Let’s assume you’ve already set up your own Facebook profile and a separate Facebook Page for your business. Maybe you’ve also created a Facebook Group that relates to a type of product or service that your business provides.

What are some ways that you can promote the special events your business sponsors? One way is by creating a Facebook Event. A Facebook Event is simply another type of Facebook page that describes an occurrence that will occur at a specific type and in a specific location. The “location” can be a real physical location or an internet web page.

You can use an Event page to promote a sale or limited time promotion that your business is conducting, or some other special event. This can be an effective way to publicize your business activities from time-to-time, because you can target people who are already connected to you or your business on Facebook. Since they’ve connected with you on Facebook, you already know that they’re interested in the kinds of products and services you provide.

Creating a new Event is easy. First log in to your business’ Facebook Page if you want the event to be sponsored by the business (or log in to your personal profile if you want to be the sponsor personally). Click the “Events” link near the top of the left navigation bar, and then click the “Create an Event” button at the top right of the main column of your events page.

Create a Facebook Event

You’ll then be asked to provide the name of the event, along with the time and place, a description of the event, and upload a photograph that relates to the event. You don’t need to include a finishing time if it’s an open-ended event. Finally, you need to decide which Facebook users to invite. You can either select individual guests from your friends list, or you can make the event completely public so that anyone on Facebook can see the Event and sign up to attend.

Create a Facebook Event

As with any successful business promotion on Facebook, the key is to not overdo it. For example, it’s appropriate to create an event to publicize seasonal sales or other special promotions you are conducting. On the other hand, you’ll probably alienate some of your followers if you create a new event every single day to publicize special prices on individual products.

It’s human nature to like being invited to things. Invitations to join make people feel special, and makes them feel like they’re a part of something. After receiving an invitation, the act of clicking the “I’m attending” button to accept the invitation is an affirmation of that person’s connection with the business that set up the event. By accepting the invitation they’re indicating their desire to align themselves with the event you’re conducting.

Of course, it’s not always easy to turn your Events and the accepted invitations directly into sales. But you can always evaluate your data to see which kinds of Events are most popular, and whether your Events are becoming more or less popular over time. Done correctly, using Facebook Events can be a great supplement to your other promotional activities.

Here’s an example of a Facebook events page:

Create a Facebook Event

If you are new to using Facebook marketing, I recommend you pick-up a free guide at:

It’s tough to run an honest business these days. On the customer side, you have the late payers, the non-payers, and the outright cheaters that suck away your profits. On the supplier side, you have the offline scammers, the online scammers like the Nigerian internet scam, and the outright hackers who consume your attention and resources. You have to deal with your competition. And now there is a new impediment to running an honest business — the FTC.

Wait a minute, isn’t the FTC supposed to protect honest consumers and businesses from unscrupulous scammers? Before 10/5/09, that would be true. As of 10/5/09, I’m not so sure. You see, the FTC released a new guideline on Monday that affects how businesses can use endorsements whether online or offline.

The document is here:

http://ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005endorsementguidesfnnotice.pdf

I’m not a lawyer and I don’t play one online so I can’t provide any legal advice. What I am is a marketing specialist. As a marketer, I know that in order to sell products via copy, you need a good headline, a description of the problem or pain, your solution, your benefits, social-proof via endorsements or testimonials, and a call to action thrown-in with some scarcity. If you miss any element of that marketing chain, your sales argument becomes weaker. In other words, the prospect is less likely to buy from you.

From what I’m reading about the new FTC ruling, sellers who use endorsements no longer have a “safe harbor.” In other words, I will need to go to great lengths to add disclaimers about the testimonials and endorsements. The worst part is that this also applies to my affiliates who may not be as diligent. As I understand it, even if my affiliate breaks an FTC rule, I will be liable. Ouch!

Yes, I know that there are real scammers out there online and offline. Yes, I understand the argument that this type of regulation was designed to catch the bad guys. But on balance, the FTC has thrown the baby out with the dirty bath water. Besides, consumers should also be responsible for their own behavior. Come-on, who in their right mind believes that an acai berry – a blue berry cousin – for goodness sake, can make you lose 30 pounds in 2 weeks? Do we need the FTC to protect us from being gullible?

What is an honest business to do? I suggest you consult with your attorney today regarding this new FTC guideline. I’m not a lawyer. I don’t give legal advice. And if there are links on my site, they are likely affiliate links where I get compensated in some way if you buy through my links. Any testimonials on my site are for informational purposes only. Your results will likely vary because you are a totally different person than the one giving the testimonial. In fact, just don’t even read the testimonials. The same is true for any endorsements. Who cares what others say anyway, right? “If you were a sheep and noticed that the sheep in front of you just jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?” Anything else that I need to disclaim in case the FTC is watching?

Why indeed? What is Twittering? … Isn’t it just another social networking site?

I think Twitter is a little more than that. Twittering is a way of networking with other people, that much is true, but you could also call it a phenomenon. Sharing knowledge, advice, updates and much more in just 140 characters is a challenge that thousands of new people are taking up every single day. Twitter has hit the headlines more and more in recent times, and revealing just a few of the stories that have been published should give you an idea of just how important this site can be to you. Tweeters, by the way, call their form of communication, “tweeting.” You send tweets of 140 characters or less.

When the Presidential race was on, both candidates were making good use of Twitter to garner support for their campaigns. Barack Obama is still the most followed person on the whole of Twitter… although he hasn’t been tweeting much since he started running the country. He still has well over 1,417,890 followers at the last count however.

And celebrities are using the site more and more too – to connect with their fans, promote their careers and much more besides. Some of these have been proved to be fake, but there are plenty of real celebrity Tweeters out there too.

The NBA basketball star Shaquille O’Neal or Shaq also has a huge number of followers on Twitter. Shaq has more followers than Obama at 1,259,460 He often responds to messages and takes part in conversations as well. American actress Demi Moore proved that Twitter can be much more than just another social networking site by helping to prevent an apparent suicide bid by another user. She has 1,195,969 followers.

You can see how Twitter has pervaded the lives of many different people. You can make a difference with this site, and you can also use it for many different purposes including marketing. But the main thing to remember at this stage is that you can reach a huge audience. It may not be anywhere near as big as the one the Real Shaq enjoys, but you can still end up with thousands who will read every tweet you write.

Twitter is not just for the rich and famous – although judging by the number of stories along those lines that have been hitting the headlines recently, you may wonder.

But no matter what line of business you are in; whether you are based primarily online or you have offline interests as well, you CAN benefit from having a free account on Twitter.

Watch the video and click on the link below. You will be taken to a system that you can put to work right away to start building your own Twitter following.

Got news? The correct press release format gets your message on the wires!

Want a high quality back-link to your website? The proper press release format that includes anchor text achieves this.

You’ve got a website. You need to use every available forum to get your website noticed. One avenue of publicity that’s often neglected is the press release. A well written press release can work wonders in driving traffic to your site. All you need to get your website on the map is a few carefully crafted words in the correct press release format. Let’s take a look at how to format a press release that grabs the attention of the media and thus, your audience.

The press release is much like a newspaper story, in that you are conveying information about your company that’s newsworthy. So what’s newsworthy? Your press release should contain information that draws attention to your organization’s products or services, without a hard sell element. This requires finesse. Use the press release format to your advantage. The formatting requirements are simple, but must be strictly adhered to, if you want the right people to pick it up. Let’s take a step-by-step look at how to write a press release that works.

1. Begin with a simple text file. At the top left, in all caps, type: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. Alternatively, if you want your press release to be published in future, type HOLD FOR RELEASE UNTIL (DATE).

2. On the line immediately following, type your headline. Keep it short and sweet, concisely describing the content. For example, when introducing a new product, a good headline might read as follows:

Flutter.com Announces Ground-breaking Platform That Allows ADD Users to Mini-Micro-Blog in 26 Characters

This headline is the “hook” which should spur the reader to want to know more. Keep it to one line and never use exclamation points in any portion of the press release. Also try to use your target keyword in the headline.

3. On the next line, insert your location and date of the release as follows:

City, State, Country – Month Day, Year

4. Now, insert a line to separate location and date from the body of your story.

Here are the important rules on your content. Your whole story should be no longer than 500 words. Write at least a few paragraphs, consisting of just 3-4 sentences. Your first paragraph should tell the whole story. As applicable, address the “five W’s”: who, what, where, when and why.

Details are contained in the subsequent paragraphs. The most effective press releases captures the reader’s interest in the opening paragraph.

Always use third-person in your press release format. For example, if you’re John Adams, write “According to CEO John Adams, Flutter.com …”, not “I’m John Adams, creator of the …”. Quotes from experts enhance the impact of your press release.

Incorrect spelling and grammar errors may well kill your chances of having your story picked up. Your content must be factual and accurate, while incorporating an angle. Your angle is where you do your promotional work, albeit subtly.

Your last paragraph should reiterate in summary your key points.

Include appropriate contact information.

Finally, don’t forget to sprinkle your target keyword phrase through-out the text. Just don’t overdo it or the search engine and/or your readers will object. If the press release site allows it, use your keyword as anchor text and hyperlink back to your website. If you can’t add links in the body, you’ll need to add your link at the end.

5. The last part of the press release format is easy. Space one line and type, END or ###.

You’re done! Now, get it out on the wires!

Here are some good press-release sites.

Paid Sites But Worth It:

* www.prweb.com
* www.prleap.com
* www.webwire.com
* www.prbuzz.com

Free Sites:

* www.24-7pressrelease.com
* www.free-press-release.com
* www.pr9.net
* www.prcompass.com

$133 billion is the number that you should burn into the marketing side of your brain. $133 billion is the amount of e-commerce sales predicted by eMarketer.com for 2009. Is $133 billion in online retail sales a good number or a bad number? One way to look at this is to compare it to the US GDP. In 2004, the US GDP was $11.75 trillion. So if we take e-commerce sales as a percentage of GDP, we see that it represents about 1%.

From the standpoint of GDP, people are comfortable shopping online. However, if we look at the e-commerce sales number from last year, we see that it is down from $133.6 billion or 0.4%. Keep in mind that we are in a severe recession. Given the down economy, a drop of only 0.4% in e-commerce sales is simply amazing.

What can we expect in the next 4 years? According to eMarketer, we can expect to see double digit increases in online sales until 2012 where this sales channel will mature. Until then, though, people will continue to buy online. “Follow the hungry crowd,” as the late Gary Halbert would say.

My advice is to think creatively about how you can use online marketing to show your target customer your value. Consider forming alliances with complementary businesses and create a bigger offer. This may negate the pricing pressure that you may face because you will offer more value for your customer’s dollar.

Also think about working with your competitors to recycle customers. What I mean is to make a deal with your competitor to place your banner on their exit survey pages. Many times, customers simply want to try something new. If you give your business a chance to be seen as they are leaving one paid site, you will increase your traffic.

Remember that the seeds of great fortunes are planted during economic downturns. The key is to market smarter and to test everything.

DONOTCHANGE

Thousands of people come online everyday hoping to find online riches. They come online to learn how to do marketing. Often times, what they find is information presented in such a way that further bolsters their dream. More to the point, most of the information presented are scams. Here is how it usually works.

An inexperienced “wannapreneur” comes online and does a search on “how to make money with the internet.” She finds pages and pages of “how to do marketing” information. She tries a little bit of this, she tries a little bit of that, she sees another offer showing her the online promise land and pursues yet another path … in the end, nothing works. She doesn’t know how to do marketing … or does she?

Look, marketing is really about generating demand for a product or service that has value to a target customer, that’s it. Let’s take an example like marketing a service.

A service that everyone can relate to is “You.” Even if you work for someone, you instinctively know how to generate demand for your service. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be working. You successfully convinced your target customer — your boss — that you have value. You did a number of things right to generate demand for you in the eyes of your employer. That “number of things” is your marketing mix.

Marketing is about combining these number of things into the right mixture for your target customer. The mix contains the 4 P’s:

1. Product
2. Placement
3. Price
4. Promotion

Continuing with our example, the Product is you. Another useful way to look at the Product is in terms of the “offer.” What do you have to offer to your target customer? It could be your experience, your willingness to work particular hours, your contacts, and anything else that you can combine into a valuable offer for your target customer.

The second P is Placement. Where can you market your service? If you are a dental hygienist, the obvious place to market your product is to dentists.

The third P is Price. How much should you charge for your service? As an employee, a good place to start is the going rate for your type of position. If a dental hygienist gets paid within the range of $30K and $75K per year, you would price yourself accordingly based on your “offer.” In other words, how much value can you offer your target customer? Value determines price.

The fourth P is Promotion. How will you advertise your Product? This is where most people coming online get seduced. They are told that somehow the internet magically creates demand and sales without promotion. This is simply not true. The internet is only one of many sales channels for your product. In fact, it should be a part of your promotion mix, but not necessarily your only way to promote.

Returning to our example, you would not do well if you only promoted the fact that you are offering your dental hygienist services on Craigslist. You would do a better job of promotion if you also included word-of-month, newspapers, referrals, and personal relationships.

So does a new “wannapreneur” know how to do marketing? Of course they do. They just have to remember that they know how.

DONOTCHANGE

Sports sponsorship can be observed and dated back to Rome and Ancient Greece where prominent society members supported the arts festival as well as the sports played. By support, it didn’t mean the proper sponsorship or patronage that was considered as a marketing tool. It rather meant continuation of such festivals and athletic events for entertainment.

Today, however, sponsorship through sports has become one of the most popular kinds of sponsorship due to the amount of exposure it can get for both sponsor and sponsee. Sponsoring an athlete or sport means that the sponsor is exchanging products or money for the right to link and associate the company name with the sporting event or athlete.

Why do organizations sponsor sports?

Aside from the popularity tag sports sponsorship gives, a number of other benefits also appeal to the company’s interest. Some of the most common benefits are given below:

Added value to brand

Companies that sponsor sports want their product or range of products to have added value when attached to a sports event or group. By value, this points to product quality, price and/or content. Companies use sports as a leverage to stand out among other competitors, and in turn create for themselves a top position where consumers can remember the name, and possibly have permanent brand recognition.

So what exactly do sports have that other types of sponsorships don’t necessarily offer? To view in terms of goals – sporting events have always had one definite output, and that is there is always a winner in the end. There is always competition; a test of which team or athlete will overcome the other, proving who is superior.

Gold medals, trophies, world records, global awareness are involved in sports and are the symbol of status of teams or athletes in a particular sport. Winners become popular enough to become household names, and this is what appeals to corporations who want to give out sponsorships. They want their name attached to that household name – which will in turn become a household name.

Major corporations such as Gatorade have applied this kind of sponsorship and come out as one of the most popular brands for beverage products. They attach themselves with major sporting events and give relevance by pointing out the benefit of the product to the athlete. This then sticks to the minds of consumers and sports enthusiast about which sports drink is the one to stick to.

Sports sponsorship does not only apply to major companies, but also to small businesses as well. The general idea of brand awareness is still applied and the only difference is the level or scale it covers.

All in all, organizations support sporting events with specific objectives, each of which is addressed below:

• Brand Awareness – this objective seeks to let consumers become aware of the product name.

• Brand Image – this objective attempts to create a specific style and/or personality that distinguishes a brand from its other competitors, and in turn may give premium pricing

• Consumer relations – corporations support sporting events to directly involve themselves with consumers and potential clients, proving that their company is capable of providing proper services and/or products

• Community relations – A more altruistic approach is for this objective wherein the company is concerned about the welfare of a community; and so supporting a sports event can make themselves know to the community

• Employee relations – this objective for a corporation is to promote employee loyalty that will in the long term be very beneficial to the business.

An expert in the field of sports sponsorship is legendary sports agent, Leigh Steinberg. I’ll continue the story tomorrow.