CEO&Founder Pete Cashmore of Mashable.com, a Blog that Commands Over 40 Million Page Views per Month

If you do business on the Internet and have not subscribed to Mashable, you may have been missing some of the most important information you need for your business marketing.

Mashable provides the best information in social and digital media, technology and web culture.

Mashable was ranked as the most influential media outlet by Klout. In fact, both Fast Company and PC Magazine have highly recommended Mashable.

Mashable Inc., How it All Started

The blog, Mashable, was started in 2005 by a 19-year old boy, Pete Cashmore, who was living in Aberdeen, Scotland. He was a web technology consultant though

10 Subtle Internet Marketing Tips to Win the Business War in 2011

We live in an age of extremely stiff marketing competition, unparalleled complexity and constant change in the business world. Consequently, small & medium-sized businesses fall victim most of the time.

You probably have heard that, ‘you must prepare for war if you want peace’. To be successful in 2011, you need to find your way out of the crowd.

Every business has an Internet cycle, whether they admit it or not. The major challenge is, standing out and carving a niche from the saturated Internet market.

Below are 10 tips that will help you avoid failure and gain competitive edge in your business in 2011.

1. Constantly Publish Very High Quality Promotional Materials.

You may have been publishing some newsletters, white papers, special reports and so on. It’s time to broaden your reach.

The freedom on the Internet has created too much room for junks. You need to re-emphasize your expertise through your own publications by adding more value than others. Work on the overall quality of the materials using the top player in your niche as a model.

2. Upgrade your Marketing Plan.

Most business started this year with a marketing plan, but ‘3 months’ is enough to give your plan a face-lift. Take some time to think about what has worked in the last 3 months and what is not working. In most cases, you need to put in more effort where they are yielding good results.

Also, you need to focus more on repeat purchases. Customers that have purchased your products in the past are more likely to return to buy more.

3. Automate Manual Activities.

Today, technology has advanced to a level where most aspects of Internet marketing can be automated. Fortunately, they often cost very little. Perform a quick Internet search to get the most suitable for yourself.

4. Finish up Abandoned Projects.

Perhaps, it’s time you take a break from endless activities. Go through your archive after a long time. Re-read some of the projects you have abandoned. Flip through your old diaries. In short, try to remember some of your old ideas. It will surprise you how they can actually generate newer and better ideas for you.

5. Enter a New Territory.

You may need a coach to achieve this.

Look beyond your present level or places where you presently have influence. Come up with a totally different but viable niche and move in forcefully. For example, you may need to begin to promote female products because statistics has revealed that women are more active on the Internet than men.

Alternatively, find a way to satisfy rising Internet users like the Indians and Chinese. They have large populations in the world and are becoming very active on the Internet.

6. Perform a Research & Focus on Customers.

When last did you get feedback from a large part of your audience?

Set up an opinion poll on your site or invest in thorough research itself. The value of research is usually far-reaching. Sometimes, it does not bring immediate results, but oftentimes it repositions you and strengthens your grip on your market.

You need to focus on the needs of your customers. Give them all the information they need to know:

• How much your product costs.
• How reliable your product is.
• Its variety of packages, sizes, colors etc
• Payment options
• The products duration of use and whether it can be resold

7. Get into the New Age

You can’t do everything, but you must do what must be done.

Social media is evolving fast; search engines algorithms are changing; online video platforms are becoming more relevant; mobile communication has come to stay and Internet users are changing their habits.

Make the necessary changes to get into the Web 2.0 age. Leverage on the power of the big 4 social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

8. Set Bigger Goals. Measure & Monitor your results.

Think bigger!

The size of your goal will indirectly influence your level of thinking. A bigger goal will open up your mind to greater possibilities.

Set a bigger goal and go for it.

Goals become useless when they are not being measured and monitored. Remember, goals must be SMART- Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound.

9. Get the Media to Publicize You

The media has a way of boosting your reputation and bringing more clients.

Do not stop at churning out newsletters. Get interviewed by the press & make sure you were prepared for the Interview.

10. Improve on Your Infrastructure & Invest in Learning

You may still be using the infrastructures you began Internet business with. Revamp your infrastructures; move to better platforms.

Learn how to use newer tools if you have to – it’s worth it.

Get books or multimedia tutorials from experts to learn something new for your business.

Join professional bodies & attend conferences and seminars,

Lastly, check your own PR – your profile on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and YouTube. Check your ‘about’ page also. When was the last time you edited it? Create a professional image. Put in more professional and friendly tone into all your PR materials.

Further Reading on Internet Marketing

1)  Social Networking Vs Blogging & Email Vs SMS – Struggle For Existence.

2) Maximizing Your Social Media Strategies: Advice from Thought Leaders in Internet Marketing.

3) How to Maximize Your Email Marketing Strategy in 2011: What is Right & What is Wrong?

4) Self-Branding: How to Separate Yourself from the Crowd & Build Credibility on the Internet.

5) Internet Entrepreneurs: Meet the Millionaire Dropout that Founded WordPress, Matt Mullenweg.

1)Social Networking Vs Blogging & Email Vs SMS – Struggle For Existence

2)Maximizing Your Social Media Strategies: Advice from Thought Leaders in Internet Marketing

3)How to Maximize Your Email Marketing Strategy in 2011: What is Right & What is Wrong?

4)Self-Branding: How to Separate Yourself from the Crowd & Build Credibility on the Internet

5)Internet Entrepreneurs: Meet the Millionaire Dropout that Founded WordPress, Matt Mullenweg

Meet the Millionaire That Caused 2 Giant Leaps in Web 2.0: Evan Williams, Twitter Co-founder

How much do you know about the millionaire genius, Evan Williams, who co-founded two of the world’s Top 10 Internet portals –Twitter and Blogger- and is highly reputed as one of the Fathers of Social Media?

 

 

Evan Williams talks passionately

One completely amazing thing about Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder is his drive towards democratizing the web.

Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder has consistently demonstrated strong passion to democratize the World Wide Web in all of his handiworks. First, he began with blogger, followed by Odeo and then Twitter amongst his many Social Media creations.

He was born on March 31, 1972.

What You Should Know about Evan Williams’ Business Life

Just like many other American Internet Business Guru, Evan Williams dropped out of school to run his company and now ranks as a ‘father of Social Media’.

Particularly, Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder is said to be involved in founding two of the top ten portals on the Internet today – Twitter and Blogger. In fact, Evan Williams is acknowledged as the person who coined the term ‘blogger’.

Blogger began as a little hobby for him in 1999 when Evan Williams with Meg Hourihan and Paul Bausch (his friends) began writing blogs for themselves and later had to expand their codes to allow more people to get involved in blogging. To their utter amazement, more people began to like blogging and today, millions of bloggers publish on blogspot everyday.

However, Evan Williams later had to sell blogger to Google in 2003 after a huge bankrupt. He dismissed all his staff and managed blogger all alone until Google indicated interest in acquiring his company and hiring him. He left Google less than a year after, in October 2004, to democratize podcasting by co-founding Odeo, a podcasting company.

The Life of Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder

In his Blogger profile, Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder, describes himself as ‘an American entrepreneur who was originally a farm boy from Nebraska but has been very lucky in business and life’.

You’d agree that he was indeed more than lucky to have been a brain behind two monumental Internet portals.

He schooled in University of Nebraska but later dropped out to live life the way he loved – democratizing the Web.

He now lives in San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Sara Morishige and a son at 39 years of age.

Evan Williams reveals more about himself on his LinkedIn profile, where he mentions how he has been involved with the Internet and start-ups since 1994, and that most of his preoccupations have been towards using the web as a force for the democratization of media.

So far, his contribution to the ‘State of the World Wide Web’ today cannot be measured. Some really top notch web properties –  Pyra Lab, Odeo, Blogger, Twitter and many more – are well credited to be Evan Williams’ own brain child along with some of his friends. In addition, he is largely responsible for seeing Twitter grow from a local service to a global networking portal.

Surprisingly, he still works with some other giant companies like Google, O Reilly where he continues to reveal more of his creative abilities.

On Telegraph, Evan Williams reveals his mind set – a world where you will get answers to questions you did not know you had. He explained that his primary concern has been how to get people the information they want without they needing to search for it. In his words, “We are in the middle of a series of experiments to try and figure out how to enable people to discover what they need to know without asking”.

Interestingly, Telegraph reported that Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder still drives Twitter’s vision, though he has relinquished his position as CEO to focus on Twitter product strategy. They refer to him as ‘Technology Visionary’.

Further Reading on Business Stories of CEOs and Founders

1. Revelations from the Life of Jeff Bezos: The Founder, Chairman and CEO of Amazon.com
2. How Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, Built a Giant Company from Nothing
3. Women CEOs: How Chelsea Rustrum makes $120, 000 to $140, 000 from Her Blog annually
4. Meet GoDaddy CEO, Bob Parsons Who Said “I’ve earned everything I’ve ever received”
5. How Cofounder & President, Arianna Huffington Started Huffington Post & Sold to AOL for $315 million

3 Priceless Internet Business Secrets You Should Learn from Jimmy Wales, Co-founder of Wikipedia

Learn from the secret thoughts of another Internet Giant, Jimmy Wales who is regarded as one of the founding fathers of Social Media, and lift your thinking to a higher realm.

Contributions from this Internet Businessman have largely shaped the Internet into what it is today.

For example, the Social Media, where Jimmy Wales largely contributed, is much talked about today. A lot of individuals, organizations and small businesses have found Social Media to be an excellent platform for effective web marketing.

Jimmy Wales full name is Jimmy Donal “Jimbo” Wales.

He was born in Huntsville, Ala., and he holds a master’s degree from the University of Alabama.

Before he got involved in the Internet, he worked as the research director at Chicago Options Associate.

This American Internet Businessman who will be 45 years old this year is well known as a co-founder and promoter of Wikipedia. In the past, he co-founded a web portal for males, Bomis

His creation, Wikipedia, was set up in 2001, and it has since grown to become a huge online portal with close to 80 million monthly visitors and about 16 million articles in over 270 languages.

This online knowledge store, Wikipedia, is owned by a charity, Wikimedia Foundation, and it costs tens of millions of U.S dollars to run it annually.

Wikipedia is a free online open-content site that receives quality articles from volunteers. It can be rightly called an ‘Online Encyclopedia’.

According to Wales, it serves to give researchers a broad background, context and knowledge of virtually every subject known to mankind. The contents are written by volunteers and thus should not be regarded as absolutely perfect.

However, in the midst of the excessive junks on the Internet today, Wikipedia stands out as a trusted source.

You should pick some thoughts from this Internet Giant.

1. Look deeper into the future of the Internet.

What amazes me about Jimmy Wales is his mindset.

It appears to me that he constantly looks into the future. Before he creates anything online, he seems to always consider the possibilities in the distant future of the Internet and the likelihood of more junks filling up the whole of the web space.

With blogs springing up everywhere and poor quality contents filling the web space, the Internet will soon come to a point where only trusted platforms will be searched by Internet users for information.

That’s why, though Wikipedia gets its contents from volunteers, these contents are allowed to be improved upon by other people.

Now,

Think about his private, for-profit organization Wikia where he receives millions of visitors every month. Here, he engages the community volunteers in building contents around major inventions and occurrences including games, entertainments etc while unwanted contents are blocked.

The Wikia portal functions like a magazine. There is a gigantic wiki about a game; ‘World of Warcraft’; a movie series, ‘Lost’; recipe wiki and more.

2. Be Careful in Charging Your Readers

Contrary to what some portals are beginning to do, Jimmy Wales does not advise charging fees.

On thestar.com in an article, The wiki world, According to Jimmy Wales, when Jimmy Wales was asked about charging his readers he said,

“There’s no real impetus behind charging people to read stuff on the internet. I don’t think that works at all.”

In actual fact, charging a fee per user will decrease your visitors and thus reduce your turn over from other services you provide.

3. Ensure Your Portal Creates a Community Atmosphere and the Members of the Community are United in Purpose

Jimmy Wales has always talked about building a sense of direction on both Wikia and Wikipedia.

His purpose is for people to build a community with integrity. When he was citing the difference between the Wikia and discussion forums or discussion boards, he said,

“Typically, in a forum or discussion board the community is able to talk to each other. That’s all they can do. They’re not really building something together.”

Whether you are a small internet business owner or a large organization, these tips are important in today’s competitive web space. One vital tip is to constantly look deeper into the future of the web space, and strive to maintain an unrivaled reputation for quality.

Further Reading on Business stories of CEOs and Founders

1. Meet GoDaddy CEO, Bob Parsons Who Said “I’ve earned everything I’ve ever received”
2. How Cofounder & President, Arianna Huffington Started Huffington Post & Sold to AOL for $315 million
3. Get Closer To LinkedIn Founder, Reid Hoffman, Who Built the Over $4 Billion Company into a Powerhouse
4. Meet Forbes’ 24th World Billionaire: The Founding CEO of Google, Larry Page
5. Avoid Failure: Learn from Twitter Co-founder, Jack Dorsey Who Saw into Tomorrow

Business Tips: 5 Practical Steps to Achieving a More Productive Day

Today, we are faced with more activities than we can attend to everyday, and attempting to do all of them can prevent us from having a more productive day.

Information age has brought us closer to so much information (with a huge amount of junks) that we are left to decide what matters and what does not matter to us. More than any other time in history, we need to pay more conscious attention to our daily effectiveness. To gain competitive advantage, we must develop daily habits to keep us focused in the midst of the day’s commotion.

Tip 1- Have a Sound Plan and fall for It to Have a More Productive Day

Instead of just following the plan other people or circumstances press on you, seize some time to develop a plan for yourself and your work. Consider your strengths and weaknesses plus your hobbies and desires to know what exactly would make you more productive. Most importantly, determine which direction you want your life to go and commit to it. Additionally, you must be in love with your expected results. Thinking about it alone should have a thrilling effect on you. Moreover, you should visualize and affirm your goal as often as you can in order to have a more productive day.

Tip 2 – Organize Your Priorities Weekly and Daily to Have a More Productive Day

A good number of people write ‘to-do-list’ before going out every day but do not write them based on correct priorities. It is very advisable that you first determine what you intend to achieve in a week. Decide what your priorities for the week are and write them down. Then, you can write out a schedule for each day of the week. Moreover, you need to be sure you understand your priorities. You should separate what is very important from what is urgent but unimportant. This is very effective, and it will help you avoid getting overwhelmed by the activities on your list.

Tip 3 – Focus on Results and Not Methods to Have a More Productive Day

It is important to focus on getting results by paying less attention to the difficulties on the way. Surprisingly, it is natural for many people to concentrate on techniques and methods, forgetting the end-goal. A potter or a builder would normally have a clear and detailed picture of exactly what is intended before starting any work. So also, you must be certain of what you want to accomplish and stay on it. An easy way to refocus your mind everyday is to spend about thirty minutes to one hour in the morning to meditate on your plan and how to get results.

Tip 4 – Do Something Every Day That Would Move You Closer to Your Goals to Have a More Productive Day

Many experts suggests that you ask yourself this question everyday “what have I done today to move me towards my most important goals?” and ensure you do something. It is shocking how time passes so fast and yet, we keep procrastinating important goals. The key here is to make sure a day does not end until you have done one thing to advance you towards your desires. If you think you would likely always forget to ask yourself that question, write it down somewhere, maybe, on your computer wall paper, the door to your room, beside your bed etc.

Tip 5 – Make Constant Personal Development an A+ Priority to Have a More Productive Day

Spend quality time to keep developing yourself in your field and intellectually. Get hold of new findings and subscribe to publications in your field. Never ever allow useful information to pass by. Besides, it is easier to succeed among other successful people and the way to stay among them is to know what they know or what they are willing to know. In addition, exercise regularly. 30 minutes of exercise everyday would not be too much for you. You cannot work for so much and build yourself so aggressively to end up having health crisis that can prevent you from enjoying the fruits of your toil.

Finally, in order to infuse productivity into your daily life, you need to value time, value yourself, and enjoy life. Do not get carried away by daily routines and purposeless chatting. Always get back to work as soon as you catch yourself wasting precious time. Also, stay off negative moods because your feelings are your own making.

Further Reading for Beginners in Business Marketing

1. How to Master Selling on the Internet: The 6 Irrefutable Principles of Persuasion
2. How to Upgrade Your Internet Marketing Strategy to Gain Competitive Advantage Using ‘Strategic Positioning’
3. 2 Powerful Secrets: Accelerate Your Effectiveness by Laying Hold of Secrets
4. The 3 Critical Ingredients of Good Web Content
5. The Beginner’s Guide to Writing- 7 SIMPLE TIPS

The 3 Critical Ingredients of Good Web Content

Internet has risen to become a major gateway to a lot of information. Consequently, the quality of written information or web content has suddenly become a major driving force in internet marketing. Good web content must possess certain critical attributes that are beneficial to the reader and the giver of web contents.

Good Web Content Must Be Engaging – Recent research reveals that majority of internet users prefer to read articles that appear very engaging. A blog post that has lots of comments normally gains more attention than one with fewer comments.  Also, information presented in a format that engages the mind of a reader will generate more interest than a bland content.

In addition, writing with passive voice limits the chances of sustaining the interest of a web surfer. This occurs for two reasons: Passive voice makes you appear amateur. Unfortunately, web surfers prefer to read from experts to reduce waste of time. Secondly, it gives your visitors the freedom to click away. Thus, it is a good rule of the thumb to always write using active language.

Another strategy to keep your content engaging is to use the top-down (pyramid) approach in your write up. Mention the crux of the content in the first paragraph and expatiate with the rest of the write-up.

Good Web Content Has to Be Refreshing – It is now established that most webs surfers want to be inspired, informed or entertained. Therefore, good web content must fulfill one or more of these needs of a surfer. Most importantly, it must provide information relevant to the surfer’s interest.

Basically, good web content should contain minimal errors (which can easily smother the interest of a surfer). First of all, articles should be properly introduced and concluded. Then, the whole article itself should sound logical. The presented points have to be coherent and reasonable with little or no grammatical errors.

Importantly, editing and proofreading are standard ways to polish a complete article. These last two stages of writing are often neglected by many writers in a hurry to publish their content. The best writers know that proper editing and proofreading will turn an average article into an extraordinary write-up. Good writers usually edit and proofread in order to completely eliminate errors and improve their message.

Good Web Content Need to Be Optimized – Optimizing web contents serves two purposes: It brings the reader to the article and keeps the content interesting enough to sustain his or her interest. Web contents should be optimized for both search engines and visitors. Optimizing web content for search engines involves keywords optimization and interlinking web contents.

However, web contents can also be optimized for visitors. This involves the use of attractive heading, proper subheadings and lists to enable easy readability. Most surfers find it easy to read through contents that have smaller chunks of information. These kinds of contents take less time to read and usually encourage surfers to take a quick capture of the information on your site (though they often end up reading much more than they plan to read).

To recap, good web content must satisfy both human needs for inspiration, education and entertainment plus search engines requirements to help surfers easily locate relevant information. It should engage the attention of surfers, refresh readers and be well optimized.

Further Reading on Business Marketing

1. How to Master Selling on the Internet: The 6 Irrefutable Principles of Persuasion
2. How to Upgrade Your Internet Marketing Strategy to Gain Competitive Advantage Using ‘Strategic Positioning’
3. Self-Branding: How to Separate Yourself from the Crowd & Build Credibility on the Internet
4. How to Maximize Your Email Marketing Strategy in 2011: What is Right & What is Wrong?
5. Social Networking Vs Blogging & Email Vs SMS – Struggle For Existence

 

A Giant Mistake That Slowed Down My Online Career and What You Can Learn

Life in the School of Hard Knocks

The cyber world is vast, online businesses can turn rags to riches overnight, young people easily become successful online, … are the words that caught my attention when I began my online career. For six years, I tried hard to become Online Affiliate Marketer- make huge money one day and become a celebrity the next day. I just wanted to BE A MILLIONAIRE so badly.  Unfortunately, the way online marketers promote the ‘Get Rich Quick’ idea did not help matters at all. For me, I was doing everything the wrong way.

How I Made Unproductive Efforts

First, I got into autosurfing (a real scam). I paid a couple of bucks and had to view roughly 15 adverts everyday to earn about 15% of what I paid but lost all the money overnight. Later, I started blogging but didn’t learn anything on how to blog successfully. I posted 10 articles one day and waited till the following month before posting something new. I tried to get my friends (on Facebook) to visit my blog, but they never really visited. Even when they visited my blog, none of them returned.  This continued for about six months without substantial visitors to the blog.  In short I made many unproductive efforts.

What I Learnt about Productive Efforts: The Law of Growth

Any business at all should follow the rules of nature: the time of sowing, nurturing, growth, maturity, bearing fruits, and new growth.

Eventually, I became a Professional Web Content Provider. How? I followed the laws of nature and it works for every venture.

Sowing of Seeds: Plant your Idea(s)

Seeds must be sown to reap a harvest sooner or later.

After conceiving the ide

a of writing, I decided to find a good platform where I could write and develop my skills within a short time. I chose a forum (forums.digitalpoint.com) and began active writing. Though I had to sell my articles cheap, I had the wonderful opportunity of developing myself. Also, I could always contact my buyers to suggest how to serve them better – I sowed my seeds.

Nurturing of Business

Planted seeds need constant watering and monitoring till they grow up.

As you already know, I didn’t start writing for quick money. So, I treated all my customers with respect and created a personal relationship with them. I got interested in their businesses and how I could help. Also, I began to spend quality time to develop my abilities and knowledge. Additionally, I had to get rid of weeds (competitors for my money) by providing a better service. I secured my space- made sure my customers trusted my service.

Growth to Maturity: Build your Business

Every plant eventually becomes mature and stops growing. Sometimes, the law of diminishing returns may set in.

This is the stage I am presently.

Sorry folks, I can’t tell you the plans I have, but you can always guess: I plan to get more organized and better paid. How? I’ll tell you when I start.

Bearing of Fruits or Seeds: Diversify

As soon as my business grows to maturity, I have to diversify. This could mean expanding

by getting a team of writers or venturing into new grounds.

Starting all Over

Finally, I can apply the same law that helped me grow in the first business to a new business.

What You Should Learn

The cyber world is vast: That means, you can be easily missed among the millions of people online.

Online businesses can turn rags to riches overnight, but they can also turn riches to rag in a day.

Young people easily become successful online, but they are often easily carried away in unproductive ventures; always wanting easier work and more money. Until, you are willing to do the required work, you may not be able to succeed. Ask one of the top bloggers, Brian Clark, and he’ll tell you the meaning of harwork.

“You know what’s a lot of work? Running a bricks and mortar business. 12 hour days, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Maybe after a couple of successful years you’ll let yourself take a weekend off.”

The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging

Final thoughts

You can save yourself a lot of headache if you:

• Get a mentor
• Get a model
• Have a focus
• Have a target
• Be yourself

Lastly, learn to improvise, adapt, improve, diversify, and start all over until you become what you initially wanted to be.

Further Reading for Beginners on the Internet

1. 9 Tips You Need to Write and Respond to Emails Professionally
2. Social Networking Vs Blogging & Email Vs SMS – Struggle For Existence
3. 2 Powerful Secrets: Accelerate Your Effectiveness by Laying Hold of Secrets
4. The 3 Critical Ingredients of Good Web Content
5. The Beginner’s Guide to Writing- 7 SIMPLE TIPS