Bill Clinton Gas Prices vs George Bush Gas Prices

Comparing the gas prices between the Bill Clinton era and the George Bush era is like comparing democrats to republicans.  These pictures really tell the whole story and then some.

Bill Clinton Gas Prices vs George Bush Gas Prices

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Understand Social Networks Better for Effective Business Promotion

social networking
Jonathan Mac asked:


Social networking is a big buzz in today’s world of Internet marketers. Social networking can be said to be virtually started (introduced) by My Space and facebook. Today, these two giant social networking websites are the ones most visited by people. Many of the Internet marketers have found charming opportunities to market their products through these social networking websites. Though all the members of these social networking websites are not targeted, many of the Internet marketers consider this as an effective means to get more free exposure to their business.

There are many social networking websites that are emerging each and every month. TalkMoola.com, Zenzuu, Friendswin, Yuwie, and Wowzza are some of them launched recently. With all these social networking websites, Internet marketers have a wide source to promote their business. However, many of the Internet marketers complain that social networking is a complete waste of time and they didn’t find gain out of it. It is because not all network marketers have caught on to the power of social networking yet or how to properly use social networking to explode their businesses. But the ability to further expose themselves and their business to other like-minded people is extremely valuable and profitable for most.

The most important fact about social networking websites is that all social networks that are created are not equal. Social networks differ in many ways. It is up to you to choose the best social network that suits your business promotional needs.

Look for Social networks with similar interests

Before signing up with any social networking website for business promotion, you should make sure that the network has people who would be interested in what you have to offer, or are like-minded to you. For example, if you are trying to promote your business of electronic goods online, then you should look for social networking websites with related communities and forums. If you try to promote your electronic product in a social network that includes members looking for a date or love, it would be a complete waste of time. 

Active involvement is essential

Maximum exposure to your business through social networks can be achieved only by increasing the contacts. This can be achieved by accepting all the friend invitations within the social network and searching for like-minded people in the community and adding them as friends. The larger your list of friends the more active you will appear to be and  more people will take heart to what you have to say. Active involvement in social networks is essential for effective business promotion. Regular forum participations, blog postings and messaging to friends are some kinda active involvement. While promoting a business in a social network, bulk messaging is a facility to look for.  Some social networks limit the amount of people you are able to send a message to at once. On the other hand, some social networks will let you add unlimited friends and you can send them a bulletin or message to all your friends at once anytime with ease. This is what you should be looking for.

Create your own social networking website

It’s always good to create your own social networking website for promoting your business. Creating your own social networking website will be beneficial than promoting your business in other social networks.  This will help you to strengthen the customer-supplier relationship and also helps you to identify your customer needs. Designing a social networking website is just a breeze today. Professional social network web designers can help you design unique social networking websites to grab more audience.



If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Should You Promote Business Through Social Networking Sites

social networking
Mike Claggett asked:


Networking whether for socializing or for business is what makes the world go around. Not Love. Well love keeps it positive and interesting, but without socializing, love doesn’t have a chance. Don’t think so? Then how do you explain sites like MySpace has literally millions of users and all of the on line dating sites combined have less.

Do you know what the main purpose of a social networking website is? If you are an avid internet user, it’s you likely do. Social networking websites are online communities that make it easier for internet users to meet and communicate with each other. If you are an internet user who enjoys using the internet to meet new people, there is a good chance that you already belong to a social networking website. What about an online blog? Do you have a blog? In a way, your blog is like having your own personal social networking site. If you have a blog, do you know that you could use your social networking website to promote your blog?

The goal of most business owners is to make a profit. There are of course a few that have business web sites only to support their products or provide information. But for the purposes of this article, I’ll only be talking about sites with the primary purpose of making money. Obviously the hope of the site/business owner is to generate income from the selling of a particular product or service. However, to sell that product or service business owners need to alert the general public and preferably a targeted portion of the public at large (Thier niche), to the availability of their products or services. Customers cannot buy a product or a service if they do not know that it exists. Obviously that’s why, as a business owner, you need to advertise your business.

When it comes to advertising there are many business owners who literally cringe at the thought of putting together an advertising or marketing plan or campaign. Have you planned your campaign and are you working your plan? Is it costing you more than your are making? There is a good chance it is because most traditional advertising methods cost money. Many cost a LOT of money.

As a business owner you want to make a profit and not spend any more than is absolutely necessary to make the profit you want/need to, right? Fortunately, if you believe that all forms of advertising take money, you’ll be glad to know you are mistaken. Although you may have to spend some money to make your business as profitable as you want it to be, there are ways to promote your business and the products or services that you sell without having to spend any money at all.

Promote your blog through your social networking site and vice versa? Why would you want to do that? Honestly, in this day and age, if your in business and have to ask yourself that question you probably need to look into the upside of owning operating your own blog and reciprocally linking with one or more of your own social networking site pages. The whole purpose of a blog is to document your thoughts, views, and opinions on a particular topic, issue, or subject to boost your credibility in the eyes of your reader as an authority on what you write about. What good will your blog do if no one reads it. Social networking sites are a way to get readers for your blog.

Is your curiosity peaked yet? There is a good chance that it is and rightfully so. One of the ways that you can promote your online business, without having to spend a dime, is by using something that is readily available online. That thing is an online social networking website. A large number of internet users, in fact literally millions of them, belong to at least one social networking website, if not several.

When it comes to promoting blogs, there are many blog owners who decide to let the search engine do the work for them. Search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN use special techniques that read/scan the content on your website. That content is then used in part to link your blog website with particular keywords. This means that you run a blog on graduating from high school in New York, there is a good chance that your blog will appear in searches done on New York high schools.

Although many blogs are successfully ranked in search engines, not all are. That is why you are advised against relying solely on search engines, when it comes to promoting your blog. There are other ways to promote your blog besides social networking, such as “blog and ping” or “Tag and Ping” but I’ll leave those subjects for another article you can find at my blog.

When it comes to social networking, there are many individuals who think of building new online friendships or online relationships. While these types of relationships are the most common, did you know that social networking is also used for businesses? A lot of businesses? In fact, that was originally how social networking got started.

As previously mentioned, if you love meeting with or talking to people online, there is a good chance that you belong to a social networking website or community. The individuals that you talk with and that are in your community are likely the individuals that you wish to target. Since most social networking websites work to connect internet users who have the same goals and common interests, there is a good chance that your online friends will enjoy reading your blog. But, before they can read your blog, you have to let them know that it exists.

Although social networking websites are traditionally focused on those that would like to make online friends or develop online relationships, there are networking sites that are designed primarily for business owners. Ryze.com is a good example. These websites will not only allow you to share your business information with other business owners, but it will also allow you to develop close relationships with those that share an interest that is similar to yours. Essentially, this means that you could not only learn valuable business information, but you could also walk away with a new business partner, a new friend or a business prospect.

When it comes to promoting your blog on social networking websites, you have a number of different options. Your first option is to include a link to your blog in your community profile or profile page on your social networking site. This will allow other community members to checkout your blog, only if they wish to do so.

The other way is to inform your online friends of your blog through Private Messages (Or PM’s). Once you join a social networking website and create or join a network of friends, you should easily be able to communicate with those friends. Sending each of your friends a private message with information and a link to your blog tends to be more effective than just placing a link in your profile or on your profile page. As well, a PM is more personal. Naturally, you will want to offer the link to your blog in a kind of “Oh, by the way”, fashion or maybe asking their opinion of one of your recent or past blog posts. The last thing you want to do is make it appear you are soliciting your new friend.

As previously mentioned, social networking websites with a focus on businesses, are a great way to promote your business. However, this does not mean that you should completely forget about the other online social networking websites, the ones that are designed to make online friendships. Although you may not learn any valuable business tips by joining “Yahoo! 360″ or “MySpace”, if you are subtle in your approach, you may be able to end up with new customers and new customers is exactly what your business needs.

As you will see, there are like minded people that will join an online community to make friends and or to learn more about what they are interested in from the people they meet in a social networking community regardless whether it is business related or not. There are a number of different ways that you will to go about promoting your own profile or profile page so as to not appear as though you are actually advertising. If you are planning on joining a traditional online social networking website, to gain access to millions of potential new customers, you are urged to be careful when making your online Social Networking webpage or profile. One thing that internet users hate is being solicited for business using the guise of wanting to make friends.

This does not mean that you cannot use social networking to your advantage; it just means that you need to be careful with how you do it. Instead of creating a “MySpace” page or a “Yahoo! 360″ page for your business, you are advised to make one for and about yourself, but, of course, you will want to include information on your business as part of your ‘interests’. You never know, but, in addition to promoting your blog, you may also make new friends along the way as well by linking to your social networking profile page from your blog.

By joining a social networking website, especially one that is popular and has a large number of members, you should be able to generate interest in your business, including the products or services that you sell. If your social networking friends are interested in the same things as you, and your blog and is compelling enough to drive your social networking friends to your business site, that interest generated traffic could turn into sales; thus making your social networking experience more than worth your time and effort.

After all, it’s FREE, it’s easy, there is the potential of making additional profits doing it, and it can be a lot of FUN! There is nothing quite like making more money and having fun doing it.



If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

How to Create Niche Business Social Networking Sites

social networking
Jonathan Mac asked:


Social networking is the buzz word in today’s Internet space. With lots and lots of people getting into Social networking everyday, many wise online marketers are creating their own Social networking websites. However, with many online marketers getting into Social networking, it is necessary to highlight your social networking website to avoid getting lost in the crowd. For this you have to offer your users with something unique and useful.

Provide the users with interactive Social networking Softwares

Do you know the reason behind the huge popularity of the social networking websites like myspace and face book? One of the reason is that they provide some interactive, useful social networking softwares. Unlike other softwares that needs to be downloaded to the users computer (which most of them do not prefer), these social networking softwares doesn’t need to be downloaded. These web based social networking softwares are gaining popularity these days because of the ease of use. As there are no compatibility problems associated with these social networking softwares, anyone can use it.

Creating Social networking software for your own Business Social Networking Website

When it comes to creating a social networking software, you will come up with a question “Should I Build my Own Social Networks Software?” Just keep reading on to find the answer. You can create the social networking software for your website by yourself if:

1. You are a skilled programmer.

2. Have lots of time to spare to spend on researching the trends in the Social media.

3. Are able to identify the user needs and satisfy them

The users of any websites will become unpleasant if the site takes long time to load. Moreover, the error messages are the ones that make the users of your social networking website more irate. Once the error message shows up to any user of your social networking website, they will never return back to your website. If you are a no vice programmer, trying to add or build social networking softwares, then your social networking softwares will be more error prone. All of these factors will be rather overwhelming to you if you are not a skilled programmer. Yet creating your own social networking software for your social networking website is not impossible.

Getting professional help for building Social Networking softwares

There is nothing to worry even if you don’t have the above said requirements for building social networking software. The professional social networking web designers are capable of building unique social networking softwares too. There are so many ready made social networking softwares also. All you have to do is to pick the right one that best fulfils your customer requirements. Getting social networking softwares built through programmers has many advantages. It saves much of your time and money along with enabling you to offer the users of your social networking website with some great interactive social networking software.



If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Social Networking: Are They Really Communicating?

social networking
F. Aldo asked:


One of the 21st century’s youthful social phenomena is probably rewriting all known sociology textbooks. The authors of those textbooks never would have even dreamed of such things like instant messaging, texting (or SMS in some areas), MySpace, Friendster and blogging. Put the sociologists of yesteryears in today’s wired world and surely they would be left scratching their heads and wondering where the humanity in relationships has gone.

“Dude, you don’t get it!”

For those of us who probably “don’t get it”, we should reach really far back and call up the idea of pen pals. If you were one of those who had a pen pal, remember how you used to look forward to receiving your pal’s letter in the mail? Never mind if the letters came every other month, there was no other choice at the time. The main thing was that the pen pal cared enough to write and you enthusiastically wrote back. And what about the stories you shared in your letters? Detailed communication! Nowadays, there are text pals or text mates. A typical message would probably read: “C u l8r at 7″. The reply would be a simple “K”. Come to think of it, I suddenly feel sorry for K’s one-time inseparable partner, O.

This, I humbly submit, is where all humanity ends.

I am not implying that the human race will end because of social networking, but rather what makes us humans. Life in the 21st century has introduced humanity to a lot of exciting, new technology and it is a wonderful thing. So many things that were once tedious are now incredibly convenient tasks. I have to admit that texting has been useful for me as well but the difference is my relationship with those who are dear and close to me does not revolve around it. I do not say this to admonish today’s youth. The point is I still prefer the personal communication as far as my relatives and friends go.

A web analyst once remarked that the popularity of sites like MySpace and Friendster is due to the immediacy of the members’ personal information such as their hobbies, likes and dislikes, photos, as well as a level of anonymity for all the members. Up to this day, I still have a hard time reconciling how anonymity can be an ingredient in personal relationships. Does it not take away from real communication?

“Chill dude, we’re just having fun!”

Fair enough. I am just worrying that today’s teenagers’ idea of communication is using words made up of consonants and numbers and no vowels. Maybe this is also part of the convenience that technology has afforded us. It would be a pity if some of today’s youngsters become slaves of technology instead of putting it to good use for themselves. Picking up all these bad habits early will be harder for them to break later on.

“Dude, you worry too much.”

Maybe. Maybe not. I am only thinking back to what some sociologists and psychologists once said–that effective communication is the basis of harmonious relationships. So my logic is simple–every society strives for harmonious relationships and since societies are made up of various networks, then social networking needs effective communication. So start using those vowels again. Now let’s party, dude.



If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!