Did you know, that as of this month, there are over 156 million public blogs in existence? And with that type of competition growing everyday, is the effort worth the prize? What makes a blog a rewarding a home run? and are you still wondering how to attract more visitors to your blog?

We are too.

I did some research regarding this matter and there’s a lot of opinion on the subject. Some say sell advertising, some say to blog every day, some say to not write more than 200 words so the audience doesn’t get bored, others suggest tightly niche your content and others say wake up the dead with extreme controversy.

I do agree with them all, most importantly I believe that businesses need to write stuff that people actually want to read!

Before you start writing, ask yourself who the target audience is and what the do they really care about. Also ask your self these questions:

1. Why do you write your blog? To make money, to serve as marketing tool?
2. Have you clearly identified 3 other highly read blogs in your topic?
3. Can you see their magic formula? Is meaningful content – are they a rock star, have a book and/or a national expert?
4. How is traffic being driven to their site? This takes some digging, but it’s important.
5. Does your niche topic have a big enough audience to tap?
6. Have you looked at Google analytics to see what you have written in the past that really drew readers?
7. Does your content provide pragmatic advice? Is the writing original and thought provoking, Is it entertaining, or is it just sucking up your time and you should be doing something else?

If you answered NO to any of these questions, stop writing, talk a walk, read a book and start again.

Be useful. Be unique. Be engaging.

How do these blogs do it?
HuffingtonPost – 35,000,000 estimated unique monthly visitors.
TMZ – 17,000,000 estimated unique monthly visitors.
engadget – 11,500,000 estimated unique monthly visitors.

For more blogging tips, view: 10-steps to making writing your blog easier.

HeyWire, the new Facebook app for texting in one place, may be the perfect option for you.

HeyWire, a service that has been offering free SMS (short message service) and recently partnered with Twitter to develop HeyTweet, is now debuting it’s Facebook application that allows users to send both texts and tweets from a cell phone (while using Facebook, of course).

HeyTweet is free, available in multiple languages and offers free local and international text messaging from a phone number. The reason why this service is so compelling is because when users normally send a tweet though SMS text, charges would incur. But with HeyTweet, a tweet through this service has lower carrier fees internationally. As of this month, 2 million tweets have been sent around the world via HeyTweets. If you are a business owner who is Twitter obsessed, this might be exactly what you’ve been looking for – no more high priced texts and messages to people internationally. Want a convenient way to send one message out to friends via text, Facebook Chat, Google Talk and Twitter all at the same time? They can do that too.

Here’s how it works with Facebook.
Similar to other free texting apps, HeyWire users are given a phone number to send and receive unlimited texts with friends and family worldwide. Users can send messages via HeyWire Facebook App or the HeyWire applications for iOS (iOS is the Operating System on an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. It’s the “thing” that makes your device run) and Android devices. Texting conversations will follow you, as a user, from the HeyWire Facebook App to your smartphone application or tablet and vice versa. This app is the only Social Messaging Hub designed specifically for Facebook users. Do a lot of business via Facebook? Now you can run your business directly from your phone.

But, unlike HeyTweet, this new Facebook/HeyWire partnership comes with a small price. It’s about $2.00, or 20 credits in Facebook dollars, a month for unlimited texts on any device, anywhere.

Want to see if texting right for your business? Check out this powerpoint by Mobile Marketer.

Will you be using these applications, or will you be continue to message your family and friends with old fashion way?

Do you use texting to market your business?

Let us know!

Stop what you are doing!  Take the pulse on your personal brand, today. It’s fast and painless. Add up all the No’s and then total them.  If your total higher than 2 you’ve got some work to do. Earned a low score, below 2, Go Celebrate!

These tips were part of a talk I gave this morning at the Southeastern Entrepreneur Conference. Thank you University of Tampa Entrepreneurship Center for hosting such as awesome event. For a copy of the PowerPoint scroll down and download. Got a question? Post a comment and I’ll do my best to address it.

6 questions every professional to answer with Yes!
1) Have you secured your full name as a URL? (Like mine is Karenpost.com)  YES OR NO

2) Do you Google search your name at least once a month? YES OR NO

3) Does your cell phone recording state your full name and sound professional? YES OR NO

4) Do you have a professional, one paragraph only, blurb of copy that can be used a byline after a blog post or article, or to introduce you to someone? YES OR NO

5) Is your Linkedin profile set up and 95% completed with a great head shot photo, concise content about you professionally speaking with at least three top three key words (that people would search for you with)? YES OR NO

6)  Do you have a list of at least 4 adjectives that describe your professional personality? YES OR NO

7)  Do reflect these adjectives in your social and offline? YES OR NO

8) When friends and professional colleagues introduce you at an event or party do they get what you actually do?

Download full presentation from 2011 SEEC.org, click on the image.

Need more ideas on expanding your market presence with publicity? Check out our Publicity Da-To list.

Part 3 of a 3 part series on visiting Nigeria.
Does it snow in Buffalo? Of course it does. And branding always matters when a destination, a person, or a cause competes.  Just like with businesses, products and services. Brands are cumulative mental impressions and serve as an edge to connect with the market.

Strong brands make the choice easy, whether you are seeking votes, support or investments.

As many of you know who read my blog, I was recently in Lagos, Nigeria addressing the Brand Journalists Association on branding in government. This is the final blog post in series of three. To read the previous posts go to: Part 1, Part 2.

Highlights from my presentation included:
The difference of  commercial branding verses government branding are:

• Goals for government branding should be to provide: public service, help all people and be cost effective
• Selling proposition is also different. In most cases, it is: trust, certainty, integrity
• And the outcome is: confidence and loyalty with the brand, progress with urgency, unity of stakeholders and community pride

My recommendation for improving any brand, commercial or other is to follow this formula. Great brands are molded by these four factors.

1. Simplicity
2. Creativity
3. Unity of voice
4. And consistency

While the focus of my program was on government programs, the topics of country branding, leadership and commercial branding were also addressed. To see my PowerPoint on government branding, click the image below.

My trip to Lagos, Nigeria was memorable and very eye opening experience. The event that I was speaking at had an audience of over 500 marketing, PR, branding journalists and practitioners, and government leaders. An elaborate production, it included a big band and two comedians before my talk, food for miles and room decor like the Oscar Awards. I was seated at the head table with former Minister for Information of Nigeria, Chief Alex Akinyele, Governor Ikedi Ohakim of Imo State and  the husband of Professor Dora Akunyili, both were honorees of the event.

My program was well received. I closed with The Bob Marley parody I produced called Stand up! Brand up! Tell your story Right. The crowd went crazy as everyone stood up and danced along with me, singing the words to the song. Seeing a room full of professionals so excited about the branding field and wanting to learn how they can do it better and can help their country change its perception was amazing. It’s moments like this as a speaker that are truly priceless.

My new friends 5,000 miles away have place in my history and my heart. I will forever be grateful for this very cool opportunity. I hope you enjoyed this journey as much as I did. I look forward to sharing others with you soon! Within a few weeks, I will post the full speech and night on my Youtube channel.

Closing insight I learned from this trip as a speaker on branding.
1) Press conferences are excellent opportunities to promote an event like this when you are visiting a foreign country. Be prepared with your key points and have copies available to provide journalists too.

2) As a presenter in a foreign land, customize your program to the market. I redesigned all of my images to reflect the local culture and received many compliments and accolades about this extra touch.

3) Always carry a printed introduction with you to provide the MC, even if you sent the organization one weeks before the event.

4) Be prepared to shorten your presentation at the moments notice. One of the honorees was three hours late for the event, which meant the program was delayed and the audience was drinking and getting tired. I condensed the content and adding even more energy to grab everyone’s attention.

5) Keep a Powerbar with you, so if things run behind, you are fueled up and not starving.

6) If you are seated with high ranking government officials or celebrities, be ready for extremely aggressive paparazzi and make sure your hair curls are pinned on tight.

Recently, they’ve produced some polarized opinions.

Miracle Whip has launched a “Love Us or Hate Us” campaign complete with a YouTube channel which has a place for people to take a side and sound off, a Facebook page and a Twitter feed. The ads feature people stating how they feel really about Miracle Whip. Reviews range from, “I love it!” to, “it tastes like lotion.”  Not one person thinks it’s “just OK.” Spots also include celebrities that elicit strong reactions from people, the love ‘em or hate ‘em:  “Pauly D” from MTV’s Jersey Shore and James Carville, democratic strategist. The ads seem scripted, but you get the idea and the feedback on the social network supports the campaign’s theme.

Cate Blanchett boldly stepped out on the red carpet at the 83^rd Annual Academy Awards on Sunday in a Givenchy Haute Couture gown.  The internet was abuzz as journalists, bloggers and Twitter users weighed in. Opinions were extreme as people either raved about the dress or declared it awful. In her photos, she appears as a glamorous, fashion-forward woman who is not fazed by negative reviews. She could have easily selected a ho-hum gown thereby avoiding being placed on some worst dressed lists. However, she would have stayed off some best dressed lists, too.

The reactions that these two stirred up is what you want for your brand, company, product, service, book, art, etc. It may be difficult to hear the criticism, but your fans will be as loyal and enthusiastic as your detractors are harsh. When you conjure up these types of reviews, you know that you have clearly defined your brand. There is no question as to what you (or your company, product or service) are all about and you are building your awareness.

The worst thing you can do is to try to be all things to all people. While this strategy may spare you some criticism, it will probably also render you unremarkable and off the radar. A strong brand is authentic, fearless, full of conviction and self-confident.

Need some help differentiating your brand? Our Differentiate your Business Ta-Do List provides you with over 80 ways to be unique and create powerful distinction with products, service and how you market. Or, as always, feel free to email us your questions.

For more on how to define your brand, view:
Can a strong brand make a visit to the dentist less painful?
Blending in is so yesterday: Stand-up, Brand-up!

In less than 9 hours, I will be on a new world stage presenting the concept of branding to over 300 Saudi executives and their team members. I’ll be addressing the changing market place, social media, storytelling and creating lasting customer experiences.

The production will be beyond grand. I suspect no expense has been spared, from an elaborate stage, to all white seating, lights and more. The behind the scenes team include translators, videographers, stage production crew and writers. Plus, a professional master of ceremonies will be on stage with me, while I’m speaking, to ensure nothing goes off course or off message. Today, all the speakers did run throughs, were interviewed and fully prepped on what to convey and what not to say.

All speakers were also asked to submit the three most important points from their presentation. Here are mine.

Brands are:
• Critical for success, competitors are doing it, if you don’t do it, you will be invisible.
• The brand result is a picture you earn in the market’s mind. Deliver the right picture with new mindset.
• Tell your story better, louder & with extreme consistently. Start from the inside out.

Am I nervous? That might not be the best descriptive word to fully state my emotions. I wish I had some Pepto-Bismol® right now.

Am I prepared and ready to do my very best? Absolutely!

More tomorrow after my talk. I have to go to bed early, rest and get fully energized. To follow my entire trip also check out the Oddpodz Grow your Business Blog as I chronicle other issues there.

Here are some of the awesome women from Entourage Marketing and Events who are producing the conference.

I think about this a lot. In fact not a day goes by that I don’t ponder this subject.

Oddpodz has experienced a 70% increase in readership. Our SEO report card score is over 96 out of 100. We post content daily. And believe it’s smart, worthy stuff.

I have set high standards for the blogs’ success. I want traffic 10 times what we are getting. I want to generate more revs from Google ads and  from affiliate partners and I want to sell more our products.

What is the magic move to make this a reality?

A killer best selling book?

More inbound links?

A big publicity hit?

Social media swarm of 10,000 friends?

Pay per click?

Advertising?

More content posting?

Befriending other popular bloggers?

Comment luv?

I will keep you posted.

Need some ideas on social media or SEO. Check out our ebooks. Want more small business and entrepreneurial insight read our other business blog. Interested in restaurant marketing visit our latest initiative.

The Super Bowl has always fascinated me. Beyond that I’m a super fan of the yearly pigskin brawl. Every year it gets bigger and bigger and more bowlicious! In case your marketing handbook does not include that term, it means: voluptuous ‘non-skimpy’ fully effective marketing that makes you and your clients happy.

So why all the excitement about a bunch of guys wearing spandex pants, pads in funny places and banging their helmets into each other for 3 hours?

Because the Super Bowl is:

This week, Taco Bell experienced a greasy brand bump by some hungry law firm.

A lawsuit was filed claiming that Taco Bell was falsely advertising its beef tacos, and allegedly the 99 cents delicacies only had 30% or so beef in them, which is not enough to be defined as beef by the USDA.

The late night comedians, social media channels and journalists have been having a meaty joke and news fest. Taco Bell fired back on Friday with a news statement and full page ads claiming they are grateful in a “Thank you for suing us” campaign and welcomed the opportunity to talk taco with all of their loyal customers and anyone else who is starving for the truth. Additionally since the lawsuit broke, Taco Bell has furthered it’s position by posting ‘The Real Beef Facts’ and a quirky video touting the Super Delicious Ingredients Force, a Saturday Night Live parody that’s worth checking out.

Taco Bell says its beef is 100 percent USDA inspected, and that its recipe is 88 percent beef, 12 percent “secret recipe.”

So did Taco Bell do the right thing, by playing a bold brand defense card after a very public attack?

I’d bet my next tacos on it. When a company is a well known brand like Taco Bell with lots of good, beefy brand equity, sitting back and not saying any thing is not an option. I like that they responded quickly and took a very confident stance on the issue with provable facts. As for the law firm, maybe they need to think outside the goofy, greed gene.

Also, check out: Miracle Whip and Cate Blancett. What do these two have in common?

Guilty as charged. I was listening to Seth Godin, one of my favorite creative-brainys (that is a made up word), on 57 ways to get the world to spread your stuff and suddenly  I needed to go to the little girls’ room. OMG, there were at least 40 minutes left in his Webinar on MarketingProfs,  and even though I have a Pro MarketingProf membership (which is so worth it) and could have replayed it later, I was not willing to put this learning session on hold. I was engaged in every word he was saying.

How did that happen? How do you get people that glued to what you have to say?
Here’s my take on the Seth factor. He’s cool. He’s never boring. He challenges my thinking. He’s nice to listen to, compelling and calm all at the same time. He’s earned the very smart cat badge, a combination of status from credibility builders like his books, speeches and blogging and what others say the big media and fans around globe.

While he did share 57 ideas and some bonuses, here are my top four and what I going to do differently.

1) He does not have guest bloggers.
Why? Because it fuzzes it up.  It is his brand promise to his readers.

As I’m evaluating the guest bloggers on Oddpodz,and I have been thinking about this for a while, he has an excellent point. Plus, guest posts are  a lot of work. And unless they are highly read and  driving traffic, which unfortunately my guest bloggers have not been, the ROI is just not there. So starting next week, the guest bloggers section will be laid to rest. The posts will be archived  and remain on the site, but no new guest bloggers.

2) He blogs everyday.
That’s heavy. and scare the crap out of me to commit to that.

I said he challenged me. OK, then. I love to write. I do interesting stuff every single day. And even if I’m sick or staying in my cave, I think about really interesting things that I know others can benefit from.  If I can’t pump out at least a paragraph a day, then shame on me.

3) He does not tweet.
That’s a side-line of the next takeaway for me. The actual big idea is: he consciously decides that he will not do everything, Tweeting is an activity like golf or collecting fish bones. He knows he does not have the bandwidth to do it well and right, so he’s not going there. I respect that.

I think all to often we put pressure on ourselves to do stuff that’s not really required or in our “do it freakin well zone”.  For me this means not doing stuff that does not deliver happiness, money or peace in your soul. Personally, I like to tweet, it’s a good outlet for my inner soundbite, snarky side.

4) Try. Fail. Repeat.
That’s not a new one for me. But felt it was important for this list. Thank you Seth.

Love your thoughts on any of this.

Check out this Book review – “Tribes” by Seth Godin.