Successful Blog

Rules, Negative Data, and Incurable Idealists

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What If Everything We Believed In Isn’t True?

Change the World!

I’m no computer. My operating system was developed at home, versioned at school, and beat up some through the decades and detours I’ve experienced.

Don’t run in the house. Use your indoor voice. Do your work before you play. Color inside the lines. Sit up straight. Be polite. Each basic command was entered in my head. If I do these things, I will operate properly — so they told me.

I also captured information about family and fairy tales, heroes and angels, creativity and planets, inventors and imagination, and artists, and poetry, fairness and ideals. In my life I’ve talked about and witnessed awe-inspiring and wonder-full things. These concepts are in my hidden system files — read-only, undeletable files.

I’m bombarded daily with data. But she is supposed to be your friend. Data. He lost his job. Data. There have been more bombings. Data. Want to make $4000/day online? Data miner. Still data. That’s all it is — data. I don’t have unlimited memory, so unnecessary negative data doesn’t get saved —period.

Some days the data causes my mind to fragment in unfamiliar and unproductive ways.

Bits and bytes of negative data chip away at my world view and therefore at me. The Tigger in me finds myself quoting Eeyore. “Pathetic, that’s what it is. Pathetic.”

What if the world is the awful place that keeps presenting itself to me?

But try as I might, I can’t—still won’t—give up on the world. I still believe in family, and fairy tales, and heroes, and angels, and creativity, and planets, and fairness, and inventors, and imagination, and artists, and poetry, and ideals, and so many awe-inspiring and wonder-full things. They were written on my soul as a child. I can’t delete them, lucky for me. I might have wanted to once, but not now, not again, not ever.

The world needs incurable idealists. We balance out the hardcore cynics. It has to do with joy, and hope, and possibility.

The world needs people who believe in it as much as we need people who believe in us.

As we believe so we become.

Are you willing to believe in a world that works?

We can change the world just like that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your web presence.

Why You Should Be Involved In Twitter While Having Your Own Blog?

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Blogging is fun! I started blogging casually since 2001, moving into my own domain name in 2004, and then decided to blog professionally on my own blog since June 2007.  For some reason or what, I checked out the traffic behavior of my blog.  I have come to realize that the traffic’s up and down has very much to do with the activity that I am doing inside and outside my blog.  The reason is very simple:  I started off without any traffic, hence I need to bring in the traffic!

Many ways to bring in the traffic

While you are blogging, you have unknowingly attracted crowd from the search engines.  You may have also attracted people to link to your attractive articles.  Or, you could have linked to an attractive blog post from a stranger, which caused a trackback link from that stranger’s blog.  Technically speaking, your blog posts are helping themselves to bring in the traffic. However, blogging alone is not enough.  You need to do more things to reach out to the untapped market out there waiting for you.  There are two ways you can do it.

  1. You can spend money to bring in the traffic.
  2. You can spend time to bring in the traffic.

By the way, I’m sorry to tell you that you have no choice but to choose “spend time to bring in the traffic” because I am going to talk about Twitter very soon. 🙂

Using social media to bring in the traffic.  It’s free! But it takes effort.

So far as I know of, the only way to reach out to the untapped market with a single cent is to participate in social media.  Because that’s the only way we can put in our information almost freely.  The social media website owners are more than happy to welcome you to introduce your sites to the visitors.  This is social media’s way of sustaining their businesses.

By the way, blogging is also a form of social media where people can comment on your blog and maybe providing links to their website.

Participating in the social media is all about building your own community who follows your thought leadership.  There are so many different social media websites out there of all kinds.  Well, it will be perfect if you can spend enough time to participate in all of them!  However, all of us  have less than 24 hours a day.  Hence, choosing one or two major social media is sufficient enough!  Or else, you may not be able to build a strong community supporting your thoughts. And I will strongly recommend you to participate in twitter as your first choice of building your strong community.

Why Twitter, and not other social media?

With more and more bigger players jumping into this large whale of tweets, Twitter is definitely a social media not to be taken lightly with.

Twitter has also matured over time.  I can still remember making my first few tweets and there is nobody listening to me.  I virtually have no local friends who can follow me on twitter.  I started to look out for the big names like Robert Scoble on Twitter.  I can still remember I can even chat with him back then.  Now, it’s so hard with so many people trying to talk to him on Twitter.  Back then, retweet was eventually invented by someone who just want to share a tweet he has seen.  It came in various forms such as “RT @charleslau the message”, “The message (via @charleslau)”, “Retweet the message (from @charleslau” and many more.  In fact, it is becoming more or less standardized now to be just “RT @charleslau the message”.

twitter-logoBecause Twitter is based on a very simple 140 characters, it turned out that there are a lot of growth to expand in Twitter because it provides a lot of API to leverage on to expand into different types of third party webwares.  As such, if you can establish your strong followers in time, you will soon be able to leverage on the future expansion that Twitter potentially has with many smart Social Media entrepreneurs out there! So far as I know, Twitter can be used show pictures, sound and links to your followers.  Some others even use Twitter to monitor certain things such as their health status, sleeping patterns, and even track what a plant wants to twitter about! With all the various tools establishing and more to come, your only goal today is to build a strong community around a certain topic which relates back to your blog!

How is Twitter linked to your blog?

While you may still be establishing your blog presence to the world, twitter is a good place to be more personal and to build your community with.  It’s like asking your interested visitors to subscribe to your blog posts, or even to subscribe to your newsletter via email.  Twitter is yet another form of establishment that you will want to work it out as you will learn and grow with this community.  Chances of them visiting your website is very high because they like you through your tweets!  Let’s see how you can start off by connecting yourself in Twitter…

Connecting yourself in Twitter

Twitter is indeed a whole new world out there where you are basically trying to woo more people into your own blog.  However, the methodology must be set properly.  First of all, you must not have the mentality of “What’s in it for me” in the twitter environment.  In twitter, it can be like micro-blogging where you get comments about your tweets.  It can also be like a chat room where you get to socialize with strangers (and of course your good old friends included). Let’s see some bad examples here:

  1. If you try to tweet the same message consistently over time, I can tell you safely that I will be the first one to unfollow you!  I am in Twitter to enjoy myself, while you are out there to hard sell me something!
  2. If you are caught tweeting affiliated links consistently as well, I will surely unfollow you!  It is so irritating to see affiliated links so many times.  Yes, I know you want to make money online… Can you just be more personal and talk to me with no money attached?
  3. Can you not be so robot?  There are some twitter accounts which are basically bots.  They do nothing but to churn out contents after contents.  If these contents are verified properly, I probably won’t mind to follow you so that I can retweet the benefits to my followers!  But if you are basically controlled by keywords, I will surely unfollow you!  That’s because keyword filtering is not always accurate.  I will rather follow people who are more human, and are willing to tweet quality stuff!

Now let’s see some good examples:

  1. If your twitter account is very clear about your topics, I will follow you because it’s part of my passion and beneficial to my followers.  You basically tweet really good stuff that it will not be good for me if I miss them!
  2. If you are really friendly to me, I would love to talk to you.  For that duration of chat, you can be really shocked that people may want to follow both of you just to listen to the conversation that they are interested in.
  3. Retweeted messages are very powerful.  They basically help me to transfer my friends’ tweets to my followers without much effort on my part other than just reading.  And because of the attraction in this tweet, it will just get retweeted a couple of times.  This will increase your followers pretty significantly.
  4. Tell your followers that you have just blogged a new post! We’ll love it!  Look! A chance to connect your blog to twitter.
  5. Do up your own Twitter wallpaper.  It really helps in your brand building for your overall business and eventually for your blog.

Conclusion

I wish to clarify that social media is definitely not going to be helpful to you if you are consistently looking out to make quick money out of it.  Social media is here to have fun!  It’s only with the more hardcore fans, they are more willing to spend some money to get a better deal!  Treat twitter as a brand awareness exercise for yourself.  Do everything that you can to get connected with the media with no strings attached.  Very soon, everybody will connect your blog and your twitter account as one brand! In other words, Think of what you can do to the social media, instead of what social media can do for you!

How has Twitter added to your blog?

This post was written by Charles. He has been an Internet reviewer since June 2007.  He pours his passion for Internet marketing and Internet branding into his Twitter account actively at @charleslau,

A Bike Ride Refresher in Social Media Success

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You Already Know How

relationships button

Do you remember when no one knew the word blog? Suddenly, it’s everywhere ? in the New York Times, on the TV News, and in our kids’ elementary schools. The BBC has a blog. So does PBS. Not only are blogs showing up everywhere, but Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are too. You’ve probably heard stories of companies who’ve had great success with blogs and companies who’ve had horrible results.

Perhaps you’ve even had a social web something go wrong.

Social media is a lot like riding a bike.

When you bike, you need to know how all of the parts ? the bike’s and yours ? work together, where your bike belongs on the road, and how to interact with cars and other bikes. When you enter the social web, you need to know the same kinds of things before you start ? how what you’re doing fits and balances with your company culture, your overall marketing strategy, and your customers needs and desires.

It’s easy to be wildly successful at social ? to get it to take you exactly where you want to go. But it takes a bit of learning at first — like biking does. It’s no fun learning by falling down. Still staying off the bike isn’t the answer, when the kids you want to reach are across town in a park where only a bike can go.

Here’s how to get started on that wildly successful social web presence that you keep hearing folks talk about.

Learn from someone who already knows. Almost every really successful new blogger learned how from some one who’s blogged before. Twitter is way easier to “get” if you work with someone who knows it first. Learn from a social media oldtimer and you’ll raise the speed at which you’ll connect with people and leverage the tools most useful to your business.

Social media is about conversation and community. It’s a chance to talk with customers everyday as you do at a trade show ? only longer, more relaxed, and without the lower back pain that comes with standing on a concrete floor. It’s ongoing discussions with customers about the business. It’s getting close to where your audience, or at least a part of them, thinks and lives. AND it’s inviting them to get to know you and your business in the same way. It’s hard not to like a company, when you interact everyday with someone who works there that you like a lot.

Read some blogs. Join a social network. Follow Twitter before you start. Make a few blog comments too. It’s like getting to know the neighborhood you’re thinking of moving into. You’ll learn a lot from watching and interacting with the folks who are already blogging. Bloggers and social media folks are incredibly friendly, helpful people. You’ll have a network going as soon as you’ve commented on the same blog or in the same Twitterstream for a week or two.

Be a social person people can trust. You don’t need to be from any special department or to have any special title. Be passionate, curious, and happy to learn from others. Reach out to people to learn what they’re about.

Don’t worry if customers have issues. Issues are opportunities to make authentic and human connections. Customers know that things go wrong sometimes. Let them know someone is listening. Invite customers to be part of the team, and products can get better because of it.

Give customers great content — a reason to follow you. That’s what search engine want too. Great interest and great content are great value to folks who meet you. Become a source of content and pay attention. You can pick up the latest trends by interacting on the scale of the web.

Once you get the hang of the social web culture, you’ll be seeing how much your friends and customers can invest in what you’re doing. They can become your eyes and ears for you. They can become your biggest evangelists. They’ll be doing it because you opened the lines of communication to talk to them. ? one human to another.

Grab a bike. Rent one if you have to … the social part is getting to where the people are.

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Are you having trouble explaining social media? What analogy do you use?

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

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

SOB Business Cafe 09-18-09

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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

Zoli’s Blog
But this is not just an image. It’s a real girl, a living person with a face and name, who is quite recognizable by her family, friends, adversaries. Using her in this article places her in the wrong context, implying that she is an (unwilling) child prostitute.

gaping void
My father remar­ked to me the other day, “I bet you had no idea in the begin­ning that the blog would work as well as it did, eh?”

True, I had no idea. But loo­king back, we had a few things going for us.

Rock Your Day
When we’re focused on a goal – especially a big honkin’
one, the finish line can seem awfully far away. And that
distance can drain your desire to take action, because
all you can see is how you’re Not There Yet.

Escape from Cubicle Nation
So if you are just a nice person working in your home office without a huge network, how do you start?

Catskill Cottage Seed
In my work with at-risk teens it’s an interesting problem. Often the behaviors that manifest are either skewed toward seeking attention at any cost or they swing dangerously toward an isolation that is unhealthy. Finding comfort with the solitude of childhood is a door that seems to have been nailed shut.

Related ala carte selections include

being five

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

Why the Brave and Smart Will Survive …

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I've been thinking . . .

about fear . . . a lot.

I know it seems that we’ve all lost our manners. Our humanity and compassion seems to be scatter shot, when it’s there. Some of us seem to care more about plants and animals than the people nearest us.

Have we really all gone bad . . . or are we afraid to admit we’re afraid?

For most of us, it’s not the most fun time to be living. We see ourselves and our friends in truly precarious positions. Clients go south. Jobs go with them. Healthcare shrivels up and stress makes that an issue.

Do we think it’s brave to deny that it’s scary? We can’t fix a problem, we’re pretending isn’t there.

It’s braver and smarter to admit where we are and act on it. Here’s how to do to be brave and smart about what scare us …

From “Oh F#@&” to OK Speed Drill

“Oh F#@&” — Reaction
Identify and acknowledge your feelings.

“I’m scared. I could lose my job. I could lose my home soon.”

Go somewhere that you can say it out loud. The act of exhaling while you talk will calm you physically. Close your eyes for a minute or two. Hearing the thought will lessen it’s power over you.

“Oh God” — Release
Regain your balance. Keep your eyes closed and breathe deeply through your nose, until you feel the thought let go of it’s hold on you.

“Oh Jeez” — Recenter
Keep breathing deeply and if it helps, keep repeating through these phrases as you breathe:
“Oh F#@&” “Oh God” “Oh Jeez” “Oh Well”

“Oh Well” — Refocusing
Now you can start to think about damage control and making the best of the situation. If you find yourself negative again, go back a step or two.

“OK” — Re-engaging
Plan what you need to do and get moving.
—Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

So you’re stranded in a situation you never expected. We all are.
We can all push aside the fear and get to how brave we are.

open-647502_discovery

The brave and smart survive because we turn fear into action. We don’t allow another option.

Liz's Signature

Bikes Are Green Wheelchairs Are Not — Is the Planet More Important Than the People?

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Drive Throughs and Visible Authenticity

It seems from the second that I got into the car with Hope and Theresa to the minute they dropped me off at home, my social media road trip was an experience interwoven with more social than media. My plan had been for weekend retreat focused on bringing people back into SOBCon2010, seeing more green trees and less concrete, and getting space enough to open my mind. Time to reflect while driving or sitting alone can re prioritize which ideas bubble up to get attention. Serendipity can intervene to lend light to those thoughts.

Simple conversational phrases started trending …

  • how quiet the car is … but it’s not a hybrid.
  • I didn’t bring my metal water bottle. I’ll have to buy an earth-killing plastic one.
  • look at the view at the Grand Geneva Resort — all that green!
  • I wouldn’t call this handicapped accessible … We checked two of the buildings totally are.

We’re obsessing about causes. We were just talking. But still there it was. Statements about how we cared for the earth and how we cared about the people who more around it were coming up.

At breakfast yesterday, Beth Rosen, and I discussed small nonprofits that we want to make part of SOBCon2010: BeBrightPink.org, inclusionsolutions.com, and job angels. We made a plan to find two others one that support people and the planet — one green and one that helps teachers and kids.

The conversations were all so normal for the social media crowd that they didn’t really stand out.

Bikes Are Green Wheelchairs Are Not

Then on the way home, I got an email and shortly after a phone call from Patrick Hughes about something disturbing. Here’s some of what it said.

.. I just saw some press about the company Burgerville in Oregon who is now allowing bikes in the drive thru and touting it – good for them.

However, I am frustrated.

S woman 3 weeks ago, is denied on her bike in Oregon at a drive thru and within 24 hours they have a new bike policy and are welcoming bikes with open arms. http://bikeportland.org/2009/09/15/burgerville-announces-bike-event-new-signage/

2 years ago, as you know, Karen Putz [went] through a drive thru and is denied service because she is deaf… she does the same thing and goes home and blogs about it, but because it’s a disability issue and not a “green” issue, it goes to lawyers vs the marketing dept. why isn’t disability considered GREEN? They dragged her and this issue out for 2 years … http://www.diversityinc.com/public/3158.cfm

Several weeks ago a woman went into a drive thru in Minnesota in her wheelchair and was denied and no one really came to her rescue either… she was [labeled] as a radical … [W]hen restaurants have a 24 hour policy — meaning the main restaurant is closed but the drive thru is still open — they ARE violating the ADA by not allowing everyone to be able to spend their money.
http://thecrustycurmudgeon.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/wheelchair-woman-denied-service-at-white-castle-drive-thru/

Having legal departments tell their people to just put up disability stickers is not the answer anymore!

So what i am learning after many years in this deal is that when it comes to disability issues, it goes to the legal department and unless someone is suing them, there is no problem. you can talk all day about how big the disability market is however it’s still going to be relegated to legal and not marketing…

Will the GREEN people help ALL people? What if businesses aren’t considered green unless they are also inclusive? When will disability issues go to the marketing departments vs. legal?

Does all of this make sense? How do we tell this story?

Which brings me back to the social in social media and makes me wonder whether those corporations think planet is more important than people living on it?

How authentic is a company that can’t see the problem with policies that conflict like that?

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

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.