Successful Blog

Find Something to Push Against

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Don’t ever tell me that I can’t do something.

No wait.

Please go right ahead and tell me that.

You’ve done me a favor, actually, because I use it as fuel. Like an Olympic swimmer doing an elegant flip-turn against the side of the pool to propel myself forward faster. Like a NASA rocket pushing against the earth to break free of gravity.

There are a lot of people out there who will take delight in puncturing your newly laid plans. It’s your job to analyze whether the negative reaction is something you can use, or simply something you just need to stay away from.

“Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.” James Baldwin

History is full of stories about people who wouldn’t have made discoveries, wouldn’t have founded great companies, and wouldn’t have achieved success without the initial force of perceived impossibility.

How about these two young women who invented an invisible bike helmet because their professor said it couldn’t be done?

The Invisible Bicycle Helmet | Fredrik Gertten from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.

Negativity Can Be Your Launching Pad

First, evaluate the source. Does the person know what they’re talking about? If they are pouring cold water on your idea, do they have expertise that means you need to listen to them? Are they simply being a Devil’s Advocate?

Second, examine the substance of the criticism. Is it something you already considered? Do you need to incorporate it into your plan? If the criticism is legitimate, use it to make your strategy even stronger.

If neither of these criteria are met, flick the negativity off your shoulder like dandruff.

Put this song in your earbuds: Fitz and the Tantrums “The Walker”

Get to work.

Visualize the goal ahead and leave the negativity in your rear view mirror. Propel yourself forward on the strength of your strategy, which has now been tested. You should thank your critic(s), because they have done you a valuable service. They have forced you to gut check.

Now you can fly.

Have you had an experience where you turned a “you can’t do that” into a “just watch me?”

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

To Give is To Get. The Importance of Blog Comments.

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By Dorien Morin-van Dam

You are business owner. You are active on social media. You even have a blog on your website and you are doing your best to keep your blog original, fresh and active, posting new articles on a regular basis. You send out updates on your social media sites and you might even have joined a blogging community to share articles of like-minded bloggers.

Does this sound like you?

To Give is to Get

But…you knew there’d be a ‘but’ right? What else can you to do ‘spice up’ your blog? What are you forgetting? I am here to tell you that many bloggers forget to do one important thing. Blog commenting. Asking for comments as well as leaving comments.

To my own clients who want to get more eyeballs on their articles, one of the first things I recommend is for them to start seeking out the blogs of other bloggers & experts in their industry and to start leaving intelligent, well thought-out blog comments.

Not sure you’d know what to say and what to comment on? Go read some comments!

Seriously! The best way to learn blog commenting is to go to (larger) publications and to see first hand what types of articles generate what types of comments. According to Jeff Goins, there are 7 types of commenters. Read his article here and decide which one you are, or want to be!

Who Should You Give Your Blog Comments To?

There is no ‘right or wrong way’ to leave blog comment, because in essence any blog that accepts your comment should be grateful you’ve taken the time to give them feedback.

However, if you’d like to target and leave blog comments for the purpose of getting blog comments back, I suggest starting here.

Leave comments for:

• Those in your industry

• Local (business) blogs

• Your colleagues

• Those in your blogging community

Why Should You Take Your Valuable Time To Leave Blog Comments?

There are many reasons behind blog commenting, that is another post on its own, but I did want to start you thinking about a few reasons why leaving blog comments could be beneficial to your business, your own blog and your writing skills.

• To show your expertise – Leave a comment that adds value to the article

• To make new connections – Leave a comment

• To find collaborators – Leave a comment and connect with like-minded people

• To start online conversations – leave a comment and get noticed

• To give feedback – Leave a comment for a specific reason

• To get backlinks – Once your comment is approved, you’ll most often get a link to your own site

• To get noticed for guest blogging – leave a comment and show off your writing skills

What Should You NOT Do When You Leave a Blog Comment?

Don’t make these five blog commenting mistakes! It might seem like common sense to you, but I often get these types of comments on my blog. When I see these types of comments, I am always happy I’ve set my blog commenting system up so that I have to approve any and all comments before they go live.

Now that you know the importance of commenting on blogs, how about I help you figure out how to get some comments for yourself? Consider how you should go about attracting the right audience to your blog and how to entice them to interact with you and leave a comment.

Why Do You Want Blog Comments On Your Blog?

There are multiple reasons to want to have an active commenting community on your blog. Here are some of the more obvious reasons to want to get blog comments.

• To build your online community

• To get potential customers to notice you

• To develop strong relationships with your readers

• For economic growth (get new customers!)

• Give-Away/Promotion

• To get feedback on your writing

• To become an authority in your field/industry

• To drive even more traffic to your blog

Caution!

There are a few things to watch for once you start to encourage blog commenting on your own site. Here they are in no particular order.

• Watch out for spammers

• Take time to moderate any and all comments

• Deal with, and process, negative comments

Ideas on How To Get Comments

An active community of commenters is a sign of a great blog. Comments inspire new comments and the cycle continues. To insure this commenting will go on and on, here are some ideas to get, and keep generating, good quality comments!

• Ask for comments

• Include a call-to-action at the end of each article

• Ask a specific question of your readers to be answered

• Give comments to get comments back

• Write provocatively (or ‘shake things up a bit’)

• Make commenting easy for the public, hard for spammers. Check your settings!

• Create a blog comment policy outlining what is expected of your community

• Respond to comments! You will get more comments that way. First, as people see you reply, they are more likely to leave a comment in the first place and once you reply to their comment, you can ask a follow up question.

Whether commenting has been on the back burner or not, ramping up your commenting can make a huge difference in the quality and quantity of your blog comments going in and out!

I’ve had fun writing this article (my first on this site!) and I have just one question for you:

Will you let me know what your most successful blog commenting strategy is? I can’t wait to read the answer!

Author’s Bio: Dorien Morin-van Dam is owner and social media marketer at More In Media, a social media consultancy in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Dorien provides social media consulting, management, training and education; she is passionate about teaching social media to small business owners. She services clients all over the USA and has worked in many different industries as well as with several NPO’s. In her spare time, Dorien manages four kids, three dogs and a husband. She runs marathons and loves to bake, travel and read.

Three Blogging Tricks That Will Save Your Sanity

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Bloggers are always “on deadline.”

No matter what the posting schedule is like (daily, weekly, monthly), there is always another deadline looming. It can feel like one of those hamster wheels where you can’t get off.

With several years of blogging under my belt, I have accumulated some tricks that keep me from losing my mind.

Keep These Blogging Tricks Up Your Sleeve

Rainy Day Posts

The next time you’re feeling especially productive and the words are flowing easily, sock away an extra post that can be “evergreen.” Even better if you have 2-3 extras. Put them in a special folder or Evernote notebook. Break glass in case of emergency.

rainy day blog posts

Writing “Stubs”

Many bloggers keep a running list of topic ideas, which is very useful. However, I like to take it a step further and flesh out the ideas as I have time. Whenever you have a spare moment, add to your “stubs,” without paying too much attention to grammar, structure, etc. Just jot down the bones of the post in a free-flowing way.

If you get bored with one of the “stubs,” move on to another one that’s more inspiring in that moment. No pressure to complete it, add URLs, etc., just get the ideas out of your brain and into the “stub” bucket.

Over time, you’ll have a fertile ground for picking up “stub” posts and completing them when you’re not feeling able to punch out an entire post from scratch. No more blank page staring at you.

Set up a Series

Establishing a series on your blog is one of the best ways to “have an ace in the hole.” If you establish a certain day of the week that is focused on a specific subject, then you aren’t grappling with that aspect of writing.

This also helps your guest bloggers. It’s much easier to find someone to write on a specific topic than to just say “write anything.”

The best part of running a series is that your audience will return to see the next post in the series too. It’s a great way to build audience attention over time, once they become invested in the subject.

What do you do to keep from losing your blogging mind?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Photo Credit: h.koppdelaney via Compfight cc

Word Choices That Sell

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By Deb Bixler

In the world of sales, the successful sales professional is always trying to close a business deal.

The problem that some inexperienced sales associates run into is that they appear to be pushy when trying to close deals and that turns off the client. Instead of going in for the obvious close at all times, you should use smart word choices that make it a done deal by the time you are done.word choices

Never Offer Yes Or No Questions

Successful sales professionals practice their presentations constantly and one of the things they practice is avoiding yes or no questions. You never want to ask a customer a question that can be answered yes or no because that opens the door for a no answer. Instead, you want to use positive word choices that push the client for an answer that commits to a product sale.

For example, most sales professionals would simply ask the customer if they want a product in the color white. This is a question that can be answered with a no and it can kill a deal. Instead, you should ask the customer if they would like to see the product in white or blue. No matter what color the customer says, it enhances the idea that a sale is imminent.

Avoid Questions That Start With The Word “Can”?

Can I interest you in a better way to close sales? Questions that start with the word “can” will always be yes or no questions.

The better way to ask the opening question of this section would be to say “Would you like a better method to close sales or the secrets to make more money?” Remember, yes or no questions kill a deal and the word “can” is the most common way to create a yes or no question.

Learn To Love The Word “Or”

The simplest way to put it for sales professionals that want to learn how to push a customer to a close is that this or that questions mean money. Choose your words wisely and give your customers a choice, but never give them the chance to say no.

Positive word choices mean everything in sales!

Author’s Bio:
Deb Bixler retired from the corporate world using the proven business systems that made her a success working for others by incorporating them into her home business using a party plan business model. She now provides education and services for work at home professionals at the largest party plan training center on the web: CreateACashFlowShow.com. Find her on Twitter: @debbixler.

Deb Bixler retired from the corporate world using the proven business systems that made her a success working for others by incorporating them into her home business using a party plan business model. She now provides education and services for work at home professionals at the largest party plan training center on the web: CreateACashFlowShow,com. Find her on Twitter: @debbixler.

6 Reasons You Need to Stop Wasting Your Time With Flash on Your Website

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By Teddy Hunt

When you design your website, there are a lot of things that you take into consideration. You worry about the design colors; you worry about your site’s compatibilities across different devices; and you worry about your website looking good. For a stylish effect, it’s likely that you’ve tried to implement Flash on your page. That’s a huge mistake, and here are a few reasons that you need to stop using it right now.

It’s Not Compatible With Everything

Flash error
Photo Credit: jonathanpoh via Compfight cc

Flash can look pretty awesome on a desktop computer. That’s the problem, though — a lot of users are accessing the Internet through their smartphones. It seems like everything and everyone loves smartphones except for one thing: Flash. Flash doesn’t play with mobile devices, and though many have tried to design a workaround, none have completely succeeded. For those that have succeeded in getting Flash to work on a mobile platform, they’ve experienced a lot of lock-ups and performance issues. By using Flash on your site, you’re completely alienating your audience.

It Takes a Long Time to Load

It’s been said that the average attention span of an Internet user is four to ten seconds. If you’ve ever dealt with Flash, you know that if you have any sort of awesome looking video, it’s not going to take three to five seconds to load. In fact, you’ll be lucky if it loads in under 15 seconds. During that time, you’re going to completely lose your mobile users because of the incompatibility of Flash, and the desktop users that you do get will likely navigate elsewhere rather than wait for your site to load. It’d be wise of you to completely ditch Flash and choose an introductory image or banner.

Not SEO Friendly

The goal of starting a website or a blog is to get users, right? Flash is completely counterproductive to that end. Flash isn’t index-able, so search engines won’t be able to do anything with it. Which would you rather have: an awesome intro or visitors who found your website from a search engine?

Very recently, both Yahoo and Google added the ability to see Flash videos. It requires a lot of extra steps by the site administrator to enable, and even then the search engines will likely not be able to see the text in the Flash video.

It’s Expensive

Flash doesn’t come cheap. It involves you buying the software to create the Flash video, which can cost $500 or more. You’ll also have to deal with maintenance and upgrade fees associated with the latest versions, and you’ll have to constantly update your creation. In contrast, HTML is very cheap and it’s extremely flexible.

It’s Difficult to Maintain

Once your Flash site is rolled out, it’s not easily editable. With HTML, you’re able to switch up the design as you see fit. If you’re using Flash, you’re out of luck. You’ll be unable to easily edit the link structure of your site, but even simple edits, like text, are a pain. You’ll have to completely take the Flash portion of your site down, decompile it, edit the content, recompile it, then upload it again to the website. It’s a long, boring procedure, and you’ll have to do it every single time you need to update anything.

Instability

In theory, Flash is a unique platform designed to show off your product — and to that end it’s effective. The problem, though, is that it’s not stable. You’ll need a plugin for your browser to watch the Flash video, Shockwave. Those with extremely old computers won’t be able to properly use Shockwave in their browser, and instead of seeing your intro, they’ll see a blank screen.

No matter how badly you want to incorporate Flash into your site, it might be better to leave it completely off. It limits your user base and it adds virtually nothing to your site.

Do you have any experience with Flash? If so, do you still use it? Leave a comment below and let us know.

Sharpen Your Marketing Skills with MOOCs

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What’s a MOOC?

It’s a trendy name for online college courses–Massive Open Online Courses.

It’s college without the beer pong.

In many professions, it’s common to have a requirement to do continuing education. Accountants, educators, attorneys, and many others are obligated to keep learning in order to maintain their professional status. Entrepreneurs should be doing it voluntarily.

Why You Should Always Be Learning

Even if you have 100 business and marketing blogs in your RSS reader, you should still go deeper. With the latest online courseware technology, you can communicate with fellow students, receive the information in video and/or audio format, work on collaborative projects, and often get course materials as well. This is a much richer experience than the hit-or-miss method of reading blog posts or e-books.

Stephen Covey’s 7th Habit of Highly Successful People is “sharpen the saw.” Anyone who wants to run a successful business with longevity should pay attention to this important habit.

Sharpening the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have–you. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual.

A key component of many MOOCs is the sharing of real-world experiences and projects by the participants. You may get inspiration, support, and new ideas by joining. If you’re feeling stuck in a rut, this could be something to give you a good kick in the pants.

First, Decide What You’re Studying

There are courses available on a huge array of subjects. You can either follow a course series from a specific institution, or set up your own path of study.

Are you interested in honing your branding skills? Need help with market research? Want to build on your knowledge of competitive analysis? Do some research and gather a group of courses that you can “stack” consecutively for maximum reinforcement of the key concepts.

A Sampling of MOOC Resources

  • edx.org (https://www.edx.org/) – Free online courses for an array of schools, sortable by category/subject area. This is a collaborative effort by several institutions. Includes a lot of Ivy League content.
  • MITOpenCourseWare (ocw.mit.edu) – Free online courses from MIT; includes a marketing subject area.
  • Entrepreneurship Corner (ecorner.stanford.edu) – Stanford’s excellent series of videos and podcasts for entrepreneurs. There is a mobile app available as well.
  • MOOC List (http://www.mooc-list.com/) – An aggregator site that is searchable by subject; huge list of MOOCs from all over the web.

Drawbacks of the MOOC

  • You may not earn credits; if you’re looking to end up with a certification or course credits, check up-front. Some offer college credits and some do not.
  • Might be outdated material (check the date on the course before starting it…some were recorded a long time ago, and best practices do change).
  • You get what you pay for. If it’s free, remember that you won’t have full attention from the professor, and there may not be technical support available if you have problems accessing the course.
  • Might not be structured enough for some types of learners. Most MOOCs are free-flowing and study-at-your-own pace. This won’t work if you don’t have some discipline to keep going.

So, are you ready to give it a try? Please share any good online courses you’ve experienced already!

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee