Keep your attention on the questions that your market might have, paying particular attention to the problems that they might have.  If a number of people come out with the same problems or challenges, you’ll know for certain how to address them and how to provide a solution for them.  This is how you will come out with products and services that will virtually sell themselves.

Make it your business to visit these sites at least three times a week so that you can stay on top of your market and their concerns. You can do a keyword search for blogs at:

• www.blogsearchengine.com
• www.technorati.com

For discussion forums and groups you can search:

• http://groups.google.com
• http://groups.msn.com
• http://groups.yahoo.com
• www.forumgarden.com

Social networking sites such as:

• www.myspace.com
• www.facebook.com
• www.meetup.com

So get started and see what you can come up with for your business and let us know what you find.

To Your Success,

Juliette & Robert

Much like a flu virus, OK not the best analogy but you get the idea, these methods allow you and more importantly your clients and followers to spread the word about you and your product or service.

It’s like word of mouth, they tell two friends and they’ll tell two friends and they’ll tell two friends and before you know it  the internet or atleast your social circle on the internet, is buzzing with news of your new product, venture or what ever it is that you want a buzz about.

Twitter gives you 140 characters to work your magic.   So when you click the share button for Twitter, your message should not be about your trip to Whole Foods unless you’re telling us about meeting the manager of a Spa Boutique who’s interested in carrying your line of beauty products and Then, you send us to your blog post detailing the adventure.

What Does Whole Foods, A Spa Boutique and Little Ole Me Have in Common?  I’d bite.  But I’m not interested in how long it took you to get to Whole Foods from Your House.

Make every word count  whether it’s Twitter, Facebook or MySpace … when you spread the word or set it in motion …make it count.

To Your Success,

Robert & Juliette

There are many website properties that fall under the social media or social networking umbrella. These sites include Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com, Twitter.com, and Squidoo.com. Another would be MySpace.com which has been consistently falling out of favor in the past year. Of course, there are many other less famous forms of social media that include web blogs, instant messaging, vlogs, podcasts, internet forums, and of course, email. As you can see, there are different categories of social media that include communication, collaboration, entertainment and multimedia.

For a small business, social media and networking can be a goldmine! These new outlets present a business owner with multiple opportunities to reach out to new markets, increase market share and attract new customers.

Creating and building customer database, and using it to reach clients through email, is a great form of social networking. Another prime example is a business blog – your website is not complete until you have one and is an exceptional way to educate your audience and link that education to your beauty business.

You could have a Twitter account and send out tweets to your registered followers. This could include advertising special site updates, promotions and other interesting factoids about the comings and goings of your business.

You may want to be included on the LinkedIn.com website, and build a circle of contacts, many of which may be from your college days. This is a good way to reconnect and perhaps make new customers.

Another possibility is to establish a Facebook.com website for your business, or start an interest group on Facebook and begin to amass a following. A new feature for Facebook is to import blog posts so that your Facebook account is always fresh and current.

Squidoo is also another good source for establishing your expertise in your niche area of the beauty industry. By creating a lens for each area or topic, you can build up quite a nice little knowledge base of expert information that all links back to your beauty business website.

Social media networking has levelled the playing field, allowing small and budding business owners to reach out to the masses, present information and participate in relevant exchanges of content. No longer do the large companies with endless marketing budgets have the upper hand when it comes to building client bases and increasing business revenues online. An entrepreneurial small business owner, within the beauty industry, can now be a shark instead of just a very small fish in a very large pond.

To Your Success,

Robert & Juliette

juliette@beautybusinessblueprint.com

Businesses can use Twitter to reach out to customers or business partners. If done properly, a small business, including those in the beauty industry, can share company news such as new product releases and promotions, as well announce new blog posts or educational information that you want to share. Each time you do, you put your business out there. Just remember to keep it streamlined and simple!

Simplicity has been a fundamental role in the success of  www.twitter.com. The site has been such a huge success because people from around the world are eager to connect to others and Twitter makes that happen in a very easy and non-threatening way. On a technical level, Twitter is a message routing system that revolves around social networking.

Twitter asks you to answer just one question: What are you doing? Your tweet, which is your response to that question, must be 140 characters or less and it can be sent via the web, instant messaging, or mobile cell phone SMS text messaging.

There are some great ways to use Twitter to build your business network, increase your client database and sell more of your beauty products or services. Here are a few:

• Add a picture to your account and make sure it relates to your business – it keeps you human in a world of digital contact.
• Listen as much as you tweet – keep your eye out for tweets about your name, your competition and other words that relate to your industry niche.
• Share cool things with your followers. If you keep everyone interested by providing fun and educational info, they will be more open-minded when you want to share your business with them.
• Before each tweet, think about the question… what are you doing? Look at it in different way such as what grabbed your attention in the beauty industry today?
• Don’t be a link litterer! Instead of just posting links to a recent blog post or a product you are promoting, make it interesting.
• Follow your competitors and read their tweets to see how they are reaching out to clients and business partners.

Of course, you will want to promote your business but make sure it is valuable – give beauty advice, offer free tips, point to an educational blog post you just uploaded or broadcast an upcoming teleseminar or webinar.

Twitter can be a huge time waster or it can be an excellent business builder if you approach it the right way. This is an excellent social media source to direct the attention of others to really good things online, such as your business! Think about it as a communication, networking, competitor spy and marketing tool all in one.

To Your Success,

Robert & Juliette