You hear so much about how the economy is down…

and sales are down…

and traffic, profits, life, work is down, that it’s almost a culture shock to see local small business not just making it, but kicking butt, in your area.

I mean, everyone is broke, but people I know for a fact aren’t well off have iPads.

There’s supposedly no money in circulation, right? But Starbucks is packed every time I go.

We’ll come back to all that in a minute. One thing I want to make clear – this isn’t an isolated incident. I’m not offering this as mockery to people who have lost their jobs or had to let people go, due to the rocky economic climate.

I’m offering this as hope that perhaps, the way we need to measure what’s successful in our country is changing. I’m offering this out as hope, hope that it’s not just one business that can do something like this to make a hard time a thriving time.

Hope that we can ALL make it.

In fact, I have four examples I’ll be focusing on this week in this and other blogs:

1. The Dominican Hair Salons
2. Cindy’s Karaoke
3. Annie’s Art Gallery, and
4. Fish Market Restaurant

Before you think “this isn’t for me” event marketing works whether your business operates online, offline or both.

In this audio I’ll be discussing:

• What Event Marketing Is
• Why It Works
• Examples of Successful Event Marketing Implementation

Can’t see the player? Download here.
Coming up soon:

• Examples of Event Marketing succeeding online
• Tips on How to Create a Must-Attend Event
• Marketing Your Event Offline
• Marketing Your Event Online

The Network Solutions sponsored TwitterChat I was talking about last week is today at 1 pm Eastern/New York time, and will last until 2:30 pm or until we get to as many questions as possible.

Highlights:

1. The event is completely free. .

No charge, really.

2. All you have to do is click here to register for Keep Them Coming! How to Increase Traffic to your Website.

(Both web traffic and SEO will be discussed.)

Update: Two prizes are being given to registered attendees.

One will be a free prize from me. The other is a surprise. One is a random registered attendee, the other is to the registered attendee with the best question.

3. Every person who registers, even if they can’t attend at the last minute, is getting a special freebie to help with their Web Traffic.

And no, it’s not 366 Traffic Methods.

4. Free tips on search engine optimization

Answering questions like “Why is SEO critical to increasing web traffic?”

5. Free tips on web traffic

Key information, such as: “Top 10 tips on how to increase web traffic”

6. You get to send me questions through the moderator.

I won’t be answering any questions about naked pictures, or accepting marriage proposals. Stay on Topic, People!

If you’re a Twitter Chat newbie, there are some tips on the post about the Women Grow Business Inbound Marketing Twitter Chat from April.

You don’t need  a free Twitter account to attend, but that sure makes it a lot more fun.

One more thing. I have a bet going with someone that I can get 100 people to register and attend.

So if you know people on Twitter or Facebook who you think would enjoy this free session or help save them money in their business, retweet this message or share it on Facebook. You can even email it your subscribers, or republish this whole post on your blog.

I’ll owe you one retweet or Facebook share that you cash in tomorrow morning, if

1. you’re one of the first 12 people, and
2. you respond to this message with your Twitter handle  so I can make arrangements with you.

I’m specifically talking about branding right now. But this could be any aspect of small business – customer service, marketing, social media, newsletters, meetings…

And I believe the answer is, it only matters what you call it if what you’re doing doesn’t match what you’re saying that you’re doing. For example, you can’t call it customer service if you’re listening but not responding.

Actually let’s tangent onto that. I have an experience to share. One of my affiliates had over 257 sales over the 36 hours.

(That’s what I get for offering 100% commission on a page that converts at 17%. LOL, just kidding. Why I’m deliriously happy about paying out on that is a discussion for another day.)

Anyway, the point is, about 4 emails an hour came in with customer support questions or issues. They were mostly three issues – not getting one of the three confirmation emails with the download, not seeing that the videos were in one of the delivered files, or they had a compliment/question.

Now, when you’re handling an uptick in emails at that rate, you can certainly fall back on the excuse that you’re swamped, especially if you’re doing it yourself. Put it in an autoresponder and you’re covered for a little bit. Most people will be understanding.

Or you can deliver the best possible service you can, and give such a great customer service experience that will leave a memorable impression.

You can send three delivery confirmations instead of one.

You can offer a second way to get the videos.

You can call people on the phone to make sure they got what they needed.

You can send an extra message wishing them a good day when they confirm that they were helped.

It just takes a little extra to make a big difference.

For another example, let’s look at branding. That’s what made me write this article today.

I was reading Do People Really Want a Relationship with a Brand?

Here’s a quote:

In human-land, we don’t have relationships with brands; we have expectations of them.

My Mazda is in the shop right now. And while I don’t think of having a “relationship” with Mazda – my car’s brand – I definitely have expectations of what Mazda as a whole brand should be doing for me.

And in a sense, the article is right.

I don’t want my roofer to spoon me. I expect my friggin roof fixed. Now. Properly the first time. Not cheaply but certainly at a good price.

But that’s still a relationship.

People want relationships with people, of course — and yet, the whole idea of relationships with brands is that these are subconscious connections. No one could care less about a company selling some stuff. But people have died for their passions and hobbies.

Who sells the equipment to enhance their passions? Who creates the material for their hobbies? Companies.

For evidence of brand relationships, watch the documentary “The Corporation” [ official site trailer | full movie on Hulu].

Now, I don’t believe corporations are evil, but skip forward to the part about branding. People describe companies like Coca-Cola with *personalities*. It’s scary that branding is that deeply entrenched, but it’s also interesting that it’s at that level.

I *do* believe smaller companies need to focus on  connecting human to human though – that’s our strength.

You can call it relationship marketing, branding, or hickory-dickory-dock but we need to do it if we want to distinguish ourselves from the next guy. Expectations come from relationships. So do being receptive, responsive and respectful.

Intriguing topic for an article and warrants a lot of discussion. Be sure to read the entire article. The larger topic of the site is talking about branding in human terms, which Is very important to businesses of all sizes.

I guess a better question would be “Has It Been Done?” – my answer is yes. Let me tell you a story.

There was an era when I had nothing BUT time. Not much cash but hours and hours to sit in front of my computer and

• read every RSS feed
• subscribe to and read every newsletter,
• go to Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Ecademy, LinkedIn, Delicious, Mixx, Business Exchange, Digg, Biz Sugar, Hugg, and about a dozen more of the best social media sites,
• not to mention commenting on dozens of other blogs,
• going to forums, or Ning sites,
• and posting videos or creating and publishing podcasts.

And I wasn’t there to waste time.

I wanted to either find some tidbit of information no one was paying attention to that could change the thrust of entrepreneurial life, or help whoever I encountered in every way I could. Either would add to my expertise, help me market that expertise, and result in more sales.

It worked. And when I had this huge mountain of available time, I was grateful that it was working. Then came work, as inevitably happens when you market yourself properly.

I mean, a lot of work. And even if you get help, even if you have a whole staff or outsource everything, being a full-time marketer, a full-time expert, a full-time blogger – it’s a lot to do. You find yourself choosing between work and sleep, trying to combine work and meals… wishing you could combine sleep and meals.

Smeals.

I’d be a Billionaire! If I could figure out how to do it without making everyone fat.

…Anyway. That day of optimal success came and went, and then I got really sick. So I went back to my hometown so my family could help look after me.

I went back to work, but then I had to manage my time more carefully. It’s been a long, slow road to recovery and it’s not over. Doctor’s visits. Figuring out how to pay for doctor’s visits. Learning how to do things you used to take for granted.

Having less time to work, and needing more help to get things done. General loss of control. Then, there were all the social interactions I wasn’t used to. (Okay, isn’t this why I left corporate America? I could have stayed and been making mid-six figures by now. Dang it.)

You know the social things I mean. Stuff entrepreneurs who live alone or with other entrepreneurs for several years happily forget about.

Good morning/good night. (It’s apparently a major sin to be too lost in thought to greet someone. “I didn’t see you there” doesn’t get you out of it OR points for honesty. Tried that.)

I’m an entrepreneur, we only shower on odd days. (Also known as “WHAT is that SMELL?”)

If it’s yellow, let it mellow? (I Love the earth but it took a long time for me to get used to seeing someone else’s pee in the bowl when I get there.)

Who left these kids here! I’m not watching them, I am BUSY. RESPECT MY TIME. Hey! Just because I’m working at home today…
 Sorry, I mean… My adorable nieces and nephews.

I really am kidding about that first part, though things like that occasionally do happen. (Pointed look at their Dad!)

I volunteered to watch them, not really understanding that you can’t multi-task ANYTHING and two year olds. It was great when they were 6 – 18 months, and will probably work out again when they’re 3 and a half. But right now, they cost six hours a day.

Yes, with daycare.

So what’s a self-marketing entrepreneur who counts on a piece of profits to feed her and pay medical bills and pay down debt to do?

I tried everything. And here’s what I did, and a few things I believe we MUST do.

1- Accept the situation.

You can’t be a rock star every day and have a life. If you choose to have a happy life, get comfortable with your choice and its consequences. You’ll miss events. You won’t be the first with all the news anymore. But you can be the best speaker when you can show. And you can still have the highest Quality news, which is what people care about anyway.

2- Realize it’s not hopeless.

Chances are 20% of your work got you 80% of your results. Focus on that 20%. You can look at your web stats, recall where and how you met your most valued customers and clients, pinpoint where you were most passionate, find out where you got the most benefit in the least amount of time.

3- Get. Help.

I’m a master at avoiding the best way to get people to help me grow. If they gave out Olympic Medals in Not Asking for Help, I’d be some kind of Prodigy. It makes me feel weak to ask someone for something as simple as a retweet. Sometimes, I’m just confused about who I can ask. Don’t be like me.

If you already are, join me in taking one extra step, one time a day, asking people who like you to do one small favor. It makes me feel better to do one for them first, regardless of what I think the answer will be.

4- Be Efficient with Your Time

Manage your tasks so that you can get as much of the most critical things done as you can. I believe that after those first few weeks of setting up and getting started, that we can all get our most important social media tasks done in 15 minutes a day, with the exception of those of us who have made social media a career.

I’ve come to this conclusion after observing customers and clients for a few years. Regular business people have to juggle their work life, their home lives, and the duties of each. We simply can’t be on Twitter all day. We don’t think it isn’t fun. We don’t necessarily believe it doesn’t help us. We just can’t give it 8 hours. So we tend to give it a little chunk of time and then kick butt during that sliver.

You won’t get all of it done. The secret to joy is that No One gets all of it done, and that’s actually okay. You’re not a failure if you didn’t finish every single item on your to-do list – and you’re not one if it happens every day. Delegate. Prioritize. And Sometimes? Let go or say “No”.

Apologize if it makes you feel better.

5- Have more fun.

I know this is a weird tip. But indulge me for a just a few more seconds, because after this I have to ask for your help. This tip lets me procrastinate doing that.

The first time I thought of this tip, it was one of those sarcastic inner comments like so “Maybe if creating products was more fun, I’d do it more often.”

Then I thought – hey, wait, why Isn’t it more fun?

We all know why it’s not inherently fun – we think of it as work. But what if we didn’t? When I was a kid, I hated washing the dishes, so I would sing to pass the time. I loved to sing, so suddenly, I always looked forward to washing the dishes.

As an adult, I thought walking was the most boring form of exercise on the planet. Then I heard that a quick way to monitor your heart rate would be to sing as you walk. If you can carry a tune without much struggle, you’re on track. Now I turn up my iPod and sing at the top of my lungs when there are no people visible.

So I guess this tip should say – MAKE it fun. Whatever you’re doing, find a way to make it fun. Why? It makes you feel better about doing it, and other people can tell you entertained yourself – and some of them will also be quite entertained.

Now comes the hardest part of this article, the part that feels like it’s going to KILL me.

I need your help. Respond in the comments section with Your Tips on how to market yourself best in 15 minutes a day. My plan is to take all the answers and give them away as a free ebook with a link to each contributor, if I have more than 25 comments by Friday.

So I need you to respond, then retweet, or post the link to Facebook, StumbleUpon, where ever. Thank you!

In the previous post about Money Funnels, I connected lists and traffic.

In the preceding audio post, I showed one way that they work together – you can leverage targeted traffic to continue to bring you new people that will sign up to your list.

Now I want to go one level deeper and show you the connection between lists and traffic in your business.

Whether you own a bakery, an affiliate marketing business, or a high traffic blog that depends solely on advertising for revenue, your contact list is the lifeblood of your ongoing success. The reason? It is through your opt-in contact list that you are freed from the shackles of constantly generating new business to survive.

The reason that so many marketers and successful business owners will tell you that your money is in your list is that once you have a list of contacts, especially past buyers, you can market to them again and again, as long as you have their permission. Since previous buyers are much more likely to buy again, and they are 90% cheaper to market to, you have a low cost audience that you can make sales from again and again.

This doesn’t mean you can get your list to a certain size and stop looking for new visitors. Indeed, the key to having a flourishing business is to have a balance between new business and old business.

You see, as your present contact list ages, the people on it will change. They will have different experiences, be at different places in their lives, financially or otherwise, and their needs change as well. For example, let’s say you make and sell boxes to businesses.

Over the next year, some of the new businesses will fail and close, which will affect your business. Other older businesses will expand or be acquired, leading to more business. Still others may change their packaging from boxes to bags. Then there are the new businesses being formed every day which need your services.

For all those reasons and more, your list has to continue to grow and evolve.

How does that happen? New traffic.

The job of your new traffic is to generate new leads that will hopefully sign up to be contacted repeatedly, make an initial purchase, then become repeat clients. New business should be where your growth comes from, not your foundation.

Why not?

Well, let’s say you had the same small business. But instead of creating a list of people who need to place new orders for boxes each month, every time you needed a new lead, you used 9 times the resources to create new business. Of course, that money has to come from somewhere. No matter what kind of profit you are turning, if you have to spend nine times as much on generating new leads, you’re spending a lot more money, more than you have to, indeed.

Not only that, you have less money for staff, to take home, for other expenses like computer equipment and office space. The fewer resources and higher the expenses, the slower your growth.

And since you don’t have the revenue stream of repeat business here, you’re also attempting to run your business with no idea of how much you’ll make the following month.

That’s not a business. That’s a really expensive hobby.

You need both lists and traffic to run a successful business, online or off.

Each week, we’re going to start having a round-up post that explores some of the best-of  information from other sites our team reads. This week,  we’re putting the spotlight on conversations about what to look forward to in 2010.

Many different predictions for the future are made but how many will actually come to fruition? Who knows.

We have had several highs and lows in the current year. It’s time to look forward to next year.

Social Media Experts Make Their Predictions for Trends in 2010

“Businesses finally integrating social media and seeing an actual ROI, and a shrinking/customization of the online world…Some businesses already have a social media policy… but according to the Internet luminaries consulted for the report, we can expect a lot more engagement with online communities in the coming year.”

While the Iron is Hot

“People are slowing down to turn their thoughts to family and to their own development, and to what worked and what didn’t in 2009…The choice I’ve made is to strike while the iron is hot. I’m working now because we’re seeing results. I’m working now because I’m at the top of my game, and so I have a lot to share with companies who want to use social media tools as part of their business communications and marketing efforts.”

Predictions for the Groundswell in 2010 — Twitter gets serious or gets bought

“If there is one overarching theme, it’s that social technology is now a mainstream part of what marketers do…Either Twitter will have a business generating $100 million at an annualized rate by the end of 2010, or it’s going to get bought by the likes of Google, Facebook, or Microsoft.”

The Ghost of Christmas Future

“While social media is helping shoppers avoid in person holiday sales and still get a great deal, it’s not all about buying the gifts, which is on a strong surge. With the true spirit of the giving season, the act of giving, social media is making an appearance to make giving front and center.”

Ten trends that will matter to every company in 2010

“I don’t know what it is about the final work weeks of the year but it’s the time when people throw 50 weeks’ worth of caution to the wind and make predictions.”

12 Social Media New Year’s Resolutions For 2010

“As you may know, there is no right answer in social media; each company is different, but each of these points can be adjusted for any company. Hopefully this will work as a guide on how to create a better social media presence in 2010!

SocialMedia.com: What We Learned in Social Advertising in 2009

“Right now the SocialMedia.com team is chugging full-steam ahead on developing the first social-advertising platform for publishers. But to continue to make killer social ads in the future, it was important for us to reflect on what happened in social advertising in 2009 and identify the most important lessons that we learned.”

As promised in my recent lunatic rant about integrity, here’s how I decide to trust a search expert. (And there ARE some search experts I trust, if you missed it.) The ability to pass this scrutiny is what the experts I trust have in common.

I’ve put in several asides, in blue, to help show you how you can apply these tips to your business to Become a trusted expert.

So here’s my criteria. Yours may vary, and please share them here or click the retweet button, then @ me on Twitter and we can continue the conversation there.

1- If I Search for them in Google and Yahoo, I can research them, and find mostly happy clients and/or customers.

I never expect to find 100% happy clients and customers. Things happen. Expectations are sometimes mis-managed. Projects gets stalled. Sometimes consultants get fired -sometimes we have to fire our clients.

However, I do expect to find around 95% of the conversation around a person I would entrust with the growth of my business to be positive. How do you achieve this? You keep the great content coming, and make sure it gets noticed, pushed, and acted on by the right people.

2- The techniques they would use on me are the ones they use on their own sites.

So how do you tell if they drink their own Kool Aid? Look at their traffic. See how long they’ve been around. Ask yourself if the techniques they use to drive clients and customers to their sites are at least indirectly responsible for leading you to them.

Were you referred by a friend amazed by their search results?

Were you Googling something and found an article they wrote as number one?

How does their site rank for their keyword?

Big thing to look out for – Jack of All Trades is Master of None. If a person who has mostly been teaching you how to make money online suddenly claims to be a traffic expert, be wary. Find out exactly how much of what they know they are using to promote their own sites.

And make sure they’re teaching you ALL of what they’re doing. Many people will show you incredible statistics where millions of visitors came to their sites…. then teach you the techniques that brought only 1% of their traffic, failing also to mention that they bought the vast majority of it, or paid someone else to generate it.

If you want to get treated for a brain disorder, you go to a neurosurgeon. If you want a doctor for your kids dog you go to a veterinarian. Only the desperate and the fools go to dentists for heart surgery.

This one is easy. Few people do it. Do what you tell others to do. Display the proof that you do on your site.

3- The way they accept payment has a built-in guarantee if I’m not satisfied with their services. I’m not saying I don’t trust people with merchant accounts. I’m saying it encourages me if they also use Clickbank, Google Checkout, 2Checkout, Amazon, or any other system where, if I have a problem with my order, I can bypass them to get a refund if I can demonstrate that I have cause.

Every service I’ve ever used to accept payment takes the entire refund process out of my hands – not only has my company never refused a refund, the power to do so is out of my hands. You might look at doing this so, in order that regular customers who know about those services will see that you’re not afraid to make strong guarantees.

And sure, you would think that leaves us open to fraud – BUT a person can’t get critical updates, or support if they are no longer a customer. The way my company markets (without the pie-in-the-sky promises that attract the kind of loser who would de-fraud someone) keeps that kind of thing to a minimum.

So if you do this, bundle something with their orders that gets cancelled if they refund. These could be unannounced bonuses, free support, etc. As long as what you’re offering is ethical and directly related to the product, people will be pleased and refunds will go Way down.

4- I Can Test A Bit of Their Knowledge For Free.

I am subscribed to a lot of other experts newsletters in neighboring fields. I like to be able to refer any business I can’t take to the best people I can find. One of the main things I use to determine whether someone qualifies as the “best” is whether they’ve shared any knowledge in public.

When you post some of your minor secrets to your blog or as an article, it displays a sense of confidence that is irresistible. I know your stuff works, I proved it to myself. How can I NOT buy from you when my own logic tells me it’s the best thing to do?

This is why article marketing is so powerful. If you solve a small how-to in an article, and your prospect tries it, when it works, you have the most powerful salesman ever – a person’s own experience.

Few people ever want to admit they are wrong about something. Once they see your techniques work with their own eyes it will be impossible to prove to them otherwise.

5- They are thought leaders

In addition to this, the people I trust not only give me testable, actionable proof in public, they innovate. They invent things. They come up with techniques. Other people seek them out to share their brain store because it is unique. They see things differently. They are pioneers.

Being a thought leader sounds more daunting than it actually is. Start small. Do one webinar a year. Have a free teleconference. Get on the staff of a publication that you have to earn placement on by reputation. Be a guest blogger on a reputable site. Do an Editorial in an offline resource. Contribute to your industry, little by little.

It doesn’t have to be a profound, ground-breaking discovery every time. Just keep a diary of things you share with your peers to which they say “Really? I didn’t know that.”

Then leverage that knowledge for further exposure.

6- They’re Reachable. Perhaps not easily, but I can get to them if I need to do it.

By that I mean that I can reach someone via email, blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc. for pre-sales questions or support. I also find social profiles I can use to get in touch with them if… okay, when, email fails me. Maybe even a phone number!

Now, notice, this person is not always the expert themselves. I have been one of those people who one day can’t seem to BUY a new customer, and then suddenly have clients coming out of the woodwork. If you are in rapid growth or become popular, it’s very difficult to stay on top of all the email and phone calls you can get.

And there’s no way to tell people who have a question, from people who want to hire you, or from people who have every intention of simply wasting your time.

I know. If you’re a consultant you’ve grown to hate the phone. But remember, the inquiry line doesn’t have to run to your desk. Get a Skype number for a year and have it forwarded to a college student, intern, family member, virtual assistant or receptionist. People will be shocked and pleased when they find a number, and an actual person answers.

We’re going to be putting this into effect later this year.

Trust is a much more important element than any other thing you do in business. If people trust you, you can have ugly sales pages, a crappy blog, even mediocre customer service.

Of course you Must improve those things if you hope to survive in the long run. But in the short run, if people can trust you, and you prove that you are worth being trusted, they’ll want to do business with you despite your short comings.

I couldn’t let Friday night pass without giving you some of the best news I’ve heard in a while. (I’d say Saturday morning, but I know my entrepreneur friends – you’re up working just like me. You went out, you came home, you worked some more. Admit it.)

If you remember our last Site of the Day, you know that I don’t give these honors out lightly.

So why the Small Business Success Index? What about that site can help you build your business online?

The way I see it, knowing you’ll have a business to build this time next year helps dramatically. That seems like a pretty strong reason to care to me – and not just because much of my business is with small business owners. I’m an entrepreneur, after all.

Let’s look a little more closely at why this site is so important to those of us with smaller companies.

In a time when the pressure of the economy is being felt in ways most of us have never witnessed in our lifetimes, you know who’s not worried?

Us. Small business people.

When I first heard this I was skeptical . Then I came across proof.

And you know how I just love hard evidence and numbers — I’m always saying listen to people who make sense to you, test out their theories, and believe the results, the proof, the data, even about me.

I love it when the numbers agree with my gut reaction. Call it an extra ego stroke, but I get a buzz from knowing that

a- I was right, and
b- Other people agree with me.

Of coruse, that’s where the Small Business Success Index (SBSI) comes in. It’s hosted at GrowSmartBusiness.com, which is full of research put together by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

They say it better than I do, so I’ll quote from the page about SBSI’s survey of over 1000 small business owners:

The benchmark survey, which gathered data used to create the Small Business Success Index, was conducted in December 2008 and January 2009; a total of 1,000 small business owners were interviewed by phone. The Small Business Success Index found the following:

• Small businesses are succeeding despite the economic downturn.
• 69% of small businesses made a profit in 2008
• 7% of small businesses report that they broke even
• The majority (69%) of those who showed a profit in 2008 said it was equal to or better than the previous year
• 70% of small businesses expect their firms to still be operating in five years as opposed to being closed, sold or transferred, and of these, 66% expect to be bigger in size

How’s that for good news?

If you’re not seeing the connection, here it is: small business employs more people in this country than big business. We drive the economy. We’re quite a pragmatic group so we don’t cheer easily. Therefore, for things to be in this big of a mess and us to be optimistic? Bodes well for everyone.

Or as a post from the official Network Solutions blog put it:

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, “American small businesses are the bedrock of the U.S. economy. There are more than 25 million of them in the to the Census Bureau. They employ more than 58 million people, that is a greater number of jobs than big companies, and they create more new jobs each year than any other sector.”

Before I came across the SBSI I thought maybe this was just all the Small Business Owners that I knew.

My original theory was that more companies are starting to see that they can get better results from leveraging PR, online and offline publicity and marketing than just paying for search advertising, so I thought perhaps only marketing-related companies were getting a boost in new business from this change in climate.

Apparently, the news is better than I thought – small business is doing much better than I expected, across the board.

This hopeful data isn’t all the site has to offer, either. There are also lots of tools at their site to help small business owners, including their Small Business Survey, which will help you assess how well your business is doing competitively.

For more, go visit GrowSmartBusiness.com, and read Brent Leary’s Tale of Two Studies over at AMEX’s Open Forum. (Brent’s the co-author of Barack 2.0 with our friend David Bullock.)

He also interviewed the Network Solutions CEO, Roy Dunbar, at his Social CRM site.

Okay, so when we last left our discussion, I was talking about what’s considered spammy at Facebook, and why spam at Facebook will ultimately fail. That leaves us with the question – how do you get people in Facebook to visit your site without spamming them?

How can you increase your exposure at Facebook without seeming like a spammer?

As I’ve said before, if you want to blatantly market on Facebook, you have a several options you can exercise without looking like a spammer.

1. Get a Facebook Business Page,
2. Buy a Facebook Ad,
3. Participate in or Create a Group,
4. or Leverage Your Profile.

Now, I’d never discourage you from doing any of these, in fact, you should do them all.

But I’m not going to write about them all here today. The first two are pretty self-explanatory. You create a business page – if you know how to build and manage a community, you’re all set. (If you don’t, still a discussion for another day.) And who doesn’t know how to buy an ad? Yes, there are more effective ways to use ads on Facebook, but at the end of the day, the basics don’t need to be covered.

Networking through groups and leveraging though? Not as common-sense based as you might think.

For now let’s take groups. It’s an easier topic, and leveraging your profile will probably take an entire day of videos, which I’ll start on tonight or tomorrow.

The reasoning behind joining groups on Facebook is simple: groups are mini-communities that have discussion boards, and often links, photo and video sharing areas, where people have agreed that they have a common interest, and want to exchange information about it.

Let’s say you teach people how to turn a $39 book into a $300 info-product with videos and audio CDs. You search groups and you find a book marketing group for authors.

Awesome, perfect market – if they’re marketing their books, they want to make more money, and if they want to make more money, your program is custom-made for them. There’s 2000 people in this group and you can just count the money flowing in…

Here is where most people go wrong. They go into a social group with an ad mentality, and start posting what are essentially, ads for their products on the wall (the general guestbook type area) or in the discussions. And it will backfire every time.

“But Tinu”, you might be thinking, if it doesn’t work, “why do people keep doing it”?

I’ll answer that, but first let’s look at why it doesn’t work.

The fastest revelation will come from the dating world. Ladies, please raise your hand if you would respond favorably to the following situation:

A guy walks up to you and says, “Hi, you’re cute, let’s have sex now.”

Anyone?

Yeah. If there’s 100 ladies in the room, maybe, MAYBE one chick has her hand up.

If I say, all desperate women put your hands down, that will drop to zero.

So why do people do it? The same reason why one in one hundred people respond. Desperation and/or just plain ignorance. Not stupidity, mind you. They just honestly don’t know the right way to do it.

And the desperate customer, you just don’t want to have. No matter what you offer them, they’ll claim it doesn’t work and ask for a refund. So, really, it doesn’t work at all.

Then what does work?

Value.

You will hear me saying this on the videos over and over again – add value, bring value, create value, enhance value. Value and being laid back.

Everyone wants the folks at Home Depot to help them buy a light fixture, but no one wants to be sold a lamp.

We’ll get into specifics in the next articles and videos, in just a few hours. Right now I have to stop for….

Family time. See you soon.

Here’s a quick tip that I’ve used to my advantage many times.

In a nutshell, you go out and find companies that give you publicity in the when you write about them. It works best if you’re writing because you sincerely love them, and if that publicity is either in the form of a link or will be presented before a captive audience.

Here’s how to do it.

1 – Find the top companies that have some kind of parallel relationship to your site. A parallel relationship would be one that is in the same topic neighborhood but not competing.

I write about search and Google, but since I no longer do SEO, this is a good example.

2- Find the subset of those sites that link to sites that write about them.

You’re looking for something as simple as trackback, and evidence that trackback links are published. An even better indicator is an “In the News” clips column that includes blogs, or a specific section like the Media Coverage section at kyte.tv.

3- Write passionately about a service or product from that company.

You want to do this in a way that demonstrates how your audience can benefit, not just your own happy experience.

Your aim is to share something that talks about how great the other site is, like a review. Feel free to be critical, but remember that harsh feedback probably isn’t going to be republished by the bigger site. (This is part of why it works best if you’re sincerely enthusiastic or passionate.)

4- Promote the wicked hell out of your write-up.

Remember that the purpose of this promotion is to draw attention to yourself and get publicity from the folks you’re writing about. Best case scenario, you’ll get links from lots of people, and the publicity from the company in question will bring you a second round of links.

So you’ll want to guestimate what the response time is for the site in question – some popular one-man shops need a few days to notice you, sites run by corporations may need a week, active bloggers will likely spot you within 48 hours.

Why?

Because if they don’t notice you, you gotta nudge them. It also helps to find the least-used vehicle. For example, if you wanted to get in touch with me, email is a mistake. I have 7 accounts, and only one of them do I answer on my own.

But if you tweeted me or left a polite comment? You’d probably hear back from me that day. Remember that if you’re the one who wants a favor, it’s up to you to be as little of an inconvenience as possible.

5- Thank Everyone.

Very important missed step: once the big company talks about you talking about them, thank profusely. Thank people who commented, passed along, re-tweeted, help you network your way to the contact, the person who wrote the article, the department that responded to your praise, everyone.

The people who pay attention and take action are THE most valuable contacts in our new interactive web world.

Extra tip:

One smart company to write about if you’re a blogger is FeedBurner, because you can get republished in their Publisher Buzz section. True, Feedburner itself is not related to your site, but tens if not hundreds of thousands of blogger use their free service, and the topics of those blogs are as diverse as they come.

I don’t know if it’s still true because I can’t find the original link, but they use to track blog posts tagged feedburnerhowto at del.icio.us. (Something like this, if you could verify that last part, would count as something you could tag as feedburnerhowto, if you were the first to do it.)

Personally, I sincerely love FeedBurner despite their occasional problems. And the folks I know over there have always been really nice to me – in particular Traci Halipern. Shout out to my peeps at FeedBurner! Can you folks let me know if you’re still doing this?

Age of Conversation

There’s this wonderful project I’m a part of, and all the hard work of the project leaders has come to fruition. A while back, I told you about the childish jealousy that led me to be a part of The Age of Conversation Part Two. In this book, you can read 239 perspectives explaining how to be successful in the Age of Conversation – a goldmine if you’re an entrepreneur or a small business owner.

What I didn’t tell you then is that all the proceeds go to a children’s charity, Variety. So, I know it’s late in the day, but I took a chance that you’d be in a much more giving mood when the day was done. The sale has been on for 12 hours, and it would be wonderful if by midnight Pacific time, we could have $15,000 to hand over to this fabulous charity.

How can you help? Buy a copy.

They come in digital, in paperback or hard cover for those who collect books like me.

Thank you so much for your help. You’ll get a great book AND help a great charity. What could be better?

Other than reading my mystical magical words on the printed page, I mean.

Final list of all the authors participating.

1. Adrian Ho,
2. Aki Spicer,
3. Alex Henault,
4. Amy Jussel,
5. Andrew Odom,
6. Andy Nulman,
7. Andy Sernovitz,
8. Andy Whitlock,
9. Angela Maiers,
10. Ann Handley,
11. Anna Farmery,
12. Armando Alves,
13. Arun Rajagopal,
14. Asi Sharabi,
15. Becky Carroll,
16. Becky McCray,
17. Bernie Scheffler,
18. Bill Gammell,
19. Bob LeDrew,
20. Brad Shorr,
21. Brandon Murphy,
22. Branislav Peric,
23. Brent Dixon,
24. Brett Macfarlane,
25. Brian Reich,
26. C.C. Chapman,
27. Cam Beck,
28. Casper Willer,
29. Cathleen Rittereiser,
30. Cathryn Hrudicka,
31. Cedric Giorgi,
32. Charles Sipe,
33. Chris Kieff,
34. Chris Cree,
35. Chris Wilson,
36. Christina Kerley (CK),
37. C.B. Whittemore,
38. Chris Brown,
39. Connie Bensen,
40. Connie Reece,
41. Corentin Monot,
42. Craig Wilson,
43. Daniel Honigman,
44. Dan Schawbel,
45. Dan Sitter,
46. Daria Radota Rasmussen,
47. Darren Herman,
48. Dave Davison,
49. David Armano,
50. David Berkowitz,
51. David Koopmans,
52. David Meerman Scott,
53. David Petherick,
54. David Reich,
55. David Weinfeld,
56. David Zinger,
57. Deanna Gernert,
58. Deborah Brown,
59. Dennis Price,
60. Derrick Kwa,
61. Dino Demopoulos,
62. Doug Haslam,
63. Doug Meacham,
64. Doug Mitchell,
65. Douglas Hanna,
66. Douglas Karr,
67. Drew McLellan,
68. Duane Brown,
69. Dustin Jacobsen,
70. Dylan Viner,
71. Ed Brenegar,
72. Ed Cotton,
73. Efrain Mendicuti,
74. Ellen Weber,
75. Eric Peterson,
76. Eric Nehrlich,
77. Ernie Mosteller,
78. Faris Yakob,
79. Fernanda Romano,
80. Francis Anderson,
81. Gareth Kay,
82. Gary Cohen,
83. Gaurav Mishra,
84. Gavin Heaton,
85. Geert Desager,
86. George Jenkins,
87. G. Kofi Annan,
88. G.L. Hoffman,
89. Gianandrea Facchini,
90. Gordon Whitehead,
91. Greg Verdino,
92. Gretel Going
93. & Kathryn Fleming,
94. Hillel Cooperman,
95. Hugh Weber,
96. J. Erik Potter,
97. James Gordon-Macintosh,
98. Jamey Shiels,
99. Jasmin Tragas,
100. Jason Oke,
101. Jay Ehret,
102. Jeanne Dininni,
103. Jeff De Cagna,
104. Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral,
105. Jeff Noble,
106. Jeff Wallace,
107. Jennifer Warwick,
108. Jenny Meade,
109. Jeremy Fuksa,
110. Jeremy Heilpern,
111. Jeroen Verkroost,
112. Jessica Hagy,
113. Joanna Young,
114. Joe Pulizzi,
115. John Herrington,
116. John Moore,
117. John Rosen,
118. John Todor,
119. Jon Burg,
120. Jon Swanson,
121. Jonathan Trenn,
122. Jordan Behan,
123. Julie Fleischer,
124. Justin Foster,
125. Karl Turley,
126. Kate Trgovac,
127. Katie Chatfield,
128. Katie Konrath,
129. Kenny Lauer,
130. Keri Willenborg,
131. Kevin Jessop,
132. Kristin Gorski,
133. Lewis Green,
134. Lois Kelly,
135. Lori Magno,
136. Louise Manning,
137. Luc Debaisieux,
138. Mario Vellandi,
139. Mark Blair,
140. Mark Earls,
141. Mark Goren,
142. Mark Hancock,
143. Mark Lewis,
144. Mark McGuinness,
145. Matt Dickman,
146. Matt J. McDonald,
147. Matt Moore,
148. Michael Karnjanaprakorn,
149. Michelle Lamar,
150. Mike Arauz,
151. Mike McAllen,
152. Mike Sansone,
153. Mitch Joel,
154. Neil Perkin,
155. Nettie Hartsock,
156. Nick Rice,
157. Oleksandr Skorokhod,
158. Ozgur Alaz,
159. Paul Chaney,
160. Paul Hebert,
161. Paul Isakson,
162. Paul McEnany,
163. Paul Tedesco,
164. Paul Williams,
165. Pet Campbell,
166. Pete Deutschman,
167. Peter Corbett,
168. Phil Gerbyshak,
169. Phil Lewis,
170. Phil Soden,
171. Piet Wulleman,
172. Rachel Steiner,
173. Sreeraj Menon,
174. Reginald Adkins,
175. Richard Huntington,
176. Rishi Desai,
177. Robert Hruzek,
178. Roberta Rosenberg,
179. Robyn McMaster,
180. Roger von Oech,
181. Rohit Bhargava,
182. Ron Shevlin,
183. Ryan Barrett,
184. Ryan Karpeles,
185. Ryan Rasmussen,
186. Sam Huleatt,
187. Sandy Renshaw and
188. James G. Lindberg,
189. Scott Goodson,
190. Scott Monty,
191. Scott Townsend,
192. Scott White,
193. Sean Howard,
194. Sean Scott,
195. Seni Thomas,
196. Seth Gaffney,
197. Shama Hyder,
198. Sheila Scarborough,
199. Sheryl Steadman,
200. Simon Payn,
201. Sonia Simone,
202. Spike Jones,
203. Stanley Johnson,
204. Stephen Collins,
205. Stephen Landau,
206. Stephen Smith,
207. Steve Bannister,
208. Steve Hardy,
209. Steve Portigal,
210. Steve Roesler,
211. Steven Verbruggen,
212. Steve Woodruff,
213. Sue Edworthy,
214. Susan Bird,
215. Susan Gunelius,
216. Susan Heywood,
217. Tammy Lenski,
218. Terrell Meek,
219. Thomas Clifford,
220. Thomas Knoll,
221. Tim Brunelle,
222. Tim Connor,
223. Tim Jackson,
224. Tim Mannveille,
225. Tim Tyler,
226. Timothy Johnson,
227. Tinu Abayomi-Paul < -- Hey That's Me!
228. Toby Bloomberg,
229. Todd Andrlik,
230. Troy Rutter,
231. Troy Worman,
232. Uwe Hook,
233. Valeria Maltoni,
234. Vandana Ahuja,
235. Vanessa DiMauro,
236. Veronique Rabuteau,
237. Wayne Buckhanan,
238. William Azaroff,
239. Yves Van Landeghem