CONTEST: I’m Giving Away $1,000 of Our Best Stuff!

GenNext Media’s website officially launched this past October and it has only taken a few months for us to break some very serious boundaries.

• By November we had a regular readership of over 1,000 people a month.
• We now have a full blown Internet Marketing Training Program.
• We have over 120 fans on Facebook.
• We have over 1,600 followers on Twitter.

We are ready to salute the end of 2009, the end of the BIGGEST decade for the Internet, EVER.

How? BY GIVING AWAY $1,000.00 OF AWESOME STUFF!

You have a business, right?

You need to CRUSH in the new year, right?

You have customers begging to be found, RIGHT?!

You know what needs to be done!!

Internet Marketing is the ONLY way to go in 2010!!

So here is what I have for you:

One lucky winner is going to get access to the ENTIRE Surefire Social Program. Plus a three month, all expenses paid, membership to the Total Access Club.

• That is an EBook containing our entire online marketing strategy for small businesses.
• Our premier book on researching your market and tearing apart your competition’s strategy.
• Over 40 hours of training and tutorials in step by step videos helping you to master marketing online.
• Access to our powerful Catapult program, which allows you to build a website for just $350 which will bring in business.
• Access to dozens of special outsourcing templates so you can hire the RIGHT people for the RIGHT price.
• Access to a huge library of Ebooks on topics from creating email marketing campaigns to marketing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and many other websites.
• And a ton more…

Normally, this alone would retail for $569.93. But we are going to take it to the next level. At the beginning of every month, for three months, we are going to do a webinar for five lucky winners (including the grand prize winner) to help them with implementing their Internet Marketing Strategy in 2010. During this webinar, they’ll have direct access to several Internet Marketing experts who will personally help them with any questions or needs they may have.

Just think, in a few months, you could have a TON of new leads and prospects from the Internet and you wouldn’t have had to pay a dime for them. Just a few minutes to enter this contest could be the defining moment for you in the coming DECADE! That’s saying something!

I’m Ready For This! What Do I Need To Do To Enter?

The rules are simple. Just leave a comment below and tell everyone how business has changed for you in the last 10 years.

If you want a second chance at winning, leave a second comment and tell us how you plan to tackle the next 10 years of business, how do you think you will be marketing in 2020?

If you want a third chance, introduce one of your friends to this contest and ask them to mention your name at the beginning of their entry!

Its as easy as that.

Monday, Jan 4rd, we’ll compile all the names into a hat and pick out the winners from the entries.

Hurry! We extended the deadline to Wednesday, Jan 6th! Get your comments in!

So hurry up! We will only accept entries until Sunday at Midnight EST. So if you want in, don’t hesitate for even a moment, and get started right now!

Official contest rules are posted here.

Green Economy: Green Job Prep Strategic Joint Marketing Agreement

Reston, Va., Apr. 22, 2009/ PRNewswire/ — GenNext Media and Exhibitions LLC, publisher of Green Job Guide 2009: Secrets to Finding and Getting the Job You Want,(www.thecompletegreenjobguide.com) announces a Joint Marketing Agreement with Green Building Services LLC, whose services include the website GreenExamPrep.com.  This strategic alliance seeks to provide individuals special access and discounts to each other’s products: those seeking LEED accreditation, now have a resource to maximize the value of their certification with a clear path to acquire a job; while readers of The Green Job Guide 2009 can link to receive special LEED certification and training offers at GreenExamPrep.com.

“Scott Turner, CEO Green Building Service, and I have put together our best-of-breed green job preparation and training products, into a marketing partnership to bring our respective customers special access” says Chris Marentis, Publisher of Green Job Guide 2009 (formerly Senior Vice President at AOL-Time Warner).  ”It is clear there is overwhelming interest in LEED certification and green economy jobs; our intention is to help people connect the right training, certifications and education with smart career planning to help them succeed in the emerging green economy, tying together the process from green-job-passion-to-job position.”

Turner and Marentis seek to provide a superior service, product and price point to the consumer by bundling LEED training and certification with The Complete Green Job Guide and using their respective platforms.  Consumers save money, get LEED certification and utilize the proven techniques of an new green ebook, which works like a personal career coach, at a fraction of the cost; readers enjoy the additional benefit of access to proprietary web-based products and services, at their fingertips.

Frank Marquardt from the green economy blog, Triple Pundit writes, “…The Complete Green Job Guide 2009, an e-book that came out earlier this month, excels…this isn’t simply a book; it’s a program…worth it for the right candidate–one who wants quick, directed advice on getting a green job and support doing it”

As the federal government repositions the employment sector to go eco-friendly, on all fronts, green collar jobs will cease to be the question mark looming over the head of Joe Q. Public.  In just a short time, they’ll be the industry standard.  GenNext Media and Green Building Services joint marketing agreement provides consumers a way to capitalize on this growing economic segment and get in on the ground floor of the biggest growth industry of the 21^st century.

For more information, about this e-book, contact Chris Marentis or go to:

About GenNext Media:

Contact:

Chris Marentis,
GenNext Media LLC

There is a rush to identify “shovel ready” jobs.  But, behind the scenes, business and government leaders are grappling with the problem of being “people ready” for the millions of green jobs that will be created through the investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Social Media Marketing Plans: The Secret to Success is Integration

You have a small business, and need mass exposure to your target audience. Why should you use social media?

Social media has transformed the Information Age as its products flood into every aspect of normal life. This is a significant change from 10 years ago, when the passing of information was controlled by only the top few media publishing giants. However, since the birth of applications like Facebook and Twitter, power has shifted to the masses, and now your every day layman can control more information than ever before. What is unique about this transfer of power is that the information is presented then sorted by the readers. Users vote on the importance of the information they find, and through this sorting and voting, the best of the bunch is at the top of the list.

Social Marketing

Social marketing comes in many forms, and is creating household names out of companies that barely existed ten years ago. People converge upon Facebook to virtually meet and exchange ideas. Twitter is increasing exponentially in size, and businesses can use their “tweet” to get followers to buy their products and services. Companies that are the most favored tend to have many followers who in return promote their services from their own sites, which multiplies exposure and audiences.

Business Marketing

By integrating social marketing with your business, the result is online business marketing to your target audience. From this, you can offer free reports, free products or coupons to promote your business and encourage more traffic to your website. The key to integrating for every internet marketer is to turn saturated contact on the web into revenue. Integration allows you to connect with multiple levels of people and multiplies your target audience as opposed to just using one medium of communication.

Small Business Marketing Strategies

A website is the main thing to create when thinking of small business marketing strategies. A website allows your company information to be accessible 24/7, from anywhere in the world. With internet usage growing daily, people want to be able to access information from their keyboard. Customers expect you to have a website, and when they discover that you don’t, it ruins your credibility, and they move on to another source that is online.

Social Media Tools

If you are unsure as to how to get started, there are some social media tools that you can use to shorten the learning curve and speed you on your way to creating a bigger presence on the internet for your small business.

1. Social Poster: A useful application that allows the user to post anything from articles to media on over 160 social and bookmarking sites at once. A very efficient and fast way to get an instant internet presence for your company. (www.socialposter.com)
2. Tweet Adder: Easy application to gain a quick following. You will need a Twitter account, and then you can target your audience via geography or keywords to locate interested parties.

The idea is that social marketing is not just about using one tactic, or hopping from one to the other every few months. In order to maximize the best internet presence for your small business, you need to have a plan that integrates all of the applications together. Through this integration, you have the best chance of reaching the customer.

Chris Marentis is a serial entrepreneur and recognized Internet Marketing expert having served as SVP at AOL and CEO of Clearspring Technologies. For more information on Social Media Marketing, go to http://www.surefiresocial.com today.

Small Business Marketing With Social Media: Learn the topics and strategies you need to increase visibility

Looking for ideas and topics to get you started in small business marketing? The social media sites listed below can help you to come up with the content and strategies necessary to get plugged into social marketing for your small business.

Small businesses are always looking for unique ways to reach their target audience and market their brand. There are some common tools you can find on the web, but a more thorough search will deliver mediums that work a bit better for local businesses. One of the first steps for social marketing success is to identify the right topics and content that will attract your prospective customers’ attention. By making use of the sites and tactics listed below, your lead generation marketing numbers will skyrocket as users search specifically for what you can provide.

Retweetist.com: This site follows all things Twitter and allows you to keep up with popular topics, trends and people by tracking retweets across the site. Follow them with your Twitter account for access, and you will be privy to the most important information and relevant discussions on the web that day.

Popurls.com: This is a one-stop shop where you can find the top entries from multiple sites that users are visiting. Find out what people are interested in and target those audiences based on the latest interests. Incorporate the top entries into your feeds to lead people to your site.

Alltop.com: This online magazine provides a plethora of popular topics on the web, with stories updated by the hour. This site is a relevant source of what is popular in the market place, and boasts easy search tools. It’s a great source for brushing up on new social media tools to keep your marketing strategies fresh and relevant.

Trendhunter.com: This online magazine is an “explosion of cool” and kept up to date by a global network of trendsetters. Get ahead of the game with the next big thing by tracking this site. The reason this site is so valuable is that it helps generate ideas, shape our social context, and stimulate creativity. This is a great way to figure out how to be more influential within your social media marketing and develop services to meet the demands you find on the site.

Trendistic.com: Look to this site in order to find daily trends in Twitter, complete with charts and graphs, and a list of popular topics. Tweak your feeds to be more relevant to the current daily trends and ensure more website traffic.

Twitturly.com: This site ranks and tracks what URL’s people are talking about on Twitter. It’s a quick reference to find out what information gets passed along and what doesn’t. You can also check to see how your information is ranking.

Makeuseof.com: This site has tools and resources that you can use and is a great source for finding anything from the top 5 things to do in an emergency to different ways kids can make money online. Find a significant URL to add value to your postings here.

Lifehacker.com: Another general site similar to makeuseof.com, this site has tips and downloads for everyday life.

Tweetgrid.com: An extension of Twitter, this search dashboard lets you search up to 9 different topics, events, people, groups, phrases, etc in real time. So, when new tweets are created, they will be automatically updated in your grid. This will help you stay relevant with your feeds and allow you to change them as the information deems necessary.

Tweetmeme.com: This site tracks what is cool and being talked about on Twitter. Everything is sorted by rank, so the things that are talked about most have the highest ranking. Tweetmeme.com tracks old and new content, and all media is categorized by blogs, photos, audio, and video. You can perform searches on this site for the highest ranking content and create similar posts that will guarantee traffic.

Twopular.com: This site pulls up trends on Twitter in real time. No need to refresh the page, and you can keep up by always having current information in your posts.

Twitturls.com: Works by grabbing the links that people post in their Twitter feeds and then counts them, scores them, and then lists them. Shows results by day and is refreshed every minute. Through this site you can check out the highest ranking links to see if you can make a posting relevant to your business.

Twitlinks.com: Features latest news that is for the more technologically inclined. Up to the minute tech links. Great for tech marketers who want to find small businesses online and offer solutions to their needs.

Twittersphere.com: A collection of the most hyped stories found on Twitter. Check regularly to see which stories get the most hits. Also a great portal for posting local specials relevant to your business.

Twitscoop.com: An easy way to stay on top of Twitter. Click on one of the words in the cloud map on the right and it shows you how many times the word has appeared in tweets. This is a great calculating tool for keyword research.

Sitevolume.com: Fantastic medium for pulling up keyword counts for 5 various sites. Simply pick a site you want to check, type in up to 5 keywords, and it pulls up how many times those words appear. You can check which words are the most relevant and incorporate them into your social media tools.

Twitgraph.com: Charts your actual usage of twitter complete with visuals. Use this to track what has been the most popular topics in your threads.

Killerstartups.com: Interesting site that reviews 15+ internet startups per day, then the readers vote on which one they think will be a killer. This site can be a great source for being the first to find upcoming needs for your products and services.

Any one of these web-marketing strategies will provide you with many avenues to get the latest topics and information that people are seeking. Because you want to meet a need or fulfill an interest of your prospective customer, it is vital to stay current with popular topics and informational trends. When you appear to be a business in-the-know, you will build credibility for your brand, while reaching a wider spectrum of the public. Keep in mind that it is important to measure your results. Also, make sure that you are having two-way conversations instead of only talking “at” your audience.

Furthermore, it is important to ensure your network is growing. Work on building relationships through credibility, dialogue and content relevancy. By following this structure to market your business, you will be maximizing the power of your social network, and expanding opportunities for your company.

Chris Marentis is a serial entrepreneur and recognized Internet Marketing expert having served as SVP at AOL and CEO of Clearspring Technologies. For more information on Small Business Marketing, go to http://www.surefiresocial.com today.

Marketing and Branding is Changed Forever with New Technology and Tough Economic Times: 5 Steps to Keeping Your Business on Track.

The Internet has done nothing if not offer millions of options for doing business. In any economy, the problem’s not having enough opportunity – it’s knowing what to do when. Read on for the 5 steps you MUST follow to succeed online today.

While the Internet is abuzz of how tough economic times may affect online business, the new technology and presence of social media offer a promising future for business owners who focus on social Marketing and Branding. Still, the challenge of increased competition and a need for growing revenue can leave executives overwhelmed, frustrated and unsure about the next step. The key to success is to have a solid marketing system in place that takes advantage of the current economic and online climates.

With so many options and potential directions to go within online marketing and branding, it is often hard to know what system is best. To help you simplify the process, here are five basic steps to keeping your business on track and moving forward:

1. Research and then research some more!

Don’t overlook the importance of your customers’ and competitors’ digital footprints. By engaging in research of these footprints you can identify customers’ needs and interests and then fine-tune your USP and brand in order to become the perfect solution for these needs.

From being able to reverse engineer customer search engine queries to better understand how they search to accessing new tools where you can find out what competitors are doing with their keyword and conversion strategies, the current digital world makes it possible to rise to the top of the competition more easily than in years past.

Research is the key to finding out what your target market needs, so that you can offer the solutions. You no longer must start at the bottom of the barrel and do your time. You can rise quickly to the top, using research methods that are 100% free—a major bonus in hard economic times. It pays to listen to your customers in the new social graph.

2. Leverage social web applications and technology

Once you have done the research and created a list of keywords and keyword phrases to pull in the customers, you are ready to put the research into action. Social marketing makes this step easy.

Search engines are doing their job to track and index social web pages, and you only must put the quality content out there to attract the search engine spiders. Using content such as articles, video, audio and blogs you can create a social web strategy with your keywords that can help you to make your mark at the top of the search engine listings.

As a member of the social web, you want to add something of value to make the most of your online relationships. The philosophy of sell, sell, sell is worn out and yesterday’s marketing tactic. Instead, listen to what your customers need and offer information and support, earning you the right to present your products and services when the time is right.

While you always want the information you offer to be fresh and relevant, you can maximize the effort you put into your content by reusing it in appropriate places throughout the web. Instead of plugging content into your website and waiting for customers to come, the social web allows you to get out there, get involved in various social communities and networks where your customers are, and interact in a thoughtful and meaningful way. Before long, you are viewed as the expert of your niche and customers will come to you.

3. Convert leads into repeat customers

It is important to create multiple sources for your business leads in both the online and offline worlds. Building your list is not as overwhelming as it may seem. Use conversion mechanisms and continually pump out marketing efforts to reach your prospective customers and turn them into paying customers.

When you have a target customer list, take advantage of free marketing opportunities through e-mail, or consider direct mail for customers with a physical address. Converting list members into paying customers is easier to do when you make an effort to develop loyalty and trust through communication with your list.

By appealing to customers’ need for information, you can get them to sign up for automated information products that help you to establish a solid relationship. From newsletters and whitepapers to ebooks and videos, the content can also serve as “bait” around the web to attract customers to your list. It’s all about giving the customer a reason to come back to your site again and again. When you offer them something of value and then follow up with repeat communications, people begin to trust you.

Interject personality and passion into your content to establish a rapport. Share a personal story, so that you can stand out amongst your competitors. At the same time, keep the content relevant and cutting-edge so the customers can view you as a real person with an interesting story who offers a valuable service.

Utilizing a lead generation program along with social media can attract customers to your site. These programs help you to separate the lurkers from the buyers, and who wouldn’t prefer to spend time and effort targeting the buyers? As more and more people are getting involved through various social sites, it makes sense to use a lead generation program to help you zero in on the people who are most likely to become conversions.

4. Maximize Monetization of the Customer

In a tight economy it is more important than ever to take a holistic approach to monetizing the customer. After all, with so many competitors online, you want to make the most of each and every buyer. The costs of time, effort and money are too high to be satisfied with a one-time sale. Today’s business must take a lifetime value approach and focus on making the customer a repeat customer.

Consider the additional products and services you can offer to your target market. Information products are a great, low-cost, or even no-cost, way to meet your customers’ needs. The idea is to search for the true need your customer has and provide the solution through your information product.

Social media offers an ideal way for you to identify the needs your customers have. By interacting with them on various sites, you can get a good feel for what solutions would be a hot commodity and then promptly offer those solutions. Whether you create e-books or facilitate webinars or both, you can leverage your good standing with customers who previously purchased from you and offer them additional products to keep them engaged.

5. Use a well-organized and accountable system.

Being organized is vital to good business. Establishing a productive system and sticking with it ensures you have momentum to keep your business going in the right direction. While it may seem overwhelming to create your own system from scratch, there are a variety of marketing systems already available online to help you efficiently and effectively connect with your target market through social marketing.

In your search for a reputable distributed web marketing system for your business, there are certain programs that will stand out above the rest. For example, GenNext Media’s system helps business owners to create a firm foundation based on smart strategy and positioning—all the while taking advantage of what the social web has to offer. It is important to have a system in place that encompasses research, lead generation, value-backed information and social web outreach.

Chris Marentis is a serial entrepreneur and recognized Internet Marketing expert having served as SVP at AOL and CEO of Clearspring Technologies. For more information on Marketing and Branding, go to http://www.gennextmedia.com today.

Social Marketing for Business: Hit pay dirt following these three simple (not easy) steps

Whether you are just getting started in social marketing or have been testing out the waters with few victories, the one thing you need to achieve social marketing success for your business is a game plan. Randomly joining social networks and submitting content without purpose can be time-consuming and ineffective. However, don’t think that your plan must be complicated and professionally-designed in order for you to succeed. In fact, these three simple (although not always easy) steps, can help you to hit pay dirt in no time.

Step One: Set a Firm Foundation with Solid Keyword Research and a USP.

It is imperative to identify a keywords list and use those keywords to attract search engine spiders. There are free tools available to make finding the right keywords for your business a snap. One such tool is the Google Keyword Tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Here, you can find the keywords people are plugging into the search engines as well as what your competitor websites are using.

Once you have identified the keywords and phrases best for your niche and business, you must add them to everything you do: domain names, blogs, article titles, and content. The search engines will pick up on these keywords and with quality content you have a great chance of receiving a higher ranking, which will put you at the top of the search engine results—right where you want to be.

Finding the right keywords to use helps you to create the all-important Unique Selling Proposition (USP). As you consider being unique and setting yourself apart from the competition, it makes sense to choose keywords that are popular yet do not have the most competition. For example, a website selling wheelchairs could focus on “wheelchair” as the top keyword, but there would be significant competition for that keyword. However, using the words “quickie wheelchair” helps to gain more targeted traffic and side-steps the primary competitors.

In addition to targeting unique keywords, you will want to offer a unique selling proposition. This means you want to offer a solution to your target market that somehow stands out and is different than what you competitor’s can offer. Whether it is a special service, bonus products or a cutting-edge solution, make sure you are offering you customers something of value that is solving a problem or meeting a need.

Once you become familiar with the Google Keyword Tool, you can begin utilizing more sophisticated tools such as Market Samurai, Niche Bot, Wordtracker and many others. You will also want to use Yahoo’s Site Explorer to reverse engineer your competitors’ sites. With this you can find out who their customers are and then target the high PR value sites for you own linking strategy.

Step Two: Establish Your Marketing Branding and Communication Touch Tones

Developing a brand for your business is one of the most important steps you can take in securing customers and making the sale. Your brand is the essence of who you are, how you differ from your competitors and why a customer should choose to do business with you.

So what is a brand? It’s more than your name, motto or the colors of your banner. It is a culmination of all of the different aspects of your business. In order to create a brand you must consistently communicate your business mission and purpose as well as promote a consistent image, personality and voice to your target market.

The idea of communication touch tones goes hand-in-hand with your brand. To have a cohesive brand that works, you must fine-tune your communication styles so that the customer can hear something about you, read a tag line, see a logo or banner ad, and know it is your business. This consistency and uniformity throughout all of your social marketing communications creates trust and loyalty in your customers—these are the keys to a solid business.

Furthermore, you want to ensure your brand identity can be differentiated from your competitors’. You want to stand out and offer something unique to customers. Focus on really plugging in your primary and secondary target keywords to reach your desired customer.

Step Three: Implement Social Media Layers Effectively

It is far too easy to get distracted when it comes to social marketing for business. The social media networks are seemingly endless and there is always a new guru touting the best new method for conquering social marketing once and for all. Here’s the thing: if you can just buckle down, create something of value, know your target market and develop the content pumps for distribution, you are well on your way—no guru necessary!

As you are searching for the right venues for your content, try to start by identifying two of the most appropriate social media sites for your niche and target market. Explore the forums and blogs to find out which ones seem to be more active. Ask yourself: who are my ideal customers? Which social media sites do they use? Once you have narrowed it down to two sites, become a member there and follow other members who seem to have a great following and have similarities to your niche or marketing style.

Get a handle on what works for specific social media sites and then prioritize the ones you have chosen. The next step is simply pumping out the high quality content to these sites in order to quickly establish your reputation as a business that offers something of value.

Keep in mind that social media sites are not the place to spam, posting copies of blogs or articles from other sites or just offer remixed articles. Be original. Be unique. And set yourself apart from the competition with creative and compelling social marketing campaigns.

Chris Marentis is a serial entrepreneur and recognized Internet Marketing expert having served as SVP at AOL and CEO of Clearspring Technologies. For more information on Social Marketing for Business, go to http://www.surefiresocial.com today.

Bricks-to-Clicks Success with New Social Media Contractor Edition from GenNext Media

20-Day “Surefire” Guide Virtually Guarantees New Opportunities for Contractors

Reston, Va., Oct. 2, 2009/PRNewswire/ — Contractors typically deal in bricks, not clicks, but now they can jump-start their business by plugging in to the newest Social media online outlets like Facebook, Linked In, blogs, chatrooms and Twitter in part due to a new partnership between GenNext Media LLC., an interactive media and marketing services company, and www.contractor.net. The new venture, Surefire Social Contractor Edition, will debut Oct. 8-10 at the Certified Contractors Network (CCN) Fall Conference in San Jose, CA.

“This new 20-day guide clearly shows independent building contractors daily steps to use social media marketing successfully,” said Chris Marentis, Founder and CEO, GenNext Media LLC and CCN conference speaker. “Surefire Social Contractor Edition provides the ‘insider’ contracting perspective so that powerful internet resources are maximized…it’s quite more than having a webpage or a listing but a way to get noticed, remembered and contacted.”

Surefire Social Contractor Edition guides a “do it yourself” action plan through Web 2.0 technologies to exponentially increase business leads in less than a month’s time. The friendly but persistent program aims to develop and implement a marketing program focused on quick cycles and related business results. Surefire Social Contractor catapults leads for contractors by effectively using massive visibility available through social interaction sites to meet consumers where they are—online searching for qualified contractors for their project needs.

“Two significant results came from implementing this social media marketing strategy,” said Scott Siegal, President, Certified Contractors Network and Roofing Contractor. “First, it exponentially increased our visibility as an expert and leader, and second, it drastically reduced the average $300 per lead marketing costs for contractors. In addition, and hard to put a price on, social networking gave us trusted word-of-mouth referrals from online friends.”

For more information on Surefire Social Contractor Edition visit http://www.gennextmedia.com/media-and-marketing-properties.

About GenNext Media LLC.

GenNext Media LLC, founded in October of 2008, is a revolutionary interactive media and marketing services company creating powerful new brands and re-building legacy brands. The company has extensive experience leveraging next generation distributed web platform technologies and applications like social media to dominate niche markets.

SOURCE GenNext Media LLC.

CONTACT

Chris Marentis
(703) 896-7688