Twitter for Dummies – part 6: The Most Frequent Questions You Will Be Asked

This series all started from the basic question “How do you explain Twitter to someone who is completely ignorant about micro blogging and social media?”. We went through the moves of explaining the social networking side, what you can use Twitter for, the software components that make Twitter work, the technical syntax of tweets, and how to tweet effectively.
Often though, you will hear the same questions coming back. Here are some I am asked all the time:

1. Is Twitter one more tool to overload me with information?

There is no ‘have to’ with Twitter. Just like the Internet as a whole, you use Twitter as and when you like. All updates from the people you follow are optional reads. Some days I am pretty active on Twitter, other days I hardly touch it. Sometimes, I only use it to look up information…

2. How should we regulate the use of Twitter in our organisation?

If there would be one rule, it would be the same rule applying to any web presence of your organisation: If you have a guideline governing official web sites, your organisation’s blogs, or the official use of social media in general, then it can apply for Twitter too. If the Twitter account is in the name of the organisation, of course.
If the question is about people’s personal Twitter accounts, then most probably other guidelines apply, assuring the employee does not break any non-disclosure rules. Other than that, there is little an organisation can do and should do to regulate the use of Twitter.

3. Will Twitter replace Email?

Although Twitter has the possibility of sending public messages (“Replies”) or private messages to individual users, it is unsuitable as an Email system: You can only send a direct message to one person at a time, you are limited to 140 characters, there are no discussion threads, nor can you embed graphic elements etc…..
As with many features and possible uses of Twitter, users will define how they can and will use it. It won’t be long before new Twitter-ers will find out the difference between Email and Twitter for themselves.

4. Will Twitter replace Skype or other Instant Messengers?

Twitter is mainly used for ‘broadcasts’ of messages to your social community. Surely, you can use ‘replies’ and ‘direct messages’ to “kind of chat” using Twitter, but it is rather clumsy because of the 140 character limitation and the delays which occur in posting messages. In short: Twitter does not even come close to the functionality of an Instant Messenger.

5. Will Twitter take up a lot of my time?

As part of your official duties in your job, I’d say: ‘Twitter is optional’, use it up to the level where it fulfills a purpose in your job. For the rest, use Twitter as you see best fit. You can drive a Ferrari at 10 mph, but you can also race it over the German Autobahn. You can spend one minute per day on Twitter, and be happy with a social community of 10 people, or keep on going until… until you have a million followers.

6. I still don’t understand what to use Twitter for.

Even after explaining all the bits and pieces as we have done in this blog series, some people still don’t grasp what Twitter can do for them. My only – and final – advise is: Give it a try. If you don’t like it, forget all about it.
It took me a few months to figure out how to use Twitter for my own purposes, and hey, I am a social media freak.

Add to Cart Twitter for Dummies – part 6: The Most Frequent Questions You Will Be Asked

Twitter for Dummies – part 5: 10 tips for effective tweeting

You have successfully created your Twitter account. Through part 1 of this series you got some pretty good idea what you will use Twitter for. You understand the importance of building social communities, and which Twitter tools can help you with those tasks. Part 4 in this series thaught you the basic syntax of a tweet.
Now it is time to concentrate on how to tweet effectively, in 10 practical tips.

1. Use hash tags

Hash tags, keywords prefixed by “#”, beef up a tweet. They can emphasize a word, “classify” a tweet to a particular subject and make it easily searchable.
So:

“Meeting urgent hunger needs is a long term investment…in stability and world peace”

… might be nice, but better to beef it up:

“Meeting urgent hunger needs is a long term investment…in stability and world peace” #g8 #foodaid #hum

The hash tags in this example identified the tweet with the G8 meeting, with food aid and showed we were talking about a hum(anitarian) issue.
The popular hash tags in the non-profit world are
#humanitarian
#hum (as a short for the previous)
#nonprofit
#aid
#activism
#fundraising
#charity
There is no particular place to put hash tags, although most people put them at the end of their Tweet. Clever users integrate hash tags within their tweet to save space without taking away readability of a tweet:

Record level of #hunger and #poverty looms on #G8 agenda

2. Use links effectively

Plain vanilla tweets are ok as a statement, an intermezzo, but not to drive a message through:

ICRC scaling back significantly in Sri Lanka #aid

… would be more effective with the link:

ICRC scaling back significantly in Sri Lanka http://bit.ly/141hnZ #aid

… and even better: include the source of the link

BBC: ICRC scaling back significantly in Sri Lanka http://bit.ly/141hnZ #aid

Or

ICRC scaling back significantly in Sri Lanka (BBC) http://bit.ly/141hnZ#aid

By the way: there is no reason to use long URLs. They clutter the readability, eat up effective tweet-space:

ICRC scaling back significantly in Sri Lanka http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/south_asia/8141810.stm #aid

For the nerds amongst you: As Google page ranks all Twitter pages, some people think including the full link to their blog or website in a tweet will count as a valid back link. This is bollocks, as Twitter uses the “rel=nofollow” attribute for all links…

3. Make it easy for others to retweet you

The power of Twitter lays in how your tweet propagates through the tweet-o-sphere. Retweets are Twitter’s trade currency.
When someone retweets you, they give you a ‘vote of confidence’ by re-broadcasting your tweet to their own social community. Not only will a retweet re-broadcast your message but it will also propagate your Twitter-handle beyond your own social community so you can get ‘discovered’ by new potential followers.
In case you did not get the message yet: retweets are important. So, make it easy to be retweeted: Don’t use your full 140 characters for your tweet. When others want to retweet you, they need space to prefix “RT @yourhandle “ to your original tweet.
In the case of my private Twitter account “@TheRoadTo”, I know I can use 140 – 14 = 126 characters maximum for my tweets:

ICRC scaling back significantly in Sri Lanka (BBC) http://bit.ly/141hnZ #aid

Will – by default- be retweetable as:

RT @TheRoadTo ICRC scaling back significantly in Sri Lanka (BBC) http://bit.ly/141hnZ #aid

4. Don’t be scared to retweet.

The people I follow on Twitter, have interesting stuff to say. I retweet actively what I think is relevant, cool, funny, or controversial.
Don’t be a leech, though. When someone tweets a good link, give them credit by including their Twitter handle, and by making it clear you are retweeting rather than claiming this is YOUR original find.
Distinguish between plain vanilla retweets and edited retweets by changing the format of the retweet.
For instance, when my friend @breadcrumb12 tweeted:

BBC said that the International Committee of Red Cross will be scaling back significantly in North Sri Lanka http://bit.ly/141hnZ

A plain vanilla retweet would run over the 140 characters limit:

RT @breadcrumb12 BBC said that International Committee of Red Cross will be scaling back significantly in North Sri Lanka http://bit.ly/141hnZ

And no matter how much I love @breadcrumb12, I did not like the way this tweet was formatted. So, I’d like to re-use that link, while still giving due credit to @breadcrumb12.
Try this:

RT ICRC scaling back significantly in Sri Lanka (BBC) http://bit.ly/141hnZ #aid (via @breadcrumb12)

Or

RT ICRC scaling back significantly in Sri Lanka (BBC) http://bit.ly/141hnZ #aid (Tnx @breadcrumb12)

Some use an even shorter version:

RT ICRC scaling back significantly in Sri Lanka (BBC) http://bit.ly/141hnZ #aid @breadcrumb12

If I want to retweet something, but want to include a comment of my own, I use something like this:

RT @breadcrumb12 ICRC scales back in Sri Lanka (BBC) http://bit.ly/141hnZ #aid [ed: leaves room for ethnic cleansing?]

5. Put some spank in your life tweets

If you use Twitter for your non-profit organisation, put some funny stuff or a personal message in between your ‘business tweets’.. It gives more of a personal twist to your tweets. There is nothing wrong with tweeting:

A busy day at work, working on a funding proposal for Zimbabwe school feeding.

Don’t hesitate to put a joke in the middle of serious business

Just saw a guy driving a motorbike on the highway with a dog on his lap

Or a picture of what you are doing at the moment:

http://twitpic.com/9rxn6 – Yesterday’s sunset view #Tuscany

Life is too short for business only. Put a bit of spank in your tweets. Your followers will love you for it, and it will show there is an actual person behind that Twitter-machine!

6. Interact with your followers

Twitter is all about social communities, so don’t use it to merely broadcast. Interact! Commend people on good tweets

@fighthunger nice find!

Or

@fighthunger thanks for your retweet!

And when people send you a direct message or a reply, respond! Nothing is as bad as to give people the impression you are a Twitter machine.

7. Ration your tweets

Twitter users who tweet continuously are seen as ‘noisy’, and often loose followers. Spread your tweets over time. Don’t overdo the amount of tweets you are broadcasting. Remember: quality masters over quantity.

8. Know when to tweet

Scheduling your tweets effectively is important. When you have important messages to tweet, make sure you tweet them, or re-broadcast them at peak times.
The most busy (and fertile) times on Twitter is when people arrive in the office between 8 and 10 am. As the main Twitter population lives in Europe and in the States, send out your important Tweets during those times, for the different time zones.
Weekends have low Twitter traffic. Statistics show there is a very low chance your important tweets will be picked up during the weekend.
In a future post, I will analyse the peak times and days so your tweets can be more effective.

9. Don’t just tweet links to your own website

Yes, Twitter can drive traffic to your website, and yes, I do tweet links to my own blogs actively. But I also tweet links to other websites and blogs I am reading. The world does not evolve around your blog or website alone!
Include links to interesting reads, controversial topics, and if you are tweeting on behalf of a non-profit organisation, also retweet what other organisations are tweeting. You will see that as time goes by, they will also retweet your tweets… After all, in the non-profit sector, we’re all in this together…

10. 140 characters of quality

Before you send out a tweet, re-read it. Check your spelling. Check the readability. Check the syntax. You are broadcasting newspaper headlines, so you have 140 characters to make mistakes. You have a space of 140 characters to show sloppiness or to show quality

Add to Cart Twitter for Dummies – part 5: 10 tips for effective tweeting

Twitter for Dummies – part 4: The Geeky Art of Nerdy Tweets

You have successfully created your Twitter account. You read part 1 of this series and have some pretty good idea what you will use Twitter for. You understand the importance of building social communities, and which tools can help you with those tasks…
And then… the blank Twitter prompt is staring in your face. What to do now?

Certain signs, abbreviations or keywords have a fixed meaning in the Tweet-o-sphere. Here is an overview of the Twitter syntax.

1. Handles:

Every user on Twitter has a unique user name (or call it “handle”). Within tweets, we refer to another user by prefixing his or her user name with the “@” sign.
“@JohnnyB” refers to the Twitter user handle “JohnnyB”.
Within a tweet, we use it like this:

Looking forward to meet @BloggerTip tonight

“@BloggerTip” refers to the Twitter username of this blog, BlogTips.
If you know someone’s user name, you can find their latest tweets with the URL http://twitter.com/username.
E.g. http://twitter.com/BloggerTip
By using uppercase and lowercase characters, users make their handle easier to read. For instance, “@ChangeThruInfo” is easier to grasp than “@changethruinfo”, no?

2. Replies:

when a Tweet starts with a handle name, it is a public message to that Twitter user:

@BloggerTip what u think about: “5 reasons Facebook is better than Twitter for your business” http://bit.ly/1suvPTC

3. Direct messages:

Tweets starting with “D” followed by a user name are private messages from one Twitter user to the other. Contrary to replies, these messages can not be seen by other users. Note that both Twitter users need to follow each other before “D” between them is allowed.

D @BloggerTip check out “Facebook better than Twitter for your business?” http://bit.ly/1suvPTC

4. Hash Tags:

Any word starting with the “#” hash sign, is a hash tag, indicating the subject of the tweet. More on the effective use of hash tags in the next post.

“Facebook better than Twitter for your business?” http://bit.ly/1suvPTC #socialmedia

The hash tag identifies the topic of this tweet as “#socialmedia”.
There are no fixed rules for hashtags, other than the need to start with the ‘hash’ sign. Popular hash tags come and go. Some like #earthhour (the day we switch off our lights for one hour, remember?) shot to the most popular hashtag on March 28, the day of the actual event, and then disappeared as fast as they came.
Other hash tags like #iranelection became a way to tag all Tweets about the Iran post-election protests. #CNNfail protested the lack of coverage of certain news events by mainstream media.
#nomaintenance originated around the same time and was a popular tag which pushed Twitter to cancel their plans for maintenance down time one particular night…

5. Retweets:

And last but not least: any tweet starting with “RT” indicates you are re-broadcasting someone else’s tweet.
For instance, when @BloggerTip tweets:

“Facebook better than Twitter for your business?” http://bit.ly/1suvPTC

I can rebroadcast it as follows:

RT @BloggerTip “Facebook better than Twitter for your business?” http://bit.ly/1suvPTC

Retweets are at the core of what makes Twitter more than just a micro-blogging tool. In the next part, we will detail how to retweet effectively and how to make it easy for others to retweet you

Add to Cart Twitter for Dummies – part 4: The Geeky Art of Nerdy Tweets

Twitter for Dummies – Part 3: The parts that makes Twitter work

In part 1 of this series, I described what I use Twitter for. In part 2, I highlighted Twitter as a social networking tool.
In this post, we will go slightly more technical: looking at the parts in the engine that make Twitter really useful.

Twitter.com

The core of it all is the blue box, twitter.com. This is where all the Tweets and Twitter profiles are stored, and the engine with which everything connects.

The Twitter website

When you first sign up to Twitter, you connect via the web interface, Twitter’s main web page. It lets you modify your profile and settings, search for Tweets, add followers, browse through the updates or “Tweets” from all your followers, and send out Tweets yourself.
The usability of the webinterface is not the best, IMHO, e.g. the tweets from those you follow are not refeshed automatically, it is difficult to distinguish between “your Tweet updates” and “those of your social community”, etc.. But it lets you perform the basic functions: read what’s going on, and broadcast Tweets yourself.

Desktop tools

Most people use desktop tools (similar to what Skype has) such as Thwirl, Tweetdeck, or Seesmic. Each is a small Adobe Air application, which updates automatically the Tweets your community is broadcasting. They let you filter for “all tweets”, “replies only”, “direct messages”, and let you search for Twitterers or Tweets. I hardly ever use the webinterface, but always have a window open with Seesmic and Twhirl.

Input processors

There are additional ‘input’ tools, to ease posting stuff on Twitter. The most popular are:

• URL shorteners convert the links you want to use in your Tweets to a real short URL. Some, like bit.ly, which I use the most, also give you statistics for amount of clicks each of your links gets.
• TwitPic allows you to upload a picture and generates a link to the picture, which you can include in your Tweet. This is the tool Janis Krums used to post the famous picture of the plane in the Hudson river, by the way.
• Twitvid.io does the same for video
• twtpoll lets you post a small poll

There are hundreds of input tools. Twtbase is a great repository listing most of the add-on applications. You can post audio, include a link to longer updates if you feel too limited with Twitter’s 140 characters, schedule tweets, etc…

Using your mobile

Another way to interact with Twitter, is via your mobile phone. Many PDAs like the iPhone or Blackberry have a small application to read and write Tweets via an Internet link. You can also use your mobile’s SMS service to send or receive tweets via twitter.com directly. Or, if you prefer, use Email on your mobile to tweet, pictures and video as attachments, which get automatically converted into links via TwitPic or Twitvid.io.
This makes Twitter truly mobile.

Reusing content

A more sophisticated way of using Twitter is to take the RSS feed from your blog (or website) and tweet the titles and links to new blogposts automatically. Twitterfeed is the best known tool for this. Twitterfeed updates will through URL shorteners before being posted onto Twitter.

On the output site: search and query tools.

Between 10,000 to 15,000 Tweets are published per minutes, making Twitter a great data repository. You might not be interested in seeing how many people tweeted about the weather today, but searching for specific tags like #aid or #blogging or #michaeljackson would be more useful.
There are many query tools dependent on what exactly you search for, the depth of the search, and even more importantly, how it is presented to you.
Most of the search and query are also listed in Twtbase. My favourite query tools ar Twazzup and TwitterFall, which not only refresh queries automatically but also show pictures related to your query, the top users, related links, etc… Try also Twicsy to search for tweeted images.

Last but not least: reusing content from Twitter.

Dozens of tools let you take your (or anyone else’s) twitter updates, and republish them on an other website or blog automatically. You can also republish the Twitter content onto other social media services, such as Facebook, Friendfeed or Identi.ca…
If you are both a blogger and a twitterer, it is fashionable to include a widget to display your Twitter’s updates onto your blog or website. This interchanges readers from your blog with your Twitter account.

Add to Cart Twitter for Dummies – Part 3: The parts that makes Twitter work

Twitter for Dummies – Part 2: Twitter, the social community tool

In the previous post, I elaborated what I use Twitter for, both at work and for my personal sites.
So what is this “Twitter”-thingie then, hey? How can I explain Twitter as a social community tool rather than a blogging tool…? Well try these approaches:

How to explain Twitter? Think of Skype, but different!

You know instant messengers (IM) like Skype or MSN messenger? Then you know how with instant messengers, you can look for friends, add them to your address book and then type messages online.
At its best, you can add several friends into a conversation, type away and have some fun. All your “chats” remain private between those within that conversation.
Twitter is a similar tool, but all text messages are “broadcasted”: they are public messages with a maximum of 140 characters. I don’t have to be in a conversation with one or more people like in Skype. I broadcast. And millions of others are broadcasting just like me, resulting in a mega-stream of thousands public text messages per minute (currently about 10,000 to 15,000 per minute). Any of my “broadcasts” can be searched for, replied to, or rebroadcasted by any other Twitter user.
If people find the stuff I broadcast interesting, they tag me (or become a “follower” in Twitter-lingo). If people “follow me”, they will automatically filter my updates out of the mega stream of a zillion Twitter messages. They will do so for all their followers, effectively creating a message filter for stuff they like and people they are interested in.
In the following example, I “follow” Karim, Ann and John. Out of the millions of other broadcasts, I filter their messages, so will only see the Tweets they broadcast and no others.

Turning it around: I don’t only broadcast, I also listen (not enough, my wife would say, but that is another issue.. ). I look for friends, or broader, people who are interested in the same stuff I am, and “follow” them.
This interaction between ‘broadcasting’ and ‘listening’, results in each Twitter user building a social community of “followers”… People follow me, find my updates interesting, and stay tuned. Friends of friends (or “followers” of those who “follow me”) see interactions with me, check my broadcasts, and become my followers… Gradually, the group grows. The larger the group, the more effective Twitter becomes as a social community for me.
And Twitter communities grow organically. Using the same example, but showing a broader view of the communities around me:

Karim, Ann, John and me follow each other, this is my social community, as it is centered around “who follows me”. Likewise, Ann, Andy and me are the social community centered around Karim.
Twitter has made it easy to find out “who follows who”, and following new people is done “by a click”, so social communities grow very quickly and organically. Just like “friends of my friends” might become “my friends” in real life:
In the above example, do you see the chain of John-Roman-Suzy-Roanna-Mary? Roman follows both John and Suzy, but Suzy and John don’t follow each other.
Suzy will see Roman interact with John via Twitter, and as they have a common “friend” with John, I bet you Suzy will start following John, as there is a good chance they have common interests.

How do I explain Twitter to someone? Think of TV.

As you flip that dial on your satellite TV, you can find hundreds of stations. If you are interested in music, and news, you will put those stations you like in your pre-select channels: CNN, Al-Jazeera and MTV.
Twitter is the same. You scan for those users you like, and you put them in your pre-select channels by “following” them.
Except that you will watch to all your pre-selected channels at the same time, like some of those mosaic features some TVs have… “Listening on Twitter” is like watching that mosaic picture

How do I explain Twitter to someone? Think of CB radio.

Remember in the 70-ies, many of us had this little black box with a microphone, and a hidden antenna on the roof. Well at least I did! I would be one of those getting up in the morning, and shout out “Breaker, breaker, this is Rubberduck, gooooood morning to everyone!”…
In the beginning, nobody would ever come back to me, but as I started to interact with other CB-ers, we started to tune into each other’s channels, and I started to get replies to my “good morning” shouts. Later on, we picked one channel where we could always find each other, and interacted day and night…
A social community was built. How it was used, was up to the participants… Some of us, only used it to keep us company in lonely hours. Some used CB to have fun and joke around. Others used it to get traffic information, finding out where the “bears” were with their speed cameras. Other teens used it to work on projects for school, and there were people who organised fundraising parties for charity…
Twitter is the same. With one additional feature: I can record what others were talking about, and re-broadcast it on my CB channel.

Visualizing your social community

TwitNest, a cool Twitter network visualisation tool, shows exactly what I mean with ‘social networks’.
Here is a part of my Twitter network, centered around my @TheRoadTo, my personal Twitter username, showing a small icon for each of the people I follow, and a line connecting who is following who:

As you can see, this network, is centered around me:

Twitter user “@fighthunger” is part of my community. Here are the people within my community they follow, the followers we have in common:

And here are the users “@ithorpe”, one of my followers,… euh… follows..

Play with Twitnest, it is interesting as it also “groups” people, based on ‘who is following who’…
Sociologists would have a real go at trying to figure out how people are grouped, how social communities are formed and grow organically.
In my community for instance, I can clearly see different groups popping up, dependent on the common interest my followers have. Some of them are ‘aidworkers’. Other groups I recognize, are ‘IT people’, ‘those interested in social media’, ‘news stations’ and ‘nonprofit organisations’…

Add to Cart Twitter for Dummies – Part 2: Twitter, the social community tool

Twitter for Dummies – Part 1: more than a microblog

Last week, @gaurisalokhe invited Jon from (AidWorker Daily) and I as guest speakers in a short FAO info session about micro blogging.
I realized how difficult it is to explain what this social media phenomenon really is all about. Does “Twitter is a micro-blogging tool” associate it too much with “blogging”: “I publish, you read, and if all goes well, you might even comment”?
Maybe this is what Twitter was originally intended for, but how do you explain to anyone it is much more than just ‘publishing 140 character content’. How do you explain the dynamic and the power of a Twitter social community of “followers”?
Another challenge is to explain that apart from ”www.twitter.com”, the web interface for Twitter, there are hundreds of add-ons and tools that make Twitter work for you.

I use Twitter for:

• yep, publishing “content”: links I find interesting, updates about what I do (with text, pictures and video)
• build a social community with people who have similar interests by interacting with my followers
• get people interested in my blogs by tweeting links to new posts
• get help and feedback by asking questions, posting polls
• give help and feedback by answering questions and polls
• monitor news and trends
• reading up on what others are reading and find interesting
• monitor the latest updates from sites and subjects I am interested in, almost as an alternative to an RSS reader
• get inspiration
• live blogging from events, workshops
• have fun

But the person next door might use it for something completely different:

• fundraising
• announcing where you can get free Pizzahut coupons
• rallying up the masses to protest against the Iran violence
• bash CNN, just because they are such an easy target
• broadcasting what second hand items she has for sale
• stay in touch with friends
• …

Is Twitter worth the trouble?

Yes it is. Here are three cases which showed me the power of twitter:
1. Late one evening, someone in my Twitter users’ community tweeted me:

Are you guys expelled from Sudan? This article (link) says so!

The linked article indeed stated the organisation I work for was expelled from Sudan, around the time 13 NGOs were forced to leave the country. Which was incorrect. As this issue was very sensitive for us, I contacted our Public Information people, who called the publishers of the website. Half an hour later, the –potentially damaging- statement was corrected. Without Twitter, I would never have caught that article.
2. A few months ago, I tweeted:

Looking for a webguru to help us analysing a complicated portal development project

Sure enough someone from my community replied. He was available within two weeks. We started communicating via Email, and in the end, he actually found a grant from the Gates Foundation to fund his trip. I not only found a webguru, but got him fast and for free.
3. Last week, I tweeted:

Writing a post about blogplatforms. I know Blogger, WordPress and Tumblr but looking for a TypePad geek to help me out

Three people responded and assisted me in the article, filling in the blanks I left. Two were part of my followers’ community, the other one was just searching Twitter for the keyword “TypePad”.

Twitter for Dummies

In this series, “Twitter for Dummies”, or call it “A Twitter Primer”, I will cover this social media phenomenom from the bottom up. What Twitter is, what the different components are, best practices, the tricks of the trade, and a list of the most useful add-ons. How to make Twitter work for your nonprofit purposes?
In the tradition of BlogTips, I will spec these posts with my own experiences.

Add to Cart Twitter for Dummies – Part 1: more than a microblog

Love is… debugging the WiFi together

Cartoon inspired by the work of Kim Casali

Add to Cart Love is… debugging the WiFi together

Is blogging still fun?

I am not sure how often I feel like walking a road, ending up somewhere at a hurdle. And then I look around me and think “How did I end up here?”.
I mean this “blogging thing” is great. It gives the power to distribute information “to the masses”. Being an anti-authoritarian at heart, I cannot but get a kick out of how easy it is nowadays for any Joe Blow to publish information. No surprise I, like many others, took “the blogging thing” at heart and started to walk a road. But this weekend, I looked around me, and thought “how did I end up here” ?
Are you like me? When I use a tool, I develop a dependency on it. Like millions of other bloggers, I do my part to create meaningful content, to do a serious effort of making my blogs look good. But I also developed a dependency on my providers: the servers or services I use for my blogs. There is no worse start of the day than to wake up, check my blogs and find out one of them is down. Nothing as frustrating as having a spark of inspiration, starting a blogpost and having the thing crash in the midst of it. Curses fly when -once again- I upgrade one of my blogs or add a new widget only to find it all goes pear-shape because of a technical problem.
I guess it all comes down to a feeling of “with my blog I provide a service”. I create information or give entertainment. I feel sad when those reading my blogs are faced with a blank page. The longer it takes for the blog to come back up, the more frustrated I get.
I feel that the past months have been a particular hard time for bloggers. I don’t know where it all started.
Probably it started during the systematic and repetitive massive hacking of shared host providers, of which GoDaddy, one of my main hosting providers was hit the hardest. Tens of thousands of blogs were infected and started to spread viruses. Then I had a hard and long fight against the sub-standard uptime of my shared hosting servers.
In June, WordPress.com went down. The same happened – for a shorter period, this weekend. In the past weeks, Tumblr, the host of several of my blogs went down randomly. And last week, Posterous was hit by hackers, bringing down their servers through a massive DoS (Denial of Service) attack. The folks at Posterous released a new IP address for site with a custom domain, like my Shot from the Hip TwitPic equivalent. But the hackers followed, and hours after the remedy, the patient was sick again. Then Posterous decided to move to a new data center over the weekend, but as I write this, services are still not restored as they should be. There are still delays in posting updates via email. Cross-posting to Twitter lags behind too. It was kinda funny to see my yesterday’s “Good Morning”-post only coming up at 8 pm… People must have thought I was drunk.
No, the fun is not out blogging, that is for sure. True, I learn while fighting technical problems: during the adventures of cleaning my hacked GoDaddy sites, I learned a lot about security issues. Fighting inadequate hosting brought me to better analyse what I want from a hosting supplier. But still, I think it is good to stand still once in a while and evaluate how much time I spend creating content – what I truly like in blogging – and how many hours I spend on solving technical issues. And to make sure I don’t let it get too far.
What is your experience?

Add to Cart Is blogging still fun?

Power tools to manage multiple Twitter accounts

For the past 18 months, I managed a dozen different Twitter accounts. From each, I tweet simple text phrases, links, and pictures. I follow my social crowd closely, checking the replies and direct message I get. I also retweet and engage into conversations, as a good social media user should do. In short, I am a Twitter addict, demanding more from my Twitter tools than an average “Tweep”.
I experimented with many desktop, browser, iPhone and iPad tools which could make my life easier in manage these multiple Twitter accounts. While there are loads of tools available for single Twitter account, decent applications to manage a string of Twitter accounts simultaneously, are found far and between.
Here are the tools I have been using:

Managing multiple Twitter accounts from my desktop:
Seesmic Air

Seesmic Air, my favourite Twitter desktop tool

Most of my Twitter-action, I do from my desktop, for which Seesmic Air has been an indispensable tool. This free application runs atop Adobe Air, but the new beta version, runs on Microsoft Silverlight.
The main feature I chose this tool for, is its ability to combine the main Twitter stream for all my Twitter accounts into one single stream. Likewise, all replies and all direct messages for my accounts, are all viewed at once: Even if I have 15 Twitter accounts, I get an immediate overview of all the incoming tweets, as well as all replies and direct messages sent to me on all of my accounts, all in just three columns. No need to switch from account to account. This single feature, I found in no other tool.
I can easily open a separate view to check out the tweets I sent and received from one single account, as well as the replies and direct messages for each them.
Tweeting is a breeze, with the built-in URL shorteners and Twitter picture tools, pretty much a standard feature for all tools on the market these days. When I hover over a tweet, I can easily retweet (either with the new Twitter retweet function or with the conventional “RT” feature), adding my own comments to the retweet.
When I send a tweet, I can choose which of my accounts I tweet it from, and I can tweet from several of my accounts at the same time.

Managing multiple Twitter accounts within a browser: Hootsuite

Managing Twitter accounts with Hootsuite

I have to admit: I don’t use browser applications a lot to manage my Twitter accounts. I work a lot on websites, and my browser is my main workspace. All tabs I open in my browser are mostly related to the posts I am working on, and I avoid cluttering them with generic tools.
But if there was one web-based application I’d use to manage my multiple Twitter accounts, it would be Hootsuite.
Hootsuite is easy to configure, and lets you monitor your different streams, in separate tabs. Checking the streams, replies and direct messages for each Twitter account requires you to switch to that account by clicking its tabs. Even if that is within the same browser window, Hootsuite does not allow you to combine all streams into one single overview, as Seesmic Air does.
There are several features I like in Hootsuite, which I did not find in other tools: You can schedule a tweet, to be broadcasted at a later time, and it allows you tweet the content of an RSS feed. Each time a new item appears in the RSS feed, a new tweet will be broadcasted. A feature which is similar to what Twitterfeed or dlvr.it offer, but nicely integrated into the one single Twitter tool.

Managing multiple Twitter accounts from my iPhone: Twitterrific and Seesmic

Twitterrific for iPhone

As anyone with a sane mind, I only use Twitter on my iPhone when I am on the move. While waiting at the check-in counter, I love to browse through my different Twitter accounts to see what’s up. Twitterrific is my preferred tool then.
The free version for the iPhone lets you manage multiple accounts, but if you want to do away with the single ad atop of your Twitterstream, you’ll have to pay US$14.95.. The ad does not bother me, so I use the free version.
Twitterrific is a powerbundle with different functions, but its user interface takes some time to get used to. I like its the ability to check the profiles of my incoming tweets with a single tap, and it lets me retweet incoming tweets from one Twitter stream, from any of my other accounts. Indispensable when cross-posting tweets.
Weblinks in tweets open up in within the application, with an easy switch back to the main app.
I should confess, lately, I have been playing with Seesmic for iPhone too:

Seesmic for iPhone

While I lack Seesmic’s desktop feature to view all of my incoming streams for all accounts at once, I love the simple user interface. Seesmic for iPhone also allows me to tweet from different accounts simultaneously. They made it easy to retweet a post received on one account, from the other account. Love it!

Managing multiple Twitter accounts from my iPad: Twitterrific

Twitterrific for iPad

The iPad is pretty new on the market, so only a limited number of tools are available to manage multiple Twitter accounts. Luckily, there is Twitterrific to save my day.
The user interface is pretty much the same as for its iPhone application: you can switch from Twitter account to account, browsing each timeline, replies and direct messages. Viewing links, retweeting, checking profiles, all goes in a breeze.
The free version of Twitterrific for iPad only supports one single account, but you can upgrade to the full version for a mere $4. It was the first iPad application I ever bought.
I did play around with TweetDeck for iPad too, but once you configure more than three Twitter account, it becomes very slow and unstable. The latest software release is so buggy, I can’t use it at all. A pity, as I like some of its features.
As the iPad becomes an alternative to a desktop or laptop computer, more applications will be ported to this new platform. I can’t wait until Seesmic gets its iPad version out.
Twitter birds picture courtesy Urban Speaker

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6 Uses for Google AdWords You Had Never Considered

Google AdWords is Google’s advertising platform that allows advertisers to display text ads on Google’s search results. Advertisers can choose what keywords should trigger their ads, and how much they are willing to pay for each click on their ads. The ads usually appear on top and to the right of normal search results. The image below is one example of an AdWords ad:

Traditionally the AdWords platform has been used by large advertisers and companies that want to promote their products, services, get more traffic to their websites and so on.
However, even individuals can become AdWords advertisers (creating an account is free, and just requires a valid credit card), and by spending $10 or so you should be able to accomplish some pretty useful things. Below you’ll find 6 of them.

1. Sell Your Car

The Internet has completed displaced the newspaper classifieds section. If you want to sell your car today, you should put an ad on Craigslist.com, AutoTrader.com, Cars.com and so on. The problem with this method is that you’ll be competing with tens of thousands of people who are also putting ads on these sites to sell their cars.
Can you do something to get an edge? Yes, and that is where Google AdWords comes into play. You can create a couple of ads, and target very specific keywords, so that when people search for them on Google they will click on your ad and end up visiting the page describing your car.
Let’s suppose you are trying to sell your Toyota Corolla. The first step would be to put it for sale on Craigslist.com (or on any other website you prefer). Once that is done, you’ll go to your AdWords account and create a couple of ads targeting terms like: “used corolla”, “buy used corolla”, “used corolla los angeles”, “corolla lost angeles” and so on. Finally, just make the ads point to your car’s page on Craigslist.
You will probably need to bid $2 or more per click to get your ads appearing on Google search results, but it sure will be worth the money, as these visitors will have a good chance of purchasing your car.

2. Sell Your House/Apartment

Just like you can use Google AdWords to sell your car, you can also use it to sell your house/apartment. In fact it will be even more effective here, because the return you’ll have is larger, so your advertising budget should be larger too.
The process is the same. You start by creating an ad for your house on some online marketplace (e.g., HouseHunt.com). After that you’ll create some ads on Google AdWords, and target keywords that people looking for houses might be using. Examples include “apartment new york”, “buy apartment new york”, “apartment washington heights ny”, “two bedroom apartment nyc” and so on.
Given the value of a house you could also consider creating a website to sell it. This would allow you to customize the visual elements, with more pictures, a larger description and so on. You would then drive traffic to your website using the Google AdWords ads.

3. Land A New Job

Picture this: the manager of the company you want to work for, Mark Smith, is on Google, and he decides to run a search for his name (who doesn’t do it these days?). Surprising as it sounds, the very first results says something like this: “Hey Mark Smith, Googling your name is fun, and hiring me will be fun too!”.
Upon clicking on that results the manager would be taken to a page with your resume and an explanation of why you want to work for his company, and why he should hire you.
This neat trick would certainly increase your chances of getting hired huh? You can do it with Google AdWords (e.g., by creating ads targeting the name of the manager you want to hire you). In fact this idea is not mine, and one guy already used it successfully. He landed 5 interviews with top advertising agencies in New York, and three of them offered him a position.

4. Get Accepted Into College

The same trick can be used to improve your chances of getting accepted into college. Having a high GPA or high SAT scores is not enough these days, as competition for the prestigious colleges is fierce. Often times the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of the applicant might make all the different.
You would just need to create some AdWords ads targeting the names of the staff who review the applications of the college you want to attend, pointing them to a website where you explain who you are and why they should accept you.
You could create ads targeting the name of the college too, with a headline like “Do you work at Stanford? Then You Got Know About This Kid!”. The more creative the better.

5. Get A Date

If you are into online dating, Google AdWords can certainly boost the number of contacts you’ll get. First of all you could use it to drive traffic to your profile page on existing dating sites (e.g., PlentyOfFish.com, Match.com and so on).
Second, you can also create a website to advertise yourself (including your bio, pictures and what not) and them use AdWords to drive traffic there.
As for the keywords, you can target dating related ones (e.g., “singles in nyc”), but also interest related keywords. For instance, you could target the keyword “punk band seattle” with an ad saying “Are you a girl who likes Punk music? You might be my soul mate then!”. You get the idea.

6. Prank Friends and Family

As you saw in point 4, the ability to target people’s name is Google AdWords opens a wide range of possibilities. Pranking your friends and family members is one of them!
For example, you could create an ad targeting the name of a friend or cousin, with a headline like “Hey Bob Jones, I Know What You Did Last Summer…”. The ad would then point to a page where you describe something your friend did in the past, mentioning that you’ll be sending it to a local newspaper or something like that.
Just make it clear it is a prank at some point, or your friend might call the police on you!
Over To The Raders: What other clever/innovative uses of Google AdWords have you seen around?

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28 Ways to Make Money with Your Website

There are several lists with “ways to make money with a website” on the Internet, but none of them seem to be complete. That is why I decided to create this one. If you know a method that is not listed below, just let us know and we’ll update it.

Notice that ways to make money with a website are different from ways to make more money from it. Methods to increase your traffic or click-through rate will help you make more money, but they do not represent a method of making money per se.
For example, one could suggest that blending AdSense ads with the content is a way to make money from a website. In reality it’s not; it’s just a way to make more money by improving your ad click-through rate. The real monetization method behind it is a PPC ad network.
The list is divided into direct and indirect methods, and examples and links are provided for each point. Enjoy!

Direct Methods

1. PPC Advertising Networks
Google AdSense is the most popular option under this category, but there are also others. Basically you need to sign up with the network and paste some code snippets on your website. The network will then serve contextual ads (either text or images) relevant to your website, and you will earn a certain amount of money for every click.
The profitability of PPC advertising depends on the general traffic levels of the website and, most importantly, on the click-through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC). The CTR depends on the design of the website. Ads placed abode the fold or blended with content, for instance, tend to get higher CTRs. The CPC, on the other hand, depends on the nice of the website. Mortgages, financial products and college education are examples of profitable niches (clicks worth a couple of dollars are not rare), while tech-related topics tend to receive a smaller CPC (sometimes as low as a couple of cents per click).
The source of the traffic can also affect the overall CTR rate. Organic traffic (the one that comes from search engines) tends to perform well because these visitors were already looking for something, and they tend to click on ads more often. Social media traffic, on the other hand, presents terribly low CTRs because these visitors are tech-savvy and they just ignore ads.
List of popular CPC advertising networks:

• Google Adsense
• Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN)
• BidVertiser
• Chitika
• Clicksor

2. CPM Advertising Networks
CPM advertising networks behave pretty much as PPC networks, except that you get paid according to the number of impressions (i.e., page views) that the ads displayed on your site will generate. CPM stands for Cost per Mille, and it refers to the cost for 1,000 impressions.
A blog that generates 100,000 page views monthly displaying an advertising banner with a $1 CPM, therefore, will earn $100 monthly.
CPM rates vary with the network, the position of the ad and the format. The better the network, the higher the CPM rate (because they have access to more advertisers). The closer you put the ad to the top of the page, the higher the CPM. The bigger the format (in terms of pixels), the higher the CPM.
You can get as low as $0,10 and as high as $10 per 1,000 impressions (more in some special cases). CPM advertising tends to work well on websites with a high page views per visitor ratio (e.g., online forums, magazines and so on).
List of popular CPM advertising networks:

• Casale Media
• Burst Media
• Value Click
• Advertising.com
• Tribal Fusion
• Right Media

3. Direct Banner Advertising
Selling your own advertising space is one of the most lucrative monetization methods. First and foremost because it enables you to cut out the middleman commissions and to determine your own rates. The most popular banner formats on the web are the 728×90 leaderboard, the 120×600 skyscraper, the 300×250 rectangle and the 125×125 button.
The downside of direct banner advertising is that you need to have a big audience to get qualified advertisers, and you will need to spend time managing the sales process, the banners and the payments.
Related links:

• How to Find Advertisers for Your Website
• Finding Advertisers for Your Blog
• Direct Advertising Sales for Beginners
• Openads Ad Server
• OIO Publisher Ad Platform

4. Text Link Ads
After Google declared that sites selling text links without the nofollow tag would be penalized, this monetization method became less popular.
Many website owners are still using text links to monetize their sites, though, some using the nofollow tag and some not.
The advantage of this method is that it is not intrusive. One can sell text links directly through his website or use specialized networks like Text-Link-Ads and Text-Link-Brokers to automate the process.
Text link marketplaces and networks:

• DigitalPoint Link Sales Forum
• Text-Link-Ads
• Text-Link-Brokers
• TNX
• LinkWorth

5. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a very popular practice on the Internet. Under this system you have a merchant that is willing to let other people (the affiliates) sell directly or indirectly its products and services, in exchange for a commission. Sometimes this type of advertising is also called CPA (cost per action) or CPL (cost per lead) based.
Affiliates can send potential customers to the merchant using several tools, from banners to text links and product reviews.
In order to find suitable affiliate programs you can turn to individual companies and publishers like Dreamhost and SEOBook, or join affiliate marketplaces and networks.
List of popular affiliate marketplaces and networks:

• Commission Junction
• ClickBank
• Azoogle Ads
• Link Share

6. Monetization Widgets
The latest trend on the web are widgets that let you monetize your website. Examples include Widgetbucks and SmartLinks. Some of these services operate under a PPC scheme, others behave like text link ads, others yet leverage affiliate links.
Their main differentiator, however, is the fact that they work as web widgets, making it easier for the user to plug and play the service on its website.
List of companies that provide monetization widgets:

• WidgetBucks
• ScratchBack
• SmartLinks

7. Sponsored Reviews
PayPerPost pioneered this model, with much controversy on the beginning (related to the fact that they did not require disclosure on paid posts). Soon other companies followed, most notably Sponsored Reviews and ReviewMe, refining the process and expanding the paid blogging model.
Joining one of these sponsored reviews marketplaces will give you the opportunity to write sponsored posts on a wide range of topics. Not all bloggers are willing to get paid to write about a specific product or website (because it might compromise the editorial credibility), but the ones who do are making good money out of it.
If your blog has a big audience you could also offer sponsored reviews directly, cutting off the commissions of the middleman.
List of sponsored reviews and paid blogging networks:

• PayPerPost
• Sponsored Reviews
• ReviewMe
• BlogVertise
• Smorty

8. RSS Feed Ads
With the quick adoption of the RSS technology by millions of Internet users, website owners are starting to find ways to monetize this new content distribution channel.
Feedburber already has its own publisher network, and you can sign-up to start displaying CPM based advertising on your feed footer. Bidvertiser recently introduced a RSS feed ad option as well, with a PPC scheme.
Finally, some blogs are also opting to sell banners or sponsored messages on their feed directly. John Chow and Marketing Pilgrim are two examples.
Related links:

• Feedburner
• BidVertiser
• Pheedo

9. Sponsors for Single Columns or Events
If you website has specific columns or events (e.g., a weekly podcast, an interview series, a monthly survey, a special project) you could find companies to sponsor them individually.
This method increases the monetization options for website owner, while giving advertisers the possibility to target a more specific audience and with a reduced commitment.
Mashable illustrates the case well. They have several advertising options on the site, including the possibility to sponsor specific columns and articles, including the “Daily Poll” and the “Web 2.0 Invites.”
Problogger also runs group writing projects occasionally, and before proceeding he publicly announce the project asking for sponsors.
10.Premium Content
Some websites and blogs give away part of their content for free, and charge for access to the premium content and exclusive tools.
SEOMoz is a good example. They have a very popular blog that gives advice and information on wide range of SEO related topics. On top of that visitors can decide to become premium members. It costs $48 monthly and it grants them access to guides, tools and other exclusive material.
11. Private Forums
While the Internet is populated with free forums, there is also the possibility to create a private one where members need to pay a single or recurring fee to join.

SEO Blackhat charges $100 monthly from its members, and they have thousands of them. Obviously in order to charge such a price for a forum membership you need to provide real value for the members (e.g., secret techniques, tools, and so on).
Performancing also launched a private forum recently, focused on the networking aspect. It is called The Hive, and the monthly cost is $10.
These are just two examples. There are many possibilities to create a private and profitable forum, you just need to find an appealing angle that will make it worth for the members.
List of popular forum software:

• vBulletin
• Simple Machines Forum
• phpBB
• Vanilla

12. Job Boards
All the popular blogs are trying to leverage job boards to make some extra income. Guy Kawasaki, ReadWriteWeb, Problogger… you name it.
Needless to say that in order to create an active and profitable job board you need first to have a blog focused on a specific niche, and a decent amount traffic.
The advantage of this method is that it is passive. Once you have the structure in place, the job listings will come naturally, and you can charge anywhere from $10 up to $100 for each.
List of popular job board software:

• JobThread
• Web Scribe Job Board
• SimplyHired Job-o-matic
• Jobbex

13. Marketplaces
Sitepoint is the online marketplace by excellence. Some websites and blogs, however, are trying to replicate that model on a smaller scale.
Depending on your niche, a market place that allows your visitors to buy, sell and trade products could work well. Over the time you could start charging a small fee for new product listings.
The problem with this method is that there are no standard software on the web, so you would need to hire a coder to get a marketplace integrated into your website.
You can see an example of a marketplaces being used on EasyWordpress and on Mashable.
14. Paid Surveys and Polls
There are services that will pay you money to run a small survey or poll on your website. The most popular one is called Vizu Answers.
Basically you need to sign up with them, and select the kind of polls that you want to run your site. Most of these services operate under a CPM model.
15. Selling or Renting Internal Pages
Million Dollar Wiki made this concept popular, but it was being used on the web for a long time around (check Pagerank10.co.uk for instance).
These websites sell for a single fee or rent for a recurring fee internal pages on their domain. Usually they have either high Pagerak or high traffic, so that people purchasing a page will be able to benefit in some way.
Implementing this method on a small blog would be difficult, but the concept is interesting and could be explored further.
16. Highlighted Posts from Sponsors
Techmeme probably pioneered this idea, but somehow it has not spread to other websites. The tech news aggregator displays editorial posts on the left column, and on the sidebar they have a section titled “Techmeme Sponsor Posts.”
On that section posts from the blog of the advertisers get highlighted, sending qualified traffic their way. Considering that the monthly cost for one spot is $5000 and that they have around 6 sponsors at any given time, it must be working well.
17. Donations
Placing a “Donate” link or button on a website can be an efficient way to earn money, especially if your blog is on a niche where readers learn and gain value from your content.
Personal development and productivity blogs, for instance, tend to perform well with donation based systems (one good example being Steve Pavlina).
A small variation of this method appeared sometime ago with the Buy Me a Beer plugin. This WordPress plugin enables you to insert a customized message at the bottom of each article, asking the readers to chip in for a beer or coffee.
18. In-text Adverting
In-text adverting networks like Kontera and Vibrant Media will place sponsored links inside your text. These links come with a double underline to differentiate them from normal links, and once the user rolls the mouse over the link the advertising will pop. Should the user click on it the site owner will make some money.
Some people make good money with this method, but others refrain from using it due to its intrusiveness. It is also interesting to note that very few mainstream websites have experimented with in-text advertising.
19. Pop-ups and Pop-unders
Pop-ups are a common yet annoying form of advertising on the Internet. If you are just trying to make a much money as possible from your website, you could experiment with them.
If you are trying to grow the traffic and generate loyal visitors, however, you probably should stay away from them. Just consider the hundreds of pop-up blockers out there: there is a reason why they are so popular.
Ad networks that use pop-ups:

• Tribal Fusion
• PayPopup
• PopupAd
• Adversal

20. Audio Ads
Also called PPP (Pay Per Play), this advertising method was introduce by Net Audio Ads. the concept is pretty simple: play a small audio advertising (usually 5 seconds) every time a visitor enters into your website. The user should not be able to stop it, creating a 100% conversion rate based on unique visitors.
The company is still rolling tests, but some users are reporting to get from a $4 to a $6 CPM. Regardless of the pay rate, though, this is a very intrusive form of advertising, so think twice before using it.
21. Selling the Website
Selling your website could be your last resource, but it has the potential to generate a big sum of money in a short period of time.
Market places on online forums like DigitalPoint and Sitepoint are always active with website buyers and sellers. Keep in mind that they most used parameter to determine the value of a website is the monthly revenue that it generates, multiplied by a certain number (the multiplier can be anything from 5 to 30, depending on the expectations of the seller, on the quality of the site, on the niche and other factors).
Some people also make money trading and flipping websites. They either create them from scratch or buy existing ones, and after some revamping they sell them for a profit.
Related links:

• How To Buy A Website And Flip It For Profit
• How To Sell A Website – How Much Is Your Website Worth?
• Where to sell a website? How to go about selling it?

Indirect Methods

22. Selling an Ebook
Perhaps one of the oldest money making strategies on the web, using a website to promote a related ebook is a very efficient way to generate revenue.
You could either structure the website around the book itself, like SEOBook.com, or launch the ebook based on the success of the website, like FreelanceSwitch did we the book How to be a Rockstar Freelancer.
Related links:

• Writing an ebook for your blog
• How to sell ebooks
• Processing payments for your ebook
• How to sell digital products online
• List of ebook selling software

23. Selling a Hardcover Book
Many authors and journalists leverage their blogs or websites to sell copies of hardcover books. Examples include Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell.
While most of these people were already renowned authors before they created their website, one could also follow the other way around. Lorelle VanFossen did exactly that with her Blogging Tips book. First she built her authority on the subject via her blog, and afterwards she published the book.
List of self publishing and publishing services:

• Lulu
• Self Publishing
• iUniverse
• WordClay

24. Selling Templates or WordPress Themes
As more and more people decide to get an online presence, website templates and WordPress themes become hotter and hotter.
On this segment you have mainstream websites like TemplateMonster, as well as individual designers who decide to promote and sell their work independently.
Brian Gardner and Unique Blog Designs are two examples of websites that make money with the sales of premium and custom WordPress themes.
25. Offering Consulting and Related Services
Depending on your niche, you could make money by offering consulting and related services. If you are also the author of your blog, the articles and information that you will share will build your profile and possibly certify your expertise on that niche, making it easier to gain customers.
Chris Garrett used a similar strategy. First he created a highly influential blog on the blogging and new media niche, and afterwards he started offering consulting services to clients with related problems and needs.
26. Creating an Email List or Newsletter
Email lists and newsletters represent one of the most powerful marketing and money making tools on the Internet. They offer incredible conversion rates, and the possibility to call people to action in a very efficient way.
Creating a big list is a difficult task though, so if you have a popular website you could leverage it to increase the number of subscribers on your list.
Yaro Starak is a famous Internet marketer, and if you visit his blog you will notice that right on top he has a section encouraging visitors to subscribe to his email newsletter. Yaro generates five figures in revenues each month from his email newsletters, proving that this method works.
List of software to manage email newsletters:

• AWeber
• SendStudio NX
• PHP Autoresponder
• Constant Contact

27. Mentoring programs
People are willing to pay for someone or something that will teach them and give them knowledge (as opposed to mere information). Education is one of the biggest industries in the world, and the online landscape behaves in a similar way.
Creating a mentoring program related to the niche of your website could be very profitable if you manage to structure and promote it adequately. There is a wide range of media and tools that you can use to deliver the information, from text articles to audio and video lessons.
Brian Clark leveraged the success of Copyblogger to launch a mentoring program teaching people how to build membership and how to sell content online. The program is titled Teaching Sells, and it costs $97 monthly. Sounds expensive, but they have over 1,000 members.
28. Creating a conference around the website
If your website takes off and becomes an authority on its niche, you could create a conference around it. Depending on the size of your audience, the event could attract thousands of people, and you could make money directly from conference passes and sponsors.
Search Engine Land, for instance, created a series of conferences that visit several cities on the United States and on other countries as well. The conferences are called Search Marketing Expo, and the tickets and passes cost thousands of dollars

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How to Change the World with Your Blog: 3 Ideas

As bloggers we spend so much of our time dedicated to improving our sites to deliver maximum impact and influence on our readers. One common objective is to monetize our sites to eventually enable us to earn a comfortable living from all the hard work we put in.
However, while we’re busy selling e-books and promoting newsletters, we sometimes forget about using our influence to benefit someone other than the readers and ourselves.
Bloggers are infinitely creative when it comes to self-promotion, but it may not be so obvious how we can help serve the greater good. Here are 3 ways you can encourage your readers to contribute today to improve our society:
1. Write a post about an issue and how to help
If your readers are anything like myself, they will appreciate you keeping them informed about important concerns in their field and how they can help. Better yet, you will increase your reputation in your niche by using your influence to bring about positive change through your readers’ actions.
2. Interview a director from a charity related to your blog
While it could seem unlikely that an organization could operate in your niche without a profit motive, many enterprising individuals have found ways to turn their interests into assistance. Volunteers at Child’s Play perform week-long gaming marathons to raise money for underprivileged children. Find someone doing something interesting and bring them to your reader’s attention.
3. Host a fundraiser on your blog
What better way to build a community around your blog than to join together in support of a cause. Whether it’s endowing a scholarship or building a coy pond, your readers will feel a sense of ownership through a contribution to something long-lasting.
While these ideas will no doubt increase you blog’s positive influence in the world, it need not be without benefit to you. By showing your support for a cause they believe in, your readers will find it in their best interest to spread the word and increase your site’s traffic. The publicity for your event could do more for your blog than dozens of banner swaps or link exchanges would.
Question: What social issues do readers in your niche find important and how are you acting to engage them with your blog?

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Content Is Still King

hese days anyone who has a job that pays the bills should be grateful and that includes those of us who are lucky enough to working at blogging or freelance writing full time. One of the things I’ve noticed since I’ve been working at this and editing full time is the difference working on the Internet makes to the routine of your life.
I know. Right now those of you who are reading this and work at blogging are saying ‘What routine?’, and that’s just the point. While it’s really cool to be on the cutting edge of where at least some of the future economy is going, it’s a real juggling act at the same time.
Here’s a bit of a timeline for me and how I’ve been able to pay my bills sitting in front of my laptop.
When I first started, I thought I’d just discovered gold and usually after just a bit of time away from my computer I feel the same way today. Still, I can remember that first little contract I got and how excited I was to think that in no time at all, I’d be living on a lake in that part of Canada that Neil Young wrote songs about.
I was sure that the harvest would never end and that my work cup would be brimming full at all times. Gladly, just a few short years later, that prophecy seems to have some true, but I still live in a city.
I’ve seen a few things come and go in just a little time and more than a few news ideas on the Internet that were supposed to put content writers out of work.
Remember when the technology first came along so that you could place video on your site? I could hardly type at all because I was sure that people would stop reading all together and the whole Internet would start chattering with a million never ending videos like a crowded bus terminal.
That may have happened with the advent of places like YouTube, but so far video hasn’t been able to topple the written word. At least as far as I can see.
Then there was the social media craze that still seems to be in full swing. I suppose that has taken a chunk out of  some of the advertising that you need a writer for on the Internet, but I don’t think places like Twitter and Facebook will  present a future threat.
People still go to the website when they need to know about a particular good or service and while they might even watch a video there or be directed to the site from Facebook or Twitter, the real info is in those web pages.
Even when a good seo campaign gets you to the landing page of the firm that you want to look at, you need to be sure that there’s good content to read once you arrive.
What do you think ?

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Reinventing Yourself and Your Blog

I’m sorry I haven’t written for Blogging Tips in the past two weeks. We’ve recently moved to a new location and been getting settled in. We just got our Internet connection hooked up in the past week, now I’m trying to play catch up.

I know a lot of people use their mobile phone for staying in contact and keeping up on the web, and it’s great for that, but for me to write, I have to be sitting at my computer. I simply can’t write an article with my phone’s keyboard.

In my last post I mentioned feeling overwhelmed with blogging. Well, with more than a week away from my blog and the Internet in general, I can’t say I feel overwhelmed but I do feel a bit lost trying to remember where I was exactly.

I’ve had a lot of amazing things happen lately and there comes a time, in fact many times in life, when you should reinvent yourself. Maybe you feel stale and stagnant in the information you’ve been presenting or projects you’ve been working on. If so, it may be time to reinvent yourself and give your blog a fresh new perspective.

Many people fear change, but change is actually good for you (and your readers) and it’s healthy too. Spice up your blog if you can. Do you have a boring subject that only techies find interesting? Try adding something different to your posts; add some humor or change your style of writing up a bit.

If you’ve been alive for very long you know that major corporations do this all the time. They change their logo; give their advertising a fresh new design, add a splash of color to their existing color combo. They do things that are more eye catching and appeals to other potential customers to draw them in. You can do the same thing with your blog. Just like homes need some spring cleaning and a fresh coat of paint once in awhile, a blog can benefit from a new makeover too. But don’t stop there, add some fun stuff to your posts and get the readers more involved.

Have you freshened up your blog recently? Added something exciting that you’d like to share? We’d love to hear your tips on blog makeovers and how you’ve added something new, unique and different for your readers.

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Get Your Favorite News Topics by Email Each Day with Skeedy

Skeedy is a new service that caught my eye because it lets you “follow subjects you are interested in and be notified as they surface”. There’s nothing public about it; only you will see what topics you’ve selected and the headlines to go with them. It’s a very simple service with one aim, delivering the headlines that interest you most by email. To get started, you can login via Facebook, Twitter or simply create an account.

After you sign up or login, you’ll need to tell Skeedy what type of user you are — geek, fan or calm. As you can see from the image below, this will let them know just how much news you’d like to receive each day — a little bit, an average amount or a whole lot.


All that’s next is to tell Skeedy what interests you. When you first see the home page (before you “follow” any topics) you will see the most recent top topics and headlines for the day. You can follow topics from here by clicking the “follow it” button. After that, items from topics you are following will show on the homepage.

To add more interests, you must use the search bar at the top of the page. If there are results for the topic you type in, you’ll see a few headlines related to it. Once you choose to follow it, Skeedy will ask you to categorize it. The topics you can choose from are pictured below. They ask you this because the actual category links appear along the top of the site. So, when you click on a category, everything that you’ve put under it will show on that specific page. So clicking on “Technology” will show you all of the topics that you’ve put into that category and so on.


The only downside that I could find so far is that, when you click a headline from a category it opens in a new tab and you get an annoying frame (with an ad) above the content. You can, however, click on the “remove this frame” link to get rid of it. I haven’t received an email yet from Skeedy so I can’t tell you how they look but, I’m hoping they’re as clean and organized as the website itself.

I feel that Skeedy is great for those who are overwhelmed with RSS feeds and newsreaders. Here you can pick and choose what you want to read about and even tell them how much of it to send you each day. What more could you ask for?

Add to Cart Get Your Favorite News Topics by Email Each Day with Skeedy

Create Relevant Twitter Connections with Mofollow

Are you looking for relevant people to follow on Twitter? Why not try out Mofollow. It “analyzes your Twitter social graph, finding similarities among individuals you are following”. It will then give you a list of the 100 users most related to you. The search process and displaying of results are both done in real-time. They suggest browsing in another tab until it’s complete.

Mofollow lets you sign in via Twitter OAuth. Once you give it permission to access your account you’ll need to be patient; the process takes some time. It says that it can take anywhere from one to five minutes.

Once you get your results, they can be filtered by most matches, most influential, most followers, most friends and most tweets. For each person you’ll see basic info like username, location and website. You can then follow them and view their profile on Twitter (opens in new tab). You can also click to view their user bio (if they have one) and last tweet.


One thing I did notice is that if you do follow someone from the site, they are not automatically removed from the results. I had to click on a filter (ie. most influential) and then go back to the filter I was using (most matches) in order for the list to update. After that, the person I had followed was removed from the results.

A feature I would like to see is the ability to remove unwanted results. For instance, after checking out a certain user I may decide that I don’t want to follow that person. It would be nice to be able to totally remove/delete them from my results for good.


Mofollow is great for those looking to build their network with relevant users as opposed to random users. It’s also proves to be an effortless way to meet new people. What do you think?

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5 Tips for Effective Business Planning

1. Clearly define your business idea and be able to succinctly articulate it. Know your mission.
2. Examine your motives. Make sure that you have a passion for owning a business and for this particular business.
3. Be willing to commit to the hours, discipline, continuous learning and the frustrations of owning your own business.
4. Conduct a competitive analysis in your market, including products, prices, promotions, advertising, distribution, quality, service, and be aware of the outside influences that affect your business.
5. Seek help from other small businesses, vendors, professionals, government agencies, employees, trade associations and trade shows. Be alert, ask questions, and visit your local SCORE office.

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5 Tips for Developing Policies for Your Business

1. Think ahead. Establish policies before you need them. Doing so helps avert crises and awkward situations, and helps solve problems before they arise.
2. Determine what policies you need. Some you’ll want early in your business include a mission statement, as well as compensation, performance evaluation and employee policies.
3. Get input from key employees, as well as from members of your advisory board, your board of directors, and/or your professional advisors and consultants.
4. Communicate policies to everyone in your business.
5. Review policies on a regular basis—once a year, for example—and revise them as necessary.

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Business Plan Help, Information and Writing Tips

Writing a business plan for your small business is key in getting your new venture off on the right foot. Lenders won't even consider your request for a loan without a written business plan in hand. And, preparing a business plan forces entrepreneurs to consider every aspect of their company's operations -- from inventory requirements to how many employees they'll need to hire.

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10 Tips for Successful Business Networking

1. Keep in mind that networking is about being genuine and authentic, building trust and relationships, and seeing how you can help others.
2. Ask yourself what your goals are in participating in networking meetings so that you will pick groups that will help you get what you are looking for. Some meetings are based more on learning, making contacts, and/or volunteering rather than on strictly making business connections.
3. Visit as many groups as possible that spark your interest. Notice the tone and attitude of the group. Do the people sound supportive of one another? Does the leadership appear competent? Many groups will allow you to visit two times before joining.
4. Hold volunteer positions in organizations. This is a great way to stay visible and give back to groups that have helped you.
   5. Ask open-ended questions in networking conversations. This means questions that ask who, what, where, when, and how as opposed to those that can be answered with a simple yes or no. This form of questioning opens up the discussion and shows listeners that you are interested in them.
   6. Become known as a powerful resource for others. When you are known as a strong resource, people remember to turn to you for suggestions, ideas, names of other people, etc. This keeps you visible to them.
   7. Have a clear understanding of what you do and why, for whom, and what makes your doing it special or different from others doing the same thing. In order to get referrals, you must first have a clear understanding of what you do that you can easily articulate to others.
   8. Be able to articulate what you are looking for and how others may help you. Too often people in conversations ask, "How may I help you?" and no immediate answer comes to mind.
   9. Follow through quickly and efficiently on referrals you are given. When people give you referrals, your actions are a reflection on them. Respect and honor that and your referrals will grow.
   10. Call those you meet who may benefit from what you do and vice versa. Express that you enjoyed meeting them, and ask if you could get together and share ideas.
   
   

Add to Cart 10 Tips for Successful Business Networking