From: Business MBA

Created by: MBA Online

Once you buy the rewards package you are guaranteed to get your money back in the form of a gift card. When I first heard this I was skeptical, I thought I would get 25 bucks back on some gift card to the piggly wiggly, but I was wrong. The selection of cards is actually very impressive: Banana Republic, Bath and Body Works, Old Navy, and so on.

It would be nice to see more auction sites offer something like this, if for no other reason than not feeling so bad when you don’t win that iPad for $200 dollars off.

From: HumanResourcesMBA.org

1. | The Tale Of The New Year’s Fail

2. | Are You Losing Patients?

3. | Fantastic Plastic

courtesy of Houston Plastic Surgery

4. | Concrete Mafia

5. | Epic Retail Fails Of 2011

Epic Retail Fails of 2011
Compliments of RetailCustomerExperience.com

As social media experts, readers of Collective Thoughts understand that social media marketing starts with building content that’s going to matter to a particular social group. That’s the bread and butter of organic marketing. Anything that gets in the way of organic marketing, in my view, lowers the ceiling on the potential value of a website.

I think that the biggest mistake that new affiliate marketers make when building an online business is sacrificing usefulness for the immediacy of the almighty dollar. Now I’m not denying that you can build a successful affiliate site this way. But I am suggesting that if from the beginning all of your decisions are made for immediate revenue, you will most likely be setting a low ceiling for your website.

And when it comes down to it, it’s the ceiling that matters. All of the important people in this industry recognize that the big money is in the liquidation event. But to have an impressive liquidation event, you need a very high ceiling (I think it’s fair to say that if you are good, you should be aiming for a minimum seven-figure liquidation event for any new affiliate site you start, and that you should be able to hit this target within 3 years of launching the site).

My personal vision for any new affiliate site is to get as big as possible by building something that is truly useful to the end user. If you study your competitors in any high-margin niche, chances are that most of them have sold out are just pimping their best paying products. This gives you an opportunity.

Recently, my friend and I decided to take on a challenge by entering the ultra-competitive web hosting affiliate space with a site called Website Host Review. What we noticed when studying this niche is that most of the high trafficked sites aren’t really offering objective, revenue-independent guidance to users. Instead, they are funneling users to their most profitable conversion.

That gives us an opportunity. Our plan for entering and conquering this niche is simple: make the most useful web hosting review website available. Do things better than everyone else. Along the way, we’ll produce some entertaining content in the form of linkbaits and infographics. But ultimately, we will stand out among the crowd by ranking webhosts according to various purposes and functions. So someone looking for quality cheap web hosting will be directed to a different host than someone who is looking for great customer service and the best uptime.

I don’t put effort into a website unless I have realistic dreams of a seven figure liquidation event down the road. And because of this, I am unwilling to chase the immediate dollar if it will get in the way of any organic marketing.

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If you are between the ages of 12 and 80, it is possible that you are a candidate for SNS – if you are between the ages of 13 and 35 it is highly probable. If you fall within this age range and have noticed that you suffer from three or more of the symptoms listed above, do not be alarmed, we are here to help.

The SNS pandemic began around 2004 when Mark Zuckerberg released Facebook and while over 300 million have been exposed to SNS only a select group is truly affected. In May of this year around 6 million people were cured of the disease and the future looked bright, until experts realized that the technology that caused the syndrome was being multiplied.

With the growing popularity of Google+ (or G+), it is possible that many more will become infected with SNS. Here are some ways you can prevent or take control of Social Networking Syndrome:

1. Learn self-control

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As technology grows it becomes more and more difficult to have self-control or any form of patience. Too much of anything can be dangerous. We recommend that you restrict your social networking time by allowing at least one hour between checking your Twitter, Facebook or G+ account.

2. Go outside

NOTE: Do not bring laptop.

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Remember back in the day when you used to beg your parents to let you go outside and play? Now that you are older you can do this all by yourself. Get some fresh air, notice your environment. Don’t allow yourself to think about running home and checking your newsfeed.

3. Try actually logging out

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If you have SNS it is very likely that you do not log out of your network when you navigate somewhere else or leave your computer. Try logging out and you will be surprised at how making that one little decision will send a signal to the brain that you are really done with this for a while. This hasn’t been scientifically proven yet, but it should be.

4. Don’t allow updates to be sent to your phone

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When your network sends you what others are doing or what is going on when you are not there, you lose all control. It is so easy to turn off, and once you do, you probably won’t even notice that you haven’t received 20 new messages in 45 minutes.

5. Try to meet people in person

NOTE: Avatars are not real people.

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Trying to maintain all of your relationships on your social network is not the same as actually spending quality time with your loved ones. We propose that you set up a date with a friend and meet each other in the real world. Once you get back out there, you will remember what it is like to use all of your five senses again and you just might have a shot at a normal life.

Thanks to my friend @Purr2Dream the cat empire has taken a bold leap in the right direction with Kitty Twitty, an aggregation of yours truly as well as other popular cat twitter celebs.  As I’ve mentioned before, social media isn’t dead, it’s just run by cats.  Keep the faith.

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Whether you are starting up a new business or trying to grow and improve an existing brand, content marketing is almost a necessity in the current global economy. But, what is it?

Simply put, Content Marketing is the technique of creating and distributing valuable information and or ‘content’ to possible customers and consumers, keeping them engaged and interested. The purpose isn’t to sell them directly, but to give them something valuable and keep their interest, incentivizing them to come back of their own volition.

But, why use this strategy? Why not use direct or interruption marketing methods or commercials instead? Simple. They’re annoying. The average consumer has had a backlash against many conventional marketing strategies. Through the invention of DVR, people can simply skip over the commercial break without skipping a beat. Over the radio, ads are considered a gap between music and news, and online? Banners are ignored and pop-ups are considered perhaps the most annoying technique of all.

So, the solution is to create content that the reader will wish to actively seek out. There are many types of possible content; going from blog posts, testimonials and reviews, to viral videos and viral marketing.

The first step is to plan your goal. What is the purpose of your business? Aside, of course, from making money. After that has been attentively planned, you can move on to the consumer.

The second step is finding out who your base is. Who are you selling to? What are their personalities like, their wants, needs, desires? And most of all, what do they need to know to go from possible buyers to definite first time and repeat customers? After that, how can you most effectively match up their needs with your business’s goals?

Then, you must find out where your marketing base is. Where do they congregate? What kind of websites do they find online, and what interests them? You must try to sell to the target audience, using any possible channel. If you’re selling to the hip and trendy youth of today, blog posts full of outdated slang won’t appeal, while viral videos on YouTube aren’t going to touch base with octogenarians.

From then on, finding out what content and tactics are required will become clear. First, find out what you already have. What materials can you re-purpose, and what content do you need to create? What gaps can you already fill? Whether or not you write in-house or partner with a copywriter, or buy unique content online, it is important to be sure what is being published will fit your target audience.

There are a variety of content marketing channels, all of which have benefits and drawbacks. Videos have gone viral and did worked wonders for some companies, as well as creating content that consumers simply enjoy. See “The Man You Could Smell Like” campaign from Old Spice for a style that viewers enjoy and run with. Blogs that subtly add in your business or product in posts, or good reviews can do wonders.

After the content has been crafted, it is important to create a calendar. Spread it out and be sure not to over saturate the airwaves or to bombard your audience too fiercely.

Finally, observe how your marketing technique is being accepted by the consumer. Page views, web traffic, and several other measurements can be taken to see how effective the strategy is. Be sure to adjust your methods accordingly.

Davy Kestens is a motivated young lunatic from Belgium with a highly entrepreneurial vision on his life. Continuously starting up online projects when he’s not out trying to take over the world. His latest published tool for world domination is GhostBloggers.net – An online marketplace where you can buy & sell unique blog posts.

The truth is that small business blogs can be one of the most powerful marketing channels. They can introduce masses of new leads, generate more traffic to product pages, or elevate a brand.

It’s always been said that content is king online, but still small business owners balk at the idea of launching a blog.

I want to convince you that it’s in your best interest to launch a blog, so let me give you five specific reasons that I think will change your mind.

Reason 1: Content Acts as Landing Pages

I’m assuming you already have a website; it probably has a home page, an about page, and possible a contact page. The total weight of your website online is three pages. That’s a relatively small website.

Online search engines can drive a lot of traffic to a website, but before they can do that you have to have pages that they find relevant. With only three pages, online searchers will only find your website from keywords that closely relate to your brand.

When you create a business blog, now you’re able to write article about your services, new theories, and even case studies. Your online footprint begins to grow with each article you publish.

The bigger your online footprint, the more traffic you can drive to your site – the more leads you can generate.

Reason 2: Highlight Expertise

When trying to close a deal, most sales people will tell you that trust is an important aspect. If your client doesn’t trust you, it’s going to be hard to get them to sign up with you (just ask used cars salesmen).

Small business can use their blog as a platform from which to build their trust level with consumers.

When I look for a specific service, for example an accountant, I might get a recommendation from a friend but I’ll always still Google the company. Potential consumers do their own research beyond recommendations they get from others.

Business blog can be used to highlight expertise by including previous case studies, pointing out clients, and explaining what makes the company different.

Reason 3: Cultivate a Community

New clients are great, but return clients are awesome. It’s an amazing feeling to have clients that are so happy with your work that they keep calling you back. These clients, that feel attached to your brand, are the ones that rave about you to your friends.

With a small business blog, you give these clients a reason to come back to your website. They want to know what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, new services you’re offering, and how they can be a part of your brand.

Interacting with readers in the comments of your articles, makes these users feel like they have a one on one connection with the brand.

Although not a full-fledged social network, a blog’s comments can still lead to a sense of community and build brand loyalty.

Reason 4: Create an Online Sales Funnel

It’s rare for a customer to just come to your site and order your services. Instead, it usually takes time for a potential lead to take the next step and contact the business or sign up for a service.

Blogs can give a potential lead reason to come back over and over again. It can also convince a reader to become a customer.

Consider the following sales funnel:

• Step 1: User searches for information on what taxes to file for their business
• Step 2: User finds your article that outlines which forms businesses should fill out
• Step 3: User sees that you offer accounting service
• Step 4: User goes to services page for more information
• Step 5: User fill in form to inquire more about your accounting services
• Step 6: User becomes new client

This kind of sales funnel occurs regularly online. The client was introduced to your services because of an expertise that you highlighted- leading them to flow through the funnel and contacting you for your services.

Reason 5: Get in a Customer’s Inbox

There’s one marketing channel that is often underutilized but can be a great boon to small business owners. The email inbox is a great way to bring your business to consumers instead of waiting for them to come to you.

How does a business blog get you in a customer’s inbox? Simple, give readers the opportunity to subscribe to your latest blog posts. They won’t want to miss out on your insights so readers will sign up for your newsletters.

Once they subscribe, they’ll be added to your mailing list and you can connect with them whenever you have major announcements or new sales. (Use your mailing list carefully, you don’t want them to mark you as spam).

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Newsletters are a huge opportunity and definitely on small business owners don’t want to miss. Having a blog, gives you an opportunity to supercharge your newsletter and grow your subscriber list.

Bonus Reason 6: Viral Content

Want proof that blogging really pays off? Here’s an example. Louisville Painters wrote an article about colorful cities which drove over 36,000 views.

Viral content doesn’t always work, but when it does it’s huge. Try new ideas and expand beyond just what your business does. When you write about fun topics and really show how excited you are about your business, others become excited too. This is what leads to shared content, more traffic, and increased leads.

Conclusion

I hope these 5 reasons have convince you to launch your own small business blog. If you’re still worried about the resources or technical skills needed to have a blog, don’t be. It’s actually not all that hard.

There’s so many resources online to help you get started and a number of services that you can use to get setup. Of course, if you have any problems you can always leave a comment here or ask me directly.

So go ahead, get started. Leave a comment and share your blog once it’s up. Already have a business blog? Post a link so we can all see it!

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1 – WordPress Editorial Calendar

I’ve just recently discovered this one, and it is incredible if you have multiple authors or if even if you just run a personal site. Frustrated about keeping an editorial calendar only to find that putting it into practice leaves you wanting? This plugin is a must for you.
Download: WordPress Editorial Calendar

2 – Photodropper

Not appropriately crediting images can slow you down and get you in trouble (even though Flickr sets images all rights reserved, but I digress…), using the Photodropper plugin is a productivity beast. Type in your search words, scroll through the Creative Commons sharable images (with attribution), and not only will the plugin add the image to your site but will even through a quite fancy looking attribution credit – see below!

photo credit: TheBusyBrain
Download: Photodropper

3 – WordPress.com Stats

Even though it doesn’t always match Google Analytics stats (keep in mind they access and record data differently), it’s a fine way to see your referral and overall site traffic on the fly. Clean and straight to the point.
Download: WordPress.com Stats

4 – Akismet

Akismet is a mainstay of any WordPress site. Another hit by Automattic, the time savings is well worth installing. While it may throw some good comments into spam (and you should periodically check for false positives), all in all still does a fine job. (h/t Bill Boorman)
Download: Akismet

5 – Sharebar

Sexybookmarks used to be where it was at, but Sharebar gives any social sharing plugin a run for it’s money. With version 1.2 recently out, Sharebar now has added Sharethis support as well as a look into sharing statistics.
Download: Sharebar

6 – WP e-Commerce Plugin

While not a new plugin, the extensibility of WordPress beyond “just a blog” always thrills me. If you enjoy WordPress and the simplicity of having your whole site into a single interface, give it a try.
Download: WP e-Commerce

7 – Redirection

For all your 301 needs
Download: Redirection

8 – qTranslate

Awesome plugin for any multilingual site, great editor features for multiple translations and even allows for multi-language sitemaps.
Download: qTranslate

9 – LinkWithin

LinkWithin is a wonderful addition to your WordPress toolbelt. You’ll need to give the plugin your email address so that you can be assigned a unique ID, but then you’re all set to go with 3-5 fancy looking related, thumbnailed posts will appear under all of your posts. Personally, I’ve seen a notable increase of time on site and other such user engagement metrics as a result of LinkWithin.. (h/t Gabriella Sannino)
Download: LinkWithin (requires signup)

10 – After the Deadline

I like this plugin because it not only proofs for spelling and grammar errors, but it also tries to provide guidance for writing posts more concisely. (h/t Derek Edmond)
Download: After the Deadline

What’s your favorite WordPress plugin? Let us know in the comments, and Happy New Year!

Bonus: Use WordPress as a CMS not just a blog

I guess I should start out by saying I was never really a Twitter addict; I was never one of those individuals that had to tweet every little thing or just take a peek at the Twitter stream every five minutes (though for a short time there my girlfriend might beg to differ). I was and continue to be fascinated by Twitter, but I’ve noticed that in the last several months that fascination is waning.

It has slowly begun to dawn on me that many of the folks I have, for some reason or other chosen to follow, are really just spewing useless crap that a) I care nothing about whatsoever, or b) has no bearing on my life or interests, or c) simply don’t understand because I really have no context. This has slowly led to an increased disinterest in even checking in on Twitter, and it’s got me to thinking about why I even use Twitter in the first place.

Twitter seems like the Michael Jackson of social media sometimes. Everyone likes it, but secretly harbors some doubts about its inherent goodness. It’s the thing that everyone in the know does, but no one seems to know why really.

Perhaps I’ve missed the boat, or I’m simply not smart enough to get it, but it seems that Twitter has become clogged with an incessant stream of marketing blurbs, product plugs, and self-serving conversations between a constantly shifting set of people one could call the ‘twitterati’. The alleged ‘in crowd’ of Twitter, the super-users, those that sit slightly above us mere mortals who can inspire interest in a random subject or product with just a few timely words. Social media noise. If Twitter were email, we’d call it spam.

But I’ve been asking myself lately: Why? Why are we listening to these people? Why do we care what they say, seemingly hanging on every word? Do they have their fingers so unerringly on the pulse of technology that they have elevated themselves to the status of today’s oracles? I don’t know, I really don’t.

I’m not mentioning any names here, and I’m not going to paste any tweets I feel might be relevant to my little rant, mainly because I have nothing personal against the individuals I have in mind, and hell, I even enjoy some of their social media antics at times, but I seem to have come to a point in my life that surely we must all come to in our increasingly digital culture: that is, how much of this massive fire hose of information is actual useful, or even truly interesting and beneficial to my life?

Alright, I will point to one example that perfectly demonstrates my point. Apparently, singer/songwriter(and I use that term loosely) John Mayer recently caused a stir by saying Twitter was dead.

OMG! NO!

Yes, it’s true. But my immediate question, regardless of my opinion of his ‘work’, is why should we care what he thinks? And does it bother anybody else that he went on to throw his hat into the ring for a different social media platform, Tumblr? Kanye West also just decided to join Twitter after disparaging it in one of his many useless . Again, who cares?

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I don’t. And I don’t care about your new widget, or your new fool-proof method of making widgets which will subsequently make me rich beyond my wildest dreams, or how I can attract thousands of followers to my blog in 48 hours using your simple eight step method. Maybe I’ve just made some bad decisions on who to follow…

How did I come to follow some of these people anyway? Was it because I read somewhere that I should be following them? Were they supposed to be ‘gurus’? I’ll permanently pull the plug on my internet connection the day John Mayer becomes a guru of anything, much less social media. I’ve tried to the follow the pack in the past, but it’s usually left me stumbling along side the road racing to catch up, wondering where I went wrong. I guess this time, as the dust settles about me, I’m wondering why I’m running in the first place.

Location technologies are transforming how we experience, navigate, and ultimately better our world. From the global to the local, here are #10Ways geolocation is a positive force for good.

Social media has changed the world. It has revolutionized communications on a global scale, and the transformation continues with every status update, blog post, and video stream. The global citizenry has become a global network.

Since becoming widely adopted just a couple years ago, social media has supercharged social action, cause marketing, and social entrepreneurship. Indeed, the true value hasn’t been the technology itself but how we’ve used it. Today, a second wave of innovation is defining a new era and setting the stage for change over the coming decade.

Mobile technologies will extend the global online network to anyone with a mobile device while enabling countless local networks to form in the real world. We’ve decentralized media production and distribution. We’re doing the same for energy. And we’ll continue this trend for social networking, social action, and commerce.

The combined forces of smartphones, mobile broadband, and location-aware applications will connect us in more meaningful ways to the people, organizations, events, information, and companies that matter most to us—namely, those within a physical proximity of where we live and where we are. Can location-based services (LBS) change the world? Here are #10Ways:

1. Checking in for Good: If Gowalla and Foursquare have taught us anything, it’s that people respond to simple incentives. By offering badges, mayorships, and other intangible rewards, millions of people are checking in to the places they go. Apps like Whrrl take this a step further and enable like-minded “societies” to form on a local basis. The next step is for these apps to add greater purpose by encouraging more meaningful checkins and offering corresponding badges and stamps, thus mapping the cause universe. Or for a dedicated app to be developed that rewards conscious consumption, social responsibility, and civic engagement. Yes, the CauseWorld app features a cause element, but it’s not about cause-worthy places.

2. Eating Locally: Sustainability demands that we source our food as close to its point of production as possible. Many so-called locavores subscribe to the 100-mile diet, which requires that one “eat nothing—or almost nothing—but sustenance drawn from within 100 miles of their home.” Given the difficulty of accessing and verifying this information in order to live by this standard, there’s a geo-powered Locavore app. It gives you info on in-season foods, those coming in-season, farmer’s markets, and links to recipes. This rather simple app is clearly just the start. In time, location-aware apps will guide us not only to the grocery store or farmer’s market but through them. All the while identifying foods based on our particular diet or sensibility.

3. Political Organizing: In the next presidential election, politics will not only be local but location-enabled. We saw the power of social media in Obama’s 2008 landslide victory. In 2012, location-based apps and technologies will play a central role in how campaigns are organized, managed, and ultimately won. Much of this will be visible through mobile apps and location-aware browsers. Activists and volunteers will be more empowered. Voters will be more engaged in the moment, right down to casting their votes. Behind the scenes, though, we’ll see massive new sets of data available to campaigns for targeting, empowerment, and optimization. The party, candidate, and/or cause that has the best handle on geolocation will have a measurable advantage. (The Elections app will soon be updated for 2010.)

4. Finding Green Businesses: The web has effectively replaced the paper Yellow Pages as a way to find local businesses and services. However, this “stationary web” experience is quickly being supplanted by the mobile web and mobile applications, which give us access to this information when we most need it. The Yelp and Around Me apps are popular ways to find restaurants, coffee shops, or hotels wherever you are, but what about green-rated businesses? Greenopia has transformed its printed, local guides into a dynamic, nationwide mobile application that lets you find local, green-rated businesses in any category. No more paper and a much better experience. The Green Map app is another that facilitates discovery and connects us to local green environments.

5. Traveling More Efficiently: We’ve had access to GPS navigation systems and static traffic information for some time, but only now are we seeing the full potential of these technologies. With access to more detailed traffic information that is specific to your route and updated in real time, we can minimize congestion and maximize traffic flow (as much as physically possible). The new turn-by-turn MapQuest 4 Mobile app is a good start, as you can get traffic alerts specific to the route you program. However, user-generated information from apps like Trapster and Waze can crowdsource more specific details, such as whether to avoid an intersection due to a toxic chemical spill. Or, if you want to avoid automobiles altogether, Google Maps makes it easy to use public transportation and take a bike.

6. Scanning for Ethical Products: With online shopping, we’ve become accustomed to reading reviews and making comparisons before we buy. This can now be done in the physical world through games like MyTown and services like Stikybits. By scanning a product barcode using a smartphone camera, you can unlock a treasure of additional information (not to mention deals) that can help with your purchase. This might include where it was produced, how far it traveled, the reputation of the manufacturer, chemical contents, carbon footprint, or the full lifecycle analysis. Location-aware applications can also transform commerce itself by giving us better access to local inventories and locally-produced goods. Whether it’s fruits and vegetables or books and electronics, if something can be found within blocks of your current location, it makes no sense to ship it from afar.

7. Networking Neighborhoods: One of the hottest categories in geolocation is neighborhood networking. The vision for many of these apps is to strengthen the very fabric of our communities. With DeHood, you can keep track of what’s happening in your neighborhood, share your favorite places, and grease the wheels for actually meeting people. After all, if you’ve made contact through the app, it’s a lot easier to say “Hello” in the real world. Blasterous is another that lets you share information locally, whereas BlockChalk does this on an anonymous basis. Finally, NeighborGoods uses your street address to facilitate one-to-one borrowing and trading of useful stuff. In the end, making connections with your neighbors can lead to safer, more productive, and more sustainable communities.

8. Tracking Environmental Disasters: The size and scope of environmental disasters appears to be growing. In 2008, we had the Tennessee coal ash spill, which was billed as “the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States.” And that was before we realized it was three times bigger than originally estimated. More recently, the BP oil spill set daily records for “largest environmental disaster in the U.S. ever.” In each case, geolocation technologies can be used by engaged citizens to monitor and track the effects. They can be used by response teams to coordinate containment and cleanup efforts. Ultimately, these technologies can be used to accurately measure the size and impact of a disaster in order to better understand its damages and costs.

9. Viewing the World Through an Eco Lens: Augmented reality (AR) follows geolocation as one of the hot trends in mobile technology. It enables you to view the world through a smartphone camera (or similar device) and see layers of geo-specific content or information. One of the most popular apps is Layar, an augmented reality browser/platform that lets you choose specific data layers or experiences. The potential for green- and cause-related content is tremendous. You might view green-rated businesses, LEED-certified buildings, or virtual GHG emissions as they enter the atmosphere. Combined with smart meter technology, you could see the most efficient and inefficient homes around you in real time. And for the cynics among us, you could view our mountains, forests, rivers, and oceans as they once were…before the effects of climate change and so many environmental disasters.

10. Capturing the Moment: Better access to information about what’s happening around us—right now—can dramatically improve quality of life. This sense of “geospatial awareness” is possible through today’s smartphones, whereby a piece of content or information—a moment—is captured and preserved based on the unique time and place in which it occurred. It is essentially to document spacetime. Protests, natural disasters, sporting events, parties, political crises…real-time information about anything happening anywhere at any time, as well as the history of what happened. This will take several years and a number of different applications to realize. In the end, though, it will revolutionize how we access and consume content. It will complete the democratization and decentralization of news and information…based on time and location.

Cautionary note: Privacy is the single biggest issue in the LBS industry. It’s important to understand what information you are sharing with regard to your location and with whom.

Author’s note: We’ll be hosting geolocation events for Social Media Week in Los Angeles this September. This is the third in Max Gladwell‘s #10Ways series of distributed blog posts. It was published simultaneously on as many as 300 blogs.

Credit: Conversation Marketing – good post, Ian

Years before I started my own firm, I clearly remember a great question designed to trip me up at a job interview:

“So Brian…how many hours of experience do you have on Visio?”
After a chuckle, I regained composure and replied:
“About 4-5 years. Do you catch a lot of people on that one?”
“Yes, I do,” he said with a smirk.

Which brings us to the point of expertise. Lots of people throw around needlessly unqualified labels about how so and so is a guru, maven, or expert. Question is, how do you know someone truly is an expert? Especially in social media – a field so near and dear to our hearts?

The answer? Experience.

I’ve recently read (and re-read several times – ask my wife, she can attest   a book called Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. You have probably heard of another one of his works – The Tipping Point – but this is also a must read.

Mr. Gladwell does a wonderful job of challenging the conventional way of thought on the coveted “self-made man,” rags to riches stories, and innate geniuses (they get help along the way too, read the book for more on this point). Without giving away all there is in the book, he talks about how people don’t come from nothing to success. Even if they are geniuses. Rather, it comes from opportunity and experience.

So, How Much Experience is Enough?

This may sound weird to you, but if you look across all sorts of fields of knowledge, they all converge around a single number. 10,000 hours.

Here’s the kicker. Social media is such a new field, that people could not have been expert practitioners until recently.

Let’s say you started 3 years ago and consistently work your butt off to the tune of 70 hours per week:

• 70 x 50 (give yourself some vacation and sick time) = 3,500 hours
• 3,500 hours per year x 3 years = 10,500 hours

Got that? Testimonials from customers aren’t enough.  News mentions.  Interviews.  Even past performance on a client – you could have just got lucky.  The true measure of expertise is this 10,000 hours rule.

Conclusion, and a Bit More

And here is what I have to add to Malcolm Gladwell’s argument – it isn’t just the 10,000 hour rule, but rather how quickly you got to the 10,000 hours.  Total immersion, i.e. getting 10,000 hours as quickly as possible is an even greater predictor of success.  Keeping in mind that social media is such a new field, many so-called “experts” are eliminated right from the start.

If you’re a business that’s just starting out then chances are you’re not going to have a particularly large budget for your marketing and public relations efforts. A dedicated PR team and advertising campaigns for TV, radio and print are more than likely going to be outside of your reach.

Thanks to the wonders of Web 2.0, though, a small budget is no longer a barrier to promoting your business worldwide, if you know how to harness the power of online marketing and social media.

There are a number of benefits to using an online marketing campaign, and chief among these is lower costs – for starters, it’ll cost you absolutely nothing to set up an account with Facebook/Twitter/MySpace/Bebo and start communicating directly with consumers.

For Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising campaigns you can set a nominal budget each month, say $10, and then review the results at the end of each month and dedicate more or less money to different search engines and keywords, depending on which ones are bringing you the best click-through rates.
Furthermore, with social media you can get directly to your target market. With a traditional advertising campaign you’re basically throwing your money and message into the air in the hope that it will land on the heads of a few interested parties. With social media, though, you can narrow your efforts down to the specific group of people who are interested in your product and then speak directly to them, one-on-one, which humanises your brand, engenders a sense of trust and community between the brand and the consumers, and provides you with direct feedback from the people who know best – your customers.

A common misconception is that a social media marketing campaign is only going to reach a narrow demographic of tech-savvy Gen X and Gen Y web geeks – yet nothing could be further from the truth. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the number of web users aged 40 and above who use social media is growing constantly, and research backs this up – a 2009 survey by Insidefacebook.com shows that 22% of registered users of Facebook were aged between 35 and 65, with the fastest growing demographic being women over 55.

It’s important, though, to make sure you’re targeting the right social media, especially when it comes to international campaigns. If you’re interested in reaching consumers in Japan, for instance, then it’s no good concentrating your efforts on Facebook because 80% of Japanese social media users are signed up with Mixi.jp, just as Xanga rules the roost in Hong Kong and Orkut in Brazil.

‘Crowdsourcing’ is another great development of Web 2.0 that can be used to commercial advantage. The concept basically does what it says on the tin – for those not in the know, it means to put out an open call to the lumpen mass of internet users to come together and assist with the completion of a project; think of Wikipedia as an archetypal crowdsourcing project. Crowdsourcing can be an extremely effective way to achieve a business goal or to increase your brand awareness – not to mention being cheap – and it’s a great way to get consumers directly involved with your brand.

For instance, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – the world’s largest open-access arts festival – recently ran a crowdsourcing project via Twitter to design their 2010 programme cover. Fans were encouraged to tweet their suggestions for illustrations to adorn the cover and selected suggestions were then drawn by a professional illustrator, whose work was streamed live online. The project was a great success in terms of both building hype about the 2010 Fringe and for strengthening the sense of community and crowd participation that is an essential ingredient of the Fringe’s success.

Lost in Translation?

In another example, Facebook crowdsourced the translation of their localized sites – over 300,000 users helped to translate content into 70 languages using the Facebook translation applications. However, crowdsourcing for technical work such as translation can have its pitfalls – by relying on anonymous internet users to provide and compile data, there is no quality assurance, and languages are particularly tricky beasts; they change constantly, evolving and morphing between regions and dialects, and the potential for error is great.

Getting the amorphous masses to translate your content for a web page or campaign may seem like a cheap and easy way to step over the language-hurdle, but how will you know precisely what your translated text is really saying? You don’t want to end up like Pepsi, whose Taiwanese translation of ‘Come alive with the Pepsi Generation’ came back as ‘Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead’, or chicken entrepreneur Frank Purdue, whose slogan ‘It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken’ turned up on Mexican billboards in translated into Spanish as ‘It takes a tough man to make a chicken aroused.’ Probably best to get a professional translator to either do your translation work from the start, or look over it before it goes out to the world, then.

For the savvy entrepreneur, the online realm has a wealth of ways to get your brand out there and to start connecting with the punters for minimal expense, and when used in combination with more traditional public relations strategies – such as press releases targeted at media sources – your company will be impossible to stop.

Christian Arno is the founder and managing director of global translation provider Lingo24, which works across four continents. Follow Christian on Twitter.

You could see Neal interview some of the brightest minds on cyberspace including thought-leaders in social media marketing and search engine optimization on nealrodriguez.com where he offers his own social media and blog training program.

Something I don’t like about networking meetings in particular is the superficiality of it all.  Your goal in life isn’t just to accumulate business cards – business cards are crap.

It takes a while to really get to know your connections well.  And after a while, it is difficult to keep up with too many people simultaneously.  The famed Dunbar Number holds that a typical person cannot hold together over 150 connections.  So, it is inevitable while you are making connections, you are losing some as well.  Pretty self-defeating, isn’t it? Fear not, dear reader, for I have a solution for you.

Reconnecting.

Let’s work off the premise that it is easier to re-kindle an existing relationship than to start a new one.  Here are 10 suggestions on how to reconnect with others:

1 – Pick up the phone.

This may be difficult for you if you are an introvert, but the more human a connection, the more permanent it is.  Skype voice and video calls are also great for this purpose.

2 – Do one kind deed a day.

It isn’t just about the money.  If you are in social media marketing solely for this reason, well – that’s your prerogative.  I’m out to change the world.  A small task from your point of view can be of great value to others.  Helping a friend and asking nothing in return goes a long way and is remembered.

3 – Keep up better.

“But Brian!” You exclaim. “We can’t!”

Sure you can.  It’s simple to do using some of the following techniques:

• Calendar reminders
• CRM reminders
• Twitter lists
• IM groupings

4 – Be a better commenter.

5 – Guest blog for others and get guest bloggers.

6 – Interview someone.

7 – Be polite.

I’m fond of wishing people well each morning (ok, I may miss a few here and there) – you would be amazed what giving people a little bright spot in their day can do for them.  My friend @JonathanFields is also a fan of similar messaging, often asking people in the morning how he can help them today. (See Jonathan? People are listening and do appreciate your courtesy.)

8 – Make a gathering  of your own.

As an example, last year I put together the 10 in 10 experiment.  Was it successful? I’d like to think so.  The point of it was to connect with people on a more intimate level, my theory being that introverts or newcomers to a conference are pushed aside and don’t realize the full benefits of conferences or typical networking events.

9 – Another side of you.

Show old connections another side of you – if you were previously talking about work, perhaps sharing information about hobbies and other interests may be the way to go.

10 – Tagging.

Though kind of annoying (like the feeling you get when someone sends you a chain letter), it’s hard to ignore when someone tags you in a blog post or Facebook note.  Personally, I find this more passive and impersonal than some of my other suggestions, but it would be hard to argue against its effectiveness.

What do you do to build and keep your social network? Let me know in the comments.

(Image Source: Haley Landsman)

In all honesty, I’ve never tried to attract my 1,000 true fans. Yet, I’m at the stage where I can launch a product and garner almost 700 sales, so I like to think I know quite a bit when it comes to building a loyal audience.

Because, at the end of the day, that’s what your 1,000 true fans really are. In some regards, they don’t stand out; they are blog readers, newsletter subscribers, twitter followers or just casual browsers. But really, your true fans are the people that:

• Talk about you
• Promote your work
• Use your products / services with pride
• Feel like they are a part of your brand and your community

This last one is important and something that a lot of people forget. Make sure you don’t make the same mistake.

True fans grow your current audience, help you with your output (they’ll happily tell you when they don’t like what you’re doing) and buy your products. If you want to start gaining some true fans of your own, here’s what you need to do.

Trust In Your Own Voice

In order for people to give you permission to lead them, they have to trust you. And I can tell you now that you’ll never gain trust from others if you don’t first trust yourself. As long as you really have the best interests of your audience / market at heart, then believe that whatever it is you’re putting out to the world, is amazing.

Really.

If you don’t believe that your product, service or content is amazing, then why are you putting it out there in the first place? I write not only because I want to document my journey in different aspects of life, but because I believe I have knowledge and advice that can genuinely change peoples lives.

If you care about attracting your true fans, then you must believe that your work is enough.

Live Your Message

When I want to back a politician that is talking about climate change, am I going to vote for the guy that publicly drives his 4×4 around the streets of London, or the one that is constantly caught by the press on his bicycle?

If you’re helping people do or be something, then at least make sure that you have done it yourself or you’re getting very close advice from someone who has. My favourite way to build trust is to help people with a goal, and document my own process of achieving that goal.

For example, because I was able to build such a large audience in the personal development niche, I was able to write a very popular eBook. A few months later, I then wrote a 3,000 word blog post on the exact steps that were involved in the process. I knew my audience was interested in creating such a product, so I helped them to do it by revealing my methods.

If you’re spreading a way of living, a product to use, or a service you adore, then make sure you’re the expert on that product and live by that service. If you’re not practicing what you preach, why should people care about what you have to say?

Be an Expert

I don’t care how many times you tell me you can’t do something or how many things you say you’re not good at, I believe you’re an expect on something. You might actually believe you’re an expert on something but not know whether there’s an audience for that. Either way, you’re still an expert.

One of the most obvious ways to gain a loyal following is to offer the best advice on a given subject. If you are the go-to-source for anything, then you have a great opportunity to grow your fan base. I don’t like to call myself an expert on any topic, but I do make sure that I know my industry / product / service as well as (if not better than) anyone else.

If you don’t want to focus on becoming an expert, at least aim to know more about your ‘thing’ than anyone else. If you can’t see yourself as an expert on something, then at least be an expert at explaining the process, testing as much as you can or overcoming common problems.

Becoming an expert is one of the hardest thing to do, but it’s one of the easiest ways to grow your audience.

Give Away As Much As Possible

It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that businesses need ways of making money in order to grow and that constantly giving away freebies isn’t always the best option, especially for start-ups or companies with little cash-flow. However, the strategy of giving as much free value as you can definitely has its place.

When I talk about ‘giving away,’ I’m really just talking about giving your audience as much free value as you can. Some examples of giving this value could be in:

• The content you produce for your own site
• The content you produce elsewhere (forums, guest posts, comments)
• Tools that your industry find indispensable
• The support that your company offers, as standard

I could go on and on about the ways you can give value, but I’m sure you have your own ideas based on whatever business is in your mind right now. There are a lot of people who are worried about giving ‘too much’ away because the value you offer isn’t directly making you money. I agree that there is a fine line between giving free value and deserving to make money for your work.

When it comes to giving things away, remember to be smart, but not stingy.

Now that I’ve shared my tips, I would love to hear yours in the comments. How are you working towards your 1,000 true fans?

Glen Allsopp writes at ViperChill, a blog about viral marketing. He has been with Collective-thoughts since day one, and is now making a long-overdue return.