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This is the thirteenth day of a 30-day trial. Follow the link to Marketing Ideas En Masse to find out more.

It’s not so much that a bunch of stores are having a big sale before the holidays but rather the name that accompanies the sale. Black Friday Sale, where did that even come from to begin with? Let’s take a great holiday time and cover it with the sale to end all sales. It is like more people talk about Black Friday than Thanksgiving. When did a one-day sale become some popular, other than Valentine’s Day? Talk about marketing at its finest.

We now celebrate more holidays in retail stores than we do with our family. I can just imagine way back when people lovingly gave a few handmade or long saved for gifts to one another, that that tradition would become the bonanza it has become today. I hope that I as well as others can recognize the true meaning of all of this holiday time and be truly thankful for the things we are blessed with. I hope that all of us take the time to really reflect on the things we are thankful for and spend quality time with our friends and family. Here are a couple of videos to get you ready for Black Friday.

Tips for Black Friday Shopping

This is the forth day of a 30-day trial. Follow the link to Marketing Ideas En Masse to find out more.

By now, you are probably wonder where in the world am I coming up with all of these different topics and ideas. If not, I will tell you anyways. I set up a few different Google Alerts and have been digging through them for little gems of info to pass along.

I believe videos will continue to gain major ground as Internet speeds increase and more people figure out how to upload their videos easily to sites like YouTube. With that in mind, here is a good tip for marketing your videos:

The first thing that you have to determine is where you are going to post the videos that you are making for your products and services. Some different places that you can post your videos are on your blog, on your website, and on video hosting sites like YouTube.

The point is that you want to have as many people as possible look at your video. You can also ask your online friends if they are willing to post your video on their blogs. There are places that are going to bring more results than others, and it’s a good idea to research which places are going to be the best for the results that you want.

You can read the rest here at Articlebiz.com

One of the coolest things about being a blogger and having an audience is the wiliness of others to offer free things for reviews and exposure. I like books and try and read them whenever I get a chance. If anyone knew me when I was a kid they would probably laugh as I never used to read. One of the most recent books I received was Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard.

I probably finished Scratch Beginnings in about 3-4 sit down sessions of reading, so it was a quick and very enjoyable read. Adam set out shortly after graduating college on a social experiment to achieve the “American Dream.” The intro informs us that he was to ride a train to a southern city with $25 in his pocket, the clothes on his back and a duffel bag. In one year time his goal was to have $2,500 saved, a furnished apartment, running car and be in a position to continue his upward movement.

Being roughly the same age as Adam and battling some of the same life choices in the pursuit of a career, lifestyle and calling, I can relate to him a lot. I believe that his experience throughout the book can be just about anyone’s experience. To make the experiment more convincing Adam chose not to use his personal credit, college education or contacts to his benefit.

The first 60 days he admits were the hardest and yet the most rewarding. Most of that time was spent in a homeless shelter looking for steady work while trying to stay fed and in good health and spirits. I would say 1/3 of the book was just about his first few days of his quest for the American Dream and really shows what the process is like to start all over with nothing. This could ultimately be a situation anybody could find themselves in due to any variety of circumstances.With a goal, determination and some support it really shows how far and how quickly someone can pull themselves back up again.

I would recommend purchasing the book and it can be found on Amazon for about $14, more than reasonable. If you want to find out even more about Adam Shepard and Scratch Beginnings head over to his site scratchbeginnings.com.I had a chance to ask Adam some more questions about his time during and since his experiment. Here they are:

Josh: On pg. 188 you talk about the journey, process, setting goals, finding passion and giving it your all. How much do you believe surrounding yourself with successful people helped you in your journey like Derrick (someone who helped you)?

Adam: More than “helped”, I think it defined the success of my journey. Maybe I could have succeeded on my own, maybe not. But in the end, that wasn’t the point. The point is that WE made it, together. And by choosing to surround myself with positive people that have my same focus, made this so much easier. I was so much more inspired that I wasn’t the only one fighting for the American Dream.

Josh: You also mention having a long-term, 5-year plan and the importance of having a goal even if it changes. I love goals and find them extremely valuable. How has your goal changed since embarking on your experiment, where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Adam: Certainly, my goals — more specifically — have changed since this book came out simply because I see that there is a market for me to talk about the issues surrounding the American Dream, but the fundamentals for my 5 year plan are the same. There still isn’t a quick fix to what I want to do…I still have to build a little bit every year. Actually, to be quite honest, achieving my goals is more difficult now, because now there are more opportunities for me to lose focus. It’s easy to shoot for the top when you’re broke…hell, there’s nowhere to go but up. But, when you’ve got a little money, a little success, it’s easy to steer off course and buy things you don’t need or do things that aren’t productive.

So, my goals have gotten bigger and more profound, but so have the obstacles, so it’s even more important to stay focused and grounded as I enjoy more success.

Josh: In the country with the highest rate of consumption and desire for “things” you resisted splurging on the non-essentials but rarely. Have the changes you made in your spending and thriftiness continued even through the present? Do you still shop at discount stores and supermarkets?

Adam: Oh, absolutely. And that’s what’s so important. Now, I’ve got a little bit of money in the bank and I could go out and buy “things” or I can be smart and I can really set some things up (investment-wise, for example) for myself. When you’re broke, it’s easy to be thrifty. Hell, you’re broke! But when you have money to spend, keeping it in your pocket is a challenge.

If you go to Amazon.com, you can watch a two-minute clip (or it’s on youtube; search my name) and you can see the car I drive now (cost me $400) that I’m doing pretty well.
I definitely still shop at discount stores and supermarkets. I just made a trip to Target for clothes (first in 5 years, actually, where I stocked up my wardrobe) and I splurged big time. I spent $300 and I’m not sure when I’ll have to go back.

Josh: It seems that once you have gone from something to nothing and back again possessions take on a new meaning. Having starting from scratch, did the “things” you acquire seem to not matter as much as you once believed, could you lose it all again and not really care?

Adam: Of course, and I think that’s the irony in this entire project. I was aspiring for “things” ($2500, a car, an apartment), but in the end, I discovered that the foundation of the American Spirit is built on character: integrity, work ethic, friendship, compassion for others. Things are things. And absolutely, I could lose it all today and start over again, because it’s an attitude. So, things aren’t as important as how I treat others, for example. (Now, don’t get me wrong. I would love to drive around in a BMW, and perhaps one day I will. But, that’s only after I’ve built a happy life on top of a strong character.)

Since humans picked up the very first stick and rock to help make their lives easier, we haven’t stopped. The same goes for tools online. Learning how and where to find those tools along with using them help make our lives much easier is vital for productivity. Here are my Top 10 Web Marketer Tools (in no particular order):

1. SEO Quake Toolbar

The SEO Quake toolbar is a FireFox extension that allows you to quickly and easily see quick stats about every web page you visit. As I am browsing from site to site I can simply look at my toolbar and know roughly how much traffic, authority, backlinks, age, keywords and indexed pages a site has. This is invaluable information when you are doing research on clients or competition. With a few clicks you can see much more detailed information until you are blue in the face. Here is where you can get the SEO Quake Toolbar.

2. COcomment

COcomment is another great tool to allow you to track the online conversations you have had. Every time you leave a comment on a fellow website or blog it records that and feeds it into your COcomment inbox. If anyone replies to that comment in the future you can see that to continue your conversation. I use this every day, and it helps to build your trust on other websites as a member and participator, even if you only visit to update your conversation. This is a bigger time saver and an absolute must for maintaining an online presence in all different communities.

3. Google Alerts

I have touched on this before and won’t exhaust the topic, but if you are trying to become an authority on a subject there is no better way to stay up to date than with Google Alerts. You can play with the settings to receive alerts by email one a day, hour, as they happen and so on. This is a great tool for brand management and to see what others are saying about your subject, company or yourself.

4. Ping.fm

Ping.fm allows you to send messages to all of your various Twitters, Facebook, Myspace and just about every other major social networking site. I have it set up through my Gmail that allows me to send a message automatically to my Ping.fm dashboard and it simultaneously updates all of my social networking platforms. Huge, HUGE, time saver. Never again do you have to log in and out of 20 different sites to update all your friends and followers. It’s great.

5. All in One SEO Plugin

All in One SEO Plugin is for self-hosted Wordpress sites. So, if you have a blog and use Wordpress, you need this plugin. This plugin allows you to quickly optimize your post title, description and keywords. When you do this on a subject like Halloween Marketing Ideas, when someone searches for that keyword term it shows up in the search engine instead of your normal blog title. It looks better to the eye, meets the searcher criteria, allows search engines to categorize better and helps overall in SEO.

6. Auto Social Poster (ASP)

ASP is really a neat tool to automate the initial boost of your post in the search engines in a given term. What ASP does is allows you to automatically bookmark your newest posts to sites like Delicious, Scuttle sites, Flurl, and many, many more. You can create as many different accounts to all the sites you would like, and it will randomly select as many or few sites to post to. This gives each of your newest posts an automatic backlinks from dozens of social bookmarking sites. If you are writing on a trend type subject, this one plugin alone can help to drive hundreds of visitors.

7. G-Lock Blog Finder

G-Lock Blog Finder program allows you to search for keyword terms similar to yours in order to build good backlinks. If you have a blog about apartments and want to build that blog as an authority on apartments you can use this program to help find those apartment blogs. If you are leaving and participating on their site in a useful manner and have similar content, it should be easy to attract like audience to your own blog. This not only builds your reputation but helps to create more trickle traffic from similar sites.

8. FoxyProxy

The FoxyProxy plugin for FireFox allows you to view the web semi-anonymously by routing your web viewing through a proxy. This helps to reduce your footprint on the web and lets you stay one up on the competition. You can pick and choose how you want your settings and what sites should and shouldn’t be routed through a proxy. Once again, a very useful and free tool that can be used in many different ways.

9. Aweber Newsletter

Building a Aweber newsletter list is a very valuable tool. If you have not jumped on board I would encourage you to do so as soon as you reasonably can. Permission based marketing is becoming a huge tool for marketers to utilize. If people like what you have to offer, setting them up to receive your newsletter is a great way to keep them in contact and make genuine offers you feel will help them. This doesn’t mean you can now spam everyone on your list but it does mean you now have an opportunity to point them in the right direction hopefully with an affiliate link or commission cut. Don’t lie, cheat or steal and you can make good money from this tool just by being responsible.

10. Bookmarking Demon (BMD)

BMD is a lot like the auto social poster plugin in how it helps to automate backlinks from bookmarking sites. These sites help to increase exposure for your content and hopefully some additional traffic as well. With this program you have the ability to bookmark and share your site, useful information or even your friend’s site. This would be the equivalent of an online shotgun with the idea of getting your site out to as many places as possible. This has the potential to be used in a spam-like manner but if used correctly can again help you to increase your digital footprint online.

Before you do anything online you should make yourself familiar with all the tools and possible consequences of using those tools. If used improperly some of these can get your site deindexed or ever banned, resulting in less traffic and authority. You also never want to spend money on any tools or programs that you will not utilize fully. Look up reviews and what others have to say about any one tool over another and proceed with caution. These are a few of the tools I use on a day-to-day basis, and I personally find them useful.

We have all seen those great word of mouth campaigns that pay off huge for the creator of whatever was being talked about. The latest of these was The Dark Knight starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger.

Everyone knows the cast was loaded with amazing actors but due to the untimely death of one of them, the film received a tremendous amount of publicity. The turn of events that took place shot the movie to a huge opening that will remain on the top 10 list for a very long time.

Advertising budget spent on a better product

I mention Dyson on here from time to time because I feel it went the route of product innovation vs. mass advertisement. Dyson’s sell themselves. It’s true. People are completely convinced paying a couple hundred dollars more for a Dyson is money well spent, even the people who only vacuum once a month. What is the cost break down per use at that rate I wonder?

Sacha Baron Cohen up to it again

Every time Sacha Baron Cohen starts a new project, we hear about it. He goes on crazy antics that get him thrown out of stadiums, pulls one over on celebrities, gets sued by college kids, you name it. The fact that his name is in the news only enables more and more people to learn about his upcoming projects.

Lines at Apple stores nationwide

We have all seen the news on the day or night before the launch of a new Apple product with lines that wrap around the block. Everyone gets so excited they can hardly wait one extra day to beat the madness or not be one of the first to own their shiny new ______.

Giving your product legs to walk with

The key is the ability to give your product or service legs to walk with. Some great ways to enable word of mouth to spread is to give people something to talk about. Tie your product in with a charity event or organization. Have an impromptu contest around some special occasion whether it’s a holiday or an internal celebration. Perhaps, allow a specialized coupon to leak to others. Remember when Starbucks offered friends and family of employees a free coffee and everyone forwarded the email on to everyone else in the world? I am sure it was all planned. Be creative and have fun, make people smile, think and share their experiences.