Improve Internet Marketing Results for Your Business or Company with These 7 Tips

Posted by Marty Dickinson on Oct 29, 2009

Either have your own business or work for a company if you are reading this post. You’re beside yourself why your Internet marketing efforts have produced stagnated results. You’ve spent hours building followers on Twitter but no one seems to care about what you tweet. Your lead generation has come to a screeching halt and product sales through your shopping cart are even worse. Is this what you can expect for the remainder of the year?

No! Stop the bleeding right now.

Here are 7 tips to give some much needed chest compressions to your dying Internet presence:

1. Look at Your Website for the First Time – If you could suddenly step out of your body and become 1,000 visitors to your website, what would you “expect” to see? Does your website offer what your visitors expect? Be honest and then add the missing pieces that come into mind. Does a strong “upper right quadrant” (URQ) exist on your website? Do you top navigation buttons inspire people to take action by clicking on them? Do you provide content of value on your website that doesn’t always throw the hard sales pitch? Are you absolutely positively sure that a visitor knows exactly what they are supposed to do next after they have found what they’re looking for on your website? I’ll ask it again: Are you really sure?

Why try for 100,000 visitors a month to your website if you’re not able to convert the visitors you do get to leads or customers?

2. You Get One Click – In Steve Krug’s book, Don’t Make Me Think, he gives a great walk through of website usability and how websites should be constructed. Read his book, but at the same time, think to yourself “I lose 50% of my visitors every time I make them click on anything.” So, if you want to only make one change to your website, add a quote form or contact form to your most important product or services pages…and especially to any landing pages where you are running pay-per-click ads to. If you only get a single click, you want that to be a prospective customer completing a quote form and “clicking” the submit button.

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3. Purpose Your Content - Don’t just add a page to your blog or website for the heck of it. Have a direct purpose for everything you add. If you’re going for getting more pages indexed on Google, for example, find what people are searching for related to your industry or topic first, and then write your article or page to speak to those visitors. Use free tools like Google’s free keyword search tool or Word Tracker’s free search tool to find search volume for any given phrase. These tools will also act as a thesaurus to give you ideas of other related phrases people are searching for.

After all, it’s a lot easier to be hit by a car if you go out into the street! Create your content for what your visitors are searching for.

Now, you don’t always have to produce content only for Google search. This post, in fact, doesn’t have a chance in hell of getting in the top 10 search results with a giant keyword phrase “improve internet marketing” as my leader phrase. And, it’s not worth my time to go through the heroics of what it would take to make that happen. But, that’s okay, because my intention is to promote this particular post on Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and a variety of other social networks where the headline itself will hopefully be intriguing enough for people to want to pay a visit. After all, Google is only 1 of more than 100 ways to get traffic to a website.

4. Expand Your Traffic Options – Once you have tested and tweaked your website to increase your conversions, evaluate all the ways to increase traffic to your website. My most downloaded white paper on my company site is called 101 Realistic Ways to Get Traffic to a Website. It’s a 30-page free download that walks you through all the traffic generators I know of. What’s better is that they’re all sorted by cost, ease of implementation, time to implement, and ROI. You can make your entire Internet marketing plan for the next two years using that single document.

5. Get More Involved – When a struggling business owner, author or speaker comes to me saying their website is not performing to their expectation, my first question is 1, how many leads or sales did you get last month. That one is easy. They usually say zero. Next I’ll ask, how much visitation did you get last month? Almost always, “I don’t know” is the answer. Knowing the answer coming next, I still ask it…”Can you make changes to your own website?” A long pause usually occurs and then I hear, “no” as the answer.

If you still have to send even minor text changes to your designer to be added to a page, right now is the time for you to take steps to change that! Joomla is a free content management system that designers like because of its design flexibility and visual editing features. Programmers prefer Drupal for its power and clean code…but you’d better have a programmer in tow if you go with that system. My personal favorite is WordPress. At the Thrive Internet Marketing Super Conference in Chicago, I’m going to show you some uses for WordPress that you might not even imagine are possible! Even if you’ve heard of WordPress before, you haven’t seen anything like this! It’s the new evolution of websites.

6. Perform Mind Magic – It seems easier to introduce this topic using those words than it is to tell it like it really is. People get all bent out of shape when I say “Spy on your competition.” So, think of it as performing mind magic instead. Truth is, in this day and age, you really need to keep up with what your competition is doing. One great tool for doing this is Keyword Spy. There you can plugin your competitors domain name and see all (well, most anyway) of the organic search phrases that come up on Google pointing to their website. You can also see if they are running Google AdWords campaigns as well as the wording they’re using in those AdWords and how much they’re spending per month.

This is by far illegal. It is simply market research. But when you use that information correctly to apply to your own website and promotions, people will think you’re performing some kind of “mind magic.” So, that’s what you want to tell them…or, risk being accused of spying!

7. Create Something Memorable – On my HereNextYear site, you’ll see my mascot. It’s a picture of a dog. It’s not my dog. It’s just a picture. The picture has a name. His name is “Action.” The idea behind Action is that I can teach you everything I’ve learned about increasing leads and sales on the Internet, but unless you’re willing to “take Action,” it’s a waste of time for both you and me.

When I present that at seminars and workshops, people simply go CRAZY! It’s a great opener and it is very sticky, meaning, it sticks in peoples’ minds for a very long time. I get calls from people months after they see me speak. They’ll say, “Marty, I don’t remember what you do, but you’re the guy with the dog, right?”

It’s memorable. It’s sticky. It sells. Action sells! Action even has his own Fan club on Facebook (which you are welcome to join here)! And, I take “Action” in everything I do and everywhere I go.

What character can you create that is related to your business that can be sticky and memorable like Action is to my business?

So, these are just a few of the things I’ll be covering in much more detail at the
Thrive Internet Super Conference in Chicago. Why not join me there on the 19th and 20th? I’m sure it will be worth your while.

If you’re just not into going to seminars anymore for fear of getting those dreeeeeaded sales pitches, well, checkout my recent blog post where I give you 101 reasons to attend a seminar. They each far outweigh any fear you may have of getting pitched.

Hope to see you there in Chicago!


7 Steps to Getting Started for New Internet Marketers

Posted by Marty Dickinson on Oct 29, 2009

Getting started on the Internet seems to most to be a hugely daunting task. But, with a few good guidelines, you will be amazed how easy and fun it really can be. Here are 7 steps to getting started for new Internet marketers:

1. Know What’s Selling Online – If nobody’s buying it and nobody’s made it yet, that most likely does not mean “opportunity” for you. So, don’t get fooled. If you want to know what people are spending their money on right now, today, one great way is to go to Amazon.com and search a category of interest. The results you get will be sorted showcasing the best selling products in that category.

2. Enjoy Being Online – If you don’t like candy, you’ll be miserable in a candy store. So, before you go putting time and effort into learning how to make money on the Internet, you must learn to enjoy sitting at a computer and typing things. Of course, I could also add-in there using your mobile device. Social media is a great way to learn to enjoy working online. Join Linkedin, join some groups and participate in some discussions. Create a Facebook profile and reconnect with friends. Start tweeting on Twitter and inspire people to “follow” you because the quality of your tweets are actually worth paying attention to. User your personal name for all of your profile account names such as Twitter.com/MartyDickinson so that people can easily find you in the future.

3. Engage Offline Networking – An online business is a lot like a traditional off-line business in that financial success in both requires “people” to buy from you eventually. Go to Meetup.com and search for a group that meets near you to discuss certain topics. I just launched a few days ago, a Meetup group of my own called “Ski With Marty,” for example. Business owners, authors, speakers, and anyone else who wants to network and get some exercise can hook up with me every Wednesday during ski season at one of our world class ski resorts here in Colorado. By the time we have our first networking event on December 2, my goal is to have 100 members in the group. Checkout Meetup.com/SkiWithMartyInColorado if you’d like to see a sample Meetup group page.

4. Love to Sell – To be successful in any business, you must adopt a deep-down belief that anything you choose to promote is not really “selling,” but more of a “recommendation” of something you’ve experienced to make other peoples’ lives better. The fastest and cheapest way to do that is to find other peoples’ products to sell, try them for yourself, and start recommending them to others. These are known as “Affiliate Products.” ClickBank.com is my favorite for finding digital, downloadable affiliate products to sell and you can often contact the product producer and request a “review copy” of their product, which is FREE of course. Their hope is that by you having the product in-hand, you will have a better understanding of the product and will give more accurate recommendations. Continuing with my example of Amazon in step 1, they of course have an affiliate program as well. But, they only pay 4% of the sale price. So, the only products worth promoting on Amazon, in my opinion, are larger ticket items (over $75).

5. Register Domain Names – Whenever I am asked “Where do I register a domain name,” I steer them to BestDomainPlace.com. That is a domain name that I registered to point to my affiliate account. When you register a domain name for promoting an affiliate product, use the URL Forwarding feature (free with BestDomainPlace.com) where a tutorial is provided. Promote your affiliate products in your social networks and whenever a related subject comes up at your in-person networking events. Last week I was talking with a parent at my kid’s school about Internet stuff and suggested she buy a domain name for her personal name at BestDomainPlace.com. Sure enough a few days later, I saw the order come in.

6. Offer Your Services – Everyone has something of value they can offer. What is the one thing that you are truly really, really good at? Connect with others on your social networks (because you enjoy doing that by this step) who are in a related area to the service you want to provide. For example, one of the services I offer is creating websites for business owners, authors and speakers. So, I went to my Linkedin profile, logged in, clicked on “Groups,” and search for “authors” then joined a group, “professional speakers” and joined a group, and then “small business” and joined a third group. Within about 60 seconds, I was connected with over 16,000 people around the country who were in my direct target audience for a service I offer. Now all I have to do is participate in the groups and offer valuable content and the contacts begin.

7. Produce a Product – If you have an idea for a product, someone else has surely produced something close. At a recent Affiliate Marketing Meetup session, a good friend and former client who went off on his own to make $40,000 a month selling affiliate products online said, “Start off small by creating your own e-book, but first buy a few of the top selling e-books for that topic and use the best parts of each to create your product.” Now, he wasn’t suggesting you just copy and paste other peoples’ books into you own. But you can use concepts of how items are presented and rewrite them with different words and different examples. And, of course, add-in your own best stuff to make the product truly unique and the best on the market. If it’s a digital, downloadable product, get it added to ClickBank.com so that other affiliate marketers will have the opportunity to sell it for you.

All of these steps and I haven’t even talked about “Starting a Website” yet. That just goes to show that there is so much you can do to get started on the Internet these days, in your spare time, on a shoestring budget. Then, when you earn a few bucks, use that income to broaden your reach…and that’s when a website, or 5, 10, 50 websites come into play.

The best time in the world to get started on the Internet is right now, today.


Why Attend a Seminar? 101 Reasons

Posted by Marty Dickinson on Oct 28, 2009

Seminars are designed to give you tons of usable content on a variety of topics. The other purpose of a seminar is to get you introduced to several experts in a short amount of time.

When you hear someone you like who is able to speak to “you” and your situation, it is only natural that you would want more from that person. You wish you could just sit side-by-side with that person and suck them dry of their knowledge and experience for the rest of the week! You want more than their measly speaking slot allowed for, right?

Hence the offer or the dreaded “sales pitch.”

Ask anyone why they don’t like going to seminars and their reply will always be the same, “I hate getting those looooong sales pitches.”

And it’s true. No one likes to get a sales pitch. But, we don’t want to be left hanging either, do we?

Think about it. If a speaker just spewed an hour or 90-minutes of straight content and then said, “Well, good luck with that. Hope I got it all out and hope you took good notes,” what would you think? You would leave frustrated and probably pretty ripped off.

A good seminar speaker will always give you tons of content you can use but yet provide a way for you to get even more.

So, expect it. Live with it! And, even get to the point where you appreciate the typical seminar format (sales pitch and all) and you will be able to see the many more benefits of attending seminars and conferences.

In case you’ve been steering clear of seminars for a while purely because you don’t want to get “sold” on something, let this be a refresher by offering 101 reasons why you should attend seminars:

  1. Learn new information from the presenters
  2. Meet new people and share experiences
  3. Brainstorm your ideas and get immediate feedback
  4. Get new product or service ideas by hearing about needs in your industry
  5. Get spin off ideas from others, meaning, you might tell someone you main idea and then they’ll suggest you create something slightly different
  6. Evaluate the latest tools and technology to help grow your business
  7. Hear the same information you might know already but from a different angle from a different speaker so that you have an even better understanding of the topic
  8. Find investors in your business
  9. Allow time for creativity by getting away from your daily routine and working “on” your business instead of “in” your business
  10. Get inspiration from success stories shared by speakers and others you meet
  11. Buy products at the best possible price that can save you time and money and are not sold in stores
  12. Surround yourself with like-minded people for engaging conversation and meeting new friends who understand you lingo
  13. Connect with joint venture hosts to potentially promote your product to thousands of people
  14. Practice your in-person networking skills
  15. Expand your social networking followers by inviting them to connect with you online
  16. Observe how the heavy-hitters in your industry use use their time at the events
  17. Get answers to your business questions and challenges
  18. Get presentation materials to take home with you for later study
  19. Learn of free resources you can try later
  20. Chance to win something if there’s a contest (I won a laptop last year!)
  21. Learn facts and statistics that will help you better undertand your market and industry
  22. Get content to use in your own presentations, without plagiarizing of course
  23. It’s a tax write-off
  24. Increase your email list by getting other peoples’ business cards and contacting them later to have THEM sign-up to be on your list
  25. Get away from your normal work environment for a few days
  26. Keep up with your competition by learning the latest strategies in your market
  27. Get one-on-one guidance from speakers
  28. Discover there’s more to know even if you think you knew it all
  29. Pride: when you find out how much you really do know, you will gain a sense of pride in yourself and you will start answering other peoples’ questions
  30. Get business because there are probably people in the audience who need your help
  31. Hear stories of what to avoid
  32. Connect with people on your list that you’ve never met in person
  33. Evaluate how events are run
  34. After hours networking
  35. Making yourself visible
  36. Learn new procedures
  37. Make a product from your notes
  38. Record interviews with experts and make a product for sale
  39. Have someone interview you for a potential product for sale
  40. Get video testimonials while you’re there
  41. Get pictures with industry experts
  42. Determine who you don’t like
  43. Settle your fears
  44. Verify a hunch you have about a topic or issue impacting your industry by hearing the views of experts
  45. Update your understanding of an older process that has new steps
  46. Troubleshoot a problem you have that can only be solved by others who would attend a similar seminar
  47. Treat yourself to a relaxing pool or massage after the seminar sessions are over
  48. Transform your mood from being at a plateau to one of new possibilities
  49. Teach others what you know about your topic as a break-out presenter or just as part of the audience helping those around you
  50. Systematize a process you’ve only known pieces and parts of
  51. Receive large volumes of usable content within a compressed amount of time
  52. Satisfy your urge to be on the cutting edge
  53. Restore confidence in yourself that you are in the right industry and that your perseverance to succeed is worth while
  54. Recognize areas of opportunity that your business could be taking advantage of instead of being content with stagnation
  55. Realign your priorities so that your work time is better spent going forward
  56. Question the knowledge of experts in a public forum
  57. Purchase helpful products and services that you otherwise would not even know existed
  58. Plan a new direction and kill an old one once you find out how dead your old market really is
  59. Praise a mentor in person who’s virtual products, newsletters, or articles have helped you somehow
  60. Demo a software product to key industry influencers to get their opinions
  61. Overcome the fear of mixing and mingling with people you don’t know
  62. Volunteer to help so that you get to meet the event staff on a higher level
  63. Experience how some people make a lot of money in a short time
  64. Model after your favorite speaker’s presentation skills
  65. Acquire continuing education credit
  66. Meditate after hours on the influx of information you’ve just learned
  67. Locate vendors who support people in your business
  68. Launch a product of your own to a targeted audience by spreading the word and passing out flyers one-by-one
  69. Investigate a new law impacting your industry by seeking the opinions of experts
  70. Imagine the possibilities if you were to implement even 10% of what you learned at the seminar
  71. Identify key players that you need to become more acquainted with over the years
  72. Find contractors for hire or even be introduced to support staff that might be looking for a job you may be providing
  73. Formulate a new business venture if you run into just the right person
  74. Finalize business as you can recommend to a prospect that they meet you at the seminar
  75. Facilitate a dinner or be a co-sponsor for the open bar and get public recognition at the event
  76. Exhibit a booth to get direct traffic from your target audience
  77. Eliminate doubt by seeing a speaker live before you decide to hire them
  78. Diagnose problem areas in your business because a speaker went through the same problem
  79. Disprove a roadblock that’s been preventing you from meeting your goals
  80. Conceptualize a new business
  81. Compare your success with others you meet
  82. Accelerate your skills faster than reading a book in most cases
  83. Believe there is hope for success
  84. See a culture in another city or country
  85. Assemble a group of people you’ve been talking to by phone or email to conduct a coordinated book or product launch
  86. Calculate your operating budget for the upcoming year based on the new strategies you’ve learned
  87. Confront someone who has been badmouthing you in the social networks and resolve the complaint (peacefully)
  88. Build traffic to your website by passing out your business cards and giving people a reason to contact you
  89. Critique the work, ideas, websites of others because it’s not all about you
  90. Earn money by making a sale to someone who needs what you offer
  91. Make money by promoting an affiliate product to someone when the opportunity comes up in conversation
  92. Extract the true secrets of trends or processes from industry experts when you talk to them one-on-one
  93. Generate interest and intrigue about a new product you offer or are coming out with soon
  94. Observe audience reaction to the topics presented so you can see what your market is really interested in
  95. Separate yourself from family so that you can focus on business
  96. Test headlines, book titles, product names to get peoples’ reactions and suggestions
  97. Implement a new technique you’ve learned after the seminar session and ask questions about it the next day
  98. Reconnect with old friends you made at previous seminars
  99. Solidify the bond between you and your clients as you invite them to attend the event together
  100. Recruit speakers to present at your own seminar, conference, tele-seminar or webinar
  101. Because it’s fun

To get to or remain at the top of your game, you should plan on attending 4 seminars or conferences each year. Minimum 2. More than 10 and I would say you’re probably overdoing it, unless of course, your main business is getting connected with conference speakers or joint venture partners.

Carefully evaluate how your business fits in with seminar attendance and then start looking for the conferences to attend. I’m alerted every time a seminar, conference, workshop, tele-seminar or webinar is announced on the web thanks to Google Alerts. You should do the same so that you can pick wisely.

And, if you happen to see a guy running around in a black shirt with a HereNextYear logo on the shirt, be sure to say hi…because it’s me!


Sending Unsolicited Email Can Still Get You in Trouble

Posted by Marty Dickinson on Oct 14, 2009

Today a client asked me how he could get a list of emails for his market and send spam to them promoting his website using iContact. Here was my response:

I just got off the phone with a list provider I’ve used in the past called InfoUSA.com and they have a list of 888 total contacts in their database under the umbrella of “h-isniche.”

388 opt-in emails are on their list, meaning, people who have agreed to get email from them. InfoUSA will not give you this list of emails, but they will do an email campaign for you for $475 one-time. That is their starting rate, so you might be able to get that list number up higher targeting some other related categories and still only pay $475 for the emailing.

Call InfoUSA if you’d like to ask any questions or for next steps.

So, using that scenario, you would have InfoUSA send the email to their list on your behalf. Then you would offer something on your website as some kind of incentive for those email recipients to sign-up onto YOUR email list (the opt-in form would be provided by iContact). That could be a coupon or a free report that could be as simple as “5 Ways to Know You’re Getting the Best Deal on Your Niche Product“. Then you would be able to build your own list and send to them whenever you want using iContact.

In talking with iContact this morning, I did discover that we can now import existing lists to iContact and start sending email out. It used to be that they required an authorization email to go out first to the list you import (like Constant Contact still does) to verify that those people really do know who you are and want to receive your emails. That no longer appears to be the case.

So, you could certainly canvass your existing customers and get their email addresses and then import them into iContact. Then new visitors to the website would add their name and email to that list as well.

I’m sure we could use some kind of hacker script to go scrape solar sites and get email addresses. But, that’s not an ethical way to build a list.

I strongly suggest staying away from visiting websites, copying and pasting email addresses, and sending blankets of unsolicited email to them. That will get you in trouble.

The question you will ask yourself as a result of that statement is “Everybody does it, why can’t I?” Well, the reason people do spam and get away with it is because the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) cannot find who the sender is to fine them thousands of dollars. True spammers spend their days creating programs that use other peoples’ IP addresses to send their broadcasts from and fake addresses where the companies supposedly reside. People like you and me who would send genuine emails to people out of the blue would get reported and blacklisted and fined and all kinds of potentially bad things. Best to avoid it all and focus on getting people to opt-in to your list and build your list over time.

So, those are just some findings for you.

The alternative, and maybe a happy medium I suppose, would be to simply search google manually and find all the sites you can like hisnichecompetitor.com and then call them on the phone and ask for an email address of the person that would make the buying decision. Then you could send an individual email to that person saying “nancy” or whoever “suggested I send this email to you with the following information…” and invite them to come to the site and opt-in to your iContact list. At least you would have “semi” permission that way.

Hope that helps.


Hot New Website for Coupons at Ask.com

Posted by Marty Dickinson on Oct 7, 2009

Coupons for any business and any product are getting hotter and hotter. Not only should every business owner be looking for a coupon before buying anything, we should also be offering coupons for practically anything we sell. This importance of coupons is evident in Ask.com’s launch today of Ask Deals, which apparently scours the web for you to find all available coupons and posts them for you.


How to Choose Which Seminars to Attend

Posted by Marty Dickinson on Oct 6, 2009

Up until about a month ago, the seminar business was in a severe hole. Economy-struck attendees put their wallets away in fear of spending a red cent for travel or education.

Webinars attempted to fill the learning gap but we all soon realized there is just no substitute for joining as a group in person.

That’s all changed now as you and I have inundated e-mail boxes full of seminar sales pitches, more webinars, and local workshops.

Last week I suggested you consider checking out my former client Byron Walker’s Affiliate marketing event in Golden Colorado (which is already 70% full I might add) and I look forward to seeing many of you there.

So how do you pick?

After all, the worst thing you could do is shut yourself off from all the great learning events coming up.

The most important thing is to attempt to exclude cost from the process. Meaning, I don’t care if an event is $10 or $10,000. If it pays for itself because of something you learned and applied or someone you met continued business worth….it was worth it!

So, beyond the money, what are the 3 most important criteria to evaluating whether or not to attend?

1. Who’s Presenting - If you’ve seen someone present before at one event, chances are their presentation won’t stray too far when they present at another. But if you like a particular presenter, you know that person would probably not waste his or her time presenting at a worthless event.

2. The Topic Being Presented – If you know for a fact that you will never ever EVER attempt to sell anything on Ebay, then why go out of your way to go to an Ebay seminar? Conversely, if you hear about a really hot topic, and you’re curious, those are the events you really should consider attending.

3. Who is Referring You - Until you’re on a list, you won’t even know 99% of the events that go on. They’re often not promoted on t.v. or radio. You wouldn’t think to search for them on Google. What I look for is frequency. Does the referrer suggest I attend everything under the sun? Or do they help qualify the event for me by telling me “I highly recommend this event if…”

When you put all three of these pieces together, a hot topic you really should know more about, a speaker you know is high quality, plus you’ve had an honest referral, those are the events to attend.

So, ahemmm, again I’d like to recommend Byron’s event coming up if you haven’t checked it out yet.

Claim Your Seat Here!

It has all the components of an event you really should attend.

And make sure to use Discount Code Number “DISC154″ when you claim your seat.

All the best,
Marty Dickinson
President
HereNextYear, Inc.
HereNextYear.com

P.S. I’ll be there too, so make sure to stop by my booth.

Here’s the order link again.

(Use Discount Code Number “DISC154″)


New Way of Using Social Media to Promote Seminars

Posted by Marty Dickinson on Oct 5, 2009

I’m slated to speak at the Thrive Super Conference on November 19, 2009 in Chicago. The organizer just sent an email to me to login to his promotional page at Ning.com. Now, I’ve used Ning to create a few of my own social network sites, but never to promote a seminar. It’s a great idea if you think about it. Here’s why:

1. You get to see the seminar is real – How many times have you just seen a sales page and wonder if it’s really going to happen? Wouldn’t it be nice to interact with the organizers and speakers to get a better comfort feeling that the seminar will actually occur before committing with your credit card? Of course.

2. You get to interact with the speakers – I know I said this in the previous paragraph. But, if the speakers are willing to dedicate some time of their day to answer questions and prove their willingness to be involved, I would figure there would be a much higher conversion rate of visitors to paying attendees. Doesn’t it just make sense that way?

3. Shows a hint of what you will see more of - People want to attend a seminar where they get to see what’s new. Using a “new” and current medium of interaction and promotion just encourages people that they will see and hear about more new things…and they will! It’s just not always so easy to convince them.

So, sure, I hope you will come say hi to me at the conference and you can claim your seat right here. But, go checkout Ning site that the organizers have setup for this conference and imagine how YOU might be able to use the site for one of your upcoming events.


3 Trends I’m Seeing

Posted by Marty Dickinson on Oct 5, 2009

Every couple of months I start to feel these sort of “hunches” about what’s happening on the Internet these days. So I do a little research and sure enough, trend tools verify my hunches. Here are three of those hunches:

1. More people are producing 1-way posts on social networks than actual discussions. “5 Ways to stop xyz…” and then a link to some blog post, is the commonality now. But, they’re also using post distributors now more than ever too like Ping.FM. I do the same, so I’m not going to claim good or bad, but I just think it’s interesting how the scope is changing.

2. More people are into DIY now. Everyone wants to do everything themselves from SEO to make your own solar panels. People are diversifying their skills at an alarming rate. Personally, I think this is a good thing as the economy tightens and wallets get lighter.

3. Putting two and two together, I’m also seeing more people interested in attending workshops and seminars again in hopes of learning how to do more themselves. This is great news to me personally, as I believe these get-togethers are just so essential to our growth as humans. And, for a while, no one was going anywhere it seemed.

So, just thought I’d point out those three trends I’m seeing and let me know if you’re spotting any new trends too.