14 Best Practices for Long-Term Social Media Success

The Cliff I got two different business plans from friends today. Both of these guys are big thinkers, entrepreneurs through and through and destined for greatness. And both had precisely the same problem with their plan. It's a problem that's becoming very common... for products, for services, online and off. The problem is caused by our networked world, the quest for the Cow and the goal of reaching a Tipping Point. In the old days, there was pretty much only one way to grow a business. A magazine, for example, can't have a business plan that says it will accept no ads until it's bigger than Time or Newsweek. In our networked world, cliff businesses are a site to behold. eBay, for example, or Microsoft. The problem is, it's almost impossible to bootstrap a cliff business. The best cliff businesses online started with little fanfare (Blogger, or ICQ, for example).

The Margin Manifesto: 11 Tenets for Reaching (or Doubling) Profitability in 3 Months - The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss Profitability often requires better rules and speed, not more time. (Photo: Jetta Girl) I wrote this “margin manifesto” several months ago and somehow neglected to post it. Your requests for more content on start-up economics and processes reminded me. These are the principles I review whenever facing operational overwhelm or declining/stagnating profits. The financial goal of a start-up should be simple: profit in the least time with the least effort. Based on my interviews with high-performing (using profit-per-employee metrics) CEOs in more than a dozen countries, here are the 11 basic tenets of the “Margin Manifesto”… a return-to-basics call that gives permission to do the uncommon to achieve the uncommon: consistent profitability (or doubling of it) in 3 months or less. 1. 2. 3. 5. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Did you enjoy this post?

Getting Links AND Content From Flickr You can get more than just links from social media. You can also get really great content. And one of the best places to find free content is on Flickr. There are tons of ways to use Flickr. I’ll start out by saying that full credit for this method goes to Rae Hoffman who passed it down to me while we were brainstorming ideas for Outspoken Media. Case study: The binocular site The Binocular Site prides itself on being an independent guide for all things binoculars. One of the content pieces Binoculars was working on was a List of Birdwatching Spots to go inside its Birding section. Building the content. Building a volunteer promotion army. The result? Thirty-five or so links to the main site (and that number goes up every week), to the directory and to other interior pages. Real foot traffic. A more linkworthy directory thanks to the incorporation of expert photos, thus making it easier for the marketing team to market and build more links to. Example #1: You’re a florist

Why Isn’t My Site Listed In Google? | SEO Blog Search engine crawlers will index your new Wix website, but it may take them anywhere from 1 month to 3 months. Three months is a long time. Here’s some information on your Wix website’s indexing process and what you can do to help. Can Google Index My Flash Website? There’s been a lot of discussion on whether the search engines can actually crawl and read Flash websites. In short, don’t despair – your Wix can and will definitely be indexed. Just look at the picture below. Now let’s approach other tactics. 1. First of all, make sure you’ve checked the ‘List in Search Engines’ box in Settings menu. 2. Make sure to update titles, descriptions and keywords in Settings > Site Optimization. The title and description appear in search engine results so even though you can’t see the description on your site, it is one of the most important marketing elements, both in terms of the search engines and towards generating traffic. Keywords: Add about 5-7 keywords. 3. 4. 5. Get good, quality links. 6. 7.

Facebook vs Twitter Twitter or Facebook? Or Both? In this post Steve Thornton (follow him at @stevethornton) explores the decision. The phenomenon of social networking is still in its infancy and it remains to be seen exactly which network might become the 800-pound gorilla in the space. There are now so many social networks vying for users that even the most elite “Digerati” have trouble keeping up with the ever-shifting landscape. The Evolution of Social Networking Compared to Search In the now-infamous dotcom era, Yahoo, Lycos, Excite and others evolved into portals in a desperate attempt to find ways to make money, since nobody had really found effective ways to monetize search. So it seems today that applications like Twitter and Facebook, while attracting new users at astounding rates have not fully defined their business models and the 800-pound gorilla has yet to emerge. Key Elements of Facebook and Twitter Why People Love Facebook Why People Love Twitter So Which Social Network is the Best?