Facebook Timeline | The Change In the Game
If you’ve been using Facebook since the early days of social media, then you would know better than anyone else that over the years, as a social media platform, Facebook has changed immensely. Up until recently, most marketers used to craft their social media marketing strategy based on the much discussed fact that Facebook posts tend to have a longer shelf line as compared to tweets but with the new controversial Facebook update, the Facebook Timeline, the homepage feeds of the social media platform have a Twitteresque feel with live updates from friends, otherwise known as the Ticker. The posts that appear on a person’s Facebook News Feed are now a direct result of the latest content being published.
Believe it or not, the complete rollout of Timeline to all Facebook users is nearly complete and that fact alone calls for marketers using Facebook as a platform for Internet marketing to bring about a radical change to suit the new Facebook update keeping on top of the game. The life of a status update is diminishing and fast. Timeline is altering the shelf-life of Facebook content so there is a need for you to change the way you use Facebook to put forward your business interests.
Facebook Timeline calls for strategic Facebook updates
Formerly, a Facebook user’s homepage otherwise known as the News Feed offered two options in terms of how you want to sort your posts: ‘Top Stories’ meaning posts with the most likes and comments from your friends, or ‘Most Recent,’ which was simply the most recent updates regardless of the response rates. The majority of users (many without even knowing) had theirs set to ‘Top Stories’ so they could see which stories were most popular and getting discussed by their friends.
Then Facebook aggregated these two features into one through its EdgeRank algorithm. In short, this algorithm decides what is most important on Facebook for a specific user by taking into account which pages or profiles the user most frequently visits, the popularity of the post and most importantly, how recent the post is.
At the moment, the time it takes a link to receive half the clicks it will ever receive after it reaches its peak on Facebook is about 3.2 hours. Chances are, this number will go down with the Timeline rollout. As a Facebook marketer, it’s time for you to do some trial and error experiments of your own by testing the waters posting your content at different times every day for one week to identify at what hour your post performs best. To analyze the response your posts get, use Facebook Insights.
According to AddThis, a bookmarking and sharing service, most users click on content two minutes after the content is shared. If users are clicking that rapidly and you only have about a 3-hour time frame to garner attention, you have to ensure you’re posting exactly when your audience is on Facebook. Otherwise, there is a high probably that they will never even come across what you shared.
Posting once a day will not cut it anymore
It is a pretty widely acknowledged rule of thumb for people who use Facebook marketing that posting regularly brings in leads but more than one post a day is not wise if you want each of your updates to receive proper attention and for you not to come across as spammy. With the Facebook Timeline update, posting once a day in conjunction with the Ticker and the EdgeRank algorithm means that your post only has a short span of time during which people are likely see it. Once those 3 hours are up, your status becomes old news and if you think you’re going to be spamming users by posting more than once a day, then think again because the rules of the game changed and posts quickly get overridden by the hordes of other updates becoming the top stories in the News Feeds of Facebook users.
However, bear in mind that just because there is a need for you to post updates as regularly as possible, it does not mean that you can post just about anything. Don’t let Timeline lower the quality of your updates. When a user sees you in his News Feed or Ticker and navigates to your page, he is likely to see all of your other content as well.
If you market your products or services on Facebook, then feel free to update your content as often as every hour provided you have quality information to offer. Chances are, each hour, a completely different group of users will like, comment on and share your content. In addition to that, posting at different times of the same day will enable you to attract a more diverse set of users because each group logged onto Facebook at a different time. This Facebook marketing strategy is a tried and tested plan of action that brings to your pages more fans. Please note that technically we are not recommending posting every hour unless you have a large fanbase on Facebook and you are creating high volumes of content. The point here is simply for you to understand that posting on your pages once a day isn’t going to cut it anymore.
Last but not least, before we wrap up this discussion about the need to post on your Facebook pages regularly, it will perhaps be good for you to know that updating your content multiple times a day is no longer taken to be spammy. Instead of backlash, people who make multiple Facebook posts a day receive positive feedback in regard to all the valuable information they post. This means that people truly do hold access to valuable content in high regard. Whether it’s keeping them in suspense for the next episode in a television series, sharing the latest remedy your researchers have discovered for the flu, or simply educating marketers on how to be inbound marketing rock stars, content is key. And if it’s written and presented in a way that is appealing to your specific demographic, you will see positive results.
Facebook Timeline also means you will need to generate more quality content and free more of your time for connecting with your prospects
These days, for profitable Facebook marketing, the social media platform is calling for more updates a day. Clearly, this in turn calls for valuable content that is worth posting. Simply updating for the sake of infiltrating feeds will simply cause your downfall because one thing is for certain. Facebook users are more volatile these days and if you do not keep up with them, they will mark you as spam. But if you’re strategically posting remarkable content, then they’ll like, comment and share your content and love you for the information you are making readily available to them. You also need to allocate more time to posting and monitoring the content on your Facebook pages than before for good marketing. Consider investing in some social media marketing automation to make the most of your time.
The 12 Most Common Types Of Blog Posts Revealed
Perhaps one of the Internet marketing advices you see most often online is the need for people who own websites to provide great content for their readers. It is a tried and tested theory that great content drives traffic. So clearly, content is key to getting Internet marketing right.
But do you think that just because you got grammatically correct posts on your website and the information you provide is well-researched, your readers will come back to you again and again? This is not necessary.
Consider a blog that whenever you go on it, day in and day out, all you see is “how to” articles or product reviews. Obviously, the people will remember you as a thought leader when it comes to good information but they will definitely not come to your website for some light reading and or just to read your personal thoughts on a certain area of your niche market, because they know all you ever write about is how to get things done or what’s good and bad about products you market.
The point here is pretty simple. Good content is key if you want to drive traffic to your website because for a start, if your content is crap, you won’t even make it to the search results of the search engines. However, the type of content you provide is also quite important. If you write your own articles, which most of the internet marketers out there don’t do, you would know that every individual has a different style of writing and the key when maintaining a blog is incorporating your personality and style into your writing while varying how you present useful information to your readers.
The 12 most popular styles of writing a blog post
1. The list post
A list post is easy to write. This post is a list post and I can tell you that I am not straining at all to write. The other good thing about list posts is that in addition to being easy to create, list posts are also much appreciated by people who browse the web for information because whether you believe it or not, people like simple, straightforward lists of tips or steps to problems they might have.
2. The tutorial post
Tutorial posts are very popular with Internet surfers because they give a great deal of information. By definition, a tutorial post is a post where you identify a specific problem and you go on to give a step-by-step set of instructions for people to be able to solve the problem. Everybody has problems, so writing in this style will be very much appreciated by your readers, especially if you give good solutions to problems.
3. The informative post
Slightly different from a tutorial, an informative post is meant to teach its audience about a specific subject. It’s not absolutely necessary for the article to be a how-to article, but rather it can simply answer questions on various topics in your niche.
4. The news post
If you really need something to write about for your blog and you don’t have much time to do research or come up with something original and unique, then a news post can be a great way to keep your readers up to date on the current events happening in your niche market. By browsing the Internet, you can quickly find a current event in your niche and write a quick post about it. If you find a good trendy topic then this type of post can give your blog a popularity boost.
5. The rant post
If you randomly browse through the most popular blogs online, you will come to notice that many times, people choose to write rant posts. To choose whether or not to write rant posts is something of a personal choice. Most people like to stay positive on their blog, but it is undeniable that controversy draws interest and attention. The rant is often a post about something the blogger dislikes. The thing about these posts is that it attracts a lot of attention. You can pick virtually any topic to rant about.
6. The rave post
A rave post is the exact opposite of a rant post. You write about something you love and rave about it. While positivity often doesn’t draw as much attention as negativity, I think these are easier posts to write and a lot safer as well if you are new to your niche market and you are still in the process of establishing yourself as a thought leader.
7. The profile post
A profile post is neither a rant post nor a rave post. It’s as its name suggests, a profile. To write a profile post, pick someone in your niche that you like or dislike for that matter and profile that person. A profile post is often written to be positive but at the same time, you want to keep your tone neutral as far as possible.
8. The interview post
Hard to write and very easy to get wrong, interview posts can be a challenge to even the most seasoned website content writers. In general, what you will need to write an interview post is an expert in your field. The simplest way to write an interview post is to do an interview of someone you appreciate by email. If the person you picked to interview agrees to go through with your plan, you can send them a list of questions that they can answer in their own spare time. This makes things easier for you and for the person concerned as well.
9. The social proof post
The social proof post combines the elements of both the informative post and the tutorial style post. The extra ingredient is that you add some proof to demonstrate how your tactics work. You can discuss some tactics that you use to draw attention and interest to your specific topic and follow that up with the actual proof that your strategy works.
10. The research post
Blogging is a process of constant learning and research. As a blogger you are constantly studying different topics. The research post takes the culmination of your research and compiles that into a report for your readers.
11. The review post
The review post if perhaps the easiest post to write. That’s also probably why review posts are incredibly popular online. Review posts are great if you have a product you’d like to recommend to your audience or perhaps warn your audience about.
12. The series post
Perhaps you have a particular expertise in a subject and you have a lot to write. You can separate your larger topic into several smaller topics and generate a series of blog posts. This is a good way to build up some anticipation for your next posts. At the end of each post, you can tell your audience the topic of the next part in your series. It’s a bit of a teaser and if you are writing on a popular topic, it can build up a little hype for your next post.
The Google Bully: Why Big G Picks On Marketers
Almost every marketer in the SEO game has been picked on by the search giant. Either you were unable to get on page 1 at all, or you did get on page 1 (maybe even spot #1) but then after a few days got slapped by Google and your page was sent to page 38. And this happens in spite of all your backlinking efforts. You even try to please big G by not “building too many links at once”, and yet, it still keeps hating you. Is it because Google has unresolved psychological issues? Unlikely. While no one can say why Google “behaves” this way, some of us can definitely draw pretty accurate conclusions from our experimental results.
This post is all about understanding Google. Maybe then you’ll realize it’s just doing what’s best for all of us… (I never thought I would defend big G that much!).
The Why
So, why does Google release all these updates? Why does it drown certain pages in the results while propelling others up? Understand this, Google Search is a business. It buys the CEO and founders their food (and their yachts..). They need to keep their search engine robust to remain in business. They want people to come to them EVERY time they are looking for a solution or a product. This is how they attract advertisers. Heck, we all know that if you know what you are doing, your ROI when doing PPC is always higher on Google than any other provider. Most people who still use Yahoo! or Bing are not very familiar with taking out their credit cards and making purchases. So Google’s point is, if someone is looking for “quick full body workouts”, the results on the 1st page should be talking about quick full body workouts. Else people will stop using it.
The How
Now, while this is all good on paper, you and I don’t know how to do that. That’s why Google needs a herd of programmers to create something that identifies the relevance of the pages according to what someone is looking for. The result? Low quality websites are often left out, while sites that provide good information and user experience win. Oh, and for Google this means that people look for their stuff on Google, and that they share this amazing service with their friends who then do the same.
Our mistake
Our mistake is that we want to make a quick buck. We are not interested in providing value. We just want to create that ugly 1 page site that has AdSense blocks on the top half of the page and in the sidebar with 100 words of content below it, followed by 2 other blocks of ads or a Clickbank banner.
And since our site sucks, no one wants to link to it, and we have to do it ourselves. If we are loaded, we pay a bunch of SEO guys and get our site on top for a few days. We make some money and then our site goes down the results. Sometimes we make enough, other times we break even (considering SEO services don’t come cheap).
That’s if we are loaded. If not, we try to build some profile and EDU links, and we probably make it on Page 3, and end up never making a sale. The thing is, it worked in the past, but now, it’s just hard.
What we need to do
We need to be good marketers and work WITH Big G. Big G helps good marketers. Provide good information on your site. Write 600+ words of content, and don’t over-pack it with keywords. Have social buttons to help people share your stuff on their Facebook or Twitter; Google is starting to take that into account too.
Sure, you can do your own link building (or outsource it) to get your site noticed, but it gets easier if your content is already good. Even your visitors will be WILLING to buy just because they see how much value you already provide for free.
We need to change. We need to provide value. We need to rank #1 :)
Make Your Marketing Become More Efficient By The End Of This Article!
Nowadays, “Internet marketing” is just a term that people like throwing around in online forums. People think they are an Internet marketer if they posted an article on Ezine Articles or built some profile backlinks.
Yeah sure, these people probably know more about “IM” than the average person, but I’m not convinced it’s a good enough reason to call oneself an Internet marketer.
For the sake of not breaking down our fellow IMers’ little hearts, let’s call everyone who is aware that making money online is possible an INTERNET MARKETER.
However, this article will show you how to be an EFFECTIVE Internet marketer; one that knows what he’s doing instead of just doing things hoping that he’ll get results.
Here is how to increase the efficiency of a plan:
Strategies that bring negligible results should be eliminated and focus should be brought to the strategies that work.
But before doing that, there are some things that you need to consider
Clarity
Things need to be clear in your mind. Yes, you know how CPA works. You also know how Clickbank works, and SEO and PPV etc. But you cannot do everything! At least not for now! When you have a team or you have most of your tasks automated, then you can consider diversifying your income, but for now, you need to focus on ONE thing. Do you want to do niche marketing? If so, will your traffic be from SEO or PPC? Sell own products or as an affiliate?
Education
Once you pick your venture, you may want to look for 1 – 3 courses from RELIABLE sellers who have a good reputation. I would suggest the Warrior Forum WSO section. There you have many good sellers that sell even better courses at great prices. Make sure to read the reviews in their threads before buying.
Warning: It’s easy to get lost by all the shiny products there. Don’t forget to keep your focus. If you opted for SEO, don’t buy the best PPC course on there. Instead, look for good stuff about SEO.
And once you are educated, DON’T LOOK ANY FURTHER! There is always more to learn or a tactic you don’t know. Your aim is not to have a Ph.D. in SEO. It’s to make money with it. So when you are done learning, turn off the learning mode and switch on the action mode!
Make a plan
Monday, build links. Tuesday, build links. Wednesday build links.. It’s a plan, but a bad one!
Make a general plan FIRST and then make a daily plan out of it. You need an offer, you need content, you need backlinks, you need a back-end product etc. Lay it all down on a “Master Sheet”. Then when you are done, chop it up into daily tasks.
Follow through the plan. Don’t stop for the CPA course. Heck, don’t even stop for the SEO course! You already have your plan, THIS is what you need to follow.
Set a deadline on everything
You can create a product in 7 days. You can also create a product in 3 years! If you want to achieve it in 1 week or less, you need to set a deadline for yourself. Keep 2 – 3 hours a day for the writing, and once time is up, STOP WRITING.
How does it work? By forcing you to put in only the necessary stuff in the book instead of pondering over the useless things that you want to include, but that won’t benefit the readers much.
Make sure to set your deadlines on link building, product creation, site setup and everything else, so you can do them the most efficient way possible.
Finally, refine your plan
If you see something is just not bringing any result, then stop doing it. Buying FB fans on Fiverr isn’t increasing the number of sales? Stop doing it.
Similarly, things that bring you results, do it more! Everytime you buy 2,000 backlinks from a particular seller you are pushed further up the SERPS? Buy again! And check out the seller’s other services that may help you.
Constantly taking out bad stuff and focusing on good ones will grow your online business quickly. THEN only I give you the right to call yourself an EFFICIENT Internet Marketer! :)
The Truth About Product Creation Exposed
In this blog post, we will expose some truths about product creation. Does this mean that by the end of this article you will be able to create your own e-book ready to sell on Clickbank? Well, I can’t promise that you will take action on the information I’ll be giving you, but I can promise that I’ll give you enough information for you to make your own info product soon!
Excited? Me too! So let’s get into the meat and potatoes without further delay, shall we?
Truth #1: Your product CAN be short
Any skinny guy who wants to learn about muscle building would trade a fluffy guide with a concise one any day of the week. And this applies to everyone in every niche. Not many people are interested in knowing how things were in the 70’s or who invented what.
People looking for a solution online just care about one thing: “What should I do to get there / achieve this / become like this?”
Sure you can give them a history lecture, but it will only take longer to write and won’t make people any happier.
So yes, if you can solve your prospect’s problem in 10 pages, do it!
Truth #2: You can afford not to be an expert
I am not Steven Spielberg, but I can definitely put together a cool video presentation. I have no degree in computing or anything, but I can teach anyone how to make nice and engaging video presentations.
Many people don’t know how to do that and would be happy to pay me $10 to learn how they can quickly get their info recorded.
While experience is good enough, you may want to read 1 or 2 books about the subject to get more insights and ideas.
Truth #3: It doesn’t take a lot of time
How does a 500 word article sound? Not much, right? Well, you can write a concise e-book within 5,000 words. 5,000 words fill up around 11 pages. At the rate of only 1 article a day, you’ll get your e-book done within 10 days. Just break down your workload in small chunks that you can complete on a daily basis.
With an e-cover, table of contents, disclaimer and resources pages, your product will be 15 pages +. You can get everything done (including the sales letter) within 2 weeks.
Truth #4: You don’t have to like what you are writing about
As a marketer, you shouldn’t believe in “love before first sight”. Instead, once you’ve identified a niche that sells and learn more about it, THEN only you will develop a liking for it. And once you learn to love it, writing about it is no more a big deal.
You’ll actually have a small story to tell to your readers in the introduction of your e-book “How I fell in love with ______”!
And anyway, you like making money, right? Then do what it takes to make it! Create your product!
Truth #5: You can get into a marketplace even if there are other “power sellers” in it already
Starbucks is probably the most recognized coffee shop in the world. However, there are hundreds of other coffee shops bringing in the dough everyday.
Having other people selling products similar to yours is NORMAL in this new age. Simply offer a better deal, or provide additional methods to do the same thing to set your product apart. After some initial sales, you can even cross-promote each others’ product to your respective list of buyers’.
There is still an opportunity for a lot of new marketers to get in the info product game. Hop on the money train while it’s still early, and make a difference!
