Web Content and Social Networking Experts

Make your Web site and social networking fun. Watch this video. It's great.

Have you ever thought of offering fun online. Specifically on your Web site, blog, social networking campaign? Here is a video of a stairway that was turned into a giant piano keyboard - with audio to match. Yes, you could play the piano but walking up the stairs. Is that great or what?

The result? Sixty-six percent more people took the stairs rather than the escalator.

The message is clear. No one is too old for some fun and having fun is a great way to increase the popularity of your Web site and online activities.

Watch the Fun Theory and see for your self. http://www.thefuntheory.com/piano-staircase. Kudos to the person who thought up the idea. Well done, very well done.

Apple embraces Twitter, not Facebook. Is Facebook's end in sight, or is this just a slap in the facebook?

Apple's new OS X Mountain Lion ignores Facebook and embraces Twitter. Is this the beginning of the end for Facebook? This is not the only problem facing Facebook. There are privacy concerns and people are "un-friending" their so called "friends." Yes, they are.

In Apple's new operating system (OS) Twitter will be built in. With OSX you will be able to Tweet, send photos, links, and content by hitting the share button in Safari. And that's not all, you will be notified of Twitter mentions and direct messages as well.

This is a Big Deal for Twitter. Yes, it is. Makes you wonder why facebook got left out, doesn't it.

Remove your Google history and keep Google from recording your activity. Here's how.

Would you like to remove your browsing history from Google and keep them from recording it it tn future? Yes, I thought you would.

1. Go to google.com/history. You will be prompted to sign in to your Google account.
2. Click the “Remove all Web History” button.
3. that's all that is required. You're done.

This removes all of the search data that Google collected on this account, and automatically pauses Web History. What that means to you is that Google will not collect any more information from this account, until you click the blue Resume button.

If you have more than one Google account do this for each account.

Privacy will never die. It's far too valuable to kill. Here's why you are not safe online.

Online privacy is on your mind, if its not it will be. The information you give to Facebook, Google+, and others as a condition of membership is your digital finger print. You may be interested to know that when you log into other sites with a Facebook, or other ID, you may be granting permission to access your data. when you use your Facebook ID to log-on to other Web sites you may be granting permission for access to parts of your data that would normally be hidden.

Here is a link to an excellent article at MSNBC, Why social media, mobile phones want your info.

Some people think that we are living in the post privacy era. Even not considering the illegal hacking and outright stealing of data, there is a vast amount of personal data online that people put there intentionally. This has cost people their jobs, ruined careers. Employers now routinely check people out on Facebook, read their blogs, and watch their Twitter feed.

You think this is bad? This is nothing. Keep reading.

Not even your encrypted Skype phone calls and instant messages are safe. FinFisher's FinSpy can wiretap Skype. FinFisher can even remotely turn on your webcam or microphone. It comes to you disguised as a fake software update to products like iTunes or Adobe Flash. It installs itself on your system. It turns that lovely computer of yours into the ultimate spy.

Now do you see why people say privacy is dead? This product is sold to dictators and used to gather intelligence on dissidents even in foreign countries. It and others like it are responsible for very nasty things being done to journalists and dissidents. Read the FinFisher article linked to above. See Electronic Fronteir Foundation for more on this.

The technology that makes this possible os created and sold by companies the world over. This is not done covertly. This is software you can buy by doing little more than attending the Intelligence Support Systems trade show.

Privacy invasion and outright spying are big business. If you are someone that people have cause to gather information on take great care that your computer is not spying on you.

Eight cool social networking tools that provide real value to measure and conduct research in your social networking campaign

Take your time looking at these tools. You will be glad you did as they offer you a very nice feature set that will do your social networking nothing but good.

1. TweetTeach to see how far your Tweets spread. http://tweetreach.com/
2. ArgyleSocial offers a single dashboard to monitor Facebook and Twitter. Use it to see if your social media campaign is paying off, or not. http://argylesocial.com
3. TweetLevel search for hash tags and then measure the social influence of someone you are thinking of following. good for PR people and social marketing pros who need to analyze a campaign. Use it to analyze a Twitter conversation, where it wen t wrong and how to correct it.
4. ReFollow http://refollow.com Cool tool to see your followers and learn more about them.
5. TwitterSearch to know more about your competition. Search like this: to: competitor or from:competitor. Of course, replace competitor with who you are looking for. Find trending topics like this topic-rt, to remove all retweets from your search results.
6. Traackr finds influencers who matter most to you. Not to be confused with trackr.
7. SocMetrics allows you to find influencers and interact with them. and then it monitors your campaign.The Competitive Influence feature allows you to choose a brand and drill into it for detailed influencers.

Is your content only written for people? Don't forget Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. They're people too.

Often when we write we are so focused on getting the message across that it can be all to easy to forget that content needs to be found to do anyone any good. So, write for Google, Yahoo, and other search engines as well. This is especially important in blog posts, that includes Twitter.

Keywords

We've said it before. Sorry for the repetition, but keywords mean everything. they really do. Ask yourself, what will people search for to find this post, Web page, Twitter feed, eBay ad? Then be sure to have the words that answer that question in your content. Careful though, if you pick a work that is highly competitive you haven't a chance against those big professionally managed, search engine optimized sites. that's because those sites hire firms to keep their SEO up to date, some almost in real time. don't lose heart though.

What to Do

Use Google AdWords to find pertinent keywords that are far less competitive, but still relevant. Put these words in the post title and in the body of your work. Read the title of this post. The word "content" is there, and its in the body of the post as well. Also, "Google," "Yahoo," and "search engines." Those words were worked into the body of the post very much intentionally.

Search Engines are People Too

Oh yeah, you can be a little silly as well. Not for the machines of course, but for us wetware types. You know? Those with a sense of humor.

Keep your social networking campaign on track with a content editorial calendar.

Creating content on the fly is both good and bad. We believe that there is more that is bad, though. Don't you just hate comments like that.

It's good, if you have the research available and are disciplined enough to actually create the content.

Bad, because creating content ahead of time may result in dated material. Having said that, creating a schedule and material for publication is, we feel, the better of the two alternatives. We definitely recommend it because

• should something come up that needs immediate attention, you can simply create the material and post it
• having material ready to go frees you from the pressure of having to write from scratch every day.

How We Work

We use Google Alerts to search for the words 'social networking.' So, every day we get new material. Much of this we discard, however what we use we note and place into our Daily Blog directory. Then when we need material we've got it. Doing the actual writing is easy compared with research and writing when you're under the gun.

Your Editorial Calendar

Put together a list of what it is that you want to discuss in your social networking campaign. Structure the content over several days or weeks. Now write several or a half dozen posts. You can published them daily or schedule them in your blog-ware.

Keep your social networking campaign on track with a content development calendar.

Creating content on the fly is both good and bad. We believe that there is more that is bad, though. Don't you just hate comments like that.

It's good, if you have the research available and are disciplined enough to actually create the content.

Bad, because creating content ahead of time may result in dated material. Having said that, creating a schedule and material for publication is, we feel, the better of the two alternatives. We definitely recommend it because

• should something come up that needs immediate attention, you can simply create the material and post it
• having material ready to go frees you from the pressure of having to write from scratch every day.

How We Work

We use Google Alerts to search for the words 'social networking.' So, every day we get new material. Much of this we discard, however what we use we note and place into our Daily Blog directory. Then when we need material we've got it. Doing the actual writing is easy compared with research and writing when you're under the gun.

Your Editorial Calendar

Put together a list of what it is that you want to discuss in your social networking campaign. Structure the content over several days or weeks. Now write several or a half dozen posts. You can published them daily or schedule them in your blog-ware. For example, this post was placed online at about 11:50 p.m. on 2/20/2012 and appeared at 6:00 a.m. on 2/21/2012.

Why not just publishe it Tuesday morning? Tuesday is always busy. This way everything is done ahead of time.

Keep your social networking campaign on track with a content development calendar.

Creating content on the fly is both good and bad. We believe that there is more that is bad, though. Don't you just hate comments like that.

It's good, if you have the research available and are disciplined enough to actually create the content.

Bad, because creating content ahead of time may result in dated material. Having said that, creating a schedule and material for publication is, we feel, the better of the two alternatives. We definitely recommend it because

• should something come up that needs immediate attention, you can simply create the material and post it
• having material ready to go frees you from the pressure of having to write from scratch every day.

How We Work

We use Google Alerts to search for the words 'social networking.' So, every day we get new material. Much of this we discard, however what we use we note and place into our Daily Blog directory. Then when we need material we've got it. Doing the actual writing is easy compared with research and writing when you're under the gun.

Your Editorial Calendar

Put together a list of what it is that you want to discuss in your social networking campaign. Structure the content over several days or weeks. Now write several or a half dozen posts. You can published them daily or schedule them in your blog-ware. For example, this post was placed online at about 11:50 p.m. on 2/20/2012 and appeared at 6:00 a.m. on 2/21/2012.

Why not just publishe it Tuesday morning? Tuesday is always busy. This way everything is done ahead of time.

Free Video screen capture software to make your social networking campaign shine.

You've seen videos at YouTube where you watch a computer monitor as the presenter narrates how to do something. Ever wondered how the video and sound were captured? Well, here are two products you can easily use to do this.  

Jing

Jing is the answer that id free of charge, and a fine product it is. Created by TechSMITH, it is free for download, and it is not time limited. See Jing at TechSMITH for your self. they offer an upgraded product that you need to pay for, for those of you who need additional features.

We have tested it and like it. In fact, we are putting together a large blogging project that will make extensive use of Jing.

Camtasia

For those of you who want a truly professional tool, we suggest TechSMITH's Camtasia Studio. This is offered as a download that is time limited to a 30-day trial. After that you will need to purchase it. Camtasia is available for the PC and Mac.

So, if you need screen capture software one of these products will provide for your needs nicely.

Want to do business online? Here is a WordPress plugin you need to know about.

WordPress is know for being one of the premiere blogging platforms. What you may not know about is the depth and breadth of the plugins available.

By adding an plugin to your blog, you increase the capability of the blog by whatever it is that the particular add-on's capability is.

WPSpire

The plug in WPSpire will:

• create multiple WordPress sales pages, landing pages, and squeeze pages
• each with a different design and totally customizeable
• all this with only one blog using only one theme

So, it you find that your business is not large enough to hire these services, you can provide them yourself. This offers you the opportunity to maintain control over your company's data. You will never be in the position of having a third party in control of the information of your vital data.

Will SMS replace the Internet for connecting to social networking? Just might.

You need an Internet connection to connect to Facebook, right? No, wrong. Ever heard of Short Message Service (SMS)? I think you have. Do you use a smart phone to send a text message? Yeah, that's SMS.

Here is a short video about a programmer in Pakistan who developed one of the first SMS systems for connecting to social media sites. This is a real advantage for those places that do not have Internet capability, and, did we tell you it's free? Yeah, that too.

Social networking redefined: Mardan boy develops SMS-based portal

How long will it be before you see this service coming to a smart phone near you?

Love your content and you will love what it does for you.

Online content is everything because, well, because everything online is content. Everyone goes online to make, view, read, watch content.

To us content is words, text, literally the material you write. That you create. If you want people to follow your content it must be good, it must be oh-so-very-good. It must, absolutely must, be superb.

How to Make Superb Content While this is easy to say, it is not easy to do.

• Know what your clients, customers, readers, or audience wants
• Know what their preferred method of receiving, watching, reading your content is
• Give them that

Told you it was easy to say, but not easy to do.

Remember, "If you don't pay attention to the needs of your audience, they won't pay attention to you." Apologies for the repetition, but that one sentence give you the keys to the kingdom of effective, well viewed, and well loved content. Take a look at our book, it was designed and written for people just  you that need to write superb content. It's good stuff, a Top 5 Business Title in Leadership Books at The Washington Post.

What are you reading this for? go make and publish some superb content and let us know where it is so we can all benefit from it.

---

Read, Shift World,
Dark Fiction at it's Best.

Photo editing the fun way, with Picnik.

We just wrapped up a five part series on publishing. As a writer you will need a photo, maybe more than one, sooner or later. Perhaps you post on a blog and they want a shot of you, or you just have a special photo that you want to crop, lighten, darken, or rotate a little. And Picnik is free to use.

Well, have I got good news for you. Follow this link to Picnik.com. This is an online photo editing site. there is nothing to download or install. You will need to know where the picture is on your computer for Picnik to work on it.

We used Picnik for the picture that is on LinkedIn. Also applied a special effect or two. Picnik works great. Note, Picnik.com will be moving to Google+ in April 2012. Until then they can be found at the above link.

Part 5 Publishing in 2012 PDF Publishing

This is a technique that you won't likely find being discussed. We think this is a valid, workable, and profitable way to sell your work. The technology is 'off the shelf'.' Totally mature and secure. You have nothing to fear, or be concerned about. Technical issues can be handled by any competent Web shop.

Advantages

With little more than a Web site, or blog, a book or other publication in Portable Document Format (PDF), and PayPal, you can be your own publishing house. In fact, if you have a project ready to go, you can have it online and for sale in less than 48 hours from now.

This can be done nicely with WordPress, and you can get a WordPress blog for free. Same with PayPal.

• To set up a WordPress blog on your Website.
• For a free blog at WordPress.com.

Your Website, or blog, will do three things for you.

1. It will advertise and sell your work.
2. Be found by search engines.
3. Be the crown jewel of your social networking campaign.

Here there are no middlemen. No one to take a commission from you. No one can refuse to publish your work. You seek no one's approval. You make money or you don't totally on your own because you are totally on your own.

Disadvantages

Piracy of your work. Despite your best efforts your book's security may be broken. should that happen, you will receive nothing from any copies made. This happened to me, as I've written here in a previous post.

So, look for Digital Rights Management (DRM) cracking and illegal sharing of books much like what the music industry went through in the 1990s. See late news below. Apple is involves and did much to end the music privacy. That's good news for all of us.

You are totally responsible for the entire project. this very much includes marketing and sales. there is no one to help you, unless you hire someone. And like anything else it cuts into your profits.

As to pricing your PDF eBook, we suggest you price it according to similar work sold at Amazon, Barns and Noble, and other major eBook outlets.

Late breaking news!

We literally just heard about Apple getting onto the publishing business. This from a friend, editor,and writer, Lindsay Kelloc. Read the entire article here Has Apple just invented a new kind of long-form journalism?

Even better, Apple has created an eBook creation tool iBooksAuthor From Apple.

Part 4 Publishing in 2012 eBook Publishing

What's an eBook? It is a book that is read on a reader. Major book store chains like Amazon and Barns and Noble sell their own proprietary readers. Barns & Noble sells the Nook; Amazon the kindle. Also, the Apple iPad can download books. You read the book on the reader, no paper is involved. Hence the name electronic-book.

Advantages

Ebooks do not require you to use an agent, or a publishing house. This cuts both ways. There is an approval process of course, you can't publish just anything, but there are fewer people between you and a successfully published product.

So, what about an editor and cover design? You are likely well advised to get these people on board. Your product will be stronger and more saleable. The eBook is sold to the buyer who downloads the book onto his or her reader. Once there is is read like any other book.

As to the money? Your eBook seller makes a deposit to your account.

Disadvantages

There are not a lot of drawbacks here. As you do not need to deal with agents and publishers you can get your ebook up and making money in a relatively short time. As to the retail cost, you determine it and pay a commission to the seller. Your money is deposited into your account and you're done.

As to your cover design, you will need to provide it. Whether you create it yourself or hire a graphic artist is up to you. Also, as far as publicity, media releases, social networking and other PR, that's all up to you as well.

For more on this see Amazon Author Central, and ePublsihing Resource Center.

Digital Rights Management

In the future, look for Digital Rights Management (DRM) cracking and the exchanging of books in a manner to what the music industry faced in the 1990s. SeeCopyfight at Corante.

On Monday we finish our series on publishing with Portable Document Format (PDF) publishing, using PayPal to handle your money, and a Web site, or blog, for an online store. Your customers download the book, pay and on on their way.

This is new, and novel (no pun intended). There is no reason why you can't be your own publishing house using this technology. In face, if you have a project ready to go, it can be online and making money by the end of the week. So, perhaps it time to stop thinking like a writer, and start thinking like a publisher. A publisher who publishes your own content.

Part 3 Traditional publishing, self publishing, eBook publishing, or PDF.

Self publishing means to hire a company to publisher your book. This method has a long and distinguished history. Benjamin Franklin published his work, and indeed many fine books are and will continue to be self published. Here you are responsible for the entire project. Literally for everything.

• The idea.
• Research and writing.
• Hiring a publicist.
• Marketing, sales, and publicity.

Advantages

• Book distribution services. Distribution is not trivial. Some self publishing houses have distribution channels that can be of great assistance to you.
• You have total control of the project, whether you want it or not.
• You choose the publisher.
• This is what called Printing On Demand (POD) publishing. Most POD publishers can offer volume discounts to authors, retailers, distributors, and wholesalers. This from Angela Hoy at BookLocker.com
• Your manuscript must be submitted for approval. You just can't publish anything. This is a good thing.
• Look for your publisher to take care of the e-publishing rights and to place your book in e-publishing format for you.

Disadvantages

    Please understand that what you see below may, or may not, apply to your situation depending on the self publishing company you choose to go with.

• If you are responsible for distribution, you may want to hire a fulfillment house to do the book mailing. This reduces your profit.
• Some self publishing houses will outsource your book to third world countries. Also commissions, charges, and fees vary.
• You may be required to obtain an International Standard Book Number (ISBN).
• You must be careful that your publisher does not take your book's rights.  
• Some publishers advertise their company on your book.
• As with any business deal, you must read and understand the contract. If you have questions, see a lawyer. Many agents will help you with this. 

Like everything else, whatever route you take will have advantages and disadvantages. You will be signing a contract with whoever you choose to deal with, so there is no reason to have this get out of control. Look for others who have self published and interview them.   

The Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association

If you are in Connecticut, or reasonably close, join or visit the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association (CAPA). Here you will find people who have done it all. CAPA's yearly conference CAPA-University, takes place on May 12, 2012 at the Hartford Steam Boiler Convention Center, in Hartford, Connecticut from 8:30 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. The food and the conference great. I'm presenting again this year, so be sure to say, "Hello." Download the brochure and application.

I've said good things about CAPA before in this blog. I believe and promote them because they're an excellent group, not because I'm one of their speakers.

Part 2 Publishing in 2012 Traditional Publishing

Traditional Publishing

This is the way publishing has been done for decades. It is the writer - agent - publisher route to having your book printed, bound, and sold. There are many advantages and disadvantages to this way of doing things. Note: many writers do not use an agent.

Advantages

• You gain access to a country, or worldwide, marketing and distribution system.
• Your book can be translated into other languages for you. At no charge to you.
• Your book can be sold as an eBook. Your publisher will take care of this for you.
• All distribution, shipping, and returns are taken care of without your involvement. This is a real advantage as it frees you to work on publicity and your next project.
• You gain access to professional editors and cover designers at no charge to you.
• You, as an author, get the accolades. Publishing this way is great for your career.
• You pay no up front fees to the publisher. The publisher pays you.

Disadvantages

Traditional hardcover publishing is declining in the face of ePublishing. Take a good look at these numbers.

• This data is from How Many e-Books (September 2011)
  • An increase of 167% in ebook sales (June 2011).
  • In dollars, $84.9 million for hardcover, and $80.2 million in ebook sales.
  • Trade and mass-market (combined) paperbacks (versus ePublisheing) are still on top with $95.8 million.
  • Trade paperback sales are reported down 64%.
• You, the author, are at the mercy of what those in publishing think of your book. And what they think is this, "Can we make money publishing this?" If the answer is yes. You're published. If it is anything other than yes, you're not published.
• You receive checks twice a year, or some other schedule not determined by you.
• Plan on doing as much speaking, promotion, sending media releases, writing a blog, using Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and any other online and offline activities that you can think of.

You can see for yourself, the numbers for traditional publishing in hardcover are almost parity with eBooks. Should this trend continue, and it is expected to, traditional publishing may very well  decline as the venue of choice for authors, agents, and publishers.We'll have to wait and see.

 

Traditional publishing, self publishing, eBook publishing, or PDF. There is no reason why you are not published by the end of the day.

The publishing world has changed drastically, and quickly. In the next four posts we will discuss four ways that you can publish a book. With the four paths to publication, there is no reason why you can not be published by the end of the day, week, or month. Depending on where your project is, not on the ability for you to get your work published. here are, what we feel, are the four ways you can be published in the world of 2012.

1. Traditional publishing
2. Self publishing
3. eBook Publishing
4. Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF)

You may be surprised to see PDFs as a publishing vehicle. We think it is. Especially, when you combine it with PayPal's ability to accept payment, and a Web site to conduct business. For publicity, you will use your Website, a blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, media releases, and public speaking.

These capabilities allow you become your own publishing house; virtually overnight. With little more than an Internet connected computer, time, and hard work; but very little money.

Your comments will make this discussion richer, more meaningful, and far more productive. Just click the title of this post. I very much look forward to your hearing from you.

Are you using games as a marketing tool?

People love to play. doesn't make any difference how old they are. Games have existed for thousands of years and are still going strong. Using games - not to be confused with gambling - are great fun and will keep your audience coming back again and again. Better yet, they will tell their friends. To us this means more friends, buzz, and business.

One of our favorites is The Treb Challenge. We also like Angry Birds.

Facebook

As Facebook is the number one social networking site, you will likely want to put a game on your page. Here the top nine games of 2011.

Top 9 Facebook Games of 2011

1. Slotomania-Slot Machines
2. Empires & Allies
3. Bingo Blitz
4. Words With Friends
5. Indiana Jones Adventure World
6. DoubleDown Casino
7. Cityville
8. The Sims Social
9. Gardens of Time

Have fun. No pun intended.

Is your Website a good employee, or just a hole in your wallet? Here's how to find out.

Your Website must be more than a pretty face, it absolutely must be a business tool. Literally a good employee. With a job to do and demonstrated success in doing that. If your Website was designed by anyone who is not a professional Web designer than it is very possible that you have a site that looks acceptable, but does not address your business needs.

• Does every major page of your site tell the reader what you can do for them?
• Does your Web site include a media page with media releases?
• Does your Web site's Contact Us page provide your phone, fax, and E-mail for sales, customer service, and other pertinent departments? Or just a form to be filled out?

Your Web Design

So, when you design your Website, be sure to take into account the business needs that your Website is responsible for, and treat it like any other employee.

So, to find out if your Web site is a good employee take our 30 second test.

Reduce your daily email load and spam as well. The wisdom of multiple email addresses.

Spam is nothing but trouble. Today at a networking meeting, at The Connecticut Business Connection, we were discussing the fact that the average business gets 145 emails every day. One of the businessmen attending said he gets over 200 emails per day. Using multiple email addresses can help.

Here's How to Protect Your Main Business Email Address

Should you want to download a free report, or do something else online that is a one time thing, or a very rare event, having a throwaway email address at Yahoo, Gmail, HotMail, or other free email provider is just the thing. In this case, you don't want more mail from these people, and from anyone they sell their email list to.

Yes We Do

We've used this technique for years with email addresses at Yahoo and Gmail. In addition, to a personal email address, and a corporate email as well. We get less than 20 emails per day. That's about 13 percent of average. We would say that this technique works pretty well. What do you say, is this of any help? Click on the title of this post and let us know.  

Sign Up Here

To obtain your free of a charge email address at Yahoo, Google, HotMail here are some links to follow.

• Free Account at Yahoo
• Free Account at Gmail
• Free Account at HotMail

Structure your email so it helps you, presents a professional image, and creates a dynamite information retrieval system.

Email is something we all do every day. Here's a question for you. Do your emails look like this?

Thank you. See you then.

 

Or, do they look like this?

 

1 February 2012 Joe Client joe@client.com Re. Meeting Joe, I'm looking forward to our meeting on Thursday, 2 February 2012, at 11:00 a.m. at the coffee shop in the Manchester mall. I will have some suggestions to improve your Web site and ideas for using PDFs to provide your customers valuable data. This will enhance your social networking campaign significantly. Best regards, Wayne English President Web Content Rx

What This Does For You

This is much more than a pretty email. Look at the information it contains:

• the date you send it, including the year
• the client's full name and email address
• that it is regarding a meeting
• the full date, time, and location of the meeting
• enough notes so that you and the client know what is to be discussed
• this data forms an information retrieval system that exists within your email software and can be invaluable
• use this system by making a folder for each of your clients in your email software
• this system is super easy, it require no technical skills and is very effective.

Want More?

by making a simple signature in your email software every email you send will include your company name, your closing lines, and any other pertinent information you wish to ad.

Good stuff! Please comment we appreciate your thoughts. Just click the title of this post.