Biz Tips Blog: Internet Marketing Tips

Blog Squad Teleseminars Happening This Week

Another busy week for The Blog Squad. We're presenting 3 teleseminars about business blogging.  Take your pick:

May 12 - 16 (we present on Tueday, May 13 at 4 pm ET)
As part of the Womens Business Launch Success TeleSummit we join an amazing group of 15 experts presenting on how to sort through the clutter of business building tactics, focus your marketing strategies, and claim financial SUCCESS.

Presenters include: Viki Viertel, Lisa Earle McLeod, Debbie LaChusa, Suzy Spivey, Adam Urbanski, The Blog Squad™, Sheri McConnell, Kyle King, Christina Merkely, Michael Port, Joe Nunziata, MaryPat Kavanagh, Lynn Scheurell, Mara Castello, Wayne Kelly
Details and Registration here.

Thursday, May 15, 5 p.m. ET
Blogging to Explode Your Business Growth
Hosted by Cathy Goodwin
No charge, register here.

Thursday, May 15, 9 p.m. ET
Using a Blog to Gain Expert Status
Hosted by Joe Nunziata
No charge, register here.

Another option...

Join The Blog Squad's Blogging and Beyond Membership program and get ongoing coaching and access to dozens of hours of audio training, transcripts, discussion forum and monthly live coaching calls to get YOUR Internet marketing questions answered. 

The next session is on Wednesday, May 14 at 5 p.m. ET and will include my report on Biz School for Bloggers, an amazing conference I attended last week. Lots of excellent stuff. Join here, only $9.95 for a 30 day trial membership: http://www.theblogsquad.net/mentor

Blog Squad Radio Interviews Posted

On May 8 we did back to back radio interviews, both hosted on BlogTalkRadio. If you missed the shows, I've posted the audio on Build a Better Blog.

The Blog Squad on Powerfull Living Radio

The Blog Squad on Power Up Radio

Postage in US goes up on May 12

If you live in the United States, listen up.  The price of postage goes up on Monday, May 12. I was reminded of this by a "tweet" from one of my Twitter friends today.

You can buy forever stamps at the current rate and lock in the price. But do it before Monday when the price goes up.

As a savvy business person, no doubt you want to save money where you can. Get thee to a post office today!

The Blog Squad uses branded photo stamps from Stamps.com and the software will automatically update and use the correct amount. I love being able to avoid the post office and print all my postage from my office.

SOBCon08 provided great insights to social networking

This past weekend I attended SOBCon08 in Chicago (SOB = Successful Outstanding Bloggers). It was a whirlwind two-day event starting Friday night with a river cruise and ending at noon on Sunday after a full day of outstanding presentations, 5 minute pitches by some participants, lots of networking, LOTS of twittering, lots of photos, and lots of blogger love.

I've compiled a list of links (below) - by no means complete because EVERYONE was blogging and tweeting about the event - so you can get a sense of what was covered and more importantly HOW the event was covered by the participants.

Social media and social networking RULED.

Throughout the presentations, everyone was posting on twitter important points and tips shared by the speakers. This enabled thousands of people who could not attend the event to get a flavor of what was going on and to participate in a limited way by commenting and asking questions.  If you're not using Twitter yet, sign up now. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/BlogSquad (click on the Follow button).

White Papers build your list and convert

Last year we interviewed the guru of white papers, Michael Stelzner on our Blogging and Beyond radio show. After the interview we asked him to teach a class for our network about using white papers to get more leads, which he did and was a big hit.  Then, we acted on Michael's information and we wrote a white paper about how to get found on the web. I can't remember when exactly we launched the white paper -- I think it was in July 2007 -- and to date over 1000 people have requested the paper.

The results have been numerous follow up conversations with prospects and new clients for our products and services. 

Now, Michael has released a series of videos about how white papers exploded (and I use that word intentionally because that's what happened to him) his business and how you can use white papers to get more leads for your business too. And, as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter what kind of business you have.  You need to educate your prospects, give them excellent, valuable and action-able content, and you can bet they will be attracted to work with you.

A blog isn't enough. An ezine isn't enough. A website isn't enough. You need as many lines in the pond as you can so you can reach people where they live and give them the info they need in order to decide to work with you.

Watch the videos and let me know what you think.

The Blog Squad are Featured Guests on Marketing Qi

The Blog Squad featured on free teleclass about business blogging to gain expert status:
Tuesday, May 6 at 8:00 p.m. ET
Register here.

May is a crazy month for us with 5 teleclasses and 2 radio interviews all on business blogging. All are free except for one which we'll tell you about later.  We kick off the month as featured guests on the Marketing Qi event:

You are invited to attend, as our special guest, an extraordinary online/teleconference event that has the potential to make this year the best ever for your business...

Register Now (using this free online pass at):

==>   http://www.MarketingQi.com/blogsquad

just by enrolling in the Marketing Qi (say *chee*) Business Teleseminar 12-week Intensive, featuring...

LIVE in-depth interviews with twelve top marketing and business experts on the web today...

The speakers will be teaching you cutting edge business information such as:

Ping.fm manages status updates

During last week's interview with MaryPat Kavanagh and Michele PW, the question arose about how to efficiently and effectively manage all your social networking sites. If you're participating on MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc., this can take a lot of time.

Each of the social sites mentioned above have an option for you to update your status, meaning what you are doing at that moment. Why would you do this?

Updating your status on a daily (or minute by minute) basis alerts those who follow you that you're active and participating in the conversation. But that's a lot of sites to update.

Enter ping.fm. You set up an account. Enter your log in info for each site you want to update. You enable your ping account and you're good to go. You can either update your status from your ping account or, like I do, enable the application on your Facebook account and update from inside Facebook. When I do that, my status update is immediately posted on the accounts I've set up: MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Ping.fm is in beta and you need an invitation to get set up. If you want an invite code, post a comment here and I'll send it to you.

If you're using ping.fm, what do you think? Is it working for you?

Patsi Concedes...a little...on social networking

Patsi writes in our recent issue of Savvy eBiz Tips:

Denise and I still haven't settled our debate whether social networking sites are worth spending time on yet, but I'll tell you one thing:

They are an excellent source of ideas and input on what your target audience is concerned about.

We wanted to know what challenges bloggers had with writing on their blogs. Denise asked the question on LinkedIn and the response was amazing and immediate.

Here are some of the challenges people posted, in order of descending frequency:

• Finding time to post (this was mentioned in 70% of the responses...)
• Getting readers to comment
• Finding the "Wow" factor
• Whether to share personal stories
• How to repeat/re-purpose a topic
• Wondering if the time involved is worth it in terms of results
• Writing compelling titles
• Finding relevant topics
• Keeping it fun

Far and away, finding time to post was the recurring theme. I had to laugh, of course, and posted this on our Writing on the Web blog:

Social Networking Debate Part 4

Links to two articles for you today to carry on the social networking conversation:

Steve Pohlit published part 3 of his response to Patsi's question about whether social networking is a waste of time.

Lee Odden of Top Rank Blog posts his notes from a panel discussion on Facebook Marketing Best Practices.

Related Posts:
Social Networking Debate Part 3
Social Networking Debate Continues...
Twitter: there is a point
Social networking is a waste of time...
Social Networking: What Is It and Why Should You Care?
Twitter is sucking me in...

Social Networking Debate Part 3

Our social networking debate is still generating a lot of emails and tweets from colleagues. Here are a few more responses:

From Life Coach Mary

I'm loving Facebook...for multiple reasons.  I've scheduled two interviews for my Conversations with the Masters as a result of Social Networking.  Nido Qubein and Dr. Judith Orloff (not little names).

Also...lots of inspiration in seeing what people are up to.  I like seeing who's visible in the coaching and Internet marketing worlds...tons of good info.  Business advice from Adam Urbanski has been instrumental.

I even got some great tips on doing media interviews -- right before I filmed a DVD that I was using to submit for a TV spot.

And, I'm feeling more eager to tap into Blog Squad resources.  Thanks for the interview with Mari Smith.  I was only 4 days old on FB when I was on that call. Now have 618 friends.

The Marketing Mentor, Adam Urbanski, wrote a dissertation about Social Networking - Business Boost or Bust? This post is worth the time to read because Adam is very thoughtful about the pros and cons of using social networks to build your business.