LinkedIn Fosters Group Engagement

Guest Author: Jack Lundee of Everything Left and Shades of Green.

Social networking has buoyed the efficacy of interaction between business owners, managers and executives. This form of communication has worked especially well in businesses where contacts matter, such as real estate. Twitter and Facebook have come into their own as the premier networking sites on the Internet. They have a disadvantage in that they serve primarily as personal websites for friends and families. Professionals and businessmen seeking to network with one another have been left in the dust until now. A website called LinkedIn, which went public earlier this year on the stock market, is providing the perfect platform for professional networking.

Facebook and Twitter deliver specific information about a requested person or subject to interested parties. If these two websites may be considered as merely small fish, LinkedIn represents a large Alaskan salmon caught by a bear. LinkedIn users seek to share business information with one another. Finding individuals in related industries, professions or even members of the same company has never been easier thanks to LinkedIn's emphasis on groups. LinkedIn gives business information an ability to cross-pollinate in a way similar to personal information on Facebook and Twitter. Business gets taken to a new level with the ability to share and brainstorm like never before.

Groups on LinkedIn can help create new connections and relationships, to be sure, but their main benefit is information sharing. These groups provide users broad playing fields filled with new insights from a multitude of perspectives. They can provide new information not previously known or augment previous speculation with new reasoning. For instance, the Clinton Global Initiative (Doug Band & President Clinton) has a group that allows young kids to interact and share their ideas, opinions and events with each other. Likewise, you can target individuals at the CGI by searching people.

The Groups page on LinkedIn provides access to potentially hundreds of unique topics. Users can search until they find the group most suited to their profession and industry. LinkedIn provides an opportunity for professionals to discover new information pertinent to their role within an organization or company.

Users have the ability to discover which users are the most popular and influential. This data can be organized according to almost any timescale they wish, from weeks to months to years. Existing users can review their connections and take a look at new members and their job listings to look for new opportunities. Users can brand themselves within their groups and seek to establish positions of authority. LinkedIn allows users to make professional connections that can provide a chance to further their careers.

The groups themselves can be picky, which means getting accepted is a good sign in terms of social status. The elements of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have now been applied to the business community. LinkedIn promises to make networking much easier for professionals. This website is transferring the contact-intensive nature of industries like real estate to other industries. This may trigger a shift in the skills required for success, but fundamentally LinkedIn is for the betterment of everyone who uses it.

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Posted at SEO And Blogging Tips.

Is Facebook taking over social bookmarking sites?

When was the last time that you used a social bookmarking site like Digg, Stumble Upon or Reddit?

Recently, social bookmarking sites have been increasing noticeable drop in their traffic and user activity. Social bookmarking sites used to be very popular but every since Facebook entered the market, their popularity deteriorated. People seem to like sharing articles on Facebook more than they like doing it on Digg or Reddit.

Why is that the case?

It could simply be the idea of sharing the links with your friends and family and not total strangers. Of course, some people like to share their articles with strangers to get a variety of perspectives. But others prefer engaging in discussions and revealing any details only to people they know.

How does that affect webmasters?

Well, when you share articles with your friends on Facebook, they are only seen by your friends and probably their friends. When you share articles on social bookmarking sites like Digg, they are seen by millions. You get my point. But don't get upset, there are other ways to utilize Facebook to gain traffic like Facebook Pages.

Your Opinion.

So what do you think about the affect of Facebook on social bookmarking sites? Are people really using them less? Do you think Facebook will eventually take over them? Share your thoughts.

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Posted by Dan at SEO And Blogging Tips.

Why I left Bluehost hosting

Besides managing SEO and Blogging Tips, I also manage three other sites that use Wordpress and are hosted independently. I got independent hosting about 2 years ago. An online friend of mine offered me his own hosting. Since it was my first hosting and the price was very low, I agreed. But due to poor support and uptime, I moved to another host. This time I wanted to have a trusted hosting that wouldn't disappoint me even if it meant that I had to pay couple of bucks extra. So, I picked Bluehost.

Bluehost wasn't very expensive. I paid approximately $65 for one year. This was a discounted price. The regular price is much higher than this. Anyways, I was really satisfied with Bluehost. I am not an expert with hostings but I still found Bluehost fairly easy to use. They have a lot of features and they make it really easy for you to take advantage of them. I would go into the details of all the features they have to offer but it's pretty much the same as any other hosting nowadays. Bottom line: it's much easier to use Bluehost and things are easy to figure out.

So why did I leave Bluehost? Well, I just completed my one year with them and was kindly asked by them to renew my account. So, I went to their page to do it and it turned out that the price had been raised to $107 per year. I was shocked and thought there had been some mistake because I paid almost half of that before. So, I contacted their support for an explanation. Apparently, the coupon that I had used to get the discounted price is only for one year and doesn't carry. This is what pissed me off because I hadn't seen that written anywhere. Don't get me wrong, I like Bluehost but why should I pay so much for hosting some simple blogs? Bluehost was charging me $6.95 per month while there are other trusted hosting services that only charge around $4-5 per month?

This is why I decided to move to another hosting. It's a pain to transfer all your files but I am willing to go through the trouble if it means that I save around $40 a year. Yup, my new hosting is iPage where I only paid $54 for a year of hosting and this is their regular price.

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Posted by Dan at SEO And Blogging Tips.

5 ways to be a successful blogger

Few years ago, there were very few bloggers on the internet and take a look now. Blogging has turned into a trend, a sort of fashion that is almost mandatory for today's generation. Blogging can be of many forms such as a teenage writing a note on Facebook, a stay-at-home mom sharing food recipes, a 14 year old girl sharing her fashion sense and a 50 year old discussing finance to his fellow readers. Whatever the age, niche or purpose, every blogger wants some kind of appreciation for the amount of time he/she is dedicating to their blog. So how do you become a successful blogger? Lets find out!

5 ways to become a successful blogger

1. Be subjective - blogs are not a place to demonstrate your objective side. Your viewers come to your blog to see what a common person like them thinks about a certain thing. They want your personal opinion, your own take on a matter.
   
2. Do some reading - Don't just write about anything without doing some research first. Make sure to do your homework, before you publish a post. You don't want to anger your readers by posting inaccurate information.
3. Stay in touch - A blog is a platform for discussions and arguments. Don't simply write posts and then forget about it. Read the comments and reply to them in a timely manner. It will keep your readers happy and can get you some regular readers.
4. Listen carefully - Many times you will get requests from your readers to talk about a certain topic or to share some insight about some issue. If you want to be a successful blogger, you need to make sure that you meet these demands as much as possible.
   
5. Talk to other bloggers - It's time to realize that you are not the only blogger in this universe. There are several of them like you and you need to connect with them. You need to read their blogs, comment on their articles and build cyber relationships. This can be easy for blogs on niche while difficult for others.

Folks, these very some quick tips about how to be a successful blogger. The list is not complete. Of course, you have to do a lot more stuff to succeed but these are some good starting tips that you should take into consideration.

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Posted by Dan at SEO And Blogging Tips.