Start 2012 out the right way!!  Don’t get left behind again this year, too.   Social Media is growing and today’s post is all about Twitter.  This is the easiest way for someone in the Real Estate & Mortgage Industry to connect with Buyers, Referral Partners, friends & family.

Popularity of the Twitter social network is growing tremendously on a daily basis. It’s the perfect place for people and businesses to share their thoughts and suggestions for personal and business benefit. Businesses can profit from the use of Twitter, and building your business with Twitter is possible if you have the knowledge.

Enjoy the benefits of Twitter business marketing

There are many benefits to using the Twitter social marketing program. Some of the most important benefits include the following:

News related to your niche, and technologies related to it are available online when and where needed.  The latest enhancements to make your job and marketing endeavor easier can be found. Also many people are willing to share their experiences and ideas with others who need the information and assistance.

Using Twitter is an excellent method for traffic generation. More visitors to your website and online presence will help to increase sales, and perhaps more importantly potential sales.

The social database is a very good source for building a contact list, finding potential employees for your business and more sales will be generated from your marketing efforts. Many professional marketers have built their contact lists in this manner.

Prove to the community you are an expert in your niche. The more beneficial information you can provide, the better the impression that you leave.

Another benefit is that using the network marketing method is free. The only investment is your effort, time and determination.

Not only is this enterprise used for building your business, it can also be fun to keep in touch with your family friends and colleagues.  Share an entry or two to let people know what you have been doing. Let your true self shine through when posting comments

Easy and valuable tips for successfully building your business with Twitter

1. Twitter is a place where people share information about themselves and other aspects of their lives and their specific niche. Because of this, it is important not to spam. If, in error, you are banned the possibility of building your business with Twitter will be exhausted.

2. You should follow people and not only have followers. The more people you follow and the more followers you have, and the higher your exposure will be.

3. Post information and share comments as often as possible. Posting may be time consuming but worth the time and efforts when you reap the benefits. Commenting or reply to other member posts is also recommended.

4. As the saying goes, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Post information followers can benefit from.

5. Build your collection of followers. You may be intimidated by knowing this but the task is not as difficult as you think. Links to your Twitter ID can be placed on your own website and also in the signature in forums and message boards used for promotion of your website.

6. Follow as many people as possible. Try to balance the number of people following you to the number of people you are following.

Southern Fidelity Mortgage offers training on Social Media Marketing techniques to help its employees and Referral Partners maximize their efforts.  If you would like more information on training materials or our next event, please visit our Facebook Fanpage at http://www.facebook.com/SouthernFidelityMortgage .

Also, leave us your feedback.  We would love to know any new subjects that you would like us to write about!

Have a prosperous year and we look forward to connecting with you!

The New Year comes with a lot of changes. It is the time when we all want to start fresh.  If you made a lot of blunders in the past year, it is time to make your New Year’s resolution – at least that’s the line of thinking for many people at this time of the year. However, many people come up with their resolutions, but hardly adhere to them at all.

But stress not! Here are simple guidelines that will make you stick to your New Year’s resolutions.

1)The New Year is just like any other day - You must realize that making your resolutions on this day is just like any other day. Do not put a lot of emphasis on the resolutions you make. This in itself often causes tension. Treat the New Year as a channel and vehicle for change in your life, nothing more. In fact, if it helps, your first resolution may be that you will make a list of the rest of your resolutions by February 1^st or another date.

2)Flash Backs - You need to look back and reflect on the things you have done. If you find some of them were not necessary, you need to put them on your resolution list. This will make you follow them up and change. In short, history doesn’t need to repeat itself. Live better by learning from your past.

3)Reviewing different areas - Think of the aspects in your life that are working well, and focus on your positive traits and skills in these aspects as you create new resolutions. Plus while you’re at it, you also need to change the resolutions you have been making in the past that don’t work. In short, do not focus on the same old aspects that you have always failed to implement. Maybe you need new deadlines or other key elements in your resolutions. Just make sure you don’t set yourself up for failure.

4)Writing down - If you put the resolution down on paper, it will be easier for you to memorize and keep handy. And tape a short version to your bathroom mirror to see each day.

Follow these steps and you will have a brand new year. It is time for new actions, new dreams and a new lifestyle all together.

Southern Fidelity Mortgage would like to wish all of our Employees, Referral Partners, and Customers a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Please have fun, be safe and post your comments and pictures on our Facebook Wall…

http://www.facebook.com/SouthernFidelityMortgage 

The following are critical action steps that Real Estate / Mortgage professionals should take immediately, if they have not already.

 1)Create a Profile -- When you create your LinkedIn profile makes sure you fill it all the way out. Include everything you can to ensure that you have a professional sounding and looking profile.  Include a professional headshot, your resume, your experience, what you do now, and feed your professional blog into your profile page.

 2)Import Contacts -- After you've finished creating your profile all the way, import your contacts and then choose the ones you want to add to your connections. Choose your connections wisely. More connections is not always better. You want colleagues, and your target market to connect with you. So, don't just add anyone, be choosey.

 3)Join Groups -- Join some groups of individuals who share your career and career goals but also join groups that belong to your target market. For example if you're an Online Marketing Consultant to book authors, you can join groups with other marketers, but you also want to join groups such as a Book Writers Group, or any writer's group because once they get to know you they may very well hire you.

 4)Create a Group -- You can also create a group. Create a group name that has your niche market's demographics in mind and then keep the group going. Invite your connections to join it, market it on Twitter, Facebook, in your blogs, and any way that you can to get people to sign up for your group. When you have members keep the group active by posing questions, discussing issues you're having, or reporting a success.

5)Answer Questions -- There is an area on LinkedIn.com called Answers. Use the search bar to search Answers for questions within your target market using the keywords you use when writing articles or blog posts. Once you find questions that you can answer with some expertise then go ahead and answer them. But remember, don't "sell" like a used car salesman, rather pull them in with your great information, kindness and generosity.

6)Give Recommendations -- Is your Virtual Assistant on LinkedIn.com? What about your writers, your consultants, or even your Dentist? If so, recommend them. A recommendation on LinkedIn.com is a very important way to get certified testimonials.

7)Ask for Recommendations -- Don't forget to ask your clients, coaches or employers for recommendations on LinkedIn. If you don't ask you usually won't get them. Most people don't give recommendations on their own. You need to ask.

Please do not put off taking action.  If you’ve already done the steps above, please continue to grow your recommendations and connections.  This is an ongoing part of your marketing efforts and should only take a few minutes per day, once the majority is completed.

If you have any questions on how to marketing with Linkedin, please post your comments or questions on our Facebook Fanpage: http://www.facebook.com/SouthernFidelityMortgage 

Viral marketing has become a respectable and most importantly, very effective means of marketing among businesses worldwide – that’s if it is done correctly and respectfully.

Correctly and respectfully? What does that mean? It means not abusing the system. It means using viral marketing tactics to spread the word about your business, your product and your service without offending others or being self-serving.

But, viral marketing is inherently self-serving, isn’t it? Well, yes and no. To be truly effective, viral marketing must include a give and take approach. You must engage others, take part in conversation, and give as much as you get. In other words, don’t expect your message to spread itself. Viral marketing takes time, careful planning and well-thought out execution.

It has, for lack of a better word, an incurable need for attention.

While viral marketing can be applied in a number of ways, there are 3 main approaches:

#1 – To Share. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube are in fact products of viral marketing themselves. While they’re sole purpose is to allow (and encourage) users to share information, they too must share their service via their users. It’s simple, really. Their users believe in them and enjoy their websites so much, that they share those websites with others. Knowing this and trusting this would take place, these social media powerhouses have become multi-million, some billion dollar businesses thanks to, you guessed it, viral marketing.

#2 – To Add Value. Adding value is not a characteristic unique to viral marketing. It is a common marketing approach across the board. For hundreds of years, business owners have understood the importance of offering their customers “more”. For instance, buy this product and receive this additional product for free. You get the picture. So, this notion of adding value applies to your viral marketing in the same way. However, rather than simply applying added value to your products and services, make value-added offers to those who share your message. For instance, send this message to an additional 10 people, and receive a free product. Incentivize and you will see results!

#3 – To create buzz. Similar to sharing, creating buzz is can be extremely effective. How is it different? While sharing refers to others literally sharing information with friends (i.e. Like my Facebook page? Sign-up for your own Facebook page today and see more of what I’m up to, including photos, favorites and more!) creating buzz is more about spreading the word. Consider how gossip spreads, or the way in which gossip magazines create stories based on hearsay. The idea is to get people “talking” about you and your business in a positive way so that they begin to encourage others to become customers, sign-up or carry on the conversation on their own.

As you can see, viral marketing is about more than inundating your audience with your message. Its about strategic planning and taking an approach that puts your business in a positive light while enticing others to not only become customers, but to spread the word as well.

What ways are you creating Buzz in your business?  Do you have any creative strategies to share with us?  We would love to hear about them, please post them on our Facebook Fanpage at: http://www.facebook.com/SouthernFidelityMortgage

It’s time to demystify getting traffic. The reality is, it’s not as hard as you think. It does take work – But it’s not difficult work. How do you drive traffic to your website consistently? Here are several proven traffic sources and methods to help you consistently bring people to your website.

A Content-Filled Newsletter

You’ve probably heard the expression “the money is in the list.” This is SO true. Website owners who put off building their list until sometime “later” are majorly missing out.

The time to start building your list is now.

The attitude you should take with your newsletter is to build your following or audience. The attitude shouldn’t be one of trying to SELL them.

A 90% content to 10% sales ratio is about the maximum amount of selling you should do. Remember: The goal is to build an audience over the long run, not to try and make as many short term sales as possible while burning out your audience.

Leverage High Quality Content

High quality content is what will bring you the most traffic over time. To build a business successfully means to have high quality content that people want to come back to and send to their friends.

What’s the best ways to leverage high quality content?

The most obvious way is to put it on your own website. You should have more high quality content on your own site than any other site.

Another way to leverage high quality content is to have your content published on other people’s websites. One great way to do this is to guest write for other blogs.

What does this mean? Basically, you write a piece of content exclusively for someone else’s blog or website. The article is highly informative and really hooks others in. At the bottom of the article is a link pointing back at your site.

There are many places you can publish your content. These include article directories, other people’s blogs, Squidoo & Hubpages and more. The bottom line is to really get your content out there to as many people as possible.

Explore Other Methods of Traffic

Try publishing a YouTube video and see what happens. Experiment with PPC to see if you get a good response. Start a Twitter or Facebook page and see how your audience responds.

Once you start getting decent traffic from your website, expand out to other methods of gaining traffic.

Chances are, only a couple methods will really work for you. But if you don’t try it out, how will you know?

Interviewing Other Experts

One great way to gain both traffic and credibility for your website is to interview other experts on the topics they’re known for.  This does two things. First, it provides high quality content for your own readers and subscribers. But it also links your site with the person you’re interviewing.

The person you interviewed will often post a link to the interview on their own website. Even if they don’t, you’ll still get massive credit in your industry and in the eyes of search engines for interviewing those experts.  If you interview 10 experts, you will almost certainly get at least 5 backlinks back, resulting in both increased rankings and a lot of traffic.

There are many ways to drive traffic to your website. The most important thing is that you’re implementing something today. If you take action, you will always see results. Select the one that appeals the most to you and put it into action now. Gauge the results and then take the next action from there.

What are some of the traffic techniques that you’ve been using?  Are there some really ‘NINJA’ tricks up your sleeve… if so, we would love to hear them!

Please post them on our Facebook wall:  http://www.facebook.com/SouthernFidelityMortgage

Also, if you are not yet on our Fanpage, you will find several FREE GIFTS waiting for you… Enjoy!