Category: Sales Technology

Now Businesses Can Share with Circles, Too!

Google Plus Pages, the online rival to Facebook, has created a guide that will walk you through how to set up your Business Page, get started, share, promote and measure.

Let’s take a quick look at what they say about the three functions that benefit your business:

SHARE

Google Plus Pages allows you to drill down deeper – because not all your customers or fans are interested in all the same things. Some want to know about your latest promotions, while others simply don’t want to be bothered, right? They may want the latest news, or ask questions about products. You can even conduct live video chat to really connect. By creating a multitude of Circles, you can get very specific about what you share in each circle, and hit the mark with high levels of interest. Use your Stream to post great info – and make it public so it can be found in search.

PROMOTE

You have a lot of options for promoting your Google Plus Page:

– promote it yourself with Google+ Direct Connect and the Google+ badge

– help others recommend you with the +1 button

People search on Google billions of times a day, and very often, they’re looking for businesses and brands. Google+ Pages can help users transform their queries into meaningful connections. A new feature called Direct Connect makes it easy — even automatic — for people to connect with you.

Let people know you’re here by connecting your company website to your Google+ Page by adding the Google+ badge to your site. Whenever someone who likes your site clicks the icon, they will be taken to your Google+ page where they can add your page to their circles, and be able to follow your posts from then on.

A recommendation is good; a recommendation from a friend is even better. +1 annotations in Google search help surface these recommendations right when people need them most — when they’re searching for exactly that information.

MEASURE

How do +1’s affect user behavior? Google Analytics suite of social reports make it easy to find out. Analytics measures +1’s and how engagement on your site changes when personalized recommendations help your content stand out. Also see aggregate, anonymized demographic information about the Google users who have +1’d your site.

Google Plus Page Reviews

Reviewers are wild about this new tool, anticipating that Google Plus will BEAT Facebook AND Twitter!

According to Caleb Garling, on influential Wired.com, “At this point, Google+ Pages are where businesses interact with web denizens on the cutting edge of net technology, and Facebook is where you interact with everyone else… Google integrates Plus into its web-dominating search engine. With Google+ Direct Connect, searchers can insert a “+” before their query and jump directly to a business’s Google+ page. Type “+YouTube” into a Google search box, for instance, and Google will take you straight to YouTube’s Plus page.

“This is where Google will have an advantage over Facebook: With a broad array of services like search and Gmail and Chrome and Android, Google offers tools that are fundamental to the online lives of so many people — and these can be tied to Google+. As Google+ evolves, Google will have the means to promote its social network — and the branded Pages within it — in ways that Facebook or Twitter cannot.”

This should be fun to watch! What’s YOUR prediction?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book has a name change! The Net-Powered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

What does Google + Do?

Google already does more than most people realize, but never before have they attempted to go head-to-head with the social network Facebook, as cited by many highly credible sources such as The New York Times.

As you likely know, it was launched last summer – June 28, 2011 as a ‘field test’, by invitation only. On September 20, it was available to anyone over 18 years of age, no invitation needed.

Google + Features

Early adopters have been mostly male (over 71%) with the dominant age bracket between the ages of 25-34 (35%). So, the features have been designed to appeal to this important demographic:

• ‘Circles’ – Users may organize their contacts into groups for sharing across various Google products and services. Replacing the typical ‘friends’ lists in social networking, Circles are organized through a drag and drop interface.
• ‘Hangouts’ – Want to ‘hangout’ with 10 buddies for a video chat? Try it with mobile, instant webcasts, or share documents, a scratchpad, and your screen.
• ‘Messenger’ – Share instant messages and photos within your circle.
• ‘Instant Upload’ – For use on Android mobile devices, you can store photos or videos in a private album for sharing later.
• ‘Sparks’ – Helps to keep you up-to-date on topics of interest. It’s a front-end to Google Search (but of course), and ‘featured interests’ reveal topics of interest globally.
• ‘Stream’ – Like Facebook’s Wall, you can enter a status update, or share photos and videos to your Circle.
• ‘Games’ – Social games located under a separate games tab.

Google Plus Adoption

Google Plus has enjoyed extremely high growth rates in the U.S. and European countries.

It boasted 25 million unique visitors just four weeks after operational launch. And in just one year, it is projected to have 22% of all adults in the U.S.

Google + Pages

With this rate of adoption, with a target market that is generally hard to capture, you’ll be interested to know that Google + Pages has been designed for businesses to connect with fans in a manner similar to Facebook Pages. Launched November 7, 2011, businesses can start to share their messages with others through corporate accounts. Google Plus Pages is anticipated to be an important part of a company’s online marketing strategy. More about that in a subsequent post.

Has Google + helped you or your company yet? If so, please share!

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book has a name change! The Net-Powered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

Try Affiliate Marketing

In the last post, we discussed Affiliate Marketing as an inexpensive way to increase your sales force and boost your revenues. Here, we’ll take a closer look at HOW those revenues are earned.

Some Merchants run their own (i.e., in-house) affiliate programs using popular software while others use third-party services provided by intermediaries to track traffic or sales that are referred from affiliates (see outsourced program management). Merchants can choose from two different types of affiliate management solutions: standalone software or hosted services, typically called affiliate networks.

Affiliate Marketing Compensation Methods

As Affiliate Marketing has evolved, so have compensation models. The methods vary:

• 80% – revenue sharing or cost per sale (CPS)
• 19% – cost per action (CPA), and
• the remaining 1% use methods such as cost per click (CPC) or cost per mille (CPM).

As a retailer, or Merchant, this is quite attractive, because Affiliates are typically paid a commission for each sale. And when the Merchant uses an Affiliate Network, all the activity is tracked, payments are made, and reports are automated.

Top Affiliate Network Companies

CompareTheBrands.com offers an in-depth look at many of the Affiliate Networks and their typical commission structures, along with great insights from real experience: “We make most of our revenue from affiliate programs, and have plenty of experience with them. Here are the best networks out there. See which one topped all others in this affiliate network review and comparison.”

Th­e f­o­­l­l­o­­wing l­is­t o­­f­ th­e b­es­t Af­f­il­iate Netwo­­rks­ is­ co­­mp­il­ed b­y an actual­ f­ul­l­-time af­f­il­iate marketer wh­o­­ h­as­ wo­­rked th­es­e p­ro­­grams­ f­o­­r o­­ver f­ive years­, as reported by onlineprofitable.com:

• Com­­m­­ission Junct­ion (www.cj.com­­)
• ClickB­an­k (w­w­w­.clickb­an­k.co­m)
• Li­nk­S­ha­re­ (w­w­w­.li­nk­s­ha­re­.com­­)
• Af­f­iliate W­in­do­w­ (w­w­w­.af­f­iliatew­in­do­w­.c­o­m)
• Amazon­­ (www.amazon­­.com)
• Share­asale­ (www.share­asale­.co­­m)
• Google­ (www.google­.c­om/adse­n­­se­)
• L­inkC­onnec­t­or­ (www.l­inkc­onnec­t­or­.c­om­­)
• C­PA Em­pi­r­e (www.c­paem­pi­r­e.c­o­m­)

Do you have tips for other small businesses just starting out with Affiliate Programs?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

Establish an Online Affiliate Program

Online marketing can quite effectively expand your sales force (and your sales!) with minimal cash outlay and greatly increased margins.

Your business can literally explode online sales with a simple and easy to administer Affiliate Marketing program. Using one website to drive sales to another website is the basic concept employed in affiliate marketing, which is growing in favor among retailers everywhere who are looking for innovative ways to increase sales.

Use an Affiliate Network

Affiliate Networks are companies that match retailers and salespeople. They handle all the transaction flow in exchange for compensation from the transactions and the relationships. Affiliate Networks act as the intermediary between retailers (called Merchant Affiliate programs) and salespeople (called Publishers or Affiliates).

Top Affiliate Networks coordinate hundreds, and even thousands of Merchant Affiliate programs, which are searchable by keyword in their extensive directories. Affiliates earn a sizable commission for each sale made through their own website. On their own websites, Affiliates often promote a wide variety of Merchant programs related to their core business and customer needs.

Affiliate Network Services and Benefits

For Merchants, Affiliate Network services and benefits may include:

• instant tracking technology,
• extensive reporting tools,
• automated payment processing, and
• access to a large base of resellers/Publishers.

For Affiliates, services and benefits can include

• simplifying the process of registering for one or more Merchant Affiliate programs, greatly reducing the administrative and record keeping burdens,
• automated reporting tools, and
• complete payment aggregation.

Affiliate Network Costs

Affiliates are generally able to join top Affiliate Networks for free, whereas there is generally a fee for Merchants to participate. Traditional Affiliate Networks might charge an initial setup fee and/or a recurring membership fee. It is also common for Affiliate Networks to charge merchants a percentage of the commissions paid to Affiliates.

In the next post, we’ll go into more depth, identify top Affiliate Networks, and take a look at Affiliate Network compensation models.

What Affiliate Marketing success stories can you share?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com