Don't you just love infographics? I know I do : - ) Quite often, I've found that small businesses and organizations find it difficult to see the big picture when it comes to social media. There are a plethora of tools, tactics, gurus, and experts that it all can be quite confusing. My motto is to K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Sally (or Sam)! This infographic was created by Mark Smiciklas over at Intersection Consulting to depict a social media strategy framework to help businesses and organizations understand a really simple three step process and avoid all the confusion.   Need More Social Media Resources?

1. The Busy Marketer’s Social Networking Guide
2. Google’s Social Search: Killing SEO

It’s an information age-old dilemma for many online business owners, particularly when they are extremely passionate in their subject area. We just love to give, give, give…but sometimes forget to create and sell products and services too. Some people say you should give away your best stuff for free. Others say, hold onto the best stuff and sell it. Then others say you can’t give away too much for free, while others say it’s simply not true. So who’s right? In the end, we can’t expect others to tell us what our time, expertise, or skills are worth if we don’t first define it ourselves. What Do You Say? What has your experience been? Share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment below. Don't forget to share with your network to get more opinions on the topic back on the blog!

  Lately, I've noticed StumbleUpon come up more often in my Google Analytics referrer stats and, since I haven't really used it as much as I should, I decided to play with it more often to increase the amount of StumbleUpon traffic to my blog. Well, during  my research, I found a very resourceful site called Nick’s Traffic Tips (check him out as he all types of free goodies for getting more traffic to your web properties!) and he has a Free Stumbles page. I thought it was a very cool idea and am doing it here on my blog as well to share the love! What Is StumbleUpon? For those who are unfamiliar with it, StumbleUpon is a social bookmarking and networking site, enabling people to interact with each other and build profiles. Because of these two unique aspects, StumbleUpon is a fantastic tool to ...

If you’re like many business owners, you’re aware of social networking as a business building strategy. You may even participate in a few social networking or social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. This is a great start. However, StumbleUpon is a commonly overlooked and potentially very powerful social site. It offers business owners many unique advantages that other social sites do not offer. So What is StumbleUpon? StumbleUpon is a social bookmarking site. It’s also a social networking site enabling people to interact with each other and build profiles. Therefore, when you rate or review a website, the thumbs up or thumbs down feature is permanent and it becomes not only part of your profile but also part of the profile of those who subscribe to you. It has the power to multiply traffic and generate links to your ...

Many of my clients ask me how to write engaging website content. My only response is simply 1) Understand your readers and 2) Keep it real. It can't get any simpler than that. But we all know that simple and easy are two TOTALLY different things! Though I love to write, I'm not a content writer so I don't write content for others' websites. I leave that part to the Pros! So if you're struggling with your website content, it's always best to hire a professional to do so. If necessary, leave room in your budget just for this purpose. Interview content writers, check their work, and you should end up with polished, professional content. I often explain that having a great looking website but crappy content defeats the purpose of having an online presence. You don't perform your own surgery, do you? Of course ...