What can I blog about that gets leads and sales… without looking like a sleazy salesperson? That is the magic question every business blogger must answer. There is no magic bullet answer, but there are valid approaches that work well for many. I’d like to share one with you I call using “trigger events” to… Continue Reading
Author Archives: Michael Martine
Why You Should Experiment with Your Blog
Which is better: follow some guru’s simple formula for success… or strike out on your own path? If you’re brand-new to blogging, it can be so overwhelming that unless you have a blogging coach or a mentor, following someone else’s “best practices” feels like a necessity. I totally understand that. Blogging is a minefield and without… Continue Reading
Remarkablogger Podcast ep. 2: Why Facebook Graph Search Matters to Business Bloggers
Episode 2 of the Remarkablogger Podcast is all about Facebook Graph Search, which has made a big splash and yes, its status as “a big deal” is deserved. What’s important to you, though, is how Facebook Graph Search will matter to you as a business blogger and online business owner. Does it, in fact, matter, and… Continue Reading
Bloggers: Stick Your Neck Out and Dare the Blade
This is a guest post by Heather Baker As PR consultants, we are always telling our clients to stick their necks out and be brave enough to state an opinion that might upset someone. But while an executive will often make wild claims about their industry in private, he or she will usually recoil when… Continue Reading
No, Blogging is Not about Speaking Your Mind
I received a rather snippy unsubscribe email the other day: Blogging, apparently, has nothing whatsoever to do with speaking one’s mind and everything to do with spewing “content” on a consistent basis and trick fucking everyone one contacts into buying wares and services to help them become a ‘better blogger.’ My wallet and my patience… Continue Reading
20 Not-so-Obvious Blogging Terms You Need to Know
I received a comment that made me realize it’s been a while since I published a post like this, so I wanted to create one for today’s post. Some of these terms you could consider “obvious” but many of them I would label as “not-so-obvious.” 3rd Party Comment System Instead of using the built-in comments… Continue Reading
How to get your blog mojo back
Do you feel like you lost your blog mojo? Like nothing’s really happening with your blog and you poke at it out of some sense of obligation but really your heart’s not in it? It’s not a good place to be, but it happens. So let’s take a look at why it happens and how… Continue Reading
How I learned to stop being afraid of email marketing and love the frequency
There are three online marketing channels in 2013 (and for the foreseeable near future): blogging, social media, and email. Most people spend all their time on blogging and the other two channels languish, starving for attention. This is a mistake. Can you guess why? If you said: “because without social media and email marketing you’re… Continue Reading
Remarkablogger Podcast Episode 1: Deception, Bullshit, and Reciprocity in Marketing
Download Audio | about 20 mins Welcome to the first Remarkablogger podacast. It has come down to “keep waiting to do this because x or y isn’t yet in place, yet” or “just do it and ship it.” I’ve had enough with waiting for things to be right, and I simply hit “record” and went… Continue Reading
Why The Art of War is Not Relevant to Your Online Business
Listen to the audio for this post: We humans are funny creatures. We love peace and wish for it, and yet we love a good action story with conflict and a clear protagonist winner defeating the antagonist loser. But in our day-to-day lives, the real world is nothing like the plot of a story. Business… Continue Reading
15 Awesome Free Online Tools for Bloggers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KUOg5qQLt8&t=0m6s”>Pixlr
This is a guest post by Ivica Delic. Software tools, especially online ones, are my passion and I’m always trying to use their best combination for improving my efficiency in many ways… as you all very well know: “The time is money”, particularly nowadays. My criteria for recommending software online tools for bloggers in this… Continue Reading
How to Embed a Google+ Badge on Your WordPress Site
Before I start blathering on, here is the link to the Google+ Developer web page where you can get your Google+ badge code: https://developers.google.com/+/plugins/badge/. You remember Google+, right? That social network that we weren’t sure about (see Should You Use Google+?). That was predicted to flounder and die horribly, yet somehow kept keepin’ on and kept… Continue Reading
Sharecasters: The 5 Motivations Behind Why People Share Content on Social Media & Blogs
In my previous post on Sharecasting, you were introduced to term itself and the differences between sharecasting and broadcasting were highlighted. This material comes from research recently conducted by the New York Times Customer Insights Group partnering with Lancaster Research. Get their report here. What I want to examine for this post are the 5… Continue Reading
Are You a Sharecaster?
The New York Times Customer Insights Group (yes, there is such a thing) along with Lancaster Research conducted a study on how and why people share stuff over social media. They studied over 2,500 people from New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco. The study had an immersion/deprivation focus group phase and a quantitative survey… Continue Reading
Twitter – Improve Your Content with Follower Chaining to Find High-Value People
Here is a simple but effective way to find awesome people to follow on Twitter so you can improve the content you provide your Twitter followers (which leads to more Twitter followers and higher engagement). I call it “follower chaining.” What you do is look for any high value people you’re already following as a… Continue Reading
What is TrustCloud?
TrustCloud aims to be like a credit rating, only for interpersonal trust. As you can imagine, if such a thing worked (and was, itself, trustworthy) it could be very useful when deciding to hire or sell or buy something. How, exactly, does TrustCloud work? Using their own proprietary algorithms, TrustCloud claims it can measure your… Continue Reading
Is Social Media Sharing Killing Blog Comments?
With the advent of social media and the integration of sharing into practically every page on the web, it’s just so much easier for people to click a like button or a retweet button than it is to comment. Commenting requires multiple clicks, typing… sometimes, even thinking. Le gasp! However, social media sharing is not nearly… Continue Reading
Business Blogging Predictions for 2013
I love predictions. I especially love that crashing sound they make as they fail hard against reality. But we can’t help it, can we? People love to prognosticate. For 2013, my tagline for Remarkablogger is cutting-edge business blogging. I can’t very well be cutting-edge if I can’t make at least a couple-three decent predictions, right? So… Continue Reading
Kicking off 2013 on the New Remarkablogger – New Design, New Content, New Products
I’m very pleased to announce that the new Remarkablogger is here, and it’s been a long time coming. Here’s a quick run-down of what’s here for you: New and more frequent content – I’m filling up my blog editorial calendar with killer post ideas designed to inform and educate the new breed of online entrepreneur… Continue Reading
The Real Reason Nobody is Reading Your Blog
This is a guest post by Tommy Walker. Yeah, I know I said there wouldn’t be any more posts until after the redesign, but of course the redesign takes longer than I wanted. And Tommy is doing this cool thing right NOW, so… enjoy and see you on the new design in a few more… Continue Reading
The Simple 3P Formula for Business Blogging Success
I’m going to share with you the same formula I use with my blog consulting clients. It has helped them start new blogs and online businesses and helped them find direction when they felt lost or ineffective in their blog marketing. The basis of this formula is the reality of how people find a web… Continue Reading
Deliver on Your Blog Post Headline’s Promise or You’ll Lose Readers
I’ve been telling my blog consulting clients over and over again this one very important thing, and now I’m going to share it with you: The headlines for your blog posts make a promise, and your post content needs to deliver on that promise. I was suddenly reminded of this again while reading this excellent… Continue Reading
A/B Testing Email Marketing Strategies – A Quick Guide
This is a guest post by Ruben Corbo. I tossed in an affiliate link to Aweber, which has split testing capability. With email marketing becoming one of the leading forces of modern business these days, ensuring that everything functions at peak performance guarantees a constant influx of profit while ensuring repeat business and customer loyalty.… Continue Reading
Explained: Social Discovery Platforms and Services
Pinterest has taken the online world by storm, as you no doubt know by now. But Pinterest isn’t a singular phenomenon, it’s an indicator. Think of Pinterest as part of the next social groundswell, called “social discovery.” Pinterest is what you’d call a social discovery platform or service. And it definitely won’t be the last,… Continue Reading
How Business Blogs Fit in with Social Media
All the stuff you can do to market your business is pretty overwhelming, even on a good day. You hear people making noises about blogs, about social media, about search and many other marketing channels. How exactly does a blog fit into the big marketing picture? If you knew the answer to that, you could… Continue Reading
Explained: Follow and Nofollow in Blog Links
The other day a reader sent me an email asking me about this whole “follow” and “nofollow” in blog links business. It was a great question, and if it was on her mind, chances are it might be on your mind, too. There are hidden and technical things you may not know about but which… Continue Reading
How To Be An Olympian Blogger
This is a guest post by Andrew Rondeau. Unless you’ve been walking around in ear-muffs and dark glasses for the past few months, you’ll have noticed that a new excitement is gripping the UK. Everywhere you turn, red, white and blue merchandise is creeping in to supermarket shelves, and people are discussing what tickets they… Continue Reading
How to Recognize a Spammy Guest Post Request (and what to do about it)
Once your site has enough traffic, you will receive automated guest blogging requests. These are sent out automatically by software programs, which scan sites looking for contact forms and which automatically fill them out and submit the message. By the time you reach this point, you’ll also be getting real guest post requests from actual… Continue Reading
3 Tips for Creating the Perfect Infographic (Ironically not an Infographic)
If you were to hold the edge of your hand across your throat, just under your chin, that would be the “here” I’ve had it up to with the infographic craze. I know I’m not alone. But I’m not here to rant… I’m here to help. Because people just freaking love the damn things and… Continue Reading
12 Sneaky Business Blogging Tricks to Dominate Your Market
Warning: I’m gonna get a little “sneaky” in this post. I don’t subscribe to the notion that it’s not enough for me to succeed, my “enemies” must also fail. And I do believe in showing mutual respect and taking the high road when dealing with people. But I’m also playing to win, to dominate the… Continue Reading