petak, 30. kolovoza 2013.

Further Proof That Blogs Rule The World

No one I’ve ever met is neutral on Wal*Mart. Let me begin by saying that Sam Walton is one of my heroes. He was a humble genius who as a multigazillionaire still rode to work every day in his pickup truck and frequently took his dog with him.

I don’t go to Wal*Mart. I like to buy American where I can and in Wal*Mart I can’t. I’d rather go see my friend Dan Sorrentino at Newtown Hardware for my sundries than some guy I don’t know that I have to walk the length of a football field to find. But I know a lot of people who visit Wal*Mart on a regular basis. FYI, Wal*Mart has an affiliate program through LinkShare that is okay. Wal*Mart also has a blog, called Wal*Mart Facts.

Since it is the largest retail outfit in the world, Wal*Mart has a pretty big target painted on its back. It’s always taking a beating for its employment practices or lack of this or corporate that. Being a PR person for Wal*Mart must be pretty tough. According to the Strategic Public Relations Blog, Wal*Mart is trying to soften its public face. To this end it has hired the venerable public relations firm Edelman in Chicago.

According to the Modern Marketing blog, Edelman and Wal*Mart set up a program they call Action Alley. Action Alley was set up to practice what Modern Marketing calls Outside In marketing:

Traditional marketing has been built around the idea of creating a central set of messages and sending them out into the marketplace.

This can be thought of as an ‘Inside-Out’ approach, where the communications infrastructure required to manage brands and image (cameras, editing suites, media, design & creative personnel) is held inside large organisations and used to distribute information out.

However, as savvy consumers filter out unwanted advertising information using PVRs, adblockers, SPAM filters, RSS feeds, subscriptions and customer communities, the Inside-Out approach is becoming less and less effective.

Not surprisingly, some companies are looking around for new ideas. Open Source Marketing is one idea that people are turning to as they realise that the values behind the Open Source Movement can be applied to industries beyond technology.

The Open Source approach can be described as ‘Outside-In’. It recognises that in a distributed environment a lot of information and content about a company or brand is being produced outside of the organisation by consumers and other stakeholders. And that companies need systems that allow them to react to this information.

It also recognises that frequently this information is more influential than the spiel produced by a company or brand. For example, someone looking to book a hotel will probably place greater value on a customer community such as virtualtourist.com than a hotel website.

Having lived a lot of my life around marketing weenies, I can tell you that outside-in marketing scares the living hell out of marketing people, because it means they’ve lost control of their brand and their message, and they’re not just pulling levers and watching what happens.

Getting back to Wal*Mart, the marketing weenies there perceived that what was being said in the Blogosphere was nibbling away at their brand. They’re probably right. The job of Action Alley is apparently to help -ahem- steer those out in the Blogosphere toward writing more positively about Wal*Mart.

According to the Motley Fool a guy named Brian Pickrell wrote a blog article suggesting that the State of Maryland telling Wal*Mart how much employee health insurance they have to provide might be a bad idea. Without reading the article I would probably agree with him. According to the Fool, his article sounded a lot like a press release created by Edelman.

So the rigamarole seems to be about Wal*Mart’s conspiracy in feeding news stories to influential bloggers to try to influence what they write. Of course they do. So does everyone else, and to say otherwise is either naive or stupid. That is what public relations are all about.

While I was laughing at this whole thing something very, very cool struck me — all the hubbub is because a company that earns $30 million a day is trying to influence a bunch of bloggers, rightfully believing that they have a lot of influence on the brand, and wrongly believing that they have any influence over them.

We bloggers aren’t stupid, you know. We may use your marketing tripe propoganda, but the marketing weenies have to understand that the only reason we use it is because we agree with it. And while the purists can squawk, I don’t see any problem with that.

So all of us nobodys as a group can turn a ship the size of Wal*Mart.

Blogs Rule.

Extreme Blogging- Uses and Benefits

Blogs. Most people have either heard of them, read them, or have created their very own. Blogs or blogging has become very popular across the internet recently.  Blogging is seen as something to do for fun, for a hobby, or in thinking and reflecting on the experiences you are writing about. This holds truth as some of the most common uses for blogging are personal, yet few realize the power of blogging. Though blogging is a way to interact and connect with others, there are many other uses for it.

Blogging is a great way to share knowledge and gain knowledge. For example, if someone has a question they can ask it on their blog where they can potentially get a lot of good answers and suggestions. Blogging is a good way to communicate with others across long distances. Blogging is, of course a great way of self-expression and self-promotion. It can be a safe haven for some who are otherwise more inhibited to be able to speak their mind and give their opinions on a certain subjects without having to show their face. Blogging can be used to track experiences, somewhat like a diary or journal, where there are daily entries that are dated. Blogging can also be utilized in storytelling. They are used in campaigning to get the word out about whatever the issue may be. Imagine how many people surf the web and can potentially see your issue. Great things can happen with such a huge audience involved.

Blogging can help in building community amongst different types of people. Blogging is also a great way to meet business partners. Some of the up and coming uses include opportunities in corporations and education, entertainment, health care, and government.

Blogging can also broadcast information, such as news rapidly one place to another. Therefore it’s possible to learn about various events before they are even reported through T.V. and newspapers etc.  Another benefit of blogging is that it can increase visits to a website, which is great marketing. What better way to get people to your site for free. Blogs are practical everyday tools, like email. The blogging boom is on and it’s wise to get on board while it gains popularity. Whatever your blog is used for, it can help you out in a positive way. Blogging has definitely become professional in its use. So go out and start your blog!

četvrtak, 29. kolovoza 2013.

Express Yourself... Through Blogs!

Picture these three scenarios:

You are at a costume party in a room full of strangers. You are dressed as an 18th Century dandy; you've studied the mannerisms, have affected the perfect accent and you charm every partygoer you meet. Beneath the facade, outside the realm of this party you may be a banker, a steel worker or an unemployed poet but here and now you are Monsieur Baudelaire, the fop who speaks of temperament and style as the be-all and end-all of a meaningful existence.

You are at work where you are always the no-nonsense professional, respected by peers and underlings and depended upon by your manager to perform your tasks with skill, technical proficiency and a pleasant demeanor -- an expectation that is hardly ever unmet.

You are at an informal get together with family, close friends and neighbors; you talk about sports, literature and fashion with people who know you and who understand your opinions, your quirks and your few flaws -- there is no facade, no pretense, you are unabashedly you!

These scenarios that represent three versions of you in the real world are also three (of many) approaches you can take to presenting yourself to your readers in the virtual world, through your blog: as a character of your creation, as the professional at whatever you do, or as the real, unadulterated you, complete with flaws. Your blog and your blogger persona are your creations and are limited only by your choices. Consider also that whatever it is you write, in whatever form, even if it is spoof or satire, it will be considered by your readers as an expression of your true feelings.

People express themselves in many ways and for a growing number of people the need for some sort of public expression of thoughts, feelings, style or creative expression is filled by blogging. Expressing your thoughts in written words, however, is not as simple a task as it may seem to be; many people, in fact, find that it can take hours to accurately transfer the most seemingly simple thoughts to the written word. Thoughts and feelings do not require the organization or structure that is required by the expression of those thoughts and feelings.

Some things that make the task of expressing yourself through your writing much easier are improving your grammar, improving your vocabulary and practice, practice, practice.

Grammar! As a rule you should always write to your audience -- they are the ones who need to understand you. Perfection may be necessary when you are writing for an audience of scholars and grammarians who require it but, regardless of your audience, the better your grammar the better you will be understood and the easier it will be for you to transfer those thoughts to paper. There are literally hundreds of English grammar guides available online and very reasonable English grammar guides available in bookstores; good grammar is a tool you will never regret learning to use.

Vocabulary! Finding the right words to express your thoughts is much easier when you have more words in your armory to choose from. You may be tempted to learn some suitably obscure words to impress your readership but too much of that will only confuse them and turn them away from your writing. Research has shown that the average adult in the U.S. reads at an eighth-grade level so arming yourself with a recondite vocabulary will not be helpful (nor was our reference to a 'recondite vocabulary' unless you knew that recondite means “difficult to understand”). Arm yourself, instead, with a good dictionary/thesaurus.

Write Often! Practice makes perfect or, to be honest, it at least helps you approach perfection. Try to make a meaningful entry in your blog every day, that may not always be possible but do try! Two of the wonderful things about blogging are its flexibility and availability -- your blog will always be there (baring computer problems) when you need it and you'll find that the more you write, the easier it will be to write. Keep in mind, however, that even a professional writer who writes for hours every day is seldom completely satisfied that the words that came out adequately express the thought that went in so don't allow yourself to get too frustrated, take a short break and then try again.

srijeda, 28. kolovoza 2013.

Efficient Blogging

One of the challenges of blogging is to come up with good posts that interest readers and keep them coming back. Sometimes I do not feel like I have good original wisdom. It is presumptuous to think I can have top quality original material all the time.

A second challenge is the time to blog. I run a $1 Billion dollar company so when I decided to blog I knew I needed to figure out how to do it efficiently. My blog is mostly about efficiency and time management; these are topics I study.

These two challenges can be solved with a simple concept. Copy.

Ideas to use when copying are:

1 – attribution. Give the credit together with the link to the original author.

2 – look for something you can add to. Blogs can be synergistic. Take a concept or part of a blog post and expend on it and give your opinions, insights or views. In many cases, this can start a flow of ideas that are enriched from the original post.

3 – You can use either the whole post or most usually just part of it and point people to the original.

4 – I usually ask for permission which has never been denied. After all copying helps the original author and garners them some readership. And of course never copy copy written material without permission (and most blogs are not copy written).

5 – The simplest place to find material to use to copy is by blog surfing although this can mean a lot of irrelevant material to filter. One source of free articles sorted by topic is www.isnare.com.

6 – In many cases the person you copy from will point a link back to you since it is flattering to them. Charles Caleb Colton said “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” (one trick on quotes is to look them up on www.brainyquote.com). These links to you can increase your traffic.

In summary, copying saves time and increases the quality of material on your site. It can even lead to traffic since in many cases you will get link backs from the original site.


utorak, 27. kolovoza 2013.

Effective Blogging - How to Get Wealthy Blogging

"THERE are two kinds of knowledge. One is general, the other is specialized. General knowledge, no matter how great in quantity or variety it may be, is of but little use in the accumulation of money."

Web Blogs are online diaries made up of short frequently updated posts. In addition, they are inexplicably popular.

Steve Pavlina's Blog, dedicated to helping you make conscious decisions in your personal development and courageously follow through on them is a good example of a very popular Blog. In February 2005, this site received about 86,000 visitors, in January 2006 about 715,000, and today Steve's Blog receives over 1 million page views each month and is ranked by Technorati as one of the Top 500 Blogs in the world.

It is listed in nearly every search engine because of spider food. New content is added almost every single day. We will discuss that later.


One key advantage of Blogs is that they are easy to update. The other side is that surfers will expect you to update your site very frequently. If you do not they will go somewhere else.

When you sign up for a Blog or create one on your own site use part of the name or a similar name to the name of the sponsor program you are promoting unless it is against the sponsors T.O.S.

This blog, Marketing-Tipps.blogspot.com, showed up in the Search Engines in 3 days. It is not even in the top 10 for most search engine terms yet it consistently produces income, mostly AdSense.

But when you create your Blog or Blogs it is really important that you pick a niche that you know and understand. Ask yourself: Would and does my Blog appeal to me? Is there something about it that excites me?
If not, you need to go back to the drawing board.

When you create your Blog, let us say about "mp3 players", and its posts use the galleries and Urls from your sponsors. If they come with a description, use them. If you have a choice between short or long descriptions use the long ones. This is your spider food.

However, do not add them all to the Blog at one time. Add them 7 to 10 at a time. Set you up a schedule. Every second or third day add more. If your sponsor does not have a lot of galleries to use you're going to have to use several sponsors for each of your Blogs to keep them updated on a regular basis. After 10-15 days when the first posts are buried well out of site repeat them. You are after surfers coming from Search Engines and you are laying down spider food. It is a lot like fishing. You are putting out bait both for the surfer and for the spiders or bots from the Search Engines

Moreover, it is very important that you think about Spider Food. Use descriptions for each of your content with your Blogs name in them. If for example you are promoting Asian content, use many related names in the entries you make on your Blog. This is very important.
Go to Google and type in for example "mp3 players"

Write down all the related key words you find on your notepad and as you make entries in your Blog weave these words into your entries. Over the next few weeks, when you do entries work these keywords into your posts. Repeat them. Yes, repeat them. Repeat them and often. When the search engine surfer comes to your Blog looking for an mp3 player he is not going to set there for the most part and read your posts. He is going to go for the links that lead to mp3 player. Therefore, what you really need to keep in your mind is getting him there.

The quality of Search Engine Traffic is high. Although at first you will not get a large quantity of traffic from Search Engines the traffic the quality of the traffic you do get is very high.

When you get your Blog up on the web, there are three places you need to submit it to. The two major search engines Google, Yahoo, and BLOGGERNITY.COM, which is a Blog Directory. Hand Submit your Blog to these three places. Once BLOGGERNITY listed your Blog, go there and vote for yourself. Sign up there for a free account and write a review of your Blog. It does not have to be anything fancy. Just write how you want the surfer to feel about and see your Blog.


Networking!

Make a list of the other Blogs at BLOGGERNITY and contact the owners of those sites (as many as you can). Write them a short email and ask them to do a link exchange with you. Most of them will.

It is very important that you use careful strategy and monitoring in promoting your blog. Use the referrers' script so that you will know what is going on. Keep a paper record of what you are doing.

By now if you have followed the examples I have given, you know how to set up your Blog and how to get traffic to it. If you follow it, you can make money.
Again Steve Pavlina: His Blog, http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/, is making $4,700/month with AdSense solely based on the following ten principles:
  1. Create valuable content.
  2. Create original content.
  3. Create timeless content.
  4. Write for human beings first, computers second.
  5. Know why you want a high-traffic site.
  6. Let your audience see the real you.
  7. Write what is true for you, and learn to live with the consequences.
  8. Treat your visitors like real human beings.
  9. Keep money in its proper place.
  10. If you forget the first nine suggestions, just focus on genuinely helping people, and the rest will take care of itself.

This business model is fascinating. I obviously did not invent it, but I am certainly enjoying the ride. It is incredibly simple, much simpler than running any other business is. The risk is virtually zilch, and there is no overhead aside from web hosting (assuming you already own a computer and have internet access). There is no selling, no products, no customers, no order processing, no fraud, no inventory, no shipping, and no deadlines. And yet you earn income 24/7.

petak, 23. kolovoza 2013.

Domain Names Can Make You A Millionaire

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Do You Really Understand the Blog Animal And How He Can Help You?

The growth and popularity of blogs in general has been phenomenal within a very short period of time. Blogs or web logs as they were previously called is where all the action on the World Wide Web is, right now.

It is amazing how quickly web sites have been relegated to the back seat. Actually the role of web sites is rapidly being re-defined but it is clear blogs will be the place where all the traffic will be congregating for a long time to come. What some thought was a passing fad is clearly here to stay and is a permanent development that has already had far reaching effects on communications and the way we transmit and receive information.

Yet most entrepreneurs who have quickly jumped onto the blog bandwagon do not seem to fully understand and appreciate what blogs are really all about. Worse still, many of those who have remained away have no idea what all the fuss is about.

A clearer understanding of blogs is bound to benefit any e-commerce business owner or online entrepreneur.

Everybody can be a publisher or media owner
Probably the most significant impact of blogs is the fact that it is rapidly changing mass media, as we have known it since the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. Powerful media companies have been in the hands of a few people who have carefully controlled what we see in our media. Sometimes deliberately to achieve their corporate goals and objectives. Blogs are effectively transferring that power back to the people and away from the hands of a few.

This era of blogs means that anybody can be a publisher or media owner and effectively transmit whatever information they want and push whatever cause is dear to their hearts. The impact of blogs in politics for example has been a clear demonstration of the power of blogging. We have some blogs covering politics that have a couple hundred thousand visitors on a daily basis.

This may be a scary development to many folks including media owners but it presents a number of excellent opportunities for entrepreneurs to reach huge audiences with their messages at a tiny fraction of what their budgets used to be in the days when blogs did not exist.

Breaking news, courtesy of the blog community
Further power of blogs to handle breaking news in real time, complete with photographs and video clips, has clearly been evident in retimes. For example during the Tsunami tragedy last December. Footage of the damage being caused by the giant waves was seen in blogs long before the traditional media channels got wind of what was going on.

This opens up a whole range of new opportunities that can be tried out in the years to come. Not many entrepreneurs have realized this yet.

Anybody who didn't have a site can own a successful blog
Blogs are so easy to set up, maintain and run that a new breed of online entrepreneurs is on the rise. It consists of many individuals who for one reason or another were unable to set up and maintain heir web sites.

We are now in an era where an online entrepreneur needs little else other than lots of creativity, there is actually so much that he or she can do without a single cent in capital.

Distinct advantages of having a blog
Blogs tend to get lots of traffic. Lots more than websites do. Besides search engines seem to love them. Blogs are also able to build up links much more easily than web sites. Thus it is no longer surprising for a nobody-novice to suddenly shoot up in stardom and recognition.

No entrepreneur can afford to be left behind
The benefits of a business having in it's stable a blog or two that is capable of attracting huge traffic, is very important and can be extremely useful in helping a business to achieve its' marketing goals and objectives.

Any entrepreneur whether online or offline who does not have a blog to help promote their business is making a very serious mistake that they will definitely live to deeply regret. In fact even playing catch-up with a blog that already exists will continue to be more and more difficult.

There are a number of advantages that blogs have which will continue to be extremely useful to entrepreneurs and webmasters. One of them is the fact that they easily allow for customer comment and anybody can be able to post a comment at your site. In a way this is a form of research and sampling because it enables the business to get feedback and thus be able to gauge the sort of response they will receive when they finally roll out their product or service into the market.

Start using your blog more carefully and watch your traffic and revenues steadily climb as a result.

utorak, 20. kolovoza 2013.

Dear Diary, Dear World – All About Blogging

The Internet has changed the way we live, breathe, and even write – in fact, it is mainly due to the blogging phenomenon that we receive headlines, change them, and even get the latest buzz on issues newspapers and popular media will not dare tackle. Blogging has become so common, it has prompted dictionary makers to create new terms. For instance, each article on a blog is called a “post,” “entry,” or “blog post.” A person who blogs is called a “blogger.”

But what is blogging, and why is it so popular?

Blogging refers to the activity of updating one’s blog. What is a blog? A blog is a web log, or an Internet-based publication which contains articles about a variety of topics. Blogs are either run on dedicated hosting services, or they can be run on any ordinary web hosting service using scripts meant for blogs.

Blogs often focus on a particular subject. They can tackle movie reviews, political issues, important local news, or one’s personal opinion. Most blogs serve as online diaries, and will contain personal images, artwork, and writing.

Blog posts will contain the following elements.
  • A title – Some personal bloggers have modified this, and have added subtitles to add “meat” to their entries. They may indicate the music they are currently listening to, their current mood, and the subject of their post. Journalistic bloggers will often link their title to similar articles available online.
  • The body – This is the main content of the blog. It can be a fictional entry, in the case of story or novel blogs; or a non-fiction entry, in the case of other blogs, such as news blogs or diaries.
  • A permalink – this is the link to the individual blog entry, which other bloggers can use if they would like to link or refer to the article.
  • The date – this is simply the date, time, and sometimes place in which the entry was first posted.

Some blogs may also contain the following.
  • A comments section – this enables readers to make comments or react to the blog entry. This is also a useful way by which other bloggers can make themselves, and their blogs, known.
  • The tags – this is the section where bloggers list the categories under which their current article falls. For instance, a post on “Saving the Whales” can be categorized under “environment,” “whales,” and “ecology.”Trackback – Also known as pingback, this is a list of links of other sites that refer to the article or post.


There are many different kinds of blogs available, depending on the topic they tackle. A few types include the following
  • Personal – These blogs focus on personal experiences, and feature an online diary, usually with images or artwork. Some photoblogs fall under this category, where bloggers post pictures instead of writing about their experiences.
  • Paid – Some bloggers are paid to blog their career experiences, or the latest news about a company.
  • Socio-cultural – Some blogs are devoted to socio-cultural experiences, and can allow people of other cultures a glimpse into the quirks and specialties that make other cultures unique.
  • Science – Some scientists have taken to blogging about their research findings, or to share laboratory techniques. Such a method, however, has been met with derision in the science community, since it overrides the traditional peer-based review of research.
  • Political or News – Some blogs focus on the latest news, and can even offer political opinions on certain subjects.

Blogging is definitely here to stay, and it can influence cultures and headlines through the widely popular medium of the Internet. Have you tried blogging yet?

Create Blogging Time - It's Essential

What's the perfect job? How about a job where you are your own boss, you set your own hours, work right from home, never have to deal with unreasonable deadlines and get to do something you love doing? Sound good? Well that's the job description of a blogger. That, however, is the not the whole story! There are very, very few bloggers who have nothing else to do but work on their blog and even fewer who have a blog that provides a decent source of income so blogging is, for most, a second or even a third “job.”

There are two basic types of bloggers, the casual blogger and the serious blogger.

The casual blogger may have a basically well balanced life and a blog that is primarily a hobby. The casual blogger will start writing a post, work at it for awhile and then stop to get some other things done until he or she feels like writing again. If a finished post doesn't get many comments, that's OK; the post expressed just what the casual blogger wanted to say and its out there if anyone is interested.

The serious blogger's situation is quite different from the casual blogger's. The serious blogger has a blog that he or she considers to be a job -- a job that may be competing with other important elements of life such as a primary job, a family, a social life and adequate rest. The serious blogger is committed (almost to the point of an obsession) to maintaining his or her blog and feels it is an essential element of daily life. The serious blogger feels dejected if any post sits on the blog for twenty-four hours or so without generating a comment or if the blog's “hit counter” does not register a certain number of visitors every day. That kind of commitment to blogging may take a big hunk of time out of the day and can easily create some serious conflicts between blogging and the rest of life -- to avoid this, the serious blogger needs to be organized and efficient.

Time management for the serious blogger! Anyone who feels that the day is too short needs to understand and implement the basic principle of time management: setting priorities. Some things are obviously more important than other things but some important things may be left undone unless you are controlling your schedule and not having random events control you. You need to set priorities and live by them.

Make a priority list! To begin setting priorities, make a list of everything you need to get done -- everything including things you've committed to doing, things you want to do, things you know you should do and things that you really don't want to do but are on your mind. Be honest and put everything on the list -- take a couple hours or more to put it together if you need that much time, it will be time well spent because you are about to get organized.

Important: You will be using and modifying this list every day so create the list using some program that will allow you to move list items around, add items, remove items and save the list. Just notepad or your word processing program will do nicely but there are other more specialized programs available -- they may even be free, check out: Tucows at tucows.com .

Categorize! Now carefully consider each item on the list and put each one into one of the following five categories.

Must get it done today
Must get it done this week
Nice to do and might be beneficial
Nice to do but not really necessary
Unnecessary

Now you have a decent priority list. Start every day with this list and every time you become aware of a new task add it in a proper place to the proper category. As the “must do” items are accomplished and moved off the list, some of the nice-to-do items may be moved up, but only if their priorities can honestly be changed.

Too many must-do things! If the list of items in the two “Must get it done . . . ” categories is overwhelming, reconsider each item's importance and re-prioritize if you can, if not select the items that you really don't have to do yourself, things like fix-it projects, business phone calls, business letters, editing and proofreading jobs, etc. -- some of these things may be able to be done just as well by someone else. Find a friend, family member, co-worker or a freelancer to do it for you.