Here are some of the things that have made the online business world sit up and take notice of Chris:

1. Chris Brogan’s blog, at chrisbrogan.com is ranked as the world’s #4 marketing blog on AdAge’s Power 150 list. The list has spoken.
2. He’s made the New York Times bestseller list. Again list. Spoken.
3. He’s on the advisory board for Hubspot and IZEA. Hubspot is like business porn.
4. He has more than 16 years of experience in business telecommunications, and has been blogging since 1998. 1998! That was Bill Clinton’s special cigar year!

Were there even blogs back then? Sure there were! They were called journals, though.

Human Business

The term ‘human business’ was coined by Chris Brogan, and is the core concept behind Human Business Works, his own company. So, what is all this human business guff about?

The Company Chris Created – Winning!

Human business is about doing business via what Chris calls the “human digital channel” – blogs, social media, mobile marketing, experience marketing, affiliate marketing and other tools that involve human relationships and communication.

Human Business Works must be doing something right, because it’s worked with major companies like Ford, Microsoft, Pepsico, Sony, and GM.

Trust Agents

New York Times List BAM!

The other great notch in Chris Brogan’s belt is Trust Agents, a book he co-authored with Julien Smith, a brilliant speaker and blogger in his own right.

The book is about earning trust relationships with customers, and turning that trust into a powerful force for business. Chris used the book to reiterate and explain his strategy of using human channels, such as social media and other online tools, to build real trust relationships with customers.

The dust jacket of Trust Agents bears endorsements from big names like Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki and John Jantsch, and has earned Chris and Julien a spot on the bestseller lists of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Once again, it seems he’s doing something very, very right. He’s a social media Midas.

Writing

Today, Chris flies around the globe speaking at conferences, meeting with clients and running Human Business Works, but he’s still doing a great deal of the thing that got him where he is: writing.

Many other people in his position simply wouldn’t make the time for writing anymore, and may have dropped or delegated this responsibility by now – but Chris is still blogging on chrisbrogan.com several times a week.

If that makes you feel bad about not having enough time to blog once a week, consider that he doesn’t just write for his own blog, either – he also writes for SUCCESS magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, the American Express OPENForum, and churns out a steady stream of book reviews.

Just your average social media superstar

For all of his success, Chris Brogan still manages to come across as a regular, down-to-earth kinda guy who just happens to have a lot of brilliant ideas to share. And as if he was in need of any more cred, he also plays in a band.

We heart Chris. <3 <3 <3

This quote is often misattributed to Charles Darwin. How do I know that? I spend hours every day on the web, reading, searching and learning. I’m an active web user; I’m intelligent and purposeful. I may not always know exactly what I’m looking for, but I’ll know it when I see it.

When there are lame advertisements blinking in my periphery, I ignore them because they’re an annoying intrusion on my search for content. Content that’s relevant to my interests and to my mission. I’m not going to say content is king – it’s more like a Mongolian Warlord.

Though you may have heard that’s it’s a king before. Bill Gates said it in 1996, when he first predicted that creating and distributing good online content was the single most profitable activity that companies could invest in. His prediction has proven undeniably accurate.

Why is online content different? South African customers are a little more savvy, and a lot more demanding, when they’re consuming online content – far more so than when they’re flipping through a magazine, listening to the radio or watching TV.

When they’re online, they like being entertained, they love being empowered, and they hate being patronised. If they don’t like what they see, they know that there are loads of other channels to explore at the click of a button.

So when I’m online and looking for a good travel package, I’m far more likely to hire a travel agent that’s giving me interesting articles about destinations and safe travel tips, and who writes a humorous travel blog. If I see an ad on a telephone pole for a travel agency, I’m likely to ignore it completely.

Are you contributing good content that will empower and entertain your audience? If not, your company’s about to vanish into thin air like Houdini’s Jack of clubs.

The good news is this: content marketing is a far more cost-effective, interesting, fun and effective way to promote your business than outbound marketing.

Content marketing involves empowering your customers with interesting, useful information that they actually want. It can come in the form of blogs, ebooks, infographics, videos, or articles.

When good content meets social media, its ROI increases exponentially.

If just one customer likes the content you’re putting out there, and shares it with his/her connections on Facebook, it can spread virally and increase the visibility of your company – and this happens at NO cost to you.

When your content is being shared, it creates a network of links that improves your ranking in search engines, and drives the right visitors to your website – the ones who are already looking for your products and services, and are much more likely to buy them.

From the moment you start implementing a good content marketing strategy, you’ll reap rewards. It’s an essential part of your future success, and hiring a professional to handle it for you will put you ahead of your competitors right now.

As a South African business, what challenges do you face when marketing your business online? – Inge

Mind-bending time comparisons aside, YouTube has been a staple source of Internet lulz for many years in South Africa. We’ve all been called over to someone’s desk at work to watch one, and had them sent to us via phone and email. It’s a rare day indeed if you don’t spot a few YouTube videos in your Facebook and Twitter feeds.

Businesses have realised that missing the opportunity to post videos of their own is akin to missing the Ark departure, and many have started filming anything and everything in sight to get in on it.

But before you get trigger-happy with your handycam, do everything you can to get your video looking professional and share it with skill. It’s got to stand out, or it’ll be engulfed by the ocean of rubbish that’s uploaded every day.

• Some YouTube users are trolls of the lowest order, and they’ll quickly shoot your contribution to smithereens with brutal comments if you give them the chance. Get some honest feedback from friends, colleagues, family members, and your pharmacist before you upload your video.

• If you don’t have access to professional editing software, get to know the free YouTube Video Editor. You can use it to string different clips together, add background music or text, trim it down, and process it in HD. It’s no 20th Century Fox, but it’ll do in a pinch.

• This is arguably the most important tip of all: Keep it short! The average video is 4 minutes long, and anything longer has to be spectacular. Take a hacksaw to it and cut out every mere nanosecond of blah-ness.

• Did you know that YouTube is the number 2 search engine on the web? Use the right video tags to make sure your video will be found by your target audience. Remember that YouTube tags are single words, not phrases. Anticipate the words your target viewers are likely to search with, and combine them carefully.

• There are few things more skull-poundingly boring than watching a talking head. Integrate some movement and colour into your video with animations, or even just photo montages. Whatever you do, don’t just sit there talking, or else you may as well have created a podcast.

Remember to link your YouTube channel to your Facebook fan page and Twitter account for maximum exposure, and put a link to it on your blog and in your latest email newsletter. If you’re chatting on an online forum, embed it. Make it an extension of your arm.

Don’t be scared to flog it shamelessly, because it’s likely to be the single most popular piece of content you ever produce. And if all else fails, here’s a tip that won’t: try again!

Got any tips you’d like to add? – Inge

From what I have gathered, there has been much ‘beating of breasts’ and ‘gnashing of teeth’ from the outraged virtual public.

I’m not sure why people are so afraid of being sued in America. It must be a cultural difference. Here, companies don’t get sued… unless a child is accidently crushed by a runaway brand sign. It’s pretty rare.

And there have been mountains of posts from the blogosphere, scrutinizing every last little sentence in Pinterest’s user agreement. Personally I think pointing out the mistakes of a young social entity is horribly bad luck, and can lead to neither fortune, nor a higher IQ.

Pinterest: will they allow their users to be sued like dogs?

Yet the internet has aired out Pinterest’s dirty pantaloons, for all the world to see. I have to be honest here – I don’t have a Pinterest account yet, but I have been tinkering around on it for the odd client or two.

I think it’s marvellous!

But we’re all missing the POINT. Social media is about sharing.

It’s not about laws, user agreements, copyright infringements, pinkertons or stealing. If you’re going to be a stealer – then you are one already. Using Pinterest can’t make you one.

So here are some rules to sort out the nonsense from the truth.

If you put it on the internet, it’s there forever. Pinterest is not secretly waiting with an image syndicate to sell your face to porn sites.

If your friend posts something there that you don’t like – tough. Grow some lady-balls and deal with it. The end shall not cometh from a bad Pinterest photo.

If you put it on Pinterest it will go viral. That doesn’t mean it’s going to split into a million bacterial atoms and take flight, it means that people will use it, and share it. Isn’t that the point?

Don’t post images on Pinterest you’re going to sell, or offer exclusive rights to images already on Pinterest. It’s silly.

Brutal ‘This is Life’ Stuff Your Dad Should Have Told You About The Internet

If someone is a stealer, and they steal your image without citing the original link, there’s nothing to do about it – but have a cup of tea. My mom says that there’s nothing like a cup of tea to make you feel better about losing valuable backlinks.

Also – WHO CARES. Of course people are going to use your images to get traffic for themselves, this is the INTERNET not a public soup kitchen.

Personally, I wouldn’t even be able to count all the ‘ninchucks’ I don’t give about other people sharing my content. I put it on the net to be shared!

“OMG someone used my picture of a piece of toast with egg eyes, that was in the ‘popular’ section of Pinterest and actually created a blog post about it! I can’t believe they stole my incredible, unsharable, irreplaceable, unfathomably creative egg-eye toast idea! I’ll sue!”

For the love of Zeus people, please don’t be THAT person.

Copyright Bulldangle and Other Lawyer Bits

Lots of the posts out there (in Cyberia) tell you to seek legal advice if you’re NOT sure what to do. Ignore this heinously bad advice and proceed to 9gag.com. You’ll soon lose all sense of right and wrong, and will forget what enraged you in the first place.

Only upload images that you OWN! Sure, and while I’m at it, I’ll stop watching videos I don’t own on Youtube, or clicking on tweets I don’t own on Twitter. Then if I’m up to it – I’ll stop looking at text on blogs I don’t own, and I won’t open windows on internet browsers I don’t own either. We should all do this. That way when the internet dies, we’ll all know why.

Make sure that you upload the link to the source when you pin an image. This one, I’d do because it’s right and because helping people is fun.

Check the source’s link when re-pinning. Like ANYONE is going to do that! If there’s another, identical image with the right owner’s link directly opposite the image that amused me, then I’ll do ‘the right thing’ and repin that one.

Otherwise, the chances that I’m going to spend 5 minutes of my inaccurately important day searching for someone’s original post, is as likely as me – spending 5 minutes of my day not thinking, writing, thinking about writing or writing about my thoughts.

All of this suing and grumbling…go away.

Flagons of tea all round!

What is your view on Pinterest? Have the troglodytes and nay sayers scared you away from your Emmy award winning Pinterest page? Impress me with your hipster commentary.

- Copyhog

Maybe I woke up this morning with a cat paw entwined in my hair, and a curtain draped across my face.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t have opinions. Google+ is just looking less and less attractive to me. I’m spending basically no time there anymore. It’s like a long distance relationship. Facebook and Twitter are flaunting their magic bits at me, and Pinterest is wearing a mankini.

I just can’t ignore the facts for another day. I’m going to have to break up with Google+. It’s boring, and the little things that made it fun in the beginning are starting to irritate me. I can’t be the only one. I fear, that many Google+ relationships will end in the near future.

I refuse to stay with Google+ just because I’m friends with the rest of the Google family. I may be ostracized from the social media community for saying this, or set adrift on a little red raft with a sail that reads, ‘sucktard,’ but I’m going to have to take that risk.

The truth is that Google+ is boring. The people there, are like little grains of salt, attempting to remove its all encompassing blandness. But like thick soup that has already been served, the salt only reminds you how bland it was to begin with.

There is so much white everywhere. I have nothing against the color white personally, except that it always ends up another color in my washing machine – but there’s something sinister about all that darn white. It’s not just me, Jay Dolan feels the same.

and by icecream, I mean cheesecake.

It’s like being in a virtual hospital ward for mental patients. And I’m sick of scrolling. It’s bad enough that I have to type all day, but now Google expects me to develop man-sized scrolling muscles in my fingers. I never have to look that far on Facebook or Twitter to find posts interesting enough to read.

When I’m with Google+ it feels like I’m being chaperoned by a hundred other people that have very little interest in being there. It’s one dimensional city, and we’re all stuck on the same tragically muddy interstate going nowhere.

Just because something’s good for you, doesn’t mean you’re going to like it. Google+ is so clingy, once you’re logged in – it shadows your every move on the internet – I can’t stand it anymore!

I think I’ve finally found the courage to say, Google+, I’m dumping you. We can still be friends, but that’s it.

Oh and – It’s not me, it’s you.

Does anyone else feel this way?

- Copyhog

If there’s one thing you can count on as a marketer – it’s that success is never set in stone. Sure there are right ways to do things, and horrible catastrophic ways. It’s almost always too late when you finally realize which route you’ve taken.

I found myself returning to the basics with the launch of copyhog.com. I wanted solid advice from industry experts about what I was supposed to do. You know, just incase I’ve forgotten, or blown over something important.

It’s like that with your first real blog. Though I’ve been blogging and managing client blogs for years – I was simply terrified to do it for myself. Launching a blog is highly complex. You start to question every decision you make.

So I did what any Gen Y would do. I asked Google.

At first glance I was pleased with the results. Problogger and Copyblogger were there, two blogs I’ve read insatiably for many years. Instinctively, I clicked over to them. Great advice, as expected. But all stuff I already knew about.

These posts explained how launching a blog doesn’t have to be tough. Easy for them to say, they’re the two greatest bloggers in the history of mankind. I continued a manic search. Eventually, I stopped.

Not one of these posts gives it to you straight. Preferably in point form. A checklist would be nice. One that reaffirms that you’ve done EVERYTHING you could to promote a spectacular launch.

Screw it – I thought. Then I made one.

It looked something like this:

Desirable Tone

• Authority: Information. Not easily found, preferably.
• Credibility: What you’ve done. What you can do.
• Likeability: Be likable? Personal input. Don’t sound like a tosspot.

Content Preparation

• First newsletter (Mailchimp)
• Email autoresponder that delivers free e-book link
• 15 blog posts, 500+ words
• 3 series/themes, 5 posts for each
• Do a post with a featured video
• 5 guest posts to send out
• 2 guest posts to publish
• Each post contains 1 main keyword, 1 secondary keyword.
• 1 unique infographic
• Each post must contain unique, altered images.

Social Media

• Add blog roll to Facebook
• Create 1 update per blog post for Facebook
• Create 3 tweets per post for Twitter
• Tell your LinkedIn groups about it
• Ask community to comment on posts
• Mention on a few FB groups that you’ve launched a blog

Launch

• Do not promote until the blog is complete
• Register blog with search engines
• Claim on Technorati
• Get Google Analytics
• Make and publish 1 press release
• Create 50 SEO articles for Ezine and ArticlesBase
• 50 comments on niche blogs
• Bookmark each post
• Google ads campaign
• Facebook ads campaign

…Have private launch party (Two friends and a bottle of wine).

It’s a work in progress. What it does do is let you quickly glance down at the list to make sure you’re on track with the launch. Maybe it will help you the next time you’re launching a blog.

There are a number of others ways to get attention, but they’re costly. You could create a video advertising your blog or host a live event on Facebook.

Google page 1 is useful, you know. If it doesn’t help you find the answer – it presents you with a problem you can solve. And I think that’s what most bloggers miss. The most successful blogs I’ve ever been involved in, do just that. They shop around for information, and if there isn’t any – they hold a sale of their own.

I confess. This post was just an elaborate ruse, a way for me to deliver that one nugget of info about blogging. Google page 1 (and yes 2,3,4 etc) does help – but not in the way you think. Look for opportunities and they will present themselves.

If you have any ideas on launching a blog, I’ll add it in (and give you credit for it).

In the meantime, what do you think is the most common problem blog launchers face? I could use your input on this one.

Yes please. (I’d love your comment).

- Copyhog

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Some of them have blown up, and become instant bestsellers. And I’m starting to see a pattern forming. The real differences between the ones that make it, and the ones that don’t make it.

The online publishing industry will always be shrouded in mystery. There are no agents, acquisition editors or publishers around, to tell you that your e-book would make more sense if it was written by marmoset.

It’s a healthy combination of faith, great research skills and marketing insight. But that’s all vague nonsense. As you know, I HATE vague statements like that. They don’t help anyone, and they have no business being in my post.

This is how you really write an e-book bestseller…

Step 1: Remove The Idea Blinkers

When the average person comes up with an e-book idea, it’s usually because they know a lot about a specific subject. The thought process goes a little something like this. “Hey, I know a lot about (insert subject), I should write a book about it, and then sell it for millions online!”

The second most common process comes from marketers, online publishers or digital entrepreneurs. They see other books selling like hotcakes, and they decide to jump on the virtual bandwagon. “Hey this topic is selling so well, I bet I could cash in on this – kapow!”

Then you write the e-book, or you hire a writer to do it for you. BEEP. Wrong.

The Right Step #1: Boring Marketing Research

No one likes doing marketing research. But I can’t even formulate a sentence powerful enough to communicate to you how important it is. You have to find out if the e-book you want to create is feasible. If there’s a demand for it.

The bottom line is that most e-books that sell loads of copies are the first of their kind, have a unique angle, or are tailor made to provide a solution to a problem that so far, hasn’t been addressed. Is this your e-book?

How Do You Do Market Research?

• Quality information. Educating your reader, with all the right information.
• The format. A nice format makes reading a pleasure.
• A spectacular cover. Covers sell ebooks. Invest in a good one.
• Accurate price/value ratio. Is your ebook worth the price you want for it?
• Long term potential. Will your ebook still be valuable after 6 months?

The Right Step #2: Do a Writing Plan/Overall Costing

Before setting out on your first (or seventh) ebook journey, do a writing plan work up. Figure out how much research is required for each chapter of your ebook. Then plan how long it would take you to do 2 drafts. Cost out time and money for an editor that isn’t you. Include in this costing, money for a cover, and professional formatting.

If you’re hiring a writer, find one that has a good track record, and is above the average price. Give them your research and angle, and ask for a table of contents. Review the book chapter by chapter, to keep it on track. A quality writer will support you through this process. It’s easy to spot a ‘hack’ – or someone that churns out writing fast, with little thought or research.

Step #3: Rushing To Sell

You have your ebook product, and you’re eager to start selling – the problem? You don’t have any money to sink into this endeavor. Instead you sign up for Clickbank or something similar, and you pop on a hasty sales page. Ta-da! 5 ebook sales. Total. Reality sets in, and you realize that your ebook isn’t making any money. In fact, you’ve lost more money than you’re ever going to make.

The Right Step #3: Your Ebook Marketing Campaign

I don’t use the term campaign lightly. But that’s exactly what it is – a full scale product launch that is going to take time, money and professional assistance. Average ebooks can sell hundreds of copies, thanks to the great marketing plans the pros put in place. But here’s another problem. You don’t have a social profile, and you’ve never built an email list. You don’t even have a functional blog. Oh dear.

Here’s how you plan an ebook launch.

• A supportive article marketing campaign of 100+ articles
• Building anticipation for it on your blog, social pages and email lists
• Creating a dynamic sales page – that you split test often
• Offering an affiliate marketing program (with an affiliate resource area)
• Creating a delightful slew of blog posts around your topic
• Publishing announcements on your Facebook and Twitter pages
• Sending out announcement emails to your list – with incentives
• Upselling whatever other ebooks you’ve created in the past
• Using old ebooks as free giveaways on your sales page
• Creating ‘free’ mini ebooks, podcasts, videos that your buyer also receives
• Adding in a testimonial box, for real time feedback
• Creating a few press releases that are relevant and newsworthy

This is a marmoset, in case you were wondering…

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s still so much more you can do, to ensure the successful sale of your ebook. Have you skipped any of these steps? So you see, creating an ebook is just the beginning of a long and laborious marketing plan. Don’t try and do it all yourself, you will need help. A team would be best. But there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for sellers that do this well.

To sum up this entire post, you need a quality product, and a quality marketing campaign. Think about what the word ‘quality’ means to you. Bestsellers sell thousands of copies. For an investment of $5000.00, you could make $250 000. Or you could end up like so many others, spending $800 on an ebook, and making $1000. The difference is vast. Don’t be a marmoset!

Having trouble with your ebook or just have an awesome idea that needs a second opinion? I’m here to help, comment away.

- Copyhog