I know how to make an RSS feed of a blog. How about how to make RSS feeds for your web site? I want one for press, another for newsletters, etc. I looked into a few services, but it’s not quite what I want. Is there a simple way to do this? You never fail to come up with good solutions.

Speaking of RSS I hope Ancestry.com and/or Worldhistory.com has feeds people can sign up for and know when there’s a new database with their relatives in it or new records that pertain (like Cousin Connect does). Forrester research has a report on RSS marketing that’s useful. I also found a list of blog and RSS submission sites (I need to add my comments on each one as they all have a different take and not all are free).

I hope all the geeks out there (and I mean this affectionately) in Utah are going to vote this November. Idealist, philosopher, eccentric, smart, technologically savvy Pete Ashdown is running against Orrin Hatch for a senate seat (link to Wired News article about Pete).

I wanted to write an article for Connect about his defeat (not that I want him to be defeated) and what politicians everywhere can learn from his campaign. We know if we were voting for the most technical of the two, Pete would win hands down. I’d love to see what he could do with those skills in office! He’d blog about his voting, send us email newsletters, you name it. I envision one key element of his term: transparency, something we could use a lot more of with politicians.

Flashback to my college days and meeting Orrin Hatch about Utah wilderness (now that’s scary)- the rudest politician I’ve ever met. I actually wrote a letter to the editor about it and sent it to the Washington Post. I don’t believe it was published, things like rude politicans probably aren’t news in Washington. I should’ve submitted it to the Salt Lake Tribune!

To reach future voters politicans are going to have to learn MySpace, blogs, rss, and more. Pete should be the politican’s consultant. If he weren’t a democrat in Utah, running against an extremely popular republican…let’s just say the chances are slim, but still.

Seriously I’m a big fan. He not only owns Xmission (who gives free wireless to downtown Salt Lake and I wish Orem) he blogs, has a wiki and drives an insane campaign bus. This rail thin politician spoke at the Utah bloggers conference. I was absolutely enthralled. You know me, prone to idol worship at times. I’m still game to write the article, if I can get a publication. I promise it will be a good read.

Last week I heard Brian Collins from Olgivy & Mather in New York City speak at AIGA. It was wasn’t my usual crowd these days. They were a much more style conscious crowd. I love the book Olgivy on Advertising and that’s why I went. It looks like they’re still doing incredible work.

Brian talked about working on the Dove campaign and the newer designed prescription bottles at Target (someone in his class developed them). He also talked about the Hershey store in Times Square. All of these have had tremendous success. People will drive out of their way to get their prescriptions filled at Target just because of the design of the prescription bottles. The Hershey store is an experience with the brands themselves, from the physical building to almost every detail inside it.

The Dove campaign is my favorite because it combines art, giving back, and celebrating all kinds of beautiful women. It has permeated into our society. Women are describing themselves as “Dove women” meaning they are not rail thin and model beautiful. They are real. Beauty is not perfection but authenticity.

I loved talking about branding as storytelling. For example the woman who designed the prescription bottles had a personal experience. I believe her grandma took the wrong medication and died as a result. She set out to deconstruct then rebuild prescriptions so it wouldn’t happen to anyone else’s grandma.

At Tahitian Noni, the story was very compelling and a big part of their  branding. It was a little fantastic but it still had its authentic pieces. The stories both modern and ancient (the use and discovery of noni fruit and Tahitian culture) formed a framework that drove product development, marketing, and company culture.

Brian captured the magic of design, storytelling, and imagination so well (I realized I was a designer – as sure as this desk is made of wood). I’ve been thinking about it since. It got me in the mood for halloween (I worked all day Saturday on my costume, watch for a photo).

He said to look at the patent and historical documents in a company to piece together the past and find authenticity. An authentic, compelling story is the basis of good branding. Recreating and improvising on the theme can bring huge marketing successes. It necessarily involves risk. That is where most companies fail or stagnate. They stay guarded and then stuck in the safety of mediocrity.

I heard Commission Junction speak today at WOMA (Wasatch Online Marketing Association) today. They talked about starting a successful affiliate program.

First, you need to know your margins and the range of payouts you can offer affiliates. Look across affiliate networks to see what your competitors are offering. Know what you can offer. Come up with clear policies on branded terms, keywords, and URLs.

Companies with a range of products (rather than one or just a few)  tend to have more success running an affiliate program.

Once you have many of the logistics down, you’ll need to provide affiliates with ads and content. Here’s a simple list of creatives to supply affiliates:

• banner ads of all sizes and with different images to choose from (most popular sizes include: 468×60, 120×60, 125×125)
• text links (these usually perform the best)
• content links (articles, landing pages, and text for affiliates to put on their web sites to promote you)
• advanced links (such as drop-down menus, search boxes, or other dymanic links)
• advanced tools (datafeeds, product catalogs with deep linking, etc)

I asked if affiliates are succeeding on blogs or other web 2.0 affiliate marketing techniques. I wondered if any merchants are pioneering this space and targeting the web 2.0 affiliates. Affiliate classroom is focusing on blogs but I haven’t looked into it much yet.

I noticed Adam Viener has built some Squidoo affiliate pages (which makes using RSS feeds on a site easy – some merchants imbed your affiliate link in the feeds). I know someone else who’s had some success on Squidoo.

They mentioned bodybuilders who blog about working out and then use closely matched products. I think there’s a shoe blog that does well. Overall though, they thought it’s too new to make a call.

If you know of any bloggers making a living off affiliate marketing on their blogs, or merchants fascilitating this, please let me know (leave a comment).

If there’s anything that makes me want to move it’s this fact: Utah’s wages are 82 percent of the national average. If only we had as many large employers as large families! The requirements of time and resources (like health insurance) to have larger families seem to be higher all the time.

A survey of nearly 2,000 Utah households along with a focus group of 55 Utahns who have filed for bankruptcy found:

• 25 percent were unemployed
• 25 percent held two or more jobs
• 90% earned less than $55,000 since filing for bankruptcy

If you have 5 kids $55K doesn’t go far. I also noticed when I was at Novell (in technical recruiting) how many very qualified college grads didn’t even consider leaving the state. So they settled for making less.

The biggest causes cited for bankruptcy: lost job, business failure, health issues, or divorce. 14% said overspending and/or credit card abuse was the problem.

Utah is #3 nationally in households per filing down from a 3-year streak at #1, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

My newspapers are piling up unread, I seem to read them online more often lately. Maybe I should change my name to webgrl.

If you are a student and you blog (Carolyn?) you should enter to win a blogging scholarship. They’re giving away 4 scholarships of $1000 each to help with tuition and books. The two dates left this year are for October 30 and January 30th. I think. It’s unclear when this started (no years listed).

Scholarship Requirements:

• Your blog must contain unique and interesting information about you and/or things you are passionate about. No spam bloggers please!!!
• U.S. citizen;
• 3.0 GPA;
• Enrolled full-time in post-secondary education; and
• If you win, you must be willing to allow us to list your name and blog on this page. We want to be able to say we knew you before you became a well educated, rich, and famous blogging legend.

Enter at:  www.scholarships-ar-us.org/our-scholarships/blogging.htm 

I’ve been so occupied with projects that I haven’t kept as close tabs on Adwords as possible. However, in the back of my mind I’ve been wondering what’s happening. We got regular leads from Google, then suddenly it tanked. I can’t say much changed on my end. What happened? Today I talked to an industry insider and found out he’s seen the same results. It seems like it happened about a week ago.

I sincerely believe you must diversify. I know from experience and from interviewing others, you can’t count on Google. It’s definately our best bet but it’s also very unpredictable. That said, I’m hoping someone can fill me in on the last change and what I can do to recover some of my successes over the past 3 months. Also, how do you diversify (we’re doing more email marketing) to make sure you have other things to fall back on when Google is unpredictable.

I think (no, I know) I get obsessed with Adwords results. They aren’t as bad as I thought, just a few slow days. There are always aspects of my job that I take very seriously and personally if they don’t go well! I just want to continually improve.

eComXpo – is a free virtual online marketing conference starts this week, Tuesday through Thursday.

Local affiliate superstar Jeremy Palmer is speaking. So is Shawn Collins, the president of Linkshare, and many other great speakers. On Tuesday there’s a presentation by Google about Google Analytics from 4:30-5:30 ET. MarketingSherpa, the Word of Mouth Marketing Assocation (WOMMA) and Yahoo search marketing folks will speak.

I’m planning to attend. I highly recommend going into a conference room at work or you get distracted and miss a lot of it (I know from experience). If you went in person to a conference with this calibur of speakers you would spend thousands. Because it’s free and virtual it’s tempting to take it lightly–don’t. You just don’t have to attend all of the sessions to get your money’s worth.

100% Online, Virtual and Free
More than 7,000 Attendees, 450 Exhibitors and 40 Presenters

** Click Here to Register For Free **
Don’t miss the keynote: Wednesday from 12-1 pm Eastern time (10am MST). Chris Anderson who wrote “The Long Tail” and who is Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine is speaking.

I’ll blog about what I learn.

This Friday October 27, our regular WOMA meeting (Wasastch Online Marketing Association, based in Salt Lake City, Utah) will be hosted by Commission Junction. It’s from noon to 2pm at Westminister College, Forester Hall Room 101.

There are about 10 spots open for a total of 50 people and it includes lunch. If you’re an online marketer interested in affiliate marketing in particular, you should plan to attend. Sign up now because it will fill up. Email: kristin @ jolleymedia.com

I just got a comment from someone (thank you!) suggesting that the reason Craiglist is blocked is because I’m using Google Accelerator. I use it at home to speed my internet connection. I’ll try disabling it tonight and see if I’m back on. I’ll give you an update.

I just have to do a little hero worship…Craig of Craigslist just made a  comment…check it out!