What is the #1 marketing strategy that you are told time and again? It’s simple really… you need a list. Not a list of useless leads you bought somewhere, hoping they will somehow magically decide your “spam” is worth reading over their other spam. I’m talking about a list you grow yourself through your own efforts.

My latest article (opens in a new window) explains this simple, effective, time-tested and proven method for building not only initial readership, but lasting client relationships as well.

I’ve even thrown in strategies to help you achieve your goals.

Enjoy!

This morning, while talking with Janet Giacoma, we discussed the value of guest posting, or more precisely, pursuing the idea of guest posting on other people’s blogs.

So after a lengthy conversation about marketing strategies for the upcoming New Year (and of course once I was off the phone), I started doing a bit of digging. (Guest posting is not something new to us, but it never hurts to do a bit of background research to bring yourself up to speed.)

Guest Posting Secrets (How to Get Published on An A-List Blog), posted a little over a year ago, provides the information anyone considering adding such a marketing strategy to their business should take the time to read… first!

“In this post, I want to share the strategies I used to secure guest-posting spots at three Technorati Top 100 blogs (ProBlogger, Copyblogger and Zen Habits) without any prior contact with the owner. I don’t include that information to boast – I simply want to show you that these methods work. If they worked for me, they can work for you.”

This informational post provides specific guest post directions such as:

o  Why guest post on popular blogs?
o   Choosing where to guest post
o   Coming up with the perfect idea
o   Pitching your post (includes email template)
o   Opportunities to look out for
o   And important things to remember

Not surprising, it also appears that the post about guest posting may itself BE a guest post. How clever is that?

Our suggestion? Make the time to study up on, and implement, this social media marketing concept as soon as possible, and reap the benefits.

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We love comments! Please do and gain a valued backlink.

Back on the 15th of February, we did a post about YouTube videos. In that post, we talk about the benefits of putting video on your site either by creating it yourself (a possible chore) or pulling in existing videos from YouTube and other video storage web sites.

The simple fact is videos are good business. As a marketing strategy, not using video is not a very bright thing to not do.

People love watching videos! Whether entertainment or to learn specific marketing techniques or review programs and products prior to purchase, having video on your site is a for-certain winner.

Also back in February, we started our test of (more…)

Larry Brauner of Online Social Networking makes an interesting (and perhaps obvious) point. After attending a webinar, he brings home a point that maybe some of us ARE missing.

Do you follow blindly what your “guru” is telling you? Does it often seem that by the time you get to “do it” the doing has already been done to death? Do you always have that “missed the boat” feeling?

Maybe there is a reason…

Larry speaks out about the human tendency to “flock,” and questions whether that is a wise internet marketing (or social media marketing) strategy.

We were recently enrolled taking a very publicized course about social media. We did withdraw from that course when it appeared that the areas for marketing where oversaturated and perhaps not the best choice. Another case of too little too late (and at a very expensive price tag to learn the lesson!) ??

Larry’s point of zagging if everyone is zigging is a point we should all take to heart. Doing our own thing, planned mine you, not mindless, has always served us well.

Thanks Larry for the reminder!

Everyone is buzzing about it – the magic “Web 2.0″ word is drawing people like bees to honey. But there’s one slight catch to the whole thing… there are so many of them, what to choose? Where to start? How to work them effectively so you get what you need without ticking a bunch of people off (which you really want to avoid!).

That’s where our suggestions come in handy. We’re actively using the resources we talk about on this blog. You’ll see down below (or off to the side) coverage we are giving to Facebook. Well here’s our next suggestions – Hubpages.com

BUT… before you rush off please finish reading this post. It will save you hours of work and, more importantly, your reputation online if you approach this (or any) social media website with the right mindset.

If you’re reading this blog (and we sincerely hope you are and telling others all about us, hint, hint), you’ll notice that versus posting an entire article here, we present a summary of what to expect and then send you out to hubpages to read the rest. It’s not laziness on our part, lol, but a really good marketing strategy that you, too, can benefit by using.

The really great part is that you don’t even need your own website to get started. If you do, great! If you don’t, don’t worry about it (though down the line you should plan to have at least a blog of your own).

You’ll first signup for a Hubpages account. From this one account, you create multiple “hubs” which are nothing more than a fancier way of saying “individual pages” under your one account. Yes, you can post numerous “hubs” from just one username login area. It’s great!

Which means you can write about ANYTHING that you’re imagination, and research, can dream up.

Each new hub gets a new name – typically it pulls from whatever title you’ve given your initial page. For instance, if we did an article about:

“How to Benefit From Using Hubpages”

the url would look like this (this is fictious)

/hubs/How-to-Benefit-From-Using-Hubpages

So you see hopefully right off the bat that placing your keyword into your title is a primary objective, right?

The idea with Hubpages is, after posting many (this will not work as a “do it once” strategy and should be avoided if you don’t plan to build multiple “hubs”), the search engines will pick up your hubs and create even more valuable backlinks to your hubpages and (ultimate) your website or blog.

Now versus reinventing the wheel, we’ve downloaded the nifty pdf that Hubpages provides to its users. You can:

Download the HubPages User Guide Here
Download and Read First!
It is highly recommended that you get this download first.
Read it through, it’s a clear step-by-step process guide, and then start
your own Hubpages hubs.
WORD OF CAUTION: This, nor any social media, is NOT the place to do blatant advertising! If you do, you will ruin your reputation in a heartbeat! Our suggestion is get the guide, read the guide, and then go travel around within Hubpages before doing anything. Get a feel for what’s what, who’s doing what, how they are doing it. Look for “high score” pages. You can bet these people understand the process and are working it properly.