» networking

This was recorded LIVE in Las Vegas at the eCommerce Summit 2010

Every day, thousands of small businesses and entrepreneurs miss out on millions of dollars in revenue simply because they don’t know how to utilize the Internet for marketing and selling. This is NOT your same old ABC stuff, these are actual eCommerce practices for Social Media that will yield bottom line results and amp up your business.

 

 

You comments from the #ICENotes hash tag. You can use Twitter to add comments here by simply including the #ICENotes hash tag. Enter your comments, I would really like to hear them!

You can listen to the full presentation above, the slides are below and here is a little information for you…

In the meantime, let me share with you a few links to get you started:

1. HootSuite - You can track, analyze, and review your links. You can schedule tweets for another time. You can search, separate, and organize your friends. It takes 5 different tools I was using and puts them all into one place.
2. Free Ecommerce Icons – Nice set of Icons that will help you create some wonderful images on your website.
3. Rapportive - This neat little Firefox add-on is a MUST HAVE for Gmail users!! Instead of showing you worthless Google Ads that don’t mean a thing to you… you will now see the sender’s photo, social media links, and some of the last Tweets they wrote. WOW! Use this tool to get personal with your customers and keep that customer for life.
4. Wibiya - This little toolbar is perfect for blogs or websites. You can add translation tools, testimonials, search, twitter, facebook, and many other tools that will help keep your customers interactive with you and your website.
5. Survey Monkey – Do you know what your customers want? Do you know what your customers need? Why not ask them instead of assuming? With Survey Monkey you can now get input from your customers… for FREE
6. TubeMogul – Why upload your videos to just YouTube when you can upload your videos to several online websites with one click of a button? TubeMogul will help you save time and help your search engine rankings!
7. Kampyle - Get honest feedback from your customers that you can use to make your website better. This wonderful feedback form will help you learn what you are doing right… and wrong.

Thanks to Shawna Fennell for compiling the list of tool, check her full blog post HERE and here me on her show with a post presentation interview below…

Post Presentation Interview with Shawna Fennel

(press play button and be patient, it takes a minute to buffer)

OR Click to Download

 

You can listen to the full presentation above with the slides.

In the meantime, let me share with you a few links to get you started:

1. HootSuite - You can track, analyze, and review your links. You can schedule tweets for another time. You can search, separate, and organize your friends. It takes 5 different tools I was using and puts them all into one place.
2. Free Ecommerce Icons – Nice set of Icons that will help you create some wonderful images on your website.
3. Rapportive - This neat little Firefox add-on is a MUST HAVE for Gmail users!! Instead of showing you worthless Google Ads that don’t mean a thing to you… you will now see the sender’s photo, social media links, and some of the last Tweets they wrote. WOW! Use this tool to get personal with your customers and keep that customer for life.
4. Wibiya - This little toolbar is perfect for blogs or websites. You can add translation tools, testimonials, search, twitter, facebook, and many other tools that will help keep your customers interactive with you and your website.
5. Survey Monkey – Do you know what your customers want? Do you know what your customers need? Why not ask them instead of assuming? With Survey Monkey you can now get input from your customers… for FREE
6. TubeMogul – Why upload your videos to just YouTube when you can upload your videos to several online websites with one click of a button? TubeMogul will help you save time and help your search engine rankings!
7. Kampyle - Get honest feedback from your customers that you can use to make your website better. This wonderful feedback form will help you learn what you are doing right… and wrong.

Thanks to Shawna Fennell for compiling the list of tool, check her blog post HERE

Press "Play" to listen now

Ecommerce edutainment on demand  

Be sure to subscribe so you do not miss an episode.

Phoenix-based Addoway, a free social marketplace that launched its beta site 3 months ago, is announcing today the launch of its new platform that helps users buy and sell with friends in their social circles.

Online shoppers can use Addoway to find new and used products sold by thousands of independent online merchants and individuals. When a shopper searches for products to buy on the site, Addoway displays search results from people in the shopper’s social networks, including their friends on Facebook and friends-of-friends on Facebook. If shoppers are interested in an item they find on Addoway, they can automatically see if any of their friends know the seller they are considering buying from before the transaction takes place.

“We believe that shopping from people you have a personal connection to not only increases the likelihood that you have a safe, secure shopping experience, but also is a great way to meet new friends”, said Fredrick Nijm, co-founder of Addoway. “We’ve been wanting to build this for a long time, and now that it’s here, we hope to continue to advocate the social e-commerce movement.”

Addoway is the first independent marketplace to automatically show mutual relationships between buyers and sellers in the e-commerce environment. All users also get a social profile with videos, pictures and blogs, as well as their own storefront to sell their products and services.

Over 25,000 ads have been posted on Addoway since the site’s beta launch, and the site does not charge any listing or final sale fees to merchants who sell on Addoway. The company plans to make money by offering premium features to sellers that will be available later this spring.

Remember the relics of the past, your grandfather’s generation of how they used to network? Picture in your mind those bound business card books – remember these? They were small, leather bound with clear sleeves to hold business cards. Some of them were tabbed or alphabetical. That relic was replaced by saving business contacts in Act! Contact software and finally made accessible to all of us via Microsoft Office Outlook. How about the rotary phone? A Rolodex? Actually traveling physically just to network? All things of the past, almost nostalgic in the “Now Generation” of social networking.

So what is the “Now Generation?” Now is Twitter, now is Facebook, Friendfeed, Linked-In, Google Docs, V-cards, and on and on. Social media, instant messaging, email these are the networking tools of the now generation. And many of them can be a huge time suck. We post here, Tweet there, Like and share on Facebook…where does it all come together? And how in the world do we understand, manage and keep it all together?

Enter the bubble concept! Imagine as a child, dipping the blower into the soapy solution, and blowing a constant stream of shiny, tiny bubbles. Then try to imagine yourself gently keeping all of those bubbles in the air at the same time?!? This is a direct parallel to today’s networking life.

Consider your networking efforts as a series of bubbles. A Twitter bubble, a Facebook bubble, a Linked-In bubble. How about your ecommerce and business networking and marketing? We have bubbles on local levels like neighbors, trade association, hobby groups, etc. Each bubble has its place and importance in our lives. Many often intersect and interconnect while others simply stand alone. Once conceptualized the efforts do not seem quite so distant or in the clouds.

Be sure to nurture each of these bubble. Understand that each will shrink, expand and change – do not distress this point, it will happen and is a natural progression. Many in your current bubble will not be there a year from now, as you grow and learn. Guilt over your own self growth in personal or the business realm is not allowed. Move on and adapt, continue to surround yourself with non-toxic people that are where you want to be. On the other hand, there will always be those contacts that you do not wish to allow to fall by the wayside. No matter what, don’t allow them to fall and whither. Here is a personal example…

I have a contact with Mr. Dave White of the eBayandBeyond: Basics to Business podcast. Dave is the godfather of podcasting! Dave was podcasting when podcasting was not even cool many years ago. He knows more about podcasting and the equipment involved for producing a quality podcast than I could probably ever hope to.

He has selflessly shared with me information, tips, tricks, and has simply been a dear friend. I sent him an email once, after several weeks had passed with us not making any contact. We have both been very busy as we moved forward in our lives. The email simply stated;

“Some connections are just too important to me to allow them to go to long without being touched. Consider yourself touched!
—- Phaedra”

Dave replied in a very positive manner and we did not allow our relationship to fall by the wayside. It was quite simply just too important to me. And it obviously worked, since I was sincere. Don’t allow important relationships to fall away simply because you are busy. An email takes mere minutes to compose.

Having laid the foundation for the concept, next we will delve deeper into the meanings, meanderings, and actual workings of networking with today’s tools. It is cloud networking, but we are bringing it down to eye level.

This is part one in a series of posts on “Networking for the Now Generation”. I hope you will tune in for part II soon!

This all started from a couple of crazy late-night Tweets after being fed up with the "hype"

And it ended up a Social Marketing Video

Please Rate My Video with 5-Stars DSR’s

Back in the day I saw a video by my boy Gary Vaynerchuk (author of Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion). I love to listen and watch him, he was one of the first to usher me into the power of social marketing.

Back in the day, Gary made a video about the power of http://Seach.Twitter.com and why it is MORE relevant for information that even Google.com

So here is an illustration of that principle in a very IN YOUR FACE kind of demonstration. Look guys, if you don’t "GET IT, you had better GET IT!"

Please Rate My Video with 5-Stars DSR’s

In today’s world there is a "hyper-network" taking place. We are all hyper networking thanks to social services, both on personal and business levels. By network I mean people who know you, like you and trust you.

The new issue with this hyper networking is that suddenly people are always trying to "keep track" of all of their networkers, for lack of a better term. What I mean is that suddenly people are now seeing if you re-tweet everything they say. Or did you post a back link to their blog post. How many times did you recognize them on a "Twitter follow Friday". That is NOT networking!

Let go and STOP taking score all the time. Stop looking to always come out ahead in a relationship. The concept of what we know as "win-win" is just a disguised way to keep track. Making constantly sure the we come out "even Steven" When you base your relationships in business or in life on "who owes who" or I scratched your back now you scratch mine. That is NOT being a friend, that is being a creditor.

The theory created by the author (John of ColderICE.com) that we have a new term of “Thinship” to describe social relationships. A more defining term for the existence of these types of relationships in social networks.

It is no secret that I am a Twitter nut! I love it for many reasons and it just works for me, literally! I am unashamedly a “bottom line’ person by design and I don’t like to spend time on fruitless ventures, even casually. So I got a saying that “if it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense”.

So how can Twitter help you with your bottom line? Here are a few good links to help you out with that. Let me share with you 15 links about Twitter that can help you grow your own business…

1. Guide to Twitter for Business: By Shara Karasic, Work.com
2. Top 8 Twitter Tips for Business: By Ellen Petry Leanse
3. Question To Consider Before Using Twitter for Business: By Twitter Maven
4. Why Twitter Matters: By Stephen Baker, Businessweek
5. Tweeting for Companies 101: By Tara Hunt
6. How To Listen for Opportunities on Twitter: By Chris Brogan
7. The Evolution of Brands on Twitter: By Jeremiah Owyang
8. Barack 2.0 Business Lessons for Social Media (NON political): By Brent Leary
9. Why Brands Are Unsuccessful on Twitter By Jeremiah Owyang
10.  Is it Time for Corporations to Get a Twitter Presence?: By Valeria Maltoni
11.  Ultimate Guide to Twitter Tools and Resources for Journalists: By New Media Bytes
12.  Twitter for Business Reading List: By Pistachio Consulting
13.  The True Meaning of Twitter: Fortune Magazine, August 2008
14.  How Tweet It Is: Clay Shirky and Bob Garfield
15.  Huge Twitter Resource Page: http://twitterpacks.pbwiki.com/

 

Here is a neat concept. These guys are going to follow Barack Obama’s social network strategy and show you how it can help small business.

A few weeks back David Bullock and Brent Leary  had a
conversation/webinar highlighting some of the reasons they felt small
business people would benefit from taking a closer look at the Obama
campaign’s approach to social media.  They recorded it for your on-demand
viewing:

• Part One – Barack 2.0 Webinar #1 Part 1
• Part Two – Barack 2.0 Webinar #1 Part 2

And they also put together an enhanced transcript of the webinar,
complete with screenshots and links to the sites we discussed during
the conversation:

• Barack 2.0 Webinar #1 Enhanced Transcript And Resource Guide

Here is a neat concept. These guys are going to follow Barack Obama’s social network strategy and show you how it can help small business.

A few weeks back David Bullock and Brent Leary  had a
conversation/webinar highlighting some of the reasons they felt small
business people would benefit from taking a closer look at the Obama
campaign’s approach to social media.  They recorded it for your on-demand
viewing:

• Part One – Barack 2.0 Webinar #1 Part 1
• Part Two – Barack 2.0 Webinar #1 Part 2

And they also put together an enhanced transcript of the webinar,
complete with screenshots and links to the sites we discussed during
the conversation:

• Barack 2.0 Webinar #1 Enhanced Transcript And Resource Guide