A study has been released stating that Facebook has beat out Google as the top source of traffic for major portals like Yahoo, MSN and AOL.  15% of traffic to these sites came from Facebook and MySpace, of which 13% came from Facebook alone.  This brings up a question; does your business really need a website or simply a Facebook Fan Page?

Although I believe you still need both, the future may steer many smaller to mid-sized businesses away from building expensive flashy websites.  If this trend continues the writing may be on the wall, Facebook makes it very easy and cost effective (Free) to get your business online in a matter of minutes.

Facebook recently released some staggering statistics that should make you take notice and get your Facebook Business Fan Page up and running as soon as possible.

- More than 400 million active users
- 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
- More than 35 million users update their status each day
- More than 60 million status updates posted each day
- More than 3 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
- More than 5 billion pieces of content
  (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
- More than 3.5 million events created each month
- More than 3 million active Pages on Facebook
- More than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook
- More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day
- Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans
- Average user has 130 friends on the site
- Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
- Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
- Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month
- Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month
- Average user becomes a fan of 4 Pages each month
- Average user is invited to 3 events per month
- Average user is a member of 13 groups
- More than 70 translations available on the site
- About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States
- More than 500,000 active applications currently on Facebook Platform
- More than 250 applications have more than one million monthly active users
- More than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since December 2008
- More than 60 million Facebook users engage with Facebook Connect on external websites every month
- There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices
- People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users
- There are more than 180 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products
 
There is a bit more to simply throwing up a Facebook Business Fan Page, to get noticed you must promote the page using prominent links on your website and including the Facebook Fan Box on your website and blog.  You should also include a link in your email signature, on your business cards, in your newsletter and pretty much on any offline advertising you do.

Another key factor in building fans is to offer up killer content, helpful tips, techniques and useful information this will lead to a huge following.  Self promotional sales tactics will turn your fans off and your following will dissolve quickly.

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

The 2010 calendar schedule for Wayne County Michigan has been finalized and posted on our website.  Review The Schedule Here.

After a very successful beta launch of our Email Marketing By Zip Code program in 2009 we have rolled out several zip codes within Wayne County Michigan.  We will be rolling out other zip codes throughout Michigan and the entire United States through various distributors.  Solo Email Blasts are currently available to any zip code in the United States.  (contact us if you are interested in becoming a distributor).

Advertising and Marketing are two necessary evils that we business owners must endure to be successful.  More and more companies are refocusing their ad dollars to include various online channels such as banner advertising on popular websites and full blow Email Marketing campaigns.  It is clear that one thing will not change in this some times confusing arena. You need to market and advertise your business using several different avenues, both online and offline and email marketing is one of the more powerful and cost effective ways to increase your online presence.

Email Marketing By Zip Code uses opt-in subscribers, that have requested additional information from local and national merchants.   You can deliver a targeted marketing message right to these subscribers desktop.  This is one of the most dynamic ways you can get your message read at an incredibly minimal cost per exposure.

Example of Group (10) Ad Email Blast:

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a changeling and daunting task.  Just when you think you have figured it out, powerhouses like Google go and change everything.  One technique that remains to be effect is high quality backlinks.  For those that do not know, backlinks are links for other sites that point to your site. You could sit back and wait for others to post links to your quality content, but this process if it happens at all, can take forever. With a little effort you can start building backlinks to your site that will help boost your search engine rankings.

Here are some powerful SEO Tips To Get Backlinks yourself.

Squidoo Lists

Squidoo.com has become one of the most powerful resources on the web to get links back to your site. Copy and paste the following into a Google search bar:

“add+to+this+list”+site:squidoo.com

This will give you a very large list of Squidoo Lenses, and you can add your site to these with very little effort.  Most of them will have a very high PageRank which is a key factor you want to look for in getting backlinks.  When adding your site to these Lenses, be sure to use custom anchor text with the keywords you want to rank for.

You can also search using +”keyword phrase” targeting your links for relevance. For example, if you were trying to rank a dating site you should do a Google search like this:
“add+to+this+list”+”dating”+site:squidoo.com

Web 2.0 Profiles

Creating a profile on Web 2.0 sites like Facebook.com and LinkedIn.com utilizing your website url gives you very high quality backlinks.  Other sites to consider are twibs.com and zoominfo.com.  You should also search out Web 2.0 portals in your niche, if you have a fitness website then search for fitness sites that enable you to create a profile and interact with other members.

Article Marketing

This is one of the more time consuming ways to get backlinks, but is actually one of the best ways to generate multiple backlinks from a single effort.  Be sure that you include a link to your site in the body of your article and yet again at the end in the author bio.  Every article that gets posted generates a backlink to your site. The more articles that get posted, the more links you can build.  Posting on article sites opens the door for other bloggers and site owners to use your article on there sites, giving you yet another avenue for getting backlinks.

Write good quality original articles and submit them to a few article directories. Here are just a few of the most popular ones EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com.

To maximize your efforts, you can submit your article to hundreds of directories using this great resource for automating your article submitting.

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

I have been using Send Out Cards for just over two years now.  I often wonder what if I would have had this amazing business tool throughout my entire 20 years in business.  Were would  Bizarre Promotions be today if I had only send out a few greeting cards to clients and prospects alike on a regular basis.  That could very well be the million dollar question.

It’s Said That Customers Leave Because They Don’t Feel Appreciated.

Studies show the #1 reason customers stop doing business with a company is “perceived indifference,” meaning they feel taken for granted and neglected.  The numbers are staggering 68% of customers that leave did so because they didn’t feel the love.

Like most, I always had good intentions of sending thank you cards to my clients, but would get busy with then next project and simply not take the time to do this much needed task.  I even had greeting cards printed or even post cards printed with the same generate “Thank You” all with the same generic picture.  All I had to do is address it, stamp it and drop it in the mail box and I didn’t do it 75% of the time.

In regards to prospecting, statistics show most sales take at the very least 5 contacts or exposures – in fact 80% of sales are made on the fifth contact.  Most sales people never make it to number 5, most stop trying after the second failed attempt.  And in regards to trade show follow up nearly 65% of all leads are NEVER contacted, not even once.  I know I am guilty of this.

So why is this such a big problem?  We as sales people and or business owners know what it takes to grow a business, follow up, persistence and thanking those that make you and your business exist are all vital ingredients.  My “Why” is lack of a system, an automated system that does the heavy work for me? 

Since becoming a Send Out Cards distributor (not just a customer) I am able to follow up will all my trade show leads, thank my customers, send birthday cards, holiday cards and simple thinking of you cards. This system is the automation that I needed to fill the void I had struggled with for all these years.

One of the main features that sold me was the ability to set it and forget it by creating campaigns that will automatically send out cards when ever you want them to go out.  One of my favorite campaigns is my “Thank You” campaign.  The campaign consists of 3 greeting cards and 2 post cards.  First it sends out a thank you card, thanking the recipient for their business.  Then 30 days later post card featuring a promotional product tip hits their mail box.  Then 45 days later a motivational greeting cards arrives, 6 months out and 1 year out a reminder to reorder and or visit our website to check out the latest specials.  My customers are well worth the incredible low $4.36 it costs me to send these five exposures out (that’s $4.36 total).

Remember if you are not thanking your customers somebody else is ready and willing to thank them.

If you’d like to send out a few greeting cards on me using Send Out Cards contact me here and I will walk you through the process in about 15 minutes.

To Your Success!

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

I get asked over and over again, How Can I Get More Followers On Twitter? I came across this site that shows you away of getting 1000’s of new followers on twitter, I just started using it myself and it’s starting to work already.

It’s quick and easy, you don’t have to supply your email address and best of all it’s FREE.

For more details visit the site by clicking here: I Want More Twitter Followers!

Please come back to this page and post your results.

Thank you,

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

I was pleasantly surprised that my “Getting On Page One Of Google Challenge” took less than one week for all three of the keyword phrases I was targeting.

This morning I thought I’d check the progress on all three and was amazed that all three were on the first page of Google.

Promotional Products For Lawyers – Google Listing #4 and #5 (first page)
Promotional Products For Law Firms – Google Listing #4 (first page)
Promotional Products For Attorneys – Google Listing #3 (first page)

Bonus: When changing the word “products” to “items” I found similar results

Promotional Items For Lawyers – Google Listing #4 and #5 (first page)
Promotional Items For Law Firms – Google Listing #5 (first page)
Promotional Items For Attorneys – Google Listing #4

I estimate that these listings will generate 100 additional visitors to my site every month (Free Traffic). It took me about 1 hour to produce the three web pages with different content on each page.  Targeting and ranking for popular keywords like “Promotional Products” takes a lot of time and effort, but going after long tail keyword phrases that are less popular are pretty easy to rank for.

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

When reviewing Google Analytics I found that someone had landed on my site using the keyword phrase “Promotional Products For Lawyers” this got my curiosity up so I jumped on a Keyword Tool I use called Wordtracker to see just how many people are using this phrase everyday.

The results came back estimating 14 searches – which is not really that great, also in the mix was two related phases “Promotional Products For Law Firms” and “Promotional Products For Attorneys” both of these also with 14 searches.  So between these three long tail phases I am looking at generating 42 additional visitors just by ranking on the first page of Google for them – that’s free traffic.

In doing a bit more research on this quest for the almighty first page, I Googled these phrases to see how competitive they are (how many competitor pages come up when conducting a search).

• Promotional Products For Lawyers – 478,000 result pages
  Promotional Products For Law Firms -  364,000 result pages
  Promotional Products For Attorneys -  919,000 result pages

Due to the low estimated searches I found there are not many pages competing for these keyword phrases.  In reviewing the listings on the first page of Google I found the top ranking sites to be of low quality without many backlinks.

All these factors will make it pretty easy to get on the first page of Google in my opinion.

I am turning to the techniques I learned from being a long time user of a great product called SEO Elite.  I estimate I can be on the first page of Google for all three of these phrases in less than 30 days.

Stay tuned for future posts on the progress of this challenge.

THE RESULTS ARE IN

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

Early this week I attended a networking event and started some basic dialog with a gentleman, I asked him if he have been utilizing any social networks to build his business.  He blasted me with “Facebook and Twitter are a waste of time” and went on to tell me his sales staff do not get any work done and have not meet their sales goals since joining the social network craze.

I had to sit back and just listen; I really was thrown back and speechless for the first time in a long time. Normally I would have gave my 2 cents sharing the great experiences my company has had since I started using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to name a few.  But I was actually scared that this guy was gonna go off the deep end if just one more person spouted off about it.

This guy may have a point to some extent; it is easy to get wrapped up in the whole social networking thing.  You can easily find your self trapped in an endless loop of posts, pictures and links only realizing 3 hours have flown by and you have not generated any new business.  Time management is key to maximizing your online networking efforts.  I spent 30 to 45 minutes tops per day on all the various networks I participate in, anymore could just be a waste of valuable time as “Mr Facebook Sucks” was preaching.

I can say that using these networks have opened the doors to many new customers not to mention I have reconnected with past customers opening opportunities that would have not been available otherwise.  I am a social network success story that would never consider these avenues a waste of time.

Here are some quick points to remember with using Twitter

Remember, you have only 140 characters for your tweet (Twitter post).

1. Tweet about how you helped a client today. Example: “Today we shipped 1,000 Pens to Purple Banana Construction for their 2008 Convention”

2. Tweet about what you are doing in your business today. Are you blogging, prospecting, sending thank you cards, finalizing a quote for a client?

3. Tweet about a useful tool you are using to increase your productivity. Example: Just downloaded a new Firefox Plug-In that saves me time doing…

4 Tweet a question.  I need a new Fax Machine – any suggestions?

5 Tweet a survey. Example: I am considering a new laptop – should I get a Mac or PC?
 
6. Respond to others with advice or answers. Building relationships is key to maximizing Twitter, so help your Tweeps, if someone asks a question chime in or ask a follow-up question.

7. Acknowledging new followers is huge. This will help out the new follower because it exposes their Twitter profiles to others who may have never heard of them. So, to thank your followers, you’d tweet, “Welcome new followers @twittername, @twittername, etc.”

10. Automate your tweets. TwitterFeed turns all of my blog posts into tweets. aWeber.comturns each ezine issue into a tweet. EzineArticles.com tweets my followers every time I publish an article through their service. You just need to connect the particular service to your Twitter account. Once all the services are connected, you get free and automated Twitter posts with no effort.

Twitter can be a great time-waster or an amazing way to market your business and build relationships that will last a life time and increase your bottom line.

Follow Me On Twitter

Friend Me On Facebook

Connect With Me On LinkedIn:   tim (at) promostuff4u.com

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

Imagine a way to send a high-quality post card or greeting card like this one, in your own handwriting with your own signature, from your computer in a matter of seconds.

Now imagine sending that same card to 12, 74, or even a few hundred clients or prospects, in that same time with one click of the mouse.

You don’t have to go to the store, pick up a pen, stuff an envelope, lick a stamp, or even pay someone to do it for you!

You can even create time sequenced multi-card campaigns, click one button and the cards will go out on autopilot.  Want to upload a picture or graphic to really blow the recipient away – no problem.

I have been using Send Out Cards to keep in touch with Clients, Prospects, Friends and Family for well over a year now and can’t image how I survived without it.

Try it Right Now and send two cards on me for FREE!

Send Out Cards 

To Your Success!

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.