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By Mihaela Lica in Featured

Social media is already an obsolete term – on the web you are either social or dust. No one pays attention to the “me, me, me” tune. The “you, you, you” is losing ground too. What matters today is “us” and how we “share data”, communicate and interact.

The first steps towards a more social Web were made by bookmarking services like reddit, digg, and http://del.icio.us and by social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and others. The problem with so many bookmarking and networking sites is that the users lose track of their data sooner or later. Today more and more people are looking for solutions for the storm clouds of data and services cluttering their minds.

Social aggregators and social media aggregation services have been designed to organize this chaos. They’ll pull content from different bookmarking and networking sites and organize this data into a single location, creating a “meta profile” page for each user.

Because the systems are somewhat complex, the users are often unable to understand what social aggregators are all about. Some use them as “traffic boosters” believing that being part of such a community and submitting content will somehow boost the Alexa traffic ranks. Other users exploit the linking functionality of the social aggregators believing that the strategy will benefit their search engine positioning or even boost the Google PageRanks of their sites. While these advantages are obviously there, social aggregation has a more in-depth meaning and functionality, but there’s still a long way to go for an aggregation service to truly become a complete platform.

The biggest problem with some of the social sites is that they too are full of “stuff”. Facebook is not an aggregator, as there is no real way to store data – only integrate or communicate with services.

Social aggregation sites like FriendFeed and Profilactic offer still more Twitter like utility that allows us to share our “stuff” with other people, but the stuff we share is not really data so much as snippets of a lifestream. Here we sit, stuffed with meaningless pieces of stuff in most cases, and wondering what or where to put our upcoming stuff.

There is perhaps only one true social aggregation library out there: Secondbrain (http://secondbrain.com/ – currently running in beta 2.0). This service has both lifestreaming and content management tools. The social networking aspect is still incomplete, but as the service develops further we can expect more improvement every day.

What many web users still need to understand is that social aggregation is not just a “trend” but a logical step towards Web 3.0. This is the time to join such services and start building authority within the community. Authority will eventually lead to a broader reach and higher social media equity. As to how to build authority… well, that’s another story, but for now just remember: join a social aggregator (my recommendation is Secondbrain, which even has a contest where you could win a MacBook Air), connect with other users and start contributing with quality content.

About the Author: Mihaela Lica, public relations and SEO expert, is the managing partner at Pamil Visions PR. She writes for several popular blogs and represents a number of Silicon Valley and other international startup companies. You can read Mihaela’s personal blog.

By Ryan Deutsch in Featured

IS IT JUST ME — or is it time again to pull out the time management videos, newfangled task management systems and motivational tapes that have been gathering dust in the center console of our automobiles?  Every Jan. 1, I get the urge to “refocus and realign” my personal and professional goals.  I think the self-inspection is healthy and helps set the tone for a productive start to the New Year.

Not surprisingly, some of my reflections applied to email marketing, so I’m presenting them here to help you get your programs on the right track in 2009.

1.    Lower the cholesterol. Apparently, our blood carries good and bad cholesterol.  I continually struggle with the bad one because I LOVE the stuff that introduces it into my system — mainly red meats, fatty salad dressings and alcohol.  So, this year I am going to lay off those things.

As an email marketer, the lifeblood of your programs is your list, and I know many of you have some really bad cholesterol in there.  I am not talking about the obvious stuff like hard-bounced email addresses — I am speaking of those members of your list who simply do not offer any value and may eventually harm you.  These are the recipients who have not opened an email in three months and have not clicked on a campaign since this time last year.

You know how they got there — an email append program here, an affiliate marketing program there, an import from the sales force automation tool.  Just like the blue cheese dressing, these list growth tactics are hard to avoid and can negatively affect the health of your email house file.  Here’s the good news: many companies I have worked with have instituted a “treatment program” for their email lists.  They review activity metrics and segment inactive recipients from their active file.  They mail this inactive list on a different IP address (limiting the likelihood that this less-engaged audience will negatively impact email delivery) and they craft different messages for the inactive file (increasing the chance of reengagement).

So, while I work on lowering my cholesterol by cutting back on the things I love to eat, you can maintain the health of your file and continue to “eat” whatever you want.  Sounds like a commercial featuring Dan Marino that I saw this past weekend!

2.    Try new things — move away from the hum-drum! Another New Year’s observation: it seems my wife and I enjoy our routine a little too much!  Dinner with the kids Friday night, sushi and a movie Saturday night, kids’ hockey game and football Sunday… wash, rinse repeat. Not this year!  I am introducing new things into the routine, and you should be doing the same thing with your email marketing programs.

JupiterResearch has reported that marketers who integrate email communications with the print channel should expect nearly 3X improvement in program performance.  If integrated print can have that impact, let’s consider for a moment the possible impact of leveraging new digital channels that are becoming more accessible and useful for both marketers and consumers.

On a panel at MediaPost’s Email Insider Summit in December, Chip House of Exact Target explained that mobile is becoming an excellent way to move an off-line conversation online.  The concept is simple — allow consumers to text an email address to a short code found in a magazine, on a billboard or on TV.  As consumers become more familiar with SMS and devices make it easier to leverage, the mobile channel becomes a place where we can engage a consumer and begin a digital dialogue.  This is something many marketing organizations have tried over the past couple of years, but I think we are getting to a point where we can seriously leverage mobile as an integrated acquisition channel.

Now, what about social networking?  I know, it’s “all-the-rage,” but in this area as well, we are starting to see opportunities to integrate social networks with email programs that may really enhance the already viral nature of our channel.  Can your recipients immediately post email offers to their Facebook pages?  Can they easily forward the same content to members of their Gmail and Yahoo address books?  Empower this behavior (AND TRACK IT), and you will undoubtedly be thrilled with the results.   So, email is cool and direct mail is reliable, but you owe it to yourself and your company this year to experiment a little with some new channels.

That wraps up my two main goals. What about you? How many do you have for you and your marketing team?  Please share your goals here on the Email Insider Blog, and we promise to help keep you on track!

Ryan Deutsch is senior director of market strategy at StrongMail Systems, a leading provider of commercial-grade solutions for marketing and transactional email.

By Jeffrey Smith in Featured

What can you do to defend yourself against shifts in search engine rankings algorithm? The answer, hedge your websites odds by optimizing multiple semantic clusters of keywords to eliminate dependency on a narrow range of phrases.

In the time it takes you to capture a phrase with 300,000 or more competing pages, you could have funneled traffic from dozens of keywords from the long-tail of search. Capture enough phrases like this, and you create a virtual cornucopia of content worthy of retrieval from search engines through developing domain authority.

By Dan Dimit in Featured

I suggest that website owners use their daily life situations and turn them into some kind of lesson pertaining to whatever they’re an expert in.

When people continue to see, listen to, or read your stories you then become one of their favorite sources of “news”. This is how you can develop a following. You see this on youtube’s happyslip, lonelygirl15, and whatthebuck…there’s hundreds of them!! Anyone can model how they do it!!

For example of a great story made from a life lesson, the other day I was speaking to my sister-in-law. She asked me what I do for a living now. I told her I help people with their home businesses–Internet marketing as well as network marketing, etc. This was her reply, “You mean those pyramid thingies?!?!” So I asked, “What’s a pyramid?” She says, “Well, if you don’t know what it is, then you must not be in one, but it’s where the guy at the top makes all the money.” To which I quipped, “Oh, you mean corporate America.” She says, “NO, I’m talking about the SCAMS where the guy at the top makes all the money and the little guys at the bottom do all the work and don’t make any money.” I explained to her that “You won’t find a bigger, more blatant scam than what goes on in Corporate America and you described it perfectly”.

She didn’t like that and she went on to tell me that what I’m doing won’t work and that I should try to find a real job. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I make about 3 times what she does even though I don’t have nearly as much experience in this as she does in her profession. Plus, there’s the fact that I work only a few hours per day, as well as the fact that it’s about 2 in the afternoon and I’m writing this at a bench after eating lunch in a beautiful park on a nice, sunny day and I’m enjoying most of my time with those I love the most, and the least of my time with those I like the least, and she’s doing the exact opposite. AND I NEED TO GO FIND A REAL JOB?!?!

So I immediately took that life lesson and turned it into an article, a blog post, as well as a video. Of course, I then added it to a viral eBook. All in one hour, my work was done that day!! In fact, I should pay that poor woman for helping me. But pride would get in her way of taking the money as a real compensation for value she provided to me, because her mindset about money is all wrong.

Here’s another great way to get your info out, as well as having this as a compelling offer to get people to optin to your autoresponder/email campaign: Reviews and Reports

I love to do reviews of new technology and “free Reports”, etc. I do this quite often when I see new programs out there for network marketing and business opportunities, etc.

For example, I did a review (blog, article as well as video) of the iphone when it first came out and told people how great it was and that I couldn’t live without it. “After all I’m a full time, stay-at-home or work-from-anywhere entrepreneur and having the latest internet news was important.”(Oh, and by the way, if you like the idea of being able to call your own shots, financially, then head on over to (whatever website I’m promoting at that time) and I’d continue with my review.” This is a pretty easy way to get traffic to my site, even if it wasn’t exactly hitting my target market perfectly.

Here’s another easy one…I will research my competition incessantly. When I find the “newest report on MLM Scams”, etc. I’ll do reviews on those types of things, because lots of people are receiving emails with this stuff and they don’t have time to read them. Now I give them a short summary of what the info was about and they know, like and trust me. I’ve shown them that I understand what I’m talking about and now they have the scoop and they didn’t have to take the time to read it…I’m creating a following…by doing what I normally do every day anyway, with the one small extra step of writing the review of that particular ebook or report…which ingrains the info into my head further anyway, which is exactly what I want.

Money in my pocket and info in my brain all in a day’s work…I love this industry!!

Dan Dimit – IF you like this information, you should subscribe to Dan Dimit’s blog: 2 daily posts http://www.thefreetrafficformula.com/blog

When you’re ready for serious training, go to the main site and get the best free training out there: http://www.thefreetrafficformula.com

By Anna Williams in Featured

Google and T-Mobile have teamed up to create a new breed of cell phone. The T-Mobile G1 is the world’s first Android Phone. An “android” is traditionally defined as a robot with human qualities. Perhaps the name was chosen because of the capabilities of this new phone.

It’s known as the T-Mobile G1 Android, the Android Phone, the G1 Phone, or (more informally) the Google Phone.

The G1 Phone integrates fully with your Google accounts. Here are a few of the features and capabilities of this new cell phone:

  • An Android phone allows you to browse the Internet just as you would on a normal computer.
  • It allows one to run several applications at the same time, on one phone. You can switch between applications, and you can also be notified when something new occurs on one of those applications.
  • It allows you to chat and share photos on applications such as Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, etc.
  • It allows you to copy URLs and share them with friends via a chat line, using a simple touch-screen interface.

The following Google applications can be accessed and used directly by the Android Phone:

  • Google Maps
  • YouTube
  • Gmail
  • Contacts
  • Calendar
  • IM (Instant Message)

All of these Google applications will be available to you with a single logon – and they will be automatically synchronized with the web. What that means is that any change you make in one of your google accounts from your phone will also show up the next time you log on from any other computer.

For example, when you are out and about with your phone and you meet a new contact, you might want to save their contact information. All you do is save it into your Google Contacts on your G1 phone. That information will be available to you online, in your Gmail account, and in any other applicable Google account, accessible by any computer in the world.

Any information you save on your phone in this way will appear on your computer as well – and vice-versa.

If you lose or break your phone, your data will still be there waiting for you on your Google account, which you can access from anywhere in the world. And there is no need to worry about your information being stolen, as its password-protected.

Here is another example of the a use of a Google Android phone. Once you have a contact address saved into your Google account, you can easily find that location on a map – using Google Maps, of course. And what’s more, you can access street level events in any area where this is available.

This makes it a breeze to get directions to a new location! Simply find your contact on a a map with a couple of clicks, and use a street-level view to find your way if needed!

Another example of the use of the this phone is the integration of the cell phone with your Google Calendar. Any event you save on your Google Calendar will be available to you on your phone, wherever you are. So you can access your schedule easily, on the go and from anywhere, as long as you have your phone with you.

No more schedule books! And you can probably say goodbye to those tiny notebooks and pads of paper you carry around to save your information.

What’s more, once you save information on your Android phone, there’s no need to transfer it over after you get home. Its all there, safely stored on your Google account, for ready access whenever you need it.

Anna Williams is a photographer and an artist who has traveled extensively in her life, and now works as an Internet Marketer. She thus appreciates the value of portability where digital equipment is concerned. She currently works as an Internet Marketer. Visit her website at Websites and Webhosting.

By Russ Sutton in Featured

So, you have a Google AdWords account. You may have multiple Ad Goups and each Group may have multiple Ads. Did you know you can change all of your Ad Group Ads at one time? Many do not know about this or they are not sure how to use the AdWords Editor. I will show you, step by step, how to use the editor. This will change all or one of the ads on your account easily.

The first step is to download the Google AdWords Editor on to your computer. You can find the Editor on Google search or in your account. Once this is completed, open the Editor on your PC. You may have to use your search box to find it or you may find it in your Programs file. It does not install a shortcut icon automatically.

By Josh Chasin in Featured

If, like me, you get a dozen or so MediaPost columns in your inbox each day, then you probably already know this.  But when you have to write a column every two weeks, often the hardest part is coming up with a topic idea.  So the end of the year is a total bonanza, because you can always write a “year in review” column or a “predictions for 2009″ column.

I’m opting for the latter. To my regular readers (John G, I’m looking at you), these predictions will be recognizable as the key themes I’ve written about in 2008, and which I expect to continue writing about in 2009.

By Riley West in Featured

I’ve seen some crummy sites. What about you? How could they make any money? A poorly done website ruins credibility and runs visitors away before your site has had a good chance to present your offer.

Having spent 35 years in retail furniture we learned that if you want to sell top end furniture fast enough to make money each month there are several things retail store managers have to do to make it in today’s world.

First – The store has to be clean. The floor, the walls, the actual furniture itself, and, the bathroom! That’s where our comparison falls apart as there is no bathroom in a website.

Second - The store has to “make sense”. The arrangement of the inventory, the signage, the bedspreads on the beds, and the logic of store branding logos, posters, and policy signs has to look professional as well. The overall look has to be clean and “feel right”.

Third - What about colors! The ladies in this business know things about color and what goes with what than most men would never know.

In furniture stores the colors need to be those that are popular in furniture today, not last year. I wonder how that applies to websites?

Fourth - The salespeople have to speak clearly and without obvious defects in their speech habits. It’s the same with websites. In retail stores the salespeople need to be clean and spiffy and give their full attention to the customer in order not to appear disinterested.

You can see where this would apply in websites to pictures of people, like in testimonials, and scrupulous attention to detail and spelling.

Spelling! There’s a biggie. It deserves a section of it’s own. It is said that a potential customer’s enthusiasm will notch down a bit for every misspelling and grammatical error. It pays to proofread!

Experts suggest that you should have another person do your proofreading for you, since you are not as likely to catch all of your own mistakes.

Fifth - The sales area has to be kept neat and businesslike, but not barren and empty. Like the rest of the place, it has to be neat and clean. It should be easy to purchase!

Sixth - One last thing, in our stores we always strove to have the best music possible playing in the background and it had to sound good everywhere in the store. We had it at a level high enough to be heard well but not so high that it made it difficult to converse.

In the website world that might compare to having clean, easy to understand audio and video. Hmm…is there a place for appropriate background “score”?

Your business website should come across to your visitors as a professional site with which to do business. It should be welcoming and help them around in order to make the sale as easy as possible.

Your website says a lot about your business, so you need to make certain it is saying positive things.

If you want to make sure your website isn’t falling short on the details of general houskeeping, find a few sites that are trying to do something similar to what you are attempting, and use them for comparison sake. That’s a good place to start.

And my favorite! Keep it simple. My sales pages start at the top and go to the bottom. How are you going to lose your vistor with that?

Keep it simple, kill off the clutter, make it easy to read, and don’t allow spelling and grammar errors. Your customers will like that and be more inclined to buy.

Oh, one last thing. Ask for the sale. Don’t waffle here, be strong. You know what you want them to do, and, if your copy is any good, it contains many benefits for your visitor. Customers want those benefits (like more sales, higher conversion rates, and fewer returns) and they are willing to pay to get them.

Be very direct, but smooth. Say to the customer… “Click this button and when you get to Paypal check that the quantity is correct and that the price is right. If it is, continue with your purchase and start profiting from an improved website right away!

Thank you for your business!

Riley West has trained retail management for 30 years. Starting in 2006 Riley began studying Internet Marketing methods and Web Page Design. Go to his popular blog today and you’ll receive a FREE MONEY MAKING PDF, A NEW, FREE EBOOK, and a good READ too! Go to :=> http://www.makinganinternetmarketer.com

By Peter Nisbet in Featured

Facebook proxy bypass servers are necessary if you have some reason to hide the IP address either of your internet connection, or of the site to which you are trying to connect. Why should anybody want to do this, and how do Facebook proxy providers work?

Why Use a Proxy Bypass?

If you work for an employer and have unmonitored internet access, then you can be barred from accessing certain internet addresses, such as those of the commonly used social networking sites. Facebook, Friendster, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube are the more common sites that employees tend to visit in company time. Your employer can stop this by preventing your computer from accessing the internet (IP) addresses of these sites.

If you have internet access at school, college or university, you will be even less supervised than at work, and few students have not tried to use school or college computers to access social networking sites. There again, the relevant IP addresses have a block or filter placed on them which only a proxy bypass can circumvent.

A block generally refers to a blanket bar placed on the entire network accessing specific addresses, while filters permit access to individual terminals, the users of which might have a legitimate use for them. Most sites are filtered while a few can be blocked, and a Facebook proxy might be needed by a student, for example, but not a faculty member.

The target websites themselves can place blocks on individual IP addresses, and if Friendster or Facebook has banned you and your internet address for some reason, then you can’t even re-register using a different name and email address unless you get a new internet connection with a different IP address. Facebook proxy bypass servers can enable you to re-register without changing your IP address. You can also access your home page using your regular login details.

How a Facebook Proxy Bypass Server Works

If computer A connects to website B, then the IP address of both A and B are known to each other. All it takes to sever that connection is for either to block the other. However, if A connects to site C, and C connects to B, neither A nor B sees each other – they both see only IP address C.

Therefore, a block or filter against B will not be triggered by the address of C, to which you are connected. Neither will any block place by B on A be triggered, because as far as B is concerned it is connected to C and not A. The term ‘proxy bypass’ is therefore a bit of a misnomer because it is more of a proxy ‘router’; many different computers can be rerouted by a central connection to a number of social websites (or any type of website in fact).

For example, if you are finding it difficult to connect to a specific website, such as a search engine, you can do so through a proxy. The principle behind a Facebook proxy is just the same as that of you connecting your computer to a router in a network to connect to the internet – all computers connected to that router will have the same address, and when you use a modem attached to your computer to bypass the router through a different internet connection, you will have a different IP address.

Proxy bypass sites don’t last forever. Once they have been detected and also blocked, you have to find another. However they can last for a long time, and new Facebook proxies are coming online as fast as they are being blocked. For that reason you should find a site that offers you a number of alternatives.

So next time you have difficulty accessing a specific website, whether it is Facebook, YouTube or anything else a proxy can help you. Bear in mind that they are rarely specific, and take the form of an address bar into which you enter the internet address of the site you want to access. In the case of a Facebook proxy bypass server you enter the Facebook address, but it usually also works with any other website address.

Peter Nisbet – More information on Facebook proxy servers and others are available on Pete’s web page Facebook Proxy where you will also find several working proxies that are regularly updated.

By B Hopkins in Featured

Article writing serves many purposes for website owners and Internet marketers. It is a powerful way to market your business, and is also a powerful way to earn income directly from the article content itself. When you want to monetize your articles, you will need to understand how to use your articles to create the greatest benefit from them.

Some of the methods in which you can monetize your articles include: – Adsense – Promoting your own products and services – Promoting affiliate products and services – Long-term revenue – Viral revenue

There are other ways to get income by promoting your products and services, but the ones listed above are some of the more common ways you can earn an income through writing articles.

The first thing you need to know is the purpose in which you are writing your articles. Are you writing them to promote a product or service, or are you writing them to brand yourself as an expert in your field? Each way will require you to write your articles differently. If you are writing your articles for adsense, then you will want to write many informative, how-to articles that contain many of the keyword phrases used by your target audience. Your articles should talk about the products and services that are found on your site. The purpose of the article is to draw the targeted adsense ads that will be served on your website.

If you are writing and marketing articles to promote affiliate products, then your article should get the reader to go to the affiliate site, and also buy something as well. If you require a multi-step process to sell the affiliate product or service, then it would be better to use the article to send the reader to a lead capture page to get the reader’s email so you can market to them through an auto responder series. This is where you can put other articles that you have written and send the reader one article per week.

The second thing that you need to know when writing articles and monetizing them is to write the articles in such a way that they receive a lot of traffic in some form or another. Your articles won’t do much good if no one can find them, so it is important that they are easily found on the Internet. Your articles can be found through article directories, individual websites, other publisher’s newsletters, eBooks among a host of other ways. The more ways you make use of, the better the chance your article will get seen by your target market. There are many sources out there today that contain a list of different places where you can publish your article. Once you have a list of places, you want to narrow it down to the top 5 to 10 places to submit your articles. Your criteria should be based upon how much traffic is going to the website where you want to publish your articles, and if your target market is willing to purchase your product or service. Once you have the answer to these questions, you will be able to write powerful articles that have a good response rate.

When you are writing articles to monetize them, it is crucial that you have a good strategy for writing, marketing and publishing them. If you don’t, you will end up going through a lot of work over nothing. The next step is to look for ways of earning a long-term income for your article writing efforts.

B Hopkins – If you still want tips on how to write articles and monetize them discover the secrets of Article Cash. Learn more about how to write articles and market them. (A drivetraffictomywebsite.com creation)

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