REMINDER: How to Increase Your Freelance Income and Hire Freelancers on Twitter Chat / Party TODAY

Normally I would not do this to you – but so many people really need to find talented freelancers and so many exceptional experts could be offering their freelance services that I am sending this post just as a reminder so those who want to be there don’t forget and miss it!

TODAY from 3-4:00 EDT we have a Twitter Chat about How to Make Money Freelancing. If you’re a blogger you have skills you could be selling. We’ll share with you what those are. If you already freelance we will share how you can increase your earnings.

Full Details on the Making Money Freelancing Here
CLICK THE LINK ABOVE

Immediately following that chat we have a Twitter Party about How to Buy Services or list your services on DoubleLinx and they’re giving away valuable prizes to encourage you to tune in.

Full details in Online Marketing Services Party
CLICK THE LINK ABOVE to
RSVP to receive an email to pre-enter to win

Even if you have never been on a Twitter chat or party before you CAN do this. We will assist you. Just click either of the links above and join the party!

Tagged as: freelancing, Twitter, twitter chats, twitter parties

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Progressive Insurance Corp. Case Study: How Not to Handle A PR Crisis ~ Tweeps, Redditors Outraged

UPDATE: Progressive Insurance tweeted Aug 16, 2012 that a settlement
with the Fishers had been reached. Here is a screen capture of that tweet:

Since August 13, 2012, when Matt Fisher wrote about this family’s miserable experience with Progressive Insurance in his tumblr there has been an avalanche of negativity launched towards Progressive.

His tumbler post titled “My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer in Court”generated blog posts, tweets, Facebook and Google Plus shares and multiple threads on Reddit.

Progressive’s response has simply dug the hole deeper and deeper as I documented in the whole Progressive Insurance Fisher Story.

Progressive’s position is basically that they met the letter of the law and they obviously do not feel any need to actually do what is right or to care what their customers think.

While some report that they “settled” with the Fisher family, as I edit this post on Aug 25, 2012 they have NOT seen one thin dime. Read on to see why they may not get what the judge ordered.

See Matt Fisher Video About Progressive Insurance persuasively
explaining what happened and why he tweeted
“My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court“
in GrowMap’s post Progressive Insurance Reform

Matt Fisher’s sister, Katie, was killed in an auto accident in 2012 by a driver who ran a red light according to witnesses. Because Katie’s killer was underinsured, Katie’s policy with Progressive should have paid out the difference between the at fault driver’s insurance of $25,000 and the $100,000 Katie carried.

Progressive clearly owed the Fisher family $75,000.

Progressive chose to take the position that KATIE was at fault in the accident in spite of the evidence and the other driver’s insurance company paying – something they clearly would NOT have done if their customer was not at fault.

Because Maryland law does not allow policy holders to sure their insurance companies for breach of contract, Katie’s family had to prove Katie was not at fault by establishing that the other driver caused the accident.

Redditors were outraged – see the comments about Progressive Insurance on Reddit
surrounding SF Chronicle’s Progressive Insurance on Defense After Court Case

Because getting a jury ruling to prove the other driver was at fault was the only way to force Progressive to pay what they clearly owed, the Fisher family reluctantly took the other driver to court.

They never dreamed that Progressive would sent their legal team to defend the driver that killed Katie in order to avoid paying the Fisher family the $75,000 they clearly owed.

Graph by Alerti
~Discussions around Progressive were 51.33 percent negative
in the week since Matt Fisher’s post ~

The jury ruled in favor of the Fisher family – the other driver was determined to be negligent – and the judge ordered Progressive to pay.

Progressive actually made the bad publicity worse by claiming they did NOT defend Katie’s killer in court when they most certainly did. What lawyers consider acceptable has little to do with what it right and almost any strategy that can result in a win is acceptable – even lying.

After Progressive made a rebuttal that they were not representing the defendant,
followers of the case did some fact checking and determined their claim to be untrue.
Image courtesy of theblaze.com

This is likely to be the number one most often cited example of what not to do when your business is in the midst of a PR crisis, as well as the power of social media publicity.

With any luck this outpouring of disgust at their behavior will cost Progressive dearly for many years and possibly even get them to reconsider their unethical ways. But that is doubtful so I wouldn’t count on it.

The reason people act the way they do is because they truly
believe they are right. That is unlikely to change regardless
of how many object or tell them why they’re not.

Graph by Alerti
Even with dozens of articles posted about the scandal, Twitter ruled
the online conversation with 99.33 percent of mentions.

Progressive will pay the cost of the court of public opinion but it is unlikely
they will connect the dots and realize THIS case is responsible for a
reduction in earnings over many years as current policy-holders
cancel and others avoid switching to Progressive when
comparing insurance companies and rates.

Over 1,000 Twitter users claim to have dropped Progressive as their insurance carrier in a four-day span last week. 1,600 more Twitter users indicated they would avoid using  Progressive according to Marketwatch.com.

Progressive created and perpetuated this PR catastrophe by their single-minded pursuit to save $75,000 instead of doing the right thing. Even if they routinely refuse to pay – which I have no doubt IS true – once they realized how large an outcry this case was generating even they should have decided they could not get away it – this time.

Anyone else curious how many blog posts were written about Progressive
since Matt’s Tumbler? Tell me in the comments and I will research –
I can find out using GroupHigh’s Blog Outreach Management Tool

Businesses concerned that social media users might rise up against them – and that CAN happen whether you are honest and upstanding or greedy and selfish – can use monitoring sites such as Alerti to track conversations involving your company.

By monitoring and immediately responding to complaints posted online about your business, you can head off and handle situations BEFORE they escalates to the level seen in the Progressive scandal.

Video Highlights:

Social Media MonitoringSalvaging a PR catastropheProgressive Case StudyTagged as: flo meme, insurance industry, katelyn fisher, katie fisher, matt fisher, progressive corp., progressive lawsuit, progressive scandal

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Social Media Monitoring Prevents Trademark Infringement PR Nightmares

In this week’s episode of “The Future of Engagement” Murray Newlands talks about the Jack Daniels’ case and how they – and you  – can turn publicity in your favor.

Companies have a recognizable logo that customers can identify anywhere. The public has a feeling or memory for brands that keeps them loyal.

Protecting your logos and trademarks is essential.

Legally, a brand MUST act when their trademark is infringed or the law may see that as a sign they are not protecting it and rule against them in the future.

Suing over trackmark infringement can result in the public
viewing your response negatively – and you can lose customers.

Jack Daniels, the whiskey manufacturer, recently found itself in a case of trademark infringement over a book cover that resembled their bottle’s logo.

Because they addressed the issue with a cease and decease letter and offered to pay for cover changes, they became the “good guys” in this scenario instead of the “big, bad company”.

Rather than a lawsuit that would make them look aggressive, they are seen as wisely protecting their brand while being more than fair to the author.

Handled correctly, even trademark infringement issues can garner
positive publicity that companies can use to their benefit.

It was clear to the public that they weren’t trying to get money out of the author, but only wanted to protect their brand. Brands are required by law to object or they lose the ability to do so.

Jack Daniels handled this in a way that generated publicity that
favored them and avoided negativity from the public.

Turning bad situations into good publicity is
something every company should strive to do.

Jack Daniels was wise to develop a plan that turned this case into good publicity. If something negative is brought to the company’s attention too late it could be a lost cause and take lots of monetary funds to fix the situation.

Social media monitoring is something that companies
should invest in to avoid any possible damage.

Anyone can post anything at any time about your company and can cause lots of damage – if caught too late. People can read a negative review and cease to buy your products or services OR trademark or copyright infringement could be happening.

You need to implement a trademark monitoring and protection program.

DO that with social media monitoring and you can be alert and know what goes on regarding your company – immediately – so you can take action!

Social media monitoring tools can make it easier to keep track of your brand online. SMM tools like Alerti can collect the data for you from everywhere on the web from social networks to blogs to news sources.

Social Media Monitoring is what makes is possible for you to know where
your brand is being talked about and see a sentimental analysis.

Every company should have a form of social media monitoring that can assist in preventing any problems in the first place. You can get to know your audience better as well so you can keep your presence in a good light and keep consumers loyal to the brand.

Highlights:

Develop a plan to turn negative publicity and comments into positive ones that can make the company come off unscathed.Social media monitoring use can assist in keeping track of your brand online.A SMM tool can do the monitoring for you and provide you the results in easy to read formats.

Click here for your free white paper on social media monitoring.

Tagged as: brand protection, internet law, social media monitoring, trademark infringement, trademark law

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FeedBurner Signs Off Twitter. Now What? Is FeedBurner Going Away? Do Not Wait to Find Out!

Most bloggers have been using Feedburner to manage their RSS feeds since before they got bought out by Google.

Not a peep about their plans so far – but FeedBurner has never been the same since Google bought them out. 

I knew about that tweet because I happened to be Skyping to Phil Hollows, creator of FeedBlitz about our plans to migrate all FeedBurner accounts. Phil just published his thoughts on FeedBurner Officially Not Listening Any More.

NOW we better wake up and get it done because better safe than sorry. If Google kills FeedBurner all your feeds will quit working, your subscribers will be lost, and you’ll be starting over.

Google already forced us to migrate once and we don’t know what is coming -
so why don’t we all go ahead and migrate to FeedBlitz now?

Many of us have been wanting to migrate to FeedBlitz anyway, but it is so powerful and does so much that we haven’t made that happen yet. What we need is bloggers helping bloggers to make the transition.

As soon as any of us has experience and skills, moving will be easier for all of us. Fortunately, Phil @FeedBlitz now has a Free FeedBurner Migration Manual.

There are also many other resources to make migrating simpler. I will add links to the best of them at the bottom of this post shortly.

Twitter Chat Expert Deborah Anderson @SocialWebCafe is already hard at work migrating GrowMap, setting up FeedBlitz on our new B2C Twitter Chat Services blog and making sure our FeedBlitz setups for SMBcontest and our other JV blogs are properly optimized.

Businesses and blogs MUST be building mailing lists and use social media to drive more subscribers to their lists.

FeedBlitz handles both RSS feeds like FeedBurner
AND social media in one solution.

If you use Feedburner now, check out the FeedBurner Migration Guide from FeedBlitz, our choice as the best premium FeedBurner Alternative.

FeedBlitz links ARE affiliate links. That is NOT why I recommend them. I use them – I want to use them exclusively. I recommend others use them at least for their RSS feeds and seriously consider using them for their email marketing and social media marketing as well.

FeedBlitz provides major advantages – especially to agencies,
consultants, VAs, and others who manage accounts for clients.

If you are a VA or marketing professional, within your own FeedBlitz account you can:

Create a new account for a client. Ask your client’s permission to give you access to their already existing FeedBlitz account

For those unfamiliar with affiliate marketing, this section applies to ANY affiliate program:

If you click on one or more affiliate links and buy FROM THE SAME DEVICE USING THE SAME BROWSER an affiliate may receive a commission for that sale IF you do not clear cookies.

It does not cost the BUYER any more if an affiliate is paid than if they are not.

If you have clicked on more than one affiliate link, some affiliate programs pay the commission to the LAST AFFILIATE LINK aka LAST CLICK and others pay to the FIRST AFFILIATE LINK you clicked on.

If you would like to make sure a particular affiliate receives a commission for your purchase: 

Clear ALL cookies (unless you know exactly which cookies to clear – that may NOT be obvious)Click on their affiliate linkLet them know you used their link so they can see whether they receive credit

This is especially thoughtful when the commissions are monthly recurring like FeedBlitz or AWeber.

I encourage bloggers to use and promote FeedBlitz.
If you run into difficulty, leave a comment
or contact me directly for assistance.

Tagged as: blogging best practices, feedblitz, feedburner, small business

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Best Free WordPress Themes By Type of Blog

This is a guest post by PHP developer Nishant.

When anyone thinks about the term blog the next term in the queue will be WordPress. This is because WordPress has changed blogging by its simplicity and ease of use.

If a blogger wants to get strong traffic, the appearance of a blog is as important as the content.

People are more likely to stay and read blogs
with  attractive designs and colorful features.

To make this happen, WordPress Development uses a wide variety of themes. We offer our most favorite themes here to assist do it yourself bloggers is selecting what theme works best for each type of blog.

Shuttershot: This is the theme which is best suited for photography sites or blogs. The template comes with a default slide show with choice of design. This will be very helpful for showcasing a photographer’s collection of pictures very attractively.

Linedy: This is the best theme for blogs or websites using the latest version of WordPress. This theme is optimized for SEO and hence best for new users, too.

Balita: For those who are looking forward to running an e-commerce website or blog, this is the best and most highly recommended theme.

This theme is loaded with features including a shopping cart, advertising banners, and social networking integration. The theme will well work with blogs designed with HTML5 and CSS3.

MyCorp: Entrepreneurs who are looking to start a business can increase profits by choosing this theme. This is suitable for business websites and portfolios.

This theme can be customized very easily by the users according the business type. The theme will load fast as the images and templates are designed with high precision and optimization.

Nico: For entertainment websites or blogs, the best theme is Nico. This theme uses two columns for posting thumbnail pictures on one side and post content on the other.

This theme is designed with entertainment features and this will well work on the new version of WordPress. When the site is developed using this theme, the blogger will see more traffic because the theme is SEO friendly.

With all these themes available for starting blogs and websites, there is no need to worry about making due with an unattractive design. Your marketing efforts will be more effective when your blog makes a great first impression with one of these themes.

Nishant is very passionate about the codeigniter Web application, Web designing, SEO, Internet marketing and blogging. If you like this post, he would love to hear from you. Leave a comment, share his post and follow him @phprockerz on Twitter.

Tagged as: Blogging Best Practices, free wordpress themes, WordPress / Plugins / Akismet, wordpress themes

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NEW: Seek or Shout Platform For Bloggers ~ Similar to Help A Reporter Out (HARO) for Journalists

Click this image to go to HARO for Free PR and to volunteer as an expert in your field.

If you want free publicity for your blog or business you need to know about Help a Reporter Out, better known as HARO. (Twitter @HelpaReporter)

You sign up for free and receive daily emails with requests from reporters for specific information or experts to interview.

They now have separate emails for different niches to make it easier to see just the inquiries most relevant for you.

You can even get alerts ONLY for the Keywords YOU choose!

Here are two short videos that explain the NEW HARO benefits and Seek and Shout:

New community site to help journalists, bloggers and PR pros connect, promote and research content.

Yesterday, one of our Blogger MasterMind members, parenting blogger Connie Roberts of BrainFoggles.com, shared this opportunity to inquire about writing for the Seek or Shout blog:

Patti Minglin with Go Girl Communications is looking for guest bloggers for posts focused on all things sales and marketing, especially related to women and moms. Deadline August 31, 2012. To respond with information or for additional details, visit sos.cision.com/seek/570471. Not a member yet? Register here for SeekOrShout.com.

This is the first I’ve heard of Seek or Shout (SOS). Connie described it as being similar to HARO. Here is a short video that explains what they have to offer us:

I immediately joined and look forward to seeing
the types of “seeks” and “shouts” are posted.

While the last thing any of us need is yet one more community to join, as a connector of talent with needs and someone who makes it a point to know who are TRUE experts in their fields, for me this one will be essential.

There are far too many pseudo-experts being quoted in the blogosphere and even the mainstream media. It is our responsibility to keep this “blind leading the blind” phenomena from spreading and to bring REAL EXPERTS to light.

Follow @SeekOrShout and @helpareporter to stay abreast of their latest news.

Tagged as: Blogging Best Practices, free publicity, pr, small business

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Gail from GrowMap Writing for Social Implications Which is Now Part of the CommentLuv Community

About a month ago, my regular readers may remember that I invited you to Read Gail From GrowMap on Social Implications.

I hope that some of you took me up on that invitation and all of you will follow me over there and see what I’ve shared.

For those who may have missed that, here are the posts I’ve published:

I have long recommended Social Implications for the insights Jennifer Mattern and their other writers have shared and am honored to add my voice there.

My writing for Social Implications supports the work I do. As I shared with my Blogging Mastermind Group:

What I write there helps keep my Internet and power on so I can
do what needs doing that doesn’t pay anything – like mentoring
other bloggers and building collaborations and putting together
income producing blog outreach programs to get bloggers hired.

Social Implications is now a CommentLuv blog so I hope all of our CommentLuv Community will read me there and share your thoughts. Please welcome them into our community so they can see the benefits.

Tagged as: smm, social implications, social media, social media marketing

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Internal Server Errors on Twitter AND FeedBurner? CISPA Passed House Headed for Senate

Am I the only one who wonders what is going on when there are issues with many major sites close together? Yesterday, Twitter was down. Today I tried to log into Yahoo mail and it was down.

Twitter is still giving Internal Server Errors regularly and I’m getting a lot of tweets that say “Tweet Does Not Exist” when I try to retweet them, but they’re sitting right there and then go away.

Twitter’s Internal Server Error Failures mean
you should expect another Twitter outage.

Twitterfeed has been crawling for weeks – sometimes taking many minutes to ever load any page. Now we are getting internal server errors trying to move off FeedBurner.

Funny “coincidence” – or related? Internal server errors
on Twitter AND on FeedBurner when I have NEVER
seen internal server errors on either one before.

I find it highly unlikely that NO ONE clicked the link for my post about FeedBurner possibly going away – not even when Amy Vernon, the Bacon Queen and highest rated woman Digger ever – retweeted it -  so I click through to Bit.Ly and try to share it:

But Bit.ly Bitmark sharing isn’t working either:

Whenever many different sites that are theoretically separate start failing at the same time, it is likely that they have something in common that is causing the failures.

If different kinds of Internet access are down at the same time, again, it is likely that there is something in common.We know there are people who want to control what we can see and share online.

We know that bills keep being introduced that claim to protect copyrights but can actually be used to silence bloggers – especially bloggers like me.

CISPA has already passed the house and could be voted on at any time. According to the Daily Caller:

CISPA is “The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), a bill introduced by Michigan Republican Rep. Mike Rogers that passed the House by a comfortable 248-168 vote margin in April.

CISPA will be considered by the Senate sometime next week.

I added the image below to my Facebook Timeline and encourage everyone to take these threats seriously.

To find out what you can do to STOP CISPA,
click the image below and visit the Internet Defense League.

NOTE: In every movement there are people who appear to be supporters who are actually infiltrators trying to stop progress. This can not really be helped, so we must just do what we must do and let that sort itself out later.

Tagged as: internet, internet outages, social media, Twitter

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Small Biz Trends Small Business Influencer Awards 2012: My Recommendations ~ Links for Easy Daily Voting

Each year, Small Business Trends hosts the Small Business Influencer Awards to recognize the Top Influencers in the Small Business Market.

981 approved nominees are listed for the 2012 SmallBizTrends Influencer Awards.

These are the nominees I feel will most benefit my readers
and small businesses based on my years of experience.

Here is how the awards voting works:

Those nominated are judged 40% by voting where each person may vote once every 24 hours for as many nominees as they choose.To make it much easier for me to support those I collaborate with or admire, I create a post that provides links for easy voting.

“New for 2012 is a completely separate category of award, called the
Community Choice Awards, based 100% on the community voting.”

I encourage you to vote daily to support key people we know and those who have exceptional and recognized expertise in their specialties.If you are nominated, I recommend you DO vote for yourself as well, so I include GrowMap in the recommendations found below.

Below you will find my @SMBizTrends
2012 picks as Small Business Influencers

Vote for each influencer you choose by CLICKING THE LINKS that say >>> VOTE FOR [Their voting link]

These are people who are widely recognized as experts in their respective specialties. Most I have interacted with while others I have recommended for years but they don’t know me.

Conspicuously absent are any nominations related to conversion optimization or landing page testing so I haven’t included any experts yet. I may add them here later.

Follow the social media action surrounding
the Small Business Influencer Awards
on  Twitter @SMBinfluencer
or using the hashtag #SMBinfluencer

There are hundreds of other nominees, so if you can make the time you may want to peruse the many pages of other nominees to see who else is there.

I included in my picks the very best experts – many of whom I
have been learning from online for going on eighteen years now.

I hope some appreciate the many hours that go into an effort such as this from paging through every page of nominations to adding all those links to make checking them out and voting daily easier for my readers.

Do please consider voting daily for those who give away
their time and expertise so that others may succeed.

Disclosure: GrowMap is a media sponsor – by choice – for the Small Business Trends Influencer Awards and the Small Business Trends Small Business Book Awards.

Top Small Business Books – How My Picks for
SmallBizTrends 2012 #BizBookAwards Finished

Tagged as: small business, small business experts, small business resources, social media marketing

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Internet Law: Key Federal Court Holding on Issue of Personal Jurisdiction and Web Targeting in Trademark Infringement Case

This is a guest post by Internet Law Attorney Richard Newman about a recent Federal Court Ruling that held that the laws of one state – in this case New York – DO appply to Web sites accessible from anywhere.

The case is Mrs. United States National Pageant Inc. v. Miss United States of America Organization LLC. The holding in this trademark litigation is a key one.

Specifically, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York has held that personal jurisdiction in New York over a non-resident website based on a national marketing campaign was proper where the campaign conduct specifically pursued a response from all fifty states.

Stated another way, the court held that “it would not be sensible, or equitable, to interpret the references in case law to ‘targeting’ a jurisdiction as meaning that the defendants must have singled out New York as a particular focus of their commercial activity.”

[Note from Gail @GrowMap: In other words, just because the site
was not SPECIFICALLY for New York residents only that did NOT
mean they were not intentionally targeting those residents.]

The plaintiff here registered the mark “Miss United States,” and uses it, along with variations thereof such as “Mrs. United States” to operate beauty pageants around the country. The plaintiff has run the Mrs. United States pageant for the past 25 years. When one of the individual defendants approached the plaintiff seeking to buy some of its trademarks, the plaintiff refused to sell.

Subsequently, the defendants formed a beauty pageant company utilizing names such as “Miss United States of America” and in conjunction therewith promoted pageants via the website “missunitedstatesofamerica.com.”

Mrs. United States National Pageant Inc. filed suit against the defendants in the Western District of New York for trademark infringement and moved for injunctive relief to preclude the use of the allegedly infringing marks. The defendants took the position that the court lacks personal jurisdiction because they do not reside in New York and that they did not intentionally target the “missunitedstatesofamerica.com” website at New York residents.

The court disagreed, finding that the defendants had sufficient
minimum contacts with New York and that the exercise of personal
jurisdiction over the non-resident defendants was reasonable because
the tortious conduct caused an injury within the state.

In reaching its decision, the court considered the jurisdictional impact of Internet based marketing such as that done on the “missunitedstatesofamerica.com” website.

Historically, courts have used a sliding-scale approach when analyzing related issues. On one end of the spectrum are purely passive websites, or information websites. Conversely, on the other end of the spectrum are those websites that interact with forum residents by transmitting files and documents.

The court examined the level of interactivity and commercial
nature of the exchange of information on the website.

It determined that the case was somewhere in the middle because the defendants’ website offers links that enable visitors to submit applications to become contestants and to purchase related products.

Specifically, the court stated that “[t]he evidence suggests that defendants sought to solicit contestants from New York (as well as from the other forty-nine states), and that through their website, they provided a means, through downloadable forms, for New York residents to become contestants in defendants’ pageant. Such activity indicates that defendants knowingly and purposefully reached out to New York residents in furtherance of the pageant business.”

The court rejected as immaterial defendants’ argument
that they did not target New York, specifically.

“This is not like a website that could be accessed from any state, where the defendant has no particular interest in which states interest comes from,” the court said. “The defendants targeted the entire nation because they are seeking to crown a national winner from among contestants from every state.”

The contestant application page listed all fifty states. “If defendants choose to reach out in that way to each state, they should not be heard to complain if they are dragged into court in one of those states as a result of that activity.”

Richard Newman is an Internet Lawyer at Hinch Newman LLP who specializes in Internet marketing and advertising law, complex commercial litigation, and regulatory compliance matters.

DISCLAIMER: This article is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.

Tagged as: internet law, law, trademark infringement, trademark law

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