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Archives for November 2008

Networking With Some Big Names Through Twitter

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After the news was published that I had secured an interview with Darren Rowse for Perfcast, a number of you asked me how I did it. I responded with, “How did I do what?”. I don’t want to burst anyones bubble but how I secured the interview was by no means complex.

As it turns out, all I had to do was ask. It was that simple. However, I need to tell you at least some of the events that took place prior to the interview taking place.

While many still believe Twitter is a waste of time, I find plenty of value in the service along with the people I interact with on a daily basis. Darren who happens to love using Twitter has an account named problogger. I, like many of the other 16,121 people follow his account. Before the entire event took place, I never interacted with Darren because I thought it would be a waste of time, being a problogger and all. Much to my surprise, after I replied to Darren through Twitter via a post he published, he responded right back. This led to a few more exchanges of information and by this time, I realized that Darren pays attention and that interacting with him was worth while.

Then one night, I noticed he published a link through Twitter to the Aussie Bloggers forum chat. This chat is filled with members from the AussieBlogger.com forum community and is usually active on Sundays at 7:30 P.M. Australian time. After participating in a chat or two, I actually signed up to the forum as the community surrounding the site is awesome. Blog.net.au is also small but growing Australian blog site.

To bring things around, I had a chat with Darren in the chat room by way of public and private messages. No need to go into detail with what the discussion was about, but those chat sessions led to a conversation held over Skype. During this conversation, I conveniently asked Darren if he would be interested in being interviewed on Perfcast. He said sure, all we had to do was figure out the day and time. So thats what we did and it resulted in a great episode of Perfcast.

Conclusion:

While I didn’t provide every gory detail of our exchanges of information, I did provide you with the starting point and the associated chain of links where I began networking with Darren. All it took was that initial spark to get things going. I find it ironic that the spark occurred through Twitter, the service that many people believe is a waste of their time. As it turns out, thanks to Twitter, I now have strengthened my relations with an influential, high profiled person.

One point I want you to take away from my experience is that, sometimes all you have to do is ask.

nextMEDIA: How to Make Money and Do It Right

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If you want to read more on the sessions that happened at nextMEDIA, check out BrandingDavid.com, where there is a full index of the posts surrounding the event.

Marina Mann is an independent digital Marketing consultant specializing in e-Commerce and building online businesses. Marina has 11 years experience producing and monetizing interactive, high-tech customer experiences for entertainment, retail and telco brands. In 2007, Marina led Virgin Mobile Canada’s Web marketing, strategy & operations and launched Virgin’s content (VAS) portal.

The Internet is the world’s largest marketplace, and a growing part of that is e-commerce. Affiliate marketing is a part of the e-commerce ecosystem.

The word of mouth economy is strong, and can push affiliate products quite easily. You can now reach thousands of people using Facebook, Twitter, e-mail and more.

Display advertising by itself is bad for conversion but good for branding while proper affiliate marketing integrations are stronger for conversions and result in a money making type of traffic.

“Affiliate marketing is like buying a T.V. ad, and only paying for it if it works” – Marina Mann

The presentation of course focused in on one affiliate model, and made it seem like publishers don’t really get a good deal as they work hard to drive traffic for next to no money compared to the products that they are working to make sure are sold.

Publishers should focus on finding networks that can monetize their traffic sources. eBay can monetize any traffic from around the world, which is one advantage over companies that can only monetize any one countries traffic.

WestJet grew to 850 affiliates in their first year, and generated over $20 million in sales and used Commission Junction for their programs. But they almost closed the program because they didn’t understand affiliate marketing, “if they aren’t travel agents, what are they?”

Only the top twenty percent make substantial income as an affiliate sales expert, but in an economic downturn, as we are experiencing today, Affiliate Marketing will thrive as it will offer a lower-cost way of finding customers.

30 Things I Learned From Blogging Heroes Part 2

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This is part two in the series of tips and tricks I have learned by reading the book, Blogging Heroes. After reading the things I learned, stick around for my take aways I’ve garnered through completeing the book.

Brian Lam
16. High-quality writing and editing will attract and keep readers, as will surprising them.

Kristin Darguzas
17. Working at home can be difficult because you are always “at work.”

Chris Grant
18. Being able to rapidly educate yourself on a subject is an asset for a blogger, as is a memory that allows you to retain even the most trivial of details.

Scott McNulty
19. Cross-linking and reciprocal promotion with competing blogs can be positive.

Philipp Lenssen
20. Rather than focusing on increasing traffic, let content guide your blog. Think about what’s interesting to you and others, what topics deserve coverage, and areas you want to see progress.

Brad Hill
21. It is still possible for a dedicated individual to take an idea from concept through implementation.

Steve Rubel
22. Sometimes it’s easier to go where people are than to get them to come to you.

Rebecca Lieb
23. You should note write just to fill space or meet a deadline. Readers expect you to post something on a regular basis, but they will not accept fabricated or meaningless material.

Deidre Woollard
24. New bloggers should be prepared to take criticism, and understand that it can make them better bloggers.

Gary Lee
25. The system can be gained on some levels, but gaming the system successfully doesn’t necessarily mean making a lot of money.

Richard MacManus
26. Be prepared to commit a lot of time and energy to blogging.

Eric T.
27. The best way to learn about a subject is to share what you learn as you learn it.

Victor Agreda, Jr.
28. The major challenge for bloggers today is to find fresh, original material that is not simply an echo of what other blog are doing/saying.

Steve Garfield
29. Common, everyday moments in life are among the most fascinating video that vloggers share.

Grant Robertson
30. No matter how little (or how much) progress you are making, just keep working. Things will change.

Conclusion:

When I was finished reading the book, it was easy to see the similarities between all 30 bloggers. For starters, every one of them are hard workers. Some were and probably still are working 12-14 hours a day. Each blogger possessed a passion for what they did. While some were in the right place at the right time, many started from scratch. They propelled their careers one stepping stone at a time until they reached the top. While all of the people featured within this book make it look easy, I have a newfound respect for them. They have worked and in some cases, continue to work extremely hard to maintain their position.

If you’re looking for inspiration or want to know what it’s really like to be in the shoes of any one the bloggers featured in the book, this is a great way to go about it. Definitely a recommended book by yours truly.

Perfcast Episode 13 – Interview With Darren Rowse

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Tonights episode featured a very special guest, Darren Rowse of Problogger.net fame. Within this episode, we discussed with Darren about his book, his new project called Twitip.com, the realities of blogging, monetization, the lessons learned so far in his career, community building and much, much more. This has become a classic show and I encourage everyone to listen as there is plenty of information presented within the episode that is sure to enlighten you.

LENGTH OF EPISODE – 1 Hour 20 Minutes

NEXT EPISODE – November 27th, 2008 at 7 P.M. EST

ITUNES – Click here to subscribe to the show via iTunes

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW: PerfcastEpisode13.mp3

LISTEN TO EPISODE 13 OF PERFCAST:

30 Things I Learned From Blogging Heroes Part 1

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I’ve finally managed to finished a book I’ve been spending the last few months reading called “Blogging Heroes” which was authored by Michael A. Banks. The book contains interviews with (at the time of writing) 30 of the world’s top bloggers. People such as Joel Comm, Gina Trapani, Frank Warren, Peter Rojas, Robert Scoble, etc. offer their stories on how they have become successful through blogging.

This post is the first in a two part series which will highlight 30 things I have learned by reading this book.

Dave Taylor
1. Write only when you’re inspired and write more than you have to. Anything extra you have left over should be set to publish on a future date. Consider this the rainy day method.

Chris Anderson
2. There is no one “blogosphere.” There is an infinite number of blogospheres, each shaped by the tastes and experiences of individuals.

Gina Trapania
3. Reader feedback does matter.

Ina Steiner
4. A specific focus or mission is necessary to sustain a blog.

Mary Jo Foley
5. It is important to take time away from blogging; otherwise, you’ll limit your perspective.

David Rothman
6. An important role of bloggers is to raise questons and encourage others to provide answers in a group setting.

Frank Warren
7. Treat comments from others with respect, and they will reciprocate in future comments.

Mike Masnick
8. Avoid begging for links – it’s counterproductive

Mark Frauenfelder
9. Don’t worry about being the first to report something new. It is unlikely you’ll be able to do that. Instead, focus on expressing your ideas clearly and with enthusiasm.

Robert Scoble
10. In the long term, most blog readers are referred by Google or other search engines.

Peter Rojas
11. Don’t try to jump to number one in your field immediately. A slow start allows you to make the inevitable mistakes when few people are looking.

John Neff
12. The editorial and business aspects of blogging must be separated as much as possible.

Ken Fisher
13. Content producers should not be involved with advertising, to avoid even the appearance of advertiser-influenced content.

Deborah Peterson
14. Blog from your heart

Joel Comm
15. Blogging’s effects are not limited to the web or technology-it can alos affect local or regional events

These 15 tips are just a sampling of what is presented within the book. Tomorrow, I’ll publish the second half of this series along with the take aways I have obtained by reading Blogging Heroes.

Without Good Content – You Have Nothing

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There is a great thread in the Performancing Hive Forums which is asking members to write 2-3 paragraphs, sharing one professional tip they have learned over the last 6 months. I participated in the thread which is ongoing and filled with a bunch of great tips but I thought I’d share my response with you through the blog.

I never concentrated on getting social traffic through the likes of SU, Digg etc. I simply hunkered down, wrote in depth reviews of sites and services and people took notice without me telling them. My biggest success on my personal blog was reviewing a site before it really launched and the guy who owned the service place a banner and a link to my review from the front page of the site. I can’t even begin to tell you how much traffic I received from that. As a bonus, I read a PC magazine and they took a screenshot of the front page of that website and because the site had an image of my site banner on the front page, in a weird kind of way, I made it into a print magazine

The bottom line is, I didn’t work on getting people to my site. I simply created content that was good enough to be shared whether it was by word of mouth or some other means. Back in the day, I considered a piece of content I wrote that was submitted to SU by a visitor to be an article that was apparently worthy of the submission. These days, I see people ask for others to stumble an article and I’ve realized its just that easy to get a good influx of traffic from the service.

Content is king, don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Without the good content, YOU HAVE NOTHING.

Who Needs Subscriber Counts Anyways

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Yuwanda Black over at BloggingTips.com published a great article about why you shouldn’t worry about your subscriber count, at least not in the first year. Her article hits a number of spots, especially regarding the first year of blogging and how your focus should be entirely centered around how many subscribers you have.

I remember when I started blogging seriously, I had no idea what a subscriber count was. I also remember browsing around to the various blogs and seeing that they all had this Feedburner chicklet which let the world know essentially how popular their blog was. When I really got into blogging, I ignored the subscriber count and I didn’t really care if people subscribed to my blog or not. The only thing that mattered to me was the fact that I had a blog to publish things that I thought were interesting.

Within Yuwandas article, she said something that really struck a chord with me.

If you’ve thoroughly researched your niche; put all of the behind-the-scenes elements in place for success; and work you tail off; subscribers are most likely going to come anyway.

How true that statement is. I’ll say that when I noticed that my subscriber count was increasing and the blog was starting to become a success, my focus of what I was trying to accomplish immediately dropped. My focused turned into “how do I increase my subscriber count”. This is the situation that Yuwanda explains how to avoid and it’s too bad I didn’t read a post like that back in my hay day of my own blog.

Do Social Networks Make Us Lazy Connectors and Shy Communicators?

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When I was a kid I made friends from school and around the neighborhood and this mostly entailed face-to-face encounters. Most of my classmates knew each other’s telephone numbers. And so did the neighborhood guys, but we rarely needed to phone each other because we just lived houses apart.

Those days, kids didn’t have mobile phones. You’d be lucky if you had your own telephone line in your room. Social networking meant spending Friday evenings with your pals playing Nintendo. That was just 15 to 20 years ago. Imagine how it was in the time before my childhood years.

These days playing Nintendo with friends means everyone stayed at their own place, playing multi-player games with each other over the Internet. Phone calls have given way to text messaging and instant messaging. Sure we have video conferencing, but does anyone bother?

In this age of social networking, many of us have become lazy connectors and shy communicators.

It used to be that when you try to reach out to friends or relatives around the world, you have long email exchanges or IM chats. With social networks, you just visit their profile, read up on what they’re currently doing, and then navigate away.

It used to be that when you needed a reference, you asked someone to introduce you. Nowadays, you just search social networking profiles for friends of friends, bypassing that all too important “connector.”

Building up a social network profile and a contact list can involve a lot of effort, sure. But once you have your profile up, getting connected with friends mostly involves reading each others’ profiles and posting a comment every once in a while. Connecting becomes passive. We no longer directly seek out people online (or offline), but rather we seek out their online identities.

And because we’re hidden behind our keyboards, many of us have lost interpersonal skills and have become shy when dealing with other people in person. Reaching out has never been more convenient, yet this has caused us to regress in terms of our ability to really communicate.

If you’ve watched the movie WALL-E (spoiler alert!), you’ll remember that people have spent too much time in space (seven centuries) in a comfortable, pampered existence that they’ve forgotten how to walk. Will social media cause us to lose the ability to talk, too?

I believe that technology is best used as a tool to make our lives easier, and not something that we allow to take over our lives. But for those of us whose work and business involve social media, is it easier to fall into this trap?

Just thinking aloud here. I do try to avoid the pitfalls of living an online life. Does anyone feel the same way? Or is resistance futile, and will we be assimilated one way or another?