Jacob S. Paulsen.com

Klout recently published a list of the top 10 most influential retailers this holiday season. Consider that in order to be influential these retailers must engage customers in conversation. I imagine that this is a significant customer service channel for most of these businesses but its also a revenue generator. They ask customers what is left on their Christmas gift list and offer coupon codes and specials.

Top Ten Retailers:

1. Amazon.com: Klout score of 82
2. Victoria’s Secret: Klout score of 75
3. jcpenney: Klout score of 75
4. Sports Authority: Klout score of 74
5. Walgreens: Klout score of 73
6. HSN: Klout score of 72
7. ThinkGeek: Klout score of 72
8. BestBuy: Klout score of 72
9. Target: Klout score of 72
10. Macys: Klout score of 71

Source: http://corp.klout.com/blog/2011/12/the-10-most-influential-retailers/

Just happen to find a few of my favorite public figures and authors in the Social Media World. Here are the links:

Robert Kiyosaki

Twitter: @theRealKiyosaki

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/600.Robert_T_Kiyosaki

Facebook Profile

Facebook Page

John C Maxwell

Twitter: @johncmaxwell

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/68.John_C_Maxwell

Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/JohnCMaxwell

Blog: http://johnmaxwellonleadership.com/

Tom V Morris

Twitter: @tomvmorris

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/11478.Tom_Morris

Blog: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=tom-morris

Author of: “If Harry Potter Ran General Electric” & “If Aristotle Ran General Motors”

Robert G. Allen

Twitter: @bestsellerbob

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/25187.Robert_G_Allen

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Robert-G-Allen/128014057753

Site: http://www.robertgallen.com/

Stephen R Covey

Twitter: @StephenRCovey

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1538.Stephen_R_Covey

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephen-R-Covey/15653234806

Site: https://www.stephencovey.com/

Marcus Buckingham

Twitter: http://twitter.com/mwbuckingham

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18731.Marcus_Buckingham

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Marcus-Buckingham/27029436532

Site: http://www.tmbc.com/

Ed Viesturs

Twitter: @EViesturs

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/67681.Ed_Viesturs

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ed-Viesturs/75109555243

Site: http://www.edviesturs.com/

Tim Ferriss

Twitter: @tferriss

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/210456.Timothy_Ferriss

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/timferriss

Blog: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/

Anthony Robbins

Twitter: @tonyrobbins

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5627.Anthony_Robbins

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2217217024

Blog: http://tonyrobbinstraining.com/

J.K. Rowling

Twitter: @jk_rowling

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1077326.J_K_Rowling

Site: http://www.jkrowling.com/

As important as Facebook is to Social Networking and as fun as it can be in maintaining friendships it still can drain you of time and energy as you attempt to wade through your news feed. Facebook users spend an average of 19 minutes on the site per visit making it the top site in the world within that category.

If you are anything like most of those users you might spend a good number of those 19 average minutes looking through the vampire quizzes, virtual zoos, and other complete nonsense that you don’t care about. You might also get sick of all the emails you receive every time you get poked or somebody you don’t know comments on your friend’s status that you “liked.”

This tutorial video will show you how to navigate Facebook, filtering out the junk you don’t care to see and eliminating the emails you don’t care to receive.

I’ve been looking for this for years! Don’t you grow tired of the time you spend trying to syndicate a good blog post or article? You could spend 15 minutes submitting a link to Digg, Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, StumbleUpon, etc.  For some time I have been looking for a service that would allow me to submit a link to all of these Social Bookmarking sites at once. Imagine the time that you would save.

At this point we have a great service for syndicating pictures and videos (pixelpipe) and a great service for updating our statuses on various sites at once (ping.fm). The good news is that FINALLY we have a Social Bookmarking syndicator. ONLYWIRE has come along just to end my nightmares! OnlyWire offers both free and paid accounts and so far my experience has been fantastic. They offer various tools such as browser plugins and more to help you readily syndicate content.

My very favorite part of the service is their WordPress plugin. I have removed my traditional “Add to Any” plugin that is most widely used on wordpress blogs to enable readers to syndicate a post/article and in it’s place I have placed the OnlyWire syndication button. In addition to having the same options to share a link with any one service users can also setup their own OnlyWire account to submit the link to all their social bookmarking services at once.

This is a huge WIN/WIN for readers and blog owners alike. Think how much more likely links are to be syndicated to various networks with the new ease of the OnlyWire system. I am encouraging all blog owners and internet marketers to subscribe to OnlyWire and install the plugin on their sites. The more users we can get plugged into the system the better it will be for all of us. Simply go to the bottom of this or any other post on my site and hover your mouse over the bookmark button. Create your own account and submit this article to all your networks. If you have your own blog go install the OnlyWire plugin to get your readers on the same service!!!!

Warning: Not all bookmarking services can be submitted to automatically. Sites such as Digg.com require human verification in order to finalize a submission. OnlyWire will automatically syndicate your link to as many social bookmarking sites as possible and then send you an email with notice should you need to manually finish the process for any specific services.

As you begin your work in internet marketing you will start hearing the word “niche” a lot. A niche is a specific topic or area of discussion which tends to be unique and of interest to your market. Finding a good niche in our current condition is very difficult. There are far too many people with blogs that discuss social media, internet marketing, and network marketing.

This just means that it becomes that much more important to make yourself stand out. Here are some simple helpful hints to help you in the process of finding your niche.

1. Remember that any niche will do. Just because your end goal is to build a list of high quality contacts and build relationships of credibility and trust does not mean you have to write about mlm, social media, or the like. Open your mind to a broader range of possibilities.

2. Make a list of your greatest areas of expertise. What things/subjects do you know more about than most average people? Perhaps something in relation to your current profession or one of your hobbies?

3. Do not rule out any ideas just because there might be only a small group of people out there who are interested in your expertize. These might be the most valuable ideas because they have little niche competition. Your audience is the whole world afterall and there are likely to be millions of people out there who are also interested in the same thing.

4. Consider your ability to create never ending content about your niche. You have to be able to write new articles about the subject for years on end. Is your niche that broad?

5. How difficult would it be to produce products in reference to your niche. A long term strategy will be producing a product that you can launch to your audience as they grow.

6. Make sure it’s fascinating to you. If you choose a subject that you are passionate about others will feel that and you will be more likely to stick with it.

7. Some of the best niches talk about ways to feel joy or eliminate pain. These are the two most powerful motivators for mankind. Weightloss sites quite overdone but that would be a good example of a niche driven toward eliminating pain and finding joy.

I hope these quick ideas will be helpful in finding your niche!

Jacob S. Paulsen

If I am currently following you on Twitter and you are looking for a way to get me to stop here are some suggestions:

1. Send me a DM (Direct Message) inviting me to join your ninja dojo or mafia family. This is so annoying and unprofessional that it will always cause me to unfollow you and then delete the dm.

2. Have a Twitter profile picture of a man or women with little to no clothing on. I assume people who feel the need to have mostly naked women on their profile are either promoting a business or product that is pornographic in nature or they think that dumb males will be more likely to follow them or click their links because of the image. Either way it makes me angry and guarantees an unfollow. Super unprofessional.

3. Send me a DM with a superficial and virtual gift, such as “I just sent you peace and happiness. You Should send me a gift back.” I hate these pointless and insincere games and I the only way I participate is by hitting the unfollow link on your profile.

4. Tweet 3-15 times within a 2 minute span. I follow more than 4000 people currently and so if I see more than one of your tweets on a single page of my timeline that means you have a serious problem. Either addiction to Twitter or you have a program tweeting constantly for you during the high traffic times of the day. Either way it just somehow bugs me. Perhaps because people like this very rarely have anything good to share.

5. Tweet the same link with a variation of text every 30 minutes. Some twitter profiles seem to have only one thing on their mind and that is to get you to visit their site. They change up the sales pitch to make it look different but the link is the same. They expect you to not notice because you don’t spend a lot of time in front of Twitter or because you follow enough people to make their redundant tweets not-noticable. Either way I think they are spammers and have nothing of value to offer me.

6. Use foul language. I don’t tolerate anyone who feels the need to use profane or foul language. The use of any generally accepted cuss words is a quick way to lose me as your followe. Its just not professional and while you may speak that way to your friends you shouldn’t do it with strangers. Either way you want to think of it we will both be happier when I stop following you.

7. Twitter snobs don’t get my follow. Some people feel so important about themselves that they expect people to follow them by the thousands when they are not willing to follow anyone back. Either they truly don’t think that anyone else has something of value to offer or they are simple hypocrites. Either way I won’t be one more follower that strokes their ego. There are of course some celebrity exceptions. People who have already been so successful that I don’t expect them to follow one million people just because that many people are interested in what they are doing.

8. Send me a DM with a link that is going to help me get more followers or learn how to make money on Twitter. I will first check your profile to see if you have more followers than I do. If you don’t (95% of the time) I will have to assume that your amazing program isn’t working for you and I don’t want to associate with spammers at all. If you have tons more followers than me I might even check out your link but I’ll still probably unfollow you simply because of the marketing methods.

9. Tweet in a foreign language that I can’t read. Its nothing personal but I just can’t justify following someone I can’t understand.

10. Setup multiple twitter accounts that all tweet the same thing. I don’t know for sure why people do this but if I figure it out I am sure to unfollow all of your profiles.

Do I sound like an angry person?

Do you disagree with my tactics or would you like to add your own reasons for unfollowing people?

Jacob S. Paulsen

So I’ve been having this conversation with other Internet Marketing buddies. When it comes to twitter its important to start a conversation and interact with people in a genuine and sincere way but what about just the general effort to get twitter followers?

It seems that people judge your credibility based on the number of people who follow you on Twitter but with that having been said you have to be really famous or previously successful to have thousands of people start following you spontaneously. Most of us despite our desire to be honest and and contribute quality information; we have to go to considerable effort to get enough followers for anyone to think us credible.

What are your thoughts? Is this constant effort of everyone to get more followers a fake and counter-productive effort or is it simply necessary to build a following in order to have any influence at all?

Jacob S Paulsen

The basic concept of social networking and online marketing is the same as traditional offline marketing. Meet people, build trust, and expose them to your product/opportunity. The reason the internet is getting so much attention is because of the ability to meet so many people at once. Building credibility is made a little more difficult but can be done over time.

While there are now thousands of different social networks popping up online there are 3 that have set themselves aside as the big dogs. The Holy Trinity of social media consists of Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter.

Each is clearly different in it’s own right and can be used differently in your overall social media marketing plan. All three are about community building. When setting up your profiles on these three sites make sure you are consistent. Try to use the same username on all the sites and don’t forget that your username should be some kind of combination of your name or initials. Using the same profile pictures on all your social media sites also helps people identity and remember you.

Your approach should be the same with all three. Create a professional and personal profile, find a niche, and add targeted friends. Its not enough to connect with people in only one place. Make it your goal to connect with the same people in all 3 places.

Other potential big hitters…

www.goodreads.com

www.friendfeed.com

www.flickr.com

www.orkut.com

www.myspace.com

Jacob S Paulsen

The first weekend of June I had a unique opportunity to do some executive protection work (bodyguard) for some well known people visiting Salt Lake City for a convention. Many of you may not know that while I’m an internet marketer and a network marketer, by trade I’m a security professional.

The company convention was that of a relatively new MLM named Zrii. The CEO and owner is Bill Farley, owner of the White Sox and he and his family’s safety were my primary concern throughout the three day convention but we also had a guest visit from both Deepak Chopra and Anthony Robbins for whom we were also responsible.

While I of course don’t mean to promote Zrii in this post I do want to share some insights that I learned from these great speakers and people both on stage and backstage.

Deepak Chopra. Deepak when you see this article in your google alerts email on your blackberry you will remember that I’m the guy that followed you around in Salt Lake that weekend. The content that Deepak delivered was great and I admit that even though its my job to not pay attention to him but instead the crowd, I struggled.

I think the general theme of his speech was understanding the “soul” of the man and how it is connected to the mind and body. Very intriguing and and I must say very original. There was no question to his credibility and while he wasn’t exactly full of energy I still felt like the audience was very connected and aware. It made me want to buy some of his books!

What was he like backstage? Deepak was very in the zone before he went on stage. He wasn’t annoying or stuck up but just focused. Despite him wanting to be truly alone he accepted every visitor who came back to make his acquaintance. That having been said he was generally quiet and reserved.

I think I would have seen a more lively side of him if he hadn’t had a cold. He wasn’t able to stay on site very long and on the way back t

o the hotel from the venue he spent most of the time reviewing his google alerts on his blackberry. When he finished he asked me about Salt Lake. He either was sincerely interested in Salt Lake, felt awkward in the silence, or just wanted to chat with me a little. Either way we had a nice little chat on the way back to the hotel and I felt his transparency in his character. I liked him.

Anthony Robbins. Anthony Robbins does somehow seem to live a life of the constant passion for which he is so well know for on stage. He doesn’t travel alone and on this trip had his own stage assistant, sound manager, and “handler.” I also understand that he is rarely away from his wife but this was one of those rare occasions.

On stage he did a great job of delivering what I suspect he normally would consider his 3 day signature seminar in about 4 hours. Once again I wasn’t supposed to be paying close attention but a couple of the key things I will remember were his phrase, “motion creates emotion,” which effectively means that we can control how we feel by our own body posture and movement. He demonstrated this by inviting the entire crowd to do several 90 second role plays.

What was he like backstage? Best put, he was friendly. He just seemed to like people and everyone around felt that. He agreed without question to take a picture with me and the other security guys and that was super cool.

In talking to a member of his staff I also learned that his travel schedule is extreme. He is constantly going from one place to another and due to his tendency to stay on stage until he feels he is done he is often cutting it really close to the wire. To be quite frank I don’t know how he keeps it up. It seems exhausting.

Oh and also just a quick note that I met Thurl Bailey at the convention and he is AWESOME!!!

When helping my clients set up their own blog they often ask me what they should be writing about. Today’s blog post is to answer that question.

Determining your content will also help you configure your site categories. The WordPress blog categories are designed to help search engines categorize your content and are therfore crucial.

Before we get into the specifics of your content let’s outline the general ideas. I suggest you consider the following types of content:

1. Informative. The greatest reason why people will visit your site will be to learn and discover. In the beginning of creating your site you should determine your own niche. What specific topic or arena can you be an expert in? Write content specific to informing or educating your readers on that topic.

2. Entertaining. Your readers need to enjoy their visit to your site. Entertaining content should still be specific to your niche or topic but should be light and easy to read.

3. Personal. Your readers need to get to know you. They deserve to know who you are and what you are about. Share your goals, trials, and life especially as it pertains to the niche/topic.

Hopefully you noticed that all the content on your site should be specific to your niche. I would also suggest mixing informative, entertaining, and personal content together as much as possible.

Now let’s get more specific. Once you have found your niche and have discovered how you want to break that niche into categories you can begin writing posts. Try to think ahead by writing different types of posts and they apply to your different categories. Don’t post too often at first. 3 to 4 times per week is plenty to show people what you are about without asking them to make a daily commitment to you.

Be sure to use various mediums including audio, pictures, video, etc. This does wonders for search engine optimization but more importantly will allow you to attract all types of readers.

Be consistent. Your readers need to form a relationship of sorts with you. This is done by giving them good information. Your credibility will come from your ability to do that consistently over time.

Jacob S. Paulsen