Social media is one of those terms you hear buzzing about, but perhaps aren’t sure what it means. To make it even more confusing, social media is often used interchangeably with social networking and social marketing.

Social media refers to the many websites designed to encourage communication among members. It’s the modern version of word of mouth. Some of the more popular ones are Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

As you meet people through these websites, you network by exchanging ideas, tips and leads. As you get to know each other, you will gently market your services or ask for tips on how to market your service.

If you are still hesitate about whether or not you need to be involved with social media, it’s time to take action. According to Forrester’s Research, 51% of online Americans have joined a social network and another 73% are consuming some form of social content.

Your present and potential customers are on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media websites. So you should be too.

Some of you are not convinced because you think

• it takes too much time
• you don’t know what to say
• you don’t know how your participation will lead to more business

I don’t blame you. I had these same questions at first. But my success with building my business through social media convinces me that it is one of the most powerful marketing tools.

My tips for building your business through social media are:

1. Become a member of one or two to start, let’s say Facebook and Twitter, with a carefully chosen username.

It only takes a few minutes and it’s free. Be sure your user name reflects the way you want to be viewed by customers and colleagues.  “Singleandgoodlooking” may be your current status, but think about how this name relates to your business as well as future employers, customers and your constituents if you ever run for public office.

2. Complete your profile with a photo.

I won’t confirm friendship or follow anyone who hasn’t taken the time to post a photo, write a description or include a link to their website.

3. Write a brief description of your service and interests that will attract your target market.

We don’t need to know about all your hobbies or your favorite hamburger joint. We do need to know enough about your service and niche to help us decide if we want to hire you or collaborate with you.

4. Read what others are posting.

One of the easiest ways to get started is to respond to what others are posting. Many give links to articles of interest. You could thank them for pointing you to the article.

Some posts are direct links to a radio show or video in progress.  It’s good practice to go back and leave a comment to let the user know you appreciated the lead.

5. Agree to be Facebook friends or follow folks are Twitter who are in your area of expertise or can offer ideas, resources that will help your business grow.

You aren’t obligated to accept everyone’s request to be your friend or to follow everyone who’s following you.
This isn’t high school. Follow and friend those with whom a business relationship will be mutually beneficial.

6. Select the settings or tools that allow posts directed at you to come to your email. That way you don’t have to manually visit these sites to keep with messages that are relevant to you.

Maximum your time by linking the social media sites with each other. There are hundreds of tools that can do this. One of the best is ping.fm . Once you sign up on this free service you can post one message and it’ll go out to all your other sites.

Many services allow you to link to some of the others when you sign up. When I post an article on Ezine Articles, for example, it is announced on Twitter and Facebook.

When I schedule an episode on my radio show at www.blogtalkradio.com/florabrown it is announced on Twitter and Facebook as well.

7. Respond when you can offer tips, resources and content of value.

Blatant self-promotion will turn people off and tarnish your credibility.

To build your business with social media takes time and patience.  With the contacts you make, you will network and market your services.  Just like marketing offline, nurturing quality relationships online builds your business and increases your profits.

Get busy with social media to bring about positive results.

Reason #4 your website sucks: You are keeping it a secret.

Your website may boast a great design, but if you aren’t drawing visitors you are missing the main purpose: earning profits for your company.

In the last few years there has been an explosion of ways to network with potential customers and colleagues and get the word out about your business.  Research show, however, that you can increase your profits better by building relationships rather than hitting people over the head with hard advertising. That’s where social network marketing comes in.

Not too long ago you would have had to spend big advertising dollars to reach your potential customers. Now, thanks to social networking websites where potential customers willingly complete profiles and indicate their interests, your job of reaching them is much easier, very affordable and more effective. One such site is MySpace.

If you haven’t heard of MySpace.com, either you don’t have kids, don’t know any kids, or have been living on another planet for over a decade.

MySpace is a social networking website started in 2000 by Tom Anderson (graduate of UC Berkeley and UCLA) and Chris DeWolfe (graduate of USC) . It was bought in 2005 by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.

My Space is an interactive network of user profiles, photos, an internal email system and blogs. Although the founders claim to have started the site as a place for 18 to 25 year olds to socialize and hang out, its phenomenal popularity with teenagers and preteens has brought it under heavy scrutiny from the media and watchdog groups. These groups worry that unsupervised youngsters who display their personal information and suggestive photos online will fall victim to the more than 50,000 sexual predators believed to troll online sites and chat rooms.

By contrast, MySpace has been a godsend for fledgling musicians and independent filmakers because they can upload their original songs and films where they begin to develop a following. Here they can get visibility, popularity and sometimes, gigs.

As of today Alexa reports that MySpace is the 11th most popular English website in the world. My 25 year old daughter and my college students swear that they use MySpace just to stay in touch with friends they already know. But is MySpace appropriate for business and educational use also?

While some business owners believe that MySpace is a good place for them to network and meet potential customers, many businesses and schools are blocking access to My Space from their employees and students because of the tremendous strain it has put on bandwidth and professionalism.

Many believe that MySpace pages have been damaging to students who, already the object of teasing in their local school, can now be humiliated worldwide. In other situations, jobseekers’ chances of landing their preferred jobs have been hurt by the personal information they’ve shared.

 MySpace was recently at the center of the first cyberbullying trial when a Missouri mother perpetrated a hoax directed at a 13-year old girl pretending to be a teen boy. When the fictitious boy dumped the girl and told her the world would be better without her, she committed suicide.

Think twice before you decide to test the “six degrees of separation” theory on MySpace. While as an adult you may not be as likely to fall victim to sexual predators as preteens, you must consider whether the types of clients you seek will really find you on MySpace.

What do you think? Are you on MySpace? Has it helped grow your business?

Tomorrow we’ll look at another reason your website sucks.

Over the last two days you’ve learned the #1 and #2 reason your website sucks.

Here is the #3 reason your website sucks:

You are letting your website visitors  come and go without capturing their names.

That means your website is not as profitable as it should be–you’re letting money fly through your hands.

We all begin business counting on orders from new customers.  But what about the visitors to your website who look around and leave without ever buying anything?

Do you know who they are and how to reach them? You should, because the majority of potential customers don’t buy the first time around.  As a matter of fact, most folks need to learn about your product seven times before they will buy.

Just think. If you had a way to get the name and email of everyone who visits your site you could have many other shots at educating them about your product and service until you get orders from them.

But how do you do that, you ask.

Easy. Offer visitors something of value. Let’s call it an ethical bribe. In exchange for their names and email you will send them a newsletter, a special report, an e-course, or a list of tips. Just be sure that you only offer something that can be emailed.

Your goal is to capture names that you can contact on a regular basis reminding them of your service, announcing specials and offering quality content that your leads want to receive.

But wait. You can’t just ask for email addresses and start sending email to folks one by one.  Besides, even after visitors give you their email you must be sure they really wanted to do that. It’s called double opt-in confirmation.

In order for this to work with the least amount of ongoing work, you must set this up so that it’s automatic. To do that you will need to use an autoresponder program, software that sends out email automatically.

With an autoresponder program you can enter the content you want to send and set it so that it emails to your leads at whatever intervals you wish–weekly, monthly, even daily (although I don’t recommend that.) And you can do all this for many months ahead of time so that you don’t have to be online when your email goes out.

And, if your prospects want to stop receiving your email they can unsubscribe on their own.

Over the years I’ve tried a number of autoresponder programs, but the one I use and recommend that you use too is AWeber. They have a free trial so you can try it out. To help you learn to use the program, they offer lots of help: instructional videos, tech support, a blog and more.

Get this right and your website will move from suck to big bucks.

After watching a bowmaking demonstration at a gift basket convention many years ago, I excitedly rushed back to my studio to try the new techniques I had learned.

Or so I thought.

Little did I realize, until I was teaching the technique in a class years later, that I was doing a variation of what I had originally learned.

Has that happened to you? You put a new twist on a design or bowmaking technique that yields a slightly different and perhaps even better version of the original.

At an inventors audition at a development center, first place went to creators of a peanut butter and jelly gun. These inventors were motivated to find a better way or an improved gadget for something they already did.

Now you’re probably thinking, what does this have to do with gift baskets?

Lots.

Over the years, many new inventions have entered the gift basket industry: shrinkwrap bags, themed gift boxes with matching accessories, glue dots, printed cellophane and mesh netting. At the same time, designers have created clever ways to make designing, selling and even storing supplies easier.

One technique I like when using shrinkwrap bags, for example, is to place the empty basket in the shrink bag first, then build the design. That way I don’t have to risk toppling the contents when I lift the full basket to place it in the bag. I demonstrate this technique on my DVD, Basic Gift Basket Design.

What about you? What’s in your gift basket of tricks? You may have created a gadget, a substance, a technique or even a marketable product. Share how you’ve made the business of gift baskets easier.

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Learn the do’s and don’ts about making money from niche corporate sales. Listen as I share how I captured niche lucrative sales on a newly released audio CD, Make Money with Corporate Niche Sales. I spill insider secrets and reveal some mistakes I made so you can avoid them.
 
Place your order by June 1st and receive these bonuses:

•  a special report, “Corporate v.s. Consumer Sales”
• a sample letter of introduction
• a sample proposal
• a special report, “How to Successfully Target Niche Markets”, that includes things to consider, who to contact and suggested niche markets
   

Corporate and consumer sales differ in a number of ways. Here are three of them.

1. The potential for profit is greater with corporate sales.

The consumer typically buys a gift basket on rare occasions, and only for very special gifts.

The corporate client who selects gift baskets for her needs, on the other hand, will often place frequent or recurring orders.

2. The corporate client has a budget.

Ask a consumer how much they want to spend on a gift basket and their eyes glaze over.

A corporate client knows exactly how much they have budgeted for gifts.

3. The corporate client has limited time and is ready to get down to business.

Whether placing an order by phone or in your store,the consumer loves to browse before buying.

Although the corporate client can be very selective, they also count on your expertise to help them zero in on just the right gift basket idea.

If you haven’t considered serving corporate markets, it’s time you did. Learn the do’s and don’ts about making money from niche corporate sales. Listen as I share how I captured niche lucrative sales on a newly released audio CD, Make Money with Corporate Niche Sales. I spill insider secrets and reveal some mistakes I made so you can avoid them.
 
Place your order by June 1st and receive these bonuses:

•  a special report, “Corporate v.s. Consumer Sales”
• a sample letter of introduction
• a sample proposal
• a special report, “How to Successfully Target Niche Markets”, that includes things to consider, who to contact and suggested niche markets
   

It is common for new gift basket business owners to start off trying to serve a wide variety of customers. One of my clients, for example, not only sells over 20 themes of gift baskets, but also makes floral bouquets, balloon arrangements and candy bouquets. My advice to her and you is to consider corporate niche sales.

Corporate niche sales focus on a specialized part of a larger market.

If you wanted to have your blinds cleaned well would you call a general cleaning service or a specialist in cleaning blinds who knew exactly which products to use to avoid damaging your blinds and make them look like new?

A company specializing in cleaning blinds is serving a niche market. There are three reasons niche sales can bring more profits.

1. People seeking a specialized service are willing to pay more. Cosmetic dentists command higher fees than general dentists because patients seeking cosmetic dentistry are motivated to pay more.

2. You can narrow your inventory costs and storage. When placing orders you may qualify for better volume discounts since you know exactly what to order for your niche.

3. There is not as much competition in a niche market as in the general market place. Gift basket companies that specialize in sending college care packages are far fewer than general gift basket companies.

If you haven’t considered serving corporate niche markets, it’s time you did. Learn the do’s and don’ts about making money from niche corporate sales. Listen as I share how I captured niche lucrative sales on a newly released audio CD, Make Money with Corporate Niche Sales. I spill insider secrets and reveal some mistakes I made so you can avoid them.
 
Place your order by June 1st and receive these bonuses:

•  a special report, “Corporate v.s. Consumer Sales”
• a sample letter of introduction
• a sample proposal
• a special report, “How to Successfully Target Niche Markets”, that includes things to consider, who to contact and suggested niche markets
   

Summer time is a great time to explore new and fun ways to market your gift basket business. One of these is the local county fair.

To find out where and when the fairs are taking place go to your state’s department of food and agriculture website. The listings will give you the contact information so you can learn what events and activities are planned. Be sure to check on guidelines and restrictions, especially on food contents. The fair organizers can help direct you to the companies and groups most likely to need prizes and raffle giveaways.

But don’t stop at county fairs. Search for the fairs that focus on health, careers, diversity and more. A health fair in Beverly Hills, CA, for example, will feature basket giveaways. Some fairs will have their own websites loaded with information.

From my county’s upcoming fair website, the Orange County Fair, I learned about the headliners of concerts and the many types of competitions that will give prizes. I can sign up for their free newsletter and even volunteer to work some part of the fair if I wish.

If you don’t find an opportunity to sell your gift baskets, how about donating one or sponsoring a gift? Now is the time to find out what fairs are nearby with marketing opportunities just waiting for you.

I’m a great believer in finding your niche and developing it. But I also support the idea of capitalizing on untapped sources of income that are hiding in our businesses.

What are some of these?

1. Partner with a complementary business. Work with a florist, balloon artist or caterer to expand in the wedding and party market. While one of them may supply the decor or refreshments, you could provide the centerpieces of welcome gifts.

2. Offer your design services to groups or companies who want gift baskets but don’t know how to make them: specialty stores, nonprofit organizations, churches, and fundraisers.

3. Offer products on your website that complement your designs, but are created by and shipped by another company. An affiliate arrangement enables you to get a percentage of a sale without doing any of the work. Many major companies offer affiliate partnerships. Learn more about making profits from affiliate partnerships.

4. Sell ad space on your website to companies who are targeting the same market you are. If your clients are corporate or small businesses, they also need business cards, website design services, printing services and more.

5. Provide consultation or classes for newcomers to the gift basket business.

6. If you have a large amount of retail or warehouse space consider subleasing to another business.

7. Bring quality traffic to your site by posting comments on message boards and blogs frequented by your target client.

8. Publish a newsletter with information and tips that are of value to your clients. You will keep them informed of new products and services in each issue, of course.

These are just a few of the ways to tap into the hidden riches in your gift basket business. What are some ways that have worked for you?

Create gifts that require minimum time to assemble, but are impressive.

2. When a hotel manager requested a $10 gift to give her regular guests at New Years. I filled a cub tote with a perpetual calendar, cinnamon tea and cookies. My total cost was $3.25.

The great thing about placing products in a bag or box is that you don’t have to worry about color coordinating the packaging. Wrap all the products in tissue and place them in the bag or box. You’re done!

3. Hooray for Hollywood can be used for a wide variety of gift-giving occasions. Fill a Hollywood gift box with typical movie candy and a bag of microwaveable popcorn. I also added a pair of sunglasses from a novelty store.

To discover sources for your cellophane, ribbon and enhancements, visit our free online directory RibbonWrap and Pack. In this online directory you will find companies who offer specialty packaging for the gift basket retailer, such as decorative nested boxes, trays, containers, designer printed cello, basket fillers, ribbon, shrinkwrap, raffia, organza bags and more.