Learn the Secrets of Making Money For Your Business With A Blog

In order to have a profitable, successful small business, you have to connect with people. Lots of people.

So you join the Chamber, a leads group, and a few industry specific groups. And you spend hours each week going to your various groups.

Then you discover online social groups. So you start joining a bunch of online groups - and if you’re like me, you spend an hour or so every morning connecting up with people from your online groups.

But there’s still something beneficial about seeing each other face to face.

A few months ago I went searching through MeetUp and found a few local groups I had an interest in - mainly the podcasting and blogger groups. After connecting online, I attended local meetups to get to know people one to one.

I’ve also joined LinkedIn, and connected up with people from around the globe. I’ve also attended a local LinkedIn connection event, and met many great people here in my local community.

So which is the better way to network - traditional face to face methods, or online?

For me it’s a combination of the two.   I attend local networking groups, and invite them to my online social networking groups. Once they are connected to me online, via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or many of the other sites I’m connected to, then I can stay in touch with daily blog posts and information. Working the two together gives you a lot more connectivity - and more power to gain resources to help you build your business.

Wealthy people know the value of relationships. They leverage their time by relying on their friends for the best advice, and have the desire to create a strong, effective network - both online and off.

According to The Luxury Institute’s latest WealthSurvey, "The Wealth and Web 2.0", participation in social networks has dramatically increased to 60 percent in 2008, up from 27 percent in 2007.

According to the report:

• Participation levels of online wealthy consumers in leading social networks are 16% for MySpace, 13% for LinkedIn, and 11% for Facebook.
• The wealthy average membership in 2.8 social networks, with an average of 110 connections.
• They are intolerant of opt-out techniques: 65% say having their personal data given out without permission would cause them to disconnect; 63% have an interest in “do not track” lists. 

Are you trying to reach wealth consumers or business owners? Then blogging is your first step to success.

Create a blog. Link your blog to your profiles on LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook. [and others] And start connecting.

It’s all about connections.

If you haven’t been on LinkedIn in awhile, maybe it’s time to head over and check things out. I’ve been making quite a few connections, and am amazed at the number of business people that use LinkedIn.

Let me share some LinkedIn Statistics:

• 52 percent are female
• 64 percent make $60K +
• 76 percent have a college degree or higher
• 43 percent are between 35 and 49 years old

I also like how detailed you can create your profile (look at mine as an example), and love asking and answering questions.

With just a few sentences, you can ask people from all over the world their opinions. And you can share your knowledge just by choosing questions in your area of expertise, and answering with a little bit of thought and detail.

And you never know where it might lead.

I saw some amazing stats today for Facebook.

• It’s the 6th most popular site in the world.
• 56 percent are 25 and older
• Over 55 percent are women.
• 35 percent of members earn more than $60,000 US per year.
• 23 percent make over $100,000 US

So who is your target market? If it’s women, Facebook should be a part of your marketing strategy. They’re out there communicating, making connections - and spending money. 

Three tasks you may not have known about Facebook:

1. Start up your Facebook account with a profile. That’s all about you. Your photograph. Your likes/dislikes. Your interests.

2. Add a page. Pages are all about your company. You can list your business summary, website addresses, and product/service information.

3. Groups are designed to develop common interests. My Professional Photography group has over 750 members - and growing daily. Anyone who is or has a desire to be a professional photographer can join. It provides a place to communicate about all kinds of tips for professional photographers.

Are you on Facebook?

Daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend, business owner, teacher, mentor - the list could go on and on with different ways to describe one person (in this case, me).

Out online you can’t think of yourself in only one manner. If you’re a business person trying to bring in new clients, you can’t think as a business person 24/7. Instead, you have to find your interests, and share with people that have similar interests - and may just be interested in what you do for a living as well.

I ran across a new social site today - Mom Bloggers Club. With just 600 members, it’s a new start that could turn into a full blown networking club for mom’s that are looking for a way at sharing their interests and goals.

Like most social sites, you create a small profile, and then start connecting. You can share your Twitter information, ideas on being a mom, and of course your blog information. 

Then start connecting.

Once your blog is up and growing, it’s time to get it noticed. MyBlogLog is a social community that allows you to share your blog with other community members, link up with other members, and create communities based on your blog. You can see MyBlogLog profile here.

Once your profile is created, start looking at other communities and start joining. The best way to get exposure to your community is to start looking at what other’s are doing.

I was listening to an interesting conversation on the radio this morning. The two DJs were discussing the self-help book market, and how Oprah has single handedly changed the book industry into a self-help marketplace, filled with thousands of books targeting every flaw possible. Their entire conversation was a question of whether you were tired of reading self-help, and if you were at the point of accepting who you are, no matter how happy (or unhappy) you truly are.

I love a great debate to find out different view points. And the entire conversation was interesting. But that’s not what I took away from the 20 minutes I spent in my car.

Somewhere in the middle of the conversation, one of the DJs mentioned they were looking at buying Oprah’s latest book choice by Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth. So she went over to Amazon. She spent 30 seconds talking about her Amazon experience, and how she feels its the greatest website on earth. Where else can you go to find anything you are looking for, find a great price, and read a ton of reviews to find out if you really should make the purchase.

And it got me to thinking - what makes a site social? Isn’t a social site about sharing ideas and opinions? Isn’t it about becoming a part of the experience?

So instead of talking MySpace and Facebook all the time, why not start with one of the oldest social sites online? You can create your profile. You can write reviews. You can add your opinions and comments, and link back to your sites.

Hmmmm….

The new way to get your blog noticed is by working on social sites. Today I added a new profile to Twitter - you can check it out here.

Twitter LoriOsterberg

You can also follow Andrew

Twitter PhotoshopTips

You’re welcome to become a follower, and find out what we’re doing online with Twitter.