Author: RosioC

If you are a stay at home mom then you would know how difficult it can be to make friends. Your day may consist of carpool, play dates, and errands leaving you little room for a social life. When you do however, find an opening in your schedule for some social time you are left not knowing what to do with that time. Sure you would like to have some coffee with a friend or meet up with a friend and enjoy a nice day in the park with the kids. But you can not do any of these things because you don’t have any friends. You detached yourself from the social scene a long time ago when you became a parent.

If you are interested in building friendships but do not know where to begin take a look at some of the ways and places you can go to meet friends.

Before attempting to make friends you have to exude confidence and be very optimistic. Some parents may not be willing to open themselves up to a friendship but this should not discourage you.

Go to the park and let your child play with the other children.

If you notice that your child shows a particular interest in one child at the park, look for that child’s parent and spark up a conversation with her. You could start by asking the parent how old her child is. If the parent is more of a gregarious person she should have no problem continuing the conversation. Take a look at her body signs, if she appears to be open to talking then continue to talk with her. If she seems annoyed or uninterested with your presence do not continue talking to her. If the two of you hit it off well you could let the other parent know that you are looking for playmates for your kid, if she is interested offer her your number.

Enroll your child in extra curricular activities.

Think of some activities your child might be interested in and enroll him/her in them. When you pick up your child from the activities ask him if there is any particular kid that he enjoys playing with. The next time you go to pick up your child ask him to show or introduce you to his friend. Now that you know how your child’s friend looks you will be able to easily spot out the child and his parent. If you notice the child and his caregiver ask the parent if she would be interested in play dates. If she is interested then you could exchange numbers.

Go take your child out for a walk.

You never know what people you will meet on your daily walks. A parent may just come up and strike up conservation with you out of nowhere. If you do meet some pleasant parents, exchange numbers and schedule play dates.

Post ad on internet.

If you feel comfortable meeting others online you can post an ad in the parenting section of such websites as craigslist.com. You can mention that you are looking for mommy friends (or want to start a mommy group) to do play dates with. You will be surprised at how many responses you will get back. If you choose to do this make sure that when you first meet the person, you meet in a well lighted area where people frequent.

Engage in a hobby –

Such as cooking class, music class, gym class, whatever class interests you. Get to know the people in your class. You might find that some people have kids the same age or near the same age as your kid. Exchange numbers and meet up for a couple of play dates.

Go to mommy group-

This is the easiest way for parents to meet other parent. Almost every town has an organization that funds mommy groups. The local library usually holds weekly story hours for children and their parents.

Know your neighbors.

Get to know your neighbors and find out if they have children close to the same age as your child. Exchange numbers and invite them over to your home. Within time your friendship should prosper.

Write your small business history as it happens

You make history every day.

The world at large probably won’t notice every move your small business makes, but what you and your employees do has an impact. Somewhere down the road, you’ll celebrate a significant milestone – 10 years or 20 years of serving customers, for example.

You might decide to publish a book or a video or a multimedia presentation about what you and your team have accomplished. Maybe you’ll show some slides at a special dinner or just reminisce at a company picnic about what it was like back in the day. 

Will you have the information you need?

You will if you start planning now for that special day and recording your company’s history while it’s fresh. This doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive. You probably already have much of your recent history saved in digital form.

Here are some things to consider as you document your company’s unique story:

1. Get employees’ input. They’re helping you make history and many will be happy to help document it, particularly on special occasions like retirements and anniversaries. Ask them to reminisce on video or audio recording or by writing up a few memories.
2. Save PDF files of ads, brochures and other marketing materials. Make sure they’re created in a way that is searchable.
3. Tags. Tags are free. Learn how to use them and tag your documents, photos and videos so you can find bits of information easily years from now.
4. Business information that you consider important enough to put in a newsletter or news release is significant enough to keep for future reference. Save those searchable files and others – all tagged, of course – and back them up with your other business files. (Consider setting up a free or low-cost wiki to organize your information.)
5. Using Facebook or MySpace page in your marketing efforts? It’s a good idea to write and polish that information in your word-processing program before you post it for the world to see. Tag and save those documents as your social media marketing archives, noting when and where you published the information.
6. Your own website, blog, podcasts and other communications should be great sources of information. Be sure to include links to media coverage about your business as well as to your own archived news releases.
7. Subscribe to relevant RSS feeds and use one of the many tools available to monitor social media for what’s being said about your business. You may want to keep some of that information, too.

Even if you ultimately decide not to put your history in a printed book format, you’ll have a valuable record of what happened and when it happened, and how you and your employees served your customers and community.

If you’re looking to begin a career, hobby or part-time job in online marketing, you have to get your facts straight from the beginning. If your goal is to make money by working from home and building websites than these internet marketing terms will also come in handy as you make your journey. Here are some key words and phrases that a beginner internet marketer must know.

Affiliate marketing –

In affiliate marketing there are two separate parties involved. You have the advertiser and then you have the person showing the advertisement or otherwise spreading the word. The person showing the ads or recruiting people to get to a different website don’t actually sell or offer anything, rather they get commissions or fees for getting customers for the advertiser. When you become an affiliate, you can display ads on your website, write blog posts about products or engage in countless activities geared towards generating sales for somebody else, which you then receive a portion of.

Search Engine Optimization –

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of fine tuning a website, article or other online presence towards being found and rated highly on the search engines. Google uses a complex algorithm for ranking web pages based on their Page Rank system, keywords, page titles, links into the site and more. When you participate in SEO activities therefore, you’re literally optimizing your content by trying to supply what a search engine like Google is looking for, in the form of appropriately placed keywords, keyword density, quality content and so on.

Search Engine Marketing –

It’s easy to get search engine marketing (SEM) confused with search engine optimization (SEO), which is described above. The main difference is that everything you do with search engine optimization you are doing organically, meaning that you aren’t paying for anything. Search engine marketing also incorporates paid elements of marketing a website, product or other online content online. This can include advertising in search results on Google, paying for directory listings on Yahoo or paying for other marketing services.

Pay Per Click (PPC) –

When you advertise on a search engine such as Google, you are participating in a pay per click, or PPC, program. Just as it sounds, you are paying an amount based directly on how many people actually click on your ads. So if nobody clicks on your advertisement, it was free! Of course, then nobody actually went to your website and you didn’t get any traffic either. When you rank highly in Google using SEO techniques, you’re said to be fostering organic search engine results. PPC or sponsored listings on the top or side of a Google page are not counted in organic results, but rather as paid results.

Niche store/niche website –

An online niche store or niche website is a very narrowly focused website that offers information about a specific subject. The more narrow the focus of a niche website is, the more likely it actually falls into the “niche” range and is generating highly interested traffic. A website about tools would not be a niche website, but a website about cordless power drills would be considered a niche website. A less focused website may gather more visitors but have most of them be uninterested to buy a product, click a link or sign up for something.

My New Year’s resolution for 2009, is to finally achieve some success in my online marketing campaigns. I’ve been learning the tricks of the trade for about 6 months now, and I’m ready for success in 2009.

Let me explain:

About a year ago, I decided that I wanted to be a webmaster as soon as I could possibly become one. You see, I’ve been a student with the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for a year and a half now, studying Interactive Media Design. Along the way, after learning a little HTML, I decided that I liked the idea of building, updating, and designing websites in general. Then, after I felt confident that I new a little more than your average Joe, I decided I was ready to start targeting my work to make sales. I was tired of working for other people, and I decided my New Year’s resolution for 2009 would be to achieve online success. I have 5 different key areas I need to work on to get there.

Discipline-I feel that discipline is may be what I am slightly lacking to achieve my goals. Without discipline, one can hardly accomplish general goals, not to talk of a life changing one like mine. It’s pretty simple. I must do what I plan on doing every day, no matter how tiring or bothersome it might seem. After all, it’s worth it, since it will lead to success. No more playtime until all the work for the day is accomplished. In 2009, meeting my resolution will take carefully cultivating more discipline in me.

Organize-Even the most simple of chores and goals are hard to accomplish without a good deal of organization. I’ve discovered that, with a little organization, some of the seemingly hardest tasks in life can be accomplished very quickly. Without organization, one can run about in circles forever and never get anything done!

Follow Through-I have had a problem following through with ideas that might pop into my head. I know it’s a good idea, and it can work. It’s just that, if you’re not serious or determined, some ideas lead to nothing unless one is willing to work hard on them. Follow through is the key because it sets things in motion. In 2009, my resolution for success will be greatly spurred on by more follow-throughs on my part.

Health-I can’t tell you how many times I have felt so much better just from exercise and a healthy meal. It clears the mind, and provides back up energy you never knew you had. Sometimes it’s easy to remember to have a salad with those baby back ribs! No more in 2009! Exercise schedules and good eating habits are very important to keeping a clear head and achieving success in whatever field.

Adequate Rest- Last, but not least, is rest. I’m talking about real rejuvenating rest, here. So many times, I have jumped out of bed and started with my busy day, when I knew I could lay out a little longer. I’m not saying I’ll lie around in bed all day; I’ll just make sure I get good quality sleep. I have a lot of work to do to keep my 2009 New Year’s Resolution to achieve online success. I think that writing and submitting this article is a step in the right direction.

Technology has become such an intricate part of our lives. We find ourselves checking emails, researching information, watching videos and sometimes gathering advice on the many websites available through the world-wide web. It seems however, that no other internet research tool has made an impact as GOOGLE. Webster’s Dictionary has even added the word as a verb officially making it a part of the English Language. The definition of Google is to look up, to investigate, to explore.

Now, one man Jim Killeen has taken this phenomenon and turned it into a documentary which is currently in production. According to webpronews.com, Mr. Killeen is working on this documentary which traces his story from the day he “Googled” his own name. The information goes on to describe how the filmmaker begins traveling to meet “himself” in many different cities, towns, professions and circumstances. One of the interesting stories was of a Jim Killeen from Tucson, Arizona who was found dead in his home after three weeks of being missing. This story catapults the filmmaker into an investigation and takes him on a journey that includes psychics and a wife that is praying for his “resurrection.”

Googling oneself could be seen as vain, or self serving but how many of us have not wondered and perhaps gone through with putting our name in that little rectangular search box to see what the results would be. I know I have done it a few times myself and have been surprised and amazed at where I’ve shown up. What makes Jim Killeen’s concept interesting in the age of technology is that when he finds his namesakes, he takes it a step further and connects with all his other selves. They say that technology has made things impersonal and created a society of unconnected people but this exercise illustrated by Jim Killeen through film shows that technology can help us find ourselves in many different ways as we search to understand our own journey. There is something inate in all of us that makes us want to find our ROOTS or connect with like minded or similar individuals. Just look at the numbers on AC, a community of content producers sharing their art and establishing networks that might not have ordinarily been possible without technology.

From a marketing perspective, Jim Killeen scores big! What a concept to use this worldwide tool and cinematography as a means of branding one’s own name. You can bet your bottom dollar that by the time this movie hits the big screen it will have established a cult following, creating huge audiences EVERYWHERE. This project is truly an interesting commentary on society and how technology has transformed our lives. It is also pure marketing genius that will be referenced in theory and practice for years to come. Right now, I’m thinking D***, I wish I’d thought about it first! Since I didn’t, I will give kudos to Jim Killeen and congratulate him because “Google Me” is sure to establish him as a household name.

The next question remains, is GOOGLE affiliated with this film? According to a Google spokesperson, they are in no way affiliated with the film but they have heard about it and have blessed the endeavor by giving Mr. Killen permission to use their name. They also worked with Mr. Killeen to explain aspects of what goes into making the search engine such a powerful effective tool.

Personally, I could not wait to see what the documentary looked like so I immediately did a google search to find out if there was a trailer out there. I also wanted to make sure that my information was correct. Well all sources where correct because there it was! When I hit the link and arrived at on the homepage, I was immediately greeted with the filmmaker’s full name in the search box, and a quote below that read: “It all started when I Googled my own name…”