Category Archives: Sharisax Is Out There

The next time you have the opportunity to meet and mingle with “strangers,” why not come prepared. Plan to ask questions, not sell anything. In today’s business world where selling is being replaced with engagement, your best bet is to find new clients through genuine conversation.

Ivan Misner, founder and chairman of BNI, the world’s largest business networking shares tips on a weekly podcast. Episode #183 discussed ten questions you should think about asking at your next networking event.

Memorize a few of these questions for your next networking event

How did you get started in your business?
What do you enjoy most about your profession?
What separates you and your company from your competition?
What advice would you give someone just starting out in your business?
What one thing would you do with your business if you knew you could not fail?
What significant changes have you seen take place in your profession through the years?
What do you see as the coming trends in your business?
What’s the strangest/funniest incident you’ve experienced in your business?
What ways have you found to be most effective in promoting your business?
What one sentence would you like people to use in describing the way you do your business?

Further Reading:

Do’s and Don’ts for Networking

Guest Post, Sharisax Is Out There

Do you have an ONLINE PRESENCE or merely a website?

January 15, 2011 Shari Weiss 3 Comments

The terms web (or online) presence and website are often used interchangeably but they are very far from being the same thing. Web presence is the collective existence online of a company or individual. A website is one example.

So began an excellent article by my blogger colleague Michael Cohn, who serves clients by building a content-rich web presence, applying Internet marketing techniques, and utilizing blog and social media technologies.

Michael’s blog CompuKol Connection is a treasure trove of social media Best Practices, and I’m honored to be one of his Guest Posters. Here is one of his recent articles that should be required reading for anyone wanting to establish a business online.

What is an Online Presence?

Guest Post by Michael Cohn

Many businesses have websites with their branding and customized look and feel. There are millions of websites that range from simple and small to much more intricate and interactive. Everyone understands what a website is and what purpose it serves. So, what is an online presence and how do you go about establishing one for your business?

There is so much that can be a part of your web presence. An online presence is any existence of an individual or business that can be found via an online search. An example of an individual who is not active on the Internet but who has a online presence is one who is a member of an association that has a member directory listing online. Another example is an individual who only has a LinkedIn or Facebook profile. How do you leverage and enhance their existing web presence to boost their exposure and reputation and market themselves and/or their business online?

One way is to design and build a compelling website or a blog. Once the concept of the web presence has been established, it is time to start building it, including the all-important keywords that are essential to that market. Without keywords, the website will not be successful and will essentially stagnate. It is important to understand that it takes a lot more than a beautiful-looking website to cultivate the success of a particular business through its online presence. Another way is to capitalize on their existing web presence and enhance it with additional social media marketing interactions. A third option is a combination of the two.

Targeted keywords: Well-placed keywords are critical for both options. You might ask how you go about identifying the most effective keywords that will be recognized by the search engines and that will continually drive more and more online traffic to your web presence. Careful research is very important because finding the best keywords for your niche must be the absolute first thing that you do. That is your initial step in establishing your web presence.

Once you have built the foundation, you can begin to build your web presence. Of course, the information must be presented in a way that is visually appealing and compelling. However, there is a great deal more that goes into it. It is well beyond merely designing and creating a web presence. If the content in your online presence is presented correctly, the result could potentially be huge regarding your success at selling your products and/or services.

Web presence visitors: Once you have established your web presence, the next critical element is getting people to visit. The more traffic you are able to drive to your online presence, the better it will be for your business. Of course, this ties back to when you were choosing keywords and key phrases. If you have placed them effectively, the people will visit and visit often.

Capturing and converting leads: Your online presence has an important job to do. It needs to effectively capture leads (leads are people who have the potential of eventually becoming your clients). Once the leads have been captured, it is important to go through the conversion process in a manner that is appropriate and sensitive. An important part of the success of converting leads lies with the design of the web presence, the compelling nature of the content, the aesthetic appeal of the graphics, etc.

Interacting through social media: Having interaction with your online connections is extraordinarily important and it adds a deeper layer to the relationship that you will be establishing through your online presence. The more you interact with people, the more they will start to trust you and to find you to be credible and knowledgeable. You will start to understand how much the interaction contributes to the success of your business.

So, how do you enhance your web presence?

The following are elements that will help you to improve your web presence:

A clear market definition
Understandable and appropriate keywords
Website and/or social media pages that are properly optimized for the search engines
A website and/or social media pages that are aesthetically appealing and properly organized so that any of your visitors immediately understand what your business offers
Complete social media profiles
A clear focus on your target connections and target market
A strategy on how to gain fans, followers and business connections
A strategy on how to promote yourself and/or your business and disseminate your marketing messages
Compelling content and effective calls-to-action
An effective social media marketing campaign for your business
A high volume of traffic on a consistent basis
Effective lead capture and conversion strategy

If you review this list and find that any of the concepts are missing, in all likelihood, you just have a website and not a web presence. With some adjustments, you can make your web presence more effective.

Conclusion

Now that the distinction between a website and a web presence has been carefully explained, you will be able to analyze what you have and what you need when it comes to your online exposure and reputation. Your web presence is an entire suite of online elements that should be used together to create a successful marketing campaign. The more you share of yourself and of your business, the stronger your presence will be and the greater your success and the success of your business will be.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Sharisax Is Out There, Twitter

Social Media Resolutions: a Checklist for Newbies

January 2, 2011 Shari Weiss 14 Comments

Many of my friends and business acquaintances are coming around to recognizing the inevitability of “The Social Network” as key to their future business success. Whether it’s the Facebook movie and Mark Zuckerberg as Time’s 2010 Man of the Year or the predictions of everything going mobile, the time to Get Connected is NOW.

So today’s First-of-the-New-Year post will list my recommendations for becoming part of the Social Nation.

Five 1st Steps to Join the Social Media Revolution

____ 1. LinkedIn: If you have not already joined LinkedIn, then do so ASAP.

LinkedIn is an amazing platform for finding prospective clients as well as information, jobs, suppliers, and partners. Before you can reap the rewards from this site, however, you MUST take some time to optimize your Profile for maximum “find-ability”: check relevant links below.

____ 2. Blogging: If you still feel uncomfortable with the word “blog,” then get over it.

Short for Web Log, a blog is the best example of how every individual and every company can now become a publisher with very little — or no — expense. (A) Writing a blog gives the author an opportunity to establish an online presence as the Go-To Source for an area of expertise, in addition to giving companies a platform for engaging with customers and other publics. (B) Reading blogs has become routine for business people seeking current facts and opinions on news and trends in their industries, as well a the newest “mass medium.”

____ 3. Facebook: If you are still worrying about privacy on the most popular web site on the globe, then you need to understand the business value of Facebook and how to engage with “friends” and “fans” to build and protect your online reputation.

Begin with the knowledge that scores of your prospective customers as well as possible new employees are chatting, gaming, posting, searching, and buying via Facebook. Keep in mind that although we hear about changes and hints of changes on an almost daily basis, getting started with a profile and experience interacting with Friends will prepare you to “roll with the punches” as Facebook continues to evolve into the Place To Be online.

____ 4. Twitter: If you still think Twitter is Stupid, think again.

It may be hard to remember how resistant business was to allowing employees to email in the mid ’90s — and that’s because many of us today depend on letters via computer rather than via post office and messages online where we can access at our leisure rather than phone calls which we either miss or are too busy to answer. Many prognosticators are telling us that email will be going away, or at least will become less useful as people discover the many applications of “microblogging.”

____ 5. YouTube: If you haven’t checked for a YouTube video to teach you how to do something you hadn’t known how to do, then DO It.

And consider buying a flip video or simply take a video with your cell phone and post it to YouTube. You will build your skills as you see how powerful videos are for spreading messages, establishing your expertise, and discovering almost everything you need to know — as well as entertaining you and your friends.

Sharing, not selling, is what the Social Nation is all about . . . and 2011 is a great time for you to start. Remember one important tip, and that is to Take Baby Steps. Start slowly, but start.

RELEVANT READING

Simple Answers to Six Basic Social Media Questions

Worksheet for filling out your LinkedIn profile

Maximize your LinkedIn profile

How to create your own success on LinkedIn

To Blog . . . or Not To Blog . . . that is a good First Question

Avoid these NINE Blogging Errors

Beginning Bloggers Workshop: what should you blog about?

Will a blog help you build your business and other typical blog questions

20 Facebook mistakes you shouldn’t make

How to do Facebook right . . . if you care about your Online Reputation

Twitter Basics workshop “cheat sheet” and other links

Helpful hints for Going Viral on YouTube

and if you’d like to read what NOT to do in social media:

10 Mistakes made by Social Media Newbies

Sharisax Is Out There

Make IT Happen in 2011 — Eleven for ’11: Tips, lessons & predictions from end-of-2010 blogs

December 28, 2010 Shari Weiss 9 Comments

Just in case you are preparing your New Year’s Resolutions, you might want to check out predictions and suggestions for 2011 in these Eleven blog posts:

1) http://yhoo.it/igHzCA

Predictions for small business: paring down to the essential social media platforms based on proven successes and strong metrics; corporate blogging; more cloud computing

2) http://celestinechua.com/blog/healthy-living

Ok, we’ll do 45 better living tips as well, beginning with: Drink More Water. That certainly works for me! Oh, yes, and while you’re at it, Purge Negativity.

3) http://www.davidhenderson.com/2010/12/24/five-steps-for-organic-social-media-for-2011/

Countless organizations advertise to hire a “social media expert,” generally one entry level person to handle all of the company’s social media outreach. That’s an approach doomed from the start.

4) http://prsay.prsa.org/index.php/2010/12/22/2011-pr-trends

One of the biggest trends for 2011 will be the evolution of location-based apps.

5) http://socialmediatoday.com/joshgordon/253668/content-marketing-lessons-top-10-retweets-2010

Marketing lessons from top 10 retweets: “Each of the top tweets, in their own unique way, captured a universal feeling, moment, idea, or bit of wisdom for many.”

6) http://mashable.com/2010/12/24/mobile-predictons-2011

We WILL see a Verizon iPhone and iPads ARE mobile, despite what Mark Zuckerburg thinks.

7) http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/zeitgeist-2010-how-world-searched.html

Zeitgist 2010: Here’s Google’s report on most searched for topics: The devastating earthquakes in China, Chile and Haiti as well as the floods in Pakistan and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico led to a huge spike in all things charitable.

8] http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/2011-consumer-internet-predictions

Brand advertising starts to move online, boosting premium display, video and social media: The key driver of this renewed confidence from brand advertisers is better measurement of brand metrics that can show the impact of online advertising beyond clickthrough.

9) http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/news/companies/1012/gallery.business_dumbest_moments_2010.fortune/index.html

Among the dumbest business decisions of the year: Steve Jobs telling iPhone4 users they were holding the phone wrong.

10) http://mediatransparent.com/2010/12/21/8-major-social-commerce-trends-for-2011

Social commerce will become relevant at a local level when online meets offline, creating virtual town squares where communities of local folk congregate.

11) http://online-social-networking.com/3-key-social-media-and-web-marketing-strategies-for-2011

Facebook says GOODBYE to Open Networking.

What’s your Best Guess for 2011? What do you INTEND to make happen?

Sharisax Is Out There

To YELP or not to YELP? What’s your stance? Maybe you should change your mind . . . or not

December 25, 2010 Shari Weiss 1 Comment

How do you feel about Yelp? Inquiring minds want to know.

I asked that question all over the Net — on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Yelp itself. And I got an earful PLUS a hilarious discussion on the Yelp TALK feature. [Check it out, especially the “goggle” chat. If you are not now a registered Yelper, you’ll have to sign up to read the conversation.]

Yelp is an online city guide with a Web 2.0 mentality, allowing “real people” to write “real reviews” about nearly any type of business — from restaurants to dentists, bars to clothing stores.
— from Wikipedia

Some context:

1. A new acquaintance, a dentist, upon finding out that I was a “Social Media Strategist,” asked me how to remove negative comments on Yelp. I didn’t know for certain, but my suspicion was that an ordinary human being who was not an “insider” [i.e., advertiser or Yelp staffer] had no such powers. I’d heard other unhappy Yelp stories.

2. My BNI friends were advising our entrepreneurial members to Set Up Profiles on Yelp. I had my doubts, but kept my mouth shut — at the time.

3. One of my BNI colleagues suggested I become an “Expert” on Yelp, so I could advise him and others. Of course the label “Expert” is anathema to anyone studying social media since Social Media changes by the minute — thank you Mark Zuckerburg, Jack Dorsey, etc.

4. So I started my research by posting the aforementioned question . . . and offered to do a Guest Post for a friend’s blog. It appears that I have opened Pandora’s Box.

5. An Aside: CROWDSOURCING: The realization that readers often know more than writers.

I’ll be writing my Guest Post tomorrow, but I plan a series on the subject for SHARISAX IS OUT THERE and would love your help. I have a few posts already planned to highlight experiences from some of the LinkedIn and Yelp responders, but I’m also looking for Guest Posters to write a post for this blog series.

So have at it. Whether you are a Small Business or a Consumer, please comment below or email me at sharisax@aol.com.

Have Yelp reviews brought you business?
Have Yelp reviews lost you business?
Are you a Yelp reviewer? An “Elite” reviewer?
Do you use Yelp to find local businesses? What kind? Were the reviews accurate?
Do you advertise on Yelp? Is it working for you/
Have you been hounded by Yelp ad salespeople?
How do YOU feel about Yelp?

Let the “games” begin . . . or as many Yelp-ers contend, let the Mafia Wars continue.

Blogging, Sharisax Is Out There

Do you want to be an A-List Influencer?

December 21, 2010 Shari Weiss 5 Comments

A year and a half ago I met Steve Rubel at a panel discussion I blogged about: Beyond the Hype – Roadmap for Social Media’s Future. Steve is the Director of Insights for Edelman Digital, a division of Edelman, the world’s largest independent PR firm — Steve is very, very influential.

He was considered an A-List Blogger at the time. I told him that he was my role model, and I, too, wanted to be an A-List Blogger. Steve suggested that, instead, I should aim to be an A-List INFLUENCER.

So I’ve started to study “influence.”

Here’s a definition from the Free Online Dictionary:

in·flu·ence (nfl–ns) n.

1. A power affecting a person, thing, or course of events, especially one that operates without any direct or apparent effort: relaxed under the influence of the music; the influence of television on modern life.

2. Power to sway or affect based on prestige, wealth, ability, or position: used her parent’s influence to get the job.

a. A person who exerts influence: My parents considered my friend to be a bad influence on me.

b. An effect or change produced by influence.

a. A determining factor believed by some to affect individual tendencies and characteristics understood to be caused by the positions of the stars and planets at the time of one’s birth.

b. Factors believed to be caused by the changing positions of the stars and planets in relation to their positions at the time of one’s birth.

[from the FreeOnlineDictionary]

I wrote two articles on the topic: What’s wrong with the LIKE buttons? for my own blog and Popularity and Influence as they are Manifested in Social Media for CompuKol Communications.

Here’s the conclusion for the CompuKol post:

In the discussion or controversy or strategic planning around the concepts of popularity and influence, especially in this new world of business and marketing, one factor needs to be abundantly clear, and that stems from the intention to offer people products and services that can truly help them lead better lives as well as enhancing their business lives.

How can you improve your influence?

The main reason for this post is an article I just read by Chris Brogan, a very popular, productive, and influential blogger and strategist. Chris discussed five ways to improve your influence. Here is the list in brief:

1 – Start with a Solid Platform — Be Helpful

2 – Get Seen — Connect and Communicate

3 – Share the Spotlight — Talk about other people

4 – Working the Numbers — Encourage subscribers

5 – Influence isn’t Handed Over — Leverage new opportunities

Chris’s Conclusion:

Work on learning how to be most helpful to those in your segment of the universe that will grow your reach.

Click here to read Chris’s entire post

Are there subject areas where you believe you are an influencer? Please share your expertise and maybe we’ll be able to help you increase your reach.

Guest Post, Sharisax Is Out There

Brands are “failing” to engage properly online . . . and you should forget about geo-location: LeWeb conference highlights

December 16, 2010 Shari Weiss 4 Comments

When Parisian student Cyril Renaud spent a year “abroad,” we at San Francisco State University were fortunate that he enrolled in one of my marketing classes early in 2009 — both he and I were just beginning our immersion into All Things Social Media.

Cyril is now an international business student at The American Business School of Paris and has a personal website where he recently posted a report on the seventh annual meeting of LeWeb, a noteworthy social media conference that attracted more than 3,000 participants on December 8 & 9, 2010.

TRENDS and HIGHLIGHTS from Cyril’s report:

1. LeWeb is the Number One Internet event in Europe according to its founders and organizers Geraldine and Loic Le Meur. Loic is a blogger and entrepreneur who also established the popular Twitter client Seesmic.

2. The two-day conference featured keynote speakers, panel discussions, and a variety of workshops organized by Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, RIM, and PayPal among others.

3. Two significant themes impressed Cyril: First, brands are failing to engage properly on social media. Second, the web is moving towards a web of context, and the new trend in social media is social curation — forget about geo-location!

4. Carlos Goshn, CEO of Renault, opened the conference, explaining how Renault, employing over 2 million people, is struggling to find more social marketers and community managers to develop their presence online. It is interesting to see how brands are trying to cope with a “medium that is evolving faster than we can understand it,” according to Brian Solis.

5. Most brands nowadays have a website, a facebook page, a twitter feed, a Flickr gallery and/or a YouTube channel, but many misuse those means of communication. They fail to engage with customers who take time to comment, and fail to plan content relevant to their audience.

Here is the main thing to understand:

Brands finally have the opportunity to listen to their consumers.

6. The 4Ps of the marketing mix have added the 5th one — PEOPLE. And the smart brands are increasing their social interactions. They retweet and mention on Twitter, add Facebook LIKE button on their websites, and most important share relevant content with their fans.

7. It goes beyond sharing a status, it’s fcommerce. Brands should not forget the notion of continuum: You need to cut through absences. “Business should be listening 24/7” said the influential Gary Vaynerchuk.

So we have seen the Web is about people. It is also about content. We share statuses, links, photos, videos and more. But the Web is shifting toward a Web of context. Think for a second of the number of friends and followers you have (almost) never met. Still, you do have a relationship with those people based on a common theme, a shared topic.
In my case, I barely know the people I follow or those following me on Twitter, but we contribute to the same topics (media, tech. or photo in my case). And that shift toward a contextual relationship is setting up a new trend in social networks. Social curation. We are now gathering links, articles, or lists of what matters to us. [Cyril’s quote]

Social Curation

A first step leading the way to curation was Twitter’s use of lists (in addition to the existing retweets or favorites).
Paper.li offers you your twitter feed in the form of a newspaper. Daily, weekly, that is up to you; you are the chief editor. They won the virality prize for start-ups at LeWeb.
Storify allows you to collect posts, tweets, links or photos of a common theme, and to embed them into a story.
Scoop.it Same concept for this French start-up. You collect, you share. Simple and easy concept for those social networks.

Cyril’s Conclusion

What was also interesting at LeWeb is the entrepreneurial aspect of the conference. Many people went there to find investors and business angels. It’s incredible to see how many venture capitalists are willing to invest in start-ups.
To conclude, if you work as a PR person, focus on being relevant. As a simple user, monitor social curation. And finally, as a entrepreneur, not only should you believe in what you do, but don’t forget to concentrate on your business plan.

If you found this link because you know Cyril, please say HI. If you found it because you were at LeWeb, please offer us your takeaways. and if you found us via some other means, please tell us that as well.

Blogging, Sharisax Is Out There

Why do people read blogs? To find personal opinions and insights on topics they care about

December 14, 2010 Shari Weiss 8 Comments

When deciding if you, too, should become a blogger, then tons of questions come to mind — and one of the first should be “Why do people read blogs?”

After all, if you are going to spend time and energy writing on the Global Whiteboard, you do want readers. So your blog plan needs to aim at a specific types of readers and give them what they want. That’s both Common Sense and Smart Marketing, i.e., define your target market and listen to what it is asking for.

The Science of Blogging: research for your blog’s strategic plan

The link in the subtitle above points to a data-rich webinar on blogging presented by Dan Zarrella, author of The Social Media Marketing Book and one of the Web’s online Go-To people for facts & figures on social media behavior. Currently a marketing product owner at HubSpot, Dan presented his latest research in a 60-minute Blogging webinar and slideshow. An hour listening to the webinar would be well worth your time; in the meantime however, you can read my Top Ten Takeaways from Dan’s research:

1. Relevance: People find blogs for the personal opinions and insights on topics they are particularly interested in — from people they have grown to trust.

2. Authority: Bloggers need to establish their credibility by delivering sound content and showing relevant background, education, and experience: however, calling oneself an “expert” or a “guru” is pretentious — and often sneered at.

3. SEO: Blogs offer great search engine optimization opportunities, particularly in helping consumers make purchasing decisions. Growing numbers of people are checking online and reading blogs to find information on items they want to buy.

4. Positivity: People do not go online to be brought down; they prefer the positive to the negative.

5. Avoid self-reference: Best practice is to talk AS yourself, not ABOUT yourself. People want to read your opinions, insights and unique point of view — not your minute-to-minute activities.

6. KISS: [Keep It Simple Stupid]: Avoid technical jargon; simplify, simplify, simply (as Thoreau) advises.

7. Novelty: Do not be boring, especially by regurgitating what others keep talking out. Try to provide content that is uniquely yours.

8. Social Proof: Use words like you, how, why, giveaway, money, etc. that are most often LIKED, SHARED, and ReTWEETED. You can find Dan’s lists of these words in the slides accompanying the webinar.

9. Frequency: The more often you post, the more readers you are likely to attract. Publishing once a day — or more — is the fastest way to become the Go-To Source for your area of expertise.

10. Know your audience: Are they mostly male? female? What are their schedules? How can you best serve their needs?

For further information about WHY and HOW to blog, check out some of my past articles:

To Blog . . . or Not To Blog . . . that is a good First Question

How to start a blog — Step by Step

How to write your first blog post on WordPress.com

What should your first blog post be about?

Use your blog to become the Go-To Source for information in your area of expertise

Avoid these NINE Blogging Errors

Beginning Bloggers Workshop: what should you blog about?

Will a blog help you build your business and other typical blog questions

10 Lessons I learned about blogging from my first 6-part series

Any more questions? Perhaps I’ll do a blog to answer.

Blogging, Sharisax Is Out There

10 Lessons I learned about blogging from writing my first 6-part series: Saying NO to New Business

December 6, 2010 Shari Weiss 8 Comments

Writing my first 6-part series on this blog was like doing lab work for a college class.

Post #1: S aying NO to a prospective client may be the Best Business Move

Post #2: Avoid future problems by saying NO Now

Post #3: Investigate client/project before saying Yes — or making it a NO .

Post #4: Three main reasons to say NO to new client

Post #5: Saying NO is easy

Post #6: How to use LinkedIn to say NO to new business

It was a lot of work, but it wasn’t too difficult because I was following a plan decided upon ahead of time, and that plan was based on much of what I’ve learned blogging these 20 months.

So here goes:

10 blogging lessons from 20 months as a blogger

1. Success: Nothing is more inspirational than Success. How you define “success” is key. So just Doing It was “success” enough to keep Doing It.

2. Crowdsource: It is easier to come up with opinions of your own when you ask others for theirs first. That’s how I got a lot of content for the series from posting questions on LinkedIn and on my Facebook page.

3. Guest Posting: When you are assigned a topic by someone whom you respect, you feel responsible to do the best job you can do. I’ve been guest posting for Michael Cohn’s CompuKol blog for a few months now, and he wanted the story on How to Say NO to New Business. I admire his work and so I take his assignments very seriously.

4. Blog Length: People will read longer content if you break it up in some way. That can be with subtitles, lists, and quotes OR you can simply divide it up into six daily posts. [If you post a series with too many days in between, i.e., not daily, a regular reader may lose interest. That being said, how many of your readers are “regular” readers and how many just find you on any particular day because they used the “right” keywords to find your article.

5. Independence: “That” being said, when writing a series, each article needs to be able to stand alone . . . because it just may “stand alone” in someone’s visit to your blog.

6. Persistence: Writing is compulsory thought: stick with it and the words will come.

7. Education: You really learn something. As a teacher I came to realize early on that I never learned as much or as “deeply” until I taught a topic or skill. Same with blogging. When you write something, you come to know it better than if you simply read or talk about something.

8. Mastery: It’s easy to become something of an expert. A friend just blogged the definition of expertise from Wikipedia: ” … a person with extensive knowledge or ability based on research, experience, or occupation and in a particular area of study.” Works for me.

9. Flexibility: The best laid plans may need to make room for better ideas if you are lucky enough for them to come along. I started with the idea of only doing three posts in the series, but new ideas and new content kept cropping up.

10. Sometimes Less is More: Any series with more than six posts — or list with more than 10 items — may get short shrift;. either the writer runs out of steam or the reader gets bored.

What’s your experience writing or reading a series of posts? Do you like them? Why or why not?

Sharisax Is Out There

Category Archives: Sharisax Is Out There

What should you talk about at a networking event? [Briefly Stated]

Memorize a few of these questions for your next networking event

Do you have an ONLINE PRESENCE or merely a website?

The terms web (or online) presence and website are often used interchangeably but they are very far from being the same thing. Web presence is the collective existence online of a company or individual. A website is one example.

What is an Online Presence?

Make IT Happen in 2011 — Eleven for ’11: Tips, lessons & predictions from end-of-2010 blogs

What’s your Best Guess for 2011? What do you INTEND to make happen?

To YELP or not to YELP? What’s your stance? Maybe you should change your mind . . . or not

Yelp is an online city guide with a Web 2.0 mentality, allowing “real people” to write “real reviews” about nearly any type of business — from restaurants to dentists, bars to clothing stores.

Do you want to be an A-List Influencer?

in·flu·ence (nfl–ns) n.

How can you improve your influence?

Work on learning how to be most helpful to those in your segment of the universe that will grow your reach.

Brands are “failing” to engage properly online . . . and you should forget about geo-location: LeWeb conference highlights

TRENDS and HIGHLIGHTS from Cyril’s report:

Brands finally have the opportunity to listen to their consumers.

Why do people read blogs? To find personal opinions and insights on topics they care about

The Science of Blogging: research for your blog’s strategic plan

10 Lessons I learned about blogging from writing my first 6-part series: Saying NO to New Business

10 blogging lessons from 20 months as a blogger

Going BEYOND the Social Media Revolution

Memorize a few of these questions for your next networking event

The terms web (or online) presence and website are often used interchangeably but they are very far from being the same thing. Web presence is the collective existence online of a company or individual. A website is one example.

What is an Online Presence?

Five 1st Steps to Join the Social Media Revolution

What’s your Best Guess for 2011? What do you INTEND to make happen?

Yelp is an online city guide with a Web 2.0 mentality, allowing “real people” to write “real reviews” about nearly any type of business — from restaurants to dentists, bars to clothing stores.

STATS on Social Media Marketing — from Hubspot slide show

in·flu·ence (nfl–ns) n.

How can you improve your influence?

Work on learning how to be most helpful to those in your segment of the universe that will grow your reach.

A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value – economic, social, or other forms of value.

TRENDS and HIGHLIGHTS from Cyril’s report:

Brands finally have the opportunity to listen to their consumers.

Articles declaring that “email is dead” overlooked data regarding mobile emailSome consumers are more likely to buy if they “like” that brand, but that brand loyalty doesn’t necessarily translate to ROIDon’t worry about who quits Twitter — it might not be relevant

MY COMMENT:

WHAT’S YOUR COMMENT?

10 blogging lessons from 20 months as a blogger

Going BEYOND the Social Media Revolution

Articles declaring that “email is dead” overlooked data regarding mobile email
Some consumers are more likely to buy if they “like” that brand, but that brand loyalty doesn’t necessarily translate to ROI
Don’t worry about who quits Twitter — it might not be relevant