Ping.fm helps entrepreneurs save time

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a personal assistant JUST to send updates to your social networking sites? Don’t you wish you had ONE easy tool that would automatically update your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts ALL at once?

You don’t have to look any further because you can find all that and MORE with this free and user-friendly service. Ping.fm is your virtual personal assistant when it comes to social networks.

How Ping.fm Benefits Your Business

• Allows you to easily and quickly market your company, products and services – makes a big impact on your branding!

• Saves you time and money – your own social networking “virtual assistant” at your fingertips!

• A great way to interact with thousands of new people (potential customers and clients) easily– allows you to stay on top of your networking/status updates!

The Basics Behind Ping.fm
Ping.fm allows you to update your social networks simultaneously. What’s the catch? Just sign up for a free account and you’re ready to get started!

Ping.fm incorporates all facets of the latest and greatest technology. If you’re waiting to catch a flight to France, you can update your status via text message on your cell phone. It applies to iPhone, iPod, WAP and SMS text messaging in the US, Canada and Europe (text message rates apply).

Ping.fm even allows you to post messages on your instant messenger programs such as Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AIM and Windows Live Messenger. Basically, ping.fm posts messages WHEREVER you WANT it to post!

It is really is the perfect “virtual assistant” when it comes to social networking. Ping.fm supports over 40 social networking sites including the big players such as Facebook ( http://www.facebook.com ), Twitter ( http://www.twitter.com/ ), MySpace ( http://www.myspace.com/ ), LinkedIn ( http://www.linkedin.com/ ), etc.

• Sign up for a free account and fill out your profile information

• Add your desired social networking sites accounts you want to update to your Dashboard

• Your Dashboard is your main hub – it allows you to add social networking sites, Instant messaging programs, cell phone information, etc. so you can send out one update simultaneously to all your sites

• You need to have accounts set up for each social networking site before you can add sites to your Dashboard (you probably already have accounts set up with these sites already so it will be easy to add to your Dashboard)

• There are over 100 3rd party web/desktop applications available to make it easier to update/send messages. Some of the featured applications include: HootSuite, Tweetie, Ping Fire, Pingle, Notify.me and Blip.fm

User-Friendly Services – Update Anywhere, Anytime
• Email – You receive a private email via your account that allows you to post updates from this email address. Just send a standard email from your computer or mobile phone to update your status!

• iGoogle Gadget – Allows you to post ping.fm to your personalized Google page – allows you to update easily from your iGoogle dashboard

• Conduit Toolbar – The browser toolbar makes it very easy to send updates directly from your browser. You don’t have to log into your account every time you want to send messages/updates

• Seesmic Video – Allows you to record videos straight from your webcam and post to your social networking sites (via your ping.fm account)

Thanks Zeke for helping us out. I learned some new tricks to save me more time too!

Part 2: Internet Branding Step 1: Understanding Your Goal & Assessing Your Digital distinction

Everyone defines social media differently.

When in doubt, I always use www.Wikipedia.org which states, “Social media describes the online technologies and practices that people use to share content, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives and media themselves.”

As a small business owner, I share all of my content, opinions, experiences, perspectives and medium with you—my reader, therefore making it a very powerful branding & marketing medium for you, your products & services.

Social media has many different forms. It can be in text, images (such as logos & avatars) used in your blogs, audio such as podcasting, webcasts and videos such as YouTube. You can also use tools like as message boards, forums, and bookmarking sites.

We’re presently in this new wave on the internet called “Web 2.0.” — the second wave of user-generated content. We’re creating a consumer-generated community where we share opinions, we ask in our blogs: “Do you agree with my opinions? Do you disagree? Am I totally way off?” etc.

When you write or share a video, it could go viral. If someone loves your video and audio, they’ll post it on a message board, their blog, distribute it on their ezine list, post on their website…etc. It’s This powerful.

My colleague, Deb Micek, is a columnist for www.WomenEntrepreneur.com, the sister site to www.Entrepreneur.com, Entrepreneur magazine. She is its social media or New Media Marketing columnist.

She says that Web 2.0 is made for women because, “If I share my opinion, women are apt to agree, disagree or share indifferently.” The great thing about women and Web 2.0 is that, if they agree, disagree or are indifferent, they will share their opinion.

What are the ways to do it?

Blogging and social networking websites, like LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook. LinkedIn has a life of its own. People are making recommendations and referring others to me. My LinkedIn account just grows and has a life of its own.

Facebook is the newest “best-thing”. I was supposed to dedicate the entire month of November to just learning how to optimize that site…but, I’ve then been sick…for another day soon

The bookmarking websites are StumbleUpon, Digg, www.sk-rt.com, and del.icio.us. For instance, you like one of my articles or website, etc. All you have to do is bookmark it.

 Here’s an easy way to describe things:

You know how you have bookmarks on your internet browser on your personal computer or laptop? The websites you like and want to save for later.

Well, the problem lies in that fact that I have four computers and 1 laptop (soon-to-be 3) at home. I have 30 bookmarks on my personal computer, but if I use the laptop, my bookmarks aren’t there.

StumbleUpon, de.licio.us and Digg created online bookmark web pages. You can bookmark any of your web pages with your account at these sites. Your bookmarks are always available to you because they’re on a website, not on your desktop.

What’s critical is that you create friends in each of these bookmarking websites. When I create a bookmark for XYZwebsite.com, all of my friends have access to it.

That one bookmark can drive traffic to the site because, “Ponn said she liked this. She thought it was worthy enough to be bookmarked, let’s check it out.” Each of these bookmarking sites have “tell a friend” options when you bookmark too…so email alerts are sent to friends of your choice. What’s cool is that we generate this kind of targeted traffic for ourselves by be-friending like-minded colleagues and friends online.

People tend to write testimonials and recommendations in the process of their web surfing too. I have people stumbling upon me and I have recommendations from others I’ve never even met. They like my website, give their thumbs-up, and write a little recommendation, which in turn drives more traffic to my site. They like what they read and they share it with their friends, and they share it with their friends, and so on.

While many people utilize bookmarking sites, I highly recommend building your networking sites too, ie LinkedIn, Facebook.

For example, in my LinkedIn account, I’ve gotten recommendations cc’d saying, “You need to learn more about internet branding? Ponn Sabra is the key person to learn from.”

You’re ability to build your account to the professional things you want to be known for, or “branded on the internet” is critical to your business’s success and viability.

You can build accounts around your website, books, ebooks, and consultation and coaching services.  Build one account and building the others comes like second nature.

While many haven’t been involved in a lot of this stuff, people are quickly eager to get involved. It’s a form of giving you credibility through other people recommendations—sortof like generating second-party-unbiased opinion/testimonial for you, your products and services. 

So, I always recommend that you start the ball running in your favor, by making professional accounts, writing your best material, and basically putting your best foot forward at all time online.

People are inquisitive yet skeptical. So, social media marketing is ideal for us entrepreneurs and small business owners with our own niche speciality; because if others find something they like, its in their nature to write about it and tell their friends…so their recommendations buzz around the internet in your favor.

That’s how these bookmarking and networking sites are made. They’re based on recommendations…and creating viral buzz.

Keep in mind though that if they don’t like something about you, they’ll be the first ones to bring you down with full critiques/criticisms. BUT, here’s the best part of a downside. If you get a thumbs-down, people are intrigued to find out why…so, those very people will be taking a look your way, driving traffic to your site and hopefully forming their own opinions—good or bad. 

And, then—the Best part of that down-side is: because of the real-time nature of social media…is that you can calmly, and professionally write up a rebuttal, defense, apology, etc. and come up on-top from this one negative comment! 

A lot of small business owners I know are just dipping their toes into this area, taking a look and thinking about it.

If someone were just starting and wanted to try one of these social media sites, the best place I think to start is LinkedIn.

Why?

My sister invited me to LinkedIn about four years ago. [Take a look here, and let’s become friends ] I never used it. Then I dedicated one day to sign up. It only took four hours to create my entire LinkedIn account to get recommendations and build my network score to 100%, which means you have certain number of friends/referrals, you have recommendations on file, you added your professional profile (present and past work experience, etc.). 

At the beginning of the day my profile was less than 25% (I don’t remember exactly…but, it should’ve been like 0% since I never used it). With a little dedication…like I said it took me 4-hours, I made it 100% so more people can join.

Now about a year later, I get recommendations, testimonials and requests to be linked to people I don’t even know. 

“I love your site. Will you please link in to me?” I’m always amazed by people coming out of the woodwork. It’s a great way to network. 

I typically reply, “Thank you very much. I would love to know more about why you love my site. Would you mind recommending me?” and they’ll do that, giving me more credibility at the same time I get to learn about them, because I’ll “read” their profiles. 

LinkedIn is very easy. 

But if people have the time, are more tech-savvy I highly recommend working on Facebook! [Here I am.]

I have one colleague in PR (Public Relations). She’s friends with magazine editors and publishers at Fortune 500 magazine. You can get Facebooked and connected to very powerful friends, like politicians, actresses, well-known famous people.

You’ll be surprised by the people who will request connecting with you. I have yet to decline anyone in either of my LinkedIn or Facebook account. [If you haven’t received a reply recently…it’s simply because I haven’t been online for months…slowly weaning back. First duty (as described above) is to build quality information for you to see I’m still worthy of your time ].  

In terms of social bookmarking, my top recommendation would be StumbleUpon. [Here’s my account.] It’s one of the easiest places to get your profile up. You can literally do it in five minutes. To actively befriend you and teach you how to do it, I have a couple detailed articles on how to use StumbleUpon personally and for your business.

• StumbleUpon for Computer-Dummies
• StumbleUpon Addiction for Business Research

Secondly, a very easy place is Del.icio.us, here’s my Beginner’s guide

 For women, there’s a new media site, www.sk-rt.com. I have a couple how-to articles here:

• How-To Sk-rt! Digg-ing Just for Women
• How To Become a Power User on Sk-rt.com – Calling mom and fashion bloggers…at least to start…

It’s a great start-up story. Three to five women were watching the Super Bowl in February 2007.

They said, “Wait a minute. We wouldn’t want to spend millions of dollars on advertising during the Super Bowl. Why don’t we do a Digg for women?” They designed sk*rt and launched it in June 2007. It’s an incredible website to be associated with!

Interested in a challenge? While I have yet to reach 500 RSS subscribers…I’ll blame it on my health preventing me to be as active as I should be, but give it a whirl:

• Want 500 New RSS Subscribers Each Month? Join Our Four-Week Challenge!

Enjoy the social media online networking fun, and please share your experiences below!

Kathrien Ahn, Community Manager at docstoc first reached out to us to see if we’d feature their innovative software that “provide bloggers with the ability to embed any document (word, pdf).

Then, they announced some really exciting news.

So, I thought it’d be great if we ran a quick interview with Kathrien so she can to share their news herself.

So, Kathrien, besides developing an innovative program, what’s your Great New News?

Sure, I’d be glad to share.

On April 29^th, we secured our Series B round of financing for $3.25 million which was led by Rustic Canyon Ventures. It was a crazy day for the entire team and we were all over the blogosphere from Techcrunch, Mashable, GigaOm, and many more

But, now the REAL hard work begins as we’re working to continually innovate docstoc, something that we believe, can touch the lives of all people via their documents.

We’ve also launched our Content Partnership Program (CPP) that allows organizations and professionals with either a vast quantity of content or a set of premium content, to share their documents on docstoc and include advertising and promotion built into each of the document pages free of charge. This will allow you to monetize your content and use your docs as valuable marketing and self- promotion, whether you’re a service-based professional, small business, or large organization.

Since you’re a *very* young and new company can you share any empowering words to our readers (entrepreneurs and small business owners) who’d LOVE to be able to express the same incredible news one day?

Yes!

First of all, anyone can be an entrepreneur.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the quiet, bookish type or someone who can “work” a room. All that matters is that you have a great idea, the passion to pursue it, and the work ethic to have it come to fruition. Oh, and having the ability to raise capital is definitely a plus. (tongue in cheek) But seriously, what it comes down to is doing the work, implementing your idea. Action. Late-nights. Luckily, when you have a great team, It’s definitely easier. [I'm all about Quality Team work!]

What’s so unique about docstoc and why do you think it’s crucial for us busy entrepreneurs and small business owners?

Docstoc is the “youtube” for professional documents where you can find and share any document for free, with categories ranging from legal, business, financial, educational and creative. Granted, we’re not saying that having a document will take the place of a lawyer, but it does allow the consumer to have access to legal and business documents that would enable him/her to be better informed about their business/legal needs.

Also, in the state of the current Economy, free advertising is widely sought after, as we’re pinching pennies in the midst of rising food and gas costs. docstoc proves useful for free advertising because when you upload your professional documents, you are essentially allowing them to be highly indexed in search engines because docstoc is looked upon as a reliable source. This is why it’s important to have specific tags and titles when you upload your documents. Also here are ways that docstoc has helped users:

Entrepreneur Gets Multi-Million Dollar Term Sheet from Using docstoc

Local LA Entrepreneur finds business plan templates and spreadsheets on docstoc for his business, customizes it for his potential Financiers, and receives Multi-million dollar Term Sheet

Stay-At Home Mom Starts a Successful Business At Home using Business docs from docstoc

One user took various documents from docstoc and started a jewelry design business. Then she uploaded documents promoting her business, her bio, and several local press clippings. And traffic to her business website increased by 25%.

docstsoc Levels the Playing Field for Small Firm Attorneys

Many Small firm attorneys, who do not have access to Westlaw or Lexis Nexis, have been visiting docstoc on a regular basis to find documents such as operating agreements, real estate deal docs, and sample contracts.

Administrative Assistant Finds Legal Templates on docstoc for free.

An admin at a fast-paced law firm was frustrated because she couldn’t find the right legal template for her boss. She went to several other sites but was discouraged by the fees for paying for documents. Luckily, she came across docstoc and was able to download several versions of legal templates for free.

Graphic Designers Get Opinions from Strangers on their Work

Fashion designers, shoe designers, graphic designers, or fashion bloggers can upload their articles, press clippings, portfolios, and work to their docstoc profile, and hear what people REALLY have to say.

Authors Sharing their Books Across the Web

A number of authors are using docstoc to promote their books. They upload a couple chapters of their published work. Then 1) It gets indexed at the top of search engines on docstoc, 2) we promote some of their work in our featured section and 3) They use the embed feature on their blogs to have their content virally spread all around the internet.

Professionals Getting Business Leads by Sharing Documents.

We have numerous examples of attorneys, accountants, and consultants who have posted documents with all of their contact information. Those documents get thousands of views, and in turn they have had people who visit their document on docstoc, contact them through our site and turn into paying clients.

docstoc is Where Students Find/Share Notes

docstoc has become a popular source for MBA students, Graduate, and Law School students to share their outlines, class presentations, case write-ups, and financial spreadsheets.

Dude! Those are impressive testimonials—and some great publicity tips too !

BTW, I literally *hate* attaching docs to email, or zipping files, or making sure I updated my latest file into my flash-drive. Will docstoc save me from all these hassles of daily livin’?

Yes!

Attaching docs to e-mail and zipping files are definitely annoying which is why the docstoc embed feature is so useful. You can embed everything from powerpoint presentations to PDF’s on to your webpage, allowing your readers to stay on your page instead of going to an outbound link. Or if you just need to e-mail a doc to someone, just use the URL of the document on docstoc, so that it eliminates the need for you to “attach” documents.

How would you categorize docstoc? Like a social-media-user-generated-document-sharing community? With an optional revenue-sharing-model built in? Talk about Web 2.0 biz-application.

Our goal is to be the largest repository for professional documents on the web including legal forms, business presentations, financial templates and technical white papers. We’re also the premier online community for professional content, facilitating the sharing and promotion of docs as well as being the platform for processing, storing, and indexing documents that can be viewed anywhere as embedded objects.

And going back to our Content Partnership Program, you will be able to easily embed your documents across the Web, get referral traffic, more customers, subscription and sales, get indexed in search engines, and sell premium content. (in select cases) Here is more info. once again.

Well, this has been great Kathrien. Anything else you’d like to share? Closing remarks? Empowering tips? Instructions? Contact info?

Yes, well, first of all, thanks for taking the time to interview me and giving docstoc a shout-out on “Empower Women Now.” I think your blog is a tremendous resource to women entrepreneurs and just anyone who is looking for inspirational tips as well as important business related information. [Aww...you're too kind, Kat]

And I’d just like to say that we have an really hard-working team, Jason Nazar, our CEO, Alon Shwartz, our CTO, and our amazing developers, Ilya Tchak and Andrew Belous [Don't see you're name there chickie…you’re too modest ]

…but now that we’ve gotten the Series B, we’re looking to hire several Front End .Net developers and Flex developers, so if you’re interested or know anyone, feel free to submit a resume at www.docstoc.com/jobs

[What a wonderful opportunity for anyone qualified to jump in.]

As for empowering tips, I’d just say that the thing about tech is that people are open about sharing helpful information and advice to the newbies. They’re not afraid to admit their mistakes because it’s kind of a rite of passage here because when you screw up, you learn from it and you move forward. So I’d say that if you’re an entrepreneur or small-business owner who is looking for advice on how to start or grow your business, read A LOT, from blogs to top magazines, get advice from anyone you can, get a business plan (you can get a template from docstoc…I needed to get another plug in. Sorry! [No apologies necessary ], and then the most important things: Take Action. Stay Pro-Active. Be positive. [Here, here!]

And if you have any questions, feel free to message me on docstoc, as I usually respond to all user mail. Here is my profile.

And thanks again, Ponn! Your story, in general, is an inspiration to female entrepreneurs everywhere.

Thanks so much Kat, the honor is all mine!

I really look forward to reading our community’s experiences and thoughts below.

[At the time of this interview, this cute and funny blogpost shares the kind of entrepreneurial atmosphere surrounds docstoc! hee hee. ]

Dan is the leading personal branding expert for gen-y. He is the author of the Personal Branding Blog and publishes Personal Branding Magazine.

Since the start of the internet, the term eBranding was present, but overlooked. It used to be all about companies building websites to promote products and then eCommerce websites were unearthed as a gateway for people to actually purchase products online and have them shipped. People didn’t realize that they would actually promote themsleves online through this very same medium. eBranding, in essence, is everything on the internet that represents you. At the beginning of your career you actually get to decide how people view you online. Your eBrand could be a limited to a single blog or website and then can be spread thin among several social networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. The total sum of all your presences online is your eBrand. The more you give people to see, the more you will judged on.

Everyone in this generation must have their own eBrand. The cost of building one is minimal to free and the rewards are tremendous. Before explaining various strategies, you must think about who you are and what you stand for. You need to take a niche, such that you are the best at something for a specific audience. How do you describe yourself and how do others describe you? I call this discovering your personal brand and it’s a necessity before you go through the hassle of actually creating content.

Let’s get started:

· Blogging : Let’s face it, if you want to have a successful career in the digital age, blogging is your ticket. If you use wordpress.com you can start a free blog in seconds and they just upgraded their systems to version 2.5, which has a better look and feel, as well as the ability to post video and sounds in a flash. Your other options are to use Blogger.com, which is Google’s blog platform (free as well), Typepad.com or Wordpress.org. With Wordpress.org, you must host it on your own domain and server space, but you have more flexibility with design. A blog allows you to deliver value to your niche and over time, that value translates into new business or professional contacts.

· Commenting: You don’t have to have a blog to participate in the blogosphere. Commenting is an amazing way to show bloggers you care about their writing. When you comment, try and add something relevant to the discussion or directed them to other sources. If you have a blog, comments will draw traffic and possibly subscribers.

· Guest Posting: The bad news is that writing specifically on your blog is not enough anymore. To form stronger relationships and turn the “visibility switch” off on your eBrand, you need to write for other sources in your niche.

· Off-Blog Networking: Sure, anyone can comment on a blog, but not many people take advantage of the contact information provided by the blogger. Commenting is about continuing the conversation, whereas off-blog networking is about actually getting to know the author. I’m not saying call the person, but at least connect through email if you have genuine interest in the person or their topic.

· Byline Articles: Are you an expert? Well it’s time to start thinking like an expert. Guest blogging will be rewarding, but it’s not as strong as writing for traditional media sources. By branding yourself on respected websites and having your articles link back to your eBrand, you are establishing credibility, while increasing traffic simultaneously.

· Existence on Social Networks: Your eBrand needs to be where the people are. Facebook has 63 million users, while LinkedIn has 20 million. Why not create your profile and link to your blog or website? When you join social networks, be sure to understand that it’s all public. Don’t post pictures of “drunken moments,” but instead have a profile that expresses your brand in a professional, yet personal, light.

· Domains: If you haven’t purchased a domain to secure your eBrand, you will be at a huge disadvantage later in life. For $6.95, you can buy yourname.com at GoDaddy.com. The purpose of buying your domain is two-fold. First, .com’s rank very high in search engines and secondly, people remember names. By searching for you or typing in your name in the search bar, your eBrand will come up.