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How to set your blog’s RSS feed in Hootsuite so that you can syndicate your content to your Twitter account when you post to your blog. Just one more time saving strategy, helping you leverage your message online.

Happy Halloween Season!

It is that time of the year when kids and grownups alike pick out their favorite costumes, and wander off trick or treating or to their favorite haunts for a frighteningly good time.

I know this is my favorite time of the year I love the smells of fall and the the slow decay of everything green. It helps me to get ready to slow down and get ready to enjoy the coming winter season.

I look forward to long nights the sounds and smells of a fire burning.

To me there is nothing better then sitting with my family with a nice mug of hot spiced freshly spiced cider.

In the coming weeks I am sure I will be spending more time online and on Twitter. Chatting it up with old lost friends and connecting more then I do in the summer season.

As I was thinking of a costume for my kids and myself, I though to myself:  “I should Dress up my Twitter Profile!”

So I did!

You can too! I have assembled a collection of Halloween themed Twitter Backgrounds and Avatars.

I am sure you can find one to suit your “Ghoulish” mood!

Have A Frighteningly Ghoulish Day!

Here’s an interesting post I read today about embracing social networking for your business. I’ve been a blog programmer for a couple of years now and I see how blogging and social networking can work together to give your business an edge.

Do you have your blog and Facebook page yet? If not, let’s talk. Now is the time to act, to be part of the growing online community and take your business global.

Let me know what you think by commenting!

I’ve been playing with both Plurk (http://www.plurk.com/user/Debra) and FriendFeed. I found a great synopsis of traffic data for Plurk and FriendFeed. I thought I’d share it with you!

read more | digg story

This is a consummate guide to all your pricing questions. Author, Laurie Lewis, provides an in-depth discussion of pricing strategies, tracking methods, establishing gees, analyzing projects, and developing contracts and agreements for professional freelancers and consultants.

This is an easy read and full of great tips and advice for appropriately bidding and pricing projects. No freelancer should be without this book.

You’ll want to read this book with pen and paper in hand for all the notes you’ll be making. You’ll want to immediately use the formulas, suggestions and pricing rules it contains.

Start earning passive income by becoming an Amazon Associate and review books or products.

Log on to Amazon and scroll to the bottom of the page. Tap the “Join Amazon Associates” link and sign up to become an associate.

Now you can sign in, as an associate, and start searching for books, CDs, DVDs and a plethora of products that compliment your business. You can promote a single item or create a store for your site.

One of the easiest ways to start earning passive, or residual, income on the Internet is by blogging and reviewing books or products. Give it a whirl, what do you have to loose?

Any comments?

What kind of blogs do I program?

When I started talking about blogs in March 2005, I was using Blogger. In January 2007 I discovered WordPress. WordPress.com is the free WordPress site. There you can easily start your blogging adventure. However, your blogging url will be http://magicinwords.wordpress.com and you won’t have the flexibility of WordPress until you have it installed on your hosting service.

Why do I like WordPress?

I want to create passive income from the Internet. WordPress allows me the ease and flexibility of putting up a search engine friendly site that anyone can keep updated without programming skills. It’s the perfect answer to soneone who’s a solopreneur or small business owner. It’s easily customizable, has thousands of themes to choose from and, the plugins take the pain out of any task.

What are themes and plugins?

Themes are the design of the site. You might think of them as templates with unique looks. You can visit WordPress’ Theme Viewer to get an idea of the variety of themes that exist for WordPress. Themes are either one, two, three or four columns wide. The “style” can be changed through the Cascading Style Sheet. Very fun to play with!

Plugins extend the usability of WordPress. There are plugins for contact forms, surveys, tags, rss feeds, the list goes on and on . . . . Visit the WordPress Plugin page to see examples of what plugins can do for a WordPress site.

Sites I’ve Programmed with WordPress

• North San Diego Business
  
• SBS Associates
  
• Imagine Carlsbad
  
• Shirley Carolan
  
• Business Builders, Inc.
  
• Granny On The Go
  
• San Diego Women, Inc.
  
• Spirited Boutique
  
• Walters Consulting Group

Sites That Use WordPress To Manage Their Content

• Ali Lassen’s Leads Club
  
• BenchFit
  
• Vicki’s Flash Pops
  
• Chad Of All Trades

Contact Magic In Words today for
more information on how to get your business blog up and running!

Here’s a great video to explain RSS feeds. Enjoy!

I attended a large SCORE breakfast recently. I must admit, I attend way too many events with speakers. Is it just me, or are they getting more self-promoting?

Here’s my advice to speakers who want to “market their business” to the attendees, don’t! We attend to take back to our businesses, one or two action items we can put into place immediately for our business success.

I didn’t come to hear about your $1,000 SEO program, your Warm Spirit Multi-Level Marketing business or to watch you read out of your recently released book. I came for networking and information for my business. I know you’re selling your books, you don’t need to whack me over the head with it. I know you’re selling your products because I can see them on the huge table you build right behind the lecturn.

If I don’t attend the meetings because you don’t provide me with any concrete info, and cut into my networking time, then there won’t be a future meeting for you to speak at to market your business.

You and I would be much better served, if you followed the handout you gave us and provided useful tips and/or tools for our business success. Your credibility as an expert would be further enhanced by actually giving us info we can use.

To you speakers who like to speak to promote, which I highly advise as a good marketing strategy, I have a word-of-the-day for you, subtly!

Here’s a great example of viral marketing using You Tube

This is a video of Diane Mandle, Sound and Energy Healing and her tibetan singing bowls.

Are you using You Tube yet?