Blog Marketing To Make Money Online
Take this cool personality quiz by Lia Steakley of 43Things. I loved the things on the list. Not your average personality quiz by any stretch!
| I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I’m a
Creative Self-Knowing Romantic
  |
Don't
Miss Out On Free Traffic!
Subscribe to the FTR RSS feed
or our
email list so you don't miss out on real, traffic driving tips from Jack
Humphrey! You cal also and Follow Me on Twitter! Thanks for visiting!
{ 5 comments }
1. Blogs that force people to log in to comment.
2. Marketers who continue to think interruption marketing is going to work on social sites.
3. People who see someone succeeding with a certain kind of blog and build one just like it filled with content just like it.
4. People who start sites identical to sites like Digg or Twitter who can’t figure out why it didn’t work for them.
5. Spammers. Twitter spammers make email spammers seem almost cuddly.
6. The fact that email is even still required.
7. People who do crazy backflips to cheat a system when, using it the way it was intended, is 100 times easier and more effective.
8. Laziness.
9. People who know you’ve been working online for a very long time who want you to tell them how to get where you are in a month.
10. Thinking of a great idea for a post only to read it on Problogger. Even worse is when that post was inspired by Chris Brogan.
11. Inventing something that’s already been invented, but not finding out until after you’ve spent 3 days figuring out exactly how you’re going to spend the millions you are about to make with it.
12. Dogs who are better Twitterers than me.
13. People with glass eyes who continually tap their pens on them to freak you out.
14. Adsense splogs.
15. Content thieves.
16. People who treat web business like it’s just a big game. (General Motors would sure as hell like a piece of this “Game” right about now!)
17. Instant experts no one has ever heard of.
18. People who only TweetLater and never TweetNow.
19. People who think we really need to know they’re bored.
20. Ted Nugent
{ 31 comments }
Here are the Wordpress comment plugins I am using to get more comments and make my commenting area much more social:
For spam I use Akismet and Did You Pass Math
Some spam always gets through in two forms: robot generated and people generated (people who know you use the plugins above and just write “Thanks for this” comments to get links from you.
You always have to deal with some level of spam. Comment approval should never be automated and SHOULD take a bit of time each day for a pro blogger. Besides, you need to answer commentators to build your tribe and community.
{ 17 comments }
We humans are funny things. We want to be invisible offline really badly. Yet we seek high visibility online while unwittingly cloaking ourselves like Harry Potter in a shroud of invisibility.
While scientists are getting close to figuring out real world invisibility tech, working their brilliant minds into pretzels over it, most website owners have already perfected the technology online.
How to De-Cloak Yourself in 2009
I almost hate to say it. You know it’s coming if you’ve been a subscriber for very long. But you must master a deeper level of social media prowess this year if you are going to become more visible in your niche.
The truth is, if you are not on the social platforms where your best readers, customers, and prospects are active, you are likely missing a big chunk, if not most of your market these days.
The effect? Invisibility. Congratulations! Some of the greatest minds of our generation have been struggling with this technology for decades!
Cutting Through the Noise With A Clear Signal to a Significant Group
To have a successful blog, you have to have a big following. “Big” is whatever you need in your niche to make a living off your blog. This means enough people are finding you and engaging with you that your words spread across the web finding you new readers, customers, eyeballs for your advertisers, and people who will evangelize you in their social circles.
But, the mistake we all made in the beginning of social media marketing was assuming that we needed to belong to vast numbers of communities in order to de-cloak our sites and make them visible to the bulk of our niche markets.
What we’ve found in 2008 is that people who build their blog presence via great content, word of mouth evangelism by followers on social sites like Twitter and Facebook, and keep their presence strong in fewer places, are the ones doing the best.
For instance, my presence increased this week just by focusing my efforts on a few things social:
So the number of social sites you work with regularly (as in every day) should go way down in 2009. But the effort you put into the few “core” sites you work with should go way up.
When you engage in a community really deeply, the traffic is much better. Now you’re taking off your cloak of invisibility and being seen by more and more people.
Because with places like Twitter, your interaction can go viral through re-tweets and people you’ve really built something with telling other about you and linking to you. It really spreads.
But you must be present. And you must be genuine. And you must help first, receive later.
As you progress, you will find people finding you in the most unusual ways and becoming great followers, fans, customers, and evangelists for your cause.
{ 9 comments }
Can you tell I’m on a Twitter bender? I can’t help it. I blew it off for the most part this year because there were so many tools and so many people talking about it that I just got burnt out on it before I gave it a real chance.
So, this week is shaping up to be Twitter Week on FTR. Here’s what I’ve been playing with today:
TweetDeck: I know all you Twitter experts are laughing your butts off, but I wasn’t lying when I said I was ignoring all the tools people were raving about in 2008. This one is freakin’ awesome and, at least I finally saw the light and downloaded it. Having your DMs and @replies show up alongside your friends tweets is a MUST for effective and prompt communication and relationship building.
The Art of ReTweeting: Excellent article on the art and function of retweeting. Read about the viral nature of the retweet here.
Check out another great article on the 4 Stages of Twitter. Learn what your follow to follower ratio should be and why.
Here’s and excellent article by Copyblogger on How to Use Twitter to Grow Your Business.
Note: Since I started working hard on Twitter this week I’ve gained a TON of new followers. Just by being more active, but by also following the Twitterati and other people I’ve been adding this week and @talking to them. (More places to find heavy Twitterers to follow: TwitterCounter and Egos on Alltop.
Finding new people to follow and why
I discovered TweetGrid tonight and started searching for my name, my products, and my site names to see who in the Twitterverse has been Tweeting about me. I followed them all. Took some time, but it is a good feeling to reward people who talk about you or your site/products with a follow. Generated some @replies for this work and stronger relationships with fans.
Not big enough for people to talk about yet? Then use it to find the people talking about things having to do with your interests. Follow ‘em!
Wordpress Plugin
I haven’t installed it yet or even know the name, but I am seeing a lot more bloggers including a new comment feature which allows you to put your Twitter ID in and link to your Twitter account from comments you leave. Saw it most recently on this post today from Maria Reyes-McDavis. Check out the guy on the top of that list! 
Anyone have the name of that plugin?
Using TwitterFeed
If you are going to post your blog to your Twitter account, use something like Blog Post: in your settings so that the Tweets from your blog look like this: Blog Post: Twitter Week [link]
I put the cryptic FTR: when I signed up several months back and kept getting questions from people about what the heck FTR meant!
How lame am I for having a Twitter post as possibly my last post of the year?
{ 17 comments }
Below are some Twitter directories I’ve found. A Twitter directory can be many things, but the main point is getting listed in your category so people using the directiories can find you on Twitter.
You can often put links back to your blog in these directories as well.
Surely this can’t be all of them. Have you found a good Twitter user directory? Please share!
{ 6 comments }
Here is where I am putting in the most time outside Friday Traffic Report and Blog Success right now:
FriendFeed: Find out why this one is cool from one of it’s biggest fans, Robert Scoble. FF aggregates all your different social accounts so you can watch your stuff across all accounts as well as the people and feeds you follow.
Twitter: I talked about this the other day. Definitely working more with Twitter this year.
Going deep rather than wide…
I’ve noticed that a lot of people who are popular on Twitter and FriendFeed are not showing up on a ton of other social places. You can tell where power users spend most of their time by what they promote in the sidebars of their blogs. Inevitably you are going to find Twitter and some FriendFeed links.
Everyone has different preferences, but going big in the standard bearers for social media is important. Otherwise you will have 3 friends on 50 different services instead of thousands of friends on a couple of services.
Should you stop experimenting with or joining social sites?
Not at all. Failing to take part in the evolution of social media and searching for new groups to attract to your network will leave you behind in your niche.
I’m just interested here in building the “core” with select services which is going to make branching out much easier because I can take entire friend lists with me to new sites rather than sitting there with 1 friend and having to develop from scratch.
{ 6 comments }
I have come up with an entirely arbitrary and subjective list of 10 social and blog marketing experts you should follow on Twitter. To the people I left off the list, I am sorry. The arbitrary number of 10 restricts me from adding everyone to the list.
But, that’s what the comments field is for. Tell me who I missed and why I’m an idiot for leaving them off the list!
(Links open in a new tab so you don’t have to go back and forth to follow everyone on the list!)
1. WebSuccessDiva: Maria Reyes-McDavis is my pride and joy of 2008. I take full credit for “discovering” her and telling people to watch her throughout ‘08. :) Of course, my innate ability to pick winners was proven once again as Maria tsunamied onto the scene and became a respected, well-known force in the social marketing and blogging tips world.
2. Darren Rowse: “ProBlogger” is one of the most helpful and closely followed people in the blogging world. He’s also gracious and willing to spend time on things like Webside Chats to reach out to new audiences and help more people. Darren is the quintessential example of a pro blogger.
3. Chris Brogan: Social media marketing gooroo extraordinnaire! Follow him and read his blog. That’s an order.
4. Liz Strauss: A poem for Liz - Liz loves social media. It’s plain for all to see. Following her on Twitter means more traffic for you and me!
5. Mari Smith: This lady will teach you about being a Twitter-holic and using Twitter to the Nth degree to develop a serious following.
6. Lee Odden: The man behind Top Rank and someone you should definitely be following on Twitter. He’s kind of a big deal.
7. Aaron Wall: Of SEOBook fame, this is one of my favorite bloggers who taught me just how far a good piece of linkbait can take you!
8. Matt Mullenweg: More than kind of a big deal, this guy is the founding developer of Wordpress (bow to your leader, people) and goes by the name of @photomatt on Twitter. Check out his blog. Check the domain. Check the pagerank. The only time Google Pagerank really matters is when you have one like this! (PR8 for those who are Google toolbar impaired)
9. CopyBlogger: Brian Clark is a former lawyer. That should tell you how blogging ranks these days. There are a lot of “formers” who are big time bloggers now. Here’s to you becoming a former yourself!
10. DoshDosh: One of those bloggers you hate because he’s always cranking out detailed, extremely helpful content for bloggers. Well, maybe it’s just me, but I love to hate DoshDosh.
Well, who did I miss?
Oh yes! Follow me!
{ 20 comments }
I have the answer…
Putting in more time on fewer sites is absolutely better than trying to be on 100 social sites with no chance of having a meaningful presence on any of them.
Social marketing is not like it was 2 years ago.
Today you get nothing of value from having a profile on a social site with no meaningful presence aside from a picture of yourself and a link to your site. In the beginning, Google ate up all the links it found from social sites and followed every single one.
It has become a cat and mouse game of finding social sites that actually lend you any Google juice from your links.
So using social sites for search engine links is out unless you are using spamming programs to hit every one of the thousands of social communities on the web. And even that is a pretty poor bet these days. Leave that to the guys who love to play that game with Google.
You Now Have Permission to Chill Out About Social Marketing!
Because I have hundreds of social profiles all over the web, most abandoned now, I can tell you that merely setting up an account with most of those sites has played no significant part in my traffic increases over the last year.
I get the most traffic from the social sites on which I have a meaningful presence. In the last several months I have been scaling way back on the sites I use for “outposting” and traffic. The time I used to put in on joining massive numbers of sites is now put into a few that send the most traffic and that I enjoy being on regularly.
When you get right down to it, although there are thousands of sites you can join, there really aren’t many that have hit critical mass. Meaning, their popularity in comparison to the standard bearers (Twitter vs. Tumblr, Digg vs. Reddit) isn’t big enough to spend a lot of time on.
When you see a big list of social sites, instead of trying to join them all and getting frustrated by the time suck that can be social marketing, be hyper-critical and really find the site(s) in the list that will truly help you get the word out about your site.
In a list of 100 social sites there’s only going to be one or two worth joining for what you want to accomplish. That should really put you at ease about this social marketing thing.
It is entirely possible for you to have a blog and a Twitter account and become one of the most popular and profitable in your niche. You can be more effective and have a bigger following than someone else in your niche who has hundreds of social site accounts. And this includes search engine rankings and traffic.
Friday Traffic Report Social Strategy for 2009
Because I’ve tested the 2nd and 3rd tier social sites extensively and have found the effort to be unmatched by results, I am confident in my plan for 2009. I am scaling way, way back on the number of sites, widgets, and tools I use to attract a following for the blog.
I have found, by trying a lot of different social sites, my personal core list of sites that give me the most traffic in return for interacting on them regularly.
My core list will be different from yours. I have social sites I belong to that are “verticals” for my niche. Yours will be different because you’ll be joining sites with groups that are most targeted for your niche.
Death of the Widget
Your own blog will tell you when it’s time to take your pulse and trim the fat. If you have more than 10 widgets from different social communities you belong to in your sidebar(s), you need an intervention. I used to have every conceivable button and widget possible on my sidebars. You simply cannot put everything you belong to in your sidebars. The effect is total confusion, not only for your readers, but for you as well.
Building a Massive Presence with Far Fewer Social Accounts
The rule for social marketing is this: The fewer sites you spend more time on, the bigger your business can grow.
This may seem like an obvious point, but most people aren’t watching what’s happening around them. Scoble is on sites like Twitter and Friendfeed. He surely has more social accounts with different services, but his effective presence is in just a few places. And his following is massive.
Darren Rowse is so into Twitter he created TwiTip just to blog about Twitter tactics and further grow his following with that one site.
There are examples like this all over the web in every niche where there are wildly popular bloggers, and then everyone else. The cynics will say it is because they were already wildly popular before they started getting popular on sites like Twitter. But there are also examples where people have had obscure blogs who really got into Facebook, Twitter, or Digg and turned into superstars in their niche.
Their blogs became more well-known as a result of focusing on a handful of social sites, so it goes both ways.
The worst thing I could do now is answer that question burning in your mind right now: “So which sites should I join and spend the most time on?”
Normally I’d have a list of sites for you to join, but I see now that it would be a big mistake and misleading to you. I don’t know your niche or your target audience. Tech bloggers and marketing geeks do well on Twitter. Their followers are comfortable with that site. I can’t say definitively whether that will be the case for you.
What I would recommend is that you download the Authority Black Book (2009 Edition) and read about all the different places on the web you can check out, but with a critical eye. Your job is not to join hundreds of sites. It is to join several of the most targeted communities and sites for your market and test which ones are going to be the best for you.
Scale Back and Relax
Put aside the guilt and pressure you heap upon yourself over the “number” of sites you haven’t signed up for yet or the amount of time you are not spending on myriad different sites each day. Relax. You should be on a mission to find the few among the many. The sites that will give you the best access to your target market in relation to the amount of time you spend building a real, meaningful presence on them are the most important.
Don’t take my word for it. Look at what the big dogs are using in your niche, and you will quickly find people like me who are putting more and more time into fewer and fewer places on the web that get them results.
{ 18 comments }
One of my resolutions for 2009 is to become a more dedicated Twitter-er. I’ve just read Mike Filsaime’s post on Twitter and have been skimming through all kinds of blog posts made in the last year about the web’s favorite microblog.
If you do what I’m doing, Googling and following massive links from every major and minor blog on the web that mentioned Twitter this year, you will quickly see an entire universe of interest, arguments (over what Twitter is really best used for), and pleas for more information or help.
All This from 140 Characters?
It’s really quite amazing how a microblog that only allows you to post 140 characters per post has generated books, forums, blogs, and literally countless conversations about itself.
There are Twitter guides that purport to teach you everything you need to know to “dominate” Twitter. As if the first thing normal people want to do with anything that becomes popular is “dominate” it.
What strikes me is how the advice from different groups of people on how to use Twitter serves the purpose and inclinations of each group.
When you really start diving into Twitter and following a mere fraction of the conversations going on around it, you learn that this little tool that organizes everything nicely into packages of 140 characters or less, has created utter chaos all around it.
It seems like the chaos of people shouting out their favorite ways of using Twitter, what Twitter is for, and the things you MUST do to use Twitter properly, would turn anyone new to the whole thing into a nervous wreck.
So I Have a Twitter Resolution
I have been an on again off again user of Twitter. I have my blog streaming to my account so I don’t look so bad for being an infrequent Tweeter. Then I get fired up about it and Tweet like mad for a few days. I’ve used and discarded tons of Twitter apps aimed at helping me use Twitter “better.”
I have over 1000 followers today and am following around 70 others. So I know a little about it. But I still haven’t made up my mind about how it becomes and integral part of what I do online as opposed to a fall-back when I am bored or feel guilty for not Tweeting in a week.
I am not offering any answers in this post as to how or why you should use Twitter.
There’s a lot of interesting stuff from marketers on why and how you should use it. But I am going to dive in and follow advice from people with much larger follower lists than mine, use my own ideas on how best to use Twitter for my business, and come back here with updates on the process.
There’s plenty information out there about how to get thousands of followers, but less on what it means to have thousands of real followers and what that can do for your business (with examples!).
I’d like to see some information on tests people have done or some stats on a single Tweet’s effect on a large following. Like increased sales, more RSS subscribers, more blog comments, etc. I’ve seen traffic increases on my blog as well as increased sales as a result of Tweeting about new products or something I wanted to alert followers to, but I didn’t really record them.
So my resolution: Take a more logical, regular approach to Twitter as if I had built it myself as a communication tool for my business. And then report back here with hard results of tests I conduct.
I’d love to hear from you as well! Please feel free to comment on your confusion, success, test results, or the tools you like to use with Twitter below…
Oh yeah, and follow me on Twitter!
More Twitter Resources
{ 15 comments }
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  | ||||||
| By N2H | |||||||||