We’ve already covered StumbleUpon in our series on Social Bookmarking. Now we are heading to one of my favorites for bookmarking: Delicious. I have to admit, I was completely turned off to this site by all the dots: del.icio.us. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it so I didn’t even want to figure out what it was. I’m so sad I waited so long!But very glad they moved away from the former format and are now simply Delicious. [Read more...]

This week we are exploring social bookmarking. Social bookmarking is a great way to keep track online of sites you like and a great way to drive traffic to your site. The first social bookmarking site we’ll look at is StumbleUpon. This site is fascinating and rather addicting.

Here’s how it works

You sign up for an account with StumbleUpon. You fill out your profile including keywords related to your interests. Now you have two options. [Read more...]

I was recently introduced to the term social bookmarking. As I’ve explored the networks associated with social bookmarking I’ve become a huge fan! Since social bookmarking has unique characteristics which differ from social networking, I thought it would be valuable to define social bookmarking and spend a few posts discussing social bookmarking sites individually.

What Is Social Bookmarking?

You’re surfing through the Internet. You find a blog and follow a link to another blog which links to another blog with a super perfect and timely post. You want to capitalize on this information in your own blog. You leave a great comment introducing yourself and find another interesting blog in the comments. You click on that link which leads to another link and before you know it, you have moved several blogs away from that awesome post. You try to retrace your steps but you can’t find that post anywhere. [Read more...]

Here’s a quick overview of social networking.

This video is a couple years old so we now have Twitter in the limelight while MySpace has lost popularity blog promotion.

Prior to watching this video, I hadn’t considered how our social network’s potential is hidden in real life.

For me, my local community is an important place to build readership and work with local brands. I need to be more proactive in uncovering these networks when I can’t access them on Facebook or Twitter.

What potential are you overlooking in your social network?

Some mom bloggers are struggling with a fear that they’ve sold out.

They started their blogs to share their lives and encourage other moms.  They didn’t really have any long range plans, they were just having a good time – making friends and oftentimes making a difference.

Over the last year or two we’ve seen a major invasion on the mom blogosphere.  Companies large and small realized that mom bloggers have influence and they wanted to tap into it.

That should have been good news for mom bloggers.  If a company wants to reach your readership, that should translate into some great advertising deals, right?

Rarely.

Instead of identifying key blogs and actually offering the mom blogger a paycheck to share the brand with their readers, we’ve seen something else entirely.

Instead of paying a mom blogger to share their readership – these companies offer them products to try and giveaway.  That doesn’t sound to bad, but after awhile – mom bloggers are realizing that it takes TIME to review these products, write up their review and put together the giveaways.

For some mom bloggers, the whole ‘product review’ thing has been filling their schedule for months now – taking them away from their kids and eventually stripping all the fun out of their blogging.  They’re getting burned out.

When I ask some of these mom bloggers why they keep doing it they all say the same thing – ‘I’m hoping it will lead to something bigger eventually.”

Bigger? I know what that means.  If they show that they can promote small stuff, maybe they’ll get to promote big stuff.  Maybe instead of getting free laundry soap – they’ll get a free washing machine!

Um… yeah.  Like that happens very often.

Maybe they’ll hit the big time and get sent on a trip to a theme part – without their kids.

Yep, that HAS happened.

These PR companies have done a number on our community, haven’t they?

They’ve got HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of moms pimping their products for free.  Everywhere you look there’s another mom blog running a contest to give something else away.  In most cases, the mom blogger hasn’t even been given the product herself.

It’s getting to the point where you don’t even CARE about the word giveaway.  They’re as common as dust.

No, mom – you’re not a sell out – but I’m sorry to say that you’ve definitely been sold out.

I have a challenge for you.

The next time a PR peep contacts you about running a giveaway – quote them a price for your time.

Seriously!  Figure out what you want for the hours you spend working on the project (the time away from your kids is valuable!) – not to mention for sharing your blog audience and Twitter followship. Write it up and send it as a reply to their pitch.

If all mom bloggers started doing that – maybe they’d get some respect for our community.

I’ve been doing this – and the response is humorous.

• “Oh, we don’t pay bloggers for reviews – that would send the wrong message.”
• “We don’t have a budget for that.”
• “We can’t offer you payment, isn’t having something to give your readers value enough?”

Please.  I’m tired of their excuses.  These companies spend a small fortune advertising in newspapers and on television.  They can afford to pay me for my time and if they choose not to – they don’t get time on my blogs.

Darren Rowse recently posted a “revolutionary” idea in niche blogging. He was interviewing a successful blogger when that blogger let slip he was part of a secret blogging alliance. Intrigued, Darren was able to pull 13 things these bloggers did together and for each other to help promote their blogs and increase not only traffic, but loyal readers.

Here are a few of my favorites

1. Commenting on each other’s blogs: They left comments that added to the discussion. They found that other people coming to the post were more likely to leave comments. The also realized that they were improving their writing because they knew these other experts in the niche would be reading and commenting on their posts.
2. Linking to one another: They linked to each other’s posts when they were relevant to their own readership. They could suggest a link that they wanted exposure for each week and if it was relevant on another blog, they’d help promote it. They found they were getting 2-3 links a week which significantly helped their google ranking.
3. Guest posting: They would post on each other’s blogs as a way to help each other out if one was on vacation. This helped them get exposure with different readers and build a relationship with them.
4. Monetization leads: The share a lot of information surrounding their monetization efforts. They tell each other when they sign up for a new affiliate program, how much they are making and how well it’s working. They also share what they are doing to improve their affiliate sales. One other thing they do I found really unique. They introduce each other to the advertisers they are working with. Instead of having a competitive result, these advertisers are often interested in working with several of the blogs.

Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness wrote about how these alliances are natural for book bloggers. This community seems to be a very collaborative group where most of them blog as a hobby. She mentioned a comment from Jackie that really hit home for me. Jackie “pointed out that women sort of naturally make groups, she said it’s funny that men have to organize them.”

I agree that women naturally find friends in their niche find ways to work together. I was happy to see that I had done a few things on the list so I know I’m headed in the right direction. But, there’s more that can be done if we come together and help each other.

Do you know who you would start a blogging alliance with?

You’ve probably seen a picture or image on the web and may have noticed it was .gif format. GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format, which basically means it is a compressed image file format.

The reason .gif is used more widely on the web is because the file size is smaller than a .jpg file and is faster and easier to load in your web browser.

GIFs are great for small icons and animated pages, but lack the color range for high quality photos.

If you have an image you want to use on your mom blog or web site that is in .jpg format, MS Picture Editor has a tool you can use to compress the image into a .gif file. If you don’t know how to do this or don’t have the time, you can hire a VA, such as myself, to do it for you.

JPG, pronounced “jay peg”, is one of the most common types of image formats used on the Internet. The format is either abbreviated as JPG or jpeg and comes from the name of the committee that created the standard, Joint Photographic Experts Group.

JPG technology was designed for compressing full-color or gray-scale images of natural, real-world scenes. It works well on photographs, naturalistic artwork and similar material.

As a blogger we are part of an online community. Since blogging is a social act, we often extend our social activity outside of our blog and venture into other communities like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and niche specific forums or communities.

As we visit each place, networking and building relationships with readers and fellow bloggers, we want people to know who we are from place to place. I want people to know that I am Amber Passey on Twitter and that I’m that same Amber Passey on Facebook.

There are two easy things you can do to be consistent which will help people recognize you as they move from community to community. By the way, as people connect with you in different communities they are able to see all the sides of you, your blog and your business. This builds trust as they see you be consistent in your values and behavior.

Step One: Choose the Same User Name

As you sign up for different communities, choose the same user name or ID to have appear next to your activity in the community. You can choose your name or your blog name. There are merits to each depending on your goals. But for branding yourself, the important key is to be consistent. [Read more...]

And benefit from it!

A while back Twitter parties hit their peak of popularity and then were criticized by severely for a variety of reasons. Namely that Twitter parties increase the number of conversations during a set time thus “polluting” the Twitter stream with irrelevant content. Another gripe is that Twitter parties promote brands in an ineffective way and just bug the people not interested in participating. One final complaint I saw a lot was that people participating in Twitter parties were often rude or aloof to questions about the Twitter party.

I explain all this so you understand the reputation these parties have developed for themselves in order that you can make an informed choice about attending or not attending a Twitter party. While I understand to some extent the complaints I’ve mentioned regarding Twitter parties, I believe there is merit to them, especially for Twitter users trying to find people to have conversations with.

How to Attend a Twitter Party

Refreshing your home page at Twitter.com is not going to cut it given the speed at which Twitter parties travel through the Twitter stream. [Read more...]

I found this terrific video that explains social media using a simple allegory.

It’s a great introduction to Social Media and will serve as a solid foundation for exploring this topic more in depth.

How do you participate in social media?

• Do you blog, podcast or vlog?
• Do you provide feedback?
• Do you use feedback to improve your business?

Taking the plunge into the Twitterverse can be a little intimidating, not to mention a bit overwhelming. By following these 5 steps when setting up your Twitter account, you’ll get started on the right foot and be one step closer to developing a strong presence on Twitter. By the way, the first four are what I look at in deciding to follow someone on Twitter. If they are missing this information, I usually don’t follow.

1. Choose Twitter ID

There’s a choice to make here. Do you use your personal name or your blog’s name for your Twitter ID? there are pros and maybe some cons to each. I use my name because I feel most like myself that way. Also, I want to be known as an expert in my niche and I want people to know MY name, not just my blog.

Using your blog name helps build the brand of your blog. It helps people connect that you on Twitter is the same as you on your blog. However, Twitter IDs are only 15 characters long so you may need to do some tweaking. [Read more...]

Hello, Profitable Mommy Blogging readers.

My name is Amber Passey and I am Kelly’s newest intern for this blog.

I have spent the last year learning the ins and outs of using social media to promote my blog and look forward to sharing exciting and effective tips with you over the next ten weeks.

A Little About My Life:

My family recently moved from Utah to Tennessee so my husband could attend medical school at Lincoln Memorial University-DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine. He is in his first year and has survived two rounds of tests. I stay home full-time with our two girls, Sammi age 3 and Elli age 1. Sammi just started preschool and is loving it. Elli started walking this past weekend and is ecstatic about her new freedom.

A Little About My Background:

I have studied human development and applied linguistics. I love teaching and have taught at a few universities. I am incredibly social. My mom always received notes from my teachers explaining that I talked too much during lessons. In post-school life this tendency has served me well! I got into blogging professionally last year and have enjoyed the journey.

A Little About My Blogging Life:

Through a completely different ambition, I found my way into the blogging world and landed among a wonderful community of bloggers in Utah. I have learned about various uses of social media from some of the top names and organizations in the industry. I have been invited to red carpet blogger events and other opportunities to promote local businesses.

What I Hope To Share.

I’m excited to share the lessons I’ve learned and the people and organizations who have taught them to me. I’ll be highlighting terrific resources and opportunities to improve the visibility of your blog. I’m excited to help you feel comfortable using social media to develop and promote your brand and your blog.

Did I miss anything? What questions would you like me to address? You can ask me anything about my own life and experiences or anything about blogging and I’ll do my best to get you the best answers possible. I’m looking forward to the next ten weeks. I hope you are, too.