Many people out there are looking for a quick start to internet marketing. I understand. You know being online and marketing yourself with blogging, internet marketing and social networking is essential, but you don’t know the best way to go about it, and you have a million questions.

This massive access to information causes what’s called “paralysis by analysis”. In other words, we’re so fixated on learning what we need to do, we fail to act. This is death for business. You need to act, but you don’t want to screw things up.

So here is a quick start to internet marketing checklist that will give you what you need to get started. It contains a little philosophy and a few specific actions that will get you off and running. There is a lot of value in knowing you’re starting off on the right foot, so I hope this helps.

Quick Start to Internet Marketing

1. Make the decision that your focus is going to be building a real business…or extending your existing business. Do not allow your sole focus to be making money. If your focus is on building a real business, creating a good reputation and brand and creating value for others, it’s hard to screw things up. It’s when we decide to focus solely on making money that we start doing crappy, spammy things that we will regret later…and that will not do us any good. This is the first step, and it’s easy. Just decide that your focus is going to be on creating value for your customers, not just selling stuff. With that, you have already cleared half the hurdles. Believe it or not, it really is that simple!
2. Start a blog. Don’t over think it. Don’t dwell on it for more than five minutes. Pick a platform, and fire it up. If you want my specific advise, I recommend using WordPress, and I recommend having a professional set it up for you. Any number of professionals can do it for you. WordPress can easily be search engine optimized, and it is highly extensible. Some of the most successful blogs on the internet use WordPress, and for good reason. That said, it’s more important to have a blog than it is to make absolutely certain that every detail is perfect. Your blog will serve as the hub of everything you do to market yourself online. It is your home. You need a place to hang your hat. You need a blog.
3. Post to your blog regularly. The more you blog, the more you will learn. The most important thing is to get started. This can be made very complicated if you want it to be, but it can also be simple. It is not rocket science, and if you put in the effort you will learn everything you need to know simply by doing it. You get out what you put in. Again, if you’re focusing on creating value for your customers, your blog will be on target.
4. Get on Facebook and Twitter. Are there other social networks? Heck yes there are. Is there value in checking them out and learning about them? Heck yes. But this is a quick start to internet marketing guide, right? So let’s keep it simple. The fact is that Facebook is huge, and Twitter is massively important and an indispensable tool. You can do a lot of damage with just these two. Just as with blogging, use them regularly. An inactive profile is worthless to you. Just like if you leave your house unattended…it will deteriorate over time, this is true for your internet property as well. You have to maintain it for it to grow and remain valuable. Use your social networking profiles for being social and meeting people. Sure, link out to your blog posts and such, but keep the content you produce 99% social. Believe it or not, people know you sell widgets even if you don’t tell em. It’s linked up on your page, see? So they know already. You don’t have to tell them every five minutes. Meet people and concentrate on getting to know and learning from others with similar interests. After doing this for a while, you will start to get these mysterious messages in your inbox. They will be coming from people who have visited your site and are interested in what you’re selling, and you’ll wonder where all this magical activity is coming from. Some of it’s coming from Twitter, believe it or not. And it will have all happened without you having to hard sell anyone. This stuff works really well, if you work it. Let it take time. It’s fun anyway, so why turn it into hard work?
5. Let it take some time. Like I mentioned in the previous step, this stuff doesn’t happen instantly. One thing about internet marketing is that people often expect immediate results. I’m not sure why that is. It must come from a misconception about what’s happening. When you give someone a business card at a social event, do you expect them to buy something from you right there on the spot? No. You meet 28 people that night, and 9 of them call you back over the next few weeks. You build it from there. This is how it works. Social networking has become confused with being this new phenomenon, and we think it’s complicated. It’s not. Social networking is people with common interests hanging out, talking. This has been going on for ages. It’s how business is done. And building a business takes time.
6. Read and learn. Study what you’re doing. Read other blogs. Look at other websites, especially within the same field as you’re working. Never stop this. Learning and stealing ideas from your competitors is another age old business principle that is not ever going to go away. Use it to your advantage.
7. Don’t quit. Be consistent. Things take time. As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Today the computer is seen by millions as the next gold rush. People are flooding to get their piece of the pie.

With a 97% failure rate in the MLM industry, a fact most don’t want to acknowledge. People are losing their money long before they start earning anything, if they ever do.

So, it makes sense that the lure of “You too can earn an extra … blah, blah, blah a month by just getting on the Internet and promoting your companies products.” is appealing to many.  Sounds all too familiar to the “all you have to do is… and you will be wealthier than you ever imagined.” that we all heard in the past.

This hype mentality has been a big part of the shady reputation that network marketing companies have brought upon themselves.

I find the basic flaw to most, if not all of MLM is that the word marketing is used, but never taught.

Most network marketers are totally untrained in the field of marketing. The most training I ever received was how to peddle what my company produced. I was taught, “if you put a mirror under their nose and it fogs up, they’re a prospect.”  The Internet sequel to this is, “If they have a computer, and are on line, they’re a prospect.”

When someone begins Internet network marketing, and still hasn’t a clue about marketing, chances are they will, in no time at all, find themselves frustrated. They may even find themselves more out of luck because, face it, to many of us, new to the Internet, we have a lot more to learn then when we were told to drag a person to a hotel meeting.

I believe that the Internet is the future for MLM. Internet network marketing. It offers people the ability to reach many more people than was ever possible , anywhere, anytime. What needs to be taught, and should have been taught in the old school, is social marketing. I don’t just mean using social sites, but learning how to be vigilant in building not just a business but relationships.

Without the focus being on, what’s in it for the person we are talking to, we are no better than the outrages MLM enthusiast, who caused friends to cross the street, to avoid being asked to another meeting.

It’s been said, “there is power in knowledge,” and most people over 40, are pretty clueless, when they first arrive on the net, They need a great deal of education to learn not just skills and techniques, but theory and etiquette to do this correctly.

I see a major need for skilled Internet gurus, to mentor and guide these often insecure Internet fledgelings with step by step instruction, in all aspects of Internet network marketing.

I could say, “it’s up to them to avail themselves to all the resources out there.” Why do I care whether they get the extra help? The main reason, is because I know what it’s like to feel hopeless and terrified when you first start using the Internet.

I thought I could just go out there and spew my product information to the millions with the sole purpose of making the big bucks. I was a stranger in a strange land, to put it mildly.

I also feel a desire to take part in sparing the Internet all the unprofessional baggage these people will be flooding the net with, until they get that it’s not always about selling.

What I’ve realized through my experience, is that it takes time and hard work to learn what you need. No matter how fast you can surf, or how easy it may seem at first, this is not a get rich over night experience. This is especially true, if you want to have your presence seen out there on the the world wide web. Even more so, if one of your goals is to be respected as a valuable resource to others.

I believe those who first invest in their own education about marketing on line, through mentors, books, seminars, tutorials, will be the ones that avoid failing. If for no other reason than to be a good resource of information. Isn’t that what ultimately makes the net such a powerful tool, people providing value for people.

This brings me to my final point. One of the qualities about the Internet that appeals to me is that with it, the individual can truly own their business. Their on line business can reflect not just their network marketing company, but who they are as a person, with all the knowledge and expertise they have gained through living.

Today, every smart business knows that social media marketing is the new yellow pages, and twitter marketing is right at the top. Twitter Marketing: An Hour a Day is an awesome tool to promote and grow your business on the internet. This book makes it extremely easy to follow and implement this online marketing strategy. By using the hour-a-day homework assignments, and following every trick in this book, you will be able to take your business to a new level.

In the first few chapters, you will get a rundown on how to market your business with twitter, setting up goals and other exercises to help you create action plans for you to follow. This book is not just a list of suggestions with very little results. As you move through it, you will start seeing tangible results and reaping the rewards of online marketing.

After chapter 3, the book makes a transition from a text book to a social media marketing guide as it goes into Part 2. This section consist of an hour by hour, day to day, and week to week training to advance you from a Twitter marketing rookie to a serious power user. The author does a very good job at clearing out all the noise of the web, and consolidates the necessary requirements a business person needs to know about online marketing. This book does exactly what it claims to do which is help you market your products through Twitter.

Another thing that makes this book worthwhile is all the resources it provides to the reader. Though the intended audience for this book is mainly companies looking to use Twitter as another form of online marketing, the average Twitter user can easily find value in it as well. The layout is well thought out and easy to navigate.

With so many Twitter experts on the net, it’s refreshing and helpful to get practical how-to advice from someone who has clearly guided others to achieve real business results from Twitter marketing. Despite your current knowledge of Twitter, you will be able to easily unlock new applications and methods to improve your results. As your comfort level rises, you will learn how to leverage this powerful tool as an online marketing platform. This book is meticulously organized and presented in a step-by-step manner that makes it easy for beginners as well as experienced Twitter marketers. If you desire to be among the Twitter superstars, this book will undoubtedly help you find your way.