Business Blogging Mistakes–Are You Guilty?

Blogging Bad Habits, they are easy to fall into, believe me!

It seems that these days pretty much every business these days has a blog, but that doesn’t mean everyone is doing it the right way, If you’ve just decided to start a new blog for your business or you have been blogging for a long time, I have some tips that you may find interesting.

Something u may find interesting as well:  7 Blunders to avoid when starting your own blog in 2012

HubSpot “has found that companies that blog generate 55% more website visitors, 97% more inbound links, and have 434% more indexed pages than companies that don’t. Even if you’re posting once a week, you may not have leveraged the full power of content creation for your small business brand”.

1. Not Posting Consistently

Having a great idea for a blog is one thing, spending 1-2 days a week putting together lengthy articles is another, it is time consuming, but keep in mind it can be very rewarding.  Before you launch your blog, decide how often you'll be able to blog, keep it fresh, you will want people to have a reason to come back to read what you have posted. A good idea is to write a few articles ahead of time so you have backup postings for the times when the kids got ya busy, or the husband/wife wants your attention. I get into more detail about this in my article: Small Business Blog, Where to Begin Pt.2

2. Thinking Your Blog Is A Good Promotional Tool
Your blog shouldn’t be a Billboard! think about you, when you read blogs, if your looking for some useful information on a topic, you don’t want to be flooded with advertisements, post articles that reflect what you like, that’s related to your specific business, Have fun with it, sure you can advertise your business but do it in a tactful way, for example, I Run a computer consulting company, I like to blog about helpful items related to the internet or computers, I can offer this resource to my customers, present and potential as a useful source of information, this gives me a link to my potential clients, but doesn’t make them feel like I am pushing my services at them.

3. Not Interacting With Your Readers
your blog isn't a static web page, its not a simple press release, its actually a great way for you to interact with your customers and potential clients, you will get comments and questions to your blog postings, be sure to respond to these in a complete and polite way, be informative and offer help, these tips will help you gain a interactive platform that people will enjoy returning to and contributing to. If you want to encourage this, be sure to make it easy for your readers to comment on your posting, For example I have a easy form at the bottom of all my posts, that you can respond to. (Shameless Request:  feel free!!)

4.Not Listening To your Readers
Not sure what kind of content appeals to your audience the most? It’s not a mystery: Your blog analytics can provide valuable insight into what types of posts are resonating with readers.

By failing to pay attention to analytics, you’re ignoring valuable information that can take your blog to the next level. Continually track the responses to each blog post. Tinker with different topics, titles and types of posts. Which posts generate the most activity (comments, shares, likes)? Increase the frequency of the most popular.

Also Checkout:
How To Get Traffic From Reddit Without Getting Blacklisted!

Related articles

• Tips on Blog commenting
• Blogging for More Business and More Exposure
• Tips You Ought To Know About Business Blogging

Is Facebook Trying to Hijack Your Email Address?

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When you sign up for Facebook you did so with an email address so you could be notified of any action on your profile.  So far so good.  Now a while back Facebook launched @facebook.com email addresses, so people could use a Facebook email account.

The thing is, Facebook signed you up for an account even if you didn't want one.  All of which was harmless enough as you could safely ignore it.  Now though CNN are reporting that Facebook have changed the default email address in your profile to this @facebook.com email account rather than the one you signed up to Facebook with.

Facebook said that the change has been gradually rolled out over the last few weeks, but that many users were unaware of the change until coverage emerged about the changes this week.

The reaction has, to say the least, not been favorable, with many taking to blogs and Twitter to decry Facebook for this abuse of its position.  What's alarming is that Facebook seemingly did not anticipate this hostile reaction to the change.

"We basically defaulted to show your Facebook address as we rolled this out, just to keep it consistent for everyone," said Meredith Chin, Facebook's manager of product communications.

The change hasn't hit all accounts yet, but it will roll out eventually to all of Facebook's 900 million users, Chin confirmed.

It's worth adding of course that users can revert back to their actual email addresses from within their profile settings but if users start getting emails to an account they didn't know existed it could trigger quite a backlash against the company.

This is especially so as it joins a growing line of feature changes that Facebook have not communicated well to users.

When they launched their email service in 2010 it was tagged as a way to integrate conversations across multiple communication channels.  It seems that Facebook have some big lessons to learn on effective communication before trying to push changes onto the rest of us.

House Passes CISPA: Make Sure It Dies In The Senate

House Passes CISPA: Make Sure It Dies In The Senate

We pushed them to the brink, but House Republicans rammed through CISPA this afternoon, ahead of schedule.  Let's make sure it dies in the Senate: Please add your name at right.
CISPA would give the government and corporations vast new powers to track and share data about Americans' Internet use.
But our hundreds of thousands of emails and tens of thousands of phone calls have had a real impact:

• Amendments were adopted that made CISPA (marginally) better.

• Earlier this month CISPA was supposed to sail through, but we helped foment opposition, and the vote was far closer than anybody could have imagined even a couple of weeks ago.

• Most Democrats held firm in opposition, and more than two dozen libertarian-leaning Republicans defied their leadership and voted no.

• Most importantly, President Obama has threatened to veto CISPA.

The Senate will consider cyber security legislation in the coming weeks.  Let's turn up the heat right away: Tell the Senate to reject CISPA and any and all legislation that doesn't respect privacy and civil liberties.

Add your name at right to tell the Senate to reject cyber security legislation that doesn't respect privacy.

You can read more about CISPA here.

Turn an Old Mobile Device into a Dedicated VOIP Handset

Turn an Old Mobile Device into a Dedicated VOIP Handset

We've seen how easy it is to turn an iPod touch into an iPhone using a few tricks and some sort of VOIP service, and it's just as easy with an old phone—so long as you have a constant Wi-Fi connection. It can be nice to have a home phone or two you can use to answer calls when your cellphone isn't handy, you don't have great reception, and you don't want to leave the VOIP app unattended. So grab a mobile copy of Skype, Fring, Line2, or whatever, and leave it open and ready on your old mobile device. It'll wait for someone to call it, or you can just pick it up and, say, order a pizza without the fear of yet another dropped call.

G+ Hangouts - Great place to learn some programming.....

I was fortunate enough to enjoy a few hours programming with  Mohamed Mansour and some friends this evening, and thought I would share some tidbits and also a blog posting Mohamed posted to the Hangout this evening.  Here is a link to the programming project:

Framework for integrating small labs for Google+ into a single Chrome Extension

Google+ Labs for Chrome Extension

This Google Chrome extension will inject a link to your Google Plus profile so that you can share your post to Twitter or Facebook.

Here is the Blog Posting:

Software developer Mohamed Mansour has found one resourceful way to use the Hangouts video-conferencing feature on Google Plus. You might remember him from the Google Chrome extension, Facebook Friend Exporter, he developed that freed your Facebook contact data, letting you import it directly into Gmail or save it as a CSV file. Yes, he's the so-called "pesky hacker," err...software developer that Facebook has blocked. 

Mansour's at it again, but this time he's teaching and sharing his passion for programming. He posted the following on his Google+ account:

"I thought it was a nice idea to show people on a Hangout how to develop Google Chrome Extensions, and it was really popular that I got many requests for it. From now on, I will be showing my development live on the Hangout in most times. So drop by and say hi, I will try and answer all software development questions on the Hangout." 

If you're a programmer, make sure you follow him and join one of his next Hangouts. Maybe he'll inspire the next developer who gets their app or extension blocked by the notorious Facebook.

Microsoft tempts antitrust lawyers with expanded antivirus offering

Microsoft tempts antitrust lawyers with expanded antivirus offering

You want a good, solid, free antivirus program? Microsoft Security Essentials fills the bill nicely. Unfortunately, even though it was officially released more than a year ago, it’s still one of the best-kept secrets in personal computing. Its installed base of 30 million users worldwide might sound big in raw numbers, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the billion-plus Windows PCs in use.
All that’s about to change, as Microsoft has now begun delivering Microsoft Security Essentials via Microsoft Update to customers in the United States (a pilot program in the UK started earlier this year). If Windows detects that you’re currently running without up-to-date antivirus protection, this is what you’ll see in the Optional Updates section:

Although this development might seem like a logical one for Microsoft, it’s actually a big step—and a potentially risky one. Security software vendors have their antitrust lawyers on speed dial in anticipation of the day when Microsoft begins bundling antimalware protection directly into Windows. As a result, this long-overdue development is moving at glacially slow speeds.
Earlier this year, on the 10th anniversary of Microsoft’s landmark antitrust defeat, I noted:

Microsoft Security Essentials is available to any Windows PC as a free download, but it’s still not available as part of Windows itself. The Windows 7 Action Center will warn you if you don’t have antivirus software installed, but clicking the Find a Program Online button takes you to this page, where Microsoft’s free offering is one of 23 options, most of which are paid products.
[…]
In this case, I think the mere threat of an antitrust complaint from a big opponent like Symantec or McAfee has been enough to make Microsoft shy away from doing what is clearly in its customers’ best interests.

So Microsoft moves slowly, deliberately, one step at a time. Previously, you had to seek out and download this free (and very effective) software on your own. Now it shows up under Optional Updates, if you know where to look. And Microsoft has upped the stakes by altering the license terms so that small businesses can install up to 10 copies of the software free of charge,
The logical next step, of course, is for Micosoft to classify this update as Important, where it will be offered as an automatic update on unprotected PCs (similar to the way the Malicious Software Removal Tool is delivered monthly). At some point, it can and should be fully integrated into the operating system itself.
As the screenshot above makes clear, this update was released roughly two weeks ago, on October 19, but it’s only now beginning to appear on update screens across the United States. (Lee Mathews at Download Squad spotted this update in the wild last week. It wasn’t available on my system then or even earlier today, when I checked for updates manually. Ironically, I was in Redmond at the time, meeting with the Microsoft Security Essentials team and discussing this very issue. It appeared on my system for the first time just a few minutes ago.)
I’m willing to bet that antitrust lawyers for the big security software vendors are looking at this development very carefully. Will they actually threaten legal action? Stay tuned.

TODAY Tech & Science

TODAY Tech & Science

Hot gadgets: Buy now or later?

From smart phones to iPads and TVs, digital lifestyle expert Mario Armstrong offers advice on snagging the latest and greatest models for the lowest prices.

Happy Freaking Love Child, #FollowFriday I think.,..

Follow Friday. Oh My!

Ok so this is a great idea!! And as this article tells you some guy just decided to start this shit up, tell me, whats another GREAT freaking Idea we all can get started on Twitter, Or Facebook, Or whatever!

How about a website dedicated to dedications! hahahah Yeah lets make some silly ass website thanking everyone whos thanked someone! Yeah lets call it #ThanksALot

OMG hell yeah! Ok so go to twitter and #ThanksALot would ya? I would Thank you! then you would have to post me for thanking you and well then we start over, Or do we?

Are you confused? Are you as confused as I am? Yeah me too... If this makes no sence then your a hippy love child like I am, and really just dont care!

Peace.....

Thanks

Peace.....


Followers on Twitter are an interesting thing. There is much discussion about how its not how many followers one has, but how many people you follow.
Yet, for some reason, people still grade themselves on followers. Loic Le Meur (which Michael Arrington agreed with) suggested that a filter be added to Twitter’s search function that allows the searcher to sort by number of followers.
Often, I get people asking me to tweet out that my followers should follow them. (Of course, as the Anti-Christ of Twitter, people usually lose followers when I do that).
Yesterday morning, I was having an IM conversation with my friends Jeffrey and Danny. Both are among my favorite people.
Danny is one of the first people I met when I moved to Colorado, and I was an advisor on one of his early startups, Zuvo. We have been friends for a long time, and he is one of the smartest, most creative people I know.
Jeffrey I met recently. He moved to Colorado several months ago, when a portion of his company skinnyCorp, who run Threadless, (If you havent bought stuff from Threadless, you just arent cool) moved here. As the Chief Creative Officer of skinnyCorp, Jeffrey not only is a designer but an idea creator.
Jeffrey and Danny are both highly intelligent, creative, humorous people, that I enjoy hanging out with daily. Their tweets are no different.
As I got ready to go into the Lijit office (I was moving slowly because I thought it was Saturday.), I started thinking about how proud I was to be friends with Danny and Jeffrey, and more people should follow them on twitter. So I sent this tweet out:




Read the rest here....Follow Friday. Oh My!

Report: MySpace to adopt Facebook Connect

Report: MySpace to adopt Facebook Connect

Ok so below is the article I was reading this morning, Google, and Facebook, battling for the Web identity Crown, Lovely, one of the largest company's on the internet is based on a Social Website?

I mean come on, dont we have better things to do with our time than to spend endless hours bull shitting with other people who are wasting there time? 

Is this what our society has come to?  A bumch of fish rasing, farm plowing web heads, with nothing else better to do, what a legacy!

Peace. . . .

Report: MySpace to adopt Facebook Connect | The Web Services Report - CNET News

MySpace's rumored adoption of Facebook Connect could be happening in the near future--as soon as early 2010, Inside Facebook reports.

MySpace and Facebook have historically been rivals, with Facebook having ousted MySpace from their spot as the top social network, but their relations have been of a friendlier nature as of late. It appears as though MySpace has effectively given up on winning the social-networking war and is instead focusing on its already strong entertainment business, which includes the market leader, MySpace Music.

The extent of MySpace's Facebook Connect integration isn't yet known, but it is expected initially to leverage MySpace's media content, like music. This news comes right on the heels of Yahoo announcing a massive Facebook Connect implementation across all of its sites. Facebook and Google are currently battling it out for the Web identity crown. With Yahoo and MySpace out of the race, 2010 should prove to be an interesting year as Facebook and Google both try to carve out pieces of the market.

Secret Service Used Facebook To Learn Of Salahi Presidential Party Crashers

Oh so now our National Security is left in the hands of facebook??  What the HELL!!!  You've gotta be kidding me!

Washington D.C. has been abuzz about the couple who crashed a
Presidential party and proceeded to post photos of themselves on
Facebook. Yesterday the secret service confirmed
that they had used Facebook after the event to find out that the couple
was not permitted to attend. The photos of the Salahis with President
Biden tipped off the Secret Service, which has come under fire in
recent days.





Read Article: Secret Service Used Facebook To Learn Of Salahi Presidential Party Crashers

Teen Accused of Blackmailing Classmates for Sex Acts in Facebook Scam

Teen Accused of Blackmailing Classmates for Sex Acts in Facebook ScamFriday, February 06, 2009

AP/Waukesha County Sheriff's Dept./Milwaukee Journal-SentinelAnthony Stancl, accused of blackmailing other students for sex, in an undated photo.MILWAUKEE — An 18-year-old U.S. student is accused of posing as a girl on Facebook, tricking at least 31 male classmates into sending him naked photos of themselves and then blackmailing some for sex acts."The kind of manipulation that occurred here is really sinister in my estimation," Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel said Wednesday.Anthony Stancl, of New Berlin, west of Milwaukee, was charged Wednesday with five counts of child enticement, two counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child, two counts of third-degree sexual assault, possession of child pornography, repeated sexual

FOXNews.com - Teen Accused of Blackmailing Classmates for Sex Acts in Facebook Scam - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News