Key Archives - BOLLYWOOD SURKHIYAN

Business English Vocabulary – A Major Key to a High Salary

Millions of English learners from around the world pay a fortune to learn business English to advance their careers. Most business English programs are boring and outdated. It is absolutely necessary to improve your business English vocabulary if you want to get ahead in today’s business world.

In my opinion, “business English” is basically the kind of English that will allow you to earn more money in a western or international company. The business world is changing all the time and it is extremely important to stay on top of things. Improving your vocabulary is key to sounding intelligent in any business setting like meetings or job interviews.

English is the language of international business. You want to make sure that you sound intelligent and educated. Many native speakers with a poor education can not even talk about advanced business English topics.

Increasing your vocabulary by even a couple hundred of the right words can make a huge difference. You need to not only understand the words but the concepts as well. There are many economic concepts that require a relatively advanced level of English. You do not need perfect pronunciation or grammar, but you do need to understand what people are talking about in all kinds of different business settings.

Speaking perfect English and sounding intelligent are totally different ideas. You can improve your business English vocabulary by reading the business newspaper and watching various business TV shows.

It is a great idea to write down any new words and phrases you do not understand and look them up in a dictionary. This strategy will help you choose which words you will need to add to your vocabulary.

Most English students make the mistake of only trying to improve their basic spoken English and pronunciation. If you can not keep pace with the topics during a business meeting or conversation, how can you expect to get a good job or get a raise? Do not pretend you know more than you do or your boss or whoever you are communicating with will see right through it. Challenge yourself and improve your vocabulary a little every day.

Key Factors to Consider When Buying a Travel and Tour Franchise

If you are considering investing in a travel and tour franchise, it is likely that you have many questions. For many people, the idea of setting their own business can be incredibly daunting experience, but also one of the most liberating experiences of their lives. In this article, we will look at some of key considerations which you should factor in when making this decision.

The travel and tourism industry is literally booming globally – now contributing over two trillion pounds to the economy. More and more people are thinking about how they can get involved in the travel and tourism industry, recognising the explosive and exponential growth. Starting your own travel business from scratch is one option that people often consider, however starting without a network of contacts or even a base starting point can be extremely tricky. A huge number of start ups will fail within 12 months, so always try to avoid this pitfall.

The more popular market to success within the travel industry is the travel, or tour franchise market. What this essentially means is instead of setting up a travel business from the beginning, you can buy a travel franchise which actually gives you a firm starting point to begin your business. There are quite a few travel franchise businesses online, however there are probably only a couple of established businesses. If you do choose to purchase a tour franchise, make sure to do your research and pick the franchise company which is the best fit for you.

So what can you expect in terms of support when you buy a travel franchise? When buying a franchise, there are always different levels of support. Think of this a three-tiered membership: platinum, silver and gold. The more initial investment that you are willing to put up, means the greater level of support and guidance that you are likely to receive. Nonetheless, there are some common levels of support which you should expect from all travel franchises.

The first thing you should expect is a fully comprehensive training or induction programme. Lots of franchise operators will actually offer a residential training course, so this is likely to be an intensive course over a number of days or weeks. This can be a great opportunity to spend significant time with the franchise tour operators and really pick their brains, whilst trying to soak up an incredible amount of information.

It is also likely that they will be inducting a number of other new franchisees at the same time. This is also a fantastic opportunity to meet some like minded people who are also at the beginning of the same journey that you are on. If you can take the opportunity to spend time with them and get to know their motivations behind setting up a new franchise, you can increase your knowledge but also begin to build up your travel network. In the travel industry in particular, your network and who you know can really be a determining factor in how well you do.

You can also expect some of the more practical tools for setting up a new franchise. This might include a laptop, hopefully pre-loaded with any specialist software and templates that you might need. This may not always be included as a standard support tool, so you should always try to make sure that you fully understand everything that is being provided. A functional website, which is branded towards your company name and logo, is also something which you expect.

Finally, you might also receive some branding materials, such as leaflets, tri-folds and business cards. Remember when you meet potential clients, handing them a business card can be a great way to exchange your details with them and keep in touch.

7 Key Factors That Constitute The Best Home Business

The Internet has brought various opportunities for making money online at home. It is now increasingly common for people to want to start a home based business and earn more money to supplement their main job’s income; or to have a better work-life balance by working from home and spending more time with family.

The internet is full of home based business ideas. Some of these ideas are proven, legitimate and profitable ways to make money. However, the Internet has also been inundated by many frauds and scams that promise people instance riches overnight. It is very important for anyone wanting to start a home based business to do their research on the opportunity before they join.

It is noteworthy that an online business is no different from any other business. You have to make the investment, in terms of time, money, effort and commitment. With any home based business idea, for it to succeed, you should be prepared to learn a lot, work hard and you must have lots of patience.

So with all these home based business ideas available online, how can you decide which one is good for you? What constitutes the best home business idea or opportunity?

1. The best home based business idea is one for which you feel the most comfortable with and are passionate about. The business idea must match your interests, so that you will enjoy working on it consistently. What are your interests? What products or services would you enjoy marketing, and be confident representing? By answering these questions, you will be able to identify what is the best home business idea for you. If you are passionate about your online business and the products or services you represent, then you will easily work hard at it, and you will easily succeed.

2. The best home based business idea must be a business that gives you a repeating income and does not rely solely on your own efforts. This is called residual income, and it means that for the effort you make today, you will continue getting paid for many years to come. Home based businesses with residual income give you any opportunity to earn money through sub-affiliates. Instead of making your online wealth from 100% of your own efforts, you can make it from 1% of 100 sub-affiliates. This means that as you continue growing your business, you will be building on the amount of money you will be earning in the future from your business.

3. The best home business idea is one which gives you multiple streams of income. Some business opportunities have multiple stream of income which allows you to earn money from various streams. An example of a good online business can be a combination of several affiliate programs which are in one ‘business opportunity package’, so that by simply promoting your business, you are growing various income streams.

4. The best home based business idea is one that gives you a secure and lasting way to earn a living online such as selling a product which you can develop or upgrade over time; or simply a business opportunity is established and stable. An online business is similar to any other business – long term security is important. It is therefore advisable that you focus on home based business ideas that have long term success potential.

5. The business must suit your skills and experience. If you start a business for which you do not have the necessary skills, then you must be prepared to work hard and learn a lot quickly; otherwise you will fail. As an example, for most people starting out to make money online, affiliate programs tend to be the easiest way to start with. They have minimal investment requirements and some very good ones come with a step-by-step guide to help you start making money with the affiliate programs. As your skills and experience develops, then you can start on other more advanced ways of making money online.

6. The best home business is one for which you can have a well executed marketing plan to grow that business opportunity. How you market any business can make or break that business, so the marketing plan you have for your business – whatever it is – and how effective that marketing plan is, will determine how good your online business will be for you. How you decide to promote what you choose to do online will make the difference. Key factors will be your marketing skills as well as your budget.

7. The best home business is one for which you will commit to work on consistently to grow it. The key to making an online business succeed is to work the opportunity every day without fail, and to stick to it. A lot of people come across good online business opportunities, but most of them quit before finding financial freedom, and they jump onto the next online business opportunity. This is mainly because the internet is full of ‘business opportunities’ some of which are scams, and also, some wealth seekers think that there are some easy and quick ways to make money online. Pick a proven online business that suits your interests and experience, focus on it long enough, do not get distracted, and you’ll make money.

While you do your search for the best home based idea, assess each opportunity using the 7 factors outline above, and you will be able to identify the best opportunity for you. A home based business idea that offer you many benefits and good potential for you to earn money is what you need to look for, and then invest your total commitment and effort to make it

Business Ideas – Key Factors To Analyze Before Pursuing A Business Idea

Performing a search for business ideas on any of the popular search engines can leave you completely overwhelmed. The sheer number of ideas and opportunities is alarming, and your task of finding the idea that best suits you is made complicated. You will be exposed to small business ideas, home business ideas, franchises and various other opportunities when researching your options. When deciding on the right opportunity you should take a few important factors into account.

It is no secret that a large percentage of new businesses will never turn-over a profit and there are many reasons for this. For you to avoid falling prey to business failure it is imperative that you do the groundwork before choosing any business idea available to you. The factors that need to be analyzed before you commit to any direction are as follows:

Capital Investment:

Many businesses fail because of lack of funds. Before you even look for suitable business ideas and opportunities you should determine how much of money you have to invest or whether or not you can attract finance through potential investors. You should also look at your borrowing power and the equity you have to put down as collateral when borrowing funds.

Your financial position will greatly influence the type of business you pursue.

Business Skills

Many people become over-zealous with their current positions in life, and they hastily pursue any opportunity that comes their way to improve their standard of living. A fatal error made by many of these individuals is not acquiring the necessary business skills before committing to a business venture. You would be wise to acquire the necessary skills before taking the leap into the business world.

Passion is Everything

An attribute that injects the motivation within you to continue with any business venture is passion. If you lack the passion in your business endeavours you will soon lose heart and quit when the challenges in the business world strike with force. Possessing passion in what you do is an element that will catapult you toward success.

Saturated Markets

Performing a thorough feasibility study before committing to a venture is integral. You will need to look at your target market and determine whether there is a need for what you are offering, and if the need does exist you will also have to evaluate how many other competitors are offering a product/service that is currently fulfilling this particular consumer need. Entering markets that are over-supplied and saturated is a recipe for disaster.

Location is Paramount

If you decide to look for business opportunities in the offline world, and you manage to find one that suits you, your next task will be to find a location that is accessible to potential customers, and suppliers. You will also need to take factors like security, parking facilities and proximity of competitors into account.

When you have analyzed the business opportunities out there, you should formulate a business plan. It is imperative that you structure a detailed business plan as this will help you to attract investors and it will also provide you with an element of leverage if you are approaching a bank for a loan.

The above mentioned criteria is not exhaustive but it does form a list of some of the most critical factors that need to be considered when evaluating various business ideas.

How to Develop Your Ability to Synthesize Information – A Key Entrepreneurial Skill

Successful business ownership is all about gathering information, picking through it to decide what makes sense, and making sound decisions based on all available data. Synthesizing information in this way can be a difficult task to master, but a little time and practice can make you an expert in no time.

Synthesis is the final step in critical thinking — after you analyze, evaluate, and organize information from different sources, this step requires you to put it all together. Many people struggle with this step, but really all you are trying to do is select the best answer, or combination of answers, from a wide range of data. In fact, the odds are that you do this on a regular basis anyway, whether you are aware of it or not.

As you may have noticed, the internet is flooded with all sorts of conflicting information on just about any subject. Trying to find the best answer by surfing the web requires that you consider the merit of a variety of sources and choose for yourself which idea makes the most sense to you. You might find yourself coming up with an entirely different answer than those you read about…this is synthesizing.

Essentially what is happening is that by examining and evaluating a number of sources, you are identifying consistencies and relationships between and among the data. With these connections, you are better able to create a new idea that can be supported by the various knowledge you have picked up along the way. Not everyone will come up with the same solution, and your own solution may not always turn out to be right, but by starting with a wealth of data you improve the odds of missing something important.

In the context of entrepreneurship, synthesis is a critical skill for every step, from planning your business idea to growing your company. Most first-time entrepreneurs do not have a complete toolshed of basic business knowledge, much less the details of their own product, market, and competition. Gaining this knowledge is essential, but very little of it has clear right and wrong answers. In any type of business, there are hundreds of small decisions to make along the way, each of which has the potential to make or break the entire venture.

For example, a critical portion of business planning is developing your marketing plan. In order to create an effective marketing plan, it is essential to study the basic tenets of marketing, the various routes for getting your message out, and the best ways to convince your target market that your product or service is the way to go. Search for “Marketing Plan” on the internet, and you will get hundreds of results, millions of ideas and opinions, and several dozen sales messages telling you that they hold the “secret” to effectively marketing your product. The reality is that there is no right answer for every business, so you must review and analyze a multitude of information, then come up with a plan that incorporates the best of these ideas that will be most effective for your business.

The key to effective synthesis is to collect enough data to understand the fundamental concepts. Use a variety of sources and mediums to develop your knowledge base — read articles and books, talk about your ideas with those in the know, watch what happens around you. Look for opinions that differ from your own to ensure you have considered all different perspectives. The more information you have to draw from, the easier it will be to make informed, justifiable decisions to keep your startup on track and on the road to success.

How to Grow Your Small Business Through Diversification – Three Key Strategies

Small business growth can be achieved through strategic diversification. Why are many businesses not fully leveraging the advantages of diversification? Primarily because the business owners don’t understand the benefits. Increasing profitability and business growth are the two drivers for diversification.

The advantages of diversification can include:

Economies of scale: for example, in purchasing, in producing, in supplying;
Minimizing sales peaks and valleys: for example, while one product’s seasonality results in slow sales; the other product’s seasonality results in high sales;
Production capacity utilization: for example, if your production facility is under-utilized, then adding new products through a diversified strategy can help you fill production capacity;
Overall efficiency improvement can be expected: through synergy efforts;
Reduction of costs: by sharing resource costs amongst the diversified products, services or markets;
Improved labor utilization: by being able to deploy your human resources in a more efficient work flow cycle;
Increased opportunities and sales;
Competitive advantage: by being able to bundle products or services together that provides unique value and unique differentiation.

There are three key diversification strategies: Concentric Diversification, Horizontal Diversification and Conglomerate Diversification.

Related diversification and/or concentric diversification. Related products or services, where sales, marketing, pricing, distribution, inventory and/or production can be shared. This works with closely related products or services, such as car sales, the extended warranty and the add-ons (e.g. upgraded stereo system, anti-theft devices, roof racks, etc.). Concentric diversification, where new products or services are added to the business to gain new customers.
Horizontal diversification. Adding new products and services to sell to existing customers and markets; the focus is on specific market segments. For example, the book seller who adds coffee services to the store.
Unrelated diversification and/or conglomerate diversification. Products or services that have no relationship to each other however through the addition of new products or services, the business spreads its risk. By diversifying into different products, services or markets, if one product is experiencing slow sales or a soft market than the unrelated product is more likely not to be experiencing the same issue. Conglomerate diversification is somewhat more than unrelated diversification; it is focused on acquiring competitors and growing through that process (with unrelated products and services).

The advantages of diversification in your small business are significant to business growth and success. Diversification can reduce your business risk and it can also maximize your opportunities by growing business operations while leveraging resources, materials, and fixed costs.

Diversification costs are typically funded through capital investment in your business. To invest effectively in diversification strategies you need to identify and focus on your expected outcomes and build business performance measures in place to assess successful strategies.

Some costs associated with diversification are new equipment, inventory, new systems, new staff, new distribution, new marketing programs, and more. Some of the benefits associated with diversification are improved productivity, improved workflow, improved customer services, labor and production cost savings, and more.

Your capital investment needs to leverage diversification, and vice versa. If you invest in new product development ensure that the integrated benefits results in an overall stronger unique value proposition. Develop business performance measures to ensure that your return on investment for diversification meets your expectations and supports your business.

Build a Successful Marketing Plan – 15 Key Business Success Factors

Every marketing plan needs to include an industry analysis. Why? Because it is of critical importance to understand the industry you operate in, and to identify and track your performance to key business success factors (KSFs) for your organization.

Understanding your industry and identifying your KSFs will help in building a successful marketing plan; one that is based on measurable progress and results. A key success factor is an element of a whole that affects your business’ ability to do well in your market.

Most businesses focus on between three and five of the most important (to their business) success factors. From time to time, or year to year, these key success factors may change, as the industry or the market changes.

15 Examples of Key Business Success Factors (and this is not a comprehensive list) are:

Number of new customers per year;
Number of lost customers per year OR the number of customers retained (it is important to understand and measure the potential customer lifetime value for each customer on a regular basis);
Hire and retain excellent employees (measured by employee turn-over, job vacancies, customer satisfaction);
Successful new product introductions (measured by sales and costs);
Successful promotional programs (measured by sales and costs);
Good/healthy financial indicators: for example, working capital, acceptable ratios (in particular debt to equity ratios), profit margins, cash flow, receivables and more;
If in the manufacturing industry, high operating capacity utilization;
Strong supplier network;
Strong distribution network or channel;
Successful product positioning;
Low cost structure;
Niche product/service – track the number of competitors entering and/or leaving the niche. Is the cost of entry into the market high or low?
Market leader or follower or challenger, and is your relative market position and why? Are you able to support that position if under ‘attack’?
Product differentiation: Do you have technology or service advantages that others can’t easily copy? How unique and differentiated is your product or service?
Time to market: is your product or service able to be delivered quickly and easily; from the first point of contact to the time shipped and subsequently invoiced?

Once you have identified your specific KSFs, build strategies around those factors and integrate those strategies into your marketing and business plans to ensure business success. Develop measurement programs to help you track your progress against your success factors. You also need to assess your competition and see if your competitors’ key success factors are similar or different than yours (depending on your strengths and weaknesses and your marketing and business strategies, they might be very different). One way of comparing and assessing is to do a competitive strength analysis; find out what your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses are and build your competitive strategy accordingly. (A sample swot analysis can show you how to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that your business faces.)

For example, if retaining your existing customers is a key success factor, your business objective must be to grow sales with your existing customers. How do you do that? First, do a customer satisfaction survey to assess how satisfied your existing customers are (or aren’t). Then determine what needs to be changed and what you need to focus on. Make sure that you understand how your customers chose between competitors: is it price, service, quality, knowledge, reliability, relationships, or all of these factors? What product or service attributes are most important to your customers? What is the unique difference between your product or service and your competition’s product or service (from your customer’s perspective)?

Once you have identified your key success factors; built measurement devices to track them; assessed and compared your competitors’ KSFs – and the industry’s; built your strategies and objectives into your marketing and business plans(phew!); you need to act! Build your business on these key success factors.

Marketing Strategy Plan: Key Ingredients Of A SWOT Analysis

In every marketing strategy plan, the first step in determining your current position in the market is through a comprehensive SWOT analysis. This helps you identify and improve your Strengths and Weakness while focusing on the external Opportunities and Threats that may positively or negatively affect your company.

1. Strengths

In a SWOT analysis, Strengths are considered part of the internal factors favorable to your marketing strategy plan. This basically covers areas regarding your competencies, assets, income generation, and other intangibles like customer support and positive public image and reputation, good admin – employees relationship, and camaraderie in the work place. When you define your strengths, it must reflect the present situation and have a clear plan on how you will be able to maintain and nurture it so these factors will always be the driving force of your company.

2. Weaknesses

Weaknesses can be derived both from internal and external factors. These are usually the areas in your operation that may have a negative impact on your marketing strategy plan. The purpose of creating a list of your weaknesses is so you can adjust your strategies to include improvements in these areas. Among the common weaknesses of companies are where your operation is losing money, lack of experience, skills, and or resources among others. Weaknesses can also account for a bad reputation, significant decline in the levels of trust among consumers, or simply due to the absence of any strength.

3. Opportunities

Opportunities are basically external factors that offer potential benefits for your business. When creating a marketing strategy plan, having a good grasp of the opportunities is highly beneficial. This enables you to take advantage of various factors that may have positive effects on your endeavors such as the current economic condition, cultural climate, market volume, economic demand, etc. When you know your opportunities, you can also see the actual needs of your target market that are not being met. In essence, these opportunities are actually your future strengths and must be prioritized.

4. Threats

Although threats are usually viewed as an external condition that may impede your marketing strategy plans, they can also be viewed internally. Threats can be an unstable economic condition, cultural differences, unfriendly social conditions, significant changes in political stability, new industry regulations and legislation, and the current position of your competitor. Internally, threats are often found in the workplace such as the unstable admin – employee relationship and other related conditions. As opposed to Opportunities, Threats in essence are your company’s future weaknesses and must be addressed as soon as possible.

With the help of a SWOT analysis, you can analyze your business internally against your various resources, financial standing, support, etc. When you look at various external factors, you can examine various areas of the economy, political stability, industrial regulations, demographic, social, competitions, and technology that may have a direct impact on your business.

Business Plans: The Key to Success and Growth

Are you planning to open a small enterprise? If so, you should read and follow the tips and suggestions mentioned below.

Opening a small company is not that easy due to the numerous processes you need to undergo and factors to consider. Before you start your task, you need to formulate your own business plan and to know its significance.

What is a business plan?

It is a vital tool to all types and sizes of business enterprises. It serves as their calling card and compass that guide businessmen in whatever actions and endeavors they pursue. It serves as a communication tool in selling, marketing, advertising and investing. It serves as the foundation of your company and the key to short-term and long-term success.

When meeting with investors and lending companies, it is your business plan that do most of the talking because it presents your business concept and ways of achieving your goals. Because of its importance, you have to craft and to formulate an effective and efficient business strategy. When formulating your own plan, you need to include your projected sales, monthly expenses and projected sales. You need to include the type of location you are looking for and ways of marketing your products and services.

If you want to open a store or retail shop, you need to plan how to promote your products. Do you want to have a walk in store? Do you want to sell your items via the Internet? Do you want to enable Internet ordering? What types of delivery methods you want to follow? These are some of the questions that you need to answer to formulate an effective business strategy.

Importance of business plan:

It helps you clarify your business prospects and development
It provides a logical framework on how you can develop or how you can pursue your business strategies.
It serves a benchmark on how actual business performance can be reviewed and measured.
It serves as a basis for discussion with investors, lending companies, banks and shareholders.
It serves as a framework which your company or business enterprise must operate.
It acts as the key in raising additional sources of funds or finances.
Things to consider when writing a business plan:
You must clearly define your target market.
You should determine your business requirements in relation to levels of detail and contents.
You need to map out the structure of your business proposal.
You should decide the probable length of your plan.
You must identify the main issues that need to be addressed within your plan.

To formulate an effective plan, you need to think, discuss, research and analyze. Always remember that two heads are better than one, thus, you need to convene and discuss matters with shareholders and business partners.

If you have difficulty formulating one, you can always hire a profession business planner or business consultant to do the task for you or make use of free business templates found in variety of business planning sites.

Facebook Fan Pages – Key to Social Media Marketing

The phrase “Social Media” is everywhere these days, and if you are like me, you may be a bit unclear about what it actually is… the infamous phrase “I’ll know it when I see it” comes immediately to my mind!

I went looking online for a short, easy to understand definition and found this analogy:

Think of regular media as a one-way street where you can read a newspaper or listen to a report on television, however, you have very a limited ability to share your thoughts on the matter.

Social media, on the other hand, is an active two-way street that gives you the ability to communicate and respond.

As the internet develops and evolves, the various Social Media websites are also growing and changing. Several years ago, MySpace was the place to be but it is now, generally, considered to be on the wane. Likewise, on MySpace, 33% of its users are aged 17 or less.

Ravalry is a relatively new, large community based around knitting with over 1,200,000 registered users. As you would expect, its membership is primarily female and the average member age is not available.

Facebook provides this information about its users:

More than 500 million active users (I recently saw the number 600 million, but it hasn’t been changed yet, on the Facebook site)
50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
Average user has 130 friends
People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

As you can see, each Social Media site appeals to and has a different user base than any other site.

One of the powerful considerations about using a Social Media web site is the fact that most of them provide a level playing field when it comes to small business owners vs the big boys. For instance, you can build a Facebook Fan page for your offline business and so can a major automobile manufacturer. Within those Facebook Fan pages, both you and the multi billion dollar car maker have the same tools and resources. On Twitter, as another example, both you and the big companies are limited to 140 characters per tweet. They can’t buy more characters and blast you out of the competition.

When considering which Social Media site to use with Social Media Marketing, you should consider the site’s membership but you should also evaluate its culture and how the members interact. It is important that any Social Media site have a population whose interests are in line with your goals and, also, that it have a structure and pattern of interaction that is compatible with your objectives.

In addition, you must keep in mind that things change on the Internet, sometimes at breakneck speed. As an example, between March 2011 and May 2011, Facebook implemented some major changes which changed the whole landscape of using it for business. Suddenly, controlling the content on a business Fan Page and using product images to build a brand became game changers… for those who knew how to do it!

While a particular Social Media site may be a good fit now, be aware that it may not always be a successful marketing vehicle for you! Monitor the efficacy of any Social Media site you are using AND also keep an eye out for the next big thing!

With all of that in mind, at the current time, I consider Facebook and Twitter to be the Social Media sites most likely to be compatible with the majority of offline businesses and their needs.

In this article I am going to briefly cover Facebook, its structure as it pertains to Social Media Marketing, discuss some of the pitfalls, and propose some strategies appropriate to it.

Facebook Marketing for Small Business

Facebook’s membership has exploded and is currently greater than 500 million, according to its own website.

It originally began as a way for college students to keep in touch with fellow students. As a result of that, the basic Facebook community seems to start from an academic basis, joining students and former students with friendship circles widening out from there. If you are like me, you will be shocked at how many members from your high school class seem to appear out of nowhere!

As part of the Facebook mechanism, possible Friends are suggested to you, based on Friends that you and the other person have in common. While you can do searches, it is hard to find and befriend a person that Facebook doesn’t think you should know. On the other hand, Facebook makes suggestions that will extend your network, based simply on friends you may have in common with someone.

Another important mechanism is the Facebook Like option, which has now been extended beyond Facebook Profile pages and Facebook Fan Pages and out into the web at large.

A third and exceedingly important Facebook mechanism is the ability to link between websites, Facebook Fan Pages, and Twitter accounts. This can be done with a variety of website creation software options. At the moment, I am encouraging my clients to use the blogging software, WordPress, for non blog websites.

With WordPress as your website management system, once you have signed up for the Networked Blogs Facebook App(lication), you can set your website to show any changes on your Facebook Fan Page and your Twitter account. Your Twitter Account can be set to show Facebook Fan Page Comments along with Posts from your WordPress website. In addition, your Tweets will be displayed on your Facebook Fan Page and your website.

Now, I know that the previous paragraph was confusing so let me give you the abridged edition! In my example, you have three web presences for your business – A Facebook Fan Page, a website built with WordPress, and a Twitter account. Any Post made on one of those three sites will automatically appear on the other two sites.

This is VERY powerful and is a REAL time and energy saver IF you take the time to plan your web marketing strategies with this capacity in mind!

With the potential of getting a three to one benefit from any of your Social Networking posts, as described above, let me go a bit deeper into the opportunities afforded to an offline business by having a Facebook Fan Page.

NOTE – It is important to understand that while a Facebook Fan Page can be considered a potential web site substitute, it offers long term hazards that, in my opinion, are not worth the risk.

Building your business’s primary web presence on a third party web site is taking the time, effort, and money to build a nice new house on land that you DO NOT OWN! You might be OK in the short term, but later down the road, you may lose you house, simply because you do not own the land.

While you may decide that it is efficient to start with a Facebook Fan Page, you should also plan to build your own website ASAP! As a business owner, you should be careful to own and control as many of your business assets as possible.

With that warning out of the way, before utilizing any Social Media site for your Social Media Marketing, take the time to read the site’s ToS or Terms of Service. Do NOT assume that you know what is allowed and what is not.

As an example, you may have multiple Twitter accounts, but each account must be tied to a different email address. Any email address can have only ONE Twitter account.

With Facebook, any human is allowed ONLY ONE ACCOUNT! This means that any Facebook Fan Pages built for any businesses will be offshoots of your primary, personal Facebook account.

If for some reason, you do not want a Facebook Fan Page to be obviously tied to your personal account, you can set the Privacy setting to obscure the connection. In the case of most offline businesses, this would not be a concern. However, I have a number of online businesses, some of which I am open about and others that I have chosen to run from behind the scenes. There is nothing questionable about doing this, I just prefer to keep the connection quiet to minimize others copying my business model. However, ALL of my business Facebook Fan Pages are offshoots of my SINGLE personal Facebook account.

Part of the evolution of the Facebook Culture is that, in most instances, it is considered appropriate to ask other members to share with their Friends about your Facebook Fan Page or your new post or any of a number of other Facebook interactions. This is markedly different from other websites and their culture, and as a business owner, it is a powerful tool.

It is perfectly OK to ask others to LIKE your Facebook Fan Page. In fact, this can be an important traffic builder for your Facebook Fan Page!

Google AdWords vs Facebook Ads

Another online marketing benefit offered by Facebook is the option to use their Pay Per Click advertising. In the Facebook universe these are known as Facebook Ads – which seems obvious, but online, things are not always obvious!

Last night, I was on a call with one of my consulting clients and she mentioned that she had just gotten a $100 voucher for Google AdWords. She wanted to know if this would be worthwhile. I said that I thought that using Facebook, creating a Facebook Fan Page for her business, and spending her limited budget on Facebook ads would be a better use of her resources, even considering her $100 AdWords voucher.

I explained it to her this way:

Google AdWords and Facebooks Ads are Pay Per Click… each ad is shown (this is called an impression) and you pay when someone actually click on the ad.

While the mechanism for figuring ad payments is the same (PPC or Pay Per Click) the basis for showing an ad differs drastically between Google AdWords and Facebook.

On the surface, the ads themselves are similar. While they may or may not have a picture included, the text or content of the ad is short and presented in plain and simple text. Ads are displayed off the side in vertical stacks or within the body of the page’s content. For the most part, these ads are subtle and unobtrusive.

However, the Ad Display Criteria is where the biggest differences lie.

In Google, AdWords are shown on the pages generated with Search Results as well as on website pages related to the Ad’s specified search term. This means that Google AdWords are displayed using a mechanism of which terms are being used in online searches. As AdWords have developed, in some instances they are also displayed according to the geographical location of the person doing the Search.

Facebook actually takes an entirely different approach – Facebook Ads are displayed in front of PEOPLE who meet the demographic requirements that you have chosen.

To simplify further, Google AdWords are displayed based on the content of the page where they are shown and Facebook Ads are shown based on the interests, and even the physical location, of the person doing the looking!

As you can see, there is a radical difference between Google AdWords and Facebook Ads.

This is one of the reasons that I feel that Facebook Ads may be far more beneficial for offline businesses.

It is also important to note that when creating a Facebook Ad, you have the choice of sending people who click either to an offsite web page or to a specific Facebook Fan Page.

All in all, I consider Facebook a strong option for offline businesses, since you have the ability to target both demographically and geographically. The potentially viral effect that is inherent in the Facebook culture is another good reason for adding Facebook in to your online advertising mix.

WordPress works well for integrating Social Media options

Finally, if you are using WordPress to build your website to blog, it is relatively easy to integrate WordPress Posts, Facebook Fan Page Posts, Twitter Tweets, and possibly even, your Autoresponder Service messages, so that each one appears on the others… AUTOMATICALLY!

Between the timesaving automation available and the three for one currently available combining WordPress, Facebook, and Twitter, spreading your company’s message across the internet has gotten MUCH easier!