I’VE GOT A GREAT WEBSITE… BUT I GET NO TRAFFIC!

So you are a business owner, and you are trying to increase your sales by offering your products or services on a website. You spent a pile of money paying a designer and a programmer to get your site up and running. The day finally came that your site went live, and after all of the fireworks fizzled, you discovered the fact that you have a little bit of a problem… YOU HAVE NO VISITORS!

The buildup and letdown described in this scenario is a common occurrence with brick-and-mortar business owners that are trying to increase their cash flow with web-based sales. Most will turn to SEO “expert” consultants or other marketing consultants and spend yet another considerable amount of hard-earned money to fix the problem and bring the much-needed traffic to their website. But the fact is, they are overlooking the most effective and cheapest solution to the problem… Twitter marketing.

Twitter just happens to be the fastest social media community on planet earth for attracting and retaining new potential clients within a specific geographical area. There is no other way to accomplish such a feat on any other platform on or off the internet. When properly implemented, a Twitter marketing campaign can start bringing in targeted customers within days of getting started. To tap into the ever expansive reservoir of potential clients dwelling within the Twitter community, follow these simple steps:

1. Create A Friendly Twitter Presence – If you don’t already have an account, get one now. Post your picture so people can identify with you as a person. Make several well thought-out tweets to introduce yourself to the community, and tell everyone about yourself and why you are there.

2. Create An Inviting Profile – Your profile should be clear about your business intent, but it should also let people know that you are a human being who likes to interact with others, have fun, and give back to the community.

3. Link To A Custom Landing Page – Create a special Twitter landing page just for your Twitter visitors. Focus on selling yourself before your products or services. By doing this, you will create long-lasting relationships that will translate into sales from life-long customers instead of one-time buyers.

4. Use Twellowhood.com To Find New Prospects – Use www.twellowhood.com to find people in your local target market to follow. Introduce yourself and get involved! This will create the bonds that you need to grow a loyal following of new clients for your business.

5. Post Every Day - Don’t let a day go by that you don’t post to Twitter. Give more to the Twitter community than you take by sharing meaningful information and interact with your followers. This will give you the best long-term return for your investment of time!

For advanced ideas on aggressive Twitter marketing, check out my Twitter Turbo program at my blog site, www.carltonzone.com!

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People have often admitted that I know a whole lot of stuff about technical computer-related subjects, and also motivational speaker/trainer stuff. But recently, someone asked me why I have proclaimed myself as a Social Media Expert. I’m glad this person asked, and ready to share the answer with everyone!

Besides the fact that I spend way too much time studying social media until  all hours of the night each and every day, imagining all the different ways that businesses and professionals could be doing twice the volume of whatever it is that they do if they just woke up and noticed the social media revolution, there are also two other very important reasons that I have become an expert, and a few more reasons to boot. That said, let us now cover the reasons.

2 Reasons why Carlton Flowers is a Social Media Expert

plus 4 bonus reasons…

1. Carlton learns from the best – the only way to build credibility in any business is to associate with those that are experts in their field, and wisely choose the best possible mentors. Carlton’s main mentor of choice is Dr. Ron Capps, better known as “The Niche Prof”. Dr. Capps taught at the University of Wisconsin, and currently teaches at Northwest Missouri State University. He is an expert in communications, sales, education, and everything Web 2.0. He speaks at conferences and events all over the country on the subject of social media. Carlton uses Dr. Ron Capps’ guides, studies, articles, and training materials as he consults businesses on leveraging their market penetration via social media.

2. Carlton is a student of SMUG – Social Media University Global is a consortium of the best individuals in the field of social media worldwide. They offer top-rate course materials, and are constantly growing in this brand-new field. Only a handful of the world’s best are students of this new media learning institution.

BONUS REASONS

B1. Carlton is a former computer geek - he had a computer business for ten years up to 2001, and has extensive experience in computer hardware, software, programming, and multimedia production. It is a naturally strong foundation for social media.

B2. Carlton is a motivational speaker and seminar trainer -  He teaches on a wide variety of subjects ranging from Championship Customer Service to Transformational Leadership. Again, a naturally strong foundation for the new social media revolution.

B3. Carlton is a former business owner - having owned an auto repair shop, a body shop, and a retail tool store, Carlton understands what businesses are going through, and how important it is to be on top of creative marketing techniques. Social Media only enhances his ability to put his former marketing experience to work for his clients.

B4. Carlton is an audio & video production expert - having produced his own local television show for 4 years (and coming back soon), Carlton is swift in the field of video & audio production. Knowing how to crank out professional-looking video content is a definite advantage in creating social media campaigns.

B5. Carlton is a schmoozy, likable guy – you can’t help but fall in love with Carlton the minute you meet him. He has a contagious laugh and energizer-bunny enthusiasm. He is known for his ability to inject his natural zeal for life into helping his clients. What more could you want in a consultant?

So there you have it. That’s what they say about me, and that is why I am officially a self-proclaimed social media expert.  Are you ready for me to optimize your business? You better call me soon, because I am getting busier by the day. The word is out on the streets that I have the best social media optimization solutions, and good news travels fast!

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Twitter is steamrolling the social media society. In my opinion, it is the hottest social site on
the internet today. What started as just an idea to get attention on a broad scale has morphed into a possible tool that can be used to enhance local prospects for entrepreneurs.

With all of the new Twitter accessory sites popping up on a daily basis, you have a plethora of tools that can be used to actually help develop a business, and even do market research. But what I find most interesting is that practically nobody in my local area is aware of this.

Jefferson City Missouri boasts about a dozen twitter users to my knowledge. I only see one politician (Peter Kinder), and one business owner using the service to their advantage. It appears that the market is wide open. But once the word gets out, there will be a mad dash by local area businesses to gain the biggest influence from using the social sites. I predict an overnight explosion of small business Twitter use.

What I really find exciting is the fact that the first business in each particular sector will stand to gain the most by jumping into the social community before their competitors. The first movers will reap the biggest rewards. All others will have to fight long and hard, and use creativity to put a dent in the market influence of the first movers.

What is really intriguing is the fact that the first movers will be able to establish themselves as the reigning authorities in their field of expertise, just by their own designation. It’s human nature that we follow the ground breakers and give them respect as authoritative experts, simply because they arrived on the scene first. That is why companies like Nike and IBM still sit atop the roost to this day, because they were of the first to break through in their fields.

I’ve been studying the social media phenomenon on a daily basis, but my focus has mainly been on the benefits of using these sites to expand and conquer market share with a small business. I have found that even some of the Fortune 500 companies have successfully implemented social media campaigns to launch new products and services. For example, Cisco just completed a long social media campaign to launch their new routers nationwide.

What these large companies have effectively done is to set the groundwork for small businesses to reproduce their positive results. It’s jsut a matter of having the right strategy for each individual sector.

Do you have a question about social media use in business that I can answer? Comment on this posting, or send an email to carlton.flowers@gmail.com and I will be glad to look into your question and provide an educated answer!

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If you haven’t heard, Twitter has hit the internet scene and in only one year, there are 1.7 million users. What is it? It’s what one would call a “micro-blogging” site. In a nutshell, you sign up for an account, and then make “tweets” about what you are doing or seeking in life. So what is the difference between Twitter and blogging? On Twitter, you can only post messages that are 140 characters or less.

It sounds pretty simple… so simple, in fact, that I thought it was absolutely a useless waste of time when I first saw it. I thought it was a stripped-down ameteur version of a Myspace or Facebook website. But months after dismissing Twitter, I discovered the fact that Twitter is one of the most powerful networking tools used throughout the world today by business owners, professionals, executives, politicians, and more.

I had no idea that there were so many creative ways to use this site to your benefit. The ways of using the site are endless. You might be a college graduate looking to find employment, and you make tweets about your background and experience. Or you might be a politician running for office, and you tweet about the ideas you would implement if elected. You may even be an active blogger that uses Twitter to drive more traffic to your blog through your tweets.

Whatever the case, you can keep followers updated on projects you are working on, share information that you are researching with others in your field, or even seek advice from others by posting questions. I could probably come up with hundreds of pages worth of creative ideas, but we’ll just keep this short!

Do you have any ideas you’d like to share about your own uses for Twitter? Or have you even signed up for an account? I’d love to hear your ideas, and I’d love to see you on Twitter for the first time if you aren’t already registered! Click the links below to see the two Twitter ID’s that I am currently using (yes, you can sign up for multiple ID’s). I’m using one as my general Twitter ID, and one for promoting cell phones. We’ll see how either of them do, and I will report the results on my blog!

Enjoy, and see ya on Twitter!

http://www.twitter.com/carltonf – my general twitter ID

http://www.twitter.com/getacellphone – my test project to determine whether or not Twitter is useful for promoting products (namely my cell phone deals)

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I am in the middle of doing some serious research on something that I stumbled upon by mistake. There’s a hot category on eBay that many people have no idea exists. Plus, there’s a ton of scammers posting ads on this same category. However, I noticed one seller who was getting 30, 40, 50, even 60 bids per auction for a product that had barely no description at all, and each of his auctions were closing for several hundred dollars.

But it gets better… this guy was making huge money on his auctions while identical listings (with the same crappy, scant information) were only making a few bucks, with 1 to 2 bids at best. I could not figure out how he did this. It perplexed me. Well, after digging and reasearching, I figured it out. Funny thing about it, the method this person implemented can actually be used in an honest way to get mega exposure and results on auctions for any product.

I plan on finishing my study and publishing my findings very soon. Stay tuned!

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