As a small business owner, it’s important to your success to understand social media’s benefits and why it’s worth the time to learn and make a part of your marketing routine.

So why care about social media right now?

Proves You are a Living, Breathing, REAL Person
It sounds kind of funny but it’s crucial. Humans need to feel they are connecting with others and that their voices are being heard. You can’t really get away with being a faceless entity doing business on the web anymore. Those who are still doing it that way risk alienating those making the buying decisions.

Branding
There is plenty of opportunity to build and make visible your particular brand–while still being human. You don’t need to think of this in terms of the big boys like Starbucks or Pepsi-type branding. It could even just be colors, a logo, your avatar picture or tagline. If you use the tools regularly, each impression strengthens others’ awareness of what your products or services are about. Keep your messages and branding activities consistent and cohesive and you have a powerful way to promote yourself and what it is you offer.

Viral Word of Mouth
Is every friend or follower you have on social sites going to be a member of your target market? No, but it doesn’t matter. If you are providing good content, helpful links and regularly contributing something useful to the community, the viral nature of social media will help push this content through to the people who
need to hear it.

Speed of Results
While building up the ranking of your website takes time and often can’t be predicted, the impact of social networks and tools can be instantaneous.

Traffic
When you list your link in your profile or direct people to your latest post or article it is just another way to drive traffic to your blog or website. I’ve had great results with Facebook and Twitter by looking at the traffic source stats in my Google Analytics page.

Value Contribution
You have something of value to offer others–that’s why you’re in business. The conversational nature of social media makes it easy to engage others in discussions which naturally reveal what you may be able to help them with. Be authentic, stay involved, an give regardless of how much you get back.

It’s Not Going Away
The names and faces of the latest tools and networks may change but the benefits that their interactive nature provides are real and working very well for countless small business owners.

Isn’t it time you discovered that for yourself? :)

© 2009 Communicate Value. All Rights Reserved.

Christine Gallagher, The Online Marketing and Social Media Success Coach, is founder of Communicate Value, where she is dedicated to teaching small business owners and professionals how to conquer the overwhelming aspects of online and social media marketing to increase business and maximize profits. To get your F.R.E.E. 5-Part E-Course and receive her weekly marketing & success articles on leveraging technology, building relationships and boosting your profits, visit http://communicatevalue.com

If you’ve been following me or subscribed to my newsletter for a while, you already know I love article marketing as a promotional strategy.  One place I regularly submit my articles to is WAHM Articles, and you can find more info below about the site.

This week we’ve been authorized to giveaway ONE Platinum membership to the article marketing forum!  In addition, I’ll include a free copy of my guide to article marketing for the winner.  Would you like to enter?  Just post a comment below and we’ll draw a random winner on May 6th then announce it in the newsletter next week.

Many women with home businesses discover that being a work at home mom requires a lot more time, money and energy than they had expected.

If your time and energy is in short supply, and your business needs a boost, WAHM-Articles.com has launched a new social networking community that might help.

The WAHM-Articles Forum helps work-at-home-moms learn how to market their businesses in less time and more effectively by using article marketing. Article marketing is a marketing strategy where you write articles to promote your products and services and let others publish them for free in exchange for a link back to your site.

Many of the members at the WAHM-Articles Forum are experienced article marketers and publishers, so it’s a great place to hook up with website owners who are looking for articles like yours and ask all your article marketing questions.

In the forum, they talk about everything to do with article marketing, including:

-   How to write articles that get more traffic to your website or blog
-   How to use your articles to get more subscribers to your mailing list
-   How to get your article readers to visit your website
-   How to convince those website visitors to buy from you.

Joining the forum is free. There is also a Platinum membership that gives you access to article reviews, article marketing training, and valuable resources and discounts. Platinum memberships are available for an introductory price of $50 a year.

If you want to learn how to get more traffic and sales in less time, I recommend you go to http://www.WAHM-Articles.com/forum and register for a free account.

I’m a member and I’ve already learned a lot from the community there. If you join us, you can discover how to spend less time on marketing your website so you have more time spend with the kids, or on taking your business to the next level.

I’d love to see you there! You can register at http://www.WAHM-Articles.com/forum

Want to keep up with my articles?  Looking for free content you can reprint on your blog or website, or in your newsletter?  Check out my new articles website at http://articlesbymichelleshaeffer.com

Subscribe to the RSS feed and you’ll be the first to know when I post new articles.

Do you write articles for marketing your business?  It’s a great way to share what you know and promote your business at the same time.

Want your own ArticlesByYou.com website?  Here are the steps I took to create mine:

1) Register a domain.

2) Set up hosting (if you’ve got a website hosting package already you can probably setup an add on domain at no additional monthly cost).

3) Install Wordpress.  I did this through Fantastico in my cPanel, takes just a couple of minutes.

4) Add and activate your theme.  I used Revolution 2’s Office theme and hacked it just a bit to make it work nicely for my articles.

5) Set up categories and post your articles.

And that’s it.  :)

Clients and friends frequently approach me with questions about emails regarding their domain names that just don’t “feel” legitimate, and for good reason! Domain name scams are becoming more and more common. These scam attempts are also becoming more sophisticated, less obvious and using unethical techniques that cause the domain owner to worry that they may lose their domain or another company may be trying to steal it. Depending on the scam, they may be after your domain name, your money in transfer fees, or your credit card details for fraud and identity theft.

Fortunately, there are seven easy things you can do to keep your domain name and related information safe, and they only take a few minutes each.

1) Know who your domain name registrar is.

When you purchase your domain name be sure to print out your receipt and keep it somewhere safe. The original registrar is the only company who should contact you about your domain renewal, and their website is where you will go to renew your domain name. One common scam involves a company sending out official looking renewal notices through the mail. If you send in the renewal notice with your payment they’ll transfer your domain to their company where you’ll be stuck paying higher fees or dealing with other problems.

2) Use a secure password as your domain registrar (not something like your name or a password you use for other things).

We all know passwords should be secure. Is yours? If not, go to www.random.org and generate a secure string including both letters and numbers and update the password you use to access your domain records at your registrar. Make an note for yourself so you don’t forget your password. It’s important to use a different password for different sites. Otherwise, if someone hacks your email account password they may suddenly have access to your domain name account,
your PayPal or banking accounts! Don’t allow that opportunity.

3) Keep your personal contact information up to date on your domain
records.

If your email address changes, update your domain registrar so your renewal notices and other important communications from them can reach you. Your mailing address also needs to be kept up to date.

4) Lock your domain name at your registrar.

Domain registrars offer a feature called “domain locking” that can help your domain stay safe. It’s usually free and will prevent someone from transferring your domain to another registrar without
your permission. It’s simple to unlock later if you decide you’d like to transfer your domain.

5) Consider using domain privacy protection.

Most domain related scams learn your contact information by doing a whois search for the publicly available domains records. Search for your domain at www.domaintools.com to see what information comes back about your domain. If your personal name, address, and other information is available, contact your domain name registrar and ask them about privacy protection.

6) Renew your domain name early and for as many years as you feel
is reasonable considering the purpose of the domain.

If your domain is your business name and you know you’ll want to keep it for a long time, go ahead and renew it for 5 or 10 years. If it’s a temporary domain that you may not keep, register for a
year but renew early each year you decide to keep it. Never wait until the last minute to renew a domain.

7) Never click the links in an email about your domain, always go
directly to the website of your registrar.

Many phishing emails work by sending out an “official” looking email that links to a website that looks almost like the real one, but it’s a fake site setup to gather login details and credit card
information. You can protect yourself by never using links in email to access websites. Instead, go to your browser and type the real address directly into your browser bar to get to the website.

Taking these seven precautionary steps can help ensure that your domain name stays protected.

A subscriber on the Powerful Business Networking group asked for a checklist of steps to starting an online store.  Here’s what I shared..

Off the top of my head, here are some steps I’d recommend:

* Check local and state licensing/permit requirements for the business area and structure you’ve chosen — get your DBA or LLC setup, etc
Federal (US) — http://tinyurl.com/262r7x
State — http://tinyurl.com/2hbrul
Local — http://tinyurl.com/yvxzus

* Choose your business/product line names and do searches to be sure you don’t violate an existing trademark or service mark: http://tinyurl.com/26dp91

* Decide on your account method (keep good records!)

* Decide on and sign up for your payment acceptance methods
PayPal — http://www.paypal.com
Google Checkout — http://checkout.google.com
Merchant Account — http://cdgcommerce.com

* Research and choose a domain name and website host
I have a free PDF on my website that is helpful for this step, called “Getting Started Online”:
http://themusesguide.com/resources.html

* Start working on a marketing plan.  Be sure to include getting listed in online shopping directories, Google Base (http://base.google.com), etc.  I offer a free mini marketing workshop that covers some basics at http://www.marketingbrainstormworkshop.com/miniworkshop

* Begin researching and choose your shopping cart
Start by listing out all the features that you need, such as types of products you want to sell (virtual downloads or physical shipped products), what shipping and payment methods you need, whether you need to be able to collect taxes on your products, your technical ability level (because some carts are much more user friendly than others), etc.  Be sure to really research shopping carts and make sure that you know what features you want before you pick one.  Look around to see what other stores in your business are using and how it works for them.  Ask friends or colleagues what carts they’re using and if they’re happy with them.

* Create your logo and customize your website/shopping cart, setting up your payment methods, shipping methods, categories, products, informational pages, etc

* Setup a newsletter/announcement list and add it to your website.  I recommend www.aweber.com but there are lots of other options.  I do not recommend Yahoo Groups or anything similar that requires your customers to go sign up for an account somewhere just to get your newsletter.  Make it easy for them.  Yahoo Groups is great for connecting and interactive groups.  Other services are better for business newsletters.  Spring for one that does not add advertisements to your newsletters.  www.ymlp.com is another good, reliable service to consider.

* Request feedback on your website/store so far from trusted colleagues, your business coach, etc

* Do a final check on your site to be sure it’s easy to purchase from (run test purchases), and that it’s easy for sutomers to find the important information such as your policies, shipping prices, payment acceptance methods, etc.  You may find the “Writing Your Polices” and “Creating Customer Confidence” downloads on my site helpful in this step:
http://themusesguide.com/resources.html

* Open your store for business and being PROMOTING!!  Follow your marketing plan and dono’t get discouraged if it takes a bit of time to get your business going.  It usually does but if you stick with it and keep marketing things will happen.

I’ve been asked several times how to get started writing and selling ebooks, workshops, or other virtual products. Here’s my process and some other advice from me.

** Writing Your Own eBooks **

There are lots of different ways to write, this is just what works for me.

1 ) Choose Topic and Deadline

Obviously the first step. You need to choose your topic. Before you choose make sure there’s a market for what you’re planning to write. Set a reasonable deadline to have your project completed.

2 ) Write Outline and Sales Page

Next, write the basic outline of your ebook including any worksheets or supplementary material you want to include. This can be a great point to write your sales page at because as you’re writing it you can include the things you want to share and the benefits of the product, which will help you develop and focus your outline.

Take your outline and set mini-goals for each section based on your overall deadline so you know which part needs completed when to reach your goal in time. Leave time at the beginning for research and time at the end for proofreading and seeking feedback.

3 ) Research

Based on your outline, you should have a good idea which areas you already know what you need to write and which areas you need to research. Like any other writing project make sure you have multiple sources for your information. Consider the library, books, periodicals, reference books, wikipedia and online resources, surveys, interviews, etc as you research.

4 ) Write

Next step is writing. It takes me anywhere from a few days to a few months to finish a special report or ebook, just depends on how much time I can invest in it (I work from home with my website design/hosting business, homeschool my two boys, and have a 3 year old daughter, so I don’t always have a ton of time to spend on my ebooks).

I use Microsoft Word to write my books in if I’m on my Mac (99% of the time) or Open Office if I’m on my PC. If you need nice software to write in with formatting features, try www.openoffice.org

As I write I sprinkle in clip art or photos where appropriate to add some visual interest. I like www.istockphoto.com and you can also check www.bigstockphoto.com or www.clipart.com for royalty-free images.

5 ) Proofread

When I’ve finished writing, I print a copy then set the ebook aside for at least a few hours or a day, and come back and proofread with fresh eyes. I generally also have my VA proofread for me.

Hint: If you have more than one person proofread, have them turn on “track changes” in Microsoft Word so you can easily spot their edits and decide whether you agree or not.

6 ) Get Feedback & Revise as Needed

Send your completed ebook to a few colleagues or friends who are willing to review it for you and offer their impressions and advice, then make any necessary changes. This is also a good time to solicit testimonials and feedback that you can add to your sales page.

7 ) Convert to PDF

If you’re on a Mac running OS X, you can print to PDF by doing File / Print / PDF. It’s pretty easy.

If you’re on a PC and don’t have Adobe to convert your file to PDF, here are some free alternatives:
www.pdf995.com
www.pdfonline.com

I don’t recommend using .exe format files because you’re cutting all Mac users (I think it’s about 8-10% of computers right now, and growing) out of your market if you do. I’ve seen more than one ebook that I would have loved to purchase, but it was only available in .exe format so I couldn’t purchase. If you are determined to use .exe, please consider providing an alternative .pdf format and purchase route for Mac users who may want to purchase your ebook. And make sure you note somewhere what format your ebooks are in. I’ve also purchased a product before after scouring the sales page to be sure it didn’t say Windows only, then sure enough when I downloaded, it was Windows only. I won’t be purchasing anything from that internet marketer again.

8 ) Design Cover & Add to Website

Sometimes I do this step sooner with a “Coming Soon!” note. I personally use Photoshop to design my boxshots and covers. For boxshots I design the cover image, then use the Perspective or Distort tool to make it 3D-ish (this is how I did Jenn’s boxshots and the ones for my workshops). An easy way to do a report cover is to purchase an image from somewhere like www.istockphoto.com then put your cover on top of it (this is how I did the report series covers I have — the spiral notebook image was from istockphoto). Or use layers and shadows to make your image look like a few pages (this is how I did the images on the “Free Resources” page). You can see samples at www.themusesguide.com if you’d like.

** Selling Your eBooks **

There are a lot of ways to sell your products. After a lot of research and trial and error… I don’t recommend the strung together solutions where you hack a traditional shopping cart to make it work for downloads. You’ll spend more time trying to get it to work and dealing with frustrated customers when they don’t get their downloads or can’t figure out where to download their product, etc. Go for a cart that is *designed* for downloads and you’ll be able to sleep better at night. ;-)

The solutions below range from FREE to $100/month. So even if you’re just getting started, one of these will work for you. :-) These are generally copy & paste type code buttons. You login, setup your product by giving the name, description, image, price, etc, and then when you save your info the service will give you a bunch of HTML code that you then copy & paste into your website. This can be used on plain HTML sites, Wordpress sites, any site that you can access your coding or add HTML snippets, you can use these carts to sell your products.

Payloadz
www.payloadz.com
Quick and easy to use, the files are securely stored on their server, and it’s free for under $100/month in sales. Here are the features and price points for various sales levels: https://www.payloadz.com/account/acct_levels.asp

e-Junkie
www.e-junkie.com
$5 per month, no limits, no other fees
works with PayPal, Google Checkout or Authorize.net

YouPublish (new site/service, just launched)
www.youpublish.com
Video overview here: https://www.youpublish.com/pages/welcome_video
You get 50% of sales prices on your files here, sort of like if they’re an affiliate promoting your products

WAHM Cart
www.wahm-cart.com
$30/month
Includes your cart/checkout plus newsletters and autoresponders

1ShoppingCart and all the variations
Around $100/month
Includes your cart/checkout plus newsletters and autoresponders

I haven’t used this one but it’s the gold standard of carts for internet marketers and a lot of them have their own branded versions like MichaelPort.com offers it as the Booked Solid Cart.

** Promoting Your eBooks **

Here are some easy ways to promote your ebook:

– If you sign up with Payloadz or YouPublish some of your promotion will be done for you since they list your books in their searchable catalogs. But here are some other ways to promote your books.

– If you accept PayPal, get listed in the PayPal marketplace:
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_profile-site

– Choose a good, helpful excerpt from your book and convert it into an article to share. Be sure your blurb at the bottom is strong and includes a promo for the book with a link to your sales page. Submit it to www.ezinearticles.com, www.wahmarticles.com, etc or have your VA submit for you.

– Convert your title page, table of contents, and a few pages from your ebook into a “preview” version and offer it free on your website for visitors to download. This way they can get a good idea of the contents and style of your writing to see if it will work for them.

– Post about your ebook on your blog. Include a link to your free preview file.

– Add your ebook preview link or sales page to your forum signature and/or email signature.

There’s my process and some other info that I hope helps you as you create and publish your ebooks.

P.S. You’re welcome to stop by my website at http://www.themusesguide.com to see the ebooks, special reports, and workshops I’ve created and how I set them up for sale including their product images, the cart I’m using, the previews (previews are down for some edits right now but I’m hoping to have them back up within a few days), etc. There’s a special deal available on my report series right now celebrating the launch of my two newest products, it’s on the “special reports” link.