Check out the latest books reviewed by Mary Garnett.  The books selected were Problogger: The Secrets to Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income and The Thank You Economy. Problogger:  If you have started a blog, you already know the challenges associated with creating content, gaining traffic to the blog and earning money for your efforts.  The magic three are difficult if not impossible.  To earn a six-figure income for blogging adds an amazing feat to the list.  Yet the authors Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett are doing that and more.  If you have any level of interest in blogging, or even just writing solid, attention-getting content, this book is for you.  Click here for Problogger. http://prnt.in/Z5U   Thank You Economy.  If you are a fan or have heard of the author, Gary Vaynerchuck, you will enjoy this book as well as learn from his suggestions and examples.  Every printer or small business owner can profit from the guidelines of this book. Gary is an example that was highlighted in Social Media Field Guide: A Resource for Graphic Communicators  Gary is well known for his achievements in catapulting his local family-owned wine store into a national darling and in his demonstrating a sterling example of the impact of social media on a small business.  Click here for The Thank You Economy....

Ok, I realize I am behind the times on this Internet craze.  How about you?  A WSJ article caught my attention today with the headline: “How Planking Became the Internet’s Latest Bored Game.”  If you, like me,  have been guilty of monitoring such topics as the debt limit crises, healthcare efforts, 2012 candidates, and other items of national concern.  Or perhaps you have been concerned about your printing business sales, regulations, taxes etc.  Or, as in my position, creating a new program, budgets, helping members, and the like, it is time for a break.  From reality to the ridiculous….planking.  In case you missed this fad, planking is lying face down and maintaining your body in a ridged position, arms at your side.  Choose a weird but safe place, strike a “pose” of planking, take a picture, and post it on the Internet.  Obviously, if on a chair or in a tree or on a step or on an unusual object, you would need to safely balance yourself.  Pictures galore are on the Internet. http://prnt.in/Zwt  (Be careful with the images since I stumbled upon nude plankers (pictures not real people of course :),  and a snare for an adult website.)  One unfortunate planker  has actually died attempting this crazy game resulting in falling off a seventh floor balcony.  http://prnt.in/Zwv   How sad, really.  I will admit the photos of plankers or should I say “planksters” are cute, amazing, and even silly.  I confess, I tried it on a kitchen chair, and yes, it works.  My advice?…stick with the yoga plank pose.  Your friends may not think you are so cool but your abs will love it!  Here is the entire WSJ planking  article:  http://prnt.in/Zik  And http://prnt.in/ZiZ   Plank yoga pose.  Just in case you...

Recently, I participated in a discussion about the ROI of social media. Print industry audiences are always looking for examples.  One printer recently told me that he gained two to three new contacts that resulted in sales by using LinkedIn.  Calculating the ROI and linking it back to new revenue is a challenge. Most evidence in our industry to date is anecdotal so far. You cannot measure what you do not track.  The first item to start tracking is your time on social media.  Can you translate your time in hours per day or week?  So if someone gets two or ten new customers, what were the other expenses associated with the total customer acquisition?  Also what is the value of the spend for the first job and potential for other jobs.  Obviously there are many questions to answer the cost of a social media campaign.   The link http://prnt.in/Zwc discusses the ROI such as staff costs, advertising, external fees and the “other” category to estimate, tracking, technical or creative costs.  The article is very discouraging.  The suggested salary of the needed positions to carry out a campaign was also listed such as the social media strategist at 52K, community manager at 95.6K etc.  The article lists various benefits for social marketing such as customer engagement, direct customer communication, instant feedback, low cost, brand building etc.  Since I could not really relate to the total cost of a social media campaign (212K) in my non-profit-association world, the benefits and the campaign were of more relevance to me.  It was fascinating that just over half the respondents to a mentioned survey cited the “low cost” as a benefit. The respondents, like me, have not calculated the details if the results mentioned in the link above are accurate.  Really, 212K?  OK if you are a Fortune 1000 company, this figure is reasonable but for me?  I am still calculating how much time I spend on social media and the benefits I see.  What do you think?  ...

Hear an interview with Adam Ostrow of Mashable Blog, where he talks about how the Mashable blog operates behind the scene.  Since we have a blog that needs to find its balance, I am looking at how to make the SMFG blog more successful.  I was fascinated with the fact that Mashable publishes 30 articles daily and they have 20 people working on the blog and that does not include the other contributors.  It was discouraging since it is easy to see why it is difficult to keep a blog going but we (Julie and I) are planning to re-launch the SMFG blog to be more relevant and gain more people interested in the contents.  If you are interested in blogs, check out the short video with Ostrow.  You probably will find it very informative and worth the few minutes.  Let me know what you think. http://prnt.in/Z3P  Mashable is a very good example of a blog to emulate.  I checked out Technorati for other blogs to review. http://technorati.com/blogs/top100 Sure enough, Mashable was #3.  Huffington Post continues to rack up #1 positioning on blog ratings; www.huffingtonpost.com   According to Technorati, blogs are now the new arm of the fourth estate.  The 2010 State of the Technorati Blogosphere is an excellent source of information about blogs. http://prnt.in/Z3W Any blogs that you like? What topics attract you?  ...

It is very common to see the shorten service site such as bit.ly. It turns out that the “ly” is Libya’s Internet domain which uses the English language’s adverbial suffix: ly.  English language Internet users like the ly…sort of catchy. The article states that 43% of the “ly” domain is owned by English speaking countries such the US, UK, and Canada.  Today in the Wall Street Journal http://prnt.in/ZJm the entire possibly embarrassing connection is outlined.  From the US Air Force, to House leaders to ordinary people, many Internet sites have used the “ly” domain.  According to the article, bit.ly paid $75 for the domain name.  According to the Treasury Department (another bit.ly user), a spokesperson says that Americans could not rent .ly domains from entities controlled by Gadhafi regime.  Does it matter?  You can be the judge.  What shortening service do you use?  At  Printing Industrieswe have our own service and I enjoy  it.  Our service also gives a QR code for every address. I have not used that part yet.   Just as other services, you can place a long Internet address in one part of the site, shrink the address, and share it with others.  Note the Wall Street Article short address in the paragraph above.  The best advantage is the ability to track how many clicks to the address were completed.  When I wrote this article, I used my account to shorten the address.  When a reader clicks on it, I will be able to track how many people bothered to check out the article. I cannot track “who” clicked on it.  The number of clicks is the most important.  It is very helpful for an author (like me) to see if some of the references are being used.  In other words I can see if this topic is of interest. The use of a shorten service is widely accepted but I am surprised how many people don’t use it.  Twitter users always need to shorten addresses to keep to the character limitations. Are you using a shorten service?  Which one?  Does it concern you that the “ly” is fromLibya?   ...