We spent the afternoon today in the studio at Surface 9 filming the first week of our new 12 week course on social media marketing.  The filming was much more exhausting than I thought.  This is the first course that we actually filmed in a studio, and we are looking forward to the results.  It is amazing to have a team on set working with me, and turning my first blush ideas to an even better product through the collaborative effort.

Each week the course will be covering a new social media site, and how we use it in our business, and our clients’ business.  We have broken down each week into smaller chunks so you can easily implement what you learn without being overwhelmed.

Here is a rundown of each week.

1. Planning Your Social Marketing Campaign
2. Twitter
3. Facebook
4. YouTube
5. Blogging
6. Blogger
7. Wordpress
8. Video Broadcasting
9. Squidoo
10. Social Bookmarking
11. Online Press Releases
12. Automation and Outsourcing

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Last week, I found out about an amazing way to generate leads on Facebook.  I found out about it from Nigel Swaby from SEOBySwaby.com.  Last week Nigel showed me a business fan page he was working on for a client that featured a video on it’s own page.  A page that can actually be displayed whenever a non-fan views your fan page.

Your existing fans go to your Wall as normal, but non-fans go to the tab you setup in the settings.

After I saw what was possible, I started researching how to take it to the next level and how existing businesses were using these methods already.

Livescribe Pulse Fan Page

Paramount Pictures

My GurusForHire.com Fan Page

Watch for more details as well as a small application to help you generate the facebook code to create your own video squeeze tab on your business fan page.

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While there are thousands of Wordpress plugins available, here are what I consider the top 10 that I always use on the blogs I create.

NOTE: These are in no specific ranking order, just added as I think of them.

• WP-DB-Backup – If you ever have lost a blog with no backup, you know how much it sucks.  If not, take my word for it.  This plugin automatically takes a backup of the core tables in the wordpress database and saves the backup on the server and send you a copy via email.  Every time I receive one of these emails with the backup file for my blog, I breath a sigh of relief.
• Twitter Tools – I believe Twitter is a a great alternative syndication source for my blog besides RSS.  When using Twitter Tools, I only use it for outgoing broadcasts of my blog posts.  My actions/tweets on Twitter do not show up as a consolidated post on my blog, but do show up on my sidebar widget.
• Akismet – I have heard there are better comment SPAM plugins out there, but I have liked what I have seen with Akismet.  It does require a key from Wordpress.org, but hey it’s free.
• All in One SEO Pack – Like Akismet, I have had other SEO plugins recommended to me, but this is the one I always use.  I know how to configure it, and it seems to get the job done.
• Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu – When the Wordpress team switched the menus to the left side, I was crushed.  This plugin has been my saving grace and is one of the first ones I install, so the menus move back to where i like them across the top.
• Hana Flv Player – This is the FLV plugin we have moved to recently.  One of the great features it has is the ability to link the video to a website so that if the visitor clicks on the video while it is playing it will take them to a website you link it to.  This is great for promoting affiliate products with videos on your blog that end with a call to action.
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – One of the best ways to keep a visitor on your blog longer is by using this plugin to recommend other posts on your blog related to the one they are reading.
• Sociable – This plugin adds icons after your post allowing the reader to share the post on the social networks you select.  I currently support up to 99 different sites!
• Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin goes back with the core principle of creating your blog, to get found and read.  This plugin generates and maintains your Google XML Sitemap and notifies Google, Yahoo and MSN when it has been updated by automatically sending out pings.
• Auto-tags – One of the things that is almost as hard as writing a new blog post is coming up with related tags.  This plugin handles that for you.  If you blog remotely or automatically, this plugin really helps.  I no longer worry about tagging my posts, and leave it up to this plugin to choose the tags.

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Choosing a template for your blog can be just as overwhelming as choosing what plugins to use.

Your template or theme, sets the tone for your blog.  While I believe you should eventually have a custom theme made, it is best to start out with one of the many free ones already available.  Even if you are using a predesigned theme, you can still give it the customized look by adding some of your own images and graphics.

While I am focused mainly on hosting my own Wordpress blogs, I also believe you should be creating “feeder blogs” on free blog hosting sites like Blogger.  One of the best sources for professional looking blog templates for both Blogger and Wordpress is http://www.eblogtemplates.com/

Many of the Blogger templates on eblogtemplates.com are based on some of the most popular Wordpress themes.  I was very surprised when I first found it how well some of the Blogger themes looked.

If you are hosting your own Wordpress blog, there are many more websites out there offering free wordpress themes.  Simply do a search on google for “Free Wordpress Themes” and you will find a lot of different sites.

When testing out the different themes, one thing to keep in mind is SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  One of the things I do when evaluating themes is run a scan of the page to see what parts of the page will be found by the search engine spiders first.  Many times, you will find that if the theme has the sidebar navigation on the left side, the navigation will take priority over the actual content of the blog which can be bad for SEO.  It is possible to have a left navigation and have the main content found by the spider before the navigation, but it takes some html coding to make it work.

The site I use to determine what the search engine spiders see when the visit the site is found here: http://tools.summitmedia.co.uk/spider/

This tool acts like a search engine spider and grades your site/webpage based on key SEO elements to watch, such as title & keyword meta tags, alt tags for images, broken links, and the actual content.

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For the holidays, I am in Chandler, Arizona visiting my Mom and Sister.  While my sister has high speed internet through Qwest, my Mom does not.  So I have been walking over to my sisters off and on when I needed a faster connection.  Otherwise, i have been relying on my Blackberry, tethered to my laptop by USB for my internet connection, and i must say it has been working great.

Tonight was a test, with installing some new plugins and updating some posts on my sisters new teachers blog at http://www.marylouodell.com .  It worked great.  The plugins are small enough it wasn’t a big deal downloading them from wordpress.org and uploading them to the site.  The theme would have taken a bit longer, but still manageable.  Of course I miss the occasional Youtube video, but I could work remotely for most of my daily tasks with just my Blackberry and laptop.

More and more place are now offering free wi-fi around the country which is an added bonus.  In Salt Lake, Barnes and Nobles, Borders, and Paradise Bakery all provide free wi-fi now.

I checked out the availability of wi-fi on the ship this morning for the upcoming cruise, and it is available via their satellite system but it comes at a price.  $100 for 250 minutes.  Part of the cost of doing business I guess.  It will be hard for us to be totally disconnected from the online business, so i guess we’ll pay the price.  The bonus will be being able to use my blackberry for calling over the wi-fi using T-mobiles UMA connection.  It will be a true test of the Blackberry, and it’s worldwide use.

Until next time,

Kevin  

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One of the easiest products to create is a teleseminar.  If you have expertise in an area, or you know someone with expertise, you can put together a teleseminar.  There are many free teleseminar hosting companies out there to provide a free conference or “bridge” line for your call.

Their features are varied, along with the maximum number of callers.

Here are a few of the choices available:

FreeConference.com – up to 150 callers, no recording, 3 – 4 hour calls

FreeConferenceCall.com – up to 96 callers, recording, playback, and download, dedicated phone number and access code.  up to 6 hour calls

FreeConferencePro.com – up to 200 callers, recording, custom greeting for callers, unlimited call duration, real-time view of who is online

InstantConference.com = up to 150 callers, free  recording, up to 6 hour calls

FreeConferenceCalling.com – Used to be TheBasementVentures.com,  Up to 500 callers, free recording and MP3 download, real-time online call management, raise hand feature for listeners to identify themselves for questions and answer sessions.

As you can see from the list of services above, the best service out there is FreeConferenceCalling.com which used to be TheBasementVentures.com.

One of the best features of their service is the capability for callers to identify themselves for questions during Q&A.  This allows you to unmute that individual caller for their question without being overran by all of the other callers trying to ask questions or take care of their screaming baby.

The larger number of caller also gives you plenty of room to expand while you are building your business.

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I just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Christmas wishes have been coming in all day on Christmas Eve, while I was traveling from different email lists I subscribe to.  Marketers, around the world appreciating those who make their business possible, as well as friends, new and old.

Now that I have taken my blog off of autopilot, it will take some getting used to, but I still plan to post at least 3 times a week.  This is the time of year I spend planning out the coming year, and this week was been no different.  On the flight to Phoenix I started writing out titles for upcoming blog posts for the coming year.  I have made it up to 27 so far.  Tonight I logged in and created them as draft posts on my blog, so I can easily go back in and finish the post.

Since I am traveling a lot in January, as well as this holiday season, I downloaded to offline blogging tools, to help me manage to blog, even when I can’t get connected.  One is wBloggar, and the other that i am using right now to create this post is Windows Live Writer from Microsoft.

The cool thing about both of these tools is the ability to maintain multiple blogs from one interface.  The main interest I had at first was the ability to create or edit posts offline and then post them later when I connect.

January, I am headed out on a week long cruise, with my partners Rick Dearr and Robby LeBlanc.  This is Mike Filsaime’s Marketers Cruise, so I’ll be rubbing shoulders with some of the greatest marketers in the world.  Of course I want to be able to capture some of my epiphanies while their still fresh, so an offline blogging tool, will hopefully help.  Not sure how much it is going to cost for internet access on the ship, but I still want to blog and share the experience with you.

2010 is going to be a great year for us, and I can’t wait to see it unfold.  The brainstorming and planning I have been doing over the last week has been awesome, and I can’t wait to reveal some of the surprises I have in store for you.  For those of you in Salt Lake and in the various meetup groups I attend, look forward to more mindmaps and some special process maps showing the processes we use step by step.

To your success,

Kevin

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Jim Rohn passed away this weekend on December 5th.

Jim was one of those mentors, I listened to often and always hoped to meet someday.

Many of his teachings, were profoundly simple thanks to the stories told of his mentor.  He focused on Personal Development.  If you want to change to occur, it is up to you.  A principle that has made a great impact on my life.

If you are unhappy with your job or situation, you shouldn’t wait for the situation to improve you need to take action.  Too many times, we get stuck in a pity party and think the world around us should change.  The only way change occurs is if some other force acts upon the situation.  Why wait for someone else to take action to change the situation instead of yourself?

Jim Rohn touched the lives of many through his speaking, and will be greatly missed.  I guess this is the brick to let me know if i truly want to meet Zig Ziglar, I better take some action.  Zig is now 83 years young, but we never know when our time may come.

Here are three classic Jim Rohn videos on “How to Have Your Best Year Ever”

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I am glad you are still with me, hangin in there through the flood of posts each day this year.  As most of you know, I haven’t written most of the articles that have been possted on my blog this year.  Basically, I took the year off to focus on other areas of my business and attempted to put my blog on autopilot.

Overall, it has worked well.  However it kind of defeats the purpose of a personal blog, if there is nothing personal on it right?

A friend mine, Sara Lambrinos from Sites By Sara gave me a reality check last month.  I got an email from her about one of the recent posts that basically said;  “I know this is automated and everything, but this post is from 2004.  Don’t you think you should filter these a bit?”  That wasn’t the exact quote, but it was something like that.

I think i turned off the automation the next day.

Each month I have been speaking about internet marketing at my house in Murray to a small group of people, including Sara.  I guess I would call them my Tribe.  BTW, I just finished reading Seth Godin’s book.  After reading the book, I can see where I have been trying to take some shortcuts. 

Shortcuts, lead to mediocrity.

This is the time of year I take to set goals for the coming year and evaluate what has worked the past year.  Automation of my blog has not.  It has taken the branding and tribe building away, and just created another article directory of article published in other article directories.  Definitely, not what I truly want to accomplish.

So, what you can expect from me going forward is actually posts written by me.  While I may reference a post from another blog, or a video from YouTube, you can also expect my own views and commentary added along with it.

I hope you all embrace the new direction.  Please leave a comment on this post to let me know I am on the right track.

Thanks,
Kevin

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Being exposed is normally not a great thing to think about. However when Social Media Marketing is the one exposing your product you can see a massive jump in traffic to your site, boosting sells.

The Social Media has two components, user generated contents and also the ability to form networks of friends to share product. A case in point would be My space or Facebook, where networks of friends are created after the user builds a custom page with pictures, videos, blogs, and links to favorite sites. By having their network of friends they have a built in audience to all the grandeur of their embellished profiles.

On sites like Digg or Youtube people can submit videos, articles, pictures and ect. That is displayed for others to take a gander. Then the viewers get to vote on the most popular, choosing who they think provided the best entertainment. The winner, or voted most popular get put on the homepage and drives massive amounts of traffic.

Using the social media sites to promote your product or services is called social media marketing. There are a couple of types of traffic you can gain using this method. The primary comes from the site where is became popular. Sites like Digg are perfect for this. If you find you have a popular one make sure your site can handle the surge of traffic without crashing. No one wants to be a rude host.

When your site becomes popular in Social Media people begin talking about, spreading the word and posting links to the buzz at the moment. The traffic to your site through these links is your secondary form of traffic. You will see this traffic showing up long after the initial buzz of your site has faded.

Each form of traffic has it?s benefits. The Primary form of traffic is what will bring you into the limelight, exposing you to those who do not even know you exist. This is your coming out party so to speak. This can gain you regular viewers, providing that you are giving them plenty of what they are looking for. Once you have peoples attention the secondary for of traffic comes into play.

Natural links are a God send to your site. By catching peoples attention, you will get them to post natural links to spread the word and give them someone to talk to about your site. Once they have begun posting links you will see your ranking on search engines improve dramatically. So even after the glow of your fame in the primary traffic you will have the secondary form, or natural links to keep you warm for plenty of time to come.

Social Media Marketing is free, and by getting yourself popular a couple times a year you will find you have more than enough traffic. By using the free resources around you, you can build your business with little to no money out of your pocket.

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

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