What is the place where people are more likely to share videos and sites? Facebook! you may answer but in the past few months there is another site that seems to have become extremely popular these days.

Two years ago, StumbleUpon was the main driver for social media traffic, but lost market share to Facebook  over the last 18 months. As of August, Facebook has fallen to about 38% of all U.S. traffic while sites like Twitter, Myspace, Digg, Reddit, YouTube and others are in a distant third. StumbleUpon has a relatively small user base (12 million) compared to Facebook (750 million), but the service is specifically designed to “stumble” between websites and continuing to check out new links.

Does this mean that Facebook is loosing it’s edge when it comes to being the number one social media site? Well, no. On an international level, Facebook is still on top with a user base of around 750M users in comparison with Stumbleupon which only has a mere 12M users. Still, it seems this site does have an edge over Facebook.

People are much more likely to share sites they’ve found on Stumble upon than on Facebook. This basically means that if you are planning to advertise a website, it is more likely to get noticed on Stumbleupon than on Facebook. Though the site may lack in terms of features, the site focuses on a single aspect that it has become good at-sharing websites and videos.

If you are using social media in your advertising campaigns, you would do well to look into using other social media sites that are good at what they do such as Stumbleupon.

More info here.

To get ahead in this competitive world, you must try and be different. Weather it be by finding a new ‘killer’ product or experimenting with some new marketing strategy, you just have to be different! With the way social media is doing today, having a Facebook page, Tweeting and all isn’t anything special. Everyone else is doing it including your competitors so what now?

This is what businesses ought to ask themselves. Once you’ve gotten onto the social media bandwagon, you have to make sure that you stay on board. With the way things currently are-what does this mean? You’ve got yourself an account in all the top social media sites, you tweet a couple of times a day, you interact, you post valuable content but the point is-everybody else does it!

How do you stand out in this social media mad world? Should you now start to find more ways to get engaged like maybe be more frequent in your tweets or be more updated in your news feeds? Just what do you have to do to get up on top? Maybe it’s all about keeping updated to any news in the social media world. Being the first at everything that comes up. Is that what will get you ahead of your competitors?

The dilemma is this: how far will you have to go in this social media marketing for you to say ‘you’re on top’? In fact, will there ever be an end to how much time and money you put into your marketing?

Does it suggest success in social media is monitoring activity 24/7 so any inquiries or potential opportunities can be jumped on? Does it mean having a dedicated team to create compelling videos, blog posts, tweets, etc.? If so, does that mean whoever invests the most wins?

Read more here.

If you’ve already got all the social media sites that you think you need, you may not be quite interested in getting one more. Google +  currently has about 5M users in the short time it has been introduced. Is it just like the other social media sites though? There are a couple of features that make it quite unique.

Circles not Just Friends

With Facebook, we all know how it works- it’s either you’re friends or not. Though you can share specific things with specific people, the process of editing every one of these settings and customizing who gets to see them is really cumbersome.

Google + has come up with a really interesting and practical solution to this problem. You can create your own circles and share different things with each or your circles. With your High School friends, all those party pics would be something to share. For closer friends, you can share your updates, feelings or whatever. Only those in that circle get to see what you share with them!

This is a huge revolution when it comes to how you share stuff with. The good thing is they don’t get to know under what circle you’ve put them in so it really stays personal and is far more realistic.

Keeping Privacy up

With the way Google + works, you can really sift the groups of people you want to share stuff with. Down to  your updates! Instead of having a single status message, you can have several that can be seen by different circles. This will help you keep your ‘private’ information PRIVATE.

Updates with Spark

This is a feature that allows you to get information on whatever things interests you. It as good as brings the power of Google alerts into your site. This is definitely something other social media sites don’t have.

All in One

If you’re thinking Facebook still has an edge with the video thing it’s started-think again! You can both chat and video chat with friends using ‘Hangouts’. And so can you connect your Google+ account to your mobile phone just like all the other Social media sites.

You may have thought that Google+ is a super professional site that will be no fun at all but this isn’t at all the case! It’s everything all your social media sites have to offer and much more. It isn’t JUST another social media site.

Read more here.

Credit:geeksontime.com

No matter how ‘not so social’ you may think you are, you probably have a Facebook account. If you are a businessman, all your employees also probably have their own personal accounts as well. If  you have seen the advantage of allowing the use of Facebook while at work, what can you do to protect your company’s information?

We know how powerful social media has become so it really is a huge problem if you aren’t able to protect your company. Here are a few tips that will help.

• Keep applications up-to-date. The applications we are talking about here are those anti-virus and web protection programs that you obviously have. This will make sure no information leaks into the web from some bad software. Keeping these updated will protect your information and your employees from cyber criminals.
• Get your network secured. Though networking has a lot of benefits, the truth is it makes it easier for information to leak. Make sure you have an extremely secure network. Get hold of all the security applications you may need.
• Set limitations for your employees. Have clear guidelines as to what you will and will not allow to be done during office hours. Try and cultivate a feeling of responsibility in your employees so they know what is expected of them.

Boasting more than 500 million active users worldwide, the social networking site is now being targeted by cybercriminals. For example, last year spammers exploited two Facebook bugs in a week. The bugs allowed spammers to flood the service with messages promoting scams, such as links to a website where they could “win” an iPhone by filling in their personal information.

Read more here.

Credit:oracledigital.com

Everyone who’s been using social media for marketing their company surely know that this alone cannot guarantee your success. Not only will you have a hard time balancing your efforts on all those social media sites.  There are a few tools and platforms that can be a huge help to get those sites organized.

1. Verticalresponse.com- This sites imports your ‘likes’ and ‘followers’ on  your favorite sites to your email. This helps you keep all your updates in your mail.
2. Livego.com- This is another ‘all in one’ site that can keep all your social media accounts in one place. You can log into all your sites and update them on a single site. This is definitely far more convenient than having to log into all your sites one by one.
3. yamlabs.com- ‘Yet Another Meeting’ is a nice place where you can organize your stuff. You can keep your agendas, notes and all in this single site.
4. Mywebcareer.com-this site is able to analyze data from LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.The strengh of your networks is used as a basis. It also gives advice for improvement.

If you get all the right tools and use the right platforms for your social media marketing, you’ll be able to get the best results.

Read more here.

This concludes the end of the year. And as year-end traditions go, those irresistible “best-of” lists are everywhere.

For fun, I decided to do an internet marketing edition of one of those lists. I know it’s a little indulgent and more than a little incestuous due to the tiny size of our niche, but I bet you’re a sucker for this as much as I am.

So the Best in Internet Marketing 2009… Here’s an overview of the various categories:

• Top 10 Internet Marketers
• 3 Biggest Shockers
• Top 5 Products
• Top 5 Online Marketing Breakthroughs
• 5 Bold Predictions for 2010
• Puppet String Marketing Products of 2009

Without further ado…

1) Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher

I know I’m cheating by including 2 marketers instead of one. But these two are inseparable and boast of some of the best “good cop, bad cop” chemistry since the Lethal Weapon series. Awesome marketing insights and sharp-as-nails business acumen make them the marketing role models I wish I had years ago. These guys are the real deal.

2) Mike Hill

Mike Hill has been the secret weapon of many, many multi-million dollar corporations. He has pioneered a lot of the CPA offers we promote today, and has paved the way for Acai Berry, Teeth Whitening and Colon Cleansing to become the million-dollar niches they are today. He’s also a really big-hearted person and has even given me an unforgettable wedding gift.

3) Amish Shah

Some people call him the top CPA affiliate marketer in the world. I’m inclined to think so. His manic testing, grasp of human psychology and business smarts have put him way above the level of many other established marketers in his hyper-competitive domain. Recent props from Frank Kern will propel his already shining star even further.

4) Mike & Vishen from MindValley

The MindValley boys are going to be speaking at Yanik’s Underground 6 event  next year. And now… the doors will be flung open to those whom I feel to are among the world’s top underground online marketers. The only reason I know about this is because I used to be copy chief for these guys. These guys are all about marrying Silicon Valley-level technology, world-class email marketing and  topgrading to create 6 figure DAYS on a regular basis.

5) Marty Rozmanith

He’s on this list because he’s the man behind 2 of my top 2009 products WordPress Direct and CPA Ninjas. I rarely follow other marketers so closely. I even more rarely buy something a marketer’s put out. Most people produce derivative info or badly-coded software but whatever this guy handles is top notch. Learned a ton and WordPress Direct is my single best investment this year, and I make plenty.

6) Tim Schmidt

He’s not one of those guru types but he’s introduced a whole new way of doing continuity programs that’s going to revolutionize the way we do membership sites in the years to come. Called Association Marketing, his 80% stick rate and other staggering figures make mincemeat out of the far inferior forced continuity models introduced by Mike Filsaime and Russel Brunson of yore.

7) “The Barefoot Exec” Carrie Wilkerson

There’s an old internet marketing adage that says “all you need is one idea to put money in your pocket”, and you see this on countless IM sales letters. Well, the reason is that it IS true. Carrie gave me just one idea in the early days of the business to come out with my flagship product the Twitter Salvation System, and we have hundreds of buyers since. Plus, of course… She has an iron-clad grasp of personal branding and social media.

8.) Robert Plank and Jason Fladien

These guys are synonymous with the words “Speed of Implementation”. In the space of less than 12 months, I’ve seen them churn out no less than a whopping 22 products between them. With them, quantity doesn’t compromise quality though, and these guys are a boundless guide to smart resourceful strategies that you don’t need a lot of money to implement.

9) Andy Jenkins

In my opinion, the former Stompernet CEO has ascended to the pantheon of the email marketing Gods where deities like Frank Kern, Matt Furey and Dave Dee now reside. And that’s for starters; his SEO and e-commerce teachings have already become the stuff of legends. After all, making $25,000 off of a fake sword site really deserves recognition of some sort.

10) Peter Parks

Though not as well-known as Amish Shah, Aymen or the rest of the CPA Cartel, he has successfully cut a swath as a really smart superaffiliate to watch out for. His mastery of little-known licensing strategies and Web 2.0 marketing has brought some much needed innovation to the tired affiliate marketing space.

Perry Belcher retiring

I consider Perry a friend. I know his name has been synonymous with controversy over the past few years, but I still consider him one of the most brilliant marketers of his generation. The next Vincent James, I dare say. So imagine my shock when all his social media accounts got deleted and the revelation of his retirement from the IM scene was written on his blog. You’ll be sorely missed, Perry.

Google shutting down 100,000 accounts

Those in the scene know Google ain’t the biggest fans of us online marketers. But what they did next was just balls out insane. In the sweeping move that may change the face of the affiliate marketing landscape forever, they shut down a 100,000 AdWords accounts of online marketers — both spammer and legit. Overnight, entire income streams disappeared. “What next?” seems to be the question on everyone’s lips for 2010.

Andy Jenkins leaving StomperNet

There have been a lot of nasty rumors and wild speculation surrounding the circumstances, but let’s not go there. All I’m going to say is that he was the face behind one of online marketing’s biggest innovations in Stompernet… Thus, forever ends the era of those awesome StomperNet emails and pop culture references.

1) WordPress Direct

The one thing I missed about working for one of my previous companies was their content management system. They could set up an entire website structure in under 10 minutes. Now… technology has caught up because we can now do the exact same thing with WordPress Direct. Of course you need to upgrade to Platinum membership in order to enjoy an optimal CMS experience. But I believe every penny spent is worth it. You can get it here.

2) SENuke

People once paid underground marketers like Jeff Johnson $25,000 to learn SEO tactics that now SENuke can do on autopilot in a span of 15 minutes…At a fraction of the cost. The single most powerful linkbuilding and SEO tool on the market today, it can easily take the place of your local SEO company. Huge learning curve, but the search engine rankings are worth it. You can get it now.

3) CPA Tsunami

CPA marketing has been the rage this year. This says something: As much as CPA marketers make a ton of money, the product owners are making much much more as they tap into their army of insane super-affiliates. CPA Tsunami is brilliant underground marketer Mike Hill’s gift to the world… On how to set up your own CPA marketing program so that you don’t have to worry about traffic again. Thank you, Mike.

4) CPA Ninja

To continue the CPA marketing craze… There has been a slew of CPA affiliate marketing products released throughout the year with exorbitant price tags attached… Ranging from the painfully mediocre to the plain darn excellent. The best of the lot to me is CPA Ninja–Marty Rozmanith and Matt Trainer have excellent chemistry together, and Trainer’s Excel tricks have revolutionized the way I set up my AdWords campaigns forever.

5) 13 Sneaky Little Email Tricks

As a highly-paid email copywriter, I have seldom come across email marketing products that are any good. This $97 package by Ryan Deiss is a hidden gem among the slew of overpriced product launches. His ninja autoresponder tricks are really cool, and have directly impacted my income more than any other product out there. It’s still available, so get it while you still can.

1) CPA over Clickbank

Clickbank has long been the default starting place of the fledgeling affiliate marketer. In 2009 however, marketers have flocked over the CPA networks instead. Why? The simple reason that a simple Zip/Email submit converts far better than trying to squeeze a sale from jaded prospects. The maths is staggering. CPA is here to stay.

2) The Rise of the Cartel

As with any industry growing up, oligopolies and monopolies will form. Whereas the internet marketing scene was the Wild, Wild West a few years back, it’s now resembling more and more the dog-eat-dog offline world. The early adopters who are now the “top dogs” have banded together to form an invincible faction with mailing lists and money in the millions. Good business sense. Not so good for the lone rangers.

3) Bleep Bloop

For far too long the IM scene has had no checks and balances. Unscrupulous marketers have run roughshod over consumers with their forced continuity and upsell hell over the past decade or so. As a consumer, I have dealt with non-existent support, terrible coding and rehashed products so much that it has sadly become an industry norm. And in comes the Salty Droid, a blog detailing the various scams and scandals of the industry. He may be vulgar and a tad mean-spirited, but he’s a much-need breath of fresh air in a scene plagued with chicken-hearted sycophants. Read his rants here.

4) The FTC

And while the Salty Droid is the voice of the grassroots, the FTC is the governmental enforcer part of the equation. To be honest… I sometimes see the FTC as an inconvenience. No more high-converting testimonials with specific results… Disclosures everywhere, etc. Yet it’s one of those painful-but-good-for-you necessities because with no guidelines, there’s just going to be wanton abuse. So a grudging thanks FTC, for keeping us honest.

5) Social Media

Twitter and Facebook. Facebook and Twitter. 2009 is the year of social media. Every other day there seems to be a breaking news story on Twitter, Facebook and other social media services. Social media marketing is indeed revolutionizing the way we do business. Even for an obscure Malaysian marketer like myself, it has catapulted me into stratospheric heights that otherwise would not be possible.

1) Greater barriers to entry

5 years ago, the internet playing field was indeed a level one. Your average industrious work-at-home mom or the unemployed bum could succeed in online marketing, given enough determination and a Clickbank ebook. Unfortunately, times have changed. With newly-loaded online marketers employing an army of article writers, backlink builders and bloggers, the one man army does not really stand a chance anymore. You need sufficient cash and stringent tracking and testing in order to compete… Now, the online marketing scene is like any other industry–competitive and cut-throat, where only the strong survive.

2) Local Marketing

I was one of the first few who hopped on the local marketing wave long before Jeff Walker and Frank Kern exposed it to the world–and I’ve profited greatly from it. Most small biz owners don’t know the different between a squeeze page and SEO. So grab these low-hanging fruit by using your knowledge, experience and expertise to charge lucrative consultation fees and stop competing against the Mike Filsaime’s and Aymen’s of this world.

3) Going to the CPA networks

If you’re an existing product or business owner, there’s no better traffic tactic then turning to the CPA networks to lend you their army of SuperAffiliates. PPC… SEO… Article marketing… All these pale in comparison to the sheer awesomeness of “having a daily product launch” (as Mike Hill says). That’s how obscure niches like teeth whitening and acai berry are now multi-million dollar industries. Once you have an offer that converts, you don’t have to worry about buyers’ traffic ever again.

4) The shift from affiliate to product owner

By the same token, being an affiliate now is really not advisable. Did you know that if you’re using AdWords, there’s an option where you can make Google your affiliate? Offer them commissions, and they will auto-optimize your campaigns while spelunking profitable new keywords for you. The big problem? When Google perfects this formula, they’ll probably start cutting out the middlemen–i.e. affiliate marketers. All the more reason for you to launch a product-driven business and let other affiliates worry about Google’s next destructive move.

5) Building your business outside Google

Face it: Google is arrogant.  They’re probably have cause to be proud because the money-loaded corporations have jumped on board and they don’t really have to take care of the needs of the small business owner anymore. Plus, their shutting down of a 100,000 affiliate marketing AdWords accounts isn’t creating any more goodwill. Good news: Google only represents 15-20% of the web, so there still a big and lucrative playing field outside of them. CPV, CPA and contextual marketing… Explore them all.

Of course, what’s a Puppet Master post without a plug eh? Here’s some of the best-selling products we have released this year.

Twitter Salvation System

The grand-daddy of Twitter marketing. The Twitter Salvation System has been purchased by the gurus themselves, pleasantly surprising me in the process. Mark Joyner calls me a “Twitter genius”, click on the link to find out why.

Twitter Mind Control

What happens when you combine forbidden persuasion with Twitter’s real-time power? Twitter Mind Control, that’s what. Use these sneaky psychological triggers to boost sales, attract prospects or carve out your niche. Your call.

Twitter Affiliate Marketing

There’s a lot of BS out there on using Twitter for affiliate marketing. Follow-spamming your prospects while spamming them with endless Clickbank offers is far from best practice. Here’s my tested and proven method to shovelling in big fat affiliate commissions to your bank account–no black hat or illegal tricks.

Advanced Affiliate Marketing

If you want to take your affiliate marketing to the next level, you should take a look at this. Judging from the number of the most prominent affiliate marketers who bought this course, the Puppet Master’s take on Bum Marketing will turbo-charge your SEO and article marketing like no other.

Email Salvation System

This email marketing home study system is one year in the making. One of my buyers told me that they can see themselves making money utilizing even a fraction of the content. Most email courses are either crap or expensive, this may be the best bang for your buck if you want to enjoy profitable autoresponder marketing for the new year.

Well, what do you folks think? Agree? Disagree? What are your thoughts for the Best of 2009? Please leave your comments below!

Watch this Twitter Marketing video now. Click to play.

There’s a Twitter marketing myth that’s really prevalent in the Twitter community, and it goes something like this:

“It’s about the quality of followers, not the quantity.”

Their rationale is, who cares if you got thousands of Twitter followers if nobody cares what you have to say.

I admit, there’s a grain of truth. If all you do is harvest followers, you’re nothing but a spammer. But here’s why this reasoning is flawed…

No matter how much so called quality Twitter followers you have, the dismal percentages remain the same.

2% click-through rate. 5% if you’re lucky.

Here’s 3 surprising reasons why:

1. There’s too much noise. Your followers follow hundreds of others. Hence  your tweets being lost in their tweet-stream as thy’re assaulted by noise.
2. Not everyone is on at the same time. The US has six different time zones. Then there’s the rest of the world. People wont see your tweet because they’re not online at that time.
3. Your followers are not targeted. People can follow you over a Chuck Norris Joke as much as sound marketing advice.

So here’s the deal, Guy Kawasaki says…

“Twitter is a numbers game.”

To overcome lower response rates, you need to get more followers to compensate that lack. And the good news is Twitter is phenomenal when it comes to generating leads really fast.

You see…

• The more followers you have, the more influence you wield.
• The more followers you have, the more chances of RTs.
• The more followers you have, the more SALES you make.

Here’s the simple answer that make pumping the numbers so much easier.

Hummingbird Twitter review

HUMMINGBIRD.

Honestly, I thought this Twitter app was a piece of crap a few months ago when I first bought it. It was so bad that I ended up doing my list building manually.

However, after I checked back a week ago, I was delightfully surprised that Hummingbird creators Mesiab Labs made massive improvements to this Twitter tool.

Hummingbird has truly become a push button solution.

With just one press of a button, and less than a minute’s work…

You can get up to 500 followers a day!

Skeptical? Here’s proof…

You saw right, since using Hummingbird over the past 7 days, I have got 2378 FOLLOWERS IN A WEEK.

So now, I’m unabashedly recommending Hummingbird to get big on Twitter fast. Put the massive lead generation and traffic generation of Twitter for your business right now.

Due to a special arrangement, your Hummingbird order can get a WHOPPING 15% DISCOUNT when you type the word RECESSION into the coupon section when you order.

Hummingbird guarantees you see results in as little as 3 days, so check it out now while this special offer remains:

Yes, I want 500 followers a day on Twitter now!

If you want to learn how to generate traffic the quick and easy place, then what I’m about to reveal here can increase your website traffic with lightning speed.

I’m about to pull back the curtain on Puppet String Marketing’s method of attracting qualified traffic that has elevated us into a six figure marketing company really, really fast.

The answer lies in one word:

Articles.

I must admit its not the sexiest of terms, but article marketing is really the best way to overcome Google Slap. Google and other search engines loves content and as long you’re not recycling PLR articles, you will become a darling and be rewarded with cheap search engine traffic. And after you incorporate article submission strategies, you’ll go to the next level in online money.

This is SEO at its easiest.

Here’s the thing, old school marketing fundamentals work. And even though I’m one of the world’s top Twitter marketing mavens, I focus on the psychology instead of technology, and that’s how to make money fast.

Here’s my rather obvious marketing process.

1. Write an article that my customers love. Of course, I use Twitter for Psychic Market Research and and give them what they want so they starting biting and converting them into sales.
2. Submit articles to the article directories.
3. Covert the articles to press releases by making them read in the third person.
4. Submit them to press release directories. I’ll often use PR Web’s paid submission as well.
5. Convert the articles to podcasts by recording the words and turning them into teleseminars.
6. Submit them to podcast directories. Podcast submission software most welcome here, since there’s so many of them.
7. Convert the marketing article to video by speaking over PowerPoint or Camtasia and submitting them to video sites like Youtube.

You just read my million dollar web promotion blueprint.

If you actually implement these article marketing strategies and stick to them, you’re on the way to cool recession-proof online money.

Here’s the catch:

The creation of articles is all well and good, since outsourcing is relatively simple. The painful bit is submission of your content. You want to get the most bang for your buck.

With hundreds of article, podcast, video and press release directories, there’s no way to spread your content as far as possible.

But here’s the thing, you can’t afford NOT TO cast your net. Internet marketing is an numbers games, because the lower your reach, the lower your sales.

So here’s what the Puppet Master does — he leverages technology.

Traffic Generation Made Easy!

You see, one of the stumbling blocks for many people is the it take so much time out of their day.

Well, this software cuts your time down to a few minutes a day. Imagine… With just one click, you’re now able to push your content and get your articles out to as many as prospect’s wallets as possible.

My friends, that’s what smart internet marketing is all about, combine the psychology of articles with the time-saving power of Easy Push Button Traffic, and you’ll get the quickest way to make money online.

That’s what Easy Push Button Traffic is all about:

Tap into the secret marketing weapon of the Puppet Master now…

I was walking down the a busy street with my lovely wife Laura on the way for lunch yesterday.

On the way, I saw a disheveled old man with tattered clothes and a prosthetic leg, hawking small packets of facial tissue by the alley.

We put a few dollars in his cup and proceeded to the restaurant.  

For some reason, I was thinking about the one-legged man, so I took away lunch for him. I went to his little corner to hand him his meal.

To my surprise, the one-legged man was crouching in the corner and  weeping. I rushed to his side and asked him, "What’s the matter?"

His answer SHOCKED me to the core…  It sounds incredulous but I kid you not:

-> Someone STOLE his facial tissue packs and ran away! <-

I feel a surge of anger even as I type this. How can anyone who calls themselves human stoop to such lows? 

Anyway, I gave him some money and took down his address. I have brought his case up to the Welfare Department so here’s hoping something can be done about his predicament.

I’m praying that things will get better for him from here on.

I actually broke down and cried as I drove home because I really wanted to do something more. Then my typically wise wife said something rather profound…

*Doing something is the beginning of doing something more.*

And that’s the point of this post.

The great Gandhi has a famous saying: "Be the change you want to see in the world."

If you want to make a difference in your life, business or financial situation. If you want to impact your family, the poor or even the world… You need to do something. Anything.

That step of faith can change someone’s life. Your business. Even your future generations to come.

If you want to see a change in your finances, in your homes, in your charities, in the things that are near and dear to your heart, you need to start becoming the change.

Take action. Rise up. Swallow that frog and start claiming life on your own terms.

Doing something is the beginning of doing something more.

And in case you didn’t know, we just flung open our doors to the Twitter Salvation System 2.0.

If you’re even remotely curious on how to unleash the lucrative power of Twitter in your marketing, I invite you to check it out. Hurry, only 503 units left.

Doing something is the beginning of doing something more. Get started today.