First, let’s define the term Explosive Results for our usage.

A standard social media campaign helps spread the word about you and encourages other people to as well.

An explosive social media campaign has inherent viral exposure, inspires community driven communication, helps make the web a better place, and even brings joy to people, however fleeting.

When you share in social media, if your goal is just to get more people to see your links, you’re on the right track, but at the same time, you’re limiting your potential. You may think that getting explosive results from social media will take more time, energy and money, but this doesn’t have to be the case.

If you’re a business owner, you know that working harder doesn’t necessarily mean better results – what if you’re working hard on the wrong thing?

Sometimes the remedy is working smarter. Here are a few small changes you can make to your social media approach that can propel your social media results from lukewarm to smoking hot.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #1 – Hot Content

The cornerstone to any social media campaign is the content. If you get this component wrong, it doesn’t matter if all other elements are perfect. Study what’s going hot in your targeted topic and find a unique angle to fit your content into what people already like, without stealing their ideas.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #2 – Niched Network Nuances

The more tightly focused your submissions to social media sites are, the more likely they are to go viral, whether they are links you share by other people or your own. Here’s the logic.

People follow other people with similar interests. They’re on sites like Google, Yahoo, StumbleUpon, Delicious and Digg actively looking for new content. Put those two things together and you have a whirlwind of clicks happening. The only question is, will it be your link that gets clicked or passed over?

Having 5000 connections on Twitter or Facebook is useless if you are connected to people who don’t want your broadcasts, and you’re just as useless to them if you don’t want theirs. If my interest is in improving my existing business and you’re trying to get me to sell your network marketing products, it doesn’t matter how many times you ask me. If I’m not interested, your continued broadcasts will be ignored, or worse yet, blocked completely.

It’s about the perfect balance of quality AND quantity.

And if I’m not paying attention to you, I can’t and won’t spread your message. If you are in network marketing, why not go after people who love the network marketing concept but can’t seem to find the right company? That’s a perfect match, and can dramatically cut down your search for the right partners and prospects.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #3 – Simplify Sharing

It amazes me how many people miss this one.

You’ve got great content. You’ve got a massive, niched network.

Why feed them content that’s hard to share? Does that report have to be in PDF format? If so, does it have to be behind an opt-in wall if you’re spreading it among people who have Already opted in? Anyone connected to your business through its Facebook page, or your Twitter stream is also part of your opt-in list. Yes, it would be best if they were on your email newsletter list, but what faster way to get them there than to show them you don’t need to hold them prisoner there?

If your whitepaper is of such high value that you don’t Want it to spread, well, that’s something different. But if you’re sharing it so other people will spread it, make it easy for others to share.

• Send your su.pr link so all they have to do is click the Thumbs-Up button.
• Put a few sharing links on your page.
• Make it easy for them to Retweet.

The easier it is for them to share, the more likely they are to do it.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #4 – Consistency

And now we come to the area I fail at the most. It’s one of the things I know I need to do, but I haven’t quite gotten the hang of how to brainstorm, create and distribute quality content consistency, and still give them best possible service and support to my customers and clients. I always err on serving people who have bought from me, figuring that next blog post can wait until tomorrow.

Then at some point, I noticed a decline in return traffic – people weren’t coming back because they’d already heard everything I had to say. The solution? I got help for my content creation process. The ideas are still mine, but I was able to barter help for research, transcribing, and editing. I am also able to get audio and video polished much less expensively than I thought, though I don’t always use this option due to time constraints.

The other thing that helped a lot was getting over my perfectionism complex. Release your content as soon as you can. I can’t tell you how much money I’ve left on the table from my old fear of the typo and grammar police. Not to mention the fact that I felt like I was leaving my audience hanging.

You subscribe to something because you want to get regular updates. If your favorite daily news show started coming on once a week, you’d probably switch channels. If you’re inconsistent without explanation, your audience numbers will drop and your network will fade.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #5 – Think Engagement

Measuring your results by page view alone is a thing of the past. When the web was mostly text and images, it made some sense that how many pages a visitor viewed at your site was a true measure of engagement.

Nowadays this isn’t the case. You want to look instead at how long people are at your site. The exception, of course, is when customers are coming to your site to buy, and the order processing system takes them off your page. But if people aren’t leaving your site because they’re ready to buy or subscribe, you truly must look at why they aren’t paying more attention to your content, and what changes you can make to get them to stay.

This is critically important in understanding which content will go viral naturally. What posts are people staying on your site to comment on? When do they take a few extra seconds to retweet? Are they watching your videos all the way through?

Once you know the content your audience is most connected to, and why, you can make more of it.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #6 – Three-Way Connection and Communication

That’s not a typo. Three-way communication is when the way you conduct yourself online is observed to a third party, who is also indirectly being addressed by your manner or statement. I wish I could credit the proper author of this, but I just don’t remember who it was who first observed that three people are positively affected by an act of kindness – the person giving, the person receiving, and the person observing.

One example of this in action is having a conversation with a peer about their new product on a social media site. Your friend is probably Dying to tell someone about the testimonial they just got, but don’t want to be rude or are too humble to brag. Ask them in front of your audience, and the conversation is exposed to your connections and re-exposed to theirs.

Connection is just as important – if communication is the conveyance of information, connection is doing so in a way that bonds. A several hundred closely bonded contacts will spread your message faster and farther than several thousand distant aquaintances.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #7 – What’s In It for All?

In the 80s, we all thought about what was in it for ourselves. In the 90s we decided to focus on others, hence, what’s in it for them. Today, we’re in the age of the win-win-win situation. Tell them how you benefit and tie it to their benefit.

Want someone to help you spread your stories? Make sure they know how important it is to you, why you came to them for help, and how they’ll be perceived for being the bearer of your good news.

You may look at the list above and feel that it’s intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Focus on doing just one of these things better each day for a few weeks, and before you know it, you’ll be doing them habitually. The results you’ll get will help these new habits stick.

Next, learn even more social media tactics for Explosive Results …
… and then watch this 26 Step-By-Step VIDEO course – yours FREE!

Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.

Permission

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.

Subscriber Addresses

When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

List Maintenance

Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.

Message Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If
sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

Content

Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.

Website URL:

Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.

Words/phrases:

Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.

Images:

Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.

Attachments:

With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.

CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honoured to remove the subscriber from future messages.

Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:

• http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
• http://www.bondedsender.com
• http://www.habeas.com

Relationships & White listing

Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific white listing programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.

Double opt in means that anyone joining your list is sent an email asking them to confirm that it really was them that signed up and they want to join. This method produces a better and more responsive list BUT reduces the numbers. Several reasons for this, including forgetting to confirm, changing their mind, or not really understanding what they are being asked to do. What can you do?

I am a firm believer in telling your customers and prospects EXACTLY what to do. On my website I have a video of me telling people exactly how to confirm that they want to subscribe to our lists. The video allows me to actually show them what to do, and how to do it and anyone signing up to my list is directed to a web page where I show them the exact email they’ll receive and how to click on the link.

This is simple…but very powerful and by using it on several of my lists I have achieved a confirmation rate of over 90% – and that’s virtually unheard of.

5 key tactics to use now Your aim is to get your email through and read by your customers and prospects. Yes it may be getting harder, but these tactics will help you win out over your competitors:

1. Brand your emails so they stand out from the crowd Give your emails a brand name or title so as soon as people see that name they know who it’s from and what to expect.For example, one list I have with my partner Neil Travers is the Junior Soccer Coach Newsletter ‘Tip of the Week’. Now that doesn’t really have impact so we went to ‘Junior Soccer Coach – Inside Tactics’ and further refined it to ‘Inside Tactics’ and that is now our ‘brand’ name for the free tip of the week.
2. Make it a priority to send out a reminder for all of your emails. Your first email is your regular email and you must follow up with another one that briefly reminds them of what you have just sent or to direct them to read a copy online or on your Blog.That second email must give them a REASON to go and find/read your earlier email. How? Give them a teaser of the information your newsletter contained, maybe a free gift or how it can help them…use the biggest benefit.
3. Always, always, run your messages through a SPAM checker It’s essential because it will tell you if your email is likely to be classified as spam or not. If it is spam, then you will know which words you need to change.
4. Your subscribers need to be kept in touch with regularly. I receive better responses to my promotions when I am regularly emailing people in that niche.Coincidence? No, because more contact with your list means you are building a relationship with them, and so they are much more likely to buy from you.
5. Build smaller targeted lists Smaller, targeted, lists are by far more responsive to you and your offers. I would rather have 250 highly focused names on a specific topic than 5000 names on a generic one.

I want people who are positively interested in my specific niche. Your first sub list should be of buyers, people who have already bought from you, and then people who have bought from you more than once. Build sub lists of topics within your particular niche, as your next step.

For example; in our football newsletter we might ask subscribers to email us for more information about a specific topic such as under 7’s or girls football. We would add these people to a sub list with its own autoresponder series. Then target these prospects with specific offers relating to their enquiry.

Use these 5 tips to help you make your email marketing more effective, and to ensure it gets through to your customers and prospects.

Writing an effective web copy begins with an understanding of what the goals of your website are. Are you trying to get your visitors to purchase something or have them sign up for your newsletter? Remember you are trying to get someone whom you can’t see and have never met take a step towards building a relationship with you or your company.

1. Create a customer profile—Who is exactly your target audience?

• Are they young, middle aged or senior?
• Are they primarily male or female?
• Are they financially secure or budget-minded?
• What gets him or her excited?
• What are his or her most pressing concerns?

2. Create a Unique Selling Position (USP) — Find out what are the needs and desires of your visitors. Brainstorm a list of topics that might interest your target audience. Then based on these evidences, propose a statement of 2–3 sentences that explains why you are different from everybody else. This is the unique factor that sets you apart from your competition. Make this the first thing your visitor sees when they arrive on your home page.

3. Focus on benefits — Most web users want to find the information about the product or service they need as fast as possible. If they land on your site, they want to know how they will benefit from buying your product or subscribing to your e-zine. You will need to answer that question as clearly and concisely as possible or you will lose that visitor.

4. Use headlines — Provide a summary of your information by clearly communicating the main purpose of your copy. Use informative headings and subheadings with a paragraph of 4–5 lines that supports them. You only have a few seconds to grab your visitors’ attention. Most will simply scan for the information they are seeking.

5. Use bulleted or numbered lists, boldface or colored font to emphasize the points you wish to make.

6. Include links within the text to direct visitors to other pages of your site for more in-depth information. Effective navigation also helps visitors easily find the main sections of your site.

7. Write in an informal or personal style — It is your own unique way of differentiating your presence from other small businesses in a similar niche. It doesn’t have to be too elaborate or super-creative. You simply provide a style that gets the attention of your visitors.

8. Keep your sentences simple — You are not writing to impress. You are writing to communicate. Make it easy for a 13-year-old to understand why you want to sell your product or service.

Don’t use large words but opt for strong verbs over weak ones. Use the active voice instead of a passive one, i.e. instead of “a good score was achieved by the team”…say “the team scored a season high”. Speak “to” but not “at” your visitor. Keep your sentences short and snappy. Sometimes straight-forwardness is all it takes to bring results in the shortest time.

9. Include searchable keywords — Use targeted keywords in your web copy that will allow the search engines to find your site. Include these keywords in your meta tags, links and file names.

10. Eliminate the fluff — Don’t waffle on in your writing. You will only bore your visitors and they will click elsewhere. Try to remove filler sentences that contain phrases like “for those of you” and “all of you”.

11. Proof-read your web copy — Errors in your web copy give the impression of being unprofessional or sloppy. Read the copy aloud to yourself or get someone else to proof-read it. Often they will find more errors because they are more objective.

Use the spell checker but don’t rely on it. Often it doesn’t pick up grammatical or vocabulary errors. Print a copy of your content. It’s easier to find such errors on a hard copy this way.

12. Take a break — Revise your web copy after taking a break from it for several hours or a few days. This allows you to see it from a different viewpoint. You may find a better way to say something to further improve your copy.

13. Use images sparingly — Images should only be used if they relate and support your web content. If not, they will only distract the visitor from reading your web copy. Too many images will slow down the time it takes for your visitor to load your site in their browser.

Writing an effective web copy is the key to converting visitors into buyers. Getting thousands of visitors to your website doesn’t guarantee sales. The types of words you use and how you combine and string them together is absolutely crucial to pressing the hot buttons of someone who would finally say, “Yes, I MUST get it!” Once you achieve this, your website will become very profitable.