If you’ve written a book, developed a program, created a keynote speech but no one knows about it, you have a hobby and not a business.

How long you can remain in the developmental and launch phase of your business depends on your upfront funding.  But if your business is bringing no money whatsoever into your accounts receivable, it’s time to take evaluate your business model, your marketing strategy or both.  Social media can give entrepreneurs valuable promotion, advertising and market research without an enormous additional outlay of cash.  And, most importantly, it can bring income into your bank account quickly.  Let’s take a look at three easy opportunities for promotion and income creation available to entrepreneurs, right now, through their current social media platforms.

1.  Build your database so you can market directly to people who’ve already expressed an interest in you, your book or your product by gathering e-mail names directly from your Facebook page by adding a custom box under your cover photo. These custom boxes or apps, as Facebook calls them, are created in an iframe and can contain a special offer such as a sample of your book, a free 15 minute consultation, or a checklist of success strategies.

2.  Sell directly from your Facebook page, again by using an iFrame app.  You can import your store, your product pages or your entire website right to a Facebook app or tab. The website will retain all of its functionality which means if people can buy your book or services on your website, they can buy it directly on your Facebook page. Here’s an example of a custom app I created for my Android and iPhone Marketing Tips app using a drag and drop app maker, Lujure.com.  With no design skills, I can import my assets and links and create a customer opportunity right on my Facebook page, which I can then promote through Twitter, my blog, my personal profile and through other social sites.

3.  Create an Amazon affiliate store and import the entire thing directly to your website and to Facebook in a custom app. Now every product you recommend or mention, including you own book, can immediately be purchased on Facebook without your fans ever leaving the platform.

There is more to being a successful entrepreneur than generating quick income, but the process of thinking through your offering, marketing it to others and generating income is a good start.

How are you creating income through social media? Let’s share some best practices to create more successes for the entrepreneurial community.

According to a post today on the Lujure blog, and at Hubz, Facebook will announce they are dropping some older ad formats and adding some new premium features as of February 29th. The ads will be larger, have more engagement options such as comments and likes directly on the ad, and include video or photos. Basically anything you post on a page can be marketed as an ad.  A complete slide show of the Facebook presentation is available here.  According to Facebook’s presentation, people are four times more likely to make a purchase when they see their friends interacting with a brand. So Facebook is set to release upgraded premium ads that are heavily weighted to interaction with the comments box, like option and perhaps even the share button under the ads.

Facebook is set to launch six new premium ad options on February 29, 2012.

The new suite of premium ads includes an option to create an ad out of a “Post Like Story,” which is nothing new.  But Facebook says brands will now be able to choose to run ads that appear to be posts to their wall, but will only appear as ads and not as wall posts.

Why is this interesting and potentially useful to a brand? Say you’re launching a new product, having a sale or desire to hammer home your biggest brand promise and you want to target only people who are not yet your fans because those folks are already aware of your offer.  In the past, your brand would have had to post the special offer to your page wall several days in a row so that the Post Like story would continue to run that offer.  Basically, you’d have to spam your own wall to keep the offer as the ad image and message.  This new options will allow brands to create a Page Post Story that never runs on their page and is only served up to non-Fans or whomever the brand chooses at set up.

The upgraded ad units are called photo, video, questions, status, events, links, which are all types of posts a brand currently can make to their page. Currently these new ad options may only be offered to premium advertisers who already have, or will have, a Facebook advertising account rep.  But rumors persist that these options will be offered to everyone soon.

Along with the expected announcement that Facebook fan pages will migrate to the Timeline design, and these new ad options, administrators and brand managers are scrambling to prepare their clients for change.

So what do you think? Will your brand or business try the new ads when they’re available?

Most new businesses fail in the first five years. Let’s beat the odds together.

I usually write about more complex tools and strategies, but in speaking to new entrepreneurs or small business owners this past year, the questions I most often get are:

• How can I add social media to my marketing without adding additional employees?
• How can I do everything you suggest and still have time to work on my products?

Lack of time and money are the #1 and #2 saboteurs of start-ups.  So to everyone who has not yet jumped into the social fray to promote their business or service, here’s my simple beginner’s guide to using social media for business.

I believe most businesses can benefit from a simple, straightforward social media strategy that includes:

• A Facebook profile for the “face” of the business; the owner or spokesperson
• A Facebook fan page for the business itself
• A Twitter Account
• A YouTube Account
• A Blog

With these five social media basics, even the most cash strapped and time deprived entrepreneur can begin to create digital footprints that lead back to their business.

Setting up the accounts is easy and entrepreneurs should not become distracted by the bells and whistles and they wish list that comes with fully tricked out Facebook pages or beautifully designed Twitter accounts.  When you’re swamped, stick to the basics and don’t let “ideal” stop you from starting with “good enough.”

Here’s a simple beginners guide to a social media marketing strategy map anyone can use.

• Blog 2-3 times per week and keep posts to 250-300 words. Make them keyword rich (words you would enter into Google Search to find YOU). Make sure each post gives one interesting or useful piece of information to the reader about your area of expertise.

• The same day you blog, post a link to that blog on your Facebook Fan Page, adding an invitation to join you on the blog for more posts on your subject matter.

• Allow this post to auto-post to your Twitter account by linking your Twitter account to your Facebook fan page through this Facebook app link: http://Facebook.com/Twitter.

• The next day press the share button under your Fan Page post and share it to your personal profile.  Your friends are your closest supporters.  Ask them to share your post with their friends, leave you comments and let you know if you can help them with your area of expertise.

• Two days later, turn your blog post into a simple, how-to video by reading it into your web cam. Put the “script” up on your screen so you can look directly at the camera.  Speak as though you’re explaining the concepts in your blog to just one person.  Post the video to YouTube and tag the video with your keywords.

This is an over simplified map, designed to get you thinking about sharing content throughout social media.  There are many, many subtle and more complicated nuances and strategies to increase your visibility, but this is a start.  If you’re a new business owner or entrepreneur who has not yet begun to use social media in your business marketing, begin here and add new strategies as you get comfortable.

I’d love to see your first efforts and answer your questions.  Feel free to post your links below and I’ll take a look at your new social media platforms.  Here’s to a year of action and success, to us all.

This is the ideal time for entrepreneurs to give themselves a few gifts to start the new fiscal year off right.

Change Your Passwords

Make a new end of year ritual.  Change your passwords.  As a small business or entrepreneur, you’ve no doubt shared your password with designers, virtual assistants, and others during 2011.  Changing your passwords sets up an automatic review of everyone who has access to your accounts.  This can momentarily disrupt the flow of work as you review and reassign passwords and access to trusted contacts, but this is an essential end of year security practice.  Adopt industry best practices for secure passwords by using a combination of capital and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols.  Make sure your new password is at least 10 characters long.  Afraid you won’t remember your new passwords.  Store all your online passwords in a safe, secure site that only you can access, from wherever you are. Roboform is a terrific online resource for securing storing your passwords for easy access (by you only).  This is safer than writing them down and carrying them around with you or entering them into your mobile device.  Theft or loss could be a nightmare for your online security.

Training

Entrepreneurs and business owners need to honestly assess where the weaknesses in their knowledge base exist, seek training programs to resolve those weaknesses and then look for challenge or stretch goals for themselves and their teams.  Training in new technologies, general knowledge base upgrades and software training do not need to be expensive or time consuming.  Many trainings are served up via webinars you can view and absorb on your own schedule.  Some reasonably priced trainings that I can recommend include:

Publicity and promotional training from Ragan Communications online, on-demand courses are priced well and consistently deliver excellent resources and training.

Small Business Summit 2012 is a program run by Michael Stelzner, founder of the Social Media Examiner.  His strategy of bringing together multiple top industry resources to cover a wide range of topics and giving entrepreneurs the option of viewing the webinar material live or later on-demand is great.  This year they’ll be covering trends, copywriting, Facebook marketing, LinkedIn, Google+ and much more. I also the fact that Michael allows people to try before they buy and offers a free class to showcase the program.

BookExpo America Webinars are specifically targeted to authors, publishers, booksellers, agents and others in the book publishing industry, however, the information aimed at this audience is particularly valid for entrepreneurs, who are often solo business owners, much like an author.  At just $25 a class, these are a bargain.  NOTE: I am speaking at the next webinar on using Facebook for Business.  I do not receive any compensation for the webinar, nor for telling you about it.

Concept Inventory

Businesses and entrepreneurs need to be thinking about new products or services to add to their offerings, as well as deleting any products or services suffering from fatigue or obsolescence. Now is the time to take an inventory of your intellectual property offerings such as coaching programs, how-to books or trainings, speeches, proprietary software, apps and other products to make sure they’re up to date. For example, if you teach people how to use Facebook and haven’t including training about the new Facebook Timeline, pull that product off the shelf and update it so future customers aren’t disappointed.

What gifts will you be giving yourself and your business this year?  I’d love to hear from you.

Start-up financing is harder to obtain than ever before, money is tight, hurdles to qualifying for financing are higher, and consumer confidence is low.

So I asked several successful entrepreneurs and small business owners to share either one tip for first year business start ups or one daily habit they’ve incorporated into their lives to provide entrepreneurs with some guidance and inspiration.

LENA WEST, Keynote Speaker, Social Media Superstar (my words) at Influence Expansion.

“The best advice I can give to anyone in the startup up phase is this: whatever it is that you do, know it inside and out. Live it, breathe it. This breeds confidence. And when you’re confident, you make money.”

MATT MULLERWEG, Keynote Speaker and founder of WordPress.

“The thing I do every day that helps me the most is reading long-form content, anything from a book to a New Yorker article. Whether it has anything to do with my interests or not, good writing clears my mind and expands my horizons.”

CARRIE WILKERSON. Author of The Barefoot Executive: The Ultimate Guide for Being Your Own Boss and Achieving Financial Freedom, Speaker and founder of The Barefoot Executive.

“My most valuable habit is making a list of crucial to-do tasks the night before I ‘close up shop’ so that I’m not overwhelmed when I start my next workday wondering where I Ieft off.”

MARI SMITH, Author, The New Relationship Marketing: How To Build A Large, Loyal, Profitable Network Using The Social Web and Coauthor Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day and owner of http://MariSmith.com

“In all your business endeavors, do your best to stay true to your “FOCUS,” which I like to define as Follow One Course Until Successful. Identify your deepest passions and greatest strengths; stay focused on those. Then, delegate and outsource as much as possible–even a small investment in the right part time (virtual) support staff can make all the different in the world. And, any time you bump up against limitations and challenges (which you will!), stay focused on your highest vision, your big “why.”

STEVE BORRELLI, Co-Founder of first year start-up http://WeArePetNation.com, a new company that has gathered more than 40,000 friends, fans, followers and subscribers in just six months.

“Keep track of your metrics. You can’t make informed decisions about spending unless you have the data. Make a list of the important metrics for your business, put them in a spreadsheet and track them. Use that information to inform your future spending decisions.”

JUAN FELIX, Executive Editor at Mirror Yourself and founder of his own new media magazine Nieuwemediagids.nl for the Dutch Market.

“Find your niche first and develop the product next.  One of the most challenging decisions for any business owner is deciding who your customers are. For what audience can you add value? Review what you have done in recent years. What problems can you solve with your knowledge and experience? Translate these problems into challenges. Identify the target audience that faces these challenges. This will take you directly to your niche. Next, you can think about the products or services to meet these challenges.”

I just celebrated the 4-year anniversary of the launch of my own entrepreneurial enterprise, Brand New Brand You Inc. I have made a ton of mistakes and have written about them before.  But here are some of the things I recommend new business owners do without delay.

• Consult an accountant and/or lawyer to make sure you’ve selected the best structure for your new company, albeit an LLC or an S-Corp or simply a single owner consultancy. A consultation with a pro is worth every penny in the long run.

• Apply for and use a business credit card to help you keep your personal purchases and expenses separate from your business expenditures.

• Create a simple, inexpensive blogsite with information about yourself, your business, your product or services and contact information.  This is your cyber business card, a place for people to find you and acts as a virtual yellow pages in terms of SEO. Do not wait until you have the money to make it perfect.  Get it up and perfect it later.

Please share your advice for first year start-ups and entrepreneurs. Let’s create a virtual check list to help new business owners buck the trend and succeed in building a healthy business.

XYDO’s tagline is Social News Evolved and I have to say I think they’ve nailed it.  The individual buckets or lenses through which XYDO filters my news experience has been terrific.  About 80% of the news items served to me have been spot on in my target interest area.  The other 20% have at least been interesting.

After signing up for an account, I was able to choose the topics, areas of interest and daily briefs I was interested in receiving. I receive world news, top social media news, breaking news and other topics that interest me professionally.  I’ve elected to receive a daily brief of these headlines, which I’m able to scan in minutes each morning and share with my network, right from the brief.  XYDO offers me the opportunity to “teach” it what I like so I’ll receive more targeted news in the future.

In a recent call with XYDO co-founder, Eric Roach, I learned that they curate nearly 2,000 topics selected by their users.  What I love about XYDO is the fact that they don’t just serve me stories from trusted sources (which they do) but that they measure and cluster the stories based on the buzz about a topic, measuring social endorsement and applying their own algorithm  that prizes freshness.

Roach pointed out that because of this formula, XYDO often identifies breaking news and serves it to clients before it hits mainstream media like CNN.

So what’s new for XYDO? I told Roach that I use the briefs more often than I visit the website and that’s something that he would like to influence.  They’re working on improving the experience on the website with a major redesign, making it easier to navigate and will be launching an iphone and ipad app shortly that Roach promises will incorporate a “beautiful, elegant user experience.”  I also asked Roach how he plans to monetize XYDO and he mentioned corporate sponsorships are in the works in the near future.

Bottom line?  XYDO saves me time, serves me news I can use and I’m going to continue to use the service.  I recommend you take a look to see if it’s right for you.

What news aggregating site  or curator do you use?

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.

10. I can’t afford to invest in expensive equipment

9. I don’t know what to talk about.

8. I don’t have anyone to run the camera.

7. I don’t know how to use the video even if I could create it.

6. I don’t like the way I look on camera.

5. I think people will think I’m boastful or vain.

4. I don’t have time to learn how to edit video.

3. I’m not convinced that video will increase my revenue.

2. I don’t have a tangible product to show on video. I’m a consultant.

1. I’m not comfortable in front of a camera.

According to a January 2010 report by research firm Forrester, optimized video increases the incidence of Google front page search results by a factor of 53x. And, Internet Retailer’s April 2010 report states that e-commerce site visitors are 85% more likely to purchase if they’re presented with a video.

Let’s debunk the top 10 concerns about using video in your brand marketing.

10. You do not need expensive equipment to create video. You can upload still photography and copy to a site called Animoto and create polished 30 second commercial style videos in minutes, free of charge.

9. The How-To category on YouTube is very popular. Any subject related to your business that you can show or tell is perfect for a video. Think about what you offer and add “How To” to any aspect of it and you’ll have your first video.

8. You can use the camera already inside your computer to record yourself. You don’t need a camera operator. You can purchase an inexpensive tripod to mount your video camera, turn it on yourself and walk in front of the camera. YouTube gives you a simple and easy to learn way to clip the unwanted beginning to a homemade video so you can start your video at the beginning of your presentation.

7. Create the video. Save it to your computer hard drive. Upload it to your YouTube Channel. Share the link on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and your website. Put the link into your e-newsletter. These are just a few ways to use the video you create.

6. Get over it. No one likes the way they look on camera. But consumers like to see the face behind the offer. They like to look into your eyes and know that a real person is making the offer. If you truly can’t do it, create a powerpoint and capture your presentation with a program like Camtasia for PC or Screen Flow for Mac and you’ll have a video without ever showing your face.

5. This is old mental programming. We’re marketing in a new very social, very connected world and to succeed, you’ll need to put those feelings behind you and operate from the knowledge that sharing the things you know if actually selfless and generous.

4. You do not have to edit your video, in the beginning, if you keep it short. Practice making 15-30 second videos where you deliver one tip or strategy or idea at a time. Put it up and repeat after me: “Imperfect action is better than no action.” Your audience will value your authenticity and watching you improve. Later you’ll be able to reference those early videos, laugh and share your journey with your followers. Sales is about storytelling. You’re early efforts become part of your story.

3. If you still don’t believe that video will increase your revenues, you haven’t been paying attention. See the intro paragraph to this article and spend some time on google.

2. Sharing ideas on video is demonstrating authority. If you are a consultant, you’ll want to position yourself as an authority and let people see you in action. Video is ideal for consultants. Consumers buy based on a “know, like and trust” factor and video is the fastest way, aside from in-person presentations, to establish a feeling of relationship.

1. Confidence comes with practice. Talk into the camera as though you are at a cocktail party or networking event. Create a heightened sense of yourself without going over the top. Practice. But above all, to borrow a phrase from Nike, just do it. You can see some of my early work and later work here, which I hope will encourage you. I am not remotely “perfect,” yet I’ve been able to impact people, share knowledge and increase my personal brand awareness.

Have you been using video in your marketing with positive results? Please share your thoughts here to help encourage the entire community.

Bufferapp will suggest a Tweet when you’re feeling uninspired.

1. As soon as you create your free account, Bufferapp recommends the ideal times of day when your followers are most engaged and mostly likely to be paying attention to what you Tweet.  This, of course, increases your chances of being seen, having your brand messages shared and increasing your social influence.
2. As you create Tweets and add them to your Buffer, the program automatically schedules them for those recommended times.  You can override this feature at any time and schedule the tweet to suit your needs or just set it and forget it which is my favorite type of time saving tool.  You can also choose to post the tweet immediately, of course.
3. Bufferapp has a “Suggest an update” feature that I love.  Imagine that you have four core messages you’d like to send to Twitter throughout the day and you know that my recommended strategy is to post five times a day but you are stumped.  Just click the “suggest an update” button and Bufferapp serves up a series of mostly motivational quotes.  Click until you find one that speaks to your audience and send it to your Buffer queue.  Most brands or business can easily tweet one nice motivational quote every day and their followers will enjoy it.  And, if the quotes don’t really speak to your audience, I’ve found that the essential message in the quotes often prompts me to write something that is similar but is in my own voice and is directly related to my own brand.  This is a great feature.

Bufferapp And Other Twitter Tools

Bufferapp is just one of the Twitter tools I use daily, and in an experiment during the past three weeks, I saw a marked increase in follower engagement on a client’s account by incorporating Bufferapp.  I also use Hootsuite to see multiple accounts at a glance and to easily spot and reply to DM’s and @replies, and in fact, Hootsuite Pro is my primary Twitter tool for managing more than 10 accounts, three team members and monitoring multiple competitors.  I use Tweetadder to find and follow Twitter accounts based on my brand’s keywords, and to un-follow accounts who don’t engage with me or reciprocate my follow within a reasonable amount of time.  And, finally, I go on the Twitter platform itself daily because I enjoy seeing the real estate or background designs other Twitter accounts use.  The way they design and display their brands is important to me and helps me decide whether or not I want to converse, engage, and follow their account.

I’m always looking for new, free and easy Twitter tools to enhance both my and my client’s efforts and I give Bufferapp the thumbs up.  Try it and let me know what you think.  Are there other tools I should try?  Let me know and I’ll add them to my review schedule.

Think your Twitter follow needs to be at 1,000,000 or more in order to monetize?  When Sponsored Tweets launched, they created connections between Kim Kardashian and products that wanted to be connected to Kim Kardashian. The idea was that for a price, and I believe Kim’s price per tweet was more than my mortgage payment, Kim would choose to tweet something complimentary about the sponsor. A simple idea and frankly, pretty standard celebrity marketing albeit with a new social twist.

But if you weren’t Ashton Kutcher or Justin Bieber, your sponsored Tweets wasn’t interested in you. That’s changed and I recently did a test drive of as a non-celebrity Twitter for Hire.

28,000+ followers = $30 per tweet

It was easy to sign up using my Twitter account and a quick click of the mouse analyzed my account to tell me that my tweets were worth about $75 each, IF someone was willing to pay me. Then I was able to peruse the opportunities that Sponsored Tweets calls “Opps.” Nearly all were for $.02-.07 cents, and I wasn’t familiar with any of the products or offerings and so I passed.

About a week later, I received an e-mail telling me a client opp was waiting for me at my account. I logged in and checked out the link that the client wanted me to tweet. It was a television show that I find interesting anyway, so I decided it was a good experiment.

Here’s how it works. Sponsored Tweets gives you the link from the client. You take a look at the offering at the end of the link and decide how to position the tweet. You write the tweet and include the link and the word “sponsored.” The client reviews the tweet and it is auto scheduled to go out from your account. Smooth, easy and you can decline the offer or cancel at any time, if you change your mind.

It was fun. I didn’t feel I was damaging my reputation with this tweet experiment and I made $30. I don’t believe this will become a revenue stream for me, but will I do it again? Maybe. It really depends on the offer, the product and my next experiment. How easy is it to collect this $30? Stay tuned.

Would you “sell your tweets?”

When used strategically and in synergy with a well-rounded marketing campaign, Twitter is the social whipped cream.

Here are five nifty Twitter tools to add to your entrepreneurial arsenal. Each one brings something special to the table and could add just the sparkle you need for your next campaign.

TWEETDOC

Create a document bringing together all the tweets from a particular event or search term. A tweetdoc allows you to keep a record of what happens on Twitter. You can set parameters such as date and time ranges, number of tweets to capture, hashtags and search terms and capture the Twitter conversation. Great for brand monitoring reports, competitor analysis, real time news stories such as the recent Hurricane Irene reports on Twitter, conference chatter to find and follow influencer’s and other attendees or simply to keep your finger on the pulse of an industry or technology.

TWYLAH

Twylah aggregates your tweets and highlights your brand areas of expertise, based on what you tweet about. It serves them back to you in a beautiful SEO optimized webpage that gives readers a clear visual impression of who you are and what you talk about. When you send a “power tweet” from your Twylah page, your Tweets are captured, organized visually and by keywords and your Twitter followers are directed back to you optimized landing page, which is populated with relevant tweets on the same topic. Twylah gives you yet another piece of high style social real estate to reinforce your brand identity. Seeing all your Tweets in one spot, visually and topically aggregated is an eye-opener too and can serve as a brand audit to help you quickly see if you’re hitting your target messaging or going off topic too often.

TWEETGURU

A quirky series of Twitter tools, auto tweeting bots and services that allows you to, among other things, direct message multiple Twitter accounts at once. You might want to use this feature if you’re reaching out to your personal list of press people on Twitter about a launch party or a big brand announcement. The free version has a limit of 12 accounts at one time for your direct message but this can save you time and that’s the point.

HOOTSUITE

Hootsuite’s free tweet scheduling feature is easy to use and with a modestly priced pro account agencies can manage multiple accounts at once, assign individual tweet action items to team members and keep track of which team member answered the Twitter query and their new analytic tools generate custom reports for clients and play nicely with Google analytics. Hootsuite is a timesaving tool, a team tool, a monitoring tool and a scheduling tool all in one.

TWUBS.COM

Twubs are groups built around content aggregated from hashtags. Twubs gives you a live tweet feed of an event, conference or Twitter Chat based on a specific #hashtag and offers tools such as a Tweetup and Events scheduler. You can register your event hashtag at Twubs, embed a Twub widget on your website, and the Twub offers a complete Conference suite of tools like live moderation, conference displays, live event audio and presentation streaming, RSS feeds and more to engage participants who attend in person or those watching remotely. These features could be used by speakers and can even include photos and videos. A moderator can view the stream in a time delay mode and control which tweets are shown to the audience and which should not be.

What other Twitter tools would you add to the list? Let’s share our favorites here.