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How To Use Social Media To Promote Your Small Business

02/20/2012 By Leave a Comment

How To Use Social Media for Small Business

Social media for small business

 

The internet world has simplified things for everyone. The business world too has seen a tremendous growth of presence on the web.  Businesses have started using social media platforms to market their products and services. Today, even small businesses are thriving using social media platforms.

If you have small or medium size business, doing a couple of things on social media can give a good boost to your products or services. The following are some important tips which will help you to promote your small businesses using social media:

1. Measure your assets

The first thing, you need to do for engaging in social media marketing, is to understand your assets and know where to promote. You need to see where your target audience is and how they are using social media. You also need to look at the location where you are targeting your small business.

2. Create fan pages on various social media sites

Creating fan pages on different sites like Facebook and Twitter are very important. You can do this at Facebook which allows the users to connect with you and find the details about your products or services. The key thing which you need to remember is to find a right audience for your products or services. However, small business owners tend to commit mistake by targeting wrong users.

Similarly, on Twitter sign up and make your account and start following the users which are interested in your products or services. Get engaged on this platform as well. Start tweeting something unique about your business. You need to retweet the tweets from other users which you find interesting.  This will help you in improving your visibility for your business and soon the users will find you interesting.

3. Try other social sites as well

Apart from using these two popular sites like Facebook and Twitter, think of trying other sites as well. For instance, LinkedIn is a hub of 55 million professionals present to seek job opportunities, employees or even some basic business or networking. MySpace relates to teens and young people, where users are seen playing with music, themes and HTML coding. All these sites provide you space to market your business using different strategies.

4. Create business blogs connecting social media

Creating a business blog has its own benefits. You can post articles on your blog pertaining to your business on a regular basis. After doing so, you can link your blog to your social media platforms and thus can move your content back and forth. You will find the users glad to see some small business owners using these platforms and getting engaged in the modern methods. By doing so, you stay in touch with your community and talk about a number of issues that moves around your business.

There are many small and medium size business owners who are using social media platform to promote their businesses. In fact the there are many ways of doing so. Promoting your business online using social media is simple and easy; however, you need patience and consistent efforts. With these ideas you can help promote your business among your targeted audience. But remember one thing; you just have to continue with consistency.

Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Staying Focused with Mindfulness

02/14/2012 By Leave a Comment

focus on mindfulness

For the past four years I have had the the good fortune to create and operate an online business where I promote an eight week mindfulness approach anger management program. It’s been a wonderful new phase of my life, and I feel fortunate that I am being creative with my work and helping people at the same time. Also, not that I needed another reason to practice mindfulness, but because I promote a mindfulness product as part of my business, it has forced me to walk the talk, and to further integrate mindfulness into my life and my work.

Being an entrepreneur is an exciting and fulfilling way to spend one’s working hours, and yet it has its challenges. For example one place where I struggle is in having too much freedom. It’s fair to say that most people would love to have the freedom to create their own work environment and schedule. However, when when you have this freedom, while it is an amazing blessing, it can also be a curse. For myself I sometimes struggle to create a strong container for for my work, I easily get distracted and pulled in a variety of directions. When this happens I lose my focus and it is difficult to stay on course and achieve my goals. This is one place where the practice of mindfulness meditation has been of great help.

Mindfulness is a quintessential technique for developing one’s discipline. Because it is so simple, there’s little room to escape and squirm, so you have the rare opportunity to face your discipline issues face to face. When you are sitting there and all you want to do is jump up and run out for an espresso, it is difficult to avoid yourself any longer. There is just you and your mind, so you to see your patterns of avoiding and resisting vividly clear, and at the same time you have the opportunity to change that tendency, on the spot.

In this way mindfulness gives you a simple method you can use to strengthen your discipline. You commit to sitting for say, ten minutes, and when the urge to quit arises you are less likely to split the scene, because it’s a little strange to try and justify, “Oh, I really need break now, a cappuccino will make my meditation practice go so much better.” So you are kind of stuck there on your meditation cushion and you have to finally deal with your own state of mind. This is a rare opportunity, and if you work at it over time it increases your discipline both on and off the meditation cushion. This in turn helps you develop the strength of mind to stay with your work and achieve your goals.

I practice mindfulness almost every day, I rarely have a week where I don’t meditate at least five days. I find this to be tremendously helpful in keeping me focused on my work. I’ve been practicing for years, and the steady discipline of mindfulness has helped me develop some stability in an otherwise distraction prone mind. Because of this I am able to stay more focused and accomplish the goals I’ve set out for myself.

Another challenge I often face as an entrepreneur is in deciding on any given day where to place my focus in my work. I am involved in a creative process and there are endless possibilities and directions I can choose to pursue. This used to be quite difficult because I would struggle with my decisions. I would have a hard time deciding because all the options seemed like good ones, and it was hard to choose just one. I would end up spending too much time on my decision making struggles and lose time I could have been using productively had I chosen one thing to work on.

I think this is not a unique problem for people doing creative work. Often we are moving so fast and we are juggling so many balls that there it’s not easy for our mind to calm down so we can find any perspective. In this case it’s no wonder that we struggle with our decisions. A wonderful benefit of mindfulness practice is that it creates the time and space to allow the muddy waters of our mind to calm and clarify. When this happens our decisions automatically become easier and more accurate to the situation at hand, simply because our looking glass is more clear.

For myself, staying focused with my efforts has been one my own main challenges in being an entrepreneur. I find that ideas and possibilities are abundant and coming up all the time, so I have to be vigilant to keep myself on track. I practice mindfulness pretty much every day and this gives me a lot of stability and discipline, it protects me from building up ‘ clutter mind’, and helps me stay on track with the tasks I have chosen to focus on. This gives me some degree of peace in my mind, and makes my creative work more joyous and fulfilling.

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4 Helpful WordPress Plugins To Advertise Your Blog

11/28/2011 By 2 Comments

4 Helpful WordPress Plugins So Your Readers Can Advertise Your Blog!

helpful wordpress pluginsOne of the things that people struggle with is driving traffic to their blog as they don’t know how to advertise that blog. When I mention advertising you might well be thinking of pay per click, banner ads or any other form of advertising. Well the truth is that you can’t do these or they don’t work to well.

When I look at blogs that are not getting any traffic the first thing I notice, is not a lack of SEO or keyword research but there is no way for anyone to share the content. SEO and keyword research are important to get people to visit your site in the first place, but you have to have some way of letting those people share your content.

I am going to share with you 4 helpful WordPress plugins that are essential for advertising your blog. Without these plugins you will greatly reduce the amount of traffic that will come to your blog on a consistent basis.

The Helpful WordPress Plugins that you will want to add

The first on the list of these helpful WordPress plugins will help you get the traffic to your blog in the first place and the others will help spread the word and give you social proof that your content is worth reading.

  • All in One SEO Pack

 

  • DiggDigg

 

  • Facebook Like

 

  • FD Feedburner

 Check out these 4 WordPress Plugins

All in One SEO Pack – This is one of the most helpful WordPress plugins that is an absolute must if you want to help your blog become SEO friendly in the eyes of the search engines. Now I must stress this will not do your keyword research or get you to page one for a strong keyword, but it will help you get the right SEO into your title and description which appears on the organic search listing.

DiggDigg – This is by far my favorite plugin to share content on my blog. You have a number of different services you can use like Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon. Just recently they have added LinkedIn and Google +1 so it is constantly upgraded with the latest treads.

This is one of the most helpful Wordress plugins that is simple to use for your readers and it will also give a count of the amount of times the post has been shared to each social website. This is what will give you your social proof and your readers will want to share great, informative content with their friends and followers.

You can position this plugin anywhere within your post, be it at the top or the bottom to the left or the right. Personally I always position at the top of each post, but the choice is yours.

Facebook Like – This one you can get as part of DiggDigg or search them on WordPress as there are a couple of different ones to choose. This WordPress plugin I setup for the end of my post so once my reader has finished they simple hit the like button, which posts that like on the Facebook profile wall. I get so many more likes at the end of the post then shares at the top of the page.

FD Feedburner – This one is a fairly new one on me but looking at my analytics this is something you simple have to setup on your blog. You will need to set this up with Google Feedburner but essentially what it does is to send out your latest post through its feed.

Not only will these helpful WordPress plugins make it easier for people to share your content, but they will also advertise your blog for you giving you even more exposure.

Image credit-

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

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Article Writing Tips from SpongeBob SquarePants

05/21/2011 By 2 Comments

Article Writing Tips from SpongeBob SquarePants

By Nicole Dean

Wisdom can be found in the most unexpected places. Today, wisdom bubbled up from a pineapple under the sea. I suddenly realized that everything you’d want to know about writing articles for your website can be taught by SpongeBob SquarePants and his friends.

When you write for your newsletter, blog, or website, which character are you most like?

Mr. Krabs: This crustacean is focused on one thing and one thing only, making more and more and more money. Only a cartoon could actually have dollar signs drawn in his eyes. He thinks of no one, only how he can benefit. Are your articles focused on you or on the reader? Are you providing information or do you have blinders on, thinking only about how you can make money from the article you are writing? If your article reads like an ad or is self-serving or full of affiliate links, you might write like Mr. Krabs.

Plankton: The smallest creature in the sea is also the sneakiest. He’ll do anything and hurt anyone to steal someone else’s work (the Krabby Pattie secret formula). Write your own material. Don’t be Plankton. Don’t copy and paste someone else’s work, edit it, and try to pass it off as your own. You will be caught, and it just isn’t worth it. Take the same amount of effort and work on your own thoughts and ideas. Plankton never gets away with his schemes, either. He’s on Plan “Z” and is still pathetically failing at his attempts to steal the secret formula.

Patrick: SpongeBob’s best friend, the starfish, has a good heart, but isn’t the brightest creature in the sea. Do your articles make you sound like an expert? Are you providing valuable content or just pushing out sloppy articles as fast as you can? Always double check for typos and grammatical errors. If you’re challenged by spelling and grammar, hire a Virtual Assistant or Copywriter to proofread and submit your article for you. Or slow down, set your article aside for a day and then reread it before you click the “submit” button.

Squidward: Squidward is B-O-R-I-N-G. When writing articles, are you a Squidward? Do you just get the words down on paper or are you finding a fun twist to entertain your audience and keep them coming back for more? Take time to make your articles stand out from the thousands of other dull articles out there by including personal stories or just having fun while writing. For instance, this article could be entitled “How to Write a Good Article”, but would it stand out from the hundreds of other articles about article writing? Probably not.

SpongeBob: This little guy always tries to do the right thing, and is a hard worker. He may not always end up getting the results he hoped for, but he bounces back and tackles his work with a renewed vigor. SpongeBob works very hard, he’s a good friend, he always thinks of others, and tries to have fun no matter what he is faced with. Hardworking, friendly SpongeBob is the guy to be when writing articles.

Although this is a silly lesson in article writing, I hope you’ll remember the important messages our underwater friends have taught us.

1. Write articles to help others, not with dollar signs in your eyes.

2. Write your own material. Don’t copy others.

3. Proofread your articles carefully, and provide valuable information.

4. Be entertaining. Not boring.

5. Be a SpongeBob! Hard work and persistence pay off.

Before you know it, you’ll develop a following for having informative and entertaining articles and you’ll be King or Queen of the sea.

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Living Your Today As If It Was The Last

04/28/2011 By Leave a Comment

How many articles, blogs or features have you seen or read about the topic of how best to live at the present? Quite a number, I would bet. And yet, this is one topic that a lot of people wants to master but just can’t. Why is it so difficult to do? You have religiously followed the personal development tips given by psychologists and experts. Why do you still find yourself constantly back at square one?

That’s because at the back of your mind, you really don’t want to live in the present at all. How many times have you caught yourself wishing it was tomorrow already, so that the assigned tasks lined up at your table at the moment would long be forgotten? How many times have you wished that you were in your retirement, so you can finally enjoy the fruits of your hard-earned labor? Most of us are guilty of this, in one way or the other. I know I am.

I think the secret to successfully living in the present is to always be conscious of your reality and avoid dwelling in the ideals. Yes, it is tempting to dream about the future and use it as a motivation to work hard. But you are not sure that it will happen. You’re not sure if you will have a retirement lifestyle. You’re not even sure of you will be blessed enough to be given another tomorrow to live.

To rephrase an old saying, you need to truly live your today as if it was the last. Appreciate everything today and you will never have to feel like you want tomorrow to come immediately. I was very much inspired by the post here about transforming one’s life. I think a lot of people will benefit from these guidelines.

Do you want a happy and satisfying life? I don’t. I want a life full of joy and fulfillment. Happiness and joy are two different things. One is temporary while the other is permanent. Only you will decide which one you want for yourself.

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Do you know when to do nothing and when to do something…?

04/26/2011 By 2 Comments

Do you know when to do nothing and when to do something…?
One of the most confusing spiritual subjects is the art of when to do nothing and when to do something. But when your car tire blows, or your pipes burst are you to do nothing?
Of course you wouldn’t ‘do nothing’ in those cases, you would want to and no doubt have to get things fixed.
So why is it that with living the life of your dreams doing nothing gets in the way?
I accept when you are trying to figure out how to be spiritual and make money it is not the same as simply changing a car tire and then being back on the road. But doing nothing is the same as keeping your fingers crossed!
My personal rule and that which I teach my clients is…
The DO NOTHING teaching is not literally about doing nothing as it is impossible to really do nothing.
The DO NOTHING rule is in fact a frequency which when you connect to it enables you to do something in alignment and not in reaction. It is in fact an invitation to do something that is considered action.
If you recall the times in your life when you reacted rather than considered, you will remember that you probably gave up to early, lost your temper, hurt someone’s feelings, or some other emotional experience resulting in you not feeling all that good about yourself. That is what DO NOTHING is guiding you away from!
So when to do something?
Once you create a space where you can consider your action and not react you will know.
In a scenario where you are working on a new program but your paying customers are not knocking on your door, what do you do?
Reaction action would be to think you have done something wrong, you have failed and you might as well quickly launch something else, same content but dressed up differently, or even disappear and go into a mini meltdown for a while.
If you were to consider, meditate, ask your intuition and higher self for guidance and inspiration you will start to know where to push, where to pull and when to stand still. And although the outcome may well be that you shelve something in favor for something else the energy and intention behind how you got there will be very different. Rather than the reaction and fear based frequency you will be coming from a considered, trusting and abundant energy which are the energy signs of a spiritual warrior.
But don’t be fooled, sitting in meditation for days on end can often be the same as keeping your fingers crossed. Think of meditation and intuition as the Yin energy and action as the Yang, so you need to balance out Yin and Yang here, you can’t be more of one and less of the other for too long!
So to answer the question that was set: Do you know when to do nothing and when to do something…?
The answer is to ask your spirit not your emotions and then you will be doing as a spiritual warrior does!

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Marketing Via the Internet

04/20/2011 By Leave a Comment

Marketing Via the Internet

The internet is a powerful tool. It is hard to believe that a generation ago it did not exist. Nowadays it touches every part of our lives. Most people have some use of this service. You can find anything on it. If you are looking to market something, it is hard to imagine not using it. However, because of the vastness of the internet it is difficult to set yourself apart and capture someone’s attention. Following is a series of steps to accomplish this goal.

IDENTIFY YOUR AUDIENCE
There are millions of people on the internet from every country in the world. You do not need to reach all of them. In fact, even trying to reach one percent of these people would be a huge undertaking. One great thing about the internet is that if you have something useful to a small number of people this is actually the ideal setting. That is because you can send information out throughout the world

DEVELOP YOUR OWN WEBSITE
In order to reach these people it helps to have a website. This website should be eye catching. You want to hold people’s attention. Getting a professional to design your site would be money well spent.

DRAW PEOPLE TO YOUR WEBSITE
Next, you need a good way to draw people’s attention. This is not as easy to do and below is a list of things you can try. It is not a complete list but it is a good start.
• Focus on keywords you feel will be relevant to your cause.
• Provide incentives to others to get friends and acquaintances to visit the website.
• Read and participate in blogs for other people. Be sure to focus on the sites that will likely be read by people looking for your product.
• Advertise on other sites. Be sure to do your research. You do not want to be associated with a scam site or a site not known for its truthfulness.
• Consider using other web services. Face book and YouTube have been used successfully by many businesses. Use these sites to your advantage. Perhaps you can hold a contest to see who can make the best YouTube video related to your business. If the video goes viral, it can mean a large influx of traffic to your site. Face book also works well. Use the site to provide news about your business but be sure to include a link to your site.
• Get involved with sites that are in business to drive traffic to web sites. However, choose these well. People on these sites are usually there to drive traffic to their own site. If you are trying to reach a small market, you may get a lot of traffic but it may not lead to a significant increase in business if you pick the wrong one.

All in all the internet may be a large community but it is ideal for small markets. You can reach people throughout the world. Of course you still need a good product for long term success, but that is another topic

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10 Blog Traffic Tips

01/18/2011 By Leave a Comment

Blog Traffic Tips

In every bloggers life comes a special day – the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else’s blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader – you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that’s about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.

Here are the top 10 blog traffic tips.

These blog traffic tips are specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called “traction”, which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.

10. Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good “how-to” lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don’t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need an easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that’s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you’ve done a good job!).

7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger’s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry – it’s sort of like your blog telling someone else’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important – it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.

5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival enjoy a spike in new readers.

To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at http://blogcarnival.com/.

3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it’s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it’s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it’s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have – your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your “Resource Box”. You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I’ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won’t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and has taught me great blog traffic tips. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.To get more information about Blog Mastermind click here.

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How to be Creative and Rediscover Yourself

12/27/2010 By Leave a Comment

How to be creative and rediscover yourself

How to Be Creative

Do you know how to be creative?  Is creativity hard to learn?

If you want to improve yourself, then you should learn how to be creative.  Coming up with something new is exciting and pleasant experience.  Each minute you spend in creativity, you are enriching your life.

Many people wonder if creativity is a personal characteristic or it can be learned.  Yes, creativity can be learned and it is not a personal characteristic as there are many creative people with different personalities.  There are some people who are creative by nature, others have to learn it.

If your goal is to learn how to become creative, follow the below steps:

1.  Know you are creative

Know that you are a creative person.  Creativity doesn’t mean that you have to invent something entirely new; it is the creation of something in your own way.

2.  Find creative solutions

Different people have different ideas and views about situations and problems.  In order to be creative, you have to focus on the solution, instead of the problem.  Come up with a unique solution to the problems that you encounter and be influential at the same time.

3.  Connect your ideas together

Learn to connect your ideas together.  Modify or add something to the situations and events that others accept without thinking.  Don’t accept things as they are, always think outside the box.

4.  Be internally motivated

If you are not internally motivated to finding solutions, creating new ideas and solutions, then it will be difficult for you to create new ideas and be innovative.  Your interest in creativity should to be strong, so you never get tired of the same ideas.

5.  Be optimistic

The creative person usually is an optimist and expects to succeed and knows no matter how hard the challenge is, he can win it.  This of course does not mean that those creative people are happy all the time and never experience depression, worry, or sadness, but what it means is that they don’t let such circumstances stand in their way.  They look for alternative solutions until they find a solution that helps them overcome the challenge.

6.  Keep on learning

Another thing that you should know if you want to become creative is that learning is a non ending process, therefore, be always willing to learn new things.  Knowledge helps you become more creative since it is power in itself if you use it.

7.  Caring

There are many people who know that there are many things wrong in the world, but don’t do anything about it.  The creative individual, on the contrary, takes a positive position and doesn’t get immersed in these wrong aspects of the world.  The creative tries to do something positive about these aspects and make a lasting effect.

Always remember what Mary Lou Cook said, “Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.”

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When Life Gets Crazy – How to Connect with Your Lists When you Don’t Have Time To

12/24/2010 By 8 Comments

When Life Gets Crazy – How to Connect with Your Lists When you Don’t Have Time To

by Nicole Dean

Life is madness. At least in my house it is. People are always asking me “Nicole, you have 2 kids, 2 dogs, you take in foster dogs, have a husband who you actually like, and you run several very successful online businesses. What in the HECK?!”

I think there’s a compliment in there somewhere.

The things that I do in my business every day fall under four areas…

  1. Growing my List and Connecting with my Readers
  2. Increasing my Traffic
  3. Building Relationships on my Own Blog
  4. Developing my Products and my Other Offers (like PLR stuff, and private coaching and consulting) 

Anything that doesn’t fall directly under those four areas must be put aside until I’ve tackled those.

Now obviously, I could write an entire report about this, so in this post, I’ll focus in on your mailing list.

 Your list is your livelihood. At least it can be with some love. However, it takes time to write your newsletters or connect with your list, in general. And, coming up with ideas on a regular basis can be brutal.

 Life happens. (Thank goodness!) So, you need some shortcuts for when you just don’t have time or don’t necessarily feel inspired to connect with your lists.

Here’s where the magic happens. I have tons of tricks, but I’ll just start with three ideas to get you off and running.

  1. Outsourcing
  2. Planning and Batching
  3. PLR articles

OUTSOURCING PARTS OF THE PROCESS.

First of all, outsourcing. There are several ways you can outsource when it comes to your list.

If you have a virtual assistant (or a teenager in your house), write and send an article to him/her and have that person compile your newsletter for you. A side benefit is that it will require you to plan in advance, which can be a very good thing.

You can also hire a virtual assistant to seek out articles in places like EzineArticles.com or LadyPens.com that you can use in your newsletter, rather than having to do it all yourself. Find a few authors that you like (who are considered experts in their fields) and just have your virtual assistant grab one of their articles whenever you’re behind.

Recommended Resource:

PLANNING AND BATCHING.

Second, let’s dig into planning a bit. I find it much easier to plan a month at a time or more than to sit down in front of the computer and try to brainstorm. Can you plan a series of emails to send to your readers?

Perhaps a set like “7 Ways to …” That way you’re set for at least the next seven emails. If you look at my ecourse above “Outsourcing Mistakes to Avoid” – you’ll see how I used a series to create that ecourse. You can model yours after that one.

PLR ARTICLES.

PLR articles can be such a huge shortcut. If you’re not using them yet, you are in for a treat!

Here’s a definition of PLR (in case you aren’t familiar with it):

Let’s talk about how useful this is. I mean, honestly. Let’s say your niche is romance. If you purchase a set of ten PLR articles, you have everything you need for 10 newsletters immediately – and, guess what? You can reuse them again the following year or year after.

Not only do you not have to come up with titles, you don’t have to even draft the articles yourself.

Simply copy and paste the  articles into your newsletter, tweak them to have some of YOU in them – either by including examples, personal stories, or some of your own tips and ideas, and you’re set.

Recommended Resource:

I started one of the most highly regarded PLR sites on the web back in 2006 and made it my personal goal to change the PLR industry for the better. I like to think that I’ve accomplished my goal.

See for yourself here: Quality PLR Articles

Now, the next time you’re thinking “I really need to send something to my lists, but what?” you don’t have to panic now that you have these shortcuts at your disposal.

Thanks so much for reading! Please share your thoughts below.

Warmly,

Nicole Dean

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