Thanks for the visit, my blog has moved to the official: www.ZaggedEdge.com

Here is the strategy I have developed over the past few days for promoting my social networking brand: ZaggedEdge.com

Use this strategy! Let me know if it works for you.

1. Start tweeting:  See my previous post on How to get more followers on Twitter
2. Include your link on all emails, Facebook, everywhere you are online
3. Comment on other’s blogs–people will read your comments and start following you
4. Ping people who’s blogs interest you
5. The more links back to your site, the better SEO!
6. Use Social Bookmarking
7. Digg everything, friend people on digg who like the stuff you do
8. Stumble everything, friend people on stumble who like the stuff you do
9. Submit to blog Catalog’s
10. Focus on just a few social networks: Facebook, Digg, Stumble Upon, Cool Spotters, LinkedIN, Twitter, ZoomInfo ,
11. Plaxo lets you hook up feeds from other sites and brings together all your social network activity, connect and sync your contacts
12. Feedburner

Word of Mouth Genius’ of the Week

Trying to figure out how to get more followers on Twitter?  Me too, check out these tricks I’ve learned:

1. Friend people, they’ll friend you back

2. Be interesting and ENGAGE in conversations, when someone tweets, tweet back! If your comments are interesting people will follow you.

3. Don’t worry about when you Tweet, people aren’t going to follow you from the homepage

4. Promote through your blog, website, email signature, other social networks

5. Search for people you already know on Twitter

6. Friend the most popular Twitter users–at least you’ll be on the same page as other attention craving Twitter users

7. Join Twitter groups

It’s not quite as easy as it sounds unless your already popular…  Keep networking, keep following! Follow ME on Twitter

“Take for instance, Osen Komura. A fake profile set up by another Twitter user in February 2008 as a social experiment. The Osen account followed 41,798 Twitter users in one month and 7,847 users added him as a friend, a 17%+ follow-back rate.”  From Dosh Dosh

More from Dosh Dosh on how to increase your brand with Microblogs

Read Write Web Tips

Basics of how to market your business on twitter E-How

Scobelizer’s Secrets to Twitter

Or how to get more followers on twitter if your a girl and not that interesting

…Once your tweeting get’s out of hand see Confessions of a Twitter Addict

Utilize Social Bookmarking Sites:

Suppossedly socialposter.com will allow you to submit your site to 48 social bookmarking sites at once

	Favorites		Google Bookmarks
	Delicious		Digg
	MySpace		Facebook
	Furl		Yahoo MyWeb
	StumbleUpon		Reddit
	Newsvine		Live
	Technorati		Twitter
	Yahoo Bookmarks		myAOL
	Ask		Fark
	Slashdot		Propeller (Netscape)
	Mixx		Multiply
	Simpy		Blogmarks
	Diigo		Faves (Bluedot)
	Spurl		Link-a-Gogo
	Mister Wong		FeedMeLinks
	Backflip		Magnolia
	Seganlo		Netvouz
	Tailrank		Blinklist

• Yahoo Bookmarks
• N4G
• Current
• Simpy
• Meneame
• Yigg
• Oknotizie.alice.it
• Fresqui
• Care2
• Funp
• Kirtsy
• Hugg

Onlywire.com will do 1 for all of these:

• Backflip
• Bibsonomy
• Blinklist
• Blogmemes
• Blue Dot
• de.lirio.us
• del.icio.us
• Diigo
• Excites
• Furl
• linkatopia
• Linkroll
• Looklater
• ma.gnolia
• Markaboo
• Rawsugar
• Shadows
• Simpy
• Spurl
• unalog
• Wink
• xilinus

Social Networks:

Facebook, MySpace, Ning, Twitter

…Please comment with more!

Blake Schwendiman

1.

2.

3. Write 1+ times per day like http://blog.bizzflip.com/

4. Ping back to the top stories in Digg

5. Develop relationships with other bloggers

6. Tag everything!!!

7. Submit your posts to social bookmarking sites

8. Tweet!

9. Feedburner!

Further reading: http://www.memwg.com/10-steps-to-increase-your-technorati-ranking/

Tricks to Increase your Technorati Rank

Pingable.org

How many times did you laugh today?

How many interesting thoughts did you have today?

How many real conversations did you have?

***Now subtract the number of times you laughed because you were watching tv, thought something interesting because you read it online, or had a “conversation” through text message.

Let’s face it, there’s “real life” and then there’s what we thought we experienced through technology and media.  American’s have become so consumed with tv, computers, and cell phones we forget to ever come out of our virtual worlds.

The “beauty” of reality tv is that we can watch pro skateboarders like Bam Margera and Rob Dydrek have fun all day and live vicariously though them.  We don’t see them watching tv, chatting online, or reading People Magazine–they get paid to go out and actually live–and the rest of us are busy watching.

Special thanks to Bob who blogged about his experience doing whatever the heck he pleases. Thanks Bob for not starting your day by parking yourself infront of your media of choice.

Now, this might sound a little like communism but Business Week’s most recent issue discussed how Chinese firms are controlling bloggers freedom of speech, hiring PR firms to combat bloggers making negative comments about their clients corporations.

Toyota, “Nike, (NKE) PepsiCo (PEP), McDonald’s (MCD), French cosmetics maker L’Oréal (LRLCY)” have all worked with Chinese PR companies to combat negative comments….”PR outfits hire students to write postings that boost certain brands and criticize the competition, says a staffer at a Western PR firm in Beijing.”

While some of these PR firms tactics help the consumer Ie: alerting companies when there is a problem and advising the company to fix it ASAP, there is a serious problem with companies skewing feedback by paying students 1.5 cents per positive post.

Many American’s have revolted when Walmart paid a undercover PR firm to pose as tourists and blog about their journey going coast to coast in an RV, sleeping in Walmart parking lots every night–all the posts were incredibly positive about Walmart, and they were soon found to be a fraud.

This type of trickery and the deceitful comments posted by PR firms is using social media in exactly the wrong way. Social media is suppossed to better inform the consumer, sites like www.epinions.com give everyone a Consumer Reports-like-voice, companies can no longer get away with sub par preformances. If your product or service is poor, Joe from Oklahoma will spread the word and effect purchasing decisions of consumers in Maine.

Of course companies can benefit from a social media interaction with their customers in the following ways:

• Bloggers leaving positive posts
• Positive ratings on Amazon and epinions
• Fan Pages and Groups on Facebook (See Recent story re: More companies screwing up social media)
• Collaborating with customers online for ads, product development and customer service
• Monitoring blog posts, but not creating faux comments
• Nike’s running club and other engagement tools
• Social Media Press Releases
• Viral YouTube commercials, even better if they are made by the customer
• Feel free to comment on more!

If your company is doing things right, then you’ll capitalize, but in the social media world there is no hiding from the truth!

When people get busy, people stop thinking. Unfortunately when your busy is the time when you need to use your brain the most. People just literally get too busy to think! Meanwhile you should be contemplating:

1. How can I do this in the most efficient manner possible?

2. Could I be leveraging someone else to do this?

3. Above all, look at the big picture: Why the hell am I doing this and is getting me towards my goals?

After going full speed ahead for months on end, people find that they need to take a vacation or retreat. Most of the time vacations are just an escape where you think even more about nothing!

The point of all this is, everyday people need to take a half hour or so, relax, reflect and plan ahead. Keep what works, change what doesn’t. There’s nothing more powerful than using your brain! Take a retreat everyday, or better yet, think about what your doing all the time and there will be no need for a retreat!

A wise man once said: busyness is not your friend.

As a scatterbrain myself, I am constantly challenged with the concept of sitting still and paying attention. Here’s the problem:

In the world we live in, technology gives us so many “tools” that allow us to do so many different things at once, but we also think about too many things at once. Today’s media occupies our brain to no end. Drive down the street and think of the clutter, the signs, the marketing, blah blah blah, stuff is written EVERYWHERE. (for more on this: http://www.neutronllc.com/)

So maybe it’s not my fault i’m such a scatterbrain. I decided I’d take a break from thinking for a moment and blog it out–i couldn’t even sign onto my computer without clicking a hundred things on the way to wordpress. First I realized new updates on my computer and had to play, then I clicked skype for no reason at all, then I wanted to see if Pidgin was applicable with Skype, then I found myself checking what time the game is on tonite, then i realized, shit, I’m quite easily distracted on my way to blog about being such a scatterbrain…

The bottom line: take control of your brain, don’t veg, and take these “tools” and use them wisely. An hour of focused thinking, away from all these “tools” will allow you to think your way to your dreams. I mean it.

I am 7 pages into my next read:  brand Hijack: marketing without marketing by Alex Wipperfurth and I am already in heaven.

Page 7 reads:  “Let’s be careful not to assume that consumers are a bunch of suckers.  They don’t devote themselves to brands becuase they want to provide free marketing for corporations.  They do it becuase some special brands offer up a vision that people can identify with, one that they want to involve themselves in more deeply.”

WOW:  This is why the extreme sports world will never be the same.  Our brand consulting side of the business, Hip Visions does just that.  Hip Visions lifts the boundaries of lifestyle identity and sets you free:  nVision action.

The new consumer is all about identity.  Today every product you buy, your car, your vanity plate, your cell phone, ringtone, music you listen to, clothes you wear, anything and everything all ammounts to who you are:  YOUR IDENTITY.  Who would believe that the extreme sports world, the biggest identity addicts–the guys who push the envelope because they live on the edge, have no clothing that aptly fits their lifestyle.  Imagine a free ride/DH mountain biker, bombing the mountain with a DC skateboards shirt on.  HOW LAME IS THAT?!  Why do kayakers wear surf stuff and skiiers wear snowboard gear?  These groups of people don’t even like each other, much less want to be identified with each other.

You are what you ride.  “Some special brands offer up a vision that people can identify with, one that they want to involve themselves in more deeply.”  If you ride a Kona Mountain Bike why wouldn’t you want to rock the Kona Tee?

Ladies and gentlemen we have reached the age of identity and it is our job at Hip Visions to ensure that the extreme sports world is up to speed.

Stay tuned.