As a blogger and Twitter fanatic, I love the fact that I can sign up with IZEA and get paid to Tweet relevant and useful ads to my followers. However, as much as I like making a few extra dollars, getting paid to Tweet is nothing compared to paying others to do so for me. I’m talking about paying for ads from famous bloggers and other influential Twitter users, which is something that no one talks about,...

Many people mistakenly assume that social media is just about driving traffic and creating buzz for a product or campaign. Sure, those are great goals to have, and they are possible to achieve with a solid social media plan, but that’s not the only benefit. What social media does really well, and why I think it is essential for businesses, is build relationships with clients and build brand loyalty. Traffic...

I like to feature people that do it right, and today I’m happy to bring you a cool story that combines social media understanding with helping those that are less fortunate. The really neat thing about this story is that I heard about it via one of my social bookmarking networks, which I’ve written about in the past. In this case, it was StumbleUpon. I’ve been building a network there for...

In case you missed it, yesterday I spent some time talking about why you need to have an email form on your website. If you didn’t read it, go check it out and then come back to this video. Once you’re done, make sure that you are signed up for AWeber, watch this video, and then get to work. ShareSHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "How to Add an Email Form in Wordpress", url: "http://makingitsocial.com/how-to-add-an-email-form-in-wordpress/"...

Having a great blog or website is good progress, but if you really want to rule your own digital realm then you’ll need more than just a platform. You need a way to capture the names of visitors that stop by your website or place of business so that you can stay in touch with them once they go home. People have short attention spans, and if they aren’t in your store or on your website, then they...

With the success of the Tweetmeme plugin for WordPress, it’s hard to believe that they waited this long to create their own version, but Facebook finally got around to creating their own Facebook share plugin. This one is pretty handy because like Tweetmeme, it also has a counter, and it makes it extremely easy for people to share your content on Facebook, which currently dominates the social media scene. This...

One of the first things that people mention when I tell them about creating a social media marketing effort is that they cannot afford the costs, either in cash or in time. And it’s funny, because really social media doesn’t cost any more than any other type of marketing. Sure, you might pay consulting fees, or maybe you pay an employee to manage your social media presence, but how is that any different...

You’ve probably seen it. It’s that big green RT button with a number on top that allows people to RT a blog post and get the instant gratification of knowing that they helped that number go up. It’s a great way to get people to share content online and feel like they are contributing to the community. However, as I spend time throughout the blogosphere, I’ve noticed that many bloggers...

I’ve had a lot of people ask me lately about the benefits of unfollowing everyone on Twitter and starting over from scratch. Part of the reason for this is because what was once an accepted standard practice, as in following everyone that followed you, has now led to a giant list of Twitter users that can be very difficult to manage. If you have a lot of influence on Twitter, then I’ll tell you...

Social media consultants spend a lot of time talking about how to monitor your brand with Twitter. In fact, I spend an entire module in my Twitter Rockstar course doing just that. However, what we don’t talk about often enough is how to spy on your competitors using the same tools. There are several advantages to spying on your competitors, such as being able to see how they interact with their customers/clients....