Thoughts on the video?  Any similar stories of how social media has helped you out?

Josh is the Co-Founder and CEO of MomFaves.com – I like to call it kinda like a Digg & Facebook combined  for Moms.

Make sure to check out their blog as well here:  WhyMomsMatter.com

This was a very touching story and I hope you listen to it all!

In this interview you’ll learn:

- About the $2 Trillion Moms are spending a year
- How 63% of Moms are using Social Media
- That they spend 85% of the household income
- Ideas for Moms to start making money from the comfort of their home

I GOTTA hear from you on this one?  What are your thoughts from this amazing interview with Josh?

By the way, here’s the Martha Stewart Buttermilk Pancakes Recipe we talked about in the interview   You gotta listen to understand it

Last year I had the privilege of connecting and being interviewed by Ryan Lee.  Ryan is someone I highly respect and have been following him for a while because he’s known as a membership site genius!!!  He not only has built a high monthly 6 Figure business (yes I said monthly) by creating niche membership sites, but has helped thousands of others create membership sites.

In this interview I really get Ryan to talk about what his secret is to becoming successful!

This is a 60 minute interview so it’s power packed with a lot of content.

I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this podcast and membership sites.

Michelle was very open and candid in this interview and provides a lot of really great information.

Here’s what you’ll hear in this interview:

- How to bounce back from a major setback
- Michelle talking about the “Lifestyle” that she has been able to create
- How you can still do what you’re passionate about even when you’re not excited about a certain niche (this was the “Aha” moment for me – 25:01)
- How to use Social Media from an SEO standpoint (gives a GREAT how-to)
- If the corn removal market is a good niche to get in
- What 2 things kept Michelle going as an entrepreneur

I wanna hear what YOUR thoughts were on this interview.

In Episode 1 of the Successfool Podcast, I had the privilege of interviewing a very good friend of mine (& very successful) Justin Brooke from SiteFling.com.  Justin has done an amazing job at creating culture and building online community with his audience to the point of where he’s out performing some of the top marketers online.

This interview was packed with tons of great information and in it you’ll learn:

- Why combining Branding & Direct Response Marketing together
- How Justin is using “Anchoring” on Twitter
- How listening is a huge key to success
- His surefire way to creating online community in your niche
- Why website flipping is a great business for entrepreneurs with ADD

Tell me, what’s your favorite quote or thing you got out of the interview with Justin?

Blogging has absolutely transformed my business.  I had blogged for SEO purposes over the last couple years but never blogged to build my own brand.  It’s been over a year since I first launched my blog and it’s a long time coming.  You can take a look at my very first video here.  Be warned, I’m pretty stiff

http://successfool.com/video-1/

Since I started blogging to position my brand out there in the marketplace, a lot of people ask me the question, “How do I start blogging,” How important has blogging been to your business.”

Well I’ll answer one of the questions today and then have my partner Justin Brooke answer you tomorrow nigh LIVEt on my Internet TV show SuccessfoolTV.  Justin has been ROCKIN IT lately with his blog.  Quadrupling his traffic for his already successful blog Site Fliiiiiiiiiiing!   (you gotta say it that way with the exclamation mark!!!)

How important has blogging been to your business?

I tell entrepreneurs and small businesses all the time… “blogging is the nervous system…the cornerstone of your online presence.”

Because of the success that I’ve had with my blog, I’ve been given the opportunity to speak at conferences, coach others how to use social media to grow their business, ran my own conference and the list goes on and on and on.

Listen, there’s so much traffic on these social media sites, we’re talking a LOT of traffic.  Twitter is the fastest growing social network on the Internet, Facebook is growing at over 700,000 new users everyday.  If Facebook was a country, it would be the 6th largest in the world.

So the goal for businesses shouldn’t be just to communicate with folks on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, and keep the conversation on those particular sites and try to offer products and services.  The goal should be to start a conversation with these people, add amazing value to people’s lives, then funnel them back to your blog (NOT a lead capture page) where you can add MORE value to their lives.   THEN, if you do a good enough job, you’ll have an opportunity to win over their business.

So has blogging been important to my business success, ABSOLUTELY.

Here’s some of just a few benefits of blogging for your brand or business:

- Brand awareness
- Traffic
- Research
- SEO (search engine optimization)
- Building relationships with your customers, clients or prospects
- Can review products or services in your industry
- Lost cost marketing
- Positioning you or your company as the “thought leader” in your niche
- Reputation management

How important has blogging been for YOU?  Would love to hear what your stories.

On this live show we talked about:

- Twitter Fight:  Ashton Kutcher and Larry King Ashton will be the 1st person to 1 Million Followers on Twitter
- Justin Brooke’s blog growing like crazy because of CONSISTENCY and CONTENT
- How I was voted Top 10 Internet Super Stars of 2009 (please vote for me at the bottom)
- Product Launches with Product Launch Rockstar, Chris Brisson
- I also showed off some AMAZING paintings by my friend David Garibaldi (follow him on Twitter)

Please use the RETWEET button up top and let your friends know.

Also, What did you like best about the interview with Chris Brisson?

Are you one who is carefully selecting the blogs you visit and comment on because they have ‘Do-Follow’ set up? Yes, I know, you get links this way – but are you really contributing to building a solid business and brand? If you are aiming for adding links in order to get better page ranking so that you can feed viewers to your ads, maybe you are gaining a little. But will they ever return? If you don’t make the effort to create value on your site, you will be forever seeking first time viewers because that’s all you will have – is that what you want?

I got started on this topic because of a post on one of the blogs I read pertaining to blogging. Blogger Maki of DoshDosh just put up a post titled, “The Unhealthy Obsession With Do Follow Links” which I suggest you go read right after you are done here. I won’t repeat everything he said here but just say, he poses the question of the validity of restricting yourself to commenting only on blogs with Do Follow set up for the express purpose of getting back links. And with the validity of the short spammy comments that don’t contribute to the conversation.

Now I’m certainly not going to try to put words in Maki’s mouth, you should read his post for yourself, but I can tell you my take on this, which I’m suspecting may not be too far off of his based on what he has said. With this obsession for link building many are fooling themselves into thinking they are actually building something that will last. First, I wonder how long it will take Google to come up with a method that detects and qualifies comments? They have already found ways to lock out other forms of spammy activity – can you say Google Slap!

Secondly, are you aware of how things are shifting within the online marketing world? With all the social networking sites exploding all around us people are showing that people respond to people more than some artificial hype. Is this full circle? We are back to basic word of mouth being the most potent mode of marketing. For years the internet marketing tried to cover over this with all the hype that was developed just to get eyeballs on to a page. However, if you are looking to build a real business with a meaningful brand this kind of focus is short sighted.

I have only been involved online and learning about online marketing for about 3 years but have seen major shifts take place in how it is being done successfully. Even the top ‘gurus’ in the niches most highly susceptible to hype style marketing, ‘Internet Marketing’ and ‘Work From Home’ have shifted to providing tons of quality information for free. It appears that the way forward if you want to build a brand for yourself and your business, is to be real, and provide quality and value.

And certainly one way to bring value to your site or blog and to the readers, is to actually participate in and contribute to discussions that benefit those people. When you put intelligent ideas in your comments readers will be more likely to follow your link to your blog to see what else of value you have to offer. I think, in the end, that a real human following from a comment is of higher value than a Google Bot. It’s real people who ultimately do business with us, are we assisting them with this action or are we hoping to accidentally capture them? Are you involved with what your audience needs and wants? Are you helping them get it? Are you directing them to other useful sources?

Here’s the trick, if you want to get good at something you must immerse yourself in it. And it can be very helpful to align yourself with others who are doing the same. You can actually kind of form a mastermind alliance with others just by who you associate with in your blogging. Follow those who are deeply in tune with and developing that which you are interested in and get involved by making comments on their blogs and making posts on your blog that really contribute to the conversation. And this must be more than, “really cool post man!” . . . ‘Dude’, come on, wake up!

If you are working on building yourself and your sites as your brand, the shallow comments will do you little good, in fact they will more likely knock you down a few points with your readers. You may not have figured this out yet, but if Google can program it’s computers to pinpoint the shams real humans can do it too – and usually quicker. Now if you are operating with a business model that only cares about traffic, any traffic, to get ad clicks, then the shallow, “cool man” comments will get you some mechanical links. Go for it, as long as it lasts.

But realize that at some point more bloggers will set up filters to not allow short comments – it’s only a matter of time. Because what happens on popular blogs is that someone who really cares about the topic and wants to learn more from reading the comments, like the author, must wade through all the trash. Just like the famed ‘Google Smack’ on all the trash site developers, the system, which here on the net is ultimately people, will tire of wading through the trash.

Get a clue from what is going on in the online world of business, people are fast realizing that the best way to build a business and a respectable brand is to be real. Sure we all click on ads and we marketers use ads, I don’t think that will go away, but the trend is towards offering quality and value.

Your blog readers will respect you far more if they see that you are involved with real meaty discussions with others that are adding value to the subject.

If you are afraid that you will loose your blog readers to another blog if you mention it in your posts, you are missing the big picture. You will gain more respect by leading them to other high quality resources, and if you are really contributing – they will have a reason to stay with you, both for your recommendations and your contribution. Short sighted fear will hold you back!

By getting involved in quality interactions with other bloggers you are creating collaboration,and through collaboration everyone wins. You really are tapping into the ‘mastermind’ concept even if not officially set up. When a group of minds get together on a particular subject they are each enhanced by the interaction. Ideas beget ideas and spark more ideas much faster than each individual can alone. And everyone reading this interaction gains more as well.

You can also apply all this too articles as well. Yes it’s great how you can get a nice link from posting an article on an article directory, but what you really want is real live readers that are impressed enough to click on the link at the bottom and go to your page. The article has already pre-qualified them, they are now a better viewer or your page than one that came from a search.

So, I guess the first thing to decide is, what is the business model you want to operate with? Will you continue to chase traffic alone or will you build a brand which becomes viral in it’s own right where people invite people.

John

]]> http://successfool.com/do-follow-blog-links-are-you-fooling-yourself/feed/ 7 http://successfool.com/most-awesomest-social-media-show-ever/ http://successfool.com/most-awesomest-social-media-show-ever/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:17:21 +0000 Alejandro Reyes http://successfool.com/?p=667

WOW.  Last night’s Live Broadcast of Successfool.com’s 1 Year Web Birthday was a HIT.  We interviewed some of the most amazing business folks online last night.

You heard me rant, you saw me dance, and you saw the passion last night no doubt.

Thanks so much for a great year and we’re doing it even bigger this year.

Hear interviews from:

Angel McClinton
Ed Dale
Coach Deb
Michelle MacPhearson
Sierra Friend
Lewis Howes
Preston Taylor
Justin Brooke

What was YOUR favorite quote or part of the show?  Leave your comments below & Tweet it up using the “Retweet” button up top.

Thanks

Wow, time fly’s when you’re having fun!!

This is a BIG DEAL to me and would mean a LOT if you came.

Successfool.com turns 1 this Wednesday, April Fool’s Day and I’m doing a LIVE Ustream Birthday Bash with all of my friends at 6pm Pacific  (9pm Eastern) time on Successfool.tv

Tweet this event by clicking here —>>> Tweet This!

Wednesday night we’re doing it REAL BIG, you’re invited!

Here’s what to expect on SuccessfoolTV:

- the Successfool Rants & Raves
- Free Book Giveaway
- Special Guests
- Discussion on how I built the Successfool Brand
- The State of the Fool

Tweet this event by clicking here —>>> Tweet This!

Make sure to to join the Facebook Fan Page as well Successfool Page on Facebook