As a thank you to those that visit and contribute to my blog, I’ve wanted to do some sort of giveaway for awhile, but wanted it to be somewhat relevant to what I do and write about.  My blog certainly doesn’t generate crazy amounts of traffic or revenue, so I couldn’t exactly get too crazy, but I think I’ve come up with something pretty cool.

So what’s the prize package you ask?  To one lucky reader I will be giving away the following social media book package:

• Socialnomics by Erik Qualman
• The Social Media Bible by Lon Safko
• Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
• The New Community Rules: Marketing On The Social Web by Tamar Weinberg
• Why Now Is The Time To Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk

These are all books I have read and enjoyed and think you will too.  Yes, I must disclose they are “used”, but they are all in new condition as I pretty much read them very quickly and they’ve just been sitting in my office since then.  I figured I might as well let a lucky reader enjoy them.

BONUS!!  In addition to one copy of all the books above, I’ll throw in one copy of Tweetadder ($55 value) to the winner if they have tweeted/re-tweeted this post during the contest!

Overall that’s about a $150 prize package.  Not too shabby for a personal blog giveaway eh? 

So what do you have to do?  Pretty simple.  Just leave a comment on this blog post with one of your favorite social media websites or blogs that you frequent.  I figure why not get some great content in the process!  Be sure to leave some sort of contact information so if chosen you can be contacted.  Preferably a twitter username (so I can follow you if I’m not already), personal blog link or something that you are comfortable with.

Winner will be chosen at random on Friday, September 10th and will be contacted immediately at which point I’ll ship out to you at my expense.

Good luck to everyone and much thanks for all your continued support.

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I didn’t really get serious about blogging until the past year, and even then, I haven’t written as much as I would like.  Like many bloggers, I’ve gone in and out of writing, and that doesn’t help with maintaining a consistent flow of traffic to your blog.  At the end of the day, driving eyeballs to my blog isn’t really the ultimate goal, writing useful and appreciated content is.  But I like anyone loves to see people visit.  So I decided to dive deep into the analytics of my blog to get a true understanding of what has worked, what hasn’t, and pulling the curtain so that you can hopefully find some insights that you can find useful in your own blogging endeavors.

Let’s start with the following tables.  I’ve embedded them as images since WordPress doesn’t play too nice with real tables (please, anyone with any insights on this one, do share!).  My analysis and thoughts follow.

These were the top 10 visited blog articles I wrote in the past year.  3 of these were lists (no surprise there).  Most achieved a Postrank of higher then 6, and 9 out of the 10 articles dealt with social media.  For those not familiar, Postrank is a nifty little WordPress plugin that provides some analysis into the social engagement factor of the content you create.  For more details on how they reach these measurements, see here.

In this table we have the top 10 sources of traffic including time spent on the site and bounce rate.  Based on these figures, Linked In is where I’m attracted my strongest audience followed closely by Twitter.  There’s differentiating opinion on what a good bounce rate is, but overall, mine is not where I would like it to be which means I most likely need to focus more on a specific topic.

Here’s the top 20 keywords that were used to find my site once again including time spent on the site from those searches, and the correlating bounce rates.

Based on the data above, here is what I’ve learned:

1. Use Concise & To The Point Titles – All 10 of my top blog posts in the past year have titles that were to the point.  Bottom line, make sure your readers know what you are linking to, and it’s more likely they’ll visit.

2. Stick To Writing What You Know – The bottom line is anytime I strayed away from blog articles about topics I had a relatively deep experience with, my traffic suffered.  9 of my top 10 blog articles are social media related.  It can be tempting to use your blog to rant about things, but if you are interested in building an audience, focus on a specific topic.

3. Find An Angle & Run With It – One of the most compelling things I found in my research, was around the topic of WordPress Social Media Plugins.  Based on the keyword research, it’s clear that the most impactful blogging I did was around this topic.  My bounce rates plummeted on these blog articles down to a healthy average around 50%, and these visitors spent the most time on my site.  It’s clear based on this data, that I’m providing content that resonates with those that find me through these keywords.  I should be focusing on this area more in my writing.  When you find your niche, don’t stop there, be as specific as you can.  Find ways to take those niches, and make them even more specific.  You’ll find a nice little audience waiting.

4. Be Timely – In my Olive Garden Facebook post, I wrote immediately following stumbling across the scammy offering in my news feed.  I garnered a quick audience on this post, and it was one of the most shared articles on my site.  It struck a cord with people, and I was the first (and really only) person to dedicate a blog post to it.  Of course I added a social media spin to it to make it more relevant to my blog, but at the end of the day, I drove quite a few new people to my blog and I would imagine a few new readers in the process.  This article alone still brings people to my site as shown in the keyword data above.  Of course this is not the most relevant audience as also seen in the time spent and bounce rates, but still contributes to overall traffic numbers.

5. Share Your Ah-Ha Moments – Back when the iPhone only supported one Exchange account, I was frustrated with not being able to use Exchange with both my work and Gmail accounts.  I had to dig deep to find a solution, and being frustrated with their not being an easier way to solve, I felt compelled to share my findings in a blog post.  As the data shows, I get a good % of my traffic just from this one blog post.  Now the smart thing for me would be to combine this approach with my bread and butter topic of WordPress Social Media plugins.  My guess is those would be very successful blog posts.

There’s obviously more to be learned here, but this is a start for me to try and improve my blogging approach.  Numbers are never the be all end all, so only use them to compliment other methods in measuring what works for your blog, but ensure you have free tools like Google Analytics and Post Rank set up so that you can quickly and easily get a pulse of your audience.

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Starting or maintaining a small local business is no easy task.  This is especially the case when you offer a product or service that is provided by major players that are hard to compete solely on price with.  For every story of a mom and pop shop that has fought off the corporate giants, there are hundreds that did not share the same fate.

However times are changing, and technology is providing opportunities that were never even thought possible just a few short years ago.  While a well thought out digital marketing plan is a given, I feel there are 3 key things a small business or start up can do today that can not only give them a real shot in the sales arm, but build customer loyalty and retention.

1. Exclusive Couponing – As a consumer who has used the likes of Groupon, and Living Social, I can tell you with certainty that it works.  I have tried numerous new products and services from businesses I had neither heard of or would have considered.  Get your business on one of these sites for a day, and you are destined to drive significant business your way and if you truly have a great product or service, repeat customers.

2. Location Based Rewards – I love the idea of Foursquare, Whrrl and Gowalla.  I wish I wanted to use them more, but the reality is, unless I have incentive to, I just don’t find myself using them as much.  However as businesses have started to offer rewards to users who check-in, that likelihood changes dramatically.  If I were a local business, I would immediately partner with these companies and get an offer on the table, and window decals advertising the fact. 

3. Reputation/Review Sites – I find myself using Yelp more and more to make service based buying decisions.  It’s scaling, and there’s nothing more trustworthy then the opinions of the masses.  I love businesses that have window decals showing they are listed on Yelp.  It tells me that they care about what people say about them which usually results in good service and product.  I would take it one step farther and offer incentives to customers to leave feedback.  If you can work a nice Yelp rating, it will pay off in spades.  Similar sites like Urbanspoon (for restaurants), and Google (off there map searches) are other areas I’d have businesses concentrate on building a strong reputation on.  Embrace user feedback and good things will happen.

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I love it when a company does one thing, and does it extremely well.  Cloud storage is definitely a growing technology, but for the most part, too complicated for the masses to adopt.  Most people outside of tech still don’t get it, and probably won’t for some time.  It’s a shame too, because storage in the cloud is so stinking convenient.  Not having to worry about carrying a portable hard drive, thumb drive, or the right device is extremely liberating.  And no one does it better then Dropbox.

So what makes Dropbox so much better then everyone else?  The biggest difference is the idiot proof setup and UI.  No solution is easier then Dropbox to get up and running and to use.  A simple sign up process gets you 2 GB of free online storage, and within minutes, you can have your Dropbox folder installed on your machine and ready to go.  It creates a folder on your machine where you choose, and you can use it like you would any other folder on your machine.  Everything in your Dropbox folder is automatically synched in the cloud, so when you install the comparable application on your mobile device or on any other computer, you will have access to those files anywhere, anytime.  Any changes you make on any device are updated and available “in the cloud”.

Now, of course 2 GB isn’t a ton of space.  I don’t use Dropbox as my be all, end all storage solution.  Videos, music, photos, they get the traditional hard drive treatment.  But a ton of docs, and important files that I need access to regularly are there, and make it super easy and convenient whenever I need them.  So many times I’ve found myself using Dropbox to store files I knew I would need on the road ahead of time.  And it’s free!!

They also give you 250mb bonus chunks for small tasks like going through a tutorial, then sharing the love with your friends.

If you haven’t tried Dropbox, I implore you to give it a go.  I promise you will love it, and find it useful some way in your digital life.

Click here to score yourself 2 GB of free Dropbox storage (and yes, 250MB for me in the process!)

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It’s no secret that Twitter’s schedule of feature enhancements is fairly lacking and infrequent.  I suppose when you grow as quickly and as large as they have, and you’re a free service, you don’t necessarily have to do too much.  But if there was one stinking feature I so desperately wish they would add is a way to block Auto DMs.

I’m not entirely sure if this is even possible, or how it would be done, but I’ve got to believe there would be a relatively easy way to do this.  Seriously, just make this happen on the back end, and give me a simple check box giving me the option to block any automated DMs.  If I had this sort of feature, I could actually use the DM feature to communicate.  As it stands, I simply get way to much spam to even consider using it.

I know this probably is only the case for those with larger followings, but I still think this would be a valuable feature for all users.

And while we’re at it, why don’t we just implement a suite of spam blocking features?  Maybe another checkbox to block DMs with links.  Or easier ways to manage your inbox like mass deleting. 

If Twitter truly wants to become a true communication powerhouse, users need better tools to manage these things.  Or at the very least, open up the API to allow 3rd party developers the ability to create such features.

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While there are quite a few “free” options when it comes to starting a blog, sometimes you want a little more then what they can offer, especially if you are wanting to get serious about building a professional grade blog.  The great news is that these days, even a great looking, unique blog doesn’t have to come with a hefty price tag.

WordPress has changed the game and opened up the door giving the potential for anyone to create and publish great content and possibly earn a few bucks in the process.  I’ve been toying around with WordPress for years, and the formula for launching a professional grade blog is not as difficult or expensive as you would think.  Here are the 5 steps you can take today and have your professional grade blog up and running and ready to rock today.

1. Get yourself a shared hosting account.  Having access to your own web hosting is very empowering as it gives you not only the ability to launch your own custom blog, but the power to launch practically as many other blogs/websites you would ever want.  Sure, maybe your world doesn’t involve the idea of multiple blogs or websites today, but once you enter this world, you’d be surprised what you can come up with.  Once you have access to unlimited hosting, all those “ideas” you’ve had running around in your head start to seem more realistic.  I have used Bluehost for the past 5 years and stand behind them 100%.  Very inexpensive ($6.95/month), 99.9% uptime (it’s true), and all the bells and whistles you would ever need.  Plus they have an extremely easy control panel that makes installing anything idiot proof.

2. Secure your domain name.  There are hundreds of places you can go to secure a domain name.  I personally use Go Daddy.  It’s cheap, dependable, and easy to use to manage multiple domain names.  If you haven’t figured out what domain name you want, you might want to take advantage of some great research tools to figure it out. Bustaname.com is a favorite of mine to throw names at quickly and easily to see if they are available.  If you are considering purchasing aftermarket, Sedo.com and Snapnames.com are my favs for that.  Once you have your domain name, you’ll need to change the nameservers.  Steps for this vary depending on your choice of hosting and domain registrar.

3. Install WordPress.  If you chose Bluehost, or a comparable hosting company, this is as easy as launching their Simple Scripts control panel and choosing your domain name to install WordPress on.  It’s a one button install, and once this is complete, you will be given the log in info to access your fresh new blog.  WordPress is dead easy to use, but if you need some help, be sure to take a walk through on their tutorials to get familiarized with the basics.

4. Find a WordPress template.  This is one of my favorite steps in the process.  Sure you could hire a professional designer and drop $2000 on a unique design, but there are literally thousands of quality professional grade WordPress themes out there.  I’ve spent hundreds of hours looking through and staying on top of the best of the best.  My personal favorite resources are the following list of gems:

• Woo Themes – Some of the highest quality WordPress themes you will find period.
• Elegant Themes – Again, amazing designs, and the absolute craziest deal of all.  $19.99/year for access to all of the themes.  Crazy good deal.
• Themeforest.net – A theme marketplace where hundreds of designers create themes.  If you can’t find something here, you’re the pickiest of the picky.

Once you come across your must have design, simply purchase, download, and then upload through your WordPress control panel under Appearance-Themes-Install Themes.  You then have the option of uploading into your account.  Once uploaded, you can then select that theme and you will be good to go.

5. Install must have plug ins.  The beauty of the WordPress platform is the extensibility.  Plug-ins are a great way to accomplish practically anything on your blog, and again there are thousands to choose from.  Some of my must have recommendations include the following:

• All In One SEO Pack – Make it crazy easy to ensure your blog posts are SEO friendly.
• Facebook Share & Tweetmeme Button – Ensure your readers can share your content on the two most important social media platforms quickly and easily.
• Google Analytics – It’s critical to know your site’s stats.  This plugin makes it easy to integrate your Google Analytics code.
• Sexy Bookmarks – My personal fav plugin to manage all of the sharing capabilities for your readers.  This compliments the Facebook and Tweetmeme buttons usually found at the top of your blog posts while these are found at the end.

There are a few more steps along the way, but for the most part, this is your roadmap to getting started.  Of course you can have the best blog in the world, but without great content, it’s all a waste.  Pick your niche and run with it.  Everyone has their “thing”.  Stick to this and over time, you’ll find your audience.

As always, if you ever need help, or have a question, I’m more then happy to assist.  Just leave a comment, or contact me directly.

Good Luck!

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The sooner the better I say.  There really is no reason to have to be dealing with word documents and pdfs anymore with the rise of Linked In (or even leading jobsites like Monster).  Any HR department with any common sense must certainly see the value in being able to simply get the information they need quickly without having to dig through email attachments.

There is a tremendous amount of value to having your resume be a living and breathing entity.  It gives prospective employees the ease of being able to easily update their career inventory on the fly and have it available to anyone, anytime.  One place to update and easily share with whoever you wish.

Linked In does have a little known feature that allows you to export your Linked In profile as a pdf, so if you do have old school requests, you can actually still send off a pdf version of your resume.  One nice feature I’d like to see Linked In create is to make this feature a bit more robust.  Right now the export is a fairly bland output.  It would be great to have the option to export into a few additional layouts so that the output is a bit more polished.  Something like that would most certainly make using Linked In as your exclusive home to your resume a done deal.

So what say you?  Are you close to making your resume a web only experience?  Or are you still stuffing inboxes with attachments?  And if you are a recruiter or in HR, what will it take to completely move away from the old school methods?

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I’m a big fan of the local deal craze.  It’s really such a great concept and simple.  One great deal a day, take it or leave it.  So many reasons it works well.  Consumers aren’t slammed with all kinds of things to buy every day, and businesses get one day exclusives on eyeballs and potential new customers.  It’s a win-win, and the craze is growing fast.  I also keep my eyes on Living Social and Tippr to name a few.

Groupon is taking it to another level today with deal personalization.  The idea is to give consumers deals that are more tailored to their interests, but more importantly (in Groupon’s case), the ability to sign on more businesses.  It gives Groupon the ability to showcase more advertisers each day, without breaking the formula too much.  It will be interesting to see just how well the implementation works.  As it stands, it’s pretty basic just asking for some localizing questions, but over time I would imagine more personalized profiling will take place to really zero in on each consumer’s needs/wants.

Either way, if you’re a local business and haven’t looked into it yet, you should really check out Groupon, Living Social or Tippr ASAP and think about getting your name out there through these channels.  It’s a great opportunity to drive new customers and increase loyalty.

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Social Media has certainly become THE trend over the past year or so, and everyone and their sister is jumping on board.  Tweets, blog posts, and articles are peppered with how to-s, trends, and best practices.  Hell, even I’m guilty of over saturating my twitter feed with social media tweets.  But there’s a reason for all of this, and quite simply it’s because technology is providing us the ability to communicate in ways that we’ve never been able to before.  It’s giving the little guy the ability to compete with the big boys. 

I’ve always tried to be fairly grounded and transparent about my knowledge of social media marketing.  I’ve never claimed to be a guru, and there are certainly many more people that know more then I do.  But what I have done is taken the time to understand how to use certain tools and strategies to leverage social media successfully for building my personal brand, as well as for small to medium sized businesses to get up and running from nowhere.  Below are some of these tools/strategies that I’ve used that may be useful to you in your quest to become social media relevant.

Disclaimer – All the products that contain affiliate links below are all products that I have used, love, and have been successful with.  I never recommend anything that I don’t wholeheartedly stand behind and have used extensively.

1. Have A Blog – This may seem obvious, but many individuals or businesses still don’t have a blog.  It’s the easiest and most effective method to build your brand.  Simply blogging 1-2 times a week about your expertise and knowledge can go a long way regardless of whether your goals are personal or professional.  There are a ton of great free options such as Tumblr, Posterous, and WordPress.com.  I personally prefer the self hosted method which is not as difficult or expensive as one would think.  I use Bluehost.com ($6.95/month), and with their idiot proof control panel, you can have full control over the look and feel of your blog as well as the ability to place advertising on it if your blog becomes popular enough.  On top of that, by self hosting, you have the ability to create multiple sites/blogs at no additional hosting cost.

2. Automate Twitter – Many people immediately balk at the idea of using tools that automate some of the tasks with Twitter.  I see Twitter as a tool that can work in a variety of different ways for people.  Some simply only want to follow and be followed by a select group of individuals and keep their Twitter streams clean.  Others (like myself), find the value in having a large (albeit, relevant) following.  Here’s the bottom line; I have gotten jobs, consulting gigs and opened doors simply because I have a large following.  That’s the truth, like it or not.  Of course it’s not the be all end all, but let me repeat, DOORS HAVE OPENED FOR ME BY HAVING A LARGE FOLLOWING.  Of course I’ve had to back it up with some actual knowledge, and in most cases I do.  The fact is I don’t have time to manually do what it takes to achieve this, so I find nothing wrong with using software that helps me free up time to do more important work.  TweetAdder has been a great tool in helping me identify relevant Twitter users to follow which in most cases results in being followed back.  Worth every penny, hands down.  If you want some tips or need help, don’t hesitate to reach out and let me know.

3. Leverage 2nd Tier Platforms – While the Facebooks and Twitters of the world are certainly the big dogs, there are opportunities elsewhere to capitalize on.  The top 3 that really come to mind are LinkedIn, Foursquare and FriendFeed.  LinkedIn (see previous blog post here), is not only a great place to network, but also to drive traffic and build street cred.  Find relevant groups and join the conversation and you’ll find yourself building credibility and learning from others as well.  Foursquare is a definite up and comer, and a phenomenal opportunity for local businesses to capitalize on the location based craze.  By simply linking your blog to your account, you have another potential audience to tap into.  I’m not a power user by any means, but that’s an additional 672 pair of potential eyeballs to my blog.  Also FriendFeed’s subscriber count feeds into Feedburner’s RSS subscriber numbers so it’s a no brainer to make sure you are set up there.  Yes, it’s not a true measure of actual “readers” on your blog, but again, perception matters in opening doors.  You just have to back it up with good blog content, conversation and real world knowledge.

4. Promote Your Following – One of the things I’ve done recently is make the size of my following more visible on my blog as you can see in the top right.  Now anytime someone comes to my blog, they instantly see that I have a fairly large following thus it’s more likely that they might stick around to read a few things and maybe even follow me.  Again, I try to back it up with interesting content, and I certainly don’t think that a large following in and of itself will do me any good.  But it’s a good start.

5. Read Everything – The fact is, Social Media is changing everyday.  In order to stay on top of the latest tools, platforms, strategies, it’s imperative that you read everything you possibly can.  RSS aggregators can be your best friend.  I personally use Google Reader, and I’m able to glance through hundreds of blog posts and catch up on the latest and greatest.  It’s so critical to consume as much as you can as technologies and trends change almost by the day.  Browse other blogs, subscribe, comment, get in there and make yourself known.

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I always find it amusing to find reviews of gadgets the DAY they launch.  Really?  Unless you’ve had a device for a good few days (and I would argue weeks), can you really give a review that’s based on regular usage?  I don’t think so.  I’ve given myself a good week or so to really experience the device before sharing my thoughts.  And while iPhone 4 is certainly not perfect, it’s a big winner in my book.

NOTE: My review only covers features that are iPhone 4 centric, so new features of OS 4 aren’t covered here so you can get a true sense of my review of what this actual device delivers uniquely.

The Great

1. Build Quality – This thing is a Rolls Royce of devices.  The build quality is outstanding.  It feels like a million bucks in your hands, and you can tell that this is no cheaply made gadget.  It’s solid, the glass finish is sexy as hell, and it feels like it could definitely survive a few falls.  Now whether the glass could actually survive without a crack or two remains to be seen.

2. The Display – No doubt about it, this retina display is the best I’ve ever seen.  When you compare it up against the older models, it just puts them to shame.  Take a look at the following graphic to give you an idea of the difference:

3. New Cameras – In addition to the 5mp bump and flash on the back camera, finally a front facing camera is added.  For the first time, I can seriously consider my phone replacing a digital point and shoot.  Sure, it’s still not of that caliber, but definitely good enough for most pictures.  Both photos and videos have looked great, and considering 99% of what I shoot is only viewed online, it works out great.

The Good

1. Reception – I have to say that a week in, and I’ve had better phone reception.  I haven’t experienced the “antenna” problems that are being reported even with covering the “black gap”.  I used to get terrible reception in my home, and now no problems.

2. Facetime – I’ve tried it once, but only because it requires both iPhone 4 AND Wifi, which isn’t always a situation that corresponds to opportunities to use it.  If they can get this to work on 3G, then we’re talking about a great feature.  But let’s be honest here; we’ve reached a point in technology where we can video chat on our phones.  That’s crazy period.

3. OS Speed – Without a doubt, apps open and operate much quicker.  Something you certainly get used to fairly quick, but I love it nonetheless.

4. Battery Life – Again, definitely better.  No issues getting through an entire day even with heavy call/text/app use.

The Bad

1. No Removable Battery – Sure would be nice to be able to lug an extra battery around and be able to swap them out.  Probably never going to happen though.

2. 32 GB Max – I’m not technical nerd, but I’ve got to believe they could have fit a 128 GB chip in these things.  Or at least a bump to 64.  32 can go fast, especially if you add a few movies.

3. No Memory Card Slot – If your not going to have a large on board memory, at least give us the option to store things on a card.  Again, probably never going to happen on an iPhone.

Conclusion

Bottom line is the iPhone is still by far my favorite device, and hands down the best mobile user experience available.  Yes it’s popular and everyone practically has one, but there’s a very good reason for that, and the 4 is a great update to an already superior product.  I’ve tried numerous other devices, and it’s just not even close.  Android is making strides, and I certainly hope Windows Mobile 7 can deliver, because quite frankly, the more competition the better all these devices will be.

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