If you run a WAHM business and you have never been in social media sites, you should set up a blog and accounts with facebook and twitter after you read my email interview with Scarlet Paolicchi, a social marketing media expert.

About Scarlet Paolicchi:

She is a stay at home mother of two and a founder of Moms Wear Your Tees Social Media Marketing which utilizes social media sites to provide you with many permanent links to popularize your website and help boost your search engine standing.

Let’s take a look at my email interview with her to find out more about her WAHM business and her expertise.

1. Please tell us how you started your WAHM business and became a Social Media Marketing Expert.

I used to be a retail manager and when I had kids, I decided to stay at home with them. I really like working and I could use the extra income so I just saw what other people were doing and I said to myself, “I can do that!” So I did! I like doing social media work because I can do it on my schedule, it is interesting and fun, and I see direct results from my work. I just started my website and jumped right in. I worked for free my first month to build contacts and perfect my craft.

2.  “Moms Wear Your Tees” as a name of your WAHM business is rather unique, what does this name tell people about your business?

Well, the original idea behind the name was that I would wear company tees and promote those companies through social media. Moms is plural because I would like to help coordinate this for other moms too. My plan is be able to help a lot of moms earn a little extra income. So far a haven’t had a huge demand for the extra moms but I have been able to share jobs with a few other mom bloggers. The name, “Moms Wear Your Tees,” is meant to convey that moms will represent your company and share your products.

3. I see your blog Mom Wear Your Tees. Could you tell us the purpose of your blog

The Moms Wear Your Tees Blog is just one social media outlet. It is a very effective way of sharing cool companies messages and products. I love writing about companies that I find useful and valuable to my family. I also share reviews and giveaways as well as fun stuff to do with kids.

4. Social Media Marketing is rather a big concept. What are they? and what should be the primary focus for WAHM business owners?

There are lots of Social Media venues. The three that I find the absolute most useful are a blog, Twitter, and Facebook. Moms WAHM can hardly fit that in but I think they are certainly worth the effort. Then there are lots of other social networking sites that can be useful such as Linked In, CafeMom, MomBloggersClub, Yahoo Groups, and many more.

5. Why do WAHM business or small home based business owners need to expose their business to social media sites?

More social media exposure= more traffic = more business

The increased traffic comes from immediate hits on the new links and from long term hits on the links from search engine traffic. Additionally, links into your site one of the most important factors in search engine optimization SEO, thus again increasing traffic, the more you links to your site that you can spread about.

Social Media links can also be very targeted getting you better known in your niche.

6. Could you share some tips on how to promote WAHM business or small home based business effectively on social media sites?

If you have a business, my biggest tips would be get yourself a Twitter and Facebook account. They are free! Yes, it takes time to manage them but they really do pay off. Get the links to your Twitter and Facebook accounts up on your site in a visible professional way. Make sure you do the basic stuff first. (I see so many of these pages without basic description filled it and without the link back to the home site.) Then dedicate an amount of time that you can consistently give to this activity and stick with it. Include links and important key words in all your posts. This is a great start!

7. What benefits will WAHM business owners get from social media marketing?

Today, more and more, people are using technology. You don’t want to miss this chance to connect with your customers in a non-invasive, informative way. That is the real beauty of social media marketing SMM- it doesn’t come across as advertising when it is done right. It is simply sharing of information with like minded niches that appreciate the info. The benefit is more customers. If you are like me and you want to see numbers to back up the information, I have several third party statistics listed on my home page that demonstrate the effectiveness of social media in growing the bottom line.

The social media marketing service Moms Wear Your Tees provides for you:

* She creates a write-up about your company, and products and feature it in Moms Wear Your Tees Blog with your website links.

* She shares/submits the post on Twitter, My Space, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Yahoo groups and Cafemom groups.

* You also get a permanent link along with displaying your logo on our client calendar pages.

* Optional- If you send a company tee, she wears it all day. I post pictures of me in your company tee and/or with your company product to the MWYT blog, Facebook, and to a Picasa Web Album that is searchable on Google. (Your company tee or product gives people a visual that they can connect with as we post about what your company offers.)

You can visit her website, Moms Wear Your Tees and Moms Wear Your Tees blog to find out more about her expertise, services and sharing in her blog.  I hope that her sharing about her WAHM business and the importance of social marketing media will benefit other WAHM business owners.

Read more articles for “parenting” and child development on Education.com

Get Flowers for your number one performer.

Affiliate Marketing Programs is the easiest and free cost WAHM Business to set up. Even individuals join affiliate programs to earn income online.  You don’t need to create products and most of affiliate programs provide you with marketing tools such as banners, articles for sharing, email content for your autoresponder list and tweets. Isn’t it great that all you need to do is to promote affiliate programs? You can promote affiliate programs via blogs, mini websites and social media sites.

WAHM Business Tips to Choose Affiliate Programs

You have to select affiliate programs which are relevant with the topic of your website or blog. You can start with the software, web hosting or e-products that you use. It will be easier to review the products if you know the advantages.  Promote digital or electronic products has an advantage, a big commission which ranges 30-70%. I would suggest you to choose affiliate program from marketplace rather than individual affiliate program so you don’t need to keep plenty of pairs in username and password. Browse products from digital marketplace with big name such as clickbank, paydotcom or e-junkie.  You need to familiarize with the affiliate marketing metrics or terms in each marketplace to select  the popular and saleable products. If you promote various affiliate programs, you need to organize them. The management tool for affiliate program that I would recommend is Linktracker.  They provide affiliate link cloakers so others will not alter your affiliate link. You can manage and view the statistic of your various affiliate program in one page. They provide viral tool so you or other people can share it to facebook and twitter.

Promote WAHM Business Affiliate Programs with Blogs

You can promote affiliate programs by writing reviews on your blog or website. With blogs and websites, you can distribute and promote your blog and website intensively to many sites such as blog directory, article directory, social media sites, forum and many more. But, you need to master the complexity of building blog and website and not everyone can commit to update their blogs and websites regularly. Also, you need to understand SEO in order to improve your website or blog position in the search engine to bring traffic.

Promote WAHM Business Affiliate Programs with Twitter

Do you know that you can earn income online by being active in social media sites? Corporate companies, politicians and all sorts of people use social media sites such as facebook and twitter. If you have WAHM business and promote affiliate programs online, you must use social media sites too. One powerful social media sites is twitter. All you need to do is to tweet. People earn income online by joining PPC Twivert advertising program. If you want to earn income online BIG, you have to promote affiliate programs. With twitter, you can promote various affiliate programs frequently in a day. One software that can automates affiliate programs via Twitter is called TWEETOMATIC. Yes, you can have your hands free doing other things while your twitter work hard for you. Twitter has advantages. You can pull your tweets to facebook and linkedin and it means that you publish in 3 social media sites.

Affiliate Marketing Programs are easy to start and they can bring additional income online for your  WAHM business.  They may go in line with your current business. Why don’t you join affiliate program now to earn income online?

Internet Security Guard. You must install Internet Security Guard to protect your PC. With internet security guard, you can browse safely with firewall protection and you can protect your PC from spam, viruses, malwares,spywares and other threats. Please adjust the setting to scan immediately once you open the computer.  And do buy from the reliable vendor rather than download free from the internet. Some are fake web security guard software that may block you from your access to the internet. You can not even remove the fake program as they penetrate into your program files once installed.

Whois Guard Privacy. If you register domain names for your website or blog, you must give accurate information about your WAHM business or personal information. This includes email, address and contact numbers. Please do add feature Whois Guard Privacy into your domain name. Whois Guard Privacy is to protect your personal details from the public if they want to find out the owner of the website or blog. This is particularly important if you run WAHM business from home. With Whois Guard Privacy, the Whois of the domain will display the domain registration company information instead of your personal details.

SSL or Secure Server Certificates.  This is an added feature for domain name to provide a security and protection for credit card payment transaction. If you sell products in your website or blog without the third party gateway, this is a must have feature.

The SSL (secure sockets layer) is the Web standard for encrypting communications between users and e-commerce sites. Data sent via an SSL connection is protected by encryption, a mechanism that prevents eavesdropping and tampering with any transmitted data. SSL provides business and buyers with the confidence that private data sent to a website, such as credit card numbers, are kept confidential. Buyers know when they have an SSL session with a website when their browser displays the little gold padlock and the address bar begins with an https rather than http. SSL certificates can be used on web servers for Internet security and mail servers.

Use WAHM Business signature wisely. Business signature is a good way to tell people about your business. But you shall take precautions when you use it in your website or blog. You can provide a contact form instead of email so you discourage spammers and you will not receive spam emails often.

The 4 Internet Safety Tips above are to safeguard your WAHM business from spammers and people with ill-intention. It is true Internet brings more exposure for your WAHM business and you shall guard your WAHM business online wisely.

This month, I have an opportunity to do WAHM Business email interview with Missah Yabis from East Malaysia.  To my surprise, she is a full time working moms who runs  Baby My Luv, an online store selling green products for moms and babies.  Missah is also featured in the Newsletter of Natural Women Network, Australia as their retail partner.

Despite her full working schedule with no domestic helper to help her around, she still spares her time for social activities.  She commended that her busy life with family, career and social activities made her life more wholesome.  Let’s get personal with Missah and her WAHM business through email interview:

What were the driving factors that brought you to start Baby My Luv online store?

There were many driving factors that brought about Baby My Luv Online. One of the strongest factors was the birth of my second child. My desire was to get my baby to reduce her carbon footprints on earth as much as possible by using cloth alternatives for her diapering needs. I began searching online for options available and the more I searched, the more I was convinced that I need to share my knowledge and my love for green baby products  with the parents out there. There were times when I preached my good news uninvited and uninitiated, full of zealousness, for the sake of converting a few parents to the greener pastures. With the success of converting a few, came demands for the products and insistence that I should get the goods on their behalf. Then, I was literally told more than once “you are good at this, why don’t you start your own business?”

I’ve always wanted to own my own business but apart from not having enough capitals, and being risk averse, I was also clueless as to what kind of business I should be involved in.

After months of research and praying, I finally decided that an online shop offering environment-friendly products is what I should be venturing into.

I like the concept of an online business because it is modern, relatively cheap and offer vast potentials.     I also love the fact that being an online and home based business means I get to do business from home, close to my family, at my own pace and leisure. Another thing that I like the most is the fact that I am also able to network with other mothers and parents from all over the world who either manufacture green products for the family or distribute them. Thus, a family solidarity is actually created in this business.

What is the most unique product in Baby My Luv? Could you tell the readers why?

I realize that there are hundreds of brands of the similar products (cloth diapers, cloth pads) out there. What I did was look at the existing local market and then based on my observation, come up with the best functional product with a competitive price.

Our most unique product is the Wool Pocket Nappy. This New Zealand made nappy or diaper is the only Wool Pocket Nappy on the market and it is absolutely gorgeous. It is made of soft merino wool blend fabric that is hard wearing yet beautifully soft and easy to care for. It consists of one layer wool (which does not need to be lanolised), one layer of waterproof 1mil PUL fabric and one layer of micro fleece. The wool works as a second barrier against leaks and has proved itself to be very successful.
This nappy can be washed in the machine, tumble dried and does not need a cover.
The Wool Pocket is perfect as a day diaper or overnight and definitely a must have for heavy wetters.

A lot of people think that a wool diaper is too hot for our climate but actually the contrary is true. I find the diaper to be cool and appropriate here in Malaysia.

Also, as of the time of this interview, the Wool Pocket Nappy is currently only available to the Malaysian market from Baby My Luv Online!

Do you have any advices for moms who want to start WAHM Business “selling products online”?

I would say- go for it!

My advice goes to myself as well- to have a successful WAHM Business online, be willing to invest in terms of time- for online research, and do blog about your business (I should do that more as well!) If possible, you must personally try and test the products you are advocating so that your words have more credibility and weight. Resist the temptation to go for maximum profits at the expense of poor quality product, you’ll earn more in the short term but in the long run you will notice that customers do learn from mistakes….they do research too!

It takes about one to two years for you to have a good, stable standing within the mushrooming online biz community so take heart…do not expect orders to pour in immediately. Build a good rapport with your suppliers and customers. Be ethical in all aspects of your business dealings. In online business, honesty is the only policy!

Thank you Missah for the interview. I must say that she  sends a message for moms about the importance of using green products for our children.  With cloth diapers, you can practice 3 R slogan: Recycle, Reduce and Reuse  for  the environment.  She also has a good piece of advice for home based working moms with WAHM business.  I hope that her sharing will give encouragement to other WAHMs who are running online store and moms who want to start a WAHM business “selling products online”. Visit her online store  Baby My Luv to find out more about her green products for moms and babies!

• Cost saving. You have a virtual store and you don’t spend a dime to rent a shop. The cost of your online store which you pay for webhosting can be less than $ 10 a month.
• Your online store runs 24/7 while you have flexible time to do other things.

The 3 basic skills that home based working moms should learn to run WAHM business “selling products online” are:

Technical Skill.  Of course, you can hire someone to design a website for you. But, if you want to manage your online store at your own for greater flexibility and freedom, you have to learn technical skill. I  would advise home based working moms to go for webhosting with control panel which provides support for technical knowledge.  They have a script installer to install an e-commerce software with just a click or you can go for their site builder.

Product Sourcing.  This is the most important task.  There are choices:

1. You can create your own product and brand it.
2. You secure sole distributorship from the manufacturer so you have the monopoly to sell the products and set the price in your region.
3. You buy the products in small quantity from the distributor. Some retail shop owners prefer to go hunting for products in overseas in order to sell unique and different products that no other shops offer.
4. You can sell physical products in your online store without carrying physical stocks through Doba drop shipping or you can promote physical products from Amazon by joining as Associates. You get the referral fee if customers buy the products from your online store. However, your target market must be in the USA because it is close to their distribution centre

The choice 1 and 2  requires more work and  large investment.

Marketing Skill.  Learn some techniques of online marketing. Set up your blog to market your business and join internet social networking are part of Internet Marketing strategies. Paid online advertising through Google adwords such as pay per click will give your WAHM business more exposure.  Apart selling products from your own website, you can also sell your products through marketplace such as ebay. For more Internet Marketing strategies and WAHM business ideas, join Mompreneur Internet Marketing Hub to get personal consultation.  Mompreneruhub  tailor Internet Marketing strategies  for marketing to moms.

I have noticed  that WAHM Business “Selling Products Online” is not only managed by home based working moms but also full time working moms.  WAHM business mostly starts small hence it is relatively low risk. Like any other businesses, don’t forget to grow your business and set a goal to take your WAHM business to another level.  Please find out more how you can grow your WAHM business.

EXPANSION is not the only way to grow your WAHM business. If you’re home based working moms and wish to make your WAHM business bigger, don’t always think of expansion. Okay, what does expansion mean? Let’s look at some ideas how expansion works:

• Bring in more products and more stocks. It means that you have to acquire bigger storage space or warehouse
• Franchise your products or services to other entrepreneurs.
• Offer more services.
• Open branches.

Definitely, WAHM business is no longer a small business but grows into  a medium to large scale business with expansion. It needs more capital and more people to manage your business.

What if you can’t afford expansion but you wish to grow your WAHM business. DIVERSIFICATION is the smart solution. Look for online home based business opportunities as means for diversification. Let’s take a look at the example below on how you can diversify your WAHM business.

If you are good at baking,  you can run a WAHM business and take orders of cakes for special occasions. However, like most of home based working moms are doing their business on one man show, baking can take up most of your time and energy. How to diversify your WAHM business? Teaching other people about baking or position you as an expert or a consultant is one of  the smart solutions. You can write a book about baking or cooking. However, publishing a book to public needs a lot of requirements such as getting an editor and it needs quite sometime to get your book published. Writing an e-book is simpler and cost saving. If you want to know how to create  adigital product or e-book, learn more from Product Wealth Secrets. You can create an e-book and market the e-book through marketplace like PayDotCom or Clickbank where you can recruit affiliates to promote your e-book. Another alternative is to set up a paid membership. Members can access your recipes and ask questions and  get advices from you. Or if you like, you can blog about baking and cooking. You can sell advertising space and promote your e-book or other people e-books as affiliates in your blog. Creating Digital products, setting up a paid membership and blogging business are all online home based business opportunities to diversify your wahm business.

If you have no clues what online home based business opportunities available for moms, join Mompreneur Internet Marketing Hub who helps home based moms to start  a WAHM business online . If you  are  already home based working moms, joining Mompreneur Internet Marketing Hub will give you more knowledge about internet marketing techniques.

2 good news coming in the early year of 2010 for small medium enterprises or  WAHM businesses run by home based working moms in Malaysia who intend to bring their business online.

First good news: Paypal allows transaction to be done in RM and Paypal account owner in Malaysia can withdraw the Paypal funds from the local banks.

Second good news: Google and MITI are recently giving away free RM 200 to use for online advertising at Google Adwords and free tutorials. Offer expires on 31st January 2010. The official announcement is below:

The Ministry of International Trade and Commerce (MITI) and Google recently launched the SME Business Stimulus Package to help businesses grow their sales online. Sign up now at http://www.google.com.my/stimulus to get RM200 of free online-advertising on Google and a free 1:1 tutorial on how to set up your online advertising campaign. The first one hundred sign ups are eligible to have their website built for free if they do not already have one. SME Bloggers are encouraged to participate in the programme, so hurry! This special offer expires 31 Jan, 2010. For further information, please visit: http://www.smecorp.gov.my/node/836StimulusEDM.doc

So, if you are home based working moms, register your WAHM business officially at  Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia to enjoy the good offer.