Sphinn, Stumble, Tweet and Drop Your Way Into the New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Let's Start With A Little Work-From-Home Humor

Last night, being 12/31/07, I was sipping a glass of bubbly with a large group of friends and one of them surprised me a bit with a softly whispered question, "Is tomorrow a holiday?"

Almost giggling with perplexity at how a person could not know after 50 years worth of New Year's Days, I just couldn't give a "yes/no" type answer.  So I replied, "Well, I work from home in my underwear, so it IS for most people, but not for me!"

Onto Bigger and Brighter Things

As far as blogging goes, the whole last year of 2007 can be summed up for me in the last 4 months and mainly in the names...

Fun Sphinn Articles

Useful Twitter Articles

No StumbleUpon Articles?

Very Helpful Entrecard Articles

I had no interest in blogging to the bigger non-internet marketing community until I got back from a long vacation that lasted from July to Sept.  What rocketed me into the much bigger blogging universe was an internet marketing-oriented social news site called, "Sphinn" and some inspiration from Andy Beard with quality articles like this.  Andy doesn't realize it but, through his blog and Sphinn, he was quite a "window" into the bigger blogging world for me and he graciously answered all my questions with more information than I was generally accustomed.  Andy and I had gone back quite a ways where we met on Michael Green's internet marketing forums.

Oooh, Oooh, Sphinn Me, Baby!

Fun Sphinn Articles

Sphinn is still running VERY strong but since I first happened onto the scene a mere couple of months ago, more and more spammers and manipulators have found out about it thus making it a little harder to get a qualified article to "go hot."  But they're introducing a lot of new functions that should, ideally, help keep things under control. 

Through Sphinn, I met a lot of very cool and friendly people; too many to list here, but you definitely know who you are - two, for example, who are liked by a lot of people are Shana Albert at Social Desire and Marty Weintraub at AimClear.  You can see them both, along with 18 other Top Sphinners in my recent article,

Top Sphinners - How Much Are Their Blogs "Worth?"

Shana is god's gift to the social media scene.  I know she doesn't think so but the reason I say this is because she serves as the perfect example of how any down-to-earth, non-techie person can go from unknown to well-known as long as they're willing to put in a little elbow grease in the beginning.  It's not that she doesn't have a field of expertise - she does, but it's just not really internet-based.  But that didn't stop her from making massive, positive contributions to the social news communities, thus, earning their respect and support in return.  Go Shana!

Marty is just a bright, sensitive guy who is very community-oriented and not ashamed to admit his love, er, addiction, er... whatever he calls it, to the social media scene.  He's proven time and again how committed he is to supporting both the Sphinn community and it's members.

There are definitely other Sphinners equally, or far more, worthy of mention.  Either I just don't know them or I lack any depth of relations with them yet but, hey, it's only been 3-4 months I've been there... and I can only expect Sphinn, and the quality interactions, to grow.

Stumbleupon THIS, Little Lady!

No StumbleUpon Articles?

I'm STILL relatively clueless about Stumbleupon - I mean, as to what it takes to make a site really grab some Stumblethunder.  Unlike Sphinn and Twitter, there seems to be more to the Stumbleupon inner workings than elsewhere and I've not had the time or inclination to delve into it.  But rest assured, it is there, and THEY, whoever they are, are there.  It just seems that whether or not it is well understood, it is a good idea to at least have an SU account and to do some stumbling.  Without even trying too hard, my SU friendships have grown considerably AND a couple of my articles have been receiving a steady stream of "Stumblethunder" ever since.

10 Reasons You Might Be a Pussy Blogger
Wikipedia - Google's Anna Nicole Smith

If you don't have the StumbleUpon Toolbar, get it.  And stumble the sites that you love and that support you and, in unexpected ways, you'll start seeing some of that "Stumble Love" coming back your way - statistic logs might exaggerate a little, but they don't lie completely!

Twitter Me This!

Useful Twitter Articles

Twitter not only has a LOT of very loyal users but I maintain that it is popular not only for the ability of reaching 1000s of people with WHATEVER happens to be on your mind at the moment but ALSO because many people deeply sense that it MUST have some massive potential that has yet to be unconvered.  I actually HAVE covered rather extensively in a half dozen, or so, Twitter articles that many Twitter users found both noteworthy and stimulating.  In fact, the moment I'm done writing this article, I'll just pop on over to twitter and mention it to my 200+ followers and some of you will be reading this right now.  So we already KNOW, and appreciate, the power of Twitter.

Twitter also has many 3rd party gizmos surfacing with fair regularity so I could have this post automatically Tweeted via RSS if I so choose.  And I can search for all kinds of keyword phrases on Twitter to see what people are mindlessly twitting about that day and it has led to some interesting discoveries.  And since Twitter tweets ARE indexed by Google, intelligently made Tweets can yield unexpected results down the road. 

While no personalities stand out on Twitter other than those who stand out pretty much everywhere, it's the most genuine, down-to-earth, immediate way for anyone to reach a lot of people who occasionally have something important to say.  Reaching people was even easier after people read my article,

"Quick Free Tip on How to Get Followers on Twitter Fast!"

Wherefore Art Thou, Entrecard?

Very Helpful Entrecard Articles

Is it so cliche to always save the best for last?  I can't honestly say "Entrecard is the best" of those listed because each, in its own way, offers a different experience and a different way to get eyeballs on your site.  But if your main goal IS to get eyeballs on your site then ENTRECARD wins hands-down, end-of-story.  Visits from Entrecard are not always targeted to your site but many have discovered that, for several reasons, it doesn't matter:

1. Targeted Entrecarders WILL see your site;

2. All Entrecarders are people with wants and needs;

3. All Entrecarders who drop cards at your site benefit you; and

4. Unexpected subscribers from lateral categories becomes evident;

5. Entrecard is new, fresh and buzzing with a growing mass of warm bodies;

6. And the opportunities to creatively benefit and form joint ventures is wide open.

7. Oh yes, and without Entrecard, I would not have met Evil Woobie.

I have yet to hear anyone complain about "lack of traffic" on Entrecard and have soundly refuted those who hastily referred to Entrecard traffic as "junk traffic" in my articles, "10 Simple Ways to Squeeze the Most Out of Entrecard for Your Greater Advantage" and "Super Advanced EntreCard Strategy - Squeezing the Most Out of Your Chain Droppers"

Besides, Entrecard andEntrecarders can be pretty funny sometimes!

In Conclusion...
My New Year Resolutions

While these services did not just pop up in the last 4 months, they've somehow converged on the blogosphere together in such a way that has left the last 4 months VERY INTERESTING and with some super-huge, massive opportunities for all those who combine them in the years to come.

So, I make the following new year's resolutions which any of you can follow, tweaking to account for your specific conditions:

For the Month of January Only

1. Sphinn and Stumble a Minimum of 5 New Articles Per Day

2. Sphinn and Stumble a Minimum of 10 Sphunn Articles at Sphinn Eacy Day

3. Stumble Entrecarders Who Stumble Me

4. Comment On a Minimum of 10 Entrecard and Sphinners Blogs Per Day

5. Find 1 New Non-Self-Promoting, Interesting Thing to Enrich Twitter Followers Every Day

6. Drop 300 Entrecards Per Day;

7. Run a Minimum of 11 Unique, Totally Mind-Blowing Entrecard Contest This Month.

8. Evaluate and Tweak at End of Month for February and Report in Blog Post.

Some people might do 100 times those numbers, at times.  But remember, that is EVERY DAY and it should account for your particular circumstances should you follow suit.  Just like "salt to taste", well, sphinn, stumble and drop to taste!

HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!  

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