Attention Small Business Experts!  Here’s a New Way to Add Dollars to Your Bottom Line!

There is nothing that a marketing person loves more than finding new ways to add customers and profitable revenue to the bottom line.  So when the folks over at Mindflash approached me with their latest innovation, I got really excited because I just knew that you would be too.

A Little About Mindflash

I was originally approached by Mindflash when they launched their online training platform.  At that time, this product was aimed at larger organizations who had internal training needs and wanted to save money on expensive training software.  Since my audience consists of small businesses and consultants who could only dream of being big enough to HAVE a training department, it wasn’t a good fit.

But NOW – Mindflash has launched some new features that I think you will REALLY love.   The Mindflash Marketplace is an online platform where anyone can sell a course or presentation at absolutely no cost.

This new feature, which developed out of the requests of many previous Mindflash users, provides an exciting new way for experts, consultants, and small business experts and professional trainers to make money with their hard earned knowledge, as well as a way for those seeking new skills to avoid hiring programmers or dealing with merchant accounts. With over seven billion ‘How-to’ Google searches to date, Mindflash Marketplace fills the high demand for high-quality online instructional content.

How Does Mindflash Marketplace Work?

Anyone can use Marketplace to create professional courses from content they already have. Some example courses include ‘Negotiations’, ‘Social Media Business Basics’, ‘Closing the Deal’, and ‘Transit Systems’. It all starts with a blank course template. Here you can upload files (e.g. Powerpoint, video or Youtube formats, PDF’s, etc.), make Quizzes, Descriptions, and more. Users can setup reminder and course management details, Question Types, Handouts, and three different types of Certificates. Mindflash lets you preview your test before it goes live. It also provides a full suite of reporting programs to track how well your courses are selling, as well as a way to invite trainees yourself. There’s also a feature that allows customers to contact the instructor, which can be setup as well, and ways to link to your course through your blog or email. Once all this is done, you just decide the price. The minimum is $9.99. Once the course is live, customers can preview the first three slides then purchase your course with just a click.

Revenue Sharing With Mindflash Marketplace

There are no setup or subscription fees with Mindflash. The fees are commission-based, meaning Mindflash will take a small percentage of money made through the course (though even this fee is waived in the beta, which will go through the end of October). The commission is 15%. All transactions will be handled through credit card, though Mindflash handles all the necessary processing fees. Customers will use a PayPal account to get their payments to you. At the moment, funds are dispersed through Paypal every two weeks. There are additional plans in the works for commission discounts for high volume sellers (those making $10,000+/month). And once your courses start selling, Mindflash provides an platform to track your various earnings. Again, all this is totally free.

Why Choose Mindflash Marketplace?

There’s no question that the Mindflash Marketplace is the first service of its kind. Similar sites have a much different fee structure. Digital Chalk, for example, has a $299 start-up cost, as well as a per course listing cost and a transaction cost. With these types of programs users can lose hundreds of dollars before they even sell anything. Mindflash is a great platform for both experienced professionals and those just starting out looking for an easy, low-risk solution.

Additionally, though it has limited functionality at the moment, Mindflash plans to do a lot of the marketing work for you. If you have a blog, web page, or other established network anywhere in the world, Mindflash Marketplace will help you get the word out. Right now there’s a Public Course link that can be pasted around the web, and Mindflash hopes to integrate the marketplace with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter within the next month.

Mindflash Marketplace is the perfect way for industry experts to monetize that expertise, especially in an economy where supplemental income and marketable skills are increasingly important. It’s a simple, innovative way for millions of people to connect and share resources, and it’s all entirely free. There’s no reason not to give it a shot and make money sharing your knowledge with the world.

A big part of online promotion is creating content that can be shared.  This includes email newsletters, article submissions, press release distribution, and blog post writing.  Social media is a great place to share this high quality content once it has been created.  Social media is important for numerous reasons.  It helps to build a brand and improves SEO.  Businesses are realizing that it’s not just a fad and that it’s time to get involved, if they haven’t already.  One of the most important decisions that needs to be made is who will be the social media voice that represents the company and brand.

The first thing that needs to be decided is whether the voice should be a brand or a person.  Should the Twitter profile that’s promoted for business use be “CompanyX” or “JaneDoe” (President and Founder of Company X).  This usually depends on the company.  If it’s a product based company, it might be easier and more acceptable to use the brand name.  If it’s a service based company, it’s more about forming relationships and establishing trust with an actual person.  Certain situations, especially in the service industry, need that personality.  People like to put a face with the company name.

Once you’ve decided that the voice should be represented by a person at the company, the next step is to determine who that person should be.  Depending on the company, the right person differs, but it could be anyone including the owner, President, CEO, or VP of Marketing.  This decision is extremely important because the brand will be built in this person’s name.  You need to think about whether or not this person will still be working at the company in 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years.  If the brand is built in their name, and then they leave, they take all of that brand equity along with them and it’s like starting all over again.  The name needs to be consistent across all marketing channels including all business and social profiles.  One of the possible dangers of using a person is that the personal and professional sometimes blend together.  If an account is being used for business reasons, the content needs to remain professional at all times.

It’s also important to consider if more than one person should represent the brand.  For a small business, only one person should be the voice of the company.  If there are too many people it’s not consistent and could lead to confusion.  Seeing one name promotes brand recognition.  People see the name over and over and get who that person is representing.  The brand behind the name is less recognizable as more names are used.  For a large corporation that has numerous divisions, it is more appropriate to have multiple people representing the brand because they can represent the various divisions or products lines.  In this case, using only one name will cause too much clutter since the information isn’t relevant to everyone.

Determining the social media voice is the first step in establishing and building a presence in the social media space.  This is a decision that will affect major online marketing initiatives, so it needs to be made wisely.

This post is part of a “Blog Carnival” that’s being hosted by Tea Silvestre from The Word Chef Blog.  The theme of the carnival is “Building Business Relationships” it’s part of a series of posts on the subject from a variety of small business experts.

Building referrals is just as important now as if was in the past.  In fact, I think it’s much easier and more cost effective now to develop and build those relationships than it had been in the past.  What I think is more difficult is keeping those referral conversations alive and focused.

Social media tools make it infinitely easier to find and connect with people, but because so many social media tools use a “timeline” format you can see and start a conversation one minute and forget about it the next simply because the screen has been refreshed with new conversations and posts.  This makes it difficult to move referral and opportunity conversations forward.

Here’s my killer time-saving and stress-reducing recipe for cooking up new business using a social media based referral strategy.

Total Time: About 2 hours to create social media accounts and generate list and about an hour per day managing your system

Yield: Profitable New Opportunities and Customers

Difficulty: Easy Peasy if you stay with it

Ingredients:

• No more than 3 specific marketing goals
• Twitter account – in your name, brand name or company name
• Facebook account
• LinkedIn account
• Try Nimble.com as a tool to integrate your social media conversations and create action items from those conversations
• A list of about 200 names, you can create a list or just go down your email address book and pull the people you think can help you get referrals

Directions:

1. Set your marketing goals and objectives. These goals should look like something like this: “Launch a webinar series targeting pet shop owners in March” or “Find 5 market research contacts at big box stores who want to use our online survey tool”.  Setting clearly defined marketing goals will guide your social media networking strategies.
2. Create a list of 200 referral contacts.  Use your email database to create a list of 200 people with whom you want to have referral relationships.  Go through that list and label people “friends and family” then “partners” and finally “influencers”.   As you are labeling and grouping your contacts, you might get ideas about the ways in which they might be able to help you achieve your goals i.e. “Introduce me to the CEO of company X”.  I’d recommend that you write that next to their name while you are thinking about it, it will save you time later.
3. Work your LinkedIn Contacts.  Go through your list of 200 and find everyone on LinkedIn.  If you are not connected to them, connect with them.  If they do not have a LinkedIn account, then you will have to manage that relationship via email and face-to-face methods only.  As you are doing that, you can send them an email message touching base and asking to schedule a catch-up call to discuss what they’ve been up to and how you can help each other.  You can also share what you’ve been up to and what you are looking for – they might respond with a connection or introduction on the spot.    Another great idea is to leave an endorsement for people as you check their presence on LinkedIn.  Leaving an endorsement for them will prompt them to leave one for you and to get in touch with you to catch up.  It’s a wonderful surprise and great “gift” to receive.
4. Search Twitter for conversations around your goals.  Notice what the conversations are and who is having the conversations.  Create a Twitter list of the people labeled “Networking” or maybe even around your goals such as “market research” (to use our previous example).  Take 15 minutes a day to monitor the conversations on that Twitter list and engage in conversations with those people.  Follow their links, re-tweet their content, comment on their links and articles.  Of course, don’t forget to search for your list of 200 on Twitter and add them to your Twitter list.  This way you are tracking their conversations as well.
5. Use Facebook to Network with Friends and Family.  Many businesses are hip to creating Facebook Fan pages, but your personal page may be more powerful as a networking tool.  I recommend posting pictures of what you are up to around your business and sharing with friends and family.  A friend of mine is in the promotional items business and often takes pictures of creative T-shirts and other items at trade shows that he things are very effective.  It tells us where he is that day and it gives us ideas that we can use for our promotional projects.  If you own a restaurant, take a picture of the daily special, if you are making a sales call or want to connect with someone, just ask your friends and family.  But don’t oversell on Facebook, it will be perceived as spamming and can backfire.
6. Check out Nimble.com.   My new favorite social media and sales management tool is Nimble.com.  It was developed by Jon Ferrera, the CEO of the successful sales CRM tool Goldmine in response to his peeve of having referral and opportunity conversations fall through the cracks.  Nimble will integrate your email, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts and show all the conversations in one stream or separate streams.  What I love about it is that it allows you to see all these conversations in one place and then you can also create an action item for yourself around that conversation.  Nimble is basically a social CRM tool that increases the value and ROI of your social media conversations.

Now, you might think all this will take an entire day’s worth of work.  Well, I won’t lie to you – the set-up probably will.  In reality, you can spend a day planning and strategizing your referral system – but once it’s done and you’ve focused your efforts, all it will take is about 15 to 30 minutes a day of working your system to keep those relationships and sales opportunities flowing your way.

This post is part of the  The Word Chef Blog  Blog Carnival hosted by Tea Silvestre.   Join us for a fun and informative  1-hour Tweet Chat about Business Relationships, how to build them and nurture them on Thursday, September at 1 pm Eastern / 4 pm Pacific.  Your participation in the Tweet Chat enters you into a drawing for a $50 Amazon Gift Card.

Involver is an easy to use Facebook Tab Tool that integrates social media channels into your Facebook page

I visit a lot of Facebook business pages. I’m always poking around, checking out different small businesses, liking and commenting. That’s part of what being an internet marketer is all about.

In many cases, the Facebook page is my first point of contact with a business. When I get there, I’m looking for the goods. I want to see what they are all about and what they have going on.

More often than not though, I’m greeted by pretty well nothing. Sure, there’s the info tab. But the navigation guide on the left is pretty bleak and leaves me wondering, is there anything else you’re doing online?

Creating tabs on your Facebook page is a golden opportunity to highlight what else your company is up to on the web. Many businesses shy away from them, however.

They’re not sure how to get things set up.

Or they break out in hives when they hear works like HTML code.

Or they search for apps and get inundated; so many of them are glitchy, hard to set up or come with a fee.

The tool that I’m going to share with you today is one of the easiest Facebook tab integrations that I have yet to come across. There are TONS options available, but this one stood out for me because of how simple it is to set up. And the best part? Totally free!

Facebook tab tool – Involver

The folks at Involver (http://www.involver.com/applications/) allow you to choose 2 social media channels to integrate in your page. (You can go beyond this with their paid options, but the costs are a little high for a small business). My favourites personally are the Twitter, Flickr and You Tube integrations.

In a few clicks, you can have these up and running on your Facebook page. Just follow these instructions:

• Log into Facebook as yourself the person (not the page)
• Go to http://www.involver.com/applications and click the “Install” button on the app you want to integrate
• You will then be prompted to choose which page you want to add the application to. Select your business page.
• A button will come up, asking you to “Add”. Click it.
• You will then be asked to fill in your company name, and your phone number. (they will only ask you this with your first app). Plunk in your info, click to accept the terms and hit “Save changes”.
• You will then be brought to a page where you can get the tab configured and link it to the social media account. So for Twitter for example, it will ask you to add your username (don’t forget to click the “add” button). Once you have the settings filled in, click “Save changes.” Note – you are always able to go back and adjust the settings.
• Go back to your page, and you will see your new tab. (If you don’t see it right away, give it a couple of minutes). Your likers can now check out all your recent activity.
• Power tip: If you want to be a little more clever, you can change the default name that’s generated on your tab. So, for the Twitter tab, the default name is, you guessed it, “Twitter”. Go to the “edit” area of your page and click “apps.” Find the app that you added and click “Edit settings.” You can now enter a “custom tab name.”

To see an example in action, have a look at my You Tube tab (http://www.facebook.com/MartinaIring?sk=app_57675755167) that was created with Involver and note how I’ve customized the name to “Small biz videos”.

Use Involver to Create Customers Out of Facebook Visitors

Your Facebook page should not be a standalone entity. To be effective, it needs to integrate your communications and drive your Facebook fans deeper into your business and deeper into the content you produce. Some fans may never go to your website again after the first visit (or maybe they never even visited it in the first place!).

By adding these tabs, you can encourage your likers to check you out on other online channels, expose them to what you’re up to and hopefully connect with you there too. And if they’re say not on Twitter yet, they can still get the benefit of all the great stuff you tweet. You are creating a page that is a valuable source of information.

You’re also boosting your credibility. You’re giving off the impression that your page is well cared for and that you’re darn savvy. These tabs look pretty fancy, don’t you think? So they were easy as pie to implement. Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me…

So give Involver tabs a try and come back and let me know how it went. Feel free to share links to your Facebook page so I can come and check you out. And if you have other applications that you love for getting tabs, let us know.

Do it yourself marketing has seen several evolutions in the past several years. With the advancement of internet technology and then the social media revolution, DIY marketing has had to make several adjustments. In many ways, marketing has become intrinsically married to the internet and social media culture. For many DIY marketers, this can be a struggle. While it’s impossible to market something without it being seen or heard by the public, it is also a challenge to manage new technologies and multiple social media accounts. These three tools can help you manage your various social media accounts for simpler and more successful marketing.

1. TweetDeck: This application is by far one of the most popular social media managers available. Allowing users to view their Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, and Twitter accounts all from one interface, TweetDeck simplifies social media for the mega user. Use TweetDeck to stay up to date on local events and marketing opportunities, while also, easily managing your correspondence with customers and business associates on your various platforms. Tweetdeck enables you to divide your contacts into columns, so that you can separate specific groups of people into different areas. This allows you to manage your marketing schemes more quickly and easily.

2. Gist: This tool allows users to collect all of their contacts from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, and more in one centralized location. This organizational help can be invaluable for marketers trying to manage their network. Gist provides you with the latest news, blog posts, and tweets from anyone in your professional network when you want to receive it and where you want to receive it. Because Gist is so customizable, it can be extremely useful for nearly any user. By gathering the essential information from your inboxes and social networks, Gist provides the perfect way to speed up your marketing potential. Use Gist to become more productive with marketing and connecting to professional contacts.

3. Ping.fm: While Gist is more focused toward organizing your many social media contacts to simplify managing networks and new updates, Ping.fm focuses on making posting to various platforms simpler. This tool allows users to ping a message or data to multiple social media accounts from one location. This can be especially useful for DIY marketers, hoping to get their company or product seen through social media outlets. Ping allows you to select which accounts you want to post to and really speeds up the process of getting your voice out there.

With all of these tools and services free to download and use there is really no reason DIY marketers looking for some aid with managing their busy social media accounts shouldn’t try all of them. Check them out and decide which services would be most valuable for you and your marketing efforts. Social media is a great way to get your ideas out to the public and to develop a strong professional network. As social media expands and evolves, tools and applications for managing these accounts will become ever more useful.

About the Author:  This guest post is contributed by Patricia Garza, who writes about gadget, technology, design, social media, e-learning related articles at online university rankings.

In today’s technology-based world, social media is a crucial aspect of your marketing campaign. Think about it, everyone has a Facebook account, a Twitter handle, or a LinkedIn profile. And now, with smart phones proliferating the market, all of these social networks can be accessed with the touch of a button anywhere in the world (well, anywhere that has signal). This being said, DIY marketing strategies have embraced social media as a tool that can project their brand across the planet, no matter how large or small their company may be. To become a household name organizations no longer have to be the biggest, most lucrative in the industry – they just have to know how to use Twitter.

It naturally follows that social networks are something that you need to become involved in; however, there are many horror stories of brands being ruined by poor social media skills, stories that you want to avoid reliving at all costs. So how do you build your brand across the range of social media applications without ruining the reputation of your company? The process is simple, but it takes hard work and a lot of patience. When you get it right, though, all of the effort will certainly pay off.

Susan Gunelius recently wrote an article on Entrepreneur about a similar topic that provides a jumping off point for our own discussion. Her article can be found here.

1. Know your target demographic. Some social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, are used by a wide variety of individuals and can be confidently incorporated into any social media campaign. Other sites should be investigated before committing a great deal of time to them.

Consider this scenario: you have opened a teen clothing store, geared toward kids aged 12 to 18, and want your social media efforts to speak directly to your target shoppers. In this case, LinkedIn is most likely a lost cause, as these customers will probably not be involved with this social networking site. Does this mean that you ignore LinkedIn completely? No – the site can still connect you to others in your industry; however, you do not want to focus all of your attention on this account, simply make an informative page and check up on it regularly.

1. Appoint a social media manager. Your brand must be consistent in voice and your accounts must be maintained regularly, so the best way to ensure that your campaign runs smoothly is to have one person handle it. Remember that this will take up a good deal of time and, while it may not be generating income now, it will eventually, so be sure to give the individual enough time to truly work on the project. Only choose someone you trust to work diligently, though, because the Internet is full of distractions.

When you go over this project with your social media manager, be sure that you communicate the image you wish to build clearly. For example, some companies simply post links to their website and to other important information, while others open up a dialogue with their friends and followers. The best approach is one that is natural, which brings us to point 3.

1. No one wants to hear you promote your business all the time. Social media is about getting the word out, true, but it is not about shameless self promotion. Share some links to your brand, some updates on sales or specials that are currently going on, but also share links and information that you think your followers will be interested in. Be careful to keep this professional, though. The last thing you need is an inappropriate link under your business’ name.

Most importantly, be a real person on the other end of the computer, be someone that can relate to followers and open a discussion with members of the target demographic. This will earn their trust and, ultimately, their business.

1. Consider starting a blog. Blogger, WordPress, and Tumblr are all ways for you to enhance your brand and really illustrate the core values of your company. Posts should be made regularly and should pertain to important issues that readers will face. Remember, do not just promote your company – offer entertaining and informative information that will have people looking forward to the next post. These also, as Gunelius mentions in her article, provide additional entry points for consumers.

The most important aspects of building your brand through social media are to remain visible and consistent. By doing these key things, you should attract the attention of consumers who will eventually begin to invest in your company. Remember, though, that this is not just about driving sales, this is about building a relationship with a community. Doing so may not cause your monthly revenue to spike, but it will cause your organization to have a more positive reputation and to be trusted by a larger amount of consumers.

Terry Crenshaw covers economic trends in the United States and writes for www.peterorszagsite.com. Terry is especially interested in tracking the ideas of Peter Orszag and other economic experts as the economy attempts to recover from the recent recession.

Are we really still talking about a picture of Anthony Weiner’s weiner?  Of course we are because we are all ten-year-olds at heart.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

If you’re reading this on your smart phone, click over to http://surveyswipe.com/download and download either the iPhone or the Android application.  After the download, open the app and you’ll see a poll called “Weiner’s weiner” that you can take.  It’s a relatively new technology that will allow you to give your feedback and see how others have voted as well.

You Have a Personal Brand to Manage Whether You Want to or Not

Some of us who have strange names that drew puns and jeers are remembering what those days were like in school and are secretly glad it isn’t us.  Then there are the rest of us who just can’t help but have the Bevis and Butthead reaction of “uuuuuugh, uuuuuugh, uuuuuugh this guy’s name is Weiner we’re all talking about a picture of a weiner!”  It’s just irresistible on so many levels.

It’s these core reactions to an event that show us that it’s actually our primitive brain that runs the show and not that frontal lobe we’re so fond of.  Not only that, but that our name and the brand we’ve established for that name can have a life of it’s own, if we’re not conscious of the fact that we have to manage it.

Primitive Brains are Branding Machines

What happened to Anthony Weiner happens every day on playgrounds everywhere.  Kids are given nicknames based on how they “occur” to those around them.  It’s really a magic combination between the person’s natural way of being combined with an external element that somehow connects with their name and BAM!  a brand is born.  When all these elements are in sync; the outside appears to match the inside and the name just fits — it becomes virtually impossible to shed the name.  And a lot of times, it just doesn’t happen.

Sometimes it’s a good fit and doesn’t do any harm.  But sometimes this “Playground Branding” doesn’t bode well for future ambitions or careers and so the person works extremely hard to re-create themselves so that whatever element drives the brand is minimized and other, more desirable elements are enhanced.

How to Protect Your Personal Brand

The beauty of stories, videos and all things that go viral is that it’s really unpredictable.  We can only analyze it and see why it has gone viral.  But at the same time, from a personal branding level, we can also know our own brands and protect them from the branding trifecta that hit Anthony Weiner.

1. Be realistic with how you OCCUR to people. This can be rather difficult and unpleasant to do, but it’s critical for understanding how your personal brand appears out in the world.  How do people perceive you?  Be especially wary about the potentially negative ways that you can occur to people.   Can you be perceived as squirlly, flighty, overbearing?  Being open to the negative ways in which you can occur to people is critical to managing and controlling your personal brand.
2. Control the use of your name. Does your name have “play”?  This can go either way.  If you have an unusual name like “Oprah” you get to control how it’s perceived in the world.  Likewise, if you have a name like “Weiner” you have to accept the reality that in the US, you’re wide open for flack.  Regardless of which end of the spectrum you’re on.  The fact is that your name is a crucial element of your brand and it’s the verbal representation of the package.  So control and protect it.
3. Your brand owns your behavior. The first two elements coupled with your ambitions will ultimately guide your behavior.  This is the step that most public figures forget.  Your behavior initially drives your brand and then once your brand is  established, your brand will drive your behavior.

If we’re going to be talking about this kind of silliness in the news, then the least we can do is learn from it.  What lessons did you get from this event?

As if you didn’t have enough social media channels to manage, our guest author today, Jey Raul, introduces us to Viadeo, which is gaining traction in Europe.  It’s a social bookmarking site you’ll want to explore and see in how it compares to all the others.

Viadeo is a social network created by Thierry Lunati and Dan Serfaty. It was originally launched in France but now has a steady following in Europe and other countries. Basically it is designed for people who wish to increase their business enterprises, develop and manage their network of professional contacts and take their career opportunities forward. There are many reasons behind why Viadeo has been named as the best social bookmarking site:

1) Creating a network- Viadeo helps to develop and manage business contacts on a long term to establish trust and a good working relationship between customers, co-workers, superiors and so on. The network formation is based primarily on recommendation from members.

2) Developing business- The company ranks the 3rd, when it comes to professional social networks. Most members also use it to find job opportunities, suppliers, partners and customers. People who are employed in the sales department are very active on these networks.

3) Managing a career- Their careers are the major motivational factor in members setting their accounts on Viadeo. Receiving job offers, observing the markets or finding a job are some of the activities that happen on the site. At times, some recruiters also use the website as a hunting ground to find employees.

There are number of features that the site offers that makes it one of the best social bookmarking sites:

• Communities- This is a private space that is made to be available to partners of the same company. There are around 5000 communities. The community can either be professional or voluntary, cultural, student or somebody who is starting his own business.
• Groups/Hubs- These are open forums that provide the members a platform to comment and discuss on professional topics. There are around 100,000 hubs present on Viadeo.
• Expert-Similar to Yahoo! Answers, the features allow the users to post professional related to most network members. The professionals are the ones who have carved their own niche in their respective field.

The above listed reasons and some others such as personal branding that allow you to upload your professional achievements such as your curriculum vitae and career development. The site is so thorough and career-oriented that irrespective of whether you are an employee or a seller, you will find takers. This is also a great platform for you to upload the details of your business and present it in an interactive way, so that consumers are hooked on to it.

The twist to this social networking site is, it competes directly with professional biggies such as Silicon Valley’s LinkedIn and Germany’s Xing. The biggest difference between Viadeo and LinkedIn is, it offers profiles in multiple languages.

• Viadeo is a lot more streamlined and organized as compared to LinkedIn. A devoted LinkedIn user, but at times, the site does tend to be a little unorganized.
• LinkedIn went a step ahead to mark its territory by being the first major social network to put forth an IPO which caused their profits to shoot up to $9 billion last week. However, Viadeo did not take the same step as it wanted to concentrate on their loyal shareholders and profits.
• Now, the multi-language strategy is a great plus point, according to the company big shots. On the other hand, LinkedIn has the tendency to cover 200 countries and has members from all Fortune 500 companies. Here, Viadeo says that at least one in six members is either an entrepreneur or a businessman.

The one reason why Viadeo has not yet filed for IPO is because; it hasn’t gained enough ground or presence in the US to file for one. The one similarity between Viadeo and LinkedIn is, both are equally “highly profitable” and works on free membership.

About the Author: Jey specializes in writing about search engine marketing and social media; he enjoys playing World of Warcraft or reading books when he’s not finding new ways to do online marketing. Jey’s company QualitySubmissions specializes in French Directory Submission and Deep Link Submission Service.

Creative marketing can do one of two things for you. Either you can dig yourself into debt and go full force ahead while crossing your fingers, hoping that the return will pay that loan or you can stop worrying and stick to your guns with a low budget. Often times, we have big dreams and think that big dreams means big money. Stop worrying! I will let you in on my secret to powerful brand building on a skimpy budget.

Create a High Impact Brand Using a Marketing Theme

At the end of the day what you want to do is literally drive your customer to the store. Catchy phrases or jingles that we all recognize on television ads or simply a picture that is engraved into your market audience’s mind are all avenues to the store. Aligning your market theme with the vision of your company is a sure way to create a high impact brand. Depending on what type of business your theme could be for an entire year, each quarter, monthly or even from week to week.

• Step One: Design your theme

Your theme should be both specific and flexible. Your company’s vision will help you define what you are trying to portray to the audience. Keeping your theme flexible will allow you to move with the ever changing marketplace without giving the appearance that you are changing but rather a solid company with a solid product and/or service. As an example, when I see a Stagecoach I immediately think of Wells Fargo Bank. This stagecoach is a flexible brand and it can be driven in any direction that the bank would need to take to keep up with the financial industry. Now the stagecoach is only one part of the branding for Wells Fargo Bank. Wells Fargo Bank has had different themes throughout the years.  Currently, their theme is “Together we’ll go far.” The theme is specific – they want to work with the customer to gain a purpose (that purpose would be defined individually by each customer). The theme is flexible – it allows each customer to determine where they are going together with Wells Fargo Bank.

• Step Two: Build you message

Take your theme and convey your message. What is it exactly that you are trying to convey to your market audience? You want them to know exactly how you can help them or why your product is the best product in the marketplace. “Together we’ll go far.” This conveys a very important principle in any kind of business transactions. Togetherness, you cannot create a service or a sale without both parties involved. This theme defines a customer service like no other – they want to work together with you. Again, you have to stay focused on your vision and portray that vision through your theme and that theme is part of building your brand.

• Step Three: Deliver your message

Now that you have defined and built a theme that will ensure to grab the attention of your audience you need to deliver that message. You don’t have to use the expensive television ads, newspaper ads or radio commercials. You can deliver your message through multiple inexpensive channels. The first place to start is your web site. Deck the halls of your web site to influence your browsers and leave an impression. Start a blog and add articles describing your product and/or service to ensure that you are getting your message through. You can use a specific type of writing called SEO which will force your article/blog to come up on search engines such as Google or Yahoo.  Your sales presentations should always evolve around your theme. Have you seen or heard of the power of social media? Take advantage of all trends with the public. Currently, social media is a big hit so utilize places like Twitter and Facebook. Create videos that could be uploaded to YouTube. The delivery of your message can be sent instantly to the whole world. Drive your message across multiple channels and you will see the difference on your bottom line.

Take these steps and flourish your brand recognition and influence the bottom line. You can stick to a healthy budget for your marketing campaign and see tremendous success. With the right theme and multiple delivery channels you will showcase your vision to the customer. Next thing you know they are picking up their keys driving to the store.

Steve Wilkinghoff is the author of “Found Money” (One of my MOST FAVORITE books).  Steve’s gift is the rare combination of managerial accounting smarts with a marketing focus.  In other words – he can tell you which products are making money and which aren’t — and what to do about it.  In this debut article, you’ll get to see why his insight is so valuable!

About a week ago I had a client excitedly tell me all about an outdoor advertising spot she had committed to.   She explained to me that the location had been measured and received a large number of drive-by impressions each day.

Therefore, she concluded, the advertising location “worked”.

Now I’ve got nothing against any type of advertising (I love it all, and truly believe all advertising has the potential to help improve any business).  However, based on this discussion, it was clear that my client could be headed for financial disappointment because she hadn’t properly defined what “works” actually meant to her – or what it should mean to her.

She had fallen into the trap of assuming that the number of daily drive-by impressions was the relevant measure of success.  But the assumption was wrong.

How do I know?

Because she isn’t in the business of selling drive-by impressions.

What she is in the business of doing is to sell a service to people that need it, and create an adequate financial result for herself in the process.

Because of that fact, the relevant measure of how well any type of advertising (or any other elements of her business for that matter) “works” is the degree to which it contributes toward her financial results.

In other words, the daily drive-by impressions are only the raw material.  Before those impressions work for her, they need to translate into more prospects.  And those prospects have to translate into more customers who can be served at a profit, in a way that fits in with the style, approach, and personality of her business.  And there has to be enough new customers to create additional profit in excess of the cost of the advertising.

All of those things must happen before the advertising spot works for her business.

When she takes that view, it is relatively simply to put measures and metrics in place to tell very quickly if the new advertising spot is working.  If those metrics tell her it isn’t working that doesn’t mean the advertising spot needs to be dropped.  But it does mean she might need to change the message or the content of the advertising.

And she is in a great position to do it early and translate that large number of daily drive-by impressions into more money for her business.

And that is when the advertising spot will truly work for her.