In 2010, one of my goals is to simplify and focus. Simplify to be able to provide the greatest amount of content in the most effective manner. Focus on what I’m best at and what means the most to you as my readers.

While blogging is huge for me, currently brings me in about 50 percent of my income, and is looking to be one of the driving forces in my overall business model, I also have to to look at what I truly love. For me its about educating creative business owners on how to succeed online.

While blogging is a huge part of it, there’s so much more. Social is a huge part of it. But more than that, its all about taking charge of what you do, put it into your business model, and make it a success.

If you’ve followed this blog, you’re going to love the content at my newest site

TheSocialGhost.com

Please join me over there for continuing discussions about the world of online marketing, where its going, how to use it for your business.

One of my friends from that group is a serial entrepreneur like myself. She’s worked in several niches, and is always finding great opportunities that have huge potential. She’s great at design, great at outsourcing, great at SEO and understanding all the latest technology. But she hates writing.

Is it possible for someone to be successful online – and hate writing? That’s what being online is all about – great content. So how can you get around the “I hate writing” problem, and still be successful online?

There are a ton of options. The key is knowing what type of writing you’re looking for, what style, and finding someone who matches up with your requirements. Take a look at these options.

1. Craigslist – Always a great way to find, well, everything. Post an ad in your local community, or anywhere in the world. It’s growing even more now as people are looking for options to earn a little extra money.

2. Rentacoder – It’s not just for programmers and developers. You can find a variety of experienced professionals looking for freelance work.

3. Guru – A great place to find someone with a bit more professionalism. This is a great place to go if you’re looking at a long term project, or looking at finding someone who can work with you again and again.

4. oDesk – Another great source for freelance work. I like being able to try someone out for one job, then using them again and again if they fit my needs.

5. Agents Of Value – A great source if you’re looking at bringing on a full time worker with certain job skills.

6. Hire a ghost blogger – A great way of getting exactly what you want with your writing. They’ll work closely with you to pick up on your style and personality, and will target your audience precisely.

Posting is what makes being online fun. It’s about connecting up with others, and sharing what you do with others who are interested.

But have you ever wondered what’s happening beyond your comments? Are people talking about you (good or bad)? Is there any way to keep up with these outside conversations? 

If you’ve been working your connections online for any length of time, you understand the need to track what’s being said about you.

Google Alerts
Probably the original way to follow what’s being said, Google is still one of the best resources for information. Get email announcements whenever your keyword is mentioned – a great way to track your company, or what’s being said about you.

Spy
I love this tool. Type in a keyword, and this tool will pull up social media conversations taking place on Twitter, FriendFeed, Flickr, etc. It’s a great way to find people looking for information about what you do – right now!

Serph
Serph is a search engine for real time media buzz. Type in your keywords, and find out the newest thing released online about that keyword. Type in your name, your company name, and your products and services (if they have unique names) and find out the buzz.

Monitter
If you’re addicted to Twitter like I am, you know there’s a ton of conversations out there every day. A great way to find out what other people are Tweeting about is to head over to Monitter, type in 3 keywords, and watch the conversations.

image source ilco

Having content is great. But by the time its a few months old, its lost in the backend of your site, and is rarely seen by your audience. Depending on how it was written, you may be gaining traffic from the search engines. But there are other ways to revive your posts.

Create a Best Of series

Over time, a lot of your content will be similar in nature. You may have several posts that feed into one another, and when read together, take on a whole new meaning. Write a post with a common theme, then list out the posts, and hyperlink back to the original posting. This will bring them back to the forefront, and make people take action on your material.

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Recession Proof Your Small Business

Use Your Blog Posts As Articles For Article Marketing

People love building sites and coming up with new ideas for businesses. The hardest part of the entire building process is coming up with content.

Many sites exist online that will take your content and allow others to use it within their own sites, or in their newsletters – providing they keep your article in original form and post your bio, including link back to your website with every article.

This can give you a tremendous boost in traffic and visibility. There are hundreds of sites available. However, some are better than others. Here’s a list of some of my favorites.

http://www.articlecity.com/
http://www.articleclick.com/
http://www.articledashboard.com/
http://www.bpubs.com/
http://www.constant-content.com/
http://www.ezinearticles.com/
http://www.goarticles.com/
http://www.helium.com/
http://www.ideamarketers.com/
http://www.isnare.com/

2. Use a photograph that shows who you are.

3. Change your photograph out, but make sure it always represents your business image.

4. Change out the free Twitter background to include more about you or your business.

5. Start using some of the different applications for Twitter

6. Automatically feed your blog posts into your Twitter account.

7. Automatically feed you Twitter posts into your WordPress blog.

8. Start a discussion.

9. Ask a question.

10. Comment on a post made by someone you’re following.

11. Share cool tools and sites. (Love to travel to exotic places? My newest find – CouchSurfing.com)

12. Survey your followers.

13. Find a great virtual assistant.

14. Hire a sales person.

15. Find restaurants when visiting new places.

16. Find someone to have a meal with in the place you’re visiting.

17. Find great travel deals. (Just found a great deal to Disney World by following Southwest)

18. Find contests to enter. Or use contests to find new, very cool sites.

19. Tweet your ezine (newsletter) – Aweber has always been the best for ezines and autoresponders – now with the Tweet functions makes them that much better!

20. Promote completed work – giving a shout out about a new clients’ website can give you and your client a big plug

21. Set up a Tweetup in your local community

22. Use it to track questions and comments during teleseminars

23. Use it to track questions and comments during live events

24. Build relationships with people in your industry

25. Direct traffic to certain pages of your site/blog

26. Promote your business

27. Don’t over-promote your business. Twitter is all about building relationships – use promotions sparingly.

28. Tweet carefully. Your Tweets will become permanent record – make sure you want to share your information with everyone, forever.

29. Find cool resources to share in blog posts.

30. Find seminars, training classes, and expos to attend.

31. Find people to build seminars, training classes, and expos with.

32. Follow your conversations – I use Twhirl and leave it running on my desktop every day.

33. Share tips and resources that build your expertise.

34. Share news as it’s developing – I found out about a local tornado through conversations on Twitter minutes before it made the news/radio sites.

35. Connect people that have common interests

36. Follow just for fun – Some that I enjoy are @God  @IHeartQuotes  @SantaClaus

37. Build a following.

38. Find interesting people to follow by watching conversations.

39. Post your Twitter name on your blog/website

40. Provide your Twitter name on your business cards

41. Plan special meetups at upcoming conferences

42. Offer specials to those that follower your Tweets.

43. ReTweet interesting or exciting news.

44. Treat your Tweets as a business. Develop relationships. Build your expertise.

45. Learn about possible publicity connections (follow @SkyDiver)

46. Use SearchTwitter for all kinds of research

47. Find speakers for an event

48. Find attendees for an event

49. Un-follow those that spam the system or don’t offer value.

50. Don’t feel forced to follow everyone that follows you. Choose people that offer you value, and you find value in their Tweets.

As a photographer, it may seem as if I have it easy to find pictures – just look through my own files, right?

But it really can be a lot more complicated than that. What if I’m creating a storyline, and I want to show a photograph of an orange?

photo source audreyjm529

Sure I can stop what I’m doing and run to photograph an orange, process it, and use it – after 15-20 minutes of work. Instead, why not use the resources right in front of you?

I use two sources on a regular basis.

iStockphoto allows you to buy images at affordable prices. You can either buy credits and use them when you need them, or purchase a one year plan that allows you to download a certain number of credits per day.

The other source is Flickr creative commons. As a photographer, you have the ability to place your photos online for the purpose of allowing others to use them for free, with certain restrictions.

Attribution means you let others copy, distribute, display and perform your copyrighted work – including derivative works – only if you give credit to the photographer.

Noncommercial means you let others copy, distribute, display and perform your work – and derivatives – only in noncommercial settings.

No derivative works means others can copy, distribute, display only exact copies of your work.

Share Alike means you allow others to distribute derivative works only under the license that governs your work.

As a blogger, the source that I use is Flickr creative commons – Attribution. This gives you the flexibility to choose the photographs you want to accent your blog post, allow you to crop the photo, add words, edit it, and then use it in your blog post. You must give proper credit to the photographer, but it also gives you freedom to find exactly what you want.

The great thing about Flickr creative commons is you can also search based on attributes.

Head to the search function and type in "waterfall". Flickr brings up images I can use – with just a simple click of the mouse.

photo source mns007

Why bring out the camera when you have such easy tools right within reach.

In many cases I’ve reported statistics on blogging, and the numbers are quite large. But what you also have to realize is that most people create blogs as journals for things happening in their lives. Very few businesses – especially in the detailed, niche industries – take it seriously and blog for their business.

Which leaves huge opportunities for us!

Imagine having a health spa that services a local community. You have a variety of products and services, all helping women lose weight, maintain their optimum weight, and look good in the process. What if you became an expert of maintaining your optimum weight, and got paid to write about it?

That’s the reality of blogging.

I read a great article on Read Write Web that listed what if feasible in the online world. Can a person make money blogging? Can a person make money consulting about their niche through blogging? While this is a new industry without a huge number of case studies, the overwhelming answer is yes. 

Which got me to thinking: Why can’t you combine what you love (your business) with blogging, and sell your services to help build your expertise along with other companies you partner up with?

You’re helping your partner by giving them quality content. Their helping you by allowing you to share your expertise – and getting paid in the process.

Most business owners will tell you the most difficult thing about being online is the content. They simply don’t know what to say. So if you provide them with the "what to say", you’re taking a huge task off of their shoulders.

So the small business owner of a health spa, from above, that sells weight loss and maintenance coaching to her clients, could easily team up with a small grocery chain as their "weight maintenance expert".

It’s about building your business first, showcasing your talents, and offering what you do – for a price – to others that can also benefit. Are you blogging?

photo source Renzie

Today is Blog Action Day – the day bloggers from around the world get together and blog on one common topic related to their blog focus. And the topic this year is poverty. With 10, 667 blogs participating, I’m anxious to see what the rest of the world has to say.

Because this is a blog about blogging, I figured the best way to get involved is to find other blogs I enjoyed reading, and link to them here. Let’s see what others have to say about today’s Blog Action topic of poverty.

Vision Of Success
I’ll start by linking to my own post on my other blog. One of my passions is education and reading, and giving kids the love of a good book.

ThreeBillion
An interesting perspective on the business behind youth culture – the statistics alone are well worth the read.

ThatOneCaveman
His post on educating children fits right in with my vision. He also has an interesting perspective on financial news.

PutThingsOff
I never looked at myself as part of the 22% club – a very interesting take on the life we lead.

MyBellaVita
The idea behind a blog post is to bring you to the site and make you want to stay to read more. Mission accomplished here – wow. I think I may have to visit Italy soon.

andipantz
It’s so amazing to find a blog you have so much in common with. Andrea is a self-taught photographer currently an exclusive photographer and image inspector with istockphoto. hmmm… Guess I’ll have to see how we can connect with my VirtualPhotographyStudio site. connections, connections

As a blogger, hopefully you see how easy it is to use just a few minutes of your time to find some valuable resources. Blogging brings you together. Use it to find information you’ve never seen before, and connect with people that just might help you become better at blogging.

No matter what business you’re in, it’s important to have a variety of domain names so you’re customers and prospects can find you. Having yourname.com is no different. If you speak, write, or network, people may remember who you are instead of what company you work for.

For instance I have a lot of different websites targeting different types of clients. But to provide a good summary of who I am and what I offer, I have LoriOsterberg.com for the just in case. Because I write for places like Denver Business Journal that doesn’t carry a large bio with my articles, this is a good site to have in case people are out searching for me on Google.

Oh, and by the way, there is another Lori Osterberg out there – an incredible softball player from what I read. [Can't wait to meet her someday!] Is there anyone else with your name? Have they beaten you to purchasing yourname.com? Check now and at least park your name for future use. You’ll be amazed at how many people come looking for you through yourname.com.

At 7 last night, about 20 of us piled into a coffee shop and started sharing information about our blogs. One started a blog in the last 24 hours; another has been blogging since the 1990’s, and is making a very health living from blogging.

What I enjoyed the most was the resources everyone provided, the chance to talk in detail about specific issues with marketing your business online, and finding a wealth of information right here in my local community.

As a blogger for your business, it’s time to find resources like this for yourself. Everyone knows to join a Chamber group for networking, a leads group for referrals, and a niche association to keep up with the latest trends in your industry.

But what about creating a Mastermind group of your peers – people that have no true impact on your business, but can share a wealth of information and knowledge that can skyrocket your business.

I found my local bloggers group by heading over to Meetup.com  and typing in keywords like “blogging” and “Denver”.

Give it a try.