Archive for June, 2009
Social Bookmarking as a Business Tool
Posted by: | CommentsAlong with social networking sites, there are now a number of social bookmarking sites on the Internet. While social networking sites build upon relationships between members, social bookmarking sites create connections through the types of content generated by members. It is these connections that make social bookmarking such an effective business tool.
Maybe you have read a blog post or article on someone’s website. At the end of the article or blog post, you’ll see a host of different little pictures or characters. Run your cursor over them and names like Technorati, Digg, Reddit, and Delicious pop up.
Social Bookmarking Icons
What are these characters and what do the names mean?
These are links to social bookmarking sites. Social bookmarking is much like what you would do with an actual bookmark. Physical bookmarks are used to mark a page or a passage that you want to find again at some point. This goes for social bookmarking icons as well. If someone wants to find that particular article again or let others know about it, they can bookmark the address on a site and mark it with keywords for future reference.
Not all social bookmarking sites are the same. The principle is the same across the board, but some social bookmarking sites specialize in different media. Squidoo specializes in creating lenses that showcase an area of expertise of the lens owner. Flickr concentrates on photos. Some bookmarking sites deal with movie or music reviews in contrast.
Before choosing a bookmarking site, find one that caters to the content or type of business that you conduct. That will draw the most traffic to your business. If there is more than one, then join all that apply. One thing to remember is to create content that people will be interested in and use to track back to your business website. Remember that your site readers will mark your pages and posts on these sites because they find them informative and useful and think others will too.
Through quality content, a business owner can easily create a nice following of readers and possibly higher search engine rankings with the use of social bookmarking sites. For the purpose of content, look around the more popular bookmarking sites and see what others are viewing and find interesting and useful. That is the type of content you want to focus on with your websites. Investigating the more popular social bookmarking sites will make it easy to track down competitors and find out what your target market deems as useful information. Using these bookmarking sites will increase the visibility of your content and make it easier to market to your specific target customer or reader.
Value Your Intuition
Posted by: | CommentsEver wonder how animals know when to run for cover? They can seem to sense that danger is present. You have that sense as well. You won’t be running from a herd of buffalo but your intuition will benefit you in both business and life.
Intuition is essentially an instinct and comes from past experiences. As a child, you learned that a stove is hot when the burner glows red and then you stayed away from stoves when you noticed they were hot. That is a simplified explanation but the point is that experiences drive your intuition.
Another aspect of intuition is learned behavior. Here’s another simple explanation…think as though you were becominga public speaker. You can’t just go out and get speaking engagements, you need contacts who are looking for speakers and pointers from those who are successful at it. The lessons you learn as you go teach you how to hone in on the techniques that you never knew existed before.
With each new experience and learned behavior you acquire new skills. Now, every time you make a decision you don’t consciously run through everything that you know before you say “yea” or “nay.” But, that information gets processed unconsciously and results in a feeling.
You might not want to use your intuition because it seems to be just a feeling. But, although intuition may come across as a feeling, it is backed up by a lifetime of experience and learning. So, you really don’t just trust a feeling or a hunch.
With that said, intuition has to be practiced just like anything else. The hardest part of the practice will be recognizing it when you have it. Think about how you would feel walking down the street at night. You wouldn’t go down a dark alley or a dimly lit street. Why? You have learned that there is inherent danger in these places.
Use that same process to conduct your everyday life, your business planning and your goal setting. When you identify a goal you want to achieve, use your instinct to decide how best to achieve it. You can take suggestions from others and study the experts but only you know the best way to proceed for your business. If one path doesn’t pan out, your intuition will help you decide the next course of action.
Most of all don’t be afraid to trust your intuition. Not only can it save your life in certain situations, but it can also enhance your life and help you grow your business. One reason we don’t always achieve our goals or even pursue a goal in the first place is because we trust someone else’s intuition over our own. Spend some time listening to and following your intuition and see where it takes you
