Successful Blog

Thanks to Week 242 SOBs

by

muddy teal strip A

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.

muddy teal strip A

big-fat-finance-blog
escaping-mediocrity
grange-website-design
pingdom
savvy-b2b-marketing

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.

deep purple strip

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

SOB Business Cafe 06-11-10

by

SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Freelance Writing Jobs
None of these strategies are any great secret. They’ve been recommended by top bloggers and social media strategists for years. In fact, the last strategy is something I used to do on a regular basis but stopped for a while. Once I began implementing it again, the effort paid off.

the BrandBuilder
We had to put our golden retriever to sleep this weekend, our friend of fifteen years, our family’s faithful guardian and companion, and one of the kindest, most loyal and giving souls I have ever met. True to her breed, Sasha was a courageous, tender and selfless until the end.

John Haydon
Setting a Facebook Page can be one of the most confusing tasks – for most people.

Not just you.

The starting point is hard to find, selecting your Page category can be tricky, and even finding your Page once it’s created can be a chore.

Un-Marketing
Recently I surpassed the 50,000 tweet mark.

Holy monkeynuts.

That’s roughly 5,000,000 characters of typing, assuming an average of 100 characters a tweet.

And it’s been worth every one of them.

Seth’s Blog
There may be no bigger opportunity online for bootstrappers than finding people who would benefit from being connected and then connecting them.

Not so they can waste time sending digital love notes back and forth, but so they (and you) can create value for others.

Marie Forleo
I’ll be the first to admit I feel like a failure. Often.

You’d be shocked and likely want to shake me silly if you knew how much money and time I’ve wasted on “information products” and “business systems” that didn’t work.

Related ala carte selections include

Social Times
Ridiculous? Or Genuis??? via Jim Kukral

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I’m a proud affiliate of

third-tribe-marketing

Thanks to Week 241 SOBs

by

muddy teal strip A

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.

muddy teal strip A

amp-your-brand
dave-peck
the-elder-generation
socialgumbo

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.

deep purple strip

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

SOB Business Cafe 06-04-10

by

SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

WorkLifeNation
But there is swelling support to help you achieve what social media expert Chris Brogan calls “escape velocity.” “The ability to leave a situation that isn’t helpful or desired.” It’s the path less traveled where you’ve got your feet planted in the financial security of a steady job, while igniting the journey toward doing work that you’re passionate about.

Chris Brogan
Yesterday, my blog was not my job, so I didn’t write one. Today? I have two speeches over the next few days. That was my job first, and then this post.

America’s Best Business Practices
I have written many articles on this blog about the huge benefits of using social media in marketing. So please don’t mistake this article as some type of put-down for social media. It is not. I believe that social media has leveled the playing field to some degree between big business and small business. Nonetheless, as with many great things, it can sometimes go wrong.

Shamable
Web traffic for the sake of traffic is meaningless. This is why I don’t advocate always targeting a “top blogger” in any vertical. It makes zero sense to chase big numbers, just as shotgun marketing did — just ask our friend, the banner ad.

Operation Safe
I have been looking at a few blog posts that share what kind of tweets someone should make, and wondering what the right balance for a non-profit like us should be. I won’t claim any magic formula but this is what is working for us.

JR’s Internet Marketing Strategies
Overall, dofollow is obviously the best type of backlink because it passes link juice from one site to another and counts the anchor text for keyword relevance, but, do not discount the nofollow completely!

Related ala carte selections include

Oatmeal.com
via @ChrisGuillebeau

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I’m a proud affiliate of

third-tribe-marketing

Thanks to Week 240 SOBs

by

muddy teal strip A

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.

muddy teal strip A

charles-taggarts-blog
live-well
let-creativity-begin
pixel-alchemy
techguerilla-talk

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.

deep purple strip

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

SOB Business Cafe 05-28-10

by

SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

ChrisG
I nearly called this article “Everything I know about blogging I learned from comic books” but I was afraid too many people would take it literally, ha. In fact, there might be an element of truth to it. My formative reading material was dominated by muscly, spandex-clad guys and gals fighting crime and shooting laser beams out of their eyes.

Ramblings from a Glass Half Full
It seemed a bit silly to me when I first got this suggestion, but in this moment of despair I figured writing something down might just be that little step that Tom Peters was urging me to take in his column.

So I picked up my pen, and started to write. I outlined my dream -to be a leader, making a real difference for a business. I also noted the kind of leader I wanted to be.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, within a year I had a new job, and not too long after that, that dream I had put on paper came true. Every bit of it.

CIO Update
The real conundrum facing business today is not which tools to use but whether to work within an existing social network or build one central to the brand. With few exceptions, success usually lies in doing both or in creating a hybrid of the two.

McCurry’s Corner
So my question is what makes an educational presentation excellent? Is it the quality of the education content? Is it in the presenter’s delivery? Or, is there some special formula that really contributes to getting audiences engaged? What do you think? Here are some of my thoughts…

Adventures in Philanthrophy
You are influencing the people who read your blog posts religiously. You are informing the decisions of the people who have you on twitter lists. You are shaping the people who interact with you on facebook. Just because that’s not your intention doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Authentic Path
The truth? Building a successful online presence takes time and work. It also takes a willingness to get real, to become authentic.

Related ala carte selections include

Congratulations to WGN and Nancy Loo!
So, after nine years of competing against “WGN Morning News”, I’ll be helping the team to keep beating my former station. I admire the show and everyone on it (hello Larry, Robin, Pat, Paul, Valerie and Ana) and I am proud to become one of “Chicago’s Very Own”.

A Skilling Snuggie wrapped the deal!
Contract negotiations are always a fascinating process to me. I’ve been through a few now. Salary numbers are thrown back and forth between agents and news managers. My demand for a Tom Skilling Snuggie nearly quashed the deal.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I’m a proud affiliate of

third-tribe-marketing