Ok I have a story to share… one I been telling for a while for fun and always meant to post but just never gotten around to it.

I used to be addicted to try to make the front page of digg… but I often had trouble hitting the front page. Sure it would happen every other month or so but it took a lot of work. Then in 2007 one month I made it 5 times… including 2 times in the SAME DAY on Feb 21st 2007:

So how? How can one website all of a sudden become attractive to the digg users who normal HATE anything that looks close to a internet marketer…. or SEO….

BUT digg users LOVE Linux and hate Microsoft.

Well I made one simple change. I swapped out all ads for more… digg user friendly images. In particular I changed the leader board ad for a “I love Linux” banner and the square on the right to a image of a guy peeing on Microsoft.

Here you can see ShoeMoney.com normally:

and now if you were to come from digg.com:

There are a lot of lessons from this that I still apply today. Changing your website or landing page based on where your visitors are coming can help make a huge impact on conversions.

Get a sneak peak at the all new ShoeMoney System

This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog

My Secret To Dominating Digg.com (years ago)

A week from tomorrow is the cutoff to enter the ShoeMoney System Theme song contest. We only have a couple entries so I am not sure what the hell you guys are waiting for but it just got real.

I’m upping the stakes.

In addition to everlasting fame as creator of the ShoeMoney System Theme Song the winner will also take home a cool $1,000.00.

But now we are upping the stakes…. bigtime….

I talked to my friends at AzoogleAds and got them to give me a pass to their 2010 party at the Playboy Mansion this summer for the winner!.

This is the most exclusive event in all of internet marketing…. period… Last year I had everybody and their brother (including some celebs) pinging me to get in.

Check out my write up from last year

So there you go… take home 1k and also have a invite to the most exclusive party in all of internet marketing. So get your entry in now!

In order to enter you must post a link IN THIS POST to your video on youtube (you dont have to do video audio with a black screen or words is fine)

GOOD LUCK!

Get a sneak peak at the all new ShoeMoney System

This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog

It Just Got Real – Win A Pass To The Playboy Mansion Party

A Guest Post by Elle from Couple Money.

I’ve been blogging for a couple years now and I’ve enjoyed it tremendously. Couple Money is not my first blog, but it is the first one I created with a specific goal in mind. I wanted to share how we’re building our net income while creating a mobile income from our passions and create a community of like minded couples.

My other sites started off as personal blogs and haphazardly morphed as I gained readers. Without a particular goal or process, the blogs’ growth tapered off. I wanted to change this with Couple Money and I knew I needed to get it done sooner rather than later.

I’ve been a reader of Problogger and after reading the 31 Day Challenge that Darren presented, I knew this is something I need to improve my site. I completed my Challenge last weekend and I wanted to share some tips I’ve done to maximize the Challenge for my blog.

Promoting Your Blog Post Effectively

One of the first tasks in the challenge is promoting a blog post. I’ve been guilty of promoting my blog posts to the annoyance of other readers and bloggers when I first started a couple of years ago. I had thought the best way was to keep posting updates on new posts. I learned the hard way that method does not work. When I receive constant direct messages on Twitter to promote posts, I feel less inclined to help, even if they’re good posts.

I was happy to see what I could do to promote my posts without seeming spammy. I tend to promote my posts through Twitter and I mixed them up with posts from other bloggers that I’ve found very informative. Since I work during the day, I try to batch my tweets as I review sites in the evening. While that’s great for me and my schedule, it wasn’t too effective.

I found that releasing them around the same time does no one any good. Not too many people clicked to read my posts or other people’s posts because they felt overwhelmed. I decided to make it a win-win situation. I now use Su.pr to schedule my tweets and spread out some community promotion through out the work day.

The Seesmic app is my buddy on my phone to keep in touch. I check replies and messages on my Samsung Moment during breaks and lunch during the day to communicate with my network. I also try and take the time to thank everyone who retweeted my posts. I think that appreciation and gratitude goes a long way with effective promotion.

Interlinking Old Posts Quickly and Easily

Writing posts that can grab readers’ attention is great, but it’s only part of getting a community started. I realized I needed to get my visitors to dig deep and become readers. The best way to help them is presenting them relevant links within the posts they’re interested in enough to read. In addition to helping readers, including relevant links can improve your site’s SEO strategy.

Darren suggests making interlinking a routine part if your blogging activities. To maximize my relevant links and minimize my time doing it, I use CrossLinker and Insight. These two plugins have helped me to quickly create links to my pillar posts and my best content. Crosslinker allows me to focus readers to my pillar posts and choose which keywords to link to it with. Insight is very helpful as I’m writing my post, as I can search for my posts and other blogs for helpful and resourceful links.

I’ve noticed that completing this task has improved my incoming search traffic for certain keywords. I’m starting to get on the first page of results for my relatively young blog. As I continue making interlinking to older posts a habit, I’m hoping to get even more improvement.

Find Some Blog Buddies to Turbo Charge Each Other

If you want to build a community, you have to be a part of one. Day 15’s task was to find a partner to help encourage each other to improve. I checked out some tips on finding blogging buddies and decided to join a small band of bloggers with the Yakezie Challenge. It’s the perfect combination of camaraderie and friendly competition that I needed. As a reader of Financial Samurai, I noticed his challenge to other bloggers to improve their sites by using Alexa as a gauge.

I compare it to someone who’s looking to get in shape by joining a neighbourhood sports team. You’re working hard to improve your game, but the teamwork makes it seem more like fun instead of just fitness.

So if you’re looking at finding a blogging buddy, my suggestion is to look around your niche and find some bloggers who are hungry and have a specific goal you share. Being a part of your niche’s forums is definitely important, but having a competition really focuses you on getting your work done.

Breathe Life Into an Old Post

As I noticed more search traffic for my blog (loving the results of this challenge!), I saw the need to follow Day 21’s task advice on going back and improving my old blog posts. My problem was that I didn’t have a large block of time to research what I needed to do to make it more resourceful and while still keeping up with current posts.

I decided to beef up posts based on my first time reader review (Day 17) and from analytic tools: Google Analytics and WebMaster Tools. My goal was to make sure older posts were providing information that my readers were looking for. I checked several statistics to see what I needed to focus my attention on:

• Popular Posts: Since time was limited I focused on posts that were already getting some attention and just needed a bit more to help them stand out.
• Search Terms Used: I wanted to see how readers were finding these posts and if there were any specific questions they were asking. I can either adjust a post with an answer to that question or write a new posts and link to my older posts.
• Heat Map: On my homepage, I include links to some of my older posts. I look and see which ones are popular and try and figure out why.

I recommend doing this on a monthly basis with your older posts and just focus on what your readers want to read more of. After all, if you’re looking to build a community, it can’t always be about you. Looking at older posts can be a bit easier to see objectively and you can address your readers’ needs more effectively.

What’s The Plan Now?

I have to admit I was really sad to see the challenge over. It was really easy to follow along a daily blogging schedule and having a specific goal to achieve. Having a framework to write and work from helped me to be more productive.

I decided I’m going to use the 31 Day Challenge as my guide for the rest of the year. Instead of going through the guide in the traditional 31 days, I’m going to focus each week on one of the daily tasks. I’ve seen how the guide has improved the quality of my content and the community so I want to really dig deep and focus on all the activities I can do with each task.

How about you? How have you maximized the 31 days to Build a Better Blog Challenge with your site?

Elle has been blogging over at Couple Money on how she and her family handles their finances. To follow Elle you can chat with her on twitter (@Elle_CM) or subscribe to her blog.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Tips for Doing the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge

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I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for supporting my blog these past 1.5 years. I really appreciate your comments and your continued readership. I also wanted to announce that MyWifeQuitHerJob.com has partnered with HP to give away a free HP iPaq Glisten Smartphone to one lucky reader! The odds of winning this phone are actually much higher than you think. Read on to find out more about the phone and how to win.

HP iPaq Glisten Smartphone Features

The HP iPAQ Glisten is a stylish, 3G smartphone designed for on-the-go professionals who need to stay connected to the people and information they care about.

Here are some of the Glisten’s features:

• A quad-band world phone, featuring Windows Mobile 6.5
• Built-in Wi-Fi and GPS functionality
• 3.1 megapixel digital camera
• 5 hours of talk time and 15 hours standby battery life
• Full QWERTY keyboard for fast, easy and accurate messaging
• Touch-enabled AMOLED screen delivering a crisp, clear display

AT&T’s 3G network is available in more than 350 major metropolitan areas and roaming in more than 100 countries, as well as voice calling in more than 215 countries.

Through HP’s partnership with AT&T and Microsoft, the iPAQ Glisten owners have access to a wide variety of applications, music, ringtones, games, etc.

You can learn more details about the HP iPaq Glisten here. You can also follow HP on Twitter via @hp_pc.

How To Enter

As you know, I write about many topics here on MyWifeQuitHerJob.com but they don’t always appeal to everyone. For a chance to win the HP smartphone, simply leave a comment on this article indicating which two of the following topics you would like me to write more about in the future.

• Motivational articles focusing on entrepreneurship
• How to guides with respect to building an online store
• Personal stories about obstacles we face running our business
• Ecommerce strategies to boost sales
• How to increase productivity
• Marketing an online store

Please note that your comments don’t have to be limited to the ones above. Let me know what you want me to write about!

The Lucky Winner!

The winner of this contest will be randomly selected on March 25. In addition to leaving a comment, you can also enter the drawing by tweeting about this giveaway. Simply copy and paste the below tweet into your favorite Twitter client and you’ll have completed your second way to win!

Just entered to win a free HP iPaq Glisten from @mywifequit. Retweet to enter. Details at http://mywifequitherjob.com/hpglisten

Contest Rules

• One winner will be randomly selected from all entries
• Two entries maximum per person (one via a comment; one via Twitter)
• No purchase necessary; void where prohibited
• You must be at least 18 years of age to enter
• You must be a resident of the United States
• All prizes are provided by the giveaway sponsors

I will be announcing the winner to the contest at 5pm PST on March 25, 2010 on this site and via Twitter.

To be sure you don’t miss out on who wins, you can subscribe to receive my articles for free or you can follow @mywifequit on Twitter. Good luck!

In 2007 I launched a program called Blog Mastermind, which as far as I could tell at the time, was the first blog training program created by someone who had a profitable blog.

Of course there were many other bloggers out there at the time who made money blogging – many who made more than I did – but most weren’t in the business of teaching how to do Internet marketing. They focused on creating content to feed their hungry audience in whatever niche they targeted, monetizing with methods like advertising and selling affiliate products.

Even those bloggers who where focused on teaching others how to make money online, hadn’t adopted the idea of creating a products or even building email lists. Everything was about earning more from AdSense, or how to increase your pageviews so you could charge more for advertising.

In my case I had spent the previous two years studying the work of Internet marketers, who didn’t blog, but instead used landing pages to build email lists and then drive that traffic to sales pages to sell products. Up to that point I was like every other blogger, making a solid almost-full time income thanks to sponsors and promoting affiliate products like ebooks, DVD courses and live workshops.

I won’t go into detail about what happened after I released my own product as that story is well accounted for in my free report – The Membership Site Masterplan – and in the video on my Membership Site Mastermind sales page, so check out those two resources if you want the details.

In short, creating Blog Mastermind and doing a full launch campaign for it, changed my life because it pushed my income above six figures for the first time.

The Lifecycle Of An Information Product

While I was creating Blog Mastermind, I was concerned about the shelf life of my product. I didn’t want to create something that would be out of date six months later. I wanted to create something that could help people for a long time and avoid creating a product that would require I keep working on it constantly just to keep it current.

Every niche is different, however I feel confident saying that the first time you launch your product, when it is brand new and you’ve never promoted it to your audience before, is when it sells the best. There may be other considerations – for example offering a discount price for your first launch to reward the “charter members” for their early support – which could inflate the first launch sales results, but in most cases it’s the “new” factor that gives the edge.

This is why you see marketers re-brand their existing products a “2.0″ version and talk about all the updates and new features when they do subsequent launches. If you keep selling the same thing, a law of diminishing returns sets in, unless you can tap into new audiences each time you market your product.

All that being said, it’s how you market your product, rather than the content in it, that is important. If you market a product with a new angle, it’s almost as good as launching something fresh, though you have to be careful not to mislead people. A different angle can be something as simple as targeting a different market, perhaps refining your niche to a more specific group of people.

Blog Mastermind did well during the first and second launches, but by the third I noticed it was not selling as well, comparatively speaking (it still did thousands in sales). This was to be expected as I had already “launched” the product to the same people, so besides the new audience I had attracted since the previous launch, I was trying to sell the same thing to the same subscribers, many of whom had already signed up.

Thankfully, besides some minor updates over the first year, Blog Mastermind has remained relevant and an effective system, even given changes to the blogging environment. My goal of creating “timeless” content has largely been met.

This was achievable because I focused on fundamental strategies and techniques that remain effective long term. For example, the concept of Pillar Content is not going to change, and making money with advertising, affiliate programs and selling your own products, have remained the most effective monetization strategies for years – and still are.

How Many Launches Is Too Many Launches

I’ve been involved with the creation and launch process of three products over the past three years, and seen countless other products in my industry launched and re-launched by other marketers.

Some products, like Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula and Brad Fallon’s Stompernet have launched, then six months to a year later come back as a 2.0 version and so on and on for several iterations. Other products are revived with $1 trial offers, or added as a forced or optional continuity bundled with a you-only-pay-shipping front end offers.

When considering how many times to open and close a product you need to think about many variables, including -

• Do you want to add new material or update the product to justify a “2.0″ tag to keep it fresh? This is an important question, because you could spend the time creating another product instead, and releasing something brand new usually does better than revamping something old, plus it increases how many products you have on the market, which generally means you make more money.
• Have you fixed any problems with the existing product you discovered when you launched it the first time? There’s no point doing a second or third launch if your product has fatal errors in it you haven’t addressed.
• Is there a means to tap into new audiences, for example attracting new affiliates, that could keep the product selling just as well on the second or third launches?
• Are you prepared for the emotional and financial considerations if your product doesn’t sell as well? Do you have a plan B for this year’s income if it flops?
• Have you had enough of running launch campaigns? These can be quite tiring and could have an impact on relationships with your subscribers (are they sick of the same old marketing story?) and your affiliates (are they willing to promote the same product again?)

Why Stop Selling Your Product?

You might ask why keep launching a product when you could just leave it available for sale without closing it down.

That’s a valid question, and the answer in pretty much all tests I’ve ever seen is simple – you make more money when you take a product off the market.

Why?

Scarcity.

People are motivated to buy something when they know they can’t get it tomorrow. If your product is available next week, then they can think about it and buy it later. If it’s pulled from the market, decision time is now, which usually results in a “maybe” turning into a “yes”.

I can unequivocally state that you will make more money if you take your product off the market, if you have not launched your product before. If you combine this scarcity with all the other elements that go into a good launch campaign, you have a formula to make a lot of money in a short space of time.

The only downside doing this is that there are people who will go through your marketing process after your launch is over and want to buy then, who won’t be able to. This is good because it creates pent-up demand, but it’s also bad because they may have only bought right then immediately after sampling your free resources, and the urge may have worn off by the time your next launch rolls around, when they are no longer interested in what you sell.

So What Is The Best Formula?

I don’t have an answer that is universally applicable for every product and the choice really rests on how much work you want to do and what type of work, but I can tell you what has proven successful for me.

The formula I’ve applied in roughly the same format for all of my products is to launch two or three times, with the final opening resulting in the product remaining on the market for sale at any time.

This format means you get the benefit of at least two opening launches with the scarcity of the product going off the market, and the opportunity for all your members to work with you together at the same time (this is actually pretty cool, especially as it enhances the community aspect as each group do the work together).

Once the final launch is done, which usually is the least effective because by around the third launch you’ve sold the same product already twice before, you then leave your product available for purchase at any time.

With your product permanently open the income isn’t as significant as doing an open and shut launch campaign, and it comes over a much longer period of time, however it’s definitely a more passive form of revenue because launches take work.

During all of 2009 Blog Mastermind was for sale and continued to bring in new members week after week, with no additional marketing required on my part beyond what I already do – write great blog posts and email newsletters. I wasn’t sure how long it would last, but I’ve been very pleased to see that week after week, people continue to join Blog Mastermind and the refund rate is very low – so people are still benefiting from the course. It’s become a real cash cow, a pleasing result for sure – and it’s still selling strong today.

From Hard Work To Passive Income

If you’ve been watching my work during the start of 2010, you should have noticed that I opened up Become A Blogger Premium (with co-creator Gideon Shalwick) and just last week, Membership Site Mastermind. This time we left the programs on the market. They are now available for anyone to join whenever they want to.

All of my products, which are all courses, have taken a minimum of six months worth of work to create. That’s some pretty full-on work for those six months, especially if you are running a blog and all the other bits that go into your online business like customer support, email newsletters and affiliate promotions, at the same time.

When Blog Mastermind first launched I only had some of the member resources and the very first lesson ready to go. For the next 26 weeks I created at least one lesson a week, staying just ahead of the members taking the program, held coaching calls, created videos and audios, responded to questions in the forum and maintained my blog and email newsletter. This took some serious discipline, but I was committed to creating a great product.

I later reopened Blog Mastermind two more times, but the work required was much less significant because the product was complete. After the final opening campaign I left the product on the market, and as I explained, it has been selling consistently ever since.

My hope is that all three of my programs will continue to sell well this year. They were all constructed with a focus on fundamentals, so should remain reasonably up to date, and certainly valuable no matter when you join, so I expect sales to be brisk.

The great thing about having all the programs on the market is I can now set my sights on optimizing my sales funnel. I can tweak my newsletter sequence to sell the products. Whenever I write relevant blog posts I can suggest people take my courses if they want more information. I can do joint ventures with affiliates at any time.

I don’t expect sales to be anywhere near as much as they were when the products were new and I ran launch campaigns, but since my information touches new people every day, I should see a new stream of customers, and so far so good – people are still joining the programs even as I type this.

Once I’m done optimizing the sales process for these products I’ll have a fairly clean slate in terms of workload and a very steady stream of very close to passive income. The next time I do a launch, it will be for something new.

Using this model you can, at least I have so far, make at least several hundred thousand dollars a year just by writing quality content to a blog and email newsletter on a consistent basis.

It takes time to set up your products, to write free reports, create free videos and do audio interviews, to conduct launch campaigns, write emails and coordinate affiliates, but once everything is set up, you have a wonderful machine that makes a lot of money in a short period of time, and can then switch to a solid passive income stream. It really is the best of both worlds, leveraging the product lifecycle in a way that mirrors the natural momentum of a demand curve.

How Can You Do The Same?

I’ve touched on quite a few ideas in this article, and while it is clear in my head how the pieces fit together because I’ve lived my business for the past five years, you’re probably missing a few pieces of the puzzle.

Obviously if you’re serious about doing what I do I recommend you take one or all of my courses, starting with Become A Blogger Premium if you are new to blogging and like learning form video, or Blog Mastermind if you prefer my writing style and want text lessons, then take Membership Site Mastermind (or perhaps skip straight to this course if you know blogging well enough already or don’t want to use a blogging strategy to build audience, but still want to create and launch your own products).

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet, that I will end this article with, is how important it is you focus on establishing a strong brand and market position. My products would not sell if it wasn’t for the combined force of my content and my brand, which are very interrelated. When people are repeatedly exposed to, and benefit from my free work, whether that is blog posts, or podcast interviews, or free reports, the natural next step if they want more, is to buy my courses.

There’s a lot of “stuff” out there that can potentially touch people with the Yaro brand, and the more often this happens, the more likely they are to take their relationship with me to the next level, by purchasing what I sell.

It’s your job to build as many exceptional, powerful and just plain valuable contact points with your audience so they discover who you are, what you stand for, what you can teach them, and where they could end up, if they decide to study and action what you teach. The more of you out there, the better, so get busy!

Yaro Starak
Still Producing

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“How To Start An Internet Business
& Make Your First $1,000 Online”
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REWORK Podcast with Jason Fried

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing podcast with Jason Fried (Click to play or right click and “Save As” to download – Subscribe now via iTunes

37 Signals is a company that most online service providers would love to be like. From day one the creators of Basecamp, Backpack, Highrise and Campfire, made money, built a rabid word of mouth fan base, and perhaps more importantly, built the business they wanted to work in without taking outside funding. Along the way they became media darlings and a frequently cited use case for how to do it right.

But just how did Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson do it? The often unconventional approach taken by 37Signals is on display in the Fried and Hannson’s book REWORK. REWORK is a collection of essays that I think could best be described as a combination of business, self-help and wellness, and technical mentoring advice, but the collective impact is very powerful.

This is one of those books that you can pick up and read from any point and find yourself immediately engrossed . The tone of the book is such that you feel as though you are having a conversation with the authors in a style that matches the laid back, this is how we do it here, vibe that is 37Signals.

I spent a few minutes discussing REWORK with Jason Fried for this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast and I can tell you that this book is going to show up on a lot of “best books of 2010″ lists.

A few nuggets from REWORK

• Ignore the Real World – The real world is telling too many small businesses that their idea won’t work.
• Why Grow? - Everyone seems enamored with the idea of rapid growth. Maybe that’s not the right approach for you.
• Outside Money Is Plan Z – Hang on and build it organically or it won’t be your company.

Image credit: Randy Stewart

Like this post? Share it with others

REWORK Podcast with Jason Fried

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing podcast with Jason Fried (Click to play or right click and “Save As” to download – Subscribe now via iTunes

37 Signals is a company that most online service providers would love to be like. From day one the creators of Basecamp, Backpack, Highrise and Campfire, made money, built a rabid word of mouth fan base, and perhaps more importantly, built the business they wanted to work in without taking outside funding. Along the way they became media darlings and a frequently cited use case for how to do it right.

But just how did Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson do it? The often unconventional approach taken by 37Signals is on display in the Fried and Hannson’s book REWORK. REWORK is a collection of essays that I think could best be described as a combination of business, self-help and wellness, and technical mentoring advice, but the collective impact is very powerful.

This is one of those books that you can pick up and read from any point and find yourself immediately engrossed . The tone of the book is such that you feel as though you are having a conversation with the authors in a style that matches the laid back, this is how we do it here, vibe that is 37Signals.

I spent a few minutes discussing REWORK with Jason Fried for this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast and I can tell you that this book is going to show up on a lot of “best books of 2010″ lists.

A few nuggets from REWORK

• Ignore the Real World – The real world is telling too many small businesses that their idea won’t work.
• Why Grow? - Everyone seems enamored with the idea of rapid growth. Maybe that’s not the right approach for you.
• Outside Money Is Plan Z – Hang on and build it organically or it won’t be your company.

Image credit: Randy Stewart

Like this post? Share it with others

Its been a while since we took open questions. I will post answers early next week.

Fire away!

Get a sneak peak at the all new ShoeMoney System

This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog

Fire Away With Questions

In this post Mark Hayward shares some great tips on social media for small business.

Image by jn is not here

Do you own a small business? How long have you been using social media as a marketing tool and what have you learned?

In a little over a months time I will have owned my business for just about three years. When I began using social media some thirty six months ago, I had no real marketing background experience, and I certainly had never written a blog post, interacted in a forum, or sent a Tweet.

My social media evolution began with a simple foray into blogging as a way to try and rank well for some keywords related to my business. From there I expanded to niche forums, review sites, FLICKR, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Man! Just trying to keep up can be intimidating and overwhelming.

However, my number one goal has always been to create a distributed social media footprint with all of my online marketing activities pointing back towards my small business website.

After almost three years of working hard, learning continuously, making lots of mistakes, and monitoring successes, below are thirty valuable social media marketing lessons that I have learned through my experience. I hope they help you:

1. Location is dead. We have now fully entered into the Interaction Economy.

2. It does not pay to engage in ‘pissing contests’ on business review sites or in forums.

3. When used properly, a small video camera like a Flip and a standard digital camera (or just an iPhone), can be like having your own marketing department.

4. Instead of trying to be everywhere in the social media space, determine what online activities work best for your business and focus your attention there.

5. Search Engine Optimization(SEO) is important but it needs to be combined with a well distributed plan for Search Engine Visibility (SEV).

6. Conceptualizing and then defining your social media goals can help to keep you on track.

7. Social networking sites can be a tremendous time suck. Use a site like Egg Timer to help limit the time you spend interacting online.

8. Get to know the online influencers in your small business niche, as well as, the social media pros.

9. There is gold to be mined with Twitter Search if you are willing to use it to listen, engage, and provide value.

10. Uploading well titled and tagged videos to YouTube and photos to FLICKR can drastically improve your Search Engine Visibility.

11. Consistent small business blogging pays the greatest returns.

12. Technology changes daily. Read often.

13. You should not fear customer review social sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor. Rather, you should embrace them.

14. Helping people online when they least expect it can bring you great rewards.

15. Even on your worst day, you have to remember that every interaction counts.

16. Spamming and jamming your business down the throats of potential customers only drives business away.

17. Not everyone is going to like you, so be prepared to get flamed and read negative reviews.

18. Turn negative reviews into a positive by using them to help better define who your ideal customer is.

19. Your backstory matters and weaving it into your online business persona is important.

20. Social media is a lot like exercise. Doing a little bit consistently everyday will produce better results than one eight hour marathon session per month.

21. The people who criticize you the most for using social media to promote your small business are the one’s who are most afraid of embracing change.

22. One of the easiest ways for small business owners to measure social media ROI is to ask every customer how they heard about your business.

23. When starting your social media marketing efforts for your small business you will get frustrated. Try to keep a long term outlook like six months to a year.

24. Don’t discount the power of niche forums that are related to your small business.

25. Use Google Alerts to see who’s talking specifically about your business and anything related to your business.

26. If you are using social media as a customer service tool, when something goes wrong (and it always does!), being sincere, humble, and apologetic will be greatly appreciated by your future potential customers.

27. Utilizing free email lists like Help A Reporter Out (HARO) can help you find valuable public relations and news opportunities for your business.

28. Social media in the short term does not work. You must be in it for the long term and be persistent, consistent, and committed.

29. Anyone who owns a small business can ‘do’ social media, but NOT everyone ‘does’ it. (And that is your true competitive advantage.)

30. If you have a spare hour or two everyday to aimlessly surf the net, or sit and watch T.V., then you have more than enough time to commit to using social media for your small business.

How long have you been using social media for your small business? What have you found works best?

Mark Hayward hates the snow and cold! Luckily, he owns a small business in the Caribbean. Mark is passionate about helping other small business owners avoid the online mistakes he has made. You can follow Mark on Twitter @mark_hayward and you can subscribe to his RSS Feed for weekly small business social media marketing tips.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

30 Valuable Lessons Learned Using Social Media for Small Business

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Over the last few days I’ve been in Austin Texas attending the South by South West Interactive (#SXSWi) conferences. Sometimes known as ‘Spring Break for Geeks’ I try to get out to this gathering each years because there are so many of my colleagues in attendance and it is an opportunity to meet up with old friends, network, do a little business and a meet a few readers at the same time.

Today is the last day of SXSW (I return home tomorrow) and despite some late nights I woke up this morning with a start on the dot of 5am (jet lag sucks). As I lay in bed reflecting upon the days I’ve just had I just started to feel very very grateful for this opportunity and especially the chance I’ve had this week to interact with some very special people.

A few highlights come to mind:

People Practicing the Art of Saying Hi

Lets start with what has happened constantly, day and night, since arriving. The people who come up and introduce themselves are amazing. Whether they be past or present readers of ProBlogger (or one of my other blogs), members at Third Tribe, previous bloggers from b5media….. the amount of people who have come up to say hi has been amazing.
I think what I enjoy so much about these real time and face to face interactions is that it makes me realize in a more tangible way that what I do as a blogger impacts ‘real people’. I find it very inspiring and a great reminder to keep building a blog here that helps such people to take their blogs to the next level. If you are one of the people who stepped up (sometimes a little out of your comfort zone) to say hi – thank you.

Salaam Garage

One project I came across on day 1 was Salaam Garage – founded by Amanda Koster (a photographer, author, speaker… and great person) – Salaam Garage brings together a variety of things I am interested in and passionate about – storytelling (with writing, video and image), humanitarianism (partnering with international NGOs) and traveling in teams. You can read more here.

Book Reading

On Friday at 5pm (day 1) I had the opportunity to do a book reading to promote the upcoming 2nd edition of ProBlogger the book (I’ll talk more about this in coming weeks as its launching late April). In the 20 minute session I planned to share what was new in the 2nd edition and run through a case study on my photography site (which is a new chapter in the book).

The session was 20 minutes but 10 minutes in a siren began to sound and an announcement came over the speaker system saying that an emergency had just taken place in the building and that everyone should evacuate. Wow – talk about a mood killer Everyone calmly filed out (literally thousands of people in the building at all of the different sessions taking place at that time).

My stomach sunk a little as I realized how far I’d travelled for this 20 minute session that was now potentially just 10 minutes but even as I traveled down the escalators people were very kind and I met some amazing people. Luckily we were let back in the room 10 minutes later and I was given 10 minutes to finish my presentation.

About half those who had been there returned which was great. The other half of those who were there for the 2nd half were there for a completely different book which was strange but it seemed to go ok!

I’ll turn the presentation into a video in the coming weeks but in the mean time if you’d like to see what the reading was like you can read the notes of one person in attendance here and here and see some visual notes on it here.

Photo Shoot – Meeting Jasmine

As I was leaving the book reading (the first time…. during the ‘emergency’) a number of people said hi – one of whom was an amazing photographer by the name of Jasmine Star. I’ve long admired Jasmine’s photography and have particularly enjoyed watching her blog develop over the years (she is someone who uses her blog VERY well to build her business – a great case study). Jasmine is a photographer who many of my dPS readers LOVE too.

We only met fleetingly on the elevator but later that evening Jasmine emailed me to ask if she could photograph me. I’d only been telling someone earlier that day that I needed to get some new headshots taken and so when the opportunity came to have someone of Jasmine’s calliber take them I leapt at the opportunity.

The shoot was fun and it was interesting to watch how Jasmine approached it – but even better as the opportunity to hang and connect with someone like Jasmine who is a very genuine person. You can see some of the results of the shoot at her blog (tell me which shots you like best as I’ve got to choose some).

Other Stuff

There are numerous other great things that have happened at SXSW this year. We had a great meetup for Third Tribe (at a pretty wacky bar), I spent a great relaxing afternoon with a smaller group of bloggers at a house party, there have been some fun larger parties in the evenings, I’ve done a number of fun interviews with both bloggers, media and for the promotion of the book and have had opportunity to catch up with some good friends who I’ve not seen for a while.

All in all I’m feeling very very grateful and lucky to be in the position I’m in. I’m also feeling pretty inspired to keep at what I do and to be as useful as possible.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Updates from SXSW

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