My First Xomba Feature...

Well, it's official. I've written and posted my first live article as a Xomba Business and Entrepreneur feature writer.

Since I've spent a great deal of time recently leveling up on Sorority Life (one of the totally addictive games produced by www.playdom.com and used on Social Media platforms like Facebook and MySpace), I thought I'd play on the similarities between building your Sorority House and building a successful Internet Marketing business.

You can read the article here:

http://www.xomba.com/sorority_life_nocost_crash_course_internet_marketing

I encourage you guys to share the word about the article by using your favorite social bookmarking widgets like StumbleUpon.com, Digg.com and others like it.

Weigh in and let me know if you, too, are a total Sorority Life addict!

Follow My Xomba Features...

Well, ladies and germs, I'm pleased to announce that from here on into the foreseeable future, I'll be the next Feature Writer and Steward for the www.xomba.com Business & Entrepreneurs Channel.

In addition to my blog here, my client writing projects and my Helium, Facebook and Twitter postings, I'll now add creating 300-500 word feature articles on relevant topics and subjects for the business and entrepreneurial community.

If you're not already using Xomba.com as a way to promote your own articles or to engage in Social Bookmarking within a creative community of information-hungry readers, I highly recommend that you sign up and get with the program.

You can easily add me to your network by following this link: http://www.xomba.com/user/femerpie, and then clicking the "Add as a Friend" link.

I look forward to this opportunity and hope that you'll tune in every once in a while to weigh in with your thoughts, comments and requests!

Where Do You Find Ideas?

Businesses both small and large rely heavily on access to fresh, new and exciting ideas. Everyone wants to be an innovator, an inventor, someone who thinks "outside of the box"... We want to be relevant, go viral and monetize it all in one shot.


If you're looking for a way to learn to come up with powerful, passionate, practical and practice-able ideas, then you need to become a regular listen at the Accidental Creative podcast website.

It's free, self-contained, entertaining and informative. In roughly 10-15 minute segments, you can get a heads up on what you COULD be doing with your life and your business if only you learn how to think smarter, instead of always struggling to think harder.

If this sounds like a resource that's up your alley, you can follow them by bookmarking:


http://www.accidentalcreative.com/category/podcasts

Start listening, start learning! Get creative... You never know what tomorrow holds!

Get Ahead of the Curve with Trade Pub!

There's nothing more frustrating than feeling like you're falling behind in your sector or industry. Of course, when everything is changing at the speed of light, it can be more than a small struggle to keep up to speed. Plus, when you're strapped for cash and operating on a shoestring budget, it can get terribly expensive...

Fortunately, there's a great free way to stay ahead of the curve by gaining free subscription access to industry trade magazines and publications. The Website is www.tradepub.com, and you can find a ton of practical, applicable industry headliners, not to mention free white papers, eBooks, teleseminar access and more!

You'll have to provide contact information for each and every subscription or download, but it's well worth the time and effort.

Plus, it's always great to check the mail and see something OTHER than another bill.

Check it out and let me know what you're reading...

There Can Be An App For That...

I've just started back to school full-time, so I'm going to have to stick to this. I'm on a bit of a Writer's Rush (the opposite of Writer's Block), so I'll have to take advantage of this platform's scheduling option...

Today's blog post will be short and sweet, because I know we're all busy as can be.
As part of an on-going inside joke with my husband, every time he asks me a question, my answer is "You know... There's an App for that!" He hates it, but not quite as much as when I was on my Michael Scott, "That's what she said!" kick, lol.

But the truth is, no matter what it is you specialize in, there's a way to take it to the Mobile market. Today's specially featured website is:

http://www.conduit.com/

According to the site itself,

"At Conduit, we believe that internet technologies should be user-friendly, equally available to everyone, and free. With our open platform and Marketplace, we’re allowing web publishers of all sizes to share both content and browser space with one another, bringing the open spirit of the Web to the world of software development."

And when you get down to it, in today's tough economy, we can't afford to take every single project and hire the Gurus that are out there to take care of it for us. We sometimes need to test the waters by taking a "Do It Yourself Approach"...

This site isn't just free and user-friendly, it could be your portal into mobile marketing...

Check it out, let us know what you think!

The Best Way to Avoid Paying for a Writer is to Become One!

Writing never seems to come cheap... Even if you wind up outsourcing your work to someone whose native language isn't English and can turn out 20 articles in 20 minutes for $0.20, by the time you get done editing and trying to figure out what the heck the words are supposed to mean it cost you - BELIEVE me!

Most writers that are worth their weight in gold CHARGE their weight in gold. And in the long run, it's generally a great investment. Who wouldn't want to pay once to make something that you can sell thousands of times over again, recuperating your investment and quite a handsome return?

Unlike me, not every writer is willing to work on a royalties only basis. So, when faced with a predicament like this, at some point or another, you're going to wish that you were a better writer and all of these headaches could be avoided.

When that day comes, it's time to sign up at www.helium.com. I've been a member for over two years now, and I always have a blast. I can't think of a day over the last six months that I haven't logged in at least once... Now, mind you, I AM a writer, so maybe I'm a bit biased. But you can easily tell from reading the articles you'll eventually be asked to "rate and review" that this isn't the case for everyone. A lot of Helium members are just every day people, business owners, moms and dads, you name it.

They've got a message and a voice and they want to be heard. More than that, though, they don't just want to spout off at the mouth all day, they want to get better. They want to attract more traffic, get more stars. It's pretty addictive, actually. And, over time, they do get better.

While the framework of the site is vastly different from EzineArticles.com, it's an invaluable resource for the beginning writer and one that actually gives you the opportunity to make money in the process...

Aside from just becoming a better writer, one that doesn't have to pay others to tackle tough tasks for you anymore, here are five reasons you need to join Helium with a quickness:

1. Setting up your account is completely free, and gives you the ability to both write and rate articles on the site. When your articles go "live" they contain ads that you earn revenues from. Obviously, the more traffic you get, the more you'll earn. It's a great way to get acquainted with the potential of AdWords and related programs.
2. In addition from online advertiser revenues, your articles can earn money in a number of other ways. You can earn Empty Title bonuses for being the first author for a specific title or for referring other writers. If you're at all familiar with Social Bookmarking, you can earn additional revenues in that fashion. Indeed, most of my money comes from Stumbling articles I've written in the past. You can also write Marketplace Article Assignments for a chance to earn some fairly substantial cash per title. 
3. Once your articles have been rated and ranked, you have the ability to "Leap Frog" your previous article and edit them for higher performance standards. The higher your article is ranked, the more traffic you'll get and the more revenues you'll earn.
4. The more ranking and writing stars you are awarded, the greater your earning potential will be. NEVER let your rating stars disappear, or you can't earn any revenues on your ads. It's a good idea to schedule one day each week to really work on boosting your rankings. Writing empty title articles is great for the payments (you'll need to earn $25.00 before money is released to your PayPal account), but not so great for your rankings. Occasionally, you'll want to compete in more congested titles.
5. By creating articles that are targeted at keywords relevant to your own small business, you can easily insure that more things authored and created by you are showing up higher in the search rankings. If you create an article on your site around a specific keyword, create another rewrite for EzineArticles.com and then another for Helium.com and you can easily gobble up all of the top organic search results!

I've written over 60 articles on the site and made a little over $100.00. It's not a lot, but I've sat around writing a great deal "just for fun" which translates to "free" most of the time. Now that I've learned the secrets of Social Bookmarking, my revenues have increased dramatically without having to write anything new very often at all...

You can check out my profile on the site at:

http://www.helium.com/users/370212

If you'd like an invite and to join my "group", send over your email and I'd be happy to add you in!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Why You Absolutely MUST Google Potential Clients & Vendors

Yesterday, I had to fire a client - something that is NEVER a pleasant experience.

However, with that said, this time it really was entirely my fault. I could have prevented this situation ENTIRELY if I'd taken the time out to do a little more homework, instead of getting totally wrapped up in the minutiae of taking on a new client. I guess that sometimes, we're all guilty of missing the forest for the trees.

The company that hired me was known as www.ASIB.org - claiming to be the Association of Small Internet Businesses with chapters and events all over. After a cursory exploration of the site, I was intrigued and asked the leader, John Mitchell for additional details.

As the story was explained to me, I needed to "fill in" for a full-time employee named Gwen Dickinson who was out being treated for lupus.I was given the personal and professional background information about the woman and the last series of emails that had been sent and received with her Etsy.com contacts and asked to fill in for one month. I was told to just "chit chat", talk about the weather. Talk about some of their product listings. Give a little advice. Avoid business talk too much. My ultimate goal was "just to keep the conversation flowing until Gwen got back."

Now, as a dedicated writer and marketer, I take my job seriously. I was interacting very well with a number (7 actually) of Etsy sellers and was actually loving it. I'd known very little about Etsy up to this point, and I was astonished at how awesome some of the pieces I was seeing actually were! It was incredible. Even better, the people seemed so real, so authentic. I love to see the passion of artists...

However, they began to ask questions that my bio information didn't cover and I couldn't get a response back from the "real" Gwen Dickinson or my training team, so I decided to Google her. If I'd have been smart, I'd have done it already!

Among other frightful things, this is what I discovered: a VERY long thread of people on Etsy complaining about Gwen Dickinson and the sheer number of Gwen Dickinsons that were out there doing it! You can read the thread (and laugh your butt off in the process) here:

http://etsycallout.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/e-books-super-shilling/
Suddenly, I was terrified, and knew something was up. Since I'd signed an NDA, my first action was to get in touch with my employer to find out what was up.

Instead of giving me anything close to the truth, they instead fed me some strange story about Gwen's daughter having hired out all of these other people without letting them know, and could I please accept a promotion to their Ambassador program, where I would continue to be Gwen, but Gwendale Richards now, not Gwen Dickinson...

I fired them promptly and asked them to remit payment. They've failed to do so, and since I've not been compensated in any way, my NDA is now null and void and I thought I'd share the story of why you absolutely MUST Google all of your potential clients and vendors before you take them on.

You never know when you might suddenly find yourself serving as the deposed King of Nigeria...

Don't let it happen to you!


www.ASIB.org is a FRAUD!
Gwen Dickinson (www.mereiana.com) is a FRAUD!
Gwendale Richards (www.mereinay.com) is a FRAUD!