I advise you to at least take the time and select a proper category and a few tags, than press submit. Why? Because otherwise, SU will display something like this: Someone discovered this in “category”. If you were too rushed to pay attention, it’s always the bad category.

So what happens when you hit cancel? No benefit for the blog owner who’s article you liked. The story is practically lost and tons of thumbs ups and reviews will hardly compensate the damage. Instead of showing appreciation for something you like, you harm the blog owner, article writer or who every owns the site where you’ve seen something you like.

Such accidents have happened to lots of us. I admit I canceled a few submissions in my StumbleUpon beginner days. But when I found out what actually happens, I chose to never do it again. That’s why I am sharing this, so that all who don’t know what the consequences are can make an informed decisions

Keep well and enjoy the weekend!

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Why is it important to believe in yourself? Because that will help others believe it to, if they also have the results to prove. Unless you are confident you’re good for the job, the results will get to others much harder, and it will be more difficult to convince them you have the needed qualities.

Sometimes however, the behavior of those who should motivate us is not what it should, and one can start doubting their value. You might even get to feel like an impostor, waiting for others to discover your great results were a lucky mistake.  As confidence is important to then promote a positive image of yourself, this is what you can do to compensate the lack of encouragement or recognition:

• reanalyze your results, reacquaint yourself to how you obtained them and how hard you worked for each of your goals
• talk to those who believe in you, not necessarily for reassurance, as to see yourself through their eyes. More perspectives can lead to an objective view on yourself. They can lead to your true identity.
• remind yourself why you love what you’re doing
• if all else fails, start working on a personal project where you’ll put your skills to good use and get equally great, quantifiable results.

This might sound a bit like a self-improvement post, but it’s not entirely. Promoting your personal brand effectively requires you to believe in what you’re selling. Would you be able to sell a food that makes you feel sick? Maybe. Would you be better at selling your all time favorite dish? Definitely!

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“On Beauty” is the type of book that you start reading, just to get a feel of it, and wake up 100 pages later. It intrigues you, it saddens you to tears, it makes you smile, it makes you laugh, it makes you angry. The states characters are in are described in such detail their imaginary feelings are passed on to you.

It’s a story of a half white, half black family and the world they live in, a small town built around a university - Wellington. The personal tragedies of each member of the family are interlinked with those of their friends, enemies and of plain strangers.

Political debates, family problems, art, culture, drugs, sordid affairs, theft and love, all are part of this book’s world. And everything seems to be treated in pairs of opposites: the intellectuals and those less interested in academic debate; those entitled to an education, but who lack talent, and those who have the talent but lack the right or means to an education; the beautiful and the less good looking, the wifes and the mistresses; the popular and the hated.

Zadie Smith’s book will take you from the cultural issues of a US small town, to the political hassles of Haiti, and to the poor neighborhoods of London. It will make you think of the human condition, of what big messes we can make at times, of how easy it is to hurt people or to make them happy, of how fragile lies and lives are.

Some passages of the book are so common, they are predictable, but they are described in a way that does not bore you. It all seems so natural, so human, a part of our souls that we cannot reject.

My favorite character is Kiki Belsey, the black wife of a university professor forced to live in a world where the only black people are those she hires to clean her house, mother of three, each child with their difficult problems. An extremely strong woman, with an incredible will and sense for what’s right. An amazing friends that we’d all want around.

If anyone has read the book, I’d appreciate your thoughts on it. If you haven’t, consider this on your list of book recommendations.

Thank you and see you all next week,
Alina

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Welcome everyone to a new weekly roundup of great posts spread around the blogosphere. There’s been quite a lot to read and most articles were great (something good in the air it seems), but I had to make a selection in the end.

Barbara Rozgonyi of WiredPRworks reviewed a great tool provided by Youtube, insights. It helps you understand who exactly is watching your videos so that you get to know your audience a little better.

Chris Garrett has publishes results of a blog survey he’s been working on. Here a little on blogger demographics, but make sure to also read the related posts.

Matt Jones of Blogging Fingers has analyzed the effect the right music can have on your blogging, more precisely on your creativity.

Greg of 10e20 published a great how to article on maximizing current events for social media success. He also explained why others fail to get the best out of their submissions.

Dawud Miracle discussed the impact of too many choices on customers. Having multiple choice is a good thing, while having too many is tiring and annoying.

Steven Snell explained on VandelayDesign which differences should set premium themes apart from free themes. Take a look before deciding to purchase.

Phil Butler opened an interesting issue to debate: what our conduct should be, regardless of how famous we are. Pointing out the good and bad examples, he reminded us all it’s all about being kind and never thinking you of all people are too busy to ignore others.

Debra Mastaler of LinkSpiel pointed out a few aspects we should consider before deciding to submit our link to a certain directory.

In a previous Monday Roundup, Blogging Bits recommended cutting the middle man and selling our own ad space. Tibi Puiu of Lost Art of Bloggingcame up with a comprehensive article describing how to actually sell the ad space.

Brad Shorr of Word Sell, Inc. showed us how to put our business blog to work. Blog posts can easily become marketing and sales materials that you can direct potential customers to.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this weeks reading list and invite you all to add your own links in the comment box. Until next week, have an excellent 7 day period

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But the challenge remained in the corner of my mind and still seems like a great idea. I have been trying to read more in the past two years with temporary results only, so a new impulse does not hurt. But just reading doesn’t just cut it for me. I got to thinking and realized that on Words of a Borken Mirror, Mondays are for reading recommendations. So I book review would work well with my Monday Roundup.

So starting tomorrow, I’ll tell you all about the book I’ve just finished each Monday afternoon. If you like the challenge, I’d love to share it with you! You can post your own reviews on your blogs or just tell us about what you have been reading in the comment box. What do you say, are you in?

See you on Monday,

Alina

P.S. If anyone has read the post I am referring to, please share the link, I’d love to give the author proper credit. Thanks!

UPDATE!

I have identified the original source of the writing challenge: Put Things Off

Joanna and Martin, thank you for your help!

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I’ve recently had my eye caught by a contest and a nice little game that I’ve become addicted to. And I am referring to the SecondBrain contest and the Stay.com trivia game. Both had an interesting idea, different approaches and cool prizes.

Two Successful Recipes

In case you don’t remember, SecondBrain decided to reward great content added by their SecondBrainiacs. They offered a MacBook Air, game consoles and loads of other prizes. Users needed to add content of great quality, use collections to better organize it and make it all sound really, really interesting.

When they officially launched the 2.0 Beta, ten great profiles were chosen and they were brought in front of the community. SecondBrain chose 10 winners, letting the public decide what each of them should win. So they have combined the search for quality with the need of popularity and of involving the entire community.

Stay.com has a different approach. They mix beautiful travel photos with a count down timer. The show you photos of a city and you have to guess it. Then, based on your score, you get a chance to win. As they are not a community builder per se, they also award points when you send out the game to your friends.

Now, the Stay.com game is fast! It’s catchy and plain addictive. And it comes with a weeklong stay at a nice little hotel somewhere in a big city. Who wouldn’t fall for that? I know I did and kept playing each day, several times a day for about a week. I’d still play, but I forbid myself.

I do hope on July 15, when the gaming contest ends, they will release the names of every city they used. I would like to know where to plan my next trips, as the photos were truly amazing.

What Have We Learned From These Recipes?

These are quite successful contests with people letting their friends know and inviting them to join the fun. But we all came across about dull contests that no one was interested in and which failed in their mission. The aim of such a game or contest is simple: get traffic, awareness and eventually sales. So what should we do so that we don’t stray from our path to success?

1. Select the Prizes According to Your Target

The prizes of both contests make me believe SecondBrain and Stay know their audiences. SecondBrain chose a cool laptop, game consoles and some gadgets. What else would someone who’s online enough to have content spread everywhere need? Stay took what’s supposed to be common knowledge for a passionate traveler and turned it into a game. Then chose to reward it with hotel stays in touristic cities around the world. What better way to capitalize on a passion for travel and promote your great services at the same time?

2. Spread the Word

You might have the greatest contest ever, if no one knows about it, there’s no real point in trying. Start by promoting it on your website, on your corporate blog, through friends and loyal customers, send out details in your newsletters and then pitch the mainstream and social media. Mainstream can definitely help and social media can make it all go viral.

3. Find a Way to Get More People Involved

There is a limited number of winners in any contest. But you still need a lot of players and cheerers to get the best out of your contest. So get more involved through awarding points for referrals or through a voting system. One caveat however: stay away from popularity only contest. Pageants are great, but the after-feeling in most is not that nice.

4. Don’t Keep Players or the Audience in the Dark

If there are more stages to your game, let those involved know. You might not cont all the media for each step of the contest, but you can let players and those close to the competition know how things are going. Again, your blog, your site, newsletters, anything you want can broadcast your message.

In the end, like everything marketing or public relations related, nothing can guaranty a victory. You also need some luck, to a good moment (which gets extremely difficult to predict if your targeted audience is from around the world, not a specific region) and some influential evangelists. That is why you should plan and perform everything on your side as good as you can, so that the factors you can’t control play a less important role in the overall result.

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I believe saying Twitter or any other Social Media channel for that matter wastes your time is simply stating the obvious. Anything consuming time has potential to waste everything it spends with no real results. Social media, other media, everything you do can have no results, some results or excellent results. It all depends on how much you invest in your actions, what you aim to obtain and there’s also the little yet important part luck plays in the equation.

I for one do believe Facebook is a complete waste of time, as I don’t see how movie surveys and playing with vampires will ever help me. But I am sure the smart people who invented the “guess the brand” survey I played months ago had great results in seeing how much awareness they can associate to different brand identities.

So here are my conclusions about Social Media in general, including the microblogging poster child Twitter. And yes, by calling it poster child I mean to say there’s a lot going on right now on Twitter and I believe it has a pretty great future.

1. Social Media is time consuming

From your blog, to the twitter account, to digg and facebook, building a nice looking network of friends takes time. Simply because you need to invest interest, research and empathy in the whole process.

2. You need to be honest to yourself about what you expect and the chances to get it

If you want to meet people with keen interests, to build relationships with them to then talk, share tricks and tips and generally have a good time, that’s doable. If you want to generate traffic, that’s also possible, it won’t happen the moment you publish your profile or the moment you submit your first link. If you want to raise sails by 30 percent in a week without much effort, that’s not gonna happen.

3. The people you get to know are the greatest asset

The relationship you develop will be the greatest thing you’ll ever get out of social media. You’ll gain great friends, great teachers and very persuasive evangelists if you play your cards right.

4. Your key tools are honesty, genuine interest and selflessness

What’s in it for you is important. But the “social” part of the affair should tell you there are others to worry about. I don’t think it’s because of the back scratching syndrome. I like to believe we are naturally inclined to help those we trust/believe in.

So, if your product, service or personal brand are not a joke, but something awesome, if you have taken enough time to understand how to blend in into the social networks, the time you “waste” will be nothing compared with what riches you’ll discover.

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Karen D. Swim of Words for Hire shows us the power of little things. Doing something apparently insignificant can have a tremendous impact on a situation or end result.

If you’re a social media marketer and need advice on networking in the social media world, head over to Traffikd for a complete bonding guide.

Ivana Taylor of Small Business Trends admits planning, including marketing planning, sucks for most of us. So she shares her solution to this hassle: examples of one page marketing plans that actually work.

Alex Cristache of Blogsessive notices a very important trait of the successful blogger: being a good listener.

I am sure most of you out there need a quick fix for the photos you want to include in your posts. Blogging Sublimely reviews a few free online photo editing tools for you.

Chris Brogan’s entries really caught my eye last week. So I am recommending you two posts in one roundup: a piece describing 100 personal branding tactics that make use of social media and one presenting a goals and measurements aligning take on social media strategy.

One of my favorite bloggers, Joanna Young, has decided to dedicate her business to helping others create powerful content. One of the services she offers is blog coaching to help you jump start your blog. Read her entry on how she plans to achieve her goal and contact her if you’re interested.

Sonia Simone of Remarkable Communication has put up a sales guide using tricks she picked up from toddlers. Funny, but highly effective.

Eric Brantner of  SEONoobs points out an overlooked aspect of guest blogging. Apart from building relationships, generating content for blogs, exposing the author to a new audience, it is also an essential SEO strategy.

SEOMoz is also in the business of pointing out the obvious tools we have and tend to forget: asking our customers to link to our product or service.

In the end, I think we should all stop to remember that the tools we take for granted, such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr are not that easily accessed in all countries. Social Media Trader has put up a list of what services are prohibited where.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s roundup! See you next time and in the mean time, if you have an interesting article to add to my list, do so in the comment box!

Enjoy the new week!

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It is true that there are features that we instantly associate a certain value and benefit to, but those cases are rare and they only do half of the job in the end. For example, we all know that many Gigabytes on your hardware means lots of docs, software, movies and mp3s can be stored on it. So the more they are, the better.  We’re used to it and after the presentation of a computer catches our eye, we hunt down features like this one.

Gold and silver are instantly associated with a significant price. More than fake bling blings anyway. That might sell a jewelry, not as well as saying the X silver necklace will make you look classy or something similar.

Now, let’s take an air conditioning systems vendor. A high-end one, not a cheap brand with no marketing budget or the right people to handle their communication strategy. And the nice, cool differentiator and stand out bling for their product: a silver-containing filter!

How does the silver help? If they don’t explain, most people will automatically think they’ll pay more for useless, expensive metals Which would be cool for some, if the case of the AC machine would be made of silver! But who cares there is silver in the filter? Except some chemists or AC specialists, no one will know what the benefit is. Some might simply imagine there must be a benefit added, but will it be a strong enough hunch to make them buy?

So the basic idea when presenting your product is simple: to get maximum results, emphasize some quality of the product or service that makes buyers’ lives easier, funnier, more relaxed, simply said what can you do to make their lives better?

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But what you might overlook is that those people, if they come in high numbers, are also something to be sold. As an audience, they’ll generate a new found stream of revenue. You’ll position yourself as a high authority conference organizer and not spend much in the end. Why? Simply because others will pay to sell something to your audience.

Case Study - The Parallels Summit

Let’s take a real life example: the Parallels yearly summit for existing or soon to be partners and customers. This spring they chose a luxurious hotel, the Omni Shoreham in Washington DC and invited people from all over the world to attend. They had a small exhibiting hall (way tight if you asked me) where spots came at a price, two industry media sponsors of which I could only see one throughout the conference, the WHIR. And they had so high priced sponsorship packages that companies like Microsoft or Intel paid for.

They were bringing in a couple hundreds of people at least, so they got to negotiate a decent price with the hotel. In the end, what the guests got was impressive: great room, a hotel with a lovely view, a cruise on the Potomac river, a sunset cruise to be precise, a baseball game in VIP suites, Washington Nationals vs. Philadelphia Phillies, and many little things such as pens.

Intel sponsored the game, Microsoft the cruise and I am pretty sure exhibiting prices and other sponsorships covered the lunches and breakfasts. I don’t imagine they paid nothing, but imagine how much they got thrown in for free. If you want a taste of how it all felt, take a look at the photos I posted. If you’re not American and wonder why baseball would ever interest you, read this entry to see how addictive it is.


This is a high class example and I’d say it mostly works in business to business lines of activity. Although end user oriented products get a lot more customers, those customers are not really going to pay for a three day trip to attend conferences and decide on buying loads of expensive products as well.

How Can You Better Market Your Customers

You have to realize that an audience of over 50 people is something big. If you already have the good habit of meeting your customers on rare, mostly yearly occasions, why not reduce or even wipe out your costs? If they are decision makers or interested in related offerings, use that ace down your sleeve to get partners and other indirectly related companies to chip in for the organization costs.

If you think you’re good enough, you can do what Parallels did, have Microsoft (the same company thinking of providing its own virtualization solution) as your platinum sponsor! You might say that was a mistake, but if people use your product alongside something provided by a future competitor, close the deal, get more customers now, and worry about competition later. If your solution does a good job, no one would even dream of going through the switching hassle!

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