Does that sound familiar?

Some say don't promote your business on your personal page. They say only on a business page. Some say it's okay on a personal page. What is better?

How about that one? Have you heard it before too?

It's all about engagement. That's the main thing. Your #1 goal is to create engagement.

But why? What does that do?

I want to make sales and enroll team members.

How will this "engagement" thing help me do that?

Engagement is interaction. Sales and team building comes from driving traffic to your websites, to your content, and to you. There are a lot of triggers that create this traffic, and social media interaction is one of those triggers. A big one.

So keep reading we are going to break this down as to the how's and why's. It will answer those questions.

It's really a personal preference. Are you passionate enough about your business to shout it out to the world? If the passion is not there, or if you are afraid of what your friends and family will think, then you might not be all in.

It's like sticking your toe in the water but being reluctant to jump. 

I promote my business on my personal page because it's something that I believe in and that I'm proud about. But I do it in a strategic way. You can do it effectively without being a pain in the rear.

Teaching things that are somehow relevant to your product is a good strategy. Mixing your posts up with personal stuff, raising awareness of issues, and offering solutions to problems is a good mix. So are testimonials and talking about benefits. Not being overly repetitious will keep you out of that "you're annoying" space.

Just so you know ... not posting regularly, is NOT a good strategy.

But if you hold off talking about your business while you're building up your business page, then nothing is happening for you. You already have an audience on your timeline or personal page. Learn to use it effectively.

If you are serious about your business and what you are doing, you won't worry about what your friends and family think, and you might even win some of them over. They will see your passions and that you believe strongly in what you are doing. They will understand that you don't care if someone else doesn't like it. And they might even want to follow you because of those qualities. Some might not, and that's okay.

But there are other advantages that come with learning social media marketing as well. Use it to build social signals, social proof and website syndication. Learn how to create a web of your internet real estate and link it all together. And posting all the content you are learning to create is putting social media to work for you.

Okay .. so what are social signals? The MOZ blog says it like this ....

So you see... social media marketing really does have more of an effect on your business then you might realize, and the way you market on the social platforms has everything to do with your social signal strength.

The more popular you are, the more people want to follow you. If there's a crowd, people stop to see for themselves. They want to know what's going on. If people are gathering, they want to gather too.

It's a phenomenon. We don't know why it is, it just is. People might not know you at all, but if you have a following they will want to follow too. They will think you must be really good at something. On social media they call this social proof. The more popular you become, the more social proof you earn..

Search engines even give points for social proof. You can literally rank higher for being popular. They might judge your reliability, or your trust factor on your social proof. It must mean to them that you are putting out high quality content and providing useful information. Why else would people want to follow, like, and comment on your posts?

 It starts with being social, and learning how to communicate on the social platforms in an engaging way that provides value and benefits. Engagement is a big factor. Friends of friends and friends of family really do care about what those that they are connected to are doing and saying, and who they are following and engaging with. You can become an influencer just in the way you post and the content you provide.

So start creating social signals and earning social proof. These alone are a good social media strategy for a beginner.

Here's something interesting. In the Kissmetrics Blog article 7 Things You MUST Understand When Leveraging Social Proof in Your Marketing Efforts, #6 Authority Rules! states the following ....

You are in this for business. If you weren't you wouldn't be reading this post. So you should present yourself as a professional. Let your visitors know that you have a business and let them know that you are serious about building your business.

Fill in the about me sections and your mission statement. Have a complete page so your visitors can read and learn about you. Let them know that if they were considering a business you would be a good person to talk to and to learn from. Don't try to be someone or something you're not. Just be yourself and be real. If you are new at your business or at marketing it's okay to tell people that. Tell them you are working hard at learning it all and getting better, and that you like to share what you learn with others..

Showing yourself as a serious professional really is the best social media strategy for a beginner I can give you. It's the foundation of it all. Getting other peoples attention and holding their attention is the first step. If you can't do that they just won't take you seriously enough.

 It takes time to learn the techniques for posting and sharing, and it takes time to learn content marketing. But you can start now. You have the basics. Now it's time to take action. Start with your page and fix it up so you come across as a person who is serious about being taken seriously.

Creating and posting quality content that people can and will share can really give you a boost. It's a known fact that word of mouth recommendations are the strongest there is. If your friends and contacts like and share your content, their friends and contacts are likely to do the same thing, and so it goes.

If you learn content marketing you can share variations of your material so it never gets boring. Your friends will begin to anticipate what you are going to come out with next. They might even start asking questions about learning how to do the same things you do. This could be the beginning of your first training or tutorial product.

There is one last thing I absolutely cannot leave out especially while I'm on the subject of sharing content and getting engagement on your posts. Have you ever felt like only a small percentage of your friends are seeing your posts on Facebook? Well it's not your imagination. Facebook is programmed that way. It's in their algorithm. Those who are engaging with you are the ones who see your posts.

They call this your "reach" So if you want to expand your reach, then expand your content sharing and give it value. Make it beneficial and engaging and shareable. The more people who like, comment, and share your posts, the wider and deeper your reach becomes. And those people's friends and their friends begin seeing your posts also.

But you can't count on getting likes, comments, and shares alone. You must give likes, comments, and shares as well. It's a two sided thing, and it's what creates engagement. If you engage with others, they will engage back. So make it part of your routine.

This is really just the beginning, but it will get you going. There are tools of the trade that will help you automate and syndicate. Learning how to create a web of online real estate is when it starts getting exciting and very real. Start with your social presence and then move to blogging. The two work hand in hand. Putting them together will seriously boost your social signals and your social proof. 

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This is what we are doing now and you should too ... intensive internet marketing training. Learning how to blog and build a website. Use this as your homebase and your hub for feeding your social platforms. It is the key to building your own brand online. Providing good content that has value and benefits. It will attract other networkers to you. They will see the benefits and will want to do it also. Include all other aspects of internet marketing such as SEO, video marketing, and list building.

Making a decision to learn how to market online and building your own brand online could be the best move you will ever make. It's not easy. It requires hard work and daily action. But it's worth it in the long run. We've been down this road and we learned some hard lessons. It's not fun wondering what to do next, or if you've made a mistake even getting involved. People quit days later after realizing they don't know what to do to make it happen.

So your priority becomes promoting you, and why people would want to join you. This will bring better results than if you are always branding the product and the company. Of course you have to do some of that, but it's also quite necessary to provide your own value as well. Naturally your friends will join you, but no one has ever built a walk away income with just their friends and family. Your reach will need to extend far beyond that. Learning how to market online will help you pull that off.

When you get good at online marketing you'll be able to choose any company you want or build any business you want. It won't matter ... you'll be able to build it. You will be the nucleus, and if you choose a good company or a good product, you'll then have a one, two punch.

We spent years rambling about, bouncing around, going here and going there, not knowing what to do first or what to do next. Don't do what we did. Decide now to learn how to market online, and then choose what you are going to build.

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Today we will talk about it. We will talk about how important it is to just start, and that you don't have to be an expert, but rather just a little motivated. I have a lot of friends in the industry and I watch way too many capable people lose interest and lose their dreams simply because they just could not start taking action..

I can help you along with some simple advice and direction. Create an identity. This is the beginning of building your brand. You'll see the importance of this as you get going. Anyone that wants to make something happen online must create an identity and a brand. If you don't, you are just a ghost.

Your domain name is your name tag. It's all part of your brand. It can be anything you want it to be. Preferably something professional that relates to you. Some people use their name if they are an individual business person.

Company owners might use a company name or a company tagline. Others might use a nickname or something that people know you are associated with. But keep it professional. You can always adjust before you get too deep into it.

This is your next step. You are creating an identity online, and you are creating some online real estate. People have to be able to find you if they put your name in a search engine. This is the beginning.

You can add your home page and subsequent website pages later but start with a wordpress.org blog. This will get you going in the easiest and fastest way.

I use HostGator for my basic hosting. They are a good fit for a beginner. Once you get your hosting account the wordpress website is an easy install through the HostGator dashboard.

Too many people get hung up on trying to create the perfect home page website first. But it freezes them. You will hear me mention "rapid implementation" often times. Taking action is the key. Blogging is essential in your training. It's not just the writing of a blog post, but what it all leads to.

Blogging is your gateway to learning SEO, images, link building, list building, and setting up sales funnels. You start with the basics, you learn the basics, and then you start adding on. A sure-fire way to get frustrated and quit is trying to learn too much and too many different things at once. It gets overwhelming and you'll get lost. We won't let you do that if you follow us along.

​As you start learning and building momentum you will get more excited. Getting started with online marketing might seem hard at first, but stay with it and it will all start to make sense.

You'll develop a plan of action and a path to follow. My book, Internet Marketing Basics for the Beginner, talks a lot about the importance of having a plan and a strategy to follow. It will keep you on track and in the game.

These suggestions are the best advice I have for you. I'm speaking from experience. There's nothing better than self satisfaction in watching yourself grow and learn. There's plenty of training and it's all free. You have a complete encyclopedia a click away. Just Google it. Absorb and learn.

Your blog will become the hub of your networking wheel. You'll share your blog posts on your social media platforms. You will learn to repackage your blog content into various other forms of content. This leads to "content marketing" where it gets fun and exciting. 

Next you will build your website home page, your about me page, your lead capture page, and your list building funnels. This is what blogging will lead you to, and this is where getting started with online marketing will take you.

So instead of putting things off because you're not really exactly sure what to do, the thing is that if you just decide you are getting started with online marketing, you will. Put some things in motion. Take my advice and start with step one and step two. The rest will come to you as you go. It doesn't have to be perfect and it doesn't have to be pretty. Remember ... rapid implementation.

You can take all the trainings in the world, attend all the webinars and workshops, read all the ebooks, and drive yourself crazy doing those things ... or you can just start and do, and learn as you go. The latter is by far the better.

Will you make mistakes? Of course you will. Will you learn from them? Yes! Nothing will break... you can't hurt yourself. Try it and you'll see. Learn how to set up a blog, how to post and market on Facebook, and how to create a Youtube channel and start doing some videos.

Find someone who is doing the things you want to do, watch them, study them, learn from them, and then do what they do. Search around and you'll eventually find someone who's training style you like. Follow that person.

After working at it for a while your current tasks will become habit. There's a lot of methods that can be incorporated into your daily routine that will gradually get you to the success that you want.

Anybody can do this. You don't have to have any experience and you don't have to be some kind of a whiz or guru. You just need to take some simple action steps. I was doing this the slow long hard way ... doing it on my own figuring it all out from scratch. .

You don't have to do it that way. Do it on your own but with the help and guidance of someone who has been through it and who is willing to answer your questions. It's not necessary for someone to do it for you and you don't need hand holding ... you simply need guidance.

I'm not an expert now by any means but I've come a little ways. Not knowing a thing about it when I started I even put a note out about it that said "hey everyone I'm going to start blogging but i have not idea what i'm doing".Telling everyone what I was going to do ... means I had to do it.

I can now see where it is all going and along with a brighter future. If i can help just one person that's very well worth it. I'm helping myself at the same time I'm helping someone else.

Learning as I go and teaching others. You know they say one of the best ways to learn is to teach what you learn. It sticks better. When you learn something, teach another person what you learned. Post about it, blog about it, and video about it.

Everyone has strengths .... finding yours is the key. Getting started will help you do that.

So you see ... getting started with online marketing could be the best decision you make. There is only one thing holding you back, and that is you. So get started today.

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This has been going on for me for a while now, largely unnoticed at first, but over the last couple years or so it came like a slap in the face. Once the realization set in I knew that some changes needed to take place, and fast. I knew that it was time to shift gears and change directions.

So, moving forward, I'll be working hard at re-learning and perfecting methods that are current and utilize the tools and resources that are available. A big part of that will be providing education and good useful content that others can use to help them do the same thing. I want people to follow me because I want them to see the progress that I make. I'm hoping that those watching will be witness to a transformation with me in regards to my knowledge with internet marketing and the things that I can bring to the market.

If you miss me you'll be able to find me at home in my office with my face buried in a book reading something that I can then apply. Ok ... so it might actually be a computer screen. But I'm like a sponge right now soaking up everything I can get my hands on.... and you know what's really crazy... I actually enjoy it! I love learning new stuff and I love creating new cool stuff.

After I write about what I learn, then I'll video about it. I learned long ago that good content can be repackeged many times over with a variation of the same message, in a different way, that can benefit many different people.

It's work .... hard work ... but I think everyone should go on an internet marketing journey

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So I've learned the search engine optimization basics, and happy to pass those on to some other beginners.

For those who need a crash course, search engines serve to find and create different search results based on the "keywords" that are put into the search box. The technology is smart though and getting smarter. Your results can be a reflection of some of your history and habits. They might pull up pages for you based on pages you've found useful in the past, or your profile if you have one, or your location, or a number of other things relative to your habits.

For the marketer who is counting on rankings to get traffic, keeping up with the changes will become a continual thing, and could become a challenge to stay in front of. Google's search engines programming will continue to evolve and grow and change, making it necessary to stay in tune with what' s happening. The basics will remain pretty straight forward, but some of the SEO marketers get deeply involved with the technology and it becomes quite competitive.

Those who stay in the know, will win the SEO game..

Google does however continue to provide a good assortment of tools and training for webmasters to help them improve their page ranks.

One thing that has not changed: The marketers most powerful weapon in their arsenal will remain high quality content to attract their audiences. So regardless of how techie you are on search engine optimization, your job stays the same ... to continue creating well written authority content. If you do that you will continue to rank. 

Don't try to trick the search engines, they are 3 steps ahead of you. Instead focus on providing quality content your audience wants and needs. That is your main objective. You can always study to learn the nuances of SEO if you want, but do that first.

Search Engine Optimization Still Works

Yes it does work... it will get you traffic, and some niches are better served by search engine optimization than others. SEO works exceptionally well for local businesses, maybe because the keywords inserted tend to be more precise. I'm not sure, but even so, online businesses where location does not matter can benefit from SEO as well. Provided of course that you are delivering great content and lots of it, and you understand how to use keywords properly.

So keep it natural, insert the keywords where they make sense and keep the story flowing. Of course you want to continue using your keywords in your page titles, tags, subtitles, and headers.

Use Social Media to Drive Traffic

Social media has become a force for marketers i think we can all agree on that... but ... don't for a minute think it has replaced websites for sending traffic to. Social media is a means to drive traffic to those sites. (or your brick and mortar store). You don't want your audience to go to social media and stay there, and you don't want your social media base to not experience a well rounded marketing loop or funnel. You still want to take them on a journey that educates and informs them along the way, on autopilot.

Social media is a great place for an initial contact or introduction... a means for people getting to know you, and then getting into your funnel. Your website and blog are you base. Your websites still are used to build your list. So getting ranked in google (and YouTube) will remain a force with savvy networkers.

Things evolve quickly online these days. Yes search engine optimization is still a major factor, but also pay attention to video, webinars, online events, and more traffic generating technologies that have become prevalent today. Bottom line .... continue to focus on delivering high quality useful content that is focused on your audience, and you will benefit from search engine traffic.