Business Unusual

Success Secrets Revealed in 3 Minutes

Marj Galangco — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:13:17 +0000

I went on a hunt for some inspiring stuff online and found this, so I thought I’d share it here.

If you have set some big hairy scary goals this year (wait what am I talking about – of course you have!) here’s something to help you keep your momentum going.

Below is a short video about how to succeed. We all want to succeed, but we all define it diffferently, and rightly so. Regardless of how you define success though, is there a secret process to it? What does it take to really succeed?

Richard St. John was determined to find the answer so he interviewed the 500 Most Successful people he knew. Seven years later, he was ready to share their answers. Listen up and hear what they said it’s all about.

About the Speaker:
A self-described average guy who found success doing what he loved, Richard St. John spent more than a decade researching the lessons of success — and distilling them into 8 words, 3 minutes and one successful book.

Geotagging for Business – Why It Matters

Clément Yeung — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 11:08:48 +0000

About a week ago I created a proposal for a local restaurant aimed at tackling a public relations crisis it had stirred up. One of the tools I felt the restaurant could use to not only improve their public reputation, but also drive sales through the roof was a social geotagging service.

What is geotagging?

Geotagging, as defined by Wikipedia is:

…the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as photographs, video, websites, or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. These data usually consist of latitude and longitude coordinates, though they can also include altitude, bearing, accuracy data, and place names.

Social geotagging networks like Foursquare, Gowalla, BrightKite, Google Latitude and Plancast are essentially, social media ecosystems that thrive on geotagging.

All but Plancast (enables the planning of future events) offer the same kind of experience, which is to say people can “check in” to a latitude and longitude that points to anywhere in the world (be it a park, restaurant, tube station or demilitarized zone – OK maybe not a demilitarized zone) and share information about that place with their network of friends. The service is used to create a running commentary of their worldly travels, but with the added layer of community.

I’m going to talk about Foursquare from now on as it seems to be winning the social geotagging network war.

A typical day on the profile of a Foursquare veteran might look like this:

Just got to the office. Karl is being an arse which is normal @ Pentagon Design (73 Clayton Avenue, Leeds)
Lunch time = Sushiiiiiiiiiiii @ Yo Sushi! (The Promenade, Leeds)
Just got back home – anyone going to the pub later? @ Carliol Square (Sandy Lane, Leeds)
Onn thye way home noww . i thynkn i had a bit too mucvh @ Random Gas Station (Random road, Leeds)

Ok even though the last part was a joke, it really happens (at least in the UK)!

But what does this have to do with BUSINESS?

via @Percival's Posterous

We all know that humans can’t resist a good rewards system, even if the rewards are intangible… and unsurprisingly, Foursquare implements one. A brilliant one, in fact.

Users get points and badges for checking in to locations. If they check into a café more than anyone else, they will be awarded the “Mayor” status which is like being the King or Queen of that Cafe in Foursquare. Pretty cool right? I mean, who doesn’t want to be a Mayor but have none of the Mayor-ish work and the greying hair that comes with it?

Even if you don’t get the Mayor status, you’ll build up your check-in points and badges over time.

At the moment Foursquare doesn’t have a way to spend these points but very soon they will. They’ve hinted on their website that they may be used to help fund charitable causes, although I’d think a more realistic approach would be to use the points to do that AND gain access to premium and discounted affiliate offerings.

The competitive spirit alone will be pitting people head to head at venues where they will spend money.

Offering the Mayor a freebie – which is what a handful of businesses have been doing since Foursquare gained traction in and around April 2009 – will massively incentivise repeat custom and new interest.

Users are able to share tips with their friends about locations

Furthermore, social networks engage people simply because they’re fun (most of the time). Sharing is FUN. If you have a choice between doing business with someone that is encouraging you to have fun as opposed to someone that is not, to whom will you be more likely to give your hard-earned cash? Reputation goes a long way in extracting money from your target market, and seemingly trivial marketing strategies like using Foursquare can have massive repercussions three, four or five rungs down the relationship ladder.

It’s kind of a no-brainer when you think if Foursquare and services alike would benefit your business and gets you wondering why it isn’t being adopted more than it already has been. Evidently, businesses now understand the importance of being present on Facebook and Twitter to a lesser extent, so why not Foursquare?

Massive Lead Generation

Foursquare, Gowalla and the other social geotagging networks tap into already-existing friend pools by linking to Facebook and Twitter.

When someone checks in, earns a new badge or becomes the Mayor they can choose to tweet/update this to their friends and followers on the respective networks.

The lead generation potential for businesses is huge!

The Pros of using this service

I recently approached a local coffee shop to tell them about how they could boost their business by encouraging their customers to use Foursquare. Time will tell if they take my advice, but the following reasons will hopefully win them over:

It’s free marketing - all you need is a large, clear print out that tells customers of the offers and rules – everything else is handled by the customer and their network of friends
It’s viral - friends will check each others recent check-in’s to find out where they like to eat/drink/dance etc. and they’ll end up trying them out too which will have a knock-on effect
It’s targeted - people visiting or real-life local friends of customers will be able to check out the details and location of businesses being visited and decide whether or not it’s for them
It’s warm - the probability that people will try a restaurant or bar based on social proof far exceeds the probability of them doing so from an advertisement in traditional media

The Cons of using this service

Although there seems to be every reason for a business to get involved with services like these, there are also reasons for businesses to avoid them. Avoid these kinds of services if:

you sell a fad
you have an exorbitantly overpriced product or service
you have less-than-excellent customer service

If you qualify for any of the above and you start to engage people on via any form of social media, you’re going to be in for a shock. People can also spread bad news as fast as they spread good.

Is it a trend that will last?

Update: the massive online directory, Yelp just today added the “check-in” functionality to their platform. This puts Yelp ahead of both Foursquare and Gowalla by sheer numbers alone – their userbase is around the 1.25million mark compared to 200k for Foursquare and similarly for Gowalla.

The question we need to ask is “Why are social geotagging networks so popular?” and I think the answer is this:

By nature, people are social. Being social means sharing, and in their pursuit to share more and share faster they generate enough demand to justify networks like Twitter, Facebook and now Foursquare.

Foursquare fills the void where Twitter and Facebook remain absent. It enables people to rate and leave tips for locations and adds an element of competition into the mix to encourage activity.

Although the tools and platforms over which they are delivered will change and be replaced with time, the needs of the people will always be more or less the same.

Scobleizer recently mentioned that Foursquare could potentially conquer the Chinese marketplace (due to the overwhelming success it has achieved at home) – more proof of the massive demand driving the expansion of these social geotagging networks.

Whether Foursquare lives or dies, the demand for the ability to share this level of intimacy with our friends, family and colleagues will stay.

Conclusion

If you’re a retail business, tourist attraction or a place that would benefit from more visitors – get involved with any of the social geotagging services mentioned in this post sooner rather than later. Foursquare looks like the best bet at the moment as it seems to be the most popular with Gowalla in a close second. It wouldn’t hurt to jump into more than one in the hope of engaging with more people.

Why White Paper Marketing Is A Must for Your Business

Marj Galangco — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:59:08 +0000

It’s no secret that for many businesses, the past 2 years had been among the most challenging, and we have reasons to believe that times ahead are going to get even tougher. Combine that with the fact that today’s consumers are sales-resistant, ad-blind and shrewd buyers so it’s getting harder and harder to find qualified leads and win over new customers.

If you’re still doing Traditional Marketing methods and old media, you will have long noticed that it’s becoming less and less effective.

You need to find cheaper and more effective ways to market your business – but how will you do that?

One of the best ways to increase your bottomline is to NOT focus on selling, but on consistently creating better and more value for your prospects and customers.

Instead of trying to actively get into your prospect’s pockets, educate them about ways that will help them get more of what they want, and then relate the solutions or action steps you recommend to your products or services.

In short, selling is out, and Pre-selling is in.

And one of the best ways to pre-sell? Writing White Papers!

What is a White Paper?

A White Paper is an authoritative guide designed to to educate readers and help key people to make concrete decisions regarding specific issues. In business, White papers are often used to generate leads by informing prospects about industry-related research, statistics, know-how, and other relevant (often technical or somewhat complex) information.

For example:

1. Suppose you own an Accountancy firm. Inform your customers how exactly they could improve their cashflow or make sound strategic financial plans, and then state clear calls to action.

2. If you’re selling freight services, you may want to conduct a study to show your prospects/customers how the buying decisions of today’s consumers are greatly affected by how fast their orders are going to be delivered to them.

Why White Paper Marketing?

This works so much better than telling people to buy your stuff, because you are actively helping them get what they want so they naturally pay attention to what you are proposing.

The following findings are highlights of TechTarget’s report called Media Consumption Benchmark Report:

52% of buyers read at least 5 white papers within 3 months. In addition, buyers consume more white papers than any other type of media.
Buyers use White papers to evaluate solutions. 59% says they rely on white papers more than newsletters (51.8%), trials (46.2%), product literature (40.7%), articles (38%), webcasts (47.7%), case studies (25.7%), podcasts (9.3%) and virtual trade shows (8.4%).
80.5% of buyers find white papers to be very effective or somewhat effective in the decision making process, and more so than any other marketing tool.
47.6% of buyers use white papers to gain awareness and 35.7% use them when considering a solution. This places white papers above all other forms of marketing for gaining awareness and consideration.
41.6% of buyers forward white papers to friends or colleagues, and is the most forwarded form of marketing material.

In another study conducted by Eccolo Media, the findings were:

Prospects Who Read White Papers Are On the Increase. In 2008, 68% of survey respondents said they’d read at least one white paper in the last six months. In 2009, this number increased to 77%!
White Papers are Influential. 84% of the respondents rated White Papers as moderately to extremely influential when making final purchasing decisions.
White Papers are Viral. 89% of respondents forwarded the White Paper they’ve read to others. Plus 1 in 3 of these respondents shared them with 3+ more people!

In short, White Paper Marketing is one of the best lead-generation tactics you can ever use, and it consistently triumphs over other means when it comes to getting the best bang out of your marketing buck.

(By the way don’t get stuck on written reports. There’s no stopping you from delivering your message via audio or visual formats if these are more applicable to your audience.)

Later this week I’ll provide some more resources about White Paper Marketing, but if you now want to add White Paper Marketing to your marketing arsenal for 2010, our good friend Michael Stelzner is giving away a free class about it, as part of his upcoming live online event, Marketing White Paper Success Summit 2010.* We are great fans of Mike’s works and highly recommend his materials. Make sure to check out his story about how writing White Papers boosted Mike’s business during an economic slump.

This live online event will empower you to attract quality leads and grow your business. The world’s leading white paper experts will be available to show you how to use educational white papers :

Michael Stelzner (author, Writing White Papers)
Bob Bly (author, White Paper Marketing Handbook)
John Jantsch (author, Duct Tape Marketing)
Brian J. Carroll (author, Lead Generation for the Complex Sale)
Roger C. Parker (author, White Paper Design that Sells)
Joe Pulizzi (author, Get Content Get Customers)
Jonathan Kantor (author, Crafting White Paper 2.0) and many others!

You can “attend” the live events from your home or office, but if you can’t you will also get the recordings so it’s not a problem.

Go here now to learn more and get White Paper Marketing-related freebies: Marketing White Paper Success Summit 2010.*

* Please be aware that if you decide to buy the materials we recommend here, we may get a small commission. You can be assured though that commissions never shape our decisions about which products and services we tell you about. We are committed to only recommending those that we believe will truly impact your business. To see the full version of our Disclosure click here.

Marketing is Dead: Why Your Business Must Change Now…or Die

Marj Galangco — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:08:14 +0000

Marketing as We Know it is Dead

I made two new friends last week at a christmas party. One of them, Brenda, is a self employed life coach, and the other, Sandra, makes bespoke luxury kitchens. Both are passionate about what they do, so naturally the conversation eventually ended up about business.

Like many of their peers, they have joined and regularly attended networking events and business networking groups. Their main lead generation tactic was inviting anyone remotely interested for a free consultation session or product demo and then hope that they buy afterwards. Sadly few of them ever did, because “they couldn’t afford it”. They had been running their “businesses” at a loss for the last 8+ months.

They have both tried “everything” – yellow pages, promotions, press releases, print ads, brochures/leaflets, cold calling, open house, door knocking, and even turning their cars into advertising tools. Still, they weren’t getting enough leads or paying customers.

They both didn’t know what to do anymore.

“Well, have you tried marketing online?”I asked them.

Blink, blink.

They just stared at me as if I just said something gibberish – in Urdu.

More and more businesses and solo professionals are now experiencing first hand that what used to be very effective lead generating tactics do not work very well anymore. Brenda and Sandra are not alone.

Consumers now do all sorts of measures to block out all the noise that barrage them day in and day out. We mute the radio or TV or switch between channels when the advertisements come on. We’re rude to cold callers and door knocking salespeople. We ignore print ads, and even if we do, few of us really believe what they say anyway. We accept leaflets and brochures when they are being handed out just to be polite, only to stash them in the nearest bin we see.

Marketing as we know it is as good as dead.

Marketing (as in old marketing) – no longer works, not because the media themselves are no longer effective, but because consumers have changed.

Consumers Are Changing

Consumers are a lot busier and more impatient so their attention span is extremely short (and expensive!).

They’re so jaded that they no longer believe us (salesmen or marketers) – they’d rather ask their next door neighbor, friends or pets what they think about our products (how dare they!).

They’re getting more and more savvy. They know that someone, somewhere has got what they want at a price they are happy to pay for. More and more of them know where and how to get the information they want at the exact time that they need them. Thus they are quick to dismiss messages that are irrelevant to their current train of thought (dammit).

They are spoilt for choice so more and more of them are refusing to settle for mass-produced, mass-marketed, average goods. No – in fact, they demand remarkable products specifically tailored with their unique needs in mind that truly work for their specific situation, and they expect a fast, reliable impeccable service.

They even demand to know how you made your product, who made them, what materials were used, what your carbon footprint is like, who you do businss with and how, how you train your staff, where you came from, why you do what you do…

And if you piss them off, they make damn sure they tell everybody. And by everybody I mean their friends, ex girfriends, ex-boyfriends, family, neighbours, colleagues, pets, grandparents, the folks that used to bully them in kindergarten, the folks who they used to bully in high school, their old high school teachers - and these people in turn do the same and so on.

All that at one push of a button. One single click.

So What Now for Businesses?

Clearly, interrupting people and shouting our generic messages to as many people as possible and hope that enough of them buy our generic products no longer works.

What are marketers supposed to do?

Well, there is a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is:

Target a specific group of people whose problems you can solve well. Join or build a community of these people. Listen to what they have to say. Engage, enthuse, empower and add value to them.
Deliver messages for them that are compelling, relevant, valuable, useful, amazing, and if you dare, mind-blowingly cool. The trick is to give them what they want to become happier, better, richer, sexier, or whatever it is they want to be.
Make it super easy, fun, and even rewarding for people to interact with you and ultimately to want to pass your message on to others.
Rinse and repeat.

The long answer is well, basically the same answer, just err… longer. The long answer deals with the tactics and tools and details. And the long answer depends on who you ask and who exactly is asking and when and where the question was asked.

It’s so easy to get lost in the details and get all so fancy. It’s so easy to forget that at the end of the day the media you use per se doesn’t really matter – it’s the value of your message that matters, and how that message is changing the very people who hears it, not necessarily just the ones you crafted the message for.

Your Challenge as a Business Owner

The challenge we face today as marketers is not, “how do we get the most people to buy my product?” but “how do I really listen enough to people so that I am able to serve their needs?”

The challenge we face today is not, “how do we invent a story that will make more people buy?” but “how do we muster enough courage to tell our true story and still be able to create something of real value?”

Our real challenge is listening more to people, not shouting at people.

Our real challenge is creating something truly worthy to the people we hope to serve.

Our real challenge is about being authentic enough and being willing to connect and share as much value as we can with those we have chosen to serve.

If you can do all that and use the right tools in the appropriate and timely manner then you need not worry about making enough sales, because the market will find you.

And buy from you they will.

Top Coolest Tools and Websites for Online Entrepreneurs

Marj Galangco — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:48:25 +0000

Over the years we’ve used some tools but recently there’s been a lot of really awesome tools that it’ll be a shame not to share them with you. Now I know anybody can benefit from cool apps to help get things done more easily and efficiently, but the list I’ve compiled below are ones that are particularly helpful to those who do online-based work (like bloggers, writers, infomarketers, virtual assistants, etc.) or have internet-based businesses.

Get inspired by great minds in TED Talks

Many of these tools and applications are free or have free versions. Enjoy!

Get Organized

Mindmeister.com, Bubbl.us, Mindomo, and Mind42.com – free mind mapping tools with sharing capabilities.

RememberTheMilk.com – Never forget the milk again. Getit? Free online to-do list.

ActiveCollab - Project management and collaboration tool.

Ubidesk – excellent team collaboration tool. Share files, documents, and project manage collaboratively. (Thanks to Ashley from Ubidesk for sharing this with us)

Web-Appointments.com – let others book appointments with you online.

Doodle.ch – Schedule dates and times that work for everyone who wants to attend.

Google Docs – needs no introduction.

Productivity Boosters

FocusBooster – boost your focus when doing a task by timing yourself.

RescueTime – Awesome tool that measures how much time you end up spending on which tasks. Perfect for scatterbrained workers prone to distractions and procrastination but would like to be more disciplined and focused when they are working.

Evernote – An idea pops into your head. Quick! Jot it down before you forget! And make sure you remember where you actually wrote your idea down, so that you can access it again in the future. Eeerr, yeah right. Well, Evernote lets you do exactly that for free! You can put type notes, clip a web page, snap a pic, grab a screenshot , whatever. You can index them, tag them and organize them in folders to make them searchable, too.

LastPass Password Manager – Never forget a password again. Auto log in saves so much of my time. Especially helpful for those who frequently encounters password amnesia.

Content/Info Product Creation

Screen Steps – Create step by step tutorials easily. Great for creating info products or sending instructions with screenshots to your team/clients.

Sclipo.com – A must tool for thought leadership. It lets you publish, teach and manage online courses. You can lead live classes & webinars for 100+ attendees. It’s even got a library you can use to store and share all types of files. You can organize off-line events and stream them live. You can even collect payments on the courses and events you conduct.

Need-an-article.com - pay someone else to write articles according to your specifications for as little as $5.50.

MTurk.com - Get small tasks done for dirt cheap.

iStockPhoto, FreeDigitalPhotos and sxc.hu – get free, royalty free stock photos/images.

Audacity – free, open source software for audio recording and editing. Great tool for creating audio content to add to your info product.

Kunaki - have your CDs and DVDs created, distributed and manufactured – on demand. They will even dropship your CDs and DVDs for you.

Gliffy.com – Get your ideas easily understood by others by creating professional-quality flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, technical drawings, and more.

Super – a simple tool to convert (encode) or play any Multimedia file.

TED – Videos featuring today’s greatest thought leaders. Worthwhile watching everyday to feed your mind as an emerging thought leader.

Get things Done Better, Faster Cheaper

Video Marketing

TubeMogul.com – Like Traffic Geyser but don’t have the budget? TubeMogul will distribute your videos to numerous video networks for free.

Animoto – Create videos using pictures and video clips easily, quickly and cheaply. Choose your music/song and the clever software edits the video for you.

Heyspread – Cool tool that lets you mass distribute your videos. You can also manage, analyze and track your videos’ performance. Very affordable prices and you can even pay as you go – nice! (Thanks to Eric Fontaine for the heads up!)

Online Survey Tracking/Creation

Zoomerang.com – perform marketing research and get customer feedback easily and in an automated fashion using this free survey tool.

Survey Monkey – Find out what your customers / prospects want with this free survey tool.

Survey Pirate – Create, post and publish your surveys all for free. We love free. (Thanks to Linn Lindström for suggesting this).

File Storage/Backup

DropBox.com Free file storage, sharing and remote backup from a folder on your desktop!

Mozy – Simple online backup solution

SugarSync – Online File syncing/storage

Testing/Tracking

If you have a business online and you’re still not testing and tracking, you’re going to be out of business soon. Harsh but true.

Testing and tracking is a must because they let you determine what is working and what isn’t, allowing you to discard the duds and focus on the things that make returns.

Google Website Optimizer – lets you conduct split testing and multivariate testing for free.

StatCounter / Google Analytics- gain detailed insights about your website traffic and marketing effectiveness

Clicktale – view videos of how exactly your visitors are interacting with your web pages. It’s like looking over your visitor’s shoulders! Freakingly awesome.

Crazyegg / Clickdensity – See Heatmaps and track your visitors’ clicks, mouse hovers, entry pages and exit pages.

Woopra – Got loads of websites you need to track and measure? It’s all so easy with Woopra. Great for those building an online empire.

Communicate

Adobe Connect now – free webconferencing for up to 3 people. Handy when you outsource work overseas and need to meet with them regularly.

FreeConferenceCall -Does exactly what it says on the tin. No need to schedule, up to 6 hours conference call, and up to 96 participants per conference call.

Pamela – Manage and record your Skype calls, videos and chats. Make sure the wife knows Pamela is not a woman.

Google Voice –Transcribe voicemail, low cost overseas calls, get SMS via email, and much more. By invitation only.

Other Cool Tools

Jing – free screen capture/sharing tool. Handy for those moments and situations when words aren’t enough to explain your ideas.

VSO Image Resizer – create e-mail friendly versions of your images, load them faster, move them easily from folder to folder, change their format, edit large numbers of image files/batch image resize and thus save space on your hard drive.

Amazon S3 – store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web.

Pixlr Image Editing – Free alternative to Photoshop.

Crossloop.com – Need technical support about anything? Don’t freak out. Log on to Crossloop and find Expert help instantly, 24/7. A real savior for the non-techies like me.

Logmein.com – Access and back up your computer from anywhere with an Internet connection. Even access your desktop from your iPhone!

We haven’t used all of them…yet. So if you want to share your experiences about these services please feel free to share them here.

We’ve probably missed out a lot of other cool tools and websites so if you have a suggestion just pop the details below on the comments section and we’ll add them here.

Thanks!

And oh, if you love this list make sure to share this post with other entrepreneurs. Put that on your to do list, will you?

No related posts.

Easisell Client appears on ABC TV Show

Clément Yeung — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:16:30 +0000

A client of Easisell (the parent site to easisell.com/blog) has recently appeared on an episode of “Rise to the Top”, a show about entrepreneurship.

To be absolutely honest I’m not surprised that Sean is appearing more and more frequently in internet media as he is an A-star think-tank.

Take a look at his segment on the show (about a third of the way in) and take note of his tried and tested advice on how to get a powerful, responsive email list by using social media.

No related posts.

6 Ways to Increase Social Media Productivity

Clément Yeung — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:33:47 +0000

For most, social media is a way of staying connected with friends, family and customers/prospects. For some it’s an addiction that can lead to very unhealthy procrastination.

Here are 6 ways to take back control of your daily schedule!

Clarify your goals before you engage in social media

If I don’t figure out what I want from my social media endeavors before I start, I can easily find myself retweeting and updating my status 3 or 4 hours later. There is so much good quality content out there that I can literally stay glued to my screen all day doing nothing specific at all.

Are you the same?

If so, before you open any social media site or tool, realize that you also have other activities that need doing before the end of the day.

Make sure you have a goal, be it to respond to all of your messages, seek out new leads for your business or to research for new blog post material… and then stick to it.

Give yourself a strict time frame to reply to messages

There’s nothing better than being super efficient in responding to hundreds of tweets and Facebook messages. This gives you more time to focus on tweeting high quality content and working on your Twitter business rather than in it.

Set your alarm clock for a reasonable time frame to respond to your messages. When the alarm sounds - stop immediately and move onto your next task.

The more you do this, the better you will get at it and sooner or later it will be like clockwork (never mind the pun).

Twitter Profile RSS Feed Subscription

Subscribe to important feeds by RSS

I’ve had someone ask me before how they could get everything that I tweet delivered to them in a neat package without having to visit my Twitter profile (I also think that the Twitter profile page is a pretty annoying interface).

The best way to do this is to subscribe to the RSS feed on a Twitter profile.

You can get this feed delivered to 3rd party RSS readers – I prefer Google Reader.

This way, at the end of the day, you can log into your reader and view quickly all of the tweets that they have made during the day. This is an awesome method of staying “in the loop” without having to go through the Twitter interface or a 3rd party software application that could potentially lead to a productivity meltdown!

I talk more about how to use RSS feeds with Twitter in 5 Ways to Generate More Leads with Twitter.

Use a 3rd party application to consolidate accounts & group users

Having more than two social media accounts can get a little hard to manage, especially if you have them on the same website.

Why not try out Tweetdeck or Seesmic? They allow integration of multiple Twitter accounts and a Facebook account. Moreover, what you can do with these applications is create “Groups” in which you can place a selection of your contacts. For example, I have a “Favorites” group, which hosts all of the tweeps I like to connect with on a daily basis. This way, I save time by checking my favorites column first.

Seesmic Twitter Favorites Group

Follow active social media users

When you follow or add users you may be in fact adding an empty account. A report from Harvard Business Review in June this year revealed that around 10% of all Twitter users account for 90% of the activity on the network. That means a lot of inactive accounts floating around and a lot of wasted time if you’re going to try to engage them.

Check when they last updated their accounts before you follow/add anyone. They may have udpated in the last 30 mins (good) or in the last year (bad).

Last but not least, close all your social media tools when you’re not supposed to be using them

Keeping social media sites & applications open after we’ve spent the whole morning using them is a temptation we need to avoid if we’re going to get any work done. It’s too easy to get distracted every 5 minutes (or even 2!) if we have many followers or friends in our social circles.

We’ve all been guilty of this… but let’s be honest – it has to stop.

The trouble is, now that there’s more ways of staying connected there are also new ways of being notified!

The best thing to do to stay out of this tricky procrastination trap is to close ALL the applications that notify you of anything. If you absolutely must leave them on (e.g. Meebo – live chat sessions on websites) then just turn off the notifications alone. You’ll still be logged in and so you won’t lose any coverage.

Conclusion

Using social media without a clear goal or focus can leave your schedule screwed up. Social media has the uncanny ability to spread into areas of your day that are supposed to be dedicated to other activities.

Stay on target by keeping track of time, consolidating your efforts, being clear on what you need to accomplish and remembering to close all social media apps when you’re finished using them!

If you know someone that suffers from a social media addiction, share this article with them!

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #7: Focus

Marj Galangco — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:11:21 +0000

Know Which Basket is Best to Put Your Eggs On

Rule #7 is all about focusing.

A common financial advice we are given is to diversify, diversify, diversify. Kiyosaki asserts that diversification is only for those who don’t have sufficient financial education.

Diversification is given by investment advisors who do not know how to determine which investments are going to make money and which investments are unsound. Hence they advice you to “diversify”. Therefore, diversification is a strategy good only for those who also don’t know what they are doing and therefore needs a strategy that allows them to “spread their risks” (but at the same time also spread their potential gains by doing so). It’s much like gambling, if you think about it.

On the other hand, someone who has the financial education to know what investments will make money and which will not is able to focus effectively. They are the likes of Warren Buffet, who knows which baskets to put 80% of their eggs on.

In the end, Rule # 7 finishes right where we started: increasing your Financial IQ so that you will know what course to follow that will bring you to success.

Recommended Resources

Rich Dad’s Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money

Rich Dad’s Increase Your Financial IQ: Get Smarter with Your Money

Are You Abiding by The New Rules of Money?

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #1: Get Adequate Financial Education

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #2: Move to the Right Side of the Cashflow Quadrant

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #3: Savers are Losers!

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #4: Own More Assets Than Liabilities

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #5: Debtors Are Winners

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #6: Buy Sell or Fool?

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #6: Know the Difference Between Buy, Sell and Fool

Marj Galangco — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 06:00:47 +0000

Are the things you value truly worthy?

Rule #6 of the New Rules of Money advocates the importance of “selling” more than “buying”, and avoiding being the greater “fool” by taking financial advice from the wrong sources.

Kiyosaki’s strategies for getting rich rest on the principle of sustainability. He proclaims that when he buys a property, he holds on to it forever but “sell” it every month to the tenants. He doesn’t flip properties due to capital gains tax. To his way of thinking, paying such a high price for tax doesn’t make sense.

He further asserts that the reason most people are poor is because they are buying with very little to sell. Most people are content selling their time for money, with no other means of income. This strategy is not advisable because this equates to working harder and harder and for longer and longer to earn money that is also constantly depreciating in value.

Recommended Resources

Rich Dad’s Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money

Rich Dad’s Increase Your Financial IQ: Get Smarter with Your Money

Are You Abiding by The New Rules of Money?

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #1: Get Adequate Financial Education

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #2: Move to the Right Side of the Cashflow Quadrant

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #3: Savers are Losers!

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #4: Own More Assets Than Liabilities

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #5: Debtors Are Winners

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #7: Focus

Business Unusual

Success Secrets Revealed in 3 Minutes

Related posts:

Geotagging for Business – Why It Matters

What is geotagging?

But what does this have to do with BUSINESS?

Massive Lead Generation

The Pros of using this service

The Cons of using this service

Is it a trend that will last?

Conclusion

Related posts:

Why White Paper Marketing Is A Must for Your Business

What is a White Paper?

Why White Paper Marketing?

Related posts:

Top 18 Viral Promotional Videos of All Time

18.) Verizon Droid (1,868,559 views)

17.) Sony Bravia Play-Doh (2,047,882 views)

16.) 8-bit Stop Motion Trip With Legos (4, 593,284 views)

15.) Sony Bravia Palline (4,655,835 views)

14.) Apple Macintosh 1984 Superbowl Commercial (5,167,289 views)

13.) Will It Blend? iPhone Video (7,672,405 views)

12.) Google Wave Presentation (8,086,221 views)

11.) Cadbury Eyebrows (9,431,712 views)

10.) Heineken Walk-In Fridge (9,449,813 views)

9.) TheFunTheory.com’s Piano Staircase (10,914,552 views*)

08.) Samsung Extreme Sheep LED Art (11,285,333 views)

07.) Durex Get It On (12,233,418 views)

06.) Gorilla Ad for Cadbury Dairy Milk (14,830,617 views)

05.) Playing For Change (16,347,589 views)

04.) T-Mobile Dance (20,109,212 views)

03.) Dove Evolution Ad (21,879,167 views)

02.) Obama Yes We Can (32,443,228 views)

01. Evian Live Young Baby Roller (33,791,618 views)

No related posts.

Marketing is Dead: Why Your Business Must Change Now…or Die

Consumers Are Changing

So What Now for Businesses?

Your Challenge as a Business Owner

Related posts:

Top Coolest Tools and Websites for Online Entrepreneurs

Get Organized

Productivity Boosters

Content/Info Product Creation

Video Marketing

Online Survey Tracking/Creation

File Storage/Backup

Testing/Tracking

Communicate

Other Cool Tools

No related posts.

Easisell Client appears on ABC TV Show

No related posts.

6 Ways to Increase Social Media Productivity

Clarify your goals before you engage in social media

Give yourself a strict time frame to reply to messages

Subscribe to important feeds by RSS

Use a 3rd party application to consolidate accounts & group users

Follow active social media users

Last but not least, close all your social media tools when you’re not supposed to be using them

Conclusion

Related posts:

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #7: Focus

Recommended Resources

Related Posts

Related posts:

Rich Dad’s New Rule of Money #6: Know the Difference Between Buy, Sell and Fool

Recommended Resources

Related Posts

Related posts: