Social Desire

I get back to Social Media Basics on Hobo Blog

Thursday, August 28th, 2008 |

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I wrote my first ever guest post over at Hobo SEO Blog. No, It’s not about SEO….. it’s about my true love, Social Media.

Shaun asked if I would write a post on how to get involved in Social Media and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I don’t write about the basics of Social Media often enough. I have a tendency to get too advanced or talk about special techniques. It was nice to get back to the basics.

Social Media can be very intimidating for many, so I broke down the process into four steps making the process a bit easier to handle.

• Figuring out what you want to get out of Social Media
• Creating your Profiles
• Learning the Community
• Becoming an Active Part of the Community

So, check out my guest post and let me know what you thought.

Posted in Blogging, Guest Posts, Mixx, SEO, Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking, Sphinn, StumbleUpon, Tips and Tutorials, Twitter, Vlogging, Web 2.0, Web 2.0 Basics | 9 Comments »

A Recap of my 1st Wonderful Year using StumbleUpon

Monday, August 4th, 2008 |

July marked my first anniversary being a member of the StumbleUpon Community. It has been an incredible year for me. I have met some wonderful, wonderful people. And, I have stumbled across and discovered some truly amazing websites. Sites that if it wasn’t for StumbleUpon I probably wouldn’t have come across them in the first place.

I spent this past weekend going through my stumbles over the past year. It was a lot of fun to see the sites and my reviews over the past year. There were tons and tons of Stumble-Reviews to go through…. After all, at the time of me writing this post I had stumbled 7,357 pages, 27 videos and 876 photos. It truly has been an amazing year.

I love StumbleUpon. I love it for so many reasons. Here you will find 113 things I have learned from using StumbleUpon

113 Things I have Learned from using StumbleUpon

1. Inspect all food before you purchase.

2. We could learn a lot if we listen to the wisdom of children.
3. That a Nintendo System can be completely homemade.
4. That Business Strategy Can Be About Love
5. Helped me Learn Sign Language
6. Learned to Identify where I was Sacrificing my Freedom
7. Multiplication Songs & Raps to help me teach my Children.
8. Mother Nature is AMAZING & Beautiful!!

9. That I can use my Local Newspapers to Promote my Blog Offline
10. That even the Busiest of People will Lend a Helping Hand to a Newbie
11. 100 Painless Ways to Cut Calories
12. I can be a Positive Parent
13. You and I can Erase our Fears.
14. I can find awesome recipes using only what little ingredients I have at home.
15. How to Relieve a Bee Sting in under 30 Seconds.
16. I found out what Tarot Card I am. What Tarot Card are you??
17. Found Tips to Immediately Increase my Confidence.
18. There are certain things I need to remember when launching a new site.
19. That it only takes 90 minutes a day to become a better blogger.
20. There are special ways to draw StumbleUpon Users into your blog.
21. How to Run a StumbleUpon Advertising Campaign for my Blog.
22. How even Blogging can make a Difference in the World.
23. That a 5-year old can Deliver a Baby.
24. 10 Things You Can Blog About On The Weekends
25. Creating a Sneeze Page can Propel Readers Deep Within my Blog
26. There is actually a time when Getting Lots Of Visitors To Your Website Isn’t Good.
27. There are at least 5 essential things you ought to know about StumbleUpon
28. PageRank can be explained with a Cool Graph.
29. Why Top 10 Lists are still the Best
30. Found out that there are 7 Easy ways to get more Weekend Traffic to my Website.
31. Tons of Fun Activities that Moms and Dads can do with their kids.
32. What it would look like if SEO’s mated.
33. Learned that I need a Seasonal Search Engine Optimization Strategy.
34. Found out that Social Media has a Direct Influence on Search Engine Ranking.
35. A Splash of Color can make me Smile
36. I learned that even I can open a Beer with a Lighter. Thanks for that Pat…. I love showing off to men in the Bar.
37. Saw what Google Search would look like if it was designed in Comic Sans.
38. Found Sphinn shortly after it was born…. another turning point in my professional life.
39. Avatar Optimization - Why Top Sphinners have photo avatars while top Diggers have graphic ones.
40. How I can deal with Criticism.
41. That there are unusual ways that I can use StumbleUpon.
42. I found that I love to learn SEO from Patrick with the Hitchiker’s Guide to Linkless SEO.
43. It sucks to be on top - the downside of Social Media.
44. I learned there are 10 Steps to Building an Online Media Empire
45. Muhammad showed me 4 reasons I should be blogging on weekend.
46. Found out how to get traffic & links from Popular Blogs…. thank you Maki.
47. Apparently, random funny pictures are good for my health.
48. Brian Wallace taught me taught me the Ode to StumbleUpon.
49. That I can become a Success in Online Networking.
50. 5 StumbleUpon BuzzKills
51. That I can get help for Writer’s Block.
52. I even learned How to Read a Painting.
53. I found out that my good friend Brian Wallace thinks my StumbleUpon reviews are verbose. No worries, Brian…. I still love ya.
54. What I already thought was reinforced when I read that a Blogger can be successful by being nice.
55. I learned there is such a thing as Time Management when it comes to Social Media.
56. Learned to Optimize for Universal Search.
57. Kind of Morbid, but I found a web page that tells me how many people died the day I was born. Approximately 130,755 people died worldwide on my birthday.
58. The difference between SEO & SMO.
59. Pictures can help explain The Difference Between Marketing, PR, Advertising, and Personal Branding
60. I was reminded what makes for a successful Blog.
61. Logos can be freaken funny!!
62. Which Hook Attracts the Right Fish?….. in regards to Link Baiting.
63. Dosh Dosh has taught me so much about the Importance of Social Media Marketing.
64. I learned that blogging is a lot like Sex.
65. I had no idea until I can across this page that there are 23 types of Social Media Users.
66. I learned that People in the SEO & Marketing Industries are some of the Funniest People I know.
67. Kim of Cre8pc showed me how to build a better website by writing about her son’s challenges with his sport, football. Such a loving post…. absolutely unforgettable.
68. There are ways to build traffic that have nothing to do with Google or SEO.
69. A Web Page of Words that Feel Good. Thanks Michael.
70. Found that Others Felt the Same Way about Sphinn that I did.
71. Tips to writing my Best Post Ever.
72. Tons of Free SEO Tools
73. Found out there was such a thing as "Social Media Hangovers".
74. Darren showed me how my StumbleUpon Profile put me on his Radar.
75. Learned how to divide my time for maximum exposure.
76. Size does matter when it comes to blog posts.
77. Stumbled across the best explanation of what it feels like to live with a chronic illness (PDF file).
78. A simple workout for Bloggers.
79. Why some pages don’t get stumbled.
80. The Importance of StumbleUpon categories.
81. I learned Do’s and Don’ts when it comes to babies.

82. How to find out if I am a Social Media Addict.
83. I can now say, "I Love You" in 100 different languages.
84. 10 Commandments of Social Media
85. Chris Brogan reminds me that I need to recognize when to scale back…. I don’t need to say "yes" to everybody.
86. I found out Why Guys like Girls.
87. I came across a Comprehensive Guide to Keyword Research for Bloggers
88. Finally I learned how to fold a fitted sheet correctly. Normally I use my arms to wound it up.
89. I learned how to Go with the Flow.
90. How to write a report that a client will "get".
91. I learned how to blog and work-off 600 calories at the same time.
92. That photos can say so much more than words. What do you think this photo is saying??

93. I learned that there is a difference between healthy and toxic love.
94. How to simplify my life with kids.
95. Even Digg can play some April Fool’s Jokes.
96. Found out ways to reduce stress.
97. Food can taste as good as it looks.
98. I located a bunch of great moms on Twitter thanks to Wendy.
99. I was shown a bunch of reasons why Twitter is a great Social Media Tool.
100. I was surprised to learn that it wasn’t only MY children who don’t recognize when the bathroom door is closed.
101. How to make a dollar stretch during a recession.
102. How to bury negative posts about you or your company.
103. Tamar with the help of Weezer shows me a thing or two about Viral Marketing.
104. More ways I came across to say, "I Love You".
105. StumbleUpon gets my mind thinking with a question that stumps me.

106. Little did I know that there was something called, "Blogger Imposter Syndrome". You can even take a test to see if you suffer from it.
107. How to Find the Perfect Image for your Blog Post.
108. I had no idea that cigarettes could teach me something about branding.
109. Kids can teach us how to be happy.
110. Learned that there are certain techniques that will make your blog or website sticky.
111. I stumbled across a thing or two about Link Building Optimization.
112. That I can actually SEO my site in less than 60 minutes.
113. And, apparently I will stumble into the happiness of my life.

Posted in Blogging, Humor, Link Love, Parenting, SEM, SEO, Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking, Sphinn, StumbleUpon, Time Management, Tips and Tutorials, Web 2.0 Basics | 20 Comments »

Selling versus Telling - Does your site convert?

Sunday, July 6th, 2008 |

This Featured Guest Post is by Edward Beckett of Florida Search Engine Optimization.

Image by jakeliefer

It would be interesting to know just how many people in Internet marketing actually had professional sales experience before marketing on the web. Having had a bit of experience in several sales sectors, I had my share of small paychecks before I decided that I really needed to learn what turned prospects into clients – pain, is a great motivator. That being said, I see many web sites that do not produce sales and I believe that one of the main reasons for these site’s lack of success is due to sending the readers the wrong message. To sell a product or service, a prospective client normally needs to have trust in the seller. If trust is not established from the message on the web site, the prospective client will simply move on to a site that captures their attention, and wins their trust.

To elaborate a bit, I’m going to describe some methods that Hollywood uses to keep their audience’s attention. I entertain quite a fascination for movies such as The Zeitgeist Movie, The Bourne Identity and The Matrix. In all three of these movies, the one thing I noticed that kept my mind in suspense was the constant state of flux between believing and disbelieving what is being implied in the movie’s story lines. In the Matrix reloaded, The Merovingian retorted when Morpheus stated, “You know why we are here.” with,” I am a trafficker of information, I know everything I can. The question is, do you know why you are here?”

With this question, the direction of the dialogue centers on the implied message that the Merovingian probably knows … a lot. This question sets the stage for the rest of the conversations that develop for that scene. But what’s important to us here is that he established credibility by the way he framed his question – he did not have to show proof of his knowledge, and no one was led to doubt what he said. He simply assumed control of the conversation by positioning himself with a question that would poise him as an authority. The point is that by asking the right questions, you may imply authority on a matter without having to “sell” someone on it. Your position may be established by the questions that you ask. Once you have established credibility … then you might gain your clients trust. Attempting to sell what you have without first gaining their trust … will usually fail.

But credibility and trust alone are not enough to keep people interested in what you have to say. Curiosity keeps people interested in what you have to say … and to keep them “listening to your questions”, (a subtle hint?) you have to find something that “they are interested in.” An old but still effective acronym in consultative sales is: WIIFM, which means, What’s In It For Me? To let the potential client know what “they are getting” from what you have to offer. Here is a news flash which may shock some egomaniac salesmen (and women). Your potential clients don’t care about you or your product, if it doesn’t satisfy a need for them. For example, let’s go back to the scene with The Merovingian and see how Hollywood keeps the audience’s curiosity and attention after intellectualizing the viewers in a conversation that parallels a logical labyrinth.

To add an element of curiosity (and excitement) to the conversation, the viewing audience was kept quite amused as The Merovingian went on to describe the climactic scene which transpires from a dessert he sent to a lady across the room … He seduced the lady through a programmatically orgasmic dessert. Watching that lady eat her dessert gave me a sudden urge to speak to my college counselor about modifying my computer science degree to include a specialty in culinary programming. Though I didn’t perform eye tracking analytics on the rest of the audience in the theater with me, I think it’s safe to say that of the males in the theater we can safely estimate that better than half of the guy’s eyes were looking at the lower half of the screen as that lady enjoyed her dessert. Though this is an extreme example, through delivering well structured questions to your readers, you may open up opportunities to uncover needs by making your potential clients curious – And if you’re really good, you might even make them hungry for what you have to offer.

Want some more info on what I can do for ya? Send me a message on my blog or pay me a visit at Florida Search Engine Optimization.

Posted in Guest Posts, SEM, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Tips and Tutorials | 2 Comments »