What can you do to become a pro-blogger?

Well, you need to get a lot of traffic to your blog.

And now you thinking….’I already know that, but HOW am I going to do it? I have some trade secrets to let you in on. By using these trade secrets, you too, can become a pro blogger.

Today, you are going to learn some great tricks of the trade to grab the attention of StumbleUpon, and use their platform to set your blog on fire. These tips and tricks will get you anywhere from the hundreds up to the thousands of StumbleUpon visitors each day.

StumbleUpon does lean toward some niches more than others, and you need to use this to work for your advantage. You will find that StumbleUpon can be one of the greatest viral marketing tool out there. So here are some tips:

• If you do have a niche that is lacking in the mass appeal, StumbleUpon will be a great boost for you where the others won’t. Digg uses a broad forum which keeps their power from weakening in traffic. StumbleUpon works a bit differently by creating more specific categories, providing a more targeted audience.

• Write posts that appeal to the particular social media, if you go for the general appeal, you are going to lose your followers. For instance, Del.icio.us likes anything that their users prefer, Digg likes the appeal of the masses. You have to have content that is going to get thousands of hits, or you won’t become a pro-blogger.

• When you are writing for StumbleUpon, you don’t need to worry about pleasing the masses, matter of fact, you benefit more by sticking with your niche, yes, even your small ones, and this will bring you some highly targeted traffic.

• So, write your content for your niche, not for the general public. By doing this, you will increase your chances to your post will be submitted to receive more traffic in a more specific category.

In another blog, I will go into the types of posts you should and should not be making. I will go into the types of content and the things you can do to make your blog more appealing to StumbleUpon.

Looking For A Match To Create Success?

I am sure you have heard of Eharmony for those that are looking for a companion…but what about those who are looking for the perfect match for business or possibly looking for a mentor? MyMission2 is just the site to assist you in finding the right partner and allowing others to find you. This is a site that can be used for not just dating, but for your profession, work, or education. This is a site for the success oriented type person.

So you sit down at your computer, pull up MyMission2 and start filling out some information regarding your skills, and what your dreams and aspirations are. You have the option of making this information public or private. You may have the expertise that someone else is looking for, and if so, they will be able to contact you, the same goes for you, you will find someone who has the skills and expertise you are seeking. This is great for those who are goal oriented, assisting others in reaching their goals.

How Does It Work?

This is taking an old concept like the dating sites, combining it with services such as Yahoo Answers, bringing together the best of both worlds, creating a dynamic tool now called MyMission2. Another site related to this is TheCommon.org which has just recently launched.

Current favorite categories

* Arts

* Auto & Transport

* Beauty & Style

* Business & Finance

* Charity

* Education

* Entertainment

* Environment

* Food & Drink

* Gadgets

* Government

* Health

* Home & Garden

* Pets

* Relationships

* Sports

* Technology

* Travel

Don’t Be A Square Peg In A Round Hole!

Find associates and matches that are seeking the same thing you are; Success!

Another great service that is set up as a goal setting/achieving web-based community is Goalmigo. The difference between MyMission2 and these other sites are that MyMission2 is still working on their internet tools which will take you through the steps needed for goal achievement.

You get to share links, images, the simpler things, but they have not yet set up tools such as integrated calendars, task lists, or ways to create collaborative documents, however, this is a great, new and upcoming web-based community which will grow quickly, providing you a built-in support system for SEO integration.

Another site worth checking out is Upumpitup. This site is well modified for goal achievement and offers some practical tools for achieving goals on a group basis Upumpitup is a fun place to check out, and endorsed by Mandy Moore, actress/singer. This is a site mainly for women, whereas, MyMission2, is for everyone.

If you are looking for success, want others to join in with you on your journey, then check out MyMission2. Teach others what you know, help them succeed, learn from those who know the ropes. This is a win-win situation, but only for those who want to succeed.

Can Your Photos Make You Money?

As you know by now, I love keeping you in the know on all the new sites that help you in your viral marketing strategies. The name of the latest company that I want to share with you is fOTOGLIF.

What is fOTOGLIF?

This is not your ordinary photo sharing website, this is one that actually gives back. You get to upload and share as many photos as you like, and you are thinking “so what, there are numerous sites that do this”, but what you don’t know is….you get paid to share your photos. They will split their ad revenues with you on a 50/50 basis, depending on the viewer-ship.

FOTOGLIF has a built in photo and content sharing application which enables its users to benefit directly from their own content they have shared. The users of this site is who create the content and when they share, they are creating traffic to the site, therefore, becoming a recipient of the revenues generated.

This site has created a fantastic platform for artists and photographers to benefit from their talents and creations, and to be able to share their work while benefiting financially from the advertising revenues. They have created a Best Of Show utility for sharing these incredible pictures.

This is a new site, just opened this month. This is providing Facebook junkies to produce their own slideshows to share while bringing in some money at the same time. And for those of you who are serious about your photography and wish to promote your work, you can do so on here as you do on Flickr and other photo sites. You may find that fOTOGLIF will be a great tool in brining in some extra income while promoting your art.

Facebook Users

Because this is such a new product, you may encounter a few error messages as you install it on Facebook on the uppermost portion of the dashboard. You will also need to focus on your gift patience as you load your images. This being new, in time it will become better and better as they work out the bugs. This is definitely worth checking out.

Their revenue sharing plan is a great and simple plan. You will supply the required personal data with an email address for PayPal. This will all be done in the “Settings” menu, and then you will be on the receiving end of half of what they make through the advertisements and viewers interactions.

ARE MUSICIANS TAKING ON SOCIAL NETWORKING ON THE WEB?

If You Would Like to Connect With Some of the Top Musicians and create your own Social Network at the same time; Then Read On…

If you are one that loves music, and would love to network with these artists, then you just may have your opportunity. Many of the artists, such as 50 Cent, Ludacris, Kylie Minogue and many more have decided to move away from the vast space of MySpace, to a new alternative site, a site that is destined to be a star on Web 2.0. This site is Ning, a place where you can connect with some of your favorite artists.

How Does Ning Work and Will It Benefit My Viral Marketing Campaign?

Ning was founded by Marc and Gina Bianchini in October 2004 to provide an opportunity for you and me the ability to create our own social networks for anything and everything. Ning is the power behind the largest number of the Internet’s social networks, and social networking is all about viral marketing.

You will have the opportunity to use the latest and greatest in social networking, features that are truly customizable by you to fit your needs. This is a platform that provides all the features you need to be a success in the social networking arena. The only thing you need to bring to the table is your time and determination. With this you will be able to build your own social network. This is not a prefitted site, this is one you create yourself.

What is the Purpose of Ning?

The founders first started Ning on a very simple premise, they wanted to provide a way for anyone to create their own social networking site. They were expecting some amazing results and they got that and so much more! They have artists, athletes, musicians , educators, journalists, students, alumni, hobbyists, and any other group of interests you can imagine. The diversity of these groups is amazing and quite profound.

As you check out the Ning website, you will find a very informative FAQ section, where you can learn about their Network Creators community.

Are you a business or company that wants to promote your private label? If so, check out Ning for Business.

You will find these features on the Ning website as posted there:

# Members can invite new members, meet new people, and make new friends on your network.

# Full message center with address book importing from Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail.

# See your network members when they are online now.

# Customizable profile pages just for you.

# Photo slideshows, video players, music players, and network badges, that can be embedded anywhere on the Internet, seamlessly funneling new people to your network.

# Set your own different privacy settings for every photo, video, group, or blog post they contribute.

# RSS feeds of your network’s features, such as members, discussions, photos, videos, music/podcasts, and blog posts.

# Got a logo or brand? Add it to make your network totally unique.

# Choose your own theme from the options provided then customize them to make them your own.

# Public or private, that is totally up to you!

# Choose how your photos, video player, music players, and network badges appear on your site.

# Do you want to ask your members some profile questions before they join? You get to create this, and the questions will be private as well as the answers, for your eyes only.

# Do you juse Facebook? Enable “one-click” Facebook Promotion so your members can add photo slideshows, video players, and music/podcasts from your network seamlessly into Facebook.

# You have the ability to moderate photos and videos before you post them.

# Choose from a set of supported languages (English, Chinese, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spanish) or translate your social network into any unsupported language by changing one file in the code.

# Member profile questions created by you for your network.

# Member blog posts with photos, files, and widgets.

# Manage blog posts and moderate comments.

# Choose the option to publish in the future.

# Ability to customize the appearance of member profile pages.

# Option to add widgets to profile page.

Take advantage of this great social networking platform and create for yourself an even bigger and better network and keep your viral marketing campaign on fire!

You Think Message Dance Is Awesome, Check It Out Now!

I recently wrote a blog about MessageDance. Now I have even more information for you and how to take this great tool to a new level.

You now get to take advantage of MessageDance from anywhere and everywhere on your own blog.

What is Message Dance?

MessageDance began as a portable message wall, such as for comments, guest book entries, like your Facebook Wall.

In my first blog about Message Dance, you learned about the many possibilities of this new message aggregator which was used on Facebook and other social networks. You had the ability to use their new portable You Tube playlist which enabled you to share your videos across the social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. You could use your MessageDance widget to share your updates via email or through MessageDance.com.

GREAT NEWS!

Well, the great news is that now they have progressed out of the message widget and moved up into the world of social media with a slew of sharing options which still include your You Tube playlists.

You are now able to join the world of blogging and use your MessageDance widget to display your blog posts.

You have a variety of ways to submit your blog posts; you can use Facebook message tool, Amazon, Iphone, YouTube, Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and your Google Reader! Wow, this is exciting!

You may be thinking yeah…this is just a blogging integration platform which uses the submission process, but you are not correct in that assumption. You are able to create a blog post from many media sites as well as email clients. MessageDance, however, can be your existing blog on two of the major platforms which are WordPress and Blogger. You will also be able to use their media attachment tool which will enable you to turn your content into an incredible rich media blog.

We know in this business that blogs are very powerful, which is why you see so many. If you are a social network user, I am sure you have a blog of some sort. Blogs are a conversation, and they keep us informed on the world and what’s going on. But as you know, this is a big job keeping it updated for your readers.

MessageDance has created a huge theme which allows its users to blog content from any social networking site they happen to be on. You get to take advantage of their blog posting capabilities from all the popular social networking sites.

Watch this great video on MessageDance and learn how simple it is to use.

So what you have now is no longer just a message aggregator, but an ever-growing broadcaster which can be used across a variety of networks. You will love the re-publishing tools which are totally automated.

Continue to watch MessageDance evolve and grow and watch your own viral marketing campaign grow right along with it.

No More Excuses, Now Anyone Can Convert Your Paper to iPaper

I came across this article as I was browsing some of my favorite blogs, and this immediately caught my attention. This is a site that is perfect for those who do not own a scanner or have convenient access to one.

Scribd now has a program they call Convert Your Paper to Ipaper…

which is a way for you to have all your paper documents scanned and published on the Internet, all at no cost to you..yes..you read that right….Totally FREE! All you need to worry about it getting the documents sent to them, then they take care of the rest.

How Can They Do This For Free?

They are able to offset the expense for scanning by the advertisements that are relevant to your documents.

Can You Have Any Type of Documents Scanned?

Scribd can scan almost any type of written document. They use a highly advanced scanning process which is provided by their partners, giving them the ability to scan about any document in high volumes. If you do have any questions however, they are easy to contact and ready to answer any of your questions.

Who is Scribd?

Scribd is a huge, digital library where you can publish your own original content. The focus of Scribd is to provide a way for those who have tons of documents sitting around their home or office, and to have a place to publish these documents for all to read.

What’s Their Plan?

First and foremost they are looking to save a lot of trees, which I am all for. They are also looking to utilize their space to service those who have some very important documents that were created long before the digital era. There may also be some documents that have been lost, out of print, or printed but now deleted. This provides a new life to documents that can be shared among many re-digitized and accessible to all.

The reason I am all for this and ready to support them is they are providing a great service at no cost to you. You no longer have to take the time scanning paper after paper, or the expense of purchasing a scanner, but just stick your documents in an envelope, send them off in the mail to Scribd, and before you know it, your documents are accessible to you on the Internet, never to be lost or misplaced again, nor taking up all that valuable space in your home or office.

Have You Heard of Message Dance?

Another Great Way To Enhance Your Viral Marketing Strategy…

You may have heard of a new message site called MessageDance which was launched a few months ago. At first the site didn’t have a great integration option for multiple users, but they did have a great underlying concept as well as huge potential for its application methods used on a variety of web services.

Now, MessageDance announces some new feature updates that goes great with their added integration with Twitter.

Today, MessageDance is announcing a few more new feature updates to its service that go along nicely with its recently added Twitter integration. For starters, there’s a new portable YouTube Playlist. This lets you share videos with your friends across various networks, like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. Updates can be displayed in your MessageDance widget, and it can be shared via email, or blasted to everyone, using the ever-handy “friends @ messagedance.com.” Images have been added too, along with documents, all for sharing purposes, through MessageDance’s expanding portal.

Will this approach work, or is this incorporating too many life-streaming tools into an existing third-party service? I imagine that such integration doesn’t hurt. It looks to compete, on varying levels, with social browsing, micro-blogging tools, ShareThis options present on blogs and websites, Box.net, and even Yahoo’s latest Life hub (which has yet to launch).

I think MessageDance is still finding the best way in which it can fit into social media as an accessible tool that makes sharing easy across the web, so the new features, many of which have been requested by users, should further MessageDance on its journey.

What’s the buzz?

As you know, the Internet can be a very fickle place. The news changes, as well as the interests and trends, on a daily basis and it is difficult to keep up with it all. When you are trying to keep up with the interests of your readers, staying on top of the hot topics, you need to be able to find this information easily and quickly.

One of the great sites to visit and catch up on all the gossip, news, trends, etc…is YahooBuzz. Here you will be able to see the most popular searches on Yahoo.

You will be able to find the most popular stories based on votes, searches and many other vital factors. You will them neatly arranged in their own categories for your convenience and ease of search.

If you come across a story you like, vote for it. The more votes a story receives, the farther up it goes on the list.

What are the Internet Marketing Trends?

As with anything else, the Internet market goes in trends as well. I am sure you also know
that these trends are constantly changing. There are three trends that offer you the best opportunities to move ahead in the Internet marketing business.

Even though the Internet has been around for a while now, the market is still pretty new.

You will be surprised to find out that only 18% of our world’s population even has Internet access. This is changing however, mainly in Asia right now.

Any market that has anything to do with technology are at the top, which will include the entrepreneurs or what some may call the ‘Internet geeks’.

Next the market will flow into the mainstream which is the largest portion of our population, and where most of the opportunities are.

Internet marketing seminars are gaining more and more favor with the masses. It used to be the ‘geeks’ and computer ‘gurus’ that only were attending these functions, but not anymore…you will find people of all interests there who are totally new in the Internet marketing business.

According to Michael Fortin, a well-known copywriter on the web, stated that he was amazed at some of the questions being asked at this last years convention. There were people asking how to create simple text files, or wanting to know what an auto responder was.
There are many of us that are in the online marketing business, some of us seasoned, some brand new with very limited Internet skills.

Many of the veterans in our industry, the cream of the crop so to speak, are now retiring, and there is a huge market of newbies on the rise.

One of the trends that you want to keep any eye out for is the new way the ‘gurus’ are advertising to the ‘newbie’ market. The latest trend is actually marketing offline.

You may want to look into offline network marketing and how these campaigns are being conducted with some very impressive results.

The offline trend is really affecting those people in Asia who are coming online in large numbers. Believe me when I say that this is going to be a huge and very lucrative market.

Watch for these 3 Internet Marketing Trends in 2008

1. The Asian market
2. Offline marketing opportunities
3. Newbies to the online business

So, watch for the Buzz in these markets, workout some Internet marketing strategies, stay on top of the current buzz issues like on Yahoo Buzz, and you will reap the rewards.

WETPAINT! Another great Social Networking Site For You To Check Out!

There are more and more social networking sites coming up, better to help you with your viral networking strategies. Wetpaint has some wikis that are becoming a great, fully functional social networking site. They have recently added Feeds, which by the way is a very important feature of any social networking site. This makes these sites communicative which is vital to it’s survival. These feeds include dashboard and friend updates, giving each user their own personal view of the happenings in their particular part of the world.

They offer some great friend invite options who can add to your wiki’s that you have created, making this an integral tool, focusing on the current trends going on in our social media. You have greater personalization with their custom profiles, photo gallery, and place to share media. This is a great tool to get your name and product out there even more. Social networking sites are a great way to build up contacts, friends, along with trust.

Features You Need To Be Focusing On!

This site has a couple of self-promotional features which you need to take advantage of. The first one is the ‘Promote My Site Wizard’, which is a way for users to find better SEO for their wikis.

The next feature is the option to offer Compliments to your friends. This is a great version of ‘poking’, and hopefully will be used as encouragement and support. You can actually collect and display these compliments as awards right on your profile, letting others know that you can be trusted and that others think you are great.

Here are some the features and Why Wetpaint?

• 100% free
• Simple to start
• Easy to build
• Fun to share

What is Wetpaint?

Wetpaint powers wikis, but unlike most wikis, which can be complicated, Wetpaint wikis are as simple as 1-2-3 , making it easy for anyone to start a free wiki that they can share with friends.

Who is using Wetpaint?

A better question might be “Who isn’t using Wetpaint? Wetpaint is perfect for almost anyone! This is for so many different uses and passions. Educators, gamers, technophiles, sports fans, and everyone in between is using Wetpaint.

Now for those of you who don’t know what a Wiki is;

-A wiki is a type of website that anyone can easily edit and help grow through collaboration. You can add text, photos, videos of your own or that you like, add polls, anything that you want to share with others.

-You do not need to be a techy to build a wiki website, Wetpaint makes it totally easy to do. The other great thing about this is other people can contribute to your website, making it grow quickly.

-You will be able to track every change and addition to your wiki page, allowing you to remove any content that you don’t want to keep.

-If you are in a group with a common interest, or would like to form a group, this is a great way to start You can use this as your central headquarters for the group, where everyone can share and add their own ideas, photos, experiences, etc…This will allow all of you to always be on the ‘Same Page’.

So What Do You Think About the New Blogged.com ?

This week, Blogged.com launched providing us with a fantastic online directory for every blog in the world. You already know that there are a lot of search tools such as technorati which is great providing you real-time content an any topic you are interested in, but Blogged.com works like a catalog revealing not only only topic content, but the entire blog itself with all of its content.

Here is a list of some blogs you can find:

1. Society (19,363)
2. Entertainment & Recreation (16,717)
3. Personal Blogs (9,115)
4. Technology (7,793)
5. United States (7,192)
6. Business (6,548)
7. Art (6,319)
8. Family & Home (6,285)
9. Culture (6,027)
10. Internet (5,553)
11. North America (5,507)
12. Books & Literature (4,272)
13. Government (4,089)
14. Politics (4,081)
15. Religion and Spirituality (3,890)
16. Sports (3,381)
17. Humor (3,324)
18. Travel (3,302)
19. Computers (3,127)
20. Education (3,087)

Blogged.com has a number of feedback tools and ratings that are found throughout the site. You will find bogs that will discuss a particular topic on a regular basis, which would be to your advantage when you focusing on a particular niche or solution on your blog.

This as mentioned before, works as a Blog Catalog, whereas Technorati works an Internet search engine that competes with Google and Yahoo and which focuses more on image thumbnails more than the blog results. Blogged.com is focused on the web user to find blogs on any topic. Mashable found that this site is a great way to bring the blogs and websites to the typical consumer, allowing them to find even greater amounts of information. This will help the bloggers to become more on the forefront in viral marketing.

In the case of viral marketing, right now this site works well as search and discovery tool. You will find some great tips to help you take advantage of this forum and using this as a self-promotion tool. You need to create a profile, list of blogs that you visit. You are basically becoming a personal recommendation service, which will increase your reader audience and bookmarking. Go to Blogged.com, sign up, get your blog on there and market yourself.

There are a few phrases that have been used more than needed on the social marketing networks such as Digg and Reddit. A very smart Redditer decided to do a little research on some of the overly used phrases, and one was “It’s Official” which is too often used in the title. You can see the search results here.

He wanted to show that this phrase is not that fun anymore, because it is used way too much. Using phrases such as “It’s Official”, when it has been used more than it should, actually takes away from your own credibility.

Another overused phrase that has been found on Digg is “Breaking” stories. You know, when you first saw this on a blog post or in an article, it really seemed important, and would draw in a lot of readers, making your news item something of great interest. There was a time on Digg that your story had no chance of getting on the front page if you didn’t have the word “BREAKING’ in its title.

We all want to get our story on the front page, and on the top of the front page. There is a lot of competition, so in order for you to succeed, you need to have your own tricks to get on the front page. But how do you win in this competition, what tactics and tricks do you need to focus on? Do you set your own standards, do you let sensational titles along with poor journalism? What can you do to raise the standards? But for the most part, it seems as if Digg likes the word “Breaking” as you can see in this search.

But Digg is not the only place to go for your news aggregator. You need to check out Newspond. This is a new site that will be in a league of its own. This is a young site, they don’t have the viewers like Digg and Reddit have right now, matter of fact, they are now having their official launching. But just because they are new, does not mean you don’t want to get involved. This is a great looking site and will soon be on their way to the top along with Digg and Reddit.

Within a few months, after the right amount of press and publicity, Newspond will be right up there among the giants of news aggregation. Just keep your eye on them and you will watch it happen right before your eyes. They may be a small fish just being thrown into the pond, but soon, it will be a shark fighting for the top like the rest of the them.

When you take a look at this site, you will see why it will make it to the top quickly. This is a great looking site, with a Mac look to it. So, keep this one on your radar, with the PR efforts, and their great looking image, they are bound to be a success.

Just keep your name out there, keep putting great content on your sites, continue your Viral Marketing campaigns, and you will continue to see your business grow.

I Am A Fan of Squidoo Lenses

I have been a fan of Squidoo for a long time and they have now added another lens to its ever growing options to market and promote your business, products, and services. Squidoo is quickly becoming a place to establish yourself as an authority in any area and providing a way to aggregate your content and data, sales for eBay or show your video collection.

The latest addition on Squidoo is called Hey MonkeyBrain!

This is bound to be a huge success and bringing in a lot of new users who want to get into some deep discussions in their interactive forum. This is a place to debate, argue, defend or express ideas, theories, statements, and anything else you want to discuss. This is similar to outquibb.

As a user, you can set up discussions and have other readers join in with their own personalities and views, the more the merrier. Matter of fact, they need to be registered Squidoo users to join your argument.

This is a great way to bring more to your site, and it guarantees a lot of fun, but the greatest aspect about HeyMonkeyBrain is that you can add supplemental information at anytime through various methods. You can add links, blurbs, videos, eBay items, and so much more. Not only are you able to use all methods of aggregate data at any time, but it also enables you as a Squidoo user and Squidoo to create various connections throughout other lenses. This opens up a huge opportunity for viral marketing.

You can use MonkeyBrain for self-promotion!

You can encourage the visitors to your lens to take some action, as well as collect some great marketing research and feedback on the topic of your choice. Your MonkeyBrain lens will show up on your Squidoo profile along with all the other lenses you have built, which also gives you more visual impact on your other lenses. You are basically going to build your own mini-network all around yourself. This is a great way to get your Viral Marketing going!

Digsby Becomes a part of Centralize Email, IM, Facebook and MySpace According to Mashable

If you have not heard of Digsby, then check it out! This is an upcoming aggregator of profiles that will work right on your desktop. This will allow you to keep in touch with your email inboxes, IM buddies and your Social Networking accounts. This looks a lot like an AOL buddy list where you can sign in with all the popular instant messenger sites, email clients as well as MySpace and Facebook. If you want to try it out, then Download the application and enter the names of your clients and email accounts. You can get your Facebook and MySpace alerts on this as well. When you are asked for the passcode, enter the word “mashable“.

The most complex part of this program is the integration with Facebook. The Facebook operates from a application that gives a variety of updates, telling you when someone adds a note, changes a picture, etc…The Facebook integration will allow you to use Digsby as a chat window to converse with your network buddies.

MySpace does not offer as many updates, and not as integrated as Facebook is. Just as you would see an IM alert with AOL, you will see a new message flash on the bottom of your screen while you are logged in to your accounts. As well as getting these alerts, you will see your updates for your social networks and email just by scrolling over the account on your desktop client.

Digsby is a great tool to help in your Social Marketing:

This is a downloadble application that is pretty easy to use. This program has some great centralized update tools that can be found on other social browsers. But this however, seems to be the new and updated version of profile aggregators. Check it out.