Using Social Media Marketing to Grow Your Business

NSA/NC Meeting Report: Saturday February 28, 2009

Ford Saeks Marketing expert and larger-than-life character Ford Saeks flew in from Wichita, Kansas to share his ideas on how to use Social Media to make money.

Ford is best known for positioning people and their products and services for profit through proven marketing and innovative publicity campaigns.

The sold-out crowd at the National Speakers Association Northern California Chapter meeting were treated to four hours of Ford’s high-intensity ideas on how to start making money on the internet and leverage Social Media Marketing to build influence, reputation and brand within communities of potential customers. Some core principles:

“What problem do I solve that people will pay to make go away?”
“The purpose of business is to generate a customer. The purpose of a customer is to generate a profit.”

‘Nuff said. Here’s some of what Ford shared.

Creating an online cash machine

Speaking and training + Digital and physical products + consulting and coaching = a fully-rounded revenue model. Web 2.0 places a dialog with customers and prospects at the center of business today. Sharing opinions, comments, and other content in the form of audio podcasts, video, links, bookmarks, articles and slides makes a site successful.

Research the top keywords for your niche and use them relentlessly to help the search engines find your site when a customer is looking for your solution to the pain they are feeling. Learn the all-important modifiers that people use to focus search results.

Know the answers to three core questions about your business:

  • Why should someone pay attention to you – what is your message?
  • Who are you trying to market to?
  • How are you getting the word out – what is the method?

It’s a FEATURE if it’s about you, your products or services or your company. Ask “Which means…” and you get the BENEFIT that describes an emotional or intangible result the customer gets.

Social Media Marketing

  • Helps you expand your internet footprint
  • Makes it easier for prospects to find you
  • Improves your search engine ranking
  • Establishes you as an expert
  • Improves communications and feedback
  • Builds relationships and networks
  • Drives a steady stream of prospects to your online business

There’s a gazillion (or so) Social Media sites listed at go2web20.net. Ford recommends you start by:

  1. Building a blog with WordPress.org – hosted on your own website to optimize SEO
  2. Establishing your Channel on YouTube – peppered with relevant keywords
  3. Building a profile on Facebook and LinkedIn – with posts from your blog and YouTube videos
  4. Experiment with Twitter. Start by reading Randy Gage’s recent assessment of the uses of abuses of Twitter.

If you’d like to see the slides he used, Ford has kindly made them available. What you won’t get from the slides, or this report, is any of his incredible energy and specific insight into the ways these tools can work for you today to make money on the Internet.

For that, you had to have been there.

8 Comments so far
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Great summary, Ian. You captured all the highlights. Thanks for providing this post as a recap.

Thank you Ian. Your blogg essentially summarized my handwritten notes. I am grateful to have your “executive summary” in my in-box!

I had so many “a-ha” moments yesterday and I FINALLY understand the relevance of social media to my business. Went straight home and created a twitter account http://www.twitter.com/tamarameyer and started tweeting.

Besides the social media information, I learned so much about the importance of keywords and how to use them in internet marketing.

Thanks for allowing ProTrackers to participate in this event. What an AMAZING BONUS to an already rich training program.

Thanks again!
Tamara Meyer

Thank you, Ian! I second what Nancy said. This is much clearer than my notes! I’m printing this out to keep.

Ian–great summary, and sounds like a really cool event–wish I could have been there.

Heard ya recently at NSA CO. Glad I checked back here as this sums it up nicely.

Didn’t see your blog till now. Yesterday asked 2 blog question that you answered here. Go with wordpress.ORG. Two people had different answers. Amazing. Thanks for your .ORG as one you recommend. Also love the four step summary. Helps tons.

Oops credit to IAN for the 4 step process, but still glad Ford allowing it to be shared. Again, super helpful.

Great Job on the Summary of my (Ford Saeks, Internet Marketing Speaker) presentation on Social Media Marketing. Make sure and follow me at:
and subscribe to my Marketing Success Ezine at



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