Facebook Profiles vs. Pages.  The debate rages on.

Facebook developed Pages as a way for businesses to promote themselves and to make a distinction between people and businesses.  But many people continue to use their profile for business use.

Mike Klingler, creator of the Renegade Professional internet marketing training site,  started a Facebook discussion about Profile Pages vs. Fan Pages for business use.

The discussion is heating up, with people on both sides feeling strongly about their choices.

Which do you prefer?  Do you mind blending your business life with your personal, or do you prefer to keep them separate.

Below is my response to this discussion.  You won’t find it posted because Facebook is being a little glitchy and I can’t get it to post.

Hi Mike,

I’m trying this one more time today.

I agree that we need to walk our talk so that our private lives and our business lives are in sync in terms of our values.  I can’t imagine finding contentment if I thought a certain value applied to one part of my life and not the other.  I’d be wacky in no time if I lived like that.

So I’m completely on board with a holistic approach to one’s biz life.

Still, there are some very real reasons why people want to separate the 2 parts of their lives in terms of FB.

I only friend people I know but I allow anyone to fan me.  If I used my profile for biz, then I would have lots of friends who were actually strangers.  Further, by doing this biz I have chosen to have my name spread across the internet, while my friends and family have not.  If I make my profile page very public, these are my concerns:

1.The privacy of my loved ones.  If my friends and family post about their lives and I have strangers who can access my wall, their lives are suddenly public.  Yes, I know that FB is not private, but not everyone grasps that.  I am friended with lots of kids and I don’t want their info exposed to people I don’t know.

2.  Spamming my friends and family.  My loved ones have not requested biz info from me.  Even if my content if superb, it’s spammy to talk about work in a home setting (it’s a little like pulling out the compensation plan during Thanksgiving dinner).  My profile friends want to hear about my private life, not the latest email marketing technique.

To me, this is the implementation of Attraction Marketing.  As long as my loved ones have not asked for my biz info, I won’t flash it in front of them.  When they see my magnificent success and how I glow with happiness in my biz, I’m sure they’ll come knocking at my door! 

3.  Sometimes I just want to be private.  Of course I share a lot about my private life in my biz and I’m quite proud of my personal accomplishments.  But there are times I just want to make a post that doesn’t go in my biz life (maybe this is the introvert in me talking).  Maybe I want to kvetch about the weather with a friend who understands or maybe I have a kooky interest that I want to share with just my friends.  This separation seems healthy to me.

Note:  even as I write this I know it is only half true–if I really wanted to share intimately with my friends, I wouldn’t choose FB to do it.  In reality, FB is false intimacy.  But I’m sure you can get the idea.

Yes, I know that I can fuss with the privacy settings on FB and address many of these concerns.  But privacy setting are not foolproof and they are an extra step.

The point is that I think one can be in alignment with our values and still want our profile separate from our biz page.

So Mike, you suggested that there should be no problem with mingling biz and private, and I suggest that there is no problem with separating them either.

@Eric, and @ Brian,

Eric, I love your story.  I can really see the value in sharing yourself and like I said, I have never been one person in public and a different person in private.  I agree that we are who we are, in biz and in our lives.

But for me, I still relate to Brian’s experience that there are some parts of ourselves that we share best with our most intimate family and friends.  There are private moments when I want or need my family support and for a myriad of reasons, don’t want strangers to be part of that moment.

Eric–your example of asking a question and getting answers from a really wide group of friends–both close and distant is great.  But your question wasn’t particularly personal–it was interesting (in fact, it was a brilliant question to engage people!).  The same question could be used on a page or a profile.  And I think it was its uniqueness that attracted people to answer.  Would you have gotten 23 comments if you had just said that you had oatmeal for breakfast?  And would you have gotten the same branding?

It’s interesting that you feel like your page builds your brand and identity because I have the opposite experience.  When I see a feed with all sorts of musing and revelations from people I barely know, it doesn’t engage me in them.  I need a relationship with them first before I care about their private life or their philosophies.

Maybe part of our thoughts about profile vs. page comes from our own experiences with how we bond with people.  For me, I can’t imagine bonding over FB.  For you, FB can start the relationship.  For me, FB comes AFTER I know them.

Thanks, Mike, for this discussion.  I’ve been trying to help people with just these issues and it is really great to have a discussion to explore them in.

Julia

Marketing Elves Make the Holidays Profitable!

While I’ve been writing and studying marketing, few of you know about my secret career as a marketing elf.

In this recently released video, you will see me (I’m the one in green) providing all the solutions to the average businessman’s marketing needs.  With just a wave of my elfin fingers, voila!  He has the promotion he dreamed of.

Do Marketing Elves Really Exist?

Wouldn’t we all love to had a marketing elf come and solve our problems for us?

The best real life marketing elf I know of is Renegade Professional.  This elf shows you the way to buid your business using the internet.  Just like the elf in the video, there are step by step tutorials, clear instructions and lots of help.

Renegade Professional Brings Marketing Cheer

When you join Renegade Professional, it is just like Holiday Bounty.  Here is a list of just some of the resources:

YouTube Tutorials:  21 tutorials coming to over 6 hours of instruction

Squidoo Tutorials:  23 tutorials coming to over 5 hours of instruction

Google Adwords Tutorials:  9 tutorials coming to over 2 hours of instruction

Lead Capture Page Tutorials:  21 tutorials coming to over 6 hours of instruction

Email Marketing Tutorials:  8 tutorials coming to over 6 hours of instruction

Writing with Pull Tutorials:  44 tutorials coming to over 7 hours of instruction

Attraction Marketin over the Phone Tutorials:  7 tutorials coming to over 6 hours of instruction

…And this is just a partial list.

It’s Like Having X-Ray Vision…

My personal experience with Renegade Professional has been amazing.  When I joined, I already had 2 websites started so I thought I was hot stuff.  I thought I knew my way around internet marketing.

Renegade Professional showed me how the internet really works.  It was like getting and xray of the internet and seeing the inside.  Internet marketing involves a web of connections and links.  This is everything from backlinks (for the spiders), to social media links (for real, human relationships).

While this may seem obvious, its deeper meaning has changed the way I think of business.  Before Renegade Professional, I had lots of separate pieces of marketing knowledge.  The tutorials brought them all together into a full picture.   Building relationships became more than just keywords and traffic statistics–it became meeting real people.

Not for Everyone

But of course, it’s not for everyone.

If you don’t want to learn internet marketing, and it amazes me but not everyone does, then this is not for you.

And if you don’t like having someone show you what you need to do to get internet marketing to work, then this is not for you.

If you insist in figuring everything out yourself, then this is not for you.

And if you don’t have the time or ambition to learn internet marketing, then this is  not for you.

Contact Me for a FREE 45 Minute Consultation

Renegade Professional is the most complete internet marketing training that I know of, but honestly, it is not for everyone and I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone.

Contact me and I will give you a FREE 45 Minute Consultation.  During this consultation, I will assess your business challenges and give you may recommendations to build your business.  No, I will not recommend Renegade Professional if I don’t think it will meet your needs.  Each plan I give will be personalized to your needs and situation.  By the end of the consultation, you will have an Action Plan to get your business growing.

Contact me today and get your business off the ground.  It will be like have 8 strong reindeer, lifting you into the sky.

Small Print:  With the dawn of a new era in internet marketing, led by our dear FTC, I will disclose that, of course, I make a commission if you sign up for Renegade Professional or any of the other products I recommend.  I am running an internet business, so money must be made.  But I can assure you that I only recommend products that I believe are the best out there.  And in my consultations, I only recommend what I believe would serve you best.

One more note:  I belong to a business group which supports buying locally.  This video was made to get our members to join our Holiday Promotion and get all the local businesses of Dane County, Wisconsin participating.

When you shop this year, Think Local First!

If you have ever wondered about the power of really owning your niche, you will be convinced of its importance in this video.

John Nese is the proprietor of Galcos Soda Pop Stop in LA.  He stocks over 500 types of soda–everything from rose petal soda to cucumber soda to a cola cream soda.  He knows the difference between the bubbles, the ingredients, the types of glass that the bottles use–he can even quote health facts about why sugar is better than corn syrup.

This guy knows soda.

And if you want soda, you’d go to him.

Watch this fascinating video to see a true master at niche business.  He found a niche and he went deep instead of wide.

You want juice?  Go somewhere else.

You want Pepsi?  He’ll point you to the store down the road.

But if you want soda made from small breweries, he’s got it for you.

Niches work.

It’s important to remember to keep the human touch when you build your business.  Ustream can help you do that.

Building your business with the internet can mean that you gain your lead, build trust with them, complete a purchase with them and never interact personally.

Sometimes this works well for people.  They want to buy what they need and move on.

But when you business involves service (and even if it doesn’t), it is a good thing to remember peraonal, human interactions.

Ustream.tv, a website which allows you to stream live video to the internet in real time is a great solution.

With Ustream, you can interact with your customers, answer their questions and build your rapport with the;m.

I’ve made a short video on  how Ustream.tv can help your business.

When your customers have a question, need to see a demonstration, or just want to see who your are, Ustream is a great solution.

And if you’re feeling tech-challenged or don’t know how to apply Ustream to internet Attraction Marketing, I recommend Renegade Professional for your one stop shop for internet marketing training.

You can’t reach success without failure.

I never knew that you had to fail to succeed.

When I was growing up, I was taught that failure was, well, failure.  Failure was not supported.  Failure was something to be ashamed of.

It has only been though building a business that I have made friends with failure.  I fail.  I get up.  I move on.

Envelope stuffing, daycare, making candles…  What is the best home business for Mom?

The best home business for mom is an internet business.  With the internet, you can reach people world wide who want exactly what you have to offer.

Are you selling all natural make-up?  Use the internet to find the women who want just that.

Do you know the best way to arrange flowers for wedding centerpieces?  Use the internet to teach what you know and sell supplies to brides.

Gone are the days psyching yourself up to face rejection about the products you know are good.

While there are many businesses for a work at home mom, all of them could benefit from an internet presence.  By using the internet either as your sole marketing tool, or as an addition to what you already have, the best home businesses use the internet.

What if I have an MLM?

Many wahm moms already have a network marketing or multi-level marketing business.  Some of these companies have a marketing plan built into their structure–a party plan, or training in using the “3 foot rule”, expos or cold calling.

For some, this marketing really works.  I have met women who build a thriving MLM using these techniques.

But for many moms, this type of marketing fails.  The party plan means that Mom must be out of the house and away from her family during the nights and weekends.  The 3 foot rule means that Mom must be comfortable pushing her products on anyone near her.  Expos are exhausting and expensive.  Cold calling is relentless.

The beauty of an internet home business for Mom is that Mom can attract the customers who want her.  When you build a well-constructed website, full of good, valuable information, the women wanting the information will be attracted to your site.  Most of your work is already done.  And you do the site building when you want to–you can be home kissing you kids good night.

So even if you business is already thriving, an internet business is an excellent addition to your marketing plan.  Build a blog or website showcasing your niche, and you will have even more customers coming to you.  Use online social networks to compliment your offline networks.  Use the power of the internet to build your lead list.

I have done many home businesses and know the pros and cons of all of them.  By far, the best home business for mom, the most flexible and substantial is an internet business.

Social media training–what is it and why should you care?

Social media sites are great places to get free traffic that already has a relationship with you.  You interact with your customers, gain your reader’s trust and then you can direct them back to your site.

Social media sites are social.  Blogs, comments, forums, wikis–all of these are ways for people to interact online.  When you use these tools in your business, you interact with your viewer.  Once they blog with you, they already feel like they know you.

Leads that come from social media sites are fantastic leads that want what you offer–in fact, they followed you from the social media site to your site.  They have already made a commitment to you.

And leads like this mean that you can grow your business easily.  Your leads will request your help.

The best training for social media, bar none, is found at Renegade Professional.

Qualities of Good Social Media Training?

• Social media is a broad array of sites–any site where people interact and add their own content.  YouTube, Squidoo, HubPages are just a few examples.  All of these sites allow people to post comments and respond to each other.  Other types of social media include blogs and forums.  The best social media training addresses all of these sites.
• Good training in social media teaches how to use all these sites.  How do you set up a YouTube channel?  What settings are best for a Squidoo lens?  When you teach yourself, each site poses a huge learning curve.
• The very best social media training teaches not only how to use the social media sites, but also how these sites fit in with your entire sales funnel.  Once you make a YouTube video, what do you do with it?  What are Facebook pages and how can you use them for your business?  How do you turn an online discussion into buying customers?

Renegade Professional is unique in that it gives not only the basic click by click details of using social media marketing, but also it gives a broad perspective of building a business plan.  This training gives you the tools and the understanding of when and how to use them.

Social Media is the hot new thing on the internet.  New social media sites are emerging all the time.  But what is the social media definition?

What is the Social Media Definition?

Social media are sites where individuals can interact online.  They publish content in little chunks and make it available for everyone to see.  This means that the definition of social media includes a broad array of sites–from YouTube, EzineArticles.com, and flickr to HubPages, and Squidoo.  Comments, blogs, and forums are all social media sites.  Even wiki sites fall under this heading.  Anything where individuals are interacting.  Their interactions become content for the host site.

What is the Significance of Social Media?

Social media sites allow everyone to put their two cents into the pot of collective knowledge.  Want to write about “Top 5 Reasons to Enjoy a Long Drive to Work“?  elisabethkcmo at HubPages already did.  Maybe you have a new angle on that topic that you want to add–make a comment on her HubPage and join in the discussion.

With social media, every person has a voice.  Every person can make their own YouTube video and show the world their own unique vision.  Every person can write an expert article about their own unique hobby.  And then the online community reacts when they make comments and link to the content.

And with all that self expression, little tiny microscopic niche interests emerge.  Every person who likes videos of ant hills will find each other on YouTube.  You may have been the only person in town who collect clown noses before, but now you find there’s a world wide community of clown nose collectors.

Social media sites are changing the way we view knowledge, democratizing it and changing the idea of what an “expert” is.  On the internet, everyone is an expert and every one can weigh in on the issues.

The definition of social media sites would seem to be just what it says–social.  But what’s interesting is that social media is changing the way we do business as well.

How do Social Media Sites Benefit Businesses?

There are a number of ways social media sites can benefit businesses.

• They are a free, and easy way to publish content online which builds your credibility as an expert.
• The social media sites have a lot of traffic and this gives your media exposure.
• Publishing on social media sites can build links back to your website, increasing its worthiness to the search engine spiders.
• Social media sites are great ways to build relationships with your customers because they are so social.  Get your customers commenting on how to use your latest product and when you answer their questions online, you’ve built their trust that the product is for them.
• And best of all, social media sites give you one more way to attract customers and build your list.

In the new business world, a business must have a strong relationship with its customers.  Anonymous ads on a billboard do not build customer loyalty.  To counteract the anonymity of the internet, businesses must interact and communicate with their customers.  Social media sites provide the means for that communication.

Your email is full of emails from marketing gurus.  All of them teach many techniques, from PPC to building a blog, from emailing to properly constructing a website.  How do you know where to put your money?

You need to learn complete marketing strategies, not just marketing techniques.

To learn how to build your business, you need to think like a marketer.

A marketer understands that a business and its message are not separate.  The way you do business, the platform you use, the business model all reflect your marketing strategies.

REI has well informed sales people and printed sheets comparing the features of all their products.  When you buy a kayak from them, you feel like you made an informed decision.  REI is its marketing strategy.

A local kayak store, Rutabaga has a beautiful handmade wooden kayak hanging from its ceiling.  They talk to you about the beauty of kayaking as well as the features of their products.  Their motto is “We don’t sell boats, we sell time on the water.”  They have a lot of advertising about being locally owned for more than 25 years.  They sell the experience of kayaking.

Both stores are very similar, but both appeal to different crowds.  If I want a techie, informational experience, I go to REI.  If I want to feel good about buying locally, if I want to chat about the best places to kayak locally, I would go to Rutabaga.

Each store embodies their marketing.

So how can you learn marketing strategies?

Step One:  Download Attraction Marketer’s Manifesto

The free Attraction Marketer’s Manifesto gives the fundamental concepts of attraction marketing–giving valuable information to attract customers to you.  This type of marketing means that customers come to you, they request your help.  You don’t chase people down; you don’t badger them to buy.  Just like REI and Rutabaga, you provide your customers with the information they seek and the experience they desire.

The Attraction Marketer’s Manifesto is a course book on marketing strategies that make you proud.  You can sleep at night knowing that you are valuable to your customers.  And the most of the strategies are free or nearly free, and very doable even for beginners.

Finding an online copywriting course is not hard.  Everywhere you look, some new internet guru tells you the best way to write, what to say and how to say it.

But the best copywriting course is not just a lesson in writing, it’s a complete package showing you when, where and how to use the writing in your complete business model.

For example, let’s look at lead capture pages.

Every online business should have lead capture pages.  These are the pages that people enter their email address and give you permission to send them emails.  Usually people give their email in exchange for something, a free report, a video, or some piece of information.

Lead capture pages are some of the trickiest copywriting because you don’t yet have a relationship with your reader.  This is the stage when you have just met them and want to ask them on a date.  Is a simple afternoon coffee the best, or do you go to dinner?  Too pushy and you loose them and to weak and you’ve never caught their interest.

Any online copywriting course will tell you how to write the lead capture page, but what do you do with it then?  How do you drive traffic to it?  What do you do after you have the emails? If you got a “yes” to your date, then what do you do?

The most complete online copywriting course I know is a complete online business course–Renegade Professional.  This membership site includes information from niche research all the way to customer retention.  You get the information through dozens of tutorials which give click by click instruction on how to build an online business.


Watch this free sample of the first video in “Creating your Own Lead Capture Pages” (this is the first of 4 videos in this series).  This 50 minute tutorial on “Creating Lead Capture Pages” covers introducing what lead capture pages are, the elements of the page, options on setting them up (free and paid) and finally, creating the free give always that accompany the pages.

This video is just one small example of what you will find in Renegade Professional.

Are there online copywriting courses which are more specific to just copywriting than Renegade Professional?  Of course.  But if you need to build your copywriting skills in the context of your whole business, I highly recommend Renegade Professional as the place to start.