By now, most bloggers have read about the new FTC rules that apply to reviewing products. In case you aren’t a blogger or haven’t been following the story, here’s the basic idea:
If you’re given a free items (or service) to review, or if you are paid by a company to write a review, you have to disclose this to readers.
Bloggers are dealing with this in a number of ways. Some are ignoring the new rule outright, saying that it is unfair or that the FTC has no way of policing all the blogs on the web. Some are adding a …read more

StumbleUpon is the ultimate tool for web surfers. You add the toolbar to your web browser and whenever you’re bored, you can just click the button and land on a random website. It’s actually pretty ingenious, and I hope the developers are making a ton of money. You can, of course, customize your stumbling so that you only land on sites relevant to certain topics (like sports or business or cooking).
But the real draw to StumbleUpon for bloggers is that you can submit your own site’s posts. There’s no guarantee that you’ll become popular, but when you do, you’ll see …read more

Social networking is an ever-changing beast; I’ve said this before, and it will remain true as long as social networking exists. Changing so readily, it can be hard to keep up with how to best make use of social networking. Hell, I remember a time when LiveJournal was the blogging platform of choice and it was weird if anyone other than one of your friends commented on one of your posts.
Here’s what I’ve observed as far as social networking goes:

Social networking is getting faster. People don’t have time to write long posts, upload pictures, etc every single day. To keep …read more

Social networking is not exactly my favorite task in the world as a freelancer. I know how important it is to network and join communities. I just don’t like doing it.
I’ve learned a lot about social networking over the past few years – what works, what gets you banned, what drives absolutely no traffic to your website. It isn’t rocket science, but for those of you just starting out, here are four social networking mistakes to avoid:

Don’t combine your personal profile with your professional profile.

It’s just too confusing if you have profiles that include both clients and friends. …read more

Social networking is all about having contacts (friends, followers, whatever). There’s a fine line, though. If you’d too “exclusive,” your social networking attempt won’t really matter. Your contacts will probably already be supporting everything you do. There’s nothing to gain by being a social snob.
On the other hand, if you’re too friendly, your social networking attempts can go south quickly. Of course, you want as many contacts as possible…but there’s a catch. You want quality contacts, not just everyone and their mom. If you just accept everyone who crosses your path, half of your contacts will be spam sites, people …read more

So you finally started a company blog. You know it’ll be good for marketing — if you can just figure out what it is you should be writing about. Exactly how are you supposed to choose a topic? How often should you write? Who should write it? It takes some time to figure these things out, so don’t be in a rush to get everything going until you’ve made a few decisions.

Find a writer.
Choose your writer carefully. She (or he, of course) should be passionate about your topic. Interesting. Able to write in an engaging manner. Technically savvy enough to …read more

This weekend, I talked a little about how some bloggers think they are too cool for school. One of the worst things about these bloggers, in my opinion, is that they don’t reply to their emails unless they perceive the sender to be just as cool. I mean, I’m not saying that I never miss an email or that I reply to people who obviously are spamming tons of sites…but in general, it is just polite to get back to someone, even if it takes you a few days to do so.
ut what about comments on your blog? Assuming they …read more

Allow me to be frank for a moment, though I’ll try not to rant.
When it comes to people who blog about blogging, writing, SEO, and other kinds of content, there are really two categories – the ones who every know and the ones who few people know. There are “celebrities” in the world of blogging about writing, and while these people come in all temperaments, I’m calling them celebrities for a reason.
Like Hollywood personalities, these bloggers are either loved or hated. They may be respected, but they aren’t always good at giving advice without being condescending. Sometimes, they rely on …read more

It seems like everyone has a blog these days. Whether its a blog about daily life, a fantasy blog or a paid blogging position, the blogging phenomenon is here to stay. However, Richard Annington, the CEO of Eazyrecruit, warns against the potential danger of blogging for businesses.
The main reason why blogging can be bad for businesses is the fact that it creates the possibility for public disputes that could get ugly. For example, if an employee is mad at a boss, a blog could be used to voice those frustrations.
“As blogging disputes continue to dominate the headlines, it’s not surprising …read more

…or at least they don’t have to be.
According to Problogger’s homepage right not, most bloggers have been blogging for less than two years. At the time of me posting this, there are nearly 2800 votes on his “how long have you been blogging” poll. Of those votes, only 256 have been blogging for 2-3 years, only 184 have been blogging for 3-4 years, only 105 have been blogging for 4-5 years, and only 199 have been blogging for 5+ years.
In other words, only a quarter of all bloggers who’ve voted have less than two years of blogging experience. Blogging is …read more