Archive for September, 2009

What Twitter username should you choose? What should you say in your Twitter profile? How do you create a Twitter account? It doesn’t get any more basic than this!

Follow me on Twitter @thekencook -- I’m multi-dimensional so you’ll get football, golf, food, kitties, weather chat, politics, jokes, trivia … all that yak.

Listen to Social Media Edge Radio every Tuesday at Noon Eastern on Blog Talk Radio with me, @JasonCrouch @MikeMueller @MyrtleBeachBlog @TS_Elliott and a constant stream of very special guests. You are what makes us a #1 Blog Talk Radio Show week after week!

If you could have someone constantly scouring the Internet for information on keywords important to you such as key industry terms for your industry, your competitor’s names or even your own personal name what could that be worth to you? Watch this short video and I will show you a very commonly known and used tool that does exactly that.

HIRE ME as your New Media Specialist — no job too small.

Today we look at business intelligence gathering by harvesting data from the Internet with yet another free Google tool that can also be plugged into your iGoogle page or sent directly to your email address.

Follow me on Twitter @thekencook -- I’m multi-dimensional so you’ll get football, golf, food, kitties, weather chat, politics, jokes, trivia … all that yak.

Listen to Social Media Edge Radio every Tuesday at Noon Eastern on Blog Talk Radio with me, @JasonCrouch @MikeMueller @MyrtleBeachBlog @TS_Elliott and a constant stream of very special guests. You are what makes us a #1 Blog Talk Radio Show week after week!

HIRE ME as your New Media Specialist — no job too small.

In this installment you will learn how to create an online form. There are some pretty amazing things you can do with these forms and I am sure your ideas will run wild once you see this! If you do not yet have an iGoogle/Google account please review installments #1 and #2 then come back and review this installment again!

1. Login to your http://igoogle.com account.
2. Click on the dropdown arrow beside the MORE on the menu.
3. Go to DOCUMENTS.
4. Click on the dropdown arrow beside the NEW button.
5. Click on FORM.
6. Name your FORM.
7. Ask for input from your users -- format it however you like.
8. Preview your form by clicking on the link at the bottom.
9. Edit the THEME for your form.
10. Copy the link to give your users.
11. Copy the IFRAME code to EMBED your form (will not work on some websites so use the link from #10 above).
12. Create a GOOGLE DOCUMENT to store the link to edit your form(s).

Please use my feedback form to rate the Morning Do series and provide comments and suggestions -- click here

I am available to speak to your group or organization or do training sessions lasting from 1 hour to a full 40 hour week. Contact me for pricing details -- I’m a lot more affordable than most people think!

Follow me on Twitter @thekencook -- I’m multi-dimensional so you’ll get football, golf, food, kitties, weather chat, politics, jokes, trivia … all that yak.

Listen to Social Media Edge Radio every Tuesday at Noon Eastern on Blog Talk Radio with me, @JasonCrouch @MikeMueller @MyrtleBeachBlog @TS_Elliott and a constant stream of very special guests. You are what makes us a #1 Blog Talk Radio Show week after week!

To save to your computer for uploading to Twitter right click and choose “Save target as” or “Save link as” whatever your browser gives you as a choice to save it locally. Then go to Twitter, login and go to Settings, choose Design, then Change background image, browse and upload. Then save it and you’re done! Black Cat is on there … look closely

HIRE ME as your New Media Specialist -- no job too small.

As the use of Twitter as a serious tool grows and morphs it is exciting to see so many powerful uses of the data arise. One of the most exciting tools I have seen this year from an entertainment, news and business viewpoint is this one. Imagine being able to see, by city, what the fastest trending topics are on Twitter! I already have a use for this which I will not share at this time because I have been using it to profit from a specific product but I am sure with a minute or two of thought you can quickly find out how to use this tool in your business.

http://trendsmap.com/

Since I did this quick video the people at TrendsMap placed a link on the information panel to minimize it. At the time of recording just 36 hours ago there was no way to minimize that info panel. Also, not shown in the video, you can scroll down and see a list of trending topics and a list of featured cities from around the world.

iCobb is Ken Cook with 30 years of business management and marketing experience, 20 years of internet (including BBS for business) experience, $660,000,000 in sales since 2001 -online. No business too small, no price too tiny. Get a business site you manage yourself, a 12 second video clip (3mbps WMV), and 6 months of managed hosting* for $399. Email, Skype: thekencook or phone 678-439-8683

* We keep the WordPress core updated for you for no extra charge. Hosting after the first 6 months is $9.95 per month including no fee WordPress core updates on request.

If you have been in business for 60 seconds you should already know the gathering of knowledge can give you a tremendous advantage over your competitors -- and even yourself! The more you know the more you can do. If, for example, you knew there were hot opportunities in one specific area while the area you are currently using as a focus are slowing down you would do something to move into that new area. With iGoogle you just may well be able to learn some news ahead of your competitors and be first (or at least early) on the spot with your product or service.

In the previous two lessons we learned the very simple steps of creating a GMail account and setting up a basic iGoogle page. In this lesson we are going to be slightly more detailed about the information we pull into our iGoogle page and tailor it for our specific purposes. In the future we will come back to iGoogle again and again as we use it for our own central intelligence portal.

Watch the short video and, as always, if you have any questions you can contact me through the system here or telephone 678-439-8683

I am available to speak to your group or organization or do training sessions lasting from 1 hour to a full 40 hour week. Contact me for pricing details -- I’m a lot more affordable than most people think!

Follow me on Twitter @thekencook -- I’m multi-dimensional so you’ll get football, golf, food, kitties, weather chat, politics, jokes, trivia … all that yak.

Listen to Social Media Edge Radio every Tuesday at Noon Eastern on Blog Talk Radio with me, @JasonCrouch @MikeMueller @MyrtleBeachBlog @TS_Elliott and a constant stream of very special guests. You are what makes us a #1 Blog Talk Radio Show week after week!

Yesterday’s Morning Do was very simple but required to get to step 2 just as step 2 is required to get to tomorrow’s lesson.? Yesterday we learned how to setup a GMail account which is actually creating a Google account. Today’s lesson, the second in the series of one-hundred weekday instructionals leading to the supercharging of your new media marketing (online business) plan is how to set up an iGoogle page.

Follow all the lessons at the Twitterbits SmallBiz Page

Recap of today’s presentation:

1. You already have a Google account if you have a GMail account.
2. Login to your account at GMail.com (this logs you in to Google in general).
3. Go to the URL http://igoogle.com
4. You already have a default iGoogle page.
5. Click around on the page.
6. To get back to the main page click on HOME on the top left.
7. You can click ADD STUFF to add content (Google Gadgets).
8. Add the GOOGLE CALENDAR -- delete by clicking the menu drop down.
9. Add a TAB. Click the dropdown next to HOME.
10. Name your tab BUSINESS and Google will suggest gadgets based on the name of your tab.
11. Automatically add Google’s suggestion for business.
12. Re-arrange the gadgets by dragging, deleting, etc.
13. Edit the tab by clicking the dropdown next to the name of the tab (Business).
14. Click HOME to go back to the main page.
15. Expand the articles by clicking the + sign.
16. Click the link to open a new tab to view the link.
17. Close the tab and it takes you back to iGoogle. (Or leave the tab open.)
18. iGoogle shows previews right inside the gadget.

Follow all the lessons at the Twitterbits SmallBiz Page

Introducing, beginning today, an ongoing series of very quick lessons using video and audio presentations on how to use the power of the Internet to create activity around your small business. This series (hopefully) will have one new installation published Eastern AM every Monday through Friday. You will always be able to come to Twitterbits and access the SmallBiz page for an aggregation or index of these posts.

This series of posts is called “Morning Do 100″ because it will instruct even the most novice user and smallest of businesses how to do 100 things to improve online performance, build a viable online network and do it all with the resources available freely (or nearly free) on the Web.

The first installment of “Morning Do 100″ is very -- VERY -- basic. In fact chances are great everyone who sees this short video will think this series is too simple for them. Nothing could be farther from the truth! In fact this first installment is to get you used to my style of teaching. For the record I have been doing business online since before there was a World Wide Web (what we consider the Internet today) and even before there was an AOL or Prodigy. From 2001 -- 2008 I generated over $660,000,000 in volume with over 50% of the efforts focused online.

And now, today’s installment which is the predecessor for tomorrow’s edition. How To Setup a GMail Account:

Tomorrow’s installment requires today’s installment so if you do not have a GMail account, regardless of how simple this step was, please go create one. Thanks!

Here is a quick text review of today’s simple lesson:

1. Point your browser to http://gmail.com
2. Click the large “Create an account” button on the lower right side.
3. Input your first and last name.
4. Choose a user name which will be your address @gmail.com (I used smallbiz678)
5. If your name is unavailable the system will tell you.
6. Choose a strong password (upcoming lesson on how to make passwords secure)
7. Choose or create a security question and input the answer.
8. Provide your regular email address so you can be contacted if there is a technical challenge.
9. Select your country.
10. Decipher the jumbled word correctly.
11. Agree to the Terms Of Service (TOS).
12. All done!

Be sure to listen to Social Media Edge Radio every Tuesday at Noon Eastern and join me in Atlanta for an upcoming Social Media Breakfast!

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Yes, it’s free to you! It cost me Six Bucks though! So if you can drop a couple of bucks in the PayPal plate please do. Otherwise no worries

To save to your hard drive right click on the image and choose “Save target as”. Enjoy!

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