This means the visitors to your site generate the majority of the content on the site, as opposed to the site owner or writers creating the content. A perfect example of web 2.0 is Squidoo. Squidoo is a social network, which is a type of web 2.0 site.

Although the site does post some of its own content, such as the lensmaster tip blog, the vast majority of the site was built by individuals creating their own pages within the site. When a user signs up to the site, they’re allowed to position themselves as experts on anything from A-Z (they even have a separate section for R and X rated pages that are kept from the general G-rated public).

They create a unique page on the Squidoo domain, with all sorts of information about their niche topic. They can create or join groups and post in the SquidU forum to communicate with others in the community.

One of the oldest types of web 2.0 sites is the forum. Forums are almost as old as the Internet itself, and they were one of the first types of web 2.0 concepts. Other very old web 2.0 predecessors were guestbooks, free-for-all link sites, and classified ad sites.

These days, web 2.0 sites are more complex. Rather than simply posting messages on a forum, users can typically generate their own profiles, create their own custom pages, and have more involvement in creating the site and its content.

There are many different types of web 2.0 sites. MySpace and Facebook are two well-known social networking sites. Blogger is a very popular blog platform, which allows people to develop a type of online diary or journal.

Twitter is somewhat like a blog, only users post very small snippets of content in each post. Social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Digg allow users to post their favorite links, and allow other people to vote on those links.

Squidoo and HubPages are two sites that let people create pages of information about specific subjects, a bit like a one-page website about a particular topic, similar to Wikipedia. The basic function of web 2.0 sites is to allow users to post their own content to the site.

Web 2.0 sites can be leveraged for marketing purposes if used correctly. The key is to immerse yourself in the community and become known as a real person rather than a nameless marketer hoping to cash in on their pooled traffic generation.

Watch for another marketing tip in my next post, and good luck with your online marketing efforts!

To your online success,
Rupert Mamby

P.S. Here’s a great related resource that may help you build your business:
Web 2.0 Resource

To get the most out of your social marketing potential, you have to be active in the community. The people have to see you as one of them and not someone trying to use them or sell them something. Members listen to each other, especially those who have been around a long time and have a solid reputation in the community. Those who are obviously intelligent and knowledgeable about the subject can gain a large amount of credibility.

Social marketing easily exposes you to a larger market of interested and potential customers, which can help you with your research. It is a very cost effective means of finding out what your target market is interested in. You can find out what their true needs are, who they are, what they are drawn to, what they look for, and pretty much anything else you could want. It is a good way to throw ideas out and see what they think about them.

Social marketing can also help increase brand awareness, as long as you are careful to not sound like you are selling something. This will turn many people off. If you see a discussion going on about a certain topic, and think you can make a contribution, you can subtly provide product awareness while helping to solve their problems. After you deliver value, others will be more interested in checking your link to find more about you.

The greatest benefit of social marketing may simply be that it is a tremendously easy and cost effective means of communicating and interacting with your target market. Most networks are free and it only takes a little bit of time to keep interacting with the members of the network once you have gotten established. As communities grow, so does the amount of exposure you get, and the more success you will be likely to have.

Visit Niche-PLR Profit Center for Free Online Business Tools!

By now you should have a basic plan and schedule for your Twitter marketing campaign. Have you tacked your checklist from our last lesson somewhere close to your computer yet?

In this last lesson we are going to talk about some of the common mistakes that Twitter users make, so you can avoid making them.

Over the last few days we’ve talked about what an exciting and extremely profitable social network site Twitter is. The fact is millions of people are using it to connect with others all over the world, but as an Internet marketer there are some common mistakes that you will want to avoid making even before you start sending tweets.

Mistake number one:

The picture as your avatar in your profile is not yours.

I’m sure you’ve seen it. Some users don’t post their real picture. They use cartoon pictures, company logos, or their pet’s pictures. Although the pictures are quite cute and may grab some attention, most Twitter users will appreciate seeing a real picture of you, especially if you are trying to connect on a business level.

When you post your own picture it lets others know that you are real and that you’re confident enough with what you do to let others see you. You want people to recognize you as a leader in your market and having a face to go with a name always helps.

Depending on your niche you will want to choose a photo that represents business. For instance if you have a children’s online book store you will want to choose a picture that shows your fun side. On the other have if you are selling product to professionals you will want a photo that looks conservative and business like. A nice smile never hurts either.

Mistake number two:

Automatically sending the wrong type Tweets through a Tweet Generator.

In lesson two we talk about using Tweets schedulers that automatically sends messages to people who follow you. What we didn’t talk about was sending the wrong type of message with this tool and how it can lose your followers.

Direct messages can be seen as impersonal and pushy when they aren’t written properly. If you decide to use a tool that automatically send messages to your new followers keep it simple and friendly. A message saying ‘thanks for following me’ is fine, but sending automated messages promoting your business or product is not a good idea and most instances people will click the un-follow button right away.

Mistake number three:

Trying to build a huge following before you’ve done some tweeting.

People will not be interested in following you when they click on your Twitter page to see what you’ve got, and notice you don’t have much. You need to have tweeted more than, “Trying to figure this Twitter out” and “I think I’ve got it figured out now.”

If you don’t know what to say, try “re-tweeting” (RT) some other peoples’ tweets that are related to your niche. Read what other people are tweeting about and reply to them, this will help start up a conversation. Talk about market related news, what you’re doing on your business right now. That will give you several tweets to get the ball rolling.

Mistake number four:

Tweeting too many promotions.

Yes, you are using Twitter to promote your business, but posting one offer after another will only cause people to ‘un-follow’ you. When people look at your timeline and notice that you aren’t posting anything of value to them they will quickly move on.

There are millions of Twitters to follow, why should they follow you when you’re only tweeting about promotions? Remember this basic rule of sales “people want to know what’s in it for me”! Twitter is a social network and you have to keep that in mind before you post a tweet.

When you are using Twitter for your Internet Marketing business you must learn how to communicate and build good relationships with your followers before you start sending them promotions.

Even if you already have a good list of leads, it is still not a good idea to barrage them with promotions. As we have talked about before, promotional tweets should be sent only in limited numbers.

These are just a few of the more common mistakes committed by new and old tweeters alike. Take note of them and don’t make the same mistakes.

Before I close this final lesson I want to share a few things with you that we didn’t have a chance to go over in the last few lessons.

The first thing is using the Twitter search feature. It is a very effective tool that allows you to check on yourself and your business. You will be surprised to find out how much chatter takes place on Twitter.

By using the search tool you can quickly find out what others are saying about you and your business and learn from them. If you find out any criticisms, think about them carefully. You can also make some adjustments to your business if there is a need to do so to ensure increased profitability.

The next thing is your Twitter background. The background behind your Twitter page tells a lot about your personality. If you plan to use Twitter for Internet marketing you will want to make the background look more professional. You can do this by using the basic customization tools that Twitter supplies to make some simple changes to the color scheme of your page.

For even more impact you may want to consider a custom designed background. There are many editing programs that you can use to create your own graphics if you want to and if you do a quick search you will also find a variety of pre-made Twitter background available. If you really want to go all out you can hire a designer to create one for you.

Capitalizing on Twitter’s popularity can be very rewarding and profitable for your IM business, but only if you know what you’re doing. While I tried to cover the basics during this short series of lessons there is always more to learn and you will want to continue your education moving forward… and as Twitter changes I’m sure you’ll want to keep up-to-date.

Just remember the basic rules, keep your checklist handy and you will be sure to see results from your efforts.

Good luck with your twitter marketing campaigns…

Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/viewbizhealth

Since you are a Online marketer your primary marketing goal needs to be to dominate social networks and what better means to access the world-wide market than with Twitter. Simply by attracting followers and making new friends you can quickly build a list of precious leads.

Are you aware that Twitter is considered to be just about the most efficient and remarkable ways to boost traffic?

Many people use Twitter merely to send tweets to one another and keep in contact with friends and family, however, as an Internet marketer you should use it to generate a serious amount of traffic to your business sites if you know how.

Simply imagine, with a greater amount of visitors to your site, you can obtain more subscribers, leads and convert them into spending customers which all results in greater earnings.

As we discussed in lesson one, you should spread the news that you’re on Twitter. You will want to include your Twitter URL in your e-mail messages, blog posts and on your websites. That way, people will know that you’re using Twitter.

Believe it or not, frequent tweets can help you drive more traffic to your web site. Twitter users like people who post twitter posts regularly. If you want to obtain active followers through your tweets you will want to create a schedule for posting and do your best to stay with it.

You will also need to ensure that you reply to the tweets addressed to you. I don’t recommend that you stay on the site all day or spend extended hours tweeting away your time. Just pick a decent time once or twice a day and login.

If you have a mobile device you can sync it up with your Twitter account and you won’t have to worry about being away from your pc.

Don’t worry if your followers do not turn out to be active right away. It may take a while, but they’ll begin to detect the times that you are more active and after some time they will join in your conversations, which is one of your main goals.

Keep in mind the fundamental rule we discussed in lesson three “keep ninety percent of your tweets filled with useful content and limit your promotional ones” this way you may keep the followers that actually matter.

While some personal tweets are necessary if you want to help your followers get to know you, it would be best to avoid sending out a lot of personal or unrelated tweets because it can actually cause you to lose followers.

Of course there are not too many of your business contacts that will want to hear that you took a shower or exactly what you had for breakfast, so keep your tweets focused!

By taking some time to create good relationships with your followers, you’ll be setting the ground work for converting them into lifetime customers for your products or services.

Establishing a good relationship with your followers is critical in order to take advantage of the massive flow of traffic that pours through Twitter every day.

Here’s a small checklist that you can keep handy:

- Let everyone know that you are on Twitter.

- Send tweets regularly.

- Retweet good content.

- Respond to the tweets addressed to you.

- Pay attention to the kind of twitter posts you’re sending.

- Make the tweets personal, but not too personal.

- Most of all, build good relationships.

Using Twitter is fun and easy, this is why it’s such a large draw. I will be truthful, not everybody that uses Twitter as a marketing tool is going to be successful since it requires time, effort, and persistence to see successful results. But if you follow these steps frequently you should see an increase of activity and conversion.

That’s it for today’s lesson. Can you believe it? You’re only one lesson away from being a Twitter marketing master, so be sure to look for the following and final lesson shortly.

We will be discussing some of the common mistakes that Twitter users make, so you can avoid making them too!

I would really like to hear from you! Please let me know what you think…

Tweet Sweet and Meet

Let’s hop right in and discuss how you can utilize Twitter to carry out your market research. Every business has a target market however the basic fact is that many decision makers frequently miss the mark because they don’t know the true needs of their market.

Through the use of Twitter, it is possible to easily listen to the needs of your prospects, the problems they are currently facing and the type of help that they want.

Anytime you meet somebody new on Twitter it’s wise to try to establish a good relationship from the start. Think like your customer. You buy from those that you trust and like. Your target market also behaves the same way. It’s important, particularly in social marketing you will get to know your clients and do your best to earn their trust and confidence.

An effective rule of thumb is to try and maintain ninety percent of your tweets filled with helpful content and limit your promotions. In that way, it is possible to attract more followers and subsequently customers.

In order to showcase your experience on Twitter you will want to post quality posts on your blogs, web page and other sites, like article directory EzineArticles.com. Then share them with your followers. As we will discuss in the last lesson post there are numerous resources that work with Twitter that will immediately check the blogs you’ve posted and share them instantly on your page.

Offering educational materials, seminars, video training and social networking activities will also go a long way when you’re trying to convert your followers into paying customers.

As a matter of fact I recently discovered an excellent website that allows you to stream live video on your Twitter page and chat real time with your followers, so if you’re not camera shy, plug in your webcam! This can be a great way to create an immediate connection for you and your followers.

You’ll find out more here:

There are several strategies you can use to help the changeover from follower to customer by using Twitter. Just remember to keep the value of your subject matter high and the amount of your promotions small and you will quickly see real results from your efforts.

Look for your next lesson soon! We will be discussing how you can increase your Twitter traffic

In this post we are going to go over some tools that you can use to make your Twitter page more interactive and successful.

Whether you want to generate more traffic to your site or you want to increase your social relationships, Twitting is a fun and exciting activity that you can quickly master and use to achieve your goals.

We already know that Twitter keeps people connected at all times. Some people send tweets regularly (every day) and others only a few times a week. Since you are planning on using Twitter to build your IM business the latter is the best option for you.

That leads us to our first tool, Future Tweets. This works great if you aren’t able to send important tweets because you have other commitments. It only takes a few minutes to set up and you can use it to automatically post your prepared tweets.

It is very important that you don’t use this tool to auto spam your account with worthless information and constant offers. That will only lose you followers. Here is an example of proper ways to use this tool would be to remind your followers of upcoming seminars or meetings, maybe even let them know about products and offers to help build a buzz.

You can find out more about Future Tweets here: http://futuretweets.com

Note: for more advanced version of Tweet Generation that runs on a server check out: http://bit.ly/TwitBot. And for an alternative that runs on your PC visit: http://bit.ly/twitapp

Sharing pictures and product images is also possible with Twitter by using the tool Twitpic. When you make new contacts there may come a time when you want to share some of your pictures with them so that they can get to know you and your business better.

Once you’ve created your Twitpic account you can upload your pictures and quickly post them on Twitter. Another great thing about this tool is that it is also compatible with mobile devices which make it easier to share pictures from your mobile phone.

You can find out more about Twitpic here: http://twitpic.com

If you are using WordPress for your blog, there are quite a few tools that you can use to automate your Twitter activities from inside your dashboard including:

TweetThis plug-in – It will encourage your visitors to tweet your blog post. TweetThis also adds a Twitter link in every blog post you create plus gives you the ability to shorten your blog post URL to fit the 140-character limit.

TweetMeme button – Helps other people to easily retweet your post on Twitter and it also shows a count of how many times your blog post has been retweeted.

Twitter Tools – This plug-in integrates your blog with Twitter by pulling all your tweets into the side bar of your blog. You can also use it to post new tweets from inside your WordPress blog.

You can find these and a whole slew of other tools for wordpress by doing a search for ” Twitter WordPress plug-in”

Now let’s talk about Twollo. It is another Twitter tool that you can use to find people you want to follow. Just type in the subject or topic that interests you and the tool will find people who are talking about the same thing and automatically follows them for you.

And the list goes on. I could literally list hundreds of tools that work with Twitter for you, but then we would be stuck on this post for days, so instead I am going to suggest that you do a little home work after you are done reading this post lesson.

All you have to do is open up your favorite search engine and do a search for “Twitter tools, plug ins and add-ons” you will find more that enough to meet your needs. You can narrow your search even more if you are looking for something more specific.

For instance I did a search for “Twitter tools business” while I was writing this lesson and came across some that I didn’t know about.

Before we close this lesson I do want to tell you about one more tool that you can use to find out who you are following that don’t follow you back.

It’s Tweepler and all you have to do is type in your Twitter username and password and it will give you detailed list of who is following you and who you are following. It also has a very nice point and click interface, so that you can quickly sort through your peeps.

It does take a few minutes to populate the list but it is well worth the wait. You can find it here: http://tweepler.com

So, go do your homework and find some Twitter Tools that will work in your niche and start using them to make new contacts, automate your posts and promote your site better with Twitter!

Look for your next lesson post soon! I will be talking about gathering new customers through twitter.

In this first lesson let’s talk a little about how you can start building a large network of friends, clients, associates, and customers using the social networking website Twitter.

Many new users of Twitter are constantly asking how they can use the site more effectively for their business and since the site has grown into an Internet mega monster that is globally known and talked about, they are right to ask. The fact is Twitter is a fantastic tool for your IM business.

Internet relationships are very different from actual personal relationships. They are based primarily on like, know, and trust. Many people are reaching out to others through social network websites like Twitter, Facebook and many others.

If you are new to Twitter you may not realize that you can create your personal or business brand and virtually dominate your market, simply by building a list of followers.

Let’s talk about some of the ways you can you achieve this.

Once you’ve set up your Twitter account you will want to work on your profile. This way you can quickly customize the look and feel of your page. You will want to pay close attention to your one line bio. Because this is what people will read before they decide whether or not they want to follow you. You will only have 160 characters to describe who you are and what you do, so you have to make it good!

The next thing you will want to do is get ‘followers’. If you have business contacts that are already using Twitter, invite them to follow you. Put link’s in your emails, on your websites and blogs asking people to follow you. You could even put your Twitter URL on your business card, so that you can gather followers offline as well.

Don’t be shy tell everyone you meet about your Twitter page. Make it sound exciting and let them know that you will be sharing important updates, great tips and information with them if they follow you. You may be surprise to find out that almost everyone will click the follow button just to see what you’re up too!

Another thing that I feel that is important especially for Internet marketers is to seek out and follow the ‘gurus’ and the powerful users of Twitter. This will benefit you in more than one way. It will give you a bird’s eye view of what they’re doing on Twitter, so you can learn how to improve your own results and it will also put you in front of all the people they are in contact with.

Curiosity, you can’t fight it, so you may as well take advantage of it. People are curious by nature! They like to see who is following who, so often they will click on the links and check out the followers of people they know and follow them as well and by following the leaders, so to speak you may naturally end up will new followers as well. Just try and keep your target market in mind when you choose ‘gurus’ to follow.

Now let’s talk about meeting even more people and making hundreds of new friends by using ‘retweet’s’.

With this method, you take the original twitter message someone else has posted, and rebroadcast that same message to your followers. When broadcasting the message, you should definitely give credit to the original poster. I know at first it may sound like this will only be good for the original tweeter, but retweeting can actually benefit you just as much if not more because;

1. It provides more value to your followers.

When you provide value to your followers, you make them happy! You are also more likely to attract followers. Providing quality content is always a great way to build your business no matter what platform you use.

2. It will benefit your brand.

If you point a reader to a source of good information that is truly relevant and beneficial to them, the amount of trust that they have in you will increase.

3. It will help you build relationships with the original posters.

Retweeting someone else’s content is an act of kindness, and for the most part bloggers like to return the favor. You shouldn’t expect someone to retweet your content just because you retweet theirs. Just keep in mind that your chance of being on the other end of a retweet increases as you retweet.

Retweeting is all about providing value to your followers so if you want others to retweet your post then you want to make sure that you are providing them with quality content worth tweeting about.

The bottom line in retweeting is a great way to add quality and value to your Twitter page. If done right, retweeting can help you educate your followers, build your personal brand, increase future traffic, and connect you to other great people in your niche.

Just be careful not to use it incorrectly, retweeting can actually hurt your personal brand and future traffic. You want to treat your followers like gold. Don’t ever send them to inappropriate websites or spam them with one sales pitch after another.

Remember you want them to like what you have to say, so they will follow your lead. Then when you do recommend something to them you will get the results you are looking for every time!

That’s it for today’s lesson. Now go to Twitter and start building your followers by providing them with great content that they will love you for!

We have a lot to go over in the next few days so if you want to learn more about how to use Twitter for your IM business, make sure you look for your next lesson tomorrow. We will be talking about some tools that you can use to make your Twitter page more interactive and successful.