As with anything else in online real estate the location and traffic is key. Twitad.com will allow you to lease out your own little space on your twitter background to a potential advertiser. The more followers you have the more you can make or you can simply set a low price get a quick sale and just collect some rent for your efforts of letting the world know that you just watched a great movie or that you are reading a book on the beach. But the truth is that you can sign up for an account here and use this opportunity to learn to monetize your online work.

For advertisers you can pick up space for next to nothing and be seen by people that you may never have had an opportunity to before. Given the prices that you can reach these people, the ROI is simple and easy to understand. Check out this case study for some of the more specifics in the opportunity. While the program never go down in history as the first man to sell his forehead on eBay as display advertising space it is a solid play for anyone who is on twitter anyway.

As we move towards 2009 it\’s time to start looking at marketing strategies and sales goals (If you have not already) in the new economy. I have been working with a few of my smaller clients on this since the week before Thanksgiving and I wanted to share some of what we found.

1) Customization. Gone for awhile are the huge R&D budgets. You have to find something that works well for you that can be customized for you and \”run the legs off it\”. Mobile is a great opportunity for many as it\’s versatile, affordable and readily available to be customized to meet a clients needs. Bambuser offers a killer video streaming technology that lets you stream video live from your mobile to the web. Notify people when you go live, shoot with almost no delay, and chat with your viewers while broadcasting. Brightkite Allows you to discover who visits your favorite places. Join the community in real time. See where your friends are and what they\’re up to, in real time, and meet real world friends. Also, you can reveal your location, befriend, and chat with people around you. Restaurant owners are salivating on the opportunity to now broadcast out to social groups and increase business.

2) What you had planned for 2009 a year and a half ago is now garbage. As many times as people nay say it, it\’s a new economy and the playing field is different now. The \”Safe Harbor\” jobs with the big guys are getting handed pink slips left and right and the guy working from the desk in his living room is starting to make a bit of money. This is because of several reasons including his price, his attention to the customer (Hand Holding) and the fact that he has to be result oriented or he is yesterdays news. These small and versatile marketing companies will launch the \”purple cows\” that people will talk about and gravitate towards and not just shotgun hit or miss campaigns.

3) Reach people through social networks. Twitter, Linked In, Facebook, Myspace and others provide an unparalleled and cost effective way to develop relationships with customers & vendors as well as make announcements on price changes, new releases or upcoming events. Don\’t take shortcuts though, don\’t just post to post or ad everyone under the sun just to boost numbers. The number of people isn\’t as important as the quality of the people that are a part of your network. Keep the connections real and make sure that you have fun with it. We all need to get through this together and can come out better on the other end.

4) Lastly, dont buy all the hype. Yes times are hard, yes numbers say this is the worse its been since the \”Great depression\” and yes a lot of people are going to hurt through this. You have to be a positive force for good, you might save some money by not paying a vendor or charging a client more just because you can but it will catch up to you. Warren Buffet once said that “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you\’ll do things differently.” I suggest checking out the social networking site first30days.com as it gives some really great advise, support, news and tips on a variety of subjects.

Enjoy the day,
James

Your parents always told you to put your best foot forward, had they known about twitter they would have said put a picture of your best foot forward. That being said I would like to introduce you to twitpic.com. Sure you twit about everything from your new phone to your latest blog entry but now you can share imagery with it as well. If a picture is worth a thousand words how many twits is that? (that\’s 7.14 full twits for you who need that kind of info). If your so inclined you can simply log into the page and enjoy watching the pictures as they are posted. Hey, was that just a moose with a Santa hat?

But this speaks to a much more important value in building your online brand. It helps your audience \”get to know you\” in our visually driven society. Each uploaded image is a statement about the brand you are carefully orchestrating for your audience. Who you are, what your about and why you do what you do. For those of us in the marketing field it is a fine line between finding opportunity and valuation and being annoying. One will help you to build your business while the other will make sure you dont get invited to the really cool Christmas parties. Besides that, I think the pictures that people post of their kids and the fun they have helps bring all of the twitter community a bit closer and a bit more real.

Wikipedia defines the word Wiki (What I Know Is) as A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language.[1][2] Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis.[2] Wikis are used in business to provide intranet and Knowledge Management systems. Ward Cunningham, a graduate of Purdue University, and developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as \”the simplest online database that could possibly work\”.[3]

That being said, Clearwiki.com makes using an online wiki about as easy as can be. Aided by today\’s technology we can work almost anywhere, anytime and with anyone. I am fortunate enough to work on projects with highly talented people from places I have never heard from and will most likely never visit. The use of an online wiki to coordinate responsibilities, get final approval on artwork or text and virtually anything else is one of the most helpful tools in business available. The free version allows you to invite up to 10 people and after 30 days will start to show ads (Marketers take note, you cant get much better eyeball time than when someone is working on a project at 2 in the morning).
What is it?
A private wiki for your business, accessible only by people that you invite. It is hosted by us, so there is nothing for you to install or maintain.
ClearWiki is feature rich, yet extremely intuitive and easy to use. Your users don\’t need to learn a special wiki language. Navigating through your information has never been so easy.
Knowledge Management
ClearWiki\’s features include a number of contemporary knowledge management techniques, including labelling. Content items can be tagged with labels which are shared by all users of the wiki and intuitively allow a network of information to be constructed. The \’label-cloud\’ allows you to see popular and commonly labelled items easily.

Sign up here to get your own account.

I found this article in Success Magazine on Tony Robbins and some of his views on the current world condition and some sound words of advise that might help some people to get through it. The article can be found here. No matter where you derive strength from the value comes in your ability to not only sustain that passion in your own power but to pass it to others. There is no honor or value in \”Bumming Out\” those around you no matter what the circumstance. In today\’s economic climate you have an opportunity to create not just a business but a force for good for yourself and those who\’s lives are touched by the business.

Q: It seems there\’s more uncertainty in the world now than ever. What do you say to people who are uncertain about their future?

The secret to life is threefold. It\’s to understand what season of life you\’re in, to understand what season the world is in, and to figure out how to take advantage of it. I teach everyone in my seminars how to find the season they\’re in, which is different for everyone, and to take advantage of it. That\’s the secret to experiencing an extraordinary life.

In today\’\’s online commerce world two things are very important, one is that you can get as much traffic to your site as possible and the second is that you makes things as easy as possible on your shoppers. Shopify.com does both for you. With the slogan A shop in minutes, a business for life You begin to see the possibilities of such a tool.
Many people have turned to online business\’\’s as a way of helping make ends meet, this site helps you do it quickly and easily. They not only offer great designs, product management and marketing for your site but offer a basic package for just $24.00 a month. You can even get a free account to try it out. One key feature for me over other sites of this type is that it has a much more customizable series of templates and reports.

You are unique. Your shop can be too.
Why settle for uninspired templates and limited options that stifle your creativity? Shopify gives you as much flexibility as you need:

Instant style: use one of the beautifully designed themes that come free to use with your shop
The professional touch: contact a designer and order a custom solution perfectly tailored to your needs
Roll your own: do the designing yourself and either build your dream theme from scratch or use one of Shopify’s free themes as a jumping-off point.

So what possible reason would a business have for finding out their social footprint? What opportunities could be found in knowing where your found and what people are saying about you on those sites?

Companies today are using this information to
- understand the social media usage of their consumers
- improve their CRM and customer segmentation
- connect with individual consumers across the social web

Rapleaf provides search services that find information about people on the social web, on behalf of businesses and consumers. Top retailers, telcos, political organizations, hotel chains, social networks, and other consumer facing companies use Rapleaf\’s services to gain insight about their consumers and improve their consumers\’ experience. Consumers use Rapleaf\’s services to discover, manage, and control their online information. What the customer experiences from beginning to end must be the focus in today\’s tight economy. To know what social sites your customers belong to can can make or break a sales campaign. I can recommend their service enough if your serious about keeping that contact lifeline with your customers.

An article on the Marketing Pilgrim is saying the 2009 may finally be the year of mobile.

Mobile marketing is often been forecast as the next big thing, however it has often been the case of ‘always the bridesmaid and never the bride’—as mobile marketing campaigns often failed to deliver.

However in 2008, we have started to see a change. Mobile marketing investment is certainly on the increase. Many organisations previously have been reluctant to invest or merely dipping their toe in the water, now have seen increased traffic volumes and ad networks establishing themselves with media buyers.

If your not a mobile solutions provider you might want to consider checking out Rhythm New Media as an ad provider. With clients such as VH1 and BMW they know how to create mobile buzz. Rhythm is enabling ad-supported mobile content with a broad suite of mobile advertising solutions for operators. Rhythm\’s technology enables advertising that has broad reach, sharp targeting and precise frequency management. Rhythm automates key business processes and enables measurement and reporting to each member of the mobile advertising value chain. In addition, Rhythm sources content and sells advertising on behalf of operator customers. They were recently recognized by the MMA as a 2008 award finalist for innovation. They were as you can imagine in against some stiff competition for the award. We wish them luck.

With social networks and listing services sprouting up I think its important to try and separate them some. Notice I didn\’\'t say good from the bad (Even though I do genuinely believe some are not worth the time to join, but to each is own) as everyone has something that works for them. It\’\’s important to remember that the \”tribes\” of today are followed because it is genuinely what works for them. Led by someone that people can gravitate to and saying what they need to hear. MANY of us use Linked In.com, as a business introduction it is an invaluable resource. Today I received an email from one of my contacts there and he shared about a product they have that I might be interested in. Big Contacts is an online CRM on steroids.

This is from his email -

Hello James, hope all is well. I hope you are enjoying our Linked Affiliate Group on LinkedIn! I wanted to let you know about our newest affiliate management client: BigContacts.com BigContacts is a really awesome way to keep on top of all your contacts and do more business. If you are someone like me with thousands of contacts (or hundreds), this tool is invaluable for following-up and getting business done. I have been using the product for a month and it\’s helped me close a few deals, so I\’m pumped! You can signup for a free trial and then upgrade later if you are happy with it. It\’s cheap too, so that\’s great.