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The Era of the Social Media Snob

By Joleen Halloran in Featured

What is this new type of snob?

What is a social media snob? Well I have a feeling you already know, but here is an example.

This is the person that has spent the last 3-7 years making “lots” of money using social media marketing or blogging and teaching others how to do it. And while they are selling you marketing products off their blogs or websites, they tell you that you must engage with your customers in order to make money. They instruct us to make money by doing what they did, which is to listen to your customers, know them, give them value, understand their needs, blah, blah, blah…..

Then what you see with this new type of snob is that once they have made the money, or sold the book, or gotten that high profile job with multi-mil corporation, they appear to be done with us (us – being the customers that got them there.)

This became prevalent to me during the roll out of Google+ with the numerous posts about the “Pluserati” and “Google Plus recommended users.” As I happily went about adding people that I thought would add value to my social networking experience, I noticed that I was only going to be allowed a status of social media groupie to these established snobs.

Since it is obvious then that we were not going to be social media buddies, then at the very least I would hope that by following you I would gain some value from your status updates, but this is not what is happening. Instead we get to see pictures of what they ate, their favorite art, who they are hanging out with (usually more social media snobs), their deep thoughts and musings, and gallingly, more pitches for their products. The best example of this so far is one that gushed on their profile about this new sharing experience on Google Plus and how excited they were to participate in this growing community. Know how many people this person is following? 3!

Really? It appears that now that they have a captive audience to “share” their information, which diminishes in value by the post, they do not appear to be very interested in what I have to share. Yes, I realize that the new social royalty cannot pander to their entire kingdom, but including a few thousand of their “customers” to be able to do exactly what they preach would probably add a bit of credibility to their profession. These people are not celebrities who gained their money and fame in ticket sales and TV appearances. “Those” celebrities never promised us anything other than a good performance, so if we choose to follow them without their attention, that’s on us. But to have the very people that evangelized a social media society where you “connect” with your base for growth and money making snub us?

Now I’m not going to call any one specific person out on the carpet here, but let me give you a few examples of the imbalances of the social media pundits that have elevated themselves to snobbery. Remember, these are all people that have made their money off of the social media machine by either selling products directly off their blogs or by promoting the strategies on their websites. I will show you the following to follower ratio. These ratios are taken from both Google+ and Twitter. You tell me if you think any of these people are listening to their audience anymore.

Followers | Following

164027 137

53,550 3

52,208 74

53,614 94

19,459 20

I did find one good example of a recent social media mogul/author of 35,031/12,018. Now that is a decent ratio of followers to following. I will be paying attention to this social media expert more often. It is noteworthy to mention that not every successful social media expert falls into this new snob category. You get a sense from many of them that a sincere effort is made to share information that continues to grow the relationships with their connections. This is the person you may want to take note of and continue following as a trusted resource for future products and knowledge.

I do not begrudge anyone their rise to fame or wealth, in fact, I applaud them and I am happy for them. What irritates me with this specific group of people is the hypocrisy of their message. They have made their money from a platform of “social sharing” but they really only want to perform “social pushing.” To me, this mentality is nothing less than a high profile snake oil salesmanship and I caution the new social networking enthusiast – buyer beware.

What will you do?

Does this mean I won’t follow them anymore? I don’t know yet. I’m thinking about it. I know one thing for sure – their credibility has gone way down with me. I will think twice before buying any more of their products and I look forward to a new generation of social media celebs that get into this industry for more than an ego platform. I caution new social media enthusiasts to try it before you buy it. Research the products and services offered by the so called experts. Having a large amount of followers or writing a book does not equate to authority. It is the quality of your followers and their engagement with each other that is truly valuable in this industry. Do your social media experts engage with social media other than to “push” products? Do you get value from information shared? Do they appear to be connecting to their customer base?

As you go forward in your quest to social networking greatness, keep these thoughts in mind when you lean into others for learning and growing. You cannot truly be considered an “expert” in social media unless you practice it. Using social media as a platform to push products is certainly not against social media law or anything, but it is much less appealing than those that share their expertise based on real experiences. The social networking and internet explosion was bound to create this beast, but the wise social media novice will take their time to discern the gold from the gold plated. And, if you run across a true social media snob – just giggle, then push the “unfollow” button.

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Joleen Halloran is the owner of ZoomIT Marketing, a Social Media and Internet Marketing Coaching and Training company. Joleen has extensive business experience in project management, leadership, marketing, and specializes in motivational techniques and corporate culture. Visit ZoomIT at http://zoomitmarketing.com.

Joleen is an avid reader of books and other materials related to her profession, but also to her special passion, which is metaphysical and spirituality topics. Ms. Halloran has read over 100 books related to metaphysics, spirituality, Western and Eastern religion, and law of attraction. Joleen is currently working on her how book, Finding Home – Breaking Free from Limits, which she hopes to have finished later this summer. Joleen blogs about books at http://beyondbookreviews.com.

Captcha Is Hard

By Mark Shapiro in Featured

I am a judgment matchmaking specialist (Judgment Broker) who writes a lot. This article is my opinion about how Captcha and other challenge systems may have gone too far, far further than they should.

Captcha stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”. The words were first used around 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas Hopper, and John Langford of the Carnegie Mellon University.

Turing is the name of a repeatable test of a computer’s ability to behave with human-like intelligence. If a computer can fool a person into believing they are communicating with another human, the machine passes the test. The test was introduced by Alan Turing in his 1950 paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”.

A Captcha or a challenge system, is a test to see if you are human. It is usually text, pictures, or sounds, that automated computers and robots cannot understand. In the beginning, such tests screened out people with vision problems, hearing problems, small children, and those with mental challenges.

Now, most Captcha or challenge systems only allow those with perfect vision, perfect hearing, and people who can solve a specific computer puzzle. In the old (pre-2007) days, the tests were usually simple.

Back in 2007, estimates (seen at TechCrunch.com) were that 160,000 human hours per day were spent solving these puzzles, at 10 seconds per try. I would guess that number is closer to a million human hours per day by now, when you factor in the number of times some must retry to get the puzzles solved.

Simple is what is needed. When one visits Captcha.net, one sees a simple example that almost anyone can solve. The problem is, now, the actual tests are designed to defeat optical character readers (OCRs). The words or numbers are garbled so much that the average person has to retry a few times.

When I say garbled, I mean not even the average teenager can figure out what it says most of the time. It is time to move back to simple Turing tests for instance adding two numbers, or a simple distortion of some text, or asking someone to pick all the names from a list of words.

To make matters worse, great effort went into making an alternative for people with vision problems. There is usually an “audio” button where you can listen instead of read. Try it sometime, and test how “understandable” the audio is to you. And of course, you cannot be on the phone, on Skype, watching TV, or listening to anyone or anything else while taking audio tests on web sites.

One benefit of the many web sites using Captcha or other challenge systems, is that at least one company, reCaptcha, used test results to help improve OCR on computer systems that scan and read old books and text.

Google purchased reCaptcha in 2009. Good for them, let’s try and make it is good for the rest of us.

When Captcha or challenge systems are too difficult, most people must try several times, and people with vision problems – forget about it. That is not right.

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Mark Shapiro – Judgment Broker – Free leads for Judgment Enforcers and contingency collection attorneys. http://www.JudgmentBuy.com – is the best and fastest judgment solution, where Judgments quickly get Purchased or Enforced by the best!

Blog Writing Tips: Keeping Content Fresh

By Enzo F. Cesario in Featured

Content may be king, but to torture a metaphor somewhat, even the most brilliant crown can grow tarnished. Generating good content isn’t always an easy thing, and it requires a great deal of effort to avoid getting into rote postings and halfhearted content that isn’t of the quality a blog and its audience deserve.

A lot already has been written about the common mistakes bloggers can make. Text walls, keyword cipher content, bland posts on stuff that’s been covered before — these things are not good. But simply pointing out what not to do isn’t very helpful. After all, anyone can “not do” certain things. But as any fiction writer worth the name will say, listing and focusing on all the things one isn’t going to do results in one not doing anything at all. There has to be a positive focus and some manner of a goal. To that end, what are some of the things bloggers can do to keep their content fresh and interesting?

Step 1 — Alternate Angles

Keeping content interesting doesn’t necessarily always involve doing something completely and utterly unrelated. It can, instead, involve taking a new approach to the tried-and-true material at hand, and coming at it from a new direction that brings together previous posts in a different way.

For example, consider a blog focused on consumer advocacy and customers’ rights. The main focus of the blog could be on specific instances of consumer abuse, such as dangerous products or other examples of corporate irresponsibility. This is an example of a highly-specialized blog with a narrow intent.

However, posting all the time about corporate abuses might get disheartening — both to the writer and the reader — so the blogger should try introducing a post series on corporate hijinks that are more hilarious than harmful. A practical example of this is the Cake Wrecks blog; while the main content is specifically focused on truly terrible cake designs, the blog also features a “Sunday Sweets” post series focusing on cakes done particularly well.

Step 2 — Fresh Faces

There is a lot of debate in the blogging community about the value of guest posters. Without going into all the assorted arguments, the fact is that if a blogger trusts someone enough to let them submit a post for publication, it can be a valuable tool for a number of reasons.

Guest posters offer several opportunities for the experienced blogger. They can establish networking options between the audiences of the respective writers, particularly if drawn between blogs. If drawn from the comments section, they can give the blog audience something to aspire to and more reason to become active with the blog. In the special event that a blogger can get a big name in the field to write a post, the credibility and prestige of the blog generally benefits as well.

Step 3 — Cause Crusades

Many of the more successful blogs touch on some manner of major social issues. Consumer advocacy, personal rights, political freedoms — each of these topics is the subject of major discourse in the world at large. Many people in a blogger’s audience probably want to do something to help out with a cause, but they aren’t sure how. They might not know how to check out a nonprofit’s credentials the way a savvy fundraising blogger might, or might not know specific organizations related to their personal cause of choice.

Blogs are a great force in the field of micro-transaction fundraising. If a blog has even 5,000 followers and can convince them to donate 50 cents apiece on average, that translates to $2,500 in real dollars raised. That money can pay for quite a few things, be it advertising space, medical procedures or even a research grant for a small lab doing vital inquiry. As an example, consider the success of Penny Arcade, which leveraged its extensive comic and blog audience’s goodwill to create a charity dedicated to giving sick children as many games and reading materials as they could. It’s one of the fastest growing charities in history, and started as “just an idea.”

Step 4 — Evading Ennui

Sometimes there isn’t any way to get around the fact that a specific topic is played out. Be it the activities of a certain politician, a specific corporate scandal or even a general topic such as free speech, people eventually get tired of writing and reading the same material. Sometimes no new news stories come up, or there isn’t any fresh information to cover.

In such cases, it’s perfectly acceptable to switch topics. Perhaps the topic change need not be exceptionally drastic. Consider the earlier example of a consumer advocacy blog. Perhaps there simply are no new or funny stories to cover that won’t seem boring or rehashed. This might be the time to discuss the theory of the blog, the “why” angle behind the matter. Our blogger could write a post explaining his or her personal experiences with corporate indifference, or discuss the good that consumer advocacy has done for people in the past.

Other times, the change could be as drastic as can be. Maybe a blogger just enjoys a particular band or bit of music, and writes an entirely personal post sharing the music and how they came to love it. The readers get a personal connection, and the blogger can let his mind work on the big problems again.

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Enzo F. Cesario is an online branding specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a digital content agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles, videos and social media in the “voice” of our client’s brand. It makes sites more findable and brands more recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to http://www.BrandSplat.com/ or visit our blog at http://www.iBrandCasting.com/

Is Your Brand Worth Professional Treatment?

By Jerry Bader in Featured

You may not remember the 1950s but the so-called “Golden Age” of television was in general pretty bad. Yes, there were some great, groundbreaking programs, but there was also a lot of crap, especially the commercials that for the most part were emotionally and psychologically clumsy despite their pseudo-innocence.

We may be nostalgic for Speedy Alka Seltzer but it hardly stacks up to the Evian Baby T-Shirt videos that to my mind were even better than the more famous Roller Babies, a campaign where technical gimmickry overpowered the message. Of course in the 50s, the medium was new and the technology was rudimentary, especially by today’s standards.

With an audience raised on radio, TV producers could get away with almost anything, but today’s audience brought up on television and big budget movies expect and demand a far greater level of presentation sophistication.

If you want to communicate to today’s Web audience, you have to understand the techniques used to make your message understood and memorable. And just as importantly, you have to understand the negative impact of video presentation inadequacies. When we speak of ineffective communication, we are not just talking about technical issues like poor lighting and audio room tone, but more importantly poor messaging and mediocre performance.

What’s the Best SEO Method?

By David Jackson in Featured

If you asked 10 different SEO experts which was the absolute best SEO method, you’d likely get 10 different answers.

Why? Because the truth of the matter is, there is no absolute best SEO method. They all work, provided, they are all executed properly. Let me explain.

Regardless of the industry, different experts have different opinions. Does that mean one expert is right and another expert is wrong? No, it doesn’t. It simply means our opinions, analysis and thought processes are shaped by our personal experiences, successes and failures. And while one expert might have had success with one particular SEO method, another expert might have had success with an entirely different method.

In other words, multiple experts can have different opinions about a topic, and all parties can still be correct based on their own personal experiences.

My Best SEO Method

Now, I don’t consider myself an SEO expert by any means. However, I do have many articles that rank highly in Google’s SERP’s (search engine results pages). Therefore, based on my own personal experience and the success I’ve had with article syndication, in my opinion, the best SEO method is to create and distribute quality, relevant content.

10 Things That Will Make Your Tweets Pop!

By Dawn Pigoni in Featured

Every day we work at it: toiling away on our social media networks, doing what we can to reach our customers and broaden our client base. Twitter is one of the simplest platforms to use when reaching out to people, but you may not be tweeting to your best advantage. So, what can you do to make sure that people actually want to read your tweets and can get the most out of them?

Here are ten things that you should be doing with your tweets in order to make them stand out. The only way to reach out and grab the attention of your followers (and that of future ones) is to have some interesting things to say!

1. Be Unique

When you find an interesting article or video that you want to share with your followers, don’t just copy and paste the title into your tweet. Instead, try to put together your own unique spin on it and give them an idea of what is in store for them
when they click on the link.

2. Keep It Short

Twitter limits your tweets to 140 characters, which may not seem like a lot. But really, you’re not supposed to be writing a book here. Keeping it short lets you give only the necessary information without a lot of fluff. Try to keep your tweets to around 120 characters. That way, followers can add their own opinions when they retweet.

3. Think of Your Tweets as Headlines

When writing articles, the sure-fire way of getting readers is by having an attention-grabbing headline. The same goes for your tweets. Make them easy to read and catchy in order to induce your followers to reply or click on the added link.

4. Use Interesting Facts

People love finding out new tidbits of information. These can be random statistics about a topic that is related to your own business. Giving your followers an interesting fact will be more likely to encourage them to click on a link than a boring title.

5. Tweet With Your Own Voice

Don’t tweet like an automaton. Readers want to know that there’s an actual person on the other end of those tweets, so write as you would speak. This gives your tweets a hint of your own unique personality, which followers love.

6. Get Your Timing Right

In order for your tweets to get noticed, you need to make sure you’re publishing them when your followers are the most active. Take note of when you get the most replies and retweets. This is when you should be the most interactive with your followers.

7. Add Value

There are a wide variety of reasons that people use Twitter, from how to collect stamps to the newest techniques in web design. Whatever your reasons for using Twitter, focus on tweeting about those specific topics. When you concentrate on one or two topics, followers will see you as a valuable source of information.

8. Be Interactive

When it comes to your followers, think quality and not quantity. Get them to interact with you, ask questions, and make sure you’re responding to their own questions too.

9. Add Helpful Links

Since tweets are limited, including a link will allow you to share more information. You can include links to your blog, an article, or your webpage. Use your tweet field to include an interesting way to lure them in.

10. Get Them Thinking

Your tweets should always leave your followers wanting more. You want your tweets to be thought-provoking because that’s how you get your readers to stay connected to you and want to interact with you even more.

What works for you in your tweets? Do you have any extra tips for enhancing the Twitter experience? Share with us! We’d love to know what works for you!

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Dawn Pigoni – Social Media Virtual Assistant http://BeSocialWorldwide.com | http://Twitter.com/dawntrenee

The Social Media Marketing world is important to online businesses and I bring value to other companies by offering social media marketing assistance to those small companies that don’t have the time, knowledge or manpower to keep up with social media marketing.

7 Tips for Better Email Marketing – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Gayle Hawks in Featured

In this fast paced world of ours, everyone is trying to gain a foothold on your business via e-mail. It is becoming more and more difficult to ensure that the e-mail from you is read and not tossed directly into the SPAM file or simply deleted. With the advent of social media sites, e-mails have become more prevalent and the practices have become trickier to get business owners to open them and read them. Here are a few tips that may help you improve your open rates in your email marketing program:

1. Subject Line – Imagination is the key here in getting someone to open your email based on the subject line. Often people make the subject so long that you get bored just reading it or it is too dull and lacks appeal. The trick is to use something unique that will stand out in a crowded inbox. The best approach is to be creative while maintaining relevancy to the content of your email.

2. Who It is From -For those with a name brand like Apple, you should use Apple in the From line rather than a person’s name that may be unknown to the email recipient. This is one of the most important aspects of getting your email opened. If someone doesn’t know the person that is sending the email, the chances of it being opened are much lower. Try something unusual or use your company name (unless your name is Steve Jobs – I imagine his emails get opened very frequently).

3. Less is Better -Don’t overflow with words that lose the recipient. Say it and get it over with. Less is always better. You can send another message later with more information. Remember the KISS approach (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

4. Images Turned Off -Often someone will not turn on images unless you have tweaked their interest. Therefore, make sure that the message will still be delivered without the images being turned on. This is usually a step in the review process if you use an email management system such as MailChimp. Don’t skip this step – make sure it works.

5. Provide the Ability to Control Frequency of Messages -If you grab the interest of a recipient, don’t spoil things by inundating them with messages every hour or every day. Give them a break and control the frequency and the types of messages so that they do not get upset and run to your competitor instead. This also lowers the risk of email recipients labeling your email as spam and reporting it as such. Send emails out just frequently enough that potential customers keep your name and products in mind; but don’t flood them with too many emails. Balance.

6. Personalization -Many times the personalization of the subject or even the body of the message generate more interest from the recipient.

7. Develop a Mobile Version – With the frequent use of Smartphones, you need to ensure that your message is viewable on a mobile device. Make sure folks can view your email properly from their smartphone or other portable Internet accessible devices. Email marketing has had ups and downs over the past few years. However, it’s an accepted method of marketing and will remain in use for many years to come. Hopefully these tips will help your email campaigns work their way through obstacles and help you get your emails opened and read.

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Color Card Administrator is the parent company of PrintBusinessCards.com and several other innovative Real Estate Business Cards website, we’re eager to share with you what it is we do. Give us a call today at 858-522-9335 or email at Author@CardAdmin.com for Print Business Cards. We look forward to discussing your comments, suggestions, or hearing any ideas for future article topics you may be interested in regarding online business cards design or business card management.

The Skinny on Google+

By Derek Fredrickson in Featured

In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a new kid on the social media block. And our friendly online giant, Google, brings it to us.

I’ve had a lot of questions about Google+ ranging from how to use it to is it worth paying attention to. Many people out there are calling it the “Facebook Killer”, but I don’t see it like that. The social media landscape is vast and varied enough that there is (currently) enough room for another player in the game. I say – bring it on! Google is obviously a HUGE player in the online world so anything they do – you pretty much HAVE TO pay attention to it.

Google+ is offered on practically all Google products (Gmail, Google, Google Docs, etc.), and its adoption is spreading quickly. I heard recently it attracted more than 10 million user registrations in the first two weeks (more than Facebook or Twitter during their initial launch phase.)

But, as a marketer – what do you need to know? What’s the lowdown on Google+ to help you with marketing and your online presence?

Well, here’s what you need to know as this new player starts to emerge.

In a nutshell, Google+ enables real-time updates (like Twitter) and lets you stay in touch with “circles” of friends (similar to Facebook, but with easier options for creating and viewing groups). You can also check into places with it (like FourSquare).

So, what’s in it for us marketers? Although Google+ is still relatively new, we can already see what it has as potential from a marketing perspective.

+1 Feature

Similar to Facebook Like – it allows you to promote and share webpages and content online by ‘+1′ing’ the page. So, many marketers have already started to add Google’s “+1″ feature to content pages and websites. That means more user engagement for you from your website visitors and another method for people to spread the content and get the word out.

SEO

Just like with any other method of social promotion, the more +1′s your content gets, the more likely Google will consider the topic relevant to those search terms. It’s a recent SEO trend, which relies more on recommendations and people suggesting relevant content as opposed to “black and white” marketing strategies to get your content on the top pages of Google. So, over time Google will factor +1 scores into its search algorithm. When you write about a subject on Google+ and your circle (friends) Google’s that subject, your comments and links will be displayed.

User Intelligence

The more you use Google+, the smarter the platform gets as recognizing your usage and recommending items in your News Feed. You’ll start seeing increasingly relevant updates and content coming from within your network – meaning users most interested in what you have to say will find your content more easily, and will be more likely to refer to it and share it.

Influence

Google+ is another way for users to share what they’re reading and watching. Right now, the people on Google+ are people – it’s not available to companies or brands yet. So, the early adopters and users of this platform are able to establish the trend and how interactive the platform is with their network. So, the biggest influencers on Google+ will become the most active and influential sharers of content.

Even though Google+ is just starting out, its reach and ease of use make its implications for online marketers worth consideration. Join today and stay tuned to see where it goes!

Here’s an amazing secret to use Google as a marketer:

+1 notices are posted in everyone’s Gmail inbox – meaning if you +1 something, it has the potential to show up right in someone’s Gmail inbox – which is where they are spending most of their time anyway – in EMAIL. This point alone makes Google+ a must for any marketer.

Until next time… Learn It, Love It, Live it!

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Derek Fredrickson, Authentic Internet Marketing Specialist, is founder of the Authentic Internet Marketing System, the proven step-by-step program that shows you exactly how to authentically market your business online, in record time…guaranteed. To get your F.R.E.E. videos and receive his authentic internet marketing articles on attracting more leads and converting more sales online to multiply your current revenues, visit: http://www.derekfredrickson.com.

Blog Writing Tips – Where to Find Great Guest Posters

By Enzo F. Cesario in Featured

One of the best ways to keep a fresh angle in blogging is the guest blogger. They can provide good content, take some of the work load off the primary blogger and can bring new perspectives and ideas that the parent blogger can follow up on in later posts as he or she sees fit. Guest blogging also promotes inter-community relations, resulting in shared links and audiences, and can bring together previously unrelated audiences who find they share interests. It may not be for everyone, but those who embrace guest posting have a lot going for them.

So where, exactly, does one find these mysterious guest posters?

Guest #1 — The Ascended Commenter

An active and successful blog should have an equally active comments section. Comments are a great way to gauge the level of interest a group has in the message of a blog. Sometimes a blog post will spawn a series of comments that end up being as or even more enriching than the blog itself, including links to other sites and videos that further expand on the message.

Some commenters are active, regular members of the community and consistently provide very good and insightful material on a number of topics. Those who participate in all the best discussions and are always there to provide discussion on the topics raised are a prime source for good guest-posting material.

If you have such a gem of a commenter, contact them and ask them if they’d be interested in writing up a guest post. Give them all the guidelines and style rules your publication uses, and of course draft-check their work to make sure it fits the needs of the site, but definitely recruit your commenters into your service. This will have the two-fold effect of creating guest posts and improving the quality of commentary in the blog as a whole. As guests see they can be invited to post, they will be encouraged to become more active if they want to do the same.

Guest # 2 — Fellow Bloggers

Many blogs provide cross-links to other blogs who discuss the same or similar issues. Blogs on cooking provide links to other blogs on cooking, or to blogs on cookware and appliances, and so on. Bloggers exercising good blogging judgment also go to their colleagues’ blogs and participate in the comments sections as well.

Just like inviting in a member of the commentary team, calling in a fellow blogger is a great idea. As mentioned, it encourages cross-promotion of both blogs. Even though the audiences of the publications may not overlap 100 percent, each will at least see some benefit as visitors from the other blog come by to have a look. At least some will subscribe, and that’s a big overall goal.

One of the best ways to arrange this is to propose a swap. Both bloggers trade posts for a day, so that both can get the benefit of the exchange. Additionally, try to focus on bloggers with a similar but slightly different focus. The idea is to get new information out there, after all.

Guest #3 — The Celebrity

People like big names; there’s really no getting around it and no shame in it. Experts are good at what they do, and good at it for a reason. If our aforementioned cooking blog is able to get an authority figure with a big name in the community to post, they really should take advantage of the opportunity.

Celebrities are often hard to get a hold of, but not impossible. They are people, too, and they often have interests that they like to follow. Sometimes it requires contacting their agent or handler, but it can be rewarding to a blog to have a star pop on and offer some advice on the topic at hand.

On the other hand, such a post should stick firmly to the message at hand. Making it a chance for the celeb to simply promote his new cause or book might distract from the goal of the blog, and nobody wants that.

Guest #4 — A Polite Opponent

There is a benefit in bringing aboard someone whose views differ from those of the core audience for the blog. The most important mode of discussion for the web today is dialog. People want to talk, they want to learn and be heard. Unfortunately, the largest mode of dialog is argument and flaming, and very little gets accomplished in this circumstance.

On the other hand, if a blog has taken a principled and reasonable stand on a topic, chances are they have an open-minded yet critical commenter or “rival” whose views differ from their own. This is common in philosophy-and politics-oriented publications.

In these cases, consider contacting a rival and asking for an exchange of views. This may seem a bit odd, but it really can make all the difference. It will show both parties that the other side is willing to talk and reason about things. It will give both audiences a sense of pride in their chosen blogger. It will create a greater dialog and benefit the web as a whole and, if handled properly, it will almost always be a hit and generate a great deal of discussion. Take the risk and see if a civil exchange of conflicting ideas is right for your blog.

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Enzo F. Cesario is an online branding specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a digital content agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles, videos and social media in the “voice” of our client’s brand. It makes sites more findable and brands more recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to www.BrandSplat.com/ or visit our blog at www.iBrandCasting.com/

Beyond Expectations – Getting the Most out of Facebook Like and Share

By Enzo F. Cesario in Featured

People long have loved to find new and innovative uses for the most innocuous technologies and advances. In the late 19th century, “moving pictures” were a nickel-arcade novelty. Today films such as Avatar are made on budgets comparable to military-grade hardware investments. Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone could barely call from one room to another; now the average iPhone has more uses and computing power than all the computers used in World War II combined.

This trend is repeating itself with the rise of social media network marketing practices. What started as socialization programs only slightly more complex than the average e-mail client has grown into one of the newest and most promising marketing niches in the entire world. Taking advantage of this means familiarizing oneself with a few surprisingly simple concepts that have unusually far-reaching implications. In particular, marketers are finding that the “Like” and “Share” features on Facebook have become the newest and best tool in the online marketing arsenal.

We “Like” It

The “Like” function is a pretty simple one – people click “Like” for things that interest them. On the surface, this seems almost irrelevant, but thinking so ignores the way Facebook operates. Taking advantage of the “Like” function is actually the key to getting good marketing opportunities out of Facebook.

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