7 years ago, on a similarly cold winter, but less snowy if I remember correctly, I went ahead and started my very own blog on the Blogger platform. It was long before the Google buyout of this popular platform, long before I gave up on my dream of being a journalist and, yes, long before the wonderful world of PR won me over and sparkled this version of the Words of a Broken Mirror Blog.

Seven years later, I have tested a lot  of everything that has to do with blogging, from niches to frequency to communities. I kept learning more about coding and customizing and html, and JavaScript, and how blogs generally work. A few social media channels later, lots of business articles, guest posts across the blogosphere, a few hosted contests, a travel blog and an online magazine for women, I am still blogging with the same great pleasure I experienced 7 years ago.  Continue reading

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As we usher in the new year, you might have made a wide variety of resolutions related to losing weight, spending less money, or drinking less, but if you own a small business or work as a freelancer, a resolution you might have neglected to make is to build up your online brand. So many times our resolutions are geared toward reducing the negative effects of something, and not increasing the positive effects of something else.

Building a brand online requires a multitude of incremental steps that start with your acknowledgment of the importance of having a clean bill of health. There are a wide variety of services out there, such as ReputationManagers.com, that can help you dispel slander or negative reviews. But when it comes right down to it, you need to proactively manage your image you put out onto the Internet. Here three ways to take control of your online brand: Continue reading

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Guest post by Mihaela Lica Butler

One of the most important components of your PR strategy has to be reputation management. Your business and personal success depend by and large on public perception. Reputation is the essence of who or what a business or person is.

Unfortunately for the SME or even some corporate decision makers, not much information exists in simplistic form, there are no real “simple guides to reputation management.” But, the infographic below, provided by KBDS Digital Marketing , does a nice job outlining some do and don’t practices and possible remedies for negatives. An old Chinese proverb roughly states:

“Don’t consider your reputation and you may do anything you like.” Continue reading

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As web marketers enter into the new year, it’s important we take time to consider what’s right around the corner. Whether you’re a part-time blogger or a salaried employee of an internet marketing agency, so long as your income is connected to technology you’re always going to need to be staying one step ahead. 2012 is set to become a memorable year for online marketers and entrepreneurs, so don’t allow yourself to get behind on the next big things in web marketing. In summary, expect the following to unfold sometime later this year:

Personal App Revolution

First came Siri available on the iPhone. Soon, everyone with a smartphone will have a personal assistant app. These services will partially render traditional SEO obsolete – and at the very least force a rewriting of the rules regarding the value of page rankings. Continue reading

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First of all, Happy New Year to you all Hope 2012 is just as you have imagined it to be and then some! Now it’s back to business..

A while back I told a good friend of mine selling career and business related products and services that December will be an awesome month for him. He’d sell more, a lot more than in the previous months. He did not believe me, not entirely. He then told me December had been an amazingly pleasant surprise.

The truth is I drew a very obvious conclusion. Whenever a year ends and a new one starts, we start reviewing our lives and somehow see the negatives, then decide to do something about it. We start working on our resumes in December, we start planning, in our head or on paper, we buy products and services to help us achieve our goals, from business to weight loss and so on.

I suspect the seasonal extended family reunions play a decisive part, that’s why most of our planning effort happens between Christmas and New Year’s Eve! We go to face our loved ones who somehow are our biggest critics as well, tell them about our lives and have them point out where we went wrong. Or they don’t, but they start talking about their accomplishments and all we have to do is compare notes and figure where we need to improve.  Continue reading

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