Sociatic

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Posted on March 3, 2011 - by Kwame

Free Website Template: Sociatic Dexterous

I recently announced the beginning of Sociatic 2.0 and I said that I will making website templates and be giving them out for free. Today, I have an awesome web template for you. I call it, the Sociatic Dexterous because it can be used for a lot of different websites with or without a portfolio and it is also easily customizable. Best of all, you can use all or parts of this template on your own website projects, free of charge.

If this is your first time on Sociatic, I need you to subscribe to Sociatic’s free RSS feed or RSS newsletter on the right side of this page. The main benefit is that you won’t be left out of new articles and free resources such as this one.

Now back to the Sociatic Dexterous template.

You will have to download the whole pack in order to have a live preview. I haven’t set up any demos for this file. The download size is just about 3.8MB.

Below is a screen-shot of the template.Click on the image (screen-shot) to download the template for free. No sign up necessary.

Remember to subscribe to our RSS feed or newsletter on the right hand side of this blog in order to receive updates of other resources and our awesome articles.

You can post any comments you have in the comment box below.

 

Posted on February 19, 2011 - by Kwame

7 Quick Ways to Get Blog Post Ideas

Do you get stuck on articles to write on your blog? Coming up with article ideas for your blog can be very challenging; especially if you publish often. This happens to a lot of people including me. I have found a solution though and I am willing to share them with you. I will teach you 5 ways you can get hundreds (100′s) of blog article ideas.

Let’s get started.

1. Scan through books in your niche:

This is one easy way of getting tons of article ideas. Pick a book or whitepaper or report in your niche and scan through the table of contents for some ideas. You don’t have to copy the title word for word. All you should be doing is to get inspiration for your own article ideas. You can also scan through the real content of the book or report. I use this technique to get lots of article ideas and you can too. It works magic.

2. Q&A sites:

Question and answer sites like Startups.com (for business) and Yahoo answers (general topics), etc. are awesome places to find article ideas. These websites are updated every day with questions that people want answered. If people need answers to their questions, why don’t you write a blog post about what they are asking about. When you’re done with the post, you can go back to the Q&A site and answer the question, leaving a link back to your blog post as reference. That last tip is just a bonus, let’s not lose focus .

3. Online Video Sites:

You can search for a general keyword in your niche. Find videos on Youtube and other video sharing site that talk about this keyword. ‘Steal’ some ideas from the videos and put an article together for your readers.

4. Social Bookmarking Sites:

Visit social bookmarking sites that feature your blogs in your niche. Go through the titles and see if you can come up with your own ideas. Titles that are on the front page are titles that are in demand (in other words, solves a lot of peoples’ problems) but are rather scarce. Write similar articles if you can. You might also get lucky!

5. Blog Comments:

Comments on your blog and other people’s blogs are also places that you can pick blog post ideas quickly. When readers leave comments and raise concerns, that’s an opportunity to write a blog post to address those concerns. When you read other people’s blogs and someone raises issues you have knowledge about, that’s when you should start writing (or drafting an article) for your blog. When you read articles on other blogs in your niche and leave comments, be sure to subscribe to the comments if it is allowed. You will get updates whenever someone comments on that article. Try to find blog posts in those comments.

6. Forums:

Forums are also excellent places to find blog topic ideas. From people’s questions to comments to tutorial entries, you are assured of many sources of writing inspiration.

7. Your own experience:

Nothing beats your own experience when it comes to finding blog post ideas. What can you do that you can teach your readers to do? How did you solve that problem you had when… Share your experience in a story form or just teach other people how you deal certain things in your niche. Solutions are always in demand because people always have problems.

Conclusion:

When you take the tips I have given you seriously, you will not have any trouble coming up with article ideas. If you are too busy, you can hire me to write your articles for you. Contact me to discuss what you want.

Posted on January 15, 2011 - by Kwame

Sociatic 2.0 is here

Happy New Year to you all. I am happy to announce a brand new Sociatic for the year 2011 and beyond. So much has been going on around the business side of the web and I have been busy learning and working instead of teaching you some new marketing things.

Announcing Sociatic 2.0

I am glad to announce that I will be restructuring Sociatic in order to deliver even better content and value for your reading time. So here is a break down of what I have decided to do on Sociatic:

1. Add free marketing resources from time to time. Resources will include:

• website templates,
• business card templates,
• PDF downloads of past content

2. Add an interview section where I will interview successful online small business owners about how they made it online

3. Review online business apps

4. Review business apps for smart phones and tablet users.

5. Talk about business enhancing design work; the design side of marketing.

There you go. Basically, that is what I have in mind for now.

Let me know what you think about this.

Posted on September 21, 2010 - by Kwame

Reworking Twitter: Using Favorites, RSS and List Features Effectively

How do you benefit from Twitter? Do you know that, you could double or even triple that benefit if you cleaned up a little? Nope, I’m not talking about unfollowing people. I’m talking about three even cooler ways you could optimize your Twitter activities for the utmost benefit; favorites, RSS and lists.

So we’ll first look at how best you could use the ‘favorites’ feature on Twitter.

Twitter Favorites:

This feature allows you to save tweets. Any tweet you ‘favorite’ will be stored in your Twitter ‘favorites’. You’ll find the favorites button when you hover your cursor over a tweet. It’s the small star on the right:

Some of you may have figured the benefits already but for the rest of you who haven’t (;)), I’ll tell you. Because most people’s Twitter timeline gets updated several times a minute, it’s sometimes hard finding a tweet you saw like an hour ago unless you visit the “Tweeter’s” profile. Sometimes, people share some valuable links or quotes that you’ll really want to use later but if you decide to come back later without adding it to your favorites, you might lose it forever.

This feature even works better with Twitter’s search tool. If you’re doing any kind of research, Twitter’s favorites feature and its search engine are your best tools; oh, I mean after Google lets you down . It sometimes does that doesn’t it? Anyway, back to Twitter. All you have to do is just search tweets with keywords you’re interested in learning more about and then favorite the tweets you think you’ll want to look at. Voila, you just saved your search in an organized way.

You can delete your favorites any time. Just go to your favorites page and click on the star again to un-favorite.

Twitter RSS:

Now, I know Twitter’s RSS feature can be used in two ways; if there are any other ways, please let me know.

So the first way I know is to subscribe to the tweets of people who really matter to you on Twitter. Not just family and friends, brands also. So you go to a user’s profile and add their RSS link to your feed reader. You’ll find the RSS button below that person’s ‘following’ list. Here is a screen shot of @Chrisbrogan’s profile and RSS icon:

Yea of course, lists can help you do that too but you’ll still miss some tweets.

The second way is what I find interesting and what you might too. You’ll need Twitter’s search engine again so go there and search for a keyword you’re interested in. You’ll find the RSS icon on the first widget at the right side of the page. Click on it and add the link to your feed reader. Here is a screen shot of an example search I made:

Every time someone sends out a tweet containing the keyword you searched for, it will be sent to your feed reader. This is an easy way to track brand mentions or find useful links or even email list building.

You could build your newsletter subscription lists on Twitter by tracking questions with your keywords, answering those questions and then directing the questioner to a place on your website where they can find more answers. You could ask them to opt-in and download your whitepaper or eBook or any other free stuff you might be offering at that time that will help them find what they are looking for.

Twitter Lists:

So you know what Twitter lists are but are you using it effectively?

Having very organized lists cuts through the noise on Twitter. It’s like re-following your favorite people.

The best way to make lists work for you is to split them into little tiny pieces. If you have Tech bloggers, Health bloggers and business bloggers all listed under “Favorite Bloggers”, it could get quite noisy and disorganized.

However, if you split that into “Tech Bloggers” lists, “Health Bloggers” lists and “Business Bloggers” lists, you’ll find a lot of value in that. Because you can follow news and tidbits more easily.

So if you have to just read tech updates, you just visit your “Tech Bloggers” list and so on.

It’s okay to iterate if you think your lists need more optimization.

Conclusion:

After going through this short Twitter lesson, I hope you’ll be using Twitter in other ways too apart from just promoting your stuff. It’s a great tool if you’re looking at doing any of the following:

• Finding information via shared links; research.
• Generating leads; building email lists
• Networking with experts and brands
• And of course, promoting your stuff.

If I missed something there, let me know. It’s your turn now. How do you use Twitter? Any tips and tricks up your sleeve that you may want to share? By the way, don’t forget to retweet this post and follow Sociatic on Twitter.

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Posted on September 10, 2010 - by Kwame

10 Places to Find Blogs to Guest Post On

Guest blogging helps you spread the word about your business or website. It is one way I get more people to view Sociatic and increase my RSS subscriber counts. It is also definitely one of the ways to become a better content marketer. Have you found any value in guest posting? If you haven’t, then you haven’t been looking in the right places.

Here are 10 places you can find blogs to guest post on. No matter the niche you’re in, I promise you’ll find a blog to guest post on.

• Look on Invesp: This blog ranking directory provides a lot of insight on different blogs in different niches. It was on this site that I learned that Seth Godin has over 450,000 RSS subscribers. I don’t think he accepts guest posts though so don’t rush to contact him. Visit Invesp’s blog rank directory to see if you can find a blog that’ll be interested to accept a guest post from you.

• Alltop: If you think there are no blogs in your niche to guest post on, guess again. AllTop is a news aggregator site that covers a diverse range of niches. I’m sure you’ll find some blogs there to guest post on so check them out.

• Blog Ad networks: Sites such as AdvertiseSpace, BlogAds and BuySellAds (for creative industry) makes it easier for you to identify big blogs by sharing some stats with you. These are great places to look for blogs that accept guest posts.

• Use MyBlogGuest: This is a forum community where bloggers give info about their blogs and then ask for guest posts from other users. You can also request to post an article on a blog whereby you share the terms and conditions of your offer.

• Technorati.com: Look in the Top 100 blogs in the world or top 100 in your niche to submit guest articles to. Better still; look in the top 10 blogs in your niche. Mostly, these are the blogs with lots of subscribers and authority. That’s what you need.

• Blogrolls of popular blogs in your niche: This is an overlooked place when it comes to finding blogs to guest post on. Authority bloggers normally list other authority bloggers in their blogroll. Most of the time, they blog about the same topic so be sure to check these places out too.

• Adage Power 150 blogs: The power 150 is a list of the top marketing blogs. If you want to reach the business community, be sure to request to guest post on one of the Power 150 blogs.

• Junta42 Top Blogs: Junta42 is the authority on content marketing and their list of the Top 42 blogs is a great place to find blogs to guest post on. You’ll find blogs covering topics in the area of content marketing, social media, and marketing in general.

• Check out TopRankBlog’s List of Top Online Marketing blogs: If you want to reach readers interested in business and web technology, try reaching out to the authors of the blogs listed with a guest post.

• Check out the social bookmarking and voting sites: Normally, the blogs on the homepages of sites such as Delicious, Digg, Reddit, etc. , receive lots of traffic and they have many subscribers too due to their success on these sites.

Other Tips to Remember About Guest Blogging:

• It is not every blog that accepts guest posts. Look for a link or page that asks for guest posts to be submitted. If you don’t find any, you can contact the publishers of the blog to find out if they do.
• Guest Posting works best when you write for a blog with many subscribers. If you write for blogs with just a few subscribers, there wouldn’t be any significant increase in your overall traffic and subscriber count (unless you plan to write a guest post every day). When it comes to guest posting, I don’t post on blogs with less than 5,000 subscribers. You can set your own subscriber limits.
• Use Quantcast to check the blog’s RSS subscriber count if not available elsewhere. You can also ask the bloggers about this.
• Hang around on a blog for a while before submitting a guest post. Mingle with its community and provide valuable comments. Leaving 2 or 3 valuable comments is enough to get the publisher’s attention.

Guest blogging is a really great way of marketing your business online on a shoestring and building a community around your brand. What other tips can you share regarding guest posting?

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Posted on September 8, 2010 - by Kwame

How to Generate Leads For A Fresh Business Idea

Are you launching a product soon? Well, I am and I’ll be taking you through the product I will be launching and how it will help you in launching new businesses and profit avenues for your existing business. But first, let me take you through some lead generation lessons.

Some time back, I wrote an article about how to generate leads with social media and it is my most read article to date. After seeing the success of that post, I saw the need for an easier and better way of generating leads. So I came up with an idea to develop a product that will make it easy for businesses to generate leads.

Simple Lead Generation:

If you need real simple lead generation ideas, follow these steps:

• Read my post on generating leads with social media
• Get an email marketing/ newsletter software
• Set up a landing page to receive the traffic you generate
• Post a video presentation or screencast to describe what you are about to launch
• Setting up some lead ‘bait’ will do (Just a reminder . This is very important)
  
• Set up a confirmation page for your subscribers
• Continue driving traffic to your landing page to build more leads
• Analyze your traffic to lead conversion ratio and test with new videos and screencasts
  
• Nurture your leads
  
• 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blast off! Go ahead an launch.
  

Having a high converting landing page will be one of your keys to success. Luckily, I have designed and developed (with some help) a site that will make you convert your traffic to leads without a sweat. It is almost finished and it can be used in many different ways to achieve one result; generate leads.

Before I show you how it will look like, here is what you can use it for:

1. Event invites
2. Webinar invites
3. Beta testing invites
4. Lead generation for product/ service launches
5. Lead generation for blog launches
6. Lead generation for membership site launches
7. and Just any type of lead generation

It will be called the Ultimate Lead Generation Theme. You can see a photo below off what it looks like:

The Ultimate Lead Generation Theme is a site template that will do more than just convert your traffic to leads. It will also help you get more traffic.

Here are the features it will have:

• A video panel; This supports Youtube Videos and Flow Player Videos. Actually, you can replace the video panel with scripts like SlideDeck if you are not into videos.
• Easily Editable subscription form; You can easily put in
• Contact Form (Ajax based); In case your message wasn’t clear, visitors can contact you for more information using this form instead of going away and not subscribing. So this will give you a second chance to try and convince them to subscribe. Also, because it is Ajax based, the page doesn’t load when the enquirer clicks on the “Send” button. This will also enable your visitors to reconsider and subscribe to your newsletter without being taken off the homepage.
• Text section: You can enter a brief information about you or about what you’ll be launching on the site
• Social Sharing Buttons; If you are really interesting, some people might consider sharing your home page by clicking on any of the sharing buttons at the top of the site. If you are lucky, this will make your traffic generation a little easier .

So expect my product to launch soon. It will come in 4 color variations during the first launch. I will be running a competition during the launch so that you can grab it for free. Stay tuned (oh, you can do this by subscribing to the RSS feed) for more. If you have any questions or suggestions, the floor is yours in the comments box.

Posted on September 6, 2010 - by Kwame

18 Tips Every Social Community Leader Should Remember

Are your followers on the social web for real? I ask this because sometimes it seems no one, out of thousands or tens of thousands of followers, is paying attention to anything you say or do. We hear stories of businesses with just a few hundred followers closing sales whiles others with thousands of followers are not able to leverage this and close a single sale.

If your primary aim of using social media is to help and direct people, then you’re qualified to be called a social community leader. That’s the only reason people will pay attention to you; if you lead them.

If you want to direct people to do what you want, take a cue from these 18 tips for social community leaders:

1. Develop synergistic relationships with your community so that they automate your marketing for you. Help them to achieve their goals (solve their problems) and they’ll help you solve yours.

2. Clarify your goals and objectives for each of your social web profiles. If you’re going to sell on one Twitter account and provide support on the other account, say so. Mixing things up is okay but some people find that hard to cope with.

3. Provide feedback to your community. Don’t always take their feedback and testimonials; give them yours. A good way to do this is to share with them the results you’ve got due to their participation in your business. This is a great way to show appreciation to your community and it also shows them that you listen to them.

4. Encourage and participate in discussions by asking questions in your status updates. Discussions often lead to more ideas and better insight of your community.

5. Strive to answer questions thrown @ you in a timely fashion. Huge time lapses reduce the momentum needed for a conversation to start or continue.

6. Don’t be ethnocentric. I don’t know how some people think but I added this one because I saw a terrible example of a status update with ethnic favoritism. Your community might be made up of people from all races so you don’t want to be ethnocentric no matter what you believe.

7. Develop a reward system for people who participate and take action in your social web communities. It doesn’t have to be a scheduled promo. You can give out stuff at random without announcing it. Announce it only after you’ve done it. This will make people start paying attention to you. They may even follow you and put you on a special list if this happened on Twitter so that they can see what you’re up to and take action when you ask them to.

8. Perform a social media audit regularly. This will help you improve your social media campaigns.

9. Brainstorm creative ways you can use to power up your community. Maybe offering freebies, tips and discounts sound interesting but how about adding some creativity to these campaigns?

10. Don’t argue. Drop your ego to a certain level. If you start arguing with one person in your community, everyone else sees it and people will begin to take sides. This will break the community you have worked so hard to build.

11.  Continue learning new ways to improve your community. Learn about online trends and facts so you know how consumers are evolving and also where they are spending more time and money.

12. Marketing Automation doesn’t mean using a bot or other tools to reach your community. Rather, it means you’ve gotten to the point where your community does your job for you.

13. Learn more about content marketing. Content sharing is now a big part of social media and smart marketers are producing more content. It is best to learn about different content marketing techniques so you can reach many people with different content formats.

14.  Strive to be indispensable to your followers. In other words, don’t be the average Joe. That’s too common and people are used to ‘common’. Be a resource.

15.  Explore ways other community leaders are building their communities. There are a lot of creative minds and campaigns out there. Borrow their ideas and mix them up with yours.

16.  Track and measure your effectiveness. That way, you know what you’re getting wrong and what needs to be fixed. Maybe the only person who’s paying attention to you is yourself. You’ll only know when you track and measure.

17.  Don’t share your blog post again and again. Don’t share your promotions again and again in one day. This is called spamming. I hate and so do your followers.

18. Only follow people you deem as qualified for helping you achieve your goals. By qualified, I mean targeted or your target audience. Following just anybody will only make your work difficult.

19. This is a bonus point. After harnessing all 18 steps, rinse and repeat . It’s time to get real with your followers. Just do it (borrowed from Nike )!

Here are some other articles you should consider reading. They are a valuable resource to me and will be to you:

On Managing a Community : ChrisBrogan.com

The Role of Leadership in Social Media: ScottMonty.com

The Power of Community – A Social Media Success Story by Hessie Jones: DannyBrown.me

Sometimes, when I see posts that I love (like the ones I’ve shared), I share them to say thank you. Just an idea for you to use if you know what I mean .

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Posted on August 26, 2010 - by Kwame

New Digg copied Facebook and Twitter Too Much!

Yesterday, I went to Digg’s website and saw a beautiful new look. The design however, looks and “feels” like Facebook’s design. I logged in to my account and found also that the features there closely resembled Twitter. All of this is what they call Digg 4.

The service now has a “follow” and “unfollow” feature. I thought that was cool. I also noticed that when you log in to your account, you are taken to a page where you see all the submissions and diggs of the people you follow.

It also has a suggestion page that shows you a list of people and brands to follow. Just like Twitter.

Before I could say “Jack”, this page came up:

Has Twitter bought Digg or Digg is just copying Twitter? If it’s an act of copying, then Digg overdid it. Twitter has a fail whale and now, Digg is flaunting their “broken axle” page.

I’m still checking it out. I think they did too much copying this time. Have you found any features similar to Twitter’s on the new Digg? It’s like the company has Twitter’s blueprint.