This good deed landed me a great connection, as well as a butt-load of free PLR from one of his sites!

Anyways, last week I received an email from a previous Sitepoint contact who acquired one of my niche websites, PinkRibbonWomen.com, from a previous buyer.  He contacted me with regards to helping him get a few things sorted out and set up on the site – which I eagerly offered to help him with.

Once finished, he notified me that he is a distributer of MonaVie Acai Berry products and offered to send me a bottle as a token of his awesomeness and appreciation – which I eagerly accepted being the health product junkie that I am.  I promised him that once I received his gift I would blog about it to my awesome friends and partners to show him some bloggerhood love.  He sent me a 750 ml bottle of MonaVie Acai Berry premium blend – which is not cheap!

So that’s that.  Another story of karma and doing good things online.  I want to give a big shout out to Marc – my future MonaVie juice distributor – for his good form (as Captain Hook would say).

You never know who you’re going to meet online, but one thing I do know for sure is that the Internet population is much more kind when compared to the real world.

Cheers,

Elijah

Remember when I introduced a few of you to SocialMarker.com and their awesome social bookmarking service?  Well, take that concept but add the ability to securely input and save your account info, so you don’t have to manually enter it every time you want to bookmark something!  Yes sir, OnlyWire.com does exactly this!  I’ve just gone through the sign up process and after creating my log in it immediately took me to a page when I enter in my user/pass for 19 top social bookmarking sites listed as follows:

• Backflip
• Bibsonomy
• Blinklist
• Blue Dot
• BookmarkSync
• Connotea
• del.icio.us
• de.lirio.us
• Diigo
• Furl
• Google Bookmarks
• Jumptags
• linkatopia
• Linkroll
• ma.gnolia
• MyWebYahoo
• Simpy
• Spurl
• Twitter

I could very well have hyper-linked each of those for you, but I think it would be safe to assume that the majority of you know these bookmarking services, and how to find them!  Right?  Right.  Copy and paste the name into your address bar and add a .com at the end of it, and hit enter!

Now obviously you don’t have to fill in all 19 services for OnlyWire to work it’s magic, but if you really wanted to get 19 free backlinks in a few minutes than this site is the way to go.  Combine the speed of OnlyWire with the selection of SocialMarker and you have yourself a well oiled social bookmarking machine! Talk about easy link building for new sites.  Services like this really make what used to be such a tedious task easy enough that you could work it into your day without breaking a sweat.

I’m going to put together a short Camtasia tutorial once I get my accounts up and running – there won’t be much to it as the OnlyWire interface is super simple, and there’s not much to it at all.  Put in your social bookmarking account info, save it, add the bookmarklet to your toolbar, and start bookmarking!

Take a peak and let me know what you guys think!

Cheers,

Elijah

Little blog?

Yes, little blog.  I don’t care if you’re John Chow or Shoe-frickin-money, on the greater scale of all things Internet, we’re the equivalent to a gnat on a donkey’s ass.  Pay very close attention to what I’m about to say:  You cannot be alone in this vast domain.

I’ve read countless ebooks, hard and soft covers, journals, reports and manifestos in my year or so pursuing business online, and teamwork is the one element that 99% of them forget to include in their “Top 37 ways to make money online” or “secret formulas” and frankly I think it’s all a load of bullshit.  If you remember my post on how the rich stay rich and why there will always be that divider between the top dogs and everyone else, it is their network that keeps them all on top.  Everyone has a role to play in order to keep that network tightly knit and circulating.  The bigger the network is, the stronger it becomes and the more influence it will have.

Let’s go back to the donkey’s ass for a second…

Imagine that across the donkey’s entire body there are one million gnats spread out individually, and in small groups.  You could stand two feet from that donkey and not see a single one of them.  You might even go right up to this ass with a magnifying glass and be lucky if you notice one or two of these little buggers minding their business.  Now let’s imagine that a movement was spawned, and the gnats realized that the only way for them to be noticed was if they huddled closely together in large groups while screaming as loud as possible.  What do you think would happen? I can imagine three possible reactions:

• You would begin to think “what are those screaming dark spots on my donkey?”
• Word would spread and the gnats would join forces to form even bigger groups.
• Gnats on other donkey’s would notice as they pass, and incorporate this concept to continue the cycle.

I don’t know what just happened, but it made sense five minutes ago.

Even though Veronica doesn’t post on here, or isn’t as visible as I am online, she is part of my team.  Every post I publish and idea I stumble upon is filtered through her first.  I also have been building a team of other ninja marketers whom I communicate with on a daily basis.  We have a brainstorm forum that provides a common place for support, resources and creative development.  All of these factors will greatly affect my success as an online businessman, and in turn the people around me because this cycle is self sustaining.

Take a moment to think of the people around you whom you admire and the blogs you are inspired by, as these are usually the prime candidates for future joint ventures and diving partners off the coast of Costa Rica.  Find people who share a similar status and take that chance because you never know who else was thinking the same thing that you were.

The number one way to make money online is by building a team.  Period.

Cheers,

Elijah

Let’s take a closer look at the term “social networking” a little closer:  You have social, or socializing, which is an interaction between 2 or more people without any defined objective or purpose – you’re simply talking for the sake of the moment.  On the other end you have networking, which can start off as socializing but eventually will lead to end-goals from that particular conversation.  If you caught that last bit, then you will know that the core difference between socializing and networking is the objective or goal – why are you talking to this person?  One can argue that every interaction has some sort of objective whether it be to prevent that greasy guy at the bar from approaching you, or to keep your wife occupied while your friend sneaks your golf clubs into his truck – because your wife thinks you have a doctors appointment and your friend is driving you.

Learn to balance the two…

With so many mediums of social networking available on the web, it can become quite challenging to find a healthy balance between the two.  One thing I haven’t done yet is download some sort of third party Twitter application like TweetDeck, because I don’t see anything positive coming out of me having access to Twitter every minute of every day.  Is it really that important that I respond to tweets or direct messages right away?  No.  Do I really need to have Skype open all day while I work online?  No.  If anything of dire importance needs my attention I will either be notified as soon as I log in (literally) or that individual whom I am waiting to hear from will contact me by other means, like phone or personal email.  Choose when to be connected and when to skillfully disconnect in order to promote a more productive day.

The reality…

Unfortunately, most of what we do online in regards to social networking and communication is merely glorified socializing – and that my friends is the ultimate enemy of productivity.  When you choose to engage in social interaction, be conscious of the goals and objectives behind that encounter.  Why are you talking to this person?  If there is a specific reason, make sure it gets addressed within the first 2 minutes of digital conversation and if someone wants to tell you about their trip to the petting zoo, let them know that you can’t chat right now and to send you a brief email telling you all about it.  Knowing when you make your exit will greatly improve your online performance, but also set the guidelines for others to know what to expect from you.

Try to encourage more networking and less socializing, and you soon realize how much time you were wasting doing the later.  I know it’s hard to not jump on every new micro-blogging platform that enters the market, because we’re all nerds for that type of shit!  It’s what we look forward to!  Just know when to bow out gracefully if you do happen to indulge on a daily basis.  Having an addiction to social networking sites is a serious problem – not only will it potentially cripple your business, but your home life as well, so be careful!

Cheers,

Elijah

The only downside (and it’s not really much of a downside) with SocialMarker is it doesn’t provide an option to automatically log into your desired bookmarking sites, so therefor this action has to be done manually.  But if you compare the amount of time it would take to visit each site, log in, fill in the information and submit – SocialMarker is definitely the goods.  Enough talking.  Click the link below to view the tutorial.

How To Use SocialMarker – Video Tutorial

If there is anything I missed, or anything you guys have figured out since the last post please let me know.

Cheers,

Elijah

I first read about SocialMarker.com back in late June on DatMoney.com, which was around the time Veronica and I were conceptualizing this blog, and I knew at some point I wanted to try out a mass bookmarking service of some kind because we all know how time consuming it is to keep up with all these toolbars, usernames and passwords all in the name of blog traffic.  So over the last month I’ve been dabbling with SocialMarker.com and seeing whether or not half of these social bookmarking sites are worth my time, or just another means of feeding social addiction.  So what do I think?

SocialMarker.com kicks some serious ass!

The most time riddling aspect of using a service like this is setting up the accounts – but who really needs to use all 100+ social bookmarking sites to benefit from the potential traffic and backlink juice?  If you need some help getting started, or are a little overwhelmed by the whole shebang, follow these steps below and you should be on your way:

1. Go to SocialMarker.com and set up your account.  If you have questions, click here to find your answers.
2. Decide which social bookmarking services you would like to use, aside from the ones you already belong to.  I suggest starting off with 10-20 sites and work your way up as you become more comfortable with mass bookmarking.
3. Click and drag the button they provide into your browser toolbar.  When you want to blast a site to all your bookmarking services, select the text and click the SocialMarker button to pre-populate and submit.  Super easy!
4. If you looking for an all-in-one bookmarking plugin for WordPress, they’ve also taken care of that as well.  Just copy and paste the code they provide into your WordPress template and you’re good to go.

TheAtHomeCouple.com has been up and active for roughly a month and we’ve already had over 500 unique visitors, 10 subscribers via RSS, and new friends passing by every single week.  SocialMarker is one of the main reasons why we are doing so well so early on and if you’re really serious about your blog, and already use social bookmarking and social networking as means of promotion and traffic, than this is for you.

If any of you already use it, I’d love to hear some feedback.

Cheers,

Elijah

One thing Yaro stresses through his content is the importance of social networking and multimedia as primary mediums for marketing and promoting a blog.  This is where sites like YouTube, Facebook, Myspace, Digg, StumbleUpon, or the virtual crackpot Twitter come in to play.

How you ask?  Here’s how it goes:

• You sign up for accounts with 3-5 popular social networking and social bookmarking sites
• You slowly build a network of peers, mentors and enemies by visiting other blogs and leaving comments, adding friends with similar interests, digging, tweeting, stumbling, whatever…
• The more active you are on social networks, the more attention is put towards you.
• Funnel that traffic to a content rich, fully monetized, well designed blog and you have yourself a winner.

Here’s another doozy for ya – what do you do with that traffic when it hits you?

Unfortunately that part is not as simple.  If you’re running a blog rather than a static website, the two factors you want from your traffic is participation and action, or…

Participaction!

It’s great I know.

It’s a proven fact that social networking can bring hoards of potential people to a blog, and though it seems challenging to maintain multiple accounts with consistent activity, I feel the biggest challenge will be converting that traffic into long term subscribers and top commentators.  I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve clicked through a link to a blog and landed on a poorly designed, ad-filled site with garbage content.  Would any of us consider bookmarking a crappy blog with nothing resourceful?  Heck no.

Before I go, If any of you haven’t read Yaro Starak’s Blog Profits Blueprint just click here and fill in your first name and email address.  You will get an email with a link to the video, audio, and PDF version.  I suggest reading the ebook one time through, then maybe moving on to the condensed video or audio version.  You have nothing to lose, and PLENTY to gain.  Thank me later.

I will be keeping our site updated as I go through my experimental stages with social networking and social bookmarking.  I look forward to your feedback and experiences.

Cheers,

Elijah

What I’ve noticed though is that most social networking and social bookmarking sites aren’t really used to “network” at all – at least by a majority of it’s users.  I’m not by any means implying that sites like Digg, Twitter and StumbleUpon aren’t great networking tools – they are in fact brilliant mediums for building contacts and traffic to any website or blog.  But it seems to a giant majority of the Internet population social networking sites are yet another form of addiction.  These sites can easily suck up 2-3 hours of time that would have been better spent doing something else, and as I am setting up accounts on all the major social networking platforms I’m beginning to notice this more and more.  I just spent an hour and a half stumbling through random WordPress blogs giving thumbs up, or thumbs down before I recognized what time it was – and that I had a blog post to write.

Here is what our good ol’ friends at Wikipedia have to say about Social Networking:

A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.

Social networking has created powerful new ways to communicate and share information. Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people, and it now seems that social networking will be an enduring part of everyday life. The main types of social networking services are those which contain directories of some categories (such as former classmates), means to connect with friends (usually with self-description pages), and recommender systems linked to trust.

Personally, I have never had the time or patience to be sitting on the Internet trying to find my old crush from high-school or the bully that used to throw rocks at me during recess (you’d better run if I ever see you again).  When sites like Facebook and Myspace surfaced I immediately set up profiles and began experimenting with the functionality – but my intentions were always results oriented, especially when it came to Myspace.  Myspace has been a great marketing tool for me to promote my music, and collaborate with other musicians and artists around the globe, yet I still suffered from a slight addiction at one point in time – becoming obsessed with adding friends, increasing my plays, and commenting instead of strategically marketing and promoting.

I strongly believe that an addiction to social networking sites can become a serious problem.  We struggle enough trying to filter out the copious amounts of information fed into our brains on a daily basis – and the last thing we need is a society of unfocused, twitter-fied zombies.  There is more to life than the little graphic on your blog or web page which spits out how many “votes” you have, and I give warning to anybody intrigued or interested in discovering the value of Internet social networking sites – if you don’t have a reason to be using them, DON’T!  Unless you have no job, live at home and don’t pay rent.  Make a list of how you could benefit from social networking services and determine the value of using this medium to increase the presence and web-awareness of your company, brand, or blog.  Having a list of benefits should at least help you keep focused and utilize these tools to generate traffic and awareness to your selected source destination.

I’d love to hear what you guys think about the value of social networking sites, and the possible addiction associated with these types of services.

Cheers,

Elijah