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The first characteristic of social media that makes them so amenable to advertising is their networking capacity. On many social networking websites, individuals develop large networks of people they know or would whose activity they would like to follow. These networks, from the point of view of marketing, form self-created target markets that usually share interests and demographic characteristics. From a single individual, social networks can branch out to include hundreds or thousands of people who can be easily located and grouped by marketing professionals and software.

Online Interactivity for Marketing
Another characteristic of social media that seems tailor-made to cater to marketing is their interactive nature. Although internet-based social networking began as a way for individuals to communicate with one another, it was not long before organizations such as bands, entertainment outlets, and businesses were creating their own profiles on social networks, allowing people to associate with them. An individual’s profile on a social networking website might include a list of interests, and if that person’s friends can click on an interest to navigate to a business’ “profile,” the business has just gained the equivalent of a website page load for free. This makes social media an attractive advertising outlet due to its cost-effectiveness, particularly when compared to the number of people it has the capability to reach. For much, much cheaper than a television advertisement, a page on a social networking website could reach nearly as many people as the TV ad would.

The Illusion of Authenticity
From the marketing perspective, this seems too good to be true. Indeed, social media are quickly becoming filled with targeted advertising and gimmickry designed to give audiences an authentic experience of interaction when their true purpose is simply to sell a product. As this practice becomes more and more popular, it may turn out that using social networking websites as an advertising outlet is too good to be true. The reason is the aforementioned illusion of authenticity.

Interacting with Products
The reason that social networking works as a marketing tool is, in short, that it gives people the feeling that they are somehow really involved with the thing that’s being sold. Whether it’s a brand of shoes, a television show, or a hot new band, being able to add a product to your list of “Friends” gives the impression that you and the product have something in common – an understanding or bond that goes beyond just a 30-second TV spot. Ads on television, on billboards, and even banner ads on websites, can’t accomplish this sense of something real, something authentic. Social networking advertisements can, perhaps, accomplish that sense, but in the end they are still ads and are therefore no more authentic than their television counterparts.

The Case of Magazine Ads
In order to explain why this can’t last, a comparison with magazine advertisements is useful. Magazines are good outlets for highly specified marketing campaigns because each magazine has a very specific audience. For example, car magazines are generally only read by car enthusiasts. Businesses whose products or services are automotive-related, therefore, can productively buy ad space in car magazines because they’re sure that almost everyone who looks at the ad will be someone with a high probability of being interested in the product. Soon, however, magazine readers will catch on to this scheme and stop looking at the ads, skipping right past them without even registering their contents, because they know that they are being targeted as car enthusiasts and are not interested in being sold to.

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I’ve already got an audio editor without bookmark & region managers. I find it very inconvenient to find the segment i want over and over again. I really need something to mark my audio file. Can you give a free tool to do this?

Best reply by Thomas:

I recommend you this http://www.mp3-editor.net/mp3editing-software.html It’s a totally free program. You can set bookmarks and manage regions. Click the “bookmark” tag and you can see the buttons. It’s very easy to use with the bookmark & region list.

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Where do i find an audio editor that can set bookmark and region?

Here are 5 sizzling tips to help you on your way to creating a winning e-book.

1. The Easy Way

No matter what advice I might offer, there are some of you out there that just don’t want to write. The best thing to do is to find people that have already written a quality e-book and will offer you a resale license or agreement. Sometimes it is free if you buy the book which is what I do. And others charge a small fee for the complete resale rights. All in all, for most e-books out there, you can buy them for under $100 with resale rights. A business is born. Try and look for newer e-books and those that would be interesting to you. E-books that make the most amount of money teach you how to avoid pain or how to gain pleasure.

2. Another Great Idea

Go to the top article directories and search for articles in your subject of interest. For example, if you wanted to write a book that helps people save money on their taxes, go to several article directories and look up what articles have been written on that subject matter. If you see twenty great tips that can save people up to $1000 a year or more, you could compile a report that says something like
“20 Tax Saving Strategies You Can’t Afford to Miss.” Of course, you can’t use these articles word for word because that is illegal but you can write down your own thoughts and ideas about each of the tips and re-write them in your own words. Now you can market this on the internet and sell it for $39.95. Do you think some reasonable portion of the 265 million people that live in the USA are interested in tax savings? You bet!

3. The Born Writer

Some years ago, Reader’s Digest reported that some 70% of people acknowledge they had a book inside of them they wanted to write one day. Most of us have something we want to share but many times just don’t know where to get started or feel overwhelmed by writing a whole book. This is where e-books can be fun. Most e-books are about 50 pages long with 12pt type and paragraphs double spaced. They really aren’t that long. If you break your e-book down into tips or ideas, it is easier to write. For instance, if you generated 50 tips, you would have one page per tip. That’s not so daunting! And, for heaven’s sake, write when you feel like writing. I have found that I can write twice as much when I feel inspired. And the quality is oh so much better!

4. What’s Hot?

If you are at a loss of what to write about, go to Amazon.com and find out what the best sellers are. They are a wonderful resource for anyone. Let’s say your interest is in the top weight loss programs. Order the 3 best selling books, read them and then write your own e-book. If it is a subject matter you are interested in, you’ll breeze through the books and have lots of ideas and comments. Even if your interests don’t seem like you would have much of an audience, you might be surprised to find out otherwise. Going to Overture and typing in your keyword is always helpful. For most subjects there are thousands if not millions of people that want to know more. If you can provide them with quality information, they will buy from you.

If the thought of writing an e-book seems a daunting task to you, it’s really not as difficult as it seems. If you are already educated in internet marketing and know what writing original articles can do for your business and search engine ranking, then you are already most of the way there. Even if you know little about internet marketing and just like to write, you have a good chance of creating a good downloadable product that you can sell online.

The trick to writing an e-book that will sell is to know what people’s problems are. This doesn’t mean you need to be a psychologist! It simply means that you need an awareness of what people are asking for online that they need help with and want to find a solution for. People will buy from you when they know you have defined a problem they are having, and offer a solution to that problem.

What can Google and Ebay do to help you write this problem-defining and problem-solving e-book that will sell like hot cakes you ask? The answer is that Google and Ebay are excellent research tools that you can tap into to find out what people are having problems with. It’s very important to use these free tools because if you start writing away about a topic that has little relevance to what people are looking for online then chances are your product won’t sell.

Keep in mind too that the other trick to making a best-selling e-book is to know about and love your chosen topic. You will find it much easier to write a lot about a topic you are truly interested in rather than trying to write about something you know nothing about. You want to share your expertise and personal experiences about a topic, not your fake attempt to appeal to people’s emotions just so they will buy your product.

So once you find a topic you love and know about, you can go to Ebay and start doing your research. What do I mean by “doing your research”? By this I mean you want to know what people are looking to buy on Ebay. Let’s say you love hiking in the mountains. Go to Ebay and type in “hiking”, or “hiking boots”, or “hiking backpacks”, for example. Find out what gets a lot of people’s interest, as indicated by the number in the search results. Look at the listings to see what people are bidding on. This will give you an idea if your topic is worth writing an e-book about or not. Do the same in Google by typing in some search terms related to your topic to see if you can find the problems people want answers to, and if you feel you can write a lot about that yourself.

It’s very good practice to get into the habit of using a good keyword research tool, such as the one offered at SEO Book. Once you have a good topic, you also want to target the keywords people are searching for in the search engines. With a keyword research tool you will find out which keywords are worth targeting. Most people think to use the keywords with the most searches, however, you want to target keywords that do get searched, but not the most frequently so that you can get to the top of the search engine listings with your effective keywords. These will be keywords searched maybe 5000-10000 times per month or thereabouts in Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

The great thing about having been involved in internet marketing before is that you have probably already written a few articles to promote your business online. If this is the case, you can compile your articles into an e-book without having to write anything extra! E-books don’t have to be long! Or if you write about your experiences and can share your knowledge about your climb to Everest’s base camp, then just compile your notes into an e-book with very little extra effort!

Finally, you can use Google and Ebay not only for research purposes, but after you’ve written your e-book, you can then offer it for sale on Ebay, advertise it using Google Adwords perhaps, watch your e-book rise to the top of the search engine listings, and grin happily as the sales start coming in!