John Dilbeck Musings

Are you a lensmaster on Squidoo?

If you are, I’m inviting you to join a new social networking site for Squidoo marketing, where our goal is to help each other do a better job of creating lenses that are used for marketing.

Want to increase the revenue you earn from your lenses? Come and talk about them. Attract new visitors. Learn new techniques and share your own.

Want to become a Squidoo lensmaster?

Everyone is an expert on something. Squidoo provides an easy way to build one-page websites called lenses that you can use to focus attention on a particular subject that you know and love.

It’s free, and Squidoo even shares any revenue they earn from your lens with you. There are many of us who get a monthly deposit from Squidoo into our PayPal accounts. I just got a deposit into mine a couple of days ago. You can, too.

Are you an expert on something?

Build your own Squidoo lens and tell the world. It’s free, of course.

Then, come join us at the Squidoo marketing community.

We’ll help each other become better lensmasters.

Act on your dream!

JD

I’ve been working over the last few days to create a new social networking site for SFI Marketing Group affiliates, and I’m announcing its presence to the world today.

If you are an existing SFI affiliate, or would like to learn how to join SFI, I hope you will join us at the SFI Marketing Group affiliates business networking site.

Please restrict your conversations to topics of interest to SFI Marketing Group affiliates. You are welcome to use your SFI affiliate links in the conversations and on your profile pages, but you are not welcome to spam the site with unrelated topics.

Spammers will be banned with no recourse.

You are invited to come and join us at the SFI Marketing Group Affiliates networking site. Of course, it’s free.

Act on your dream!

JD

In late December 2007, I created a new social networking site for Murphy NC 28906 on Ning.com.

If you live in, visit, or want to know more about Murphy, NC, come join us at the Murphy NC 28906 social networking site.

You can customize your profile, write a blog, discuss topics related to Murphy, NC in our forum, meet and get to know fellow residents, upload photos, and much more — all for free!

Anyone living in, visiting, or wanting to know more about Murphy, NC is welcome. Come join us today.

There are several ways you can promote your business on Merchant Circle: the contents of your basic listing, any items you post to your blog, coupons you create, photos you upload, and the bulletins posted on your directory listing page.

I just learned about Merchant Circle a few days ago and I’ve jumped all over using their system. You can see the profile I’ve created for Dilbeck Marketing on Merchant Circle. I’ve taken the time to use most of the tools and love their system.

(Your business is listed at Merchant Circle, right? If not, you can create a professional looking online listing for your business with our easy to use tools. Free! - MerchantCircle.com.)

There are probably other things you can do at Merchant Circle that I haven’t discovered in the less-than-a-week that I’ve been a member of the site.

What you may, or may not, already know is that every time you blog, create a coupon, upload a photo, or post a newsletter, these things are added to a newsfeed for you, automatically.

At the top-right of your listing, you’ll see “Subscribe to blog and coupon feed” followed by an orange chicklet that says “RSS/XML.” This is a standard news feed that can be syndicated on many services and can be read by anyone using a news feed aggregator or a news reader. Even without sending emails you are broadcasting to the world - potentially.

I’ll write a post later to explain more about making use of this. For now, suffice it to say that you can blog in one place and have it automatically republished in multiple places. This makes it very powerful for getting your news out.

If you don’t know anything about RSS, let me suggest that you read What is RSS?.

One place you may want to syndicate your feed is at Squidoo.com.

To do this, you’ll need to be a member.

Are you an expert on something? Build your own Squidoo lens and tell the world. It’s free, and you may even earn some money from it.

Of course, you’re an expert on your business, so join Squidoo and create a lens about it. It’s worth the effort to learn how to build free lenses on Squidoo, and it’s a perfect place to syndicate your Merchant Circle news feed.

For example, I’ve created a Squidoo lens about Merchant Circle and I’ve syndicated (re-published) my news feed and Merchant Circle’s news feed on that lens.

Also, as part of that lens, I’ve created a list where you can add a link to the Merchant Center listing for your business. I will be syndicating that list on some of my other websites, so you’ll get free advertising just by adding your link to the list. If you don’t understand, just comment on this topic and I’ll see what I can do to help you.

Act on your dream!

JD

So, once you get your listing set up on Merchant Circle, what else can you do to increase the likelihood of being found by a potential customer?

(Is your business listed at Merchant Circle? If not, you can create a professional looking online listing for your business with our easy to use tools. Free! - MerchantCircle.com.)

First, tell people how to find you here.

For example, my listing is located at:

http://www.merchantcircle.com/business/Dilbeck.Marketing.828-837-2901

I’ve used the custom URL feature to shorten this link to:

http://member.merchantcircle.com/dilbeckmarketing

This custom URL is much easier to pass along, put on business cards, and show in your advertising.

You can create your own custom URL by logging into your MerchantCircle account and then clicking Listing Configuration in the left column. When you click it, several other options will be displayed below that heading. Click Manage Links and then enter what you want in your Custom URL edit box.

You should be careful when you do this if you plan to advertise this URL. Make sure it is something that describes your business and is something you can live with for the next few years.

Remember, if you change this at any time, all advertising you previously did using your former custom URL will be wasted.

This is something you want to think about before implementing. Don’t do something hastily that you’ll regret later.

Also, while you are there, you can enter up to four links to other websites and blogs. Just enter the name and URL of the link and Save. If you have less than four saved links, it will automatically create a new empty listing. Add as many as you want - up to four - and save each time. In a couple of minutes, you’ll have additional backlinks to your websites and blogs from a highly-ranked and high-traffic site.

After you enter what you want in your custom URL box and/or link boxes, don’t forget to save it.

Act on your dream!

JD

First, if you’re not listing your business on MerchantCircle, why not?

Create a professional looking online listing for your business with our easy to use tools. Free! - MerchantCircle.com

Truly, even if you are not a highly skilled web designer or webmaster, you can use the tools provided by MerchantCircle to promote your business and the products and services you offer. It won’t take days, weeks, or months, either! You can get started in a few hours and can continue promoting your business as long as you want through posting to your blog, creating coupons, and publishing newsletters.

This is the kind of business promotion that every owner or manager of a small business should jump onto. It’s free, effective, and easy to use. What’s the downside?

Act on your dream!

JD

After a very long hiatus, while I was trying to decide on a new approach, I have published the latest issue of the Act On Your Dream! newsletter.

It is archived at Act On Your Dream! — Issue #6 — Getting back on track

If you would like, you can subscribe to Act On Your Dream to get the next issues when they are published.

I intend to publish the newsletter on a regular basis, probably twice a month, and I want to feature you and what you are doing to act on your dream.

What can we do to help each other find the success and freedom we all want?

Act on your dream!

JD

For the last few months, I’ve been looking at quite a few social networking sites. Some are friendly to business and others are not. Each has its place.

I really don’t have a lot of time for just socializing, but when I do, I tend to go to MySpace.

I like to combine my socializing with work, so I’m continuing to look for business social networking sites that offer a variety of features for meeting new people, talking to friends, advertising my products and services, blogging, and joining groups of like-minded people.

There are a couple I’m almost ready to recommend, but not quite yet. I want to spend more time on them before I make up my mind.

I’m not going to recommend something to you that I’m not going to use myself.

Today, I ran across a business social networking site I’d never seen, and I found it while surfing one of my favorite traffic exchanges.

Take a look at APSense.com and see what you think.

You can join for free and have almost full access to all the features of the site.

Here’s part of how they present their service:

Apsense in a Nutshell…

Apsense is a social network where people come together to share their business. We enable users to share their business through networking, discovering and creating quality business content. The development of new networks and constant exchange of information is happening everyday at Apsense. We are changing the way people build their businesses online.

Meet other business individuals…

In its purest nature Apsense is a web 2.0 enabled social network. We promote the exchange of business networks by providing tools for users to easily communicate, create interest groups and even build their own private social network. Ultimately our goal is to make it simple for you to connect with other business individuals.

Find valuable business contents…

All contents on Apsense, from business blogs to business discussions to product and service listings are collectively rated by the users (that would be you). Top rated contents are pushed to the top of our content listings so you can find the most popular and trusted business information quickly. So if you are looking for valuable business information online to help you build your business, don’t waste time searching for it anywhere else!

Create your own business contents…

While all types of contents on Apsense are being viewed and rated by the users, these same type of contents can also be created by you. Why create your own contents? Everyday millions of people are searching for contents related to your business by using search engines and web 2.0 enabled websites like Apsense. So by creating your contents on Apsense, you are enabling millions of people to find contents about your business. For us, content is your business interests, your products & services, your business experiences, and anything else you would like to share about you and your business.

I’ve only had a couple of hours to look over the site, and I’m impressed with it.

I’ve joined a couple of groups, started one of my own, started building my business website on Apsense, and will be creating a new blog there in the next day or so.

Of course, my group is about Site Build It and I urge you to come join APSense.com, add me as your contact, and we can help each other present our businesses and offers.

Now, if you’re a relative beginner to this sort of thing, I want to ask you, please, do not spam everyone with your advertising. There are places where advertising is appropriate, and places where it isn’t.

Get to know people. Participate in the discussions. Learn something new. Teach someone something you’ve learned.

Don’t just start posting ads everywhere! That’s not what social networking (business or not) is all about.

Have some class, don’t be crass!

Come on over and join APSense.com. It’s free, and you can take your time to decide if you like it or not.

There are a couple of upgrade options, but frankly, I haven’t even looked at them or the affiliate program, yet.

I’m too interested in the system they’ve set up, and too involved in learning how to use it, to even think of any of the ways to spend or earn money there.

If you do join and add me as a contact, please don’t spam me. I want you as a friend, and not someone I would rather hide from, or block.

Let me know what you think about Apsense and other social networking sites. Are they effective and a good way to spend your time? Or, do you think they are a big time and energy drain?

Act on your dream!

JD

Perhaps I didn’t read the MySpace terms of service closely enough, or maybe they were changed in October, but I just realized last week that it is against their terms of service to use MySpace for commercial reasons, and they specifically prohibit using affiliate links. Since my main purpose for being there was for low-key marketing, the site is not nearly as attractive to me as it once was.

I’ll continue doing some non-commercial networking there, but not as much as I was.

Fortunately, there is a new business-friendly social networking site that opened around the first of November: BizFriendz.

I’ve taken the time to develop my BizFriendz profile.

Over the next few days, I’ll open several new groups on the site, too.

Since it is a brand-new site, there are some rough edges and some features have not been implemented, but they are making good progress and I think I’m going to be happy participating there.

If you want a good place for business-friendly social networking, come on over and join me at BizFriendz.