Archive: Blogging
Remember our trek across the country last year, on the Blog America Tour? Well, we're on the road again; it's not quite as ambitious as driving from Orlando to Las Vegas but just as fun. Yesterday Ted and I headed up to New York City to meet-up with InternetGeekGirl and a slew of other Social Media enthusiasts for the first let of the Affiliate Summit Party Bus trip! Destination: the Affiliate Summit conference in Boston.
Below are some photos of the trip. We'll post more after the conference is over on Tuesday, and we travel back to New York.
Chances are that you know someone that has been affected by Alzheimer's Disease. This devastating illness is the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S. Someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer's every 71 seconds. Most of the time, the people dealing with the disease feel helpless in fighting it.
Well, now you CAN do something about it. You can join the over 200,000 people that will be participating in the Memory Walk this year. The walks are scheduled at different times this fall throughout the country. It's not a marathon, but rather a 2-3 mile walk held on a weekend morning. You can also help us promote the walk by taking the Opp in SocialSpark about this event.
My grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2002. Shortly after this diagnosis, it became apparent that one of us in the family would need to move into her house to help take care of her. I immediately volunteered because my Nana had always been there for me and I felt it was my duty to be there for her in her time of need.
We managed her care at home for another two years before we had to move her into an assisted living facility. During that time, I watched as my Nana slowly slipped away. That was the hardest two years of my life, but also the most rewarding. I feel privileged that I was able to be the one to help my Nana and to give back to the person who had taken care of me my entire life.
My grandmother is still alive today but my Nana is only with us every so often. She is well taken care of and I couldn't ask for much more. I know I will be participating in my local Memory Walk this fall and I hope you feel inspired to the same in your community.
Together, we can MOVE a nation. Take this Opp and blog about this now!
We've got two more new amigos for the upcoming IZEAFest event, and they are:
To advance the Central Florida interactive marketing, media and technology community by serving as an association for professional development, education, community networking and overall inspiration for our digital society.
(If you're in the Central Florida area and fall into any of these areas, I strongly encourage you to sign-up at doterati.com.)
BlogOnExpo is a free online conference for bloggers, kicking off August 11th and lasting through the 13th.
Keynote interviews include the team at CrunchGear, John Chow of JohnChow.com (one of IZEAFest's speakers), Neil Patel of PronetAdvertising.com (another one of the speakers at IZEAFest), Muhammad Saleem (the second largest user on Digg and a social media expert), and many others.
Please welcome these two fantastic sites into the IZEA Community!
Are you curious about how to further your career or start a new one?
Have you ever wondered how to get the IT Training that will help you stand out in a crowd?
The answer to these questions and many more can be found here!
One of our advertisers, Cisco, is now offering an Opportunity in SocialSpark for you to learn more about how to get a variety of different Cisco certifications. They offer network certification programs that cater to a wide range of IT people just like you; from experts and specialists to associates and beginners.
Now you can take part in these exciting careers too! The networking technology world has expanded exponentially in the last few years and continues to grow at a rapid pace.
Have you been thinking about breaking into the IT field but don't know how to start? Do you need that extra certification to help qualify for that big promotion?
Log in to SocialSpark now and get paid to tell us about your experience (or lack thereof) in networking technology and learn why Cisco is a phenomenal company known for being "The Learning Network."
We're thrilled to announce the addition of two new partners to our social media conference, IZEAFest. They are both great sites that offer resources to bloggers and social media enthusiasts. Please take a few moments to visit their websites to learn more about the services they offer, and welcome them to our Community.
DotSauce.com is an exclusive web based magazine for domainers, web developers, designers and of course bloggers! Featuring almost daily updates on innovative web applications, sales and marketing, SEO, blogging resources, domain name industry news and more. You can join their private discussion forum community for the best free resources, video tutorials, available domain lists, coupons, discounts and more.
Pijoo is a blog directory, a social network, and a social voting site all rolled into one. By adding your blog to Pijoo, you can get more hits, more readers, and a whole bunch of new contacts from the blogosphere, as well as being able to track your visitors, build a community around your blog and keep up with the latest posts from other blogs.
Not yet registered for IZEAFest? Click here to sign-up today.
Technorati Tags: blog events, blogging, IZEAFest, social media, social media conference
Later today we will be releasing a new version of SocialSpark that includes a recently implemented code of conduct. This code of conduct is designed to provide a clear guideline for acceptable behavior within the community and is in response to some usage trends we have spotted within the system.
One of the biggest abuses we have seen relates to comment spam and props. Specifically bloggers pouncing new users and leaving comments such as "prop for u" and "luv your blog. I gave you a prop" in hopes of gaining a reciprocal prop, whether or not it is actually deserved. This obviously was not the intent of the comment or prop systems and we have received many complaints from long time IZEA posties and advertisers regarding the need for a better framework and rules.
The new comment system will not allow you to leave comments regarding props (along with other types of comments such as "waiting in line", "requested this opp", etc.) without a warning. We now officially consider these types of comments as spam or non-additive at best. They don't add any value to our community and diminish the quality of the user experience. You will have to go out of your way to leave these types of comments from now on and if you abuse the system you run the risk of being banned.
Let's look at some examples:
Good:
"We just went to ColdStone over the weekend with my kids. They loved it!" - blm03
Bad:
"Prop for you!" - too many bloggers to mention.
To be fair our code of conduct was not in place in the past. There was nothing that said people couldn't leave comments on everyone's profiles to build props and friends. We didn't know that it would be such a problem.
That being said, we need to get this fixed and move forward.
The only fair way to do this in our minds is to zero out all props and comments relating to props for everyone. If we don't do so the users who have utilized this method of building props will be at the top of the list for the foreseeable future, creating an unfair advantage the can't be taken away.
Before implementing such a drastic measure I would like to hear from the community as to why we should or shouldn't do this. I am sure I will hear a good bit from the people using this method, but my real hope is that we hear from the community at large.
Attention "Lunch with Ash & V" fans:
We're moving lunch to Thursdays! Same time but different day! Grab your lunch box or paper bag and head on over to Stickam.com/RockStartUp at 12pm EST and chat-it-up with us. Here's what you can expect:
- Worldosphere. We spend a few minutes talking about news events and things going on in the world around us.
- Webosphere. There are tons of new websites and blogs that pop-up on the Internet everyday. During this segment we take a look at some of the more awesome ones we've stumbled across.
- IZEAsphere. We cover some of the amazing things going on at IZEA headquarters, that you might not read about here on the blog or on the boards.
Looking forward to seeing you guys! If you have any suggestions about topics of discussion please feel free to e-mail us. You never know...if we use your topic on the air we might even send you a special treat in the mail!
DISCLAIMER:: While we are employees of IZEA, please note we broadcast during our personal lunch hour (because we love engaging with our community). The opinions shared are our own, and are not reflective of our investors, our Founder & CEO, or any other members of the IZEA Team.
Technorati Tags: blog, blogging, IZEA Team, Lunch with Ash & V, Posties
I discovered
In addition to having a heavy focus on animal volunteer and reach-out, Houndsgood.com also offers-up ideas and recommendations to those who are looking for volunteer opportunities in general:
- Bettering oneself through education
- Ideas & tips on fundraising
- Cruelty-free products (which is certainly a hot issues these days)
- Virtual networking (a must for bloggers)
- Animal rescue
It's no secret I have an affinity for animals, especially those that are in special need or have been abused or neglected. So this site definitely struck a cord.
The FAQ section of the site also has answers to questions site visitors might be wanting to ask. Check that out when you have a few minutes.
If you have or know of a blog that you'd like to recommend for an upcoming "Blogger with a Cause," please e-mail us at charity[at]izea[dot]com.
Technorati Tags: Blogger with a Cause, bloggers, blogging, charity
It seems like there's an endless stream of resources to help make your blog "bigger, better, faster" or help your ad campaigns be "more targeted, manageable, and insightful." Well, we've created a new resource for you to help navigate through some of your options. Introducing: the SocialSpark Solutions Center which can be found under the Community tab.
We've identified some of the more useful and popular tools and services to help you as a blogger and/or advertiser. Whether you're just getting started or a seasoned user, you can find tools that can enhance your online experience. The Solutions Center is organized into different categories for Bloggers (Getting Started, Getting Traffic, Increasing Engagement, and Other Tools) and Advertisers (Measuring and Monitoring).
You can drill down to specific provider profiles to learn more and link to the various solutions.
- Need help designing your blog? Take a look at Unique Blog Designs
- Want to better manage and track comments? Check-out CoComment
- Want to help your readers "email forward" your posts? Try Grouptivity
- Want to link to related content? Use JargonFish
- Want to join a blog writing community? Check-out b5media
- Want to easily modify your design with images and link content to affiliate programs? Try Triggit
- Want to use polls to learn more about your users? Use Vizu Power Polls
- Want to add fun and engaging widgets to your blog? Check-out RockYou
- Want to create speaking avatars for your blogs and/or campaigns? Try Voki
- Want more statistics to complement IZEARanks? Try BlogPatrol
- Who's talking about your brand in the blogosphere? Check-out Andiamo Systems
We've also worked with providers to secure some special offers for SocialSpark users:
- Want free web hosting for 12-months? Sign-up to Jumpline 12-Months Free Web Hosting for SocialSpark Users
- Sign-up for Lunarpages web hosting through SocialSpark and and save $48 on a 24-month Basic plan.
- Sign-up for SezWho's universal profile service through SocialSpark and become eligible to win an iPod Nano!
- Are you an online merchant? Sign-up to the eCommerce Merchants Trade Association through SocialSpark and save $50 on your membership ($149/yr).
Each provider will have its own profile page where you can learn more and share comments.
Check it out! If you have another great solution you'd like to recommend, let us know here
I started to really get into Twitter about 3 months ago. I had signed up for an account some time before that, but didn't really take a deep interest until I saw other people I knew using the system. I have posted over 1250 message since I started and I see no sign of me slowing down.
I find twitter to be interesting as both a personal communication tool and online marketing vehicle. I see most users utilize it as a combination of both. With that in mind I set out to explore how the top Twitter users harness the power of this tool. I made use of Twitterholic and other Twitter tools to grab data for my comparisons.
Followers
Your number of followers is your effective reach on Twitter. Kevin Rose (Founder of Digg.com), Leo Laporte (Tech Guru) and Barack Obama (Presidential Candidate) currently have the most reach, with Kevin having just over 43,000 followers. The number of followers trails off quite quickly, with number 100 (user TC) having just over 4400 followers, an almost 10x difference.
Friends
Your number of friends is the number of people that you are following. The top 3 users with the most friends are Juan Carlos Arzola (56,974 friends), Barack Obama (40,153 friends) and Jason Calacanis (31,570 friends).
This is where things start to get interesting, the users with the most friends are clearly using Twitter as a marketing tool over just personal communication. I am not sure how many of you have more than 50,000 "friends" but I don't think I could keep up with that many people. Rather, these users are adding friends with the intent of getting a reciprocal follow, thus building the users sphere of influence and effective reach through twitter. The growth isn't organic or viral it is incubated and forced.
The marketing intent is easy to see when you take a look at one of these users twitter content. Barack Obama has never addressed a single message to another twitter user (by typing @username). Jason Calacanis has plugged Mahalo 180 times in the past 2 months, that’s an average of 3 Mahalo tweets per day.
I am not saying there is anything wrong with using Twitter as a marketing tool. To the contrary, I think most bloggers are using Twitter to market themselves and their content in some way. I myself promote IZEA through my personal Twitter account on occasion, and it does indeed drive traffic to the site (I will tweet this very post). That is one of the reasons I would want to be a Top 100 Twitter User, to drive more traffic.
So how do you top the list? At first glance the answer seems to be to follow a lot of people. Jason Calacanis is number 5 on the list and he has certainly done that, so has Barack Obama. But it’s not that simple. In a perfect world you would get a friend for every person you follow, but that usually isn’t the case.
Kevin Rose only follows 85 friends. 85 friends / 43505 followers is a pretty incredible ratio. Compare that to Juan Carlos Arzola who has 56974 friends / 5921 followers, a ratio of 9.6. My guess is that Carlos is following just about everyone he comes across, but it seems that people aren't really interested in what he has to say.
So how do you get to the top? If you aren't a well known CEO or a Presidential Candidate it is going to take some work. You can certainly try the "follow everyone" gameplan and you might just get lucky. But at the end of the day I think it comes down to the same core principles as blogging. Create good content, write often, engage in conversation and be an active participant in the community. It may take a little longer to get there going the old fashioned route, but in the grand scheme you will have a higher quality audience who is engaged with you, clicks on your links and responds to your tweets.
Ohhhh... btw you can follow me at http://www.twitter.com/tedmurphy
Technorati Tags: barack obama, jason calacanis, kevin rose, twitter
