Describe yourself in 140 characters or less.
​I'm Cassie, a lover of design, DIY, travel, fashion, sarcasm, mexican food and shiny, ruffly things.

What inspires you to blog?
It started as my much-needed creative outlet, and now I'm attached to the community of supportive friends who enjoy the same things as me.​

Do you ever get stumped on what to write? How do you overcome this?
My blog focuses on projects I do around our house, and I've yet to run out of project ideas! If I don't have a post or good topic one day, I just skip it. I try not to post just for posting’s sake.​

How do you describe your blog to people you meet who haven’t read it before?
A lifestyle blog focusing on budget-minded home projects, with a lot of fashion, travel and sarcasm thrown in.​

What do you love about IZEA/SocialSpark?
I love how simple it is to choose and execute campaigns.​

 Do you have a favorite type of brand or product review to work with?
I only accept the campaigns that are relevant to my blog, and companies I truly like and support...which usually ends up being home decor.​

How do you actively stay engaged with your audience?
The relationships I have with readers is my favorite part of blogging, so I appreciate every comment and email. I treat them all as I would an email from a real-life friend.​

What tips can you give other bloggers that can help set them apart and stand out?
It's so cliche, but you really just have to be yourself, write in your own voice and stay true to why you started blogging in the first place. It's more work than people know, so you have to love it in order to sustain it.​

Complete this thought: If I could, I would...
...blog full-time from an island in the Caribbean. ​

Congratulations, Cassie! Read her blog Hi Sugarplum!

2. What originally attracted you to Sponsored Tweets, and how did you find out about it?
A blog follower of mine actually mentioned it to me after reading about our recent financial mess and as soon as I checked it out, I was hooked!

3. What do you love most about Twitter?
That I get to just scroll through and read random tidbits from people’s day to day life. It’s a quick/easy way to keep up with friends, brands and the world.

4. Finish this: Without Twitter I would…
…not be as cool of a person. Ha! Okay, without Twitter, I would probably spend less time online.

5. What do you feel encourages engagement with your audience?
Reaching out to people, just saying “hello” or “I hope you’re having a great day.” I love being able to help spread the word on products I love and blog posts that I’ve read.

6. How do you make it easy to stay connected with your followers?
I try to stay in touch and be easily accessible, should anyone want to talk to me. I try to check in on everyone, reply to their questions, etc. I try to just be a friend to my followers.

7. Whatʼs your preferred blend of tweets made up of: RTs, links, original content, etc?
I think my blend of tweets is a bit of everything. Mini 140 characters or less vents, rambles and questions. I share a lot of great posts and I RT for friends if it’s something they need help with or a great tweet that I feel just needs to be seen more. I post a lot of links, but it’s original content combined with the links so I think that’s okay!

8. Any advice for Tweeters new to Sponsored Tweets?
Be original. Think about what would make you click the link. Choose your words to make it suitable to what YOU would read and click on.

9. What do you love about IZEA and Sponsored Tweets?
I love how easy it is.

10. Finish this: A tweet a day…
…is just the best way.

Congratulations, Amber! Follow Amber on Twitter @amber_mack and on her blog.

1. Social networking is only getting bigger.
2. More and more people are online when they are on the go thanks to smartphones and tablets.

If you lose sight of these two factors, your campaign (or your client’s campaign) will most likely take a hit. The ideal campaign should use gamification apps, create competition and increase engagement with users. Also, try to utilize mobile apps such as Waze, Foursquare or any other GPS-based app to reach potential customers when they are in the neighborhood.

Do “Likes” Really Help?

Facebook can be an amazing tool for companies to directly connect with customers, but one mistake that many marketers make is over-valuing the “Like.” Having people “Like” your Facebook page so they can vote on their friend’s picture or win an iPad may have a negative impact in the long run. It’s much more valuable to have 100 people who actually like your page and will share your content rather than having 10,000 “Likes” and only 100 people actively engaging with your brand.

Many times after visitors “Like” a page, they then choose to hide the page’s updates from their news feed because they aren’t interested in the content. Facebook views this negatively, as posts will have far less of a reach. Over time, if visitors continually hide your updates, then your page could be marked as spam and all of your work will have been in vain.

Built for Speed

When you create pages for your content, keep in mind that it should be easy to share and access on a smartphone and tablet. People are getting less patient and more demanding of receiving information right away. If a page takes too long to load, odds are that a person will leave the page in search of something else. In order prevent that from happening, try building separate pages for mobile users that are consolidated versions of your main website’s content and graphics. You’ll notice a huge difference in loading speed.

Sharing is Caring

Allowing readers to share your content on social networks is multi-beneficial. First, it will increase direct traffic immensely. It will also strengthen your site’s reputation in the eyes of your readers and their respective social circles. And, perhaps most importantly, it will help boost your organic SEO and improve the overall ranking of your site. Some of the key factors that Google takes into account are fresh content and backlinks, so by updating your blog and adding share buttons, you can help yourself climb higher in the all-important organic search results.

However, the most important thing to remember when marketing your site is to think of your audience’s wants and needs. At the end of the day, if you build your site with your target audience in mind, it will achieve the rankings on its own.

Author Bio:
Shauli Zacks is a blogger and online marketer at Somoto, which offers monetization tools for software developers. When Shauli isn’t at work, he can be found hanging out with his family, playing sports and just enjoying life.

About Jennifer

Jennifer started at IZEA almost two years ago. She began in Inside Sales in May 2011, and was promoted to Operations Manager this last December.

Jennifer graduated from the University of San Diego with a degree in Business, specializing in Marketing and Sales. Although she has lived in both California and Florida, it hasn’t always been the beach life for Jennifer, as she was born and raised in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia. Super cool, right?!

Before gracing us with her presence, Jennifer was a Staffing Manager at Robert Half International for two years, and a Sr. Account Manager at Great Insurance Jobs, Inc. for a little under four years. She has over 12 years of experience in the sales and marketing field.

At IZEA, Jennifer has a hand in just about everything business and human resource-related. That includes new hires, benefits, billing, invoicing, collections, customer service, refunds, sales IOs, and the credit application process.

Being Oz Ain’t Easy

Running our day-to-day operations is a lot of work. Thank goodness Jennifer is extremely detail-oriented, because the majority of her workload deals with managing our fiscal actions. She also makes a point to be punctual in everything she does, which makes life easier for everyone when they need a quick turnaround. Out of all of the tasks that are thrown her way, Jennifer enjoys working on projects most. She gets giddy when someone asks her to create a spreadsheet or compile information, and looks forward to adding a giant check mark next to items on her to-do list. Now, who doesn’t like a person like that?!

Crucial Characteristics

Patience is hard to come by, so, lucky for us, Jennifer has an endless supply of that. She amazes us with her ability to consistently stay cool, calm and collected under pressure. Her willingness to tackle any task given to her with enthusiasm is also greatly appreciated. Jennifer attributes her success in quickly completing all of the assignments coming at her from different directions to her strict time management skills. She is a true team player, and feels most rewarded in knowing that she is helping the company overall. Awww.

Strange Addiction

Jennifer is a self-proclaimed addict of the Animal Planet show Finding Bigfoot. Yes, she is the one person who actually watches it, or, better yet, DVRs it. It’s debatable whether that is an upgrade from her previous obsession, History Channel’s Ancient Aliens. Aside from her questionable TV choices, Jennifer enjoys singing karaoke and painting. Currently, she’s really into acrylic painting.

Business Tips from the Best

Business strategies have evolved dramatically thanks to the online marketplace, so Jennifer has some advice:

• Really infiltrate yourself in social media. Try to be as many places as possible to get your message out.

That pretty much summarizes what we do at IZEA. We pride ourselves on our ability to help our clients reach large audiences in a short amount of time. And we definitely wouldn’t be able to do that as effectively without Jennifer!

If it is not a reference to a company’s or product’s Facebook page or a tweet about a new product, social media has garnered incredible market penetration in a sort time span attracting hundreds of millions of adherents from all corners of the world. Consequently, social media is a marketer’s dream.

Viral equals Tough

As someone who has invested much thought, time, and effort into creating the next “big thing” in the way of apps, your next step in launching your app is vital.

In a crowded marketplace where new apps are being launched on a daily basis you must use every trick at your disposal to ensure that your app gets noticed in a very crowded playing field. In a perfect world, your app will gain recognition and go viral – the dream of every app developer, however that will not happen without a lot of hard work and a touch of luck.

It was Samuel Goldwyn though who verbalized the relationship between hard work and luck.

It is imperative that when launching an app that you must succeed on the first try. A successful launch will ensure great rewards but this is the case because the risks.

No matter how good the app, it is virtually impossible to recover from a poor launch so you must get it right from the get go. And that involves using social media to your benefit.

Social Media as your Strategy

If you have thought through your marketing strategy before creating your app, then you have probably created a website, blog, or Twitter account pertaining to the app in parallel to the creation of your app.

This helps to build anticipation, build a community, and also enable followers to give you some valuable input into your product.

The trick is to give sufficient information away to pique interest but not too much information so as to allow others to steal your idea, as just as you have no doubt been monitoring competitors’ blogs and marketing channels, rest assured that they are doing the same thing to you.

Action items to get Started

Most social media is free and that is a great advantage to a money restricted app developer. It will cost you very little to potentially build a community of followers on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+ yet it may be worth paying to advertise on these sites to gain exposure – try a well-targeted PPC campaign, or a Sponsored tweet by IZEA.

When you create a page on these sites you must do your all to attract people to the pages.

Targeting bloggers of influence who have a large following can be an instant ticket to building your own community.

Tweet and re-tweet these bloggers. Send them compelling content that they can use to make their own blog more interesting and to attract more followers. If you scratch their back, hopefully they will scratch yours.

Pictures always convey things more clearly than words alone.

If you have the capacity to create a promotional YouTube video then go for it. The more social media avenues you have to attract your community the better.

Link and cross reference these social media outlets where possible so as to create a web of interconnected marketing outlets. The more you are seen and heard, the greater the possibility of you gaining a following.

Conclusion

Creating an app, assuming you want that app to be noticed, involves much more than just the knowledge of creating apps. If you have an aversion to social media then you must either outsource your marketing to specialist firms or come to grips with the fact that the chances of your app ever attaining any form of market recognition are minimal.

About the Author:
Jove Welner is the CEO of App Champ, a Viral App community. He has been marketing Apps since the beginning of time, and enjoys sharing knowledge better than anything.

App Champ are also available for tweeting awesome Apps:@TheAppChamp

Build up the hype before the trade show

The people attending the trade show, both the customers and the competition, often take the time to look up who will be having booths. Make sure you are signed up well in advance, so you can begin advertising and promoting your booth long before you arrive. Use large, vibrant pictures to make it look inviting and talk about what you will have there, even if you can’t list it specifically.

Use social media to bring in customers

Hopefully your company already has Facebook and Twitter accounts and you are using them to promote your brand. Make sure you are also using them to announce that you will be at the trade show, and mention some of the specifics of what you will be doing there. Announce, for example, a raffle that you need to stop by the trade show booth to enter.

Make your booth bold and colorful

It doesn’t matter how much you promote or advertise your trade show booth, if it doesn’t look inviting and exciting, nobody is going to bother to stop. So make sure you spend some time and money on the design of your trade show booth. When you are in a room with hundreds of other booths, you need for yours to stand out. Use bold colors to make that happen, but don’t use too many. Pick no more than three colors, make them good ones, and use them aplenty!

Use your airspace

Trade show booths are small by nature, and it is always up to you to make the most out of the space that you have been allotted. If you are one booth in a crowded room, try hanging something in the airspace above your booth. When people look up, they will be able to see it no matter where they are in the auditorium. You can also build a tower up from your booth. It will catch a lot of eyes!

Hand out good giveaways

Let’s be honest, sometimes you need to “bribe” people into your trade show booth. This is because everyone else is doing it and you shouldn’t be ashamed to join in the game. But why not hand out something a little more interesting than a pen? Canvas tote bags are great, useful options.

About the Author:  Michael Klein has been writing about trade show displays for various companies like Nimlok Trade Show Displays for more than 5 years. When not writing, Michael loves to watch baseball and practice his golf game at the local range.

Birthday wishes went out to Kate Milton, Celebrity Relations, Lynda Galea, Influencer Ecosystems, Kelsey Hendrickson, Inside Sales, and Joe Carafelli, User Experience Extraordinaire. Happy birthday everyone!

Remote working challenges and tips to overcome them

Working with remote teams over several locations and time zones, often with their own local customs and regulations, is by no means easy. However, the benefits of being open minded to remote team working far outweigh the challenges and it would be short sighted not to employ the right people for the job just because of their location. The following tips will help to ensure a happy and productive workforce wherever they are:

Construct a solid foundation built on mutual trust and respect
Team members need to trust each other to be able to share information and work together. Make sure all teams are aware of common aims and that their own personal work goals contribute towards the corporate strategy. All the technology in the world can’t fix a fractured and unhappy team.

Good communication – face to face and real time
No one expects you to be able to speak to every employee every day and this is especially true if you work on the other side of the world and in conflicting time zones. However, with technology today there’s no reason why regular team updates and one to one meetings can’t be held on a regular basis. Instant messaging allows real time chat for quick questions and general catch up whilst video calling goes one step further and allows you to speak face to face. Make the effort to schedule a weekly video call with your remote teams to show that out of sight doesn’t mean out of mind. Always conduct personal appraisals this way if travelling to meet each other is not an option – make your employee feel important.

Set defined tasks and responsibilities and share information
Everyone needs to know what their role is within an organization. Delegation of tasks and project management can be handled effectively via email and shared online packages that allow team members to access information remotely via the internet. Encourage teams to populate their own online information pages to share news and successes or to ask for advice and solutions to problems.

One is not a team
Where possible always have a remote team of two or more. Not only will this stop an employee becoming isolated, it gives them another person to bounce ideas off and problem solve with. We’ve all experienced times when the office is like a ghost ship with lots of staff on holiday and welcomed their return despite initially enjoying the peace and quiet.

Interestingly recent research published on the Harvard Business School website shows that remote teams often work better than colleagues in the same office. Often co-workers become complacent and take communication for granted, unlike remote teams who make more of an effort to keep in touch and are keen to make use of new technological tools.

About the Author:
Liam McClure writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.

2. Describe your blog in 140 characters or less…
Merry musings of a feisty foodie slash globe-trotting wannabe Frenchie!

3. What inspires you to blog?
I have a very busy corporate career, never thought of myself as particularly creative, but needed to find an activity to decompress. About five of years ago I took a exploratory creative writing course. It opened my eyes to the world of blogging and became my creative outlet. So I would say my inspiration is keeping sane! I also grew up a military brat moving all over the world, as an adult I still am totally addicted to travel and blogging inspires me to find new and interesting ways of exploring the world and sharing them with my community.

4. Do you ever get stumped for what to write? How do you overcome this?
I do! I think everyone does. I have an Editorial Calendar that helps me plan out my content and keep me organized. When I need new ideas I usually create mind maps that help me come up with new ideas and series.

5. Do you have a favorite type of brand or product review to work with?
Being a travel and food blog I like to work with brands that somehow touch that aspect of my brand. I think it is important to stay true to what your blog branding is and to make smart choices about which partners make the most sense to work with. Patience and perseverance do pay off.

6. What do you love about IZEA/SocialSpark?
The online tool/site! It is so easy to use! Once you have selected an offer it is so easy to follow the process – you have all the requirements, assets and deadlines you need to complete your selected projects. Questions get answered so quickly, you can check statuses and get paid quickly, it is a breeze!

7. How do you describe your blog to people you meet who haven’t read it before?
I usually say that I am a travel blogger who tends to visit a place via her stomach! I travel both domestically and internationally and love to connect to people and cultures via their food.

8. How do you actively stay engaged with your audience?
I am addicted to social media! That helps me interact with people just about every where. Whether someone prefers conversation on Twitter or sharing photos on Instagram, I am there!

9. What tips can you give other bloggers that can help set them apart and stand out?
One core tenet I follow and share with bloggers all the time is to have a “tree.” The content of your blog is represented by a tree. The base of your tree is the thing you are most passionate about, it is the topic that all your posts should tie back to. Every post should a be branch that “stems” from the trunk. This will allow you to “root” your blog to a place where people gather and know what to expect when they do.

10. Complete this thought: If I could, I would…
Travel and blog full time! And…figure out a way to eat three meals a day without gaining a pound…without doing a lick of exercise!

Congratulations, Andi! Read her blog, Misadventures with Andi.

2. What originally attracted you to Sponsored Tweets, and how did you find out about it?
I’ve been a blogger for more than ten years and participating in the changing landscape of social media is an important part of that. I have been active on Twitter using two different accounts for quite some time. When I started seeing a few other people with sponsored tweets I knew it was something I wanted to check into as a small income source. I liked what I saw!

3. What do you love most about Twitter?
The real time immediacy of the communication on the site. If there’s something going on in the world that I want to know about then I can start with Twitter to connect to people around it.

4. Finish this: Without Twitter I would…
… need to find an alternative short form real time communication system to fill that niche!

5. What do you feel encourages engagement with your audience?
I ask “questions of the day” around the specific topics that I’m known for (crochet and creativity). My audience knows that these questions will be posted and that their answers will be taken seriously, sometimes even used on my blog itself in other posts, and I think this encourages interaction around that content.

6. Who are some of your must follows?
In the crochet/ craft niche it’s @crochetlibfront, @freshstitches, @planetjune and @craftypod … These are all crafty businesswomen who do work that I admire and I like following their online interaction.

7. Whatʼs your preferred blend of tweets made up of: RTs, links, original content etc?
I tend to post a lot of links to my own content as well as to the content I like around the web. My Twitter account is connected to my Sulia account so the links I share on Sulia (and the comments I make there) go to Twitter. I try to RT and respond to people regularly as well as post fresh original comments on Twitter but I admit that I tend to slack in that area when the rest of online life gets a little too busy.

8. What’s your favorite bird (tweet, tweet!)?
Hummingbird!

9. What do you love about IZEA and Sponsored Tweets?
I like the way Sponsored Tweets offers me some control over what I advertise and creates sponsored messages in ways that aren’t super intrusive to the rest of my message stream. I can choose to share those things that my audience would actually be interested in, which is important to me.

10. Finish this: A tweet a day…
… can make a difference in the world. You never know when you’ll say the right thing at the right time that connects with someone’s heart!

Congratulations, Kathryn. Follow her on Twitter @CrochetBlogger