Thread: Is any body REALLY making money with these?

As I sit here with Paul Lynch one of my fellow administrators and Tim Lowe, one of the Europe's most successful entrepreneur trainers, we have been debating about whether all the "fluff" and "hype" across the globe about You Tube, Twitter and Facebook are able to deliver us MEASURABLE results either in terms of traffic generation or sales.

To say it has been a heated and exciting debate amongst 3 friends, would be an understatement.

Tim, hates that fact that nobody can see measurable results, I just accept that it definitely forms a vital part of any bodies traffic generation strategy and when we took a straw poll of the people in the workshop we are currently teaching in the UK, every 20ish year old was involved, immersed and committed to these powerful community based relationship tools. So as far as I am concerned we can't side step, we have to acknowledge their influential power and wo-betide those that don't

Thoughts?

Kevin

While I'm no expert in either SEO or net based money making, what I do know is that these community sites have a very high user base and very high amount of traffic.
Few artists (music) have made it to the main stream after making a name for themselves via these sites.
So there is potential.
Also most of a the major media companies and entertainment companies have a profile in one or several of these sites promoting their programs and using these sites as a form of advertisement and a feedback generator.
They wouldnt be doing that if where was no tangible revenue now would they ?

I've been making money with all 3 of them =]

Youtube - Blackhat ringtone offers
twitter - ANYTHING!!! =]
Facebook - Links within certain facebook groups
Myspace - $$$$$ bling bling

Out of all 4 I listed above, myspace is by far the EASIEST money source on the internet for quick cash. Twitter is very easy to market once you outsourced the work. You can market to certain niches, and there are also various ways in which you can market twitter and monetize the system.

Youtube is also another great source of targeted traffic. Usually you will need to sort of "SEO" your youtube videos by adding keywords and such. You can also blackhat your youtube views to gain higher rankings, fake your comments, ratings and get awards on youtube for your videos.

Facebook, you can create an app or simply post links on viral groups


Cheers
Ranzuken

OK youngster....talk us through say MySpace.com.....let's give you the opportunity to present in a short concise "first do this, then do this...." then I suggest those following this thread, put what you've said into practice and feed back in say 7 says time with the results.....the question is "How Do We Make Money From MySpace...."

Wow these results are going to be fascinating.....

Kevin

One way in which you guys can make money off myspace, is by promoting your products on there, and by gathering as many friends as possible.

Gathering friends
I use friendblaster pro (
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) to browse and add people within your demographics (females, males, age group, interests, etc..)

For example, if you're going to promote acai berry creams, I would make a myspace profile based on acai berry, put up a video on my profile page, put up some links, and add as many people within the ages of 18-35 for example and the female group. Females are highly responsive to these type of things. I would also add people within a certain city group as well =] (browse by zip code).

Then another way to monetize it, is to comment blast all of your friends and use an image with your generic logo and website URL within the image. This also decreases the spam rate.

I have more of how to make money with myspace within blackhatguide as well.

Hope this helped Kevin =]

Cheers
Ranzuken

Great Ranzuken,

OK, let's see if any of our community of members, can now take what Ranzuken has shown us and get off to a flying start by making some money via MySpace.
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Kevin

Was just curious whether you'll get blacklisted. Any tips to share on it on how to avoid it.

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Originally Posted by sunnytung
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Was just curious whether you'll get blacklisted. Any tips to share on it on how to avoid it.

I have a tip. Avoid black hat.

Black Hat will definitely and eventually get you in a big black hole of trouble...It isn't ethical...don't do it.

Kevin

I tried a friend adder which accessed Blog Catalog. Unfortunately, my account was banned in less than a day. It took quite sometime until I was able to re-establish another one to. I'm not really an avid user of Blog Catalog..but, I wanted to be at the time. It didn't work out so good
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I agree. Can take ages if not forever, if you fall foul of unseemly strategies. We have a saying in the UK "Ignorance of the law is no defence" and I am guessing this applies the world over. Just because you say you didn't know or in fact really didn't know...those that set the rules, the umpires of our industry will respond "tough" you're in the sin bin and we'll decide whether to let you out or not.

Nick

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Originally Posted by Nick James
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We have a saying in the UK "Ignorance of the law is no defence"

We have the same here in the USA, sightly different spelling . . . . though it did work for me last week when I made an innocent illegal turn. Or maybe the police man just took pity on me.


GARRY

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Originally Posted by Kevin Potts
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Black Hat will definitely and eventually get you in a big black hole of trouble...It isn't ethical...don't do it.

Kevin

Thank you for putting it so well.

I use facebook and everytime I place a link with any of my products or just articles on my blog I get visitors... so I don't think it doesn't work... I bet that if I worked a little bit harder it would increase!!

I think that Facebook and youtube are a great way to go. It's not as targeted as I would like, but a vast majority of users are younger folk in school or fresh out of school. Why wouldn't they want to make some money?

Getting targetted visitors to your sites from MySpace,Twitter or Facebook is the key.Several marketers have asked me to join them on any and all of these three.Following them on Twitter will get them to follow me also.Using Direct Messages on Twitter is extremely targeted but slow in small numbers; tweeting to people who are all internet marketers is great if you tweet often.Targetting for your particular niche takes practice or a good knowledge of demographics and a search of groups internally in Twitter.
Adding a marketer as a friend on My Space or Facebook in return for reciprocity can become quite viral.Some of these new business friends invited my other friends to make them friends simply by visiting my profile.The same can be done with Twitter by seeing what group those followers belong to.A viral explosion if used correctly and it all can be done white-hat.
Mind you ,Twitter has an initial follow/followers ratio of 2000 and Facebook is about to change it's rules.
Caveat: you can sign up with Facebook and then create a personalized address like facebookdotcom/your name or nickname; and Twitter allows several profiles, one for each niche if you like and have many user names and e-mail addresses.
I use Linkedin the same way but finding common friends among friends is a bit more complicated but very rewarding for professionals of any kind.{ I am still an amateur in IM.}

Thanks Ranzuken,

Your right I have a facebook and am working on myspace. I have a facebook and it has worked great for me. All your friends profiles tell you exactly what there interests are.

They write on their walls daily telling you their problems and you find them solutions and cha ching.

I had one friend that wrote on her wall that her nintendo wii fit broke and she couldn't work out today with. A light came on I have a website
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and I have a E-book on there of how to fix your Nintendo Wii. Problem solved.

See alot of people don't understand the importantance of your own website and the power you have with one.

Oh yea she thanked me too and now she knows about the website for future and I am sure she told a few friends about it and it didn't cost me a dime. What is wrong with that? If you don't have a facebook you are missing out. I will let you be the judge. Feel free to pm me if you need a hand with facebook we are in this together. Look me up at
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Michael Hilton and request me as a friend. I am here to help not hurt.Mike.

Facebook Demographic PPC is well worth getting to know and testable- (facebook pages are a way marketers can use Facebook without upsetting FB - but as TL comments is a hit and miss process)

Twitter is a good alternative to using emails for updates on website content, to bring people back to a site, (and that can be tracked)

Myspace and "automatic friending" is all too spammy for me.
And even if it makes money, it does not build a proper business.

I think the social media sites are the way of future. I don't see them slowing down anytime, but possibly merging together. Somebody out there is coming up with new ideas everyday on how to market these mediums. I have profiles on all of these and just go in every now and then and see what people are talking about. This is a great way to get new ideas about niches or long term trends that people are bringing back.

I don't really agree with the Myspace, Acai berry strategy allied with Blackhat friend gathering. I can see how it works, it's just not how I choose to do business, and I'm probably poorer for it. It'll be much sweeter to make the grade without resorting to ripping people off, which is basically what these acai berry products are.

Look at what this guy has done on YouTube: youtube.com / watch?v=1k08yxu57NA

1/ Recorded a famous show
2/ Posted it up quickly
3/ Added tinyurl affiliate links in the description
4/ 1 year later and 56,000,000 views later I bet he's made some money.

Let's assume a conversion rate of 0.0001% (I don't think many youtube viewers are primed for spending cash, but some will be).

That means: 5600 people will have bought one of the CD's.
He's probably made 5 grand off that video at a guess - could well be more.