This week I interviewed +Evo Terra about books.
This morning I hosted a +G+ On Air hangout with publishing expert +Evo Terra and discussed tips on how to become successful at publishing your own book.
During the podcast we talked about different publishing services and Evo’s two start-ups. Watch the video below to learn more and make sure you subscribe to my channel on +YouTube! (http://www.youtube.com/petergmcdermott)
One of the biggest things I have learned over the past few months is how important it is to fail. You can read about it from so many prominent authors, and hear about it from so many successfully people, but it won’t start to make sense until you start to embrace your failures.
Continue reading Embracing Failure: Why Learning How to Fail Will Help You Succeed
I’m not a Social Media Expert.
But, I have learned a few things that could help you, your business and your brand in creating a successful online engagement experience for your customers.
One of the things I keep on my business card is “Experiencial Design” because I think something that customers of this age look for is not only a good product or service, but a great customer experience.
Take a look at what you’re doing with your current strategy and ask yourself if you are really engaging your customers or just pushing things out there without paying attention to what they’re saying. To find out more, watch my latest episode.
How to Make It Work is also available on Tivo, Roku and Blip.tv
Last night I was asked to speak at Ross Jones‘ IMD405 Internet Marketing class at The Art Institute of Nashville. Ross and I met at the SpeakerUp meeting for the 2012 Podcamp Nashville as we are both interested in speaking this year about our perspective niches.
Ross is a SEO expert and has been doing it for longer than most people knew what Search Engine Optimization was. Ross owns a business called 2 the Top Design where he helps businesses get their website optimized for search engines and in turn, getting them more leads.
Using any image on your hard drive, you can instantly create a meme by adding your own text. There’s no need to use photo editing software or a third party website. You can do all of the work, effortlessly, right here on Google+!
Face it, no one likes boring funny images without a witty caption. Spice up your original photos by making your followers laugh! Now start getting creative! Who knows, maybe your next meme will top the What’s Hot list!
Using nothing but Google Docs’ Presenter, Google’s stock images and a Google+ Hangout, presentation expert +Harold Carey Jr. was able to teach me how to create a very simple and effective presentation.
No more sliding text or sound effects, just a header, image and…well, I’d tell you the rest, but you can watch the video!
Check out Harold’s website at http://haroldcarey.com/ .
Recently I spoke with +Derek Ross about some of his posts about #Android and why they weren’t getting the type of interaction he was looking for. +Derek is an original content creator and a great resource for all things related to #Android.
After taking a look at some of his posts at the time, I noticed that a lot of things he was posting were unembellished hyperlinks–simply a link to a website and the default snippet without any sort of summary or call to action.
When you post things in social media, especially on Twitter and Google+, sometimes it is hard to determine how many people are receiving your message. If you are posting unmodified hyperlinks in your post, you won’t be able to track how many people are clicking through.
By using a link shortening service such as goo.gl you can track how well your posted links are doing. Simply copy the link you wish to track, visit http://www.goo.gl/ and paste it into the window. Once you click the button, the link will be shortened to the right using a series of letters and numbers. When you copy and paste this into your tweet or post, you will be able to keep track of how many people clicked through.
You will be amazed by the difference between +1’s, comments and click-through of your posts.
Step-by-step instructions for the “less geeky” ones in your life.
So maybe they still have a Hotmail account. Maybe they don’t watch +YouTube. Who knows, maybe they still search on +Yahoo!
No matter which way you slice it, there are probably some friends or family in your life that simplyaren’t that tech savvy. Maybe one of the big things keeping them from joining +Google+ is the simple fact that they don’t know how to join!
I’ve created a very easy to follow step-by-step video showing them exactly how to sign up for an account. If you want to get them on board, just simply e-mail them this video!
Keeping a backup of all of your important files is important. You probably make regular backups of the important files on your computer at home, but do you worry about backing up your online data like all of the information on your blog?
If you have an account on WordPress.com and you’d like to move it over to a self-hosted site (something that many people decide to do as they continue to grow their audience), you will eventually need to export your data. But, don’t wait until you’re ready to move. Make regular backups of your blog, just in case.
I was talking to A.V. Flox from BlogHer about an aquaintance that had their WordPress.com blog disappear. There’s no telling why the blog disappeared, whether it was a server error, a violation of Terms & Service, or just an anomily, but the truth is, it could happen to anyone, especially if your password isn’t secure.
To protect yourself from losing all of the valuable information you have created, your words, your posts, your comments, your images–all of the content that you have worked so hard to create–you should perform regular backups. Don’t worry though, they’re easy to do. Just follow these steps.
Step 1
Log into your WordPress.com Account and select the blog you want to backup:
Step 2
Click ‘My Blog’ in the upper left hand corner and select ‘Dashboard’
Step 3
On the left hand tool bar, go down to ‘Tools’ (it’s towards the bottom) and select ‘Export’
Step 4
If you want to backup all of your pages, posts and comments, select ‘All content’ and click the ‘Download Export File’ button.
Step 5
Depending on what browser you are using, a notification should appear asking you if you would like to download the file. Since it is an XML file, your computer might warn you that it could be dangerous. In situations where the source is trusted, such as WordPress.com, you don’t need to worry about this warning. Click ‘Keep’ and then, presto, you have a backup of all of your blog content on your home computer!
When you get more proficient and as your audience continues to grow, you might want to start your own website on an independent server using the WordPress.org framework. The interface is virtually the same, and when you go to set it up (using their famous five minute installation) you’ll be able to instantly Import your content, pages and comments from your previous location!
By backing up your data regularly you won’t have to worry about your blog “disappearing” because you’ll always have a copy of your content right at your fingertips.
If you liked this tutorial, be sure to share it with your friends using the social media buttons below! Also, be sure to enter your e-mail address and Subscribe in the right-hand navigation bar of my website to get weekly updates of all of my content at absolutely no cost!