Today, I’m going to share with you two very powerful (and free) tools to use for not just Twitter, but all of your major social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and more!

I’ll keep this very short and sweet, so stay with me a bit

The first social media tool is Ping.fm

Ping.fm is a social media distribution application. In simple words, you can type your message once and it goes to every social media site you have associated with your Ping.fm account. The beauty here is you can associate nearly every major social network with this application, allowing you to spend more time focusing on the message you’re sending out rather than worrying about getting that message into all of your social networks.

The second social media tool is HootSuite

HootSuite, like Ping.fm allows you to associate your social networking profiles, but here’s the part that makes HootSuite shine over all others: not only can you associate multiple Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and even Ping.fm accounts, but you can schedule your status updates for weeks or even months out in advance and the built in reporting is simply amazing.

The conclusion of the matter is this: social media can be very powerful, but it can also be extremely time consuming. By leveraging these two social media tools, you can get more content out to more places in far less time!

Reply with your questions or comments about Ping.fm and HootSuite.

Building a business online can be a rough task. With so many business “experts” pulling you in a hundred directions with their advice, it’s nice to come back to “core” concepts and refocus your online marketing efforts.

I’m going to share with you the 5 fundamental thoughts I have when it comes to building business online. This is not hype or pie in the sky, but rather a clear mindset for planning your business marketing strategy, especially when it comes to the marketing online.

Build Your Email Marketing List

The more emails you have on your list the more profit potential you have in your business. This is a huge void for most small businesses. If you don’t have a tool in place to manage your list, get one ASAP. Make sure your site has a form to get new subscribers.

Automate Your Marketing Processes Online

You can use great tools like this business marketing automation tool, or even have your own custom application built. Processes include, client account setup, account management, subscription management, email marketing, customer incentives, affiliate management, credit/points management, shopping cart, online payments, recurring payments, etc… the list of processed that can be automated online is just ridiculous, I’ll leave it there for the sake of brevity.

Leverage Social Media & Web 2.0

You can use videos, audios, pdfs, social groups and profiles, contests, giveaways or even a referral process with rewards. Social Media and Web 2.0 are not synonymous with Social Networking Sites, but rather embody the concept of virtual, word of mouth marketing. This is one of the most powerful, yet least understood marketing strategies of them all! No one is going to have all of the answers, be very WARY of those claiming to have the “final answer”, as it were.

Think subscriptions

Subscriptions, and more specifically, automated subscriptions is the best move a business can make. If you only sell products in your business, you may have internal sources for recurring revenue. Just spend some time thinking about what is valuable to your clients and how to turn that into a monthly subscription.

Selling a product one off is great and all, but it’s much nicer to have the base of passive residual income flowing! Not only will you profit more, but if your exit strategy is to sell your business, then you’ll want some residual income flowing, to demand top dollar!

Get in the news

I sometimes feel sorry for retail establishments that have no news about, but most of the time it gets me excited! Why? Because I know I can help them generate returns with a well executed press distribution strategy. Anyone can submit a press release, but not everyone has the reporters calling them!

And of course, the most fruitful of all strategies…

Use Common Sense

I knew you’d get a kick out of that one.. what I mean by that is, know what you’re getting into and plan ahead so you can have a well rounded marketing strategy that encompasses these 5 core concepts.

If you are looking for some expert video training for getting your business online, take a look at Maverick Money Maker Series – I know you’ll be impressed!