Blog Making Money?

August 29, 2008 | 6 Comments

Waterstone's notes Is your Blog Making Money?  Sometimes it is hard to tell.

A little while back, I wrote an article that you should make money with your blog.  You owe it to your readers.  It is very unlikely that you will keep blogging long term if you do not make money from it.

  • Is your blog making money with Ads?  Read this article about tipping bloggers by clicking on ads.
  • Is your blog making money with Affiliate links?  Even if you do not sell a ton of these, it is nice to get a check every month that it feels like you did nothing for.
  • Is your blog making money with product sales?  You can use a blog to create great relationships and sell your own products.
  • Is your blog making money with access?  Interviewing people for your blog can give you access to people that may buy something from you after they get to know you.
  • Is your blog making money by generating speaking fees?  Mine does.
  • Is your blog making money because people are paying to reuse your content?  I have had people buy blog posts to include in books.
  • Is your blog making money by creating more traffic to your main website?

Want to see a guy making over $110,000 per year blogging?  Go visit Yaro Starak.  That is what he teaches people.

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Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzz with Blogs, Internet Marketing 

Social Media Manager or Virtual Assistant?

August 29, 2008 | 2 Comments

A Virtual Buzz Assistant can easily also be called a Social Media Manager.

What are the differences?

  1. A Social Media Manager is full time and explores all kinds of ways for developing relationships and great information online.  A Virtual Buzz Assistant focuses on the specific social media tasks as defined by their client.
  2. A Social Media Manager can handle complaints, bad reviews or negative comments.  A Virtual Buzz Assistant will point these items out to clients and the client should act on them.
  3. A Social Media Manager is doing many social networking tasks.  Virtual Buzz Assistants focus on fewer high value tasks and leave experimentation up to the client.
  4. Social Media Managers need to create great original content about the business.  Virtual Buzz Assistants might create content, but rarely are they the main messenger of the organization.
  5. Social Media Managers monitor the web for information EVERY DAY.  A Virtual Buzz Assistant can, but rarely do clients schedule enough hours to include the service.  It is time intensive.
  6. If you employ a social media manager, they should go to all kinds of conferences and group meetings, because those online relationships actually get stronger when you meet people face to face.  A Virtual Buzz Assistant can do that for you, but it is unlikely you will want to send a VA.

This post is not to say that Social Media Managers are better than Virtual Buzz Assistants.  It is a budget issue.  They are both great options.  If you cannot afford a full time social media manager then a Virtual Buzz Assistant, with some great involvement from you, is the next best thing.

Read: Example of what a Social Media Manager would do

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Mobile Blogging

August 29, 2008 | 2 Comments

Description unavailable At a blogger meeting yesterday, I talked to Deborah at AllWriteInk.  She told me about Mofuse.com.

I’d actually heard about it before.  I’d even been to the site.  The problem is, I do not read stuff on my phone.  So I blew it off.

Seeing her having her blog on her phone made me realize that it is just an avenue that I am being stubborn about.  So I set up Buzzoodle Mobile .  I am skeptical, but we will see what happens. Took me 20 minutes and now I have a new place that is linking to me, so that may be just as valuable as anything.

Let me know what you think.  Are you reading blogs on your phone???

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Buzz Marketing Help

August 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Secrets...I attended a local blog community meeting today and one thing that attending does is make me feel really good about the Buzz Marketing help I provide.

It gives me a chance to reflect on the things I have learned over the last month.  Things that may not be fantastic to me but really help others.

I was able to tell them about Amazon s3 and how to use the firefox extension to take advantage of it.  I was able to share some Wordpress SEO secrets.  I talked about how I have adjusted my titles and writing style to get better visibility.

While I do not think of it as Buzz Marketing Help, that is exactly what it is.  And I learn as much as I give.  My new Employee Evangelism Program is being launched soon and it targets bigger clients than I usually work with.   The other members that were there let me know which press release site to use and how to target the public companies better.

We talked for nearly 3 hours and would have kept going had several people not had meetings.  If you are not a part of a group like this, you need to be.  And if there are none in your area, start one.

Reflecting on the things I learned this month and giving general buzz marketing help to other bloggers is fun and makes me feel like the research I do really is appreciated.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

How to get testimonials

August 27, 2008 | 2 Comments

Building of w:The Spokesman-Review and w:Cowle... I recently reviewed a new website called Briz.com.  I added an honest blog post about the product and today the owners of Briz added it to their testimonial page.

While I do not do these things every month, when something good comes up it does pay off big.

Look at this testimonial on PlanHQ. (Very good product, by the way)

That testimonial generates a few visitors every week, and has for two years I believe.  And it lists me in there with a bunch of high poweredpublishers.  Not bad.

So how do you get testimonials?  Or maybe the question is, how do I get a chance to give testimonials?

Here are some tips.

  • Have apolished business name/logo that will make itlook good on the testimonial page.
  • Offer testimonials for anything you try.
  • Write so that the subject can pull out some killer quotes.
  • Point out your review to the owners.
  • Send an email suggesting the quote they may want to use
  • Let them know they can use it as a testimonial and link back to the full article/review.
  • Let people know you are interested in reviewing things.

I have reviewed software, books, ebooks, companies, authors and speakers.  They do not all pay off with traffic, but when they do it is great and even if they do not, you have created some good content.

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Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Briz.com - Local Marketing

August 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I had the good fortune to talk with the owner of Briz.com.

While I do not care about the “local market” around Kent, Ohio, I do care about great websites to do the following:

  1. Showcase my business
  2. Develop links to our sites
  3. Lock up search engine slots for our keywords
  4. Help us get to know more people

Here is my (uncomplete) profile on briz:  Buzz Marketing Profile

As I spoke to Michael Librizzi I was impressed with his grasp of the needs for local businesses to have a way to promote themselves and network online.

What was a pleasant surprise for me is that it is not the usual social network with a few fields.  It is very comprehensive and I would wager that it is a better sales tool for some businesses than their static website.

Go give it a try.  For now it is free, but he is thinking about charging for it at some point.  If he does charge for it, I think the tools are worth paying for, but I am worried that the community would be much smaller.  So I hope he keeps a free version, maybe with less features.  But hey, I have been wrong once or twice.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Guy Kawasaki - 5 Truths

August 25, 2008 | 2 Comments

206_2008 Quick post today.

I sometimes get annoyed that Guy does not publish meatier posts anymore, but this one is short and interesting.  5 Truths for Entrepreneurs.

What I like the best about it is the honesty.  He says, “I used to think this, but I was wrong.” in several of these.  I am referring you to the article also because it talks about markting in #2.  We have been saying since the day we founded Buzzoodle that if you do one small thing to promote the company every day, it will pay off.  And if every employee does one small thing to promote the company every day, it will pay off HUGE.

I think that means I am smarter than Guy.  Unfortunately, see #3 - smart does not matter too much.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Grow During a Recession

August 23, 2008 | 1 Comment

Hopefully by now you are getting some visibility as an expert in your industry via your blog and other web resources.

One of my favorite things to do is be a part of someone else’s efforts.  This gets easier as all the other visibility stuff kicks in.

For example, I was invited to submit a contribution to an eBook on growing your business in a recession.

The author made it easy by asking specific questions so that I could hone my message and spend minimal time contributing.  He gets free content, I get buzz, plus he is allowing affiliates to get 65% of the sale.

Note a bad deal for me since it only took a few hours to think about the issues and write my portion.  And since this has gotten rave reviews from business owners, it is selling well and I am getting buzz and visibility.

So how can you do the same thing?  Here are several ways.

  • Write a testimonial for something you like and send it to the company or person.
  • Write a guest post on someones blog.
  • Contribute to an ebook
  • Contribute to a book
  • Participate in a case study

When I get a testimonial, I love to promote it and the people that give it.  It really is a win/win.

This comes down to asking one simple question:  How can I encourage other people to market me?

It is easier than you think.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzzoodle, Small Business 

Interviewing Skills

August 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment

An interview Chris Borgan has a fun and interesting post today called “Be a better interviewer”

His post is also a good use of youtube and his commentary.

Remember, a great thing to do with your blog is to use it as a tool to interview people you want to meet.  Have you used your blog to interview someone and get a foot in the door before?

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Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Will Blogging Change Your Life?

August 18, 2008 | 2 Comments

Las Vegas Nevada I am always telling people to blog.  I just got this email, and I have permission to republish it.  Congrats Tom!

Hi Ron,

My name is Tom Williams and I had the pleasure of hearing you speak at the Designing Profits, Inc. conference in Las Vegas last year.

On the last day I mentioned to you my partner and I were writing a book and I was excited about using a new blog to help market the book we hoped to publish.  My question to you was when should I start bloging to get the best benefit.  You told me to start right away.  I did.  I have been bloging once a week since September of last year.

Here is the exciting part.  We finished the book in late March of this year and started looking for publishers.  We got a lot of rejections.  Then, on June 30th I received an email from Tad Crawford.  He explained he had been reading my blog about the business of interior design and wondered if I had ever thought about writing a book.  Oh, Mr. Crawford is the publisher of Allworth Press in New York.  In less than a month we had a signed contract for them to publish our book.

I want you to know how important I think your advise was to getting out there and finding a publisher.  I, of course, thought the blog would be useful after we published.  It never crossed my mind a publisher would find us because of it.

Thanks for your advise.  It has made a great difference.  I still blog, by the way.

Sincerely,

Tom Williams, Best Practices Network

—You can see their blog here

Unexpected things can happen when you start putting yourself out there.  This is not the only story I have like this, just the latest.  Why don’t you have a blog yet?

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Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

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