Tag Archive for: Author resources

If Facebook Existed… A Mashup

Family and friends send some of the best material for the Saturday Morning’s Post to me. My niece, Heidi, in an email, initially sent this one. That’s how social media works, right? People you know, talking about things you find interesting –and then sharing it. I also find it interesting how many ways great Internet content is disseminated email, Facebook, You Tube. It’s countless!

To get started on this post, I wanted to make sure I was crediting the right source; I googled it. Here is what I found.

Google Search for If Facebook Existed years ago

After a bit of research, I discovered that the original author isn’t even listed in this search –wow. The original author of the first three works of creative-writing art is Coolmaterial.com, check out their website (after you read this post). And the WWII author appears to be Matthew Leeb of Collegehumor.com. And happily, the blogger with the best SEO on this topic is Vinnie V who credits his sources carefully.

BUT I also found that this very popular initial posting caused a wave of similar posts. Some are better than others, but here I have done a mashup of sorts and put all of the posts that I could find together. I think you could go on for days with similar “what if they said this back in the day” ideas. Could it possibly be a future creative-oriented game? Fun.

The Original

If Facebook existed yeara ago

Source: CoolMaterial.com

Then there was Part Two.

Cool Material -if facebook existed years ago -part 2

Source: CoolMaterial.com

Then, what if God were on Facebook?

What if God were on Facebook?

Source: CoolMaterial.com

What if these Countries were on Facebook during WWII?

OMG- WWII on Facebook Source: CollegeHumor.com

And finally, there is even a Facebook Page dedicated to this line of thought. Check it out on Facebook, of course. As you can see, once again, the wealth of the web runs deep. What did we ever do without it?

This has been Social Energizer’s Saturday Morning Post, a less business oriented, more personally related edition than our blog that is offered during the week. Social Energizer’s purpose is to help companies develop lasting relationships with their customers and increase their visibility online.

In addition to building dynamic and affordable websites, we integrate inbound marketing techniques into each business’ current marketing plan and utilize digital channels and strategies like Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Search Engine Optimization, and Web-integrated Email Campaigns.

We invite you to comment and rate each blog, so we can ever improve our offerings to you. Are you venturing into online marketing? Give us a call!

Free -and Legal- Images for Your Blog

Creative Commons Attribution Levels

from http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

For basic tips on using images online, please see our blog, Image Basics for Bloggers, from last week.

What is Creative Commons?

In the past, buying photography was expensive and complicated. Royalties needed to be paid and photos were limited to many restrictions on how they could be used. Then along came Creative Commons in 2001, and everything changed. This non-profit corporation started with a cooperative effort between MIT and Harvard Law professors (among others) who realized that the digital revolution altered many past concepts on copyright theory. The ability to work collaboratively, globally, decentralized and create derivative works and collections that were low to no cost were all issues that were eased with the creation of Creative Commons licensing. Click on the following link for more information on Creative Commons licensing.

How do I use a Creative Commons image?

Things are much easier today in the world of social media and inbound marketing. How do you know if it’s legal and IF you’re placing it correctly?

  • Be sure the image you choose and the way you are using it, applies under the Creative Commons license category shown to the right.
  • Credit the photographer (a.k.a. attribution)
    • If saving the photo, add the contributors’ name into the file name of the image (when downloading or taking a screen shot).  example: pen_ParkerDuofoldNib_JanosFeher_Flickr.jpg
    • If using a link, HTML or BBCode, review the code to be sure the contributor’s name is included.
  • Link back to them when you can.

How do I find Creative Commons images?

Google Creative Commons

From Google Image interface

What do you need to do to add photos into your blog or website with little to no cost, legally? Here are a few suggestions.

Google Images offers an “Advanced Image Search” (found just to the right of the standard Google Image search button) that allows you to use images “labeled for commercial use” only. Just click on the blue link and a window similar to this Google image  appears. In a search for ‘pens’ you enter the word in the top field and make sure the “labeled for commercial use” is chosen in the field second from the bottom. Membership is not required. Attribution is required.

Flickr image options

from Flickr

Flickr has a nice interface for Creative Commons. You choose the level that works for you depending on if you blog to earn money or just for fun. To use an image in Flickr, you click on the bar above the image, as shown in this Flickr image, and grab the Link or HTML/BBCode. The problem with this is that the image is not physically loaded into your site, it’s called ‘hot-linked’ and means it is ‘linked’ to your site through the Internet and does not sit on your directly-accessible servers. Test it to see if your page takes too long to load. Membership is required. Attribution is required.

New, Wylio.com for Creative Commons Images

With all that said, THIS ONE GETS MY VOTE… Wylio.com!

Wylio.com

Wylio.com search for pens

Wylio is a slick, new image search engine that only searches for images offered under the Creative Common’s license. Users can be sure that all images offered are free for use. It’s a simple 3-step process: Search for an image, Resize and Position, and Copy and Paste the Code. Bloggers can easily grab the code to place in their blog posts, or for the low cost of $2.99 per month they can buy the premium version of Wylio.com and download the files.

Here’s the best part. Wylio inserts the photographer’s attribution into the code for you, no asking for permission, no wondering if you’re ‘covered’. Grab it and you’re done! With that said, I am testing this ‘hot-linking method’ today for download speeds and performance. Let me know, in the comments section below, if the pen image gives you any trouble. It is a ‘live’ test from Wylio.com.

Join the conversation on Twitter. How do you use images? Have you worried about your images?
Ballpoint Pensphoto © 2009 Jana Lehmann | more info (via: Wylio)

Social Energizer’s purpose is to help companies develop lasting relationships with their customers and increase their conversion rates by adding proven online marketing techniques to their marketing mix.

We do this by integrating inbound marketing techniques into each business’ current marketing plan and by utilizing digital channels and strategies like Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Search Engine Optimization, and Web-integrated Email Campaigns.

Still need some help? Give us a call!


Image Basics for Bloggers

Attract their attentioncamera and scanner for use in blogging

When it comes to blogging, we all know that it takes great content to attract attention. Part of this is the written content, but just as important part are the visuals you find to support your words. Yes, the secret is in the pictures. Adding just 2 images can increase the time someone stays on your blog by up to 300%. This happens because a person’s eyes are drawn to the photo and they study it. If the photo is good enough to attract their attention, then they are more likely to read the content.

Keep it simple for the web

The two nicest things about using photos on the web is 1) aesthetically, they do not need to be ‘photo shoot’ quality and 2) by file-size standards, they can be small, low-resolution images.

What do these two things mean to you? Not needing to hire models, hire a dedicated professional photographer and buy props will save you thousands. Thousands you probably wouldn’t want to spend anyway. And by being able to save your images at a small file size, lower resolution of 72dpi (dots per inch), allows you lots of flexibility. But again, what does that all mean? It means that you can practice, practice, practice on your low-cost digital camera, smart phone and scanner then quick and easily post them to your website and blog.

How to pick an image?

To choose an image, you really just need to tie the writing and the topic together. I do that by closing my eyes, thinking ‘big idea’ and seeing what comes to mind. A 30 second brainstorm. It usually works and my first impressions are usually the best ones.
Simple doodles, scanned on a low-cost scanner, and household items, taken with a digital camera, make great fodder for blogging images. Here are some examples based on topic:

  • Confusion, use a quickly drawn question mark and scan it
  • Buy Local, take a quick shot of your dad or uncle farming
  • Strategy, take a quick shot of Monopoly, or your favorite boardgame pieces
  • Sustainability, take a picture of your recycling by the curb
  • Planning, scribble out a ‘flow chart’ on a scrap of paper and scan it

See! That wasn’t so hard, was it? Keep it simple. That’s what works for blogs. Just tie it in to your topic and you’re all set.

Then what?

After you have your images, you can save them at 72dpi, which is usually a default setting on your camera (lowest quality). I suggest for the first few months of blogging you take lots of pictures and label them with keyword(s). Put them in a folder labeled for images that you created (and own).Blog Library

Pay attention to events you may attend for that perfect photo opportunity. For added impact, give your camera to friend and have them take some pictures of you, the author. Little by little, you’ll perfect your skills and build that perfect blogger’s library.

Next week. Finding free and legal images –online.

Social Energizer’s purpose is to help companies develop lasting relationships with their customers and increase their conversion rates by adding proven online marketing techniques to their marketing mix.

We do this by integrating inbound marketing techniques into each business’ current marketing plan and by utilizing digital channels and strategies like Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Search Engine Optimization, and Web-integrated Email Campaigns.

We invite you to comment and rate each blog, so we can ever improve our offerings to you.

Five Ways to Poke the Box

I just read Seth Godin’s “Poke the Box” and learned a valuable lesson. It’s okay to fail, actually it’s a good thing. I have to admit, I have been embraced by a “trying to be perfect” mentality from time to time in my life. Maybe even a little bit everyday. As usual Seth helps me open up my mind and see new ways to do things and recognize opportunities.Seth Godin -make something happen

If you’re not failing often and repeatedly you are being remarkable in a way that is going to make a difference. Making incremental changes and doing what everyone else is doing, aka being ‘safe’, is not going to make the difference needed today to stand out from the crowd. Seth says, “the enemy is not piracy, it’s obscurity.” Did you know that 99% of the musicians on You Tube have not been heard? How do you suppose that converts to visibility for authors? I’d bet about the same or even lower.

Here’s a couple more thought-provoking ideas.

  1. Everyday, see things that scare you and notice things that are interesting. Write at least one of them down.
  2. List your daily failures and what you’ve learned from them. Put that into practice.
  3. Watch people. Who’s curious versus uninterested in the great things occurring everyday? What can you learn about them?
  4. Try BIG, new ideas –it’s okay to fail. Great actually. His viewpoint, “The cost of learning is so much less than that of not learning.”
  5. Create moments and movements that people want to talk about. Don’t sink into the blah, blah blah world of ordinary.

So get out and ‘poke the box’ a bit.  Buy the book, it’s a great quick read. Then experiment freely. See what works and what doesn’t. Use the power of the Internet to test various approaches and ideas. You really have so little to lose.

Computer Tips and Tricks for Cool Social Media Moves

During a recent ‘work session’ with a client, an important discovery was made. Many people do not use their computers as efficiently as they could. Really.

Today’s blog may be a bit passé for some of you and you’re welcome to join us back on another day. Thanks for stopping by (you’re still allowed to peak –just in case there may be a tip that you don’t already know). BUT for the group that feels like they’re ‘quickly getting nowhere’ when they work on the computer, welcome! Let’s get into some tips that may help you out of that rut. After all, it’s hard to stay in the social media game when you’re working twice as hard as everyone else just to keep up. These are important ergonomic techniques, the science that helps reduce RSI (repetitive stress injuries) like carpal tunnel syndrome. Use them to more easily build a better blog or engage with your community.

It’s all about the shortcut keys

Simply hold down your Control key (Command key for the Mac) and the corresponding letter to perform these often repeated functions.

keyboard

CTRL+z –undo

CTRL+x –cut

CTRL+c –copy

CTRL+v –paste

CTRL+b –bold

CTRL+y –redo

CTRL+a –select all

CTRL+s –save

CTRL+p –print

CTRL+t –new tab in browser

Notice that the MOST repeated shortcuts are all placed at the easiest to reach place on your keyboard and line up all in a row: z,x,c,v,b.

Simple mouse tricksMouse

  • Shift key and mouse click. Many text editors and programs allow you to highlight all or portions of text using the Shift key and the mouse. For example, place the cursor at the beginning of a paragraph, hold down the Shift key and click at the end of the paragraph to highlight the full paragraph.
  • In Internet Explorer or Firefox you can hold the CTRL key down on your keyboard and move your scroll wheel to adjust the text size you want to view.
  • Hold the CTRL key down when clicking your mouse on a link and it will open in a new tab in Internet Explorer 7.

Embrace the power of the right-click mouse

There are many actions that can be made easier with a right-click mouse. When you’re stumped try, just try, clicking with your right mouse button. Viola, all is revealed! You will usually have an option presented to you that will show you what you were looking for but didn’t know how to find quite often. You can do this on the desktop, in a program, in a browser –anywhere. Below are a few more things you can try:

  • While in a browser pressing and holding Ctrl while clicking on any link will open that link in a new tab.
  • You can right click on an image on the internet and choose to save the picture.
  • You can right click on any file to copy it. Then right click in another folder in the blank space and choose paste.
  • Customize the toolbars. You can adjust your toolbars to your liking. Right click on any toolbar, and select ‘Customize’. While this dialogue is up, you can move buttons around on your toolbars by click-and-drag to the new location. The window that pops up when you do this is a holding area for unused icons. You can drag any item from it onto your toolbars to have it made available, and you can drag any icon from your toolbars onto this box to hide that icon completely. Some toolbar items, such as the Location bar, will expand to take up all available space. You can fit the Menu Bar, Personal Toolbar, Location bar, Back and Forward buttons, etc, all to one single row if you really want to maximize web pages’ viewable area.

What is a scroll wheel on a mouse?

A scroll wheel is a small wheel located between the left and right mouse buttons. This allows you to smoothly scroll up and down a page instead of clicking at least 100 times.

Hope these little tips helped. If not for you, then maybe for that boss or co-worker that seems to ask these questions all the time. Let me know what worked best for you or add a few of your own. I firmly believe “Knowledge is not power, shared knowledge is power” -unknown.

Social Energizer’s purpose is to help companies develop lasting relationships with their customers and increase their conversion rates by adding proven online marketing techniques to their marketing mix.

We do this by integrating inbound marketing techniques into each business’ current marketing plan and by utilizing digital channels and strategies like Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Search Engine Optimization, and Web-integrated Email Campaigns.

We invite you to comment and rate each blog, so we can ever improve our offerings to you.

Your Website is Your Base Camp, Is It Solid?

Whether you’re climbing Mt. Everest in the heart of the Himalayas, like adventurers Rhys & Nicky, or leading your company into the world of inbound marketing, your success depends on having a solid base camp. Your website is your base camp.

A Base You Can Rely On

First off, your website is the most important part of your base camp, and making sure that you OWN your website is crucial. If you are unsure if you are the owner of your website, you can check on several registrar websites such as www.who.godaddy.com. If you are not the owner of your domain, you need to make sure that transferring your domain is high on your list of things to do.

Next step in having a solid base camp, is making sure your website is well designed and up to date to represent your hotel at the highest level. Here again, ownership is key. Self-hosted websites are affordable and offer the opportunity to retain all content, analytics and security making it a viable asset for your lodging property.

Closely Located to Your Final DestinationMt Everest Base Camp and Websites

Your website needs to encourage a sense of community, but that is not where your community ‘lives’. Easily visible and friendly links to social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ will provide the conduit from your site to places where you can interact with your community.

Interesting Enough That It Can Be Considered Part Of The Journey

Your site should be intuitive and attractive, certainly even more attractive than the base camp at Mt. Everest. Your blog, if you have one, should contain engaging content that relates to your hotel/resort and brings the customer back time and time again. For more information on blogging, check out our articles:

10 Easy Tips for Better Blogging

So if I have to blog, where do I start

The Place Where You Realize Dreams Can Become Reality

Your engagement on various social network sites drives visitors to your website which is the place where your efforts can be measured best. Google Webmaster Tools and other analytic tools provide a consistent and straightforward means of tracking your traffic.

Your Strategic Centering Point

In the world of inbound marketing, the pull strategy is the rope that allows you to get up the mountain. With each effort, whether it is sharing on social networks, posting interesting videos, or writing interesting content about your area and events, your goal is to “close the sale.” At each step of the relationship with your hotel and potential customers, your website must strategically provide the information they desire and persuade people to proceed to the next step of staying at your property. Strong and compelling call-to-action mechanisms will pull your customers in, guiding both them and yourself to the top of the mountain.
For help creating and inbound marketing base camp, i.e. a company website, give us a call. We’ll be certain to include all vital gear and advice just like the best Mt. Everest Sherpa would.
Social Energizer’s purpose is to help lodging properties develop lasting relationships with their guests and increase their satisfaction and returning visits.
We do this by integrating inbound marketing techniques into each business’ current marketing plan and by utilizing digital channels and strategies like Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Search Engine Optimization, and Web-integrated email campaigns.
We invite you to comment and rate each blog, so we can ever improve our offerings to you.

We invite you to comment and rate each blog, so we can ever improve our offerings to you.

Top Five SXSW 2011 Videos

SXSW 2011 has wound down for this year, but they’ll be back next year and I plan to be there. SXSW has something for everyone, especially in social media or inbound marketing. So many of the heavy hitters are there that it makes ones head spin.

It has taken a bit of searching around, but I found several short videos that really share the SXSW experience. These are all worth watching –sometimes more than once. Let me know what you think. It’s almost like being there.

3, 2, 1, Twitter: The NASA Tweet up Shuttle Discovery Launch

Phylise Banner, from APUS, speaking on how people are using tweet-ups to gather for Shuttle Take-offs. Sounds like fun.

“Mario” – SXSW 2011 Film Bumper

This film bumper makes me feel like I can’t wait to see the movie, a grown-up tongue-in-cheek version of my favorite video game. Just a bit naughty.

Gary Vaynerchuck -Author, Wine Connoisseur, Explorer of all things Social Media

You can’t help but love Gary. Such passion! He epitomizes the energy born from social media. Three for the price of one here:

Keynote part1- http://bit.ly/i3lcej

Keynote part 2- http://bit.ly/fuGxSz

Keynote part3 – http://bit.ly/hOx9ac

More Gary Vaynerchuck –he was a busy boy

1-1 Interview part1- http://bit.ly/ffpS1K

1-1 Interview part 2- http://bit.ly/hlvWeg

Matt Mallenweg, WordPress/Automatic

 

Speaking on the growth of WordPress and next step P2. Matt says that, yes, WordPress has moved beyond a blog platform and is, in fact, a complete web platform. Yes, indeed.

Social Energizer’s purpose is to help companies develop lasting relationships with their customers and increase their conversion rates by adding proven online marketing techniques to their marketing mix.

We do this by integrating inbound marketing techniques into each business’ current marketing plan and by utilizing digital channels and strategies like Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Search Engine Optimization, and Web-integrated Email Campaigns.

We invite you to comment and rate each blog, so we can ever improve our offerings to you.