Top 10 Tech Marketing Tips

Trade Show on My Dock

admin — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:24:35 +0000

Today, I’m attending a trade show from my dock office. Its the eComXpo and its my fifth time at this show.

This isn’t terribly sexy or exciting as tradeshows go, but the platform is very cool and getting better each year.

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Twitter Auction Pulled from Ebay

admin — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:06:41 +0000

Well that was short lived. So I did an utter a little while ago about Rocketboom’s founder putting his Twitter account up on the ebay auction. He’s canceled it because the bidders could “all (be) spam marketers, people who will do anything just to get their name out there, people who don’t understand Web 2.0 and blogging.”

http://mashable.com/2008/04/17/rocketboom-founder-pulls-ebay-auction-for-his-twitter-account/
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Where Do You Go For Logos and Graphic Design?

admin — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:08:40 +0000

Where do you go for graphic design and business cards and logos and things?

I’ve tried a number of services online, but I’m still looking for the holy grail apparently. Vista Print is good for just cards, but I’ve also found that OfficeMax is just about as good and can deliver same day service.

I get twisted all up when ever I try and use Illustrator or Photoshop and the quality from Microsoft Publisher is garbage.

I know some of you are graphic near close to genius level when it comes to graphics and photoshop, so I’m curious where do you go for this type of thing?

I reviewed yet another logodesign and free service today (video) but its not what I’m looking for.
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Marketing Yourself as a Freelance Writer

admin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 19:40:55 +0000

I read an interesting discussion in a popular forum. A freelance writer and blogger had had to go to court over a traffic violation. The writer had not had to describe their profession in court before and was a bit at a loss for words, and possibly a little intimidated by the setting and the Judge, who sounded a little harsh, but may have just had a rough day with too many traffic violations to consider.

The question arises for many freelance writers and professional bloggers, how do I describe what I do to other people? To friends, family, to past colleagues, to the IRS, to a Judge during a traffic violation hearing

So this whole setup highlights an important lesson for many of us outside the context of going to court, however I have put together below a scenario of how the whole court thing could have been turned into a positive as an example in a way of how almost any conversation on this subject can be turned into a positive.

First Its About Self Promoting Yourself, Your Articles, and Your Publications

Whenever someone asks you what you do for a living, you have an opportunity to promote yourself, your publications, your work and our collective industry. We should all be ready to answer this question and answer the follow up questions that come with it.

Instead of trying to remember the last article you wrote, (the judges question and by the way he’s in control of the conversation as he directs you down that path).

When anyone does this, you need to grab control of the conversation and push it in a direction that you are prepared for just like a presidential candidate.

To do this you need to anticipate the questions, be prepared with answers, and maybe even practice our responses a few times out loud.

Recording with a video camera or even a digital camera with video is a great way to review your efforts objectively after the fact.
Keep in mind that online writers type a lot online and sometimes we are faster thinkers (typers) than we are speakers. We exercise our minds, and output thoughts through our fingers and not our mouths. Its like exercising with dumb bells in your right hand and not your left. So when we actually start putting real words to things we sometimes fumble a bit, unless we practice!

Here are some suggestions that I would recommend

When someone asks what have you written lately?

“I write for a number of different publications. Recently I have placed several articles with name of site 1, name of site 2, name of site 3.”

Note. try and keep the list of sites at three or lower! And consider your audience too, try and offer up some of the sites in niches that someone might recognize or even be interested in.

When someone asks what are some of the topics or names of the articles that you have written?

Answer with one of your favorite articles, ex.

“Did you ever see that TV show called Burn Notice on USA networks? I wrote an article about that show before it launched. The show is about an ex-CIA agent that gets fired, ‘burned’. As part of the launch of the show, I wrote an article about how I thought the premier show might go. Wrote my own plot line for the story. Then there was the time on a different site when I wrote about Mike Huckabee preaching to South Carolinians to stand up for the Confederate Flag and not let outsiders tell them what to do. The crazy thing is that Huckabee IS an outsider. So I crafted this image of Huckabee getting the confederate flag planted in his . . . um Wazzooo, and wrote an article about politicians pandering to symbols of hate. Then there was the time I wrote this funny article about how Osama Bin Laden had really attacked America because the Air Force dropped a ‘gay bomb’ on him in 1997. I don’t know if you heard, but the Air Force really considered developing a bomb that when dropped on the enemy would dispense some sort of agent that would make everyone drop their guns and start getting it on regardless of sexuality. ”

Note. That last response would be one of my personal favorites to share with a judge during a trial/hearing over a speeding ticket.

How big is your company?

This question is sooooo easy to answer these days. But let me start by offering up what you should not say.

Do not say

“I work by myself at home on the computer while the kids are sleeping.”

Do say,

“I’ve been working as a freelance writer in a developing social media industry that has grown like crazy over the last two years. We have over 120,000 freelance writers in our collective of professional writers and we are adding about 10-20,000 more writers every month. There is a huge demand for writers today, especially online writers that are capable of writing great articles or generating good content. After all, people can’t watch reruns and reality shows on TV for ever. I feel so sorry for all those out of work writers in Hollywood that do not own their own content. Fortunately, we do not suffer from that flaw in our business plan!”

Can you provide some references for your work?

“Sure, I can send you some information with select articles from my portfolio. I can also refer you to Brett Bumeter of Softduit Media, who will gladly provide a reference for my work. Alternatively, I have several hundred people in my LinkedIn professional network that have already written recommendations for me or my work in the past that I would refer you to. By the way, your honor, are you elected to your position or are you nominated or hired? I ask because our collective of writers includes a very large number of political writers. We have an uncanny ability to cover campaigns and upon endorsement we have a great deal of leverage about building buzz up around a candidate to help convince voters to vote. I’d be glad to put in a good word for you or refer you to the right people in our network so that you could look at some solutions to help with your next election, or maybe you might even aspire to running for some other office some day.”

Note, there is a personal plug for myself and my company, Softduit Media, in this one. If I know you and I know your work or if you already work directly in one of my own writing networks, I will be more than happy to provide a reference. I do not provide references for people I do not know or for people that I have not worked with. Plus, all of my references are honest and heart felt. I give very good references, but only when deserved.

Are you hiring?

“We are always looking for more good writers. I’m sure you have an immense history of writing extensively yourself. I doubt you made it through law school and worked your way all the way up to the position of a Judge without having to write constantly and write very well.”

No, I didn’t mean myself, I was thinking of helping some mis-directed Youths finding a creative Outlet for their energies in a field that they could grow into . . .

“Oh sure, working as a freelance writer is an excellent way for someone to develop their communications skills while earning a good living. There are a number of groups, and individuals that tutor, mentor, teach and guide people through the process and help them grow into successful freelance writers, editors, publishers and more. I’d very much like to talk about this potential and maybe about how we could put together some solution to help the people you are thinking of, but as you are aware, we still have some unfinished business here with this misunderstanding surrounding this ticket. Let’s get that cleared up and maybe we can talk sometime soon and help all these good people in the court room expedite their own business. Plus your Honor, you’ve been sitting here for a couple hours, you are probably looking forward to lunch. How about I buy you a sandwich and we can talk some more. Did I mention that I get 1% cash back with my PayPal card? ”

Ticket Dismissed!

Follow up, please do not miss the opportunity to thank the police officer and apologize for making them come down and spend so much time in court when they could be doing more important things.

“Thank you officer and I would like to apologize for all the time and trouble you went to. I bet you see some crazy things in your line of work, and I just wish that I had not been a distraction. You know if you ever wanted to become a writer yourself, you could probably earn some decent money sharing your stories. I know that we just do not pay our police officers enough given the level of danger involved in the job. Its got to be somewhat thankless at times, however one of the great things about being a writer is that you get to share your stories with people. I am sure your readers would appreciate your stories and you know, there is just something that is almost therapeutic about writing sometimes. Here’s my card, please let me know if I can help or put you in touch with the right people. If you would like to join the Judge and I for lunch, I bet that you too could provide some valuable input on how to build out a good program to channel the energy of some of today’s youths.”

PayU2Blog Taking Steps to End the Blogging Spam

admin — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 16:45:42 +0000

PayU2Blog took a terrific step forward (following several other blog marketing companies) to end the spam like posts that have been flowing into the blogosphere like crack flowed into the US in the 80’s.

In particular, a trend started about a year ago where bloggers looking to make a quick buck or ten, would stop writing things that actually fit on their blog and instead wrote generic advertorials on their websites providing a category or label for the article as ’sponsored’ or ‘paid post’ or some other thing.

I have done it myself on other blogs in the early days. We bloggers told ourselves that we were just doing the same thing that magazines and newspapers have done and still do today, filling some pages of our content with a page dedicated to an advertiser, but labeled as such.

It may be legal, but it does not make for good content nor reading. I stopped the practice on my own sites a few months after I began after I recognized a degradation in the quality of content (and a drop off of repeat readers -> even though traffic increased overall from natural search).

The reality is that bloggers are starting to wake up to the concept that if they are going to include a paid link in their blogs, they need to write about a real topic or they need to fit the link and keywords into their post in a seamless manner from a good content perspective. That can mean that if they are a creative writer that they simply write a fictional tale including the keywords and links in the story like a coke machine is included in a movie or TV show.

Bloggers are still following the law when they do this if they utilize site wide disclosure to let their readers know that about the methods that fund the content that is being created in the first place.

Announcement from PayU2Blog

Dear PayU2Blog Bloggers,
Thank you all for being great bloggers and for all of your hard work with and for us. We are grateful, our advertisers are grateful and we certainly hope that the extra income has been beneficial to you and your families.
The time has finally come to address the Internet ghost known as the “Disclosure Policy”. We know and respect that Bloggers use their blogs as a platform to tell their stories and share their lives with the world. A blog gives people the new ability to self publish whatever they find to be interesting. Whether that be an opinion, an observation or personal information related to whatever subject you choose or agree to post about. Blogs are uniting people and cultures across the globe, through posts of information as bloggers personally relate.
As a company, PayU2Blog does it’s best to respect that these are your own personal blogs, however we are now forced to request that you make the following changes in regards to “disclosing” and discussing “PayU2Blog” in your posts.
If you are doing a paid post for PayU2Blog please do not:
1) Tag, Label or Categorize a post ….. “PayU2Blog”…….”Paid to Blog” or similar tag.
2) DO NOT include “PayU2Blog” or “Paid to Blog” or similar terms in the same post as an assignment, unless that assignment is specifically for that Keyword or Keyword phrase, or unless the specific assignment specifies that.
3) DO NOT label a Category - PayU2Blog - be more creative in your category descriptions - bloggers are creative.
We understand that everyone wants to be up front and honest that they are paid for some posts. To help with that, we request that everyone develop a Site Wide Disclosure Policy for their blog. (If you feel the need to disclose you are doing some paid blogging) This will eliminate you from having to label every post - sponsored …….( at least the PayU2Blog assignments ). With a Site Wide Disclosure Policy - you are disclosing that some of your posts have been sponsored and some haven’t.
There is not a need to label each post “Sponsored” or not. Here are a few examples of a site wide disclosure policies that we recommend you check out to help when creating your own:
* site removed from this article to protect the blogger *
* site removed from this article to protect the blogger *
These are great examples for you to follow when creating your own Site Wide Disclosure Policy. Both of these are found by clicking on a sidebar link that says Disclosure Policy. So please, consider the following step in order to implement a Site Wide Disclosure Policy for your blog!
1. Create a link in your sidebar to a Site Wide Disclosure Policy page. This will let your readers know that you are participating in sponsored post programs. This does include links or possibly even reviews of products, services, events, places etc. that you are compensated for. This will cover each and every article and/or post found on your blog. Therefore, you no longer have to feel like you need to label every single post.
Once again, we thank you all for your hard work. Please let us know if you have any questions by sending an email to Blogger@PayU2Blog.com.
Also, we would rather not have a lot of articles posted about this change. Please rely on us to let all PayU2Blog bloggers know about this change. Do not feel the need to post an article with the details of this requested change. Please direct all concerns to Blogger@PayU2Blog.com.
Keep Bloggin’ and thanks again for all of your great writing!!
PayU2Blog

EcomXpo Online Trade Show begins Tomorrow October 9

admin — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 16:36:20 +0000

Tomorrow the EcomXpo begins. It is a virtual trade show that takes place online every 6 months. This year in addition to focussing on online marketing and sales, they will also mix in a virtual job fair. The show attracts hundreds of exhibitors and almost ten thousand attendees. You do not have to leave the comfort of your home or office and get a lot of up close and personal attention from the companies at their booths.

I highly recommend the show as both an educational and a networking opportunity. You an learn a great deal from the University Sessions, keynote speakers and from talking to the exhibitors about their latest product and service offerings.

Don’t let the silly banner fool you, it is free to attend! The $49.95 comes into play if you want access to recorded versions of the keynote addresses and sessions.

How Do I Get People to Read My Blog?

admin — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:38:20 +0000

That’s the million dollar question, “How do I Get People to Read My Blog?”

It has many variations

How will people know that my blog exists?
How will people find my blog?
How will people find what I write?
How do I get People to come back to my blog?

All of these things related to marketing your blog and building traffic. EVERYONE will tell you that the first thing to do is to write GREAT content.

NO Kidding?

Yeah, its almost a cliche, but after you write that content what do you do next?

The next response is go read other blogs and engage in discussions in the comments, essentially, go network with bloggers!

Great, Wait a second “How do I network with other bloggers? How do I FIND other bloggers?”

That’s where something called blog surf exchanges come into play!

Blog surf exchanges are online social networking clubs just for bloggers.

They work on a viral model where

Blogger A - lists their own blog, Blog A
Blogger A, then goes out and reads blogs B, C, D
Blogger B, reads blogs C, D, E, and A
Blogger C reads blogs E and A
Blogger D reads blog A

This is all measured and balanced out by a system that helps introduce blogs of particular categories to bloggers. You surf through blogs of a particular category.

Earning Credit to Include your Blog into Rotation

In Radio, music producers basically pay disc jockey’s to play the ‘hit single’ de jour. In a surf exchange you do not have to pay any money. Instead you earn credits by surfing through other blogs in the exchange. Those credits can then be spent to put your own blog(s) into rotation for other bloggers to surf later.

There are dozens of surf exchanges. Not all surf exchanges are created (nor managed equally).

I highly recommend Blog Explosion and Blog Mad. List of Surf Exchanges.

Blog Mad is the most likely exchange to give you the biggest diversity, but getting in with Blog Explosion will build a better network of bloggers and better quality of blogs at that.

Its easy to get accepted into Blogmad, so if you have a new blog, that will be your best bet. Blog Explosion is kind of like trying to get into a picky country club. It feels petty and stupid and you have to wait a long time, but once you are in, you get connected to the right people.

I recommend both!

I use both!

Both have helped me build up my network and introduce my blog to many different readers. They both fulfill the question of How do I get people to read my blog!

PayPerPost Blog Number Inflation - You can check Out but your Blog can Never Leave

admin — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 13:37:04 +0000

One of the issues that has publicly surfaced as a result of the PayPerPost Alexa scandal/tiff is the fact that once you put a blog in the PayPerPost system, its pretty much there forever.

PayPerPost claims to have about 38-40,000 blogs in their network, which is amazing. The thing is some of those blogs are inactive(not posting for PPP), some are dead(no website anymore), some have moved (ergo from blogspot to a hosted domain) and some belong to bloggers that have quit or retired from PayPerPost.

PayPerPost tracks metrics on blogs from the ads that go on those blogs. From PPP’s perspective it would be apparent that they would always want to monitor those metrics to show their advertisers how well the ads work.

Similarly, the older a blog becomes, the higher it tends to rank, so leaving a blog in the network, could raise the overall average rankings.

But if you are a blogger that wants to have your blogs de-listed from the network, there is not a way to do this in the system. You can put in a request to PayPerPost, but you may not necessarily have the right or expectation to have your blog removed.

One recent blogger wanted to have her blogs removed as PPP was too restrictive for her. It did not let her experiment with code and in part set off the Alexa controversy. The blogger wanted to keep the experiment going to test Alexa, but did not want to harm PayPerPost. However, she had no way to remove her blog and as such comply with the change in PayPerPost policy which prevented the gaming of Alexa.

So for new bloggers, they should consider that much like the Hotel California, you can check out of PayPerPost anytime you like, but for now Your Blog can Never Leave.

PayPerPost Accuses Some of their Oldest Members of Gaming Alexa and PayPerPost

admin — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:37:38 +0000

We mentioned that PayPerPost had recently finally gotten around to responding to requests from their bloggers, who wanted to know if it was OK to game Alexa.

It only took about 6-8 months for the PPP response on the specific topic. In the time void many bloggers seemed to have taken PayPerPost’s lack of response and acceptance of the process (as it was designed, executed, tested and run from within the PayPerPost forum) as a default green light to proceed.

However, a tipping point in Alexa gaming was apparently reached and PPP stepped in with a heavy hand to quash the gaming of Alexa activity. This has resulted in their accusation that some old ‘Posties’ were involved in the gaming of Alexa.

A Postie is slang for a blogger that is in PayPerPost network and earns money from writing sponsored articles for PayPerPost. An old Postie is typically considered someone that has been in the PayPerPost network since the PayPerPost forum was created in September of 2006. Sometimes old posties are measured by the number of posts they have in the forums as well, although those posts sometimes get deleted.

For the record, I am an old Postie myself, having signed up with the PayPerPost network about 8 days after the went live.

Some of those old Posties helped to make PPP what it is today and in fact have a public presence and association with PPP that is almost as famous as PPP itself. So their accusations are very similar to exposing an internal employee as a problem almost. The big problem here is that PayPerPost has essentially changed the rules of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable after the fact and cried foul for something that was at best fair and at worst a ball going right down the line.

Issue is With PayPerPost Usage of Weak Metrics

Regardless, the real issue here is one presented to advertisers. Advertisers that are not experience in the web enough to understand that Alexa rankings and numbers are almost useless are the ones that are being pitched by PayPerPost a bill of goods. You can sell a farce and that is wrong, but when your outsourced contractor games your farce and you step on them for it, it gets a bit murky as to who is really to blame.

I’d posit that PayPerPost should clean up their rankings and drop Alexa numbers. The fact that it is far far too easy for even a non-technically savvy person to fix an Alexa number is just another reason why it is a poor metric to track advertising results.

What Happens to the Bloggers?

It remains to be seen what the impact of this small scandal will be on the actual bloggers. Time will tell.

PayPerPost Prepares to Black List Blogs Utilizing Industry Trust

admin — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 17:22:02 +0000

PayPerPost is taking a strange and disturbing action to stop bloggers from using known weaknesses inherent in ranking systems such as Google’s Pagerank and Alexa.

There are multiple obvious issues with PayPerPost’s reaction.

PayPerPost is in the business of advertising websites, which includes providing links to those websites, which drives up Pagerank. ~ This is Google’s primary complaint against PPP, that PPP games pagerank themselves.
PayPerPost started using metrics including Alexa a little less than a year ago. Alexa is a well known and documented metric program that has been severely flawed for over a decade.
Shortly after PPP started using Alexa many hundreds of bloggers asked PPP about the well known and documented ways to game Alexa and if it would be OK to use them. PayPerPost Did not Respond then.

Several bloggers also utilized an Alexa redirect scheme to demonstrate to PPP that the Alexa Metrics were bogus in the hopes that PPP would drop the Alexa Metric all together.

PayPerPost took at least 8 months to respond and responded with the threat of an Industry powered black list.
PayPerPost seems to be insinuating that they conspiring with the other major blog marketing companies (un-named). PayPerPost is the likely market leader with a rumored 40,000 and growing blogger base. It would not be surprising if they have a market share in excess of 50-70%. But when combined with other blog marketing companies, they could easily create an oligopoly at worst, a conspiracy or possibly engage in anti-competitive pricing or blacklisting procedures (the last of which is insinuated in their first August 13th article, which is later identified as being authored by their President Ted.)

Our competitors share the same issues we are dealing with and we are all sick of it. In the future expect to see a shared database and detection that allows us to collectively blacklist blogs. So not only will you be booted from PPP, you can expect to be booted from the other platforms as well. You can cutoff all your sponsored blogging income with one swoop! Think of it like the casinos sharing information about cheats in Vegas. We won’t be sharing any personal information, just a blog url.

Regarding that last sentence about sharing the blog url with PayPerPost competitors in the industry. As of August 20th, seven days after the post, the PayPerPost PrivacyPolicy did not indicate that PayPerPost would share blog urls with PayPerPost competitors. It does reference “trusted partners.”

PayPerPost could claim that their competitors are ‘trusted partners’ for purposes of sharing the blog url information, which for most bloggers is almost the same as sharing their name or identity. Calling their competitors trusted partners (if PPP were to do that) would significantly increase the potential for an anti-competitive claim to be made against both PayPerPost and any cooperating company.

Sharing of Your Information

PayPerPost only shares personal information with our parent, subsidiary, affiliated companies, or other trusted companies when you provide opt-in consent or if we have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information will not violate applicable law, regulations or rules.
We may share with third parties certain pieces of aggregated, non-personal information, such as the number of users who searched for a particular term, for example, or how many users clicked on a particular advertisement. Such information does not identify you individually.

The PayPerPost Response

Gaming PR and Alexa Scores
Update - Exploits, spoofs and other annoyances explained

Note. This one spells out how these exploits work and in doing so spell out what PPP will look for.
They also point out that from PPP’s perspective, its OK to use the Alexa Redirect in links or blogrolls, but not in an image.
That means that the old fashioned way to crank an Alexa number might still be allowed by PayPerPost

It works like this:
Person includes the Alexa redirect code preceding their URL on a web page with say, 98 other links to cohorts that have their urls with the redirect preceding it
Each person gets the Linky firefox add in
They run Linky, which opens up every single link on a given web page (with a max of 99 links) in different firefox tabs
the redirect code sends a quick note to Alexa to track the fact that the page has been viewed, and there’s a vote for the day (max one vote per day)
Each member of the 99 person cabal, runs the program every day
Generates 99 votes per day per cabal or approximately 3000 votes/hits in Alexa per month
Multiply that times multiple Blog cabals and you can get lots of hits
I don’t recommend it and as you can see from my own Alexa numbers, I don’t use it either!

Key PPP Discussion forum Threads on this topic

The thread that kicked off the PPP response and this controversy titled Alexa Experiment locked on August 13th by Froogle aka Pete or Peter.

Karen’s Response (Karen PPP Customer Love)

Hi Folks,
Test or not - if we find signs of anyone cheating, falsifying, or otherwise circumventing the natural course of rankings we pull, they run the risk of suspension or really more likely permanent banning from PayPerPost. I’ll be checking in on rankings this coming week.
Karen
_________________
————————————–
Karen Allen
Director of Customer Love
PayPerPost.com

Pete’s Response (IT head / Ruby on Rails Guru - don’t know his official title, my apologies)

The key word in all of this is, of course, ‘exploit’.
We’ll be extending the scripts we already use to spot Google Page Rank spoofers to include this one and I’m sure Customer Love will take appropriate action against anyone doing it.
The thing is, we use ranks to handle segmentation. If you do something like this you are falsely representing your blog to advertisers in order to make a quick buck. That’s just plain wrong, aside from the fact that as someone pointed out, it damages the entire network for everyone.

Something better than Alexa?
More Useless Alexa Whining
Note there are over 552 discussion forum threads talking about ‘alexa’ on the PPP forums

Other Sub Controversies Exposed

There are several other lesser controversies stemming from this issue that we will cover separately.

Related News: Pot calls Kettle Black