Entries fromNovember 2007

If you can develop discernible patterns of behavior, you can create expectations among those who are aware of it.

If you visit the same diner every night for a week, the waitress on the night shift will start to expect your presence. If you’re a likable character who tips well, she’ll even look forward to you showing up.

In the same way, bloggers and marketers can generate anticipation and desire from their audience by deliberately devising a predictable content schedule. Publish an interview on every Wednesday without fail. Release your email newsletters at the same time every Friday afternoon.

In business parlance, push-pull marketing refers to different ways of promoting a business model in order to reach a target market. In push marketing, you ‘push’ your content or product towards the audience which may or may not be aware of it.

Conversely, in a pull-marketing scenario, the customer ‘pulls’ your content or product towards themselves, because they are interested in learning more about it.

In other words, push-marketing involves the active engagement of a target market through methods like advertising on relevant websites, email marketing and the practice of cold calling or emailing a prospect.

Robert Cialdini is an influential social psychologist who is an expert in the systematic study of persuasion, compliance and negotiation.

He is most famous for his book, Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion, which outlines the six weapons of influence: reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, authority, liking and scarcity.

I’ve read Cialdini’s work a long time ago and his writings on the practice of persuasion are universally useful for people of all professions and backgrounds, especially business people, marketers and even politicians.

Before embarking on any social media marketing campaigns, it is essential to set your goals and define your prospects or target audience. Without a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and who you want to reach, your promotional campaigns will not be focused and the results may be fragmented and weak.

Determining your goals and target audience is a fairly important preliminary process when it comes to social media marketing.

This is not just plotting objectives for the sake of being organized; your goals directly determine the best strategy to take and the community to target.

Popular blogs are often read daily by a large audience. Reaching thousands of people, popular blogs can widely influence opinions and are terrific personal branding platforms as well.

These blogs can and often do make a lot of money. They produce regularly updated webpages which pull in large amounts of search or social media traffic. This converts into advertising revenue.

Flagship blogs also have large and loyal audiences and their attention can be monetized in various ways: creating and selling subscription-based access, info products, affiliate programs or joint ventures with other businesses/bloggers.

Imagine you were in America during the 1920s, a time when it was still taboo for women to smoke in public.

How could one encourage an entire nation of women to start buying and smoking cigarettes regularly? Edward Bernays, the father of the Public Relations industry, knew just what to do.

Bernays hired a group of young female models to march in a New York City parade and tipped off the press, telling them that a few women’s rights advocates would be lighting ‘Torches of Freedom‘ in protest.

Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing is a tutorial series which teaches you how to utilize the power of social media channels to get more exposure, supporters and customers for your site and business. This is the second article in the series.

I previously talked about the importance of social media marketing and I reckon most of you are interested in learning how to use social media to your website or business’s advantage. So let’s get started.

The type of content you produce influences the popularity and profitability of your website. People will often subscribe to and read blogs that are well-written and informative or entertaining.

Potential customers are much more likely to make purchases when your sales copy succeeds in promising benefits and reducing risk.

If you operate a paid membership website, your content needs to be interactive and educational. Directly fulfilling user informational needs and providing channels for user feedback are important.

Content goes a long way in establishing the value of your website for each visitor.