Social Networking Archives - The At Home Couple

Become A Ninja Link Master By Combining Social Bookmarking Tools

I’m sitting here waiting for my man D to come through so we can rehearse for our show tomorrow night, so I figured I’ll bang out a post while I’m waiting. If you guys don’t know Mark Hansen by now read through my 20 questions session I did with him, and visit him over at TheNicheStoreBuilder.com – Mark is the man when it comes to building niche affiliate websites, keyword research tactics and keeping the public up to date with eBay’s wonderful (sarcastic) affiliate program. Mark is usually pretty sharp in regards to finding out about cool little programs and services that make our lives online easier, and he recently posted up about another social bookmarking tool that I knew you guys would be interested in.

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

Building Your Team Of Criminal Masterminds

There are two types of people in any work industry, whether it be online or in a cubicle: Those who work better alone, and those who work better as part of a team, and when it comes to blogging there’s really no choice for the earlier option – providing you want to be successful. Building a team of collaborators and joint venture partners is vital to the systematic survival of your brand and motion within the blogosphere. You need people to bounce ideas off of. You need a people to fill your weak spots and promote growth. You need to become part of something much bigger that your little blog.

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

Real Social Networking

It’s funny, because when I think of social networking in 2008 and what it means to the web 2.0 crowd, all I see is a bunch of people hiding behind computers with a jpeg for a face, and a keyboard for a mouth. We all fall into that category of course, because our business is based on the computer – but does it have to remain there? I look at someone like Lynn Terry from ClickNewz.com who, whenever she’s attending an industry event, invites her readers to meet up with her for lunch if any of them are local to where the event is happening. Talk about extending yourself and increasing availability – Lynn is connected with some of the top dogs in Internet marketing and still makes it a priority to pow wow with her available readers whenever she’s on the road. I definitely encourage you to extend yourself to your regular blog readers and swap phone numbers. Get acquainted with each other because the relationships we build now are the most important, and going beyond the computer is something I practice as often as possible.

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

Submit To 1000 Social Bookmarking Sites In 30 Seconds

Yeah right. Actually it’s more like 100+ social bookmarking sites in about 15 minutes. How you ask? By using the free services of a great little site called SocialMarker.com and if you haven’t heard of this site before, and you own a blog or two, then you better hop on over and create an account before they start charging for their services.

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:

Go to SocialMarker.com and set up your account. If you have questions, click here to find your answers.
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.
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!
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

To Digg, Or Not To Digg

If you remember in my last post, I’m in the process of setting up accounts with all the major social networking and social bookmarking sites in order to become familiar (which shouldn’t take long) with the functionality, and more importantly how each service differs from the next. Are we all familiar with the name Yaro Starak… Yes? No? Anyways, I’ve known of Yaro and his huge nest of hair for a while, and I recently finished reading, watching, and mildly studying his Blog Profits Blueprint program – which is free – an absolute must for anyone even considering making money online.

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