Mediaboss Marketing

I was hoping to have a very special guest on TUAW TV Live today, but that fell through... What that means, since I'm not really up for blathering by myself for a full hour, is that we're going to have an open mic day on the show.

If you'd like to state an opinion, make a fool of yourself, talk about the iPhone 6S, recite bad poetry about Steve Jobs, complain about your hot iPad, or plug a new app that you wrote last night in your sleep, send me your Skype handle (tuawsteve at gmail dot com) ASAP and I'll get you scheduled for a quick chat (no more than ten minutes) on the show.

As usual, I'll be starting the show at 5 PM EDT (2 PM PDT / 10 PM BST) sharp, and we'll take a few minutes to chat before the demos start. To join in on the chat and watch the live streaming video, drop by TUAW about five minutes before the start time to get your instructions on how to participate. If you're unable to join us for the show, remember that you can always subscribe to the video podcast and watch the show at your leisure in iTunes or any other favorite podcatching app. The past shows are also available on the TUAW YouTube channel.

The chat is now available as well on IRC: join us on server chat1.ustream.tv, chat room #tuaw-tv.

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TUAW TV Live at 5 PM EDT: Open mic day

Regular readers of John Chow dot Com know about the plethora of resources and tips on this site. I have been a fan of Johns since the beginning and I am happy to say I have gotten to know him on a personal level the past two years as well. While John is known as the blogger who makes money online by telling people how he makes money online, I am known as the blogger who makes money online by eating hot dogs online. Another big fan of Johns is Kirk Taylor, in fact, Kirk and I met through John. We were both Gold Pass recipients in Johns Affiliate Summit contest for ASW 2011. We have kept an open channel of online correspondence over the past two years and this year, at Affiliate Summit West 2012, we solidified our friendship and became business partners.

Both Kirk and I have entrepreneurial backgrounds, albeit in different industries, but we share the passion of the pursuit. We both like creating things out of nothing to create a business. After Affiliate Summit, Kirk started a website called The Shark Tank Blog. He noticed that posts about the Shark Tank TV show were getting a lot of page views and commentary on his personal site, so he spun it into a site based solely on the show. The site grew at a rapid pace due to the shows growing popularity and Kirks relentless SEO work in the WordPress platform. Before long, he realized he needed some help to keep the site moving forward, so he reached out to me.

Now both Kirk and I have similar skill sets. We can both build a WordPress site, SEO it up and create content, but within those skill sets are different levels of skill. Kirk is a whiz at SEO and I am a prolific writer. We realized that these are complementary skills for creating a high traffic website, so we decided to team up and go into business together with The Shark Tank Blog being our first joint venture. The site has blown up. We have upgraded our server capacity twice in a month due to the traffic spikes on show nights. We are ranking above the fold for many keywords- sometimes even higher than the ABC site about the show.

Teaming up with another blogger with complementary skills is a good formula for success, particularly if you need to build a site out quickly. Some people will outsource portions of building out a site, but we didnt need to because we have all the skills needed to be successful between the two of us. My typical day working on the Shark Tank Blog has me writing two to four posts a day, interviewing people who have appeared on the show, soliciting advertising sales, and assisting Kirk with SEO duties. Kirk spends his day mired in Meta descriptions and code while writing the occasional post and double checking the SEO on my posts prior to publication. There is a synergy here that is working.

Other bloggers can learn from this. I know how hard it is to do everything for a website; it is an overwhelming task at times (especially when you consider I run about a dozen sites). Often times, the lack of time can lead to undone tasks which can ultimately cost you in traffic, readership, and MONEY. Once a sites income justifies outsourcing, then you can take some burden off yourself, but up until that point, its comforting to know you have back-up.

I also know about leveraging traditional media as a means for boosting traffic. As the lines between traditional media (i.e. TV, Newspapers) blur in the online world, it has become more common for traditional media to reach out to expert bloggers for material and partnerships. While we dont have a partnership with ABC, we do, in a sense, partner with the entrepreneurs who appear on the show. We give them a platform to speak to fans and a channel to get their marketing message out. What more targeted place to get a marketing message to people who are fans of Shark Tank than a fan blog- especially a fan blog that ranks high for the keywords the entrepreneurs are trying to rank for?

I am a firm believer in spending as little as possible to get a website going, so having a like minded business partner is a fantastic way to grow a business. Through working together the past two months, Kirk and I have come up with other online projects we are embarking on. The success of our initial project together insures we will be able to hire people to assist with the build out of new sites.

So if you are struggling with putting it all together while building your online empire, you may want to consider teaming up with another blogger with complementary skills. You never know where you will find new team members either; it could even be in the comments section of JohnChow.com!

Rob Merlino is the Hotdogman and Kirk Taylor is The Serial Entrepreneur. They have started a business together creating niche sites and building websites for small businesses. They met on John Chow dot Com!

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How To Team Up for Blogging Success

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va., March 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Internet marketing company Customer Magnetism recently created a visual guide to the maximizing the new Timeline layout for business pages. Created by the company's Social Media Manager, the template aims to make it easy for businesses to adjust to the new Timeline layout.

Many companies have already jumped on the opportunity to switch to Timeline. Facebook plans to require all businesses to switch by March 31, allowing only limited time to make what for some companies will be major changes. As a leading provider of internet marketing services, Customer Magnetism was quick to adapt when Facebook rolled out the new layout, quickly converting its own Facebook page to Timeline.

"Customer Magnetism provides cutting-edge search engine optimization and internet marketing services. When Google, Facebook, Twitter or any other internet marketing player makes a change, we don't just adapt to it. We optimize it," explains Aaron Leslie, President of Customer Magnetism. The template clearly reflects the time Customer Magnetism has spent studying the new Facebook. It includes specific information about dimensions and other technical elements alongside recommendations and other useful tips.

The Facebook Timeline Cheat Sheet is available as a download from Customer Magnetism's website http://www.customermagnetism.com/seoblog/social-media/facebook-timeline-cheatsheet/ or as a quick reference: http://www.customermagnetism.com/FacebookCheatTemplate/facebook-template-cheatsheet-2012.jpg

About Customer Magnetism: Customer Magnetism (http://www.customermagnetism.com) provides search engine optimization, pay per click management, web development, social media management, and other internet marketing services to clients worldwide. Customer Magnetism emphasizes effective and ethical techniques that get results, and has consistently been recognized by industry publications as a leading internet marketing firm.

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Customer Magnetism Helps Companies Optimize the New Facebook Timeline Brand Pages with Free Template

Written by Karen Kovacs Dydzuhn Wednesday, 21 March 2012 16:30

The proliferation of social media platforms is a by-product of ever-changing technology. Theres Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, and Tumblr, to name a few. However, Bill DeRosa, co-founder of Talking Finger, a social media marketing company, cautioned local business owners about utilizing social media unless theyre willing to invest time and effort.

The success of using social platforms depends upon how much you engage, DeRosa said at a recent business forum on social media marketing at Spadaccino and Leo P. Gallagher & Son Community Funeral Home. You have to be 100 percent committed.

Sponsored by the Power Network of the Monroe and Newtown Chambers of Commerce, DeRosas presentation was supposed to address the simple steps to social media, but he dispelled this notion at the outset of the morning workshop.

Not only do businesses need to commit to spending time on cultivating effective and appropriate social media platforms but they must also frequently post innovative and even quirky comments to keep people engaged.

In putting together a plan for social media, DeRosa recommended that traditional marketing tools, such as advertising, be integrated with a companys online presence.

DeRosa advised audience members to consider how their companies will use the data generated to build their businesses. When you build a synergy, social media creates a trust with traditional advertising and marketing, he said.

Clients get to know businesses through social media. In welcoming more than 50 business professionals to the workshop, Harriette Trevino, Power Network president and owner of Bulls Head Printers, said the networking group works because people like to do business with people they know, like and trust.

Building relationships

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Local businesses receive tips on using social media marketing; 'You have to be 100 percent committed,' they are told ...

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., March 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Wildfire, the leading provider of social media marketing software with over 13,000 paying customers, today announced that veteran enterprise software executive Doug Laird has joined the company as its chief marketing officer. Laird will be responsible for leading all global marketing efforts for Wildfire, defining the global market strategy and vision, branding, product positioning and segmentation, and demand creation.

Laird has been instrumental in helping many of the world's most successful B2B and B2C technology companies define their categories, drive growth, and become market leaders. His track record of success spans fast-growing industries such as CRM, business intelligence, online trading, and compliance. Laird's background includes a deep understanding of customer relationship management, analytics, and community, three key elements of social media marketing as brands look to better use customer information to business advantage.

Laird joins Wildfire from business intelligence software company QlikTech, where as vice president of global marketing he helped the company grow its annual revenue run-rate from $80 million to $321 million in three years, leading Gartner to call QlikTech a "marketing juggernaut." Laird also oversaw marketing strategy and demand creation during the company's IPO in July 2010, which was one of the top three best performing technology IPOs of the past two years.

Prior to joining QlikTech, Laird held executive-level marketing roles at SAP/Virsa, Siebel Systems and Oracle. At Oracle, Laird reported to future Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff, and helped increase Oracle's database market share from 15 percent to 35 percent.

"Doug's background makes him an ideal fit for Wildfire with expertise in CRM, analytics, and community building, Doug has a very deep understanding of three key building blocks that will help us take social marketing to the next level," said Victoria Ransom, founder and CEO of Wildfire. "Doug is also an expert in helping enterprise software companies define categories and establish market leadership, and he will be instrumental as we accelerate our growth and continue our push into the enterprise. We are thrilled to have Doug join the team."

"As a long-time technology marketer, I believe that social engagement is the marketing model of the future, and Wildfire is in the best position to capitalize on this trend and serve the market with its volume and velocity model, focused on small and medium-sized businesses with rapid movement into the enterprise. I've seen this approach succeed time and again with the world's top software companies, such as Salesforce.com, and it's clear to me that Wildfire has the same scalable model that will allow us to take advantage of this tremendous opportunity," said Laird. "Wildfire is a thought leader that is ushering in the new era of engagement marketing, and I'm excited to join the team at this pivotal point in the company's history."

About Wildfire

Wildfire is the global leader in social media marketing software, with over 13,000 paying customers worldwide, including 30 of the world's 50 most valuable brands. Wildfire's Social Marketing Suite combines best-of-breed social promotion and advertising software, robust mobile and desktop page management, messaging and sophisticated real-time analytics in one complete platform. Wildfire's powerful and intuitive software allows creative marketers and non-technical managers alike to create social campaigns and pages, communicate with their social audience and measure social media performance. Brands and agencies such as Facebook, Virgin, Amazon, Target and Ogilvy as well as thousands of small businesses use the Wildfire platform to engage with audiences on major social networks, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. The only social media marketing company to receive an investment from Facebook's fbFund, Wildfire has offices in California, Chicago, New York, London, Paris, Munich, and Singapore. For more information, please visit http://www.wildfireapp.com.

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Wildfire Hires Industry Veteran Doug Laird as CMO to Drive Growth and Leadership in the Social Media Market