There’s a new social kid on the block. SocialSpark is still in it’s beta stage, but I’m already noticing a fair amount of activity. Social Spark is kind of similar to PayPerPost, except that it has a much more social feel.

Social Spark makes it very easy to connect with other like minded bloggers, but it also allows me to connect with advertisers, which is something that I find quite unique.

I’m still finding my way around, but basically, you want to sign up and make as many friends as you can, you can browse and make friends with other bloggers and with advertisers. If an advertiser likes you, he might give you an opp, which you could earn money from. It is more likely that an advertiser will pick you for an opp if you are one of his friends, so don’t be shy.

There is also a marketplace, just like PPP, where you can browse the public opps. There are 3 types of opps, the ’sponsored post’, the ‘blog sponsorship’, and the ’spark’. A sponsored post is just like a sponsored post in PPP; if your blog qualifies, you can accept the sponsored post and get paid for it.

Blog sponsorship is exactly that, you get paid per day to display a banner from the advertiser. Just like with sponsored posts, your blog has to be approved first.

A spark has no monetary gain (I don’t think), it’s more like a post idea, but some advertisers offer a link back or a review back of your spark.

Why are you still here, go check it out. And while you’re there, check out my profile http://socialspark.com/bloggers/thebaptist, and give me a prop and add me as a friend, I’ll prop you back.

Enjoy

Simon

Ok so I’ve been blogging for about a year now, and while I haven’t been as successful (or as faithful) as I would have liked to be, I do believe that I’ve learned a thing or 2 about blogging, and I’ve certainly identified some thing that I would do differently.

If you’re planning on starting a blog of your own, you’re in for quite a ride. I remember when I started my first blog, and to be honest, it was quite crapy; but the feeling of starting something like a blog is definitely one that I won’t forget (kinda like the same feeling one gets from building something really cool out of Lego, for me anyway). I don’t think it’s easy to get it perfect the first time around, in fact, this blog was the fifth blog that I ever created, and even though it is a marked improvement from the other 4, it’s still far from perfect. So don’t worry too much, just start and everything else will fall into place.

Having said that, read the rest of this post, and maybe you’ll pick up a few pointers that could make your blogging life easier. So here goes.

What I would do differently if I were to start over:

• Have a clear plan for my blog’s theme – This is critical. When I started this blog, I had a vague idea of what I wanted to write about, but I didn’t really sit down and decide exactly what I wanted. If you’re starting a personal blog, then this point isn’t so important, but if you plan on turning some sort of profit from your blog, either from monetization or selling later on, then this point is absolutely vital. If I were to start over, I would spend a good amount of time and energy on this point.


• Develop an SEO strategy – This point ties in closely with the previous one. I’m always kicking myself for having neglected this in the beginning. SEO doesn’t have to be such a huge deal either, I know it can seem daunting, but basically all you’re doing is deciding on a key-phrase (or several) and then just adding it anywhere you can. Of course it can get more complicated than that, but if I had at least done that, I would have been happy. As it stands, I don’t even have a key-phrase that I’m targeting (if you have any ideas for key-phrases that suit this blog, please let me know).


• Curb the over-enthusiasm – I know the feeling, you start your blog with at least 10 posts in mind that the world needs to read today. The reality is that nobody is going to even see them, EVER. When I started this blog, I was churning out new posts daily, often it was more like 2 or 3 daily. I don’t think that many people have read those early posts, and as a result I quickly ran out of things to write about. Pace yourself, that burst of information overload that you experience in the beginning is good, but save those posts and publish them over time. It is much better to publish 3 posts a week, then it is to publish 15 a week for the first month, and 1 a month (if that) thereafter.


• Beware of monetization overkill – For a lot of us, we get attracted to blogging because of the prospect of doing something fun and making money in the process. But that can be a dangerous trap sometimes. Nobody likes a blog that is full of ads, so you much rather sacrifice the few potential cents that could be earned, and concentrate on content, and building a loyal reader base. Once you build a loyal base of followers, you can afford to throw up some ads, and maybe even look at other forms of monetization such as paid reviews, but if you put that as your focus from the beginning, you might find that some people are just not coming back.


• Commenting on other blogs – If I was starting this blog over, I would spend a lot more time commenting on other blogs in my niche. That might seem a little silly, but think of it as handing out your business card. When you start a new business, one of the first things you should do is print up some business cards and get them out there. Commenting on other blogs, in my opinion, is the best way to let the world know you exist, and that you know your stuff. So get active, blogging is about community.


• Wordpress – I started this blog with blogger, but unless you really can’t afford it, you should really go with wordpress (not the free one). Wordpress is the bloggers best friend, there are so many plugins that make life so much easier, and your blog will definitely be of more value if you’re not using a free hosting service (such as blogger). Wordpress also has a large community that is very interested in it’s well being and improvement.

Wow, that was long. I’m sure there is still a lot for me to learn, but I’m sure this would help. If you have anything to add, please let us all know in a comment.

Enjoy

Simon

http://www.scribefire.com/

Hi guys, in the last video I mentioned a bit about paddings and margins in css, but I fear that I may have left things a little more confusing. So I made this video where I explain paddings and margins in a bit more detail. Hope it helps.

Enjoy

Simon

Hi guys, here’s the second part of my blogger template tutorial. In the first tutorial I showed you how to resize your template, and in this one I’m basically going to show you how you can add a header image, and also how you can get rid of some of the unnecessary borders.

Cool, hope you guys liked it, and don’t forget to give me some feedback, even if the tutorial wasn’t helpful to you, I’d still like to know what you think of my style, and what I can improve for future videos.

Enjoy

Simon

http://feeds.feedburner.com/SimonsMoneyNotes

I know I’ll be using this tool. I just realized that I should probably check how my blog looks in explorer, and as always, they never fail to disappoint (partly cause I only checked it on IE6, it looks ok on IE7). If you’re using firefox, please stay that way, and if you aren’t maybe now is a good time to start.

Anyway, my new blog theme looks very ugly, indeed, in explorer and I’m going to have to do some major repair work. Thankfully, I stumbled (literally) upon this nifty tool called browsershots. Basically, with this tool you can take screen shots of what your site will look like in different browsers, that should save me some time having to always load it up in explorer (the less I see of that browser the better). It’s amazing how pretty much every browser understands whats going on except explorer, you’d think that with all the money that users throw at Microsoft, that something would come right, anyway, enough ranting.

Simon

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Most of us have heard of failing forward, or falling upward.  Both those terms basically mean leveraging your mistakes and using them as a springboard for greater success.  But here’s an interesting one, ‘quiting for success’.

I first heard about this concept from Dawud Miracle over at dmiracle.com, and it’s actually something that most of us know subconsciously but we sometimes find it hard to implement.  For a lot of people, the thing that holds them back from any sort significant success, is all the insignificant projects that they hold on to.  Typically 80% of what we do only contributes toward 20% of our success, so by quitting some of those projects that fall in the 80% category, we can actually focus more on the 20% that giving us the results.  Simple really, but quite powerful.

It’s so politically incorrect, but have you considered quitting?  It might just make you more profitable

I’d like to know what you think.

Simon

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I stumbled across this page of ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ today, and I just had to share it.  Calvin and Hobbes are hilarious.

You can check out the rest of them here.

Simon

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