Business Planning: 4 Steps to Creating Your Online Business Model Blueprint

I’m in the process of completely rethinking my business model, and that will be my primary focus as I plan this year’s business retreat for myself. Your business model doesn’t have to be at all complex, but should provide the guiding force for all that you do, like guiding you to the opportunities to accept (and those to decline), the joint ventures and strategic alliances to pursue, and the new ideas you should retain and develop, as well as those to let go of.

Here’s are the 4 steps I’m following as I create the blueprint for my business model:

1. Make clients pay well for your most valuable commodity — your time. I see many service business owners tying themselves up with (and tying themselves down to) far too many 1:1 clients. You have only so many hours in the day, and at some point you’ll hit the wall and not be able to expand the number of 1:1 clients you see. Sure, you can hire and train additional staff to handle the overflow, but in many cases, you make less money in this model while tripling your headaches. Make your 1:1 time with clients your highest-fee service, charging a premium fee to dispense your expertise.

2. Ongoing recurring revenue is key. Feast or famine seems to shape the life of the service business owner, regardless of industry. Wouldn’t your life be much more sane if you knew that you could count on recurring revenue each and every month, rather than having to constantly go out and find new clients? This was one of the models I adopted early on in my virtual assistant practice, i.e. working exclusively with clients on retainer rather than a “pay as you go” model. What is it that your clients need from you that you could provide on an ongoing basis with them that isn’t time-intensive for you?

3. Always have an upgrade. Never offer a stand-alone product or program that doesn’t have a natural tie-in to the next level of program or service that you offer. If there’s no way to leverage what you’re offering into some type of upgrade, don’t offer it! For example, a free teleclass can lead participants to enroll in a paid short-term group program. From that program, plan to enroll a certain percentage of those participants into a recurring revenue continuity program. You can then upgrade a percentage of these participants into a live event or small ongoing mentoring program, and from there make an upgrade offer to your premium 1:1 time.

4. Design the blueprint. Brainstorm all of the types of programs, products, and services you might offer in your business. Your list might look like the one below:

• Consulting


• 1:1 Service Provision


• Group Coaching/Mentoring/Continuity Programs


• Sale of Info Products –Private Retreats


• Strategy Sessions


• Live Events


• Speaking


• Information Products or Books –Licensing/Certification Training


• Teleseminars/Webinars


• Subscription Membership Web site

Pick 3-5 of these items that will make up your business model, and then determine what percentage of income you want to derive from each. Your total needs to equal 100%. Then, determine the order in which you offer the components of your program over the next 1-2 years. This becomes your blueprint for action.

How do you determine your success? If your business still suffers from feast and famine, take a long, hard look at your business model for the solution. Every offer you make in your business should flow seamlessly into the next, which will result in a steady, predictable income that you can increase over time as you become more expert at designing and following your blueprint.

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This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

Calculate your SEO requirements

Search engine optimization delivers predictable results. Many people might argue with that, but it’s absolutely true. I can’t think of another advertising medium that provides the data you need to precisely determine your requirements the way the web can.

From a business viewpoint, every SEO campaign should be run with the idea that there is a significant return on investment. Very often in advertising, it is somewhat of a guess relative to what you can expect. Marketing on the internet is a much more predictable process.

Establishing SEO requirements starts with an easy question. “What increase in revenue should your site generate in the upcoming year?” Bear in mind that the more unreasonable the answer to this question is, the more difficult it will be to reach your target. Set achievable goals!

Once you’ve established your revenue target, you’re done. That’s it. That’s your goal! OK, so not exactly. The point is, your revenue targets are your goals. Goals should not be expressed in terms of traffic, hits, or even how much the site shows up in the search engines (but it sure helps : ). But let’s say that our sights are set on meeting our revenue targets via search engine results. That’s the purpose of an SEO campaign.

HOW MANY CLIENTS DO YOU NEED? You should be able to state clearly your revenue targets and the average annual value a client brings to your business. If you know that, then simple division will tell you how many new clients you need. You should also have a “gut feel” for how many of a hundred people on your website turn into clients. So with that, you should be able to determine how many visitors you need to generate to your site to develop those clients.

The number of visitors required is equal to the number of clicks that are required. The purpose of a good SEO campaign is to increase the number of visitors who are searching for your products and services. Successful SEO creates enough impressions on the search engine results pages (SERPS) to deliver enough visitors to meet the revenue targets.

Getting on the first page of the SERPS generates an impression, or a chance that the visitor will click on your site. Since very few people advance beyond the first page of results, a conservative SEO specialist considers the first page of the SERPS the ONLY place to be and of course number one is best if you can get it.

AOL published information showing that first place in the search results gets almost half of the organic clicks. Second gets 10-15%. Third gets 5-10%. The remaining scrounge around 3-6% but at least they made it to the party. Conservatively, you can estimate that with a well executed SEO campaign, that you will get 5-10% (we’ll use 7%) of the search volume. Predictably, you’ll be somewhere on the first page of the SERPS. So, if you need 100 visitors, then you need impression in 100/.07 (1,428) total searches.

Once you’ve established your total search volume to optimize for, you then move into keyword selection. The best strategy is to choose a broad range of keywords instead of going after the more popular ones. Remember this: Most of the time its easier to rank for many low volume keywords than a single high volume one that equals the same number of searches. Further, lower volume keywords are usually more relevant and more specific to the needs of the visitor. Ultimately, they convert better. You’ll also discover that once you know your total search volume requirements, your keywords collectively will meet the search volume requirements without extending into a range that’s impossible to optimize for. You can develop a much more practical approach to your SEO campaign.

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This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

Simple Twitter Tips that Attract Clients and Partners

According to Mashable.com, a leading authority on social media, there are currently over 12 million users on Twitter. Another resource called istrategylabs.com reports that 46% of Twitter users are college grads, and another 17% have post graduate degrees. Furthermore, 47% are between age 18 and 34, and another 31% are between 35 and 49. Males and females are evenly ranked, with women accounting for 53% of users and men 47%. If your target market falls within these demographics, actively participating on Twitter is probably worth your while.

Twitter is simply a micro blogging service. What does that mean? It means that you write short updates (140 characters maximum) called “tweets” and send them out to your followers. And it is a marketer’s dream come true – it’s an easy way to stay in front of your target market and showcase your authority at no charge!

The myth around Twitter is that Twitter users (called tweeple or tweeps) tweet about useless information such as what kind of coffee they had with breakfast. Yes, some of that exists and it is actually important as you’ll see below, but once you understand the power of connecting on Twitter, you may become a Twitter convert, just like me.

So, if you’re on Twitter or considering starting, the question becomes, “what do I tweet about that will make this a useful tool for me?” Here are some categories you can consider for your tweets. There are others but these will get you started:

Industry Tips

This is a big one. You are on Twitter to showcase your expertise, so industry tips act as your credibility builders. Here’s how to do it: Create a list of high value tips (remember – no more than 140 characters long) and send one or two out every day. If you don’t want to have to manually do this yourself every day, consider a free tool called TweetLater.com to set up your tweets in advance. If your tweets are really good, others will send them out to their lists as well. This is called a “re-tweet,” and it’s a super way to quickly build your list of targeted followers.

Here is one of my recent tweets that had a great response:

Connect Others: Be willing to connect others even if it has nothing to do with your business. What goes around, comes around.

About Your Business

Use this category sparingly. In other words, if you use Twitter as a place to advertise your products and services too much, people will stop following you. This is not what Twitter is about. It is really about raising awareness of you and your business and impacting others. Use the 80/20 rule here. For every eight tweets about things other than your business, you can post two things about your business.

Here is an example:

Hey Columbus: I’ll be on Fox tomorrow at 7:45 where you can see me interviewed about my new book, Flourish!

Re-Tweets

When someone re-tweets you, they are giving you the highest compliment you can get on Twitter! It means that the person who re-tweeted you thinks that what you said is worth sharing with their own list of followers. This is like having someone ask you to a meeting so they can introduce you their entire list of contacts. When you get a re-tweet, send them a short tweet thanking them! Re-tweet others who are tweeting things that you agree with or want your followers to read.

If you are not familiar with Twitter, the example below probably won’t make a lot of sense because of all of the abbreviations, but they are necessary given that you only have 140 characters. Abbreviations are outside the scope of this article, but just know that it’s really not as scary as it looks!

RT @getgreatcopy: New blog post: The Sixth Habit of Highly Effective Communicators http://bit.ly/ 175XGS Gr8 stuff Jan, as usual.

Quotes

Tweeps seem to love quotes. If you are also a fan of quotes, compile a list and send one or two out every day. Again, you can use tweetlater.com to set these up in advance so you don’t have to manually enter them every day. Simply set up these tweets for a month and then watch your re-tweets happen!

Here’s an example of one that I recently posted:

“The pursuit of pleasure must be the goal of every rational person.” Voltaire

Invitations

Invite tweeps to your free events. No-cost events like teleseminars are great to tweet about because people love to share high-value, low-cost information with their lists. When you offer something without a cost – a workshop, teleseminar or report, your tweets about it are likely to get re-tweeted, which provides you with greater exposure to your target market.

Here’s an example of one of my recent posts:

How 2 write your book in a weekend – free telesemimar w/ @donnakozik. http://bit.ly/ 127GtU

Personal

Include some personal things that are going on with your life. What you choose to include is entirely up to you; however, be sure to be relatable. You don’t have to share your deepest inner thoughts or too much detail about your family, but sharing something about what you did over the weekend makes you more relatatable. Remember, Twitter is about connecting with people. Other people on Twitter want to connect with people – not stale businesses. People often connect on a personal level over food, pets or hobbies. This is why these seemingly unimportant tweets are actually very fruitful. These are pretty safe personal topics. General things about kids are another hot topic under this category. Just be aware that anything you say is out there for the world to read.

Here’s an example I tweeted recently:

Interesting pop culture moment: Told a story to my sister, who lives in Vietnam & realized she doesn’t know who Sara Jessica Parker is!

As you can see, Twitter is simply an online forum for connecting with others in 140 characters or less. Big and small brands are using Twitter to connect and impact their target markets and locate joint ventures. Can you, too?

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This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

Get Your Company Link Building With These 5 Simple Tips

As the online market place continues to warm up to the idea of SEO, link building has become center stage as it tends to be the most time consuming and crucial part of any internet marketing strategy. Link building services are the most commonly outsourced aspect of SEO. This process involves finding qualified and thematically relevant one-way linking partners who will link back to your website. At first glance this sounds easy and there are hundreds of automated products out there that claim to add thousands of back links overnight. The truth is there are no short cuts in cultivating authoritative back links for a site. Link building companies spend many hours link building by hand in order to get the best results. Spammy automated products often never cultivate valuable links and tend to do more harm than good. Here are a couple quick suggestions to help you get started.

1. Know What Keywords You’re Targeting

Link building strategies are an extension of your current SEO practice. You’ll want to reference the list of keywords you have selected to optimize your site. Make sure that the anchor text of the link lists the keyword you are targeting. For example, if you’re targeting the keyword “baby names” you’ll want to place that keyword in the anchor text of the link. I’ve seen many companies go after links by using their company name. Although this does increase link popularity it fails to pass popularity for a specific keyword and can be seen as a failed attempt.

2. Develop a link building strategy

There are many strategies link building companies use to source qualified back links to their clients. The most tedious but often most rewarding method is manual linking requests also known as “cherry picking”. This method allows you to obtain exceptionally qualified links which can really help boost your position in the search engine results page (SERPS). A good place to start with manual link building is to look at your suppliers, vendors, clients, related organizations associations and more. Besides manual link requests other well known tactics include:

1. directory submission (Dmoz, Yahoo Directory, Joe Ant)


2. article submission (ezine aritlces.com, goarticles.com)


3. optimized press releases (PRWeb.com)


4. social media outlets (FaceBook, Linked In)


5. bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit,Furl)


6. Blogs (niche blogs)


7. Forums (niche forums)


8. Classifieds (niche classifieds)

3. Identify thematically relevant and authoritative linking sources

Search engines see links as votes of confidence for your site. The more relevant and authoritative the site, the more consideration is given to the link and the subsequent keyword in the anchor text. It really pays off to focus on the quality of your links rather than the quantity. It is also important for your link building to look natural and not an attempt to deceive search engine spiders in search of links. Try looking for sites within your industry rather than general, unrelated sites to get links from. A good example of this would be content creation and distribution. Try creating content on a relevant subject of which you can speak authoritatively. A good example of this would be a SEO company writing a short article on 5 simple ways companies can start link building and placing it on an authoritative, industry relevant site like this one. Remember, before placing a link on a site (or making a request), ask yourself three questions:

1. Does a link to my website belong here (does it look natural)?


2. Is this site relevant and authoritative?


3. Is there are benefit to my potential customers?

4. Look for the onsite attributes of the linking site

Once you’ve nailed down a potential linking partner that represents the overall quality and thematic authority that your site deserves you’ll need to see where your link will be present. Here are a couple guidelines that I look for when placing links on a site. I try to get my links no more than a few clicks away from the homepage. The page must be thematically relevant and recently cached by Google’s search engine (this let me know that the page has been indexed by Google). I also take a look at the number of external (outbound) links leaving that page. I try to keep the number of external links below 50 as it will dilute the effect of the page. Lastly, I look at the page the link will be placed on. For some sites this is harder to control, but if you have the option you should know where the most valuable locations are. I always try to get my links in line with thematically relevant content, like an article or blog post. I’ve found this produces some of the best results. Try to avoid placing your links on a “sponsored” or advertisers section that runs throughout the entire site. Also avoid footer links as rumor has it Google has devalued links buried in the footer of the site. Links placed at the top of the page or inserted into the site’s navigation also tend to do quite well. Bottom line is that your links need to look like they belong and provide value to the user and the site it is published on.

5. Be aware of “No-Follow” Links

Within the last 5 years Google developed the concept of the “no-follow” link. The “no-follow” code is inserted into your link and instructs the Google spider to ignore it. The “no-follow” link can be seen used most commonly in blog comments and forum posts. This initiative was set forth to combat spam and automated linking mechanisms that would throw links automatically on blog comments and forum posts. There are a lot of SEO professionals that will only place a link if it is a “do-follow” link, meaning it doesn’t have the “no-follow” attribute. I tend to disagree with this notion especially when the link in question is on a highly trafficked authority site. If it makes sense for the link to be there, then add your link. Even though Google won’t give you any credit for it, it will be seen by thousands of people who may visit your site and link to you themselves because your site is highly relevant. I call this concept indirect link building. You are influencing and promoting your site to potential linking partners.

Link Building is a very time consuming process and link building companies spend a lot of time researching, testing and improving their techniques. Link building services are available for companies that don’t have the time to invest in manual link building. The bottom line is that with a little help anyone can link build and move their site up the SERPS.

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This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

Article Marketing Tips: Writing Articles for Free Advertising Online

Of all the article marketing tips I could give you, writing articles for free advertising online is likely the most beneficial to you if you currently spend money on advertising your website. There are several reasons for this, but the major reasons why article writing can bring you better results than expensive pay per click (PPC) adverts or taking a chance with reciprocal links are detailed below.

Keep in mind that Google is not keen on reciprocal links unless the page you are reciprocating with relates to the page on your website that the link points to, and the link is no good to you in any case if it is one of many others on a ‘links’ or ‘partners’ page created predominantly for such links. You only get a share of the PR of the page your link is on, not that of the ’site’, and even that is shared between all the other links on the page.

Being one of 5 links on a page with a PR of 1 is better than one of 50 on a page with a PR of 8. If you take these article marketing tips, writing articles can offer you a form of free advertising online that Google itself provides willingly, and that can work for you for many years to come. Here is how to go about writing articles to get you the benefits that free online advertising has to offer:

1. 1. Write an article about your niche, using a conversational style as if you were explaining what you are writing if talking to somebody face to face – just as I am doing now in fact. Offer interesting information that anybody involved or interested in your niche would find useful. It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering news, but what you write must be factual and show that you have a firm grasp of your subject. You want people to continue reading once they have started.


2. 2. At the end of your article, provide a link to your website. You can say something about yourself if relevant, such as a brief word about your qualifications and experience if the topic warrants it, or do as I do and simply offer a link to your site for more information. You can use more than one link if relevant. When writing articles for free advertising online you should keep in mind:
   
   
   
   1. You should never include a live link within the body of the article. Directories do not like these (more on article directories shortly).
   
   
   2. Only use multiple links in your resource if relevant. Thus, I include a link to my product and also one to my Article Services website that is focused on writing articles and my own ghostwriting services. c) Most article directories offer a special box for your link and other details (known as the ‘author’s resource’), but if not then you should add it to the end of your article. Never write an article without a link back to your website. That’s what gets you the free advertising.
   
   


3. Having finished writing your article, the power of writing articles and article marketing now comes into play to get you a ton of free advertising. You get that by submitting your articles to article directories. This can be done in a number of ways, the most common being:
   
   
   
   1. Manual Submissions You should choose a number of the top article directories, register with them and then submit your articles manually. This will take you about 5 minutes per directory. Your articles should be submitted in plain text format, so if you have written them in Microsoft Word, copy the Word text and paste it into a text editor such as Notepad. A Google search for ‘article directories’ will give you lists of the top directories.
   
   
   2. Software Submissions You can use software to make the submissions for you. Most of these work whereby you enter each part of your into a box provided for it: Title, Summary, Article body, Keyword list, Resource – parts of these will be in plain text and HTML, particularly the resource. You then scroll down a list of directories loaded into the software, click on those to which you want to submit, and the article submission is made automatically. You have to provide the software with your login details for each directory, where relevant (no all directories need a login), or log in to each individually.
   
   
   3. Article Submission Services You can use a paid article submission service that will submit your articles to a number of directories for a fee – either paid individually or monthly. I use all three of these methods for my submissions for maximum exposure and best results.
   
   
   4. Don’t worry about duplicate content when you submit the same article to loads of directories and ezines. That will take a few months to come into play and you can make up for it by writing an article each week.
   
   

Using these article marketing tips on writing articles will get you free advertising online in the following ways:

• Your article will be published on a number of article directories. If you use the right directories, these will further syndicate your articles to other directories and ezines and so on. It is viral, your articles being distributed around the internet. You get a back link to the pages stated in your author’s resource from every directory and ezine that publishes your article. That link is valuable in attaining you a high search engine listing position.


• People read your articles on the directories. This is fact, irrespective what others say. If you have done the job properly, these readers will possibly click on your link to visit your website for more information. Make sure that your link leads them to a web page related to the title of your article.


• An article published on a directory page is a single web page, just like any other. It can therefore be listed on Google or any other search engine. I have literally tens of dozens of articles scattered around search engines on various topics, optimized for specific keywords. That’s what free advertising is, and writing articles can achieve that for you if you take these article marketing tips.


• Many people will copy your article as content for their own website: to do that they must retain your resource containing your link. Writing articles just got you even more free advertising!

These are just some of the ways in which writing articles can get you free advertising online, and if you take these article marketing tips seriously then you could save yourself a lot of money on advertising costs, and get better results by doing so!

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This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

Google Reinvents the Phone with Google Voice

When it comes to “cool tools”, Google is the master inventor. Say what you want about Google, but they know what they’re doing when it comes to giving the public what they want and need. Take the telephone for instance. An old invention that now has been given a new twist with “Google Voice” (G.V.) [http://www.google.com/voice]. Hold onto your chair as I’m about to tell you how to have a lot more fun with Ma Bell.

Google is giving you the ability to manage all your phones with one centralized number. At the time of this writing, it’s only available to those in the U.S., and by invitation only. Upon registration, you’ll be given your own phone number that you connect to any existing phone number. When someone calls the Google Voice number, it rings the phone number that you specified. The option of selecting a word for your personalized number is also given.

Now, if all Google Voice did was send phone calls to your cell phone, that would be great all by itself, but the amount of extra tools and features are truly amazing.

When a call is received you can answer it, send it directly to voice mail, listen in on the incoming call to decide what to do with it, or start recording the call upon answering. How’s that for a few options?

After receiving a call you’d like to record, hit 4 on your phone to start recording. Different states have different laws when it comes to recording calls, so check your current federal and state laws before using this feature. Currently outbound calls cannot be recorded. Google does provide an automated verbal announcement when the recording starts and stops so the person you’re speaking with knows they are being recorded. So much for incriminating yourself (LOL)

Say goodbye to voicemail as you know it. When a voicemail is recorded, you can check it by going to the Google Voice website and logging in, or calling your Google number. You can even be notified by email, or text message of new messages needing your attention. The ability to listen in on voice mails as they are being left is a very handy feature.

Voicemail messages can be shared with others via Email, even downloaded as MP3 files and embedded on a website or blog. Messages are also transcribed as text and housed on Google’s site for later reading, or sent to you by email. When it comes to voice mail greetings, custom messages can be set for groups or certain individuals.

Google Voice is free for use within the U.S., but does give the ability to make low cost international calls to over 200 countries from your phone or Google’s site. You’ll first need to purchase credits through Google Checkout before making these calls. Rates vary per country.

Here are some other handy features:

• Phone spam filters which block calls and mark them as spam


• Conference Calling


• Temporary forwarding of calls to another number


• Access Google Voice from mobile browsers at http://google.com/voice/m


• Call Widgets – Easily add a “call me” widget to your blog or site with copy and paste code located under setup.


• Do not disturb option which sends all incoming calls directly to voicemail when you don’t want to be bothered.

So what about when you call someone and want it to appear you are calling from your Google Voice phone number? No problem. The ability to make calls that will display your G.V. number on caller ID can be done in three different ways.

• Hit call from within Google Voice website


• From G.V. mobile site on your cell


• By calling your G.V. number and logging into the system.

Google will call you at the number you specify and connect your outbound call. It doesn’t get much better than that.

The technical requirements to use this service are a computer with Win XP, Vista, Mac or Linux, Internet Explorer 6.0 or above, Firefox 3.0 or higher, Safari, Google Chrome and Flash 8.9. To request your invitation go to – https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/

So, if you thought using the phone was outdated, sign up with Google Voice and put some “FUN” back into an old relationship. This just might be the best thing old Ma Bell has seen in years.

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This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

12 Ways to Use Twitter for Social Media Marketing

Twitter is a wildly popular microblogging service. It involves writing Tweets, which are short updates of a maximum of 140 characters that tell your followers what you are up to. Although your Tweets are technically supposed to answer the question, “What are you doing?” Twitter has moved far beyond that. Tweets are used to share stories, link to photos, promote content, break news, and a whole lot more. Twitter has also become an incredibly important tool for social media marketing professionals. Here are 12 ways in which Twitter can be used in your social media marketing campaign.

1. Sharing Links to Items of Interest

As soon as you read something online that you think is interesting, it is easy to share it on Twitter with all of your followers. Twitter is highly effective in this manner because it is such a quick way to be able to reach a large group of people. You can also get a lot of great ideas for blog posts from Twitter since many new ideas and stories are floating around that haven’t even made it to the blogosphere and definitely not to mainstream media.

2. Building Your Network

Using Twitter is a great way to build your network because it allows you to find and follow people with similar interests. You can use Steeple to find people who live in your geographical area. You can also use other tools that help you find new people to follow based upon who your Twitter friends follow.

3. Build Relationships within Your Current Network

People in different networks often use Twitter to connect with their contacts instantly rather than using instant messaging for that purpose. Furthermore, many people use Twitter to connect with their network during events like conferences.

4. Re-Distributing Content from Your Blog or Website

Twitter can be used to redistribute content from your blog or website. However, you should take care to do this thoughtfully since many of your Twitter followers may already read your blog. For that reason, you may want to avoid using a blog plug-in that automatically Tweets your posts. Your best bet is to Tweet your content manually and customize each Tweet so it doesn’t get old.

5. Get Involved in Live Tweeting Events

Twitter launched at SXSW last year, catapulting microblogging conferences to fame. Live Tweeting events are great because they are a form of citizen journalism that allow you to connect with several new people in your niche while making active and valuable contributions to current discussions in your community.

6. Pitching Stories to Journalists on Twitter

You can send a direct message to a journalist who is following you on Twitter to pitch a story idea.

7. Communicating with Your Team

You can use Twitter as a company intranet that connects all of your employees. Twitter can be particularly useful in this regard if you have a virtual business with employees in different geographical locations. You can set your updates to private for security reasons. Anytime you are working on group projects, you can stay in touch with your team members using Twitter.

8. Brand Monitoring

Stay up to date with any mentions of your business on Twitter. If there is anything negative, you will be able to counter it quickly. You can also use Twitter as a way to receive feedback from your customers and improve your business. Just ask your followers to give their opinion on something. For example, if you designed a new website, ask your followers what they think about it and get their constructive criticisms so you can make your site design even better.

9. Acquire More Votes on Social Media Websites

If you have submitted a story to Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, or any other social voting website tweet a link to that submission to try to score more votes from your followers. If your followers like what they see, they are sure to vote for your content.

10. Hiring People

Looking for a programmer, designer, or writer? Whatever type of professional you seek, try finding them on Twitter. Simply send your followers a tweet telling them you are looking for someone for a job. They can either recommend someone to you or offer themselves for the job. Using Twitter in this way is ideal for finding qualified freelancers. It is much more convenient than putting out a classified ad.

11. Build Your Personal Brand

When you use Twitter to talk about things as mundane as what you ate for breakfast or how you are going to sleep early tonight, you make your followers feel like you are casual and approachable. Even those running a company that has a cold, corporate brand image could create more appeal and build a unique personal brand using Twitter.

12. Streamline Electronic Communications

When you use Twitter, you’re likely to find yourself using IM, email, and other electronic communication methods less. Twitter not only provides public chatting through Tweets, it also allows you to send direct messages. Twitter will help you streamline your electronic communications, allowing you to scale back online.

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This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com