seobridges.com

When I offered to guest blog for Erick and SEO Bridges I hadn’t fully formulated my ideas about online identity, but it’s a topic that fascinates me.  For this initial post I wanted to introduce myself, and let you know what I’ll be blogging about.

My name is Jennifer Simpson, but you’ll also find me online as JeSais (my nickname), Carmen Electrode (my work online persona), or sometimes as Joe Welder (in my boss’ stead).  I’ve been online since the 1980s (I worked for a government affiliated agency with access to parts of ARPANET). It was the late 80s. I was very very young.  I’d like to say that I was a child computer genius.

I’ve been blogging personally since 2004 and contributed to the now defunct (for all intents and purposes) SanDiegoBlog, a community blog. More recently I started a blog for my graduate program, the Creative Writing /MFA Program at the University of New Mexico.  I also served as a panelist on the Performance and Electronic Media: from Spoken Word to Social Networks panel earlier this year at the Albuquerque Cultural Conference.

Since 2005 I’ve been blogging for Arc-Zone.com, Inc. In fact, the company blog that I started, www.CarmenElectrode.com, was the first in the welding industry!  I soon followed that blog with another industry blog, www.JoeWelder.com.  Each of these blogs has a distinct voice, and as the editor and creative writer behind-the-scenes, it is my job to ensure the integrity and unique quality of each site.  I’m proud to say that by starting these blogs I garnered an Image of Welding Award from the American Welding Society in 2009.

While blogs are one of the best tools out there for search engine optimization, providing fresh relevant, key-word-rich content for your website, for me they are a great way to communicate with customers and build relationships.  People do business with people and with a blog you can let your customers know who you are in a way they won’t get from your ecommerce site.

In future posts I will cover ways to articulate distinct voices, how to maintain authenticity, how to maintain integrity, and how much is too much information to share. And if there’s a question you have, leave a comment and I’ll try my best to address your question in an upcoming post!

Jenn

LINKS:
http://akajesais.com
http://joewelder.com
http://carmenelectrode.com
http://arc-zone.com
http://unmcreativewriting.wordpress.com/

Welcome to a new year and a whole new set of blog ideas, conversations, opportunities, and more.  I am going to do thing a little differently this year.  Mondays I will post a blog,  Wednesdays my friend Jennifer will guest blog, and Fridays I will leave open to my creativity.  This morning, I am going to do one more blog on how a best selling novelist (JK Rowling) uses Social media.

Rowling receives 6.17% of traffic to her site from Twitter, 3.7% from Facebook, and another 6.17% from a site called Mugglenet.  Mugglenet is more than a social networking site, rather it’s a social networking platform dedicated to the Rowling’s writing.

This social networking platform integrates the social networking site MuggleSpace, which is a Ning based social networking site where JK Rowling and Harry Potter fans can interact with one another.  The uniqueness of Rowling’s social networking strategy is that she doesn’t have one.  Let’s get real.  She is a brand.

So, there’s the last lesson we can learn from this series.  Become a brand, and use social networking to familiarize people with your brand.  Rowling, or Rowling’s rat pack, created a Web within the World Wide Web that ensnares visitors within a maze.

If you want to brand yourself, create a type of Web within the World Wide Web that captivates your audience and makes them forget about time.  Send them through a maze, much like Rowling, filled with websites, books, movies, information, chances to interact, and reasons to escape their otherwise mundane lives.  Chances are it won’t be as extravagant, but start out small with a Twitter or Facebook account, a book trailer or two, and keep growing.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

I discovered something innovative that helps everyone tell their story in a visual way. If you haven’t heard of Google Search Stories by Youtube, it’s a simple tool that allows anyone to show the world how they used Google to find something meaningful in their life or in the world.

This first story is our world in review, according to Zeitgeist. These stories of 2010 include some of our world’s tragedies, accomplishments, and challenges. They reveal what brought us together, what tore us apart, whom we lost, and whom we gained.

This story shows the relationship between a little brother and his big sister. No one is good enough for my big sister, so I can identify with this story.

If you haven’t read On the Road by Jack Kerouac, I recommend you put it on your 2011 reading list. I believe there is a recent or soon to be released movie about it. For now, here’s Jack’s story in 60 seconds.

Go to Google Search Stories, click on the box in the middle of the video screen that says “Create Your Own” and your ready to write, record, and show the world your story.

Enjoy the rest of 2010!

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Jodi Picoult is the author of 18 books, and her newest book House Rules is ranked as the 28th best-selling book of 2010. Not enough traffic to her site comes from Twitter for Alexa to count. She doesn’t use Twitter to market herself or her books, rather she just converses with her 20,000 followers. She doesn’t use Facebook, but 23.53% of traffic to Jodipicoult.com comes from Facebook. Here’s the Tweet she sent out on 11/7/10: “No, I have no Facebook page. I use Twitter instead.” And she uses it well.

On her website, visitors can find podcasts, interviews, and photos and videos. For those who want to get to know Jodi more, she, or her publicist or someone pretending to be Jodi, writes a newsletter. If you want to talk about her books with other Picoult fans, you can go to the yourSpace page. Don’t scroll down, just look toward the bottom (the URLs are all the same). You’ll notice the blue link “Go to Jodi’s message boards” toward the bottom.  I don’t know how active she is on those boards.

What can we learn from Jodi Picoult and her use of social media? Out of every best-selling author who uses social media, Picoult uses it in the most real and honest way. She tells people what’s on her mind, she engages with her fans, and she garners the respect of millions. Here’s the lesson: Don’t allow social media to cause you to become someone you’re not.

Stay social, Jodi and my other friends.

Erick

Get ready to save time on your daily social media tasks with Jolicloud—a social media operating system for download with Windows or an ISO via BitTorrent—by integrating your social media marketing, business, and personal tasks.  PC users, you can create accounts and download it onto your computer.  Mac users, you can use the Jolicloud website, but you cannot download it unless you work off of a Windows OS.

Here are the steps to get started with the Jolicloud desktop:

1. Download Jolicloud.
2. Set up a username and password for your computer.
3. Restart your computer.
4. Log into your computer using your new Jolicloud username and password.
5. Log into your Jolicloud website account.
6. Associate the device you’re connecting (netbook, desktop, laptop, other) to your Jolicloud operating system.
7. Select your devices brand and type.
8. Create a name for your computer

Synchronize your apps with Jolicloud:

1. Go to settings (The icon that looks like the bowl with the letter A in it.)
2. Click start when the box appears for Jolicloud to synchronize apps with your computer.
3. Do the same with updates.

You’re ready to explore Jolicloud.  There are 929 applications and add-ons to choose from.

Here are some recommendations to get you started:

Threadsy – A social media and e-mail aggregator.

Yoono – A desktop app to connect your social networking and instant messaging services

Eyeos – Open source cloud computing. Read our blog on Eyeos.

Lifeio –   Read yesterday’s blog on Lifeio

Trendsmap – A local, regional, and international map of Twitter most popular keywords.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

The new year is less than a week away, and with it will come new challenges.  Today and tomorrow I will tell you about a couple of the time management tools I use.

Today, let’s look at Lifeio.com.  This is a social media aggregator, personal calendar, multi e-mail client, shopping wizard, and more.  Here’s a look at some of the things you can do with this online time management tool:

Now

This tab shows a screen with a set of boxes that display upcoming events on your calendar and current events of interest.

Mail

Add your Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, Pop, and/or IMAP e-mail accounts to one place.  Just hover over it, and a box will open to display it.

Calendar

Schedule daily to-do lists and upcoming events.  You can upload your iCal calendar or a CSV file.

Contacts

Upload contacts via a CSV file, and then create and set them in categories.

Feeds

As news comes up in this preset list of feeds, or whichever feeds you want to follow, a constant stream of information from those news sources appears in the upper right hand corner of this website.

Shopping

Set up your search with Amazon, eBay, iTunes, Craiglist, and Fandango.  Lifeio will scour those sources for the information you want.  Once you find the information you want, you can save it as a Note, todo, or event.

There is so much more you can do with Lifeio, but I am going to let you explore. If you need some extra help honing in on your time management skills, click on any of the books below.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

It’s the last week of 2010, and that means it’s time to reflect.  Yesterday, I thought about why different people reflect at different times of the year.  I imagine most people think about how they can change themselves, their businesses, or anything else around this time of year.  When I went to school I looked at every September as a time of change.  Some business owners might look at each new fiscal year as a time of change.  Perhaps different religions look at significant holidays, such as Yom Kippur or Ramadan, as times for change.

Starting this week and going into the first weeks of 2011, you will see gradual changes to SEO Bridges.  First, you will see blogs from at least one regular guest blogger.  Jennifer Simpson (Jesais) is a friend of mine, and she will be blogging about managing your online identity.  Another change is affiliate marketing geared primarily to provide readers and writers with products in their area useful to them.  With that said, we will be integrating with Amazon.  Let us know whether you do or do not find the products advertise interesting in useful.  We want to make SEOBridges.com a place where you can come and find useful information.  We will also make minor changes to our page structure and content to make it easier for people to find the information they want to find.

I am sure you will enjoy these and other changes, as we enter a new year together.  For now, let’s make this last week of 2010 a week to remember.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Merry Christmas from SEO Bridges and a bunch of British Claymation characters.

Erick

John Grisham gets a little extra social media boost, since he has Jgrisham.com and Johngrishamonline.com.  The homepage of Jgrisham.com lists the major retailers where his books available, including e-bookstores, making his readers more familiar with his name..

Grisham has appeared on talk shows, there is a recent commercial about his book The Confession, and several of his books have been turned into movies.  Like Meyer, King, and Patterson, Grisham uses social media as supplemental media and mainstream media as fundamental media.  Though, new and upcoming writers can also learn the lesson of availability from him.  He tells his readers where they can buy or download his books, making his name a household name.

For those who want to enjoy an interactive experience, Johngrishamonline.com features forums.  He gives his fans ways to connect with him, his books, and other John Grisham fans.  All these things make his name a household name.

If you’re a writer and you want to make your name a household name, make your name and your products available.   Whether you self-publish or you use a traditional publisher, if you only have a few thousand copies of your book available in a few hundred books stores across the U.S., your name won’t become a household name.  You can have an awesome book trailer, be interviewed on several radio and television shows, and get rave reviews.  But if you don’t make your books available, either in actual book or e-book form, you won’t become a household name.  And if you don’t make yourself and your books available, social media won’t help make you a household name.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Onto the last day of my three-day series on the top e-readers on the market. Neither of these last two are household names, but you might recognize the manufacturer of the second one.
First, the Copia Ocean 9” Reader is a wide-screen e-reader. Along with the ability to hold up to 3,000 books, it can also hold a microSD card. If users want to listen to audio books or music, there are stereo speakers. This enables people to listen without the need to use headphones.

For those concerned about connecting to the Internet, this e-reader does not offer 3G. It does offer its own social platform, so Copia users can connect with one another. Though, with only WiFi connectivity, it may be harder to connect with other Copia users than is worth the money.

Acer offers the Lumiread, including more than 5,000,000 titles, which is more than twice what Amazon currently offers. This e-reader offers something no other e-reader on the market offers. For those who peruse actual bookstores or libraries, there is a built-in ISBN scanner. This allows users to quickly compare prices of physical books and e-books. Users can also download and save content from the Internet to read offline. And the Clear.fi media system allows users to transfer books from their desktop to this e-reader.

Onto the downside. The only real downside of the Lumina is that the number keys also function as the top row of QWERTY keys. If you can get past that, this 1st generation e-reader is just as impressive as the best ones out there.

Stay social my friends,

Erick