Launched in January 2004, Google’s first social media venture, Orkut is shutting down on September 30, 2014. I received an email from the Orkut team notifying me of this development a couple of days ago.
If you know anything about Orkut, you may remember that it was launched even before Facebook. It was very popular in India and Brazil, although it never took off in the US.
When it comes to using social media as an entrepreneur, should you invest your time in growing your presence on Google+?
There are different purposes behind using different social networking websites. But, does Google+ deserve an investment of your time?
Social media is so irresistible that it’s almost impossible to stay away from it. How many times have you come across a situation where you wanted to sign up for a new product or service and it wants you to sign up with your Facebook or Twitter account?
Well, social media is now integrated into our online lives.
I have friends who hate Facebook for philosophical reasons but can’t get out of it because other products and services they use need them to have a Facebook account. Obviously they hate Facebook even more.
I guess you already figured out what I am going to discuss in this post from the title itself. However, if you don’t have kids, you can still participate in this conversation and perhaps, add some value from your perspective.
Social media, especially Facebook, is always a cause for concern among parents and a reason for friction in two different schools of thought.
Like all technology, social media is neutral but is best put to work in the service of building a better world. ~Simon Mainwaring [tweet this]
One group of people thinks that Facebook and social media is evil and we should avoid it at all costs. Well, I don’t subscribe to that group and that is why this post is also not about them or for them.
The other group is of social media enthusiasts. I actively participate in this group for obvious reasons and this is what my online business is centered around.
But then, you know how powerful social media can be in building your personal brand, online reputation and growing your business at such a low cost if done right.
As an entrepreneur, managing your brand reputation is very important. In today’s marketplace where social media is such a dominant marketing tool, you simply need to be on top of things on social media.
Do you really have to be on top of social media?
Well, not if you don’t want to grow your business by leveraging the power social media and internet marketing has to offer. You can simply ignore it and build your business slowly using traditional ways and it may still work the way it always has.
But if you want to be on the cutting edge and build your brand identity online to take your business on fast track, you can’t afford to ignore social media marketing. And that is when reputation management becomes an important aspect of your overall campaign.
Did you know that there are more than 400 million tweets sent per day on Twitter? Did you know that there are more than 699 million active Facebook users every day? This list only grows when we start including other growing social networking sites such as Google+, Pinterest, Instagram and so on.
These stats only mean that the freedom, the ability to have your own platform where you can say things you like to say, has made social media so popular. The number of people adapting to social media, and at the speed of growth, is simply astounding.
Like anything else, this has given birth to two school of thoughts when it comes to social media:
- Haters
- Lovers
But wait, there is a third group as well. This belongs to those who use every opportunity to speak against it but can’t stay away from it.
Know What You Can And Can’t Do Online
Social media is the new media. It is here to stay, whether or not you and me like it. This is the way we are going to communicate and stay in touch with the world. This is the way businesses are being conducted, connections are made, jobs are being searched and new business ventures are being established.
Understanding Twitter is a challenge that many struggle with (I know I did for a long time). Many entrepreneurs fail to understand Twitter, fumble for some time trying to get followers and then fade away.
I meet people everyday who wonder if Twitter is really worth their time and they can’t figure out why this thing is so popular when it is so hard for them. At the same time, I also see many others who are on Twitter wasting their time all day long.
If you fall in any of these two categories, you need to go through this post. My goal today is to help you learn some Twitter basics and the best practices.
Time wasters are on top of the list these days because of so many distractions everywhere. Time wasters are things that steal time from your life. Time wasters rob you of the time you would ordinarily have kept and used for more productive endeavors.
There are many such activities you and I engage in that can be productive, if we are careful. Otherwise, these activities can become huge time wasters; pushing us away from our dreams and goals.
However, it’s amazing some ‘experts’ miscommunicate things and make healthy activities as time wasters. They make those things look as if they are really not worth spending time on. The goal of this post is to list some of the good things in life that can be a life saver and turn into time wasters if we are not careful about them. While many ‘experts’ make these look like time wasters, I think we can have many blessings if we take these activities seriously, consciously and make a decision to be productive.
The List Of So Called Top 10 Time Wasters
So, here is the list and I will let you go through them and decide for yourself if you think these are time wasters for you or a blessing, if you choose to make it so. Here you go:
The richest people in the world look for and build networks. Everyone else looks for work. ~Robert Kiyosaki [tweet this]
It is true that social networking and internet marketing have changed a lot of things in the world in last a few years. People’s perspective has been rapidly changing about networking. More and more businesses are adapting to the networking business model.
More and more people are becoming extremely successful using networking to promote their businesses. People like John Maxwell, Randy Gage, Brendon Burchard, Michael Hyatt and Robert Kiyosaki have achieved enormous success by networking and building networks.
But I still see so many people who, for one reason or another, continue to resist networking. They seem to think that it is a lot of work to network with little or no return on investment of their time and efforts.
Promotions of the Free Enterprise System, the rise of social media and declining job markets have caused a significant increase in the number of independent consultants. That means more people are choosing entrepreneurship as their career path.
If you’re an expert at anything, you have an opportunity to start a consulting business and become a known expert in your niche. You don't have to be in some really cool business to succeed. You don't even need to have a large marketing budget.
Instead, you just need a plan, a strategy to market yourself to the right target market in the right manner. For example, look at these examples of people who applied the same concept and made a fortune:
- Kindergarten Teacher Earns $700,000 by Selling Lesson Plans Online
- Six-Figure Businesses Built for Less Than $100: 17 Lessons Learned
In these cases, the investment wasn’t huge, the marketing wasn’t mind blowing. They started small, stayed consistent with their idea, kept working and achieved significant success.
