EDITOR’S NOTE: This is not our article, but the information is well worth your time.

by Gary Smith

The Web 2.0 social media revolution is in full steam. Are people finding your website?

As an entrepreneur, how do you make your business website stand out amongst 435 million other websites and more than 1 million blogs competing for your audience’s attention?

It’s not as hard as you might think.

To begin, let’s look at the demographics of Web 2.0 social networking sites, Myspace.com, Facebook and YouTube.com. This will give you an idea on how to position your message in the Web 2.0 World.

The Web 2.0 Social Networking Revolution

Web 2.0 is a real revolution on the Internet. And these aren’t just college kids…

- 62% of MySpace visitors are older than 25 (40% are 35+), and 83% are making over $30,000 a year. Nineteen percent (19%) are making $100,000 and up…

- On Facebook.com 46% are over 25 and 34% are 35+, but they’ve got deep pockets. Eighty-eight percent (88%) make more than $30,000 and twenty-three percent (23%) make $100,000 or more.

In the years ahead these numbers will get ridiculous…

- Social media giant Facebook is currently ADDING a million 25+ (non-student) adults per week to their rosters. That’s 52 million new users a year.

- YouTube.com gets over 50 million unique visitors per month. That equals over half a billion a year.

- Facebook and MySpace have the equal daily traffic of Google. Experts predict within the next year they will DOUBLE the daily traffic of Google search.

So your prospects are there. The traffic is there. The spending power is there. So NOW is the time you want to establish your presence on the social networking websites.

Web 2.0 Strategy: Why You Should Be a Maven, Not a Marketer

As a website owner, how should you position your message in the Web 2.0 world?

The increasingly savvy buying public will quickly shun marketers. Internet readers want information from the Internet. They don’t want advertising, marketing, or a “pitch”.

According to Schefren in his Attention Age Doctrine, the solution is to become a social media “Maven”.

A Maven is a trusted authority, like a friend, on the social media websites. As you gain their trust, your audience will return to you over and over again wanting to invest in your advice.

Five Steps to Becoming a Social Media Maven

Social Media Maven Step 1: Get in the Game

Begin blogging immediately. Create a video explaining how to solve a problem and put it on YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook with links back to your main website. Just those two things alone will establish more Web 2.0 presence than 90% of your competition.

Social Media Maven Step 2: Share your passion

Build your Web 2.0 website around your passions. Thirty-two year old Gary Vaynerchuk transformed his wine knowledge to his video blog, http://Tv.Winelibrary.com. It now has thousands of subscribers and does $50 million dollars a year in wine sales.

Social Media Maven Step 3: Be Controversial

Your audience will remember you more when you challenge the status quo. Controversy sells. Think like the tabloids and the local news channels here. For example, Web 2.0 Business Coach Rich Schefren challenges traditional marketing wisdom in each release of his Attention Age Doctrine special reports at www.attentionage.net/doctrine

Social Media Maven Step 4: Create World Class Content

You will drive repeat traffic to your website by offering top notch “how to” information. Gary’s wine tastings are highly educational on the benefits of wine, how to cook with wine, and how to choose a wine for your special occasion. Rich’s reports teach Web 2.0 marketing principles.

Remember, as soon as your audience feels that you are “pitching” them, you’ve lost them. So provide content not advertising.

Social Media Maven Step 5: Engage in the Conversation

Web 2.0 is a dialogue not a monologue. Internet businesses profit more when they observe and listen to their communities first before they broadcast their messages. Savvy mavens such as Gary and Rich encourage their audience to ask questions. The answers to these questions then become part of their user-generated content.

How Marketing in a Web 2.0 Social Media Environment Is Exciting

Visualize it like a big radio or television station or movie screen where you’re the star. You’re building a fan base so you need to entertain, inform, and deliver consistently for your audience.

You have more publishing power at your fingertips right now than at any time in history.

So use it.

Share your passions.

Reveal your trials and tribulations

Tell your story.

And, watch how quickly your audience builds.

=======================================

Master Copywriter, Gary Smith (www.rightbraincopy.com) has taught thousands of entrepreneurs how to write copy that persuades, motivates and inspires prospects to buy. He strongly suggests using Web 2.0 Internet Marketing Strategies revealed in Richard Schefren’s Attention Age Doctrine. Get it now for FREE at: http://www.attentionage.com/doctrine & discover never-before-revealed Web 2.0 tools and techniques to win in the Attention Age

“What Can a Dentist Teach You about Business, Life and Success? Discover Secrets to Achieving Total Success!”, a new book launching this week on Amazon, quickly teaches you that your willingness to be different can make all the difference in how your business is perceived. Dr. Joe Capista gives you an inside view of how he took a struggling business and, with a clear vision of what he wanted to accomplish, built a multi-million dollar business.

The beauty of this book is the way in which the story is told. Forget the dry, disinterested approach, Capista takes you on a journey through his life, the mentoring and direction he received, and sums it all up in a 222-page discovery he calls The Success Triangle(TM). Capista offers a roadmap that virtually any business can implement to achieve higher profits, greater customer satisfaction, more satisfied employees and the ability to sustain any turn in the economy.

With permission, we offer a few excerpts for you to enjoy below, ways you can become familiar with this author; his style of writing. Throughout this book, Capista brings you a wealth of information based on family type situations, business situations, and personal experience. We’ve chosen a few from Chapter 8 (along with the summary of what Chapter 8 covers) entitled, “Five Part Forumla for Success”:

Become an Expert
Have a Great Product and/or Service

“By investing in your own training and education, you will gain more in the long run than you’re giving up. With increased skill comes increased confidence. With increased confidence comes increased competence. The rewards will continue to multiply.

Many are comfortable with the status quo. They feel because they’ve been at something for a long time it qualifies them as an expert. I learned a long time ago just because you’ve got a lot of years in or you’ve done something repeatedly, that doesn’t necessarily make you an expert. Some people work in a vacuum doing the same thing day in and day out thinking they are the best at what they do. Wrong!

You can’t increase your expertise on your own; someone has to teach you. I don’t care if you’re already at the top of your game, there’s somebody that’s on top of you that’s doing it better. That’s the person you have to talk to!”

Develop Sales and Marketing Skills

“Sales is a kind of strategic influence. Too many times we think of sales as manipulation because we have the vision of the slick salesperson; the person who’s trying to sell for his or her good and not for the good of the customer. Sales is about benefits and coming to a mutual agreement with your customer that what you have to offer is of value. Once value has been established, you have the responsibility to influence the person to say, “Yes.”

You always have to have the other person’s highest good in mind. In fact, Charlie used to tell me about the U Attitude. When he first presented the U Attitude idea, it was foreign to me. He would sit in front of me, hold his pad of paper and he’d draw a U. One part of the U started with the customer coming to me and it ended back with the customer to complete the U. This means the process has to start with the customer, come to me, and then go back to the customer. The customer always has to be the person who benefits the most in the sales process and the U Attitude has helped me to remember this over the years.

Selling is about helping the client. The times I have been sold by people who have good sales skills is fantastic; a great experience. They see what I want and what I need. They know how I’m going to benefit by it and they help me get there. Sales require compassion, understanding, and talking in such a way people are comfortable dealing with you. When you create comfort for your customer, they will return again and again.”

Get Help from Experts (Mentors)

“Mentorship doesn’t have to be a difficult experience. There are very informal as well as formal methods of mentorship. Let’s begin with the informal. Consider the top five people you spend time with the most. Each can be a mentor in his or her own right. To be successful you need to make sure those you associate with most are people that inspire you and lift you up. You must be clear about who you want to spend time with and understand the power they have in your life.

There is an exchange of energy in all relationships. Some people enhance our energy; others can actually deplete our energy. I’m very deliberate in choosing people that increase my energy and fuel my dreams. We may not call one another mentors, but the influence we exert on each other’s lives is the same as a mentor/student relationship. I feel so strongly about this I’ve made efforts in the opposite direction, minimizing relationships with certain people because we weren’t on the same track or heading in the same direction. I look to mentors in both my personal and professional life.”

Chapter 8 Success Summary

1. Business Success and Life Success are not exclusive of each other. To have TOTAL SUCCESS you need success in both areas.

2. To have TOTAL SUCCESS you need to:

o Become an Expert (have a great Product and/or Service)
o Develop Sales and Marketing Skills
o Get help from Experts (have mentors)
o Control your Thoughts
o Create Balance in your life

3. You may not be the “best” at what you do, BUT be the best you can be.

4. To be the best in your field requires continued training.

5. The success of your business and the success of your personal life is directly proportional to your ability to sell and market.

6. Our lives revolve around selling a Product, Service or idea.

7. Sales is strategic influence, not manipulation.

8. Develop a ‘U’ Attitude.

9. Always have the customer’s interests foremost and have integrity and honesty in your sales process.

10. Sales and Marketing are skills that need to be learned. Very few people are “natural born” sales or marketing people.

11. You need people – mentors – to teach you what you do not know.

12. Find successful people and study their behavior.

13. Mentors can be living or dead.

14. Pay people to teach you what you do not know.

Again these excerpts are just that, pieces we’ve taken that caught our eye. The stories and information are much more indepth than we can cover here. Suffice to say this is an interesting, informative, and (more than slightly) different way of following key patterns to personal success.

Order you own copy of What Can a Dentist Teach You about Business, Life and Success? within the next 24 hours and receive over $2,551 in bonus gifts from experts around the globe. Go to www.joecapista.com/amazon.htm

Well it seems that last week Yahoo stocks dropped to a record low for the first time in four years. Since the takeover of Overture, they have been continually deteriorating in share price. Microsoft Chief Executive, Steve Ballmer, has made an offer to take over Yahoo to the tune of 44.6 billion dollars. Yahoo directors are looking into the offer now as it looks otherwise to be a sinking ship. Microsoft has promised shareholders $31 per share which is a 62% increase from the share price this past Thursday. Since Yahoo uses Microsofts technology to run their engines the shift should be quite painless.

Since Google controls around 60% of the US search market, it only makes sense for Yahoo to merge with Microsoft – this way they would be able to narrow the playing field and provide larger advertising service to compete with the big dog Google. In the last year Microsoft has reported a 79% jump in profits with their advertising, while Yahoo has been struggling to maintained a profit. Microsoft projects that they will be able to boost the ad revenue through this takeover, while at the same time cutting out the overlapping of positions within Yahoo.

The key benefit of the purchase per Microsoft is that it would be the best way to maximize value to the share holders and in turn create a more competitive front that would provide the value and service to their customers.

Well that is it for the techno news for today. Chow for now until next time.

(This is a recap of a breaking news story on February 1, 2008)

Ebay has announced that they are cutting their fees by 50% which will start as of Feb 20th. They also have cut out the picture fee as this should be included on ecommerce sites. Where they are picking it up is on the sale end as a commission. If the product sells for under $25.00 it will be 8.75% but will be less on higher priced products.

They will also use customer ratings of the process to determine the rank in the searches so someone who has many dissatisfied customers will be lower in the searches. This has come about as the market on ebay is flattening due to all the cost and sellers are pulling out. They only had a small 4% increase of the last year and are now needing to compete with companies such as Amazon who charges $0.00 to list a product and you pay the commissions when something is sold.Not sure how long ebay will be able to hold on with the shift in the seller market, but they are looking to make a complete platform change in hopes of not going under. This all came to a head last year when Chief Executive Meg Whitman announced she would retire at the end of March. That is when Donahoe, president of eBay Marketplaces decided he needed to aggressively change eBay’s product, customer approach and business model.