Have You Heard of Message Dance?

Another Great Way To Enhance Your Viral Marketing Strategy…

You may have heard of a new message site called MessageDance which was launched a few months ago. At first the site didn’t have a great integration option for multiple users, but they did have a great underlying concept as well as huge potential for its application methods used on a variety of web services.

Now, MessageDance announces some new feature updates that goes great with their added integration with Twitter.

Today, MessageDance is announcing a few more new feature updates to its service that go along nicely with its recently added Twitter integration. For starters, there’s a new portable YouTube Playlist. This lets you share videos with your friends across various networks, like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. Updates can be displayed in your MessageDance widget, and it can be shared via email, or blasted to everyone, using the ever-handy “friends @ messagedance.com.” Images have been added too, along with documents, all for sharing purposes, through MessageDance’s expanding portal.

Will this approach work, or is this incorporating too many life-streaming tools into an existing third-party service? I imagine that such integration doesn’t hurt. It looks to compete, on varying levels, with social browsing, micro-blogging tools, ShareThis options present on blogs and websites, Box.net, and even Yahoo’s latest Life hub (which has yet to launch).

I think MessageDance is still finding the best way in which it can fit into social media as an accessible tool that makes sharing easy across the web, so the new features, many of which have been requested by users, should further MessageDance on its journey.

What’s the buzz?

As you know, the Internet can be a very fickle place. The news changes, as well as the interests and trends, on a daily basis and it is difficult to keep up with it all. When you are trying to keep up with the interests of your readers, staying on top of the hot topics, you need to be able to find this information easily and quickly.

One of the great sites to visit and catch up on all the gossip, news, trends, etc…is YahooBuzz. Here you will be able to see the most popular searches on Yahoo.

You will be able to find the most popular stories based on votes, searches and many other vital factors. You will them neatly arranged in their own categories for your convenience and ease of search.

If you come across a story you like, vote for it. The more votes a story receives, the farther up it goes on the list.

What are the Internet Marketing Trends?

As with anything else, the Internet market goes in trends as well. I am sure you also know
that these trends are constantly changing. There are three trends that offer you the best opportunities to move ahead in the Internet marketing business.

Even though the Internet has been around for a while now, the market is still pretty new.

You will be surprised to find out that only 18% of our world’s population even has Internet access. This is changing however, mainly in Asia right now.

Any market that has anything to do with technology are at the top, which will include the entrepreneurs or what some may call the ‘Internet geeks’.

Next the market will flow into the mainstream which is the largest portion of our population, and where most of the opportunities are.

Internet marketing seminars are gaining more and more favor with the masses. It used to be the ‘geeks’ and computer ‘gurus’ that only were attending these functions, but not anymore…you will find people of all interests there who are totally new in the Internet marketing business.

According to Michael Fortin, a well-known copywriter on the web, stated that he was amazed at some of the questions being asked at this last years convention. There were people asking how to create simple text files, or wanting to know what an auto responder was.
There are many of us that are in the online marketing business, some of us seasoned, some brand new with very limited Internet skills.

Many of the veterans in our industry, the cream of the crop so to speak, are now retiring, and there is a huge market of newbies on the rise.

One of the trends that you want to keep any eye out for is the new way the ‘gurus’ are advertising to the ‘newbie’ market. The latest trend is actually marketing offline.

You may want to look into offline network marketing and how these campaigns are being conducted with some very impressive results.

The offline trend is really affecting those people in Asia who are coming online in large numbers. Believe me when I say that this is going to be a huge and very lucrative market.

Watch for these 3 Internet Marketing Trends in 2008

1. The Asian market
2. Offline marketing opportunities
3. Newbies to the online business

So, watch for the Buzz in these markets, workout some Internet marketing strategies, stay on top of the current buzz issues like on Yahoo Buzz, and you will reap the rewards.

What’s Going On With Yahoo and Microsoft?

First, I want to let you know that Yahoo has rejected the unsolicited offer from Microsoft, which was a $44.6 billion dollar offer, however, according to the Times of London they report a possibility of Yahoo merging with AOL.

Microsoft’s $31 per share cash and stock deal where AOL merger looks to be more profitable for them. But Yahoo is concerned about convincing their shareholders that a merger with AOL is a good option.

Viral Marketing through Social Networks Still Going Strong!

Tomorrow the stats are to be released by comScore letting us know how the social networking sites are doing as far as traffic in the US, while the time spent on these sites is actually leveling off. MySpace shows a growth of 11.6% growth from year to year in unique visitors, and Facebook has shot up 78.6%, but the average amount of time spent on the site dropped 10.4%. The average amount of time that visitors are spending on Bebo is off 63.6% here in the US. But you need to realize that the US is a very small part of the social network market.

From the statistics gathered, the still seems that MySpace users are spending more time on that site than any of the other social networking sites. As of January, the average visitor was spending an average of 203.9 minutes on MySpace, which is a 13.7 increase when measured month to month, and Facebook visitors are spending 172.1 minutes, an increase of 1.6%, which is down from their high of 199.9 minutes in February ’07.

As you can see, their has been a significant decline on Facebook in the user minutes, which adds to a theory that the interest in these applications is starting to drop. However, there are some new Facebook-like additions like the friend news feed as well as photo galleries which seem to keep people on MySpace, while as Facebook prepares to launch its own platform next month.

More Numbers on the Social Networking Front!

YouTube has more than doubled in their visitor numbers just in the last year. There were 61.3 million viewer just in January ’08, with an increase in page views of 277%.

Flickr was up 88.5% with their number in visitors reaching almost 14 million. They were up 266% in their page views with 340 million in January.

Yahoo 360 is not doing as well, they dropped by 53.4% to 2.2 million. Their page views were also down by 54% to 52 million.

Facebook dropped in unique visitors by 2.3% from December. They have basically been flat in their numbers since August which was 33.7 million and January having 33.8 million.

It is plain to see that YouTube has benefited tremendously since they were bought by Google and have integrated their searches, whereas Flickr continues to grow under Yahoo. As you can tell, Yahoo 360 is not doing so hot, which is not a huge surprise. Yahoo has had an ever-shifting networking strategy which has not seem to find it’s happy place yet.

WETPAINT! Another great Social Networking Site For You To Check Out!

There are more and more social networking sites coming up, better to help you with your viral networking strategies. Wetpaint has some wikis that are becoming a great, fully functional social networking site. They have recently added Feeds, which by the way is a very important feature of any social networking site. This makes these sites communicative which is vital to it’s survival. These feeds include dashboard and friend updates, giving each user their own personal view of the happenings in their particular part of the world.

They offer some great friend invite options who can add to your wiki’s that you have created, making this an integral tool, focusing on the current trends going on in our social media. You have greater personalization with their custom profiles, photo gallery, and place to share media. This is a great tool to get your name and product out there even more. Social networking sites are a great way to build up contacts, friends, along with trust.

Features You Need To Be Focusing On!

This site has a couple of self-promotional features which you need to take advantage of. The first one is the ‘Promote My Site Wizard’, which is a way for users to find better SEO for their wikis.

The next feature is the option to offer Compliments to your friends. This is a great version of ‘poking’, and hopefully will be used as encouragement and support. You can actually collect and display these compliments as awards right on your profile, letting others know that you can be trusted and that others think you are great.

Here are some the features and Why Wetpaint?

• 100% free
• Simple to start
• Easy to build
• Fun to share

What is Wetpaint?

Wetpaint powers wikis, but unlike most wikis, which can be complicated, Wetpaint wikis are as simple as 1-2-3 , making it easy for anyone to start a free wiki that they can share with friends.

Who is using Wetpaint?

A better question might be “Who isn’t using Wetpaint? Wetpaint is perfect for almost anyone! This is for so many different uses and passions. Educators, gamers, technophiles, sports fans, and everyone in between is using Wetpaint.

Now for those of you who don’t know what a Wiki is;

-A wiki is a type of website that anyone can easily edit and help grow through collaboration. You can add text, photos, videos of your own or that you like, add polls, anything that you want to share with others.

-You do not need to be a techy to build a wiki website, Wetpaint makes it totally easy to do. The other great thing about this is other people can contribute to your website, making it grow quickly.

-You will be able to track every change and addition to your wiki page, allowing you to remove any content that you don’t want to keep.

-If you are in a group with a common interest, or would like to form a group, this is a great way to start You can use this as your central headquarters for the group, where everyone can share and add their own ideas, photos, experiences, etc…This will allow all of you to always be on the ‘Same Page’.

How Do I Set Up An RSS Feed?

Have you seen this symbol? If you read blogs, or visit websites, I am sure you have. RSS represents REAL SIMPLE SYNDICATION or Rich Site Summary (they both mean the same thing), which is a way for you, if you have an interest, to get new information, news, and anything else regarding that topic without having to surf through pages and pages on the Internet.

An RSS page is generated in XML which you are not able to see, but can be seen by the RSS Readers or Aggregators.

How Does RSS Work and What are RSS Newsfeeds?

When you find a blog that you enjoy reading, or a website, they offer a “news feed” where you are able to get their information on a regular basis sent directly to your “News Reader”. This is totally free for you and will be displayed right in your web browser, desktop, or homepage.

If you have seen the stock tickers which are giving you information in real time, allowing you to see what the stocks are doing without going to a website for the a information; this is how the RSS Feed works, delivering the information to your computer as it happens.

Do You Need RSS?

Well, let’s look at the advantages of an RSS Feed and then you get to decide if you need it or not.
This saves your email inbox from getting unlimited newsletters,
You never need to go and get the information,
It is being sent to you without taking up valuable email storage space.

How much easier is it for you to have the newspaper delivered to your front door versus going to the store each morning to get it. This is virtually the same thing, you are having the news you are interested in delivered to you instead of you going out to find it.

An Example:

Let’s say you want to get as much information on viral marketing as that is what you are focusing on at the moment, you will take some time, search out some websites, and when you find something you like and want to stay up on, you simply click on the RSS, and this information will be delivered to you as it comes available. The other way would be to bookmark the page, then go to it every day to see if there is anything new you would be interested in. You will have to wade through all the unwanted information to find what you are looking for. Look how much time and energy you save when you use the RSS Feed option.

How Will RSS Work For You?

There are so many ways this can work for you, there is no one answer. I am going to give you a simple answer allowing you to get RSS Feeds the easiest way possible. Remember however, this is not your only option, just a simple one.

The easiest way is to have it sent to your homepage of your browser.

For instance, I use Google’s homepage and I have RSS Feeds sent directly to my homepage that I have set up for that particular genre of information.

Because I am a writer, I have a page dedicated to writing helps, topics, articles, and I have all of these sent to that home page via RSS. Now, if you have an RSS newsreader (aggregator), you can have it sent there as well. I actually use both. I have my Google Reader where I have RSS Feeds sent to that I don’t read on a regular basis. The more crucial information is sent to my homepage.

If you are wondering about whether you have a newsreader or not, I would guess that you do and not even know it. If you have Yahoo, MSN, Google or Hotmail, you have a reader. Let me help you set one up…We will use MSN as our example.

1. Go to My.Msn.com and sign in. If you don’t have an account on one of these browsers I have mentioned, set up an account now. You can do this with Yahoo, Google, or MSN in a matter of minutes.
2. Once you have signed in,you will see information such as weather, news, sports, stocks, local information and ads. This is your selection page, you can move things around, add or delete, making it tailored to your needs and interests. It is simple to move them, just click and drag from the top right of the subject area, moving them, using the minus (-) symbol in the top left area. If you delete one by accident, no worries, you can add them back anytime.
3. Now in the top left area of the screen, you will see “Welcome”. You are going to add this content below your name, with four choices (Tabs) to assist you. The “Search” tab is the default tab, and from that point you will see your four options. If you know the web address (URL) for a sites newsfeed, enter it there. The three tabs remaining let you browse by subjects and names of companies. You just click on the box that you want.
4. With Yahoo, you will notice that there are already some news feeds available listed as “Top Stories” from Reuters, along with “Politics”, “World News”, and “Business”. You will notice a big yellow box in the center above these stories giving you clear instructions on how to”Add Content”.
5. Next you will click on the “Add Content” link bringing up a search box which allows you to “search content” about your subject or topic.
6. Type in your search phrase, search, and you will be presented an array o results. When you see something that you like, click “Add” next to it. Once you have made your selections, click “Finished” up on the top right of the page.

Now you have added RSS Newsfeeds to your MSN or Yahoo homepage.

As you scroll down your “My Yahoo” page, you will see the headlines you have just added. You can rearrange them in the order you want. If you decide you don’t want a particular fee any longer, then simply delete it.

How Do You Customize Your Own RSS?

You may know a particular RSS Feed you would like and don’t need to “find” it. This is very simple to do. On most pages you will see a small orange box that says XML, News Feeds, or RSS Feed. You then click on that button, and a set of instructions will come up on that page. You will be given an option to choose that Feed to appear in your Aggregator or your homepage. There are some that allow you copy and paste the “news feed URL” and paste it into your news reader.

If you are worried about the code, don’t be, you are just looking at the “feed code” which is the specific URL of the news feed.

This is such a great and convenient way to get the news updated and on a regular basis. My favorite reader is Google Reader, it is so simple to use and navigate.

Below are the Top 7 RSS Readers in order
1.RssReader
2.SharpReader
3.Pluck RSS Reader
4.NewsGator
5.FeedDemon
6.FeedBucket
7.NetNewsWire (Mac OS-X only)

Here are the Top 7 Web RSS Feeds/Aggregators (these require a personal account)

1.Google
2.My.Yahoo
3.NewsGator Online
4.Feedster
5.Bloglines
6.My.MSN
7.My.AOL

DO YOU HAVE A KILLER MARKETING STRATEGY?

By WAGH3

What is your wonderful and well thought out marketing strategy, what is your main objective?

The reason I ask this question is due to the amount of small business owners that do NOT have a marketing strategy. So many of us neglect the all important strategy for our business, but we put all our eggs in the basket of tactics.

What does the word Strategy mean? A plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result: a strategy for getting ahead in the world.

You need a strategy to help you obtain your business goals, to obtain the results you are working toward. Your tactics are are your methods, but not a specific plan.

Here are a few reasons why you need to have a plan, a strategy to implement your tactics and reach your business goals.

• Strategy will keep your marketing effort on track
• Strategy will help you define your goals and move you towards your goals end
• Strategy will help you create a budget and help you to abide by it

Why are so many small business owners gun-shy of marketing plans? Do they think that it is a bunch of huge charts with graphs, huge stack of documents, never-ending finances? Maybe so, and it may include that if you are building a strategy for funding your project. But typically, if you are in business for yourself, your marketing strategy is nothing to be afraid of, rather it is something that can be so simple to do.

What should your Marketing Strategy Include?

By AimsInternetMarketing

Here is a list that you need to consider;

• Your objective, how you see your business in its final stages
• Your unique selling and value proposition
• Marketing budget
• List your strengths as well as your weaknesses in regards to the customer side of your business
• Use a marketing calendar to list the steps you will take

Now there are three ways that you can apply to increase your business revenue;

1. Increase amount of transactions
2. Increase customer numbers
3. Increase customer purchase frequency

You can do this with the following ideas and objectives;\

-It is important you not just focus on the customer numbers, but you need to focus on the amount of transactions you incur over a period of time.

-You are not going to be focusing just on PR and advertising, you need to make your strategy include he whole experience that your customer will have with you.

-You may want to change the way you answer the phone, or making more follow-up calls, you may want to offer free bonuses, how to lists, maybe you want to have a customer satisfaction survey.

-Take a look at your product presentation, can this be improved or changed to create more interest? Can you make a new product brochure?

-Have a plan with specific tactics and have a budget for each and every one.

-Plan for the unknown! There are going to be things that are not expected or predicted, plan on it. If you need to change your marketing strategy then be ready and willing to do so, don’t be afraid of revision. Capitalize on any new opportunity that comes your way.

-Be consistent, keep your objectives in focus, by doing this you will be in pass by your competition at a strong and steady pace.

Building a List? Build Trust First!

You want to build a great opt in list, well the first thing you are going to do is build up the trust of your readers. You are going to want to do this quickly so you can get the word out about your site. When you have a broader opt-in list, the more traffic you will bring to your site, therefore, providing greater profits.

So how are you going to do this?

Let’s take a look at a few points of interest.

1. You first do this by having a legitimate business or product, one in which you have some expertise. Your customers are relying on your knowledge and expertise in your niche to answer their questions and help them to improve in that area.
2. Let your readers know that you know your stuff, that you know what you are selling them. They love to get helpful hints and how-to lists, bring up new and fresh ideas and guidelines that relate to the product you are selling. If you have a site selling hand tools, give some ideas and instructions on making a doll house, or maybe birdhouses. You may want to have instructions to making a nice new workbench for their new hand-tools. If you are proving your value and your knowledge in your product area, they will grow to trust you.
3. Be honest and true! If you are going to promote your products and services with the utmost hype and performance, then make sure you provide a guarantee to back up what you say. If you have a satisfied customer, then you will get recommendations and your viral marketing will spread. When someone recommends you to their friends and family, they are more likely to also trust you and visit your site on the referral alone.
4. Be consistent! If someone is given a recommendation for your great service, continue providing that great service.
5. Give them an escape if needed. You do not want your customers to ever feel trapped, you want to keep your list clean, enabling your readers to unsubscribe at any time. On you web form, provide information needed to unsubscribe from your list. Also let them know that they can do this anytime they want, and that their name is not sold to anyone else. No one likes spam, and by letting them know that you don’t like it either and that you will only be sending them letters as long as they want it.

LOL…

I bet that you were expecting a different type of post based on the headline, but the headline is 100% correct, only this post isn’t talking about how to make $100,000 in 4 days, rather, asking for your help to reach that goal for our planet!

http://worldinternetchallenge.com/

All the info is at the site link above

Should You or Shouldn’t You Disclose Your Price

By richie

Price is a big deal to you your customers!

There is a big controversy along with questions around the topic of price and whether it should be disclosed from the very beginning. Have you ever gone to a local gym to inquire about a membership, you ask the price, and they say, “sorry, I can’t disclose that until you have been on the tour of the gym and have met with one of our salespeople”. I don’t know about you, but this is a sudden turn off. If you instead go into a gym, ask the membership price, they give it to you right then and there, I would be ok about joining that gym. I do not like working with businesses that try to be sneaky in their pricing or any other issues regarding their services. The first gym will not

get my business, but the second one will…why?

Because they are missing a couple of very important key points in sales;

1. You want to be ready to sell when a customer is at their peak of their emotional level to buy. If you wait till later, when they are ready now, you are going to lose the sale.
2. If you cannot gain the trust of the customer, then just give up. If your customer wants to know the price, then tell them the price. You do not want to give any reason for them to suspect or distrust you.

If you have done sales in the past, you know that sales can be very complex, especially when it comes to advertising and giving your prices. There will be some that say, “just tell me your price”, and in this case you would give the price, but you also want your client to know the value of your product and why it’s priced that way.

So many times a client will compare products on price alone, when they really don’t know the value or quality of one product versus another. They may look at the price and think that it’s too high and move on.

If you client wants the information, don’t hold back, but don’t try to give them a cheap pitch, instead, have a natural conversation with them, telling them honestly what the benefits are of your product and how the value far outweighs the price.

Find out their questions regarding the prices, help them to feel comfortable in talking with your, develop trust. Carry on a conversation with them, show that you understand their concerns, and ask them to express their concerns. Then you want to take the opportunity to explain your product and the pricing. Keep the dialog going, be able to back up your reasons for a higher price compared to the competition.

By Jeff Holbrook

The same goes for your prices that are less expensive than the competition, have your prices to compare with the higher prices along with the high quality that matches or exceeds that of the competition.

There are some that will look at lower prices and think the value is less, for this reason you need to explain why your prices are lower, and how you are able to do this without sacrificing the quality of your merchandise.

There has been a test where people were given three choices of a similar product, each having a different price. The majority of the test subjects chose the product with the middle ranged price.

Have you ever been to the new shopping store called IKEA? Well, the next time you go, look at their signs. You will see how they explain their lower prices by purchasing their stock in bulk, using self-service, and shipping everything in flat boxes. With their price promotion, they have built a very successful reputation for providing high quality items at a very low price.

Also, be your own customer, take a look from their perspective, would you trust YOU? Would you pay your price for your products? Be honest, develop trust and be open about your price, but back be ready to back it up.

I was watching one of Frank Kern’s videos in ‘Mass Control’ series that I purchased a few weeks ago for $2,000 (It is all sold out now) and there is a video in there filmed at Rich Schefren’s live event that has just finished.

It was Frank’s presentation and I gotta say, I like Frank! Some don’t but most really do, and I am in the masses. His stuff is top quality and he seems like a top quality guy. “Where are you going with this?” I hear you say…

“If There Were NO Limitations or Consequences, what would your perfect average day look like?”
by Frank Kern

Where Would You Live?
What Would You Do?
Who Would You Know?
What Time Would You Wake Up?
What Would The First Thing You Say Be?
What Would You Have For Breakfast?
Who Would You Eat With?
What Would Your Friends Be Like?
What Would You Be Thinking About?
What Would Your Business Be?
What Would You Do at Work?
What Are Your Clients Like?
What Is Your Personal Relationships Like?
What Fun Stuff Do You Do?

There more detailed you become, the clearer ‘who you really are’ becomes. If this is different from who you are today, then there is a big gap and it will reflect in what you do. This is not a 10 min exercise to change, this will take you hours to hash out and ‘self discover’ and potentially months to start aligning your real life currently, with your ideal life!

Profound, but say it back to yourself again… The most important thing with this statement is that is makes you think! Can you think of what your perfect day would be? If so, you will change your life. It will give you focus and a goal to work towards. A goal that will make you happy, make your business successful (if that’s what you want), change the business you are in (if you don’t like what you are doing) will take time and explaining. This is just one small part of Rich’s course

I have also just purchased Rich’s course for almost $1,000 and you have a chance to pre-order now before it increases. Click here to check it out

(No, it is not an affiliate link, just a pure recommendation.)

Self Education

You by now know that I harp on about education and how every day you should try and improve yourself by learning something new that is of value.

I have some cool courses on my make money page, but education can come in all forms. I have made a commitment to read books, lots of them. A little each day is the plan, and this week I am reading ‘reallionaire‘. Once I have finished it I will make a ‘review style’ post on it.

Jason Calacanis

Jason first came onto my radar by being an ‘ass’ towards affiliate marketers at his keynote. I now read his blog! The lesson there is sometimes being a ‘smart ass’ works, no publicity is bad publicity.

Another post he made caused another bit of a stir but is a good read: ‘How to Save Money Running a Startup‘

Facebook Owner = Youngest Billionaire

I read Forbes sometimes, but I read Zac Johnson every day, and as I first read the news at his site, I figure it best to link to his post. This is interesting and inspiring news for anyone that is keen on having a shot at internet success. Sure you have to have the ‘right stuff’ but don’t let people tell you that you don’t…. Have a crack, have a full go, and if you don’t succeed, try again.

Setting Goals

Everyone knows this, but let me say it again. Aim HIGH! Of course you need a business plan and at least a rough outline on how you plan to achieve your aim (goal) but when you do set goals, aim VERY HIGH! If you don’t hit it and fall short, you are bound to have at least some success.

Have a good week!

Farrah Gray is a young motivational speaker who wrote a book in 2004 called: Reallionaire

He was 19 back then and has since written a new book: Get Real, Get Rich

‘So What?’ You ask…

So what is that I am busy reading them, (one at a time of course) starting with ‘Reallionaire’ and it makes the basis for todays post. Farrah has a unique writing style and has written the book based on his life from the age of seven and at the end of each chapter, summarizes what he learned and what we too should learn and take on board.

Reallionaire Affirmation

At the end of each summary, there is an affirmation and here is one that I want to share with you today:

‘opportunities are everywhere. I can rise above any circumstance with hard work, integrity, faith and especially persistence.’

I think the key things to take from that is – No matter where you are at in life right now, you can improve your lifestyle and you should not blame anything or anyone but yourself. Rise above the bad or negatives in your life and make a change… Make it your goal to do it…NOW!

Check Them Out At Amazon:

So What Do You Think About the New Blogged.com ?

This week, Blogged.com launched providing us with a fantastic online directory for every blog in the world. You already know that there are a lot of search tools such as technorati which is great providing you real-time content an any topic you are interested in, but Blogged.com works like a catalog revealing not only only topic content, but the entire blog itself with all of its content.

Here is a list of some blogs you can find:

1. Society (19,363)
2. Entertainment & Recreation (16,717)
3. Personal Blogs (9,115)
4. Technology (7,793)
5. United States (7,192)
6. Business (6,548)
7. Art (6,319)
8. Family & Home (6,285)
9. Culture (6,027)
10. Internet (5,553)
11. North America (5,507)
12. Books & Literature (4,272)
13. Government (4,089)
14. Politics (4,081)
15. Religion and Spirituality (3,890)
16. Sports (3,381)
17. Humor (3,324)
18. Travel (3,302)
19. Computers (3,127)
20. Education (3,087)

Blogged.com has a number of feedback tools and ratings that are found throughout the site. You will find bogs that will discuss a particular topic on a regular basis, which would be to your advantage when you focusing on a particular niche or solution on your blog.

This as mentioned before, works as a Blog Catalog, whereas Technorati works an Internet search engine that competes with Google and Yahoo and which focuses more on image thumbnails more than the blog results. Blogged.com is focused on the web user to find blogs on any topic. Mashable found that this site is a great way to bring the blogs and websites to the typical consumer, allowing them to find even greater amounts of information. This will help the bloggers to become more on the forefront in viral marketing.

In the case of viral marketing, right now this site works well as search and discovery tool. You will find some great tips to help you take advantage of this forum and using this as a self-promotion tool. You need to create a profile, list of blogs that you visit. You are basically becoming a personal recommendation service, which will increase your reader audience and bookmarking. Go to Blogged.com, sign up, get your blog on there and market yourself.

More Great News For Viral Marketers Like You!

Our wonderful friends over at MySpace have sent us an announcement that they are now providing a great feature allowing you to advertise and promote your products or content with your MySpace profile. This is just want you need; that is if you are someone in the business of Internet Marketing. This will be a very helpful feature to promote your content, increasing your opportunities for successful viral marketing.

You want to spread your content and get your brand on the web virally on the coat-tails of MySpace, the largest social network? This is exactly what you will be able to do. You cannot beat the benefits of using the social networks for your viral marketing campaigns, which by the way, is an easy way to get your brand out there. This can be one of your greatest viral marketing tools, but there are some tricks to really making it work.

The very first thing you need to do is to get your content inside the social network of MySpace, and this utility is just now being released, making this an easy task. You will be allowed up to one thousand characters which can be posted directly to your MySpace profile. There will be information you can post on the “About Me” section on your profile, and another space on the Bulletin. These are two excellent places to promote your content, great ad space!

You just watch! This will soon be in the next version of every ShareThis!

Your instructions can be found here. Check this out, start implementing it, and you will be on your way to applying more great viral marketing methods to your business. By now, you can see viral marketing is the most successful method to promote your sites and products.

MySpace is a great place to begin your viral marketing campaign!

Become an active user of MySpace, take advantage of this great opportunity, especially now when this is brand new to MySpace users. You know as well as I do that MySpace is the largest social network on the web. This is why you need to take advantage of this along with the other viral marketing methods we are teaching you here.

There are a few phrases that have been used more than needed on the social marketing networks such as Digg and Reddit. A very smart Redditer decided to do a little research on some of the overly used phrases, and one was “It’s Official” which is too often used in the title. You can see the search results here.

He wanted to show that this phrase is not that fun anymore, because it is used way too much. Using phrases such as “It’s Official”, when it has been used more than it should, actually takes away from your own credibility.

Another overused phrase that has been found on Digg is “Breaking” stories. You know, when you first saw this on a blog post or in an article, it really seemed important, and would draw in a lot of readers, making your news item something of great interest. There was a time on Digg that your story had no chance of getting on the front page if you didn’t have the word “BREAKING’ in its title.

We all want to get our story on the front page, and on the top of the front page. There is a lot of competition, so in order for you to succeed, you need to have your own tricks to get on the front page. But how do you win in this competition, what tactics and tricks do you need to focus on? Do you set your own standards, do you let sensational titles along with poor journalism? What can you do to raise the standards? But for the most part, it seems as if Digg likes the word “Breaking” as you can see in this search.

But Digg is not the only place to go for your news aggregator. You need to check out Newspond. This is a new site that will be in a league of its own. This is a young site, they don’t have the viewers like Digg and Reddit have right now, matter of fact, they are now having their official launching. But just because they are new, does not mean you don’t want to get involved. This is a great looking site and will soon be on their way to the top along with Digg and Reddit.

Within a few months, after the right amount of press and publicity, Newspond will be right up there among the giants of news aggregation. Just keep your eye on them and you will watch it happen right before your eyes. They may be a small fish just being thrown into the pond, but soon, it will be a shark fighting for the top like the rest of the them.

When you take a look at this site, you will see why it will make it to the top quickly. This is a great looking site, with a Mac look to it. So, keep this one on your radar, with the PR efforts, and their great looking image, they are bound to be a success.

Just keep your name out there, keep putting great content on your sites, continue your Viral Marketing campaigns, and you will continue to see your business grow.

Let’s Talk About Outsourcing…

One of the biggest blessings to SEO is the ability to Outsource from doing everything yourself. You may be a one person business or a small company, either way, you can greatly increase the growth of your business. You can obtain many of these services through specialized websites. Some of the tasks you may want to outsource are;

1. Directory submission
2. Link building
3. Search engine Optimization
4. Writing content for websites
5. Article writing
6. Keyword analysis
7. Competitive research
8. Website analysis

You will find that outsourcing will provide many benefits, leaving you more time to work on the things you enjoy and do best. Also, outsourcing allows you to put your focus on the business end of things rather than the many little things that take up so much of your time.

As you know, Time is something that seems to slip away from us so quickly. We as Internet Marketers have had to learn how to budget our time wisely since we are working on our own schedules without having to punch in a time clock.

There are many Internet Marketers who have been able to build great success by focusing on the important tasks of generating income. You will outsource different tasks, hopefully having them completed in a timely manner, making your business run smoothly.

When using SEO Outsourcing, you need to make sure you do it correctly, and there are some limitations, as there are with anything. You will find that you will have certain expectations, but in the real world, not everyone will meet those expectations. Plan for the bumps in the road, give yourself some time for ‘corrections’ or ‘do-overs’.

You will notice that SEO Outsourcing in on the rise which is due to the ongoing growth of Internet Marketing. More and more marketers and companies are outsourcing different jobs, and therefore, there are more specialty companies or persons who are offering their services online.

Once you find a great Outsourcing help, hang on to them, they will help your business grow and let you put your time where it’s really needed.

Someone I use for outsourcing and highly recommend is: Annette Jensen

Other options are: Guru, Elance and oDesk

Another week, another summary post. This week I had Frank Bauer come and visit me for 3 days. He is my business partner in ViralUrl and we have other things on the horizon so it was a very productive time in that sense. The downside was, I didn’t get a chance to do my normal blog surfing to keep track of what’s up in the Blogosphere. I did however get a few minutes to read some bloggers views of ‘Affiliate Summit West’ where keynote speaker, Jason Calacanis, caused some controversy. I had a  chance to watch some footage and agree with some bloggers that he is a ‘Valley VC baby’. Just because he relies on other people’s funding of obscene amounts of money does not mean that is the only way to make an income.

Here is some feedback from Zac on the issue

As Jac says, I too am happy with my 6 figure income doing what I enjoy and from where I want to do it. (Internet Marketing).

Big Income Reported Again

John Chow, just reported his February income month and he is now making over $1,000 a day from his blog. I’m not sure if my blog will ever get there or if I’m even setting it as a goal simply because I don’t run this blog for income only, that is secondary, primary is for Brand creation and awareness, which of course, brings more income for my other projects.

Look Forward to next week

Looking forward to next week, there will, as usual be some great posts on viral marketing, so please be sure to signup to my Rss Feed

Next week some time a New Opt-in form will be added to the blog as well – I am still finalizing the blog design and functions and then will start pushing it

Contests are used by bloggers to get extra exposure. This is proved simply by me making this post:

CarlOCab is running a contest to celebrate his blog turning 1 and to do so he has been very smart. Instead of putting up his own money or prizes, he has contacted lots of people and asked them to submit a gift. I have put up a 1 month 125*125 banner ad spot valued at $50.

He is awarding ‘tickets’ for part taking in actions. I am linking to the post and also chasing package 7 so am linking to Bloginads Website! This is a clever contest as it gets  exposure for the people and blogs that take part as well as huge exposure for Carl’s blog. how much does it cost him? – time… that is all. If you are willing to spend the time to get a contest together, then go for it and start boosting the incoming links and traffic to your blog!

I plan on running a contest in the near future when I am ready for more mass exposure to my new, little blog

Head over to CarlOCab and get your entry in as well