One of our favorite beaches to walk on, which is also a bit risky to swim at, is Froggy’s, so named because someone about twenty years ago noticed that one of the many rocks looked like a frog and painted it accordingly. The paint seems to get refreshed from time to time.
( map reference http://amap.to/h2r7g)
We think it shows someone’s creative imagination.
Do you see creatively? How does it change your view of the world?
Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools and products that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks who would be their customers in a form that’s consistent and relevant.
I’m taking a break from reviewing tools this week to provide some thoughts on where to put your money as a small business owner.
Like many Americans, I’ve had some frustrating experiences with megabanks prior to the Great Recession. Since 2008, it’s been awful. Not just tight lending, but terrible service has been rampant. Too often the power to please customers has been taken away from local branches and consolidated in a corporate call center.
The greed of banking institutuions has been well-documented, which is one reason I encourage everyone to explore the not-for-profit option of credit unions.
Credit unions are member-owned, meaning profits go directly towards improving the products, rates, and service for member-owners, instead of appeasing stockholders. Unions, corporations, and government entities often have their own credit unions.
The other reason I support credit unions is they are community-based. In addition to sponsoring Little League teams, attending neighborhood festivals and fairs, or donating time or money to local organizations, credit unions provide another way to root your business in your geographic community. Even if you’re not selling products or services to people and businesses in your vicinity, there is great value in supporting and being supported by the other entrepreneurs and merchants in your area.
My credit union serves a few neighborhoods, and with less than 10,000 members, is relatively small. But the service is personal, and they also provide education and assistance to immigrants, young people, and those trying to establish themselves financially. So, the local businesses that “bank” with the credit union are actually improving the neighborhood around them.
You can check for credit unions in your area here.
I’m curious what other alternatives are out there. An online bank? Who do you trust with your money?
By Terez Howard
Last week, we talked about the benefits that come from guest blogging on high traffic blogs. If youâre just stopping in this week, hereâs a brief review:
This week, I promised to help you writers interested in getting involved in guest blogging. First let me say, thereâs no one, correct way of getting your original blog posts on other peopleâs blogs. That said, there are two ways you can do this that Iâm going to share.
1. You search for a blog that relates to your niche or your interests. Perhaps you like to write about fashion. So, you look for fashion blogs. Be specific in your search. Perhaps you want to hone in on fashion for pregnant women.
2. Check to see if your blog of choice accepts guest bloggers. Some blogs have specific guidelines for guest bloggers. Make sure you understand what is expected of you.
3. Examine the blog to see if it seems to be a blog with high traffic. This can be difficult to ascertain. I like to look at comments, number of tweets and the amount of content the blog produces. I check to see if I can see a pattern in the number of posts per day/week.
Tip: You want to find a blog with decent traffic so that people will become familiar with your work. Iâm not saying to never write for smaller blogs. But you should keep your purpose in mind.
4. Choose a topic that hasnât been covered on the blog. Try to aim for a unique angle. For instance, with my pregnancy fashion example, you could write a post about swimsuits and cover-ups that flatter that baby bump.
5. Write the post.
6. E-mail your post to the blogâs owner. Most blogs will have a contact page, where you can find an e-mail address.
7. Wait one week, and respond with a follow-up e-mail if you donât hear anything. Your short, simple follow-up e-mail could read as follows:
I wanted to make sure you received my guest blog post âFlattering That Baby Bump At The Beach.â I sent it on Wednesday, June 12. Will you be able to publish it?
Tip: You might want to attach your post again in case it has been overlooked. It will save your contact the time of having to ask you for your blog post and waiting for your response.
1. Follow the first four steps of the prepackaged approach.
2. E-mail the blog owner your idea. Make your guest blog post pitch short and sweet. You could say:
I enjoy reading your blog posts about fashion for pregnant women, especially the one about (name a specific example). I would like to write a guest post on swimsuits and cover-ups that flatter that baby bump, such tankinis and pareos, but still keep pregnant women cool on the beach. Please let me know if I can move forward on this idea.
3. Wait one week, and then follow up with another e-mail.
Most guest bloggers are not paid. I say most because some guest bloggers are paid. You must remember that guest blogging is not meant to be your source of income. It will hopefully lend a hand in leading to a client or two. It will definitely give you a following.
How do you go about guest blogging?
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Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clientsâ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger
Thanks, Terez!
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!
Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools and products that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks who would be their customers in a form that’s consistent and relevant.
If you’ve been cryogenically frozen for the past two years, the discovery of URL shorteners would be confusing. Why are there all these nonsensical domains appearing on Twitter, Facebook, and even in email?
Prompted by the 140 character limit, the early URL shorteners (we’re talking 2008) served an important purpose – freeing space for you to get more words and letters into a tweet. You want to share Lady Gaga’s controversial Alejandro video, for example, but simply sending the link is not enough. You want to offer your endorsement, commentary, or related questions (and for this video, there are many). Shortening the URL gives you the chance to do this. Otherwise, the link itself will take up half of your tweet characters.
So, thank you SnipURL, urlBorg, Cligs, is.gd, Su.pr, TinyURL, Ow.ly, and all the others for allowing me to add my two cents.
There is also a business utility to URL shortening, and Bit.ly remains the leader. Bit.ly and it’s companion service J.mp (which I use) shorten nearly 5 billion links per month. Why are so many people using Bit.ly? First, it has been Twitter’s default shortener. But also, Bit.ly offers analytics on your links that can be endlessly fascinating and valuable to your business.
When advising clients on their microblogging efforts I start with two main focal points:
1) Accessibility of your voice (warmth, personality, interactivity, humor)
2) Relevancy of your content
Bit.ly analytics can give you real-time and cumulative feedback on the relevancy of content. Are people sharing what you have shared? Are they clicking on the link? What types of content do your readers find compelling? What conversations take place around these links?
Once you have an account and shorten a URL, either with the Bit.ly sidebar or at their domain (also Tweetdeck has Bit.ly integrated), you can track and manage the links to see when and how often people have clicked through, as well as the ratio of the traffic you are driving compared to the rest of traffic monitored through Bit.ly.
You also get posts and tweets that have used your shortened URL, so you can see who else is distributing the content and in what context. It’s a great way to discover influencers and fans. Don’t fall into the trap of measuring your online presence based on click-throughs, but it is a fast way to learn and adjust for the content your company is creating or distributing.
One more note . . . I will also use URL shorteners within emails sent to clients. If you send an email to five colleagues, for example, and want to see not only how many people are reading what you have highlighted as important, but how often that email has been forwarded, Bit.ly provides an easy way to see whether the article you recommend is being digested.
Summing Up â Is it worth it?
Enterprise Value: 5/5 â Dashboard and branded short links with Bit.ly Pro
Entrepreneur Value: 4/5 â Improve your content. Inform your voice. Analytics help.
Personal Value: 3/5 â Effective replacement for bookmarking (Like a site? Article? Shorten it and it will be archived.)
By Terez Howard
You are a blogger. You want people to know who you are. You want the sight of your name to instantly remind readers of your brand. You want to be memorable.
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The beauty of guest blogging is that a well-established blog already has regular readers, and they flock in droves daily. They talk; they comment; they tweet about this blog. Then one day you get to write for this blog, and youâre the talk of the town.
One Guest Blog Post Increased My Twitter Followers Sevenfold from writing at this very blog.
Not only that, I recently established a relationship with a blogger I met on LinkedIn who also wants to blog for businesses. Guess how she heard about me? Liz Strauss!
Guest blogging gets your name known, or at the very least, recognized. Donât expect an instant surge in traffic to your blog or tons of requests for your services from a single guest blog post. While these are possibilities in the early stages, they are results that should come gradually⦠and not from just one post.
If you want to spread your image around, guest blog for several blogs. Choose blogs with readers that will be interested in what you have to say and that will benefit from your knowledge and experience.
If you know nothing about reverse mortgages (I donât!), then donât try to write for a blog about them. Readers will wonder why they are reading general, rehashed information from you. Further, you wonât have any fun writing on a topic that bores you to sleep. Youâll find yourself staring at the computer screen, waiting for the words to magically appear. They wonât.
If you hope for traffic from your guest blog post to go to your blog, then the topics have to compliment one another. They donât have to be carbon copies. But Iâm not going to click on a mesothelioma lawyer blog after I read post on summer hair care.
When I am a dinner guest at some elseâs home, I take off my shoes, compliment their décor and be as polite as possible. Hosts expects these pleasantries when having guests in their homes.
So a guest blogger should give her host respect. Even if you guest post for a blog just one time, you must give it your all. Your guest post on a heavily trafficked blog might get viewed hundreds of times over the course of time.
What do you want visitors to see below your name? An engaging post with little to no errors which provides readers of that blog with practical content. Thatâs it.
Do you want to get started guest blogging? Weâll talk about how to do it next week.
In the meantime, what do you like or dislike about guest blogging?
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Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clientsâ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger
Thanks, Terez!
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!
These are fascinating birds. Where we see one we always see another at the same time or pretty soon after. An online search told us that as a species they are generally monogamous and show great fidelity to their mate and loyalty to their nesting site, which they apparently defend vigorously. Watching their behavior that all makes sense. They are quite noisy and always seem to be bustling about, presumably looking for shellfish and other delicacies for dinner.
Nothing to do with business, that we can think of: just fun to watch, although no doubt for the oystercatcher and her/his mate it is all quite serious.
