All I can say is, “Wow!” I just read a post by Ann Smarty over at SearchEngineJournal.com about some very cool Yahoo pipes that you can run. (http://www.searchenginejournal.com/5-useful-yahoo-pipes-to-monitor-your-brand/14320/: “5 Useful Yahoo! Pipes to Monitor Your Brand”)
For those of you who don’t know what Yahoo Pipes is it’s an aggregator for different types of content. For example, they’ll take several feeds and put them together, either to make specialized reports or for publishing on blogs or elsewhere. They allow you to mashup lots of stuff and make it really cool.
For example, I read several SEO blogs and instead of having to go to all of them, I have a Yahoo Pipe that gives me everything at a glance. My Pipe is called “SEO Goodness Pipe” and you can find it at http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=YsYIE89w3hGA4vj2BNV6qA. The reason I call it that is because I also use the pipe to send interesting SEO stuff to Twitter every hour or so.
People love it, and retweet the stuff I send out all the time. I’m finding myself on people’s Twitter lists and it’s a great deal all the way around. I made the Pipe, people get to read the same cool stuff I love on Twitter. They’re happy, I get more followers, they retweet, and the circle goes ’round and ’round. continue reading »
What happens in an Internet marketer’s life when he doesn’t know what to do? I mean, what content can you create that will sell like hotcakes? What do people want to learn more about? And how do you find out?
Simple, run a survey or what Alex Mandossian calls an “Ask” campaign.
There are many ways to do this, and it really depends on the kind of survey you want to use to get the information. There are “fill in the blank” surveys and there are voting polls, right?
If you’re creating a new course, then the “fill in the blank” method is usually what works best. “What’s your most burning question about…” whatever it is you’re interested in promoting in your niche. But before you even get to that point, you probably want to take a poll.
MicroPoll is great for this. It’s a free service, and you can run a bunch of polls on your site for nada. You tell it what the topics are and it creates a radio-button widget for you where people can vote for their favorite topic.
Once you know what their favorite topic is, then you run the content survey. You can use services like ASK Database, Survey Monkey, or Survey Gizmo. These are all great for that type of campaign. The last two resources are free, ASK Database is not.
But what if you want to run a campaign that is more social? Then, you want User Voice, which gives you buttons that look much like Digg buttons for your site.
There are also many other ways to do this, and some of them involve installations. But for the simplest way to find out what your audience wants… these resources truly rock!
Jack Humphrey, who in my humble opinion is one of the best bloggers on the planet, wrote a post last week about the best social news sites online. And here’s the deal… At some point, I think that what people want and enjoy are going to supersede what the search engines think we should want. I could be wrong there, but consider the explosion in popularity for Web 2.0. Is it a fad? Hmm…
I don’t think so.
When I joined Twitter, there were hardly any Twitterers. It was just a few savvy marketers like Brad Fallon, who encouraged his list to join and why I was in so early, and now… I have like 80 people following my stuff. That’s pretty cool, and I’m following a bunch of other people. Plus, it’s just fun. If you’re not “tweeting,” you need to get on board.
But I digress. Twitter has become enormously popular in just a short time. And look at You Tube and then, we come to the social new or bookmarking sites. Which ones should you bother with? Hmm…
Jack has given a list in his post:
http://www.jackhumphrey.com/fridaytrafficreport/social-networking/top-10-social-news-sites/
I’ll share the top 5 with you, but you’ll have to read Jack’s post for the rest of the social news sites chosen by Google.
Number one is…
Drumroll please…
Digg! Well, who didn’t know that? Just remember that if you’re in the Internet marketing, you’ll not be totally welcomed if you throw a bunch of spammy plugs into the mix. So, don’t just go to Digg and plug your own stuff. Plug anything you think is cool, and give people a reason why. That’s how it’s supposed to work, and you should totally follow that mindset. Just Digg stuff you like or “Bury” stuff you hate. It’s a totally audience driven milieu.
Number two is…
Propeller! Now, this is a surprise. Propeller used to be Netscape, but last year, Netscape changed the name to Propeller. I’ve been using this site for what feels like ages, and it’s pretty sweet. You can include video content there as well. Why I’m surprised is that when it was Netscape, it wasn’t terribly popular. Now, you give it a snappier Web 2.0 name and bingo! Propeller rules.
Number three is…
Reddit I like this site and you can get a lot of traffic from it, if you remember to use it for content. If you’re plugging a post, it should be a post with some great content, definitely not a sales page. And don’t piss the Reddit regulars off. You really don’t want to do that and be a reddit castaway.
Number four is…
Newsvine Wow! You know, I have to admit that this is one I’ve missed. Newsvine, huh? I totally have to get an account there and check it out.
And number five?
Fark Well, hell, you have to join that site just for the name alone. But you can rate your plugs from “Interesting” to “DumbAss” OK… That totally rules.
All of these sites are free. Use them and you’ll see your traffic build, especially if you’re in a niche. If your niche is Internet marketing, be careful to follow the rules and to never make your plugging spammy. Once you lose the respect of one of these communities, it will be very hard to regain. Just check out my post of last year about Scribd. It was a very bad year.
So, I encourage you to go over to Jack’s blog and read his post in its entirety. And if you haven’t signed up for the Authority Black Book and The Friday Traffic Report, you’re missing tons of great stuff.
I’ve said that before, but Jack’s “Link Building and Blog Marketing” emails are in the class “Open now and read immediately” for me. I really enjoy them and learn a lot. Get on the bus!
Hey, I’ve heard that somewhere before. Har.
