You've written a blog post so great, it can't help but catapult you to fame and fortune. Right?

Maybe so, if it gets noticed.

If you want traffic for you blog, clicking "Publish" is not the final step. You also need to promote it. That means, among other things, sharing it on social media. Not...
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A while back, I wrote about how to craft an auto-DM for Twitter that isn't spam. In that post, I promised to elaborate on my "4 'N's of Twitter" strategy in a future post.

This is that future post.

The First 'N' of Twitter: Engage

Okay, so the first 'N' doesn't actually start with the...
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The verdict is in on auto-DMs -- those direct messages you receive shortly after following somebody on Twitter. The judge and jury agree: everybody hates 'em. Some people unfollow anyone who sends one. Don't use 'em.

But wait...breaking news! The decision has been overturned on appeal!

That is, if you know how to write an...
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You've seen the ads offering to sell you 10,000 followers on Twitter. How valuable do you think it would be to have 10,000 followers?

If all 10,000 were actually listening to what you have to say, it'd be worth a fortune! But how many really are? Somewhere in the neighborhood of none? Probably. At least...
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One of the biggest pains when sharing content via social media is that you either have to visit all the major sites, one-by-one,or ignore some of them. It's similar to the "too many in-boxes" problem that I blogged about a few years ago. Only this time, it's "too many out-boxes".

The solution is to use...
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I noticed something interesting today. Now that my feed reader displays the number of Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn shares for each story, I couldn't help but notice a big difference in how often stories from different feeds get shared.

Here's a quick sampling (the numbers are Facebook/Google+/LinkedIn):

Mashable's last 5 stories...combined: 0/0/0.

Maybe those storie...
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The other day, at the end of a post by Seth Godin, I read the following:

One of the disrupting forces of the new media is that it makes harder and harder to succeed without wow. Since you have to earn the conversation regularly, phone it in too often and in fact, attention disappears.

My...
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While looking through my list of flagged items from Seth Godin's blog this morning, I came across this one:

Interesting & Interested

... it helps to be both. These are the two ways you earn attention.

If it's so obvious, why is it so difficult?

It helps to be either. And if you're both, th...
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I was thinking this morning about blog commenting. Lots of people are sharing lots of opinions on it lately:

Commenting is in decline -- everybody's sharing via social media instead.

Commenting isn't as valuable as it used to be -- all the links are no-followed, and nobody reads the comments anyway.

You may as wel...
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Once again, Seth Godin has said something that sparked deeper thoughts. Bear with me, and I'll show you how it applies to your marketing:

When I'm on the bike path riding my truly weird recumbent bicycle, sometimes I pass someone else similarly outfitted. And I wave.

...

Of course, we're not waving at the other...
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