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After a 2hour Skype session with my mate at UnekeFurniture.com discussing how we are going to re-design his site and what social media can do for his online marketing, I was really inspired to hear his story, which I will share with you below.

My mate was looking to set up a home theatre in his house and was researching products, after a bit of time on Google he stumbled across a home stereo enthusiasts forum. After jumping in and taking a look around grabbing some good information about products and different configurations. He decided to start a new thread, “What do you think should be in the perfect entertainment unit?” Now here is the thing, my mate makes custom furniture and it is hot stuff (check out his site).

Not thinking anything of it apart from getting some information about what these guys would like in a cabinet, which he could build into his. Within under an hour there were 37 replies all from people with great ideas, my mate jumped in as part of the conversation offering his thoughts, suggestions and alternatives to other ideas from an expert cabinet makers point of view and the community really took to it.

Within a couple of days of being a member of the site, he had many enquiries and additional traffic to his site and within a couple of days had booked a job, making a perfect entertainment unit. Now this wasn’t the intent of his post, nor being on the forum in the first place, but what a great outcome.

This was very interesting to me, this story highlighted the value of social media and building your online networks. Getting involved in community forums is a great way of referral promoting your products and/or services. Being an active member of an online community can help you to learn new techniques in your industry, share your information, engage directly with consumers to find out what they like, desire and think they would pay for and like Twitter be known for being an expert in your field. Im not advocating spamming online communities, though I feel if you have something to contribute you could see benefits to your business, be it in selling products or simply gaining a new perspective.

What I would like most to share out of this story is just how little effort and money it took for my mate to promote his services that resulted in a sale. Word of Mouth or referral marketing is a powerful tool for you business and shouldn’t be under-estimated. Our business was built on it, still to this day we do not pay for over priced advertising and 101 Web Technology continues to grow. Lets Skype sometime or follow me on Twitter @phil_at_101 to find out what social marketing can do for your businesses bottom line.

Takeaway pizza company Domino’s Pizza has increased online sales to £56.9m in the first half of 2010, boosted by an increase in online marketing activity. The company also states that over 30% of its UK sales are now completed online.

Embracing social media the company launched their Foursquare promotion in May, which encourages users to check-in at their locations. Their Facebook page has over 37,000 fans so stated CEO Chris Moore in the companys earnings statement. Starbucks is another great example of using social media to its best, during their Free Pastry Day the company was able to attract $1million people to their stores.

Both of these are great examples of how a company embracing social media has seen real and measurable growth, not to mention the brand awareness. The question I would pose to you as a business owner is what would an increase in 30% of profits mean to your business?

The potential of social marketing is massive and is limited only by your imagination and creative ways you embrace an utilise the technology.

Internet Marketing, is it simply copyrighting, search engine optimisation and having a consistent online and offline brand? Are you considering your website as part of your marketing strategy? If so then are you considering all the marketing options you have available to you on the internet?

We believe a great looking website that presents a consistent brand is just the start of Internet Marketing and not the end game. Internet Marketing is more then just marketing your business online, we believe it is a discipline that requires knowledge of the arena, knowledge of the business, the target demographic. We believe it requires knowledge of the tools available to extend your brand and take it international. For instance have you thought about how Twitter can help drive more traffic to your website? What about YouTube, thats just for people looking for there 15mins of fame isn’t it?

Lets start thinking beyond building a great looking website, lets start focusing our attention on how that great looking website is going to make us money while we sleep, while we are on holidays and while we are doing the things we do when we are not working.

If you have a website then Internet Marketing is for your website and business. You have a website and you have the potential to turn that website into a business tool, not just a place to house photos and example of previous projects.

Contact 101 Web Technology to discuss an Internet Marketing strategy that will suit your business.

The Property King website was a first for 101. It was the first subscription based membership site we had implemented. It was the first website that we developed that made use of a lot of products that we have used separately though not all at the same time.

For this website build we are using:

• WordPress for content management and blogging
• aMember Pro for user subscription and management, recurring billing and secure membership
• 1Shopping Cart for Auto-Responders, online shopping and mailing list management.

Using the best of these products and some custom plugins and coding to get it working 101 Web Technology has launched a new level of internet marketing website. A site that allows a non-technical user the ability to run a full service internet marketing business for minimal outlay. This level of functionality while not new, has primarily been dominated by large organisations, with large capital budgets, now with the products that 101 Web Technology has choosen to work with Internet Marketing and eCommerce is now more accessibile to small to medium sized enterprises then ever before. With potential to go international with your business, build a mailing list of potential clients who have asked for you to market to, what is stopping you looking at what Internet Marketing solutions may be available to you?

Take a look at the site here: http://www.thepropertyking.com.au

What we are most proud of about this site is, it doesn’t look like you standard run of the mill Internet Marketing page. You know the ones, they are usually have a white content area centered on the page with a yellow background image, default times font and really really long. While sites in this format do serve a purpose and they do achieve results, our clients wanted something different. Our clients recognised the need to build client repour online, before making a sale in the presentation of content and freely available information. Using blogging as a way to create an interactive environment, that gathers information from a variety of sources and grows the sites content organically.

Contact 101 Web Technology to discuss what we can implement for you and how our experience in Internet Marketing can take your business to the next level and beyond.

What is dropbox?

Dropbox is an application that allows for easy online backup, file sync and sharing. Using the latest in cloud technology, our clients can collobrate with us and have access to the latest files 24/7. We find this service especially helpful when in the content stage of the website as we can maintain an updated log of activity to keep track of the progress, up-to-date to do list and a list of edits that need to be made.

We are using Dropbox at the moment for a new education based website where we are collobrating with 4 different content authors. We find this approach is working really well as we can open the files, see the progress and make use of the updated files.

Do you work away from the office alot or run a a mobile office. Using dropbox you can always have access to those important files and tools when you need them most.

In my consulting role, I find Dropbox is invaluable to me, allowing access to the office while Im out and allows me to have a central repository for all those handy code snippets, templates and useful applications that just make life easier.

So how much does Dropbox cost?
Surprisingly Dropbox is free for 2GB of storage and for each referral of a new clients to your shared files Dropbox will award you with 250mb extra up to 8GB total.

More pricing information is available here: http://www.dropbox.com/pricing

* 101 is not affiliated with Dropbox we just think its a great product, so thought we would share.