Click here to view the embedded video.

As a former radio presenter and club DJ there’s nothing better than seeing your own CD on the shelves of a Virgin Music Store. It’s like getting an oscar for the ‘lifetime achievement award’.

My own CD ‘Now That’s What I Call Hypnosis Volume 1′ has sold over 3,000 copies across the region. Not bad for a niche product with no fanbase, no perceived market and no promotion or advertising. Especially when the region is predominately Arabic (my CD is in English) and nobody has a clue what NLP stands for.

As proud as I am of my publishing achievement, I probably won’t do it again. It was too hard and painful. Waiting for EMI to license me the name of ‘Now That’s What I Call…’ took 6 months alone. Then there’s the waiting game. Don’t get me started on that.

Instead, I will do it all again on my own within a quarter of the time (or less) and show lots of people how to do it too.

The Music Industry is dead.

Long live The Music Industry.

The new music industry will allow you to become an instant superstar in a minimum amount of time to a smaller audience.

Let me explain…

1) People don’t buy CD’s anymore. Well not much. Certainly not enough to make the levels of sales that guarantee riches.

2) The ‘younger generation’ not only see all digital information as free, but see it as their right to share it with anyone who wants it. To them IT IS NOT THEFT!

3) The power of music distribution has been removed from radio stations and TV shows as people find the stuff they like through friends and recommendations or even to search through online sellers like iTunes and then downloading whatever they want.

4) The 3 hits and a load of filler concept album is dead. People take the song they like and don’t bother with any of the rest of the tracks.

5) The record industry is dying from lack of revenue from music sales thanks to file sharing and piracy. Also because when distribution is free online, you don’t need a record company with a big fat cheque book.

6) We all have the ability to create over 1,000 fans in whatever we do who will pay for all our great materials and products (and possibly stalk us too).

7) The world’s biggest artists can’t survive on CD sales alone. A megastar like Beyonce, Justin Timberlake nor Britney Spears will probably take home about $50,000 USD each year from music royalties after the costs of promotional videos, travel, touring, advertising, production, entourage, lifestyle and agents fees. Their only real revenue comes from concert ticket sales, merchandise, perfume and clothing deals, corporate sponsorship, merchandising spin-offs and personal appearances.

We, with smaller expenses, have every ability to advertise what we do without the huge risk factors of the big stars. We don’t need to live in a mansion or have 5 cars in the garage. So profits become REAL profits.

9) The new music industry rewards talent by stick ability because of people’s attention span, keep them engaged for 3 minutes and they’ll tell their friends too.

10) Your efforts will stay online forever.

10 simple points but symptomatic that the world is changing with more power being distributed to the many, even if it means they have less followers of their stuff.

If you have a good tune, you can
a) Record it and mix it on your laptop.
b) Get a flip camera and make a promo video on the beach, in your house or in the shopping centre.
c) Upload the video to You Tube, the music to iTUnes and the accompanying story can be Tweeted at each stage to gain followers from curiosity alone.
d) You can create a fan page on Facebook and ask all your friends to check it out too. As they tell their friends and a crowd gathers, you can look for a corporate sponsor interested in reaching your audience demographic on LinkedIn.
e) You can get all your fans to subscribe to your membership site and then drive them to your webinar where you do a live concert in your bedroom.

The possibilities are endless but at no point is the old music model used apart from expertise and quality production. These are tangible goods that the digital age fans will pay for.

That and live concerts.

When all tickets can be advertised and bought online, the profits for the clever marketer get bigger and bigger.

The same is true, of course, for books and other creative products, especially when the digital book can be viewed and stored on the iPad and Kindle easier than the bookshop shelf.

So now you know how I am going to be releasing my 40 new CD’s and 4 new Books.

If you’d like to join me, come on into the internet and start surfing. The water is lovely every time of year…

At a social media marketing training session I recently attended, I overheard another attendee talking about the challenges she faced in attempting to tackle social media marketing. The owner of a small, home-based business based in the Toronto area, she was trying to find inexpensive ways to market her business. She had heard about this new way of promoting her company and decided to jump in with both feet. After a few months, she felt completely overwhelmed and decided that she needed training in social media marketing.

She is likely not alone. The temptation to take advantage of the virtually free marketing opportunities in social media is pretty strong, but without an effective plan, you will find yourself in the same position as that Toronto business owner.

Social Media Marketing – Why So Much Choice Can Be a Bad Thing

There are many kinds of sites that fall under the heading of “social media.” These include social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, social news sites like Digg and Reddit, and social bookmarking sites like Delicious. Social media also includes the “microblogging” site, Twitter.

The key to using social media for marketing is to offer people something of value so they will want to connect and interact with your business. For most businesses, this thing of value is a blog, series of articles, or other content of interest to their core audience.

Here’s where it gets tricky, and where our Toronto business owner got tripped up – deciding which social media sites to use and what kind of content to create.

When I heard that business owner talk about her challenges, I entered the conversation to see what she had bee trying. Here’s a summary of what she said:

• She started a blog but after a month or so had run out of things to talk about.
• Everytime she posted to her blog, she would add a link to the post on Digg and Delicious.
• She had also investigated Reddit and Stumble Upon and set up accounts on both sites but left them pretty much inactive.
• She set up a profile on Linked In, at the suggestion of a client, but promptly forgot about it and rarely used it.
• She added a personal profile to Facebook but, beyond that, had no idea how to use this profile to promote her business. She eventually found a way to create a business page, which seemed to suit her needs.
• She just recently joined Twitter and was having trouble keeping up with it and finding things to say.

After listening to her, I concluded that the main problem she was having was content-based and I reassured her that the social media marketing training course would help her.

What she needed was a comprehensive plan to get her started. She needed to focus her efforts on a few sites, and ensure she had content to share. She needed a schedule for her writing and she also needed to learn how to optimize her content to draw the traffic she wanted.

Fortunately, the social media training course we were both attending covered all of those points and more.

I spoke to her at the end of the course and she said she felt much better, and much more ready to tackle social media marketing. The training had helped her immensely.

If you own your own business and you are interested in marketing through social media, I recommend that you start with social media marketing training, so you can avoid wasting months of time and energy like our Toronto business owner did.

It really breaks down the truth behind all the parties that you as a fitness marketer are invited to and how you use those parties to meet key people in your specific niche or any complimentary niche.

Perry Belcher is a very cool and intelligent guy who at times uses some choice words to describe social networking but his content is outstanding.

Watch this no B.S. fitness marketing technique to explode your personal training business using social media tricks.

http://www.briandevlin.com/2009/04/social-media-for-fitness-professionals/

Now that you understand social media for marketing purposes, let’s look at your action steps needed to really promote yourself and meet key people.

1) Start a Fitness Facebook Page

Facebook is a fascinating social phenomena as well as an amazing social networking tool to blow up your personal training business. Its new, it’s a novelty and reaches a targeted audience. Make your page interactive, keeping your fans and potential clients engaged and wanting more.

Set yourself up a local personal training page. Use one of your main keywords in the URL.

A picture says a thousand words so choose an image that accurately brands you.

Start searching local people who have similar interests and ask them to be friends.

Offer them free fitness advice or post fitness videos and workout tips daily on your page.

Your list of friends will grow rapidly and you can set yourself apart very quickly as an expert in your local community.

Remember…What’s in it for them? Not you. Yours will come in time. Help first, reap later.

I will now quote the bible. He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. Proverbs 11:25

2) Create a Fitness Gravatar

On http://Gravatar.com, users can register an account based on their email address, and upload an avatar image to be associated with the account. Gravatar plugins are available for popular blogging software, such as my WordPress blog. When the user posts a comment on such a blog that requires an e-mail address, the blogging software checks whether that e-mail address has an associated avatar at Gravatar. If so, the Gravatar is shown along with the comment.

When you leave a comment on my blog, you leave a little footprint with your name on it. This footprint can drive a boatload of people toward your site because they want to see what you are all about. I have driven TONS of traffic back to my site by commenting on other blogs. The only reason it works is because I use the NO B.S gravatar image that I have chosen to represent all that I stand for. People want to know who the heck this No B.S guy is.

I have actually converted sales from my gravatar image many times. Look at all the successful fitness professionals out there. They ALL have Gravatars and they all leave blog comments.

Remember to choose or create an image or photo that SCREAMS your core identity. This is important.

3) Create A Fitness Twitter Page

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers).

This is like getting 100 free leads per day. If you looked at my twitter page I have over 2,000 leads and I don’t ever do anything but send a tweet from my Blackberry between personal training sessions.

It takes 30 seconds for potentially 100′s to 1000′s of people to visit your site.

If you do just 6 twitter posts a day you can increase traffic to your website or your phone by over 100 hits.

Imagine if you locally started twittering with potential customers answering their fitness questions and inviting them to meet you for a free consult.

You have no idea how powerful this tool can be until you actually take some time and create a page.

Don’t be a lazy bones. The recession is in your head. Money is everywhere but you actually have to work for it…

4) Submit a Fitness Press Release

A news release, or press release is a written or recorded communication directed at members of the news media for the purpose of announcing something claimed as having news value. Some popular press release sites include EzineArticles, PRWeb and Isnare.

The more you get your name and your personal training business on the internet, the easier its going to be for potential clients to find you.

It is so easy to get insane public recognition when you are recognized as an expert by the local media. One simple way is to get picked up by your local news paper.

Find out who to contact for health press releases. Submit at least one per week for a few weeks via email with a friendly follow up email asking if there is anything they need help with as far as expert advice or information is concerned.

Tell them you are more than happy to contribute and are available anytime for interviews as well.

Just plant the seed.

Don’t be a pest, but be consistent. Don’t take no for an answer.

Make a list of 10 social media contacts in your city and start making regular email communication and phone calls to these organizations.

Sooner than later you WILL be a local celebrity.

The key to success is to be known, to be regarded and to be available.

If you offer these 3 components to your local social environment you will be flooded with business while others are packing up shop and changing careers.

Success takes effort!

Thank you to Lillian Taylor Blackmon for having us come speak at the Business Symposium Expo. A great group of people, very valuable information and excellent contacts.