If you’re new to social media, you’ve probably been wondering how you can make money using Twitter, but if you consider yourself an experienced user of social media sites such as Linkedin and Facebook, you may have been wondering how Twitter is (going to be) making money! The service itself is free, and we can’t see any ads when we log in to our Twitter accounts, so how is this company going to monetize the service?

They have made some deals already, with search companies such as Google and Yahoo!, but nothing significant enough to pay for all the development and infrastructure that’s been poured into Twitter.

Well, the cat seems to be out of the bag: we’ll soon start seeing promoted tweets. According to this Twitter blog post, advertisers are going to be able to purchase keywords for Twitter searches, and the service would insert these sponsored tweets at the top of search results pages. There’s an important difference in how Promoted Tweets differ from “traditional” search engine ads: the tweets will be already part of each advertiser’s regular Twitter stream, in other words, Promoted Tweets will not be “ads” that only appear in search results.

We’ll all watch closely how Twitter users react to this new “feature,” but hopefully Promoted Tweets will prove to be a welcome addition, rather than an nuisance.

In case you’re interested in jump starting your own Twitter activities, consider my self-study program “Contacts 2 Clients: Using Twitter to Boost Your Business.”

I wrote a short “how-to” article over on my Email Marketing Blog about why some URL links may render as non-clickable in Gmail. It’s not clear at this time if this is a bug in the Gmail web client, or it’s an intentional feature, but one thing is clear: Google is once again unnecessarily making our lives harder.

If you’re using email to promote your business, to stay in touch with your membership, it’s very likely that you have a substantial number of contacts who are using Gmail as their primary email. Make sure you read this article on how to fix the URL problem in text-only Gmail.

Did you know that 80% of all sales now start as research on the Internet – are you doing your best so that your next ideal client can find you?

Join me and a small group of local business owners for an intensive 3-hour training session in Oakville.

After the seminar you will have learnt the A-B-C of my Contacts 2 Clients™ Integrated Marketing System. The A-B-C doesn’t mean “the basics”, but rather, you will be equipped with the knowledge and systems to:

• Attract Contacts by creating an effective online presence, using your blog site as your home base. I will show you how to create traffic to your site, how to make Google your new best friend, and how to use places like Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter to create followers and leads.
• Build Relationships by following up with your contacts, using automated email marketing messages; engaging in a conversation on social media sites; by unselfishly sharing your expertise and resources with the people who are interested in hearing what you have to say.
• Close More Deals By using email marketing strategies, and simple, but effective online ecommerce systems to sell your knowledge, services and products.

The training event is scheduled for March 23, 10am-1pm. Visit this page to learn more about my live business training event in Oakville today!

See the comments from the last seminar.

An Email Service Provider is an online service that enables you to:

• manage your email contacts (clients, leads, subscribers, etc)
• create and send personalized email messages to each contact individually
• your contacts can change their own preferences: change their email address, unsubscribe from your list(s), subscribe to other lists, etc.
• track how many of your emails were sent, delivered, opened, bounced, and how many (and sometimes who) clicked on links in your emails
• and much more

I am still surprised at how many emails from business owners I receive which are clearly sent to a group of people, using desktop email programs, such as Outlook. The usual clues are using words such as: “Dear All,” or “Dear Friends”. Very often the person sending the “email blast” puts all the recipients in the TO: field and we all can see each other’s names and emails. This may be OK if it’s a small group of people who all know each other, such as members of your local hockey team, but when it comes to strangers, then this is a serious privacy issue.

If you find yourself sending emails to large groups of people, your best bet is to sign up with an Email Service Provider. They are easy to use and very low in cost, sometimes even free.

For the ultimate in ease of use, try MadMimi, I highly recommend this very affordable service. MadMimi has the most easy-to-use email creation wizard that anyone with basic computer skills should be able to use it with ease. MadMimi’s customer service is top notch, so if you ever get stuck you can chat with them online, or if after business hours, they will reply by email.

If your list of contacts is under 100, you can continue to use MadMimi for free, until you reach 100 subscribers.

Watch the video then come back to read these related blog posts:
MadMimi Brings the Fun Back to Sending Email “Blasts”
New Feature at MadMimi: Automatic Social Links

If you’re using an Email Service Provider to send your email newsletter or flyer — and if you’re not, you may be breaking the law, depending on where you live — you should keep an eye on email bounces.

I wrote this article on how to keep your email list lean and clean over at my Email Marketing Blog. Please check it out and comment, or ask me a question about your own email marketing challenges.