I’m always reading ‘round the web to stay on top of small business trends, social media, and emerging technologies.

By creating News to Use I have a built-in bookmark for stuff that captured my attention.

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Using social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, Karyn Greenstreet asked people to recommend their favorite books on email marketing. By far the most popular answer was “Email Marketing: An Hour A Day” by Jeanniey Mullen. Here’s the rest of the suggestions

Are you an Outlook email hoarder? Then, you must read Maintaining Outlook’s PST Data File. Learn how to reduce the size of your inbox without deleting email messages.

Speaking of email… PC Magazine shares An Unofficial User’s Guide to Gmail.

No doubt about it. Getting real estate transactions to the closing table these days is tough! Negotiation is the #1 skill you need to succeed. Are you ready to master the secrets of becoming a master negotiator?
BONUS: Get a free autographed copy. Simply leave a comment telling me why you would benefit from owning a copy of Create a Great Deal: The Art of Real Estate Negotiating.

One of my personal gifts (talent, ability) is empowering others. Here’s a quick read from Chris Brogan “thinking about how empowering people matters so much more than marketing to them.” Can you empower more than you market?

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Catchin’ Up in the Feed Reader
If you would like to see more articles like this, please come visit Sweet Tea and Straight Talk, where it was originally published.

I’m always reading ‘round the web to stay on top of small business trends, social media, and emerging technologies.

By creating News to Use I have a built-in bookmark for stuff that captures my attention. I hope you’ll find some of the posts useful, thought-provoking, and worthy of sharing.

Don’t miss the news. Subscribe to this blog in your feed reader, or use the email subscription box.

Real Estate Internet Marketing: How Successful People Accelerate Their Business to the Next Level. Peter shares a very powerful strategy that if you incorporate into your own business, you’ll gain more freedom, get more done, and accelerate your business to the next level.

All of the attention you think you should be spending on online marketing in the many digital channels and platforms will bring your company zero return if you don’t have a website that is not only nice and easy-to-use, but findable through all of the search engines. Hold Off on Twitter – Fix Your Website First!

How to Be More Human We’re on the social web because we want to connect with other human beings and we want them to act like them. Being human means talking like a human.

What does it mean to make content that causes people to feel something about themselves when they read it, and something about themselves when they share it? Viral Marketing: We Share What Defines Us

Is Fear Stopping You From Being Successful? Fear can keep you from starting your small business. Fear can keep you from expanding your small business. Fear can also keep you from adequately promoting your small business.

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Catchin’ Up in the Feed Reader | June 12
If you would like to see more articles like this, please come visit Sweet Tea and Straight Talk, where it was originally published.

I’m always reading ‘round the web to stay on top of small business trends, social media, and emerging technologies.

By creating News to Use I have a built-in bookmark for stuff that captured my attention.

Don’t miss the news. Subscribe to this blog in your feed reader, or use the email subscription box.

Run a Google search on “social media ROI” and you’ll get 1,140,000 results. So, starts Tim Walker’s post Social Media and the Acid-Bath of ROI. “The good news is, much of what you can do in social media today is cheap. That low “I” means that if you can hit even modest “R” numbers, your ROI gamble will pay off.”

Matt Cutts notes “WordPress takes care of 80-90% of (the mechanics of) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)” Slide #12. That really captures the essence of why WordPress is so popular – especially with beginning or casual bloggers.  A blogger can get plugins and tools to get the maximum search engine optimization for their blog – but the mere choice of WordPress hits 80% of the SEO needs and all the other heavy lifting is to get that final 20%. ~ David Silversmith

When you’re an independent consultant, eventually you’ll experience one or more of the “negotiating tactics” hilariously illustrated in The Vendor – Client Relationship.

So you want a Facebook Fan Page for Your Nonprofit? Here’s the Scoop! The piece provides 16 tips for setting up your fan page and some good nitty-gritty how-to information.

One of the most important parts of being an online entrepreneur is maintaining an intellectual edge. 20 Must-Read Blogs for Online Entreprenuers introduces 20 useful, thought-provoking and potentially lucrative sources of news and ideas.

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Catchin’ Up in the Feed Reader | June 5
If you would like to see more articles like this, please come visit Sweet Tea and Straight Talk, where it was originally published.

I’m always reading ‘round the web to stay on top of small business trends, social media, and emerging technologies. By creating News to Use it really helps me to stay on top of the stuff capturing my attention.

Don’t miss the news. Subscribe to this blog in your feed reader, or use the email subscription box in the right column.

Social Media Profiles as Tools for Links and Traffic
Even if you’re not ready to jump in with both feet and create fully a engaged presence on popular social media sites, you should still take the time to create and optimize profiles on a number of sites as a way to control more web real estate and, in some cases, create high value links back to your primary web pages.

How to Cure “Death by PowerPoint”
Asking people to travel to see a presentation can be dangerous, and the last thing anyone wants to overhear is, “I flew all the way out here for this?”

10 Ways to Boost Your Blogging
As a communication and community-building tool, blogging is up there with Twitter as a key social media platform. A place to both offer and share opinions as well as a view at the person behind an online persona, a blog is more than just a personal or business journal – it’s your voice.

Create a Graph
Graphs and charts are great because they communicate information visually. If you are Excel challenged, this site is for you!

Use Time Wisely to Change Your Life
If you really think about it, time is the one thing we have that is always free, always there. Time never stops and always keeps going. Whether you want it to go slower, or faster, need more… it remains the same.

Catchin’ Up in the Feed Reader | May 29
If you would like to see more articles like this, please come visit Sweet Tea and Straight Talk, where it was originally published.

I’m always reading ‘round the web to stay on top of small business online marketing success and emerging technologies.

I’ve created a new category called Catching Up to organize articles of interest to me, and I hope to you.

Don’t miss Catching Up. Subscribe to this blog in your feed reader, or use the email subscription box in the right column.

Reflections Over Coffee Our opportunity is to grow, to be shaped. But our lives are shaped by our relationships. Who we hang out with, who we drink coffee with, what we talk about while we are drinking coffee will shape us.

I understand that more people would be interested in church if we spent more time over coffee. It is valuable to sit side by side and sing and listen. (It really is.) But somehow, I think I need to spend more time sitting face to face talking and listening.

Acorns and Oak Trees True success comes from the building of relationships. Of loyalties being forged. Of give and take and the combining of good ideas and openness to encourage greatness.

Aim high – there’s nothing wrong with that. But just take a minute to think what’s going to get you higher – two giants 100 feet tall who control you, or hundreds of normal sized people who respect you.

Lose Control of Your Marketing! New Free eBook For decades, companies have offered Web content as lead bait. But the goal should be to get the word out about your organization, not to misuse the Internet for the sake of an outdated technique.

For your ideas to spread and rise to the status of a World Wide Rave, you must give up control. Make your information on the Web totally free for people to access, with absolutely no virtual strings attached.

What are you catching up on? Use the comments to share highlights from your reading.

Catching Up On News ‘Round the Web Jan 27
If you would like to see more articles like this, please come visit Sweet Tea and Straight Talk, where it was originally published.

I’m always reading ‘round the web to stay on top of small business online marketing success and emerging technologies.

I’ve created a new category called Catching Up to organize articles of interest to me, and I hope to you.

Don’t miss Catching Up. Subscribe to this blog in your feed reader, or use the email subscription box in the right column. Or you can subscribe to Catching Up only and not receive my other posts.

It Ain’t About the Technology That’s my standard response when asked about Social Media.  That’s not to say technology is unimportant, but that technology never really changes how people behave, think, and feel.  Human nature drives that; technology only changes the constraints previously placed on human preferences.

Image by luc legay via Flickr

Community and Social Network Research
Strategy: Online Communities: Build Or Join? (Hint: the answer is ‘when’)

Resources: How to Staff for Social Computing (Like any business program, key people are needed, and here’s there two roles you’ll need to succeed)

Best Practices: Online Community Best Practices (I interviewed 19 brands that have done it right, and to find out how, remember: only 20% is technology)

In my opinion, Twitter is not about making money, it is about building relationships.These relationships might be business or personal in nature. Regardless of the type of relationship, being overly “sales-ish” or pretending to be something that you are not seems to turn people off and will discourage Tweeters from following you.

What works? Be yourself. Be honest. Give good advice and thank people who are giving you advice when you need it.

What are you reading this week?

Catching Up on News ‘Round the Web
If you would like to see more articles like this, please come visit Sweet Tea and Straight Talk, where it was originally published.