What’s New This Week?

Social media channels this week were among the first to reveal the passing of one of the world’s greatest innovators—Steve Jobs.

Social Media Examiner’s founder Michael Stelzner was on a webinar with Guy Kawasaki, former Apple chief evangelist, just as the news broke.  Here are Mike’s words:

Ten minutes before Guy Kawasaki was to keynote Facebook Success Summit 2011, Guy said to me, “Mike, we have a problem…”  I said, “Guy, what??” My heart started pumping hard.  He said, “Steve Jobs died…” I was shocked, and didn’t believe him at first! He said, “Go to CNN.com”  Knowing that Guy was the former evangelist for Apple and that Guy had a very strong connection to Steve, many things started going through my head “What do I do…”  Guy said, “Do you think it is appropriate that I talk about Facebook marketing or my life experience with Steve Jobs.” After some discussion, I decided it was best to let Guy share what was on his mind and heart.

What follows is Guy talking about how Steve Jobs was his hero and how Steve has forever changed business:

Listen to Guy Kawasaki pay a tribute to Steve Jobs and answer questions from callers.

Keep reading to discover other social media news from the past week…

Google Analytics Now Gives You Real-Time Data: Up until now, Google Analytics gave you data that was 24 hours old, and many users appreciated the value provided by this free tool. Today it gets better: marketers can now enjoy real-time results with Google Analytics Real-Time.

Google Analytics Real-Time gives you a set of new reports that show what's happening on your site as it happens.

Google Brings Webmaster Tools to Google Analytics: All Google users can now “surface Google Search data in Google Analytics by linking their Webmaster Tools accounts.”  This gives you a new Search Engine Optimization section with a series of reports to help you with your social media monitoring.

To start using the reports, you first need to link your Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools accounts.

Google Analytics Introduces a Premium Plan: The two Google Analytics features mentioned above are free. But Google Analytics also launched a premium plan for companies interested in even more data.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNIQ7lxIXxg

Businesses Can Now Post Updates On Their LinkedIn Company Pages:  LinkedIn’s new company status updates now “let members receive further insights — breaking news about the company, employee moves, relevant job opportunities or the latest on their products and services including multimedia content — directly from the companies they follow.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMknZutnVWE

Google+ Lets You Disable Comments & Lock Posts: Google+ users now have more control before sharing their posts.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5b2fFN0t5A

SlideShare Improves Zipcast: This free web meeting platform now allows you to schedule your Zipcast meeting in advance, and send email invitations to prospective attendees.

Your Zipcast attendees can RSVP to your invitation, giving you a sense of who and how many will attend.

Digg Opens Newsrooms to Everyone: This new feature aims to provide users with a tool for finding the best news. The Newsrooms allow you to look for news by topic. You cannot yet create your own newsroom, but you can easily follow any of the available newsrooms.

Newsrooms are still in beta.

Flickr Reaches a Milestone of 200 Million Creative Commons Photos: Flickr now has over 200 million public creative commons licensed photos. This makes Flickr the largest CC photo repository in the world.

Browse Flickr and search for CC photos by license. Flickr image by Abaconda.

Here’s a cool infographic worth noting:

How Small Businesses Are Using Social Media:

A look at social media use by small businesses.

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

In this interview we talk about what makes for great content, how he came up with the title of his latest book, what Enchantment means for business, why businesses need to embrace nobodies and how he promoted his book. (Be sure to listen to the MP3 of this interview below.)

Mike: Most of our readers are marketers and business owners. Can you explain what Alltop does for them and why they might find it useful?

Guy: One of the functions of marketers, PR people and social media people is they need to keep on top of things.

The vision of Alltop was that we should aggregate RSS feeds for people by topic and create essentially an online magazine rack so that you could go to one place and say, “Okay, these are all the social media blogs and websites aggregated in one place.” It’s the five most recent stories from each source, and we give you a preview of the first paragraph of each story so you can see if you really want to click through.

This way, if your audience went to social-media.alltop, for example, they would see several hundred sources aggregated in one place, the five most recent stories from each source, and in seconds they could scan through hundreds of stories and get a good feel for what’s going on. That’s the vision of it.

Mike: Now you can create your own custom Alltop, right? How does that work?

Guy: Yes. We have about 850 topics ranging from adoption to zoology. A person who has a greater interest than just social media might have a few favorite tech blogs. Maybe the person has a desire to adopt kids, is a foodie, is a Macintosh user and is a real hockey buff. So he or she would want a couple of hockey blogs, a couple of tech blogs, a couple of social media blogs, some food blogs, an adoption blog, and that would be the person’s custom magazine rack. What we let you do is select from any of the 40,000 blogs that are at Alltop, and you can create what’s called “My Alltop.” That’s your custom magazine rack.

The difference between us and Google Reader is Google Reader says, “We’re giving you a container. Fill it up.” We say, “We have preselected 40,000 blogs for you. Just click on a plus sign and you’ll subscribe and create your own shelf.”

Mike: Obviously, you’re looking at a ton of content, and Alltop is really not just any content—it’s from the best content providers. Thinking about content, in your opinion, what do you think makes good content? What separates the best of the bunch? What makes certain blogs stand out?

Guy: For me, one of the easiest, quickest and most effective ways to determine if content is really useful is if it uses either unordered or ordered lists; i.e., bullets or numbers. Maybe it’s just my mind, but whenever I go to a blog post and I see 1), 2), 3), 4), 5) or bullet, bullet, bullet, my mind says, “Better organized, better thought out, more easy to use.”

When I go to a blog post that’s just paragraph after paragraph with nothing in bold and no sort of navigation tips, it’s hard to find the value. The ones I hate the most are “How to Be a More Effective Social Media Marketer” and you go to the post and it’s just paragraphs. There are no bullets. So you have to dig out of each paragraph what the tips are. Where are the tactical, actionable items? I think one very good indicator of a good blog post is, “Is it in bullet list format?”

Lots of people say, “Guy, that’s such a superficial way to look at things,” and “It’s not my style to write in bullet points,” but try looking at the world through the bullet point filter, and I think you’ll see that the best information is bulleted.

Mike: I’ve often said that I think the path to the mind is through the eyes, so if you can get the attention of an eyeball through formatting, then ultimately you can ensure your content makes its way into the minds of people. I think what you’re saying resonates true. It’s all about the way it’s presented, first and foremost. And you know, if it’s crappy content, then people won’t pay attention to it, but if it’s great content and it’s presented in a way that accommodates the eye, then I think you’ve got a magic formula.

Guy: With a bulleted list, I would make the case that even if it’s crappy content, it will be easier to determine it’s crappy with a bulleted list because you won’t have to dig through the crappy paragraphs to determine it’s crappy. You could just glance at a bullet, which is much faster.

Mike: Most of us are becoming inundated with content, so we have to make it easier for people to digest, and that’s where bullets come in.

Guy: I think a second and related point to this is that the greatest headlines to me are “Top 10 Tips…”, “How To…”, and “The Art Of…”. It happens that I’m a very tactical, action-oriented person. I’m looking for ways to do things better. Just give me what to do, tell me the 10 things to do.

Mike: Let’s talk about your story a little bit. Let’s talk about Enchantment. What is that word in your mind? What does it mean? Why did you choose it for your book? It’s quite an interesting word.

Guy: Well, I came at it from two directions. One very pragmatic, which is I needed a word that Guy Kawasaki could own in the same sense that Tom Peters owns the word excellence and maybe Geoffrey Moore owns the word chasm and Clayton Christensen owns the words innovator’s dilemma. Everybody has his or her word, and I needed a word.

The genre of this kind of writing is influence or persuasion, and those kinds of things.

Mike: Cialdini has the word influence, right?

Guy: Right. Cialdini owns influence. He’s also my friend, so I’m not going to try to steal the word from him. So when it came right down to it, coming from that pragmatic direction, enchantment was the word.

Coming from the other direction, which is a more philosophical direction, I wanted a word that went beyond influence and beyond wooing and beyond persuading. I wanted something that took it to the next level. It’s one thing to influence another person—it’s another thing to enchant the person.

Mike: What does that mean, especially for a business?

Guy: I think that a business that enchants a customer has a customer who’s beyond loyal. It’s delight. You can influence me and you can woo me and you can persuade me, but when you enchant me, that means that I’m head over heels in love. It’s the difference between like and love.

Mike: I think of Walt Disney World fans. People who are fans of Disney are enchanted, and they’ll do anything to participate in any of those kinds of activities endorsed by Disney because they’ve been enchanted, right?

Guy: Yes, and of course, the greatest example of all is Apple. What other company gets people to buy a phone that can barely go one day without charging, and that has the worst (until a few weeks ago) carrier in the world exclusively? That’s the power of enchantment. Anybody can sell a great phone with a great carrier.

Mike: What’s the benefit to a business of enchanting its customers?

Guy: Two levels. One is loyalty, repeat business, forgiveness at times. It just makes sense to have this relationship, this Nordstrom-esque kind of relationship with your customer. So that’s an obvious sort of business return, bottom-line answer. But I also think there’s a higher-level answer, which is that it’s a lot more fun to have a customer relationship based on enchantment rather than arm’s-length, sort of tit-for-tat, quid pro quo. I think that permeates the entire organization.

That’s a very different attitude than, “Oh, let’s just get up and see what our click-through rate is, and can we get a better CPM deal? How are we being rated in a statistical survey?” It’s a very different outlook on life.

Mike: Well, in Chapter 4 of your book, since we’re talking about Apple, you say the following about Steve Jobs: “Steve Jobs can enchant the shell off an egg without disturbing the yolk. But without Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, or iPad, Steve wouldn’t have anything to sell.”

You worked for Apple and you worked with Steve. Can you talk to me a little bit about the connection between being enchanting as Steve Jobs is, as you talk about him in your book, versus having something that is enchanting? What’s more important?

Guy: Neither, or both, actually. A great enchanting person with nothing to sell has nothing to sell. And a great product, without people who can enchant people and evangelize people to embrace, it is also a half-completed project.

Apple has this sweet spot of a CEO who really can enchant people with just his keynotes alone, and he has an enchanting product. So if you said to me, “Guy, you can either have an enchanting person or an enchanting product. Pick one,” I would pick the product. I would say, “Give me an enchanting product and then I can train people to be enchanting with it.” Whereas, if you give me enchanting people but a crappy product, it’s a lot harder to fix the product.

Mike: What makes an enchanting person?

Guy: I think an enchanting person starts off with a fundamental basis of being likeable. If you think about it, have you ever been enchanted by someone you can’t stand? Probably not.

The second component is trustworthiness, because you can like a person—you can like a Hollywood star, or their persona anyway—but that doesn’t mean you trust them. So the second component is trustworthiness.

The example I cite in the book of trustworthiness and competence and likeability is someone like Terry Gross of NPR. I don’t know her personally, but in listening to her on Fresh Air, you have a very good sense of her that she really is competent. She really can conduct a great interview across many, many subjects. She’s laughing, she’s teasing. You have a sense that she’s just not reading off a teleprompter that some producer put up 30 seconds ago.

So it’s between likeability and trustworthiness and knowledge and competence. And the difference between knowledge and competence is that knowledge is what you know, competence is the ability to apply it. A knowledgeable, competent, likeable, trustworthy person is enchanting.

Mike: Now let’s flip it over to the enchanting product. What are some qualities of an enchanting product? Can you give us some examples?

Guy: Sure, there are basically five or so key elements to the product. The first is depth—a product that is feature-rich. It does a lot.

The second thing is that it’s intelligent in the sense that its makers have intelligently figured out the customers’ problem and a solution to their problem, maybe even before the customers have.

The example I like to cite is that Ford Motor Company has a product called MyKey. What that enables you to do is program the top speed that the car can go. Imagine if you bought a really hot Mustang and you had to loan the car to your teenage son. You could program it so that the car could go no more than 60 miles an hour. I think that’s a really brilliant idea!

The next quality is completeness. Great products, enchanting products, they’re not just a physical entity and they’re not just a download. There’s a totality of the experience, which would be a string of enhancements, online documentation, technical support, all the good stuff. It’s not just the car. It’s the totality of the experience.

Another quality is elegance in terms of user interface. Someone has cared about the interaction between you and the product. That’s where Apple really shines.

The last thing is that I think enchanting products are empowering. That is, they make you feel better about yourself. A Macintosh is enchanting because it makes you feel more creative and more productive. Some computers you fight and some computers make you better.

Mike: I like the way you’ve analyzed that. I think a lot of businesses can really be thinking about this when they’re developing their products and services.

Guy: The acronym is DICEE. It’s deep, intelligent, complete, elegant and empowering.

Mike: Let me switch into a totally different discussion. You talk about the importance of embracing nobodies in your book. I’d like to explore this a little bit with you because so many people simply go after who they think is the highest profile individual when it comes to trying to get endorsements or support. I like the fact that you’re kind of going countercultural here and saying maybe you should not just look at those people. Can you explain what it means to embrace nobodies and why it’s important?

Guy: My theory is that nobodies are the new somebodies. In the old world, information came down from the mountain and trickled down to the masses. You had to look up at the mountain and see god, and god was the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fortune and Forbes, Wired and CNET.

So in a world dominated by gods or goddesses on a mountain, you had to suck up to the gods and goddesses, hoping that they would like your product so they would tell the great unwashed masses, “We, the gods, have decided that you should like Facebook, and you should like Twitter, and you should like Macintosh, and you should like Shutterfly, and you should like Delicious.” I guess Delicious is a bad example now.

That’s the old world. In the new world, with blogging and tweeting and Facebooking and all the other stuff, I think it’s just as likely that someone you never heard of who has absolutely no platform compared to any of these publications will love your product and spread the word.

LonelyBoy15 on Twitter might tell 200. But it may be that LonelyBoy15 who is really a database administrator telling people about your product is more powerful in aggregation than this godlike person on the mountain.

I’m not telling you to ignore the gods, what I’m telling you is that the LonelyBoy15s and the Tiffany65s, they all add up.

Facebook grew because nobodies signed up for it and these nobodies created this total force. Now the somebodies have to say that Facebook was interesting, and they had to cover Facebook because if they didn’t, they’d look stupid.

My theory is that you don’t know who LonelyBoy15 is. It’s not like there’s a LonelyBoy15.com that’s ranked according to Alexa or Compete in the top 500 sites on the Internet. What you have to do is plant a lot of seeds, and you just hope that some of them are LonelyBoy15s.

Mike: What kind of practical tips would you give to your fellow marketers who want to try to plant seeds with nobodies?

Guy: The more seeds you plant, the more likely some will take root. With my book, the typical business book rollout involves inviting a few hundred reviewers. Obviously, you try to get The New York Times and The Washington Post and whatever. That’s the traditional method.

I happen to have a very valuable asset that’s kind of unique in the world, which is I’m the co-founder of Alltop, which has 40,000 blogs created by 20,000 people. I sent an email to all 20,000 saying, “I’m coming out with a new book. Would you like to review it?” Of those 20,000 people, roughly 1,200 said yes, so 1,200 people are going to review this book.

In a perfect world, I’m going to send out all 1,200, so on or about March 8, there’ll be 1,200 reviews of Enchantment. I don’t think that all 1,200 are going to come through, but let’s say 500 do. I don’t think there’s ever been a book that rolled out with 500 reviews, to put it mildly.

One of them might be Silicon Valley moms blog, or it could be the homeschooling blog because I have homeschooling.alltop, so homeschooling bloggers got my email. If they responded and said, “Yes, we would like to review your book,” then my book might be reviewed in Homeschooling World. Homeschooling World might only have 1,000 readers, but God bless them.

Mike: And they’re probably very influential people, I would imagine too.

Guy: In homeschooling, absolutely they are. So do I care if the person who’s the homeschooling main blogger tells all the other homeschoolers, “You have to read this book”? That is my best-case scenario!

Don’t get me wrong. I would love for The New York Times Book Review to say, “Everyone should read this book,” but that’s highly unlikely. On the other hand, I think I’ll get a lot of homeschooling blogs, I’ll get travel blogs, I’ll get mommy blogs, I’ll get food blogs.

Mike: And social media blogs.

Guy: Social Media Examiner. And they all add up.

Mike: Just a few closing comments. I was skeptical at first, I’ll be honest with you, because I wasn’t sure what you were trying to accomplish with the word enchantment. But having read through it, I believe that it’s really powerful what you’ve done here, and I think that time will prove that what you’ve done is created your next bestseller, so congratulations.

Guy: Thank you. Everybody has to have goals. Do you know the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie? That book is totally awesome. It came out in 1937, and it has sold roughly 15 million copies. If you go to Amazon today, you’ll probably see that it’s in the top 200 sellers to this day. That’s kind of my goal.

Mike: You want it to be a timeless book.

Guy: Yes.

Mike: That’s awesome. I want to close with this last question. If folks want to learn more about you specifically, and your book Enchantment, where would you like them to go?

If you want to find out more information about Enchantment, go to Facebook.com/enchantment. It’s a fan page where I post all my information. Mari Smith opened my eyes to Facebook and she introduced me to the Facebook programmer who did my custom work. She also introduced me to Wildfire, that is doing an Enchantment quiz for me.

Mike: Guy, thank you very much. I know that you’re a busy man and I greatly appreciate your taking the time out. We look forward to seeing more great things from you very soon.

Guy: Michael, I know you would do the same for me!

Mike: You know it!

Listen to our complete extended interview (below) to hear some of the interesting ways Guy promoted his book, as well as the dark side of enchantment.

Click here to download MP3.

What do you think of Guy’s ideas? Leave your comments in the box below.

We relied 100% on social media tactics to drive traffic to this site.

In less than 5 months, Social Media Examiner was declared the #1 small business blog in the world by Technorati, added more than 13,000 email subscribers, brought nearly 100,000 people a month to the site and is ranked as one of the top 4200 websites in all of America by Alexa.

We didn’t advertise, didn’t rely on the press and almost none of our traffic is coming from search engines.  Nearly overnight, this site has become a top destination for businesses.

This all took place via social media.  We simply leveraged the power of sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to deliver the kind of results that would’ve cost us a fortune in the past.  We didn’t spend a dime on marketing, just our time.

Watch the above video to hear more of the story…

Only a few weeks ago we launched a Facebook Fan Page and already more than 2000 people are actively participating.

Here’s a very common sentiment we hear nearly daily.

“Have I told you lately that I love you? No, seriously. I found your site a couple of months ago and signed up for email. Now with all the info I subscribe to I know that 100% of the time yours will always be a great informative read…..so thanks!” Jo McDonald Hooker

Clearly we’re doing something right!

How Does Social Media Examiner Make Money?

One of the big struggles most publishers face is actually making money.  Maintaining a site like ours is a big team effort for a LOT of people.

We toyed with the idea of running display advertisements.  However, it quickly became clear there’s very little money in advertising (we might reconsider down the road).

Since our inception, a “lot” of folks have asked for recommendations to better their social media learning.  The common questions were, “What courses can I take?,” “How do I really master this important form of marketing?” and so on.

So the team here at Social Media Examiner decided to put together a conference just for you.  And it’s called Social Media Success Summit 2010.

So the answer to the question, “How do we make money?” is large online events.

What Is Social Media Success Summit 2010?

Social Media Success Summit 2010 is an event designed to to empower you to build social media marketing plans, track your social media results and learn from other successful businesses.  You’ll also discover how to use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Foursquare and Groupon to attract high-caliber customers and grow your business during this economic slump.

Twenty-four of the world’s leading social media superstars will be summit instructors.

Join Guy Kawasaki (author, Art of the Start), Chris Brogan (author, Social Media 101), Darren Rowse (author, ProBlogger), Mari Smith (author, Facebook Marketing), experts from Best Buy, Home Depot, Whole Foods, Foursquare and Groupon; Steve Rubel (Edelman), Ann Handley (MarketingProfs), Brian Clark (Copyblogger), Greg Jarboe (author, YouTube and Video Marketing), Kim Dushinski (author, Mobile Marketing Handbook), Jason Falls (Social Media Explorer), Jay Baer (Convince & Convert),  Ramon De Leon (Chicago Domino’s Pizza) and yours truly—just to mention a few.  Together this team of “who’s who” in social media will help you succeed using practical tactics.

This is the world’s biggest online event designed to empower marketers and small business owners to master social media marketing.

And the great news is it’s a live online conference you can attend from your home or office.  Click here for a free sample class.

I hope you’ll consider attending! And thanks for supporting Social Media Examiner.

What do you think about our story? Do you have any questions about the summit? Please comment below…

Outreach is key to having a blog that actually works for your business, yet it’s the one element many professionals ignore. And it’s contrary to most competitive thinking because it involves spending time away from your blog.

Done correctly, however, reaching out to other bloggers in your field will actually create more business opportunities, increase traffic to your own blog, and enhance your business brand more than any other tactic you could employ.

Here’s how:

In taking this one step, you will be setting yourself apart from the majority of business professionals who skip implementing this important element in their blogging plan.

What do I mean by blog outreach? I’m talking about strategically participating in the blogosphere with the goal of boosting your visibility, driving traffic to your blog and enhancing your credibility.

It’s not just about spreading your own message, although that’s important. Outreach is about building community and personal relationships among your peers, your colleagues who are also writing blogs, and the people in the blogosphere who are reading blogs in your industry. And yes, some of those people may be considered competitors.

Don’t be afraid of your competitors; you can learn from them and connecting with them may present new opportunities for your business.

Find Blogs in Your Niche

Where do you start? First, you need to find a few blogs in your industry that you enjoy and will consistently read. Choose blogs that will give you content ideas along with the relationships you’re seeking. Blogs can be found in practically every professional and business niche, and a quick visit to a few websites can help you find them.

Technorati is the web’s largest blog search directory and is a good place to start. Be warned, this site can be overwhelming the first time you visit. You can search for blogs or blog posts by keywords in your field. I recommend you set up an account and make sure your own blog is listed so it can be found by others.

Use Technorati to find blogs and blog posts relevant to your niche.

Another site is Google Blogsearch. Like any Google search engine, it’s going to return a list of links based on your keywords, only this time the links will be sites for blogs and specific blog posts.

Use Subject-specific Directories

My current favorite for finding the best of the best in subject-specific blogs is Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop.com. It’s a curated site, which means blogs must be approved in order to be included. You can create your own collection of blogs to watch and read. Here’s an example of my Alltop list of business blogs.

TIP: Make sure you submit your blog for inclusion on Alltop.com!

There are more than 200 blog directories, some of which are subject-specific and others are general. Blog directories come and go, and each has its own list of criteria for which blogs it includes. You want more blog directories? A comprehensive list of blog directories is posted here.

Engage in Smart Commenting, Building Relationships

In all likelihood, you will find many blogs in your niche that have similar audiences. What do you do when you find one of these good blogs?

Start engaging! Read and comment on posts that interest you. Smart bloggers allow comments, although sometimes they are moderated to keep out the spammers. Always include your name, blog URL, your email address and your thoughtful, useful comment.

The guidelines for commenting are simple: use common sense and respect. There are no rules, but being courteous will help you establish positive relationships within the blogosphere. When you comment on a blog, follow the same etiquette that you’d follow in conversation at a cocktail party.

In other words, you’re not going to approach somebody at a cocktail party and say, “Hi, my name is Joe and you should buy my widget.” You would be a little more subtle. Listen and add to the conversation in a meaningful way. Talk with and get to know the other person first. Start establishing a relationship.

Share Expertise, Not Marketing Offers

Using blogs to promote your business requires you to act like a professional when commenting. And etiquette dictates that you don’t promote your business on another person’s blog. Instead, share your expertise.

You can demonstrate your expertise in many ways. Add something the author may have overlooked. Add historical context or suggest a book in which the ideas are discussed. Add your perspective, experience and opinion.

Be polite and add something new to the conversation. Writing “Nice post, I agree” is not adding to the conversation.

If you think this all sounds very basic, please just bear with me. Every business owner has a different level of familiarity with the online world, particularly the world of blogging. I see these mistakes every day in comments on my blog as well as on those I read.

So what does this all mean?

Resulting Visibility = Opportunity

By engaging with other bloggers (in other words, your colleagues), you are making yourself known (visible) and laying the groundwork for creating opportunities to partner with them.

Often you need to actively reach out and build relationships with the people you want to work with. Start slowly and see how your relationship unfolds. When you find a good match, you’ll know.

Keep in mind that opportunities can show up in many forms: new leads, new clients, more traffic, and media attention. A pithy comment on a colleague’s blog may attract the attention of a journalist doing research on the subject.

Blog outreach is an important part of effective business blogging. The more you’re connecting outward, the more you’re going to be drawing traffic and opportunities inward. It doesn’t require a lot of your time… 20 minutes a couple of times a week to read and comment on relevant blogs can pay off big in the long run.

Action Challenge: Since I know from experience with my clients that most business bloggers don’t comment very much on other blogs, I challenge you to find three blogs in your industry that are publishing top-notch content and subscribe to get their blog updates. Read and comment on the blogs two to three times a week for the next month. Let me know what shows up for you in the way of new connections, traffic and opportunities!

Have you tried any of these approaches? What are your thoughts?  Please comment in the field below.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dip108/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0