Jim Carrillo

Video is so easy, and it makes it simple to produce things like blog posts, messages to customers, or just fun for the family.  My wife and kids recorded us singing Happy Birthday to my nephew for his 6th Birthday.  He loved it.

As long as you have a web cam, you don’t need any special equipment.

This short video will walk you through everything you need.  Send me your webcam videos – PG only please  : )

Jim

These days, everyone seems to think that adding you to their “newsletter” is a type of gift to you. I don’t mind being invited to receive a newsletter, but I’m finding that many times I give my card out, I get automatically added to a newsletter.

Thank goodness for “unsubscribe”, although if you have an account with Constant Contact (or any other service), you’ll know that the owner can see exactly who unsubscribed. I hate showing my hand like this.

Sometimes, so I don’t “offend” the person, I just continue to receive the newsletter, but delete it immediately. I’ve also been known to just create a SPAM filter looking for specifics related to the newsletter.

NOW WHAT ABOUT THE REALLY RUDE? I not only was added to a persons “newsletter” list, but they don’t use a system that would allow me too “unsubscribe”. Creating a SPAM filter would be too easy (and kind). I think people that are this rude should have to deal with the same annoyance they’ve put on me.

Here’s what I’ve done – and you can watch the video for exactly how I did it. I created a special filter in my email program (I use gmail) that looks for email coming from the persons address. When I get anything from that address, it simply forwards the message right back to them (then deletes it). Wallah! I’ll never have to see an email from Agent Tracy [agenttracy@isnworks.com] again, and as long as she continues to bombard me with her marketing, she’s going to get a sling back. If she gets tired of being annoyed, all she’ll have to do is remove me from her list (which is how I would have liked it in the first place).

Jim Carrillo

There are three ways you can allow people to follow your site – each has their pros and cons.

The video below demonstrates each of them. Here’s a short synopsis:

1. Email Marketing Service (example: Constant Contact) – Great if you are sending over 100 emails a month – it gets around the spam filters. You get to see email addresses of signups (you own the list). You have to use their system to create emails. It’s not an easy system to learn, and if you’re not using it multiple times per month, it can get cumbersome
2. Simple Form – With this, you simply ask the people for information (like name and email), and that information gets sent to you in an email. This is nice because it’s EASY for everyone. You get to see the email addresses (you own the list), and you have to send the emails out of your own email program. Simple, but nothing is automated.
3. FollowSite Pluggin for Wordpress – A small tag is added after every page and post on your site. When a user enters their email and a password, the company called “FollowSite.com” will send them an email whenever you update your site (within a few hours of the update). Cool thing is that it’s completely automated, and you don’t have to do ANYTHING. The negative is that the company “FollowSite.com” owns the email address, and you never see it.

Watch video below.

Here’s an edited audio track from the first of the five webinars on Practical Social Networking that Ian Griffin and I hosted in September. This webinar was first broadcast on Wednesday, September 2, 2009. Audio will not give the full webinar experience – we often refer to information shown onscreen, such as website pages from LinkedIn, Facebook and so on. However, the recorded audio contains useful information. A full set of webinar recordings which include all the information shown onscreen is available from the Practical Social Networking website. You can hear the audio by clicking on the podcast icon below, or, since the recording takes over 50 minutes, choose the download option and store it on your PC or sync to your iPod.

 

 Practical Social Networking: Introduction : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

After 6 different businesses, and 11 years on my own, I still have a hard time advising people if they should use their personal name as their brand, or if they should create a company name. There are pros and cons to both, but I’m not going to hash through that problem. What I enjoy doing is creating a set of rules that anyone can apply and come up with a reasonably good decision for their situation.

On one side of the spectrum, I’ve heard to brand your name, because this is the only thing you can take with you. on the other side – creating a company name shows your committed to a product or service.

If you run your website off of Wordpress, you can get analytics for free.  Now you have to host your Wordpress installation (you can’t be using “wordpress.com”).  This little video explains it all.

Jim

I hate cleaning up my office in order to make webcam shots.  I hate cleaning in general.  I was making this elaborate back drop for my camera out of some spare curtains, a curtain rod just behind my chair…. Yikes.  What an ordeal just to hide my mess.  You’d think it would have been easier to just clean up.  Did I mention I hate cleaning?

I found this by accident (can’t even remember how) on the internet.  It’s a product by a company called “The Web Around”.  You can see their website at http://www.thewebaround.com

Very simple to use.  Cost was just right ($29), but shipping killed me ($11).  Maybe when they get their product in stores it will be a viable option for all those of us that have dirty offices/homes.

Jim

I gave a presentation recently where I explained some seemingly confusing concepts in technology to a non-technical crowd.  Sure, I’m a geek, but I empathize with the non-tech crowd, because it seems daily when technology makes me feel inadequate.  This stuff is intimidating -- not just to you, to me too!  I hope you learn something from this 3 minute excerpt of the presentation.  Maybe if  IT professionals can just learn to communicate a bit better, we can bridge that gap between technology, and people like us.

I’m a geek, not a cool guy with a fast car, so you should expect this to be nothing more then a metaphor. Maybe one day I’ll have a car that can go over 60, but until then, I’ll write about business and technology.

I recently decided to deliver webinars to compliment my Professional Speaking, and let me tell you – it is nothing like Professional Speaking as I knew it. When your speaking in front of an audience (at least for me), it’s all about improv. I have my topic and a solid understanding of the material, but I feed off the audience. I look for facial queues (like the audience falling asleep), or audio queues (snoring), and adjust accordingly. It’s like dancing with the audience, and working real hard to count in my head while not stepping on toes. Keep an eye on the toes, and no problem.

Online Webinar and Conference Call
‘Social Networking 101’
With Jim Carrillo and Ian Griffin
Wednesday, July 29 5pm PT

Make sense of Social Networking, with practical tips you can implement today. Join Jim Carrillo and Ian Griffin as they outline a roadmap to the most useful Social Networking tools: Blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and podcasting. Learn how an integrated approach can help grow your brand and your business. Don’t be intimidated. Learn practical strategies that maximize business results. Jim and Ian’s overview explains the basics about Social Networking tools, explains what you can do to get started, and shows you where you’ll get the quickest return on investment for your time.

• Understand differences between a Blog, Website, Social Network Profile.
• Set up your own LinkedIn and Facebook Profile.
• Prevent yourself from making the same mistake 90% of others always make.
• Learn what to post, and what to keep private.
• We guarantee you’ll be online, or we won’t sleep till you are!