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There are so many useful social networking tools to aid you in your online marketing ventures – everything from Facebook to LinkedIn, Digg to StumbleUpon. You’ve heard it before “I’m on the front page of digg and I’ve gotten a bazillion page views!” or “I launched my new teleclass using Facebook events, and now I’m booked for the next 20 years!”

Ok, I’m exaggerating a bit, but you get the point: Social Networking is making promoting your business on the web easier, faster, and more efficient than you thought possible.

Depending on your niche, you could find the best results in any number of networks – each has their own demographics and strengths. LinkedIn is great for businesspeople of all disciplines, Facebook is great with the business-to-consumer market, and Twitter reaches small businesses and consumers alike on a personal level.

Have you tried Twitter?

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform where you have 120 characters or less to give a message.  With over 1 million users, twitter is a platform which brings consumers and businesses together to communicate on a text-message level. Barack Obama is on Twitter. So is The White House and many other government agencies and elected officials.

So, how can you use Twitter to build your business?

1. Connect with prospects

If you’ve been craving one-on-one time with your potential clients and customers, Twitter will give this to you, and more. Twitter has quickly proven itself to be the way to connect individuals in a quick, easy-to-digest format. A simple search will help you find out WHO is talking about what you offer, and by offering useful information and advice you can quickly get on a prospects’ radar.

2. Connecting with Current Customers

In larger companies, it can be stressful just to find someone who can help solve your simple problem or larger issue. By making yourself available on Twitter, you may increase your value to a number of customers just by being available.

A good example of this is @comcastcares . An email rep from comcast set up this account to help people with minor issues – and he also uses this account to let customers know of current service issues and tips to keep everything working at their best. With over 3,000 followers, he’s obviously doing something right.

3. Congealing Your Brand

It’s easy to go unnoticed on the internet – sure some people look specificially for your service or product, but many others are just looking for cures for their symptoms. By talking about what you do – not just in a business sense, but in a real, conversational fasion – you’ll congeal your brand and get your products and services known to a rapt audience.

4. Market Research

Have you ever wanted to know what your customers are interested in beyond the usual demographics? The internet forums they participate in, the books they recommend? Twitter is a great vehicle for market research, and you’ll notice trends and be able to act on them quickly by watching the conversation closely.

5. Product Launches

Have you wondered how some businesses get so many people talking? If you’ve read any of Seth Godin’s Books, you’ll know being remarkable is necessary to get people talking. By being a real contactable person on a social network, instead of being a faceless entity, you’re doing something remarkable. With a good follower-base and the right message, you’ll quickly see how your product launches will be talked and blogged about, making your product launches exponentially more successful.

The first step to being successful in any online social networking venture is to begin! Create a profile, add some friends (or some people you’d like to be friends with!) and add to the conversation. It’s an easy and free way to get more knowledgeable on your online customers and presence.

Feel free to connect with me on Twitter, and other social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Plaxo.

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Many small business owners find their business goes through ‘feast or famine’ cycles yearly. This is increasingly difficult to cope with, especially if you’re trying to build a business in addition to a full-time job. While there can be many culprits of this feast-or-famine cycle (customer service that isn’t-quite-there, seasonal products, etc), there may be a cure.

As James D. Brausch discusses in his article, “The $200 Horse,” we oftentimes devalue our services.

How Do we Devalue our Services?

To be frank, it’s easier for us to price our services low because there’s no need for justification. Think about it: it’s much easier to sell coaching services at $75 per session than it is to sell it at $300 per session. $300 is a sizable investment for some people, and we feel that people won’t pay the price. This however, is dead wrong.

You can, and should, offer better results at a higher price.

Some entrepreneurs have difficulty grasping the value of an eBook, pricing their eBook at $5 or $10. Then, when they learn that some eBooks go for upwards of $110, they ask, “How does a book sell for so much?”

It Solves a Problem. Like that eBook, you too will solve a problem. And, your issue is not finding people who will pay your fee, but rather people who want the exact results you’re offering. Sure, you’ll have to do some marketing, but I’d much rather market more and get clients aligned with your results, then having 50 clients who don’t match my services.

It’s only when you understand the type of customer you want, will you understand the value of your pricing. In fact, often times you don’t want the type of client who is only willing to spend $50 for an hour of your time. You want the client who is willing to spend $300 for an hour of your time, because they know how much your service is worth or how much you help them.

As James said:

His grandpa had to sell a horse fast. It was a great horse, but his situation required that he sell it… and fast. So he priced it at $200 and told as many people as he could about it.

It didn’t sell fast. In fact, it didn’t sell at all.

He finally started to ask people why they weren’t interested. It was a great horse. It was a great price. Why didn’t it sell instantly?

He received the same answer over and over. The prospects just weren’t interested in a $200 horse. Who wants a $200 horse anyways?

He changed the price to $1,000 and sold it instantly.

If you sold your services for $300 an hour instead of $50 and hour, how many clients would you need to fulfill your monetary quota? How much more time would you have to do other things, like create your products and write your ebooks?

Maybe $300 really is too rich for your market. It’s up to you to find that ‘perfect pricing’.

In the end, you’ll have better clients who will be more loyal and understand the value of your services. Also, you’ll have more time to do other things, like create a product, write an ebook, or just spend time with family.

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