Top Six WordPress Plugins for SEO

1. Related Posts — This plugin helps improve your search engine optimization by allowing search engines to index older blog content more easily. It automatically searches through your blog post database, identifies posts with similar subject matter and keywords, and inserts a link to them.
2. Comment Relish — Once you have a WordPress blog set up, make sure that you are listening to what your bloggers have to say. Not only is replying to blog posts important for SEO but it can also be a useful tool for gathering feedback for user interface web design practices. The comment relish plugin automatically sends an email to bloggers who posted on your blog for the first time thanking them and filling them in about your current events. This is a great way to keep site visitors engaged without being time-consuming.
3. WordTwit — Microblogging is the best way to reach a wide audience of people who share relevant interests. Since Twitter has blown up, it’s become a great marketing platform—people are constantly engaging with it. The WordTwit WordPress plugin uses the twitter API to send out a link to your published blog post in an automatic tweet. This can attract a lot of twitter-ers to your new post.
4. SEO Friendly Images — By the time you have written detailed descriptions for your WordPress site’s title tags, metatags, and keyword tags, you may not have the time or the energy to enter image alt tags. SEO Friendly Images is a plugin that can automatically add alt and title tags to images alt and title tag. This will optimize your images without much effort.
5. Robots Meta — This plugin will prevent search engines from indexing your search results pages, login, register, admin pages, etc by inserting a nofollow tag. Doing so will let your more relevant pages receive more “link juice” from search engine crawlers.
6. SEO Slug —To further optimize your blog post titles for search engine optimization; install the SEO Slug plugin. This plugin automatically improves your keyword strings by removing words that are conjunctions in sentences like “as” and “if” to allow crawlers to more readily read the main contentkeywords as a fluid string.

Promote Your Business Using Foursquare

I have come across several articles this week that were saying that it is amazing that more brick and mortar businesses are not using Foursquare.

The truth is, I just don’t think that most business owners even know about it!

Here is a brief description of what Foursquare is and some ways you can use it to promote your business or website and bring targeted web traffic to your site…

What is Foursquare?

Foursquare is a free website that lets people who have a cell phone with internet service (and the Foursquare app on it) “check in” to any location they want. The person who “checks in” the most with their little Foursquare app on their phone becomes the “mayor” of that location.  I know, it sounds silly at first…but please read on!

How are Businesses Using Foursquare to Promote Their Business?

Foursquare is an incredibly fun and easy way for businesses to promote their business through the popularity of  social media and mobile technology. Starbucks is a good example of a business that is using it right. After five visits (with a check-in), patrons can unlock a special badge called the Barista Badge from Starbucks and recently they started offering $1 off drinks to Foursquare mayors nationwide.This is the first national Foursquare marketing campaign, but McDonalds is in hot pursuit.

For a non-techie “brick and mortar” business owner with a pay-as-you-go cell phone plan, this may not seem like anything you would care about, but I beg to differ! With just a tiny bit of ingenuity (offering $1 off drinks for mayor isn’t rocket science!), you could make your shop or restaurant the next hottest thing in your community for avid Foursquare users!

5 Ways You Could Use Foursquare to Promote Your Business

1. Create Tips & To-Do Items at www.foursquare.com for your business. You don’t even need a cell phone to do this. Use the Tips and To-Do’s on your business page on Foursquare to let visitors in on some little secrets about your business that make the people who check-in feel like they are part of the family.  This could include such things as:
   

   • Try the Macaroni Salad. It is our special recipe made by Joe’s grandmother
   • Try our X hair product. It’s new and uses our special ingredient which does this…
   • It’s Jennifer’s birthday today. She is one of the servers. Tell her happy birthday and get a free dessert with your check-in.

2. Offer “specials”. If a Foursquare venue has a special, users will see a big button on the page when they check in. This makes them want to see what it is. You can offer specials to mayors or to frequent visitors. I would recommend both… why not? Anyone who bothers to check-in to your location is a big fan and is proud to be part of your business.
3. Offer something free the first time they check in. By doing this, you are encouraging them to try out Foursquare with your business.
4. Give them something free for multiple friends checking in together. Foursquare is a social event. Make use of that and encourage them to share it.
5. Send them to your website for a secret clue or a question to answer. If they provide the answer and show their check-in, they get a discount price or special offer. This will bring targeted traffic to your website and help to increase website traffic.

These are just a few ideas to get you thinking. I am including a few links below for other articles and resources of Foursquare promotional ideas:

The Bar Blogger – 8 Foursquare Promotion Ideas for Your Bar (or Restaurant or…)
Mashable – Foursquare and Starbucks Team Up to Offer Customer Rewards
I Was Around – FourSquare Badge List
Huffington Post – Foursquare Badges: The Ultimate Guide
Kyle Lacy – 5 Ways to Use Foursquare for Business
ReadWriteWeb – Why We Check In: The Reasons People Use Location-Based Social Networks
NY Times – Bits: Foursquare Introduces New Tools for Businesses
Spin Sucks –  The Time for Location-Based Marketing is Now & Geo-Location Marketing by Danny Brown
Max Gladwell – 10 Ways Geolocation is Changing the World

Here is a great example of combining Facebook and FourSquare by AJ Bombers restaurant.

The Solution Was in … Holland?

Everyone knows how bad the BP oil spill is by now. But apparently it didn’t have to be this bad. After it happened, Holland (who has an intense oil clean-up system in place) offered the U.S. its full services to clean up almost all of the oil. Only the U.S. said “no” because “really clean” isn’t clean enough …

Tangibly Measuring Social Media Success

1. Do you have Campaigns and strategies?
   This isn’t a number, some may say not even tangible, but you won’t get anywhere unless you’ve actually defined some processes that can be measured. A lot of people are just going on these sites, putting up a profile and waiting for something to happen. Having an outline and plan of action is a sign of success, it shows that you have at least a basic understanding of social media and some of its components. This is your first benchmark. It is also important to realize that these plans are not static and require constant appraisal for effectiveness.
2. Getting heard?
   At this point, response means any response at all. Some traffic followers or comments should be coming in. The quality of the response doesn’t matter at this point, you are just checking to see that the ‘broadcast equipment’ is working.
3. Getting response?
   Once the ‘broadcast equipment’ is up and people can hear you, it’s time to draw them in. This is where feedback matters, if people are just stopping by and not commenting. Your media isn’t being very social and you won’t be able to obtain as many viral references as you’d like.
4. Getting useful response?
   Getting ‘thanks’ and ‘very informative’ feels good and will confirm that your efforts are on the right track, but it’s better to get comments that add to the conversation and help point out in which direction(s) you should be heading next. Ask for comments, ask questions and encourage further discussion.
5. Is there is growth trend in followers/readers?
   You should be gaining more interest in your niche via effective targeting, i f not your are shooting in the wrong direction and need to adjust. Coupled with this is that the followers must be the ones you want, not random individuals
6. Is the scope of your followership spreading?
   There is no reason what you are talking about isn’t compelling to other groups. You may have to present it differently in a different context, but there are thousands of other people in interest groups that parallel yours. They are reachable via the change of a few key words and can result in a wider audience.
7. Are others referring to you?
   In any social network, there are people to talk to about a given subject. They are known as experts in that circle of friends or associates. You should be able to count the number of people that name you as a resource, that number should be going up every week.
8. What kind of negative feedback are you getting?
   You will get negative feedback, that’s just how it goes. What is measurable is how you categorize this negative feedback and rate it according to the use it has toward your online efforts. If people are referring to you as a spammer, con or some other such negative association, it it obviously time to rethink a message. There may be other comments as to lack of clarity, completeness or that your are a ‘me too’. Negative feedback that is good to hear it the kind that disagrees politely and intelligently with what you have to say. That is a proper conversation and will bring out a productive discussion.
9. Are click through rates going up?
   If you are running ads, it is essential that you monitor them for how they pull in visitors. When people click on ads it represents interest and can provide you with valuable information as to what you yourself should be providing. The ads may make little money, but they can provide great marketing info.
10. What is the quality of the network around you?
    The individuals connecting to you and following you should be of an increasing caliber:

• They should have a healthy network of their own.
• They should be people who are actively participating
• They should be in a niche related to yours

1. They should be comminicative
   Having these kind of friends is growable and measurable.

This is no doubt an incomplete list, since other measurable criteria will emerge as the science and technology evolve. Please feel free to comment with your own ideas. I’d love to hear your experiences.

5 Simple Steps To Rock Social Media

If you’ve ever wondered whether or not social media can help you as a freelancer, the simple answer is — absolutely. Being social on the web has many rewards; including connections, community, interaction, exposure, and trust. These five elements are critical for a business to survive, and with social media you can make sure you are building all of them.

If you’re new to the idea of social media for freelancers, or aren’t sure how it can help out your business, I recommend you look into these social media basics to get a better idea of what this is all about.

Once you’re familiar with the idea of using social media for your business, then this post is for you. Here are 5 simple tips that can make a big difference to your success with social media.

1. Pick a Name and Stick With It

Before you even open an account on any social media platform, you’ll want to make sure you pick a name that will stay consistent. This is one of the key things that many people don’t seem to realize. If you have the same “profile name” on multiple platforms, it makes it much easier for others to find and remember you. It also helps you create a better personal brand if you become popular on these networks. For example, My user name is ritubpant on all social media/networking platforms. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, Flickr, LinkedIn among many others as ritubpant. This makes it much easier for others to find me if they need to connect with me on different platforms.

Tip: You can follow this tip for your profile picture as well. If your picture is consistent throughout different platforms, it’s much easier for people to recognize you. Think of your profile image as a business logo.

2. Don’t Put All Your Eggs In One Basket

Many freelancers dive into social media and end up putting all of their energy and effort into one social media platform. This is not a great approach. Although it is good to stick with platforms that are popular in your industry, it’s key to build a community and a brand in different platforms. Make sure you are seen throughout the web. Some services may have millions of users while others may have only a couple thousand. Don’t go for the number, rather go for the quality network and community that you can build on these platforms. Having a presence on different accounts gives you a chance to connect to more people and eventually will help you grow your freelancing business.

3. Choose and Execute

Although this point may sound contradictory to the one above, it’s really more of a complimentary approach. As I have mentioned above, you should have a presence on several different social media platforms — however, you should also be able to maintain that presence. There is no point in creating a profile on 50 different platforms if you can only use five platforms actively. It is important to have a presence on different platforms, but engagement and participation is the real key.

Make sure you choose platforms that are relevant to you. Don’t spend a lot of time creating a profile on a social media platform that you will end up abandoning. If you never participate with that particular community, there is no reason to have an account there. Besides, if someone ends up looking for you in these platform and finds you inactive for months, it might give someone an idea that you are not worth following or keeping up with. Don’t give anyone a chance to think negatively about you or your brand. It’s better to not have a presence than to have one that is abandoned.

4. Active Doesn’t Mean Obsessive

In order to get the most out of social media you have to be active on the networks you’ve chosen. Being active, however, doesn’t mean you have to be obsessed. I use many different platforms each day and I am quite active on these sites — even still, there is no point in updating a Facebook profile or Twitter account just for the sake of it. As they say in blogging — if you have nothing to say, it’s better to say nothing. Follow that rule on social media platforms as well. A couple twitter updates each day is normal but on LinkedIn once a week is more than enough (or a few times if you are active on LinkedIn groups). It’s important to be active on different social media platforms, but make sure your participation brings value to other community members and is not a nuisance to yourself or others.

5. It’s All About Interaction

Social media is all about interaction. If you want to be seen and want others to take interest in what you have to say or do, you have to be an active participant. Whether it’s Facebook, twitter or any other platforms that you utilize, participation and engagement is the key to succeeding in social media. Social Media is often seen as a free tool to help you when it comes to exposure and creating a name for yourself or your business, but you need to keep in mind that it costs both time and effort.

This is the reason that I mentioned earlier that you need to choose the specific sites that you want to use. If you don’t think you can actively utilize a platform, it’s better not to be there at all. It’s all about the community, participation, and engagement. The more you give, the more you get. The more you engage, the more exposure you will gain.

Add Your Tips

These are some of my favorite tips for succeeding on social media, but there is a lot more out there. If you’re very familiar with social media (and I know a lot of you are) then why don’t you offer a favorite tip or two for our readers who are just getting started?

Overcoming social media objections

Many business people are suddenly starting to show some interest in the phenomenon that is social media, much to the thrill of their marketing personnel. But there is still a lot of confusion about this new medium, and objections abound. Below I take on a few of the most common ones.

Recruiters will poach our people. I hear this a lot. And it’s pretty easy to overcome. First of all, if your employees are that easy to poach, you need to look at your policies and see why they are so willing to leave. Secondly, there are many other ways for recruiters to find your people, and don’t think they aren’t getting calls from them on a regular basis. If you create a culture where people want to stay, it won’t matter if recruiters have another way to reach out to your staff.

We don’t have time. This is a valid concern, because if social media isn’t done correctly, it can be a huge time drain. However, if you manage your presence correctly, you can reap the benefits with a minimal time commitment. There are many tools available that can help you manage your various social media outlets. Hootsuite and SocialOomph are two great ones that allow you to schedule your tweets for a future time. So when you read something you think your audiences will find interesting, schedule an update. I find this allows me to maintain a connection with my followers without taking nearly as much time.

We don’t want our employees wasting time on social media. Again, a valid concern, but one that can be easily overcome by establishing a clear social media policy. Social media is like any other marketing tactic – it should be strategic and align with all your other marketing activities. Create a policy that allows you to gain the benefits from it while still maintaining a modicum of control. Train your employees on your policy and have it available for them to reference as needed. If they are busy with work, they won’t have time to spend chatting on Facebook. I personally think that the occasional visit to these sites has become the cigarette break of days gone by. It’s a quick moment to rest your mind and take a breath between tasks.

This is just a phase. Technology is always evolving. The current social media sites may not be here forever, but the concept is here to stay. (See the article entitled, “If the Pope is on Twitter…”) At one point email was considered to be a phase, but now you wouldn’t even think of not having an email address for each of your employees. The beauty of many of these social media sites is they allow you to establish a community of people – clients, prospects, colleagues, press – and create and maintain relationship with them. It simply makes it easier to reach people you’d never have access to through other methods.

LinkedIn is only full of people looking for jobs. There certainly are people who use LinkedIn to find jobs, but there are a lot more who use it to connect with colleagues, prospects and others in their industry. It is a treasure trove of information for anyone in business, regardless of what you are seeking. Don’t fall into the trap that many do and just set up a profile and leave. Create your profile with accurate information, and indicate whether you want to get job requests or not. Use the many tools on the site too. The advanced search feature can help you find business prospects more easily than any other traditional method. Join groups of like-minded people, and watch the connections start to form. It can be incredibly powerful.

In the end, the benefits far outweigh the concerns. You just need to do it in the correct way. Establish a plan and an owner for your company’s social media presence and make sure you are consistent. I’ve personally reaped the benefits of being on LinkedIn and Twitter, and know you will too.

Let me know what you think. What objections have you heard? How have you overcome them?

Google Buzz and Google Wave: what’s the difference and why do we need both?

Google launched Wave back in October and Buzz earlier this week. What’s the difference? Do we need both?

Where Wave was launched to a big build-up, an official live preview in front of a gasping crowd and a painfully slow trickle invite system; Google has slipped Buzz out very quickly and all gmail users will get Buzz appearing in their email account over the course of a few days.

So seeing as Google wave was supposed to be a tool that made communicating and sharing easier, why have Google released another tool that makes communicating and sharing easier?

Is Wave not taking off as well as they expected?

Okay, Buzz is called a social network and Wave is largely a tool for collaborative document editing – a more work and business focussed service. Though from my experiences of it, people largely use it to organise who’s cooking dinner.

This is what Google said about Wave:
“Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.”

And what they say about Buzz:
“Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting […] an easy-to-use sharing experience”

While they do both have a very similar ethos, I think easy is the key word with Buzz, Google Wave may be beautiful but it’s almost more complicated than our minds can cope with. Even a conversation with one person starts to look like cubist word art after 10 minutes. It’s like using a Formula One racing car to drive to work. That’s why it would be good for serious professional use (though I haven’t heard of many examples where it has been used like this, yet.) I would love to get some statistics on Google Wave uptake and usage, but I suppose since it’s still in preview

So Buzz is a bit simpler. It’s in gmail, so you don’t need to go to a separate site (which you then forget to check) it copies a very well-known formula: the Facebook/Twitter-style status update.

Having a very simple core service that works well is the lesson from Twitter’s success. Let other people add on fancy bits, but keep it simple.

Oh the other key word for Buzz – mobile. It has a mobile and location based component as well, which is a big deal given how important the mobile internet now is. Integration with Google Maps is, as you might imagine, seamless.

I found this excellent Google Wave Community site. http://waveaccess.webs.com

It is early days but the idea is brilliant. By becoming a member you can go to the forum and request an invite. Fellow members will then send you an invite. You can share your Waves with others within the community.

There is also a Communal Google Wave embedded on the site where, if you have Google Wave, you can edit/add to the Wave – I have even been chatting to people via the Wave.

Google Wave has massive potential.

In my opinion, Google Buzz is just a small part of what is Google Wave. What do you think?

8 Steps to project management perfection

Businesses of all sizes embark on thousands of projects for new products and services every year. Unfortunately, most projects are doomed to fail outright, or at launch, because the original success criteria were not met. Some project failures lead to delays in product launches, such as the AirBus A380; others, like Boston’s Big Dig, incur huge cost overruns. These examples, as well as the results from survey after survey, show that American businesses have not been able to figure out how to consistently get products and services delivered on time, on budget and with the highest quality.

Why is that?

Businesses invest a great deal each year in people, consultants, processes and technology to improve project success rates, but to no avail. Don’t get me wrong, there are individual examples of excellence, and success rates have improved over the years, but there has not been the kind of dramatic increase that one would expect given the size of the investments businesses have made.

The bottom line is, businesses can talk a good game, but the majority are not ready or willing to make the “true” investments needed to achieve meaningful change—the type of change that will deliver on time, on budget, and with high quality near 100 percent of the time. There are eight steps that, if followed as a single unit and truly embraced by the entire organization, provide the roadmap to project management perfection.

1. Definition
It is critical to start with a solid foundation. The foundation must be built at the organizational level and not with individuals. It is imperative that, from the CEO down, there is understanding and buy-in when it comes to defining or redefining the following items:

* Roles and Responsibilities: This can be painstaking, but the effort will pay off when it’s time to execute. The exercise may outline the need to develop new organizational structures to better support efficiency and communication within the delivery teams.

* Standards: The creation of a project management methodology will allow for consistency in delivery and terminology. An added benefit can be bringing new employees on board who rapidly move up the learning curve and thereby provide immediate value.

* Policies: Having a set standard and a consistent methodology provides the platform to document and enforce policies. It’s difficult to document when things are moving quickly and always changing, but taking the time to do so will provide benefits such as improved control measures. Performing audits allows you to proactively identify risks and gives you the ability to mitigate them before they turn into a true problem.

2. Evaluation
It’s important to know where and when to make investments to achieve the goals of the business. Unfortunately, there are always more ideas than there are resources to execute them. Therefore, organizations need to formalize a process for evaluating which new projects should be approved. The process must define the decision-making criteria that will be used during the evaluation, and also take into consideration the firm’s capacity and capabilities to successfully deliver the projects.

3. Resources
Without people—or more importantly, the right people—the ability to succeed as a business is near impossible. Your resources were hired for specific reasons, such as unique skill sets or deep industry experience. Creating an environment for success is crucial to your business and to their careers. Taking the time to match the staffing needs for a new project with the skills you already have is critical.

4. Goals and Objectives
It happens way too often that team members don’t understand why they are doing what they are doing. They don’t know how important their project or task is to the success of the business. It is critical that goals are clearly defined for every project, from corporate initiatives down to one-off departmental projects. It is also important that they all tie together. Even the smallest project should support corporate goals in some way.

5. Control
One of the true single points of failure to the success of any project is the lack of control, specifically around scope and budget. Most people realize that for every action there is a reaction, but for some reason that logic goes out the window when it comes to a project. How many times have you heard, “My request is easy” or “This is just a small change.” Project stakeholders say these things without realizing the impact of their “small change” on the project plan or budget. In order to succeed, project stakeholders must understand that a change to the scope, timeline or budget for a project will produce a failed project if those variables aren’t subsequently adjusted to accommodate the change. As well, project managers need to define a strong change control process that is embraced from the highest levels down. This is not easy, but if accomplished, it will allow you to deliver your product and services on time and on budget.

6. Monitor
“Joe, how’s the project coming along? Well Frank, let me check the Magic Eight Ball.” I say that in jest, but it’s true that many businesses do not formally and concisely track the status of projects. It is critical that you and your team fully know and document a project’s progress, stakeholders’ commitments, results achieved, and the leading indicators of success as well as potential failure. The knowledge from the information gathered from your monitoring will determine the decisions that are made; the course of corrections that may be needed; and the comfort that your projects are being tracked. There needs to be transparency into and accountability to the plan, goals, budget and scope in order to achieve confidence that the information is accurate and actionable.

7. Measure
Goals have been set, plans have been created, and commitments have been made. After all that work, it would be a shame to not know if project objectives were quantifiably met. Being able to define, capture and track the metrics surrounding each project and the entire portfolio of projects is a must have for any executive and management team. There are many methodologies, such as Six Sigma, that place a great deal of importance in the ability to capture and quantify success or failure. There is a lot of power in black and white data. You set the bar and there is only one answer—yes or no—at the end when asked if it was a success. The data and the history that is captured will pay benefits when making initial decisions during the evaluation step. You can baseline the proposed project against those in the past and determine what changes may be needed in order to give a new proposal the best chance to succeed and not repeat past problems. You can only learn from your past if the past has been documented for reference.

8. Improve
Even in the most successful projects there is always something that could have been done better. Being able to capture those lessons will enable an organization improve its project delivery capability and deliver more complex and challenging projects in less time, for less cost.

I highlight the following three areas for improvement:

* Invest in people: Improve the skill sets of your people with training and by giving them challenging project assignments.

* Continual improvement: Formalize a process to capture the lessons learned for each project. That process should also outline how recommendations for change are prioritized, approved and implemented. As with other items, measure the progress of each step and each approved recommendation to determine if its goals were met.

* Project technology: Be on the lookout for how technology can help increase the efficiency and quality of your project delivery.

These eight steps, if individually implemented, can improve your ability to get your products and services to market on time and on budget. But if you implement these eight steps collectively as a single unit, your business will gain a greater competitive edge, increase quality, enhance its agility, and most importantly, improve client satisfaction. Your clients will sing your praises if they are able to get their products and services delivered when promised and on budget. So don’t wait! Take action now and implement your eight step program today.

Forget websites, make an app: advice from Geek Squad founder

Anyone hoping to make an internet start-up work should go for the mobile platform first, then do a standard website after, said technocrat and founder of the Geek Squad, Robert Stephens in an interesting interview with sustainablejournalism.org. Mobile is where it’s at according to Stephens.

“If I were to advise a company on what to build going forward: don’t build a website” he said. “Build a mobile app or interface first, and then build for the larger screens.”

Geek Squad is a successful company founded in 94, that fix computers in person, or through 24hr phone and online services: but if he were starting up these days, Stephens said he’d do it differently: “I tell people now if I started the Geek Squad today I wouldn’t start a computer repair company. I’d really develop a mobile development company.” Stephens reckoned his advice was good for start-ups of any flavour, journalists for example.

The launch of the iPad had given the mobile computer market a huge boost and shown that that format size is not just about making phone calls.

“I don’t know how much longer they’ll be called phones but that’s really the central device. Because most of us are moving and mobile, on the go. So our mobile device will be the one we interact with the most.”

And the fact that its only got 3 inches of screen space can actually be a good thing…
“The last thing is that the constraint of the mobile screen is actually really liberating in that when you only have a small set of real estate to design your interface for, you can only put so many buttons. Just think of the Google start page, versus the AOL, the Yahoo startpage. Much cleaner.”

Read the full interview on sustainablejournalism.org

Be yourself first, then express your passion, second.

I have lots of friends, followers and connections on various Social Networking sites. Too many? Well, I’ll let the Social Media gurus tell me that. I like keeping up with people. Seeing where they have been, what they done, seen, etc. I like hearing what people have learned, tried and failed at. To me, Social Media is a way to extend a group of friends/acquaintances far beyond my town, business or vacation trip locations, etc. I value my Twitter, Facebook and other peeps, except for “those people”. #fb

“Which people?” you ask.

Oh, you know, “those people”. The people that post that one topic, over and over again. It may be a great topic, like their business, political or religious beliefs, famous quotes from famous people, etc. One topic, posted by “those people,” over and over again.

We’ve all met “those people,” in real life, too. The person who only talks about 1 topic the entire time. You try to change the subject, but somehow, they find a way to bend the subject change back to the topic they were on, and it continues, for all time. Being passionate about something is great. It drives us to better ourselves, our families, and sometimes our planet. However, there is balance.

Balance. Not too far “this way,” or too far “that way”. Balance.

Getting back to my Social Networking connections. I can give people a few infractions of “Buy my stuff!” “Listen to my show!” or “Never sit with your back to the door. Abraham Lincoln”. I use Social Networking sites to promote my projects, as well as my friend’s projects, so I know I toe and cross the line at times, but I try to keep it balanced. Be yourself first, then express your passion, second.

I love to catch up with friends. They tell me how they are doing; their job, family, pets, almost winning the lottery, etc, etc, then they mention a new venture they are involved in. That’s great. A full picture approach. I’m always interested in the person. Sometimes mundane information about the child that put raisins up their nose, the dog that barks the Love Boat theme, the long overtime hours someone is working. I like it. That helps me connect with the person. I know them better now. A person sharing their life (even mundane) information, helps me connect on an emotional level. I care at that point. When I care, I let my guard down to listen completely to more. That “more” is their passion.

When someone walks up and asks you for money, you normally pull back. “I don’t know this person,” “What will they do with the money,” etc, are the things that cause us to be wary. Becoming emotionally connected (even reconnecting) makes us more interested in someone’s passion. When we emotionally connect, we now trust, then we listen and care, too.

I have blocked some Social Networking folks for the business posts, over and over again. Perhaps they don’t feel that their life (even the small segment they feel comfortable sharing with the Social Networking group) isn’t interesting. I have news for them – it is.

Your life matters, and is important and is interesting to me and others.

You, are not just your beliefs, business, or political thoughts. You are the day to day events in your life. The grumbling at traffic. The wandering to find where your car was parked. The dinner you created from “what’s in the cupboard”. The laughing so hard it hurt, after you realized that singing the songs from the commercials with your children might bother the neighbors. The good, the bad, and the ordinary, because what’s ordinary to you, may be a dream for someone else.

Blog You. Post You. Tweet You. You will see people start to connect with you on deeper levels that aren’t just about your business or beliefs, but about you.

Once they know you, they will gladly hear what else you have to say.