Growing up I was always chided for being too inquisitive and asking too many questions.

Conversation came easily from the continued questioning of almost everyone I met.

Two things benefited me from this activity as a child.

1. Met a lot of interesting people
2. Learned a lot of “Stuff”

Because I have always enjoyed conversation, success in the sales arena was relatively easy. And when I was introduced to the Internet I realized the vast opportunity to engage in Conversation with a global audience. And, like any other skill set, the more we practice the better our performance.

Social Media, when done correctly, is really the conduit to be asking questions,  listening and responding with valuable answers. Facebook, Twitter and the other venues, such as Quoara and Focus allow a person to actively engage in CONVERSATION with a select group or a more general audience.

The real goal of Social Media is to encourage the engagement of prospect and existing customers in the business climate. Social Media, of course, also offers a great opportunity to engage in Conversation with friends and Family.

But since it seems so easy to be involved on the Internet and the barrage of Opportunities, claiming vast successes at creating fortunes, many jump on the Social Media Soapbox and start TELLING and YELLING, rather than taking the time to Engage conversation with those who are of like mind or are seriously looking for answers to solve THEIR problems.

It mat seem a longer journey to Success , using Social media to engage in relevant conversation, but our results have shown a more loyal and returning customer base when the relationship developed through sharing ideas and listening well.

A good friend and brilliant marketing consultant, Robert Dempsey recently post an article on the importance of conversation in the business community.

Jump away from our page for a minute and read his post..I also suggest a subscription to stay up to date. He is genius at sharing Technical aspects of this Social media stuff.

Visit Dempsey Marketing

Mention you arrived via Best Business Social Media Services when you comment there.

Gosh, commenting on Blogs…
that is another whole story by itself, later.

Be sure to share your thoughts in the Comment Section. Good for you and us.

Let’s engage in some conversation

The new rage on the social media frontier is Pinterest, a site made up of pins. Pins are pictures or images posted on bulletin boards that an account holder creates. Account holders can create as many bulletin board as they like. Bulletin board subjects and titles are based on personal interest.

After reading some of the basics, you may be ready to open an account and make pins to the bulletin boards you created. That is when the information in this blog might help you.

To start, set up an account. You can’t do this until someone has invited you. Ask a friend to ask you to Pinterest, or ask us for an invitation. Once you get an e-mail with the invitation it is only a matter of following the instructions and setting up the account. It is possible to ask Pinterest for an invitation at their web site, but it takes some time for them to respond. Friends are quicker.

Be prepared with all the account information. This includes an e-mail address, your name, a designated password, username, picture, and a description about yourself. There is the opportunity to list a web site for yourself and to connect the Pinterest account to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Look around at some other people’s accounts to get an idea of how account bulletin boards and information appear. Follow some strategy with regard to what you want people to see about your activities and interests.

The next step is to create some boards with titles that indicates their subject or interest. Check out one of our other posting for some suggestions on board titles.

After reading the rules at Pinterest, you will see the whole idea is to have people post or pin pictures from anywhere and everywhere. Pins can be your own pictures, pictures from internet pages, and pictures from other people’s pins.

Actually figuring out how to pin an image may take some time. First, you install a pin button on your bookmarks of favorites tool bar. The tool bars are in the area at the top of the computer screen. Take the cursor there and right click to see a list of toolbars. The ones that are displayed have check marks. Make sure the favorites or bookmarks toolbar is checked, then go to the Pinterest web site for downloading the pin button.

Follow the instructions to put the pin button on the bookmark or favorites bar. Be sure to select create in “bookmark bar” after selecting “Add to Favorites” and the button should appear in the bar. With this button you can add pins from your computer, the internet, and other sources. If you are having trouble, ask a friend to show you.  After a little experimentation, the nature of the pin button will be understood.

Remember that in addition to the picture, a pin includes information about the person who has the account posted the pin, the source of the pin, a comment from the person making the pin, and links back to all of these places. So if you like, you can check out the original source, who put it up, what people have said about the pin, and more. Often there will be links to related items for the user to follow.

To learn how all this worked, I decided to make a pin about the Atlas Mountains in Morroco. If a picture from my computer was used, then the pin would identify the picture as mine. But instead I did a search and looked at the list of sites for Morroco tourism. By using a picture from an interesting tourism link, the pin that I make on my bulletin board had more content than if I had just posted a picture of my own.

Once your pins start to circulate, people can comment and ask questions. The pin shows a log of the comments. It also shows how many other account holders re-pinned the item. It is possible to follow these accounts back to leave a reply or take other action, like following the account.

If you need more information on HOW to Effectively use Pinterest, Contact us Today

Thousands rushing to join Pinterest daily, but are they using the site effectively?

It just takes a simple strategy to assure your use of this Visual Curation, Pinterest, site effectively.

Three major points to effectively use Curation to YOUR advantage, meet  prospects of like-mind and enjoy increased Traffic and of course, added revenue.

Follow these simple steps and you will realize the benefit of this powerful Visual Curation site, Pinterest

The last tip, Populate the boards is critical before YOU start following other Pinners. When someone is followed that person receives an E-mail form the site and mention the person following and gives a link to the follower’s site. If one take the time to return the favor and arrives at an EMPTY site they are usually left with a sour taste about the serious of the NEW Pinner. I receive 20-30 new follows a day and it is a Time waste to click on EMPTY boards.

You might have lost the opportunity to Meet a New friend that way, and the reason behind Social media is to meet NEW people through Inbound methods.
So again, remember to:

1. WRITE your Strategy down
2. Set up a few boards
3. POPULATE those boards with relevant CONTENT, Pictures and Text

What would you rather see from a Request?

This:

Or a page of Emptiness?

Remember we are here to Socialize, meet new Friends and help the Economy.

As a thank you  for reading along with us I would like to offer you a very well written E-book on How to Effectively Use Pinterest for Business from our good Friends at Hubspot. All you need to do for the FREE Download is Tweet this post.

That’s not hard. Click on Icon below!

Thanks, enjoy, and let’s all prosper together

The Darling of the Curation Social Media Set in 2012
is  Pinterest.

Within the past month there have been hundred Blogposts, Newspaper articles,  Television programs all praising or damning Pinterest.

Pinterest has definitely made an Impact on the Social Media World

This Visual Curation Site has seen page views  jump from 10 million to 17 million visits just in January!
On those stats alone, perhaps you should consider adding Pinterest to your social media marketing mix. BUT……
What about the all of the Negatives being presented regarding the Legalities of Copyright?

Well, I am not a legal beagle, nor do I jump for every NEW Gold ring..

But, as with all time and involvement decisions regarding Best Business Social Media effectiveness, I do look at and study the various opportunities in Social Media Marketing offered, seemingly, every day. Pinterest impressed me, as are the Curation Sites we see sprouting up everywhere. The ability to assemble Data, connected to a common thread,and presenting it in an attractive manner has to be good for anyone seeking to command Internet Authority, Traffic and INCREASED SALES and Profit…

Yes, that is what most of us are in business for increased sales, satisfied customers and increased profits.

I opened a Pinterest account a month or so ago and only set up 5 Boards, but filled them quickly with Blog Posts, Infographs and Videos of the work and creation of friends and clients, along with some personal activity. But rather than Just Pinning a photo or video you will notice TEXT is added  and encourages dialog. When our PINS are repined I take a moment and LIKE and comment back..

Also notice two of the Book do have prices listed

This small amount of time invested has developed some NEW relationships and traffic to the main sites, which has been converting modestly. Two client sites received traffic (23 visits) to their site and reasonable Time spent and page views within 2 hours after Pinning their recent Blog post.

Another Board that has generated a lot of activity is our Horse Board on Pinterest

Some Interesting Pinterest Statistics

From RJMetrics:

• Pinterest is retaining and engaging users as much as 2-3x as efficiently as Twitter was at a similar time in its history.
• Over 80% of pins are re-pins, demonstrating the tremendous virality at work in the Pinterest community.  To contrast, a study done at a similar time in Twitter’s history showed that only about 1.4% of tweets were retweets
• The quality of the average new user (as defined by their level of engagement and likelihood to remain active) is high but declining. Users who have joined in recent months are 2-3x less active during their first month than the users that came before them.

And according to E-M Marketing:

Using Google’s DoubleClick Ad Planner, you can see that in January 2012, there were 19M unique visitors in the U.S with 1.5B page views. Other Pinterest site demographics are

• -80% are between ages 25-54
• -82% Female
• -61% have some college education
• -70% have income between $25,000-$74,999

If your Product  and/Service is directed to Women, Pinterest is the pace to find them, for sure. Being involved in the growing and serving of food and the Horse Industry for years, I learned early on, always hang out where the SHOPPERS really are. But heir are a growing number  of men who are seeing the positive side of Pinterest. Yesterday I received re-pins from 15 “Male Pinners”

What have Your results been with Pinterest?

Click on the Green Comment link above and Share!

What an exciting time for any Business wishing to grow!

Internet programs and tools abound to help Market and Manage your brand and product.

Share your quality links for business programs and tools below in the comment Sectionbelow if we haven’t covered them all.

Here are 10 categories of business programs and tools to consider for your business needs.

In each category, there are links to some of the best priced business programs and tools available. These are aids to help you with the important tasks, but not everything is for everyone. Look at your business plan and decide which of these business programs or tools will fit the plan.

Programs and tools picked are favorites and only represent a small portion of those available. They were picked to provide the creative business owner some ideas on what tools and programs are available. The ten categories are different subjects among the many marketing tools. In some cases, a low price link to a business program or tool is offered along with some more expensive options.

Remember that money spent on quality tools will be returned faster than the money spent on cheap tools that do not work.

1. Domain Name Purchase and Web Site Hosting

If the business is to have a presence on the internet, it will need to reserve its place. There are two parts to this, reserve a domain name and subscribe to a hosting service which will store your site information. One of the most popular Domain name brokers where you can reserve a name is GoDaddy.com.

This name broker is highly recommended because of reliability and personal service. Domain name hosts are everywhere, but they are not alike. Customers will want to compare the amount of space available, the service provided, the ease of use, site downtime and the cost. Here is a link to a site which offers a normal amount of space and excellent training videos for $45.00 a year. Go to  MKW-Ind and scroll down until you can enter your E-mail. Your Hosting can be set up easily.

2. Credit Card Payments

The usual place to go for a merchant account which accepts credit card payments is your business bank. For credit card payments over the internet, go to PayPal. The bank option consists of getting card reading equipment, setting up an account, and processing deposits. There is a percentage fee. Compare the cost and see what your bank is offering. Do a search engine search to see the many non-bank ways to accept credit cards. One popular and affordable service that businesses like is a system that uses a mobile phone. Square-up is an example of a device and service to read credit cards and make transactions with a mobile phone.

3. Accounting

Again, there are many choices. Here is a link to a site that will research accounting software availability by industry or function. For the big or complex firm which has payroll, billing, vendor accounts, or inventory calculations; pick a full service and tested program like Quick Books. The online Quickbooks is another option for some businesses. For the limited budget and simpler business situations, you can consider using FreeAccountingSoftware.net. If you want to process invoices online here is a program to try, Freshbooks.com.

4. Video Presentations

Due to faster internet and better storage, video has become a tool for the business to use in marketing.

Product demonstrations, customer testimonials, interviews, instructions, and commercials and more are easy to produce and upload. Wikipedia has a good overview of the history and the current practices.

Tools to produce video files are in “Movie Maker” or a similar program in your computer software. A tool that many businesses like to use to create video clips is animoto.com. Once you have created some short video clips, YouTube is the most popular site to post them.

5. Printed Material

Brochures, cards, banners, signs, letterhead, forms and so on are all examples of printed material the business will need. The traditional source for these items is the local print shop. A print shop will be able to offer the resources and service a business needs. If you want to find a cheaper or alternate approach, go to this business printing solutions site. One of the most popular sites for a deal on printed material is Vistaprint.

6. Word Processing and Spreadsheets

Microsoft has dominated this area with Excel and Word, two programs that are good at making spreadsheets and documents. If you will be trading files with other businesses then get the Microsoft Office Package. For the business who cannot afford the price, Open Office is a free program. It is harder to use and does not have all the features, but the price is right.

7. Graphic Presentations

In many business situations, having data in a graphic presentation helps communicate the information that people need. The Excel program by Microsoft has graphic capabilities that many people use. There are also online programs like Gliffy.com, which businesses find easy to use and affordable.

8. Project Management

For the business with projects to build something or work over time toward an objective, then some project management scheduling and planning is invaluable. One example would be the Smartsheet. For comparison, take a look at Basecamp which is another popular project management scheduling program.

9. Phone marketing

Your business may call for the use of toll-free numbers, multiple mailboxes, call transfer from cell and land line, and message forwarding to email. In that case, check out a program like one offered by 2 Gain Sales Matters

10. E-mail marketing

One of the concerns that every business must face is to follow the rules and not send spam. Business using e-mail should learn about spam, which is the subject of a Wikipedia post. Spam is the sending of unsolicited messages. The rules say that e-mail “opt in” system is proper.  This  means there are two recorded request to receive e-mail communications. There are programs available to record your confirmation for the request to receive e-mail and manage the list. The cheap or free ones are often a problem to use and understand so if e-mail marketing is important, then invest is a good program with the features you need. One of the most popular, and our recommendation is Aweber. We would encourage the business to research the prices and features of the other programs for internet communication.

Content Curation and Content Marketing have become the HOT items for 2012 Social Media Marketing arena.

Content Curation is the continuous distillation of all available information on a topic, into an editorialized narrative that allows  your Target Audience make sense of the “Big Picture”

Content is the “currency” of the Social Media World and Content Curation is the Bank Depository

But that Currency (Content) needs to have VALUE  if anyone is going to Bend Over and pick it up.

I am reminded of an experiment we did almost 40 years ago. A group of us ambitious Insurance agents wanted to prove the value of money and how often people pass up Opportunity. We went to the local mall and threw some change on the ground in a tight group, sat down and watched hundred of people walk past, even after seeing the change. Our assumption was the “Change” did not represent enough Value for someone to stoop over and pick it up Maybe they were worried about “hurting their Back”?

We then tossed a few on Dollar bills and we started to get some action. People still walked by; but a few stopped, looked down and also looked around, and “furtively” picked up the bill. The value still was not there?  BUT when we tossed a couple of Fivvers, the action picked up. There Was Value being exposed!

Just like the experiment, for your content to be read and a following generated there MUST be Value in your Content. If you don’t have valuable content, that others find desirable, there is no reason for the community to gather around you.

OK, that all sounds well and good, but the biggest “gripe” we hear at seminars and and on the Talk Show is: “I just don’t have the time to create all that content, I don’t have time to blog on a regular basis”

Well Content Creation and Curation have become a bit easier with the introduction of a new service called Scoop.it.  This New Entry into the Social Media Content Marketing arena has gained a huge following and is delivering to its regular users the traffic and Authority they are looking for.

Learn more about Scoop.it in the following Video!

We will discuss a NEW WP Content Curation Theme that allows the creation of your OWN branded Content Curation site or site in the next post

The off-line business world it seems Location, Location,Location, is a proved mantra.

In the  On-line Marketing arena, utilizing Social Media, it is TIMING, TIMING, TIMING, of your Social Media Posts, that rules!

The staff at ArgyleSocial.com have prepared a detailed Infograph on the impact of engagement  results and the Timing of Social Media Posts . Study it carefully. It pointed us to the right direction for our own Businesses and the success of several of our Clients.

Are you focused on Business to Business (B2B) Marketing or Business to Customer (B2C) Marketing?

Don’t forget to CONTACT US  to find out HOW we can Service
your Social Media Marketing Needs,
with the proper TIMING.

Also be sure to Share your Experiences in the comment section below

And take a  moment and subscribe to our updates and RSS feed

How to Create Business Page in Google+

Google+ (GooglePlus) is the latest Social Network that would allow YOUR businesses, brand or profession to promote
your products and services efficiently in the internet. So, here are the following steps in building your promotion on this site:

Making your Google+ page for business.

You will want to be sure to set up a separate G-mail account….
from our friends at Hubspot:

It will be important to choose the most relevant Category when you get started in Google+.

1. There is the Local Business or Place which will contain the location and contact number of your business establishment.

2. The second one is Product or Brand that would bear the name of your business and conforms to the kinds of products and services. You can automatically choose from the alphabetical category.

3.  Company, Institution or Organization will be for the third category. This will be for companies, institutions and other organizations.

4. The fourth category is Arts, Entertainment and Sports which corresponds to books, music, movies, TV and other relevant things on these fields.

5. Number Five is ‘Others’. This is the option if other categories don’t pertain to your business.

Circles and segmentation for marketing with your Google+ Business page.

Google+ is a social network where you can gather contacts.
Your products and services must gain many audiences and prospects. These circles are applicable in decentralized organizations. In Google+, you can subdivide your contacts. It’s advisable that each group will have 15 members. Each group should have something in common in order to disseminate information and content of your business appropriately.  After you have your number of circles, segmentation can take place. It is the way of getting advantage of this page. For example, you can create different Twitter accounts for every project or circle. This will make the maintenance and updates easier for you. It is also possible to segment your connections on Facebook. It is important to remember that members in each group should be in small count.

The following Video will be helpful in understanding the simple steps to take

Using Google+ button.

Google+ button is similar with the like button in Facebook. But it goes with the third party consolidation. This means that people on your list can recommend your business to others. This will make the growth of your contacts faster. This integrates your page further in social network, searching capacity and self-service profiles. So, it is possible for business page to acquire multiple +1s even with a single image search.  This can also be incorporated with YouTube.

One of the other obvious advantages of Google+ Business Pages is the SEO relevant to the Keywords associated with your Business, or service

Even though Facebook Pages are the current Hot Spot for many businesses the Google+ Business pages have rapidly grown in popularity. Just as in Facebook Fan pages, be sure your Google+ Business Page contains valuable Content BEFORE you start promoting heavily. You want to give your Circles a REASON to add you to their venues.

Do you have a Google+ Business Page?
IF so, Comment below and leave YOUR Link so we can all visit and share

Also,  if you any tips on effective Google+ Business pages creation please SHARE

Why Choose Google+ for Online Marketing of Your Business?

There seem to be so many Venues in the Social Media Market, why Google+

Is Google+ different?

Google+ is a haven for businesses online, brands and professions on promoting their product and services. It was presented before the year 2011 ends. It revolves in the latest aspect of social network. This will not only let people connect and share ideas but will readily help them with their business succession.

The following are the features of Google+ that would benefit business persons, large or small.

• The most exciting part of Google+ is the greatest impact of circles.
  These so-called ‘circles’ will help you gain target and prospect to lead them to your website, blog, Facebook and other pages. There are no limitations in obtaining number of people. However, there are conditions and terms that are imposed by Google+ pages. This is the prohibition of applying it as a marketing tool. This means that this site is not allowed for promoting coupons, contests, offers and other things that directly entice the consumers. One must remember that it is a sort of social network that would only let you gather people to see your products or services. Social Media Networking is designed to Inbound prospects attracted to what it is YOU have to offer

• Your profile is directly promoted to Google search.
  We can’t deny that Google has the leading search engines these days. People who would search in Google will only need to add this sign ‘+’ before the query. They would immediately be directed to a Google+ profile. You can also connect any of your websites with your Google+ page. Just add the code on the HTML section of the web page.

• Search Engine Land states that once +1 is clicked in Google+ pages, they will be endorsed, indexed and followed. This is a great benefit businesses can get on this page. A business page cannot only be searched within Google+ but also with the conventional search engines right in Google Search. This will expose businesses to opportunities of building Search Engine Optimization.  Using Google+, you can connect with third party sites. This would allow marketers to widen their connection with ease. However, Google+ has terms and conditions. There must no promotions or contests to be included in your profile. Advertisement is another thing you need to carry on and establish.

Even though there is a lot of excitement about Google+ there are some considerations, especially for those who Create Art and Original Content. The Terms of Service (TOS) pretty much put Google in Ownership position of that is posted.

You are also agreeing to use Picassa as your photo repository.  Although these terms and conditions do not affect my style, they may imp[act many who feel a proprietary position on Everything they produce on the Internet. Google’s agenda for introducing Google+ surely had some commercial alternative motives.  It is a business and does offer a lot of FREE services, worth billions.

What are your feelings about the TOS?

Let’s discuss below

Using Online Social Media Tactics to attract prospects to your Offline Business.

Traditionally off-line businesses relied on Outbound Marketing techniques to keep their Brand and products in front of the public.

On-line Social Media Marketing is just as important as Outbound Marketing Techniques, in fact, they go hand in hand.

 These ideas  focus on Social Media Marketing for small businesses, and here we will enumerate the five cheapest methods to promote your Offline business Online

PODCAST RADIO TALK SHOWS

Promoting your website, product or brand through online radio talk shows (Podcasts) is obviously a very effective marketing strategy. In the past several years Podcasting has allowed many businesses to introduce themselves, products and services globally, for little to know capital outlay.

So what do you do?

You sign up with the one of two Top Podcasting Platforms, Talk Shoe or Blog Talk Radio, and get started right away, after you have set down your Marketing Strategy. Contact us if you need any help in that department

For the past 6 years we have been conducting a Live Talk Show in the self-improvement genre and Focus Society of Overachievers has attracted 1,000′s of prospects with good conversion to products created. The programs seldom stress Sales rather share information of relevance to those interested.
This type of Social Media Marketing is very powerful and a quick way to develop a “following”

PUT YOURSELF ON TV

Ah, the ever-reliable boob tube. But amidst the internet explosion, the “TV” is now called YouTube and other Video Platforms. This form of Social Media has become one of the most reliable mediums to showcase your products and services. What you can do is create simple Slide Show presentation, save them as JPG files, Narrate and then upload to Movie editor and save as wmv File and upload to YouTube.You should know You Tube is now the second most used Search Engine in the world.
If you want to develop more skills in creating screen casts take a look at Lon Naylor’s program Screen Cast Profits

GET PUBLISHED

The printed word is easily accessible to any demographic, not to mention it gets passed around. Taking advantage of free Social Media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Slide Share and Scribd will put a lot of leverage as far as marketing your products and services is concerned. You will have to devote Time and Energy and Consistency, but that’s an asset well spent if lots of people get to read them. There are groups on these sites for almost any any Niche – be it cars, sports, tattoos, even knitting. Spend some time researching and follow through. If done to perfection, I promise you that your domain name will be a word-of-mouth among those interested in your Topic . Having an interesting domain name and byline will be of great help too.

Part of the PUBLISHING side on-line in Social media is the power of Blogging. It is not expensive to set up a self-hosted Blog , which are usually more effective than the Free Blog Platforms. Quality Hosting can be purchased for less than $50.00 per year. We recommend WordPress.org as your platform, it offers so many options to satisfy almost anyone’s needs.

The only possible downside of starting a Hosted Blog is it will take time to have the domain recognized and rise through the search engines and you need to continue to add Quality Content on a regular basis, at least three time week. out associates at 2 Gain Sales Matters have developed a unique Networked Blog System, which, through the power of numbers, allows a person’s Blog to rise through the rankings and secure traffic more quickly than the stand alone Blog. There are currently 24 separate Niche domains working for many subscribers. The post found at You Can Build It sheds some more detail.

What have been some of your biggest challenges in using the above OnLine Social Media tactics?

We have extensive Video libraries and Audio archived for tutorials.
Just contact us for more information. And if you already have Facebook fan Page, please share a link in the comments so we can LIKE your page and share