MLM Networking Women

Well, Facebook is at it again!

In an effort to enhance user experience, Facebook has implemented changes that will make a lot of our information and activities public.

I don’t particularly like Facebook making decisions about what I put in my profile public.

But it is their sandbox, and they let me play there for free.

I have written before about guarding your personal information on Facebook and other similar sites.

Too often, people new to Network Marketing, or other types of home based businesses, start marketing their business using an already existing profile where they have been keeping up with family and friends.

Or if they’re like me, their first profile was for their business.  They were having fun and started adding family and friends along with business contacts.

If you are seriously building a business network on a social site, you will quickly have over 1,000 contacts.  After that, this number will grow and take on a life of its own.

Most of your family and friends are not interested in your business activities.

Your business contacts are not very interested in your personal pursuits.  They simply do not have the time.

So if you don’t already have two profiles…one personal and one business…get busy and create another profile.

I would create one for your personal contacts and ask them to friend you on your new profile. 

People who know you personally are more likely to friend you again than are business contacts.  There again…not enough time.

Once you have your personal contacts on your new profile, delete them from your old profile…the one you are going to use strictly for business.

You have to remember that once you start building a large business network, you don’t want people who you know only casually having a glimpse into your private life and the lives of your family and friends.

The other important task is to clean up your profile.

You really have to be careful of the information you put on your profile.

You are on social networking sites to build your business network…your contacts don’t need to know all of your personal information.

Share just enough about yourself to make you a real person others can identify with….but not enough an identity thief can use to make your life miserable.

One of the changes Facebook is making is to automatically place you in groups or fan pages based on your interests.

We generally list only a few key interests in that section in order to relate to each other as real people.

Someone is more likely to do business with you when they share common ground.

However, being automatically connected to random groups of people based on your gardening or bowling interests can wreck havoc.

Your personal information is shared with people you would not normally connect with.

Then you have to deal with all of the extra messages and posts in your Newsfeed from these groups.

I personally like to keep my Newsfeed clear to keep up on what my contacts are sharing.

If you happen to be put in particularly active groups, just imagine how cluttered your inbox can get!

So just be aware of what is in your profile and how you may have to clear out some information.

Time is at a premium for our marketing time.  It is easy to spend too much time on social networks.

Don’t get caught up in all the extra activity Facebook may be sending your way.

Believe in Your Success, I Do!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

Cruel fact #1:

If you want to build a big income online, you
need to be able to do some writing.

Cruel fact #2:

Most people can’t write.

Cruel fact #3:

Those who can write … often still struggle at it.

On Saturday night, April 10th, at 8:55 pm Eastern time, Richard Dennis, author of the book, “Evil Medicine”, will demonstrate the two simple life-changing tricks.

As a bonus, there will be  several examples that will have you writing magnetic stories within minutes.

You’ll also get the URL for a very useful file you can download.

This training could be worth a lot of money to you.

To take advantage of this training and many more like it that are designed to explode your business success, download my free ebook

Success In 10 Steps

The ebook, and all of our training and personal mentoring are free. 

Believe In Your Success, I Do!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

Wow!

This is exciting news from Ezine Articles!

They have created a plug-in for WordPress that will allow you to submit one of your blog posts as an article to Ezine Articles!

Talk about a time saver and spreading your valuable content around the web!

Fantastic!

Check it out on Ezine Article’s Blog.

Happy Writing!

Believe In Your Success, I Do!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

All Network Marketers use headlines in their advertisements. The principles behind a good headline needs to be used in all subject lines, article titles, and even at the top of your profiles.

The headline is what catches your audience’s attention. It has to peak curiosity and arouse emotions enough to get your audience to read further.

The ultimate goal is to create enough interest to get them to “click through” to your website and sign up for your offer.

The secret formula to writing headlines is to create a character, usually yourself, and include the following components.

1. Personality

2. Odd Number

3. Benefit

4. Occupation

5. Location

Personality is going to be a descriptive adjective: energetic, busy, loyal, intuitive, ingenious.

Odd Number can be an age, years, items, etc.

Benefit is the good thing that awaits anyone who “clicks through” (success, endless leads).

Occupation is what the character (or you) does for a living (butcher, baker, candlestick maker).

Location is where the character lives: L.A., New York, the sticks, on a mountain top, Timbuktu.

Play around with this formula to suit whatever you are marketing.

• Start by writing down something for each component.
• Then rearrange the components to create your headline sentence.

Once you have your headline written, go to the Advanced Marketing Institute and enter your headline into the free headline analyzer.

It will give you an Emotional Marketing Value analysis and rate it for a predominant emotion classification (Intellectual, Empathetic, Spiritual).

Each classification tells how the category of words work and who is the best target audience.

Most professional copywriters get a score between 30% – 40% EMV words with the best coming in at 50% – 70%.

Using the Headline Formula, I wrote the headline for this post. When I entered it into the AMI headline analyzer, I got a score of 50% EMV and the predominant emotion of empathetic.

I do not have any professional marketing education. I learned this skill from a Mentoring For Free training.

Believe In Your Success, I Do!
Karen

David Mathison is launching his new Blog Talk Radio Show this January 6th at 5 pm EST.

David is an author, media expert, and consultant in how to use media to promote your message.  He emphasizes low or no cost avenues so anyone has a platform to be heard.

Be The Media is the title of David’s how-to book, his freedom in media organization, and his new Blog Talk Radio show.

Wednesday’s premiere episode is titled “How to Create Your Own Free Radio Show.”  David will be interviewing Blog Talk Radio’s CEO Alan Levy.

This promises to be an amazing free training opportunity to learn the how to basics for creating your own Blog Talk Radio show and how to make money in the process.

Tune in to the live show at Blog Talk Radio, Be The Media and interact with David and Alan via live chat, Twitter, Facebook, and dial-in.

Believe In Your Success, I Do!
Karen  

What a fabulous way to start the New Year off!

Have you started thinking about your Goals for 2010 and thought about including writing some ezine articles?

If so, this is your opportunity to jump right in and get as much practice and exposure as you can.

Ezine articles is kicking off their 3rd 100 Articles in 100 Days Marathon. 

Each article must be at least 400 words, written under the same author name, and accepted for publication.

Remember, Ezine articles must be ORIGINAL  works!

It starts at 12:01 AM CST-USA Friday, January 1st and ends at 11:59 PM CST-USA Saturday, April 10th.

Are you up for the challenge?

I sure am!  Join me in the greatest marketing race of the year!  Put your pledge in writing at the Ezine Articles Blog.

See You There!

Believe In Your Success, I Do!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

If you are writing as part of your online marketing strategy, you are eventually going to venture into ezinearticles.com territory.

The articles on Ezine Articles are often picked up by Google, provided the keywords and content are up to snuff, and appear on page one of searches.

You must be offering quality content to your MLM business colleagues.  Your article must not be one big pitch and you are not allowed to include links to your site in the body of the article.

Every article has an “author’s resource box” where you write a short blurb about yourself.  You should focus on how you can solve your reader’s problems AND you are allowed to put a link to your site there.

Once you submit your article, the editors will review it and send you a list of “problems” you will need to correct before your article can be published.

Once published, you can shout to the world about your accomplishment.

Digg, Tweet, & Stumble it, and by all means, announce it in your blog.

So here is my chance to Toot my own horn!

I recently had my first article published in Ezine Articles titled, “Beware!  The Dangers of Facebook!”

I invite you to visit my article and leave a comment there.

Don’t let time get away from you.  If you are writing for your blog, you most certainly have the skills for writing an ezine article.

At Mentoring For Free, we have an entire series on writing for ezinearticles by our resident expert, Richard Dennis.  It’s worth checking out…just ask and it’s yours.

Happy Writing!

Believe In Your Success, I Do!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

Most people who start a Network Marketing business, do so with a very limited budget.

Since Network Marketing is a networking business and requires a lot of personal and telephone contact, phone bills can really eat up a person’s budget.

There’s a great online tool that is FREE to download called Skype.  The web address is www.skype.com.

Skype allows you to talk FREE to other Skype users.

In my Network Marketing Business, just about everyone uses Skype, so instant messaging and talking within my team is free.

Skype is a much more well known tool outside of North America.  Most people you network with in other countries…the U.K., Australia, the Phillipines, Israel…just about anywhere…already have Skype accounts.

How great of a tool is Skype when you can call a client on the other side of the world for free?

You can buy Skype credits to use when you call from your computer to someone’s landline for about 2 cents a minute.

Instant messaging is convenient when you want or get a quick message to your team or clients.

You can also send large files via Skype that are too large for email programs.

Conference calling is another great feature Skype has.  You can have small team meetings, conduct 3-way calls, and 3-way in candidates for your business to training and company calls.

Last thing…you can do live video calls too.  The first time I used this feature was a video call with a Facebook friend I met from Australia.

Skype isn’t perfect, though.  Calls get dropped sometimes and sound or video quality isn’t always the best.  You also have to be very careful about calling cell phones.  The charges can be 50 cents a minute or more.

There are certainly other phone services available.  Skype is a smart choice for those just starting out in a network marketing business.  Making calls worldwide for FREE or for very little per minute rate is a fantastic budget saver!

My Skype ID is karen.j.miller.  If you’d like more information on no or low cost methods for operating your network marketing business, contact me.  I am always happy to help.

Wishing You a Lifetime of Success!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com 

When you first were learning how to cook, you probably made a lot of food that the dog wouldn’t even eat.

I remember when I first got married, I burned a pot of peas…then broke into tears!

If you are brand new to internet marketing and are venturing out with your first Squidoo Lens, I know how frustrating it can be not being sure if you’re doing it right.

One of the nice things about Squidoo lenses is that they are very forgiving.  You can go back and change anything about your lens (except for the url…bummer).

I wanted to give you some tips to get you off to a good start with your first Squidoo lens, so you don’t have to re-do too much later.

You should have a good understanding of Squidoo Basics and the 4 Essential Steps to Squidoo Lens Success before building your lens.

1.  Introductory Module.

Think of constructing your lens like you would an essay.  There is a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Your Introductory module is your beginning.  It is what it says…your introduction to what you are going to write about.

This is where you have to grab your reader’s attention.  You only have about 3 seconds, so you have to make it good.

The Introductory module is NOT the place to write your story or the meat of it.

Briefly tell your readers what you’re going to tell them and how you can solve their problem.

2.  Modules

Be creative with your modules.  Don’t restrict yourself to using just Text modules and a Guestbook.

Use your text modules as if they were paragraphs in the body of your essay.  One main point to each module.

Break up your text modules with some visual interest.  Use the “Black Box”, “Talk Bubble”, or “Sticky Note” to punctuate an important quote or main idea.

Consider using the Amazon module to recommend books on your topic.  There are several other modules like CafePress and Orbitz, but avoid using too many modules that will direct your reader away from your lens.

End with a guest book to invite comments and interaction with your readers.  Use the Title and description to tie it all up…think of it as your conclusion.

Remember to ALWAYS create your own title for every module.  Never leave the default headings!  Make sure your module titles contain your keywords and are relevant to your topic and module contents.

3.  Visual Appeal

We are by nature visual beings.  With the high volume of information we get on the internet…email, pop ups, ads, blogs, social media, tweets, etc…we are relying more heavily on grabbing reader interest and attention with a visually appealing article.

Use pictures or graphics in all of your modules.  {Remember to site your sources.}  Avoid the overuse of logos.  They tend to send the message of a pitch rather than information.

Do a search using Google Images to find a variety of photos and clip art that are free-use or public domain.

Use a lot of white space.  One or two sentences broken up with space is far easier to scan for main points than a complete paragraph.

Bold and italicize key words and ideas.  This makes it easy for readers to scan the text to see if they should read further.

As a last bit of advice, don’t get too worried about making your lens perfect for the first time you publish it.

You can always go back and edit your content.  You can change or add images, modules, titles, tags….just about anything…except for the URL.

Besides, Squidoo likes it when lensmasters go back and freshen up their lenses.  It boosts your lens rank within the Squidoo site.

Always have the goal in mind to add value to solve your reader’s problem without being one big sales pitch.

So, get started and happy writing!

Karen
I Believe In You
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

This is a hot topic these days for network marketers using the internet to advertise.  These new FTC guidelines must be heeded.

I’ve blogged about this previously and wanted to pass on the FTC’s final guidelines for how we publish testimonial advertisements in our blogs and articles.

1.  Consumer Testimonials

When using a consumer’s testimonial, and they have had unusually successful results, you MUST make a statement that “clearly discloses the results that consumers can generally expect.”

In the past, you were allowed to include a generic disclaimer “results not typical”.

If I say that I lost 50 pounds in one month eating my company’s Diet Crunchies, and this result is not typical, I would have to state: “usual weight loss experienced is 10 pounds a month.”

2.  Material Connections

When an endorser (you, the blogger) receives a payment or free products in exchange for the blogger’s review of the product, that fact has to be disclosed.

In the past, you didn’t have to say a thing.

If I do a comparison review of face creams, like Oil of Solay, Super Value Face Paste, and the Most Incredible Facial Cream Ever, and I received $100 from the Most Incredible company, I have to tell my readers. 

“I love the Most Incredible Cream.  All of my wrinkles disappeared, my sagging chin lifted, and my skin is as soft as a baby’s butt.”  Oh, and the company paid me $100 to use and review this product.

3.  Celebrity Endorsements

Celebrities and advertisers can be made liable for false or unsubstantiated claims or for failure to disclose material connections.

In particular, a celebrity has to make their relationship with an advertiser clear while making and endorsement  when on talk shows or social media.

Most home-business bloggers and network marketers will not have an opportunity to use a celebrity endorsement.

On the FTC site, it is explained that these are Guidelines and are interpretations of the law, not the actual Federal Trade Commission Act.

If you’d like to read a 12 page PDF document, Revised Endorsement and Testimonial Guides, you’ll find specific examples that help explain what is an endorsement and what isn’t.

It is important to keep in mind that the Federal Trade Commission Act and these Guidelines exist to protect consumers from the deceptive use of testimonials or endorsements.

Remember, if you are blogging about the products you sell from your Network Marketing company, you must be truthful. 

You also must never, ever

• make claims that your products can heal a disease or disorder, or
• attempt to diagnose someone’s problem or prescribe any products.

Your only objective is to introduce your products, give your own testimony or that of your customers, and invite people to try your product to see if they like it.

Always be truthful and honest.  Run your business with integrity and you will always be operating within the law.

I Believe in Your Potential for Success!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com