Click image to see 168 Business Directories

Even if your small business could afford a Super Bowl ad – at $3.5 million – there is another form of advertising that would benefit you more and consistently bring you far more business.

And the good news is you only have to pay to have it submitted ONCE to get free advertising on Google Places, Yahoo! Local, Bing, Superpages and hundreds of other local directories indefinitely*.

Completely Free Advertising

You can do it yourself manually, or create your own listings through Universal Business Listings (UBL – what I use), but there are MAJOR BENEFITS to having me do it for you including your not having to do anything except provide your business information. I will handle EVERYTHING for you.

What does it cost?
See Local Search Listings Frequently Asked Questions

DOES FREE LOCAL ADVERTISING WORK?

• See UBL Webcard examples of actual listings I have created and compare them to any other listing created on UBL. What you see in those examples is what YOUR business listing information will look like – listings that will be sent to hundreds of major sites including Google Places, Yahoo! Local, Bing, SuperPages, YellowPages, Yelp, Merchant Circle and sites about your location and industry.
• Local Search Case Study showing UBL listings generated 75 new visitors for every 100 visitors Google sent.
• Appliance store local listings generating 30 New Customers a Week.
• Enhanced local search listings generate new traffic of 81.32%

CLICK THIS LINK if YOU Want Your Free Advertising Now

* Note: Some databases and directories may remove your listing if you do not renew annually but most do not. There are other benefits to annual renewals – and they are fast and easy to do once you’re in UBL.

Click image to read Facebook IPO to Create Jobs

Future of Engagement – Monitoring Social Media on the Eve of the Facebook IPO Launch

Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook could be going public within seven days. Murray Newlands’ series The Future of Engagement analyzes how this story spread across social media:

TRACKING TRENDS

Highlights:

• The term “Facebook IPO” was a trend on Twitter less than a day after the WSJ Facebook IPO story went live
• Over half of “Facebook IPO” social media mentions were on Twitter, showing how important the microblogging site is for breaking news.
• In the 24-hour timespan after the WSJ post went live, Twitter’s mentions for that term grew eightyfold – to over 800 posts.

Click the image below to see Alerti’s Social Media Monitoring Graphs for the search Facebook IPO full size:

Graphs by Alerti

Alerti Facebook IPO Graph of Social Media Mentions ~ Click Image to See Full Size

Facebook IPO DELAYED:

• LATEST: Forbes: Facebook IPO $5 Billion
• MSN Bottom Line: Facebook May Delay IPO
• Market Watch: What to Look for in Facebook IPO Filing

NOTE: Watch this space for updated graphs on the Facebook IPO Delay

Click Image for Free Download or to Buy in Paperback

Danny Iny (@DannyIny on Twitter) from Marketing Training Company FirePole Marketing did what all wise people do when confronted with a challenge: find out first what everyone else who has tackled the same situation learned and then build on that.

How to Win Your FREE Paperback Copy of Engagement from Scratch:

So here’s the deal. You tell me why you want a copy of Danny’s book and I’ll send my extra copy to the person who writes the most compelling reason. Here are some tips for you:

You can see by the excerpts in this short video who the contributors are:

Danny took that a step further and compiled everything he had learned himself and from 30+ super community building bloggers into a book to benefit everyone else who wants to know how to build a loyal following from scratch.

Learning from someone else’s experience is a lot smarter than
having to learn everything the hard way by doing it yourself!

He asked each of the contributors this question:

“If you had to start over and build an engaged
audience from scratch, how would you do it?”

His book Engagement from Scratch contains answers from famous bloggers and community builders you already know and many that you don’t. It is well worth reading for the insights you’ll get – and would you believe that the digital version is FREE to download?

Engagement from Scratch FREE Download here.

When I use a book as a reference, a physical copy to keep handy is worth having.  I wrote a recommendation for Danny’s book and he sent me a review copy. Even though I practically live online and read all the time, I still LOVE books.

50% of Profits from Paperback Version Supports NFTE

Danny is wiser than the average marketer because even though he could have just emailed me the digital file he sent me (and probably others) TWO copies of the actual book.

Having it around means I can make notes in it, and curl up with it when I’m giving my eyes a break from the computer monitor. And the extra copy means I can give one away to my readers so THEY can benefit, too.

Don’t Miss How to Win Your FREE Paperback
Copy of Engagement from Scratch – details below!

So here’s the deal. You tell me why you want a copy of Danny’s book and I’ll send my extra copy to the person who writes the most compelling reason. Here are some tips for you:

1. Visit Danny’s site to find out who contributed to Engagement From Scratch.
2. You could check out the testimonials and reviews.
3. Bloggers who write a blog post about Danny’s book and promote it online are more likely to win.
4. But you can leave a comment and promote that. (Click on the date in the comment to get a link if you want to share your comment specifically instead of this post in general.)

I haven’t seen a stamp or a post office in years, so if it weren’t Danny and he wasn’t offering so much to so many I wouldn’t be making this offer.  You’ll get a lot out of the book and I hope you’ll check it out. 

Consider voting for it in the SmallBiz Small Business Book Awards
Voting starts soon – nominations close Tuesday, Jan 31, 2012

Small Business Book Awards Twitter Chat

Anyone who writes and especially who has a book they’re promoting will want to be on the Twitter chat Tuesday night.  Join all our fellow book lovers and favorite blogging collaborators including:

• Anita Campbell from @SmallBizTrends
• @Ileane from @BasicBlogTips
• @mmangen
• @VernessaTaylor @CoachNotesBlog

Book Promotion Twitter Chat
Tuesday night Jan 31, 2012 at 7 EST / 6 CST / 5 MST / 4 PST
To use Tweetchat – the easiest way to participate in a Twitter chat -
use this link >> #bizbookawards twitter chat

Sponsored by JustRetweet
Why You Should Join Just Retweet

It is bound to be lively and interesting – and you will make some exceptional connections.

JustRetweet is giving away 24 hours in the one and only
Featured Site spot AND doubling all credits purchased and
VIP time bought during the chat and for 24 hours after it ends.

You WILL learn a lot from Danny’s book – and when I read it cover to cover I kept waiting for every contributor to recommend what I believe in strongest and KNOW works best. I really thought Kristi Hines (@Kikolani) or Ana Hofman (@AnaTrafficCafe) would talk about it in depth – but they didn’t.

Maybe I can get Danny to include a bonus chapter
from me in his Special Bonuses for EFS Readers.

Before you apply the tips in the book be sure you clearly understand the differences between the types of communities each of the contributors has and decide what kind of community YOU want to grow. There is very little overlap between the types.

If you don’t win or you want it now you can buy your own copy here. As much as you know it pains me, in this case there does not appear to be ANY Amazon alternative for buying Danny’s book (except for online sellers that source through Amazon or Abe books which is owned by Amazon).

If you don’t get it for anything else you need to see the clever
way Danny uses call to action pages throughout the book.

We can not always have what we want and sometimes we can not find alternatives. That does not mean we should ever stop trying. In this case, supporting our fellow authors is more important.

I want to give everyone a fair chance to win their own copy of Danny’s book so entries will be open until Friday, February 17, 2012 midnight CST. If you write a post do drop in and leave a comment here so I’ll be sure to see – and promote – it. (Trackbacks aren’t what they used to be thanks to automated tools that let unethical bloggers and marketers flood our blogs with trackback spam.)

There is still time to make sure your favorite small business related book is nominated (or your own!) for the Small Business Trends Book Awards – but only until Tuesday, January 31, 2012.

Don’t take the chance of being shut out by waiting until the last minute. Head over there NOW and make sure your favorites are listed. If you’re an author that goes double for you.

Small Business Book Awards Twitter Chat

Join all our fellow book lovers including Anita Campbell from @SmallBizTrends and our blogging collaborators @Ileane @mmangen @VernessaTaylor @CoachNotesBlog and many more in a Twitter chat on book promotion.

• When:  Tuesday night January 31, 2012 at 7 EST / 6 CST / 5 MST / 4 PST
• To use Tweetchat – the easiest way to participate in a Twitter chat -
  use this link >> #bizbookawards twitter chat

It is bound to be lively and interesting – and you will make some exceptional connections.

This is a guest post by Manuel Marino where he shares how he has combined using LinkedIn for connections with blogging to build a community of artists helping artists.

Is it possible to merge an artist’s talent with social networking, adding some blogging spice for a perfect mix?

My name is Manuel Marino and I’m a music composer and producer, but I consider myself an all around artist, blessed with many talents, from music to painting, graphics and design.

I have many websites, most important are my weblog about music and arts ManuelMarino.com and my studio homepage MarinoSounds.com.

Why YOU Should Use LinkedIn

From my profiles, the best one is the LinkedIn profile where I have more than 27,000 direct contacts. Is it important?

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network
with over 120 million members and growing rapidly.

LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.

For a music professional, this means Heaven.

85% of my projects come from LinkedIn contacts.

I’ve been able to meet online impressive guys like Vince Desi (I consider him a friend) and many other powerful individuals from the video games, music and entertainment worlds.

I use many LinkedIn tools to contact artists all over the world and collaborate with them on music and multimedia projects. You can really feel like a world citizen this way!

IMPORTANCE OF BLOGGING

What about Blogging? Is it more or less important than networking?

If networking is the pillar of the Internet world, blogging
is the way to communicate your ideas inside the networks.

What inspired me initially was the idea to freely surf and read everything about anything. This always fascinated me. I think this is why people love to have many blog feeds to read daily. Next to this idea is the one to freely write interesting articles for the Internet community. Both give a kind of freedom that I never felt before.

This freedom is the foundation of my blog. ManuelMarino.com is about music, arts, philosophy, poetry, independent artists, humanities and freedom. I invite experts and sincere professionals and artists to write articles. I believe very much in freedom, honesty, sincerity and I’m able to feel these when I meet people. There are many good people in the world, but sometimes we are too obsessed by everyday life to understand and find this.

When I write my blog posts – usually my ideas about news, culture and art – sometimes my intuition is what’s behind the post. We need more intuition, people tend to forget the importance of it and uses too much their left brain. (Want to see the right brain in action? Just check my sketch lady, and my 3d works beauty and vampire night).

After you find the right idea, it’s the word of mouth that can make it a success on the Net! Backlinks are even more important, but the two are very related. I’m talking about the natural backlinks from fans and readers and word of mouth can only maximize the effect even more. That’s an awesome connection toward success!

What connects networking to blogging? Freedom. Yes, this amazing freedom feeling the Internet gives. Building an online network of contacts gives you freedom and the ability to “move your mind” in so many projects, countries, cities. You are able to find new traditions and culture.

As an example, I learned important details about Buddhism and oriental culture through a friend in Singapore. We also had much fun playing GO, an oriental board game. Singapore is very far. It’s not easy to reach it through a “real trip”. Internet can help, when distances are so far. The world is just one click away.

I just want to mention a success story that helped me realizing all of this.The mp3.com experience has been very important for me. It showed me the great potential of the Internet and gave me the ability to meet new friends and collaborate with them through the web.

It has been about 12 years ago. Musicians were working together and many projects were born. First Internet radios provided an important community of listeners who were supporting us. We were able to produce albums at no cost to us.  (It was a real innovation in that period). The royalties mp3.com was giving us were fair and honest. I will always be delighted to remember those years.

For the rest of January, obtain your FREE copy of my Audio Mastering Guide and participate in our community to promote your blog or Website and connect with other musicians and artists.

Click Image to Find out more about Spark Media Solutions

In the latest episode of Future of Engagement, Murray Newlands interviews branding expert David Spark (@dspark on Twitter), founder of the custom publishing company Spark Media Solutions which provides custom content marketing services.

David and Murray discuss how content including video content creation works for business. They go beyond creating videos to how to use them to share your content and build relationships through blog outreach, guest blogging, and relationship building using social media.

“To be shared, your content must be valued by your audience
and only then it is truly useful to build your brand.” ~ David Spark ~

CONTENT CREATION

Use your content as the valuable asset it is. Videos, white papers, or any form of articles, posts, ebooks or PDFs becomes highly useful sharing.  Once created, you can instantly send optimized content to:

• Answer commonly asked questions
• Provide support
• Teach or train people in the use of your products or services
• Transfer skills
• Prospects by your sales team to overcome commonly expressed objections

“Content is the currency for social media and search…
being traded via social media and visible in search”

David shares that it is “extraordinarily common” for companies to NOT have this valuable content – even when they KNOW what the top reasons are that are losing them sales.

“Whatever your top ten reasons are for losing sales make sure
you have content that supports it as assets for your sales staff.”

Social currency

David also touches on:

• Identifying and connecting with influencers
• How to establish relationships with larger sites
• Guest blogging – and what you can and can’t write about

To learn more about Spark Media Solutions or to contact David Sparks go to sparkmediasolutions.com.

What businesses really need to understand is that if they can afford to do it they should hire someone who already has the connections that will most benefit them and access on major blogs where they can mention and link to you.

Everyone is busy and responding to cold requests from people
you don’t know are such a low priority that you will
rarely get a response no matter how well
you can write or great your video content.

When someone known to the site to product only high quality content contacts them on your behalf the answer is often an immediate yes because the site trusts that person.

Among bloggers in my collaborations, we often have standing agreements regarding guest posts that benefit clients and grant author, editor or even admin access to each other so there is no delay in publishing when something is trending that could benefit someone we support.

If you can not afford to hire expert assistance – or you are providing content marketing services – use these posts to guide you:

• What Content to Create and How to Share it Consistently When Your Target Audience is Most Receptive
• Why QUALITY Content and RELEVANCY are MORE Important than Quantity
• Hubspot: Content Quantity Diminishes Quality

Keep in mind that it will take you much more time to get results than it would if you could leverage the relationships, talent and experience of others – but you CAN get results. Don’t expect them overnight.

Alerti: How it Works

This is a guest post from Murray Newlands sharing a new social media monitoring and management solution.

Social Media Monitoring

It’s the new year, and if you’re like me, you’re taking a good, long look at your business goals and the services you use to achieve those goals. If your goals include lead generation, networking, becoming a thought leader, engaging in more conversation, or understanding your competition better, then I want to introduce you to Alerti social media monitoring and management service.

This short (under 2 minutes) video shows how to set up alerts in Alerti:

Alerti is launching their new English language service and iPhone app this week in the US and UK, and I think they have the tools to stand out in the crowded social media monitoring and management service space. I’m excited to be working with them. In short, Alerti provides simple, effective tools in a single interface for the real-time collection and management of the relevant information from around the web.

They give you all the standard metrics of the big boys, from sentiment analysis to custom graphs, along with an efficient work-flow dashboard in a single interface. You can delegate results out to your team and respond to social media posts from your own Twitter or Facebook profile without leaving the Alerti interface. You can create as many queries as you need, and you can customize your graphs.

Social Media Management and Monitoring Tools

I was reading Media Bistro recently and found a survey of people who use social media monitoring and management tools. One of the things that caught my eye was that only 1 in 3 consider themselves “happy” with the social media monitoring service they are using. Really? Don’t you deserve a service that you are “happy” with?

Excerpt from KissMetrics OneForty Infographic: Social Media Monitoring Tools Satisfaction Survey Results ~ Click Image to view Entire Infographic Enlarged for Easy Viewing

What did those respondents say was most important? The metrics offered, the interface design and the integration with social media networks.

Social Media Solutions Drawbacks:

The biggest complaints those respondents had were:

• Excessive lag time/ fails to provide reliable, accurate data
• Excessive bugs/ Confusing to use/ Lack of innovation
• Too pricey- features don’t justify the cost

Alerti Benefits:

Here’s how Alerti stacks up:

• Results are updated throughout the day so they are always fresh.
• Their team is constantly keeping the service efficient and innovating. The reason they created the service was out of their own need for a simple, efficient tool- it’s why they put everything in a single interface.
• The plans start at $15/ month. This is for the same features many companies charge over $100/ month for, mind you.

Want to try out their service for FREE for 3 months?
Go to Alerti and register with the “GROW” Bonus code.

Do try out their service for Free for three months (see offer just above). I look forward to hearing what you think
–
Murray Newlands is the founder of Influence People and author of a recent book on Social Media Monitoring.

If you haven’t heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) so far, most are bound to have noticed Tuesday, January 18, 2012 when they were unable to get to many of their favorite sites from Wikipedia to Reddit to WordPress to Mozilla to Craigslist.

NEW: Where do members of Congress stand on SOPA
MUST WATCH VIDEOS: CBS C/Net Complicit in Piracy

SOPA LOSING SUPPORT VIDEO

Do not fall for the red herring that these bills – both SOPA (in the House) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) (in the Senate) are ONLY about stopping “renegade pirate sites”. 

ANY site could be taken down!

MUST READ post: Click Image for MPAA Rant against SOPA Blackout

SOPA and PIPA are NOT only a threat to big sites.
See this MUST WATCH video:

Look at all the videos that have been removed from YouTube because of copyright violations. That could be YOUR blog or any site you visit!

“This bill is about using the government to shut
down the competition from bloggers, podcasters,
Web TV and other independent content creators.”
~ Rick Calvert, BlogWorld Co-Founder ~

SOPA and PIPA would make it simple for YOUR blog or favorite site to be “reported” and taken down or cut off from PayPal and other payment gateways without proof of wrongdoing or any chance to defend your innocence.

Wikipedia SOPA Blackout - What Wikipedia Looks Like Wed Jan 18 12:46 a.m. CST

Did you know that it is ILLEGAL to sing Happy Birthday in a restaurant
unless that restaurant pays royalties to the people who wrote that song?
Or that you could be found guilty and sentenced to up to FIVE YEARS
in prison for posting a video on your site or YouTube or anywhere else
online that contains any part of that song?
And some actually believe you should report others and
PAY UP if you unknowingly sang Happy Birthday to anyone!

GOOGLE SOPA BLACKOUT LOGO:

Google SOPA Logo

Google is NOT going dark – but they did post a message
“Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the web!”

MEDIA IN DENIAL:

As has been their usual response, major media ignores what they don’t want the public to know about for as long as they can:

“Living in what can only be described as pure denial, the MPAA announced today that the SOPA/PIPA protests “failed to enlist big sites.” Honestly, there’s really not much more to say about that. Google. Wikipedia. Facebook. Amazon. Craigslist. All participating. Let’s just stare in wonder at the MPAA’s hubris and ability to deny reality.” ~ TechDirt ~

HOW TO JOIN SOPA BLACKOUT:

• INSTANT >> Twitter Blackout SOPA Avatars
• WordPress SOPA PIPA Plugins
• How to SOPA Strike
• How To Blackout Your Site (For SOPA/PIPA) Without Hurting SEO
• Participating in the SOPA Black Out? Don’t Forget to SEO
• Stop American Censorship SOPA Strike – site includes huge list of participants in strike, ways to participate, and SOPA infographic with NO OBVIOUS WAY TO SHARE IT so go see their SOPA INFOGRAPHIC at WebProNews!

• Zachary Johnson’s blackout page
• ProtestSOPA.org
• CloudFlare’s Stop Censorship app
• SOPA Strike WordPress Plugin
• Did you make something? Tweet it to #StrikeTools

MORE INSANE LAWS

• SNOPES: Happy Birthday is STILL Protected by Copyright! Sing Happy Birthday and We’ll Sue!
• Techdirt: The Happy Birthday Copyright Saga: Generating Millions On A Copyright That May Not Exist
• Techdirt: Senators Want To Put People In Jail For Embedding YouTube Videos
• Techdirt: New Anti-Streaming Criminal Copyright Bill Could Mean Jail Time For Lip Synchers

WHAT IS SOPA?

• XLNT: The Super PIPA-SOPA Action Info Flowchart Reference Guide
• What All Marketers Need To Know About SOPA – The Stop Online Piracy Act
• The Big List Of SOPA Links
• Factbox: The ‘Stop Online Piracy Act‘ explained
• Kikolani: About SOPA and Today’s Blackout – Infographic, Video, and Call to Action

WHAT IS PIPA?

• TodayIRead: SOPA and PIPA will BREAK the Internet!
• ThatBaldChick’s position on SOPA PIPA Blackout
• AHens’Nest Videos and Details about Protesting Internet Censorship

WHAT IS COPPA?

• Proposed FTC COPPA Changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act includes yet ANOTHER call for a National ID – does NOT protect children but does threaten privacy, free speech and freedom.

EFFECTS of SOPA / PIPA:

• SOPA and PIPA bills could threaten natural health websites with government-ordered shutdown
• ?US Chamber Of Commerce Appears To Argue That SOPA & PIPA Apply To NO Websites At All
• ?If SOPA’s Main Target Is The Pirate Bay, It’s Worth Pointing Out That ThePirateBay.org Is Immune From SOPA

Small business owner and managers can benefit from advice from 28 Social Media Marketing experts presenting during the 2012 Small Biz Success Summit.

Small Business Success Summit is entirely online so you can watch from the comfort of your own PC. Sessions are live and presented from Feb 1 through Feb 23, 2012.  The event sold out last year so if you want to attend you need to register now.

Save 50% if you REGISTER BEFORE this coming Thursday, Jan 19, 2012.

You can watch any live sessions you miss when it is most convenient to you because recordings and transcripts are available. You can watch any that you find particularly useful more than once.

Find out what experienced small business owners and marketers
know and do with social media that makes them so successful.

Michael Stelzner created a video that shares how social media can benefit your business. I will embed it here but if may disappear  which commonly happens in WordPress if you use iframe code and ever open that post again in the Visual Editor.

The option to get the older code that does NOT disappear but is not available, so if you can’t see the video here (or even if you can), pop over to Kelly Lester’s Easy Lunchboxes CommentLuv blog and find out what Small Biz Strategies she is going to share in her session at Affiliate Success Summit 2012.

Follow the buzz about Small Biz Success Summit on Twitter using hashtag #sbss12.

Click Image to go to Feel Tip Top Twitter Search Engine

I recently wrote about How to Increase Conversions By Sharing Pillar Content When Your Audience is Most Receptive and mentioned using the semantic Twitter search engine FeelTipTop and a unique Twitter alert search and respond app iTweetLive.

By using TipTop first to see typical search results for any given keyword phrase you can fine tune what you set up in iTweetLive and greatly reduce the amount of time you’ll spend weeding out searches that were either too general or have too many other meanings.

It is faster to fine-tune your searches first than to
manually review and delete those that did not work later.

iTweetLive Example Setup:

It is often easier to understand when you see a real life example – and understanding is a faster way to be productive with a new tool than trial and error – and that gets you results much faster.

If you are tempted to skip this I encourage you to read on.

I recently set up iTweetLive to promote two valuable school assembly programs offered by DominoTheGreat:

• Read to Succeed program to encourage reading in this Library Blogs post.
• Buddies Not Bullies: his bullying prevention assembly program featured in this bullying statistics post.

By first searching for the word “bullying” in FeelTipTop it is immediately obvious that there are far too many tweets that include that word – most of them from people who are reacting to news or other tweets who would not be in need of a bullying prevention program.

That one insight saves HOURS of
deleting tweets that do not need replies.

FeelTipTop suggests additional keyword phrases that I can test to find just the type of tweets that are worth replying to and eliminate most of the ones that would not be interested.

Additional "Insightful Topics" Suggested by FeelTipTop related to my Bullying Prevention Search - Ignore those not revelant - hone in on the ones that are.

Clicking on any of the suggested words highlights the tweets that contain that word. For example, ‘School’ is highly relevant because anti-bullying programs are most commonly presented in schools as is ‘assembly’.

Clicking on ‘assembly’ pulls out the tweets for ‘bullying prevention assembly’ from the existing results:

FeelTipTop shows which of the results includes Bullying Prevention Assembly

Notice that Tip Top provides you with an important and time-saving web usability feature: breadcrumbs to get back to your previous search.

See the red arrow and text in this image pointing out the Breadcrumbs - All sites and especially ecommerce stores should use these so your visitors know where they are on your site and how to jump back one or several pages to where they were.

By testing each potential search first I am able to hone in on tweets by people who can benefit by knowing about Domino’s anti-bullying program and the excellent statistical data provided by Statista on bullying.

• Bullying Prevention – very targeted
• Bullying Statistics – very high volume of people searching for these who will be very happy to have the statistics in my post

Notice that on the original search screen – which you need to remember can be accessed at any time by clicking the Inputs tab – there is a ‘select city’ dropdown.

If your business wants to reply to geographically targeted tweets this feature could become very useful. We need the developers of Tip Top to let us know what that feature is trying to do? Does it use the location in the Twitter bio or is it looking for locations?

This post explains how to build refined Twitter searches using Tip Top. See part two to be published soon for how to set up iTweetLive using these searches to automate the search process to increase conversions through offering solutions when your target audience WANTS them.