For some reason I just came across this great site, I don’t know how I hadn’t seen it before.

Mixergy.com – Where Ambitious Upstarts Mix

The site is jam packed with interviews and videos from all kinds of entrepreneurs that are crushing it – including those that you are familiar with such as Gary Vaynerchuk and Tim Ferriss but then also others you might not be familiar with such as Lew Cirne and Amanda Freeman.

There are literally more than 40 pages of content and interviews on the site. If you haven’t seen Mixergy.com before, I suggest checking it out. You might find yourself watching the interviews all day long!

Two of my favorites so far have been:

The Founder Of AppSumo Takes Off His Pants And Talks About Working With Zuckerberg – with Noah Kagan

How WooThemes Quietly Built A $2+ Million Per Year Business Selling Themes – With Adriaan “Adii” Pienaar

Have you been following Mixergy and I’m just out of the loop on this one? What have been your favorite interviews? Share your comments below!

Here’s what’s on the bookshelf! Plenty of Book Reviews Coming Soon!

Over the past few months I’ve started reading a lot more, which is surprising, because normally I hate reading and can never seem to read more than a couple pages before I’m bored and ready to put the book down. However, with some downtime at work and finding more attractive books, I’ve pumped through more books in the last few months than in the last year and a half.

Since Christmas has come and gone, I picked up a few new books from family and friends as well as some from authors and PR agencies looking for reviews. So, now I have a hefty stack of books to read through and you all will of course benefit from that since I will be posting either text or video reviews of them over the next few months as I get through them.

At the top of the list, and the book I’m almost finished with is Three Feet From Gold: Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities! A full review will follow shortly.

On the stack of next in lines are:

Millennials into Leadership: The Ultimate Guide for Gen Y’s Aspiring to Be Effective, Respected, Young Leaders at Work
Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time
Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way We Do Business & Market Online
Driving Results Through Social Networks: How Top Organizations Leverage Networks for Performance and Growth (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership)
CareerBall: The Sport Athletes Play When They’re Through Playing Sports

Look for more book reviews coming soon! If you’re an author or a part of a PR agency looking for a review of a book, feel free to send me a copy – no guarantee that we’ll get to it soon, but we will try!

Book Reviews
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BTW, the links to the books are affiliate links to Amazon, if you buy through those links, I may make a few pennies…and I appreciate that!

So you know social media is changing the way that people buy things and the way that companies do business. Everyone is on Facebook and using Twitter…at least if they know what is good for them they are. Now it’s your turn to learn how you can use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and the other networking sites to attract more customers and clients to your business.

First, make sure you are signed up with Facebook and Twitter. If you’re going to be pumping out content, as you should be, and have a video camera, then get signed up on YouTube and Viddler (video blogging secret – use TubeMogul to upload your video to multiple sites just once – more to come in another post).

So you’re signed up, now what?

1. Start following people on Twitter and Facebook who are talking about your business area or industry. If your running a camping equipment business, then follow people talking about hiking, backpacking, camping, and any related gear manufacturers. If you’re running a  website on do it yourself plumbing, then follow people who may be talking about hiring a plumber, other plumbers, people talking about leaky faucets or any other related topic. Use a service like Tweetbeep or similar to get notified of people using your keywords so that you can follow them.
2. Once you’ve started following people, INTERACT WITH THEM! This is the biggest point – you have to engage yourself in order to see a return from your efforts. You can’t just add 100’s of people to your friends list and expect them to do business with you. Just like in the offline world, you have to do some networking, talk with people, and talk about your business. But don’t push your business too much! Engage with your friends and followers, help solve their problems, and help any way you can.
3. Create a Facebook Fan Page for your business/company on Facebook. Being a “friend” with someone on Facebook is great and all, but its on more of a personal level where conversations are about what you are doing this weekend. With a Fan Page you can keep the interaction more related to your business. Fan Pages give you the same features as a regular profile such as posting pictures, videos, and links but also allow for people to interact with you, which is what you want. Invite all your Facebook friends to be “Fans” of your business. Use your Facebook fan page as a way to drive more traffic to your actual website and also to make another connection with your followers on Twitter. If someone is looking for more information about your company, you can send them to your Fan Page AND to your website.
4. Like the West Virginia state slogan, declare yourself open for business. Many other entrepreneurs and social media “experts” will tell you not to advertise your business but to just let people come to you. This is all good and can be a successful plan, but I feel you still need to advertise/promote your business within the Facebook and Twitter scene. Cross reference your tweets and Facebook page, post links to press releases, your services, or your company blog. Offer your services to people who may be talking about what you do. Going back to the plumbing website, if someone is talking about installing a new sink over the weekend, @reply them or send them a Direct Message offering a link to your site and page on sink installation. If it helps them, maybe they’ll click on one of your ads, buy your service or product, or share your website with their friends.Example: One day I was searching Twitter (www.search.twitter.com) for the keyword “wordpress help”. I quickly came across a bunch of people looking for help with their wordpress theme, looking for a custom theme, or that had other questions. I started interacting with them and offered my services to help them get their blog up and running. The investment of an hour in talking with them gained me their business because we had established a relationship. In this area alone, Twitter has brought me 4 clients.
5. Keep rolling out fresh content. Being signed up for Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube is not enough to get you more customers. You need to be pumping out content on those networks too. If your operating a Facebook fan page, then you need to be posting links to your blog, links to industry news, posting videos of your demonstrating products or reviewing a product, and pictures of your business or products.
6. An often overlooked tactic is to interact with other people ON THEIR OWN SITES. Take some of the interaction off of Twitter and Facebook and onto someone else’s blog or website. Start leaving meaningful and worthy comments on peoples blog posts and create a reputation on sites. Then, with any luck, you’ll start to get recognized on those sites and people will start heading to your own website, Facebook page, or Twitter account to learn more about your and your business.
7. BE PATIENT! This is the most important part of these tips. You have to be patient and can’t expect to all of the sudden see a 25% growth in business because you signed up for Twitter and followed a few people. You need to interact, build relationships, and then engage with them. Building a quality and interested list of friends and followers will take time. Building relationships is going to take time. And getting people to buy from you is going to take some time; but that time will come! Just be patient, keep at it (for however long it takes), and then you’ll start to see some rewards.

Are you interested in how your business can better use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to grow your business? Then feel free to contact me for some help!

If you are a blogger, then the answer to this question should be yes – plain and simple. However, everyone uses WordPress for differnet reasons. So, here in a short post, I’ll share some of my reasons for using WordPress and why I recommend it to all of my web design and development clients.

I started using WordPress probably 4 years ago when I launched my first big blog, Dorm Room Biz. Ever since then I’ve been sold of the package and have not looked back since. I started out on Blogger but as soon as I played with WordPress, the switch was a no brainer. WordPress is great because you really need no programming knowledge or background to be able to get it set up and running on your domain name. This alone is what I think makes the package so popular. Taking that to the next level are the massive amounts of themes out there – paid or free – which are available as well as all the widgets, plugins, and little extra upgrades you can do to your site.

Even with how easy it is to use WordPress, the great dashboard and well designed admin panel, there are still a few things that can make it tricky for someone starting with WP but looking to do more with it. You really need to develope a base knowledge of php if you want to get into the depths of the themes, templates, and different lines of code. But a basic knowledge of HTML will help you at least do some basic customization like changing colors of text, background colors, etc. So while there may be a learning curve for more advanced things you can do with WP, there can be a steady progression to that level.

When I first started with WP, I didn’t know much about setting up and working with MySQL databases, so I needed help in this area. Luckily, I was able to find some people who were more than willing to help me set up databases, fix issues, etc. This was crucial when I experienced some issues with Dorm Room Biz and I thought I was going to loose all the content (150+ posts at the time). Then, in the days before the automatic upgrade feature of WP, I always seemed to have a problem when installing a new version, so being able to get help from an internet buddy on doing this and having them walk me through the steps was a perfect learning experience. These types of issues are pretty much gone, I would think, if you utilize the automatic install/set up feature as well as the automatic upgrade feature when new WP releases come out.

One of the most important aspects of blogging and WordPress, besides the content of your blog, is going to be your design. While I haven’t actually created any of my own themes, I have taken some free themes and customized them pretty good to the point where you can’t really tell what the original theme looked like. Now, I’m a HUGE fan of the guys over at WooThemes and the themes that they are putting out monthly. If you’re not familiar with WooThemes and their premium themes, then check them out. I use them on many of my sites and for clients and then just customize the look and feel of them to be my own. It makes theme development and customization so much easier than starting from scratch, unless that’s what you want to do! If you feel that WooThemes might be a little bit to expensive for you, check out Elegant Themes. For $19.95 you get unlimited access to the themes that they put up, some of them are very good themes and basis to start with if you are going to customize it.

So there we have it, a few reasons why I use WordPress today as well as a few of the struggles I had along the way to getting to where I am today with the package!

My name is Chris and I’m a “twitterholic”. I admit it.

Now that that is out of the way, lets talk about your use of Twitter. Yea, you guys – State Parks and Campgrounds. Oh, what was that? You say you either A) don’t know what Twitter is or use it or B) your use is minimal? Well, that needs to be fixed.

I’ve noticed and started following more and more State Parks, Campgrounds, and Tourism site Twitter users in the last month then I could visit in a year. That is a great sign. So here is the deal.

I’ll quickly start with the basics. For those of you unaware, Twitter is a micro-blogging website that allows you to tell people what you are doing in 140 characters or less. However, you don’t always have to answer the question “What are you doing?” instead you can post links to your sites, interesting articles, and interact with other users. The last part of that is the most important. Twitter is a vehicle to interact with other users.

Now, moving on. If you represent a state park system, a local park, a campground, a tourism website, or similar organization, then you need to get on Twitter. Besides being the hottest thing since slice bread in the toaster and having millions of users, Twitter is the perfect location for you to be reaching out to potential visitors of your parks and grounds, getting your news out there, and advertising to potential visitors.

If you perform a Twitter search for “camping” or “state park” you’ll quickly find hundreds of users talking about different state parks through the country, people looking for activities to do in parks or cities, and people trying to find recommendations on places to go camping (with tents or RVs).

Twitter is a very powerful way for you to connect with your potential users and your market. You need to be harnessing it. One of my favorite things to do is assist people in growing their business, brainstorming ways to gain exposure, and helping people get on Twitter.

If you run a website for a State Park, a local campground, RV park, tourism spot, or any other related business or attraction, you need to get on Twitter. Contact me about details on helping you to do so!

When I blog at Dorm Room Biz, I try not to curse too much. Sometimes a ‘shit’ or ‘fuck’ will pop into a post such as Do Epic Shit. But it’s usually just once or twice, nothing majorly excessive. However, some people curse all the time in their blog posts and videos. An example of someone who does it, and does it absolutely wonderful job at it, is Naomi of IttyBiz. Naomi drops the f bomb, and just about any other derogatory word or phrase that she wants, and I feel like her readers love it.

What do you think? I’m one who usually curses in everyday life but does not write that way. However, I think I may take the posting in a different direction here and write as I would actually say it. So if the ‘shit’, ‘fuck’, ‘ass’ or’bitches’ pops into a post, post title, or comment, please do not be offended. However, if you don’t think it’s a good idea, I’d also love to hear your thoughts on the idea!