Jim Symcox - The Marketing Magician

“Everyone is too scared to use the Internet to buy things”.

Remember when they said that? It’s not that long ago.

Look at us now. People can and do buy anything and everything from the web. The fear, really a fear of change has gone.

They said TV would destroy the cinema. That didn’t happen. The movies are a completely different form to TV but we didn’t realise at the time. TV and cinema both survived and now both feed off each other.

In hindsight we all see what was perfectly obvious.

Now they’re saying that Blogs, or weblogs are taking over the Internet.

A blog is effectively an online journal where you, or a group, can record their innermost thoughts and make comments about a topic. Anyone has access to read your journal entry (known as a post) and can comment on it.

For much more detailed information about blogging look at the entry in wikipedia for “Blogging.”

You get over 474 million search results if you enter “blog” into Google.

Part of the reason for the blogs attraction is its ease of use. It takes only a few minutes to begin “blogging”.

First you sign up with a blog server, like Google’s Blogger, SixApart’s TypePadblog or use Wordpress.

You choose a page template you like. There are a number of very good ones available completely free. Then post your first entry.

The final step is to let a blog directory know each time you create a new post (this is called pinging). Services such as Pingoat and Pingomatic are sites that can ping a number of other directories on your behalf.

People search these directories using blog search engines and browse the blogs in a similar way to web sites.

Do Companies Really Use Blogs?

Company executives use blogs. For example Bob Lutz, Vice President of General Motors has his own blog. Other people from GM contribute to it as well. IBM Vice President Bob Sutor and Vice President of Marketing for Boeing Randy Baseler write their own blogs too.

Employees from corporates like Microsoft, Google and Hewlett Packard blog.

When blogging is used in a positive way it shows your customers and prospects your corporate personality and helps build rapport.

What Are The Blog Downsides?

The company CEO shouldn’t blog. That’s because there may be pressure to flag future events. Or worse, if they drop a clanger it can be spread world-wide very quickly.

A further potential blogging downside is that you’ve no influence over what others put in their own blogs about what you’ve written.

You only need to look at some of the comments that General Motors got on Bob Lutz’s blog when they started a discussion on seatbelts to see how heated things can get.

Companies may be concerned that employees will spend too much time blogging or reading blogs. That means a blogging policy should be in place to prevent such abuse.

What Is The Advantage Of A Blog?

A blog can position someone, or a company, as an expert. But people can easily pass other people’s work off as their own. So it really is a case of “buyer beware” when reading blogs.

So are blogs going to be a knock-out for attracting and retaining customers?

The short answer is it depends, and the reasons are:

1) As another marketing communication channel it can be used or abused. Rather like PR is used.

2) For some companies it’s just too public

3) It’s completely without editoral control

4) It requires commitment to update regularly and to check and respond to comments

It’s been said that consultancies and other organisations that deal in knowledge and intellectual property benefit most from blogging. That’s because they can demonstrate their ability and expertise to their market in a different way from other marketing tactics.

But really why should it stop there? General Motor’s blog is useful for communicating new model launches and answering customer feedback.

In fact there really is no practical limit to the who can use blogging to communicate with customers and prospects.

But in the end is blogging a dead-end?

The business blog is definitely an important communication tool that every company should seriously consider as part of their marketing arsenal. But it must be looked at as another business tool whose ultimate measurement is: “does it get more sales or reduce company costs?”

If it can’t deliver at least one of those measures business blogging deserves to fail.

I’ve been blogging for over a year now and I’ve found that I’ve had thousands of hits. Intentionally I don’t get any sales from it. But that’s because I’m writing mini articles and will eventually use them as a basis for my next book.

So in the final analysis blogs are another communication channel so companies have the ability to take theirs and make it do the PR, word of mouth, viral and Internet marketing for them.

Internet advertising has grown into big business. Expect blogging to do the same.

About the author:

Jim Symcox, The Marketing Magician, has worked as a business consultant since the mid 1980’s.

He is a copywriter, marketing evangelist and coach and the author of the short and snappy ebook “How to Leap Ahead Of Your Competitors”.

For a copy email web@acornservice.com with “ezine” in the subject line.

Check out www.Acornservice.com to get Jim’s free and no obligation email seminar series

George Manty

Google® Adsense® can be a great tool for making money. Blogs are also becoming a great tool for making money. Many people know that the most profitable position to place Google® Adsense® ads is inline with your article text. The dilemna many of us face is that the Google® Adsense® Terms of Service only allow 3 ad blocks per page. The reason this is a problem for bloggers is that most blogs show more than three posts on the main page or in the archives section of the site. When this is the case you can’t post an article Google® Adsense® in the article.

While setting up my wife and her friend’s new site (www.naturalfamilynews.com), I came up with a trick using JavaScript to fix that problem. The code I wrote works perfectly in WordPress, but you should be able to adapt it to any blog that uses templates.

Step 1. In the head section of the template (between the and tags), you insert the following JavaScript code:

Step 2. Go to the template used to display your post (in WordPress the main template). Then insert the following code inside the display area for the post:

Step 3 Insert your Google® Adsense® code directly following the tag that you inserted in Step 2 above.

Step 4 Insert the following code after the tag from the Google® Adsense® code you inserted in step 3 :

Step 5. Save your changes and test it out.

What this does is create a new DIV section in your code that is hidden if it appears more than three times on the page. So only three ads will appear on any page. If you use Google® Adsense® in other places in your blog, then you will need to adjust the number “temp” in the first step up to display less inline ads. For instance, only two inline ads will appear if you change the code to:

Only one inline ad will appear if you change it to:

I hope this code helps you to make money online. Feel free to let others know about this trick, just be sure to let them know where you heard about it. About the Author

Displaying Google® Adsense® in Blogs by George Manty This article can be reproduced in whole or in part,providing this byline is included along with a link to http://www.canimakebigmoneyonline.com/

Judi Singleton

When we want to manifest our world we may want to employ creative thinking and alternative ways to think about the challenges of manifesting.

What is Creativity? Creativity is the ability to imagine something new. By combining ideas or thoughts in a different way. Now it has been said there are no new ideas under the sun but there are new ideas in the sense we take old ideas, include others ideas and rearrange them in a way that they are new to our world at least. Some ideas are brilliant while some are only common sense that has not been put togather in that particular way as yet.

Believe it or not, everyone has substantial creative ability. When I was a child I was always inventing something. My creativity was not always encouraged but by being alone a great deal of the time my imagination was nourished. In adults, creativity has too often been suppressed through education, convention, and religion. But your imagination is still there and can be reawakened. To reawaken your creativity you must make a commitment to it and set aside a certain amount of time to it each day.

An Attitude. Creativity is a attitude. It is being gratiful for what you have in this time while playing with new ideas of how to change it. It is also a belief in the fun of playing with ideas and liking the challenge of change. We are socialized into accepting only a certain number of ideas. If one can make play out of creating new ideas this process becomes a game. It is a game that has huge payoffs in the GAME of life.

THERE IS ALWAYS A GOOD SIDE

Everything depends on the way you look at things. View every problem you encounter as an opportunity. There is always a good side to every situation.

The optimist sees an opportunity in every misfortune. The pessimist sees misfortune in every opportunity. The optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist sees the hole.

You can develop success from every failure. Discouragement and failure are two stepping stones to success. No other elements can do so much for you if you’re willing to study them and make them work for you.

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

A Process. Creative people like the process of fiddling with an idea. They like to refine an idea to the last possible thought about it. They are not in a hurry. Very few creative ideas come in one rush they come from playing around with one idea or a group of ideas until one can go no further with it. Then it is good to have a group that is interested in the same ideas to bounce the idea off. The creative person knows that there is always room for improvement.

Suspend judgment. This is the most important rule. When ideas are brought forth, no critical comments are allowed. All ideas are written down. Evaluation is to be reserved for later. I know I have the tendency to analyze and throw the baby out with the bathwater. One needs to let idea germinate and grow.

“Howling Wind” ©Lee Kroemschroder

Here is an alternative idea one might try when making the effort to manifest your dreams.

Seek non-human assistance. Ask for a totem animal, to help you manifest your dreams and to show you the best way to proceed. Make a list of the skills you need, and announce to Spirit that you would like a “power” animal to teach you. Repeat the following statement: “I am open to communication with my spirit guides, and would like them to come to me in my dreams. I will remember these dreams in the morning.”

Start a dream journal it may take time to have the dreams come just keep repeating the statement each night and have your dream journal next to your bed with a pen so that you can record either in the night or first thing in the morning all that you remember. Be sure and record the emotion of the dream as well as the physical aspects of it.

The animal may come in dreamtime or during your daily meditations. It may appear in your life. Personally, wolf is one of my most influential totems and appears a great deal when I am writing. I once manifested this totem animal in my life. I lived for a number of years with 45 wolves on 90 undeveloped acres in Oregon. That is another story for another time. Below you will find some things I have learned from my Wolf Totem:

The practice of using animals is of Native American, and Celtic shamanic, and tribal origins. Shamans believe that animals are messengers of the Great Spirit. They are on Earth to teach you something. The Great Spirit shares information with you through visions and dreams using animals to represent what you should do. Native American’s say that Wolf is a teacher. For centuries people have sought out the wolf’s way of being social, hunting, playing and studied them.

Wolf is allied with Sirus, the Dog Star, and it is said in many cultures, that our ancestors and teachers came from there. This is agreed upon by Australian Aborigines, and the Dogon tribe of Africa, as well as certain Native American tribes. Wolf has much to teach us, if only we will listen.

Wolf is allied to the moon and lunar energies, teaching us to respect our emotions and unconscious urges. Respect for the wildness of our animal natures, and willingness to face the dark within ourselves is an imperative for Wolf people. Trust in the unspoiled nature of your Child/Wolf self.

Because the Moon rules psychic perception, Wolf people should work on learning to trust their intuition and psychic urges, to listen for the still small voice within.

The communal nature of Wolf’s culture and hunting helps us to learn to cooperate to achieve a goal. It also helps us to learn about how to be in a family. Wolf people make good “team players” and are fiercely loyal to those they consider part of their pack. They often have strong leadership qualities, however they must often learn to balance their tendency leadership with the humility of just being one of the pack. The wolf taught me how to be an individual among the pack.

” As a predator, Wolf culls the sick and weak of the herd. Wolves are often quick to scent when a situation is “sick,” and will work to change it. It is important that they learn to lead the situation gently, and without tearing others apart. They teach how to use aggression in a positive way. Wolf’s capacity for communication suggests that Wolf people should learn to utilize the strength of their voice and to be aware of their body language. When dealing with Wolf people, listening for the nuances of vocal tone and watching their body language will help in gaining an understanding of them. Wolves often make excellent bards and storytellers.

Ritual is very important to Wolf. Both the little rituals of day-to-day conduct, and the bigger rituals of lunar howling. Whatever their spiritual beliefs, Wolf people will feel more in tune when they honor and re-link (the actual meaning of the word “religion”) with the life force.

Now if this for you is a spiritual belief then you will have no trouble following it. It does not have to be a spiritual belief however it can just be an alternative way of thinking so that it gets you out of linear thinking.

What are some ways you get out of linear thinking?

About the author:

Judi Singleton writes a daily blog at http://www.jassmine.com/wordpress. Judi (Judith Schultz) Singleton graduated from Marylhurst College of Lake Oswego, Oregon with a Bachelors Degree in Humanities in 1992. She spent 20 years as an addictions counselor then working extensively with seniors. She is an experienced family, death and dying counselor. She describes her unique spiritual tendencies as “eclectic.” Judi draws a grea