Liz, Author at Successful Blog Page

How Long Term Thinking Makes You a More Accomplished Internet Marketer

March 8, 2012 by Liz

Successfully Working From a Home-based Office

One trait that hurts human beings more than anything else is impatience, the impulsiveness, the haste to get where we want in a flash and that too without moving a muscle?

How funny itâd be to see someone promising to get moving, only after he reaches the destination? Ironical, to say the least, and still majority of us keep doing it all the time, hoping for the destination to come our way without even starting to travel. Short-term thinking stems from this human characteristic of being impatient, because we are not ready to go the distance, we opt for the short-cuts, looking to get there quickly, but what do we get? A constant state of disgruntlement, just because we cannot put up with the âpace of natureââ¦

If you are one of those young ones getting into the field of Internet marketing, one virtue Iâd like you to take up is thinking long terms, no matter what you are doing. From content creation to link building, and from social media to email marketing, thinking long term will help you devise strategies that will work, and save you from wasting your time and resources on goals that wouldnât even matter after some time.

Following are some ways thinking long term will bolster your internet marketing endeavors.

You will be looking to form relationships:

Thinking long term means that you will invest time and resources on building relationships with the right guys in the cyber world, instead of wasting your time on sending spam posts to numberless websites for link exchange or getting paid links. Those tactics might bring you some garbage links resulting in a very short lived boost to your rankings, but in the longer run, it will do more harm to your website than good. On the other hand, a healthy relationship with a blogger or well-connected person can be of help in more than one ways.

Guest posting on the right blog:

Guest blogging is one of the very few ways of link building, which is still in grasp of common bloggers or website owners. If you are thinking short term, you will be missing some great opportunities on blogs which are fairly new, just because they donât have the page rank or number of back links to boast. When you are choosing a guest blog, it is imperative to look at the potential, and not on the current standing, because you never know which blog will go on to become a considerable force in blogosphere and a most-wanted platform for guest bloggers.

Milk an opportunity before it implodes:

Internet Marketing is all about detecting the opportunity and making the most of it before it gets overdone. Itâs better to take up a tactic and get on a platform when itâs fairly new, as compared to trying and taking some advantage when everybody and their grandmothers are trying to get their share of the pie.

Being proactive:

Thinking long term means that you will be proactive in your planning and implantation, instead of being reactive. If you look around, you will notice that a big majority of SEO and Internet Marketing professionals are busy doing the damage control (e.g. trying to revive the drop in rankings because of some Google update); however these drops wouldnât even have occurred only if they were proactive.

Hardly any trend or change in algorithm is sudden in nature, it happens that we keep reading about the upcoming changes or trends but continue to ignore just because our short-term tactics seem to be working, and then our websites are throttled by one of those updates. Thinking long term will help you take the right decision at the right time, because Onlline Marketing is not about damage control, itâs about seizing opportunities before they become commonplace.

_________
Author’s Bio:
Natasha Mesty is an Internet Marketing expert, writing mostly on topics related to link building, guest blogging, Link Tracking and how to use link reports to evaluate your Internet Marketing campaigns.

Thank you, Natasha!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

7 Real Ways Writing Increases Expertise

March 6, 2012 by Liz

Each morning, I greet the Internet with my coffee and a clear purpose. I say “Good morning, Twitterville!” share the view in the harborhood, and check in with my friends. I find lots of opportunity — information, ideas, and input — offering itself.

If I’m not focused my head fills with thoughts, energy sparking and flaring in every direction.

Fast and fun, but too shallow to be satisfying in the long hall.

Real conversation offer more than a sound byte. Real ideas are worth more than a passing thought.

It’s one reason Twitter never will win out over my blog.
Of course, Google is another.

7 Real Ways Writing Increases Expertise

Writing is one way to share thoughts with many folks efficiently. Publishing makes the connection more natural and accessible. The words stay available through time for anyone who wants to access them.

Sure we get visibility and offer value when we write, but we get a huge payoff ourselves.

By recording our thoughts we make them more.

Here are 7 real ways that writing increases our expertise.

Writing clarifies what we know. If you know something and can’t explain it, do you really know it? We tell ourselves that we know what we know how to do laying it out. Writing won’t let us do that. We have to find words to articulate our ideas.
Writing moves become familiar with degrees of difference. Want to be more fluent on a subject? Write about it. Every time we write we choose words to express a thought or an idea. Writing teaches us how words communicate meaning. The more we practice the more we learn which word choices connect people to what we mean.
Writing leads us to explore different answers. Leave ideas in your head and you can shut them down before you’ve fully considered their possibilities. Writing brings us to see what we think. When we find words to articulate what’s on our mind, we take the words out of our heads. We make them more real, more transportable, and more memorable. When we put ideas on the page they take form –we can shuffle them, change them, improve them.
Writing helps us develop a voice that is natural and consistent, strong and confident. Talking to yourself might not be … um … acceptable, but write and you’ll know your and how to express them. Even when we write for ourselves, we go back to read, listening to what we wrote. We question. We consider. We critique our choices. We start to recognize what’s our own way of saying things.
Writing challenges us to set fear aside, yet maintain discipline. A clear sentence requires structure. A sentence that moves people is expression. Once we find our voice, we see how expression needs structure, and that structure without expression is listless and boring. Over time writers learn to value our thoughts and hold the editor quiet until feedback is useful. The act of writing builds thoughtful integrity. Putting thought into words builds confidence.
Writing offers us opportunity to share our expertise. Everything we write has an audience. Every time someone shares something that we write they add value to our ideas â when they change them and when they donât. Writers get the space of mind to show what we know in ways that can help people we’ve never met.
Writing makes us more thoughtful readers and more aware responders. Write for a while and you’ll find you bring the insights and appreciation of a writer to what you read. You’ll start to notice that the way a writer writes makes a message stronger, weaker, more meaningful to you. You might even begin to recognize their *voices* in what they write. Writing gives us understanding of nuance and a sensitivity to what we read. We ask better questions.

As efficient as Twitter is for conversation, it’s not enough for working out ideas. 140 characters can’t express a full-on deep thought. A soundbyte might get attention, but it doesn’t show depth of knowledge.

Writing is clear thinking made visible. — Bill Wheeler

We meet more people in print than we can ever possibly meet face to face. Many people will know our written voice as well as they know our names. Writing is a huge opportunity in a noisy world to share what we know and to learn from the best of the people we meet.

What sort of thinking have you shared today?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Images & Words: 5 Ways to Attract People and Opportunity

March 5, 2012 by Liz

When I started blogging in summer 2005, I wanted to keep the writer’s discipline of writing every day. No one could have predicted, that it would lead me to several blogs, an outstanding business partner, a strategy summit, a consulting business, and a place in a fabulous community. When I started photographing the sunrise in spring 2011, I wanted to keep a writer’s discipline of remembering to look out my window every day. The photos are starting to write stories with me. Now I’m starting to wonder where that will lead …

Once …
I’d start the day worrying.
I’d start the day revisiting anything that might need fixing.
I’d start the day thinking of what might go wrong or what could go missing.
That sort of thinking attracted more people with problems to me.

Then I noticed that I find what I go looking for.
When I looked for problems, I found problems.

Now …
I start the day is by fueling up with good things.
Instead of problems I find opportunities.
and the result has been that this thinking attracts people who represent opportunities.

Here are

5 Ways to Attract People with Opportunities

Don’t miss the colors of this morning dawning – it’s a chance for refueling.

We need fuel to bring our best to what we’re seeing.

Be still and catch the light to gather your owned wisdom.

We need to be whole to connect what we know to the opportunity in any situation.

Take in the long view to understand your position.

The longer view allows us to get some idea of what other folks are seeing.

Keep an eye to the sky as it frames YOUR future.

Big dreams are tempting, but knowing which you’ll be owning is irresistibly attractive.

Light up and inspire everyone around you with your aspirations.

Sharing light is magnetic. It gives people energy.

People are the opportunity. They have ideas and networks that could move you to the next place where you need to be. Fill up each morning with positive energy so that you can bring yourself to them. You’ll be amazed at the people who start noticing.

Aren’t you better when you’re smiling?

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Thanks to Week 333 SOBs

March 3, 2012 by Liz

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

6 NICE Marketing Tricks to Boost Your Small Business

March 2, 2012 by Liz

If you are the owner of any small business, the most serious problem that you face is to arrange the required finances. This is very important since you require fixed as well as working capital to run your business. Here, it is to be noted that you have a wide variety of financing options too. You can take out a commercial mortgage loan or you can opt for a commercial mortgage refinance. But, anyways, you need to ensure that you can repay the mortgages. Besides this, another thing that you must look into very seriously is the marketing. Through proper and intelligent marketing you can open the various channels to sell your products. This in turn helps you raise your business revenues. Here we discuss about some successful marketing strategies that you must take into consideration.

Use free classifieds

One excellent marketing strategy to promote your small would be to use free classified ad services. You can explore various online classified ads to prop up your business. Apart from these, there are some other free offline classified ads options in your local area. Even options are there for free inclusions of ads in local print media. Through these routes, you can indeed boost your business. In order to know more about these options, you can conduct online searches.

Tread social media routes

In modern times, social media platform has opened up excellent opportunities to promote your business. Various social media websites offer you wonderful and free way to market your products and services. This platform can be gainfully utilized to enhance business connection, gain leads and to bring in more customers. You can also participate in various online forums to enhance your knowledge.

Resort to mutually beneficial advertising

One smart way to market your products and services is to engage in reciprocity advertising. You can look for cross promotion of the products and services with other business owners located in your area. You can easily find out some business owners who are also willing to do this. The aim of this marketing strategy is to raise the customer base of your business.

Marketing through writing or blogging

If you have knack of writing, you can take the help of different article writing and blogging websites and can write articles about the products and services that you sell. This way you can surely bring in some customers for your products and services.

Advertise through press releases

You need to regularly write press releases and need to send those releases to appropriate routes. After going through those press releases, many buyers may become interested to the products and services that you offer.

Explore networking options

You need to keep yourself updated about various networking events that are taking place in your locality. These events and meet ups are like mini-marketing campaign. Moreover, these help you keep yourself updated about different developments related to your business.

These are only few marketing strategies which help you raise your sales volume. Apart from these, there are various other marketing strategies that you can follow for your small business.

—-
Author’s Bio:
Samantha Taylor is the Community Mentor of MortgageFit and has been contributing her suggestions to the Community since 2005. She has made notable contributions through the articles written on subjects related to the mortgage industry for the MortgageFit community.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

25 Signs #yourenotreallyontwitter

February 28, 2012 by Liz

Twitter Is Pencil and Paper

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a first grade teacher. I see Twitter as a 21st Century version of pencil and paper. I do believe that we can invent millions of ways to use paper and pencil. No rules are the right way to use it … draw, write, scribble, make circles over and over, be a poet, be a novelist, make a journal. Twitter is just as open and flexible.

I’ve never been one for rules.

What prompted this list was not a rant.

Here’s what happened.

About a week or so ago, on a Saturday, I was going through the people I follow on Twitter — people I’ve met at events, people I’ve talked to on Twitter, or people who follow me that I follow back. Over the course of a few hours, I reviewed 61000+ accounts to find those who were no longer active. I started by sorting out those who hadn’t tweeted for 90 days or longer. Then I started looking at their tweet counts — some tweeted less than once a day. That’s less than 365 tweets in a year!

As I was deleting the Twitter Quitters, I started thinking of people — some of them on TV — who say

“I tried Twitter and I don’t get it.”
“No one would talk to me.”
“It’s stupid and silly.”

or things like that. Which led me to think, they weren’t really ON Twitter, meaning some people leave Twitter before they figure out what all of the excitement is about. They never get the Twitter experience. And that happens because they approach thinking it’s supposed to be something different than conversation.

And at some point memories of Jeff Foxworthy’s litany of ways to tell “You’re a Redneck” popped in my head and I was suddenly channeling him and tweeting with the hashtag #yourenotreallyontwitter and some folks joined in.

If you average less than 1 tweet a day, #yourenotreallyontwitter
If you haven’t tweeted since 2011, #yourenotreallyontwitter
If you never tweet about anything but yourself, #yourenotreallyontwitter
@mikeyb95 pointed out: If you haven’t connected 2 total strangers #yourenotreallyontwitter
If your avatar is still an egg 6 months after you got here, #yourenotreallyontwitter
@jfouts noted: If you don’t reply to mentions. Ever. #yourenotreallyontwitterâ
If your avatar is a picture of someone else, #yourenotreallyontwitter
@ValaAfshar added: If you use twitter as a megaphone, instead of a telephone, then #yourenotreallyontwitter
If your only follower is an account you also own, #yourenotreallyontwitter
If someone else tweets for you, #yourenotreallyontwitter , they are.
@Tivitamivita added: If you never tweet about anything but #social media bla bla, #yourenotreallyontwitter
If you’re only talking to certain people because you know it will raise your klout score, #yourenotreallyontwitter
@MaureenAlley contributed: if all you tweet are Pinterest-only tweets #yourenotreallyontwitter
If your every tweet is 1 link and 9 hashtags, #yourenotreallyontwitter
If you think of your follower group as your “list” my guess is that #yourenotreallyontwitter
@CraigFifield cited: if you tweet a large % of famous quotes #yourenotreallyontwitter #youareactuallyboring
If your last 40 tweets went to strangers you don’t follow and all say “buy from me,” #yourenotreallyontwitter , you’re a spammer
@Theatresaurus made the observation that: if you think you know the rules of twittering #yourenotreallyontwitter
@erin_mcmahon threw in: If you think you can make one-size-fits-all rules about what it is to be on Twitter, #yourenotreallyontwitter
and I replied: and if you think there aren’t any rules #yourenotreallyontwitter — treating people like people counts here too. 🙂
@CarltonHawkins remarked: If your every tweet is 1 link at 9 hashtags, #yourenotreallyontwitter
If you only ask for retweets from famous people #yourenotreallyontwitter
@mikeyb95 stated: If I can’t learn about you from your bio #yourenotreallyontwitter
And finally, if you unfollow someone as soon as they follow you back …. #yourenotreallyontwitter but you already knew that.

And one for those who already know all of those –

@NarissaTweets reminds us: If you’ve never made a #TwitterTypo #yourenotreallyontwitter

Now of course if you have a Twitter account and a password that hasn’t been hacked by a phishing scam link you clicked in an AutoDM discussing the nasty things being said about you, you’re probably on Twitter.

What I hope is that you’re talking to folks, finding great content, learning things you wouldn’t find anywhere else, and building a neighborhood on the Internet that reflects you most uniquely and doing it just the way you find right.

After all my Twitter isn’t your Twitter and you get to pick. 🙂

But I hope you won’t be a Twitter Quitter until you find out what it could be about.

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!