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I could argue on this from either side, but it is really my opinion that you MUST choose a side and stick with it.

If you choose keyword rich, use it. The point of a keyword rich domain is to have top results in search. Don't muck around, set goals and make sure you get ranking on a good traffic keyword that makes A LOT of sense (you can't change the name of your business every month!)

If you choose branding.... brand it! Define your market and establish a niche for yourself. Cut a little bit of the pie out for your market and don't passively watch your "brand asset" turn into a "nothing asset"

In an ideal world, you can have a little of both.

On the other side of the fence, I'll throw out the devil's advocate statement:

If a personal trainer has never lost 100 pounds, what makes an education more worthwhile than actual experience?

I would share the opinion that anyone who massively changes their own lifestyle (in a variety of areas) has learned a tremendous amount about the endeavor they overcome.

Specifically in regards to weight loss, addictive and habitual mindsets are a very tricky area of development. As a trainer, I'm sure you are aware that many people "fall off the horse" from time to time and need to make a very conscious decision to learn some new techniques.

Now in Kristie's case, she may be a complete nut (LoL) and her weight problem could be entirely in her head. I do know several very successful healthy living/personal trainers who have successful 30+ person businesses, but they are constantly falling on and off the course do to daily workload and life events.

I would love to have a huge survey done of the WeightWatchers and JennyCraig executive teams to find out how out of shape they are.

@ Kaya / Nancy - unfortunately there is no step by step process for using Twitter for this type of purpose. There are so many tools out there you either have to learn it yourself and dedicate the time to use it or hire out a specialist.

For most of my own projects I use a basic process above. I use Tweetdeck and a proprietary desktop setup to manage my project accounts. Tweetdeck by itself is a complete program that has different strategies to properly using it.

Depending on the business scenario there are A LOT of articles online about different niche applications of Twitter.

The key points of using Twitter are to identify the amount of interaction and labor being committed to the campaign. On one metro based campaign I'm doing 25+ cities require a fairly streamlined process. It takes roughly two+ hours a day, five days a week for interaction.

There is also the question of whether or not you use Twitter to communicate a message, a brand, or expertise.... or develop listening strategies that work with other marketing and pr campaigns. Using listening techniques with a business goal is less demanding than trying to be involved in metro conversations, but provides for insight for competitive and marketplace changes.

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My secret talent is that I have smart body parts. People often say I am a smart ###.

Other secret skills are swordsmithing, firebreathing, singing, and being an award winning marksman who writes poetry.

Of those skills: I have taught several people to be a smart ### (stand-up comedy), taught a few people firebreathing, and was a firing range instructor for a bit.

@ Dan

I think in your example of "The authenticity is for real." is the hardest part of the whole experience. Keeping a clean testimonial reputation with a spotless character is the key there. If you give someone reason to question the endorsement and are not straight-up about it, enter the doomsday scenario.

@Christian

I think the hyper-targeting issue will probably be some interesting secret sauce. The real catch is targeting people without making it obvious, or else folk become suspicious like Dan mentions.

Unfortunately the less technically savvy people don't know how and when they are being targeted. Having come from the Verizon world it was truly scary to see the information we had on anyone with a mobile phone that was cross-compared to some basic databases.

Having looked at hundreds of online business models: advertising is probably one of the most painful and unlikely to succeed money making methods. When it does work however, it is like gambling and winning the jackpot (which is why the Googles and Facebooks of the world get soooo much press)

For every Facebook, look how many advertising businesses went under (Seattle PI anyone?)

The Intuit example was a failed idea as they attempted to push a product in the pull economy of Biznik. They could have done some basic foundation changes and seen much more impact. They simply didn't pitch the idea right.

+Ad spots plastered all around Biznik would have little effect in my opinion. Most social networking sites have incredibly low ROI on generalized advertising placement.

Endorsement on a social networking site are different. If you can find a well-supported, trusted, and viable advertiser that a dozen+ people on Biznik recommend... you can sell something with a little extra spotlight advertising.

Eric is somewhat flawed in the argument that advertising will fail online, as his definition of advertising actually categorizes almost EVERY site online:

"Advertising is using sponsored commercial messages to build a brand and paying to locate these messages where they will be observed by potential customers performing other activities; these messages describe a product or service, its price or fundamental attributes, where it can be found, its explicit advantages, or the implicit benefits from its use."

Ultimately at the core 99% of the adult population: we are sponsored by a company, product, or service. Even as entrepreneurs and indies, most Bizniks are sponsored commercial messages.

The payment however, has gone far outside of the standard dollar. We now use social bartering and referral partnerships as a form of payment.

I know of several authors who target precise testimonial based partnerships and have incredible return on it (into the 30-50% range of the audience.)

If you can put on a thinking cap and integrate a testimonial based social barter system, everyone learns to maximize different portions of an audience.

I would vote TweetDeck, as it currently rolled out some new features such as FaceBook connect that ties it into the larger community exposure.

Either one has some great assets: for me it really depends on workload and scaling the effort around a project.

TweetDeck also earns my vote when dealing with large and active accounts. After 500 followers, most accounts on Twitter become very problematic to sift through the conversation.

I would say "YES!"

The main strength of Twitter is being hyper-local for marketing purposes. Using search terms for profiles, you can locate everyone within a specific radius on Twitter geographically and find out what they are talking about.

This is great for business networking and finding channel partners, building up local communication channels, and interacting with well established communicators locally.

I have setup local accounts in several metro areas that focus on 50 mile radius. The tools to do this are not on Twitter, but reside on many different desktop applications such as Tweetdeck. I professionally use 20+ platforms depending on the exact target I am building out.

http://twitter.com/smcseattle is a good example of how we went from 0 to 1000 in about a month and had two successful corporate events with 100+ paying attendees. Veronica Sopher did a great job on that account setting up a local group.

Iskra: I don't mind sharing information: here is a quick link to a Linkedin articles I wrote that helps identify some of the strategy that works for me.

123 Guide to Linkedin

Linkedin Applications- Finding Business with Linkedin

Having spent a good number of years in the "evil empire" of yellow page work at Superpages, directories have simply moved online.

Like most print advertising, anything you cannot track and monitor is subject to intense scrutiny in today's marketplace. If you choose to do $24k in yellowpage advertising, shame on you if you failed to invest the extra $300 to track whether it worked or not.

Having consulted on hundreds of yellowpage accounts (if not thousands) over the past years, my number one tip is to ask two simple questions:

1- Do I have a way of monitoring the return for this marketing cost?

2- If I do cancel this marketing channel, what marketing channel will I spent this budget on?

Marketing and promotion is an essential part of a growing business (even more so in tough economic times), so just canceling a $1000 advertisement will not fix the ultimate problem: you want to generate $101 (or more) for every $100 you spend.

As some print directories shrink, it can actually create a significant opportunity if you do your research before buying. If a directory classification gets cut down by 80%, there could be an incredible opportunity if the directory is still being pushed out to the same audience. Knowing that a few key advertisers went out of business or decided not to renew this year could push your smaller business into the front section of the category and allow you to snatch a few of the other company's previous clients.

If you have a marketing person (or want to check yourself), call the advertisers in the directory in your category and act like a mock prospect and inquire if the advertising is working for them.

Iskra- great question.

Social networking simply needs a target audience. This first means that you have to have a purpose to networking: it doesn't matter if it is real life or online.

As a business: I have directly gained multiple clients from different sites, including Biznik, Linkedin, Facebook, Wordpress, ActiveRain, FastCompany, MyRagan, and Intuit.

I have also found through social networking: half a dozen reseller partners, at least three vendors, an investor, an employee, about ten freelancers, and numerous media contacts... along with roughly fifty professionals that I refer work to (give and receive.)

I also do a lot of research when I am networking. Before most Biznik events I have usually looked at EVERY attendees profile to ask four questions:

1- What can I do for them?

2- What can they do for me?

3- Who can I introduce them to?

4- Who can they introduce me to?

In my opinion, to ask "is there any business here?" is not really a sustainable method of networking. Business networking is a very karmic method of give and receive.

Another faulty mindset in business networking is typically thinking now vs future. Depending on the scale of what you are doing, many arrangements take great amounts of time. My typical contact requires ninety days to network with. If I am looking for an enterprise contract it is usually 6 to 9 months of relationship building.

Social networking tools do not accelerate the growth of relationship. It does expose you to a better selection of prospective candidates that you must choose to cultivate over time (and planting the wrong seeds now will still produce little or no return.)

With this in mind, I suggest anyone looking at these tools to really examine who they are reaching out to and why. Having a three and six month plan is essential, as you move people from introductions to friends.

In the end, it is all about who you select to be in your inner business circle.

I'm on Twitter...

You can find me on Twitter @ twitter.com/123socialmedia

Some other useful threads for some Bizniks who Tweet:

Joe Hage started: Twitter Experiment here

Leif Hansen started: Twitter/Pounce names here.

Generating business is a unique issue: for instance I run one Twitter account that is simply a peer-to-peer network so that I have instant access to expert advice.

The reason you probably have a hard time finding new business stories and ROI is because you need to think of Twitter as if it was just a cell phone with a different phone book.

Generally speaking, I'm not going to write a paper saying "I just earned three news clients because of my cell phone"

Just like a cell phone, it entirely depends where you stick your number and how you use it. You can create teams, keep it personal, or slap it on the side of a car. Unlike a cell phone, it does have the ability to have an economy of scale and exposed social network.

To make it really confusing, Twitter and your cell phone work in conjunction to create something entirely different.

+Twitter is also not just Twitter.com. There are dozens if not hundreds of services developing around different uses of Twitter.

I've actually written two articles on the topic of Twitter (one from today!)

What is Twitter? Learn today, maximize now http://tinyurl.com/cknlpf

101 Business Twitter Ideas, Tactics, and Strategies http://tinyurl.com/5hq9zm

What is Twitter has an embedded video that describes Twitter in plain English, along with a variety of resources for becoming a Twitter Pro.

101 Business Twitter Ideas is a collection of articles written by ten different Twitter experts, it is intended for a more advanced user (but has some great food-for-thought)

Twitter is very useful for my line of business (online promotion,PR, communication strategy,SEO stuff) I've received half a dozen clients directly from Twitter marketing.

I also tend to receive 300-500 visitors a day from Twitter for my articles on social media and how communication channels are changing. The exposure is well worth it.

For Social Media Club Seattle, our team setup a Twitter account that shot to 700+ followers and that booked a 150 person kick-off event and drove 300+ members to our Facebook group in 3-4 weeks (from ZERO). It also helped us receive favorable news coverage with several different groups.

Feel free to drop me a line. Auctions are not the best way to get rid of domains: high value domains have specific value to specific people, based either on keyword potential or brand statement. Auctioneers are usually middlemen who want to purchase domains at a low point to resell and "flip" them as properties.

Welcome to the crew Irene!

Hopefully there will be more Biznik in-person events in California soon.

Welcome to the crew Irene!

Hopefully there will be more Biznik in-person events in California soon.

I usually send out 2 to 3 referrals a day. I tend to make A LOT of introductions and those conversations usually come back weeks or months later to me professionally.

Realizing the strategic value of a referral is building a healthy network of business associates is critical to longterm business development funnels: it does not always depend on the here and now.

Many of my referrals are also based on information or articles I am reading. I don't know how many times I'm reading something and think "Wow, this person needs to talk to X"

I think this goes to show how differentiated the Biznik community is.

One of the trends I assume we will see here is how Biznik helps encourage local business owners to "think outside the geographic box" and begin to consider more economy of scale business partnerships and clients from around the world.

I know there have been a few members already that thought "Hey, I'm just local" but have realized "Wow, my services are needed 3000 miles away!"

There are a lot of comfort zones and old-school networking ideas that are going to be challenged as Biznik members move through those stages. I think it is pretty cool. :)

Welcome Angela!

Glad to meet you, but I feel sad. Upload a photo! We like seeing people. :)

I am in your neck of the woods: one of my homes is in Marysville.

Welcome to the group Lindsay!

(You look a lot like another Lindsay I know here in Seattle!)

Biznik is a great place for writers developing into new business channels. A lot of good information here for leveraging communication channels.

My Biznik world is pretty expansive. I don't have any problem reaching out to professionals across international boundaries.

The farthest I have currently planned to travel in relation to being on Biznik is roughly 8,100 miles on a trip to Singapore. I can probably extend this a bit further if someone in South Africa or Madagascar would like to have coffee (plus I've never been to Madagascar!)

My normal driving bubble covers the greater Puget Sound, but I have met several professional in Portland and Bellingham as well.