DISQUS

Hi Travis, I tried Hummingbird, but after using it twice I stopped because it had such limited functionality. About the only thing I could see to do with it is go to someone else's list of followers and then follow everyone on that page (including all the spam accounts that may be listed there). I sure didn't want to do that. I never figured out any other value.

What was I missing?

On my list of can't live without services would be several of these, Jeff. Maybe some Twitter apps, such as Tweetchat, too.

-- Anita

Travis, sorry I missed this event! Appreciate your thoughts about Twitter and business.

-- Anita

<abbr>Anita Campbell’s last blog post..19 Tips to Bring Focus</abbr>

Neither the bailout nor the current stimulus package under consideration do anything for small businesses except raise their taxes.

And while I can feel for Andrew Fields and the pressures he must be going through, I do not believe his situation is typical of most small businesses and it would be a mistake to assume that. It sounds to me more like circumstances are affecting his particular industry. A lot of independent printers are being squeezed by changes in the industry, such as the lower costs of powerful color inkjet printers that people use for DIY-printing in their offices, the move to electronic and away from print, and other macro-trends.

The problem if you start bailing out individual industries is that (1) you can't help every industry, and (2) very likely efforts to help one industry negatively impact others, either by raising taxes, raising prices, etc. Because in the words of Paul Simon, "One man's ceiling is another man's floor."

The best idea I've heard so far for helping small businesses across the board directly -- and immediately -- is waiver of payroll taxes for a 6-month period. That might have some effect on employment and directly benefit millions of small businesses -- at least the 6+ million small businesses that have employees. And it may help those 21+ million without employees who may be spurred to hire if it is less costly to hire, via waiver of payroll taxes.

Good discussion, Robert. Thanks for raising it.

Thanks Steffan! That's a great idea about linking back to the book reviews. I and my experts spend a lot of time (and expense) writing detailed book reviews and we often interview the authors on my radio show. So it would be nice to give the reviews and the book authors wider visibility, have the reviewers get wider recognition, and also get a little traffic to the site. Not to mention it being a helpful resource for readers!

Congratulations on creating such a wonderful toolbar (although it's much more than a toolbar).

I commented over at Twitter, and wanted to add a more extensive comment here. Looking at this from different perspectives, I see different value.

I see a lot of value if you are a book author or maker of a product. Same goes if you have an ecommerce site that sells items. Great branding value. Great word of mouth value. Increases sales.

As a user, I think it has some value ... discovering some new things.

As a publisher of a website, I am not sure. I saw it on Mashable and was intrigued. But I'm looking for ways to increase the interactivity and value of my site, and I'm not sure it would do much for my site. We do business book reviews for instance. Might be nice to see reader recommendations displayed through the Glue bar. But there's no way I can see to include your site's Amazon affiliate code for those viewing through the Glue bar (or is there?) and most site publishers won't want to be in competition with the Glue bar.

So from my perspective as a website publisher, the value proposition isn't clear.

That said, I am very impressed with what you've created.

Travis, thanks for putting together this list. I had been looking for a nice concise list of the advantage of Infusionsoft, so I could show it to people. This is excellent. Anita

Hi Travis, thanks for sharing your list of marketing predictions.

Question for you: are you (or clients) getting good results in PPC advertising? IT strikes me it is becoming more complex to put together and carry out campaigns.

Your thoughts on that?

Anita

I am so sorry this happened to you, Brent, because you deserve every bit of credit.

What I don't understand is the point of the exercise. They plagiarized your article (and I will give them the benefit of the doubt during this season that it was due to "inexperience" on the part of the person sending the email). But for what purpose? It wasn't even a coherent pitch with a call to action. Bizarre.

Let's hope the management at this firm has the goodness to come over and apologize to you -- and better guidance to the rep who sent this out on the proper way to do things.

Best,
Anita

Hi Jason, happy holidays.

First of all I want to congratulate Chris Brogan for having the guts to write his sponsored post and for your support of it. I thought Chris's post was well done -- it's obvious he put a lot of work into it with an actual visit -- by the whole family, no less! -- and photos, etc. I haven't been in a Sears or KMart store in years, but that post intrigued me enough that I might actually think of them next time.

I do want to respectfully push back a little, though:

(1) Online advertising is effective, especially for branding. I think we need to get it out of the realm of direct response, and expecting to see an immediate and direct payback (click through to sale). That's not expected from PR, so why hold advertising to the same standard? The fact that online advertising is growing shows advertisers think it has value.

(2) I don't buy that "your blog is too small for ads, Mr. or Ms Blogger." If the blog is big enough to hire an expensive PR firm to go to work pitching the blogger to get them to write about your company or your product, then the blog is "big enough."

(3) The real impediment to advertising on small blogs is structural. It's hard to cost-effectively put ads on small sites. Doesn't mean the ad wouldn't be valuable, and doesn't mean it couldn't be different. But today it would cost more for a brand manager to work through the bureaucracy via the company’s ad agency and corporate ad manager, than a $500 ad itself would cost.

(4) Every business blog is commercial in some way – I don’t understand all the hubbub. Even the consultant who “doesn’t accept ads” is really advertising his or her own services, or his or her personal brand. I have no problem with that – in fact, I’d have far less respect for them if they weren’t a good business person first and foremost.

(5) Finally, I think bloggers need services like IZEA. I don’t plan to sign up for IZEA – but for smaller bloggers who want to monetize all the hard work they put into their blogs, IZEA is a more realistic way to do that than ads (see the realities of point #3). To me it’s worse for bloggers to work hard and starve to death, than to work hard and earn a better life for themselves and their families.

Gaurav, this was really interesting -- thanks for reproducing the article in full. I had no idea that Indian women bloggers had such challenges.

And good for you for inspiring the article.

-Anita

As one of the bloggers over at the American Express blog, I want to echo Josh's comment, about the goal being to associate the brand with business thinking and ideas -- not to write about American Express and its products.

As far as controversy, it's NOT my goal to be strongly controversial. Quite the contrary -- I would consider strong controversy highly inappropriate when writing on another company's site. I treat it the same way I would want guest posters to treat one of my own blogs: I would not like it if someone tried to turn my site into a soapbox.

Thanks, Chris, for highlighting the site.

Personally, I don't choose to comment on blogs because they either dofollow or nofollow -- I never check to see what their policy is. Rather, I comment because something in the article or discussion compels me to weigh in.

Still, I consider it a nice touch when the blog owner cares enough to think about his community and whether it is better for them to dofollow. It says a lot about the person running the blog.

Andy, interesting discussion!

Personally, I don't choose to comment on blogs because they either dofollow or nofollow -- I never check to see what their policy is. Rather, I comment because something in the article or discussion compels me to weigh in.

Still, I consider it a nice touch when the blog owner cares enough to think about his community and whether it is better for them to dofollow. It says a lot about the person running the blog.

Andy, interesting discussion!

The "dreaming" technique sounds worth investigating. I have used imaging and positive affirmations effectively for years. I have even dabbled in self-hypnosis and meditation, and gotten great benefits from all. I find that any technique that helps you master your own brain can be powerful. We understand so little about how to harness our own brain power.

Thanks for sharing this, Marc.

And PS, I missed this year's conference, but can't wait for next year's.

Anita

Thanks, Barry, for pointing out the DoFollow plugin.

We tried removing the "nofollow" tags for comments using another means, and it lasted all of 9 days until we upgraded to another version of WordPress. Not sure how it happened, but I think the upgrade erased our dofollow attempt. As soon as we upgraded we were back to no-follow on all comments again.

So maybe I will look into the plugin you mentioned at some future point.

Anita

Hi Tac, yes, Twitter is addicting. And those individual connections are crucial if you're trying to build a loyal following and community online.

Let's say for the sake of argument you were trying to build a Web presence consisting of 100,000 (or 1M) visitors a month. You might be tempted to think that connecting individually with a few people via Twitter couldn't possibly get you anywhere. But you'd be wrong.

Those connections lead to other connections and in turn to others. And it's the personal connection that tends to set a site (or brand or service provider) apart on the Web today. You're providing relevance because of the personal connection, in a crowded field of impersonal websites.

Anita

Hi Tac,

I agree with this 150%. And as your other commenter, Patrick, points out, the line is becoming increasingly gray between blogs and traditional news sites.

I've even seen small business "corporate" websites created using WordPress software, that have blog features incorporated right in them (not as a separate blog).

I have started asking people if they like specific attributes of blogs, such as the ability to leave comments on websites, short items written in conversational format, and so on. That tends to get at useful feedback, rather than confusing people with bizarre (to them) nomenclature like "blogs".

Best,
Anita

Thanks for translating into Russian, Masha.

- Anita

Last time I checked (a few months ago), Alexa would not work on the Vista operating system. So even though my site traffic has grown, the Alexa ranking has gotten a little worse.

I had idly wondered if Vista had anything to do with it.

Last time I checked (a few months ago), Alexa would not work on the Vista operating system. So even though my site traffic has grown, the Alexa ranking has gotten a little worse.

I had idly wondered if Vista had anything to do with it.

Barry, Great article. Your advice about focusing on the first 155 characters is something I will be sharing with my team.

And there ya go! Another useful use for Twitter (with its 142 character limit) -- perfect way to practice getting to the point early.

Anita

Hi Tac,

It was my great pleasure meeting you and spending time with you. I am in the process of writing about the HP ebook program -- I think it will be a wonderful resource for readers.

And I agree with the other commenter when he called you a loose cannon (oops! scratch that part, ha ha ha!).

I meant, ahem, I agree with him about the case studies. Most small businesses would benefit from hearing what works and what doesn't, and why or why not. Think of it as helping "show them the way."

Looking forward to hearing a lot more from you, Tac!

Anita

Thrifts and banks get taken over all the time, and arranged marriages are made, just like here. Usually they are small institutions and you don't hear much about them because of their size.

Your money is safe. The only time you have to worry is if your deposits exceed the FDIC guarantee amount, generally $100K.

That's why if you have more than $100K in deposits you should always divide them up among different FDIC insured institutions -- or find a better investment for them.

The really bad times were back in the late 1980s, early 1990s, when we had the so-called savings and loan crisis. Today is nothing compared to then.

Hi Jim,

In addition to the points you made, at some point there just isn't enough real estate on the page to run all these widgets. Plus, every widget added slows down page loads.

I'm one of the bloggers who really runs online publications. I could not afford to spend the time I do on my publications without monetizing them (wish I could, but just like everyone else I have living expenses). So I have had to get "widget stingy" and I consider very carefully before adding any new widgets.

I've received several invitations in the past 3 days to join BlogRush and I'm glad I found your review when I decided to check them out. Based on what you've said, I've decided to pass. Thanks, Jim.

Anita