A blog is more than just a place where you can post your latest content online.  If you’re using it properly, it can be an absolute lead-generating machine that can work for you anytime of the day or night, completely on auto-pilot.  By using these 5 techniques in your blog, you’ll be on your way to driving more leads into your business and sponsoring more people without the stress of cold-calling or spending a ton of cash on leads lists that don’t produce any results.  Read on to find out more, true believer…

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Often times in network marketing and internet marketing, there’s a lot of money being made.  A lot of it.  And sometimes it’s not always apparent where that money might be going.  Sure, you’re paying distributors and executives, but shouldn’t these companies be giving back in some way, especially in our current economy?

I’m proud to say I’m part of a company that “gets it” and is committed to giving back to those in need.  Take a look at this short video to see what I’m talking about…

If you’re looking to become involved with an exciting opportunity that works just as hard at giving back as they do to making money, I invite you to join us as a member of the 2010 Dream Team.  We’d love to have you, and we’d love to help you achieve your goals.

http://www.2010DreamTeam.com

I’ve heard a lot of people over the last several months (maybe even the last 2 years) talking about how much of a waste of time Twitter is and how there is nothing productive that can be gained from it.  I’m here to tell you that Twitter is an incredibly powerful tool if you know how to use it, and you use it well.

Let’s just talk about that fact that last night from one “tweet” I received over 600 clicks to a test offer.  All in about 5 minutes. Granted, I’ll give you that the conversion rate was low (around 1%), but I haven’t put a lot of work into this promotion and really just wanted to see what kind of response I could get.

For the time put into it, all of about 60 seconds, I’d consider this a pretty good example of what Twitter can do for you.

Then I stumble across Sponsored Tweets and see how they’re giving everybody a chance to make some money with their Twitter accounts, and another company called Ad.ly that is doing basically the same thing.

Here’s how it works, you sign up with either (or both) of the companies mentioned above.  You set your price for your tweets and then advertisers find you and pay you to tweet about their product and/or service.

Of course, the first major concern that you’re obviously going to have is tweet spam.  If you join these companies, are you going to look like just another goofwad that had joined Twitter to spam a bunch of links and annoy people.  I can tell you this, if that’s how you’re going to choose to use these services, then you will look like a spammer.  And you’ll also get your accounts with them banned pretty quickly.

Both companies require you to be very open and honest about the fact that what you’re tweeting is an ad.  Choose not to do that, and you won’t be making money for very long.

Choose the right path, create and engage in conversations and provide value to the people following you, and you’ll start to see some results.

Now, let’s just be frank and honest about how much money you’re likely to make using either of these services.  For the vast majority of us, it’s probably not going to be enough to pay your mortgage. And if you go into it thinking that it will, you’re just fooling yourself.  Just like another service I’ve been recommending lately that lets you share videos and get paid for it (check out VideoForward to find out more), Sponsored Tweets and Ad.ly are really just going to provide you with some supplemental income at best.

That is, unless you become a power Twitter user overnight and get about a million people to follow you. I’m not trying to convince you to go out and rake in a bunch of new followers or use some spammy software that “guarantees thousands of new followers every day.” What I am encouraging you to do is to take advantage of something that you are already doing and make a little money on the side from it.

Try out both of these services, it can’t hurt.  Then let me know what you think.

There’s a lot of buzz here in Internet marketing land about a topic that a lot of people are afraid of, and that’s membership sites.

I’m telling you that you shouldn’t be afraid of running your own membership site.  In fact, you should be practically jumping at the chance to create your own membership site!

Membership sites are one of the most powerful business models online today.  Think of it like this, you work really hard one time at creating amazing content that your audience will rave over, and then you get paid over and over again each month.

Sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn’t it?

But far too often, we become paralyzed at the thought of creating a membership site.  How do I set it up?  Where will the content come from?  How do I market the site successfully if and when I ever get off my rear end and get the thing up and running?  Do I really have what it takes to create content that people are willing to pay for month after month and not go running into the hills with their credit cards?

So, to help you (and me) get over some of our fears about creating and running a membership site, here’s five reasons why you need to start a membership site right now…

Reason #1 – Brand Establishment

Your business is new online.  You’ve got a niche that you know inside and out and have a ton of great information to share with people and improve their lives, fatten their wallet, help them lose weight, be more productive, or help them grow better tasting tomatoes.  Whatever.  You’re trying to establish your brand online.  Whether it be you or your company’s reputation you’re trying to build, a membership site is a great way to help establish that.

If people know you are running a membership site, they’re more likely to believe that you are an authority on your given subject.  I’m hoping that’s the case, but whether it is or not, that will be people’s perception.  And as we all know, perception is reality for us normal human folks.

Getting your membership site up and running is a great way to establish your brand for the long term.

Reason #2 – Focus Your Marketing

Why, o why, are you trying to build so many little sites that only sell one thing as a one-time purchase?  If you have a membership site, you can begin to focus the vast majority of your efforts on marketing that single site.  Then, when you have a new site you want to launch (related to your niche), you’ve already got an existing group to market that site to, your current members.

See, when you create you own membership site, you have an on-demand source of traffic for any other project that you work on in the future plus you have a base income from your memberships that can help finance your other projects.

Reason #3 – Continuity

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this subject, the explanation should be pretty apparent.  When you have a membership site, you have recurring income.  Whether you charge weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, bi-annually, or yearly, or whatever, that is income that you know will be coming in.  The beauty of a membership site is that if you want to give yourself a pay raise, all you have to do is get some more people signed up to your site!

And you’ve already done all the heavy lifting of creating content, now you’ve just got to use your marketing know-how to get 5, 10, 50, 100 more people to your site and sign up.  It sounds amazing and fairly simplistic, but I’m amazed at how difficuly many of us make this concept, including myself.

Reason #4 – Build Your List

I’m sure by now you’ve heard that it’s a lot easier to sell to someone that has already purchased from you.  If you’ve spent any time in any business, you know this is true.

So why do you want to build your membership site?  You’ve got a hot list that is already purchasing something from you each and every month like clockwork. Do you think that you will make more money sending a related offer to this list, or to the one that you built with some freebie giveaway event?  You do the math and let me see what you come up with.  I’m waiting with baited breath…

Reason #5 – Lighten Your Work Load

Back to something I said earlier, why are you trying to build so many little sites?  That’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately.  I’m pretty much a one-man operation at this point.  There’s no way that I can maintain 100 different websites.  No way, not gonna happen.  No matter how much I want it to.

And unless you have a full staff of employees or are bringing in enough money to outsource a lot of the work, neither can you.

If you’re trying to, the only thing you’re going to accomplish is sending yourself to an early grave.  Yes, you might be raking in a ton of cash, but I bet you don’t have any time to enjoy any of it.  And isn’t that why we all wanted to start our own business, so that we could finally have control of our time?

With a membership site, the bulk of your efforts are concentrated in one area. One site, one list, one group of customers.  The more you can focus on that one thing, the better your product will become.

Stop trying to be a jack of all trades.  Become the master of your niche, no matter what it is.  And yes, I truly believe that you can have a membership site in any niche, you just have to think about it.  And you are the master of your niche, so get to thinking.

Final note, I know many of you don’t know how to start a membership site.  What software do you use, how do I manage it, where do I get content, are all some questions you may have.  Right now, you can get a start on your membership site and get it up and running faster than you thought you could.  And for much less than what you probably thought it would cost.

Until this Sunday, you can pick up “How to Set up a Membership Site” for an amazingly low price. $17 as a matter of fact.  But, I can assure you that this offer will not last forever.  After Sunday, it will go back up, so don’t hesitate.  You’ve got a membership site to get started on, make sure you build it the right way so you can start making some money as quickly as possible.

Click here for your special price – “How to Set Up a Membership Site”

Once you get your site set up, let us know, won’t you?  I’d love to see what you’re doing.  Leave your comments below and let’s see how many amazingly great membership sites we can create.

Until next time, world changers,

Mike Paul

How long have you been on Twitter?  A month?  Six months?  A year?  Two Years?  Have you really figured out how to use it yet?  I mean, really figured out how to use it?

I know you probably know how to log in to Twitter, follow some people, put up a few little “tweets” and then walk away for the day.  But have you really figured out how to use Twitter to your benefit?

There’s a lot of you out there that think you have.  I know, I see you on Twitter everyday.  I get a number of DMs from you that are all pretty much the same cookie-cutter message, just coming from a different person.

They all generally say pretty much the same thing:

“Want to know how I got x amount of followers in x amount of days?  Follow my NEW system for exploding your Twitter followers and raking in the dough at imreallyjusttryingtogetsomeofyourmoney.com!”

Have you seen those tweets before?

Have you been one of the people sending them?

Don’t feel bad, I’m just as guilty as the next person.  I’ve sent some very similar tweets myself.  And I feel like crap about it.  I really do.  But, I plead ignorance.

See, I just didn’t know any better.  I didn’t know that just sending out a bunch of links to my followers would do me more harm than good.  I didn’t know that I needed to provide a lot more content, really good high-quality content, to my followers if I really wanted to get anything out of my Twitter relationships.

Because, after all, that’s what Twitter is all about.  Building relationships, not just collecting up a bunch of people that you can send self-serving little messages and links to.

Not that you can’t send those self-serving links, but they can’t be your focus.  Your focus has to be something else.

Your focus has to be on providing value.  Being a character.  Being a friend.  Being a trusted, knowledgeable, and devoted friend that people can reach out to and feel comfortable with just saying, “Hey!”

See, there’s a right way and a wrong way to monetize your efforts on Twitter.  And for those of you that are reading this that believe that you shouldn’t try to make money with Twitter or any other social network, I understand your side of the story.  I’m not trying to convince you to my way of thinking.  Please, stick to your guns and don’t let anybody tell you how to run your social networking.

But please don’t hold it against me if I believe you can use Twitter to make a boatload of cash.

But there is a right way and a wrong way of doing it.  Most of us have been stumbling around in the dark for the last several months doing our darndest to figure it out and really doing more harm than good.

Thank God, we’ve finally got some help.

Perry Belcher and Ryan Deiss are hosting this little “social media party” this Wednesday night.  I’m gonna be there.  We’d love if you’d come and join us.

We’re gonna pack this virtual house with 5,000 people.  Yep, 5,000 people.  And if you’re ready to learn how to actually start making some money with Twitter and other social networks, please come be a part.

Oh, yeah, don’t worry about having to pay to get in to the party.  I’ve got that taken care of for you. I’ve got people.

You just register right here for the webinar this Wednesday night, July 22nd, 9 PM Eastern time.  (That’s 6 PM for you folks in dreamy California and 10:30 PM for the fine, friendly folks up in Newfoundland.  Those of you that may be located on the other side of the world, you’ll have to figure it out for yourselves.)

Bring a pad, a pencil, and most importantly, and open mind.  Perry and Ryan are going to change the game this Wednesday night.

I’ll be there watching.  Won’t you?

Here’s the link one more time in case you missed it:

FREE Social Media Webinar with Perry Belcher and Ryan Deiss – Wednesday, July 22nd, 9PM Eastern time.

Hope to see you there.