According to www.checkfacebook.com there are over  700 million active Facebook users.  An active user is someone who has been on the site in the past 30 days.  Given the number of Facebook users more business are looking to Facebook to advertise their products and services.

Facebook launched their advertising program on November 6th 2006 and Zuckerberg announced “For the last hundred years media has been pushed out to people, but now marketers are going to be a part of the conversation. And they’re going to do this by using the social graph in the same way our users do,”

Facebook ads work much the same way as other Pay Per Click ads, however, there are a few significant differences.

1. Facebook allows you to target your ads so they are seen by your specific demographic (i.e. Age, Sex, Location and often their interests)

2. Targeting with keywords is optional

3. Facebook ads are seen by your target audience right on their profile pages

4. Compared to other media ad options there are fewer advertisers on Facebook, which means less competition for your niche.  This means a better return on your investment as it costs you much less per click.

5. People can “Like” your advertisement, which can produces a snowball effect.  If you are seeking to drive traffic to your Facebook Business Page, Event, Website, then Facebook Advertising may be your ideal solution.

Don’t forget to subscribe to my blog so you don’t miss my next post ”The  five steps required to plan and profit from Facebook Advertising”

LinkedIn may not be as flashy as Facebook or as trendy as Tumblr, but for most people with a business, it’s definitely a must in the social media world. With a solid user base of over 75 million people, LinkedIn is popular among high-level businesspeople; according to the LinkedIn PR page, executives from each of the nation’s Fortune 500 companies belong to the site. LinkedIn focuses more on professional activities and accomplishments, and less on cute games and applications. So if your target market trends a bit to the older, corporate side, LinkedIn may be the place for you.

The first thing to do on LinkedIn is  Read the rest of this entry »

Twitter may seem like a relatively new player on the social media front, but the site is actually nearly five years old, having debuted in 2006. Now, Twitter has over 100 million registered users who are sending out a combined 55 million-plus tweets a day. Many people still see Twitter as a waste of time – but didn’t they think the same thing about the Internet, 15 or so years ago?

If you’re looking for a quick, concise way to reach a wide audience, Twitter may be your answer. Twitter’s strength lies in its openness and its numbers. Of course, those are its drawbacks, too. It is so easy to connect with people on Twitter that it is not much of a commitment – at first, at least.

As a business owner, you should observe what the “average” user does – and then do the opposite! For instance: Read the rest of this entry »

With over 500 million active users who spend more than 700 billion minutes per month online, Facebook is a natural first stop for marketers looking to reach an online audience. The biggest benefits of Facebook include:

• Reach (Nearly everyone is there!)
• Ease of use (If my aunt can figure it out, anyone can)
• Ability to add numerous media, including audio, images, and video to your page
• Ability to email groups of fans at a time 

If you decide to go the Facebook route, your first step is to Read the rest of this entry »

If you were to advertise your business, you wouldn’t start by creating a list of newspapers, Yellow Pages, and magazines, and immediately sign up to place ads in each and every one of them. Instead, you wouldd set a budget and do an assessment of prospective advertising venues in order to determine which would be most effective in reaching your target market.

Even though you can join most social media outlets free of charge, your involvement will cost you something that might be even more valuable than a modest sum of money: your time. As a result, you need to plan where to invest your social media “budget” much like you would plan on spending your advertising budget. 

So don’t go crazy and join 20 different social media sites just because they are there.  Instead, Read the rest of this entry »

Have you taken the plunge into social media or are you on the sidelines wondering if this is the best use of your time!

“Social media” is defined by Wikipedia as “media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques.” In laymen’s terms, social media helps people connect online. In popular usage, the term “social media” typically refers to social networking and sharing sites, including the following: Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things that I have found working as a Virtual Assistant with real estate agents and small business owners is that most of us spend most of our time on irrelevant tasks that have little or nothing to do with the attainment of our most important goals.

I hope that the information that I am about to share with you will help you get more organized and thus more productive. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently read a book by, Henriette M. Klauser, Ph.D. “Write It Down, Make It Happen” in fact I passed it onto a friend who was going through a difficult time in her life.  I encouraged her to write down the outcome she would like and how she envisioned her life should be.   By writing down your goals and desires, you are much more likely to make those dreams a reality.

Research shows that people who write down their goals are about twice as likely to achieve them as those who do not. And if you count those who write down their goals but don’t quite meet them, they still get a lot closer than they would have if they hadn’t written them down in the first place. Therefore, you can see the strong case for committing to your goals in writing. Read the rest of this entry »

With effect from March 11th Facebook will implement some new changes that will impact on your Facebook profile.  I have received a lot of questions regarding the changes so thought I would give a brief summary so that you know what is coming….

So starting at the top: Read the rest of this entry »

If you were once in corporate America then you probably worked in a team environment.  You had administrative support and a marketing department which allowed you to go out and meet clients to promote the companies services and products.  This made you and the company successful as year on year the company grew and your sales target was met or surpassed.  It was maybe one of the reasons you decided to go into real estate because you were a great salesperson and wanted to help people buy and sale real estate.

So why I ask do a large number of real estate professionals decide to be their own Real Estate Assistant?  Is it because: Read the rest of this entry »