Business Development Advice

In my last update I was concerned just how long the social media marketing strategies and tactics recommended by the StomperNet SMARTS program were taking together with how long it was taking to work through the training materials.

How things change in a few weeks.

Blogging 

First we had the blogging course week and that brought a few very valuable messages home to me.

It is funny how easy it is to be like an ostrich and to effectively have your head in the sand and miss some points that with hindsight are obvious. But they weren’t obvious to me and I was missing some big opportunities to promote my blogs.

I am also starting two new blogs, one to cover business book reviews and the other will pick up more of the Internet Marketing opportunities that are too specialised for many of my readers.

Social Bookmarking

The following week we moved into social bookmarking. I may have seen comments like “please Digg this” or asking for a Stumble. Instead of saving favourite webpages to your own PC, you could save them to one of these social bookmarking sites and you can then gain access where you are or send other people to see your recommendations.

For the blog/website owner, social bookmarking can deliver targeted traffic for people interested in the particular subject. You see, the more people who Stumble an article, the more votes it gets and people like to see the best pages.

Second Week Off

Full marks to StomperNet for taking surveys of members as I wasn’t the only person who was struggling to keep up with the SMARTS program. We had a vote and won an extra week to catch up.

The beauty of this is that it allowed me to put more of these social media marketing strategies into practice.

Bringing It All Together

Week 9 is fantastic as we were shown how all the ideas that have been introduced to us so far all work together, each building on the strengths of what has gone before.

It really does make a lot more sense and I have definitely discovered my enthusiasm for making social media work.

Social Media In The Future

There is little sign of the social media phenomenon slowing down although I have just checked the Alexa traffic and Facebook is opening a gap over MySpace.

Another SMARTS Course?

StomperNet haven’t said that they will open up the SMARTS course again but I think they’d be crazy if they didn’t.

Last week was the StomperNet Conference and some of the stories coming back about social media success are stunning and any program that can generate this kind of result deserves to be repeated.

But with StomperNet you can never be sure. The original StomperNet launch for the web marketing services was a stunning success despite the $800 per month subscription fee but I believe that they only opened it up for a second time for a very brief time. 

But I have just checked out the originally sales letter link and StomperNet do say that they are planning to when the current program is finished so you may want to sign up for receive their next set of StomperNet SMARTS emails.

You can still download Don Crowther’s SMARTS Social Marketing Strategy report.

Wow the StomperNet SMARTS coaching is the first course that I’ve ever been on when I am seriously behind with my homework even before the course started.

Don Crowther, the Internet marketing guru who is running the course for StomperNet sent out a day by day program of work to do in the ten days from when the program opened to Monday 21st January 2008 when it formally starts.

Some of this work is already in the public arena although the induction/introduction calls aren’t.

If you have missed the videos and other free resources when they were released, here are a few links and my comments:

The StomperBlog - a great way to keep up-to-date with news from StomperNet.

The First SMARTS Sales Letter - it convinced me to sign up along with the free content provided below.

The Second SMARTS Sales Letter - for the relaunch

The Going Natural Video- where this launch started with the Don Crowther video introducing marketing on the social media sites. Very highly recommended as it includes some great tips.

The Don Crowther Follow Up Report - more great tips for using the social media sites for marketing.

How To Double Traffic With Double Listings- great video by Andy Jenkins, co-founder of StomperNet with a very practical tip to get more clicks from Google searches.

Duplicate Content Impact & Resolution - another great video from a self conscious Andy Jenkins

Increase Your Website Conversions - fascinating study of the way people look at websites and how design can hep or hinder you. It also explains why it is better to be ranked number 10 in Google than number 6.

This is high quality content that those nice people at StomperNet are giving away free. Watch the videos and make sure that you take advantage before your competitors do.