RSS Technology Training: Syndication Concepts for Business

You may be familiar with blogging and its benefits. But are you familiar with the power of RSS mashup technology as a marketing tool for your online start-up or established online businesses? Would you want to discover a technology that is so understated but so powerful that even Google involves it in one of their company acquisitions?

This blog entry is addresssed to established web marketers, entrepreneurs, or virtual start-ups. I’ll be sharing with you a document to create a greater awareness of the advantages of leveraging innovative RSS technologies for higher visibility on the Internet and the traffic that results from such visibility.

As an evangelist and trainer for blogging and other social media, I’m very familiar with the strengths of blogging and RSS. But when my friend and colleague, David Ridge speaks about RSS Mashup Technology (that gives him speedy but stable search results and revenue from Google), I drop everything and listen intently.

David Ridge is the founder and CEO of Fwicki.com, an RSS mashup platform and one of the most powerful and innovative RSS applications on the internet today. If you have no clue about Fwicki, let me give you some context to the rare air around Fwicki.

Are you familiar with Feedburner? Yes, the leading provider of media distribution and audience engagement services for blogs and RSS feeds. And the largest feed and blog advertising network, with members like Wall Street Journal Online, Wired News, Ziff Davis, and more. Yes, that Feedburner that Google owns.

Located within the FeedBurner application is a list of integrated components from carefully selected, related RSS applications and services. The services offered within the FeedBurner user area are a “who’s who” of the top 25 RSS applications in the world such as Google Reader, My Yahoo!, Newsgator, and Pageflakes. Fwicki is one of these 25 applications. Google (Feedburner) digs Fwicki, do you?

I pray you’ll allocate mind-space to Fwicki. David Ridge is a mover and shaker (but a very private guy), and he’s granted me exclusive permission to share a RSS Training document with you that will make a difference to your business if you take advantage of it. And more importantly to me, David’s shown strength of character and integrity over the years that I’ve known him, so I trust him.

This document, “RSS Technology Training: Syndication Concepts for Business“, will help you understand the role of RSS technology and advanced syndication concepts for entrepreneurs and online businesses.

Here’s the table of contents in this document:

1. RSS Associates

2. Introduction

3. The Advantages of RSS

4. RSS & Business – The Perfect Merger

5. Planning The Syndicated Data Stream

6. Leveraging RSS For Placement In The SERPs

7. Innovative RSS Applications

8. Applying Mashup Application Technologies

9. Viral Syndication Concepts

10. Social Syndication Concepts

11. Custom, Dynamic, Social Data Portals

12. The Advantages of Rich Media Feeds

13. Monetizing The Data Stream

14. Adequate Support, Coaching and Training

David gave me express permission to share this document with my audience - you - to shed light on the power of RSS for business.

Here’s your next steps:

Step 01. Download and read “RSS Technology Training: Syndication Concepts for Business”

Step 02. Holla at David Ridge at http://www.fwicki.net/support . Give him thanks & props for this free document

Step 03.  Use http://www.fwicki.net/support to ask him questions about what you read, or how his mashup technology will make a difference to your online business and web marketing. David’s also available for private RSS consulting to those who qualify. “Only” my “posse” has been offered the opportunity to engage his time for consulting, so let him know Sherman sent you, ok?

Will Newman, AWAI Interviews Sherman Hu

Will Newman, Managing Editor of “Copywriting Insider” (AWAI) interviewed me this morning. Frankly, this ranks as one of my all time favorite interview sessions. I believe alot had to do with how much of a pro Will is with his pre-interview research. He had invested hours of research into my previous blog entries, podcasts and videos before conducting his interview with intelligent questions that inspired lengthy, in-depth answers from me. Almost felt like an “Inside The Actors Studio” session

HIs audience are copywriting students, novice professional writers and folks who are generally tech-unsavvy. The questions Will asked of me really opened up answers targeting mindset and practices with respects to blogging, podcasting, video and social media / networking.

I’m confident you’ll receive tremendous value from this interview. It would really thrill me to receive your feedback, thoughts and comments on this interview and your takeaways that you’ll take action on.

(sidenote: To prevent audio feedback with Will, this interview seems 1-sided with me talking. As much as I could, I rephrased Will’s question/s before my answers. Just a heads up.)

Thanksgiving Video from Alex Karis

Alex Karis (you can find him at his Hurricane of Gratitude Facebook Group and on Twitter) of Corpus Christi, TX created this thanksgiving video thanking me for value I’ve contributed to him and others. Very humbling! I’m so appreciative of Alex’s creative efforts to shoot and publish this video on Facebook.

If I may be so bold as to leverage this into a lesson for not-for-profit and business groups, it’s that prior to June 2008, Alex and I didn’t know each other. Alex found my LIVE video broadcasts - he especially liked my "Bordercast" episode - and proceeded to follow, connect and dialog with me since then. It has been less than 5 months and this video above is the 2nd video he has created to "share me" with his audience, his "tribe".

If there are some questions you could ask yourself, these may help…

"How am I engaging my audience?"

"How are you engaging your future audience-to-be?"

"What kind of value are you investing in them?"

"What are you doing today to inspire and motivate your future "evangelists"?"

Thanks Alex! U ROCK!

Will This "Star Wars: The Last Of The Jedi" Video Have The Force?

Cynthia Kasper is a Facebook friend. Here she is with her son and you can tell they have a great relationhip, and that he’s a joker

She shared with me that he is participating in a contest organized by StoryTubes for their 2008 National Contest which rewards winning contestants with $500 prize money for books, and their sponsoring organization (school, library or designated organization for home-schooled youth) will also receive $1,000 in books. I like this contest already

In addition, she enquired if I would share methods to get this message to the masses to vote for her 12 year old son’s video - and fast.

As a homeschooled student, he created his own book report video and entered it in the "Heroes/Heroines Category" with a video titled: Star Wars: The Last Of The Jedi: Death On Naboo (his video is located in the 2nd last row of videos).

The good news is he was chosen as a finalist and the voting begins tomorrow, May 19th.

Cynthia shared her discovery that previous winners have mobilized large social networks to get in excess of 15,000 votes. WOW!

Feeling especially generous and wanting to encourage her son’s efforts, I detailed my "off the top of my head" game plan for her to deploy right away. After you read my game plan below, I would appreciate your feedback, and especially a strategy or two to help Cynthia and her son get quick exposure and votes. And I’m confident Cynthia would be very grateful for your vote also

So here’s the game plan I shared with Cynthia:

Read more

How To Use Twitter For Business Connections & Results

Alejandro Reyes (SuccessFool.com) interviewed me about Twitter - a social networking, microblogging web-based service utilising instant messaging, SMS or a web interface to stay connected in real time. You can communicate and stay connected through the exchange of short status messages of less than 140 characters.

We discuss who should use it, why to use it, how to use it and more. During the interview, I littered a host of tips and resources to use Twitter effectively, eg. connecting it to Facebook, your blog and the many applications that work with Twitter. Keep an eye out for those.

Check this video out and I appreciate your feedback and comments.

 

Bill Vick, XtremeRecruiting Interviews Sherman Hu

ShermanLive.com“>

Bill Vick (XtremeRecruiting.tv) interviewed me about how headhunters and recruiters can leverage blogging, video and social media to extend their brand, subject matter expertise and reach, which in turns enhances their business and profits.

View this video and consider how it can apply to your professional service. Do you see angles that you can transfer concepts, strategies, techniques and skills?

How can you leverage blogging, podcasting, video and social media to extend YOUR brand, subject matter expertise and reach, which in turns enhances YOUR business and profits.

Care to share what you gleaned from this video? What are your takeaways? Would love your feedback here.

3 Favorite Traffic Generation Strategies & Why?

Michael Campbell (InternetMarketingSecrets.com) interviewed me about my 3 favorite traffic generation strategies and the reasons why. Naturally its blogging, videocasting & social media, but why? View this short video to find out.

Re-Purposing Content 2.0

Publishing quality content is one of the core pieces of the puzzle in running your online business. But where do we start? And how do we go about generating quality content? And how do we translate this content to profits for our business?

This article, titled “Re-Purpose Content 2.0” will show you how.

What’s In It For You?

Here are 3 benefits you’ll receive from implementing the strategies revealed in this article:

1. Subject Matter Expertise: You’ll leverage content to build your brand and expertise

2. Visitors & Customers: You’ll attract visitors and customers who like, trust and respect you

3. Conversions: If your prospects and visitors like you, trust you and respect you, this naturally leads to easier conversions. This could mean subscriptions to your newsletter, calling you to retain your services, purchasing your product offerings or whatever you choose to be your intended call-to-actions.

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Social Media Telesummit: Social Media Success Stories (4 Parts)

A Social Media Telesummit (www.SocialMediaTelesummit.net) preview call between Leesa Barnes (LeesaBarnes.com), Karin Hoegh (PodBlog.dk), Krishna De (KrishnaDe.com), Darren Barefoot (SocialMediaReady.com), Paul Colligan (PaulColligan.com) and Sherman Hu (ShermanLive.com) about their success stories in social media.

Note: This video has been split into 4 parts, to accommodate a faster download process. I recommend downloading all 4 parts and watching it on your computer or video iPod. Would love to get your feedback on these videos.

Part 1 Video:

 

Part 2 Video:

 

Part 3 Video:

 

Part 4 Video:

Get A Book Deal Through Blogging

On our Feb 1 Huddle, I asked Leesa Barnes, host of SocialMediaTelesummit.net and LeesaBarnes.com) for her advice about …

"What’s the 1 thing that’s working really well for you and your clients right now?
And what are the top benefits you’re experiencing from this strategy?"

This is her answer…

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