When it comes to growing your business or launching a new product, trade and consumer shows can be the most effective and fastest way to gain industry insight, capture new prospect leads, and network.

You can learn more in three days by going to a trade show than you can in 3 months, or even years, of just searching.  The key is selecting the right show to get the best bang for your buck…

Keywords Drive Traffic.

If you ever attended one of my Internet Marketing Seminars then you know that “Keywords Drive Traffic” is my online marketing mantra.  This short blog post is focused around the importance of using your keywords (and keyword phrases) for social media marketing.

This starts with understanding that keywords drive traffic, but with social media marketing it’s not the typical usage of driving traffic to get people to buy a product or service.

In fact, if that’s all you’re trying to do with social media networking than you are approaching social media with the wrong perspective and will waste a ton of time.

Social Media Marketing is all about relationships, adding value, joining the conversation and getting and giving feedback.

With Social Media the words you use in your profiles, account names, tags, blog titles & descriptions, user groups, and other posts all help you expand your digital footprint.

The top 5 Social Media sites that I recommend you focus your efforts are Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn and Your Blog. There are thousands of others and depending on your niche or focus area, there may be a few others that you want to leverage, but how many more in-boxes and accounts do you really need to manage?

If you’ve read the book or watched the movie “The Secret,” you know that the secret is the law of attraction. In a nutshell, what you focus on most, you’ll manifest in your life. Without exception, every human being has the ability to transform any weakness or suffering into strength, power, perfect peace, health, and abundance. The law of attraction works both ways, positively and negatively.

So what does this have to do with marketing and making more money? Plenty. Often clients will tell me that a certain form of marketing, say direct-mail postcards, doesn’t work for them. It’s not the marketing method that doesn’t work, it’s the application of the method combined with a benefit message to a target market. Their expectations and beliefs can influence the results. They focus on their preconceived beliefs.

People see what they want to see.

Don’t believe me? Just check out this short video clip about awareness.

In marketing it’s your job to communicate the value of your products and services. To do that effectively and profitably requires 100% belief and the ability to help your prospects focus on what you want them to see. It’s the same with web design, print design and copywriting. Over the past 25 years I’ve worked with many talented graphic designers. In each case or project, I have to help guide them not to lose the message in the creative design. The message is my focus, the design is their focus. It’s a delicate balance, and when we get it right, everybody wins — including the client and the prospects.