Let’s face, not everyone learned the lesson back in third grade that stealing someone else’s work and calling it your own is wrong.  Either that, or people have forgotten it over the past few years.  Plagiarism of your content is something that happens every day.  Personally, I don’t have that much of a problem with someone sharing my content, as long as they give me credit for it and ask permission.

Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to give credit or even ask permission.  For the longest of times I’ve tried setting up ways to track things to find those violators, but have had somewhat a difficult time doing so.  I set up all types of Google Alerts, closely monitored my analytics and more, to try and monitor my online presence.  The problem that I ran into though is that these didn’t always pick up every occurrence and some wouldn’t remove the content without legal action which can be exhausting and expensive.

Giving Credit Where It’s Due

I’ve recently implement two different tools into my WordPress site to track my site & make sure that my content receives the proper attribution it deserves.  I feel it is only appropriate that if someone is going to use content that I have take time to create, I should at least be given credit.  There are two ways that most people will steal your content, so lets discuss solutions for each.

The first way, is some will simply push your RSS feed of content into some sort of content farm/aggregator.  These have also been called scraper sites.  People do this to constantly feed content to their site without having to do any work.  What I found to combat this type of theft is a WordPress plugin thanks to my friend Eric called Anti Feed-Scraper Message.  This plugin prevents your RSS feed from being copied elsewhere without attribution by adding a message and link to your original post that you can also customize.  Here’s what it looks like in my Feedburner Feed:

This automatically shows at the bottom of all my posts that are being fed somewhere via RSS.  So while it doesn’t prevent scrapers from taking my content, it at least gives me credit and a backlink.

The second way that your content is normally stolen is by someone who comes and reads one of your posts and decides to copy/paste over to their site word for word.  Or, maybe they read a line in your post that they want to just use in a post they are writing.  These kinds of things happen every day, and unfortunately most the time we are never even aware of it happening.

A great new tool I just recently implemented onto my WordPress site here called Tynt, addresses this completed and provides you with some awesome analytics in addition to an automatic backlink to the original post or page of content on your site.  What is really cool with tynt, is that it allows you to set it down to a minimum of only 8 words copied to insert the tracking and backlink.  What I like even more, is that it doesn’t matter if the content is copy/pasted to another site, Facebook, or an email, it will place the backlink to the original content here on my site.

Test this one out.  I dare you to copy/paste any paragraph from anywhere on my site.  It will automatically add a backlink to here no matter where you share it.

Tynt also provides you with some really great analytics of your site and content that is shared.  It will show you how many times it’s happened, number of pageviews that resulted from it and more.  They also have tracking tools for social media that will show you how many times your content is shared via E-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.  This data can be very valuable in helping you determine which networks are the most beneficial to your business and are working the most effective.

So if you are like me and want to make sure you get the proper credit for the hard work you put into your site writing new content, check out these two options and install them today.  As a side benefit of the proper attribution, you also will start to build some backlinks to your site that can really help with the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of your Custom WordPress site.

Installing Tynt on your website does take a slight bit of technical skills, so if you need help with setting it up and installing on your Custom WordPress Site, feel free to contact me and we can take care of it for you.

Battling Plagiarism Of Your Content With Proper Attribution originally appeared on Social Media Advisors | Social Media Speaker | Custom WordPress Site on February 1, 2012. Tweet This

I’ve found over the past few months of building Custom WordPress Sites that more and more people do not realize that a WordPress site is more than just a blog.  I also get asked many times each week how to add a home page to a WordPress site.

By home page, I don’t mean a page that says home at the top and runs all your blog posts on it, I mean a static home page like the one I built here.

I remember when I first tried to figure out how to do this it took me a good amount of time to figure out the settings and make a static home page.  Surprisingly, to create a home page in WordPress is not that  difficult of a task.  To show just how easy it is, here’s a simple tutorial showing you how to create a home page in WordPress:

How To Create A Home Page In WordPress originally appeared on Social Media Advisors | Social Media Speaker | Custom WordPress Site on January 27, 2012. Tweet This

If you come by the site tomorrow, you do not need to fear that 210 Consulting is shutting down.  We will be working just like any other normal day.  However, you will notice a much different look to the site when you come by tomorrow.

Tomorrow 210 Consulting will be showing support for the #STOPSOPA movement that is trying to censor what is shared on websites and give ultimate power to the government to just shut down any sites that they wish.

If you want to show support tomorrow for #stopsopa there is a simple WordPress plugin that I’ve installed and you can as well on your site.  Simply visit the WordPress Plugin Directory and search for Stop SOPA Widget.

So if you visit the site tomorrow, January 18th from 8AM-8PM and see the black screen, do not fear, 210 Consulting is still around!

No We Aren’t Shutting Down, Just Supporting #STOPSOPA originally appeared on Social Media Advisors | Social Media Speaker | Custom WordPress Site on January 17, 2012. Tweet This

I had the honor of doing a webinar today with Mike Mueller on Google+.  Mike is super knowledgeable on the new Google+ platform, so I thought it would be fitting to ask him to do a class on basics of Google+ and also discuss with everyone about the new features of social search that have recently been implemented.

As I have shared with many people while traveling the country as a social media speaker, your use of social networks is becoming more and more important to the success of your business online.  With the way that Google is integrating Google+ into search now, it makes this network even more meaningful.

Here is the presentation:

• What is Google+?
• Step-by-step walkthrough on how to get started
• Current useful Google+ applications for business
• How to keep Google+ from becoming a time suck.
• Understanding how to use this new Social Search to your advantage

With over 62 million users already on Google+, this is a network to definitely consider in your online marketing plan.

Google+ and How Social Search Affects Google Results originally appeared on Social Media Advisors | Social Media Speaker | Custom WordPress Site on January 16, 2012. Tweet This

Social Search went live this morning on Google.  No, not Google Plus – but GOOGLE, the mothership of the internet.  They’ve been hinting that social has been influencing the Google algorithm for a while and as of today there’s no more hinting.  It’s in your face.  Bamm!

Here’s how a search for an Irish Pub in NY looks to me.  Remember, I’m in San Francisco.  You can see there’s 30 of my friends that have recommendations for me.

Google has placed that right at the top!

I didn’t know I even had 30 friends in NYC, let alone personal recommendations for me.

The truth is, they might be friends, but they might also be friends of friends.  That means they might be someone you don’t recognize, don’t know and yet they just influenced your search result!  Wow!  They might have written a review on Yelp, or uploaded a picture to Posterous, or liked a YouTube video.  Those are the rare instances.  The majority of what shows up as a ‘recommendation’ in search is either a share to Google Plus or just a simple +1 by them.

That’s why, even though you don’t think you need another social network, you do need to understand what’s happening.  Lucky for you, we have help!

January 16th, 2012 1PM Eastern- Understanding The New Google+ with Mike Mueller

Join us with special guest presenter Mike Mueller for an in depth look at the Google+ social network including how to drive traffic back to your website as well as the NEW Business Pages.

In this webinar we’ll discuss:

• What is Google+?
• Step-by-step walkthrough on how to get started
• Current useful Google+ applications for business
• How to keep Google+ from becoming a time suck.
• Understanding how to use this new Social Search to your advantage

With over 62 million users already on Google+, this is a network to definitely consider in your online marketing plan.

This is a free webinar with limited seating, so sign up now! Register Here

Now you really need to get into Google Plus originally appeared on Social Media Advisors | Social Media Speaker | Custom WordPress Site on January 11, 2012. Tweet This

Over the holidays while visiting the out inlaws in northern Atlanta, GA, I had the opportunity to visit with several of my friends.  My one friend Ken, recently opened a new business work space where one of the options available is a green screen studio.  Since I’ve never recorded with one before, I thought it would be a great opportunity to try my hand at green screen video.

What I found out quickly is that there is an art to doing it, and many skills required to do it properly.  First, you have to have a large enough space to shoot in.  My office for example would never work to shoot in because it is only 10′x11′.  You need a few feet distance between you & the screen.  You also need space for the screen to hang flat, and space for the lights & camera.  His area is much larger.

Next, you MUST have the right kinds of lights.  Ken had 2 softboxes which lit up the subject beautifully.  However we didn’t quite have the right lights for the rest.  We had two CFL umbrella lights.  They did a fair job at lighting the screen but caused a few issues.  The first was that they weren’t really bright enough to light up the screen fully.  Second, we were then mixing different light colors which can make setting the white balance difficult.

I think that after we spent a while testing, Ken decided he was going to go and purchase either some more soft boxes for the screen or at least just some halogen work lights to light things properly.  What I realized after some research is that you need basically two lights on the subject in front of them, two lights on the green screen flooding it with light to remove any shadows.  Lastly, there needs to be one light overhead behind the subject for backlighting.

Finally, the camera you use plays a major role in the quality of your green screen video.  I tried shooting with my Kodak Playtouch and it looked terrible.  Because you don’t have the ability to set white balance, exposure, etc,  the person’s skin turned really pale and made them look as though they were a zombie.  Also, since the lens doesn’t have the precision focus of a DSLR camera, the edges were very blurry in post edit.  When I switched to the DSLR, things got much better.

What kinds of costs do I see needing to be incurred to get a good green screen studio built?  Well, let’s break it down:

• Lighting- $600-$1,000
• Screen- $200+
• Large space-?
• Camera- $600-$2,000+

So in closing, unless you have the gear required and are not willing to invest in the right equipment to create your own, you are probably much better off either hiring a professional, using a studio like Business On The Spot, or simply skipping the green screen idea completely.

Is Building Your Own Green Screen Studio Worth It? originally appeared on Social Media Advisors | Social Media Speaker | Custom WordPress Site on January 10, 2012. Tweet This

As one of my resolutions of 2012, I promised to do more free webinars to help others on various topics that I talk about when traveling the country as a social media speaker.  The first class that I gave was on video and using YouTube.  With 3 billion videos being watched daily on YouTube it is important to understand how it works and how to implement it into your online marketing strategy.

In this webinar share how to:

1. Create appealing videos.
2. What equipment is needed to create videos.
3. How to get your videos found in YouTube.
4. SEO strategies with video.

In this video I also discuss several different tools that I use on a regular basis to shoot video.  To save you the time of trying to write everything down, I put together a gear page here which lists all the different equipment I talked about in this presentation.

The webinar is over an hour long, so make sure to give yourself plenty of time when watching.  If you would like to see more of my YouTube videos, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

So if you are looking for a social media speaker to talk at your next conference or business meeting, check out this presentation as well as many others over on my speaking page.

Recording Of Video & YouTube Basics Webinar originally appeared on Social Media Advisors | Social Media Speaker | Custom WordPress Site on January 9, 2012. Tweet This

Ines Hegedus-Garcia – @ines
@jb140 there’s a fine line bet prostituting your posts & getting quality readership – @chris_smth @phxreguy @tcar @jimmymackin

This was a tweet I received this morning from my friend Ines in reply to a conversation we were having this morning on Twitter about a recent post on HubSpot about 25 Marketing Stats for 2012.  The post to me seemed a little thin on content provided as it was basically just a list of statistics.  That however is not the purpose of this post.

The conversation started this morning when Chris, Jimmy, Jay, & Todd were discussing the completely annoying use of a Tweet This! link on every single stat on their post.  25 orange Tweet This! links in addition to the regular Twitter plugin seemed a little obsessive to me. My thoughts on the post were that they were only concerned about me sharing it out with others on Twitter. They could care less if I learned from the post, if I commented, or did anything else.

What is interesting though is that while the post is chock full of very interesting statistics that all of those mentioned above would love and share out on Twitter, (It’s what we all kinda do for a living, so interesting stats that back up our points are always valuable and helpful)  the conversation turned from great stats, to poor promotion of the post by pimping it out too much.

I wish I could say this is the only example I’ve seen the past few days, but there are more.  Just before following the conversation above I watched a video from Gary Vaynerchuk on how poorly the Oprah Winfrey Network was promoting through social media.  Here’s his rant:

Crossing the Line

What is the line where you go from successful promotion to prostitution?  That’s a difficult question to answer.  I believe it varies.  Some businesses can do more promotion than others and get away with it.  Others, the slightest bit can turn off your consumers.  I think instead of trying to use a formula you need to just pay attention to your sphere.  If people are interacting with you less, your traffic is declining, and things seem to be on a downward slope, then maybe it’s time to change.

I know in my business I’ve tested this on numerous times and have found that the minute I seem to be doing more promotion of me, my business and not others everything slows.

The Magic Formula

So, what is the magic formula to promoting things effectively?  How can I get all my stats going in the right direction?  Well, the answer is actually pretty simple.  Spend more time promoting others than yourself.  People pay attention to those who help them more than those who try to sell them something.  You can build a powerful online community by simply talking more about others good things than how great you are.  In return, you are building relationships and trust with that community of followers.  Then, when you promote something of your own, you are more likely to receive better results.

In order to get results from readers and your online community you have to first give something to them.  If not, it comes across really clear that you are just out to pimp your own products/services/things and could care less about others.

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.  When do you feel promotion turns to prostitution?

When Promotion Turns To Prostitution originally appeared on Social Media Advisors | Social Media Speaker | Custom WordPress Site on January 5, 2012. Tweet This

As a social media speaker, I had an awesome opportunity this past year to travel the country speaking at conferences and sharing stages with some of the best social media speakers in the business.

The past few days I have been working on my speaking schedule for 2012 I thought why not put together a list of people I’d like to see in 2012.  This list of speakers is comprised of some I’ve heard before and those I’ve only met online but would love to meet in person and see their presentations.

These are in no particular order:

Chris Brogan- I was fortunate enough to hear Chris speak in 2011 and also spend some time talking one on one.  He is full of great knowledge and very willing to share that openly with you.  If you see him at a conference, don’t be afraid to talk to him, he doesn’t bite, I promise.

Liz Strauss- As I affectionately call her “The Liz,” is a really smart lady.  We had her on the radio show a few times this past year and she really knows her stuff.  I’ve never met her in person, but through our online conversations, I know that whenever I do see her speaking at a conference, it will be awesome.

Jeff Turner-  Jeff simply challenges me every time I hear him speak.  He has this Steve Jobs-esque way of presenting that not only challenges you, but inspires you to try harder and do more.

Travis Robertson-  I had not known Travis before meeting him this past year while at a conference in Atlanta.  There are few people that I’ve met with as much passion as Travis while speaking.  He is also the only person I saw this past year that was able to captivate an audience for 45 minutes of speaking with one simple slide in his presentation.

C.C. Chapman-  Known to many as “The Dad Blogger,” C.C. is definitely more than that.  I’ve seen a few of his presentations online this past year and he has great information to share with people.  His new TV project looks awesome.

Chris Smith-  Chris is one of the geekiest social media speakers in the real estate industry.  He is constantly trying new things to help push the real estate industry to greater success.

Scott Stratten-  I’ve heard several of Scott’s presentations this past year via live streams/recorded videos.  He does a great job as a social media speaker of incorporating humor & knowledge together in his presentations.

Amber Naslund-  I’ve never heard Amber speak either live or from a recording online.  But, what I can tell is that she is a pretty powerful social media speaker.  The buzz alone from her keynote at Blogworld combined with my interactions on Twitter with her put her on this list for want to see social media speakers in 2012.

Gary Vaynerchuk-  I’ve watched probably two dozen of Gary’s presentations online this past year.  I love how he incorporates traditional marketing concepts with social media and then covers it with hard work to make your business successful.  He promises to one day own the Jets & I definitely believe him.

Laura Fitton AKA Pistachio-  This is one wickedly smart lady.  She founded oneforty.com which was recently purchased by HubSpot.  She shares tons of knowledge and I can imagine would deliver an amazing presentation.

Carrie Wilkerson-  She’s the Barefoot executive and does an awesome job at encouraging you to succeed.  I’ve never seen her live, but her videos definitely inpsire me and make me want to meet her face to face.

Brian Carter-  Brian is a fellow social media speaker who lives less than 20 minutes from my home and I have yet to meet face to face.  Hopefully in 2012 we will fix that.

Steve Garfield-  Video is becoming more and more important to my online business.  Steve is someone who is super knowledgeable on video and is a social media speaker who I’d love to have an hour with to just discuss video.

So, this is my list of social media speakers to see in 2012.  Did I miss someone you want to see speak in 2012?  Leave me a comment telling me who!

Social Media Speakers To See In 2012 originally appeared on Social Media Advisors | Social Media Speaker | Custom WordPress Site on December 29, 2011. Tweet This

This past year I’ve had the honor of traveling the country as a social media speaker sharing on all types of social media topics like using Facebook for business, how to blog, video basics, and many other topics.  One of the top statements that I’ve heard this past year while traveling is some variation of this: “Twitter is stupid, I don’t get it” which normally leads into a discussion on how Twitter can be used to help your business.

Is Twitter Stupid or A Great Source of Traffic?

One of the things I usually try to point out to people is that Twitter is a great referring source of traffic to your site.  During this past year, it is responsible for 22% of referring traffic.  The only traffic referrer to beat it was Facebook at 33%.  The bounce rates as well as time on site are very similar between the two social networks.  So is Twitter stupid, or a great source of traffic?  I’d have to say the latter.

Twitter Is Stupid, Only Celebrities Are There.

This is another common complaint I hear.  Since you only hear of big name celebrities like Oprah or Justin Bieber on Twitter in the media, many thing that is the only people signing up and using the social network.  Here’s a really great visualization of Twitter adoption in the US over the past few years:

Twitter is Stupid I Don’t Care What You Ate For Lunch

Why should someone care what you ate for lunch or what you did last night for fun.  I get it, not everyone is going to care about everything you do.  But, if you take some time listening to what others are doing, you can learn a tremendous amount of information about your sphere.  And, build some of the strongest relationships with people.  This past year I made a trip to Seattle to speak and while there some of my Twitter friends a meetup while I was in town.  Thanks to my friends Stephanie, Dale, Linda, & Debra, & Chris, I spent a wonderful evening with a great group of friends, all that I mainly communicate with just through Twitter.

So while some may not care about those types of things, I cherish the friendships I have made through Twitter over the past year.  I know more about some of my friends on Twitter from the other side of the country than friends of mine that live within 5 minutes of my home.

So Is Twitter Stupid or Valuable?

I am not going to force you to use Twitter in 2012, but as for my business, I know I will be continue to integrate Twitter into my online marketing strategy.  If you are not sure how to get started there, that is understandable.  Here’s a few great resources to get you going in the right direction:

• Get More Followers- Chris Brogan
• 7 Way To Be Hated on Twitter- 210 Consulting
• 50,000 Tweets and All I Got Was Everything- Scott Stratten

If you want to connect with me on Twitter, you can find me @JB140

As 2011 Ends, Do You Still Think Twitter is Stupid? originally appeared on Social Media Advisors | Social Media Speaker | Custom WordPress Site on December 27, 2011. Tweet This