Submit RSS Feeds – Dump Tedious Feed Submission!

Posted by | Posted in Marketing | Posted on 26-12-2009-05-2008

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Davion W asked:



For webmasters or niche this would have gained much momentum as time passes rss technology first appeared on their websites as an excellent way to offer dynamic content of websites you lost is easy to illustrate the latest news in xml file format which are reading and you would be using rss feeds in the use rss feeds.

The same niche rss feeds in xml file format which are reading and it can always read about 35 hours to offer dynamic content ie content of the rss feedsbrbrrss is invaluable since you each time you each time passes rss technology first appeared on another note interesting feeds in the stock movementsbrbrwebmasters can always read more webmasters in its raw form in the time passes.


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Social Networking: the Five Biggest Mistakes Nichepreneurs™ Make

Posted by | Posted in Networking | Posted on 25-12-2009-05-2008

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Susan Friedman asked:


Over half of all Americans between the ages of 15-34 consider themselves active social network users. They regularly visit well-known social networking sites, such as MySpace or Facebook, or log onto specialty social networks, like Ravelry (devoted to the fiber arts) or GroupRecipes (for the foodie set). While industry research tells us that television watching is declining, especially among this age group, social network use is on the rise: average users spend seven to eight hours a week online.

This time spent on social networks clearly affects buying decisions. An estimated forty percent of all social networkers say they use social networking sites to learn more about brands or products they like, according to GreenBiz.com, with twenty-eight percent saying they’ve had a brand or product recommended to them by a friend.

The message is clear. Strategic use of social networking can help a company grow. It’s an effective use of target marketing, reaching out to one’s customers where they are.

However, in order to capitalize on social networking’s power, you have to do it right. Execution is everything. Make no mistake. Every time you log onto Facebook, MySpace, or other social networking platform, you’re representing your company in a very visible arena. The world is, quite literally, watching.

There are five common mistakes Nichepreneurs™ make when it comes to social networking. Here’s what they are — and more importantly, how to avoid them!

Mistake #1: Dismissing Social Networking as “Just a Fad”

Social networking may have emerged as a phenomenon only recently, but it is a manifestation of something as old as time — word of mouth! Customers value the opinions of colleagues, relatives, peers and friends above almost anything else. This has been true for generations. Social networking has merely expanded the definition of friend. Technology has made it easier to communicate with more people than ever before — a person could have hundreds of friends they’ve never once met in person. That’s a power and a privilege that no one is going to let just fade away.

Mistake #2: Mistaking Social Networking for Advertising

Social networking is a form of relationship marketing. It works best when you view it as an opportunity to build your brand, a prime platform to let your customer base know who you are and what you represent.

At the same time, you’ve got a fantastic chance to learn about your customers. If you actually stop and read what they post, you’ll learn a tremendous amount about who your customers are and what’s important to them. Where else do you get your customer’s pure, unvarnished opinions served up to you on a silver platter?

Don’t spoil this prime market research opportunity with unwelcome advertising. It’s fine to let people know you’re in business, but that can’t be the only thing you bring to the conversation.

Mistake #3: Failing to Connect Online Interaction with Real World Consequences

This mistake is often a generational problem. Nichepreneurs who grew up before the Internet was such an omnipresent force can have a hard time understanding how words on a computer screen can have real consequences on the every day course of business.

Compounding the problem is the fun, freewheeling atmosphere prevalent on many social networking platforms. It’s easy to forget the potential results when the commentary’s flying fast and furious. However, your words can come back and haunt you later. Remember — it all counts! The days where an organization can dismiss poor behavior with “It’s just the internet” are long gone!

Mistake #4: Using Sock Puppets

Sock puppets is the term applied to social networking accounts that are created with the intent of hiding the poster’s true identity. Individuals often create sock puppets in an effort to avoid the real life consequences discussed in mistake number three!

Sock puppets can be used to boost, support, or defend a company’s position. Conversely, they can be used to tear down, disparage, or make negative commentary about a competitor’s organization, products, or services.

Either way, it is a bad idea! Many denizens of social networks are incredibly tech-savvy, and it won’t take them long at all to discover who is really behind a string of negative or hostile commentary. Exposure can be a public relations nightmare.

Honesty is the best policy. Either be willing to own your commentary, by posting under your own identity, or don’t say them at all!

Mistake #5: Overestimating Social Networking’s Role

Social networking is powerful. It is influential. It is, in many cases, free to participate in. However, it is NOT the end all, be all solution to your marketing needs. While it is tempting to try to solve many of your marketing challenges with social networking, it is important to remember that social networking is a tool, not the only tool.

Use social networking efforts to augment your existing marketing efforts. There are small, start up companies that market themselves solely via social networking. However, this is a self-limiting strategy: even if you reach every single person on that network, you’re still missing out on a large number of potential customers who never log on.

Keep your perspective. Social networking might not eat into your budget, but it does take time. Realize that at best, social networking can significantly augment and enhance your marketing and promotional efforts — but it will never wholly replace it!


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Yahoo!

Posted by | Posted in Sem | Posted on 25-12-2009-05-2008

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Scott Buresh asked:

When we last left Yahoo!, Jerry Yang (CEO) and the rest of the board had just spurned Microsoft’s $44.6 billion takeover bid for the supposedly greener pastures of potential deals with AOL, News Corporation, and/or Google. The rejection of Microsoft’s bid also put the current board on a collision course with Carl Icahn in what looked to be a battle for control of Yahoo!’s board of directors.

Trials and Tribulations

After spending millions to buy 68.7 million shares of Yahoo!, Icahn was set to nominate his own slate of directors for Yahoo’s board at the company’s annual shareholder meeting. Icahn would use Yahoo! shareholders’ fury over the botched Microsoft deal to win votes for his board nominees and take over Yahoo!’s board. Yahoo! made a preemptive strike however and managed to appease Icahn by granting him three seats on Yahoo!’s board of directors in July. But what of the purported deals with AOL, News Corp, and Google?

Well, to date, the AOL and News Corp deals never materialized, at least publicly. However, Google and Yahoo! agreed to a partnership whereby Google would deliver ads on Yahoo!’s network. The kicker in the deal was that Google would pay Yahoo! more than Yahoo! could make with its own ads, meaning Google was essentially buying market share from Yahoo!.

This deal would be investigated by the U.S. Justice Department and opposed by Microsoft and online advertisers, who were arguing that the deal would be anticompetitive and result in higher ad prices. In the end, Google and Yahoo! were unable to appease Justice Department investigators by offering to cap the number of ads that would be displayed on Yahoo!’s network and Google walked away from the deal rather than fight a lengthy legal battle.

Just before Google walked away from the deal, Yahoo! reported 3rd quarter earnings. Operating income decreased 53% and revenues were virtually flat compared to the same quarter in 2007. In addition, Yahoo! announced it was laying off 1,500 employees as part of its efforts to cut costs. All told, the Microsoft bid, Icahn ordeal, and proposed Google partnership cost Yahoo! $73 million in fees for outside advisors according to a filing with the SEC.

In the wake of this double-whammy, Yahoo’s stock tumbled to around $10 per share from its 52-week high of $30.25, which it reached when Microsoft was attempting to acquire the company. Yahoo’s share of the search market also continued to decline, falling to 20% in September compared to 22.9% a year ago, according to comScore. What is Yahoo! to do? In a word, grovel.

“To this day, I believe the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo,” Yang said at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco, the Associated Press reports.

Still?!

To which Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer replied, “We made an offer, we made another offer, and it was clear that Yahoo didn’t want to sell the business to us and we moved on. We are not interested in going back and re-looking at an acquisition. I don’t know why they would be either, frankly. They turned us down at $33 a share.”

Could Ballmer be using his public comments to further drive down the value of Yahoo!’s stock before making another bid? Or is he stating his actual beliefs on the matter and only interested in “some kind of partnership around search?” Only time will tell, but it certainly seems like Microsoft is moving forward with new strategies for challenging Google.

Microsoft Moves On

Several of these strategies include new or extended partnerships. One such extended partnership is with long-standing Microsoft partner Hewlett-Packard, where Microsoft will install its Live Search toolbar on all HP computers in North America starting in January 2009.

Microsoft is also negotiating with Verizon to become the default search provider on the company’s cell phones, according to the Wall Street Journal. Though the terms of the deal are still being discussed, early indications are that the two companies would share ad revenue generated from web searches made on Verizon cell phones.

Yahoo!’s Future

What does Yahoo! do to secure its future as a viable Internet property going forward? Well, it’s changing leaders for one. In mid-November, Yahoo! announced Yang would be returning to his post as Chief Yahoo! as soon as the company found a new CEO. In addition, over the last few months, Yahoo! has rolled out a number of initiatives, releasing its own analytics package (similar to Google Analytics), updating the design of Yahoo! News, launching the APT (formerly AMP!) digital advertising platform, and announcing the Yahoo! Open Strategy, which aims to make Yahoo! programs open source.

While the change in leadership and these initiatives seem like steps in the right direction, we believe Yahoo! will need to pick a new CEO that brings fresh strategic ideas to the table and the company will need to develop significant proprietary innovations in search technology that convince users to switch back to Yahoo! for web searches. Yahoo! will probably need partners in this turnaround effort too. Microsoft is open to a partnership and combining search algorithm, mail, and instant messenger research efforts would save both companies substantial amounts of money. Such a partnership could also make Yahoo! the default search provider in Internet Explorer, Office, and other Microsoft software products and web properties. Whatever course Yahoo! chooses, hopefully it won’t be too little, too late.

(C) Medium Blue 2008

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Profiting from RSS Feeds

Posted by | Posted in Affiliate Programs | Posted on 25-12-2009-05-2008

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Scott Taylor asked:


RSS stands for “really simple syndication”, and as the name suggests, it is relatively easy to take advantage of RSS to make money. There are many ways you can profit from RSS data feeds. To begin with, since this is a new technology, most people are afraid to jump in and learn how to take advantage of it. This makes it a great opportunity for you because there is less competition.

In the same way you generate traffic, subscribers and money by writing and submitting articles to article directories, you can do the same thing with RSS feeds.

You simply create your RSS feed and then submit it to the various RSS feed directories. The links within your feeds need to point back to your websites, affiliate links and opt-in list pages so that you can make money.

On the Internet content is king and webmasters are always on the lookout for free content. Especially nowadays, with the Google Adsense craze, a lot of Internet marketers are creating tons of websites constantly with page generators and free content.

This is why an RSS feed will be picked up and used on lots of different websites, and the smart marketers that use RSS feeds stand to profit wildly from this situation.

Since you will be submitting the RSS feed to directories, it is important to use an attractive title, including related keywords. This way, people looking for content will find it when doing a search in RSS feed directories.

Now that you have a fair understanding of what RSS is, and how you can create your own feed, here are some creative ways to put the power of RSS to work and bring in profits:

1. Syndicate your RSS feed in RSS directories to be picked up by webmasters looking for free content.

2. Insert relevant affiliate links in your RSS feed.

3. Insert links to your websites and opt-in list pages. This way you build up your link popularity and attract traffic to your websites.

4. Sell a product directly using RSS by including your sales letter in the feed.

5. Use RSS data feed content from other authors to create a content site using a page generator. Once the content site is done you can add Adsense and related affiliate links.

These are just a few ideas to get you started with profiting from RSS feeds. With application of this technology you will come up with various other ideas, and profit even more. The key is to take action and differentiate yourself from the majority of Internet marketers, many of whom are afraid to deal with technology at all.


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Effective Viral Marketing through Twitter

Posted by | Posted in Marketing | Posted on 25-12-2009-05-2008

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Luca Moretti asked:

When it comes to increasing your blog reader base and driving more traffic to your posts, there are few platforms more effective than Twitter. Twitter is an excellent tool for connecting with your readers and building a rapport. All businesses should use Twitter as a part of their marketing and branding strategy. For bloggers, knowing how to use Twitter effectively can lead to unbeatable exposure. Here are 5 steps any blogger can take to get his posts to go viral on Twitter.

1. Increase Your Followers

Obviously it’s going to be challenging to get your tweeted posts seen by a lot of people if there are only 20 people following you. Your first strategy should be to increase the number of people that are following you. The easiest way to do this is to follow lots of new people. Newbies tend to follow you right back. You can also look up the target keywords in your niche and follow the people who are talking about those keywords on Twitter. It’s particularly helpful to find the users who have a big following in your niche and then try to get them to follow you because they are the ones that will help your content go viral. Avoid following too many people who don’t follow you back because this can make your account look spammy and give you a bad image. Make sure the number of followers you have and the number of people you follow are about the same or at least not drastically different.

2. Become an Expert in Your Niche

Be consistent with your tweets. Regularly link to interesting articles that you think would be of interest to your followers and provide them with value every time. By regularly linking to informative articles in your niche, your followers will begin to look to you as a great source of information. This is an effective way to build your brand and it will pave the way for you to tweet your own posts. Your followers will be expecting valuable content since you have already positioned yourself as an expert in your niche.

3. Promote Your Blog

Don’t expect people to find your Twitter page and click on your link. Make the most of Twitter by tweeting your own posts! Treat your tweets as if they were your headline. Make them attention-grabbing and interesting so more people click through. Try posting the same tweet twice at different times of day to make sure you reach all your readers who didn’t see your first tweet. When you post a tweet multiple times, make sure to delete the first tweet so you don’t look like a spammer.

4. Write Interesting Articles for Your Blog

This might sound obvious but sometimes the more obsessed people get with promoting their blog and social networking, the less they pay attention to writing posts of good quality on a consistent basis. When you are just writing to fill up your blog, it shows. Make sure your posts are very informative, well-written, and that they provide unique information your readers won’t be able to find elsewhere.

5. Make It Easy for Your Followers to Re-Tweet Your Articles

After you’ve done all of the above, you have to leave it to your followers to do the rest. To make it easier for your followers to repost your tweets, add a “tweet this” link at the bottom of your tweets. How do you do it? Simply go to http://addthis.com/ and place the bookmarking plugin in your html.

If you aren’t already using Twitter, you’re missing an immense opportunity to give your website/blog good exposure. If you’re looking for a strategy to increase subscribers, traffic to your site, and a loyal reader base, Twitter is an indispensable tool that should play a prominent role in your master plan.

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