Using LinkedIn -- Even More Ways to Use LinkedIn for Business

Using LinkedIn is not optional in today's business climate. With over 30 million users, it is the social network for the professional world. In the first edition of the book: I'm on LinkedIn -- Now What??? author Jason Alba showed businesses how to find new clients, get sales leads, and build professional networks on LinkedIn. In the second edition, Alba gives even more LinkedIn strategies.

"My first book, 'I'm on LinkedIn.com -- Now What???' sold ten times more copies than I expected. Shortly after writing it I realized it would need to be updated. This edition includes all of the additional features LinkedIn has added since then. This includes Applications, Group discussions, and new Company features. You'll learn more ways to use LinkedIn to build your career or businesss," said Jason Alba, author and CEO of JibberJobber.com a job search tool.

Professionals and businesses should have more than just a LinkedIn profile - they need a LinkedIn strategy. Each chapter summarizes exactly how to maximize LinkedIn for a job search or business goals.

LinkedIn is not a replacement for traditional or online networking efforts. Instead, it's an excellent tool for developing additional facets of a networking strategy. 'I'm on Linkedin -- Now What??? Second Edition shows how.

Website: http://imonlinkedinnowwhat.com

Don't Get Lost In The Web Wilderness

Most of the time, when internet users want to find something online, they go straight to a search engine and type in their search terms. Its such an obvious point that most people never give it a second thought, but it has made the dominant search engines, from Yahoo to Google, some of the biggest brands on the internet.

It has also made the mysterious art of search engine optimization, or SEO, one of the most critical tools in online business today, according to business experts. Simply put, the term SEO describes the various methods of designing and writing a website to ensure that when someone enters relevant search terms into Google, the website is returned near the top of the results page.

"There's just no point in having the greatest website in the universe if you've got zero traffic," says Mark Sinclair, Features Editor with online business TV channel yourBusinessChannel. "It's surprising how often businesses forget this, despite common sense and the advice of online business experts."

The business TV network (http://www.yourbusinesschannel.com) is now producing a series of business TV shows focussing on how SEO works, and how businesses and entrepreneurs can use it to boost website traffic and, ultimately, online sales.

"We've assembled a team of the world's leading web experts to contribute practical expert business development advice on SEO for small business websites," says Sinclair. "Anyone familiar with the subject knows there's good SEO and bad SEO. Our business experts focus on the good side - producing loads of great content for your site, and coding pages in such a way that Google ensures the audience finds your site."

Business experts interested in contributing to the business TV series can contact the yourBusinessChannel editorial team at editorial.d@ybc.tv for further information

12 Months Of Free Advice To Start A Business - In 5 Minutes

It takes a lifetime for many individuals to learn the secrets to starting a business and of being a successful entrepreneur. For others, it might take as little as five minutes, with some help from the host of the Business Owner's Toolkit radio show.

Troy Janisch, host of the nationally-syndicated Business Owner's Toolkit radio show, recently gathered advice from business owners and business experts to share a free, five-minute audio track offering business advice to entrepreneurs. The track, entitled 'Incorporate Your Dream,' gathers some of the best advice shared on the radio show during 2008, and challenges would-be entrepreneurs to overcome hesitations to pursue their dream of owning a business, and incorporate their dream.

"The audio track is a five minute crash-course in entrepreneurship," said Janisch. "Two thirds of Americans say they want to own their own business but many of them are overwhelmed by the prospect of starting a business in a tough economy. The track shares the advice and inspiration of their peers."

For example, the track cautions entrepreneurs not to let fears of the economy prevent them from being successful. According to the audio track "worrying about the economy is about as effective as building your future on sub-prime mortgages." Janisch said many of the factors that work against large corporations in a tough economy create advantages for small businesses and entrepreneurs who can bootstrap effectively and provide new, more cost-effective solutions in the marketplace.

The free track is available for listening online at http://www.toolkit.com/radioshow.aspx and can be downloaded from http://www.toolkit.com/radio/incorporateyourdream.mp3.

Business Owner's Toolkit radio show is a fast-paced, entertaining, one-hour call-in radio program that provides advice and inspiration to small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs.

As Economy Gets Worse, Marketers Put Money in Content Marketing

Even in tough economic times, money is still flowing into content marketing initiatives. In a December 2008 content marketing research study from Junta42, an online content marketing resource and vendor-matching tool, more than half (56%) of marketing- and publishing-decision makers plan to increase their content marketing spending for 2009 (31% increase significantly, 25% increase slightly). Only 13% plan on decreasing their content marketing spending (9% decrease slightly, 4% decrease significantly).

Surveyed marketers were very clear that social media will be on the top of their investment list in 2009. In terms of most important products/tactics, social media (other than blogs) resonated with 68% of subscribers, followed by enewsletters/email (60%), blogs (56%), case studies (55%), online video (51%), white papers (46%) and microsites (43%).

"These findings are an acceleration of what we have been seeing for the past few years," stated Joe Pulizzi, founder of Junta42 and author of "Get Content. Get Customers." "If marketers will spend less in 2009, it won't be coming from their content development budgets. More and more marketing professionals now realize that tomorrow's marketing is all about developing a conversation with customers. Without valuable, relevant and compelling content, that's pretty much impossible. The numbers show that."

The Junta42 community is made up of both corporate marketers and publishing/agency professionals. For the study, 42% were corporate marketers, 22% traditional publishers/media, 19% marketing/advertising agencies, 15% custom publishers and 3% association marketers. 85% of the surveyed audience makes marketing purchase decisions for their organizations.

The Junta42 email study was delivered during the first week of December. 1706 subscribers were invited to take the study, in which 196 completed the survey (11.5% return).

"Twitter Means Business" -- A Twitter Manual for Companies

A new book released by publisher Happy About is a "how to use Twitter" guide for businesses. "Twitter Means Business: How Microblogging can Help or Hurt your Company" taps the wisdom of Twitter expert and leading technology journalist Julio Ojeda-Zapata (@jojeda on Twitter).

See how Twitter -- the fastest-growing social network, according to Nielsen Online -- is used by corporations like Comcast, Dell and JetBlue. This book profiles dozens of businesses of all sizes on Twitter. These are tracking what is said about their brands in the "twitterverse," and are interacting with customers in Twitter's conversational style.

Find out how businesses are using Twitter in innovative ways -- such as responding to complaints, nurturing online relationships, posting hot deals and recruiting evangelists -- with "tweets" that are just 140 characters or less.

Twitter has become a place to burnish a corporation's reputation, drum up new business, get ideas from customers and find those who wield influence online. "Twitter Means Business" documents these trends, and more.

Public-relations agencies are also on Twitter, showing their business clients how to use the service. "Twitter Means Business" devotes a chapter to such P.R. agencies, ranging from giants to tiny P.R. shops.

Learn how businesses that don't understand the Twitter culture can be blindsided. "Twitter Means Business" shows how ignoring Twitter can hurt a company. "Twitter means Business" has tips, tricks and tools so businesses will understand Twitter and use it effectively. The book examines rival microblogging services used by companies, too.

Website: http://happyabout.info/twitter/tweet2success.php

Guru.com's Next Generation Feedback Advances Freelance Marketplace Reliability

Guru.com, the world's largest online marketplace for freelance talent, launched a proprietary Feedback Management methodology to improve the value of subjective comments or rankings on its site. For the first time in any online marketplace, subjective feedback will be validated against actual performance metrics to provide greater assurances of quality while limiting misuse.

A common Web convention, feedback is traditionally posted for public review with minimal intervention or modification. The practice typically entails the submission of remarks or rankings by one party in a transaction to capture, share, and guide public opinion about the other party.

Feedback Management preserves the natural order and use of feedback as a decision-making tool while neutralizing its tendencies to illogically bias choice or to inhibit honesty. Users are invited to block some unwarranted feedback but only in proportion to their prior, proven success. Negative feedback is not fully suppressed; rather its exposure is made more reliably predictive. Objective performance metrics determine a variable blocking rate, or 'Blocking Power,' which is calculated for each user in real-time. A seven day review-and-approval period is allowed for assessment of individual feedback records prior to public disclosure.

"Current feedback standards create an assumption of validity predicated on transparency," explained Inder Guglani, CEO and Founder of Guru.com. "But as incomplete information and fear of retaliation are introduced into the feedback process, transparency requires objective verification."

Why Manage Feedback?
Feedback Management addresses well-known shortcomings of the traditional feedback model, such as those involved in the Feedback Policy adjustments announced by eBay last May. Feedback can be inaccurate and misleading in cases where transaction details are unavailable, retaliation is feared, or there is a general disagreement between two parties. As business relationships break down, the parties involved may become prone to questionable motivations, poor judgment, and unethical or predatory behavior, such as blackmail or libel. Global markets face these concerns more often as differences in language, culture, and work style may directly contribute to failed transactions.

Website: http://www.guru.com/

Business Cards Go Digital on Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch

SnapDat Networks, Inc. has made it so mobile users everywhere will never lose another business card with the launch of SnapDat, a free mobile business card application for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

SnapDat seeks to revolutionize the way mobile users exchange data between mobile devices. The patent-pending app allows mobile users to instantly exchange contact data in the form of customizable, graphically-rich mobile business cards known as "SnapCards" Since not all interactions are equal, SnapDat allows users to establish multiple SnapCard profiles, each with their own unique set of data, design, and a profile photo.

SnapDat includes a number of unique features:

* The ability to create personalized mobile business cards with 40 preloaded design templates. New designs will continue to be added for further customization.

* Does not require users to be in the same room. Users can exchange contact information whether they are in the same location or thousands of miles away.

* Integrates with the iPhone and iPod touch address book so that the details from a received SnapCard will be automatically written to the native address book as well as to the user’s computer when they synchronize their device.

"We give mobile users the power to establish social or business connections where they naturally occur - while on the go" said Chris James, SnapDat Founder and CEO.

SnapDat's SnapDirectory also acts as a digital Rolodex, where users can click on a SnapCard to email, call or text a contact, map their address, visit their social networking site or view their favorite YouTube video.

Finally, SnapDat allows iPhone and iPod touch users to connect with anyone, even if their contacts don’t share the same device. SnapDat users can email their vCards to recipients, allowing them to send their contact information to Blackberry devices, Windows Mobile phones and other email-enabled mobile devices.

With SnapDat, there's no business card to lose and no pile of cards staring you in the face, waiting to be entered into your address book. SnapDat contact sharing begins and ends where it belongs - directly on your mobile phone.

Website: http://www.snapdat.com

4 Ways To Use Social Media Marketing To Make Money Online

Social media marketing is a way to promote your business on the internet via social networking. This has grown to encompass a very large number of websites and methods.

The savvy internet marketer is learning how to use this powerful marketing method to grow their business and make valuable contacts for the future.

Of course this also means making more money if you do it right. Let's take a look at 4 ways to use social media marketing to make money online.

1. Blogging is a very strong way to combine various forms of social media marketing all in one place. If you do not have a blog you are losing ground to your competitors who do.

2. Social bookmark your blog posts to create traffic from social directories and as search engine bait for search engine traffic.

Be sure and use a quality blogging platform such as WordPress. They offer a terrific plug-in that makes social bookmarking a blog post very simple.

Social bookmarking gives you a way to get backlinks to your blog very quickly. You should be bookmarking to social directories such as Technorati, Digg, Stumbleupon, and Propeller.

Also go get a Twitter account and learn how to make friends and use it to drive traffic to your blog. This is fast becoming one of the top social sites online.

3. Video such as You Tube is becoming a favorite way for bloggers to add some excitement to their blogs, but it is also much more than that.

For example many affiliate marketing programs now offer videos embedded with your affiliate i.d. that you can use to pre-sell a visitor before sending them to your affiliate website.

Many bloggers are also easily creating videos and putting them online on their blog. This is a very powerful form of social media that is giving your visitor what they want. Many people are a product of the TV generation and like to learn by watching as opposed to reading.

4. Discussion forums are a great place to make friends and sell products if you do it right. They can also be an excellent place to create joint ventures and millions of dollars are sold online now because of these.

There is much more we could say about social media including social networking in places such as FaceBook, My Space, and many others. The bottom line is making money online via social media all comes down to finding a way you enjoy and then mastering how to use it to your business and personal advantage.

(C) www.WritingCareer.com

Feeling the Financial Pinch? Become a Paid Blogger

Boasting the largest blogger training center on the web, Blog Success shows bloggers how to go from hobby to paid blogging with basic to advanced training on all facets of professional blogging. Designed from the ground up to show exactly what well paid bloggers make, how they became popular, and the exact steps to building a profitable blog regardless of writing skills or technical experience.

Jack Humphrey's new "Blog Success" training center promises average Joe's the ability to make money in a lagging economy by blogging.

"Blog Success is a project that we have been working on for months. It is the culmination of years of being on the forefront of social marketing and blogging" says Jack Humphrey. "It is a giant project that provides people from all experience levels with the tools necessary to start a blog, make it popular, and profit from it."

Blogging seems to be reaching more and more non-geeks as a way to make money doing something they love: creating great content, networking, and being a thought leader in their market niche.

Blogging is getting easier with better software, better tools, and far fewer technical hurdles which have kept average people from taking a shot at starting a serious blog.

"Bloggers are making money with their blogs through advertising, primarily. They get popular within a certain market demographic and advertisers pay them to get in front of their audience" Humphrey says. "But we also teach people how to create their own products and services and use the traffic from their blogs to sell their visitors."

There are countless professional bloggers online today who report earnings anywhere from a few hundred dollars per month to over $100,000.00 per month. Some blogs literally pull down millions of dollars per month, but those are rare.

There have been several success stories reported about bloggers who never considered themselves to be technically proficient. One niche Humphrey points out as an example is the "Mommy Blogger" niche. Advertisers are ga-ga over the mommy niche and mommy bloggers can command high advertising rates.

"For the average person with very basic skills, there isn't an easier way to set up shop and start to make money blogging" says Humphrey. "That's why it appeals so much to the technically-challenged audience as a viable business opportunity they can really do."

BlogSuccess.com is designed for newbie to advanced bloggers. It is both a community of bloggers and a very large, well-stocked with written, video, and audio training, exclusive software, and blogging resources of every shape and size.

For more information, please visit: http://www.blogsuccess.com/

The Affluent Artist: How Creative Could You Be if Money Wasn't an Issue

When it comes to the stereotype of the "starving artist" it is often assumed that creative and artistic people have no business acumen. The Affluent Artist: How Creative Could You Be if Money Wasn't an Issue? The Money Book for Creative People by Rick DiBiasio, CFP®, with a foreword by Jack Canfield, invites all creatives, no matter what their discipline, to use their creativity to understand and obtain financial freedom.

Rick DiBiasio is a Certified Financial Planner with 25 years of experience and a national planning practice that exclusively deals with creative clients. With The Affluent Artist he offers a fun, easy-to-understand "How To" guide for people who have been too busy dancing, sculpting or dreaming to learn the "money stuff".

The book invites artists from all walks of life to throw out the stereotypes about art and money and allow financial abundance into their lives. Whether you've been learning to train dolphins for SeaWorld, working as a Broadway dancer or as an Imagineer for Disney, chances are you've been learning about your craft, not about personal finance. DiBiasio offers business and financial planning wisdom to creative individuals who find themselves in the roles of the Starving Artist, the Corporate Artist, the Self Employed Artist and the Affluent Artist.

The book includes stories and interviews with artists in each of these roles as well as "Financial Stuff You Just Gotta Know", a humorous and necessary primer on financial terms and situations. In addition, DiBiasio presents a "how-to" on avoiding financial pitfalls along with a business fable based on his years of experience helping artists find their financial footing. He says, "Creative people don't have to starve! Having a good idea about personal finance and the business process will help you, in the long run, to be more creative."

Rick DiBiasio CFP ® is a 25 year veteran of Wall Street and the Financial Planning Industry. He has written newspaper columns, has been a radio talk show host and currently hosts a popular blog. His series of interviews with creative people and how they make their soul happy is available through his website, http://www.affluentartist.com/. He lives in Florida.

Adobe Calls for Entries for 2009 Adobe Design Achievement Awards

Adobe Systems Inc. announced the call for entries for the ninth annual Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA).

Adobe said the competition honors the best student graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, animators, digital filmmakers, developers and computer artists from accredited higher education institutions worldwide. Now in partnership with the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda), the awards ceremony will be held during the Icograda World Design Congress in Beijing, China in October 2009. The Congress will bring together 2,500 delegates from around the globe at the China National Convention Center, located in the heart of the Beijing Olympic Green.

As demand increases for talented designers and developers in the interactive design and development fields, the Adobe Design Achievement Awards spotlight the talented work of students in three media categories: Interactive Media, Motion Media, and Traditional Media.

-- Interactive Media categories include Browser-Based Design, Non-Browser Based Design, Application Development, Installation Design and Mobile Design.

-- Motion Media categories include Animation, Live Action and Motion Graphics.

-- Traditional Media categories include Illustration, Packaging, Photography, and Print Communications.

Open to students in 40 countries, the contest also draws attention to interactive design and development programs at some of the best accredited higher education institutions. Students are invited to submit projects through the Adobe Design Achievement Awards website. From the website, visitors will also be able to access ADAA Live!, an interactive website that lets visitors see participants submitting projects in real-time.

Submissions will be accepted online through June 5, 2009. The online submissions will be judged digitally in June. For the final phase of judging, semifinalists will be asked to submit their source files and a physical aspect of their entry as it is meant to be viewed. Finalists will be invited to Beijing, China and the Icograda World Design Congress and awarded software and cash prizes.

2009 Adobe Design Achievement Awards: http://www.adaaentry.com/.

The New Rules of Business Blogs in a Free E-Book

In changing times business blogs have changed from "diaries" to a powerful marketing tool. But to use business blog as an effective marketing tool, your must know what rules have changed in web 2.0 as well. Marketing expert Linas Simonis in his e-book "The New Rules of Business Blogs" writes exactly about the changes of business blogging rules in web 2.0.

"Internet rules which have worked in the pre-internet era must be enriched or even replaced with the new rules from the internet era. In the nearest future lots of old businesses will be marketed only by the new medium " the internet, and it will be mandatory to them to adapt to the new rules and if you know the new rules of business blogs, you can use it as a powerful marketing tool, " " says the e-book author Linas Simonis.

Helpful business blogs can provide for readers answers to many business problems, more important, for companies " the blog can be an effective marketing tool helping to differentiate from competitors or even to cut on advertising.

"Today if you want to be heard, you must follow the new rules. Because business blog is a personal blog of a person who represents all business, when writing a business blog don't forget that it is about long-term impact to your readers," " advises Linas Simonis.

The e-book "The New Rules of Business blogs" was written using Linas' experience of managing his own business blogs. By reading this free e-book, business owners, CEO's and other high-ranking executives will find out the differences between a Corporate blog and a Business blog and why managers must have one. And the most important " you will find the New Rules of business blogs.

Linas Simonis is a consultant and keynote speaker of Marketing Strategy in web 2.0 age. He is a member of the Business Week social media experts group. His blog http://www.positioningstrategy.com/ is on the top of 150 Social Marketing Blogs on the Web.