If you have spent any amount of time looking into advertising your business online, then you know there are all kinds of options available to you. All of them seem to be screaming that they are the best method, but the truth is that any internet marketing can be effective if you know how to use it. The two methods we’re going to compare are solo ezine advertising and safelist solo ads. First, let’s take a look at what each one is.

An ezine is basically a newsletter that is delivered to the subscriber’s computer via email. The ezine will cover one topic and appeals to those who are interested in the topic. Each issue of the ezine may contain ads, but such ads will be competing with other ads as well as the actual content of the newsletter. That’s where solo ezine advertising comes in. This is where the publisher of the newsletter will send your ad to all of their subscribers, without anything else competing for the reader’s attention.

Safelist solo ads are a bit different. A safelist is an email exchange. Everybody that signs up agrees to read email messages in exchange for their message being read. Readers click a special link within the email to prove that they have read the message, so they can receive credit. The more messages you read, the more people you can randomly send to. However, if you pay for a solo ad you can normally choose how many people will get it, or (at the highest level) have it sent to everybody participating in the safelist.

The big benefit of solo ezine advertising is that the newsletter covers one topic. Therefore, if you sell a related product or service, then you can be sure that you are targeting people that will be interested in your offer. Safelists typically don’t have any requirement as to specific topics, so the targeting of safelist solo ads is more tricky. Your best bet with safelists is if you’re selling something safelist users would want; such as information on how to make more money with safelists.

Another big difference between the two is that ezine subscribers are more likely to actually read each issue they receive. So when they receive your ad, they are more likely to spend time to read it, and consider your offer. Safelist messages, on the other hand are not typically read all that closely. Why not? Because most safelist users are only trying to build up credits to get more people to read their ads. So, instead of reading each message, they are just hunting for the link that will give them credit, and then they move on to the next one.

Does this mean solo ezine advertising is better than safelist solo ads, or vice-versa? Not at all. It just means that you should understand the pros and cons of each one before you use it to market your own business using either one, or both, of these methods.

One of the primary reasons that social media exists in the first place is to engage. Social media gives people a platform to reach out to each other, whether that purpose is fundamentally business or pleasure. People wish to engage with each other constantly, and social media gives people the ability to do so in real time, around the world.

This is why social media is such a popular way for people to touch base, since it can be done anywhere, at any time. While a physical storefront will have hours of operation, the social networking sites never close.

Essentially, the final step in the three part process regarding the offline business’ approach to social media should be getting people to engage with you and your business. You want people to subscribe to you Twitter feeds and Facebook profiles in order so you can communicate with them in a regular manner, and keep them interested in your content and wares.

There are several ways you can use social media to engage your potential customers other than simply leaving messages on a Twitter feed. Many people these days are turning to video blogging, or “videologging,” which is an excellent way to reach out to customers in a way that best simulates the face-to-face interaction that you have with them at your store. If you can post videos of yourself talking about your product, it goes a long way toward creating that kind of proof of expertise that you have when you speak about your product in the store.

A great way to augment the engagement factor you’ll get through working with social media is to have a blog or website to center everything on. This means that you’ll have a place to reference your potential customers to visit. It’s even better if you can offer an online shopping center as well with your website, as this allows you to take even better advantage of the engagement of social networking. It’s important to be able to engage customers local to you so that they’ll visit the store, of course, but don’t forget about the rest of the world, as well! Offering an online store allows you to make the entire world your selling market, not limited to the locality of your physical store.

Essentially, as a business owner who owns a physical store, you are in a unique position to use social media as a weapon both online and offline. You can use it to think both globally and locally at the same time, and end up with incredible increases to your revenue. Don’t let the social media revolution pass you by – even though it might sound like a daunting arena to enter, it’s an entirely free way to up your engagement level with customers both locally and around the world.

Social media isn’t just a way to get together and talk with friends. While it would be entirely possible for you to set up a Twitter feed and tweet all day about the weather and food and television, this isn’t the most effective way to get people thinking about your offline business. The more effective way to get them to sit up and take notice is by your content. It’s one of the most oft-repeated mantras of our time – content is king. And so it is.

One of the cornerstone tenants of SEO is the importance of having solid, informative content. While it’s possible to stuff your website or your social media page full of keywords, this won’t necessarily improve the status of your site and definitely wont’ charm the customer. The reason why people subscribe to Twitter feeds and friend businesses is because the content those social network pages are offering is informative and interesting. Very few people are going to follow a business’ blog or Twitter feed very long if the content isn’t there.

So, how do offline businesses insure that their online content is interesting and informative? Well, the first thing that you can do is take advantage of the serious one-up you have on online business – that is, your ability to directly interface with the customer. In other words: ask. Ask your customers, “If this business started a Twitter feed or a Facebook page, what kind of content would you like to see? What would keep you interested?” Obviously, it’s more useful if you can ask repeat customers who have shown an open interest in the wares of your store. These are the people who will let you know what they want to see, and if your veteran customers are interested in something regarding your store or product, it’s likely that there’s a treasure trove of other people who would like access to that same content.

Another important thing to keep in minds insofar as content is concerned is keeping your “updates” useful and short. Nobody wants to have their inbox spammed constantly with daily updates from your store. It’s unlikely that many people are that interested, and if you overdo social media networking, it will turn off potential customers. The best way to go about it is to think hard about every update you make. Ask yourself, “Is this informative, or useful? If I were going to receive information from a company using this format, would I want to read this or would I trash it?” If you’d trash it, don’t send it.

A good rule of thumb is to keep your social media contacts updated once a week. This shows constant activity and that the account is a “live” one without being totally overbearing. Keep your content coming, but don’t bury your followers!

As the owner of an offline business, there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t be taking advantage of the incredible marketing power of social media outlets. It’s no secret that millions and millions of people are on social media sites daily – did you know that social media is the second most engaged-in activity on the Internet only behind email checking? And did you know that if Facebook were a country it would be the third most populous in the world?

What this means to any business – online or off – is that there’s a congregation of potential customers just browsing these sites in their idle hours when they might be bored and have nothing else to do. This is a perfect opportunity to drop a bee in their bonnet about you and your business. Thousands of companies have done this, and thousands have found success.

However, for an offline business attempting to tackle the social media market, you’ll have an easier time of it if you approach it with the proper attitude. While both online and offline businesses will use social media as a way to engage the customer, the online business deals with social media the way that an offline business would have television ads. It’s a straight way to the sale, since a customer visiting an online business’ site is doing the closest thing to physically visiting the business itself.

If you have an offline business, this is not the case, as the customer is ostensibly at a computer and not at your physical place of business while browsing social networking sites. It’s important to consider this difference and use it to take a different approach to advertising your offline business using social media. While an online business is bringing customers to the storefront, you should be looking to create an impression of your business and try to entice them to come to the physical store.

While it is definitely advantageous to consider making an online version of your site for ease of purchasing, you want to have the customer come to your physical store. This means creating awareness of your products, brand, content, and expertise – and creating that drive to experience the whole package by going to your store.

While it’s likely that the most profitable way for offline business to generate customers in terms of long-term revenue is still offline, the virtual market is taking off fast, and it’s likely that the current state of affairs will change over the next five years. Now is a good time to get involved with marketing through social media and figuring out how it can best serve your offline business before it takes off to a whole new level.

One of the most important things that any offline business can do when it wants to enter the online realm of social medial marketing is research. Doubtless, no matter how obscure your store is or what kind of niche that you sell to, there is an online store doing exactly the same thing. With thousands (if not millions) of people doing their shopping online every day, it’s absolutely guaranteed that your offline store will have an online competitor. And it’s likely that the online competitor is doing quite well.

While this may be exasperating to a certain degree, you can use this information to help propel your offline business into the fray and even put your offline business into a more favorable position. Be sure to look at your online competitors and see how they market their product and whom they are marketing to. Are they on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace? Do they have an RSS feed? Are they working with online directories? Do they have profiles on forums relating to the product being sold? What’s the tone of their website like, and how do they appear to interact with customers?

One of the most important things to do for an offline business looking to work with the online world is creating an aura of discovery around their store. Since one of the major points for offline businesses when it comes to advertising is to entice the customer to visit the store, you need to foster a sense of discovery on the part of the potential customer. After all, you have to get them off of the computer and into the store.

During the discovery part of your foray into the crazy world of social media marketing, you explore the groundwork that’s already been laid online for you. You look and see what your competitors are doing in terms of social media and figure out how you can do it better. Do they have out of date Twitter feeds? Does their Facebook profile look unprofessional? These are all things you can use to bolster the status of your own personal social media adventure and make yourself look better than your online competition.

In addition, if you own a physical store you have the advantage of asking your customers what they would be interested in, regarding terms of social media advertising. Would they be interested in a Twitter feed, or a LinkedIn profile? Try asking some of your younger customers, should you have them. Most will probably be happy to talk your ear off in regards to social media platforms. After all, the younger group is the one most likely to be on Facebook constantly with their smartphones. Anybody older than thirty is likely to have a less informed opinion on it. At any rate, be sure to exploit the biggest advantage you have over online businesses – that is, the direct conversation with the customer!

People love reviews. One of the reasons why Amazon.com became so popular (and there’s a list the length of the Nile regarding why that site became one of the biggest deals on the Internet since Al Gore) is due to its extensive review system. Customers like to read about those who have bought the product or visited the store before they have done so themselves. Most people these days are savvy enough to realize the point of advertising– they know that commercials are out there for a reason, namely, to make the place of business or the product look good. Reviews, on the other hand, are ostensibly written by those who are not being paid cash to promote the product in a positive light, making potential customers trust them more.

We’re assuming here that you’re running a steady operation that customers like to visit and return to. If you have a business that you’re proud of and you feel as though people would review it positively, then it’s a good idea to put your business in a position where it can garner those positive reviews.

Two great sites to start off with when it comes to getting your place of business reviewed by customers are Yelp and Google Maps. Once you put your site up on these sites, customers can submit reviews – both positive and negative – regarding your offline business and what they thought of it. Both of these sites see a lot of traffic per day, and if you are confident that the masses would review your small business positively, this is a great tool to convince others to stop by your place of business. After all, all businesses know that the best advertising available is the golden word of mouth recommendation – and if you can get positive reviews on a social review site, it’s essentially the same thing. Just virtual.

It’s a good idea to advertise the fact that your business is up on Yelp or Google Maps at your place of business. This will encourage your visitors to write a review on your business, particularly if they’ve had an excellent time. Yelp in particular even allows the business owner to respond to comments left on their business by those who leave reviews. This is a great way to thank customers for their reviews if they’re positive, defend yourself if there is a bad review, or offer your condolences and suggest ways that both you and the customer can ensure a better visit next time if the review is less than glowing.

Social review sites can literally be a way to strike gold when it comes to an offline business’ foray into social media advertising. Even better, assuming that you’re running a legit place of business that the customer is pleased with, you don’t even have to do that much work. Just sign up for a profile and let the positive reviews roll in!

There’s no shortage of information out there about how to do well with social media, I thought I would look at things from a different perspective. Here are three things you must not do if you wish to succeed in social media.

You Try To Automate It.

I see so many people who think using social media is about the right tools that automate the experience. If a family member invited you to their wedding would you automate your interaction with them and your presence at their wedding? Too often we get caught up in growing our numbers that we forget how important our impact with those followers is. Automating your social media experience will undoubtedly lessen your impact on your followers. Spending more time making real connections will build you up faster than any automation.

You Pimp Too Many Links.

We’ve all seen these people on Twitter and Facebook, every update is a link to their website and if you dig deep enough (most people don’t bother) you will see that they are actually repeating the same links over and over. While this might get you a few clicks here and there certainly won’t ignite anyone or make them want to suggest you to their followers. The people who do get away with link pimping are the ones who interact and offer value 9/10 times while pimping a link less than 10% of the time.

You Follow And Unfollow To Try and Look Popular.

One of the biggest problems with Twitter is that the common misinformation out there suggests that you build up your following by following people and then subsequently unfollowing them. All this does is make people dislike you. You may look popular from a numbers perspective but your followers think you’re a douche bag.

The people who do well, follow those whom they respect and wish to receive updates from. Those people may or may not choose to follow you back, that should be irrelevant to you. The way to get more followers is to interact with the people you follow publicly as much as possible. Social media is here to stay and you should really consider what kind of reputation you are building for yourself online. Ask yourself this question every time you consider a new move. Would this fly at a party or business meeting? If the answer is no don’t do it on social media.

There is no doubt that we are struggling through a troubled economy right now, but nobody seems to know how long this downturn is going to last. Unfortunately, this makes a lot of people so nervous that they don’t know what to do. While some of you may have heard of this “making money online” thing, you aren’t really sure what it all means. First, let me put you at ease and let you know that it is completely possible to make money, and not everything is a scam. For example, a lot of successful people like to blog for money.

Let’s start with some of the basics. A blog is really nothing more than an online journal, and is a short for web log. The best part is that you can start blogging for no cost. Even better is that there are some online blog services that make it really easy to get up and running, regardless of how computer savvy you may or may not be. It typically takes anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or two to get your blog started.

Your first task is to decide what the main topic of your blog will be. Your goal is to blog for money, but if you can choose a subject that you’re interested in, it will be much easier to keep on blogging. On the other hand, if you just want to make as much money as possible, then you should take some time to learn about the various methods of choosing hot niche markets. This will give you more return on your efforts if you go about it the ri

There are all kinds of different ways that you can market your business online, and one of the best is ezine advertising. For the sake of this article we will define an ezine as any publication that is delivered to the subscriber’s computer on a regular basis. The success of your promotion in an ezine will depend on a number of factors. Here are some things that will help you to make the most of your marketing efforts.

The first thing you need to do is some research. This is broken down into two steps. Step one is to find as many ezines as you can that are related to whatever it is you are promoting. Remember to include publications that may be ideal for cross promotion, too. For example, if you sell accessories for recreational vehicles, then you would want to look at any RV newsletters, as well as those that are related to domestic travel, retirement, and campgrounds. The bigger your initial list, the better.

The second step in researching is to find out what you can about each of the ezines on your list. At the bare minimum you should know the number of subscribers, typical open and click-through rate, and what all of their advertising options are. If you can’t find any contact information, or you don’t get a response from them, then move on to other ezines that are more willing to work directly with advertisers.

Once you have all of this information, you should be able to start narrowing your list down to the ones that look best for you. However, you are not ready to purchase any ad space quite yet. At this point you should subscribe to any of the ezines you’re interested in. This will give you an idea of how often they send their ezine, and how often they send other promotional messages. If they publish once a month, but send out “special offers” two times a day, then your message will only get lost in the shuffle. Subscribing will also give you a better feel for what the ezine is really about. You can also look over any archived copies of the ezine that are available.

Remember that your reputation will be tied in directly to that of the ezine, and vice-versa. Therefore you need to choose wisely. At the same time, be aware that many publications will take some time before approving your ad. If this happens, you should take it as a positive sign as it shows they care about the content they send to their subscribers.

By now you should have a good idea of where you want to start your ezine advertising campaign. You will have to decide which type of ad is the best for you. Generally speaking, a solo ad will give you the highest return. A solo ad is a special mailing that contains nothing but your ad. After that, the best option is typically an ad spot nearest the top in a regular issue of the newsletter.