Comments for Erin N Taylor

Comment on The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition by M. Ward

M. Ward — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 14:22:15 +0000

96 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

Hype and generalizations, June 16, 2009

M. Ward (New York, NY) -

This review is from: The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly (Paperback)

Get rich, be successful, blog, podcast, blah... I feel like it is 1999 all over again.

My issues with this book are:

1. It is very light on critical analysis of when these technologies are of value. Face it -- hundreds of thousand of businesses should not have blogs or employ most of these technologies.

2. There is almost no information on the return on investment of these technologies versus other marketing media or tactics. Having a media / PR person spend 10 hours developing a sketch media plan, buying ads in a circular, building an email list, etc. could be 1,000 times more beneficial than spending the hundreds of hours that costs to implement most of these tactics well.

3. The goals for using each technology should be crystal clear and realistic and the hype in this book does not reflect that.

4. Rising above the noise on the Internet is really, really hard. This book gives you no information on how to do that beyond the age old adage of "know your buyer."

I started to write - it's ironic that there is a chapter on "how to develop thoughtful content" and then I had a realization that the author is actually a good marketer. This book isn't about imparting knowledge and being useful to businesses and organizations. It's about selling books. The author is very aware of his buyer - it is somebody who is rightfully in awe of the Internet and its viral potential, heard Dell figured out how to make $3 million on twitter (their ad budget is $1.5 billion per year), and doesn't know what their first step should be. Unfortunately, this book isn't a good place to start. That person would be better served by learning about these technologies on wikipedia, reading the ClickZ website (an actually useful resources for online marketing) and asking themselves the critical questions about how these new tools could realistically improve their marketing effort.

More critical analysis of when these technologies should be used is needed, not this drivel.

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Comment on The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition by Jill Konrath "SellingtoBigCompanies.com"

Jill Konrath "SellingtoBigCompanies.com" — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 13:44:13 +0000

62 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

What a Wake-Up Call!, June 3, 2007

Jill Konrath "SellingtoBigCompanies.com" (St. Paul, MN United States) -

This review is from: The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly (Hardcover)

By embracing the strategies in this book , you will totally transform your business. David Meerman Scott shows you a multitude of ways to propel your company to a thought leadership position in your market and drive sales - all without a huge budget.

From my perspective, the best thing about this book is that everyone can gain value from it. There are so many places you can start applying these new rules of marketing and PR. For example, I'm an experienced blogger, considered an expert in my field and already have a strong online presence. Yet I'm immediately going to start applying the lessons in Chapter 14: How to Use News Releases to Reach Buyers Directly.

Here's what else I like about this book:

1. The author includes numerous examples from a variety of businesses in different industries & sizes that have all used these strategies for success.

2. The book shows you multiple venues to reach your buyers directly. This circumvents the high costs of mainstream media enabling firms who are running bootstrap operations to compete with the big boys.

3. The "how to" guidelines on leveraging news releases in a web-based world are excellent. You'll learn how to create news on a regular basis, capitalize on various distribution services, focus on key words/phrases in your writing that are used by your buyers, and incorporate social media tags.

4. The insights on optimizing a website's online media room for search engines is another easy-to-implement technique with high payback.

In summary, I guarantee you that your investment in this book will be paid back many times.

~ Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies

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Comment on The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition by Brad Shorr "Brad Shorr"

Brad Shorr "Brad Shorr" — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 13:02:29 +0000

177 of 182 people found the following review helpful:

A to Z assistance for any business, May 30, 2007

Brad Shorr "Brad Shorr" (Geneva, IL USA) -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly (Hardcover)

More than anything, The New Rules of Marketing & PR ties things together. The book provides an easy to understand yet comprehensive view of the new online marketplace--a landscape that can appear quite bewildering, even to marketing specialists. With so many options at our fingertips (literally), where do we start? Blogs? Podcasts? Public relations? SEO? Paid search? Viral marketing? The list goes on. To make matters worse, technology is changing and new tools are developing almost every day.

In the early chapters, David takes a high altitude look at online marketing options, showing us how they developed, why they're important, how they work, and why they work. In later "Action Plan" chapters, he jumps into the trenches and shows us how to actually use the tools and implement programs. Throughout, he uses detailed case studies to illustrate not only the programs but the amazing results they can achieve.

But it isn't just the latest and greatest technologies that are crucially important. Public relations, for example, has been around since Gutenberg but for the first time is practical for a small company. Traditional PR was cost-prohibitive and dependent on unreachable key media contacts. But in the new world--

"...your primary audience is no longer just a handful of journalists. Your audience is millions of people with Internet connections and access to search engines and RSS readers." (Chapter 5)

Today, public relations may be the single most underutilized tool in the marketing arsenal.

Another "old" technology David brings us up to speed on is the corporate Web site. In fact, the three most important points I got out of The New Rules of Marketing & PR have enormous implications on traditional Web development.

Those key points are--

1. The most important New Rule is CONTENT. Design is important. Technology is important. But without extraordinary content, you're doomed.

2. Interruption marketing (think spam and pop-up ads) has given way to consumer-driven marketing. Yippee! "The Web is different. Instead of one-way interruption, Web marketing is about delivering useful content at just the precise moment that a buyer needs it." (Chapter 1)

3. The starting point for any New Rule program is to create customer personas. If you're going to have extraordinary content that motivates buyers to take action, you'd better know your customers inside-out.

David explains how these three principles should influence not only your corporate Web site, but every other online program you undertake.

Thankfully, David is understandable as well as instructive. One reason I've enjoyed his blog for over a year is his conversational, entertaining writing style. He makes learning easy (which is harder to do than you might think). Anyway, his book is just like his blog--illuminating and fun.

The New Rules of Marketing & PR presents the most complete picture of any book I've read. For the marketing specialist, it will fill in the gaps. For the generalist, it will open up a whole new world.

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Comment on Horseshoe Canyon Rock Climbing – Exploring Arkansas (AETN) by smuggims

smuggims — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 13:52:15 +0000

WOOT WOOT HCR!!!

Comment on Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint for effective Internet marketing by Carsten Cumbrowski "Carsten aka Roy/SAC & Cir...

Carsten Cumbrowski "Carsten aka Roy/SAC & Cir... — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 13:52:12 +0000

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

More Content than you would Expect from the Title of the Book, May 14, 2008

Carsten Cumbrowski "Carsten aka Roy/SAC & Cir... (Fresno, CA USA) -

This review is from: Search Engine Optimization: Your Visual Blueprint for Effective Internet Marketing (Paperback)

The book was written by Kristopher B. Jones, CEO of PepperJam. Kris is well known in the industry and considered an authority not only in the search marketing community, but among Internet marketers is general, including affiliate marketers and people in display advertising. I think the title of the book was not well chosen, because it is not only about organic search engine optimization, but about marketing your business and website in general.

The book covers paid search advertising, affiliate marketing, public relations, web analytics and more, basically everything that is important for a successful online presents. That Kris has experience across the multiple channels of Internet marketing, from his business as fully integrated Internet marketing agency shines through in his book.

Unique about the book is also how it is designed. It is geared towards the visual folks like myself and uses a tremendous amount of pictures to show things instead of just using words to explain. Virtually every page has a screenshot or illustration and is an integrated part of the book, beyond the simple use as decoration or reinforcement of the written text.

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Comment on Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint for effective Internet marketing by Dan Bergevin

Dan Bergevin — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 13:09:07 +0000

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

Want more hits? Start here!, June 1, 2008

Dan Bergevin (CapitalizedLiving.com) -

This review is from: Search Engine Optimization: Your Visual Blueprint for Effective Internet Marketing (Paperback)

Many SEO books focus on keyword optimization, but this little number is a veritable compendium of techniques. If you applied half of what you'll find in here, your site would be more optimized than you can even imagine. This covers everything from content to links to blogs to micro-blogs to forums to reviews to directories and communities and ad copy and keyword bidding... whew. No other books comes even close to the variety of options that Kristopher's book has. You'll learn more about variations of SEO techniques from this book than any other source. So start here, and if you need to go further in depth on any of the topics, you can branch off into some of the other fine books out there on specific topics like landing page and keyword optimization.

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Comment on Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint for effective Internet marketing by Jeremy Harrison

Jeremy Harrison — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 13:08:37 +0000

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

The best money I've spent on SEO/SEM Strategies, July 16, 2008

Jeremy Harrison -

This review is from: Search Engine Optimization: Your Visual Blueprint for Effective Internet Marketing (Paperback)

As the owner of a web design firm that offers a growing bundle of SEO services, I have spent thousands of dollars staying up-to-date with the latest strategies for search engine optimization.

But despite the big-name conferences I've attended, this $30 book is the best investment I've made in SEO.

The author does a phenomenal job of covering every phase of the process. In fact, I hit Amazon this evening, because I'm buying 4 more copies that will be distributed to every part of my team... 1 for our lead web programmer, 1 for the people doing keyword research, 1 for our copywriter and 1 for the people who focus on link building strategies. There's stuff in here from which everybody can benefit.

I also appreciate how it's organized. If you like text - there's a section in each chapter with text. If you prefer pictures, the second part of each chapter is chock full of diagrams and images that would allow somebody to learn a lot with minimal reading.

I highly recommend this book.

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Comment on SEO Results the Organic Way – Search Engine Optimization for Beginners by Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 13:52:11 +0000

A Great Resource!, February 2, 2011

Tomalley -

This review is from: SEO Results the Organic Way - Search Engine Optimization for Beginners (Kindle Edition)

I thought I had read everything under the sun regarding SEO until I stumbled upon this book. It offered such a refreshing and sensible approach to search engine optimization. I've deployed a few of the suggestions I found in the book and am already seeing results - a great investment for me! I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to increase their search engine traffic or become more familiar with understanding what content their audience wants to see.

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Comment on The Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing on the Web: How to Use and Profit from Affiliate Marketing Programs by Danielle Nichols "wranglerdani"

Danielle Nichols "wranglerdani" — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 14:11:33 +0000

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

Nitty-gritty advice, August 10, 2009

Danielle Nichols "wranglerdani" (San Clemente, CA) -

This review is from: The Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing on the Web: How to Use and Profit from Affiliate Marketing Programs (Paperback)

This book begins with a quote from the Godfather: "In war there is no substitute for victory." While that seems like an unusual opening to a marketing text, this book is very hard-hitting and aggressive, insisting that if you want to make this style of marketing work, you have to go for it - but that profiting from such marketing is attainable.

Beginning with basics and soon delving into technical nitty-gritties such as meta-tags, web site optimization and other technical nuances, necessary for such aggressive marketing campaigns as this book is touting.

Finishing out this guide with "Affiliate Mistakes" and case studies makes this book a great resource for anyone wanting to make a living from their laptop, or even those who already have a successful business and simply need a better marketing resource in a "Web 2.0" world.

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Comment on Arkansas Climbing by timmad

timmad — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 14:02:01 +0000

the first climb is called horny goat weed.

Comment on Arkansas Climbing by TokenTombstone

TokenTombstone — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 13:47:09 +0000

coooool keep on keeping on

Comment on Arkansas Climbing by frogers4

frogers4 — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 13:42:35 +0000

yes.. horny goat weed, indeed. I tried this climb at the very end of a three day trip a year before this. I couldn’t pull the big move to the ledge at all.. I tried about 10 times to no avail. This was the first attempt on day 2 of this trip.. it felt like 5.8. Funny how a year’s worth of thinking will turn you into superman. hehe

Comment on The Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing on the Web: How to Use and Profit from Affiliate Marketing Programs by Kenneth Calhoun "StockTradingSuccess.com"

Kenneth Calhoun "StockTradingSuccess.com" — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 13:27:48 +0000

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

Superb Affiliate Marketing Book - Comprehensive, Top Choice, August 11, 2009

Kenneth Calhoun "StockTradingSuccess.com" (Colorado, USA) -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: The Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing on the Web: How to Use and Profit from Affiliate Marketing Programs (Paperback)

This is my favorite affiliate management book, because it covers a lot of tips and new content for those of us who are managing/leading affiliate driven businesses. What I like best about this book is how comprehensive and specific it is, and the new content that I haven't seen elsewhere in other affiliate marketing how-to resources.

This book gets my top marks for affiliate marketing how-to's, it has dozens of tactics that go beyond the basics and serves a a superb blueprint for affiliate marketing "how to" strategies.

Well done, and thanks very much -- this was a very useful (and now dog-eared!) book. I'll actually use it during implementation, launch and followup of my sites' affiliate networks.

Thanks,

Ken Calhoun
TradingAffiliates dot com
DaytradingUniversity

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Comment on The Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing on the Web: How to Use and Profit from Affiliate Marketing Programs by Pat Grayston

Pat Grayston — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 13:24:13 +0000

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing on the Web, July 6, 2009

Pat Grayston -

This review is from: The Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing on the Web: How to Use and Profit from Affiliate Marketing Programs (Paperback)

This book is a must have for anyone who seriously wants or is toying with the idea of Affiliate Marketing. Brown takes you through the entire process from getting started to choosing a software application right for you to how to market and promote your site. He explains the ins and outs of Affiliate Marketing on the Web in language anyone can understand, even if you're not smarter than a fifth grader.
Do you know the difference between residual and flashflood traffic techniques? How about pay per click as opposed to pay per lead? I didn't. However, after reading this book I certainly have been educated in the lingo associated with Affiliate Marketing. Brown also manages to take the guess work out of Google.
You don't have to be a web designer to apply the techniques, but if you're somewhat computer savvy it's beneficial. Brown doesn't present a get rich quick scheme, but instead delivers a sure fire way to get more traffic to your site and more money in your pocket. He doesn't lead you down the garden path and his book will definitely help you travel the road to success.

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Comment on Indoor Rock Climbing Basics : Indoor Rock Climbing Gym Rules by SmurfHatred

SmurfHatred — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 03:55:01 +0000

That gym can suck my balls