Colin Klinkert Dot Com

ViralNetworks! will launch on the 28th December 2008 and we hope that things run smoothly. The video below is a 4:30 leaked video for you to see some of the features you will have access to:

We hope that you are signed up to ViralNetworks! and will join myself and many other marketers in networking and having a good time

See you on the inside!

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I am sitting in the Hong Kong Airport on my way to Australia for Christmas and I just logged onto ebay and purchased myself the new 16gb 3G Iphone for $818us (inc. Shipping), not a heap purchase for a phone, but wht makes it even more nuts is that I have the Nokia Equivalent the Nokia N95 8gb. I have only used 1 gig on it and havent even installed the software or added the nokia maps to the phone yet.

Why did I buy myself a new phone when I have one with the same functions (some might say better, the camera on my nokia is a 5megapixel the Iphone is only 2)

Because The IPhone is COOL!

I am telling you what you already know, Apple have built a wonderful brand and even though I know I’m spending $800 on something I already have (and I have another sony phone too, seeing as I can only use one at a time, it was not a purchase that was required) I want it because it has a shiny interface, a cool layout and most of all, it has an apple logo on the back!

I got suckered in by marketing, and more specifically ‘public opinion’ and I knew it before I chose to search Ebay for it and I know it now after submitting payment…

Marketing lesson? - Build a Brand! It is a must, be it your personal name you want to brand or an alias like I am still considering doing with ViralKing, listen to another company that is cool, and know’s how to push peoples emotional triggers, Nike… Just Do It! People trust what they know and will buy from you or your brand based on 3 things:

* They Know You (Hence build a brand)
* They Like You (Make it a Cool Brand… Apple… Cough Cough)
* They Trust You ( Provide a Service You Would Like Others To Provide You)

Just Build Your Brand Already, what are you waiting for?

This post is a follow on from the post I made a few days ago, click here to read it first

Get That Business Coming Your Way!

You like the idea of an online newsletter, and you are beginning to see how this will help you bring in more business to your website. But you do have a few concerns, which is perfectly natural. You need to know that everyone who starts something new, has their own concerns and fears.

Some of the most common question are;

1. What if I don’t have anything interesting or relevant to write?
2. Can I keep the quality up over a long period of time?
3. How do I make links from my pictures to my website?

These are just a sample of the questions that are asked…but never fear! This is so much easier than it sounds.

The thing you need to be concerned about IS WHEN you are going to DO IT! Stop with the excuses, just begin and you will realize how simple it really is.

1. You do need to remember that you must always offer something that is of interest or very useful to your reader.
2. Keep your newsletter fairly short. So many these days have more than enough emails to read, and they don’t have time to read a long newsletter. They will like the fact that they can read it quickly and get something from it.
3. You want the best format possible for your follow up emails, so put some thought into this process. You want a model that you can use week after week, which by the way makes your job easier.Below are a few ideas that you can use as your standard format, choose one or combine them, whatever fits your personality.I. Tip of the Month

   Here you will come up with some great tips that focus on your main products. Do a bit of brainstorming giving you two or three months of content. If you are focusing on an area that you are familiar with, it should be easy. Some of the topics can be offering and explaining the problem, then offer a tip that will solve the problem.

   II. The Famous “Top Ten” list

   This format is so popular because it works. If you are an expert in Doll Collecting, then write your article about “Top Ten Reasons to start Doll Collecting”. Keep your sentences short.

   III. Three Different Ways to….

   Sometimes it can be difficult to find ten ways to do something, but you can always find three ways to do it. This can be done alternately with your Top Ten newsletters.

   IV. The “Before and After” approach

   You can use this much like you would the “Tip of the Month” format. You will introduce a problem with the solution. This format works best when you can include case studies which is an excellent way if interacting with your customers on a direct level. You may even ask your customers for some examples of their ‘before and after’ and if they will give their permission to share it with your readers. If your format is in text only, you can include a link to show pictures on your website.

   V. What about “Checklists”

   If you want to share something new with your readers, a great way to do this is with checklists. Be sure to include all the steps, and these check lists will help save your readers a lot of time, which they will love. You will begin by writing a short paragraph which introduces your topic, include your list, the end it with some final tips. You can format your entire newsletter on the checklist formula, or present it randomly.

   Now you can see that online newsletters aren’t as difficult as you first thought. Get your list and get started, no excuses.

Check out the Posting Contest I have running: Click HERE to learn how you can win $100!

Bring in Even More Business!

Today I want to talk about online newsletters and how these can bring in even more business for you. This is a very cost-effective way to market and will not eat up all of your time.

Whether you are mailing your newsletters out through the post office, or sending them out via email, this is a great way to increase the recognition of your brand, bringing in repeat business and sharing your experience and story and success with your readers.

1. You are going to first put your list together of your current customers along with any potential customers. Any names that you have collected from inquiries, direct mail response cards, etc…that you have from the beginning of your marketing endeavors, will be the start of your list. If you don’t have a list, and you have some money set aside, you can purchase a list, giving you names of the best potential customers.

1. If you are doing an online newsletter, it is best to include a content manager system. This will make your editing much easier with a newsletter template, your graphics and giving it your own style. You will have a little bit to learn, but you will have a lot of fun doing it. If you need help through the process, call a college student, they will be a great resource. Another option would be to hire somebody at Guru.com at great cheap prices.
2. Next you want to have a feature that allows you to track bounce back emails to help you manage. your list, deleting these names from your list. It is really important to keep your list up to date. Now, your goal is to increase sales, but you need to make this an easy process for your readers because they all have very busy schedules, so you need to show off your products in the very best manner.\Below are some tips to help you do this and achieve greater financial success from your email marketing.

• Include pictures all throughout
• Show details in these pictures
• The pictures need to be bright and cheery
• Make the picture a link to the sales page or product information page.
• Be sure to add a text link which is associated with your product picture which links to the online product page
• Include the ability to order directly from your newsletter with purchase buttons
• When you have a new product, make sure you have direct links in the website, making it easy for them to get there without any extra navigating.If you still have concerns about your new online newsletter, …just know you can do it…I will go over tomorrow some of your biggest questions..such as “What do I say?”, or “How much time will this take?”, or “How do I set up the links?”. Well, we will answer these questions in our next blog. Stay tuned…..

Yesterday Arnie brought his muscle out for McCain, so I decided to even the equation and post a video on my blog! Take THAT Mr. Terminator…

Who will you be voting for in 4 days? I’m not American and can’t vote, I also don’t see as much as you do, but I know who I would be voting for…

This is a wonderful viral marketing campaign, well worth us taking note. I might try and set something like this up one day! Maybe for the launch of my training product coming out next year…

Follow Me on Twitter: http://www.TwitterColin.com/

So my new purchase arrived today. I buy most of the ‘big ticket’ courses that are made, I go through some of them, but many sit and collect dust.

What Can Social Networking Do For You?

Build Your Brand and Develop Some Great Business Contacts

We live in a solution based world, trying to solve our own problems, or the problems of others. These are the goals of most businesses, and the best way to accomplish this goal is through a network. This is where Social Networking comes into play, or should I say, work. When you are using sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn, you have the ability to really reach out and make some great new business contacts.

As you get started, you will find that you spend more time and effort giving to the community than you are getting back. You will find it a bit challenging to keep your personal connections separate from your business connections.

There are three network sites that are great to begin with; Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. These are the leaders when it comes to reaching across several interests.

For a more targeted market if you are in the online business niche, along with 2 partners my new site, ViralNetworks is in prelaunch and is about as targeted as you can get. (shameless self plug!)

Social Networking Advice

Take the time to create a warm and inviting profile, providing all the public information including your current employment to your job history. You want to portray yourself as someone who is thorough and complete in everything you do, and this includes your profile.

Don’t create big spam profiles just filled with links and imitating a Splog (Spam Blog) with a bad case of the runs, be sure to keep it decent sizes, accurate, well written and with correct grammar.

Be Reachable! Provide many ways for others to contact you. Some examples are your IM address, email address, Skype username, Twitter name, as well as a phone number. Create a number of keywords that associate with your niche product, and tie it all closely to your blog.

How Important Is Your Email Signature?

This is very important and will provide value in your networking efforts. In your email signature, include your contact information, links to your blog and LinkedIn profile, making it easier for those to find you.

(Shameless Plug Take Two:) ViralNetworks has a Signature File in your profile, you enter your text in there (make it compelling, make people want to click on it) and then it hyperlinks to your chosen site. This Sig is used on guestbook comments, on the forums, on video comments, so can lead to MASSIVE exposure. It is VERY important to write a compelling Signature, as you are not allowed links ‘in post’ with most sites, including ViralNetworks

If you have any profiles that are currently inactive, clean them up and make sure they are professional. Do a search for your name on Google, Zoominfo, and Spock and see what is out there, delete anything that is not proper or inactive.

From this moment forward, be careful as to what you post, including photos, blog posts, and articles. Anything that can be linked back to you, needs to be professional and easily seen. You will also be seen by subscribing to a site application such as FriendFeed.

You will find benefits of social networking through many of the services available. You will learn how is using these services, and invite them into your network.

Next, you will invite your contacts by email to join your social network, but be careful how you do this…you do not want to become a spammer.

Take advantage of the Social Networking sites, get your name and brand out there and build up your own network. If you want to follow me on Twitter, please click here.

Check out the Posting Contest I have running: Click HERE to learn how you can win $100!

Please DIGG This Story - Opens In a New Window - Thanks For The Support

ViralInviter is an address book importer script that allows you to invite your contacts from your addressbooks. They offer many different accounts that you can use. Below is a Video I made showing how to use viralinviter on my new site, ViralNetworks

As you can see from the video, viralinviter is very easy to use, but is it reliable for the first time user? There are lots of options that you need to gow through and ensure that you set correctly. With ViralNetworks using the default option, members instantly started using it for spam! This caused our IP to be blocked within only 12 hours of launching. Needless to say, this is NOT a good solution. We have since changed the options to be much more strict, set a limit to number of contact imports, removed the ability to upload CSV files and placed a stern warning not to try and abuse the service.

You see, there will always be a few people that ruin it for the masses, so as such in this example, there will be legitmiate users who want to tell more contacts then they will now be able to thanks to the people that spammed Yahoo forums etc.

Verdict on ViralInviter: 7/10 - It is a good script if you set it up correctly, and definately adds a viral aspect to your site… but be careful with it, or your domain WILL get blacklisted!

I have been talking a lot about viral marketing…and the reason I am doing this is because it works! This a great way to expand the growth of your business without having to pay for advertising and spending the time to do it. You do this simply by offering your product or service for FREE along with your sales copy. Now the plan is that your product will be read and shared with friends and family…and they will share it with clients, prospects, visitors to your sites and those who have your product.

A good way to do this is with a trial or lite version of a software program. Everyone loves something for free, and getting a free software is really fun to get. When they have used it, see the benefits, they are going to want to share it with everyone they know. You want to make sure your customers know to share the software with anyone and everyone. If you need some help in developing some software…you can hire help at Elance.

Next, you should start using discussion boards. Set up a discussion board on your website, and post it up at the top by your banner ad. Then you want to encourage your readers to provide a link to this on their own websites.

What about Ebook’s? This is another great strategy that will make your viral marketing a success. You are going to give away your Ebook with the traffic that comes to your site. You want to advertise your best product line with a captivating full-color ad including your contact information. Remember…tell everyone who gets yourEbook to share it with their visitors and their contacts.

Article writing!

Write articles that coincide with your niche or product. In your byline, you will put your contact information along with your website. Then, give permission to anyone to publish your articles as long as they leave the byline in the article, and without changing it. Your articles will soon be in article directories such asEzine, in newsletters, on websites and anywhere else that can bring you attention to your site.

Another way to do this is through web hosting. Find a small business and make an offer to host their websites on your server for free. In return, you place your banner at the top of their site.

Another great marketing technique is using templates. You can create templates and give them away as a free download, which needs to include your own marketing information. Make them easy to pass along from your recipient to their contacts. You have a few techniques here to try out…see which one works out best for you. When you are using viral marketing techniques, it shouldn’t take long for you to start seeing some successful changes happening.

Check out this article at USA Today regarding Viral Marketing. You will see here why this is such a successful marketing tool. Also another great resource that I have found is the Online Marketing Blog.

Here are some Viral Marketing Tools you need to see and take advantage of!

There are a number of Social Marketing networks and platforms for you to spread your name and get your brand out and known. As you know, we have been giving you some great tips on social marketing and how to use these great tools for your benefit. One to give notice to is Utterz which allows you to use your cell phone to post voice, videos, pictures and text mashups to your blogs at anytime, anywhere right from your cell phone. You can post to one site or all your sitesl at once. Utterz is free to use, does not require any special software for your cell phone, and can be done conveniently whether you are traveling, or just away from your computer.

Another one of the fastest growing communities is CafeMom. This is a site that was launched November, 2006, and has since become the most popular site for women. They have become famous for their photo-sharing, widgets, micro-blogging and more. If you are marketing for the female audience, this is a great place to be.

Here is a site to add to your viral marketing plan, it is coComment. This has been the leader of blog access and comment, aggregation, and tracking technology. They have provided a great hub enabling conversations online, ability to track and share comments anywhere on the Internet.

Get Your Marketing Going Quickly and Effectively!

Another stop on your travels online needs to be FaceySpacey, which is a leading Social Media Marketing and Development Company. They specialize in flash widgets, Facebook Aplications, social networking sites, Rich Internet Applications, YouTube-style sites, and yes, viral marketing! They started sites like OganicIncentive.com, ReelProperties.tv and so many more. FaceySpacey is the shopping mall for Social Media.

Another stop on your Social Media Marketing tour is KickApps and KickDeveloper. This is a great on-demand social media application which enables marketers and web site builders to monetize quickly and easily an online audience. This has a SaaS platform with user generated content, social-networking, viral widgets, and online video players.