Well, the brain behind it, the I am happy Project, Edwin Edebiri, has come up with a unique event which he calls 10 Days of Happiness.

This initiative is designed to help individuals develop sustainable happiness while making the world a better place.

Tired of the negative messages about the economy, the recession and other doom and gloom coming from the media? Well, now you can do something about it; you can focus on the good things in your life and the community while working to make improvements. The “I Am happy Project,” the brainchild of Edwin Edebiri (a Nigerian-American) based in Corning, California, is inviting people worldwide to participate in a “10 Days of Happiness” campaign which will run from February 1.

Participants are encouraged to join the Global happiness Conference Call at 4 pm pacific or 7pm eastern to focus on one of the project’s manifesto “Ten Ways to Be happy ” for each day of the ten-day period.

There will be different speakers feature on each day of this happiness event:

Day 1: Item # 10 Create a goal or dream list and work diligently towards them.

Day 2: Item # 9 Be active and make healthy choices.

Day 3: Item # 8 Learn to manage your time and your money.

Day 4: Item # 7 Create a list of all the things that make you unhappy and find a solution or ways to eliminate them.

Day 5: Item # 6 Create a list of all the things you are thankful for or that make you happy.

Day 6: Item # 5 Make time for the 3 F’s: Faith, Family & Friends.

Day 7: Item # 4 Donate your money according to your pocket, even if it is a dime.

Day 8: Item # 3 Volunteer your time one on one or to a group.

Day 9: Item # 2 Smile more and learn to laugh at yourself.

Day 10: Item # 1 Decide to be happy and make it your top priority.

Join us each day at 4pm pacific or 7pm east coast time. Please adjust for your time zone. Click here to convert to your time zone.

Skype Instructions

To join the conference calls using Skype, first add “freeconferencing.7124320900” to your contacts. Please do that now. At the schedule date and time of conference call, select the contact and click call. Next, you will locate the key pad and enter the access code 391022 when prompted.

If you cannot join the live call or miss one or a few days, come back a few days after the period and click on the resources tab and global conference call sub tab for all the recordings day by day.

Chukwuemeka Fred Jnr. Agbata

I am CFA [Conditioned for Accomplishments], read more here.  My passion is to Help People become Conditioned for Accomplishments! Use the search button above to search our post archives for loads of valuable articles.

Please Forward and Share any article you find valuable.

I appreciate you for stopping by!!!

If you this post, you may also like any of these:

1. Join the 2012 Happiness Conference Call
2. Introducing My Happiness Journal by Edwin Edebiri, Chief Happiness Officer
3. 10 Ways to be Happy
4. 10 Reasons to join Renegade University
5. Join Olusola Lanre Coaching Club!
6. Happy Holidays
7. A date with Mr. Edwin Edebiri (Past president, American-Nigerian Chamber of Commerce)
8. You are invited to attend a Be Inspired to Succeed (BITS) Business Event
9. 3 Effective Ways To Approach Strategy Development For Your Small Business

This is to prove that names are not just cultural but very significant.

Domain name defined

A domain name is basically the address of a website online, so for instance this blog is called Conditioned for Accomplishments (CFA) with the domain name www.CFAgbata.com which I formed out my first, middle and surname names.

Tips to help you select a good Domain name:

1. Go for a Keyword Rich Domain name

SEO again? Someone might say not again, why so much noise about SEO?

Well, it’s simply because SEO professionals now play a major role both in choosing a good domain name as well as building a new website, so SEO plays a key role here.

CFAgbata.com is no doubt becoming an authority domain by the day but this domain name is nowhere near being keyword rich. Think about it, who is going to search for cfagbata online? It is not a product nor a service, so it’s tough.

Now, compare the domain name CFAagbata.com with www.AwesomeBizTips.com, owned by Fayo Williams, one of my partners and students. She has a much better keyword rich domain that is likely to do much better because ordinarily people are searching for “biz tips”

Now am I worried about the CFAgbata.com domain name not being keyword rich? The answer is a Yes. As early as yesterday, I asked my US based SEO colleague what he thought about it? Below is a screenshot of his reply;

Marketing takeaway: Make sure your domain name contains a highly searched keyword or keyword phrase.

2. A Good Domain Name should be Short

Yes you are free to register a 50 word domain name but why do that? Imagine the pain you would put your clients and subscribers through if you do that?

Imagine someone says to you, my domain name is callmeandIwillbetherewiththefoodforyoualone.com? (this will be every hilarious to see or hear). This is one of the reasons I chose to stick with CFAgbata.com, though not keyword rich, it is only 7 characters which means it meets one of the criteria of a good domain name.

I remember back then it was a struggle between fredagbata.com and CFAgbata.com, then I had not yet come up with this whole CFA concept. I actually registered the domain name fredagbata.com but the guy refused to develop my blog even after payment.

Boy was I sad? You bet I was but guess what? I am glad he never did because that bad experience helped me come up with the CFA concept which I am so very proud of today. This is a case of turning a bad experience into a good story!

Marketing Takeaway: Insist on a shorter domain name, if possible try other extensions. The shorter the better.

3. Register some other extensions of your domain name

Domain names come with different extensions while some i.e. .com, .net, .org, are referred to as Top level domains (TLDs) others are known as country specific domains i.e. .com.ng is for Nigeria, .com.uk is for United Kingdom, .co.za is for South Africa.

Almost, all countries of the world have theirs and some smart nations are using theirs as a foreign exchange earner. For example .tv is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the Islands of Tuvalu, a small but smart country that has earned some much from this gift of Nature.

I understand that Nigeria actually has another exclusive .ng that is sold for as much as One Million Dollars ($1,000,000) each (I have not verified the exact cost) but to prove that it really exists here is Google’s version of the. ng url www.google.ng – clicking this redirects you to the main www.google.com site.

Marketing Takeaway: Don’t bother registering all your domain extensions, just register a few. In my case, I registered www.CFAgbata.com and CFAgbata.net (which I use for sending email newsletters) and then I registered a country specific domain name www.cfa.com.ng to protect the CFA brand locally. Both are redirected to this blog.

Notice I said some and not all. You can only register all if you are as a big as Google.

4. Avoid Domain Names with Hyphens

If you are a newbie to the internet space then heed my advice and warning: Avoid a domain name that has an hyphen.

Yes there are a couple of very successful websites that have domain names with hypens, which means there is an exception to this rule. Should that be a reason for you not to adhere to my advice? Well its up you but I encourage to obey.

Some Exceptions to this Rule

Yaro Starak is founder www.entrepreneurs-journey.com while this domain has an hypen, it is

a pretty old domain, which makes it an authority domain.

Also note that it has “entrepreneurs” a highly competitive and highly searched keyword as the first part of the domain name. He is an early bird to the internet and a lot worked in his favour. If you are starting out today, I doubt if you will be that lucky, except for those with a huge SEO budget.

Recently, I was appointed to the ICT committee of Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International Nigeria, a 60 years old fellowship of the Happiest People on Earth, when I was asked to review the website and come up with recommendations, I got confused because how am I supposed to tell my fellowship that the domain name www.fgbmfi-nigeria.org registered since 2003 should be changed because it has an hypen?

I am sure you know what I did……

Marketing Takeaway: Just save youself any unforseen stress and avoid domain names with hyphens. If you have an old domain name with an hypen, you can live with it as long as competition does not have the exact same one without an hyphen.

Someone might ask, what if my Small Business’s name is not keyword rich?

Well that is a brilliant question, I can’t imagine a small business looking for international clients to have a domain name as difficult as www.gbongbongidiyakpa.com irrespective if that is the business name or not.

Wisdom is profitable to direct – Ecclesiastes 10:10

This is a practical example of how we handled this sort of situation. Our company name is CFA Leverage, so we registered the domain name www.cfaleverage.com which is the natural thing to do.

But www.cfaleverage.com is not a keyword rich domain name, so we registered another domain www.seoexpertng.com that represents one of our major services which is SEO Services. We then created a permanent redirect such that if you click on www.cfaleverage.com it takes you to www.seoexpertng.com

I hope this helps and you learnt a thing or two? Please go on now and implement!

Feel free to share your experience if you have a website? How did you go about choosing a domain name?

Note: If this sounds too difficult for you then you should order our comprehensive Keyword Research, Domain Name Ideas and Title Tag SEO Services package. Prices start from as low as N10,000 ($60) and you can be sure of getting the best value for your money!

Chukwuemeka Fred Jnr. Agbata

I am CFA [Conditioned for Accomplishments], read more here.  My passion is to Help People become Conditioned for Accomplishments! Use the search button above to search our post archives for loads of valuable articles.

Please Forward and Share any article you find valuable.

I appreciate you for stopping by!!!

If you this post, you may also like any of these:

1. Search Engine Optimization is the Lifeblood of your Website

In a bid to help more people become Conditioned for Accomplishments, we have come up with an affordable but highly effective video marketing service which is also part of the valuable SEO Services we are offering.

Here is the sweetest aspect of our video marketing service; it will cost you $30 (N5,000) only to enjoy this premium service.

No, this is not just a regular video marketing service, it is rather comprehensive. We have properly packaged our video marketing service to include;

1. Video Creation
2. Video Submission
3. SEO

Let me explain why our video marketing service is the most valuable you will come across online;

1. Video Creation

Order this service now and we will create a one minute video like the one above making use of the content on your website. We’ll take some screenshots of your website and add a soundtrack – you are free to send in any soundtrack of your choice before the project starts.

Note: If you desire a more custom video, then you can contact us to discuss that.

We want to keep this as basic as it can be, so that many small business owners would find it affordable.

This part is optional, if you already have a professional video then we can as well use that.

2. Video Submission

After creating the video, we will submit it to 10 different video hosting websites i.e. Youtube.

Due to the viral nature of these sites, it will definitely announce you and your business to the world. It will attract prospective clients to your website and most importantly strengthen your brand online.

We can submit the video to as many as 100 sites but that comes with a different price. Contact us for more info.

3. Now the SEO part

I beg your pardon but I just can’t do anything without thinking SEO because it is the future – mark my words, a time will come when business owners will pay SEO experts handsomely to help their businesses online.

Back to SEO and the video, a bad local SEO services company would simply upload your videos online without bothering about the keywords and description but as a professional seo services company, we are completely different in this regards because we will certainly add your site’s keywords and description (this comes with an additional fee, if we need to re-write it) to the video as we upload on all the sites.

An example of the keywords and description we added while uploading the above video:

CFA Nigeria is the most reliable Website Consultant that provides SEO Services and Social Media Marketing Strategy which will help you define, update and automate your business processes effortlessly. Browse through the website for specialized business consulting services.

As you may have observed, this will increase the number of visitors to your site as well as boost your SEO rankings.

Final Thoughts

A Videos is a powerful means of reaching your potential clients, so ordering this low priced but highly valuable service would go a long way in helping your small business or emerging business grow.

Order CFA Nigeria‘s video marketing service today for $30 (N5,000)!

Chukwuemeka Fred Jnr. Agbata

I am CFA [Conditioned for Accomplishments], read more here.  My passion is to Help People become Conditioned for Accomplishments! Use the search button above to search our post archives for loads of valuable articles.

Please Forward and Share any article you find valuable.

I appreciate you for stopping by!!!

If you this post, you may also like any of these:

1. Video Marketing Advantages: Hints from Official Online Video Usage Report
2. Use Video Marketing to Increase Traffic to your Website
3. The Advantage of Internet Marketing Service versus the Traditional Way of Marketing
4. Using Twitter to grow your Network Marketing Business
5. Google Trader and How to Launch Your Own Internet Marketing Business in the Next Few Hours
6. 4 Ways to Use Article Marketing as an SEO Strategy
7. Robert Kiyosaki believes in Network Marketing
8. Is there a strategy that is the Best Business Model for Internet Marketing
9. 5 Marketing Strategies for your Small Business in 2012
10. eMail Marketing: Does It Work Anymore in the Face of Social Marketing?

Why Video Marketing? Why Now?

There is one powerful benefit of online marketing that you must never lose focus on. This is that when compared with the offline world, popularity begets more popularity in easier, faster and cheaper manners. Even if you look at what I call popularity here as public acceptance, admiration, fame or reputation, we are equally having the same view on the viral advantage in the digital space.

At this point, if I say that every business owner knows that the best and swiftest ways to gain customers’ acceptance or admiration on the internet today is video marketing, I will be wrong. Making a conclusion like that will be too hasty and so it will be totally wrong because many business owners are found still questioning the relevance of video marketing to their businesses. The small business owners are especially found much more hesitant in realizing the roles of video marketing in driving their business positioning and exposure. I will like us to leave the issue of my being hasty or wrong for now and go to the online video usage official report provided by NielsenWire.com:

Noting that the report presented here is only for November, 2011 and only for U.S.A, seeing what this will interpret to this year and at this moment wouldn’t surprise you. It is on record that
millions of people are already using video search engines to find all sorts of services, products, professionals, experts etc. on the internet and that this number is expected to double within a short time.

Now, having shown you the summarized report, may I ask you the following questions?

Do you want, MORE EFFECTIVELY, to:

• showcase your expertise and promote your being recognized as an industry or thought leader?
• raise your own and your business brand and reputation?
• increase traffic to your website for more sales leads, sales or profit?
• choose and use better marketing solutions.
• make positive use of social media and other technology tools, trends and advancement?
• create and develop lasting relationship with your customers?
• demonstrate the reasons why your business is a better choice over your competitors?
• engage your customers or clients with the most interactive and powerful, yet free or cheap marketing tools available?
• get your business information appeared in the second largest search engine in the world as well as in similar ones?
• make your business enjoy more than 45% better chance of ranking above you competitors with today’s video SEO?

May be, you will need to look at the table above again before you answer the questions. With the usage data presented and the list of better opportunities now available for businesses in attaining all the business goals indicated in the above questions and more, did you find any clue pointing to opportunities in video marketing?

If your responses to the listed questions are positive, then you don’t need to contend with whether video marketing can be relevant to your business. I am sure in telling you that video marketing is relevant to you and your business, not even later but now.

If your responses to those questions are positive, this message from Hort Joepen, CEO of Searchmetrics is for you. As he puts it,

With video and images on the rise, the path for SEOs is clear. It makes sense for marketers to increase the volume of video and image content (that means photos too) they’re creating and to optimize it both on their own sites and on third party sites such as YouTube and Flickr.

If your responses to those questions are positive, this message from Ramon Ray of BusinessInsider.com is also for you: Listen to him:

A video email gives your message a face and a voice to communicate more effectively with your clients, telecasting may not be an option for smaller businesses but thanks to the internet, small businesses can use the traditional …methods to promote their businesses with the help of video emailing”.

Now, here is my quick advice…

Whether you want to put up your video marketing using video broadcasting websites or emailing, it is more important that you start now. Are you about to ask about how and where to start your own video marketing? Click here to read about jumpstarting your video marketing campaign by yourself and click here to have a social media coach to start or go along with you.

Don’t forget this. Even if so many people are still not optimistic about video marketing being a top technique for promoting businesses today, millions of people who had gained from it and promoting its usage could not be wrong. Don’t forget, also, that popularity begets more popularity in easier, faster and cheaper manners on the internet. However, there must be a beginning – even for video marketing

…just my hints for you to act on and reap from video marketing.

To your video marketing success.

Image Credits: www.HubSpot.com | www.NielsenWire.com

Joe Oye

Joe Oye is a non-fiction author and a ghostwriter. Being adherent to minimalism, he helps people focus on and implement their career, business and personal aspirations in simple and quick ways by guiding them to workable ideas, fresh possibilities and emergent opportunities.

He is the brain behind Written by Nigerians for Nigerians, a website dedicated to helping Nigerian graduates to fast-track their ways to the top in the areas of career, business and personal improvement

  

If you this post, you may also like any of these:

1. Use Video Marketing to Increase Traffic to your Website
2. Our Affordable Video Marketing Service can Help your Business Grow
3. 4 Ways to Use Article Marketing as an SEO Strategy
4. eMail Marketing: Does It Work Anymore in the Face of Social Marketing?
5. Robert Kiyosaki believes in Network Marketing
6. Local Business Marketing Booms: Facts Aspiring Internet Marketers Must Master to Make Steady Income
7. The Advantage of Internet Marketing Service versus the Traditional Way of Marketing
8. 4 Internet Marketing Strategies you can Implement this Year
9. Is there a strategy that is the Best Business Model for Internet Marketing
10. Totally Free Ways to Take Your Local Business Online

I stayed in my hometown for well over 4 weeks, to help the recovery process, only to be greeted with a Justhost.com account suspension a few days after I returned to Lagos;

Boy, was I frustrated with Justhost.com? You bet I was.

I wondered who I had offended or who was after me? I had to go to God in prayers for this blog, sounds funny, right? Well I did and God answered my prayers.

I just wanted to use this opportunity to thank everyone (including tools) that played a role during this period.

1. To God Almighty for his mercies, grace and love. My Creator and master made a way where there seemed to be no way because at a point it appeared like close to 3 years of hard labour would be lost due to Justhost.com attitude.

Trust me, Justhost.com acted like they were under some sort of spell.

Lesson: God cares about those little things that concern you, if only you talk to Him.

2. To Edwin Edebiri, my friend and mentor for giving Justhost.com a call and informing them that I have fundamental rights as a customer.

To show you that at a point I got confused and angry, here is a conversation I had with Edwin:

Edwin encouraged me not to give up and I am glad I did not. Nigeria has a great son in him and this blog will be hosting him in the days ahead.

Lesson: Surround yourself with quality people.

3. To Joe Oye, for his words of wisdom and support. Our relationship is the beauty of the internet, he found me via Google and since then we have become good partners.

Lesson: Use the internet to create lasting relationships.

4. To our friends, partners and subscribers too numerous to mention who contacted us one way or the other about the development. We appreciate you all.

5. To cPanel hosting backend. This is my recommended backend if you must host a website. I recommend Inmotion Hosting because they are simply great!

God made a way for me to get our files via cPanel in a most unusual way when Justhost.com will not release them.

6. To WordPress. The best and most innovate CMS as far as I am concerned. This platform made the transition to our new home easier!

7. WordPress Plugins. With wordpress comes millions of great plugins especially the free backup plugin.

I’ll write about my experience with Justhost.com so as to help folks out there make informed decisions when choosing a host.

Who is your favourite host and why? Have you had any experience with Justhost.com?

Chukwuemeka Fred Jnr. Agbata

I am CFA [Conditioned for Accomplishments], read more here.  My passion is to Help People become Conditioned for Accomplishments! Use the search button above to search our post archives for loads of valuable articles.

Please Forward and Share any article you find valuable.

I appreciate you for stopping by!!!

If you this post, you may also like any of these:

1. Thank You for your Support during the Demise and Burial of my sister Ada Miracle Agbata

I am here with you now with one of the vital business clues…

Hardly can one win an argument against the fact that thinking about how to market a business is equal to thinking about how to influence or persuade potential buyers. I don’t know how long ago you, as an experienced or aspiring business owner, have had an intensive reading on the psychology of marketing. I did this of recent and all what I discovered have been so fascinating.

Let’s kick in into the business clue straightaway.

Reading the title above, you have been made curious, I suppose, to know what being a professor especially will have to do with business clues. This is it. Professors have esteemed value within and even outside the academia. They are bestowed with high level of authority, particularly within their scholastic specialties. They are owed due recognition based on the attribute of authority. Among the lawyers and similar circles of experts, the same pattern holds and this quality remains ever influential.

Now, let’s look at the use of authority in business.

In business, the application of authority is also possible, though in a stealth manner, and it is observed that many business owners are not optimizing the use of this great marketing psychology trait. Yet, this is one of the best perception-based tools business owners should tap into. Why? The reason is that we highly tend to dance to the tune of authoritative entities.

Mind you, I am not advocating that businesses should become imposing in relating with their targets. This wouldn’t even work well for business advancement. If you can recollect along with me, our parents have thought us about giving respect to authorities. Our teachers, the priests or pastors, the lawyers, the police, the government, the boss or any other significant others including our peers; they all help us in realizing the need to give social or civil respect to authorities. Many of these authorities have physical symbols which, when seen, naturally make us prone to display due respect and decorum. When the authorities direct, instruct, protect, advocate for us or direct us in some ways, we are very likely to become submissive because of the value that we perceive of them.

Materials such as royal insignia, badges, regalia and even titles (president, governors, professor, mayor, engineer, millionaire) as well as possession related exclusive products make us adore their bearers. Imagine a co-spectator with whom you were cheering up football players yesterday and today, you met in uniform as a top-ranked police officer or as a medical staff in surgeon scrubs or in doctor’s coat with a stethoscope hanged on his neck. You will agree that the latter person you met will be more influential on your actions than that person of yesterday.

Your reactions to authority are found to be natural and quite tending to give immediate ‘yes’ answers to relatively all given directions. The influence involved is so powerful that it becomes a norm for interrelating with the authorities in a no-look-back manner. The authorities, therefore, care so much for this norm and try to maintain and maximize its use as far as possible. Personally and professionally, the concerned always ensure that the authoritative values placed on them are not allowed to decline. This is where the clue is for business owners to leverage.

For you the business owners, your ‘authoritative’ influence is called credibility. If this is ensured to become an attribute of the relationship with your customers or clients, the results will be repeat buying, referrals, upsells and even volume buying; a sum of which can interpret to faster and more than double or triple profits. Like the authority of a professor or a lawyer is fostered, business credibility is esteemed by customers or clients and it does serve a business for long if not left to be tarnished.

How Businesses can Ensure High-Level Credibility

Top on the list of what you must do to ensure increasingly valued credible posture in your business are:

Build Trust

Build trust for yourself. Do the things that will make your customers to be assured of your dedication, service and reliability.

Be Present

This simply put is that you must engage your customers interactively and you must not be tired wherever your customers want you engaged in terms of communication, clarifications, support and the likes.

Be Up to Date

Never be a laggard in your industry in terms of positive trends, technology and industry best practices. Always showcase these in all the ways you relate with your customers and don’t forget to put all your customer interactions on the platforms on demand.  The social media is an example of such platforms of interaction.

Be ‘Proud’

Be proud (i.e. poised) to tell the stories of your achievements of your business and about customer relationship. Be proud to have and disseminate the testimonials regarding your business as provided by your customers or clients.

Build your Brand

This is the totality of doing all you have got to do to ensure that the business standard or model you want is achieved. In fact, building your brand means building your business; not excluding your personal brand.

One more thing about building your business credibility

You have to build it yourself.

When engaging other people to help in building your business ‘authority’, you have to take the lead and get deeply involved in bench-marking and putting it to practice. This is to point it out to you that you can never be isolated in building your own business credibility.

Note it again that you cannot be authoritative on your customers. Unlike the lawyers, doctors, governors (etc.) who are publicly or officially or corporately or professionally recognized, you are to provide the proof that you are what you say you are. Note this also: building your credibility is not a one-off process as it must be monitored, maintained and tailored towards making profits unceasingly.

To your business success.

Joe Oye

Joe Oye is a non-fiction author and a ghostwriter. Being adherent to minimalism, he helps people focus on and implement their career, business and personal aspirations in simple and quick ways by guiding them to workable ideas, fresh possibilities and emergent opportunities.

He is the brain behind Written by Nigerians for Nigerians, a website dedicated to helping Nigerian graduates to fast-track their ways to the top in the areas of career, business and personal improvement

  

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Guest post by Lianne Froggatt. Do you wish to write and gain exposure? Read our write for us guidelines.

I am a big fan of Pinterest, after being introduced to this site a few months ago it has become my go to when I have a couple of hours spare to happily browse through some pretty and imaginative pins.

Yet, on quite a few of my recent forays onto this site, I have begun to notice the prevalence of re-pinning and the increasing amount of times I am coming across the same pins over and over again.

Is Pinterest in danger of becoming the biggest online echo chamber?

Pinterest portrays itself to be an online pin board, a site on which you can pin, share and organize anything you find across the web. A brilliant concept and I am very hopeful of the future of this site for online marketing and SEO.

Not only will a Pinterest account allow you to create an online catalogue of sorts, showcasing your products and services to the pinning community, but every time something from your site is pinned, you receive a dofollow link back to your site from a high domain authority (DA).

The concern I have relating to Pinterest as an echo chamber could prove beneficial or detrimental for businesses utlising this site. By an echo chamber, I refer to the tendency that we all have to congregate in online communities of people that share our beliefs, views and interests and do not challenge ourselves with opinions or information from outside of these bubbles. This seems almost even more apparent on Pinterest due to the visual nature of the site.

I believe there are both pros and cons to be drawn from this prevalence of repinning for online marketers:

Pros of repinning through Pinterest

1. As a company, you can see what has been repinned and shared frequently and try and emulate this in your campaigns or products. In a sense, an echo chamber on Pinterest can be looked at as a huge market research site, providing you with a visual insight into the interests of your desired clientele.

2. Every time your content is repinned, you receive another link to your site.

3. Lots of repins is brilliant exposure for that product or company.

4. Conversation can be ignited around a popular pin: if it is your product or service that can be fabulous for business!

5. Rather than people having to visit your site and find the content you want pinning, a repin can spread this content quickly.

Cons of repinning using Pinterest

1. Customers could become sick of seeing your product and determinedly avoid it. Repins to a prolific extent tend to look quite spammy, like they are being pushed by an individual or company.

2. The classic problem of echo chambers still stands no-one is discovering anything new! If you are unlucky enough to be on the outskirts of an echo chamber, your product services could fall by the wayside.

So what does this mean for marketing and Pinterest; is the formation of echo chambers an inevitable feature of the design of the site? And if this is the case is this necessarily a bad thing?

I believe that echo chambers can be extremely beneficial for marketing campaigns if you utilise them effectively, so here are a few tips that could help you infiltrate those Pinterest echo chambers and make the most out of the echo chamber effect on this site:

1. Engage with people.

Start by browsing through Pinterest looking for other pinners who are interested in your niche. Comment on their pins and ask them questions. This may encourage them to follow your or you boards and pull you into their echo chamber.

2. Make sure the content that you pin is interesting and aesthetically pleasing.

Pinterest is first and foremost a visual platform so by ensuring your content looks good, you are more likely to achieve repins and infiltrate these echo chambers.

I hope this helps? Have you tried using Pinterest before now?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Lianne is Digital Communications Manager at IdeasByNet, a UK promotional gifts distributor. Interested in online marketing, blogging and social media, she would love any feedback or comments. You can find her at lianne.froggatt@ideasbynet.com or tweet her @Lianne_Froggatt.
________________________________________________________________________________________

Our guest writers are folks who wish to be part of knowledge expansion drive and want to gain exposure to an international audience while boosting their sites rankings. Does that describe you? Submit an article and be featured on this site as well.

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A few days ago I received a mail on Linkedin from the Minister of Finance, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Nigeria) trying to sell the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P).

I doubt if the Minister sent this mail personally (it is immaterial who did), what is of importance is that the Minister or her team is taking the time and pain to reach out to Nigerians to generate support for the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P). This is simply called Social Media Marketing at its bestl

Details of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P)

Against the backdrop of the recent debate on the removal of fuel subsidy and the calculated misinformation being peddled by opponents of this policy, it is pertinent to highlight, in more tangible terms, some of the significant allocations that have been made to essential sectors of the economy, both in the 2012 budget as well as the recently-launched Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P). This programme is a 3—4 year programme designed to mitigate the immediate impact of the removal of fuel subsidy and accelerate economic growth through investments in critically-needed infrastructure.

It is noteworthy that, while the 2012 budget allocated the best possible amounts to these critical projects, additional resources are allocated to the same projects in the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) to ensure that they are completed at faster rates than envisioned in the 2012 budget.

Some of the projects and allocations are as follow:

WORKS
• N11bn is allocated to the Abuja-Lokoja road in the 2012 Budget, with an additional N14bn from the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P).
• N6bn is allocated to Benin-Ore-Shagamu, with an additional N16.5bn to be financed through SURE Programme.
• N3bn is allocated to Port-Harcourt–Onitsha road, with an additional N5bn from the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P).
• Similarly, N18.5bn is allocated to Kano-Maiduguri road, with an additional N1.5bn from SURE Programme.
• Provision is made in the 2012 budget for construction of the Second Niger Bridge (N2bn) and Oweto Bridge (N3.5bn). An additional N5.5bn and N4bn would be spent on both bridges respectively from the SURE Programme.
• Provision of N23.5bn is made for maintenance of roads and bridges across the country through Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA).

POWER
• The total amount allocated to the power sector (including Bulk Trader, Nelmco, and Multi-Year Tariff Order (MYTO) and PHCN privatization) is N248bn.
• A sum of N392 million allocated to Nigeria Electricity Liability Management Company and N650 million for Bulk Trader.
• In the 2012 Budget Proposal, a sum of N3.7bn is allocated to the Kaduna Dual Fired Power Plant.
• Similarly, N2bn is allocated for the completion of the small and medium hydro-electric power plants Oyan Dam Hydro Power (Ogun state).
• A sum of N2.2bn is allocated for feasibility studies regarding the establishment of coal fired power plants.
• Additionally, N155bn will be spent on Power projects (Mambilla power plant, Coal Power Plant and Small Hydro power plants) through the SURE-P over the period 2012-2015.

AGRICULTURE & RURAL DEVELOPMENT
• The total allocation to the sector is N78.98bn
• N4bn is allocated to research and mechanisation
• Provision of N1.22bn is made for the construction of access roads to each of the 6 Staple Crop Processing Zones.
• Value Chain: N720 million is allocated to the development of value chains in cocoa, rice, maize, livestock, cotton and others sectors.
• N1bn is allocated to the Price stabilisation scheme.
• N610 million to facilitate for the access to credit, fertilizers and seeds.
• An additional sum of US$500m is expected from Development Finance Institute to support the sector.

TRANSPORT
• Rail lines: The 2012 budget allocates N3.95bn, N3.15bn and N3.35bn to the construction and completion of Abuja-Kaduna, Lagos-Ibadan and Ajaokuta-Warri rail lines respectively. In addition, the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) allocates N11.6bn to the Abuja-Kaduna line and N9.3bn to the Lagos-Ibadan line.
• Provision of N800mn is made for the procurement of wagons, coaches and locomotives.
• Dredging project: N1.2bn is allocated to the dredging of Lower River Niger (Warri-Baro).

EDUCATION
• The total allocation to the sector is N400bn
• N11.6bn is allocated for existing universities.
• N7.7bn is allocated for the restructuring to Unity Schools.
• National Teachers Institute: The 2012 budget allocates N3.5bn to the retraining of teachers for basic education and training in innovative teaching.
• Moreover, an additional N24.6bn will be spent on vocational training centres from the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P).

HEALTH
• N4.6bn is allocated to the Polio eradication programme
• N3.5bn is allocated to the procurement of HIV/AIDS Drugs
• The sum of N174 million is allocated to Integrated maternal, newborn and child health strategy, including capacity building, and promoting school health initiatives.
• N8.42bn is allocated to Federal University Teaching Hospitals.
• N6bn and N3.6bn are allocated to the procurement of vaccines and midwifery service scheme respectively.
• An additional N73.8bn will be spent on Maternal and Child heath from Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P).

AVIATION
• Various Airports: N22.2bn is allocated for the modernization of airport terminals and upgrading of facilities in the six geopolitical zones of the country.

FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY ADMINISTRATION
• N3.1bn is allocated to the construction of a 20,000m3/hr lower Usuma dam Water Treatment Plants.
• N2.5bn is allocated to the construction of Cultural and Millennium Tower.
• N1.25bn is allocated to the Development of Idu Industrial Area (1b Engineering Infrastructure).
• Various road projects including the completion of roads B6, B12 and circle road (N4bn), rehabilitation and expansion of airport Expressway (N7.53bn).

NIGER DELTA
• East-West Road (Section I—V): The 2012 budget allocated N22.2bn to this road. In order to accelerate its completion, an additional N21.7bn is allocated in 2012 from the SURE programme.

WATER RESOURCES
• N1.2bn is allocated to the construction of Central Ogbia Regional Water Project.
• A total of N4bn are allocated to the construction of dams.
• Other provision for water facilities (i.e. regional water supply scheme) of N8bn.
• Rehabilitation of river Basin authorities (12 nos) of N13.91bn.
• Moreover, over the period 2012-2015 an additional N205.5bn will be invested in rural water scheme, water supply scheme, irrigation scheme and other water related projects from Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P).

These projects will not only significantly improve the country’s infrastructure, but will also create millions of jobs for Nigerians. This struggle is not between the government and Nigerians, because government is squarely on the side of the people. The fight is between the government and Nigerians on one side, and persons who are bent on continuing their age-long “milking” of the system for their personal benefits on the other side.

Please let us support government’s efforts at defeating these persons, and creating a better country for all Nigerians.

***The End

My question to you is simple; should we give this Government a chance and monitor them using Social Media?

Chukwuemeka Fred Jnr. Agbata

I am CFA [Conditioned for Accomplishments], read more here.  My passion is to Help People become Conditioned for Accomplishments! Use the search button above to search our post archives for loads of valuable articles.

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There are many social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Foursquare and LinkedIn. There are also more and more social media sites that are being developed each and every day. As more and more folks flock to these social sites, it has become imperative for businesses of all types to have a social media presence.

As you take your business onto the social web, there are many dos and don’ts, tips and tricks, best practices, and more that you should follow in order to best represent your business online.

The following are just 10 tips for using these social media sites for your business to help you get started.

1.) Set up accounts on as many networks as you can.

This doesn’t mean you need to get active on these networks, and you don’t even have to complete a profile. Much like you want to buy related domains to protect your name from the competition, you will want to be sure that competing sites or unreasonable disgruntled customers can’t set up an account on your name. One day using that network may make sense, and then you can get active.

2.) Be easy to find.

You will want to make sure that you have all social media accounts set up so that you are searchable. Additionally, you should be sure that your business name is the profile name if at all possible with as few additional characters as possible.

3.) Set up business accounts.

Some social media networks, like Twitter, don’t have dedicated business accounts, but many others do. Be sure to set up the proper account type, as otherwise you may be in violation of the networks terms and you could find yourself booted.

4.) Use an appropriate profile picture.

Ideally, your profile picture should be a company logo or an image of your location or a product. Just make sure that whatever you choose, make it relevant to your business. This is key for your social media success.

5.) Don’t use the default image.

If you don’t have good image for a profile picture, get one right away. Don’t use the default image, as that will make your business look less credible, and it may cause some visitors to wonder if they are viewing a legitimate social media account.

6.) Talk back.

Social media is about connections and conversations. You don’t have to address every comment or post that mentions your business, but direct questions need to be answered, even if only to direct them to the proper way to contact customer care or to link to a website for frequently asked questions. If you ignore comments, especially negative ones, you might be making a PR nightmare for yourself.

7.) Give a call to action.

The best way to get folks to interact with your company or brand online is by giving a call to action. Asking a question, requesting feedback or telling them to visit a site or click like is a good way to get them to interact with your business and make the most out of these social media sites.

8.) Learn how the social media sites you are using work.

Many of these individual sites have tips and special features that can help you to make the most out of your social media campaign. Twitter has the “@” sign and hashtags, for example. Learn how to utilize these features for optimum benefit.

9.) See what your competitors are doing.

As you ease into social media, you should see what competing companies and comparable businesses are doing with their websites. By looking at the social media profiles of a few of your competitors, you should be able to get a feel for what’s working and what isn’t for them, letting you learn from their mistakes and their successes.

10.) Let people know you are on the social web.

These sites aren’t a lot of good if no one knows you are using them. People probably won’t be moved enough by the drapes they bought from Colleens Curtain Warehouse to take the time to look the business up on Facebook or Twitter. Put your social media URLs anywhere you can: on your webpage, on business cards, on marketing materials, in your email footer and more.

Did I miss out any social media tips? Please share

Kevin writes for trojanalert.net, a site emphasizing Trojan reviews.

Our guest writers are folks who wish to be part of knowledge expansion drive and want to gain exposure to an international audience while boosting their sites rankings. Does that describe you? Submit an article and be featured on this site as well.

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Google Plus may not quite be drawing in the same amount users as Facebook, but millions have already begun drifting over to this unique and potentially powerful social networking platform.

Combined with Google’s many other sub-companies and features, Google+ adds a new dynamic to all facets of social networking and social media networking. This has many users wondering how they can get more friends on Google Plus.

Here are a few quick tips that will begin to draw new people into your Google Plus circles today

1. Invite “Old” Friends Into A New Social Network

People would be hard-pressed to find a significant number of Google Plus users that do not also maintain a Facebook page. This means that there is a treasure trove of friends that are already available to be migrated over.

Searching through LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare accounts is the perfect way to immediately bolster one’s floundering Google Plus account.

2. Import Emails From Friends and Contacts

Working closely alongside Google Plus is Google’s Gmail. It takes only moments to import a huge friend and contact list into Google Plus to begin finding people that may already be on this social networking site. For those with mammoth email and contact lists, it is going to be important to only import those that they wish to interact with and be careful about what social circles they place them in.

A huge feature of Google Plus is the ability to add various individuals into separate circles, keeping a tidy separation between family, close friends, work contacts, and everyone in between.

3. Get Proactive: Find Interesting Topics and Interact

Much like Twitter, Google Plus makes it easy to search out topics and interact with complete strangers or popular personalities. After finding an interesting topic, there are countless ways to interact including the +1 button, commenting, sharing, and adding to circles.

4. Offer New and Valuable Information

Posting personal tidbits is not always enough to draw a huge amount of friends on Google Plus. With this social network it may take a little bit more to keep a steady stream of friends filtering in.

Users can offer funny links, important videos, coupons, local events, or any other exciting information that other people on Google Plus are going to want to see.

5. Help Others

Google Plus is also the perfect place to help those in need. This networking sight can quickly turn into a lightning fast support group for any of those that need it. Whether people do not remember the name of a movie, or are unsure of which smartphone to buy this season, valuable advice can become an invaluable tool when finding new friends and building a lasting relationship.

This strategy is helpful if you intend to use Google Plus for Business.

6. Take Your Time, Do Not Push Too Hard

For the impatient Google+ users out here, it seems all too easy to begin spamming anyone and everyone into their circles.

Unfortunately, this may just lead to annoying other members. It is important to remember that it takes time to build up circles on Google Plus and it should never be rushed.

7. Install The googleCards Plugin Into Your WP Site

For those with blogging WordPress sites, the googleCards plugin can be a huge benefit to both the blog and blogger’s Google Plus account. This seamless widget allows readers to quickly link to Google Plus and add followers with a single click of the screen.

8. Be Yourself and Have Fun

Last but not least, Google+ members should remember to have fun. While it can be a powerful tool for interaction, it is still a social networking platform at its heart. Trying too hard to bolster circles is only going to result in frustration and annoyance.

Instead, taking time to build up circles while having fun will result in a much more satisfying experience for everyone involved.
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Jeff is also a consultant and content contributor for Queens luxury condos community.
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Jeff Gross

Jeff has been blogging since 2007 and contributing on many websites since that time. He is an internet marketing consultant and a part time blogger. He writes mostly about blogging, internet marketing, Pay Per Click Strategies and Search Engine Optimization techniques and best practices.

    

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