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, 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.)

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:

Her Son’s Video:

Cynthia, good on your son for creating the video. This is what I would do, off the top of my head…

Facts:
- He created a video in the "heroes/heroines" topic/category
- He created a video about "Death On Naboo" (Star Wars The Last Of The Jedi)
- The winner wins $ in books and also for institution of choice
- Voting commences May 19 (12 noon EDT) – May 25, 2008
- Past winners have leveraged social networks for votes

Here are my ideas:

1. Video Broadcast:
- I would setup an account at TubeMogul.com, which will broadcast your video to 14 video sharing sites (eg. youtube, google video, blip, etc).
- You would have to register for free accounts at those 14 sites.
- Upload the video to TubeMogul and it’ll broadcast to all of them. This will give more exposure to the video.
- Title the video like how you’ve done it at YouTube. eg. "For StoryTubes Vote: Heroes & Heroines: Star Wars – Death On Naboo"
- Describe the video well. If you can, hyperlink to the category and describe how folks can locate your son’s video to view it. Then link to the voting page and provide details to make it easy for folks to use the data to vote.
***  It wouldn’t hurt to have a page setup on Squidoo.com or HubPages.com that embeds your son’s video, explaining the cause, the prize, what institution your son’s hoping to win books for, plus links to the necessary page for voting – this way you direct everybody there, they get the info they need, get motivated, then click the links to vote.

2. Press Release:
- Write a release sharing the purpose of the event, the cause, the prizes. Then write your point of view, and your son’s point of view (like you’re being interviewed) in it. Then include a link in the release to your Squidoo.com or HubPages.com page. Send your release to PR.com (free) or PRWeb.com (paid).

3. Use Social Media Groups:
- Go to MySpace. Search for "Star Wars" in MySpace Groups. Join them. Then share the details of the program, the cause, the prize, who your son’s trying to win for, and link to the Squidoo/HubPages page for more details and votes.
- Repeat the above process for Facebook Groups.

4. Google "Star Wars fan sites", "Star Wars forums" or related phrases
- Hunt down fan sites or forums, join them, add value and comments, and share what your son is doing with the Star Wars video. If you can email/call the webmaster or admin to feature his cause, with relevance to Star Wars, then that’ll provide a large fan base that will vote for your son just because you’re all Star Wars fans.

5. Homeschool Groups/Organizations
- Email your admins of your homeschool group/org and also other homeschool groups/orgs, detailing the same proposal. Send them to your Squidoo/HubPages page and get them voting for your son.

6. Leverage Sponsor Blogs
- Visit StoryTubes.info, visit all the associated sponsoring organizations and libraries, and hunt down their blogs. Since they are sponsoring the event, they would probably have some type of mention of it on their blogs (hopefully).
- Add comments on their blogs, sharing your excitement and your son’s commitment to winning the prize for his chosen institution. Share a link to your Squidoo/HubPages page, requesting folks to view his video and vote.

7. Other Social Media & Social Bookmarking Sites
- There are a host of Web 2.0 sites you can feature content about your son’s contest journey/experience. Here are some of them: Hubpages, Squidoo, Wetpaint, Faves, Bumpzee, WordPress.com, ClearBlogs, Quizilla, Propeller, Wists, Kaboodle, Digg and many more…

8. Ping
- Use your Squidoo.com/HubPages.com RSS feed URL and get it pinged at Pingoat.com and OnlyWire.com

9. Twitter - Hopefully you already have a good following of friends on Twitter. Broadcast to your friends to vote too!

What do you think? Can you get some momentum from these strategies?

Cheers, Sherman H.

There you have it – my quick-off-the-top-of-head game plan. I’m confident there are a ton of strategies that are free / inexpensive, deliver quick exposure and in turn, leading to votes for her son.

What are your thoughts on what I shared with her? Do you agree? Differ? What would you suggest? Cynthia & I are all ears…

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.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.

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.

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.

To keep it simple, I’ll share these strategies in only 2 steps:

Generate Content and Leverage Content.

Let’s start with the first step, Generate Content.

Step 1: Generate Content

You can generate content in 1 of 2 ways, or both.

You can O.P.W. which is an acronym for “Other People’s Writing”.

Or you can O.O.W., and acronym for “Our Own Content”.

O.P.W. – Other People’s Writing

Let’s explore O.P.W. (Other People’s Writing).

Why is this important and effective? It’s because you save hundreds of hours having to write it yourself, which translates to productivity in other areas that really matter. Plus, its easier to edit someone’s work, than it is to create from scratch – do you find this to be the case? I do too.

How can you implement O.P.W.?

Here are some examples of OPW. You have options such as:
- Private Label Resale rights ebooks, newsletters, salesletters, audio, video and more
- Public Domain ebooks, articles, journals, audio, video, software and much more, plus
- Engaging the writing services of a VA or a ghostwriter, to write content for your topic

Let’s look at option 2, which is to write your own content.

O.O.W. – Our Own Writing

Let’s explore OOW (Our Own Writing).

Why is this important and effective? Your topics may require context-sensitive data and information that only your in-house team or you know, eg. medical and legal sectors. In addition, writing your own content also provides you with consistency of voice, personality and brand.

How can you implement O.O.W.?

If you have an in-house team, you can assign them to begin outlining a series of content pieces that follow the ideas I’ll share in a moment. The content can be interchanged between text, audio and video formats.

If you require the services of a virtual assistant or ghostwriter, you can seek out
freelance talent at online service marketplace websites like guru.com, elance.com or rentacoder.com.

OK, let’s recap what we’ve learnt so far, before diving into the many varieties of content that you will begin to leverage.

You’ve learnt that there are 2 ways to generate content:

OPW - which is “Other People’s Writing”, and
OOW – which is to write your own content.

Let’s begin with the second step – Leverage Content.

Step 2: Leverage Content

Here’s a long but not exhaustive list of resources you can begin to gather research and to generate ideas of where to locate relevant content for your topic.

RESEARCH

affiliate material
article directories
ask campaigns
autoresponders
blogs
books
case studies
coaching + mentoring
discussion groups
ebooks
expert interviews
ezines
forums
i.m. chats
industry news
info product
mastermind
membership content
mini-courses
news alerts
newsletters
podcast
podcast transcriptions
press releases
private label resale
public domain
reports
research
salesletters
seminars
social media
speech
opt-in pages
transcriptions
teleseminars
tips
tutorials
videos
video podcast
video tutorials
websites
white papers
workbooks
workshops
etc etc etc

How you assemble your research is dependent if you’re going to OPW or OOW your research content to your output formats. Once you decide if you’re going to OPW or OOW, then these next steps fall in place quite easily.

Here are additional words that can also help you trigger ideas for the type of content you can generate:

brainstorm
benefits
facts
history
how to
ideas
problems
questions
quotes
thoughts
tips
topics

Once you gather your research content, you can begin to decide how your content will take shape. Here’s a long but not exhaustive list of content types you can choose to create. Note that it may be similar to the Research list, but the key is that all your research can be developed into interchangeable text, audio and video content.

OUTPUT

advertising
affiliate content
articles
ask campaigns
autoresponders
blogs
books
case studies
coaching + mentoring
discussion groups
ebooks
expert interviews
ezines
forums
industry news
info product
mastermind
membership content
mini-courses
news alerts
newsletters
opt-in pages
podcast
podcast transcriptions
press releases
private label resale
public domain
reports
salesletters
seminars
speech
social media
transcriptions
teleseminars
tips
tutorials
videos
video podcast
video tutorials
websites
white papers
workbooks
workshops
etc etc etc

For starters, print these lists and tack it up on a wall close by your computer. Scan the “RESEARCH” list for ideas, keeping your 1 business topic in mind, with the intention that you want to repurpose your research into a variety of formats listed in “OUTPUT”. Then get started in developing your content.

May I suggest that you consider how you can leverage your content for your blog, the social community websites you participate at, and for video. These are platforms that deliver strong return-on-your-time-investment for a large percentage of topics. Naturally, you want to consider your customers’ buying and research patterns so you can add value wherever they congregate.

Imagine the convenience and ease of looking at this list, and moving forward with confidence in generating an endless supply of content for your business topics.

Imagine publishing and promoting your content, building your subject matter expertise, developing your base of subscribers and customers, and boosting your conversions and profits because you generate quality content easily.

This is a strategy that you can take action on today. Go for it!

Would love your feedback on this article – thanks!

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:

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…

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

"Are there differences between Podcasts and Social Media?"

This is her answer…

Let’s Huddle this Thursday evening, Jan 31th at 7pm EST.

What’s a Huddle?
I coined this phrase. A huddle is a group of people connecting via a multimedia learning experience, combining audio, text chat, desktop-sharing & video chat.

Many who’ve experienced a Huddle share with me how much value they’ve received, both in content and format. If you’re new to a Huddle, join us, and I’m sure you’ll find value in it too.

Kickin’ It Up A Notch!
To get 2008′s 1st Half Hour Huddle off to a great start, I’m inviting Leesa Barnes, author of "Podcasting For Profit" & creator of the Social Media Telesummit to co-host this Huddle with me.

BTW, I fully endorse this Social Media Telesummit, not because I’m one of the speakers or because the the line up of speakers rock, but I’m thrilled about the line up of solid value-added topics, that I’m going to personally attend many of the sessions myself.

How would you like to ask your important questions to 2 new media ‘Subject Matter Experts’ ? We’re opening the floor to questions about blogging, podcasting, video and social media. These topics are on the  radars of many business owners, and maybe yours too, so we’d like to see you overcome any obstacles you may have to begin leveraging these strategies in 2008 for your businesses. Good news? So let’s Huddle…see you tomorrow

Here are the Huddle details…

Huddle Schedule

Jan 31 . Thur . 7pm-8pm EST

Why is a ‘Half Hour Huddle’ an hour long?
Glad you asked As I have a special guest on the air with me, along with opening the floor to attendees to ask about blogging, podcasting, video &/or social media, I predict we’ll need the hour. We’ll return to our regular 30 minute programming in future Huddles.

Talk

Conference bridge number: 605.475.4261
Code: 202-950-310

Self-Mute: 6 (on your phone touchpad)

See

We’ll be using Yugma so you can see my desktop, and our "talking heads". First 100 attendees get in – I recommend showing up 5-10 minutes early.

SESSION LOGIN: CLICK ME
SESSION ID: 202-950-310

Upon arriving at Yugma, fill in your name & email. Session ID should be pre-filled.
(Note: You don’t need a Yugma account to view our session)
Simply click join, and you’ll connect with us in seconds.

Ask

To ask questions, you’ll need to be viewing my desktop using Yugma (see above).

Type your question in the Public Chat box and you’ll get the open mic when I call on you by name.

Remember, first come, first served & we only have 60 minutes

Looking forward to seeing you on the Huddle!

SocialMediaTelesummit.net showcases 24 experts teaching how to use blogs, podcasts, wikis and other social media tools to for business and profits. I’m one of the speakers – join me there, won’t you?

Leesa Barnes (host) & I reveal part 2 of the 5 Myths of Social Media in this video.

Social Media Telesummit showcases 24 experts teaching how to use blogs, podcasts, wikis and other social media tools to for business and profits. I’m one of the speakers – join me there, won’t you?

Leesa Barnes (host) & I reveal the 5 Myths of Social Media in part 1 of this video. (Part 2 will be published later today).

Tip: Click the download links below, save it to your computer, and enjoy the smooth video. Or if you’d prefer to stream this video, you’re welcome too – just FYI that video buffering may occur depending on your internet connections.

Lasse Rouhiainen, author of Web 2.0 Marketing Tips, Video Marketing and an Online Personal Coach, interviews me late November 2007 about Facebook, Blogging & Video for business. View this 16 minute video as I share how your time-to-market can be shortened with this technology, the power of video and how business owners can leverage this technology for business exposure and profits.

At www.ConversationDomination.net, Howie Schwartz researches , deploys and shares his discoveries with his members of how he achieves multiple listings on Google and dominates conversations.

In this part 2 of a 2 part interview, Howie and I continue to discuss approaches to social media, showcasing Howie’s case studies, what one can expect to achieve by Christmas (approx. 15 days), and what Howie and I are offering to the guests viewing the interview.

At www.ConversationDomination.net, Howie Schwartz researches , deploys and shares his discoveries with his members of how he achieves multiple listings on Google and dominates conversations.

In this part 1 of a 2 part interview, Howie and I discuss social media, leveraging it for business, and how Howie approaches this medium.

I had received a host of emails from guests attending the interview and those who could not for a recording, so I’m glad to provide it now. Would appreciate your feedback and comments. Thanks!

Note: Video length is 20:37 (370MB), so downloading this video may be a good idea.

Social Media is the talk of the town, and we’re living in a Web 2.0 era. What does it mean anyway? And how can entrepreneurs and business owners leverage it for their business marketing, sales and profits?

Tomorrow, Tuesday Dec 11th at 7pm PST (10pm EST) in my popular "Huddle" format (combining desktop share, video and audio interview), I’ll be interviewing Howie Schwartz (creator of www.ConversationDomination.net and other breakthrough marketing strategies) about the phenomenon of Social Media, how he’s achieving multiple rankings on Google to  "dominate the conversation" and how you can easily achieve the same for your business.

Click for more details on tomorrow’s "Dominating Search Results With Social Media" Interview.

Howie Jacobson, PhD, author of Adwords for Dummies (available on Amazon) emailed me with this question after he started playing around with Facebook and I added him as an ‘officer’ to my Facebook Group "Beginners Guide to Mastering Web Basics".

Howie Jacobson: Since I joined the 2 groups you invited me to, I’ve been inundated with "friends" requests from people I don’t know. What should I do? How do I think about the social networking phenomenon so I can use it to my advantage without pretending relationships that don’t exist?

Sherman Hu: That’s a fabulous question, Howie. And to the credit of Facebook Groups and being promoted to "Officer" status in the group we’re involved together (Beginners Guide to Mastering Web Basics), we can tell that it works to help you build your ‘friend network’ and exposure in Facebook!

Here are some key principles to remember before I share 2 views you can embrace in managing your Facebook profile and network:

(A) You are who you hang out with. Remember this old saying? I believe it still applies today, and your customers, prospects, current/prospective employers/clients, colleagues, friends, and family will have a perception/judgement on the type of person you are by who you hang out with.

(B) You are in control of your network. Yes, you are not stifled or boxed in by the ‘rules’. You can choose who your friends are, and even after you add them as friends, you can still ‘turn back time’ and limit their access to your network or block them altogether.

(C) Keep it Social. In social media, master the art of passively promoting your own web properties – don’t do it blatantly. Keep it social, fun, intriguing, silly, make them laugh or cry, build in curiosity so they want to investigate further. Friendship first, business second (or something like it). Add value to the conversation first, then deliver your agenda passively.

Here are 2 different ways you can roll with your ‘business’ of Facebook:

[View 1]: BUSINESS ONLY:
Treat Facebook as an extension of your Web Marketing in the Social Media space. This means that your network of ‘friends’ will include business colleagues AND colleagues, acquaintances and friends of your business colleagues.

In essence, the phrase ‘friends’ in this view does not really mean ‘friend’ in the dictionary: a person you know well and regard with affection and trust. In this situation, it means anybody and everybody can be part of your ‘network of friends’.

Facebook offers you the opportunity to add 5000 friends to your network. If this is your view, then feel free to ‘go to town’ adding whoever asks to be your friend, or proactively seek out ‘friends’ to add to your network.

[View 2]: BUSINESS AND PERSONAL:
Your Facebook activities will include the above, plus you will use it to connect with friends, long lost friends and family.

With View #2, there is more emphasis on you keeping it real and not adding people you’re not familiar with to view your entire profile, but allowing them to view your Limited Profile.

After you’ve signed up for an account, you have freedom to modify your Privacy settings to reveal as much or little as you deem appropriate to people you add to your network to see. There is a feature called "Limited Profile" that affords you to group less familiar people to this "Limited Profile" view, which means they only get to see what you customized in your Limited Profile settings.

Naturally, those you add to your friends can view your entire profile. You have the freedom and control to choose how you want to use Facebook – for business only, or for business and pleasure. And with either of them, you have the power to customize your profile settings for both friends and acquaintances.

Howie, I hope this lengthy answer helps to clear up any confusion on how to manage the barrage of ‘friend requests’ you receive in Facebook.

Howie: "And how should I participate in the network once I’m signed up?"

Sherman: Howie, if you’re asking how you can participate in the "Beginners Guide to Mastering Web Basics" Facebook Group, then that’s an easy answer.

Simply add value to the existing conversations, or begin new conversations with the group’s members. Any type of basic education or tutorials that will accommodate a technophobe / beginner audience is ideal.

You can post videos, add notes, start a new discussion topic or write on the Wall in the group’s profile. I look forward to your contributions to the community soon

Howie, if you’re wondering how to participate in the Facebook community, then that’s something that depends entirely on your purpose for using Facebook in the first place.

Some worthwhile activities to engage in first would be to connect with people you’re familiar with, and begin value-added conversations with them. This will open up many doors to other activities that you’ll journey through, only to discover that you’ll be Facebook savvy in short order.

Here’s to your new journey in Facebook, and may it deliver you as much value as you contribute to it.

Cheers!

Sherman Hu

Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang co-present "Creating a Coherant Social Media Strategy" at Blog World Expo 2007 in Las Vegas. The room was full of bright minds just soaking up the facts, best practices, philosophies and humor these two were dishing.

Check it out and I appreciate your feedback and comments.

This blog post is in response to Ray Prince’s question when he commented on my "Video Rankings, Transcription & Mobile Blogging" entry.

VS

Hi Ray, thanks for your greetings!

I hear TrafficGeyser is a great product, and the creators one (Frank, Michael & Rocket) are good people.

TrafficGeyser does more than broadcast video to 35 video-sharing sites from what I understand. Its a comprehensive service that offers slidecasting, bonus royalty-free music packs, toll-free numbers to record podcasts or testimonials, video-to-audio conversion, broadcasting to podcast directories and social bookmarking sites. For anyone who wants these features from one service for a 97/m subscription, then TrafficGeyser is for them.

TubeMogul broadcasts and tracks metrics of your videos across a dozen video sharing sites from one screen (which is super convenient). It does what it does very well, plus its free.

For those who do not mind using multiple services to accomplish what TrafficGeyser does (in one paid membership), and would prefer free services or pay-to-own-once products/services, then they can accomplish similar or better results using:

1. TubeMogul.com (free) – broadcasts & tracks metrics to 12 video-sharing sites

2. Slideshare.net (free) – creates slidecasts by mashing up your images/slides with your voice or music audio

3. MusicBakery.com (15/song or 60+/album) – pay-per-piece royalty-free music or buy albums; there are also many other royalty-free music sites on the net.

4. Google for ‘free toll free numbers’ to find a service that can provide you with this, and have it forwarded to your destination of choice for recording whatever you want.

Or if you don’t care for the toll-free, then use:
- GrandCentral.com (free, owned by Google),
- Vonage.com (paid subscription VOIP service) or
- AudioAcrobat.com (19.95/m) – podcast, video & teleseminar recording or
- Hipcast.com (small monthly subscription) – podcast, video & teleseminar recording
or the many other services available.

5. Blip.tv (free or 8/m) – for video-sharing and hosting, but it also offers cross-posting to other popular sites and services. Plus it encodes your video to MP4, FLV and MP3 too.

6. OnlyWire.com (free), Pingoat.com (free) & RSS Submit software (100+ one-time purchase to own) – these free ping services and paid software helps you to update blog and search engine directories of your new content on your blog or at video sharing sites. Plus RSS Submit will ping podcast directories with the Podcast Plugin.
 
If you or anyone else would like to share with us their experiences using both, I’d welcome it here. Cheers!

As always, I welcome your thoughts, feedback and comments…

Transcript

Sherman Hu: Hey, hey, hey! Sherman Hu here from ShermanLive.com, listening to Christmas music on the road. Thank goodness for XM Radio.

Do you know that XM Radio actually has five dedicated channels to Christmas music of different genres, different styles? I really, really like that.

However, I wanted to share with you about a Facebook tip, especially Facebook Mobile and what I do when I have a little bit of time to kill when I’m on the road, or waiting for family while they’re shopping, or whatever the case might be, I take my BlackBerry and surf Facebook Mobile. I have a BlackBerry app for Facebook. Or you can surf Facebook Mobile when you’re on your PDA or phone that has access to Facebook.

You can actually check out the status updates of your friends – the ones that have recently updated their status updates – and then you can go ahead and respond and ask questions about what they’ve been updating about. And that’s a great way to connect, and dialog, and build relationships with either new acquaintances or old friends on Facebook.

So that’s a heads-up tip for you that can help you maximize and leverage your time while you’re away from your computer or when you’re on the road.

I would love to get your feedback on what you do with your Facebook Mobile app on your phones, what your favorite features are, and what you use it for.

Cheers.

Here’s an article I’ve written for a Vancouver-based tech writer who’s asked me to share my experiences with Facebook, how it has benefited my business, and what tips I can offer other folks in using Facebook to promote their businesses. I’m confident you’ll gain insights that you can use – today.

1. How has Facebook helped me to grow my business?

When I first started out with my Facebook Profile, it was with the intention to connect with current and old friends and colleagues. It wasn’t till I tracked my Q3/Q4 statistics on my blog, did I realize that Facebook accounted for a decent and growing percentage of new visits to my ShermanLive.com blog, where I help business owners simplify and demystify technology so they can profit from it.

That was when I approached Facebook with more intentionality. This involved creating a Facebook Group as a beginner’s guide to help technophobes master the basics of the web. This group, with more than 350 members today, showcases more than 60 videos, teaching the basics like domain registration, hosting, creating web pages and blogs etc. In addition, I created a Facebook Group for members of my WordPressTutorials.com training site.

In being proactive in these groups and my profile, and engaging in dialogue with key contacts in my friend network, I’ve attracted hundreds of new visitors to my blog and my other web properties, attracting them to engage in my product and service offerings.

In addition, the conversations I’ve engaged in with new acquaintances and friends have sparked new business opportunities. These new opportunities have added to my bottom line in new alliances, new projects, new consulting and speaking gigs and new profits.

The networking opportunities are incredible on Facebook, as the platform offers you a sneak peek into the personal and business life of a Facebook ‘Friend’. At a glance, I can get a feel about a Facebook friend’s preferences, likes, dislikes and conversational style. These offer me very effective ice-breakers to engage in conversation with them. These conversations grow into stronger relationships, which may benefit both parties for business or personal interests.

In summary, Facebook has helped to enhance my business and personal life with new, enriching relationships and profits.

2. What recommendations do I have for other businesses in using Facebook to promote their products or services?

Put On Your Party Hat & Join The Party!

Quote from Wikipedia (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook)
- – -
As of late November 2007, the website has the largest number of registered users among college-focused sites, with 55 million active members (including non-collegiate members) worldwide, with membership expected to surpass 60 million users by the end of the year. From September 2006 to September 2007 the site’s traffic ranking increased from 60th to 7th, according to Alexa. It is the number one site for photos in the United States, ahead of public sites such as Flickr, with over 60 million photos uploaded weekly.
- – -

Its a party with close to 60 million users, and 200,000 new users joining everyday – what’s not to like?

Facebook users proactively use Facebook to connect with their current friends and find old friends, share picture and video galleries and communicate openly on their ‘Walls’ and private messages. There are also many business applications that add features to your profile. Facebook also offers Facebook Groups (interest groups that have grown to the thousands) and Facebook Ads, a very powerful demographically-targeted promotional service being offered to Facebook users. You can read more about other services that Facebook offers here.

With 1 million new post-college users joining every week, it should catch the attention of all businesses to dive into and research this phenomenon.

The least a business should do is to research interest groups (Facebook Groups) related to their product or service line or their ideal audience, and feel the pulse of the community. I would strongly suggest that new users put on their party hats, join several interest groups, add value to the ‘party’ with tips, advice, photos, videos and other helpful insights. As you gain trust, respect, influence and subject matter expertise, the users in those Facebook Groups will then seek out your Facebook Profile or your web properties to engage in your offerings.

Don’t Be A Social Dork!

There’s a reason why it’s called Social Media.

Keep it Social. Keep it Relational. Keep it Community-Centric.

Like in blogging, infuse your ‘speak’ and ‘conversations’ with your personal voice.

Don’t be a social dork by blatantly pitching your products and services – it’ll get you nowhere fast.

Create Your Own Party!

After you get your feet wet, you may want to consider creating your own Facebook Group or Facebook Page. It doesn’t have to be a topic that’s super-niched to your product or service, as it can be one that’s loosely related to your offerings.

For example, Dove could setup a Facebook Page about ‘Real Beauty’ – showing pictures, videos and posting notes about the power of ‘real beauty’. They don’t have to blatantly pitch their Dove products. Get it?

It’s Not A One Night Stand!

Keep in mind that you’re building a positive brand, a positive reputation, a positive community around your company, your products or your services.

This is relational, social, and about community.

Not a one-night stand. Not bam-bam-thank-you-ma’am.

It’s courtship. It’s dating. And it takes time. But its all worthwhile.

Where else can you find a party with 60 million users, offering you demographics, geographics, pyschographics and their conversations, pictures, videos and their likes/dislikes to begin a conversation, a relationship?

Where else can you setup a group around a relevant topic, attract Facebook users to participate in the conversation, and enjoy the benefits of knowing what your audience likes or dislikes.

In closing, be smart about Facebook. Throw on your party hat and join the party. Don’t be a social dork. Create your own party. And remember, it’s not a one night stand.

Would love your feedback and comments – simply click the ‘Comments’ link below. Thanks!

Transcript

Sherman Hu: Hey, Hey, Hey, Sherman Hu from ShermanLive.com I wanted to give a shout out that I’m enroute to go visit a friend that is a renowned music producer and I’m not going to mention his name, but a lot of top music artists know him and have him write their music and produce. He wants to discuss, brainstorm, and organize and have me come over and help him out with his online community project. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but by the end of the night I know I’ll find out.

If you have friends or associates or clients or whoever that is looking to launch their own online community project in the arts, whether its music, film, movies, modeling, whatever the case might be, then definitely consider Ning.com as a social networking application to be the piggy back, a platform for your online social network. Then you definitely want to piggyback on MySpace, create a profile for that project and upload the media pieces. When you’re talking about music, the music content is incredible media that you can publish to MySpace or Ning or to a host of media sites. You can post music videos, interviews with the artist, that kind of stuff.

Just a heads up on an application that I’ve used quite well that I really like is TubeMogul.com, and it’s a free web-based application that broadcasts your video to a whole list of video sharing sites. So instead of having to upload your video one at a time to eight to 10 video sharing sites, you just have to upload your video once to TubeMogul and it will broadcast it to the ten video sharing sites for you. And not only that, it will track the views and the stats of how well those videos are doing at the different video sharing sites.

One of the video sharing sites that it posts to is Blip.tv which is where all of my video media is hosted right now. And the cool thing about Blip.tv is they will also cross post to a variety of different places, one of them being "Internet Archives". Google loves "Internet Archives" like Blip. These video sharing sites are doing very well when you post your media to it and you use good titles to title your videos.

Right there I dropped four apps for you to consider; Ning, MySpace, TubeMogul, and of course Blip.tv. Check it out, right now we are in such a video craze that when you use it well you can really show up well in the search engines for Google’s Universal Search where they showcase pictures and YouTube videos and different things like this. Anyway, that’s my tip, enjoy, use it, benefit from it, and we’ll talk to you soon.

Transcript

Sherman Hu: Hey, hey! Sherman Hu, from ShermanLive.com. Breaking news!

Facebook has launched Facebook Ads and Facebook Pages. Well, Ads isn’t that new but Facebook Pages that allows you to create an entire new page on Facebook for your product or service or initiative or offering.

I am driving right now. So I want to share with you, if you are a Facebook user, to go the bottom of your Facebook profile, click on advertisers and find out more information about Facebook Pages and the several new offerings that they are offering right now.

It is combination of social ads and polls, beacons. There is about six different offerings that you will want to research and understand and apply to your not-for-profit or for-profit project, as soon as you can. I mean it is a wonderful way to attract what they call not friends, but fans, off your Facebook page.

I just wanted to give you a heads-up. Check it out, Facebook Pages. I believe that will be an incredible benefit for you moving forward for your project.

Transcript

Sherman Hu: Hey folks! Sherman Hu, from ShermanLive.com, with another tip for you today!

If you are asking the question, "How can I create my own topical social network?" We’re not talking about creating or jumping into another network right now, like Facebook or MySpace, for example. But, how do you create your own white label topical social network?

Then what I’d like to share with you, is to go visit Gina’s Social Network app at Ning.com. Ning.com is the social network application I’ve referred to, and if you are kind of planning a non-profit organization — sorry, a not-for-profit social network — whether it’s charitable or religious, or you’re thinking a for-profit social network in business, marketing, if you have a product or service, then Ning will help you get up to speed today. And depending on features you want, whether it’s domain mapping or ads or whatever the case may be, then maybe a small charge is there.

But today, you can go create an account and set up your own social network in a hurry and be able to offer other folks, who are enthusiasts or evangelists in that topic, to join as members, have their own space to blog, to build a following, to add photos, add video. That right there allows you to get up to speed, time to market, in a hurry with very, very low cost of entry and a powerful way to put your foot forward in a social network space.

Hope you enjoy this tip!

Transcript

Sherman Hu: Hey, hey. Sherman Hu here, from ShermanLive.com. I want to share with you a question I received today. I believe the answer will help you if you are considering the same thing.

There are many different topics and niche markets online that you can participate in. Hopefully that the areas you are passionate about or have interest in is also a profitable one. However you may have passions in areas that are totally unprofitable online, in which case you may be searching for a market place in which you would like to be an influencer or thought-leader or subject matter expert but really don’t know enough to play ball. I know what kind of question I have today. I thought I would share with you how you can start moving forward in the right direction.

What I will do, you want to go where the thought-leaders and the subject matter experts and influencers are and come to the party and put on your party hat – this is something of a visual analogy I adopted from Chris Brogan in his talk at BlogWorldExpo – "Jump into the party, be part of the conversation" – participate in the conversation when you have something of value to add. If you are new to the market place this where you study. This is your research ground. This is where you go into student mode for any offline resources.

There are many online resources that you can check out.

One of the places I would first go to would be Technorati.com. I would go to search.technorati.com. At search.technorati.com you will find a search box. Go ahead and type in it the search phrase, maybe the macro search phrase that pertains to the new topic that you are interested in and hit enter. You will be presented with a listing of all the different blogs on that topic. I believe, in the top right-hand corner, there is a web link to filter that search. You want to filter that search with blogs that have a lot of authority. After you filter that search, your listing is filtered down to blogs that are playing serious ball in that space that you are interested in. I would visit those blogs and bookmark them and really study what they have to share because more often that not they will be blogging about what really – the cutting edge, bleeding edge, current news about your topic – you want to be familiar with. Really take note.

Then the next place I would go to is Google News. I believe that is google.com\news or news.google.com – whatever the case may be. Type in your macro-related  phrases there. On the left column you will be presented with Google Alerts. You will be notified via email or, if you are friendly with RSS and have a blog reader, you can copy the link to the RSS feed of that news page that shows you the results of that topic that you searched for. Put it into your blog reader and you will be notified, every day, of the hottest news topic in that niche market that you are interested in. I would study them.

This is the cutting edge stuff. This is the way for you to put on your party hat, put on your student cap, study and in a short period of time – if you are intentional about your study – in the next seven to fourteen days you will be able to gather enough information to be able then, with your party hat on, participate in conversations at these blogs – the ones that you have filtered – add value, get to know the blog authors, whether via commenting on the blog of emailing them or picking up the phone and calling them. I am assuming that you are moving forward with your own blog anyway in that space.

If you are familiar with "trackbacks" at all, you can start posting trackback linking to the next author’s blog entry. Your trackback on your blog will be showcased in their blog as a comment. This will, if your comment is of value – I am not talking about stuff like "Great post, buddy" or "Wow! Nice tip." I am talking about adding a paragraph or a few lines of good content that add to the conversation. In no time you will find that people that visit these authority bloggers’ blogs will start to click over to find out what you have to add to the conversation.

You will start building up likeability, trust, respect, credibility and influence. This is the way that you build up your "rock star status". This can be applied to social networking or social media sites like FaceBook.

This is the killer strategy right here.

Facebook Groups allows you to type in the search phrase topic. Facebook Groups does a search. You will find a multitude of groups there that are related to your topic. You will find some with a lot of members. You will find some that pertain to your topic. You want to visit the group, join the group, put on your party hat, be part of the conversation, be social, don’t pitch, go up there, participate, add value, add pictures, add videos, add Slidecast, add text, add questions and answers in a discussion board and be a player.

You can do the same thing for MySpace.

What I am sharing with you here is, in a short period of time, definitely within a month, being able to intentionally study, put on your party hat and be in the conversation, gain knowledge, share your knowledge that you are learning and start becoming a rock star in that space. That’s my tip for you. If you are wondering how to enter a new space, right there I have given you the gems of how to do that effectively and efficiently in a short period of time. Enjoy!

Click To Play

Though this was posted by Utterz in a previous blog entry, I wanted to share with you the full size version – simply download it and you’ll see it in 640×480. Enjoy.

This video shows you how to add connections in your Utterz account (free Mobile Blogging service) to your blog, Twitter (a free Microblogging service) and Facebook (a social media platform) profiles. 

Transcript

Sherman Hu: Hey, hey, hey! This is Sherman Hu coming to you live, uttering on ShermanLive.com.

Utterz is a new service at Utterz.com; where you can mobile blog or in short, "moblog", at anytime, by calling a number. You can send your videos, your pictures, your text and your voice via cell phone and automatically send it to your blog with this service. You can also have it automatically connect it to your social network service whether it may be Facebook, MySpace or whatever the case may be.

It’s great! You can actually have a widget up in your blog with a collection of your moblog. What a great way to be able to be away from the laptop, the computer and still be able to update web properties whether it be blog or your social network.

Check it out, www.Utterz.com! Catch you later. Bye.

There are already 50+ training videos at WordpresTutorials.com – but with all the multimedia and social media trends and web apps available to us, you can really pimp out your blog – and even publish content to it away from your computer. Stay tuned for more videos coming soon to a browser near you…

Transcript

Sherman Hu: Hey, folks. Sherman Hu from ShermanLive.Com.

Today I was actually crafting out an entire schedule of curriculum to really beef up the video training I already have at WordPressTutorials.com and it’s because there’s so much that I have worked through, experienced, tested, experimented with regards to what you can do to pimp out your WordPress blog.

I’m going to be busy deploying many different topics along the lines of what you can do with your WordPress blog. I mean, it’s everything from the basics of setting and deploying it and tweaking it with the themes, the plug ins. That’s just the beginning.

We can really go full out and showcase how to podcast on your blog, how to videocast on your blog, how to connect social media to it, analytics. What else is there? There’s mobile blogging. What I’m doing right now with Utterz.

There’s so much that is possible away from your computer that it’s amazing, the development. So, I’m looking forward to develop a more comprehensive suite of video training at WordPressTutorials.com. Look for it. It’s coming out very soon.

Take care.

Transcript

Sherman Hu: Hey, hey, hey! This is Sherman Hu coming to you live, uttering on ShermanLive.com.

Utterz is a new service at Utterz.com; where you can mobile blog or in short, "moblog", at anytime, by calling a number. You can send your videos, your pictures, your text and your voice via cell phone and automatically send it to your blog with this service. You can also have it automatically connect it to your social network service whether it may be Facebook, MySpace or whatever the case may be.

It’s great! You can actually have a widget up in your blog with a collection of your moblog. What a great way to be able to be away from the laptop, the computer and still be able to update web properties whether it be blog or your social network.

Check it out, www.Utterz.com! Catch you later. Bye.

Transcript

Sherman Hu: Hey, hey, hey! This is Sherman Hu coming to you live, uttering on www.ShermanLive.com.

Utterz is a new service at www.Utterz.com; where you can mobile blog or in short, moblog, at anytime, by calling a number. You can send your videos, your pictures, your text and your voice via cell phone and automatically send it to your blog with this service. You can also have it automatically connect to your social network service whether it may be Facebook, MySpace or whatever the case may be.

It’s great! You can actually have a widget up in your blog with all this collection of your moblog. What a great way to be able to be away from the laptop, the computer and still be able to update web properties whether it be blog or your social network.

Check it out, www.Utterz.com! Catch you later. Bye.

Ed Dale, of Dominiche fame, writes on his tubbynerd.com blog, asking for his readers’ advice on small business web marketing tips they would share with local business owners in the Adelaide, South Australia region. He’s speaking with the Minister for Small Business in South Australia,  federal candidates , local mayors and small businesses – with a talk on "Internet and Small Business".

Here are some of my thoughts. If I come up with more ideas, I’ll add to this post…

"Hey Ed, if a local small business has the savvy to get a website for their business, they’re ahead of the game – many are still questioning why they even need one.

Keep it simple…

A. Start up a blog – whether its a blogging platform (that’s hosted, for convenience – eg. WordPress.com, Typepad.com, Blogger.com) or a blogging software (that’s self-installed, eg. WordPress.org, Movable Type, etc) – get it up and running. This will give them full control of publishing to their own web property, instead of being held hostage by their webmaster.

B. Publish & Promote

1. Name of Company, slogan, creative (logos, pictures etc.)

2. Services or products offered – this is important, as it lets visitors and the search engines know what their offerings are, and these will naturally include some relevant search terms.

3. A Picture is Worth 1000 Words – Use product photography, happy customer pictures, owner + happy customer photos etc.

4. Directions – Embed Google Maps right into the page, so a visitor can search directions to the location from their home/office.

5. Slidecasting – Deploy ‘slidecasting’ – where they upload their photos to Slideshare.net, combine it with a soundtrack that’s relevant to their business or audience, and make a slideshow/photo movie for their blog – that’s powerful stuff. eg. seasonal specials, special events, happy customers, promotions etc.

6. Email Opt-In – Setup an email opt in capture system online on their blog – using either aweber, or feedburner, or feedblitz. When customers get referred to go to their website to enter their name and email addy, they get a downloadable coupon (immediate gratification + incentive to do this) for future use in the store. This way, whenever the owner blogs, all customers automatically get notified of the new entry.

Worst case scenario, have the owner enter in the data by hand after collecting email addies in the store – which is a pain.

Better if they could set up a laptop in the store, and incentivizing customers to fill it in right there, to get an immediate % discount off whatever they’re buying in the store today.

7. Add Value – share tips, styles, guides, tricks, techniques, how-to’s, etc on the blog, being the ‘solution provider’ – establish your influence as the authority and subject matter expert in your field. Your customers will come to regard you as the expert, and eventually more business will roll in from word-of-mouth and referrals.

8. News – being regional, there’s always local news you can read, and comment on your blog, or spin it to reflect what your store can offer. Make your blog the ‘virtual townhall meeting space’ for all locals. If locals can comment on the blog, this could really turn into something – where it might even attract local media to pay attention to it.

9. Leverage Local Media – through writings on the blog, or even have them cover an advertorial story about the store owner who has embraced and leveraged technology to help their customers.

10. Virtually Network – with other local store owners’ websites, local Chamber of Commerce websites, local community websites etc. by creating a resource page to these other services in town.

Link to them – describing what they are and what they offer, and add some personality eg.

"You would be wise to visit Jane at "Adelaide’s Best Coffee Shop" on Tuesdays for ‘Jane’s Jumpin’ Java’ – as its the best cuppa java with a smile in town! Tell her Ed from "Ed’s Guitars" sent you and she’ll give you a bigger serving!;-) "

Then email these website owners –
(a) letting them know you have linked to them, showing them your personable listing and endorsement of their service, and
(b) requesting a link back to your store, giving them the exact details of what you want them linking to you with.

11. ‘Face to Face’ – set up a Facebook account, and hunt down your local regional network to connect with, along with Facebook groups that are regional-based.

These are excellent groups that you can grab fabulous intel! Imagine locating local groups on Facebook, where you can pinpoint demographincs, pyschographics, geographics etc.

Then add value there like you do on your blog, and offer specials/discounts/daily promos etc – whatever applies to these members of these groups.

12. Leverage Offline-to-Online-to-Offline
- Publish your new blog’s web address on all your business stationary, and pass it out like a mad-person
- Publish specials / discounts / coupons on your blog, informing your customers to print off the coupons before coming into the store, and redeeming it in your store. This way, you’re educatiing your customers to connect with you both online and offline.

13. Spread The Word
If a small business owner can install a ‘Tell A Friend’ software script on their blog, in conjunction with a ‘Spread The Word’ promotion with incentives, this could prove to be a wonderful contest that brings buzz, exposure and new customers to the blog and to the store too.

14. Contest
Contests are fabulous for all businesses and for all seasons of the year. Research, invent and deploy different creative contests that can leverage buzz marketing and fun!

There you go, Ed! I’m confident the above tips will be useful to any small business owner in Adelaide, and I hope this brings them more business. Have a great meeting with the Adelaide folks – cheers mate!

ps. For my readers, I would love your feedback, and your opinions on what strategies or tactics you feel would benefit a small business owner if they could leverage online and offline marketing together. Thanks!

(Added 10/20/07) 15. Video
If the store owner is savvy and confident moving forward with video, here are a few ideas to try out with using a camcorder, or a digital camera with a video option:

a. 360 degree view of store: I did this once with a local coffee shop. Stand in the middle of the store, start your camera, and slowly and smoothly spin yourself (slowly) around 360 degrees, capturing what your store’s interior looks like. Of course, for better video, use a camera tripod and pan 360 degrees. For folks who drive by back and forth work everyday, they oftentimes remind themselves they have to pop in, or wonder what your store’s like – now they don’t have to wonder anymore. If you post your website address on the store’s windows, they can go online, in the privacy of their home, and have a virtual visit. And if you shoot this footage when your store is hopping, it adds to the ‘social proof’ that you’re busy, and they would more likely to visit your store soon.

b. Establish a bond: With Point #7 above, and with the other points that I’ve provided that speak on adding value, you can use video to showcase your subject matter expertise, your influence and your personality. If your visitors are familiar with seeing your wonderful personality on video on your blog, consider how much of a bond you’re establishing even before they visit your store in person!

c. Video testimonials or endorsements: Capture footage of yourself speaking to happy customers (get approval to use this footage on your blog), or of happy customers giving you and your store their stamp of approval – this works like a charm, and the ‘raw and natural’ feel of your videos will have a great appeal to your audience.

d. Leverage your videos: You can repurpose these videos by uploading them to YouTube and other video sharing sites. These videos and your store will gain exposure, which may lend to additional business for your local store.

Episode 13 of this podcast reveals an interview conducted by Mari Smith of FacebookFortunes.com. She interviewed me about my use of Facebook for business and the success I’ve had with this social media platform to date.

On this call, I reveal my results, my attitudes and best practices in maximizing your time on Facebook.

Download and enjoy this podcast episode today.

Transcript

[Music]

[Announcer] Welcome to ShermanLive.com! Featuring interviews and seminars. In-depth. Intelligent. In right now on ShermanLive.com. Here’s Sherman Hu! …

Sherman Hu: Hello and welcome to episode number 13 of ShermanLive.com. This is your host Sherman Hu and today I have an episode revealing an interview conducted by Mari Smith of FacebookFortunes.com.

She interview me today about my use of Facebook for business and the success I’ve had with this social media platform to date. Now on this call I reveal my results, my attitudes and best practices in maximizing your time on Facebook. So stay tuned for today’s episode.

[Announcer] You’re tuned in to ShermanLive.com. Keeping it simple for you!

Mari Smith: Hello there, this is Mari Smith from FacebookFortunes.com and also FacebookCoach.com. Welcome to our interview today, very very fortunate to have Sherman Hu on the line and I’m saying HU right, your name properly…?

Sherman Hu: Yeah, that’s right, Hu (who)…Hu (hue), I go with both, either.

Mari: Excellent, excellent. Well I think you’re very, very much enjoying the connections that we’ve had through Facebook and on the Internet and through your blog ShermanLive.com and I really have a lot of admiration for your grasp of technology so thank you for taking the time to be with us today.

Sherman: You’re welcome. Thanks for having me on the call Mari.

Mari: Oh yeah, you bet, you bet it’s so exciting. So let me just ask to start with, I am curious how long have you been on Facebook, when did you first come on board?

Sherman: I don’t think it’s been that long ago. I was trying to track how long I actually, you know when I started and it can’t be longer than…I don’t know, three, four, five months… I would say but it’s been fast and furious since I’ve come on board. So it’s been really exciting.

Mari: Yeah, yeah I agree, I am in the same boat. I think over the summer in July and soon to be somewhere with other people I am talking about, it’s just exploding. Now, the thing that I am asking a lot of people that’s because I am seeing alot of resistance with people in the business community thus far but do you think personally that Facebook can be utilized for better business purposes, for marketing purposes?

Sherman: I believe so. I mean there are definitely different camps, of people, you know in regards to, there are few in perspective, for social media for business but the statistics, they don’t lie and the fact that we’re, we’ve graduated from a Web 1.0 world era where everything was about you and your website and what you said about who you are and graduating to a Web 2.0 era where it’s all about the community, to about connections and interactivity and dialogue and back and forth where there’s a good way for a third party, somebody who is looking from the outside in to really get a grasp of who you are, your personality and your value-add to the conversation by all the different peripheral web properties out there, be it social media site, to really get a vibe and sense of who you are to see the authenticity and the transparency and then to build a ‘like you’, ‘trust you’, ‘respect you’ and then partake of your offerings.

There are lot of things going online where people are skeptical or you know a little cautious about new offerings but you know when you have that social proof from whether it’s LinkedIn or MySpace or Facebook or all these different properties that say, hey, you know what, "Mari Smith of FacebookFortunes.com is solid and you know, a lot of integrity, consistency and you definitely will have a lot of value from partaking in her offerings" … then that just boost, that social proof and you have people who are more willing to accept what you’re offering. Does that makes sense?

Mari: Oh that makes a lot of sense and I think what you’re saying really ties in to Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg because he talks about how in the past you might meet someone on the street and then recommending a new doctor or something and that might take you a week or two to verify that with a few other friends, however on Facebook you could do the same verification process in about 24 hours flat and it is absolutely the social proof…

Sherman: That was a recent Wall Street article, wasn’t it?

Mari: Well yes, it was. That article though moving. I really, really got a lot of value from it.

Sherman: That was great.

Mari: Yeah, now are you on some of these other platforms Sherman, MySpace, LinkedIn and some other ones?

Sherman: Yes, I am. I am, I have a profile on different places whether it’s MySpace or Squidoo or LinkedIn, even on IMDb I used to act a while ago, YouTube, 43Things, and so these are all the different social media platforms that I participate in, some more actively than others and Facebook, I am very, very active in compared to the other platforms.

I used to be more active in MySpace but I just felt that the genre of people and the kind of spam comments I was getting or spam requests through, were just plain spam or porn requests on MySpace, it was just really disconcerting. I spent a lot of time just having to de-spam you know, all that stuff.

It’s still a great traffic platform if used well to give people a teaser for the full meal deal either on your blog or somewhere else to have them come over to your web property. By I find that Facebook – I did some stats checking before your call, Mari – and I found that Facebook in relation to my podcast blog at ShermanLive.com, generates about 22 percent of all the natural incoming traffic to ShermanLive and…

Mari: Well, that’s a terrific number, yeah that really is great!

Sherman: Yeah, I think it’s not just using the platform – but it’s how you use it more effectively, how to maximize it, how to leverage it. And that’s all basically how much you put into it. So, be it photos, videos, participating in groups, or setting up your own groups on Facebook, really making it social and fun, and not hard-core proactive pitching but just real easy-going in referring others back to where they can get more information, which is maybe your blog or your podcast.

So I’ve found a boost in listenership or viewership of my podcast through Facebook – and 22% is a pretty big number.

Mari: Right, that is great, yeah. A couple times I’m having a hard time hearing you and I wonder if you could speak up just a little.

Sherman: Yeah, OK. Sounds good.

Mari: That’s better. Thanks so much. By the sounds of it, Sherman, you are working with a specific strategy or a strategic business intent in using Facebook. Would you say that’s accurate?

Sherman: Yeah, it definitely is. As somebody who’s a web marketer, starting out with search engine marketing and then going to new media like blogging, podcasting and video, I view Facebook as an extension of my marketing, an extension of my brand, my personality.

And it just so happens that right now I’m promoting my brand as somebody who’s a new media consultant, but more coming from the perspective of not just the strategic but the technical and tactical on how to use it, which is something that I have been blessed with: breaking down complex thoughts and processes into simple step how-to-do’s.

And so that brand at ShermanLive.com is what I’m promoting right now versus my original where I came from, which is WordPress blogging at WordPressTutorials.com. And so I’ve found great pleasure in being able to showcase different strategies in what I’ve learned and posting that on Facebook, and then leading people inadvertently to ShermanLive.com. So that’s the strategy.

Mari: Yeah. Well, you certainly have a great ability to break down the complex and teach it. I really love being on your webinars.

Sherman: Thank you.

Mari: You run a group. Why don’t you mention the group that you have on Facebook which is very active and fun.

Sherman: Yeah. I have started two groups on Facebook. And one of them is really just for my members at WordPressTutorials, which is called the "Friends of Sherman Hu’s WordPressTutorials.com" Facebook Group. And so there are members – it is a close group – so members of WordPressTutorials can join me there and participate in discussion there.

And there’s another group I started, which is growing by leaps and bounds, and it’s called the "Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Web Basics". And right there, that group started out because – between me and my friends – we have family and friends that are very tech unsavvy. And having to repeat ourselves over and over again was just cruel and unusual punishment.

So I basically set up this group with about 60 plus video tutorials right now that showcase basics from domain registration to hosting to ‘file transfer protocol’ to setting up a site, and all that basic stuff: how to source stock photography, you know; stuff that you don’t want to have to repeat over and over again. I set up all the videos there and there are about 331 members as of right now on this call.

And there are at least 50 different officers on the right hand column, basically people who have influence and specialties and expert status in different areas of web marketing and anything to do with the web, anyway. And you can actually see their names and titles, and you can ask them questions if you’re not so sure. But that’s also my way of sending leads or links to my officers within Facebook, and that’s a great way to drive traffic to them too.

Mari: Right, yeah, it’s really a win-win, a nice collaboration. Well, I love your group, and I want a lot of people to join it, so we’ll get you so more.

Sherman: Yeah.

Mari: Several hundred, three hundred is terrific. And I think when we talk again in a few months we’ll find there to be significantly more as well.

Sherman: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It’s funny, one of the officers said, "Sherman, as soon as you put me on your officer status, I had this whole barrage of people wanting to join my profile, my network of friends. And I don’t know what to do with it." Like, he said, "what do I do with all this?"

So I had to share with him about how to best use Facebook moving forward. But that’s a great testament to the fact that it’s powerful to not only participate in Facebook but be of influence within a group.

Mari: Yeah. Yeah, to lift other people up and to leverage and add value, really. I love Buckminster Fuller’s strategy: just always add value.

Let’s talk about friends. And tell us if you are actively building your friend list or are people finding you, and do you have a specific friend request policy? I have a few questions in one there, but it’s all about friends.

Sherman: Yeah. Facebook allows, what, 5,000 friends as a cap?

Mari: So far. I guess one day they’ll lift up that cap.

Sherman: Correct. And my strategy moving in is to combine both business and personal in one profile. And of course that’s my Sherman Hu Profile. The reason for that is it’s a win-win situation both ways: one for my friends who don’t have a clue what I do, because they know that Sherman does something on the web, they just don’t know what I do. So that’s a way for them to find out a little bit more about what I do.

Then on the other hand my business colleagues and friends and acquaintances will get to know that, hey, Sherman has actually a life outside of just marketing online. And so it’s a great way for me to blend the two. Plus it’s easier to mange one profile than two in my personal opinion.

I have about 408 friends here. It’s not like I connect, spend a long time per friend as far as the connection goes. But I will accept friends that are connected to other friends of mine. The one thing though that if anybody’s listening to this interview – is when you are adding yourself to another person’s friend network, be sure to let them know where you found them. Because as a person – I’m not just talking about myself — anybody who has influence as a subject matter expert or a thought leader, they’ll have a lot of friend requests.

So to save them time let them know where you found them. Pay them a compliment, based on whatever they are offering at this present time. To let them know that you are interested not in just blatantly adding friends, but just interested in who they are. That way it will make it a lot easier for them to add you then having to search around and find out how they know you. Does that make sense, what I said Mari?

Mari Smith: Oh it’s full of sense. I’m so grateful that you’ve brought this point up because I have to admit Sherman it’s one of my pet peeves on Facebook.

Sherman: Yeah, true.

Mari: So when someone goes to click on that little "Add Friends", it pops up a new window. There’s a little link in the middle of that window that says "add a personal message." That is what you want to click on. It’s not always obvious. I think that’s why some people omit it.

Sherman: Yeah, it’s a small link there.

Mari: It’s a link there. Then you type in like Sherman said of how you know the person. OK so let’s go ahead and do a couple more questions here. Do you think there is any kind of detriment–downside for business users being on Facebook?

Sherman: Well that’s – detriment to business people will be a different question than detriment in general on being on Facebook. Everybody knows that when you’re on Facebook or any other social marketing platform, that you are extending yourself to be more transparent. So if you have something to hide, be it whatever, be sure not to add that in, or keep your privacy settings so that it blocks that from people who you don’t know.

But for business owners–off the top of my head. I can’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t want to extend your brand or your personality or be more transparent to an end user.

Mari: Yea, yeah, I can live with that.

Sherman: It’s just a thought. I’m sure there are some detriments. Maybe there are some corporations that just doesn’t lend itself well. But I think any personality added, a personal voice added to a corporation – of a real stuffy type of corporation type of attitude, always lends itself to being more well embraced and accepted by the end-user. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a detriment.

Mari: Yeah, I think I agree with what you are saying. The lines are being blurred between personal and business.

I was reading an article the other day that said basically, do not put anything on the Internet that you don’t want other people to know. Even if it’s behind privacy settings or whatever. It might be something very personal or not necessarily seeing that you’re keeping a great big secret but be careful with privacy settings.

Let’s go ahead and close up here with a couple more questions. I could talk to you for awhile but we’re going to keep this brief. Do you have any plans to develop an application Sherman?

Sherman: I have considered a couple of applications. But at the same time, it’s not something that’s a priority to me. Because there are a lot of applications right there in Facebook that have been thought about and have been created already. The application has to make sense from a business user’s standpoint. It has to also deliver a good return on investment, whether it’s a database or of revenues. At this point in time, I haven’t come across one in my brainstorming that would be something I have to do right now.

Mari: Yeah!

Sherman: What’s that?

Mari: What we are going to is actually an increase in more applications that have business uses.

Sherman: Correct. Correct. It’s the 100 monkeys syndrome. I’m sure if I thought about something, there are a bunch of people who have thought about it and already working on it. I’ll wait for them to develop it. [laughs]

Mari: Yeah, yeah I agree.

Its really been a delight that you are at ShermanLive.com and also WordPresstutorials.com. They can find you on Facebook. I highly recommend your group. You can just go in search, you key that into the top left under the search and it is…Tell me the name of the group again. I know part of it…

Sherman: That’s the "Beginners Guide to Mastering Web Basics."

Mari: Thank you. That’s a mouth full.

Sherman: Yeah, that’s a mouthful I’m sure. But if you are looking to add me as a friend or add to my network of friends. Just let me know that you know Mari Smith through Facebook Fortunes. That way I’ll know where I know you from. Then we can go ahead and connect that way.

But Mari, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you creating Facebook Fortunes to help other people learn how to maximize Facebook for their business and their interests. Thank you so much for your time for doing that.

Mari: My pleasure. And thank you for yours and I look forward to connecting further and seeing where we both go with this wonderful platform.

Sherman: Thanks, Mari!

Mari: OK, have a wonderful thanksgiving up there in Canada.

Sherman: Yes, thank you very much. Take care, cheers.

Mari: OK, bye, bye now.

[Sherman]: Well that takes us to the end of that interview. Thanks for staying tuned to this episode of ShermanLive.com The next episode we’ll cover juicy stuff about new media.

[Announcer]: You’ve been tuned in to Sherman on ShermanLive.com. Want to call Sherman? Or send him some love? Go to ShermanLive.com today.

[music]

This Half Hour Huddle (H3) video podcast features my personal blueprint for achieving top natural search results in the major search engines for your blog or website.

Also download this strategic mindmap document
that was created live during this video podcast to
follow along this podcast.
Flickr | Mindmap

In the first half of this session, I reveal a case study of how I delivered $3+ million dollars in Life Time Value to a client in as short as 4-6 weeks using a small portion of the entire blueprint.

Check it out now, and would love your feedback!

(Sidenote: 26’09 minute video : 12.5MB : Download 640×480 video : Viewing in popup shows 320×240 – let it buffer)

This Half Hour Huddle (H3) video podcast features my personal blueprint for achieving top natural search results in the major search engines for your blog or website. This strategic mindmap document was created live during this video podcast, and is available for download in Part 2 of this session’s blog entry.

In the first half of this session, I reveal a case study of how I delivered $3+ million dollars in Life Time Value to a client in as short as 4-6 weeks using a small portion of the entire blueprint.

Check it out now, and would love your feedback!

(Sidenote: 29’42 minute video : 13.7MB : Download 640×480 video : Viewing in popup shows 320×240 – let it buffer)

Feature: Episode #10 features "Facebook Etiquette Faux Pas" and I reveal my biggest pet peeve to date in using Facebook. Hint: It has to do with Adding Friends on Facebook and introductions.

Check out my Flickr album for better resolution pictures featured in this Enhanced Podcast.

Download and enjoy this podcast episode today.

Transcript

[Music]
Announcer: ShermanLive.com…Simplifying and demystifying technology, so you can profit from it. Welcome to ShermanLive.com. Presenting time-saving tips, short cuts, how-to’s, bleeding-edge techniques, and money-generating strategies! Here’s Sherman Hu! …

Sherman Hu: Hello and welcome to episode number ten of ShermanLive.com. This is your host, Sherman Hu, and today I have an episode revealing Facebook etiquette pet peeves. Then I’ll reveal my biggest pet peeve to date. Stay tuned for today’s episode!

Announcer: You’re listening to ShermanLive.com. Keeping it simple, stupid. Did I say that? Stay tuned for more juicy stuff coming from Sherman Hu.

Sherman: For today’s episode, I’m going to review my biggest pet peeve about using Facebook, and it’s specifically in regards to connections and acquaintances who are trying to add me to their network of friends or are trying to join my network of friends, and failing to tell me who they are.

So, not only am I going to share with you my pet peeve, but I’m going to help those who listen to this podcast, how to not commit this Facebook etiquette faux pas by showing you how to make a difference.

So, first of all, when you go into Facebook and when you add a friend, you want to let them know how you know them, especially if the person you’re adding is somebody of influence, has leadership, or is a thought leader in a space where they are bombarded with a lot of different requests to be added as a friend on people’s networks. So, let me show you an example here. This is my Facebook account, and that you can see — now pardon these folks as they don’t know any better.

I’m just going to show you what is happening right now, and what can happen that could be different. All right? So, for example, we have three different profiles here, and you can see in this screenshot, and I have absolutely no clue who these people are until I dig into their friend network.

But, you know, with the little time I have in my day to commit to all the different projects, let alone Facebook, it would be a real treat to have somebody let me know ahead of time how they know me. So, as you can see right here, there are no indications or hints of how they know me. Now let me go ahead and show you the solution.

Let’s say, for example, I want to seek out Leonardo DiCaprio. So, I type in this search box, on the left-hand side column, and I type in his name, and I see his profile right over here on the right-hand results. Now, in the case that I want to add him to my friends, if I know Leonardo or I want to connect with him, I will click on this link on the right-hand side that says "Add to Friends." And it will then pop up with a box with the capabilities for me to add him to my network.

But, before I do that, there’s a link there that you can click on, and this ‘Send a message’ link is the key, right here. If you send him a message by clicking his link, you can then let Leonardo know how you know each other, whether it’s through maybe mutual acquaintances in the acting field, or whether it’s through his latest project, "11th Hour Action." So, this would be great to give him a head’s up and to save him time trying to hunt down how he knows you.

This is, of course, for people who want to add a little bit more security in adding people to their network, not referring to people who are adding people to the network without a care in the world. Because Facebook allows you to have 5,000 friends in your network, and that’s a cap at this present time. So, for those that are adding, without a care in the world, this doesn’t really apply to them. But for the rest of your business connections, at least give them a head’s up, so you not only save them time, you have a proper introduction, and it’s just going to be a win-win situation all around.

So, that is my biggest pet peeve in using Facebook. I hope you don’t commit this faux pas, and moving forward, adding friends to your network, I pray that you actually give an introduction to the person you’re connecting with.

Well, this is Sherman Hu, thanking you for staying tuned to this episode of ShermanLive.com. Next episode we’ll cover more juicy stuff about new media, and how you can profit from it.

[Music]
Announcer: You’ve been tuned in to Sherman on ShermanLive.com. Want to call Sherman? Or send him some love? Go to ShermanLive.com today.

"Half Hour Huddle (H3)" is a 30 minute web conference I initiated using bleeding edge Web 2.0 applications like Facebook, Jaiku, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Glance, Video-broadcast and other cool tools to present on-topic content. Imagine a really cool webinar Join us on the next H3!

Join this Facebook group or subscribe to this podcast to be notified of future episodes.

This first H3 episode features my notes from speaking at StomperNet’s Atlanta Sept 2007 conference. Topics and solutions revolve around blogging (splitting long posts, pre-scheduling blog posts), social media (facebook, facebook groups) and creating videos, screencasts & slideshows (jingproject, muvee, fotomagico).

Check it out now, and would love your feedback!

(Sidenote: 25 minute video : 20.95MB : Download 640×480 video : Viewing in popup shows 320×240 – let it buffer)

My new playground? Facebook.

Here are some stats that are astounding (Source: Shel Israel)

* Over 150,000 registrants daily. That’s 1 million a week since January.

* 35 million users today. Of course that number will be off a million one week from today.

* Half user are outside college. That number was zero in Sept. 2006.

* 0ver 40 billion page views in May 2007

* Average visitor stays 20 minutes

* Most growth is among people over age 25.

* 47,000 Facebook groups.

* #1 photo sharing app on the web. 2.7 billion photos on site.

* More than 2000 applications. The Top 10 are: Top Friends, Video, Graffiti, MyQuestions, iLike, FreeGifts, X Me, Superpoke!, Fortune Cookie & Horoscopes. The smallest of these has over 4.5 million users.

I’ve been connecting with friends, colleagues, and new acquaintances at Facebook, and it’s been enjoyable.

It’s also a fantastic platform to discover interest groups (think: brainstorm ideas).

Speaking of groups, I’ve created an open group called: "Beginners Guide to Mastering Web Basics" - a place where
technophobes can hang out.

Here’s the URL: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5668471204

I’ll be providing some video tutorials targeted for beginners, and hopefully even technophobes can learn a thing or two

[Jeff Foxworthy voice] If you are one, that’s great!

If you’re savvy, you’re who I need to speak to. You see, you may have a host of friends or family that who’re constantly hounding you about how to do this, how to do that – sound familiar?

It’s my hope that we can help them out in a non-intimidating, social community place like Facebook, where they can learn basics about the Web.

There are no opt-ins (except if they don’t have a Facebook account, and need to register for one to connect with us) so no need to fear a flood of emails to their inbox.

So whaddya think?

Here’s the URL to the group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5668471204

See you there!

ps. I’m hoping that the savvy ones can offer little tidbits of how-to’s along the way too! Every little bit counts, and it’ll grow to be a huge vault of knowledge that will help a bunch of folks!