Comments on: Building A Business Through Social Media Vs. The Old-Timer's Way To Business Success

By: Blogging For Money. What's The Best Way To Make A Profit? - Marketing

Blogging For Money. What's The Best Way To Make A Profit? - Marketing — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:02:24 +0000

[...] Building A Business Through Social Media Vs. The Old-Timer’s Way To Business Success – A post expressing my concerns that with the idea of social media marketing entrepreneurs might become lazy. [...]

By: John Hoff

John Hoff — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:51:04 +0000

@ Barbara – You might not fully grasp Digg and other sites like that, but you definitely have the blogging part down. Blogging is definitely a social media marketing tactic. I’m curious, what are your goals with Blogging Without A Blog? Is it more a personal site or do you see it as an income generating business?

Hand shake? No website?? My lips are zipped! heheh

@ Cath – I know you know your marketing and are kind of reorganizing things for yourself and business so it’s understandable that you have to take steps. I’m sure you have a long laundry list of things to do.

I’m with you on the “old fashioned” stuff. In my next post I spotlight Craig Newmark of Craigslist and how he doesn’t limit himself and his business to social media tactics only. He gets out and gets his picture taken and wears a suit at times.

By: Cath Lawson

Cath Lawson — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:34:43 +0000

Hi John – I think there definitely has to be a balance. I’ll confess – I haven’t put heaps of effort into marketing my blog, even though I’m a marketing junky. But I will be now, as it is part of my new business marketing strategy.

But relying solely on social media can be dangerous and some blogs have done that. And i noticed their alexa rankings have suffered as a result. Trouble is with social media marketing – your stuff doesn’t have to be that good to get voted. Folk will vote on a post on a popular site, on StumbleUpon just because they know other folks will stumble it too. And if you’re the first person to “discover” a popular post, your own website shows up in SU more.

I will use some social media marketing but will also be doing plenty of more “old fashioned” stuff too.

Cath Lawson’s last blog post..Free Gift Ideas That Help You Sell More

By: Barbara Swafford

Barbara Swafford — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:21:59 +0000

Hi John, Social media, although I know a lot of people use it, confuses me. Maybe it's because I haven't taken the time to learn how it works and how to use it to my advantage. Our real life business is built with the "old" methods. We don't have a website (although it's a thought), and some of our business deals are still done with a hand shake (shhhh!). I blog, but not for our business, nor do I promote our business on them. I do know of a blogger in England who uses his blog as a business tool and it has served him well. He has an IT business, so that may make a difference. Barbara Swafford's last blog post..Sometimes Thank You Is Not Enough

By: John Hoff

John Hoff — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:04:45 +0000

@ Mere – I completely agree, a good combination is key. And it’s funny you mentioned sending packets, we’ve been working on doing there here at WP Blog Host. Not long ago I signed up for a service online and shortly after I received a “Welcome” package in the mail and was quite impressed.

Needless to say, in the near future we’ll have something like that here.

@ T Edwards – I LOVE your website’s tagline: The Definitive Guide To Becoming, Being, and Staying Flat Broke

I’m like you. I’m an old school entrepreneur that looks for creative ways to make a profit (see my real estate investing posts) and I’m also a relatively new blogger (about a year). A successful entrepreneur needs to develop their product, come up with a great plan, and put it into action.

I feel like many of these social sites lately are giving new entrepreneurs the impression that developing and running a business is easy and you can sit at home in your PJs running a highly successful business.

Possible? Some do it, yep. But for the majority of people, no. More to come……

Thanks for the comments

By: T Edwards

T Edwards — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:42:36 +0000

Hello
This is a great post. As an “Old School” entrepreneur and a new blogger, I am very interested to see how blogging and web business models change over the next few years. From what I gather, it takes A LOT of work to sit at home and make any significant money from an online business. Getting out and pounding the pavement may not fit the internet business plan but there is definitely a need for a lot of behind the scenes marketing, development, programming, monitoring, revising, etc to build a successful online business. I have been bombarded with so many programs and ebooks for sale and the majority of them are junk. It seems that all the emphasis and work has gone into ONLY social marketing of the site/blog/product and NOTHING into the actual product itself. Many blogs don’t even post original content, instead relying on recycled posts found on the web which are then marketed via social networking sites. I choose to spend the bulk of my time trying to produce good content.

Talk to you soon

By: Mere

Mere — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:13:17 +0000

Yes, I blog and send email newsletters. But my most successful marketing actions this year - sending packets of information to new prospects and hand-written thank-you notes to customers and clients. A combination of the old and the new seems to be most effective. Mere's last blog post..Expert Witness Expenses