How To Use Targeted Social Networks To Reach People Of Influence

This is what we all want ideally isn’t it? An unstoppable flow of traffic promoting our web sites, affiliates, or our products and services?

Unfortunately advertising costs on-line have absolutely went sky-high and is turning advertisers pockets inside out. So on-line entrepreneurs are starting to revert back to the “old school” methods and/or developing and integrating unique strategies for bringing low cost or free traffic to their sites.

I know very well and have witnessed first hand the expenses of on-line advertising costs shoot through the roof. As I had owned a very high traffic-People Search site that I owned for 8 years until it was acquired last year from an Attorney in Texas. I use to spend about $120,000 a year on advertising costs for that site and if I didn’t keep on my toes continuously tweaking the site to convert for the best ROI I would have been thrown to the dogs!

Yes the big dogs….. You know? The VC backed on-line ventures that have millions to toss out the window for advertising costs but have no idea how to convert their traffic into sales. You know?? The same companies who would rather pay $1.00 more for each click through to their web sites using PPC search engines rather than watch you, the “little fish”, be listed above them at the top of the list? They have the money to play the long-term advertising game and typically it’s in their business plan to actually take a loss for the first several years before turning a profit.

Unless you have a very high priced product/service that can convert traffic you could be left in the advertising dust. Gee… its no surprise, haven’t you noticed all these “Gurus” coming out with high priced items?? I saw this coming years ago that high advertising costs such as the very common PPC advertising would force on-line products/services to skyrocket. However this does not only pertain to PPC, but advertising costs online as a “blanket” in general.

The bottom line is that traffic is worth much more than it was a few years ago or even compared to last year. Advertisers are now literally forced to reverting back to square one “old school” methods trying to cut costs and increase traffic to their sites at the same time or by coming up with new methods or developing and integrating unique strategies for bringing low cost or free traffic to their sites.

Why “Old School” Marketing Methods Are Still “New School”

There is however, still one of the most powerful forms of marketing left in the “old school” marketing methods arsenal, which costs absolutely nothing to implement. Many entrepreneurs have been using this technique silently for years to bring in massive amounts of traffic and or sales, and that is by using Joint venture techniques or developing partnerships.

Just take a look at some of the most successful on-line entrepreneurs and you will see repeatedly and continuously that these marketers consistently form partnerships with other relevant but non competing web sites to bring a massive flow of traffic and ultimately sales to their sites. After all, TRAFFIC=SALES. I’m sure we can all agree that the best web design in the world will not help you out if you don’t have any traffic coming to your web site. You have to have traffic first then you can worry about converting those visitors to sales by testing and tweaking.

An example of how powerful using joint venture techniques and developing partnerships can be, let me share with you how it has worked for me….

When I was in the pre-launch stage of http://www.BizFriendz.com Entrepreneur Social Network in Nov. 2006 I managed to gather about 10-15 partners in about 7 days. I would use my new partners as leverage for the launch of BizFriendz.com and ultimately these partners would send me about 850 new members before launch day in 14 days. Not bad, but sure it could of been better if I allowed more pre-launch time.

It’s all about leverage! And anybody can do this including you….

Reaching People Of Influence

Why try to do everything by yourself persuading each and every single person that comes to your site to optin to your list, join your site, make a purchase, download, etc. when you could persuade only one person of influence that could reach and persuade hundreds of people for you?? If you then compound this strategy by gathering many “people of influence” that can reach and persuade your target market, you then have an actual formula for success.

Using Social Networks To Reach People Of Influence

Use and leverage what the Internet is all about and already offers to you, and that is Networking. After all isn’t that what the Inherent structure of the Internet is all about? Networking? The Internets foundation is a massive network of computers through various ISP’s and hosting companies interconnecting and networking millions of Web sites and people together. It’s the most amazing thing since sliced bread!

Use it to your advantage and Network with others to build new partnerships, reach people of influence, and develop Joint Ventures for traffic and sales!

I’m sure most of you have heard about Internet Marketers using social networks like MYSpace and others to tap into the wallets of prospective buyers. Heck some of you may already be using these techniques to capitalize on the social network craze.

We all know that using social network sites is a great way to improve on backlinks and can get your site crawled quick by the search engines like Google.

However tapping into these social networks can be a challenge for getting additional exposure to your business or its products/services unless the social networks are specifically targeted towards entrepreneurs.

In fact most of the popular social network sites have specific terms and conditions posted prior to joining, outlining that you cannot use their sites for "commercial endeavors". Otherwise they have the right to delete your profile or outright ban you from their system.

Then of course there is the "black hat" tactics of using bot software or some underground posting machine.

You also have to deal with all the spam that you will receive.

But once you reach these people in the non-entrepreneur social networks what’s the likelihood that they are targeted leads and that you will convert them into sales or build a business relationship with them? Most of the users seem to be kids with no money, I'm not saying all, but a very large portion of them are.

So is it better to struggle by walking on “pins and needles” and hope you slip under the "radar" for untargeted leads that most likely won't convert and also run the risk of getting banned or sued for violating terms??

Or would it be better to access highly targeted Entrepreneur Social Network’s and reach people of influence where you will never be banned for listing your business details and promoting your products/services?

University studies on Social Networks

There has actually been University studies on Social Networks.
The below snippets were taken from-
“OPPORTUNITY RECOGNITION THROUGH SOCIAL NETWORK CHARACTERISTICS OF ENTREPRENEURS”
Written by:
Robert P. Singh, University of the Pacific
Gerald E. Hills, University of Illinois at Chicago
Ralph C. Hybels, Leadership in Medicine, Inc.
G. T. Lumpkin, University of Illinois at Chicago
Entrepreneurs’ personal social networks have been called the “most significant resource of the firm” (Johannisson, 1990; p. 41), and social encounters between an entrepreneur and his/her network contacts are often a source of new venture ideas (Christensen

Article Source: http://allentrepreneurinfo.com

Rob Clark successful entrepreneur On-line 10 years. www.bizfriendz.com
Article Source: The FREE Article Distribution Center

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