Dear Readers,

Have you heard about Google+ yet?

Google “Plus” is Google’s latest attempt to create a social networking site to compete with Facebook.

Right now Google+ is in beta and access is by invitation only.  Google tried this before with Orkut but the service didn’t take off. (In fact when I joined Google+ I think a bunch of my data was pulled into my profile automatically because of my old Orkut account.)

In order to access Google+ you need to receive an invitation from a Google+ user.  You also have to hope that at that moment Google is accepting more users. They frequently throttle new users and turn them off for a bit to keep the service from being overwhelmed.

Google+ TIP: If you receive a Google+ invitation from someone and cannot use it because Google has turned off invites, just keep the email. Later on when Google allows invites you can click on the link in the email instead of having to wait for a new invitation from someone.

You may be asking what’s new about Google+? Why use Google+ instead of Facebook?

The main advantage to me appears to be what Google+ calls circles. Since we are social media savvy now we know that we want to break our friends into different groups. My mom may not want to read all my updates and I may not want my mom to read all my updates either   My business contacts might not want to read the updates that my high school friends read and so forth.

The advantage is that now that we’re starting over with a new social media site AND we have an easy way to identify groups of our friends… We can organize our contacts from the beginning.  This single advantage could be huge to Google+.  It isn’t that we can’t do that with Facebook but that now that we have hundreds (or thousands) of Facebook friends it is hard to go back and create groups.  Since we’re starting out with Google+ we can create groups at the beginning and use these “circles” from the get go. This means our Google+ account will be more organized than our Facebook account.

The reality is when Facebook began social media was still in it’s infancy.  When Facebook began they couldn’t imagine the success they would have. They couldn’t imagine that they’d have a membership base of approximately 700 MILLION people.

Google has the advantage of:

• Having attempted a social media site before with Orkut.
• Having been able to architect their new site with the advantage of experience.
• Having a built in userbase of 240+ million Gmail users to start with.

If Facebook could go back and architect everything over again I’m sure Facebook would be a lot better too!

So what does the Wall Street Journal think about Google+?  They just posted an article about how the effect of Google+ could impact the planned Facebook IPO. They suggest that Facebook has waited too long for their IPO and their reaction to Google+ may be too little too late.

Google+ Makes Facebook Look Socially Awkward from the Wall Street Journal Online.

A friend of mine and day trader suggests that the Facebook IPO will still be a hit. He’s probably right. I imagine that the general public isn’t even aware of Google+ yet. They won’t be aware that Google lost 6 million users in the USA and 1.5 million users in Canada in May.  The average user will buy Facebook stock anyway and savvy users will still buy Facebook stock knowing that the masses will drive up the value anyway!

What do you think about Google+?

Do you need a Google+ invite? If so leave a comment to let me know and I will try to email (to the email address you use when you comment) and I’ll send you an invite when they’re available.

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > social networking

Dear readers,

Are you on Twitter?

Do you want to know How to Get Retweets?

As business owners we dream of having other people help promote us.

If we could get more people to retweet our content it would be free exposure.

Here are 3 tips on how to get retweets:

1. Be Original

You need to create original content. Even if you are not a writer and simply want to link to someone else’s blog or promote their article you want to create your own introduction. Talk about why you think this blog post or article is good.  Then tweet your link to your content.

2. Be Interesting

Don’t be boring. Don’t be afraid to pick a side on an issue. If you want people to retweet you, you need to step up to the plate and take a side. You can’t be in the middle ground all the time.

Don’t be afraid to upset the people that disagree with you.  Your fans will love you for it. The people who think like you will come in droves.

3. Make It Easy to Retweet You.

DO NOT USE 140 characters to Tweet

I know we can use up to 140 characters but it makes it harder to retweet you. Why?

When someone retweets you the system adds: “RT @username: ”

RT 2 spaces an @ and a :  PLUS your username.  So you want to take how many characters are in your username and add 6.

My Twitter username is: benfitts There are 8 characters in my name. If I add the 6 extra characters for the retweet that means when someone retweets me 14 extra characters are added.

With this in mind I try to keep my tweets that I want retweeted to less than  126 characters.  That way when someone rewteets me and the system adds in the extra “RT @benfitts: ” they won’t have to shorten the message. They won’t have to think, they can just click the button and send.

It’s easy to get retweets if you follow these simple formulas.

Thanks for reading,
- Ben Fitts

Follow Ben on Twitter

MLM Training > social networking

Dear reader,

Do you know what your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn profiles are worth?

I need to preface this by saying I don’t normally play games.

Recently I discovered a Social Media game that offers some insights into how your social media profiles rank.

It is a game where you buy and sell stock in other people and business social media profiles.

You can buy stock in Gary Vaynerchuck… or Twitter… or Google… or Randy Gage… or Art Jonak… or John Milton Fogg.

You can also see how your social media profiles stack up.

They will give you a score on how your profiles rank. (It takes a few days to get accurate scores for your profiles.)

You can use this game to see how other top rated social networkers build their profiles.

• How do they communicate with their fans?
• How do they offer extra value?
• How do they get new fans?

These lessons can help you grow your own social media network.

Plus since the game is essentially an investment game where you buy and sell stocks you may learn some valuable investing strategy you can apply in real life as well.

Randy Gage just wrote an article yesterday explaining that he normally doesn’t play Facebook games like Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. But he is playing this new social media game and finding it a lot of fun.

The game is called Empire Avenue.

Register online for free and enter in your profiles for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Yahoo.

You can play the game online in a web browser or via Facebook.

Here are some top networker marketers profiles:

• Ben Fitts (Me, I just got started so all my profile rankings aren’t complete yet.)
• Art Jonak
• Randy Gage
• Richard Bravo
• John Milton Fogg
• Tony Rush
• Diane “mlmblonde” Walker

I think you’ll find it interesting even if all you do is create your profile to see how your various social media profiles rank.

Click here to create your Empire Avenue account.

If you like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn I know you’ll find this interesting!

If you play Empire Avenue leave a comment with your link to your Empire Avenue account. That way we can all help one another by buying stock

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > social networking

Dear Readers,

Are you using the Slight Edge yet?

The Slight Edge is a great book by Jeff Olson.

But now it is more than a book.

Now the Slight Edge is a community of like minded people interested in the principles taught in the book.

As Art Jonak says when he sent me the book back in 2007, the Slight Edge is either working for you or against you.

What is it?

It is the consistent actions you take… Consistent daily actions.  Even small daily actions compounded over time can have dramatic effects.

On the other hand if you work hard, then stop, you’re killing all your momentum.

I know a guy who sponsored 23 people in his network marketing business in a single month, but then went almost a year without sponsoring anyone.

Heck after my own divorce I took 6 months off myself.  To get my business going again required a lot of work because I had no momentum. I had to build my prospect funnel again. I had to get back out networking, sponsoring new people, training new people, developing leaders.

I look forward to learning more about the Slight Edge community.  One thing Jeff Olson is doing with this site is he has recruited some Slight Edge ambassadors who can guide us through these Slight Edge principles.

Note: Social Networking on sites like Facebook is great… but you should always be looking for new places to meet like minded people.  I think this Slight Edge Community is a great place to meet success oriented people!

When you join the Slight Edge look me up. (BTW Joining is Free.)

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > social networking

Dear friends,

Whatever you do in your marketing…

Don’t be boring!

No not like the young man in this photo…

I guess picking your nose is a different kind of “boring”.

What I mean is in a social media world where we have Facebook and Twitter and Myspace and Youtube and all this fun stuff, you don’t want to get lost in the crowd.

If you’re not interesting… people will click to the next thing… and they may never come back!

There is a MLM leader with another company.  I had asked a friend who is a well known MLM guru who to follow on Twitter.  He said follow this leader.  I already knew who this leader was because he was also featured in that MLM Beat’s top 50 MLM Bloggers.

So what does the guy tweet about?

“I just burned 123 calories walking.”

“I just completed my fitness diary for the day.”

Etc.

Now if he posted about other things, then maybe I’d be interested.  But if that is all he posts about that is pretty boring.

Here’s a tip for you guys.  If you have some software that automatically  posts to your twitter/facebook feeds, turn it off.  Usually the automatically posted stuff is rubbish.  This guys’ Fitness diary is costing him followers by posting rubbish every day.

BTW it is also ok to have an opinion.    A lot of people are afraid to have an opinion if they are doing business on Twitter/Facebook or whatever. They don’t want to offend anyone.  So what?

I want to work with people that think and feel like me. They are more fun to work with. Sharing my opinion will help me weed out those that don’t think like me.

I’m an independent distributor. I get to work with who I want too.  I love nothing more than finding cool people who share the same ideas about business, life, and fun that I do.  I’d love a whole team of thousands of distributors that think traveling to the World Cup in Brazil is a great way to spend a week (or month!)

Do you have any examples of “boring” MLM Gurus or MLM leaders? Do you have any tips to keep people from being boring?

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > social networking