Blogging can be great for some extra money. I still get around $300-$500 a month off of my blog, which I work on 30 minutes twice a week! To monetize your blog, there are a few things you will need to do to maximize the revenue you will make. Here are a few tips I can give you:

• Use Google AdSense! AdSense is great for easy money. People click and you get paid, as easy as that! Google automatically puts up ads that are relative to the content on your website.
• Use WordPress on your own host and buy a .com domain! This will make your website look a lot more professional, plus, you have no limits on how much you want to monetize your blog.
• Register for Clickbank and find some products that are relative to the content on your blog and would appeal to your target demographic.
• Connect with similar blogs, leave comments and encourage them to leave comments on your blog. This will encourage discussions, resulting in more traffic, and more money for you.
• Once your traffic is high and steady, approach companies that sell products in your target demographic. Tell them you are willing to offer private ad space. This is the most lucrative method of making money on your blog.
• Offer companies reviews of their products for a fee. This is an easy couple hundred dollars you can make.
• Sign up for Amazon Associates and place relative products on your blog’s sidebar, and within posts.
• Sign up for Aweber or GetResponse and build a mailing list. Mailing lists look great to private advertisers and provide you with another potential source of revenue.

Blogging is fun. I am a blogger, so trust me, it’s fun! People blog for a variety of reasons; some do it to promote a product, some do it to promote themselves, some do it for the love of writing, some do it to make money. There are a million reasons to blog, all you got to do is find yours! I personally blog for two reasons; because I enjoy it, and because I want to promote myself as a writer. When I started blogging, I used some free platforms, but eventually moved on to buying my own host and server and began to use another platform. Here are three popular blogging platforms:

1. Blogger. Blogger is popular because Google made it popular. This free service is great for the aspiring blogger who wants to start building a fan base without risking anything. Blogger provides you with a subdomain (yourname.blogger.com) and a bunch of different templates to customize your blog. You can add a couple of ad revenue sources if you want to make money, but essentially, it’s for bloggers who are just starting.
2. MySpace. MySpace is great to blog on: it’s easy to network with a community and you can post a whole bunch of stuff on your page! Although MySpace is associated with artists, it is also great for the aspiring writer looking to network.
3. WordPress. WordPress is my weapon of choice. Whether you choose the free version, or download the source code and put it on your host, it is one of the most powerful and easiest to use blogging platforms available. This site is actually running off of WordPress and it’s not even a blog, put it that way! WordPress has a ton of plug ins available, and I personally recommend downloading the source code, putting it on your own host and buying a domain to use it to its maximum potential.

These are just three blogging platforms available, there are literally hundreds out there. So, look around, choose a platform, and start blogging!

Using Twitter for your business is a very effective method of promotions, organization and sales. The idea of Twitter is so simple, a couple sentences blasted out to numerous followers. This technique helps you make announcements and broadcast them to your employees, partners and customers. Here are 5 ways to use twitter for your business:

1. Promote your upcoming products, reviews, promotions and any other information to your followers.
2. Post information about projects for your employees so that everyone can be up to date with what is going on in the workplace. This is especially effective if you have many employees who work from mobile offices, as they can check the twitter page every now and then to get an update on what is going on.
3. Auction products via twitter. Get customers to reply to you with their bids and whatnot. This will help everyone stay in the loop.
4. Use twitter for customer service. Allow customers to tweet you with their questions, and you can reply via twitter. Eventually this can turn into a Frequently Asked Questions column.
5. Build relationships with your clients, partners and employees. By using twitter, you are being more personal with these people and can build a good relationship. Your customers will feel like they know you and will stay in contact with you more. In turn, this will make it easier to promote and pitch products, resulting in more revenue for your business.

These are just a few ideas on how to use twitter to promote your business. For more information, check out the Social Media Fire eBook!

FaceBook recently beat out MySpace for the most popular social network. With hundreds of millions of people on FaceBook, it is very easy to network. On my FaceBook account, I have over 400 friends, many of whom I grew up with, went to high school and college with, and family I didn’t even know I have. I am part of my company’s network, and am connected with all the other employees who work with me.

FaceBook is very useful for networking and promotion. One of the key tools to promoting is the FaceBook groups and Fan Page features. Another useful feature in FaceBook is the paid-advertising. FaceBook collects a lot of detailed information about its users, making the advertising extremely targeted.

Here is a breakdown of the three different methods you can use FaceBook for:

• Groups: Groups are great for putting together a lot of active people. This is good for businesses looking to gather all of its employees in one collective group so that everyone can bounce ideas off of each other and be updated about the company. It allows for a lot of collaboration and contribution between members.
• Fan Pages: These are for companies literally looking for fans. If you have a lot of customers who want updates on products and more information about your products, this is what you are looking for. Put together a fan page and spread the word!
• Advertising: FaceBook advertising is great for targeted marketing. You can specify the age, location, gender, interests, and much more all within FaceBook advertising! This is for the marketers who are looking to sell, because it gets pretty expensive at times.