MediaJoltz

Here is a full disclosure that this, nor any of the products I write about on my blog are advertisements in any way. I do not get any compensation or prize or gift or ANYTHING for writing about these products. I use them all in my companies and find them useful and want to share my experiences with them to help you out as well.

Back in 2003 a company called Skype came rolling out with VOIP (or voice over internet protocol). What that means to mean is I make phone calls from my computer using the internet. It is a very easy application to install and very easy to learn how to use. I do recommend buying some type of microphone-you can buy one right from the Skype website called Plantronics PC2000 Headset for only $10.

From Skype I am able to make phone calls to any phone in the world. If I am calling from Skype to another person who has Skype, the call is free, just like mobile to mobile minutes. Here is a list of things Skype offers for free:

As you can see you can not only make regular calls on Skype but also do video chat with others across the world. This has been very helpful for me in personal life, being able to see family living on the other side of the nation has been tons of fun. It is also helpful in business with clients who are not local we are still able to talk and see each other and that has helped in communication.

Skype also offers the conference call for free which is very beneficial to any company who needs to make sure everyone is on the same page. I use Skype for my interview podcasts where I can have several people on at once.

There are other features that Skype offers that have fees, but very minimal for what you get:

I use the Skype Unlimited to call clients and not use up minutes on my cell phone. For just $29.95- I am able to make ALL my calls for the year-not bad huh! My husband has several friends in South Africa and United Kingdom who he talks to on a regular basis. The friend in South Africa also has Skype so they talk all the time for free. Those in the United Kingdom do not but for him to call them is only $.02 a minute. His sister has friends in Japan who she is able to talk to for only $.02 to a landline and only $.015 for a mobile phone.

So how does this help me as a business owner. Well you can hop on over to the ColdCallingPodcast where Greg and Mike talk about “How to Use Skype to Fatten Your Pipe.” In this podcast they talk about the benefits of using Skype to make calls if you are doing sales. I mentioned above how it has helped with keeping in touch with those not local as well as conference calls with more than one person. Plus, it is very cost effective in long distance calling, and I can be on the computer making notes, going through windows and have everything at my fingertips without trying to balance a phone on my shoulder!

I found a very cool website called CopyBlogger that I am going to keep reading from. They categorize some of their posts into Business Blogging which I found very entertaining and helpful. One of their posts talked about “The Real Secret to Getting TONS of Blog Subscribers.” To sum the article up, it focused on taking a topic and putting an angle on it to make it as Seth Godin calls it REMARKABLE.

I’d like to add to this article and point out four things that you need to think about when starting to blog and all of them have to do with content.

The first one is that you have to HAVE content. Just start writing, don’t worry about what others are going to think when you first start because then you won’t ever start. Guy Kawasaki has a great book called Art of the Start that talks to business planners about just getting out there and starting your dream/idea. I say the same applies to blogging, podcasting, getting involved in new media-just do it!

The other point goes along with the first point about just starting. Sometimes we get too caught up with how our blog page looks and we never write anything that matters. While Allister Cameron does have a great post about things to do so your blog page isn’t distractive to those visiting called “If Your Blog Looks Crap it IS Crap!” But having an awesome looking blog with no content on it doesn’t work either-so keep that in mind.

The third point is to make sure that it is niche. For example, this blog can be labeled as a media and technology blog, but it takes a different spin. I use this blog to take geek talk and turn it into business benefits. For example, instead of just taking note that last year Google bought Youtube for 1.65 billion dollars, I can turn that piece of tech news into a lesson on the benefits Google buying Youtube might have for a business owner:

-Video is becoming more serious. If Google bought Youtube for 1.65 billion dollars, and then others step up to rival that combination then they must see video as something more than the Youtube cat flushing the toilet.

-If the Dominator in Search buys a video sharing site, then maybe that means video is going to play a bigger role in searches. Google now includes YouTube video in search. Well now what does that mean, it means that if someone is looking for a topic in your industry and you have a website and a video on youtube, both will come up in the search. New sites are already now implementing audio and video into their searches.

-Bottom line is that the outcome of Google buying Youtube means that as a business owner, there will be more ways to find you. And who doesn’t want to be found by the people looking for the topics they cover?

Now there are many different ways to put a different angle on something to make it niche. Take for example a real estate agent’s blog. Instead of writing about the industry news, to put a little spin to it, why not do a maintenance after you’ve bought the home blog, or write about the schools, events, businesses and restaurants in the areas of the houses you are selling? You could write a blog about tips and tricks to help better you home BEFORE you put it on the market?

The fourth and final point is that no matter what the topic is, make sure that you are writing about something you love. If you aren’t people will be able to tell that you don’t care through your writing. So go on, start writing about something you want to whole world to know, just go and do it, make it yours and have fun!

Now for blogging there is absolutely a beginning, intermediate and advanced level. Those on the intermediate understand SEO and meta tags and using plugins and linking. Those on the advanced understand their blog, have a following and want to now start making money off of it. For those two levels, go read fun. Some blog for the community feeling. And some blog for Corporate Reasons. No matter the type of blogging, there are also numerous reasons. If you type “why blog” in a search you’ll get about a million hits. To sum them all up here are my top reasons to blog:
tips” target=”_blank”>Problogger Tips.

If you want to LEARN how to blog and START blogging in a very short time, go ahead and check out Blogger. At Blogger you can start blogging and telling the world what you think.

This is a free place to start a blog, they host your blog and you don’t have to worry about space. It is very fast and simple. To make things even easier, go ahead and watch this video explaining the step by step process on how to start one, it is only 2 min. long which tells you something about how easy it is!

1. You are creating a personality for your company/hobby/passion. Instead of just a website with a lot of copy, people will get to know you, like you and trust you. They will become your fans…

2. You are becoming an expert. By giving meat on your blog-people will begin to recognize that when they need information on that topic, they can come to you. If you aren’t already established as an expert in your field, get to know others who are experts, contribute to their blogs and then you can interview them on yours…

3. Intimate Conversations: by starting a blog you are opening conversation about your topic-and facilitating conversation between your viewers too. By allowing comments on your blog, you can find out true opinions from people, research straight from the audience.

4. Because it is good for you educationally-it forces you to stay up-to-date and on top of the topic and we should never stop learning.

5. Because its fun darn it! Besides being able to have another medium that will help marketing and public relations, its a great way to connect with those that are online, another community to grow and make friends with!

I hope that no matter the reason, blogging becomes a great way to communicate with others near and far, so get to and have some fun!

I had to write this post because I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately. Recently I have been invited to be on the Utah New Media Conference Committee. Here are the details about the Conference:

When: June 28th

Where: Salt Lake City, Utah Marriot

Who: Anyone beginning or advanced who wants to learn more about New Media

We have some very cool speakers to be announced soon. What we want the theme of the conference to be though is that being online is very cool because it is about networking and community. Yes, it has benefits for businesses, thats because you are having real conversations with real people about what is going on-and people do business with people they know like and trust.

But the online community is more than just another place to do business, it is about reaching out and making awesome friends-without having to pay for that airline ticket! I have several people who I keep in touch with on a daily basis whom I feel comfortable enough to call friends-and have never met them in person before!

Its all about looking out for each other and having fun exploring the whole world right from your office or house or even car!

I am directing you over to C.C. Chapman’s Managing the Gray where he did a presentation at a conference about the New Media Playground and how it is like we were kids and you made instant friends with the person on the swing next to you-and that is what it is like online today. You’ve got to hear it!

Here is an excellent example of how the online community has your back in times of trouble:

There is a site called BubbleGuru that makes installing video on your website very easy.  All you do is register, and then follow the instructions on recording your video right there at your desk.  Then they show you how to put this video on your website.

While I am a fan of doing SOMETHING to be involved with media, I’m not sure how I feel about this service so I’m going to post all my thoughts about the pros and cons and ask you to take a look at it and decide for yourself if it is something you want to do.

First, I’ll start out with the pros.  Hats off to them for making it a fairly simple task to get video on your site.  All you do is connect your webcam and off you go.  If you don’t have a webcam, they provide links to get one-and webcams come pretty inexpensive now.  You don’t have to redesign to embed the video nor does it take up any space. And I think that having video on your site definitely is a must and to have something like Bubble Guru will bring attention to the specific page or information you want your site visitors to pay attention to.

That said, I do have a problem with pop-up video.  Have you visited a site that plays music that just started out of no where?  How many of us didn’t look for the “turn music off” button on the website.  If there wasn’t a way to turn the music off, did you stay at that website or move on?  In a day where everything is becoming more and more what the consumer wants WHEN the consumer wants it, intruding into their browsing experience with a pop-up video might not be the best way to go.  A button that allows the visitor to play the video if he or she wants it is an option at Bubble Guru, but it should be the default.

There is a way to stop the video, but not a way to pause it or rewind and so if you miss something, you have to start from the beginning of the video.  You also will get this video every time you visit the site-there is no “skip” method to the video, so after the 3rd or 4th visit, the video is already very old…

Also, the video takes a long time to load, so a message bubble might sit there with nothing in it for a while.  Then when it does load, even on my Mac 1.5 ghz 1 gig of ram computer, the video stumbles along sometimes stopping and skipping.

So things we can grow and learn from Bubble Guru is that video is a good thing and is fast becoming more than a fad, but a necessity.  What we don’t want to start doing though, is intruding our site visitors with “listen to me now!”  applications on our site.

Today I want to share with you a business network site that has helped my business. It is called LinkedIn. LinkedIn works around the concept of 6 degrees of separation, meaning that everyone is connected to each other through no more than 5 people.

The way this site works is that I as a user may connect to people and build my network. When I connect with someone else I am also “connected” to their network to the third degree. So I connect with Bob. When this happens, I not only am allowed the opportunity to connect with those people Bob is directly connected to but also allowed to connect with those Bob’s direct connections are connected to.

Lorri                            Bob                 1st connection             2nd connection

So what does this do for my business? Well there is a story that I can use to illustrate this. I was working on a project and needed to get in touch with someone from a company I had never been to or contacted before. I went to LinkedIn to see if I had any connections there. It just so happened that I did. I had a friend who had a friend who knew the exact person I was trying to contact.

I sent an email to my friend asking them to forward it on. They forwarded it on to their friend who then forwarded my message on to that person. Within a day I had response back and was communicating directly with this person about my project.

LinkedIn has different level of memberships and one of them is free. Sign on today and start connecting. You can connect to me by my CopperRain email lorri@copperrain.com.

I said in the title that you’ll never have to make a cold call again, thats because with Linked In, you can make all the warm lead connections through friends and associates. It helps you use the relationships you already have established to get in touch with other business owners, connect with potential clients and get inside the circles you need to be to make that sale.

So many blog pages to visit, so little time. Have you found yourself visiting specific websites of your favorite blogs to see if there is a new one posted yet? There is an easier way to do this and the analogy of how this works is just like getting a newspaper delivered to your doorstep each morning.

When someone has a blog, they allow their listeners to “subscribe” to their media just as one would subscribe to the newspaper. This is done by using RSS or “Really Simple Syndication.” Actually if you don’t understand code, its not very simple-but thanks to our geek friends, they have made it as simple as clicking a button.

You can find the subscribe on anyone’s page, but it might come in different forms. The universal “subscribe to RSS” button looks like an orange square button:

but it might also come in the form of:

No matter the look of the “subscribe to RSS” button, once you click on it, it will add the website you subscribed to, to an agregator: a place that gathers all new episodes or posts. One of the more popular ones is Google Reader. I use NetNewsWire because I am on a MAC.

Once you click on this button the website will be loaded into your aggregator, and then every time a new post or episode is available, your computer will be notified and your computer will downloaded it. Thats it, so everytime I want to find out if any of the blogs I read have a new post I go to my aggregator:

I just hit refresh all and if there are any new posts, my computer gets it for me. No more surfing to each and every website-which saves me time to do more important things, like blog!

Here is a video that does a good job of describing RSS and how it works: It is called RSS in Plain English