Building a blog takes a lot of work, and when you’re blogging for business it requires even more effort. In addition to blogging, you also need to make sure your blogging is aligned with your business model and you have to come up with a solid content marketing plan.

The trouble is many things are in flux.  Your blogging and content marketing will change as you learn more about your audience.  And blogging requires a high level of investment that is not always easy for to sustain. Because quite simply: life happens.

This is why the blogging journey is often bumpy.

Break From Blogging

For the first time in two and a half years I was forced to take a break from blogging here on this blog.  It was not planned.  But more than one thing got in the way in different areas of my life.

• It all started with my trip to Toronto last June
• Then I unexpectedly decided to travel so much that I’ve barely been home the rest of the year
• And health became a priority as I adopted a diet with over 80% raw food. But this meant less energy while I learned about nutrition all over again
• During this time I’m happy to say that my work with Social Media Examiner increased.

As my day-to-day activities changed drastically I was forced to put aside blogging here on my personal blog.

Better Content Marketing Strategy

But there is some good news about being forced to stop blogging.  My content marketing strategy needed an overhaul in order to integrate the changes in social media over the past year, and to adjust to my business objectives which also changed this last year. This break gave me the opportunity to refine my own marketing strategy.

Now that I’m ready to get back into the blogging seat once again my new business blogging plan is better than before.

But a plan is not enough to ensure blogging success.  When you’ve never blogged before or haven’t been blogging for a while, the first few months are critical.  So I also needed an action plan to ensure blogging success.

Better Business Blogging

This is why I’ve got a few activities planned to make sure my transition back into regular business blogging goes smoothly.

I’ve already established a business blogging plan within a content marketing strategy that’s aligned with my business. That’s all on paper. What I need now is a few activities to make sure I blog consistently over the next few months. And why not improve my blogging skills at the same time?

Here are three blogging courses I’ve signed up for.

Blogging Success Summit: (Affiliate link) This is an online webinar that takes place in February with 23 excellent presenters.  Just like the previous Success Summits it takes place over a period of several weeks and they’re recorded so there’s no excuse: I’ll listen to all of them!

But the thing I like most about all of the Success Summits is the private LinkedIn group.  It’s great to meet up and chat with fellow business bloggers.  And the presenters usually participate there too.

Although it’s only just opened people are taking advantage of the early bird rate and signing up.  That’s great news because this means the Blogging Success Summit LinkedIn Group is already open. So discussions in the private LinkedIn Group have already started.  This is just the kind of interaction I need right now.

Join me on the Blogging Success Summit to learn about current business blogging best practices and hook up with a community of business bloggers.

Web Content Café: This is a lovely little hang out run by the web copywriter Nick Usborne. It’s a paid membership site where Nick gives you a short daily content ideas to keep the creative juices flowing and your web content fresh.

What can I say? I like it.  It’s just the right “everything” for me: right length, right writing style and lots of small actionable ideas. Just what I need to improve my blogging in small, easy steps.

Join me at the Web Content Café to find ideas and daily inspiration to improve your bloging.

Spectacular Post Bootcamp: This is a new program put on by Stanford Smith over at Pushing Social.  Although I only recently discovered Stan I was hooked immediately. He works with big clients during his day job and helps the small business bloggers on Pushing Social in his spare time. Somehow his expertise comes through with just the right tone for business bloggers.

The Spectacular Post Bootcamp is a video a month and it’ll get me to review blogging basics in a way that I find motivating.  I like Stan’s approach.

Join me at the Spectacular Post Bootcamp to review blogging basics.

UPDATE:

Blog Topics:  Chris Brogan has just come out with Blog Topics where he emails you 10 ideas to write blog posts each week.

Chris’ vocabulary and communication style resonate with me. He uses words that put the gears in my brain in motion. So I’m giving this a whirl too.

Join me with Chris Brogan’s Blog Topics to get more ideas to write blog posts.

Tools For Good Blogging

That’s what I’ve planned to help me get through the first few months of blogging.  If you’d like a more in-depth review on one of these please let me know.

I’ll also be attending SOBcon in the Spring and hope to find a good blogging partner to share the rest of the year’s journey as part of the next phase.

What do you do to improve your blogging? What has helped your blogging most? I’d love to hear your story, so please leave a comment below.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Better Business Blogging

Twitter

Here is my article which was first published on Social Media Examiner:

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could develop a valuable business network online? Twitter’s real-time communication capability makes it a great business networking platform you can’t afford to ignore.

By honing your social networking skills and adapting them to this fast-paced environment, you can use Twitter as the starting point to build a strong business network.

There are two parts to networking on Twitter:

• First, you need to connect with the people you want to get to know.
• Second, you need to find a way to establish relationships with the right people and get beyond the scope of Twitter.

Just like in the offline world, you’ll find people with different styles of communication and different levels of people skills.

We don’t all have Mari Smith’s communication pizzazz.

But don’t let this deter you. You simply need to identify the communication styles used by the people you want to connect with and then join in.

Here are 8 different ways to begin networking on Twitter.

#1: Show Others What You Want to Talk About

First, remember to show others what you are most interested in. You communicate your areas of interest in several ways:

• Paint a picture of who you are with your Twitter bio.
• Shows others what you like to talk about with the content you tweet.
• Share the conversations you are interested in by using hashtags in your tweets.
• Tell others who’s important to you with the names of your Twitter lists.
• The lists you are on show how others see you.

By paying attention to the consistency of your Twitter presence, you’ll send a strong message of what interests you and you’ll attract the people you want to connect with most.

#2: Get Your Actions Right

Your first impression always counts, even on Twitter. Others will notice content on your Twitter profile page: your Twitter handle, your photo, your name, the page you link to and your bio. And they will also notice the actions you take.

• Follow. Do you have approximately the same number of followers as the number of people following you?
• Autofollow. Do you automatically follow everyone?
• Welcome messages. Do you send a welcome message? Is it a personalized message or one that looks like an automated message? Does it promote something or does it show you want to connect and care?

There are no absolute guidelineson what you should do. You simply need to act in an appropriate way for the people you want to connect with.

Twitter monitoring will help you find out how to make the right first impression. Regular monitoring will also keep you up to date on any changing trends in Twitter etiquette so you can adjust your tactics when needed.

#3: Retweet Others

Do you feel uncomfortable about reaching out to others on Twitter? Retweeting is a great way to start networking but you usually need to do a bit more to get a response and start a dialogue. For example, add some personal comments to the retweet. Notice how others engage with people and copy the ones you like.

"Good morning!" The simplest tweets often work best.

#4: Shout Out to Others

If you want to connect with someone on Twitter and just don’t know where to start, here are some ways of simply shouting out to people on Twitter to get them to notice you.

• Consider mentioning them for #FollowFriday. You do this by simply saying something nice about the person, include their Twitter ID and “#FollowFriday” or “#ff”.

• Another option is a public mention of someone you appreciate.

Show your appreciation after connecting elsewhere.

#5: Link to ‘Other’ Social Conversations

As you monitor Twitter and other social media platforms, you’ll notice more conversations. Show others you are paying attention to their conversations.

• When you notice someone’s birthday on Facebook, send a “Happy Birthday” with their @name on Twitter to show you are paying attention to them.
• When you come across a great LinkedIn question, link to it and give the @name of the author on Twitter.
• When you read a great blog post, share the link and take the time to find and mention the author’s @name in your tweet.

The more you show others you are listening to them, the more they’ll pay attention to you.

#6: Write Tweets to Engage Conversations

After getting on other people’s radar, it’s time to take the networking up a notch and try to begin a real conversation.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to reply to a tweet and add value.

• Add useful information.
• Ask a good question.
• Show you are sincerely interested in the topic.

Make it easy to respond to your tweets.

#7: Introduce People

As you meet more people on Twitter, you’ll see people with similar interests. Take the initiative and introduce people! This is a great way of strengthening your own network because others will notice your introductions and make associations.

Introductions are easy to make.

#8: Create Opportunities to Network Further

What can you do when networking opportunities just do not seem to pop up naturally? Create a reason to network with the people who interest you! Tweetups and Twitter discussions are a great way to do this.

Another easy first step is to start a public list of people you recommend on Twitter. As you come across people to add to this list, give them a shout out to show your recognition. You’ll find it much easier to connect with people this way.

You might also want an additional step to feel more comfortable with the people you meet on Twitter. Sometimes you need a good ice-breaker. I find Twitter Interviews helpful because they are usually a fun experience for both participants and I also get to know more about the people I interview.

Networking Beyond Twitter

As you begin to develop your network on Twitter, you’ll want to regularly spend time making connections beyond Twitter. A phone call or a chat on Skype is always a good step.

Twitter will simply become one of the communication tools you use in your overall business networking plan.

Do you network on Twitter? What tactics do you use to reach out and connect with others? I’d love to hear about what works best for you. Please share your stories in the comments below.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

8 Easy Ways to Network on Twitter

Twitter

Here is my article which was first published on Social Media Examiner:

Posterous is a social media platform where it’s very easy to post just about anything—photos, videos and words. You can set up your account and publish content simply by sending an email. Yes it’s that simple!

Posterous is known as the most “social” networking place of social media. It’s also the ideal solution for sharing content that’s too long for a tweet and too short for a blog post.

There are many different reasons and motivations to create a free Posterous account. Let’s have a look at the 7 most common reasons for businesses to use Posterous.

#1: Can Replace Your Blog

When a regular blog is not for you, Posterous can give you similar advantages to a regular blog without the work of setting up a blog and maintaining it. All you have to do is send in your content by email. It’s that simple. This is why Posterous is great for lifestreaming.

This can be a good starting point for businesses hesitating to create their own blog. Posterous can provide a place to learn more about social media and develop the right content strategies.

#2: Fills a Gap Between Blogging and Microblogging

Posterous is an easy way to publish more content to reach different audiences. Steve Rubel says, “I still see a big space in between blogs and Twitter that allows you to have a hub and spoke strategy and post in multiple formats.”

And as Ted Villa says, “Posterous is clean and nimble, simple to use and a great tool in any organization’s social media toolkit. It’s a great way to extend a client’s footprint online and increase links to their site as well as their social media sites.”

This can fill a gap in your presence on social media.

#3: Can Improve Your Visibility

Posterous can help you improve your visibility in search results in two ways.

First, you have more updates for search engines to find. If you like to share photos and videos online, Posterous makes it very easy to do this (see reason #7 below for more details). And with photo and video publishing made this easy, you end up sharing more content to increase your online search results.

Second, you can publish your Posterous content on your own website. Unlike other social media platforms, you can set up your Posterous account on your own URL. This means you can set up your Posterous account on:

• Your own domain name separate from your company website
• Or even use a sub-domain of your current website or blog

This is something important to keep in mind as the social media landscape changes over time.

#4: Gives You Another Voice on Social Media

Many business professionals also use Posterous to post content that would be off topic on their main website or blog and engage with a different audience online.

Posterous provides an easy venue to share different “social” content. A separate platform makes it easy to create an additional point of connection with your audience, with a different style, to engage different mindsets. As Debbie Weil says, “There are distinct differences in how you talk or write for the different platforms. Simply put, you write in a different ‘voice’ and, generally, talk about different topics.”

This makes it easy to reach out to different audiences.

#5: Makes it Easy for Groups to Publish Content

Posterous allows you to set up group accounts too. This means you can set up:

• Posterous pages for individual team members
• Collaborative Posterous pages for different company employees to post on the same page
• Collaborative Posterous pages to bring people outside your company to collaborate on one Posterous page

Here’s one example of how Posterous brings social networking to a higher level: ClickIdeas

#6: Helps You to Segment Content for Different Audiences

You can use your Posterous account to create different points of contact with your audience. Pat Kitano says, “I originally intended this slideshow (How to create a blog without “writing” one) for local businesspeople who wanted a blog for marketing purposes, but didn’t have the inclination to start a blog due to writing and time commitments. After posting the slideshow, I received feedback that Posterous was a great method to create new ‘blogs’ on a variety of topics and interests that were parallel to the principal blog. One mentioned how fast Posterous blogs were indexed by Google.”

This makes it easy to test different market segments outside of your main blog or website.

#7: Is the Easiest Option to Share Photos

Posterous is simply the easiest social media platform to share photos and videos. All you have to do is email your photo or video to Posterous and it does everything else. This means you can publish your favorite photos and videos from any location where you have access to your email, even from your mobile phone.

This is why many users choose to post all of their photos and videos to Posterous and set it up to feed their Facebook, Twitter and other social media profiles.

Bonus: Makes You Easy To Connect With

Sometimes a personal touch helps you to create a stronger connection with your audience on social media. This is why some business professionals use Posterous as a place to provide a unique glimpse into their personal lives.

Jason Falls does a good job at providing both personal and business insights on his Posterous page: Falls, Off the Rocker. He links to these Posterous posts from his Twitter account and invites his Twitter followers to get to know him better.

A Step Toward Creating Social Connections

Creating a social presence and adapting to different social media platforms are not easy for many businesses. Posterous provides a way for businesses to make a social connection between their own website and other social media platforms as they learn more about incorporating social media into their current marketing tactics.

Ready to Give Posterous a Try? Here’s some good resources to check out:

• Read Mashable’s Posterous Guide.
• Have a look at Guy Kawasaki’s Twelve Tips and Tricks.
• And remember to subscribe to Social Media Examiner. There’s more to come on Posterous and other social media platforms.

Now It’s Your Turn

• What are you interested in getting out of Posterous?
• Do you already have a Posterous page?
• How is Posterous helping your social media marketing?

Share the link to your Posterous page below and tell us what your experience has been so far in the Comments section below.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

7 Ways Posterous Improves Your Social Media Presence

Twitter

Here is my article which was first published on Social Media Examiner:

Many business owners and marketing professionals respond to the social media buzz with what Olivier Blanchard calls the “Social Media Terror Syndrome“—a wait and see approach. The next barrier is often a lack of time. And the focus becomes “how do I avoid the social media time suck?”

Here are 7 steps to help you overcome the time dilemma.

1. Set One Specific Social Media Objective

One of the reasons why people waste time on social media is because their objectives are:

• Not clearly linked to their business strategy
• Inappropriate for the environment of social media

Don’t be surprised if you find you need to participate in social media for a little while before you find the right way to use it for your business objectives. Take the time to observe your audience and learn how to connect with them on social media.

Read the Social Media Marketing Report to understand how other marketers are using social media.

Return on time investment: Before you see any return on your time investment in social media, you need know what your business can get out of it.

Don’t jump into social media with both feet and no business objective. Develop your social media presence with one clearly defined business objective in mind.

2. Find the Right Social Media Strategy for Your Business

This is what Mari Smith, the Pied Piper of Facebook, says: “The main reason people fail in social media is lack of a strategy. There’s so much confusing and conflicting advice out there, it’s easy to get lost in the social media jungle. By having a clear objective, developing a strategy to accomplish that objective, and measuring milestones along the way, you’re bound to have better results.”

• What can you say on social media that would interest your audience?
• How should you say it?
• Where should you say it?

Many businesses choose to use a blog as their central social media hub. A pivotal role is played by what Authority Blogger Chris Garrett calls Flagship Content. The truth is that your social media strategy needs to be tailored to the particular message you want to convey to your audience.

Return on time investment: When you include a clear objective in the social media strategy most appropriate for your business, it boosts your overall marketing strategy.

Don’t waste time using other people’s social media tactics. Find a social media strategy that connects your business to your audience.

3. Make Your Presence Social

Once you have defined your social media strategy, the process does not end there. It will only work if your presence is truly social and, as Rebecca Leaman says, you need to also “focus on being good online neighbors.”

A good resource to find out how to connect with your audience is Groundswell. And for ideas in creating the valuable content your business needs on social media, Jay Baer gives 7 steps to get your message right.

Return on time investment: The right message aligned with your business objective in a social media marketing strategy can save your business time spent elsewhere on sales and marketing.

Don’t waste time sending inappropriate messages. Find the right message for your business and, above all, be social.

4. Stay Focused on Your Business Strategy

Social media can be a particularly dangerous time waster because:

• It is a social environment.
• Businesses need to create a social presence and it can be hard to find the balance between business and social.

Don’t fall into traps when adapting your marketing to social media. As Chris Brogan says, the question of friending and reputation “is difficult in the face-to-face world, but it’s even harder online.”

Return on time investment: Social media marketing creates stronger relationships with the people in your market. You can use it to build trust and loyalty with more people and in less time than with most other marketing tactics.

Don’t waste time by getting sidetracked. Adapt social media to work for your business.

5. Adopt Social Media One Step at a Time

Amber Naslund says trying to be everywhere on social media is a big time waster. Social media is made up of numerous different places where people hang out, and these places all have different environments. You cannot try to be everywhere all at once and know how to act and what to say. You need to take things slowly:

• Research to find out where your business should be present.
• Observe and learn what to say.
• Listen and learn how to adapt to each different site.

Be sure to add your own social touch to all of your social media communication. Have a look at Chris Brogan’s social media task suggestions. Look at them closely and you will see how these tasks add extra value to his marketing strategy as a whole.

Return on time investment: When you choose your actions wisely and add some social juice to them, they can give you back much more than you put in.

Don’t try to jump into all social media platforms at once. Find the social media sites that work best for your business.

6. Get Extra Mileage Out of Your Social Media Marketing

Many businesses look at what the social media “stars” are doing and think they would never have the time to do the same thing. Here is the scoop: You need to get into social media before you can fully understand how your time spent can multiply in value.

Once you get your basic social media presence up and running, something very interesting happens. You begin to see little things to do to get a much wider presence on social media.

Return on time investment: The good news is that you can get extra mileage out of your daily social media actions as soon as you begin. One of the very first things you need to do when you begin marketing using social media is to set up professional listening activities. The time you spend on this aspect alone usually adds much more value to your overall sales and marketing activities than you can imagine.

Don’t waste opportunities for more visibility and buzz. Adopt the social attitude.

7. Avoid Social Media’s Fatal Attraction: The Shiny Bells and Whistles

The truth is that there is a lot of movement in the social media arena. New social media tools, applications and platforms hit the news every week. And you just do not know who the key players will be this time next year. It’s natural for businesses to hesitate in investing time in such a climate.

Return on time investment: The key is to focus on developing social skills and to integrate these into your marketing strategy. This is how you can spend your time wisely and be well-prepared as:

• Marketing becomes social
• Media habits change

Don’t focus on the social media tools. Focus on developing the social skills you need for your business to create a strong social presence.

Use Social Media to Add Extra Value to Your Current Marketing Strategy

Social media helps businesses to create stronger relationships with their clients; for instance, by creating trust agents. This trust factor can be so powerful it removes the question of time investment.

Social media marketing can save your business time when it is included within your overall marketing plan. When you add the ability to build trust, social media becomes a powerful marketing tactic not to be ignored.

These are just some examples of how to integrate social media into an overall marketing strategy to save businesses time. What other tips do you have? Please share them in the comment section below.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

7 Ways to Overcome the Social Media Time Sink

Events

Well, you might be wondering what’s the buzz about Social Media Success Summit 2010 — the web’s largest online social media conference.

Note: The links in this article are affiliate links.

This online webinar is almost like a live event

Before I tell you how this virtual summit will help you speed your path to social media marketing success, let me share a story with you.

Proof Social Media Marketing Works…

A few months ago, Michael Stelzner (the guy who wrote the book on white papers) founded a site called Social Media Examiner.  And I was lucky he asked me to be the Managing Editor of Social Media Examiner, so I’ve been part of the adventure and seen this success story unfold up close.

How did it happen? Social Media Examiner relied 100% on social media tactics to drive traffic to his site.  There were no advertising and almost none of the traffic is coming from search engines.  Nearly overnight, Social Media Examiner has become a top destination for businesses.

In less than 5 months, Social Media Examiner was declared the #1 small business blog in the world by Technorati, added more than 13,000 email subscribers, brought nearly 100,000 people a month to the site and is ranked as one of the top 4700 websites in all of America by Alexa.

This all took place via social media.  Social Media Examiner simply leveraged the power of sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to deliver the kind of results that would’ve cost a fortune in the past.  Social Media Examiner didn’t spend a dime on marketing, it was just an investment of our time.

Now the connection…

Social media is the new marketing frontier because it bypasses all the costly middlemen and allows you to rapidly connect with your customers and prospects!  AND this presents an enormous opportunity for you.

So What’s This About?

The Social Media Examiner team has been working for months to bring the best minds in social media marketing together in an event called Social Media Success Summit 2010.

Last year, nearly 1000 marketers and small business owners from around the world attended the summit.  It was a smash hit.  Businesses were transformed.  In fact, 97% of attendees said they’d attend again.

This year’s focus is to empower you to build social media marketing plans, track your social media results and learn from other successful businesses.  You’ll also discover how to use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Foursquare and Groupon to attract high-caliber customers and grow your business during this economic slump.

Not only can you gain amazing exposure for your business with social media marketing, you’ll also generate traffic, increase sales, gain qualified leads and build new partnerships.

Twenty-four of the world’s leading social media superstars will be summit instructors.

Join Guy Kawasaki (author, Art of the Start), Chris Brogan (author, Social Media 101), Darren Rowse (co-author, ProBlogger), Mari Smith (author, Facebook Marketing), experts from Best Buy, Home Depot, Whole Foods, Foursquare, Groupon; Steve Rubel (Edelman), Ann Handley (MarketingProfs), Brian Clark (Copyblogger), Greg Jarboe (author, YouTube and Video Marketing), Kim Dushinski (author, Mobile Marketing Handbook), Jason Falls (Social Media Explorer), Jay Baer (Convince & Convert), Chris Garrett (co-author, ProBlogger) and Ramon De Leon (Chicago Domino’s Pizza)—just to mention a few.  Together this team of “who’s who” in social media will help you succeed using practical tactics.

This is the world’s biggest online event designed to empower marketers and small business owners to master social media marketing.  And the great news is it’s a live online conference you can attend from your home or office.

Visit the site now

What’s In It For You

First, you don’t need to be a techno-geek or twenty-something to use and benefit from social media.  You might be surprised to learn that most social media marketers are aged 30 to 60 and have only been using social media for a few months.

In fact, even traditional businesses like Ford Motor Company, Clorox and State Farm Insurance are heavily focused on social media.  This is not some “young kids” phenomenon.

Social Media Success Summit 2010 will help you discover the best ways to market your business using social media.  You’ll also learn how successful social media campaigns were executed and how you can achieve similar results.

This summit is fully dedicated to empowering you.  You’ll discover how to grow your business using no-cost social media tactics.

Yes, attending this online event (and applying the techniques) will grow your business.  But there’s much more.  You’ll also join a community of like-minded women and men who’ll share their experiences and wisdom.

And There’s More

You can get 50% off if you act now.  Go here to see how this works

Plus… As a way of saying “thanks” for checking out the summit, there’s a gift just for marketers called “How to Grow and Engage an Audience on Twitter” (valued at $42) waiting for you here.  Go get it!

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Social Media Success Summit 2010

Events

Your online success is always centered on the content you publish on the web. Business blogging has the advantage of publishing relevant content on a consistent basis. This is why so many professionals start blogging. But it’s not always easy to continue blogging while running a business.

This is why it’s great to get involved in social business networks. These are the online communities where you pick up good tips and learn from each other. And these social networks also help you to become a better business blogger.

Sugartone: Sweet Business Blogging Contest

Two of these social business networks, BizSugar the social bookmarking site for business articles & Bloggertone the business bloggers community, are partnering up to put on Sugartone, the Sweet Business Blogging Contest, with prizes specifically targeting professionals who publish articles online.

I wrote about Sugartone last week. Well, it starts now, Monday March 15th at 9am EST, 4pm GMT and that 5pm my time here in Paris.

How To Participate In Sugartone

There are 2 ways to win the prizes. All you need to participate in the Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest is either:

• Write an original business article writer with a great title
• Vote and comment on the business articles submitted for the contest

Aiming for a Top 10 Titles prize? You can submit your articles between Monday March 15th at 9am EST which is 4pm GMT and Wednesday March 17th at 9am EST which is 4pm GMT to submit your articles.

Aiming for a Top 10 Commenters prize? You can vote and comment between Monday March 15th at 9am EST which is 4pm GMT and Friday March 19th at 9am EST which is 4pm GMT.

$6921 In  Sugartone Prizes

Prizes include:

• Lead Page Machine – a software to automatically generate squeeze pages so that you can use this to tailor your squeeze pages to specific audiences, to build your email subscribers and increase your sales conversions. Valued at: $5200
• Animoto – a year’s membership to this easy tool which creates videos from photos.  Valued at: $249
• Traction Call – a 45 minute call with the Traction Coach Gary Barnes to help you to quickly get some “sand under your wheels” so you can move forward toward the life you want to live. Valued at $175
• ClickMillionaires – 2 x 6-month membership to Scott Fox’s social network helping business owners upgrade their marketing to make more money online. Valued at $174
• · 5 Critical Tactics for Business Blog Success – this CD and report by Denise Wakeman reveals how you can easily make your blog a winner. Valued at $97
• Start.Grow.Run – 8 x a software package with 45 essential tools and services for the 3 different phases of your business. Valued at $49.95 each

Plus there are 2 books for both the winners of the Top 10 Titles and the Top 10 Commenters. And the books include:

• Wordtracker Masterclass: Blogging For Business – 50 Steps to Building Traffic and Sales by Chris Garrett. 5 books valued at $39 each
• Sociable by Shane Gibson & Stephan Jagger. 5 books valued at $25 each
• New Community Rules by Tamar Weinberg. 5 books valued at $16.49 each
• Guest Posting by Chris Garrett. 5 ebooks valued at $10 each

Find Out More

Do you want to find out how you can win these prizes?  Then read more about the Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Business Blogging Contest With $6921 In Prizes

Events

You’ll probably notice quite a few tweets and Facebook chatter about an event called Sugartone, the Sweet Business Blogging contest.

The Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest is organized by BizSugar, the social bookmarking site for business articles, and Bloggertone the business bloggers community and it starts Monday March 15th.

Before telling you more about Sugartone, let me share with you why I’m involved.

BizSugar

My blog readers know that I’m always business focused.

Even when I talk about the soft people skills involved in developing strong cross-cultural skills, it’s always with a business focus in mind.

And even though I do a lot of social networking, all of my online presence is business related. I don’t have anything embarrassing online to hide.

This is why I appreciate BizSugar which is a social bookmarking site for business articles.  It’s a refreshing change compared to the rudeness or “snarky” comments encountered on other social bookmarking platforms.

The community on BizSugar is filled with like-minded professionals.  I even use it to develop my business network. And I enjoy the community there so much that I use it as a news reader and write a weekly review of the articles I find inspiring there for international business.

Bloggertone

I enjoy networking with the Irish social media community because so many of the Irish businesses are passionate about developing internationally.  Unfortunately most Irish companies need to generate international business to survive.  And as I’m also passionate about international business, and I enjoy their energy.  So I network with a number of Irish business folk online.

This is how I came to know Bloggertone which only launched a few months ago. And their growth has been fantastic. I really appreciate the strong community feeling in this blogging community. It’s a pleasure to network with them because they understand how to be social.

Bringing Both Business Communities Together

On the one hand you have a great community of professionals sharing their expertise by publishing articles on Bloggertone, and on the other hand you have another great community of professionals providing social recognition for business articles.

It was only a question of time before these two communities decided to do something together to help business professionals marketing their expertise online.

Sugartone

So, what is Sugartone?

Sugartone is the Sweet Business Blogging Contest for busy professionals to win $6921 in prizes to help them improve their marketing and generate more business.

It’s free to enter, easy for everyone to participate and there are lots of chances to win prizes.

Here are the 2 different ways you can participate in the Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest:

• Write an original business article writer with a great title
• Vote and comment on the business articles submitted for the contest

There are 10 winners for the Top 10 Titles and 10 winners for the Top 10 Commenters

It’s that easy to enter the Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest, so go check it out here

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Sugartone: The Sweet Business Blogging Contest

Twitter

Here is my article which was first published on Social Media Examiner:

Twitter is a networking haven for businesses. But is there an easy way to draw the right people to you with Twitter?

The answer is yes and there’s a great Twitter feature that can help you: Twitter lists. Twitter lists can grab the interest of people you most want to meet, help you make a great first impression and can help you with marketing segmentation.

Below I’ll show you some unique ways to use Twitter lists. But first…

How Do Twitter Lists Work?

Twitter lists creates separate lists of people. If you haven’t already used Twitter lists, watch this video to see how you can get started.

There are two interesting points to remember about Twitter lists:

• You don’t need to “follow” people on Twitter to include them in your lists.
• You can have both public and private lists.

Now here’s a look at what you can do with Twitter lists.

#1: Listen with Private Lists

Twitter lists are great to monitor and listen to different groups of people. No-one else can see your private lists, so this is a good place to start using the Twitter list feature. You can create private lists to:

• Monitor your competitors
• Carry out specific market research
• Keep track of different networks of friends and colleagues

Private Twitter lists can help you segment the fire hose of information streaming in through your Twitter feed, according to Rohit Bhargava. Segmenting people into lists also helps you more effectively listen to and monitor your market.

John Jantsch says Twitter lists make it easier to listen to what others have to say.

And monitoring people without following them makes it easy to carry out specific market research or intelligence gathering. Once you’ve finished doing your market research, you can simply delete your list without making any changes to the people you usually follow.

#2: Craft Your Brand With Public Lists

There’s not much space to brand yourself on your Twitter profile page. You do have space for a few words in the bio box and you can add in background graphics. But you can also add another dimension to your branding by carefully crafting your public Twitter lists. Here’s how.

Choose appropriate names for your lists
Spend some time finding the best name for your list. There are a few things to keep in mind when naming your Twitter lists:

• Engage the right people. You’ll get more people interested in looking at your list if the name sparks their interest.
• Remember to communicate with everyone. Don’t limit your audience. The right name could help you reach more of the people you want to connect with.
• The SEO bonus. Another reason to think about how you label your lists is for search engine optimization (SEO). Look at the screenshot below. This Twitter list is in a good position in Google search results for a competitive keyword.

The bad news is that if you change the name of your list, the URL of your Twitter list changes too and you’ll lose the people following that list. So take some time to get this right.

Choose appropriate Twitter lists for your public profile
When creating your Twitter lists, you want to think of how lists help you:

• Connect with your Twitter followers
• Achieve your main goal for using Twitter
• Continue the story you began in your Twitter bio

As you build up a following on Twitter, your followers will be interested in your Twitter lists. The choice of Twitter lists found on your Twitter home page is important for engaging with people.

Choose the number of public lists
Remember, there’s a limited amount of space available for your Twitter lists on your home page. Although you can create a larger number of lists, only about 4 to 6 will appear on your home page depending on the character length of the names of your lists. Your audience will have to click on the “View all” link to see all of your lists if you have more than this.

So you may want to think carefully about the number of lists you want to create and the order in which you create them. Put your most relevant lists at the top.

Advertise your Twitter lists
Create Twitter widgets for specific Twitter lists and put them up on your blog or website to engage people and establish your areas of interest and expertise.

Better Marketing With Twitter Lists

Twitter’s list feature can add some extra marketing power to your Twitter strategy if you take some time to get it right. You also need to find the right way to make your lists work for you. This will depend on your goals for Twitter, your audience and how they like to connect with you.

A good Twitter list improves your visibility in your market. Here are a few more benefits:

• The people you follow in your public lists will appreciate the recognition.
• By providing a useful resource, you’ll increase your credibility in your market and attract more followers.
• As you become more popular, you’ll be listed on other people’s lists. This is another way to measure your social media influence.

What are your thoughts about Twitter lists? How are you using them? Do you regularly follow other lists? Please share your thoughts and comments below.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

How to Market Your Business With Twitter Lists