I have been hearing about Klout.com for awhile, and I’ve been seeing those +K tweets on Twitter and wondering what that was all about. Well, now I have a new social media addiction thanks to my friend, LaShanda Henry of Sistasense.tv. She talked about Klout.com in a the SistaSense Circle group coaching program that I belong to.
Klout is a social media site that measures and identifies your social influence in social media. You can join for free and set up a profile. You give the app permission to link to your Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook profiles and then it uses that information to give you a score between 1 and 100. When I first joined Klout back in July I had a score of 38. Today my Klout score is 51–solidly in the middle of the pack.
I’m not quite sure how I feel about Klout yet, but I am learning about how it works and how I can leverage its features to get more exposure online.
One of the fun features is the ability that I mentioned earlier, which is to give people “+K’s,” which is kind of like the “thumbs up,” that the “Like” button on Facebook represents.
You can give people a +K to show your appreciation if they shared some of your content with their network, or if they shared something of someone else’s that you found useful. A +K can serve as a thank you for being helpful to you, or as an encouragement to keep up the good work they’ve been doing, or if they have influenced you in some way. +K is not about boosting your Klout score. It’s just about providing a medium for users to engage and build community around their topics of interest.
- Here’s how to give your peeps a +K on Klout:
- Log in to your Klout.com account
- Type in the Twitter.com username of the person you’d like to give a +K to
- Now you will see their Klout profile. In the area where it lists what that person is influential about, click on the “see all. . .” link. Now you’ll find a list of their topics and you’ll see the “Give +K” button to the right of each topic.
Once you’ve given them a +K you can then Tweet about it, or post a Facebook status update about it.
So far I’m finding Klout to be fun. I guess if and when I manage to boost my score beyond 51 I will see if it does anything to drive more traffic to my site, or increase my social medial following.
If you’re on Klout and want me to +K you, leave a comment. My Twitter username is @evelynwrites if you feel like returning the favor.
Ebooks, or electronic books have been popular in the world of Internet marketing for years, but recently, with the exponential growth of electronic ebook readers such as the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook, ebook sales have surpassed sales for hard cover books as the price for these ebook readers drops making them more affordable to a wider audience. The Kindle app, which is available on PCs, smartphones and tablets makes it possible to read Kindle titles without even needing to purchase the Kindle ebook reader device.
This represents an amazing opportunity for content publishers to gain a wider audience for their ebooks. It also represents a great opportunity for writers who are looking to get their books published and into the hands of readers.
If you have already created ebooks and you are selling them from your website, you can easily convert that content to the Kindle ebook format and offer them for sale in the Kindle marketplace. Amazon will take a percentage of the sale, but it works out great because you do not have to worry about generating traffic, dealing with customer service issues, or shipping books.
Another avenue for writers and content publishers is the Kindle Single, which is for shorter works from 10,000 to 30,000 words. Amazon describes a Kindle Single as, “a compelling idea – well researched, well argued, and well illustrated – expressed at its natural length.” Kindle Singles offer writers the chance to get their not-quite-booklength works out there so that they can find their audience. This is a new format and it will bear watching to see how popular these Singles turn out to be.
In addition to creating and selling your ebooks on Amazon, you can also sell subscriptions to your blog. Amazon will sell the subscription at either $.99 or $1.99. Subscribers can then access your blog directly on their Kindle as they are automatically delivered wirelessly with offline access to your blog posts.
Because of the rising popularity of the ebook format, there will be steeper competition for readers. Writers and publishers will need to create compelling titles and market them effectively in order to gain visibility in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
The first step for getting your content published and available on the Kindle platform is to open a free account at, kindlepublishing.amazon.com. After you set up your account there are tutorials and support forums inside that will help you to get your book properly formatted, uploaded and available for purchase.
Do you have ebooks that have been languishing on your site that could benefit from the additional exposure of the Kindle marketplace? Do you have an idea for an ebook that you’d like to publish, but don’t have the time or the desire to write it yourself? I have ghostwritten and published several titles for my clients on the Amazon Kindle, and I’d be glad to help you convert your existing ebooks to Kindle and get them uploaded and available for sale, or I’d be happy to discuss writing an ebook for you that you can publish on Kindle.
Related posts:
Ghostwriting Revisited: A Roundup of Resources for Hiring and Working with a Ghostwriter
Content Creation Workshop: How Many Ways Can You Re-Purpose Your Blog Content for More Traffic, Links and Sales?
Now that Facebook has become such a fixture in both the business and personal lives of hundreds of millions of us around the globe, the question of how to keep your business and personal worlds from colliding on Facebook is one that eventually pops up.
Create a company Facebook Page
The first step is to follow Facebook’s terms of service and use a free fan page or company page to do business on Facebook, and use your personal profile for communicating with your friends and family. Yes, the personal profile is far better suited to engaging with your audience, but there’s no use investing a lot of time and effort building up a business following on your personal profile if it will get you shut down. I personally know of at least one author and speaker who had a huge Facebook following on her personal profile and Facebook shut her down completely.
Once you’ve created your company page, the best way to get an initial influx of ‘Likes,’ is to invite your friends to ‘Like’ your company page. But first you’ll want to get a nice supply of posts in there so that they have something interesting to read and comment on.
Segment your friends into lists
If your Facebook profile is anything like mine, it’s a mixture of family, friends, former co-workers, current business contacts and other random people. In order to create some kind of boundary–if that is what you want to do–you can first segment your people into lists. Going forward you can pop new friends into the appropriate list or create a new list. (Google+ style 
On your profile page click on ‘Account’ in the upper right-hand corner of the page and then click on ‘Edit Friends,’ from the dropdown menu that will appear. You will see a friend’s photo on the left and a ‘Friends,’ button on the right. Click on the ‘Friends’ button and another dropdown menu will appear with several lists along with the option to create a new list.
Let’s create some new lists. You may have current customers and clients, colleagues and prospective customers as Facebook friends. You can decide how you are going to divide people up. Give each list a name and then as you go down your list of friends, click on which list you are going to add them to. Be mindful that when you create these lists that Facebook will sometimes send them a notification that they have been added to a particular list. Just be careful what you name your lists and this information is not for your eyes only.
Choosing who sees which status updates
Now that you have placed your friends in lists you can decide who sees specific status updates. When you send a notification about a company event, your aunt Sadie in Buffalo doesn’t need to see that.
When you click on the box on your profile that asks, “What’s on your mind?” you’ll see a down arrow to the left of the ‘Post’ button. When you click on that down arrow a dropdown menu appears allowing you to select which list you want this update to go to.
If you don’t want to go to the trouble of segmenting your Facebook friends into separate lists, or if you are of the mind that you are your brand and that personal and business can mingle happily, then you might want to send a note to those contacts who are interested in your business activities inviting them to join your company page and include a link to it.
Of course, who knows how long these instructions will be valid because Facebook is constantly changing its layout and features, which should serve as a reminder that you don’t own or control your Facebook profile, so always create ways to bring your friends to your blog or website and encourage them to sign up for your email newsletter so that you can stay connected.
One of my major priorities in my business is to never stop learning about how to grow my business, improve my process and learn new strategies. Towards that goal I am part of a Mastermind/ Group coaching program with the fabulous LaShanda Henry of the SistaSense.com blog and MyBBWO.com.
In last week’s meeting she challenged this amazing group of women to move beyond our comfort zones, spark some innovation and plot our own strategies for world domination. One the challenges that she threw down to the group was to create a video asking our audience what questions they would ask if given the opportunity. So, I recorded this video this morning. Please take a moment to watch it and leave a question or a comment on the blog, or email me your questions.
In case you didn’t realize this, Facebook uses an algorithm to filter or sort what shows up in your news feed when you log in to your Facebook personal profile. The status updates, the photos, and videos are just a sampling of all of the content that your friends are sharing. Depending on how many friends you have, it would be overwhelming if you just saw everything unfiltered. That filtering is influenced by EdgeRank, which has a formula associated with it. Let’s delve into EdgeRank a bit and find out how you can use your new knowledge about it to boost your visibility on Facebook.
The news feed that you see on your Facebook profile uses various criteria to decide what will be displayed for you. Techcrunch calls EdgeRank the, “Secret Sauce,” of Facebook’s news feed, so let’s break EdgeRank down:
When you add your content to Facebook, whether it’s a status update, photos, videos, or notes, each of these bits of content are called, “objects.”
As your friends interact with the object you posted by either “Liking,” it, sharing it, or commenting on it, they are adding what’s called an “edge,” to the object. Each subsequent interaction adds additional edges to the object boosting its Edgerank and increasing the liklihood that it will show up in the news feed of the friends you converse with on Facebook.
Facebook has publicly shared the basic EdgeRank formula, although they have not shared exactly how they use it: EdgeRank= u * w * d
Where u= the affinity score between viewing user and edge creator, w= weight for this edge type (create, comment, like, tag, etc.) and d= time decay factor based on how long ago the edge was created.
So, the basic components of EdgeRank are affinity, weight and time.
Affinity is Facebook’s one way measure of one user toward another–but not vice versa. Weight is applied to each object to determine its EdgeRank. The type of content you post matters when it comes to weight. Photos and videos have greater weight than links and status updates, but engagement–actually taking the time to comment adds tremendous value because it does not take much thought or effort to click the ‘Like’ button. Time is key because we all want to read what’s fresh and up-to-the-minute rather than looking at old news.
Now that you get what makes up EdgeRank, let’s look at how to determine what yours is currently.
You can’t improve what you don’t measure, so let’s first get a benchmark for what your EdgeRank score is right now. Visit, http://edgerankchecker.com. to find out what your score is now and get tips for improving it.
Here are some practical ways you can use it to boost the visibility if the objects that you share on Facebook:
1. Post more photos and videos
Photos and videos attract users and get more likes and comments
2. Find ways to encourage interaction with your friends
One way to elicit interaction is to ask open-ended, or provocative questions. Ask for a comment other than just clicking the “Like” button
3. Sprinkle your content throughout the day & include links in your posts
Posting a quick status update in the morning is not going to be sufficient if your goal is to increase exposure and results on Facebook.
4. Use Facebook’s survey feature to ask relevant, compelling questions
No on wants to respond to a lame survey. Ask interesting questions that your audience will care about and want to get answers to in your polls.
Use these tips to maximize the power of Facebook by boosting your visibility in the news feed. Boosting your EdgeRank will get you a better return for the time you invest on Facebook.
Got a Facebook marketing tip to share? Please feel free to leave it in the comments.
You are on the web because you want more visibility and more sales for your business, right? Well, what better way to get more visibility than notifying the media and the search engines about a new development or event related to your business? That’s what you accomplish when you write and distribute a press release.
Writing and submitting press releases has more far reaching benefits than just the exposure that you could get for your business if a reporter picks it up and does a news story on you. Press releases can really help to boost your website’s search engine rankings from all of the relevant, high page-rank websites that your release will be published on.
Each time you submit a press or media release you’ll get a ton of fresh back links pointing at your site, which makes it look more important to the search engines. In this article we’ll take a look at two different approaches to writing and submitting press releases for your business, the benefits of each approach, and you’ll get some cool resources that will help you improve the quality of your press releases.
Resources for writing your press release:
The first thing you must keep in mind when you are writing your press release is that the language can not be ‘salesy’ or promotional. A press release is not an ad for your business. Your goal is to get a reporter to find what you are writing about interesting enough to their readers or viewers that they want to do a story on your business.
There is a standard format for a press release that you must follow. You can download a press release template and use that as a framework for adding your content. Keep your target audience in mind when you are writing and keep the language spare and absolutely hype-free.
Here’s a fabulous website that has lots of resources for you if you are going to try to write your own press release:
http://www.press-release-writing.com/press-release-writing-tips-sample-press-release/
These next two resources I got from Nancy Juetten, who is an absolute publicity passionista:
This, ‘Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer,’ is a free tool that will analyze your headline and given a score according to its emotional marketing value.
http://www.aminstitute.com/headline/index.htm
HubSpot’s Press Release Grader evaluates your press release and provides a marketing effectiveness score.
http://www.pressreleasegrader.com/
Submitting a press release for media exposure for a major event or new development
If you are hosting a major event and you are looking to get media coverage, submitting a press release is the best way to accomplish tat goal. However, while the PR submission service can guarantee that your press release gets delivered, they cannot guarantee that reporters will do a story about your event.
When you are trying to get exposure for your event, submitting your press release to a well-known, reputable pr service gives your release a better chance of being picked up by reporters. The better known services have established a reputation, and reporters are more likely to run with something from prweb.com, or prnewswire.com than from one of the thousands of free press release submission websites online.
Here’s a list of specialty press release distribution resources:
http://www.yudkin.com/resources.htm
Submitting a press release for SEO purposes
If your goal is to get lots of relevant backlinks for your website, gain more exposure online and boost your website’s SEO, then you should be submitting press releases to the free press release distribution sites on a regular basis.
These are just a few of the hundreds of free press release distribution websites:
- prlog.com
- freepressindex.com
- free-press-release.com
Would you like to see how your website is currently measuring up to your competition? Type your site’s primary keyword into a search engine. Are you are the top of the search engine results page, or is your competitor there above you?
Writing and distributing press releases is a powerful way to help build a ton of high page rank back links to your site, while generating massive exposure and traffic.
Can you see now what an effective tool press releases can be? Whether you are looking for media attention for an event or if you just want a SEO boost for your website, submitting press releases can accomplish either task for you.
If after reading all about how press releases can help your business, you understand what a great benefit they could be, but you’re thinking about how many other things you have to do and how much you dislike writing, I’ve got a solution for that too–Hire me to write it for you. Shoot me an email at ebb567 {AT} gmail {DOT} com and I will send you all the details.
Do you have a success story related to media coverage that you got from submitting a press release? Please leave a comment and share your story.
One thing that you will learn as you are growing your online business is that it is important to have mentors. I consider the best mentors to be those people who you admire who have achieved the goals that you are seeking to achieve. You watch what they do and model their success. One of the people that I have watched and admired is Connie Ragen Green. I have been on her email list for awhile and she is one who likes to teach others how to do what she does so that they can get good results.
Today, Connie sent out an email inviting her subscribers to visit her blog and take her 21 Day Productivity Challenge. You know that I’m all about challenging yourself to achieve more than you thought possible. I read her post and I liked it so much and thought it so useful that I’m sharing a link with you. I’ve already started a 30 day challenge for August, so I won’t be taking this on right now, but I will keep this in mind for later on in the year when I need to kick-start things around here.
Go take a look and give her challenge a go:
http://www.hugeprofitstinylist.com/21-day-productivity-challenge/
Even if you don’t do all 21 days, you will learn some valuable information. Already I’m going to borrow her idea and come up with a challenge of my own to help those who want to get started with online freelance writing.
Who are your mentors? What kinds of challenges are you taking on to stretch yourself? Share the details in the comments.
Book Review: Conscious Language: The Logos of Now –The Discovery, Code, and Upgrade to Our New Conscious Human Operating System
By Robert Tennyson Stevens
Mastery Systems, LLC, 2007
Each of us uses words to communicate with each other to describe how we think and how we feel. We use words to make sense of our world and our place in it. In Conscious Language, Robert Tennyson Stevens explores how becoming aware of how our language—the words we choose and use in every interaction and those we speak to ourselves—shapes our thoughts, which in turn shapes our life situations. By bringing awareness to the ineffective ways that we have been using language, and learning subtle “upgrades,” we can transform our lives from living the mundane status quo to living up to our dreams, goals and desires.
Using the metaphor of a computer operating system, (our Human Operating System) Stevens teaches readers how upgrading to utilizing a more conscious language can eliminate those limiting belief systems that we have concocted with our thinking.
While the subject matter of Conscious Language is nothing less than mind blowing, it is written in a clear, easily understood style. At times I found myself laughing out loud and other times my world was rocked by the profound nature of what Stevens shares in this book.
Based on 37 years of research, study, teaching workshops and coaching groups and individuals, Conscious Language is a guide for those who understand the power of language to transform experience.
On page 71, Stevens writes:
“Language is the medium of thought. Thought is the medium of our reality. Changing our language medium “can” change our thought which, “potentially” changes our reality.”
I enjoy how Stevens bases his work on the language code of Biblical scripture without preaching or making his work unappealing to non-religious readers. While he was writing this book he was guided to this particular scripture in the book of Job 22:28,
“Thou shalt decree a thing and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways.”
Conscious Language is one of several books and home study courses on conscious language that is offered by Stevens’ company called, Mastery Systems, including Sacred Body Language Translations.
I recommend this book for those on a spiritual path who are looking for clarity in the what they communicate with themselves and with others. This book will expand your awareness of how, “. . . our language will expand with our consciousness and how our consciousness will expand with our language.”
No, I have not switched this to a fitness blog. What I mean by stretching yourself is reaching beyond your comfort zone just a bit to step up to your next level of greatness. We are entering a new month and nearing the end of the third quarter of the year. It’s time once again to consult your goals and see where you can take your achievement to a higher level.
On my personal blog, evelynbourne.com, I wrote a post today about doing 30 day challenges as a way to kick your goal achievement into a higher gear. I want to invite you to read that post and then visit my Facebook page and leave a comment if you are ready to take on your own personal 30 day challenge, or if you just want to put in a supportive word for those of us who are doing our own personal challenges.
Stretching yourself is about letting go of your old routines and trying something new. If fear is rearing its head and keeping you in your place, remember that everything you want is on the other side of what you fear. One of the pre-eminent philosophers of the 19th century, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Do the thing and you will have the power.” You can’t sit back and wait until you feel more confident. It’s in the doing of what makes you quiver a bit that gives you the confidence you need.
You want me to go first? OK. This summer I slayed a personal demon by walking over a bridge. No big deal, you might say, but I have had a phobia about even driving over bridges. But this summer I was forced to just get over it, and with the help of two supportive friends I eliminated that fear from my life.
Tonight I am preparing to give my fifth speech at my Toastmasters club. I have set the goal to achieve my Competent Communicator designation this year, and this presentation marks the halfway point to that goal. Public speaking is one of those things that some people fear more than death. I am determined to hone my skills so that I can eventually add public speaking to my list of skills. I hope to speak at events and lead workshops. Each time I do a speech I can feel my confidence growing and my skills improving.
So, as this year whizzes by us all, I invite you to stretch yourself. Try something small at first to build your confidence and then start going for your big goals. The time will pass regardless. Do you want to get to the end of another year full of regrets, or feeling flush with excitement about how much progress you have been able to make because you simply refused to quite moving forward?
Please feel free to share how you have been stretching yourself lately in the comments.
Here’s a copy of the review I posted about this book on Amazon.com:
Creating Sales Velocity: Awaken Your Power to Attract Sales Effortlessly
by Matthew Ferry, Spirit Publishing, LLC
First, I will say that I don’t remember ever ordering this book, so when it arrived in the mail I was a bit puzzled. I was intrigued by the subtitle: A Pocket Guide to Becoming a Conscious Salesperson. I don’t really consider myself to be a salesperson, but as a business woman, sales is definitely part of what I do, so I decided to read it and see what it had to offer, and boy was I in for a surprise.
Don’t be misled by the title because this little book is really about how to become a better conscious creator in all aspects of life not just in the arena of sales. Written by Matthew Ferry, who calls himself a, “Happiness Expert,” Creating Sales Velocity contains several simple processes which Ferry calls games that help the reader develop their ability to manifest what they want. When you become a more conscious creator and you are manifesting your desires through service to others, happiness is a natural by-product.
If you are a sales person looking to step up your game, I imagine that reading this book and putting the processes into action will transform your career and your life. Ferry writes about making a contribution rather than making sales. He shares concepts such as, ‘The shift from self-absorption to awareness of others, taking responsibility for everything, and the fact that action does not get results just might rock your world a little bit.
Ferry manages to cram an abundance of practical wisdom into this little guide book. As I read this powerful book I could feel the love and devotion that Ferry has for his readers. Here’s an example:
“Ultimately your time spent selling each day is a journey towards uplifting the planet. You are, now more than ever, experiencing your job as an opportunity for conscious growth and development. You have discovered that peace in every situation brings incredible productivity. You’ve found that acceptance is the most persuasive tool in the toolbox, and clearly the most important person for you to accept is you.”
Let me include a word of warning here: If you are not ready to move to a higher level, to let go of your lame excuses for why you are not where you want to be and take full responsibility for your results then don’t bother picking up this book. But if you want to become a more conscious creator of your own experience, contribute to the world and create a tidal wave of abundance then you are ready for this powerful little book that will transform your thinking and help you to embrace the perfection in everything.
