Technology Toolkit

Online businesses are very creative at discovering new ways to connect with their customers. They may be too, because it’s a highly competitor market and the money and the orders go to the businesses that make the most beneficial impression overall.

Connecting with their customers is an important way of building a relation that will hopefully last a long time and make a lot of profits in the method. Many companies use blogging to aid them develop that relationship, although some groups enquiry whether it is a suitable substance for all businesses to use.

So what is the answer? Are there sure commerce sectors that wouldn’t aid from having a blog to heighten there internet marketing efforts?

In actuality it’s tough to think of a enterprise sphere that falls into this class; the enquiry is much more a case of what type of blog they are going to have than whether they should have one or not. The benefits of a commerce blog are too numerous and numerous to disregard.

So it’s obviously the style and exercise here that matters. A fun innovative company that sells toys and gadgets for all ages wouldn’t choose to set up a blog that was about making money online, because it wouldn’t suit them. Instead they would create plans to make a blog that represented their enterprise to the most beneficial of there capability. This would help to strengthen the aim of the website and mark them out as a company that was fun and modern in every way.

In differ there are many more companies that are much more thoughtful in their attitude. These will definitely use a blog which reinforces that posture and shows their customers how their enterprise works.

Of course the content of any blog is extremely important. Depending on the approach commerce uses, you will make the type of blog content diversify greatly. The fun gadget company may ask for loads of participation from their customers to get them implicated; they might also inquire for ideas for products they are selling perhaps may even ask customers for there stories and reactions to products they have already bought. A number of businesses have used this to great consequence.

An enterprise blog that has a more information based might be approached real differently tho’. It will oftentimes have a totally different stance, but will always tell the customers and clients what is moving on, rather than tantalizing them to take part on the blog.

Not every ‘online commerce’ has a blog, but much more and more of them are recognizing the benefits of creating one and utilizing it for online marketing among former things. Commerce blogging might be very different from personal blogs – and indeed you can see two business blogs succeeding to each other and not see too much similarities between them – but they all have the corresponding intention in the end, and that is to get the attention that their customers will be drawn too, and that will drive there commerce frontward.

You can write an entire eBook simply by writing articles. This is the perfect way to repurpose your content and market your eBook, long before it is completed. There are several ways to do this, but it must all start with choosing a niche and doing your research.

You do not want to write an eBook that no one will be interested in buying. That is why you must take advantage of the free keyword tools that are available to you online. Make sure there are people ready to buy the information you will give them in your eBook. If there are already similar products available for sale on the internet, purchase them and think about how you could improve upon what is out there.

Next, prepare an outline of exactly what information you want to include. You may need to do some research, so allow time for that as well. Divide your material into chapters. About eight to twelve chapters works well. That will make your eBook about eighty to one hundred pages in length, which is perfect for people who will want to print it out, rather than reading it on their computer.

Once you have completed your outline, begin to write articles that will go into a particular chapter. I always start with the first chapter, but then I jump to the chapters that I am most ready to write. As you write and submit each article, people will be able to give you feedback and opt in to your list. By the time you are finished writing, you will already have a list of prospects that may in interested in purchasing your eBook.

Starting a blog with your content is also a good idea. Again you will be repurposing the same information that is going into your eBook and turning into articles. Many people will find you through your blog, rather than from your articles, so it is important to do both. Update your blog regularly so that the search engines will find you easily. Use your keywords in your post titles and give as much valuable information as you possibly can.

Social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, are also important in the eBook writing process. I have created something called tweeting your articles, where you tweet one sentence at a time from your article until it is all on Twitter. You can also let people read your content on Facebook, where articles are always welcomed in groups and on walls. Finally, your eBook will be ready for you to sell to create a passive income stream forever.

As 2008 comes to a close, we can take a look back at the year’s biggest news stories, technological advances and discoveries. I have been watching my crystal balls and I can tell you that nothing hypnotised me like the spawning growth of social media networks. As a blogger I always trolled the net looking for cutting edge tools. I wasn’t disappointed, they came in leaps and bounds.

I admit that the year 2008 had many Firsts; ironically while scientists working for mission critical sectors such as NASA were breaking all human records with their escapades on the Martian surface and searching the heavens for life, most of us were glued to the more mundane technologies such as the Iphone and Blackberry, the tantalizing Barack Obama winning the presidency and Lewis Hamilton winning Formula 1. Yeah that is true otherwise tell me, where were you when it was announced that for the first time astronomers have spotted a planet 3 times the mass of Jupiter orbiting a star outside our solar system.

On the social side of things we saw the emergence of sites where you can load a bunch of vacation pictures into a set, write a good narrative about the pictures and send a link to family and friends. Or better still other sites allow you to create blog entries in a network of other travel bloggers. Social network sites have evolved just like most things do.

Now you can not only describe and tag photos but you can also create a large map that highlights the regions you’ve been to. Once you are satisfied with your carbon prints, you can then share this with friends by sending the url or by posting the map on your social network profiles.

Yes, social network sites were the newsmakers of the year 2008. Think about the likes of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Digg, they all took a fare share of the year’s record books. If you don’t believe me, ask John McCain and Hillary Clinton. President Barack Obama was propelled to victory by money and votes generated by these social networks sites, a concept that was brutally denounced as a fad just a year ago. Well that is the positive side.

On the negative side, the economic doldrums dealt the social networks sites a deadly blow. Most budding sites that were poised to upset the apple cart by providing competition to those already established were bought off while others simply folded. For example companies like Imeem and Buzznet ran into financial trouble, Twitter bought Summize and Comcast bought Plaxo.

The twin-brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss settled a lawsuit against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whom they accused of stealing their plan and business code while all three were students at Harvard and Zuckerberg was employed as a ConnectU programmer. If you missed the story here is a very short background. The brothers, who happen to be ConnectU’s founders, originally sued Facebook in 2004, claiming that founder Mark Zuckerberg had swiped their code and business plan after being employed as a ConnectU software developer while the three were students at Harvard University.

The duo are slated to receive a mixture of cash and Facebook stock as part of the settlement. The brothers gained money but lost medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics where they finished 6th in the boating competition. Reaching the final at the Olympics is no mean feat though.

The other downside of social network marketing is that although these sites have connected millions of people, this has not translated to fat bank accounts. It is amazing that sites such as Facebook with over 100 million members are not making bucket-loads of money. Industry experts have voiced concern that social networking users do not view ads, no matter where you put them or how well you target them.

The year 2009 might see a slight change as companies such as MySpace put into place serious cash generation business models. The sites have helped rekindle old ties and friendship. However, they are making people more lazy to follow conventional human interactions besides eating away at homework times and employers’ time as workers continue posting even during working hours.

Something else less talked about is the breach of security and privacy for members of these sites. People have blindly decided to display details which should be kept private. Astonishingly an Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court in December 2008 approved lawyer Mark McCormack’s application to use Facebook to serve legally binding documents after several failed attempts to contact a couple at their house and by e-mail.That is the future of social network sites.

Not much is known about the other middle tier players in this sector on how they are doing. All we know is that, well the big shots have stolen their thunder. I am talking about social networks (forum scripts providers) supporting actors such as VBulletin, Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and others. We can only hope that they survived the economic crises. We would like to see them taking their place in the New Year.

I will keep watch here for you while you celebrate your success, failures and above all the sheer feat of surviving the 2008 economic crunch. I wish you the very best.

Consumer ratings and reviews, such as those seen on Amazon make the difference between prospects and customers and directly affect the online reputation of companies and products. Individual reviews combine to provide a community consensus that prospects use to make their final buying decision between two or more products. In the end, the difference between a four-star rating and a five-star rating makes all the difference to a company’s online reputation and directly affects the bottom line.

Amazon Reviews

While this article uses Amazon as a primary example, the same practices can be altered and used with other review sites as well.

The unfortunate fact is, Amazon reviews are rife with ’shills’. For review purposes, a ’shill’ is a person who pretends to have no association with a product or service – but in reality does, and who espouses positive reviews for that product or service. Shill reviews are intended to skew ratings in favor of the products or services they represent. While Amazon and sites like it do their best to eliminate shills, they cannot be totally eliminated. In an attempt to add more trust to their reviews, Amazon has created a special category of reviewers called ‘Amazon Vine’ reviewers. Amazon Vine reviewers are meant to be more trusted than other reviewers and are chosen based on the trust they have earned in the Amazon community for writing accurate and insightful reviews, however even this program cannot guard against professional shills whose primary job is to fool Amazon.

Attacking Competitors using Amazon Reviews

Many companies use Amazon reviews as a weapon against their competitors in an effort to damage their online reputation. Knowing that the product with the highest review usually wins, they hire shill reviewers to write false positive reviews about their products and in many cases to write scathing negative reviews about their competitors products. To the prospective customer these reviews appear perfectly legitimate; some even contain intentional spelling errors to appear more realistic. Faced with a choice of using the same unethical practices their competitors are using or taking the high road and losing market share, many companies are at a loss.

Ethical vs. Shill Reviews

There are ethical solutions to combat shill reviews and the online reputation problems they cause. The Amazon Vine program allows vendors to submit products for review by their Vine reviewers, but does not influence the reviews. Because crafty professional shills have infiltrated the program they are not completely trustworthy.

Providing the product (or service) is in fact excellent, prospective users of a product can be contacted and asked to try the product for free. When running your own review program, In return for the free product, they agree to write an Amazon review, blog review, or other review. They also agree to submit all reviews through a third-party review management service before submitting their Amazon or other review. If their review is found to be balanced, even if it contains constructive but true and informative criticism, it can then be submitted for inclusion in reviews by the consumer using their own account.

If a company has existing clients, for example those that have provided testimonials for the its products or services in the past, those individuals can be asked to share their reviews with others on Amazon, by blogging, or providing blog comments to existing blog product reviews. For companies with an existing client base, blog contests can be used to motivate individuals to provide reviews. The reviewer writes a review, submits the web address of the review to the review management service, and is entered to win a prize if their review is randomly chosen during a drawing.

In this way shill reviews can be counteracted using ethical means. It is worth repeating that the product or service being reviewed is, in fact, superior to the competition.

Picking Reviewers

If a company has existing positive reviews and testimonials and the contact information for the individuals who created the testimonials, a blog contest or review contest is a good first step.

If no existing ‘house list’ is available, reviewers must be located. To do this, opt-in mailing lists that align with the preferred reviewer profile can be purchased or rented. An email inviting the prospective reviewer including review process stipulations is crafted and sent. Responses are tallied and managed, product shipped and reviewers contacted after a pre-determined time and asked for their reviews. Another option is to use blogging contest sites, however the degree of control over the content of the review is lost when using this method.

Asking the Right Questions

One secret to getting good answers is asking the right questions. Providing a reviewing guide is very helpful in channeling responses in the preferred direction. For example, rather than asking ‘did you like the product’, ask more specific questions that reflect the positive attributes of the product or service. If your product is easier to install than that of the competition, ask ‘Please describe the installation process’.

A positive Amazon review can make the difference between winning or losing in the marketplace. While more difficult and time-consuming, managing ethical reviews is a win-win process for both companies wishing to protect their online reputation and consumers who rely on balanced reviews to make buying decisions.

Blogging regularly will increase your visibility on the internet very quickly. By starting a blog on your niche topic and using your keywords in your domain name, blog title, and blog posts, people will be able to find you quickly and easily when they are using the search engines. Especially if you are just starting out online, you will build your business faster by posting to your blog as often as possible.

Have fun with your blog. Include helpful and useful information on your topic, but also give people an opportunity to comment on your posts and to be a part of an interactive conversation. This will make them more likely to visit again or to subscribe.

Planning your posts at least a week in advance will make your blog more organized. I like to write down what I will be posting about and then make some notes. That way, when I am ready to write my post, it will be completely researched and ready for my readers to take advantage of. Providing solid, well thought out information will help you to get noticed more easily.

Read and subscribe to other blogs in your niche. Leave comments on these blogs when it is appropriate and it will add something to the conversation. Making a connection with the authors of similar blogs will make you all stronger in the long run. See this process as coopetition, rather than competition.

On the internet, you will find that we all compliment each other’s work. Refer your readers to other blogs on your topic and leave trackbacks to let the other blogger know what you are doing. You will both benefit from this practice.

The overwhelming majority of blogs are abandoned within the first three months. Be willing to stick with it and you will build the visibility and credibility that will catapult you to the top of your niche. Think of your blog as your home on the internet, and you will attract the right readers and prospects into your business.

You can also have guest bloggers, use other people’s articles (make sure to give them complete credit and do not edit their writing), and review books or websites. This will make your blog more interesting, while also giving you a break from the daily posting.

Once you get into the routine of looking for things to write about, writing about these things in your blog posts, and connecting with your target audience, you will look forward to posting to your blog and build your visibility and credibility even faster.