INTERNET SALES SET TO GROW 14% IN 2009

With the recession looming and financial institutions nursing their wounds, can you believe that internet sales will actually GROW by 14% in 2009? Yes, it is true. Right smack dab in the middle of the worst recession our country has ever seen, spending will increase on the web.

Experts (other than myself) are predicting a total market share of $141 billion for web-based retail sales & service this coming year. This is mind-numbing. I tend to believe the prognosticators who are making this rather bold prediction. As people tighten their wallets, the general tendency is to find bargains any way possible. What better way is there to find the lowest prices and highest value other than the internet?

I’ve been saying for quite some time that we will be seeing two major shifts in the local business world. The first will be the impact upon traditional media advertising due to the meteoric rise in social media site usage. The second will be the stampede of local business owners and professionals rushing to get connected to the majority of local residents who are using the social media sites on a daily basis. Critical mass will occur once the first local business owner reports tangible gains utilizing social media for marketing purposes.

This brings me to the question in the title of this post. Local business owners and professionals, when it comes to advertising and marketing investment, where’s YOUR wallet? (forgive me, Capital One, I had to use your snappy catch phrase to make this point!)

Right now, the overwhelming majority of local business owners are keeping their advertising bucks in stonehenge media (my pet name for the age-old media venues). However, while the status quo continues pouding their hard-earned dollars into stonehegne media, a select few are going to flank their business sectors on the battlefield for customers and launch a surprise attack with social media marketing. Smart business owners will start to balance their advertising dollars between stonehenge media and online social media. If you don’t believe it, just watch what happens in 2009 and call me in a few months so I can tell you “I TOLD YOU SO!”

There will be a large percentage of local business owners and professionals in due time who will wise up and want to make the investment in social media, but many will be completely clueless on how to go about doing so. When the time comes, Mr. & Mrs. Local Entrepreneur, you better be looking up Carlton Flowers in the Yellow Pages and making a fast phone call for help.

Carlton Flowers, Social Media Expert

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Blogging for SERP Results & SEO

If you are blogging or writing articles to gain SERP rankings (that stands for “search engine page” ranking), there are some great sites that I have been using that will get you maximum results. I would recommend using a combination of 2 or 3 of these sites at a time for each new article that you post to your blog. You will notice a jump in your page rankings if you use these sites, and you will also gain exposure. It’s an all-around good idea to start posting your relevant articles
on sites like these.

Here are my three favorite sites to post articles on, and a brief description and web address to get you started on your way:

1. Hubpages (www.hubpages.com)

This site is made up of articles submitted by participants which are called “hubs”. When you post an article on your area of expertise, Hubpages will actually score your submission based on how unique and relevant it is. It will later adjust the score based on how much traffic you pull on that particular hub.

You can add things to your article to increase the effectiveness like pictures, keywords, and links. You are allowed to link to your blog site or professional web page for further information.

I have been testing Hubpages for about 2 months now. About 5 articles that I have written have an average number of “hits” or page views of about 10 to 15. However, one article that I wrote has nearly 500 hits within the shortest period of time. Since then, I have updated the article with additional information, and this has increase both the traffic and the overall Hub score.

Hubpages will generate humongous traffic on Google if you dig up the right hot topic. Try to find topics of general relevant information that relates to your business or service that you provide. If you keep the articles interesting and chock-full of good content, you will drive more traffic to your site and build trust among your readers. Be careful not to post pure affiliate offers as your hub will be removed.

2. Squidoo (www.squidoo.com)

Squidoo is very similar to Hubpages. But instead of a “hub”, you post a “lens”. The same rules basically apply. Like Hubpages, Squidoo is apparently hot when it comes to Google ranking. Articles get indexed rapidly, and will generate traffic just about overnight. Squidoo has more advertisements and distracting stuff than most of the article submission sites, but due to the power of their Google ranking, it is worth using.

3. Utterli (www.utterli.com)

Utterli is a social network. It is similar to Twitter, but far more robust. You have no limit on the number of characters you write on a post. Also, you can upload a picture, a graphic, or a video with each post. Something else that is quite unique is the ability to either call in to the Utterli phone number and record an utter, or use a microphone to record an utter and upload to the site. I haven’t found a site with an easier ability to add multimedia. Lastly, you can tag your posts with good keywords.

I use Utterli just to test out the strength of certain keywords, and the effectiveness of certain graphics. Utterli includes a page counter for all posts. I think it is based on page views and not unique visitors, but it is still useful (this means that each time you refresh the page, you will increase the page counter one time on all of your posts). I generally will divide the number by ten to get a more realistic number of hits to that post. Plus, you can compare how many hits one post gets over another when you change up the keywords. It is very useful for that reason alone.

Many people don’t realize this, but Utterli is one of the hottest Google-ranking social media sites on the web. They don’t “no-follow” their links. That basically means that whatever you type in your posts and the keywords that you add to each post can be found by search engines outside of the site. I have had the most rapid results from using certain keywords with Utterli than any other site. One night, I was able to hit page 1 on Google for two keywords and the name of my local city within 2 hours flat. That is fast!

Give these three sites a try and let me know what kind of results you get. I think you will be as amazed as I have been when you use them correctly.  Next week, I will write another article on three more hot social media article submission sites that are smashing up the search engines!

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THE MID-MISSOURI SOCIAL MEDIA WATCH TURNS FOCUS TO COLUMBIA

I’ve been writing about the impending social media tsunami that is about to hit local businesses. As many of my fellow experts predict, it will be 6 to 18 months before we see the changing of the guard of local business advertising strategy. But while we wait, let’s turn our focus to the college town of Columbia, Missouri. Does anyone realize the huge untapped goldmine sitting before us for this special town?

The City of Columbia is special. It’s a college town. We have Mizzou, Columbia College, and Stephens College that make up a large portion of the population and culture of the area. Take into consideration the fact that the students of these institutions make up the largest participating percentage in social media websites of any generation, and then think about the enormous size of the pot of gold left untouched by local businesses as such. There is a huge open door of opportunity for all the local businesses in Columbia to dominate and capitalize on the social media route to connecting with its potential young customers.

Until today, I had not thought about the special mix of people in Columbia, and the obvious opportunity it presents for social media marketing. I really think that the impending marketing shift is going to be stronger in Columbia than anywhere else in the state of Missouri, largely due to the student population.

It will be interesting to see which law firms, clubs, restaurants, clothing retailers, or grocery stores make it to the “top-of-mind” pinnacle before their competitors wake up and realize what is happening. In the meantime, the social media prognosticators and consultants like myself will be quietly standing by waiting for the first clients to come by screaming for help!

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ECONOMIC CRISIS VS. PERSONAL ABUNDANCE… WHICH IS YOUR REALITY?

The media has let us know on a daily basis that the economy is in the biggest funk it has ever been in since the Great Depression. Television reports, newspaper stories, radio broadcasts, they are all resonating the same message. Billion-dollar bailouts abound, negative financial reports are the call of the day, and the Stock market has been schizophrenic at best. But could there be opportunity hiding in the midst of all of the economic doom and gloom?

Absolutely. All that matters is what you accept as your reality. That might sound like the age-old “positive thinking” yip-yap, but let’s think about this… are you still spending money on a daily basis? Are people in your neighborhood still making purchases at the grocery store? The gas station? The local clothing store? Yes. Granted, most people don’t have the money to purchase a grocery store, a gas station, or a clothing store. Sure, it would be nice to own a business that offers goods or services that we cannot live without at a society. But for most, we can’t afford it.

But while most of the media wants you to pay attention to the negative reports that come streaming out daily, the majority of people are missing out on a key fact: people still buy “stuff” that makes them happy.

In order to drown out the misery of bad economic news, some people buy jewelry. Some purchase video games. Others buy books, magazines, or CDs. The bottom line is, people are still making purchases for things that lift their spirits and make them feel good.

For example, I will admit that I am the first person to buy a CD-ROM or DVD for $10 that exposes some cutting-edge business secret. I hover at the mailbox every day waiting for the package to arrive. And when it does, it feels like Christmas! The fact is, I LOVE to get stuff in the mail. It’s a thrill. It can represent the highpoint of the day after hearing nothing but negative things all day long at work.

So while the masses of the population sit and complain and focus on the souring economy, the smart entrepreneurial-minded individuals fervently research niche markets and discover hot-selling items that make people happy.

It might seem like the money supply just disappeared, but the fact remains that people are still spending. If you put your focus on the opportunities that abound, and realize that public spending still goes on every day, you will eventually discover a special niche that you can mine for all the money you will ever need.

I just listened to a video report that eluded to the fact that the Halloween niche produced $3 billion in sales this year. Wasn’t that right in the middle of the economic meltdown? Yes, it was. But droves of people spent un-godly amounts of money to dress up, look silly, and attend Halloween parties to… you guessed it, FEEL GOOD. That’s proof enough to let you know that you are only hurting yourself financially by putting all of your attention on the negative things around you. I never would have guessed that people would spend that much money on a silly pagan holiday, much less during one of the more dire financial times in our country’s history.

So there you have it. Proof that an economic duality exists. A recession, or even a depression, can exist peacefully right along with economic abundance and endless income possibilities.

Stay tuned for more information on how you can discover the diamonds in your own back yard!

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It’s been a short while since I have updated you on my freelance writing seminar project, “Fast Newsletter Cash”. A couple of weeks ago, I ran across yet another way to generate a very decent income using a method similar to monetization of a newsletter.

I was surfing the web reading articles on other blogs, and discovered some new methods that almost slipped right by me. So I decided to test them out myself. I have 2 tests running right now, and the new method should be producing results very quickly. Each time I test a method, I decide whether or not to include it in the seminar project based on the results. However, I don’t think I have to wait for the results of this test to know that it will end up in the final product. It’s just a matter of how well it will perform.

This brings the total to 5 different but related ways to put your writing skills to work for you and create cash flow that will end up in the seminar product. My only regret is that each time I come up with another simple method of making money writing, it pushes out my launch date a bit further. But it will be well worth the additional time added on to the release!

For now, head over to my latest Utterli post to hear a special audio message from me, and come back to my blog soon for a new audio message about “Fast Newsletter Cash”. And don’t forget to go to the FNC web page headquarters to sign up for my mailing list. This will get you the seminar product at a significant discount before the official launch date.

I’ll be in touch as the project progresses!

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Today I discovered the strangest thing. I was having a conversation with my good friend and co-worker Tim Largent (timlargent.com, twitter.com/timlargent), explaining to him what “no-follow” status meant and how Twitter is a no-follow site. For those that don’t know, I believe this means that the search engine spiders do not “crawl” through Twitter posts and connect relevant links to search terms, thus giving an instant SEO effect.

He didn’t understand right away, so I told him to open up Google and just do a search for something that we know he has Twittered about, and we will not see any results. What we saw made my jaw drop to the floor. He typed in his name, “Tim Largent”, and ONE keyword from a subject that we were Twittering about the previous night. Well guess what… it ended up in the #1 position of page 1 on Google!

I was dumbfounded. There were other posts littered throughout the results in varous positions too. So we tried a different keyword along with his name, and still got results on page 1 even though they were not in position #1. What happened next truly confused me. We typed in my name, “Carlton Flowers”, and the same keywords that I was posting at the same time, in the same conversation, and we got absolutely no results on Google.

We were able to get one result using my name, but the majority of searches we used with my name drew blanks. However, most of  the searches using “Tim Largent” and a keyword or 2 got amazing results. But strangely, certain posts with hot keywords, even with Tim’s name, did not get any results.

Would someone like to respond to this article and post a reply below and explain to us what we are experiencing, and what exactly the affect is of the “no-follow” status that Twitter administrates on its site?

Thanks SEO experts, let’s see your responses!

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The social media revolution is in full-swing. The statistics on social media website participation is staggering. We are near the point that the majority of society spends significant time interacting on social media websites. But the question remains… when will local businesses wake up and realize the gold mine in marketing that is sitting before them?

I am going to predict that it will be 12 to 18 months before critical mass hits the business world regarding use of social media sites. Right now, very few businesses have realized the obvious shift in culture and have capitalized on the social media boom. The overwhelming majority of businesses are still using traditional media to get the word out about their product or service.

Many business owners even hold a belief that a static information-only website is something that provides a benefit to their bottom line. While they spend piles of cash creating flashy websites, the population is chatting, interacting, and having a grand ole time on social media sites. It is mind-blowing at this point to see the disparity between the general public’s use of social media and the lack of its use on behalf of business owners.

The question remains, what will spark the social media revolution in the business world? The answer is simple… COMPETITION!

When the first lemming (business owner) makes the move to start interacting with their client base via social media sites, and when the results of such efforts are reported by the traditional media sources, the rest of the lemmings will follow and take the final dive over the social media cliff. Rather than risk being left behind and volunteer to hand over market share to competitors who are getting real results, the business owners who don’t make the first move will make a mad dash to establish themselves in the social media community.

I will boldly stand behind my prediction of 12 to 18 months to critical mass. If I am wrong, it will probably be a shorter time period when it occurs. But when it happens, it will be fun to watch businesses make the rapid shift to connecting with their target market social media style.

Coming soon I will predict the creative ways that business owners will advertise, present coupons, and modify their overall marketing campaigns through social media websites!

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