7 Tips to Finding “Your” Writing Voice
http://ow.ly/kvr0K 
#writing #blogging #socialmedia

Have you ever stumbled upon a blog and thought…”Was this written by an android, a robot or was it a Martian?“
Maybe it was produced by someone that had a personality bypass.
Whatever it was, it didn’t seem human.
That, I think touches on what a “voice” is.
It is about being human, displaying a personality and willing to be vulnerable.
Then the real fun starts.
It is about writing and creating from the “real” you. That can be daunting and  exposing. Your internal conversations start the jabber….”What if I show a side of me that no one likes or thinks is stupid?”

Looking daft or dork is not cool.

In fact we were all raised on the human craft of hiding behind a facade when the school playground often rewarded the strong, the fake and the facile.
Many childhoods are lived in quiet desperation of hiding the real “you.”
Being grown up means accepting yourself for all its glorious imperfections.

A formula, an evolution or a revelation?
I don’t have a process or a magic potion to finding a writing voice or an expression formula but let’s have a look at what happens when you start to write and create in an online world.  What happens when you start to publish on social media networks or your blog.
The journey commences.
I am curious and wanting to express my insights. I write. I record and express myself. The publish button is struck! The blog post is live and the YouTube video is online!
No clapping or cheering can happen until you step onto the stage. 
There the music is revealed, the words are displayed and your design is exposed.
Whoa!…on the internet two billion web users can see your thoughts and concepts in black and white and high definition in all its wonderful glory and imperfection.
If you are honest the world will show up and say “fabulous” …work harder and maybe “well done”.
Your genius that is you is on display.
Don’t like what you hear? Then there is more work to do. The fun stuff is in growing….not shrinking!
That is sometimes a painful revelation but is part of your journey of personal evolution.

The unique you
There is only one “unique you”. Own it and embrace it with two arms and welcoming introspection.

It’s all you’ve got.

The strange thing is that creating a writing “voice” is more a journey of subtle growth that happens by stealth and mundane action.
Sitting down to write in the small hours. Staying up so late that the next morning you ask yourself…”Was that necessary?”
It is turning up and “doing the work”.

Influencers and stealing ideas and inspiration
I have had some strange influencers on my writing and expression including Jeremy Clarkson of “Top Gear” fame.
An introduction to a car review that is is 900 words of fun, humour and stories and 100 words of features and functions about a Porsche, Ferrari or Skoda with maybe a telling pithy insight.
That is it.
Who would have thought that. Inspiration from a car magazine writer.
Inspiration comes from content and creators who can be geeks, intellectuals or artists.  These can be taken from any walk of life and whose ideas are so good that you want to steal them.
Just ask David Bowie.
“The only art I’ll ever study is stuff I can steal from”

What is your voice?
So what is you?
Your persona and humanity is multi-dimensional and many faceted. It is a jumble of experience, thoughts, expression and passions.
Here are some tips to find your voice.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/04/29/7-tips-to-finding-your-writing-voice/#BRSLzwGzeeXdsaeu.99 

*

3 Google+ Power Users Reveal their Secrets

I recently wrote an article about Google+ vs Facebook and a tribe turned up from Google+ and became rather engaged!
The question that  had been posed was whether Google+ was a ghost town.
I received an answer.
What was revealed was a vibrant city bustling with passion and people that were happy to point out the real value of Google+
The post to date has received 440 comments with some in depth contributions on how Google+ should be used. You just have to love the leverage that social networks provide to create stories.
Here are just three people among the hundreds who spent the time to make a positive contribution to the conversation, left lengthy comments and have provided real insights as to the power of Google+.
There are many more that provided real valuable comments and feel free to read them at the post “Google+ vs Facebook”
Here are their stories unedited.

#1. That Dutch Guy 
From my experience, G+ gives back what you put into it. When I ditched facebook, and instead signed up for G+, I was afraid that it was going to be a marketing driven semi-interactive experience. As a result, my stream was mostly dead, and my circle of contacts hovered around 30 people, half of which it seems had the same experience.
It wasn’t until I started interacting with people, that my circles started growing rapidly… and at the same time I noticed I was being added to more people’s circles.
If I see someone who circles me, and there’s no original content or nothing but marketing speak, I ignore, and many of the people in my circles have the same attitude. We’re not interested in pure marketing, ads or PR. What we expect is engagement. Bring something interesting to the table. Start actual conversations. Respond to people’s questions and inquiries.
G+ is an active community – some of the people in my circles have, themselves, thousands of people in theirs, and vice versa.
The way I see it is pretty simple: if you have a product you want to sell, facebook lets you plaster people’s walls with ads (and many people block these very ads with a plethora of plug-ins and add-ons, because they’re jarring, in the way). On G+, you can’t just toss an ad in, because it will ignored – you need some people to actually spend time and communicate to advertise your product. And I’m not talking about bots that circle people and puch ad-talk… they will be living in a ghost town, because nobody wants those in their circles. I’m talking about a dedicated team that becomes part of the stream.
To throw in a phrase I’ve seen a lot: the paradigms are shifting. People are fleeing from TV, blocking old-fashioned advertisements. If you’re in it for the money, you’ll need to adjust to the increasing demand for interaction and acknowledgement of your customers.
Simply sitting there, tossing out a block of text and waiting for no reaction to come, and then stating there is no active community worth targeting is a thing of the past, and it shows you’re missing the point of what communities are about.
facebook isn’t a community: it’s a loose sampling of people who keep in touch with their rfamily and friends, that play games all day. G+ is a community of people—strangers to each other—who like to talk about all kinds of subjects, have civil discussions and share experiences

#2. Kathy Mortlock
Hi, Jeff,
I’ve been on Google+ for about a year now.  I have over 25,000 people who have circled me.  I use Google+ for engagement and information.  I post mainly public.  I spend about 9 active hours a day on the site.  Many people don’t post public, you won’t see that, it’s not information that you have access to.  Today the stream was so busy, even on my large monitor the info was moving at a very fast pace.     I make sure I vary my hours, because I have so many people all over the world, that I make contact with and I don’t want to miss interacting with them.  The United States, Russia, India, Thailand, Pakistan, South Africa, Germany, Australia, Belgium all over South America and Canada to name a few. I have been voted an expert on Google+ for interaction and social media, as well as coaching new members.  You may hear from some people it’s a ghost town.  Well of course it looks like a ghost town if you come in, make an account, sit there and look at the screen and say where are all the people?  It is all about interaction. Please stop comparing Google+ with Facebook.  We are a lot of people with a wealth of  different viewpoints, from all over the world interacting together; online, in hangouts, and sometimes in real life.    Google+ is full of information, news, science, politics, tech, parenting, music, photography, friendship and lots of love.  Hanging in Real Life (HIRL) with people you met on Google+, photo walks, concerts, artists and so much more.  We raise money for charities and we try to help people in need.   We have Book Clubs, Poetry Circles, Food & Cooking Circles and all kinds of different themed hangouts for business and for learning and/or pleasure.  Click the mouse a few times and you can make your own page, mine is a reading page, where I post book reviews, so people have a place to browse and see what other Google+ members are reading.  It’s an interactive page, where anyone can share and write reviews.  These are just the personal pages.  Click the mouse a couple more times and you are blogging.  The business pages on our site our amazing, they are varied and there is an enormous amount of them.
I look at the stats posted above and laugh.  The minute you walk through that virtual Google+ door everything is there just waiting for you, the possibilities are really endless, but it’s all what you make of it.  Isn’t that the way life is?
When you walk through that door someone is there waiting to help you and guide you, all you have to do is wave and let them know you are there.
Come on over and make an account, sign in and I’ll show you around. You will find a thriving, integrated community.  You won’t find a ghost town.
To date, I’ve not yet, seen one single ghost.

#3. J.C. Kendall
Not only is Google + a source for bloggers and brands, I believe it is by far the best source. The critical factor is Engagement. You cannot sit on the sidelines and expect Google + to start throwing customers in your direction. I have been using Google + since Day 1 of the closed beta, and I must tell you, that for those of us who have been actively engaging with others, using important tools like the +1 button, and Rel=Author in our content, we have built great awareness for what we do. I have the honor of hosting Canadian politicians in virtual town-hall meetings from Councillors to Mayors to members of the Canadian Parliament in Google + Hangouts, including one just last evening discussing the Montreal Protests. Tomorrow at 10am, my company is hosting the first in a Seminar Series on using Hangouts in your business. Since Nov of last year, 95% of my clients have come from the Google + streams, both public and private. It is critical to be active, and develop a following which serves to enhance both your corporate and personal brand. Bloggers who are not using Rel=Author in their writings run the risk of someone else showing up with a re-share of someone else’s work on Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) Because of the visibility of Google + used properly, my hangouts have been the subject of newspaper articles:
http://www.princegeorgecitizen… stemming from articles of my own about the subject:
http://socialmediatoday.com/jc…
The important thing, is to not look at Google + as a competitor to Facebook. Google + is an “Identity Engine” for Google search. What it does, is tie Identity to Activity, resulting in a more relevant return of search results, including local optimization and actual sales conversion. Facebook has no mechanisms in place (though Facebook Exchange is coming) to provide highly relevant real time ads to its users, which is why they are challenged in coming up with a credible long-term revenue model.
I would encourage you to look at Mashable, Forbes and others through a critical lens, because none of their authors has engaged on Google+ to the point of knowledge or understanding of the forum. They usually join up, and base their output on their 20-50 circles, and conclude the forum is dead. I have well over 20,000, and was voted by peers one of the top Google + users for 2011. My stream rocks night and day, and I invite you to take an in depth look at what Google + offers for yourself, and pay no attention to a bunch of clowns in the media crying over Facebook’s stock price.
We’ve done business off LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter as well, but our engagement off those forums come from our Google + postings, fed to those forums via extensions and RSS feeds. It works, dude. Check it out.
 What About You
How are you finding Google+?
Do you have time and resources to spend on Google+ and Facebook or do you need  to focus on just one?
Which one will you be choosing?
Look forward to your comments.

64 Google+ Marketing and Branding Tips – Infographic

Google+ is a social media network that most people don’t seem to understand.
It has now been with us in the social web ecosystem for over 12 months and has now reached over 400 million users. Despite this, it is underestimated as a tool for marketing your business and brand.
Maria Peagler calls it “The Rodney Dangerfield of social networks, because it gets no respect! It has tremendous SEO and branding potential, but few people realize the power it has“.
Just like Facebook it has personal and brand pages that allow you to post text, images and video. It has been designed from day one to be multi-media rich and optimized for mobile. It has forced Facebook to evolve more rapidly and enhance its features such as live video, larger and higher definition images and an improved user interface. What is often forgotten is that Facebook has been with us for over 8 years old and Google+ by providing a more modern look and feel has added vital competitive pressure to the social media landscape.

3 Key Features of Google+
Google+ offeres capabilities that make connecting and engaging online globally, richer and easier than in the past.
The following three features are valued by many users on Google+.

Hangouts
Hangouts allow you to have a live video chat with up to 10 people and many tools and and extensions have been created to make this a richer experience. Google+ hangouts have been embraced by communities globally, both personally and for business that allow real time face to face engagement. This builds sronger ties and relationships that just textual communication cannot.

No Limits to the Size of Articles
Despite Google+ having strong multi-media features, one of the Google+ features that is highly valued and widely embedded in its culture is the ability to add long articles. Long form content in text format is valued by  many of the Google+ community as it displays thought leadership and expertise.

Circles
This feature allows you to easily drag and drop users into custom created circles that can be private or public. Much of the discussions and engagement on Google+ is private which has led to the misnomer that it is a Ghost Town. It is used by many businesses to have private discussions with industry groups and communities.

What About You?
Are you on Google+? How are you finding its features and functions? Are your friends on Google+ or are they mainly on Facebook?
How are you finding it as a business marketing and branding platform?
If you are a blogger, is it working for you to increase engagement and traffic to your blog?
Look forward to reading your stories in the comments below.
 
Want to Learn How to Market Your Business and Brand on Social Networks?
My book – Blogging the Smart Way “How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.
It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.
I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 110,000.
You can read it now.
http://www.amazon.com/Blogging-Smart-Way-Create-ebook/dp/B008UGCTMS

21 Awesome Social Media Facts, Figures and Statistics for 2013
http://ow.ly/kJea1 
Social media networks were a novelty 5 years ago and today they are no longer debated around the dinner party table.

The conversation has moved on.

Facebook is now part of most people’s web lives, Twitter is where a lot of people are reading the breaking news and if you want to be entertained then just dial into YouTube.
Despite it’s minimal mindshare, media profile and awareness Google+ has woven its way into our consciousness and is now the second largest social network.
As if these social networks aren’t enough to distract us then we also have Pinterest and Instagram to add to the online temptations.
The social web is the modern version of Alice in Wonderland, where we are following not one but many rabbits down innumerable rabbit holes.

What are two key factors driving the social web in 2013?
According to a Global Web Index study it is:
Mobile – with the number of people accessing the internet via a mobile phone increasing by 60.3% to 818.4 million in the last 2 years.
Older users adoption – On Twitter the 55-64 year age bracket is the fastest growing demographic at 79% since 2012. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook’s and Google+’s networks are the 45 to 54 year age bracket at 46% and 56% respectively.
These 2 key factors are keeping the social web bubbling along. So maybe the reason your grandparents aren’t turning up to that dinner party is that they have now discovered Facebook and Twitter!
So let’s look at some of the fact, figures and statistics for the major social networks

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/05/06/21-awesome-social-media-facts-figures-and-statistics-for-2013/#ce3qmfdv8sJrlyDP.99 

The Evolution of Communication
Do you like this cartoon by the political artist Mike Keefe?
I think it shows the development of communication rather poignantly.
http://ow.ly/kFbsD 
#socialmedia   #communication   #awesomeness  

3 Common Mistakes to Avoid with Your Social Media Marketing
http://ow.ly/k841Z 
#socialmedia  
#socialmediamarketing  
#marketing  

10 Commandments of Twitter
http://ow.ly/kO95J 
#socialmedia   #marketing   #twittertips  
When I stumbled upon Twitter 54 months ago I was bemused, flummoxed and even curious. What is this social network that keeps me to 140 characters, sounds like a bird and seemed…well…. pointless?

I tweeted here and there and collected 31 followers in 90 days of meandering. Even followed people with large Twitter tribes on topics as diverse as food, photography and politics. Malcolm Turnbull, the local senator must have thought I was a Twitter groupie.

Luckily he didn’t report me for stalking.

My progress on Twitter was slow, confused but persistent. Despite this I continued to tweet, retweet and play. My curiosity was undiminished.
Some people such as Jennifer Aniston’s boyfriend at the time tweeted so much that she decided that he loved Twitter more than her.
She moved onto boyfriend number twenty seven.

Twitter is more powerful than you think
Twitter’s sometimes chaotic nature does make management of the torrent of tweets seem like herding cats. It is essential that you plug your Twitter account into a management tools such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. This will help you manage your stream with lists of people and hashtags that categorise on topics.
The real power of Twitter is that you can build a follower base that allows you to share a focused stream of content that adds value to your followers daily lives.
There are no fancy Facebook “Edgerank” algorithms to throttle your tweets and choke your content distribution.
Its pure and wild. I like that.
So what are some fundamental principles that you should embrace if you want Twitter to work for you?

The 10 Commandments of Twitter
Here are 10 commandments that may guide you to the Twitter promised land of a large and loyal following.  That engages with you and shares your content with speed and velocity.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/05/08/the-10-commandments-of-twitter/#87cqeg44ExVl9YIp.99 

How to Unleash the Power of Content - Ideas and Inspiration for Content that People Love to share on Social Media 
http://ow.ly/k3kB9 
#contentmarketing #socialmedia #slideshare

Honoured to be Listed in Huffington Post's "The Top 100 Business,Leadership and Technology Twitter Accounts You Must Follow"

How to Supercharge your Social Media Marketing Strategy with Employee Sharing 
http://ow.ly/kxEtw
#socialmedia   #socialmediamarketing   #marketing  
Employers have always known that employees are their best assets. If they aren’t engaged and passionate about the products or services they represent, then how can their customers feel the same?

It’s every employer’s dream to have fully engaged staff talking about the amazing benefits of the products or services the company offers, and positioning the company the way the founders intended. Social media has made this a lot easier, but ironically social media has also made the relationship between employees and employers somewhat awkward.

Employees are rarely provided with clear policies or strategies on social media outreach or engagement on behalf of the company. Occasionally this laissez-faire attitude can put employees and companies at risk.

Read more at:
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/04/30/how-to-supercharge-your-social-media-marketing-strategy-with-employee-sharing/#ogYM6bYB63kFzACP.99 

7 Ways To Get More Engagement Out of Your Photos on Facebook
http://ow.ly/katBH
#socialmedia  
#socialmediamarketing  
#smm  

5 Great Examples of Calls to Action for Your Facebook Cover Photo
http://ow.ly/l7cTG 
#socialmedia   #socialmediamarketing   #marketing   #marketingtips  

How to Get More Likes on Your Facebook Page – Infographic
http://ow.ly/kQveF 
#socialmedia   #marketing  
Everyone wants to be liked.
This was first felt in the schoolyard. It meant being invited to hang out with the popular gang. It was noticed when you were offered to attend “that” all important birthday party.
When college came around it was being selected to be on the football team, chosen for that all important committee or be part of a fraternity.
It doesn't change when you start your career. You need to be “liked” to get past first base at that job interview.
Being left off the list is a lonely place.
On the social web that has been transformed into every “brand” wanting to be liked. It does have some benefits.

What are the benefits of Facebook likes?
So you are chasing the blue upturned thumb. Why should you?
These are some of the benefits:
Creates social proof that your brand is popular which says “everyone likes us so you should check us out and find out why”. Empty restaurants may have great food but those empty tables scream a different message.
Those social signals can improve your search engine optimisation
It helps move your content
Creates brand awareness
Find out what your fans like and so create products and services that they want through free crowd sourced research
Sell more products and services
All of these are important as marketing moves offline to online.

So how do get more Facebook likes?
Dan Zarella likes doing research and loves numbers. Often he lurks around calculators, spreadsheets and data crunching computers. So he has summoned the lists of figures and made the database sing and dance.
This meant he collected 1.3 million posts on 10,000 most liked Facebook pages and did some correlation and calculation.
Then he made simple sense of the complex.
Here are some of his results that turned up a revelation or two. Well …it did for me.

You may be surprised
The data showed some results that many of you already know. Photos are helpful for garnering likes but there are some surprises.
Short posts “and” long posts get a higher “like” percentage. In fact an 800 character post can get as many likes as one with 90 on Facebook! The common knowledge is short always wins. The data says something different.
Share percentage on Facebook spikes at around 450 characters. So on the topic of Facebook sharing  the data analysis insights show that if you want your Facebook post to be shared rather than just liked, then make it 450 plus characters.
Self reference works well on Facebook. If you use “me” or “I” then you will gather more of those Facebook likes.
Want some more scientific data then check out the rest of Dan’s infographic.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/05/09/how-to-get-more-likes-on-your-facebook-page-infographic/#0bwsMMbtuWMiYteg.99 

6 Reasons Why You Will Fail at Blogging

Blogging is not a spectator sport. If it was, I think that most observers would rate it right up there with watching paint dry.
To the naked eye not much is happening. The keyboard is pecked and caressed accompanied by a furrowed brow with the occasional sigh and maybe a quick visit to the kitchen for that sustaining beverage. There are the occasional distractions of checking emails and Facebook updates and Oh.. yes, the Twitter stream!
If the ideas and words aren’t flowing and creative constipation has struck, then blogging timeouts can blowout and be lengthy and hard to recover from. The dedicated blogger though will always find a way to hit their publishing deadlines even if they move out a bit.

Blogging and Narcissism
The activity of a blogger is mainly of the mental kind but it also requires writing, marketing and a certain level of narcissism.
It involves putting your ego and credibility on the line every time you hit the “publish” button. This awareness can lead to a potential blogger writing 10 or 20 articles offline and they never see the light of online day.
Blogging when embraced and focused can be a synthesis of your life’s passions, innate abilities and undiscovered talents. It can be a facilitator of both personal change and self development. It can transform both your life and your readers lives but don’t let that awful responsibility stop you.
The thought of potentially 2 billion plus people reading your imperfect ideas can be the barrier to blogging your way to a brilliant career and maybe a more fulfilled life.
So what are the reasons you  are going to fail at blogging before you even cross the start line?

Reason #1. The Impossible Goal of Perfection
Unless you are Jesus then perfection is not going to happen. You are not in most cases going to create a blog post that is free of grammatical errors. In your mind the concepts will often seem flawed and your article structure clunky. Wrestle and wrangle your article into shape, check it, shut your eyes and then hit publish.
Your thoughtful nakedness is now visible and it is yours.
There is one distinct advantage of the digital world over the printed word. After it is placed and published before the world in all its glory, you can also go back and punch the edit button and update your masterpiece. I do.

Reason #2. My Ideas are Not Original
You are afraid that what you say and write will be seen as redundant, and superficial. I am sorry to say but there are not many original ideas under the sun. Many people’s work who we perceive are geniuses, such as writers, painters and musicians are in fact mashups and remixes with a twist. Even the genius of Bob Dylan wasn’t immune from this.
Henry Ford – “I invented nothing new, I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom there was centuries of work”
Be prepared to stand on the shoulders of giants and of ideas past and present. Put your creative spin and slant on them. The art of creativity starts with copying, then transforming and finally combining with your own remix.
Add your own snowflakes of creativity.
 
Reason #3. Passionate People are a Bit Weird
Succeeding at blogging does in most instances require a certain degree of passion to drive the activity and the dedication required.
You will be saying to yourself “I am not weird, I don’t want to let this passion thing turn me into a weirdo“….”My friends will disown me“. Don’t be afraid to wear that passion and purpose on your sleeve. Be prepared to be different and let that passion become an integral part of you.
Weird is good, in what can be a big bland sea of  homogenous humanity.
 
Reason #4. My Relationships are Too Important
Blogging does require time and commitment. Potential bloggers who never start sometimes can use the excuse of “it will take me away from my family and friends“. This is a cop out.
Make the time. Stop watching so much TV. Get up early or stay up late when the the house is quiet. You owe it to yourself and guess what?.. you may earn a lot of respect.

Reason #5. I am Not a Genius
I am sorry but the word genius is overrated. Many people who achieve a modicum of success are sometimes seen as gifted and lucky. Don’t let this urban myth stop you from achieving what may seem from afar as an impossible dream.
Dream away.
The US President, Calvin Coolidge had this to say about genius – “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent”
Couple up your passion with your innate abilities, add some determination and persistence and then magic can happen.

Reason #6. I am Not a Writer
This one gets rolled out time and time again. If you go and read my first posts on this blog (and I am not going to link to then as they are just too embarrassing) then you would break into laughter and state “what was he thinking”
Competent writing can be learned if you don’t believe me then go and buy Stephen King’s book on the basics of writing, titled  ”On Writing”. It has some great simple tips.
Still you might say “Nope.. this writing thing is not my gig“. Well, I am still not going to let you off the hook that lightly.
The web is a multimedia playground. There is nothing to stop you video blogging (Gary Vaynerchuk was a champion at that). The rise of  a visual web is also making “visual blogging” a reality. Many areas of interest such as travel, food and fashion are more about communicating with photos more than the text.

The Solution?
Just ship it!
Don’t wait for perfection to strike or genius to arrive. The time has come to buckle up, turn the key and hit the accelerator.
I look forward to hearing your stories of success and adventure.
 
My New Book - Blogging the Smart Way “How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media”
Is available on Amazon. Thanks to your support since launching, it appeared on the “Best Sellers List” in two categories. 

Here is the link to buy it
http://www.amazon.com/Blogging-Smart-Way-Create-ebook/dp/B008UGCTMS  
 
 

Honoured to be a winner "Top 10 Social Media Blogs - 2013" http://ow.ly/hbpSO

Honoured to be selected as a finalist for "Top 10 Social Media Blogs 2013" from 750 nominations

This infographic is rather fun!

Taken with my Canon EOS 60D on the Island of Burano, Venice in Italy

6 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Followers
http://ow.ly/l24ik 
#socialmedia   #socialmediamarketing   #marketingtips   #marketing  
Twitter has been my number one social media platform for quite a long time. That was actually the first social network I embraced after I started my blog.
Over the course of more than two years I dedicated a lot of my free time to not only expanding my Twitter network but to also to actually engage with  people who cared about what I shared and who enjoyed my content.
As much as you'd like to say that quantity doesn't matter, well, it does.
The more people I “persuade” to follow me, the more visitors my blog ends up receiving. The traffic Twitter brings me is now significant with 5,500 visitors a month coming from the 140 character social network.
If you'd like to increase your Twitter traffic the way I did, here are six of the most effective ways to get more quality Twitter followers that I have discovered.
Anyway, let’s get started:

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/05/15/6-tips-to-grow-your-twitter-followers/#58cEi6Z5roV3fox7.99 

12 Common Misconceptions about Content Marketing
http://ow.ly/kSHXB 
#contentmarketing   #marketing   #seo  
I don’t know everything about content marketing – no one does.
Sometimes we are tempted to think we do but when the truth comes home there is always a lot more to learn about content marketing’s role on the social web.
The concept is constantly evolving and we content marketers will strive to perfect it indefinitely. But currently, some are promoting false ideas about the concept of content marketing and these are sometimes preventing others from having success. 
Here is my list of misconceptions you should not fall for – I would be happy if you add yours to it… 

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/05/10/12-common-misconceptions-about-content-marketing/#Azzwv9J8pqJ349Zd.99 

Honoured to be on the Forbes Top 50 Social Power Influencers for 2013 http://ow.ly/kaeHS

New Book – Blogging the Smart Way - “How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media”

My new book is “now” published on Amazon. You can now purchase your copy from the ”virtual shelves” at Amazon.
In this book I outline all the tips and tactics I used to create and market my blog with social media. It reveals the different key elements and ways to apply social media marketing to be found on a crowded web.

So you Want to Make your Blog a Success?
So if you want to start a blog or already have a blog and you want  to grow your readers rapidly then this book will show you how.
I will show where to start, what to write about and how to attract readers to your posts alongside hundreds of other tips that I have learned from my own experiences.

*Writing is the Easy Part* 
Writing is sometimes the easy part. Marketing your blog so it goes from invisible to visible is the real challenge.
The challenge is, how do people discover your blog in a universe of over 550 million websites?

This book will show you how to create, build and market a blog that will take your online presence from ordinary to remarkable.

I will Reveal these Secrets
How to market your blog with social media and to rank high on Google and spread your business and personal brand globally.
How I grew my blog traffic from zero to over 300,000 hits per month
The tactics I applied to be ranked in the Top 50 Marketing Blogs in the world as listed by the prestigious AdAge Power 150
How I came to be listed on Forbes as one of the “Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers” globally – ranked #14
Winner of the “Top 10 Social Media Blogs” by Social Media Examiner 2012

Creating an influential online brand either personal or for a business is now becoming vital in an increasingly digital world, whether you’re starting a business, writing a book, designing a website, recording an album or taking on a variety of other endeavours. Once you start getting your “blog to rock”, you’ll see how these concepts can be applied to a wide range of activities and along the way you will find opportunities that will constantly surprise and delight you.

You’ll Learn
The importance of passion and purpose
How to find your audience
How your audience can find you
How to write and develop contaigous content your audience and readers will love and want to share
How to find and use appropriate technology to build a blog on a strong foundation
Learn different techniques to write captivating headlines
The secrets of how to use social media to spread your content
How to optimize your blog so you will be found on Google and other search engines
Why you need to grow a substantial Twitter follower base
Ways to use Facebook to market your blog and your business
The essential elements to create a personal brand that may dramatically increase your income and will change your life
How to become an expert and thought leader in your industry.

Is this Book for You?
You’re an entrepreneur, author, musician, business owner, corporate executive, designer, programmer or marketer working on a big idea.
You advertise in the yellow pages or trade magazines.
You’re not yet on board with the power of digital media platforms like blogging and social media, but you’re eager to learn more.
You have been told you need to use the digital and social web to build, launch and display your brand to the world.
You are starting to realize that the old rules of marketing don’t apply any more.
If any of these points apply to you or your business, then this book is for you.

Contents
The contents of this book are listed below to provide an overview of what you will find inside.

Introduction
Chapter 1. What is a Blog?
Chapter 2. My Story – How I grew my traffic to 300,000 page hits per month with social media
Chapter 3. The Secret to Every Successful Blog and How to Discover It
Chapter 4. 12 Blogging Essentials and Getting Started
Chapter 5. The Personal Blog
Chapter 6. The Business Blog
Chapter 7. How to Find Inspiration and Ideas for your Blog Content
Chapter 8. Why Headlines are Important
Chapter 9. Marketing your Blog: The 4 Key Essentials
Chapter 10. 10 Key Steps to a Successful Social Media Marketing Strategy
Chapter 11. Tips on Marketing on the Top Social Networks
Chapter 12. How to Market your Blog on Twitter
Chapter 13. How to Market your Blog on Facebook
Chpater 14. Optimizing your Blog for Social Media to Super Charge Sharing
Chapter 15. Monitoring and Measuring your Blog
Chapter 16. The Blogging Journey – Putting it all Together

To purchase your copy and be one of the first to receive it, you can now buy it from Amazon.
I look forward to your reviews and feedback.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/blogging-the-smart-way-how-to-create-and-market-a-killer-blog-with-social-media-book/#OmwsSXRcHkr6DXMK.99

The 10 Step Framework for Building a Blog with Big Foundations
http://ow.ly/lbykG 
#blogging   #bloggingtips   #socialmediamarketing  
Nineteen with little money. Need wheels? So you buy a car that promises much but breaks down when getting to that important meeting or date that matters.
It’s expediency driven by budget, necessity and inexperience.
You bought a lemon.
Blogging is not that different.
Sometimes we are so eager to get started that we cobble something together and launch. Later we have to pull it apart because it didn’t have the foundations to handle the traffic or the flexibility to do what was needed.
Sometimes we borrow when we should have bought.
The result is that it can be painful, time consuming and often expensive. It’s called impatience, it can masquerade as frugal and it may even be called shortsighted.
We have all been there.

A blog that means business

If you are serious about turning a blog into income and then your business, then laying the right foundations is important. It means sitting down and doing some planning.
It means asking some questions
What am I going to focus on? What should the branding and design be like? What should I develop it on?
The list goes on.
If you do mean business then you need to create the right framework and foundation for your blog.

A framework for the future

Sometimes a little thought, the right framework and resources can be time saving and stress relieving in the long run.  
Here are 10 key building blocks to get you started.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/05/20/the-10-step-framework-for-building-a-blog-with-big-foundations/#EmDECYqOWOMLwd2f.99 

Cool "Moody" Instagram photo of the day

The Latest 27 Social Media Facts, Figures and Statistics for 2012 – Infographic

Since I first joined Facebook over four years ago the social media landscape has continued to evolve at a rapid pace. It also has become more fun with the addition of Instagram and Pinterest.
What I like to see is that the big boys are not having it all their own way.
Google thought Facebook was just a fad that would go away.  For a while there Twitter looked like it would be a super nova that exploded with growth and then fade into oblivion. But neither of these events have occurred and social media has moved from fad to mainstream.
When I participate on Pinterest it seems as if I am male voyeur listening in on visual  conversations dominated by women. It is a bit like dropping into a women’s fashion store or lingerie shop. You know that it is OK to be there but it doesn’t feel quite right. This is validated when you look at the  Pinterest demographics and also notice that the top five pinners with millions of followers are female.

Two Significant Trends in Social Media
There are two trends that have emerged in the last two years that have changed the  social media landscape and fabric.
Visualisation of content: This is obvious when you see the rapid rise of Pinterest and Instagram and the evolution of larger images on Facebook and its user interface. Google+ had realised this when it launched last year with its feature and function sets applying a highly visual format.
Mobile use and sharing: Instagram is the leader of this trend and is one of the reasons that Facebook made a $1 billion purchase of a non profitable company (Instagram) with only 16 employees.
These trends have also impacted web design and online shopping with Amazon changing its design and layout to a Pinterest styled home page  ”feed” 

Social Media Statistics
There are some surprising statistics that indicate the growth and impact the social web has created in just a few short years.
1. 350 million plus users suffer from “Facebook addiction syndrome”
2. If Twitter was a country it would be the 12th largest in the world
3. LinkedIn signs up 2 new members every second
4. The average visitor spends 15 minutes a day on YouTube
5. Three million new blogs come online every month
97% of the fans on Pinterest’s Facebook page are women
5 million images are uploaded to Instagram every day
6. The Google +1 button is used 5 billion times every day
7. Want to find out more?, Check out this Infographic.

Check out the rest in the post below.

Want to Learn How to Create Contagious Content and Market it on Social Media?

My book – Blogging the Smart Way “How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.
It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.

I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 120,000.
You can downloadit from Amazon and read it now.

http://www.amazon.com/Blogging-Smart-Way-Create-ebook/dp/B008UGCTMS 

Instagram Photo of the Day

44 Reasons Why You Should Use Social Media for Your Personal and Business Brand

Why would you want to waste your time blogging and building a following on social media networks? Why would you bother? It all seems like a lot of hard work really.
For hundreds of years expressing yourself and displaying your passion and talents was confined to writing, drawing or painting on a piece of paper and then begging a publisher or someone of influence to tell the world or publish your work or display it.
It took time, money and often access to powerful social and business networks. Being rich or royal was often a prerequisite to being noticed. It also took a lot of time with death often happening before fame kicked in. Many musicians and artists didn’t achieve fame until centuries later.
Artists and creatives often needed access to kings and queens and their benevolent attention to break through the barrier of anonymity.

Gatekeepers to Fame and Influence

Television, radio and modern mass media made it easier to be discovered and break through the influence glass ceiling. In reality it still required money and other people’s networks and the new kings and queens were now the journalists, editors and media moguls. They were the new gatekeepers to fame and influence.
Blogs, social media and social networks have turned this traditional and glacial model of influence, attention and self expression on its head. It is mobile, multimedia rich and its free. The power is now in your hands.
The challenge now is not having access to the media because social media has provided the tools and means to take control. They are now Your” media and you have control. You just need the passion and the motivation to make it happen.
The “real” challenge now is breaking through the conversations and clutter of billions of personal publishers in an increasingly online world.

Why Use Social Media?

So why you should you blog, create valuable content and build networks on social media? Is social media just about being superficial or is it much deeper than that? Social media has touched something in human consciousness that goes beyond just online conversations. It has provided a global connectedness that is culture and nation changing. It has given us as individuals control over our lives and how we express ourselves.
That is what is exciting.
The power of media now resides in your hands and everyone can express themselves to the world and carve out and create their own corner of influence.
The democratization of media that is social media, allows everyone to express themselves globally in full color and rich multimedia. No longer do you need to beg a book publisher for access. You can now self-publish and place your book in the Amazon or Apple book store.
Here are a few reasons why you should tap into the power of social media that may resonate with you.  This may motivate you to take control of your life and business with the new world of online publishing and marketing via blogs and social media networks.

1. Turn your passion into a business
2. Take control of your life
3. Take control of your publishing
4. Take control of your marketing
5. Become a thought leader
6. Travel the world
7. Be paid to speak
8. Become influential
9. Make a difference
10. Leave a legacy
11. Build trust
12. Earn respect
13. Build an online asset that will show up in Google search results for years
14. Build a business online
15. Create independence
16. Meet cool and influential people both virtual and face to face
17. Grow your own network of influence
18. Open up business opportunities
19. Accelerate the rate of growth both personal and business
20. Become well known or even famous
21. Be wanted and even demanded
22. Be valued
23. Develop self respect
24. Turn your life form ordinary to extraordinary
25. Become an author
26. Change people’s lives
27. Change your own life
28. Grow
29. Be able to leap out out of bed instead of crawl
30. Learn more about passion instead of just showing up
31. Gain energy
32. Learn more about yourself through self expression
33. Leave your day job behind
34. Fire your boss
35. Make your mum proud
36. Make your friends jealous
37. Put a smile on your face
38. Put a spring in your step
39. Discover skills you didn’t know you had
40. Sing in the car or shower
41. Find purpose in your life
42. Overcome the fear of public speaking
43. No longer have to worry about the fear of rejection
44. Connect to global markets

What About You?
How has social media changed your life or business? Has it been transformational?
Do you think that the social web is the biggest change to self expression, influence and publishing since the printing press 500 years ago?
What have I left out?
Look forward to your feedback in the comments below.
 
 
Want to Learn How to Market Your Business and Personal Brand on Social Networks?

My book – Blogging the Smart Way “How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.
It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.
I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 120,000.
You can download and read it now.

http://www.amazon.com/Blogging-Smart-Way-Create-ebook/dp/B008UGCTMS
*

5 Ways to Turn Twitter into Your Most Powerful Social Media Tool

Honored to be in Forbes Magazines Top 20 Social Media Power Influencers :)

Instagram photo of the day - Check it out!

Vladimir Kush is an amazing artist. Check out this creation
"Departure of the winged ship" http://ow.ly/jXctP 

Cover for upcoming new book "Blogging the Smart way" How to create and Market your Blog with Social Media. 

How Search and Online Reputation Management Impacts your Brand

Appearing on the first page of a Google search can be the difference between the success or the failure of your business.
The smart business owners and the savvy operators of eCommerce stores know that the free traffic delivered by search engines is worth gold to a business.
Research shows that ranking first on Google produces over 40 percent of all clicks to websites. Listing on the first page of a search, results in over 90 percent of all clicks. Now that is important in a digital economy!
Also a Google search can produce a negative or positive impression about a brand depending on what content and links appear in the search results. So online reputation management is also an important activity.
For a long time, Search Engine Optimization and Online Reputation Management have been looked upon as two parallel services. Google recently has changed how it performs its search. These updates to the search engine algorithms were titled “Panda” and the most recent changes were called “Penguin“.
So with these changes where does the future of both these services lie?
Let’s breakdown each of the services.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
When SEO started, it was easy to do. There were guaranteed success methods and approaches such as the following produced great results.

Keyword density
Meta tags
Content

There were sites which went up overnight by acquiring links from questionable sources. Spamming an important keyword on the page was a very likely affair. People posted articles on blog networks, with each topic as unrelated as chalk and cheese!
The creation of low-quality, thin content was an easy option for a lot of people who were trying to gain success overnight! This list can go on and on!
Anything that is abused over time is likely to burn out. And so did these practices!

Google Wants Quality Content
Google’s Panda update was aimed at providing more relevant and quality content to users. This update was rolled out in the USA in February 2011, with various refreshes and updates over the course of the next 16 months. Panda 3.8 was released in the end of June 2012. While webmasters were still trying to come to terms with the Panda update (about 11.8% of all searches were affected with the first update.)
Google recently rolled out the Penguin update (about 3.1% of all search queries were affected). This update was aimed at keeping a check on

Link schemes
Exact anchor text linking
Blog networks
Duplicate content etc

In the rest of the article is an infographic comparing Google’s Panda and Penguin updates and how they affect your Brand’s visibility to the Google search engine.

"Surreal" Instagram photo of the day

How to Unleash the Power of Content - Ideas and inspiration for creating content that people love to share on social media http://ow.ly/k2n8P Slideshare presentation from my keynote at the Social Slam Conference in Knoxville Tennessee, USA 

The Top 10 Most Infuriating Things about WordPress and How to Fix Them
http://ow.ly/kCtcO 
#blogging #socialmedia

Using WordPress is an experience that is very much like using another CMS, but it is also an experience that is completely unlike using any other CMS.
Maybe it is the “duct tape,” DIY nature of PHP coding, maybe it is the first-to-market nature of any product that explodes into worldwide recognition, or maybe it is something entirely undefinable.  Whatever the reason(s), many web developers hold that teaching yourself WordPress it a rite of passage—some sort of a vision quest into the heart of the digital forest. Some are after their professional content creation spirit guide, whereas others are just looking for the most direct route to casual blogging. Regardless of what you ultimately intend using WordPress is a process will bring you to the edge of sanity and back with its maddening logistics and mind-bending reasoning for nearly every part of its design.
The whole ritual generally includes, but is not limited to the following ten things.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/05/02/the-top-10-most-infuriating-things-about-wordpress-and-how-to-fix-them/#CISVxHrXvtsL2yic.99 

6 Tips on Marketing Your Online Content

Content marketing is a simple phrase. It involves just two key elements.
“Content” which can be articles, videos and images in all their various multi-media formats.
“Marketing” which means taking that content and letting the online world knows it exists. In essence it is implementing strategies and tactics of making your ideas spread.
This is a challenge in a world where there are over 2 billion internet users who are bombarded with emails, streams of tweets and banner ads.
The process of content marketing involves the creation of material that is informative but is also written on a perspective which shows your business in a positive light. Good content marketing will create interest in your business, attracting traffic to your website and hopefully, sales or conversations as well.
Great content will position your business as a thought leader in its industry and it will also educate, inform, entertain and inspire.
There are many ways of doing content marketing but not all methods yield the positive results! Here are six tips to get you started on marketing your own content:

Tip 1: Drip feed your content
There is a tendency to create too much content, unleash it on the Internet and then expect it to carry traction throughout the year but this isn’t always a good idea. News and current events change all the time which means your target audience may not be searching for the same things as they were searching for two or three months ago. Publish content consistently and persistently making your sure the content you produce has some relevancy to current events and what your target audience may be interested in at the present time.

Tip 2: Monitor old content
Use Analytics and visitor level call tracking software to monitor your content. Once you find out what types of articles seem to be the most effect, you will have a better idea as to what types of content your target audience are interested in. The success of your content will be measured in many ways but broadly speaking, an article that produces a high level of the following would be considered good content:
High Traffic
Prompts interest and enquiries
Generates sales

Tip 3: Make use of social media
Once your content has been published, the main objective is to get as many people to see view it who may be interested in your business and leveraging social media is an excellent place to start in order to achieve this. Posting content on your social media accounts will bring your content to those following your social media accounts. If these people like your content, they may choose to share it with their followers and a snowball effect is created which may possibly result in your content going viral!
In addition to this, we already know that Google uses social media signals when deciding your positions in the search results so an article that gets a good number of ‘Likes’, shares, comments, tweets, +1s is likely to improve your search engine positions as well.

Tip 4: Aim for quality not quantity
Hundreds, if not thousands of pieces of content are created every day. A web surfer is spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing content to read. Creating an interesting title will definitely be effective in getting a user to click on your article rather than the next person’s article but a poorly written, uninteresting article will just get scanned and then discarded. This means no social love and definitely no enquiries or sales.
Find out what your target audience are interested in and create high quality, engaging, thought provoking content that they would be interested in. no doubt in the time needed to create one high quality article, you could’ve possibly created two, or maybe three low quality articles but that one high quality article will prove more beneficial than three lower quality ones.

Tip 5: Incorporate the right amount of SEO
Your article needs to be able to turn up in search engine results pages (the holy grail is to be on page one at the top of the page) and then by having the right headline and description attract the right people. To do this, you should include some relevant keywords into your article but don’t overdo it. Adding too many keywords may result in the article losing its readability factor. As a general rule you should always add keywords but the article should be written for a human, not a search engine.

Tip 6: Inform rather than sell
People receive sales pitches all the time, be it in the electrical store, through the post, a popup advert on the Internet or whilst passing a billboard. They’ve become very good at noticing a blatant attempt to make them purchase something which is why all marketing articles should aim to inform rather than sell a product. Provide genuinely useful information on a topic which would allow you to mention your product or service along with some of its merits. A well written article will make the reader come to a conclusion without sounding like a sales pitch.
At the centre of any content marketing strategy is the creation of high quality content. Once high quality content has been created, it needs to be promoted and monitored using web analytics and call tracking solutions. Do this and you will well on your way to having a successful content marketing strategy.

 
 
Want to Learn How to Create Contagious Content and Market it on Social Media?

My book – Blogging the Smart Way “How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.
It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.
I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 120,000.
You can download and read it now.

http://www.amazon.com/Blogging-Smart-Way-Create-ebook/dp/B008UGCTMS

6 Simple Tips to Rank High in Google’s Search Engine

Search engines such as Google are seen as black boxes that hand out page one search rankings for websites and blogs based upon secret and mysterious calculations. In essence that is true.
Hundreds of scientists and mathematicians are constantly working in quiet rooms to increase the artificial intelligence of its search engine.
Some search engine optimisation experts  have used devious means to try and trick Google into getting ranked high in search results. This has been done via tactics such as “Black Hat SEO” that are used to try and fool Google. Google doesn’t encourage these activities and is constantly fine tuning its search algorithms to eliminate these practices.
Google’s objectives is to ensure that it is always delivering search results that users find relevant, interesting and also  timely. If they don’t keep doing this then people will stop using Google and then its $30 billion of revenue it earns off search advertising is under threat. Also breathing down its neck are rapidly growing social sites such as Facebook that indirectly are providing alternatives to Google (rumours are constantly circulating that Facebook is building its own social search engine). If Google doesn’t continue to deliver then its whole existence is heading for a slippery downward slope of Web extinction.
In the last 2 years Google has increased the importance of usability such as measuring the speed of websites and sites that are producing unique content , hence the targeting of content farms and de-ranking them.

Google Loves Unique Content
What Google does like is great unique content. We have seen the rise in importance of content creation and curation as a marketing tool over the last few years. People use the web to find information, that is why Google is putting such a high value on unique content. Creating great contagious content that begs to be shared such as videos, blog posts and ebooks also has a big side benefit.  That benefit is that people will link to your website or blog and hence Google gives you big ticks in its search engine calculations the more often back-links are created to your blog and website from other websites.
This is is where the tactic of “offsite optimisation” starts to make its importance and presence felt and should be included in your SEO strategy. This the final stage of getting Google to like you.

Off-page Optimization
SEO experts generally agree that off-page link building techniques can contribute around 80% of the effectiveness in any SEO campaign. Off-page optimization or building links, is by far the most important activity for assisting us in getting our website well ranked in search engines. And the key driving force in this, is backlinks.

The Importance of Back Links
A link, or back-link, is the link that you use to be brought to another page. Backlinks are incredibly important because they are basically like “votes” for your page that tell search engines that other webpages like and utilise your page for information. The more websites that you have linked or “voting” for your webpage, the higher your ranking will be. Though, not all votes are weighted the same, as links from the homepage of major websites, like the Australian Government australia.gov.au, amazon.com or facebook.com, are going to be worth a lot more than a lesser known website.
So here are 6 tips for easy link building:

Tip 1:  Competitor analysis
Assuming you won’t be getting many links from those major sites, there still are easy link building tactics available to you. Begin your link building campaign with a competitor analysis. Basically, you want to repeat what your best competitors are doing, as one of the key link building principles is to match and exceed your competitors. Meaning, if you can go through and match all the links they have, or at least a majority of them, and find a couple of other ways to get additional links that they don’t have, you will be able to easily surpass them in searching ranking results.

Tip 2: Content, content and content
As always, the best way to encourage people to link to your website, is by consistently providing new, compelling and useful content. Content, content and content, to steal a well known phrase.
Creating compelling, relevant and useful content; such as writing about your products, industry, general current market information with keyword oriented useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factor discussed here. After the Google Penguin update, regularly posted quality content is the recommended method to getting more traffic to your website. Ideally you should post at least 2 new articles per week, more being better, as Google will favour websites with frequently updated material that contains unique and relevant content. And if your website offers good content, other websites will naturally want to link to you as well.
When you are posting articles, don’t forget to apply the same principles of Title tag and Meta Description to your articles, and don’t forget to include your desired keywords or phrases.


Tip 3: Guest blogging
Other ideas for a successful link building campaign include guest blogging. The general idea behind guest blogs is to get a link to your website posted on an already established website/blog. These links tend to carry more weight in Google because they are harder to acquire. Some sites will have very stringent requirements for the types of articles they will accept, so links from these sites have more value. Another popular and highly successful method is to contact bloggers or webmasters in your niche and simply ask them for a link. Or, ask to be a guest blogger for the sole purpose of getting the chance to link your guest blog posting back to your site. Establishing relationships with reviewers, authors, professors, enthusiasts, topic experts or anyone else who is operating a website in your niche area, whether it be through social networking or message boards, is a great way to build a network of people who might be willing to reference your website in their content.

Tip 4: Join web 2.0 site
Joining a web 2.0 site is an excellent method of developing search engine friendly links. If you are not familiar with the name, web 2.0 is the term used to describe websites that have a social networking component to them. Sites like Squidoo, StumbleUpon, and Delicious generate most of their content from the site users themselves. These types of pages facilitate interactive information sharing as well as collaboration, where you yourself can add articles that include up to 9 free backlinks per article to your website. Don’t duplicate any of your existing articles on your website and use them for either Squidoo or HubPages though, as search engines are filtering out content that way.
The best way to build links and create strong SEO benefits through Squidoo.com is by creating unique content that focuses on your keywords. Always try to incorporate multimedia, such as videos or images to gain more trust and authority quickly. It only takes a few articles until you’ll be able to add on a number of backlinks in your articles to your main site. I also really like Squidoo’s RSS feed widget, as this gives nice backlinks plus context to the links, which is great for search engines.

Tip 5: Vendors, Partner testimonials
Always give online testimonials to your suppliers, business partners or anyone else you can give a testimonial to, as it is a great way to get free backlinks from legitimate websites. Don’t forget to include your strategic keywords into your testimonials and hyperlink it back to the appropriate webpage from your website.

Tip 6: Link request to your connections
And finally, source your own networks for possible opportunities to build more links. Business contacts, suppliers, distributors, family members, friends, even your children’s school, all have the potential for providing you backlink opportunities. If you have been nice to them and they like you, ask for a free backlink on their website. Of course, the higher page rank or relevant websites you can link to, the better. If you can manage to obtain powerful and valuable links from websites like edu.com, that would be highly beneficial to you SEO efforts.
There are a lot more tactics involved in SEO to help you compete and surpass your competitors in search engine ranking results. The aforementioned tactics are basic initial strategies that help build a strong foundation and starting point for your SEO efforts, and will immediately help you move your website traffic and search engine ranking results to the next level.

What About You?
Are you creating content that is valuable enough to be linked to? Is your content entertaining, educational, informative or inspiring?
Are you using multi-media such as videos and images in content creation or is it mainly articles? What content marketing tcatics work for your website or blog?
Look forward to hearing your stories in the comments below.

Guest Author: Huyen is a digital marketing consultant with a passion to help small and medium-sized businesses get found online in digital world through search-engine friendly website design, organic search engine optimisation strategies and tactics. 

Want to Learn How to be Found and Discovered Online?
My book – Blogging the Smart Way “How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.
It is now available on Amazon. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.
I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 110,000.
You can download and read it now.
http://www.amazon.com/Blogging-Smart-Way-Create-ebook/dp/B008UGCTMS

Top 5 Mobile Apps for Online Marketers

Going mobile with your SEO can make your business sharper, quicker, and more responsive.
As more and more businesses realize the value of SEO, defending and improving client’s visibility increasingly demands constant vigilance.
With these smartphone apps, you can keep an eye on multiple variables at once, and get a better idea of what is working for your clients and what isn’t.
These apps will keep you on top of your game at all times, whether youíre on the subway or stuck in the waiting room at the dentist.

1. Raven Tools
Raven Tools mobile app is a must-have if youíre already a Raven user; it ís easily the most comprehensive toolkit on this list. While the app is free, the subscription cost makes this something of a luxury alternative to Google Analytics or other free tools. Raven covers many SEO indicators that others miss, like social mentions and a clearer connection between marketing expenses and their impact on revenue. If you’re willing to take the plunge and make a big investment, Raven Tools is the obvious choice, and this app is the only one you need.
Cost: Free
Operating System: Apple (iOS)

Instagram Photo of Camogli Italy in the Italian Riviera, after delivering the Keynote presentation at the BE-Wizard Web Marketing Conference in Rimini, Italy.

Why Do You Use Social Media?

There are many reasons we do things. Some of us exercise to keep fit, others do it because they just love the high of the endorphin rush as they get into the zone.
The why of starting a business for some is because of the challenge but for others its all about the money.
Some of us read because they are driven by the joy of  learning. Others pick up a book because they want to be entertained by the journey it takes you on. I still remember diving into books about pirates, tropical islands and sunken treasure and be lost for hours as my imagination took me to faraway lands.
If you ask a base jumper who leaps off  1,000 metre cliffs why they do it, despite the high risks involved and possible death. They will tell you it makes them feel so alive.
Sometimes we don’t even know why but we just do.

Successful companies start with a why
Companies with visionary CEO’s such as Apple with Steve Jobs understood that the why was important and Simon Sinek with his best selling book “Start With The Why” summed up Apple’s vision this way.

“In everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo and thinking differently. We do this by making our products beautifully designed and simple to use. We just happen to make great computers. Do you want to buy one?”

Other leaders such as Walmart’s Sam Walton said that he wanted to make quality goods affordable and available to rural USA. Herb Kellerman of SouthWest Airlines vison was to bring air travel to the common people. Bill Gates vision was of accessible information for all.
Understanding the why can be important in motivating you to continue the journey despite the setbacks and obstacles. Sometimes the more why’s you have the bigger the motivation.

So what are some reasons we use social media?

Curiosity
One of the reasons I joined Facebook was the curiosity to see what my friends and colleagues were up to. What were they doing in London, New York or Katmandu. The ability to peek and peer into other people’s lives is sometimes enough to get them to sign up to Facebook or join Twitter. Nothing like seeing what someone is posting or tweeting to catch a glimpse into their world.

Fun
One important reason that drives many of us to use social media is that is just plain fun. Watching a viral video on YouTube that is so cool you just have to share it is just plain fun. Pinterest pins with their beautiful images and photos are addictive for many. Instagram with its fabulous filters turns photography into a visual fun parlour.

Learn
Social media provides platforms and portals to dive in to and learn. It could be an ebook, blog article or a Slideshare presentation. It could be a YouTube video that reveals the secrets of basket weaving or how to use WordPress. Never has so much information been at our fingertips that can teach us everything from Photography to playing a guitar or even maths.

Experiment
There is a lot of people experimenting with Facebook posting and publishing to see if image A works better than image B. Do pictures of cats produce more engagement?
Sometimes it is just fun to hit publish and see what happens.

Communicate
Most of us enjoy communicating whether it is on Skype, Google+ hangouts or via a Twitter tweet. Some like it short and sweet others want to have a a good long chat. The ability to keep in touch is now global whether you want to do a video in your pyjamas or hide behind an audio stream.

Make money
Making money for some is the big motivator . The social global networks can accelerate the opportunities to monetize your passion through increased online attention and connections that social media provides.

Build a business
The challenge of building a business from scratch is for many people good reason enough to create an online business that is powered by the marketing leverage of social media.

Build a tribe
Remember the schoolyard and some of us just loved having a gang of friends with similar interests and the bigger the better. With social media it is now possible to build a world wide community of followers that love what you do.

Express yourself
In the past expressing yourself was restricted to singing in the shower, playing in a band at the local pub or painting in your studio at home. Now your writing, images, art, videos and music can be shared around the world with a click.

Make a difference
Some of us may even want to make a difference in the world. The motivation of creating a legacy that changes people’s lives for good can be a huge motivation. Starting a blog and building a tribe can accelerate and spread your message at a pace and velocity that wasn’t possible before.
Search engines are indexing your content and making it visible to the world. This content will be online until someone turns the electricity off.
Creating content online that educates, adds value to people’s lives and inspires is something worth aspiring to.
What legacy do you want to leave behind? What is your why?
 
Want to Learn How to Make a Difference with your Blog and Social Media?

My book – •Blogging the Smart Way “How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media• – will show you how.
It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.
I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 125,000.

Download and read it now.
http://www.amazon.com/Blogging-Smart-Way-Create-ebook/dp/B008UGCTMS

How 5 Creative Brands Pin on Pinterest

On this planet of over 7 billion people, 2 billion internet users and with 550 million websites creating massive amounts of “big data” it is sometimes hard to get noticed.
Tweets on Twitter stream past your screens in torrents, Google+ refreshes with new images and updates every few seconds and on Facebook the ticker beckons us to click on our friends latest revelations and links.
You can buy influence and visibility to cut through this clutter or you can get smart and creative and crowd source your marketing with social media.
If you have a budget like Coca Cola then it is easier because big money buys massive media. But  even Coke realised that on a social web that the fans and followers can create more stories online about you than you can ever hope to buy or produce with your own resources. So they changed their marketing strategy from “Creative Excellence” to “Content Excellence. Coca Cola called this crowd sourced marketing “liquid content“.

Two Principles of Social Media Marketing
Two core principles of social media marketing that don’t require a rocket science degree to understand and are the foundations to social media marketing success are as follows:
Create unique content in a variety of media
Market, hustle and  promote that content to your followers on the social networks that you have created and built.
The more engaged and the larger the tribes on these social media channels the greater the velocity and sharing that will result. Done correctly and with persistence will result in online visibility that will break through the clutter.

The Challenge
The barrier to success that a lot of people struggle with is that they want a quick fix. You need to be patient and persistent as this is an organic process that filters, permeates and weaves its way into and across the very aptly named world wide “web”
Pinterest is one of those social networks that makes it easy for people to share visual contagious content with no cut and paste but just with a few clicks of a mouse. The power of the visual is its high share-ability.
So how are some brands using Pinterest as a B2B business, retailer or online publisher?

1. Boticca Boutique
Fashion is one of those business categories that begs to be on Pinterest. The products are visual and enticing and  invite to be shared on Facebook and Twitter.
This online boutique has creatively used Pinterest to create  ”Boards” that mirrors its shopping store’s categories. The boards include images of the products within the category that directly link to the product page in their online store. The result is that 10% of its sales come from this Pinterest referral channel which surpasses the commerce driven from Facebook.

View the other 4 brands on the link below

Burano, Venice

A Powerful Tool to Curate and Create Great Content that Google Loves
http://ow.ly/khfo0 
#contentmarketing  
#socialmedia  
#seo  
#socialmediamarketing  

Sydney, taken at twilight with my "new" Canon D60 with the Anzac bridge in the foreground! Just near home

Tips for Handling Negative Comments and Trolls on Social Media

Some of us are more sensitive than others. Make a negative comment and some people will break into tears. Some will take it on board and modify their behavior. Others will turn into an attack dog and bite right back.
If you are a business then that approach is maybe not optimal if your brand is the target of the negative comment.
In the past, customers could only complain in a fairly private manner, either via phone call, within the storefront, or by letters.
Today, many businesses have second thoughts about joining the social media world because they are afraid of the potential for negative comments. Instead of missing out on one of the best marketing tools available, businesses can be prepared to handle the negativity that is likely to come their way.
The fact is, the negativity is likely already happening, but without a presence on social media sites, these companies have no way to combat it.
Taking a proactive presence on social media will allow you to respond and have a better chance of controlling your brand image online.

4 Social Media  Monitoring and Management Tips
Before you engage in any responses to complaints, consider the following general policies as a guidelines to how you monitor and manage your handling of negative comments and complaints.

1. Track all complaints (this can be done internally or externally by a “community manager”)
2. Respond quickly in public
3. Stay positive publicly
4. Deal with details privately

This will assist you in stopping minor issues becoming a major public relations disaster.

Valid Complaints and Trolls
Negative comments come in two main types: Valid complaints and Trolls. Real complaints are problems that customers are having with your products or services that you need to address.

Valid Complaints
When a valid customer complaint shows up on one of your social media sites, take action quickly.
First, document the comment in case it ends up being deleted so that you can keep track of the conversation.
Take some time to think through a response. Don’t take the comment personally. The customer has had a frustrating experience with your product and is seeking you out, giving you a second chance.
Handle the issue with tact and respect
If you take this assertive and positive approach you will most likely gain your customer’s trust and continued loyalty and they will become a a raving fan.

Trolls
Trolls are a type of public spam that is usually illicit and unrelated to your business. Their language is strong and emotive and it is designed to get you to react. If you respond they win.
They are hunting for attention and gain their energy by eliciting a response on a public forum that they don’t deserve. Usually they don’t have a large social network audience of their own but are relying on your social networks to leverage and amplify the message.
So, don’t give them oxygen , don’t let them use your social media channels to use as a pulpit to scream from and delete them immediately.

Responding
When you respond, use a respectful and even playful tone to keep the mood light and friendly. Admit that you messed up. Use your customer service policy here: the customer is always right (unless it is a completely unfounded complaint). Publicly send an apology on the social media site because you are dealing with more than just that one customer. Privately contact the customer who complained and fix the specific problem by giving a discount or some benefit that fits the problem.
Next, share how your business plans to fix the problem in the future. Explain with the appropriate amount of detail what went wrong and what you have done to fix the problem for all of your customers. The more transparent you are here, the more trust you will gain from your customers.
Although every situation will be different, if you learn how to respond appropriately and effectively to negative comments on social media sites, your customers will be happy to support you even more.

What About You?
Have do you handle negative comments or complaints? Have you had a troll turn up on your social networks?
How have you handled it.
I look forward to hearing your stories in the comments below.

Guest Author: Tara Hornor has a degree in English and has found her niche writing about marketing and web related topics. She writes for PrintPlace.com and other companies.
 
Want to Learn How to Market and Manage Your Business and Brand on Social Networks?

My book – Blogging the Smart Way “How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media – will show you how.
It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.
I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 115,000.
You can download and read it now.

 http://www.amazon.com/Blogging-Smart-Way-Create-ebook/dp/B008UGCTMS

Is your Content Boring? 8 Types of Content Every Business Should Consider Publishing
http://ow.ly/kmdc8 
#contentmarketing   #socialmedia   #marketing  
Ever sat down at a dinner party and after a few minutes of conversation the guest opposite you started yawning?
Is your content boring?
Most of us have been brought up on a diet of vanilla text and photos and sometimes forget that the online publishing world is now multi-media rich.  If you really get your neurons firing you can transform one written article into several formats.
Add some content excitement.
This can include a podcast, video or even a Slideshare presentation that takes your content from monochrome to multi-dimensional and maybe even entertaining.
Content marketing has boomed and is a type of inbound marketing. It requires the consistent creation of content that is shared and published to multiple social networks to engage and attract readers and potential customers.
The mantra is: “Engage first, sell second“.
The E-commerce sector has come up with excellent new concepts targeting higher level of interaction with users and customers for acquiring more business for the brand name. The owners of online stores should have as a minimum a blog and videos.

Start to use Google+ & Facebook publish sync extension.

How to Build a Targeted Twitter Tribe of 100,000

Twitter remains an enigma for many bloggers and businesses. Many questions are asked. What can I do with 140 characters? What is the point of tweeting? How can I use if for marketing? Should I check all the people who follow me before following back?
These and many other questions bedevil the casual Twitter user who often thinks that social media marketing only revolves around the Facebook universe.
Social media marketing at scale includes participating on as many social networks as possible that are relevant to your target audience. You need to have your brand on the major social networks and build large followings. Enterprise class tools for facilitating social at scale are now starting to emerge from players such as Exact Target and Adobe.
On Twitter one or two tweets per day with a random message to 200 followers is not going to cut the marketing mustard. You need to scale it up.
Twitter is growing and gaining traction rapidly which stems partly from last years inclusion in Apples’s new mobile operating system and  is now embedded in its mobile menu system.
On social media it is important to listen and engage. The other truth is that “bigger is better”. You need to create big tribes on big networks.
This will give you the reach you need to continue to scale.

How Do you Build a Large Twitter Tribe?
I am going to assume that your blog or website has great content already. Content that has good headlines, published in a range of media types, is well written and structured are important elements in building the foundation to any substantial long term  presence online.
Letting people know that you have this awesome information to help them solve problems and provide “how to information” is the magic sauce to take your brand from invisible to visible.
Building a large Twitter tribe is one of the most efficient ways to distribute that content.

How Do You do That?
One of the best simple and free tools that I discovered that can help you achieve that and also abides by Twitters terms of use is Tweepi.com.
What are the steps to attract and build Twitter followers using this tool?

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/08/03/how-to-build-a-targeted-twitter-tribe-of-100000/#7JodBfm6XPfmUOYw.99

My handpicked Instagram photo of the day 

Instagram photo of the day!