Internet Marketer Mommy

I recently had to buy a NEW laptop because I spilled water in my other one and fried my motherboard. Now I didn’t spill the water on purpose, I was trying to avoid my 2 year old from grabbing it out of my hand when some accidentally flung out of the glass onto my keyboard. Now that I had to almost start from fresh, I need to find a graphics program to install on this new laptop.

On my old laptop, I used a few FREE graphic software programs that I downloaded online. While sometimes FREE is the most cost effective way, sometimes FREE software does not do exactly what you want it to do. So now I am shopping for a graphics software program to suite my needs. Since I am a web designer and a blogger, I am looking for something with lots of options. I want to be able to create logos, button ads, banner ads as well as edit my thousands of pictures I am always taking of my family.

So I want to ask you, what is your favorite graphics program? Do you prefer Corel or maybe Photoshop? Feel free to share what program you have or use in the comments below.

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A great way to make money when you own a website, blog or newsletter is through advertising. Depending on your site’s audience, you can charge others to place a text ad or image ad of some sort. I recently heard of a website called Project Wonderful. This site allows you to bid for advertising spots on other blogs or websites as well as earn money from others paying you to advertise.

How it works is simple. You basically create a FREE account and create an ad box. It will give you code to copy to your site. Within minutes, you will be ready to start accepting bids on your ad space.

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This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Mavenlink. All opinions are 100% mine.

When you own a business, being able to communicate with your clients is important to create a working relationship between you and your clients. With my business, I am always keeping in touch with my clients via email. When you have a large business, there will be times when you need more than just email to communicate with your clients. I was looking today at the Mavenlink website. If you have never heard of it, Mavelink is a company that has a program that allows companies to communicate with their clients with a user-friendly platform.

Mavenlink has a proven record with an excellent technology platform that helps you with the communication needs between you and your client. I only see this program getting better in the future with all the fast growing technology. If you are looking for an application or tool that will help your business, you should look at the different accounts that are available that you can sign up for. They currently offer 3 different accounts that each come with a free trial and no credit card required.

Why not give it a try, it is RISK FREE!

Enjoy

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I have over a dozen blogs. Some of my blogs are within another domain so I don’t have stats just for the blog like I have wanted until now. I did not know how easy it was to install the Wordpress Stats Plugin. I installed it on one of my blogs a couple days ago and within hours I had stats coming in.

If you have a self hosted Wordpress blog and want some stats, try using the plugin at:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stats/

Example screenshot taken from Wordpress site:

You basically upload the plugin, activate it and input your Wordpress API key. Easy as pie!

Enjoy

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This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Raising a Father. All opinions are 100% mine.

I love books that are about stories from the heart. The video below is about a book called Raising a Father that is written by a father who seen his flaws at parenting. This father realized that he was spending too much time at work which was damaging the relationship with his daughter. In this book, the author shares his real true stories about leaving the corporate world. He leaves his job to start a home based business which enables him to spend time with his daughter. This story is really inspiring because I too left the corporate world to run my own business from home to spend time with my family. [Read more →]

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Since I am a frugal person who saves money, I use “free graphic programs” rather then shelling out a ton of money buying one. The internet has quite a few FREE programs out there to edit and create images that are just as good as the programs you can buy.

I have heard lots of other moms talking about the program Picnik. This is a free graphics editor that is fun to use. It has a bunch of neat effects and fonts to use with your photos. What makes this program even better is you don’t have to download anything. You can create and edit your images online, without even creating an account. Of course you can create a FREE account or go with their Premium service that gives you more options. I went online this morning and looked for different tutorials for this program and found a fun one called Picknik Hair Color Fun. I just had to try it out with one of my photos of me and my son. In just a couple minutes, I turned this photo:

Into this fun photo below:

Neato huh?

Of course there is WAY more stuff you can do with Picnik. Last night I used my logo on one of my blogs to create a cute button image. If you love to play with graphics, I recommend playing around with this free program. There are lots of other tutorials you can find online, especially on YouTube.

If you need to make your own button image for your blog, I recommend taking a peek at Linda’s post “Make Your Own Cutest  EVER Blog Buttons For FREE“. She is the one originally introduced me to Picnik with her post.

Now go have some fun with Picnik too!

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©Terri Seymour of www.SeymourProducts.com

Social media marketing is extremely important to your business and as this marketing method evolves, so must you and your business. Social media marketing is marketing through online communities, social networking sites, blogs, etc. If you are not already utilizing social sites for your business, you need to start NOW!

Social networking enables business owners to get extreme exposure for very little or no cost. You can use social networking sites to build your reputation, brand your business and increase your customer base. The marketing potential of these sites is phenomenal!

Now you can’t just register, make your profile and then never go back. You have to keep your information fresh, add new content, always be looking for new contacts, etc. Meeting new people, whether they be potential customers, business associates, or just people learning the ropes, can be very beneficial for your business and your reputation.

These sites allow you to make yourself much more accessible than just having your own site. Whenever possible, use your business name as your username to help make your business more recognized.

Social marketing sites can also help you get more links thus increasing your search engine ranking. People who find your content and information helpful and useful will link back to you which will in turn cause your own website to become more popular.
You can also use your social site pages to gather information and feedback from people on your products. This can help you improve your business and improve customer service.

By participating in social marketing you can find partners/associates for joint ventures. You can cross promote and build solid business relationships that can help everyone.

By providing good and fresh information, resources and content, you can build trust with your visitors, associates, potential customers, etc., thus building your business a strong reputation. Building relationships is the foundation for a successful business.

Adding pictures of yourself and/or videos can go a long way in making your social media marketing more effective.

The three main steps in social marketing:

1. Make Your Account
2. Always be adding new content, links, products, resources, etc.
3. Add friends, followers, contacts, etc. as much as possible.

This can be very confusing so start slow. Learn from other social marketers. Study social marketing strategies. Take it one step at a time.

My three favorite social sites are:
Twitter.com
LinkedIn.com
Facebook.com

Come on over and see me sometime!

Social marketing has made its mark and it is here to stay. You need to utilize these sites to make your mark as well.

About the Author:

Terri Seymour (also known as “The eBook Lady”) has over ten years online experience and has helped many people start their own business. Visit her site at http://www.seymourproducts.com for resources, $1 resell ebooks & software, free tutorials, affiliate programs, free ezine and free business ebook with Master Resell Rights. http://www.seymourproducts.com/free.shtml

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