Many Internet business owners are going about their marketing duties so inefficiently that they are forced to become Internet marketers instead of business owners.

They spend their time “trying” to market their products and services rather than spending their time growing their business, enhancing their products or refining their services.

The reason is simple… There is so much information about how to market their business online that they don’t know what to ignore. They may end up trying various strategies, spending countless hours and an abundance of money just to find out that they wasted MOST of their time.

Little to no reward on time or money invested seems to be the propellant that keeps hungry business owners looking, paying, trying and spreading their effort way too thin.

Efficiency is the name of the Internet marketing game. In order to be efficient you have to find the pinnacle points of leverage that exist. If you try to lift a 10,000 lb boulder with your hands you will make little progress but if you use a long lever and make one motion you can set the boulder rolling down the hill… Results!

What is the point of leverage in Internet marketing?

Some would say it is SEO, others would say it is social media, still others swear by PPC, banner advertising or other forms of paid advertising. What else is there? … Not much!

So given that there are only a handful of ways to market a business on the Internet, which one is the most efficient and which one will produce the most leverage for time and/or money invested?

Our research shows that combining SEO and Social Media Marketing into a single initiative is single action that you can do that provides the most leverage for time, money and effort expended (and it’s trackable). In other words, combining these initiatives provide exponentially higher returns than focusing on individual elements alone.

We have whittled the process of Internet marketing down to 2 simple actions.

1. Publish new content that is educational, enlightening and entertaining to your target audience. (valuable)

2. Distribute that content through social channels (social media marketing).

Don’t confuse social media marketing with social media networking, they are two separate initiatives. Social Media Networking should always take place as a result of Social Media Marketing.

… In other words, don’t network (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) to locate prospects. You should use social networking tools to network WITH prospects NOT to “find” them.

… Instead use Social Media Marketing to allow prospects to find you first. Once they have found you then you network with them. Make sense?

Social Media Marketing is an element that confuses many people including the experts. Popular social media expert, Chris Brogan, has been speaking for years about social media and how business can get involved but even he seems to be missing the boat with regard to Social Media Marketing. He advises people to use all kinds of “social networking tactics” in order to gain prospects and customers.

… While this approach does work, it takes an incredible investment in either time or money, the results are not completely trackable and the reward, more often than not, is not worth the time or money invested. Networking to gain prospects is backwards. You network to turn prospects into customers and you use social media marketing (not networking) to gain prospects… Then you use networking to convert prospects to customers.

Social Media Marketing involves little to no social interaction whatsoever. Social Media Marketing is about the distribution and propagation of your content across social media channels. It is the art of increasing the exposure of the content you already have or the content you’ll publish tomorrow.

It is social because it is passed from person to person, network to network by people. Your job is to find the social media “marketing” leverage points, distribute your content there and let the social crowd take care of the rest… This is leverage, this is social media marketing.

… An interesting byproduct of this propagation of your content is a growing rate of social buzz surrounding your content, a growing rate of inbound links from others linking to your content and a growing rate of visibility. All of these items contribute to higher search engine rankings (SEO), automatically, without your intervention… How is that for leverage?

You effectively tackle social exposure and SEO in one move.

Where are the leverage points for social media marketing?

SocialMediaScience.com has the answer, the education, the tools and the software that focus on these leverage points. You can also find this information on your own. I have been hinting about it on this blog for quite some time.

I would imagine that the best investment you could make for your online business would be to discover these leverage points and begin using them to your advantage. It will take some time to build your content syndication network but it is time well spent because it retains value… Marketing value that is.

… Remember, the only ways you can market a business online is to buy traffic, search engine optimize or gain social media exposure. The ability to cover 2 out of the three methods in a single action is powerful leverage indeed.

This 40 page PDF report will set you down the right path of what I’m talking about here.

Until next time,

Charles Heflin

Learn how to apply Social Media and SEO 2.0 to your business click here.

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Most business owners are interested in the marketing benefits of using social media but become quickly confused because they are trying to build friends, create fan pages, set up Twitter accounts, set up LinkedIn profiles, etc. Are you beginning to see the mistake here?

The business owner (interested in marketing) has begun a social media networking initiative and NOT a social media marketing initiative… They have been confused and have set down the wrong path from the start!

One of the biggest mistakes that Internet marketers make is believing that they can launch a social media marketing initiative inside of social media networking environments (like Facebbook, Twitter, etc.)

Social media marketing and social media networking are two VERY different initiatives. If you try to do one inside the other you are bound for disaster. Much like mixing baking soda and vinegar together with explosive results.

There is a clear and distinct order in which you engage social media for business benefit. If you try the networking bit before the marketing bit then you are not operating at maximum efficiency.

Most people have it wrong. They network with people in an attempt to build their business (prospecting)… This is the most inefficient way to use social media and a great waste of time and energy. Not to mention it is hard to track results… It’s not completely measureable!

Here’s how I do it…

Step 1: Create a social media marketing campaign that stems from every blog post I create.

Step 2: Network with the prospects that I receive from the social media marketing campaign

I don’t network with people on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. I would rather network with people on my blog and people that I pull into my private network as a result of my social media marketing initiatives. I only need to network in one place, not many.

I only network with prospects. Most make the mistake of trying to network with everyone in an attempt to pull in prospects…

… This is backwards… They social media network in an effort to begin a social media marketing campaign… Do you see the problem here?

How do you create a social media marketing campaign?

Here’s how I do it…

1. Publish a new blog post.
2. Syndicate the post to 2 or 3 social news sites with large market share (many eyeballs).
3. Increase the visibility of the syndications by garnering comments, votes and shares on each network where I syndicate my blog post. (I use a tool called Synnd for this function)

As content gains votes and comments it becomes more visible to a larger and larger audience.

In approximately a few hours I will start to see:

1. An almost immediate increase in traffic to my new blog post
2. The blog post has been indexed by Google and ranked higher than usual (usual being if I did not syndicate my blog post to social networks)
3. A steady increase in traffic as the visibility of my content is increased through social voting and commenting.
4. A steady (and automatic) spread of my content from the original networks I syndicated to other networks as other people spread my content through bookmarks, inbound links from blog posts, mentions in forums, etc.
5. A steady and increasing amount targeted traffic arriving at my blog post.
6. A steady and increasing amount of people who opt-in or download my free report (they are now in my sales funnel)… PROSPECTS!

All of this is measureable and I have a clear and definitive ROI (Return On Investment) … My investment (in the case of this blog post) was 30 minutes writing, 2 minutes syndicating (using the tool Synnd) and no time is spent in increasing the visibility of my content becuase the Synnd network handles it for me. No time spent spreading my content becuase I made sure it was eduacational, enlightening and/or entertaining so it will spread from network to network automatically because people find it interesting.

So in total I spent 32 minutes on “Social Media Marketing” this blog post. This blog post will draw traffic, action (opt-ins, rss subscribers, report downloaders) and sales. All measuerable, all repeatable.

The last blog post that I social media marketed has pulled in over $10,000 in revenue from about 1 hour of work. What is the ROI on that? I’ve been so busy handling new business from that post that I am just now getting around to writing this new post.

After I begin pulling in prospects then (and only then) will I begin social media networking. I start networking with prospects… I DO NOT network to gain prospects, I only network with prospects I have gained through social media marketing and I network with them through my personal or corporate blog, email or in my private network.

Does this make sense?

I welcome your comments, this is a very important subject and lies at the heart of most everyone’s confusion in regard to social media for business purposes.

- Charles Heflin

P.S. If you want to know more about the tool Synnd then hop over to SocialMediaScience.com

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I have been a very bad blogger… Why?

I haven’t blogged a thing since December 3rd, 2008. Some may say I am committing blog suicide, no frequent updates, I don’t blog 2 or 3 times a week. I really just haven’t wanted to… I’ve been very busy.

When I released The Syndication Revelation it started a tidal wave of activity for me and my company. I used content syndication (through social channels) to spread the word about it and I have been buried ever since. Now that I have a little breathing room (thanks to outsourcing) I can pick my blog back up.

During my down time, it surprised me to learn that most people don’t know what content syndication is much less how it can benefit their business.

You see, behind all of the hype, echo chambers and gurus talking “around” the issue of social media, we have been using the practical core element of social media known as content syndication. I don’t care what business you’re in, if you want exposure, you must find ways to get your message in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

You may have to buy that exposure, you may know how to manipulate search rankings in your favor, you may know how to rally people into a Facebook group. You might have 10,000 loyal and active Twitter followers. Whatever the case may be, the one essential that lies at the core of all of this is… Content syndication.

Content syndication (done properly) gives everyone what they have been seeking… Measurable results from social media initiatives.

How do I see ROI from social media?

How do I implement social media in my marketing?

How do I achieve success in personal branding?

How do I increase traffic to my blog or website?

Whatever your question is, content syndication is the “tool” you are seeking. Stop listening to the echo chamber and start focusing on the “real” subject.

If you haven’t downloaded the 6 page report (that has been keeping me so busy) … The Syndication Revelation then you may want to give it a quick read. I don’t talk around the issue of social media… I dive right into practical ways to use it in your business with measurable results right this second.

Oh, and back to the subject… “Did I commit blog suicide” by not posting in months… Not at all. My business actually grew and flourished during the down time. Why? … The syndication of my existing content on this blog has placed my message into so many locations that I haven’t had the time… Is that a bad thing? … Hardly.

You see, blogging is about drawing eyeballs … If you blog and you don’t syndicate your blog content then you’re stuck just blogging with no real tangible reward. Content syndication is the missing element. Social media channels have made it easier to spread the word about your content.

So everything whittles down to two simple chores to achieve blog or business success:

1. Post quality content
2. Syndicate that content

Could it really be this easy? … Well, you have to try it to find out if I’m lying or not. My stats, my following, my results and my sales speak for themselves… Believe it or not. I show some of my stats in the 6 page PDF.

I welcome any and all comments or questions related to this PDF. Let’s crack this egg once and for all… I’m growing weary of the echo chamber… You know, the one where everyone keeps saying the same old crap about social media, SEO and Internet marketing in general.

No more, “just 5 more minutes mom” … It’s time to wake up to what we’re really dealing with here…

The “real” purpose of a blog is not to blog for the purpose of blogging. The real purpose is to drive people into your message. Post quality content, syndicate that content… Rinse and repeat. Then hopefully you’ll be too busy to blog all the time (unless you’re just into that sort of thing).

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It seems that if you are logged in to Google and then navigate to http://www.google.com/friendconnect/ that you will be able to add the friend connect widget to your website or blog.

I had been waiting for an invite, requested it twice. Today I went there (I was logged in to my Google account) and then I was able to add the widget (see the block to the right).

I would be honored to have you join my site just click the ‘join this site button’ in the Friend Connect widget to the right. Now we are on to figuring out how this thing works and the benefits of using it.

I would also like affirmation that Friend Connect has opened up to everyone with a free Google account. Leave your comments below and let me know.

Thank you

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By now everyone should understand that high visibility in the search engines as well as higher rankings is dependent on incoming links to your website or blog. What’s changing right now is the fact that incoming links are not the only part of the equation.

There are two ways that search engines can judge the popularity of your content:

• Incoming links
• Social buzz

Incoming links are easy to understand, the more “quality” links from relevant or theme centric sources, the better you will rank. The other part of the equation, social buzz, is a relatively new kid on the block.

Any search engine (or any person for that matter) can gauge the popularity of content by looking at the social popularity surrounding it. For example, you can easily go to Digg.com and see which stories rank the highest through votes (diggs). You can go to Delicious.com and see how many times certain content has been saved (bookmarked). This voting and saving can be tracked and is a good gauge to determine “human interest”. Gauging human interest is of high interest to search engines because their success or failure rests on it.

Anyways, long story short… There is value to generating a social buzz surrounding your content. Here are just a few benefits:

• Higher search engine visibility through multiple listings under single key terms
• Higher search engine rankings due to incoming links from other blogs/websites
• Traffic from all the social buzz that leads to more of the above

We are also seeing evidence that Google is paying attention to a few core sites such as:

• Reddit
• Digg
• Delicious
• Furl
• Facebook

We get this unconfirmed intel from the Google Shared Stuff project:

You can find out more about the Google Sharing Stuff Project here.

Now, from a technical SEO perspective, the value of generating social buzz surrounding content is a good move because the major benefit comes in the form on inbound links from others that find the content valuable.

In short … Generating social buzz lies at the very core of social media success. If you take everything else away, the ONE thing that causes success or failure in social media is the Social Buzz Factor.

The big question is…

“How do you generate social buzz and do it consistently for all your best content?”

This is the subject matter of a new blog series that begins with this post.

How do you generate social buzz for your content?

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