Have you ever heard or even thought about these statements before?

StumbleUpon.com just doesn’t get me any traffic.

StumbleUpon.com is a waste of time.

I don’t have time to use sites like StumbleUpon.com.

What’s StumbleUpon.com?

Do you have any idea what StumbleUpon.com can do for your online business?

Have you ever heard of “Social Media Marketing”?

I know for many of you these questions may be a bit rhetorical, but you’d be surprised at how many big businesses have NO IDEA what I’m talking about right now.

I’ve been a “Member since Aug 06, 2007“ and StumbleUpon.com (SU) has treated me really well. If an online business isn’t using tools like StumbleUpon.com, now is the time to “get off the bench!”

5 Ways Every Business Should Use StumbleUpon.com

1. SOCIALIZE: Make friends with SU users who aren’t new to the SU scene. One of the reasons this will help you get your “foot in the social media door” is because, chances are, these users have lots of subscribers, lots of connections, and can really help you “push content virally”.

   Going Viral is one of the overall goals I see with social media, to get your name out there in as many valid places as possible. Find stumblers who are already discovering articles, websites, and pages related to what you are all about. Don’t just add all the top stumblers – see what they have in their favorites, compare it to what you plan to favorite, and make sure it’s a fairly reasonable “good fit”.

2. Build Business Relationships: How? – stumble blog posts other SU users create, discover their stuff. Send them message via the SU email letting them know you appreciate what they share.

   Just beware: If I got a ton of friend requests and messages from newbies, I’d probably just ignore them until they got their feet wet a bit. StumbleUpon has a function which makes it even easier to see how close you “match up” with other Stumblers:
   

3. Be an Active Member: This is what SU and all the other “social networks” are all about – activity! Once you add friends with common interests, don’t be afraid to chat with them, send them a message via the SU message box, ask them to Thumb Up and review something, etc.People will say no, you’ll be ignored, and once in a great while one of them will actually do something to help you. This will probably happen more than you expect if you’re persistent and personalize your message.
4. Do Unto Others: Don’t just book mark your own stuff! I know, to most of you this is a “no-brainer” but come on – if you just add your own stuff you will be tagged as a first class SPAMMER! Besides that, the “important” SUers will ignore everything you do and you may get banned from SU.

   To avoid this beginners mistake, find stuff you like that’s related to your website and add it to your favorites: become a part of your industries community! If you don’t know where to look, go to the SU search bar in the top right corner of the SU screen and type in one of the keywords that relates to your industry.Don’t be too specific in your keyword search, and you’ll find other sites that will actually provide you with great stuff you can write about for your own blog.

5. Plan to Succeed! “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!” Yep, that’s right, if you don’t have a social media marketing plan of attack, you’ll waste a lot of time and, just as the complaints at the top of this post say, SU (or any other social media site) won’t do anything for you.

If, after you implement this advice, you are still echoing the same sentiments found at the top of this post, you probably haven’t put each step in to practice fully Happy Stumbling!

The Power of Stumbleupon Links

One of the articles I wrote awhile back was about why to-do lists are essential to entrepreneur success. Because of StumbleUpon, this article CONTINUES to get views and links (written in May of 09).

Entrepreneur Success

How do YOU plan to use StumbleUpon.com in your online marketing strategy?

This is a guest post by Nate Moller. Nate has consulted with thousands of clients from all over the world, helping them build and effectively market their online businesses. He specializes in social media consulting and search engine optimization. Follow him on Twitter (@mollermarketing). Contact him today for a free consultation.

Article Marketing Expert Eric Gruber has agreed to write about a topic that I’m interested in – which is how to become an expert through posting articles online. Not just to article sites but to authority web sites (sites that have high value in Google). It’s all part of online PR.

How to Become THE Expert Fast with Article Marketing

A thought leader is essentially a trusted resource. And, in an information economy, a trusted resource is extremely valuable. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in – whether you have a Fortune 1000 company or a bakery in a small town – thought leadership will propel your business in ways that you could never imagine. For example, here are three benefits of becoming a “thought leader”…

Why You Want to Become a Thought Leader

1. Prospects will prefer you. The more expensive the products and services, the more prospects will want to seek out recognized leaders. They want to know that the provider is well established and can demonstrate expertise. They want someone who can provide reliable answers and someone who will continue to solve problems and provide cutting-edge information long after the purchase.
2. You will be recognized as a central source of information. When customers, prospects and the media need to know something that involves an industry, they’ll think first of the company or expert they perceive to be the thought leader. People invite thought leaders to speak at high-profile functions, present at trade shows, get interviewed and write articles, opinion pieces and books.
3. Dominate the search engines: Incoming links are one of the key ways to increase search engine optimization. Thought leaders who take advantage of online opportunities such as article marketing will develop a following, increase their company’s online visibility and at the same time improve their SEO.

If you write and submit articles the right way – you can become a thought leader fast.

So, how can you become a thought leader fast?

Top 7 Tips to Help You Become a Thought Leader Just By Writing and Submitting Articles Online

1. Write articles on a consistent basis. To be a thought leader – you need to consistently articulate and convey insightful information that listeners and readers value. This means, you should be writing articles – if not on a daily basis – then a weekly basis. These articles should be used for article submission. They should be on your blog. They should put into an auto-responder series. And, they should be turned into products.

2. Give away your best tips and advice. Truly insightful information is a rare commodity. So, if you reveal some of your best secrets that no one else is sharing, you will automatically become a “thought leader.” Plus, if the information you’re sharing is hot, prospects will think, “Wow! If he’s giving away this information for free – I wonder what I will learn if I get his products or consulting services!” They’ll be drooling to get onto your list, learn more about you and your offerings – and most importantly – buy from you. So, if you want to be a thought leader is then you have to be eager to give information away.

3. Be motivated by generosity, not self-interest. People are more likely to follow altruists – and they instinctively know the difference. Don’t ruin your article marketing efforts by writing an amazing article – and then try to sell them in the bio box. Earn your prospect’s respect first by telling them how you can help them – and then invite them to get a free special report or other call-to-action that reinforces the fact that you are a thought leader. Then focus on selling them.

4. Be different. If you are writing the same thing as everyone else, just using different words – how does this make you the expert? It doesn’t! Build a foundation of expertise. Quantify you experience. Record what you currently know about your industry that others in your industry may not know. Imagine that you’re a mentor writing a long letter to a protégé. Focus on uncommon expertise and wisdom.

5. Use proven article templates that will help you write articles and content that prove you are a “thought leader.” For example, a case study article template will help you write an article that shows prospect that you are the expert – and that have you gotten desired results. An example is my article, “How to Promote Your Book to the Top of the New York Times Best Sellers List”.

6. Submit your articles to the top websites, ezines and blogs! Most people focus their article marketing efforts on sites like EzineArticles.com. Submitting your articles to article directories like EzineArticles.com is good for building links and improving your search engine optimization. But it sucks at helping you become a “thought leader!” Anyone can get published on article directories (including kids) as long as you follow their editorial guidelines. This doesn’t make you stand out at the expert, does it? Get your articles published on top, credible websites. For example, my articles can be found on sites like About.com, SiteProNews.com, MarketingProfs.com and hundreds more.

7. Turn your articles into videos and submit them to the top video sites like YouTube and Viddler. As a thought leader, you want to get your message out to as many people as possible in as many formats as possible.

If you follow my advice, you will become a thought leader and make more money online. To get started, check out my free article writing templates at http://www.TryMyFreeArticleTemplates.com. These templates will help you consistently write articles fast so you can become a thought leader in your industry.

Article Writing Resources (note: these are affiliate links)

3 Free Article Templates
Instant Article Writing Templates Product
A to Z Article Marketing System
Online Article Marketing Course
Article Submission Site Database

About Eric Gruber:
Article Marketing Expert Eric Gruber uses the power of articles to create online opportunities for Internet marketers, small business owners and entrepreneurs who want to experience the benefits of becoming a thought leader in their prospects’ eyes. Now, you can get 3 of his favorite his instant article writing templates that will help you write thought leader type articles in 30 minutes or less. Get it now: http://www.TryMyFreeArticleTemplates.com

Kevin Davis hosted a Meetup about product launches – based on the classic on the topic Product Launch Formula by Jeff Walker (which is opening up again). His product is a book called Cash in a Flash: Fast Money in Slow Times by Robert G. Allen and Mark Victor Hansen.

The book is just a book but he had a giant launch around it and a continuity program (in marketing speak, a way to make income every month by offering more products on the backend). What I’m saying is that is where the money is made, not on the book itself.

Even though I got back late, I really couldn’t sleep after this because the ideas in my head or just thinking about the applications of what I’d learned. I must say this is not my style of marketing but several ideas were helpful and can be applied to any online businesses. It’s effective though – they are doing very well.

Here are key takeaways (being careful not to reveal information that Kevin wouldn’t want out – he was incredibly generous and I think a genius).

• Find JV (joint venture) partners. These are people who have email lists. The size of the list isn’t necessarily correlated with the response. It’s more the engagement and the fit of the offer with the list owner. How to find? events, calling people, emailing. Send free review copies. [I wish Quantcast or somewhere told you if they had a mailing list and approx. size]
• Create videos, previews and have partners do the same to build up awareness. For example, they had free weekly calls and gave people exercises to do to apply what they learned. Then use the answers in the next call. Use information in videos, audio, webinars and transcribe into blog posts – could even use as a product.
• Consider giving a discount for holidays – there are always holidays. This is good to motivate affiliates and give you something to hype (and send out press releases about).
• Project management and communication along with all of the content and web sites you need to create are significant barriers. Just the help desk requirements answering emails and handling refunds, etc. if formidable. I suggest outsourcing your help desk (CD Baby used these guys). This is the part that was overwhelming to me. Someone to manage and recruit JVs, someone for affiliates, someone to design, write, manage the forum, edit video, promote on social sites (that could be $3,000 plus by itself), etc.
• Run contests to keep interest high among JVs.
• Use Google Analytics to track results, Crazy Egg to track where clicks are (what’s working).
• Shipping anything overseas is expensive, consider making the products digital only.

Other tools:

BooksAMillion – ship books, just give them a spreadsheet of the orders
oDesk or Guru.com to find someone to write copy
Disc.com – duplication & replication of USB Flash drives, videotape and diskettes
Kunaki prepares and ships DVDs

OSFLV – open source video player, Wishlist WordPress plugin for forums, Hannah player to embed into post, shopping cart. Pelotonics to manage, Evernote to keep track of notes (integrates with Google Docs now), OS Ticket for help desk tickets.

Pretty intense. I’d hire Kevin. Of course I’m not sure how in this world he even manages what he’s already doing.

Problogger‘s blog had a post about how to get your new blog indexed. I’m going to summarize it for you and me. These are taken from the post and comments. Create a “to do” list or hire someone to add your blog to these sites, preferably with keywords that identify what your blog is about.

• Get a link from an established blog. You could email and ask a related blog or hit up your blogging friends.
• Tell Google (I haven’t tested this, some say you shouldn’t have to or that this penalizes you. My guess is that it’s a good thing but you should test it).
• Add your site to webmaster tools like Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer
• Create a lens about your blog on Squidoo.
• Create an account at these blog communities: MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, Blogged and NetworkedBlogs and note that you get your own URL for the page you create. Also, for sure get listed on blog search engine Technorati.
• Register with sites that give the “value” of your blog:  WebsiteOutlook, StatBrain, CubeStat, WebTrafficAgents, BuiltWith, WhoIs, QuarkBase, URLfan and AboutTheDomain
• Create a profile for your blog on social sites like Twitter, Delicious, StumbleUpon, on Facebook, etc. There are huge lists of social networking sites where you can create a profile and usually get a unique URL.
• Keep track of all of your URLs and link to them on your Google Profile page. I need to update mine.
• Sign up for ChangeDetection that logs when your site changes (and essentially creates new content about your site). Sites like pingler ping search engines when you change your blog.
• Add your blog to LinkedIn and make sure to change the wording of the link from “My Blog” to a keyword phrase like “Press Release blog“

Here’s a question that I get asked a lot – how much time should I spend on _______ (insert Twitter, Facebook, social bookmarking, blogging, etc). You can easily get overwhelmed by the mirad of tasks and changes required to keep up with social networking and marketing online.

I’ve always struggled with that question. Why? Because the answer depends on you, your stats and your working style. I’m a person who works in spurts. I have inspiration and I try to drop everything and go. If not I forget what I was going to do or I lose the passion of my ideas that drives me.

You on the other hand may be a very organized person who organizes your day and likes routine.

Either way my answer is to do what you like doing the most first and establish a pattern. If you love writing, blog. If you like it quick and easy, tweet. If you have a loyal following of fans, start a Facebook Page. If you have video start a YouTube channel or group. If you have pictures, start with Flickr. If you have a lot of content that needs more traffic,  start with social bookmarking.

Spend time every day learning, building and testing marketing on the site. Give it a month and look at your stats. Yes, you need to have Google analytics installed. Do this now. Hire it done. It’s free it’s so valuable that you shouldn’t be online without having it. If you have a WordPress blog the easiest is using the plugin Ultimate Google Analytics. You sign up, get a certain number, enter it in the settings (GA Settings) and save it. It does the rest. You can now see how people find your blog – from search engines, other web sites and keywords.

Ask yourself, what is working? How do you know what is working? I look at the top web sites and keywords that bring people to my blog. Then I see how much time each source averages per visit. The ones that are working will not only find your content but stay on your site (a sign they like what they see and want to learn more).

Then try another social networking or marketing activity. If it’s press releases, give it 6-8 months of regularly sending out news before you give up. Most marketing is going to take that long to start seeing results. If you want something faster, paid ads (PPC) is best but what a learning curve!

Next I’ll go over ways to guage your time and align it with what is working best for your business. Then you’ll be able to answer (not guess or listen to an “expert” tell you) how long to spend on social media marketing.

It’s Christmas time and people are in the mood to give gifts and tips. Money is likely tight this year. Why not ask them to leave a review of your business online instead? Rather than a 1-time thing, this can create leads for your business for years to come!

This applies to the place you get your hair cut (be sure to leave your favorite stylist’s name), where you take your car in to be repaired, and many other local businesses you patronize.

This works even if the business doesn’t have a web site. You can help them get at the top of the list when someone goes to Google searching for a business like theirs. Research shows that people are using search engines sooner and more often than they use the Yellow Pages to find a local business.

First, their local business should be on Google Local. Google Local lists small businesses and is connected with Google Maps. My friend Matt says: “This almost guarantees a first page ranking for your most targeted local keyword.” That means a keyword with a location attached such as “Palaski, New York auto repair shop”.

If you add your business to Google Local it will show up in the list of results for auto repair shops that are close to Palaski New York. It will list your address and phone number and show reviews. You can click, “add review” next to the reviews, and leave your review of the business.

Google Local pulls reviews from other sites. Consider offering an incentive such as $5 off for anyone who completes a review for your business and emails you the link. You can email customers, thanking them for their business and asking them to leave a review. You can also leave reviews on some of the sites I’ve listed below.

Places to leave reviews (these are sites that Google Local pulls reviews from)
TripAdvisor.com
Judysbook.com
InsiderPages.com
Citysearch.com
Virtual Tourist.com
http://wcities.com
Outside.in
Fodors.com
Zagat.com
Goyot.com
Fommers.com

“You have to stop thinking like a marketer, an advertiser and a communicator and start thinking like a publisher. Create information your consumers want, and they will share it…”
- David Meerman Scott

Lee Odden’s blog has a great summary of a presentation by David Meerman Scott’s on PR and marketing.

I love this rule: “Nobody cares about your products (except you).” And I’ll add, get over it.

He also said to stop using your own corporate speak and use the language your customers are using. To find out what words they are using, look at customer reviews for your products or products that reach your audience. There is a lot of information online. I like using it to write my product descriptions. Amazon reviews is a great start.

David shared the top ten overused words from a recent study:

* Next generation
* Robust
* Flexible
* World class
* Easy to use
* Scalable
* Cutting edge
* Well positioned
* Market leading
* Mission critical

Stop the fluff. Get to the point quickly. And give us a reason to care. That’s good marketing – and good writing.

“Voices of Search” blog compiled a list of the most popular search engine marketing blogs. The good news is Newspapergirl made the list.  The bad news is I didn’t break the top 200! I guess it might help if I were actually blogging regularly. Marketing Pilgrim, who I write for (which is not a lot lately) came in at #30.

At some point I went from learning and reading about Internet marketing to doing it. Much of it doesn’t seem new or exciting but I still love it. To write well you must read well and lately my reading has been confined to the newspaper and books that have nothing to do with my work.

I’m glad to have made the list with many people I look up to and respect. Now if I could get my blog updated and redesigned and make it a point to post more often!

Until now you could only get relative numbers of searches from Google’s keyword selector tool. It was somewhat useful, but it’s much better now because you can get actual numbers of searches.

For example, Google reports that on average 100 people type the words, “learn affiliate marketing” into the search box.  This is for the exact phrase, not a combination of the words or the words in any order. You can look at the various match types to see what the volume is for each.  The numbers are rounded up.
The average search volume for the term “newspapergrl” – a highly competitive term is 28. At least their is search volume though! Try it out – type in words that relate to your business and get an idea of how many people are searching for various terms. Then look at the competition (here’s one way – by typing allintitle:”keyword phrase” into Google and noting the number of results).  Another way to look at competition is to use a free tool (this is the SEO tool I use that is an extension of Firefox) that tells you how many links to the site there are, how long the site has been around, etc.

If you want to dig further, SEO Book’s Aaron Wall has a great article on keyword research and SEO.

I get an email from HR that says “free pizza in the break room.” The second I read it I call out, “Free pizza – RUN!” I’m hungry so I sprint. Then the entire SEO team starts running behind me. I’m laughing as I run. I have flashbacks to the movie Run Lola Run. We arrive and it’s already a madhouse but we beat most of the crowd there.

At OrangeSoda we’re still hungry. I find that makes for the most creative juice. It fuels a startup. It might explain why people are leaving Google (cashed in on stock options) to go to Facebook (possibility of lucrative stock options). That hungry stage usually fades to complacency and order.

Interesting enough in my personal life I’m going from famine to feast and I have mixed emotions about it. It’s welcomed but I want to keep that hungriness too. Except I don’t like worrying about eating (irrational though it may be). I noticed my fridge is a lot less full these days because when I’m scared about money I stock up. Now I’m clearing out to make and keep space.
5 mins after the email I hear there are 2 slices left…and speaking of still hungry….