (set up a "handle" that you can use to "tweet" about specific topics and "mention" others)
4. http://www.linkedin.com (create a personal/professional profile and also a company profile tied to your personal one)
5. https://plus.google.com (add connections to "circles" and separate them based on their relationship to you)

Once you've set yourself up on the major social sites, you may want to explore other networking sites and create accounts at additional sites such as those listed here: http://www.focus.com/fyi/50-social-sites-every-business-needs-presence.

Also, keep an eye out for other new or less widely publicized social media sites that may help you develop key relationships that can help you expand your business. For example, we like:

1. http://www.mightybell.com (create and participate in "experiences" that are generated by other users, and "smile")
2. http://chime.in (find people with similar interests, join communities, and view "chimelines")
   
3. http://www.meetup.com (discover local groups with similar interests and participate in online and in-person "meetups")
4. http://www.quora.com (ask questions to a community of connected users, and follow specific topics relevant to you)

You can use other online tools to monitor, manage and grow your social media accounts. Resources include:

1. https://www.socialoomph.com (automate messages and follows on Twitter -- thanks to the free Twitter training at http://jeffknowles.socialmediaautomation.com for sharing this resource)
   
2. http://www.twiends.com (find Twitter users with similar interests as you, and exchange follows)
3. http://sproutsocial.com (monitor all your social media accounts in one place)
   
4. http://www.klout.com (gauge your level of influence based on your social media activity)
5. There are also applications and communities on Facebook that you can explore to expand your presence there.

Once you have all your accounts set up, you can use a number of techniques to engage your audience on the various sites (we'll discuss some of these techniques in another post). We also suggest that you consider placing ads online such through popular services like Google, Yahoo, and Facebook Ads. Often you can get free "ad credit" to test out these services. For example, American Express is offering small business owners $100 in free Facebook ad credit through their page, which is creating a buzz around the upcoming "Small Business Saturday" on November 26, 2011 (see details at http://www.facebook.com/SmallBusinessSaturday).

Finally, we want to remind you again that the key to social media is still the 1:1 relationship -- and the heart of your business is your relationships with your customers and partners. By building strong relationships, you will be able to establish a trusted presence online and those who know you will want to share their relationship with you with others who are in their networks.

Dollars tend to get people's attention. When you're in a meeting, if you pull a hundred dollar bill out of your pocket, crinkle it around a bit, then you'll likely get some heads to turn. If you offer to give it to someone who comes up with the best idea, you'll also likely get plenty of suggestions. 

In this post, we'll discuss several ways you can make money. But before that, we want you to think about... Why do you want to make money? Is it so you can feed your family? So you can buy those shoes that you like? Go on vacation? Pay off your debt? Donate to your favorite charity? Or do you want to invest it back into your business to make more money (and what would you want to do with that "more money")? 

Everyone is at a different stage in his or her life with varying levels of needs and desires that tie in directly with financial concerns and goals. If you are a teenager, your goal may be to save up money to buy a car (and you may not need any other money, as your basic needs may be met by your parents and other family members). On the other hand, if you're a parent and trying to support a family with wages that don't quite make ends meet, then your goal may be to find an alternative source of income to supplement your current salary. Another scenario might be that you are a business owner, and you make enough earnings to support a comfortable lifestyle -- but you are devoted to growing your company and you want to take it to the next level. Whatever stage you are in, you can review the list of options below for how you can "make" money -- and you can decide which way(s) will help you get you to where you want to be.

1. Ask for money (come up with a good reason for someone to give you money, think of who you can persuade, and start asking around): This option likely requires you to give the money back at some future point in time.
2. Find a task that others are willing to pay you to do (examples include: mowing or raking lawns, shoveling snow, babysitting, tutoring, designing web sites, selling knives): These are all things that we've done ourselves and, in order to exercise this option, you'll need to develop the skills to do it and also find the people who are willing to pay you to do it.
3. Accept a job where an employer compensates you (this is very similar to the second option just mentioned, but instead of having to find the customers, you may be given clients to work with and trained to do the work by your employer): In this scenario, like in the second one, you generally get paid for the hours that you put in to do the work.
4. Participate in a network marketing company (sometimes these are known as multi-level-marketing or MLM companies, but there are diverse ways these companies are structured): You get paid to sell a product that a MLM company has developed. Also when you introduce additional sellers to the company, you can earn a percentage of their sales. Varieties of this option include going to informational meetings and bringing potential members to those meetings, conducting direct sales presentations to your target buyer, having home parties where guests buy the product and the host or hostess earns free product, etc. As with options 2 and 3, it's usually the amount of time you spend selling the product and building your team that is directly correlated with your earning potential (some companies are structured to allow participants to earn "residual" income where you can continue to earn from your team sales even when your own sales have slowed down).
5. Write a book (and sell it): Once the book is written, you can either try to sell copies yourself, or work with a publisher to sell it -- and you can earn royalties, or a percentage of each copy that is sold. This is most similar to option 2 above. Although, if your book takes off, it can also generate alternate sources of income (e.g., sales from bobbleheads of the characters, or revenue from movies like Harry Potter).
6. Develop affiliate partnerships (create a website and develop some interesting content to share, and introduce "affiliates" to your readers): As with this blog, you can set up one of your own and showcase your expertise to draw in an audience. Once you have built up a following, you can share with them an offering that appeals to them, and you will make money from any sales that are generated from your promotions.
7. Invest your money (you can put your money into a range of different types of investments): You may have heard that you need money to make money. However, depending on how risky your investments are, you may actually end up losing money rather than earning it. Consider short-term and long-term outlooks when deciding where to invest your money, and please note that we are not giving an investment advice  (we are NOT suggesting that you invest or not invest -- that's completely up to you and whoever you are working with who is qualified to provide investment advice).
8. Build a brand new company (we like this idea the best because that is what we are trying to do here): In this scenario, you come up with a brilliant idea or a solution to a problem that will help a specific audience. Then, you attract that audience to you by spreading the word about your idea or solution once it's available for them to access. Voila! You can then make money from the profits that are generated by the company. As with option 7, there are some risks associated with this option as the money you spend to build this company can end up being lost if nobody wants to use your services or buy your product. However, if you're excited about creating a company and have the motivation to tackle the challenges, then this option may be for you. And if you have no money to start your own company, consider using any of the above steps to supplement your ability to Launch (book for entrepreneurs by Mike Stelzner)! Or if you already have your own company, you may want to think of brand new ideas or solutions that you can add to your current repertoire so that you can expand even further and make that "more money" to will help you attain your ultimate goals.

Robert Kiyosaki in his "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" books has described individuals as being in one of four quadrants: Employee, Self-employed worker, Business owner and Investor. To find out more about what category you fall under, and access some of his great resources, you can register for a free "Rich Dad PowerPack." We aren't making any money by sharing these links in this post, but we just think they're valuable tools that can help you expand your vision and grow your business.

Good luck, and see you at the top!

One of the things we've learned from doing business on the phone and in-person is that there are some people out there who simply do not want to talk to you. This does not necessarily mean that they don't like you or that they are "mean" people. They could be introverted, or they could be having a bad day, or they may not be interested in the same things that make you passionate. There will always be a percentage of people out there who do not want to talk to you, and our suggestion is, instead of trying to get them to talk to you: why don't you focus on the people who DO want to talk to you, and speak to the people who YOU want to talk to as well?

So, you could broadcast your ideas to an uninterested audience, or you can hone in on the listeners who are looking for what you have to offer. Think about your offering and how you present that offering... This will impact the size of your following and how they react to you. Everyone has a different personality and list of things that pique his or her interest. Some interests are more popular than others, and some personalities are more magnetic than others. Also, think about what your main goal is when you are interacting with others. If your intent is to sell something to someone and your end goal is to get them to buy something, you will interact with them very differently than if your intent is to find out what is bothering that person and what you can do to help solve his or her problems.

Essentially, OUR goal is to help people connect with others who are like-minded, and specifically to encourage you as business owners, professionals and organization managers to really explore how you can become integrated with online networks to help you better reach YOUR goals. The type of network partners WE want to work with include people who are motivated to grow their business or organization, those who are open to new ideas and willing to learn, and those who want to help others along the way.

You may be wondering why nobody is talking to you, and it may be because you're talking to the wrong audience or because you aren't saying something that interests your audience. Realize that the same way that you can attract more people to talk to you is how you can begin to properly set yourself up online. By identifying what your niche is and who you want to interact with, you can create the best opportunities and showcase your offering in a way that is different from everyone else -- and you can work on engaging with the right audience in the right way.

Stay tuned for more specific ways to make a splash, and soon you'll be asking, "Why do so many people want to talk to me?!"

A large chunk of small businesses actually do not have a website, and an even higher percentage are not actively involved on social media sites. So the first question may be, why should you jump start your business online? The key reasoning to building a presence on the Internet would be to differentiate yourself from other businesses, to connect with the growing population of online and social media users, and to engage with your clients and prospects at any time (whether your store is closed or your sleeping, there are people out there browsing the WWW). Given this reasoning, here are a few quick suggestions to help make your business stand out on the web:

1. Create a strong website that will attract visitors.
2. Develop content that will intrigue and engage your target audience.
3. Implement an automated system for collecting client and prospect details so you can appropriately follow up with them.
   
4. Establish a presence on social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.) so you can be more interactive.
5. Offer a way to connect your network with a larger network of individuals, so you can expand your reach.

Given the significance of this topic, we will be creating a series of posts on related issues, with additional actionable steps. For more information and immediate access to resources related to building your business on the Internet and generating more revenue online, please subscribe to our Inkwhy mailing list.