List Building – Social Networks Are It!

Article by Titus Hoskins

List building is a topic which I have been following for over 10 years or more. In that time, you pick up a lot of helpful information when it comes to building your own opt-in email list. With the recent advent of such social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+… list building has grown in importance, rather than diminished.

Granted, the effectiveness of using email as a marketing tool doesn’t hold the same power as it once did when it was a new medium. Most web users have now become wary of receiving too many emails and/or open fewer and fewer emails, regardless of the subject matter. These subscribers are also more likely to unsubscribe from your list if your emails become too promotional.

Regardless of this fact, most savvy online marketers will have “follow-up” marketing funnels or lists in place for the products and services they’re promoting. Instead of just having one chance to “sell” to a potential customer, if that person subscribes to receive additional information, you will have countless chances to promote your products. In a similar way, most of these marketers will have a general opt-it list, where they promote different related products. For example, if you have a site on Internet marketing tools, you could build a list full of readers interested in marketing tools.

Social Networks Changes Everything

As a way of promoting my sites, I have several YouTube channels and I am constantly surprised to find that some pimply faced kid has several million subscribers. Some of these kids are not even out of high school and they’re racking up millions of views and getting 1000s of new subscribers each day. The list building power of a system like YouTube should not be underestimated. Most of these same kids have partnered with YouTube and earn daily sums that would shock many people. For example, one kid in London just bought a house with his earnings from making YouTube videos. Well, that kid is actually in his early 20′s now, but he started as a teenager on YouTube and considers it his full time job.

But YouTube is just one of these social networks which lets one build your list of contacts, an even better one is Twitter. Mainly because this is a simple messaging system which lets you broadcast your short messages to thousands, or even hundreds of thousands with a click of the mouse. Perhaps the only drawback, your subscribers or Twitter followers may be subscribed to hundreds of other Tweeters, so your message might get lost in the onslaught. Regardless, Twitter is a “must-have” program for any online marketer or webmaster who is interested in building their lists.

Another new-comer to the whole social networking scene is Google+ and it has quickly become important for several reasons. One it is from Google, perhaps one of the most respected brands in the world. Second, Google has just recently integrated Google+ profiles and posts into their personal search results when a user is logged into their G account. This second factor really opens up Google+ as a list building property because you can now use the power of Google’s search engine to promote your profile and posts to build your list of contacts.

However, the grand-daddy of all social list building programs simply has to be Facebook. One can use this premium social network in many ways… build a fan base for your website or product, build a list of close business colleagues or build a list of close family members and friends… Facebook is the ultimate online list builder. What is really significant here is Facebook’s large member base – close to 900 million users and will probably reach a billion users soon.This opens up a whole pool of prospective subscribers which is much larger than Google+ and besides Facebookers stay logged into their accounts twice as long as those using Google. This makes Facebook users much more active and more likely to stumble across your own Facebook page or fan site.

Lastly, if you check out some of those young YouTubers who have subscriber numbers in the millions, you will discover that these savvy list builders have profiles and accounts in ALL of these social networks. They use all of them… Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Google+, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Dailybooth… to help build their lists. The best part, all these social networks and programs are free. So are you using them to build your list?

About the Author

To Get a Step-by-Step Guide that will show you How to Start, Build & Manage your OWN HUGE Opt-In List! Click Here Or why not try these excellent free training manuals and videos:www.marketingtoolguide.comCopyright Titus Hoskins. This material may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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