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Social Networking World Forum LONDON - A revolution

Revenues from social networking, dating and personal content delivery services will increase from $572m in 2007 to more than $5.7bn in 2012, with social networking accounting for 50% of the total by the end of the forecast period.” Juniper Research.

Industry leaders, social networking, technology brands and media gathered at the two day event held at Olympia London and organized by Mark Johnstone and his team at Six Degrees.com. The gold sponsors were Xing, Reality Digital, Buongiorno, Blinko and Social go, but everyone who was anyone was there.

There were excellent speakers from every sector of business and every continent from Ogilvy PR to Cadburys, BMW, Sapient,Tempero, Endemol UK, Colibria, WebJam, Adknowledge, Vodacom, Proctor and Gamble Qube, Cisco Media, Linkedin, MTV, CocaCola, MySpace, Nixon McInnes, Ecademy, INSEAD, Omnifuse, Lithium. The list is long and the presentations are now online at the link above. WileyBooks (who were promoting “throwing sheep in the boardroom” among other books).

This was the conference not to be missed, and the press were out in force. The evening networking Reception in association with Mashable, was held at Sugar Reef.
Next year’s date has been set for 15th-16th March 2010, so mark it down.
I attended at Olympia London and brought back a taste of the conference for you to enjoy. Leave us a comment or tag yourself in the photos.
CLICK ON PHOTOS TO VIEW

Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist

How to build a social media empire

Video on networking with twitter

One of my favorite Bloggers Guest post

Christine Gilbert is a full time traveler, freelance writer and photographer. She blogs about her transition from Fortune 500 Manager to traveling vagabond on Almostfearless.com. Her tips about traveling Europe on a budget can be found at europestring.com. She travels with her husband and two large, slobbery dogs– and still wonders why it took her so long to make the leap.

How to Build Your Social Media Empire (in 13 easy steps)

These steps assume a couple of things. First, that you have a blog (or business) that you want to promote. Second, that you haven’t really started using social media to promote your blog or your unsure where to start. Next, that you already know what your brand is, how to be consistent you’re your brand message no matter where you write and you actually have something to say. Finally, there are tons of additional places (like plurk, for instance) that I don’t mention here, because this is intended to get your started (not overwhelm you with the thousands of sites out there).
1. Sign up for an RSS Reader if you don’t already have one. I suggest bloglines or google reader.
2. Add your blog, plus the blogs of anyone that comments on your site (or blogs that you read). This will become your task list.
3. Sign up for a stumble account. Add everyone you know as a friend. Be sure to list your own blog on the profile page.
4. Everyday try to comment on at least 5 blogs per day. You want to change up who you comment on, so use your RSS reader as a “To-do list”
5. Everyday stumble at least 5 posts.

You definitely want to pick the best content to stumble, and be sure to write a review. Thumbs up without a review has less bang for the buck.

(Note: you can but try not to, it doesn’t look good. )
6. Check your webstats. Are you getting stumbles? Go to your post that got a stumble and use the stumble toolbar to see who reviewed it. Add these people as friends. If they have a blog, add them to your RSS.
7. Sign up for twitter. Add everyone you know. Be sure to use tweetlater to autofollow and autorespond with a link to your blog or RSS feed.
8. Go to a twitter account of someone with a similar blog topic and start adding their followers. You can usually get away with about 100 a day. After 3 days, drop anyone who doesn’t add you back. Repeat. (Always follow everyone who follows you first).
9. Start experimenting with Digg, Mixx, Reddit, Delicious, and so on. Watch your stats. See what works. There are times when these sites have great rewards, but it takes some finesse.
10. Respond to every new commenter on your site with a personal email. Let them know you have added their blog to your RSS (if applicable) and thank them for commenting (offering assistance or something free (like an ebook) doesn’t hurt either).
11. Sign up for twitterfeed to auto post your last blog post to twitter. Be sure to participate in twitter in a friendly way. Respond to what others write. Offer cool links not on your blog. Give tips. (Don’t just post links to your blog over and over, this is spammy).
12. Once you get a hang of it, create a daily to do list. It should read something like: check webstats, 5 comments, 5 stumbles, 5 tweets, add followers to twitter, catch up on emails, 1 digg/reddit/mixx. After a few months of doing this you should have a healthy following of a few thousand people. Always be gracious and helpful.
13. You have a social media empire, now what? Use it for good. The best self promotion is selfless promotion. Give new bloggers a leg up. Gently promote your stuff. Enjoy the warm glow of being part of a bigger community.

Got something to say? dying to tell us what you think? comment below,
Wisequeen

Self publishing, should you or shouldn’t you?

Now, I try to never give advice on something I haven’t experienced either firsthand or watched happening.
In a former life I needed a handbook to immigration published that wasn’t attractive enough as a proposition for the big publishers and e books online hadn’t been invented yet, so I had but one choice.
I did my research about who to go with and settled on one with glowing reports from all the authors who’d used them.

Self Publishing Your Novel
Here’s what I discovered in a nutshell.
1. You will sign a contract which is strongly biased toward the publishing company, and have very little control over the finished product or timespan.
2. With slogans like “your book your way” they lure you in, take your thousand dollars before they even see what you’re publishing, although they claim to be picky about what they publish. That’s the last time you will feel like a paying customer.
3. Although you must write, proof, edit, and then format the doc according to their strange tastes yourself, or pay someone to do this for you; when you send it complete with artwork and layout, so that nothing remains to be done, checked, or changed ( a process that normally takes 1 to 2 or more years) they will ignore your written and signed instructions.

Producing covers that look like a middle school project although they have quality photo files and layout from you. They claim to offer advice on size of book, distrubution, price, etc. But once you make your choice they’ll remind you that the premier pack, costing double what you paid, for very little benefit, is what you should have gone for, so they could have offered better a service.
4. You may find as I did, that distrubution channels they boasted of fail to materalise.
That the proof copy of your book produced in some flar-flung cheaper land (and looking cheap too) will need to be shipped to you to sign off, and it will be sent at your cost, you pay the shipping. Unless you choose ordinary post from Outer Mongolia or Upper Canada, taking two months to reach you.
That although it’s a proof copy, if you make any changes to it, including any changes needed because they fail to do what you asked, you will pay extra for this.
I found myself asking what exactly the fee you pay is for, as all layout, formatting, covers, writeups, are done by the author.
They give you an ISBN number that’s about it.
Then when you print copies for sale you do so at a premium before you can resell them.
Any copies they sell through their channels will leave you with very little of the cover price.
You will wait to get royalties paid out for months.
So is it worth it? Well many people have no choice as was the case with my book. If traditional publishers don’t pick it up because it doesn’t meet their list or they can’t make big money on it the self-publishing or print on demand route can be an option.
You may be better served doing it all yourself on lulu.com and then just paying to print as many as you need. Amazon have booksurge publishing which may in the future give you a benefit of selling on Amazon as they may block the other self publishing houses.
Have you googled the company you want to use with name “……… publishers scam rip off”? Do your research first before you sign.
Here’s good advice from a publisher
Do you have a self-publishing story or complaint or comment? Write to us below under comments and well publish it on here.

A great site with all the research done for you.
Wisequeen

Amazon.com reviewers why don’t they get a life!

I’ve read the book Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
by Alexandra Fuller (Author)

cover to cover whilst savoring ever word three times now. It’s one of my treasured books, and I’m an author and have a large library too, for what it’s worth. It’s brilliant and true, I know I have experienced so much of what Bobo so vividly portrays: the truth about Africa. Those who focus on the alcohol, the brutal humor and war, miss the true story here. That these people really are exceptional and normal too. What sets them apart is their ability to create, and recreate their lives in a harsh climate and in military regimes that Africa suffers under. Its a story of courage, dignity and human spirit, and I wish all the those haven’t-lived- a-life- kind-of people would just go away and comment on some other book.
I’ve just had knee surgery and confined to bed as I am, have now read it for the forth time. You should read it and don’t jump to any conclusions about colonial lifestyles. Bobo has told her life in candid vivid detail, it’s breathtaking, and unless you have the capacity to understand the empathy which she shows to her Africa laboring as it is under military regimes, you should rather read one of the many political commentaries about Africa. Normally written by non-Africans which cast great sweeping opinions over everything. This book doesn’t, it’s life, real life told from a real persons perspective. I highly recommend you read it and once again I salute Bobo’s brillant writing.

Amazon veers between good reviews and other people who shouldn’t be allowed to review anything, least of all a book. But they do and what they give to me, is a mixture of dismay at their ignorance and also a kind of simmering comfort that even great writers have to struggle to be read by intelligent people with the capacity for understanding. Name a brillant author, and I’ll tell you how they struggled to be published, had to often finance their own books, and got crappy reviews from crappy people. What has changed?

Read this book and add your good review to the many there already are on Amazon. com Then send virulent vile thoughts to those with too much voice and no understanding.

179 Reviews
5 star: 59% (106)
4 star: 22% (40)
3 star: 6% (12)
2 star: 2% (5)
1 star: 8% (16)

See all 179 customer reviews…
4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (179 customer reviews)
Print List Price $14.95

Care to comment? do so below.

Wisequeen launch party on August 1st, 2008 be there!

Un-common sense advice blog for business, life’s rules,social media, etiquette, money, startups, entrepreneurship, conundrums, and everything in between.

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from the Queen of un-common sense, WISEQUEEN writer, global lifestyle coach and irreverent, curmudgeonly blogger.

Your blog-for-life

here are snippets of what Wisequeen who has written as moneypenny and wineloversworld has blogged about on the world wide web …

Business will never be the same when wisequeen launches

IT’S BUSINESSTIME

http://www.digitalmoneyworld.com/blogging-takes-over-as-the-media-of-choice/

http://www.franchisepick.com/franchisepickcom-announces-esean-payment-processing-system/

http://www.digitalmoneyworld.com/what-makes-an-entrepreneur/

TechCrunch Zurich meet-up

http://www.digitalmoneyworld.com/e-dream-design-your-own/

Finding blogger jobs
career advancement
Real people caught in real scams, their stories

>moneybookers.com rip off.