How to Live Your Passion and Wildly Succeed

"Anything insane has a price. If you're serious about building your personal brand, there will be no time for Wii. There will be no time for Scrabble or book club or hockey. There will be time for meals, and catching up with your significant other, and playing with the kids,  and otherwise you will be in front of the computer until 3:00AM every night. If you're unemployed or retired and have all day to work, maybe you knock off at midnight instead. Expect this to be all consuming."

- Gary Vaynerchuk, Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion

Gary also mentions you are going to enjoy it, as you'll be living your passion. He should know, he's living his passion, getting quite wealthy, and obviously having a blast.

His book is HIGHLY recommended!

Balancing Corporate Blogs and Social Media

Andy Piper has an insightful post on balancing corporate blogs and Social Media, looking at both blogs inside and outside the firewall as well as social media in general.

Of course not all blogs are done well or have reasonable expectations or goals when setup, and you can't simple claim success because "we have a blog." Any goes into these issues quite well, and rather than ramble on, just click here to check out his post

Andy and worked together at the UK post a decade or so ago, and love the thoughts he's putting out.

Web Sites Still Matter!: Your Home Page Is Your Home Page

From my co-author, all around good guy, and someone who really "gets" communications of every kind, Shel Holtz.
...................................
These things are true:

• If your website domain isn't instantly intuitive, people will go to a search engine to find you
• If people are looking for companies that do what your company does, they will go to a search engine to find you
• As people conduct searches about your organization, they'll find what has risen to the top, whether it's positive or negative
• With increasing regularity, people visit destinations other than standard websites when trying to learn about an organization

I get all that. And yet I am increasingly irritated when I hear someone utter this nonsense:

Google is your new homepage.

This phrase produces more than 8,500 results in a Google search, mostly blog posts exhorting companies to embrace this belief. Yes, search in general and Google in particular are vitally important. But your homepage is your homepage.

At the risk of sounding pedantic, let's remember that a homepage is defined as the opening page of a web site. Your index file, not Google, is the opening page to your web site. But this is a bigger issue than just a formal definition.

While the era of the destination website may be over, the corporate website is far from dead. The notion suggests that destination website no longer dominate the customer's attention online. They once did, mainly because there wasn't much else online to see. Now, with social networking and online video dominating people's attention, the importance of the destination website has diminished.

That only means traditional websites are now part of a bigger mix of options online, not that their usefulness has vanished.

The 2009 Trust Barometer from Edelman reiterates that a company's own website is one of the most credible source of information a company can provide about itself, beating business blogs, social networking sites or advertising. Only corporate communications — such as press releases, white papers and emails — ranked higher, and only by a two percentage points. And while searches of Google News and Yahoo News ranked higher, searches of the core Google search engine didn't even make the list. At the very top of the list you won't find any new media at all, but rather the staid and traditional industry analyst report, reinforcing the high levels of trust people place in third-party experts.

Certainly, consumers may glean information that doesn't help your company's cause when searching Google. In fact, according to one study, search engines are the most common way consumers find opinions about products, brands and services. But if they're looking for what you have to say, they'll still click through to your website, and most often the top search result will connect consumers to your homepage.

Your website is also the home of the static content that still serves a purpose. The bio of your CEO, shareholder information, details of your corporate social responsibility efforts, archives of your news releases (your authoritative statements of record), job listings — all these represent details people need.

And search engine optimization, which has become a core corporate activity as the importance fo search continues to grow, is still about enabling discovery of your content on your site. As this Google-as-home-page notion gains currency, I fear people will spend less resources on the maintenance of their websites — an odd dilemma, since one SEO fundamental is to continuously update your website and infuse it with new content.

Still, according to a study just released today, web content managemente has fallen as an intrinsic component of organizations' communication efforts. While social networking is part of web-based communications for about 72% of organizations, web content management is an activity among only about 53%. That's particularly odd given that the study found SEO is an activity at nearly 70% of organizations. What's more, web content management is declining as a skill companies look for when making a PR hire.

That is, more organizations are optimizing their sites for search than are managing those sites in order to ensure that the sites offer value to those who find them, despite the fact that corporate websites are among the most credible communication a company can produce.

That's a huge disconnect.

SEO, along with social media engagement, are critical, but let's not lose sight of the basics as we embrace new media. SEO is a critical skill and companies must do it well. But your homepage is still your homepage.

Social Media's Top 10 Dirty Little Secrets

Thanks to Bob Cargill for pointing out this excellent post!

1. Social climbers are attracted to social media
That's right. The same people who climb their way up the social food chain in the real world tend to do well in the social media world. They'll be your friend for a while, until they find someone else with more Twitter followers to tweet with.

2. Most social media is bad marketing/PR
Few organizations really want to engage with their customers. It's just easier to slap together a blog, Facebook fan page or hire someone to tweet about your products and coordinate events that hopefully generate buzz. Participation is hard.

3. Everyone hates internet celebrities, but secretly want to be one
Yup, I'm sick of the whole internet celebrity thing too. But it's funny—sometimes I think the people who slam it the most actually want to be the next social media rockstar, whatever that is.

4. Social media burnout syndrome is real
We joke about it, but it's true. We're overwhelmed by technology which promised to make life better for us. Instead, most of us haven't figured out how to restore the balance we once had in our lives.

Read more at Logic+Emotion by Dave Armano
Hmmmm, I may be suffering from social media burnout.
Or am I just tired from traveling or working all of the last 13 days including 11 night?

The Godfather of social networking

The Godfather of social networking? Who could that possible be?

Who "launched multiple, synergistic initiatives" leveraging his installed base.?

Who was "a visionary leader who understood social networks, marketing and monetization?"

Who built an early P2P network WAY before Napster?

Well, this is all just modern-speak for what Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead did years ago, and continue to do, unfortunately without Jerry.

Read the full details here - and no, this certainly isn't a joke, simply the truth (thanks to Chris Jones for the tip!)

Blogging for Business Book in the news

Co-author and all around good guy Shel Holtz just let me know that Blogging for Business was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal again. Just happens to be my favorite dead tree paper, although I rarely have time to read it except when traveling these days.

In the article "For Companies, a Tweet in Time Can Avert PR Mess" by Sarah E. Needleman, Shel is quoted:

"Social media have magnified the urgency of crisis communication," says Shel Holtz, a communications consultant in Concord, Calif., and co-author of "Blogging for Business." He says seemingly small incidents can quickly spread into bigger PR problems via the Web.

The article is here, but no idea how long this link may be valid.

Good article by Sarah! And just in time for my birthday.

YouTube debut and YouTube Turbocharge Advice

YouTube is one way to help turbocharge your blog or Website.

You can simply embed other peoples videos that add value, create playlists, or perhaps best of all, simply and cheaply create your own videos and upload them, using them to raise awareness, drive traffic, blah blah blah.

I've created my first ( non-professional, as in I did it, no camera crew, studio etc.) video to promote a hobby site.

I used the killer advice from Gideon and Yaro - so simple to implement!

7 Killer Tips For Optimizing Your YouTube Videos

Turbocharge yourself online with video - 7 simple killer tips

No question, online video is here and is big - and very easy to do.

My friend Gideon, using video on one of his own YouTube channels, and got like 67,400 views in just 8 weeks!

Think a few of these people would click through to your blog or Web site? Oh yeah!

Check out his:

7 Killer Tips For Optimizing Your YouTube Videos

Gideon does a great job, I learned a lot, and 5 minutes after watching this video, I had already implemented some of his advice.

I started another YouTube channel to promote a specific site (took a couple of minutes and it's free). I've optimized my video, which is dead simple if you follow the instructions, and am well on my way.

More later on how I'm using video (and some videos for you too), but for now
Click here for killer tips on turbocharging your online presence with video

I'm going to go watch it again now and take notes this time - seriously. It's short and easy to watch.

I think I'll be doing a couple of videos a week - they are so simple to do, and free to host on YouTube and many other online video services. I may stick with YouTube or may also place them on others like Viddler and Google video etc.

I suppose I should shoot a video on my results? :)

How to Promote Yourself With Blog Comments, Part I

How to promote yourself, your blog, your Website, your charity, your sleazy underworld pursuits, or anything else using blog comments -  a quick two part series.

I'm just giving you the tools -- please play nicely now!

Blog comments are awesome. They let you enter someone else's Internet real estate and leave public statements, which can make you look smart, drive traffic to your blog or Web site, and make Google and the other search engines jump up and down in excitement about how cool you are too. Oh, and the  bloggers wll be happy to if you leave good comments.

First, some basics. Most blogs allow you to leave comments.

You type in your comment, your name, an email (never displayed), along with a URL (something like www.teddemop.com ).

The URL can be to your blog or Web site if you have one, or very simply point to your LinkedIn Profile (every professional should be in LinkedIn - it's complimentary).

The comment may be immediately displayed or it may be "moderated," meaning the blog owner wants to make sure your comment is OK before it gets published.

If you leave an intelligent and thoughtful comment, even if it disagrees with the blogger, some readers may click on your link and come find out more about you. Also, assuming you're using your full name, for example "Ted Demopoulos" instead of "Ted", the search engines will index your comments and associate them with your name. When people look you up online using the search engines, some of these comments will show up and hopefully make you look smart - at least if you leave intelligent comments!

There are plenty of ways to find appropriate blogs in your professional or other area of interest. High on the list is using the blog search engines like Technorati or Google Blog Search. Once you've found appropriate blogs, look at their blog rolls, lists of similar blogs in their sidebars, and you may find some more appropriate blogs.

Part II, "how to make Google and the other search engines jump up and down in excitement about how cool you or whatever you're promoting is, whether it's a charity, random commercial Web site like www.womanshairlossadvice.com, or even something sleazy (use your imagination here).

Part II, How to promote Yourself with Blog Comments and more - click here

How to give away Great Content

"Selling" the free stuff - you need to!

Let's say you got something great, and it's free!

And you've got a bunch of interested people, maybe even raving fans. Perhaps readers of your blog, personal fans of you, or people who really dig your Web site.

What you've got, maybe a special report or audio mp3/CD or whatever, is good enough to sell. Maybe you'll even sell it but first are offering it for free to your favorite fans, maybe for feedback, comments, or just because you're a nice guy or gal.

You let everyone know about it -- and they yawn. A few people download it. No one comments about it.

You know it's great because everyone you've personally shown it to raves about it. They love it. No one else much cares!

What went wrong? Simple.

You've got to "sell" free stuff, same as non-free stuff.

This is not my opinion. It's fact.

You need to create something, let's call it a "sales letter," explaining why it's so cool and why people want it. This "sales letter" might be a blog post, a Web page, an email, part of a presentation to your local pigeon fanciers club or whatever.

In your letter or presentation, you need to stress the BENEFITS. What it'll do for you, not the FEATURES, what it is.

Example - Aspirin:

•     Features - round, white, and small - yawn
•     Benefits - Will make your headache do away - cool! (especially if you have a headache! i.e. it fills a need, real or perceived)

Now here is a real-life example from last week:

I'm fanatical about fly fishing for striped bass and have a pretty popular Web site on the topic. Traffic is exploding. I've got an associated email list with equally fanatical fly fisherman.

I wrote a little special report on fishing. I'm going to sell it eventually.

I email my list and tell them. It's free, just for you, just for now. Friends who reviewed it really love  it. I only get a few downloads. Yawn.

A week letter, I send another email to my fly fishermen friends, stressing:

• Benefits: You'll double your catch, you'll get 'skunked' less, you'll have more fun fishing etc.
• Urgency: Download it NOW, it won't be up long and then I'm selling it
• Social Proof: I added a comment/testimonial from a friend (just one tip caught him more fish last weekend)
• Exclusive: Just for my friends who are currently on my email list

This is all basic sales stuff - and by the way, I neither understand nor like sales!

Net result? FOUR times as many people downloaded it! WOW!

So, you put together something. Maybe a "white paper," special report, ebook, or even a coconut creme pie.

It's GREAT stuff! You NEED to sell it.

Think of it this way:
You're Ripping Off your potential audience if you don't convince them - after all, if it's  great, it will benefit them enormously.

Trying to give away Great Content? You need to sell people on it, just like paid stuff.