5 Steps to Finding News Feeds and Blogs Worth Following

After writing 5 Steps to Organizing the Blogs You Follow, I received many questions on how to go about finding relevant, high-quality blogs. Thank you for your questions and feedback! Influential Thought Leaders tend to embrace others’ ideas and soak up information like sponges. They can’t get enough of peoples’ knowledge and live to build…

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Embrace and Nurture Your Followers

Once again, TED blows us away with their simplified dissection of leadership and how to “make a movement.” Key messages: You’re not a leader until you have your first follower. As a true leader, you must embrace your followers as equals! How does this translate to your online presence? Respond to comments on your blog…

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How to Fire Your Inner Sales Guy

Are you hearing voices? By now you know that, as a Thought Leader, it’s critical to lose the “sales speak” when creating content. But, when writing about topics that relate to service offerings or products—we can easily slip into “sales speak” fast. Before we know it, we’ve blurted out, “Buy our stuff,” or “Call me…

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6 Ways to Promote Your Blog on LinkedIn

These days, LinkedIn is the often-forgotten “quiet” social network. It doesn’t get the hype of other social media, but it packs a powerful punch when it comes to reaching your professional network. Unlike Facebook, there’s no weeding through YouTube links or cousin Jenny’s baby pics. LinkedIn delivers your professional peeps in one tidy network. So…

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6 Ways to Beef Up Your Blog With Images

News flash: Endless streams of blog text are B-O-R-I-N-G! Business blogs are no exception. In fact, the best content strategy for blogs includes images as part of the process! We’re not talkin’ any old ho-hum images here. Well chosen, high-quality blog images are more than “icing on the content cake.” They create instant polish and…

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The Secret to Outsourcing Your Corporate Blog

There are competing schools of thought on how effective outsourcing a corporate blog will be. I’ve always been adamant that businesses should blog strictly from within the organization. It makes for more authentic content, timely interaction with readers and a shared experience across the organization. I still stand by that philosophy whole-heartedly. However, to expect…

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Why Blog? – Reason #2: Google Karma Points

Last week, we began our “Why Blog?” Series with Reason #1 – Content is King. Today, we look at how blogging helps in the quest to be blessed by Google. Call it what you will: Karma, juju, brownie points or just “appeasing the Google gods.” The bottom line is that we all want our businesses…

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Why Blog? – Reason #1: Content is King

Any business that has tried to optimize its website or beef up its visibility online has heard the phrase over and over… “Content is King.” If Content is King, a Blog is the King’s Most Loyal Servant. A well-built blog: Publishes your content at a moment’s notice. In fact, a blog makes it so easy…

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I Dare You To Become a Real-Time Expert

What the heck is a “real time” expert? It’s an expert who continuously communicates advice, questions, challenges and thoughts with their audience or customer. A real-time expert doesn’t publish a book and walk away. They feed their audience with their views on current events, industry news, shake-ups, best practices and epiphanies. They produce a stream…

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Got Twitter? Start Blogging.

With the swarm of Twittermania, some once speculated that blogs were a dying breed. However, it’s because of Twitter and other emerging social media that blogs are more alive and necessary than ever before! Recently, TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld compared the future of Blogging and Microblogging. He references statistics that show Twitter’s flattening growth, while WordPress’…

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Is Your Website Ready for Social Media Visitors?

Ready to take the plunge into the Social Media pool? Eager to Tweet about your business and industry, post links on Facebook and generate a buzz online? Before you begin rubbing elbows in the social media world, take a critical look at your website. Imagine this: An expert in your industry now follows you on…

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A Soapbox Moment: Black Hatters Beware

I’m still recovering from a great day at BarCamp Tampa on Sunday. It was an amazing event where I truly felt connected with the local tech and new media community. Awesome, awesome stuff! There were some very lively discussions. Okay I admit, I participated in a rather heated debate with a guy in one session…

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