So, Grasshopper, are you ready to get started? Secret Number 1 – You must learn to blog. Now before you get that dear in the headlights look, hang on. Like any good master, I’m going to impart the knowledge you need to master this needed skill.

I can almost always predict the reaction when I tell clients they need to start a blog. Their shoulders sag, they expel a huge sigh and look like they just got punched in the stomach. The hardest thing for most business owners is writing about their business. We can talk about our businesses in person, but when it comes to putting it down on paper, that’s a different story. Maybe it’s insecurity in our writing style, maybe it’s the time it takes to peck it out on the keyboard. But fear not. Help is here.

Let’s address the easiest one first – slow typing skills. Even though I’m pretty proficient on the keyboard, my best writing is done as I speak. So I bought Dragon Speak software and with my headset microphone, I talk, it types. It takes a little training but the more you use it the better it gets. It was the best $40 I’ve spent.

With that excuse down, let’s tackle writing insecurity. The beauty of a blog is your high school English teacher isn’t going to be grading it. If you can “fool” most of the people most of the time verbally, you’re in luck. A blog should be in your voice. Let your personality show through. People do business with people they know, like and trust. If your blog reflects who you are, your readers will get to “know” you. Besides, if your blog is a boring lecture, your readers will only come back when they have incurable insomnia.

Now for the serious decisions. What direction do you take your blog? Do you go serious or humorous? Witty and sarcastic or reassuring and calming? Or maybe controversial? A couple of notes on controversial. If you choose to go down the controversy road, be prepared for responses. A controversial post will frequently generate lots of comments. While that is exactly what you want, engagement from your readers, you also need to be thick-skinned enough to handle it. You will also want to respond to every comment. Just don’t be argumentative. Acknowledge the commentor’s points and either defend your position, recant it or just thank them and let it go.

One last hidden secret Grasshopper. What do you talk about? Do you read newsletters, trade journals or other publications about what’s happening in your industry? (If you answer “No” we need to go back to Grasshopper kindergarten. You’re probably way behind the times and your competitors are more than likely taking your lunch money!!)

The information you read is loaded with trends, techniques or knowledge your customers would find valuable. All you need to do is take that information, put your spin on it and there’s your blog post. Sight the article source and wrap your take around it. “Just read this article about the new 2011 widgets. Their going to make your life so much easier because…” Or the article may trigger something you want to let your customers or clients know. Don’t hesitate to dip into this limitless well of information.

So now you’re ready to start practicing. Remember Cain was in the Shaolin Temple many years before he could grab the pebble. But feel free to test your skills when you feel ready.

Need help with how to write your content? Creating a Buzz with Word Of Mouth Advertising is a 64 page ebook loaded with ideas, tips and techniques.

Over that period of time, Madison Avenue advertisers geared their message to us. But the new marketing strategies are now being driven by the Gen X and Gen. Y groups, especially the Gen Y. You can’t go into any restaurant, mall, movie theater or any other public place without seeing someone with their eyes glued to their phone, with thumbs flying across it, text messaging.

Mobile marketing or text message marketing, is fast becoming the new dot com of the 21st century. The most valuable 4 inches of real estate on the planet are in our hands everyday. No one leaves home without their cell phone and it’s never very far from our reach. Studies show 90% of text messages are read, with 85% of those within five minutes of the time they are received.

The power of text messaging, to be able to deliver a message to customers or clients that have opted in to receive them, has staggering potential. Imagine a restaurant sending a text with their daily lunch special at 1130 in the morning, just about time you’re trying to decide where to go for lunch. Do you think that would have an effect?

Today most businesses try to capture the e-mail address so they can communicate with their customers or clients. But with the volume of spam we all received, e-mails get lost in the clutter. Plus an e-mail might not get read for hours or even days later. But the text message of the special that’s going on right this minute is delivered instantaneously to customers that want receive them. Having a slow day? Text an instant special and see what the results are!

So while baby boomers may not be driving the bus of text messaging, more and more are strapped in and riding along. After all it’s about the only way we can communicate with our kids and grandkids.

Gary Wagnon and his company, 800biz.com, specialize in online marketing solutions designed to help small and medium-size businesses compete in today’s economy. The newest service offered by 800 biz is a mobile text messaging platform centered around the short code 90210.

Facebook Privacy Setting

So the first step is to go to privacy settings under your account tab in your Facebook account. The first thing to review is the basic directory information. To begin, click on view setting. The things you’ll find here are the basic information that you want to make public.  For example, whether you want to allow people to search for you on Facebook, send you friend requests and messages, or see your friend list. By default, these are set for everyone to see and probably you won’t need to change these. If someone that you want to connect with searches for you on Facebook, this will allow them to find you and request you become friends. The next sections under the basic directory information are your work and education, your current city and hometown, and your interests and other pages. Once again, this is your choice, with your interests and other pages being the most questionable.

With the integration of Facebook and the search engines, your interests and the pages that you like can be used to design targeted advertising for you. While this isn’t new, it will become more prominent in years to come. Other websites you visit and searches you perform, may accumulate information about you and your patterns and habits so that marketers can laser target your interests. For example, let’s say you went on a website like BestBuy.com to shop for a 52 inch HD TV. A few days later, while reading an article on CNN.com, an ad appears for a 52 inch HD TV on sale in your area. Or maybe a text message gets sent to your phone with that sale. Instead of shopping for products or services, products and services will find you in the future.

Okay, so we covered the basic directory information. The next section on your privacy settings is “Sharing on Facebook.” You have the choice of allowing everyone, friends only, friends of friends, or customizing, who can see your information. There is also a recommended setting. What the recommended setting does is allow everyone to see your status, photos and posts, your bio, and your friends and relationships. It allows friends of friends to see your birthday, religious and political views, and photos and videos your tag in. And it allows friends only to post to your wall, to see your e-mail address, your phone number, and any other address or IM name.

In my case, the settings are not ones that fit my needs. Since my Facebook profile contains my business information, I want my contact information available to everyone. So I chose the custom option which allows me to pick and choose who sees my information. At the bottom of the list, you will see a pencil with the words “Customize Settings” beside it.  That will bring up the menu list of the things you share, as well as what others can share plus your contact information. For me, I want my website, my phone number and my e-mail address visible to everyone.

If you have younger children, you should probably choose to make family only visible to friends. If you are a parent of teenage kids, you probably want to monitor their Facebook page, but not have others see who your kids are.

Another setting on this same page is your album privacy. Click the “edit album privacy” link to open all your photo albums. Once again, if you have small children, you probably don’t want pictures of the family vacation visible for everyone to see. But you don’t care if your friends see them. After all, that’s why you shared them. So change this setting for each album as you need.

The next section is applications, games and websites. Applications such as Farmville, Mafia wars, and the various quizzes, polls and other activities, all are created by third-party developers. They are not associated with Facebook. But, you agree, when you set up the application, to their terms and conditions, which means they have access to all of your profile information. But what is even more intrusive is the fact that these applications have access to your friend’s profiles as well. So even though I don’t take any of the polls, play Farmville, or send hugs or hearts, my profile information is available from my friends sites that do.

With the new privacy settings, you have the option to control what information is available to applications and websites when your friends use them. I chose to make none of my information available to third-party applications. You also have the ability to easily remove applications and websites. I recommend removing any application that you no longer use.

Under the same applications section, you have the option for instant personalization. On Facebook partner sites like Pandora and Yelp (with more being added all the time), your profile information can be pulled in to help design your browsing experience on that site. For example, you login to Pandora, and when it retrieves your Facebook likes and sees you are a fan of 60s rock, it can customize the music it serves up to you. By disabling the instant personalization you eliminate that.

Public search is another choice under applications and websites. This determines whether your Facebook profile is available for search engines like Google to read. Once again, in my case, I don’t have a problem with my profile being searchable. My company information is already all over the web. Also, from the search engine optimization standpoint, my profile provides another inbound link to my website, which improves search engine positioning. However, you may choose to be less visible online, and if so, disable the public search feature.

Do you have a friend that continually sends you invites for applications? While you don’t want to block the user, you now have the choice to block an invites that come from that friend. To do so, choose the  Block Lists section at the very bottom. Here you have the option to block users by name or e-mail or to block invites from a friend

One privacy issue that was already available is the publication of your birth date.  While it’s okay to show your birthday (everyone likes to get the birthday wishes), you should display only the month and date, not the year.  You can change this in your profile page and click on edit profile (right under your picture.)  Next to your birthday, there is a dropdown box that gives you the choice of showing your full birthday, the month & day only or not showing it at all.

All in all, the new Facebook privacy settings should provide much greater control over your online privacy. But remember, this is only one site. There are hundreds of sites that capture your information, either through cookies, through giveaways or when you register to use the site. So unless you plan to be a web recluse, your information is probably are the out there in dozens of databases all over the web.

I hope this gave you a little insight into how you customize your Facebook privacy and the reasoning behind the vigilance needed to protect yourself online.

MyShopping Genie is a powerful search app, free to download and use.

Gary Wagnon and 800biz.com have over 10 years experience in website design, search engine optimization and social media marketing. With over 30 years in business and consulting, we understand your business needs and partner with you to grow your business.

Whats Your Social Media Game Plan

Every sporting team has a game plan, a series of scripted actions that hopefully will lead to the outcome they desire, a win. For a football team, it’s inside handoff, a safety blitz or a post pattern. In basketball, it may be a pick and roll or a triangle and two defense. Baseball players practice, the suicide squeeze while pitchers and catchers go over the pitch sequence for each batter.

The goal of having a game plan is to have a successful outcome, winning the game. And of course it doesn’t always happen, because the opponents have their own game plan. So it comes down to who can execute their game plan the best.

Isn’t the same true for your business? You have a desired outcome, either making more money, selling more products or providing a better service. So shouldn’t you have a game plan?

But the question is where to start? The first step in the process should be defining what outcome you want. Making a ton of money isn’t an outcome, it’s a fairytale. So the first step should be defining the goals for your business. Beginning by setting SMART goals. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. There are many resources that discuss SMART goals and how to set them, so I won’t cover that here, other than to say, it is critical to know where you’re going and be able to measure your progress along the way.

So now that you have your goals set and know what outcome you want, its time to design the plays to make those happen. The first step is defining who is your target market. The second step then, becomes how do you reach your target market.

That’s where social media comes into play. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Linkedin have very broad demographics. Facebook currently has over 400 million people with the fastest growing segment being over 35 and female. In fact, Facebook is now the number two most trafficked site on the web. In March of 2010 during a one-week time period, Facebook actually got more traffic than Google.

If your business targets professionals with 100,000+ income, LinkedIn might be your best choice. While not as social a community, the LinkedIn users are categorized by their business and professions. So if you want to target marketing officers in the healthcare industry, for example, you can do that.

The incredible power social media offers to create a buzz in the marketplace is really at the heart of its strength and popularity. You can spend thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars, in advertising, and only hope your message reaches your targeted customers. But with social media, you can target those customers, where they’re spending a lot of time with very little cost.

I’ve always said, if I could sell word-of-mouth advertising, I would be sitting on a beach somewhere with a cell phone saying “send me a check for $100,000, and I will deliver the customers to you”. But now, that’s not far from the truth (at least the part about word-of-mouth advertising.) Social media has elevated referral marketing or word of mouth advertising to a viral state. Now, we don’t have to be on the phone or at a party talking to a friend to recommend a business. We do that on our social media sites. And while we only talk to a handful of people on the phone or, at that party, our entire circle of friends will see a recommendation posted on our wall.

So unless your business game plan includes a social media plan, you’re more like the sandlot sports team drawing plays in the dirt. You might occasionally get lucky and throw a touchdown. But if you come up against a team (business) with a well practiced game plan, success will not likely be in your future.

Gary Wagnon and 800biz.com have over 10 years experience in website design, search engine optimization and social media marketing. With over 30 years in business and consulting, we understand your business needs and partner with you to grow your business.

This should be sent only to those whose level of maturity qualifies them to relate to it…

1978: Long hair
2009: Longing for hair

1978: KEG
2009: EKG

1978 : Acid rock
2009: Acid reflux

1978: Moving to California because it’s cool
2009: Moving to Arizona because it’s warm

1978: Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor
2009: Trying NOT to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor

1978: Seeds and stems
2009: Roughage

1978: Hoping for a BMW
2009: Hoping for a BM

1978: Going to a new, hip joint
2009: Receiving a new hip joint

1978: Rolling Stones
2009: Kidney Stones

1978: Disco
2009: Costco

1978: Parents begging you to get your hair cut
2009: Children begging you to get their heads shaved

1978: Passing the drivers’ test
2009: Passing the vision test

1978: Whatever
2009: Depends

Just in case you weren’t feeling too old today, this

will certainly change things. Each year the staff at Beloit College in Wisconsin puts together a list to try to give the faculty a sense of the Mindset of this year’s incoming freshmen. Here’s this year’s list:

The people who are starting college this fall across the nation were born in 1990.

They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up.

Their lifetime has always included AIDS.

Bottle caps have always been screw off and plastic.

The CD was introduced the year before they were born.

They have always had an answering machine.

They have always had cable.

They cannot fathom not having a remote control.

Jay Leno & Conan O’Brian have always been on the Tonight Show.

Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave.

They never took a swim and thought about Jaws.

They can’t imagine what hard contact lenses are.

They don’t know who Mork was or where he was from.

They never heard: “Where’s the Beef?”, “I’d walk a mile for a Camel”, or “de plane, Boss, de plane..”

They do not care who shot J. R. and have no idea who J. R. even is.

McDonald’s never came in Styrofoam containers.

They don’t have a clue how to use a typewriter.

Do you feel old yet? Pass this on to the other old fogies on your list.

Notice the larger type, that’s for those of you who have trouble reading.. So have a nice day!!!!! It is good to have friends who know about these things and are still alive and kicking!!!!

Gary Wagnon and 800biz.com specialize in website design, hosting, search engine optimization and social media marketing for small and medium businesses.

Do you treat your business as a job or an adventure

Adventures are great when it’s a trip or activity.  When it comes to starting your own business, it probably starts as an adventure but staying in that frame of mind can be a sure sign of failure.

We usually associate adventures with recreation.  As such, if the adventure becomes too much work, we can simply choose to stop.  That’s the reason so many network marketers fail.  They treat their business like an adventure rather than a job.

With your 8 – 5 job, you have to do things that aren’t exactly thrilling.  But you do them to make sure you get your paycheck every month.  If you own your own business, you have plenty of tasks that you dread doing (taxes comes to mind.)  So when you launch out in a network marketing business, your mindset will determine your success.

No matter what your sponsor says, no matter how simple the comp plan or what the mega superstar leaders audio says, it’s going to take work.  It’s going to take persistence.  And it’s going to require stepping outside your comfort zone and doing things that won’t be high on your fun scale.

If you view of your business is an adventure, you’re doomed to fail.  You drop a hobby that no longer excites you.  If your new MLM is treated like a hobby, you subconscious mind will take over and say “This isn’t fun anymore and we don’t want to do this anymore.”

The secret to success is to treat your new business as a job.  Get in the mindset that the requirements of the business are just part of the job.  Like it or not, it’s just one of those things you have to do.  Choosing not to do the unpleasant things is not an option.

One more pitfall to watch out for – doing non-productive activities, fooling yourselves into thinking you are working hard.  It’s easy to make a prospect list, organize your office, design your business cards, prepare your marketing material, and so forth.  All are important activities but not a one of them will produce one dime in income.  No one is going to signup for your opportunity because you have a business card.  Your prospects aren’t going to call you just because they are on your list.  You have to make the calls, do the follow-ups and present your business.

2 good books to help you change your mindset are “Who Moved My Cheese” by Spencer Johnson and “The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson.  It’s easy to do what needs to be done to be successful and it’s easy not to do it.  Your choice is the key.  Decide if you’re new business is a job or an adventure.

Gary Wagnon has been a successful network marketer for over 30 years.  His latest venture, Financialhomerun101.com, focuses on eliminating debt.

Let’s look at WordPress.com first.  WordPress.com allows you to create your blog and have it hosted on the WordPress site.  You can create an account and have your first blog in the blogosphere in a matter of minutes.  No programming knowledge is needed and you blog can be visible to the search engines, Technorati and the WordPress blog directory.  You have a choice of templates to change the appearance of your blog, it’s layout and even include different widgets.

What’s a Widget?  A widget is an add on feature that will enhance the usability or appearance of your page.  Some common widgets are calendars, images in the side bar, videos and even social media badges.  Available widgets are based on the theme you choose.  Not all themes have the same widgets available.

There are several limitations to a WordPress.com site.  One limitation, your blog address is www.yourname.wordpress.com.  You can have your own domain name attached for an additional charge

The limited number of themes available is another limitation of a WordPress hosted site.  You have less than 100 themes to choose from and editing the theme requires knowledge of CSS Stylesheets and purchasing the custom upgrade.

Another limitation is access to plugins.  Plugins are like widgets since they add to the functionality of your blog.  How a plugin differs is a plugin can be added to any theme.  WordPress.com sites do not allow plugins

Finally, your content is not in your control.  Your account is controlled by WordPress.  You are subject to the terms and conditions of WordPress and if, for any reason, they choose to remove your account, all your content will be lost.

Now let’s look at WordPress.org.  WordPress.org is also free but it requires a website  hosting account.  A large percentage of hosting accounts include a WordPress add on.  If not, a free version of WordPress can be downloaded from WordPress.org.  To install, you will need FTP (file transfer protocol) to your hosting server.  FTP is a program used to upload web pages, images and other files to your server so they will be web accessible.

A WordPress.org site is attached to your own domain name so you have full control of your content and site.  Many domain registrars, like Godaddy, also offer web hosting.  For someone that doesn’t understand the whole web hosting and domain process, many companies, like 800biz.com, offer a inexpensive package that includes domain purchase and configuration, web hosting and WordPress setup.

Regardless of where you decide to host your site, you can expect to pay a monthly hosting fee, ranging from $9 up.  But remember, you get what you pay for – the lower price sites offer less support, no automatic backups, limited access to your site and more.  So choose your host wisely.

With a hosting WordPress site, you have hundreds of templates you can choose from, many of which can be modified with your own graphics.  You can also modify the colors and appearance by changing the CSS stylesheet.

With your own site, you also have access to the entire Plugins Library.  There are plugins for just about everything – social media, search engine optimization, videos, polls, site review, keywords and much more.  A word of caution – read the review of any plugin before you install them.  Some plugins have not been thoroughly tested and may cause problems with your site.

My favorite plugins are:

• All In One SEO – This adds search engine optimization to your blog post
• Askimet – This helps cut down on the spam comments
• Share to Any (Add To Any) – This is one of my favorite plugins.  This plugin lets you or your readers share your blog post to hundreds of social media site and social bookmarking site.
• Socialable – This adds the social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc to your blog, making it easier for people to share your content to their friends and followers.

As you can gather from this information, my recommendation is to host your blog on your own domain.  Yes it will cost you a little money.  But unless your blog is for personal use only and not business, the small investment a blog and a hosted account requires should be a no brainer.  Because you do get what you pay for.

Gary Wagnon and 800biz.com specialize in website design, hosting, search engine optimization and social media marketing for small and medium businesses.

According to Hitwise, Facebook managed received more visits than Google during the week of March 7th through March 13th, making it the most visited website in the U.S. for the week.

While this in no way sounds an alarm about the Google search dominance, it does reinforce the idea that social media, like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are important elements of an online marketing program.  With Facebook and YouTube as the numbers 2 and 4 overall sites on the web (according to Alexa.com), can you afford to ignore that  kind of traffic.

Another thought-provoking stat – The average visitor to Google spends about 9 minutes a day on the site.  The average visitor to Facebook spends almost 40 minutes a day and the average YouTube browsers spends over 22 minutes a day.  This is like having a billboard on the freeway with traffic whizzing by at 70 miles per hours or having the same billboard on a busy street during rush hour where a driver is creeping along and has time to look around and actually read the billboard.

Google is for hunters on a mission.  Bag the site your searching for and move on.  Social media sites are more like home – prop your feet up and relax.

If you aren’t using social media or are totally confused by it, take heart.  There are painless ways to ease into it without taking the head first plunge into the abyss.

Gary Wagnon and 800biz.com specialize in website design, hosting, search engine optimization and social media marketing for small and medium businesses.

Google Wonder Wheel offers a new way to search for related topics.  For example, suppose you are searching for energy saving equipment.  Google Wonder Wheel not only gives you the results it normally would deliver, but also gives you 8 “spokes” with related keywords. Continuing to drill down each spoke will help you find exactly what you are looking for.

Where Google Wonder Wheel really shines is in keyword research.  The spokes give you related keywords that are targeted and focused.  The wheel creates the ideal starting point for your blog, web pages, pay-per-click campaign or your entire website.  Are there keyword phrases you haven’t considered?  Are there related products or services you might not have considered?  Can your existing product or service crossover into another area?  The Google Wonder Wheel helps you make critical decisions that can drive your business into the future.

How do you use the Google Wonder Wheel?

Google Wonder Wheel

Starting from a normal search, look for the + Show options link in the blue bar where the number of results are shown.  By clicking on the Show Options, a side bar will open with several search options.  Wonder Wheel is under the Standard View.  The Google Wonder Wheel appears on the left and the search results on the right.  Each spoke off the wheel has a related keyword phrase.  Click any phrase to see those results, as well as a second wheel with related phrases for the new phrase.  The initial wheel remains visible below so you can jump back to the original.

Wonder Wheel Expanded

Take your turn on the Google Wonder Wheel. Your results will speak for themselves.

Gary Wagnon and 800biz.com specializes in website design, search engine optimization and social media marketing.

AOL grew to nearly 30 million subscribers over 12 years by sending out millions of disks and partnering with every major business they could. You could even pick up an AOL install disk at the Post Office!

Facebook launched in 2004 and today, the community is over 350 million active members. The meteoric rise of Facebook is due to their multi-million dollar ad campaign right? You have seen the Facebook ads, haven’t you? Or a Facebook installation disk? Hummm, no big dollar ad campaign, no preinstalled software. How could Facebook explode like they did?

Old marketing meant interrupting people. Forcing yourself in front of as many people as possible and usually meant a large dollar expenditure.

New marketing is permission based. It means finding people with like interests and being a part of the community. New marketing is based on trust, not the depth of your bank account.

Is your marketing plan about building relationships or shouting your message at as many people as possible? If you are still shouting, it’s time to change your thinking. Become the expert in your field. Give away valuable information – for FREE. Make yourself memorable, unforgettable. You want to do business with the leader in the field; so do your customers.

Are you old school or cutting edge? AOL or Facebook? It’s your choice.

Gary Wagnon and 800biz.com specializes in website design, search engine optimization and social media marketing.