Interview

Everyone Wins: Giveaway!

I don’t want to see anyone of you guys get disappointed with this contest – so everybody who participates wins something!

Contest Prize
1. High profile bloggers interview eBook(scroll to the end to see the cover page of the book – you don’t want to miss it) for everyone who participates
2. Lucky draw: 500 people will get Rs 10 recharged (Small token of love) + interview Book
3. Blu-ray Ripper software license giveaway: 20 license(lucky draw)
4. android or iPhone app: recover deleted/lost photos & videos, contacts, SMS, call logs, memos (10 license)
5. Video Converter Deluxe Software 10 license
(..stay tuned for more prizes)

Everyone who participates will win something. So make sure you complete all the task without fail.

How to participate
1. Share this giveaway page on Facebook and/or Google Plus (sharing on Twitter and LinkedIn are optional). You have to share on at least 2 social sites and one of them should be Facebook or Google Plus – in combination with Twitter or LinkedIn. Sharing on Facebook and Google Plus is highly appreciated.

2. Submit your post/status URL in the form provided here: Submit your entry

3. Like all the URLs provided in below table. Again the rule #1 applies. Like/recommend on at least 2 social sites, one of them must be Facebook or Google Plus – in combination with Twitter or LinkedIn. But pushing it on Facebook and Google Plus is highly appreciated.

Sl No	URLs	Twitter
1	Technotip.org	Tweet
2	Technotip.com	Tweet
3	ThinkWithSatish.com	Tweet
4	Millionaire Mastermind	Tweet
5	My Profile	Follow Satish

You can also stay connected with us via our social media communities:

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You can even signup for our free blog updates(optional):

Sl No	Blog Name	Singup form
1	Technotip.org
2	Technotip.com
3	ThinkWithSatish.com

Reason
I’ll be launching my first premium eBook(Millionaire Mastermind) tomorrow and I want to get some traction to it. I want to help as many people as possible with my work – so giving away interview series eBook for free for all the participants of this giveaway.

Also, it’s my birthday tomorrow June, 01 and I want to reconnect with all my online buddies once again and stay active with blogging.

Interview with Chris Brogan

Chrish Brogan’s blog is ranked by Technorati as one of the top 100 blogs in the world.
Advertising Age’s Power 150 ranks him in the top 15. He has been blogging since 1998. He is also co-founder of PodCamp and part of many other online projects. He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies.

Chris is co-author of the book Trust Agents, with Julien Smith, which was recently released. If you run a company/organization, then please get a copy of this book, spend some time to read and understand it and order some more copies for your employees/members/co-workers if you think its of use for them.

Interview:

1. Do you think using your real name (or surname) in your Twitter ID (or any other profile ID) is good or using your company/brand name is good?

I believe you should use your real name. People want to connect with humans for the most part, not just brands. That is, unless your brand is widely known, and then you should manage two accounts. I think that having @coke *and* @bobjones is smart, because you can be the big brand, and/or you can be offduty.

2. With all the efforts to earn the Trust(for the sake of trust), when our blog readers/customers give bad personal comments, how does it feel about the trust that we have built?

Bad comments are golden. Value these like you value nothing else. They are moments where you must reflect on the value of what your customers have told you, and decide what you must improve, or whether it’s just someone complaining. In either case, thank them. They’ve taken the time to voice their concern.

3. Do you think having a forum helps in building the “Army”? As we can interact with the blog readers at a personal level in the forum. Do you think the time spent in the forum is well worth or is there any other more efficient methods to connect with our readers?

I think you can connect with blog readers on a blog, so I think forums are a way to “share the stage.” They’re a way for others to be able to start threads and be the host of a storyline. They don’t improve or diminish the ability to build an army, except insofar as the content they provide.

4. What components do you think makes a blog successful

Equipping your community for success makes your blog successful. Be helpful. Be consistent. Be mindful of people’s time. Give them unique ideas and your best thinking. Give away your secrets (you’ll make more). Provide them links to materials and ideas that others have done that will improve their learning. Comment frequently and reply to the people who speak with you (as often as you can).

5. Your advice for new bloggers

Write from the most unique possible perspective that you can. Writing a me-too blog is wasteful. Others have already done the work. See if you can find a unique voice and vision, and get that done. There’s so much more left to cover.

6. Your advice for students. We read in the book about how we can play the role of “Trust Agent” in a company, now would love to know, how students(who are studying in university ) can apply it.

Students can learn about trust and how to use these new tools to build relationships in ways that will improve their connectedness coming out of school. Building networks of passionate collaborators is a powerful way to apply what trust agents do, and will be beneficial to students who often need these networks for jobs and more after they’ve left school.

7. What have you learnt with the release of your co-authored book “Trust Agents”.

I learned that what people relate to the most is that we’ve written a book about common sense for the Internet age. It’s like 7 habits meets the web. I’m really passionate about the fact that common sense seems to have gone missing in business, so maybe that’s what people need right now.

8. What do you feel about Google Adsense? Do you think adsense ads make a blog look unprofessional? And what do you feel about the over all blogging for money concept.

I use Adsense for RSS with my RSS feed. I get about beer money worth of value. I think that blogs that stripe themselves with Adsense end up looking like NASCAR vehicles and not useful content. I love blogging for money, though. I think there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m certainly not part of the kumbaya crowd.

9. What do you think about Twitter(In general and for business purpose). How bloggers can use it the best.

Twitter brings me quite a lot of business. I love it.

10. What were the 3 major mistakes you did on your blog?

In the old days, I talked about me. Now I equip others. In the old days, I wrote a lot more. Now I write brief pieces. In the old days, I got really snippy. Now I try to keep it professional (though with a personality).

11. What were the 3 major mistakes you did while learning about Social Media?

None really come to mind. Not that I’m perfect, but nothing major.

12. Do you think that a hard cover book is worth more than a ebook?

No. I think a useful book is worth more than fluff.

13. How many hours do you dedicate to blogging? How did you manage time for writing the book? Please share about the records made by your book at some of the places, like Wall Street Journal, New York Times etc. And please share about, monetizing the blog with your own product rather than 3rd party advertising. How do you manage sponsors on your blog. How has this book added to it etc.

I write about two hours a day, though not all of it is for blogging. I wrote 1000-2000 words a day with Julien Smith. Writing’s my #1 business, basically, when it all gets said and done: writing and thinking.

We made the New York Times Bestseller’s list in 2 days and the Wall Street Journal bestseller’s list in 2 weeks, which isn’t that shabby. I still want to hit the USA Today and the BusinessWeek bestseller lists, too.

I make very little money off my blog by contrast to my consulting and agency work. I make some money promoting Chris Pearson’s Thesis WordPress theme, and some from the occasional sponsored post, but that’s about it. I think that sponsors are great if you build relationships between the sponsors and the community. I can’t just take money from people. I say no to about 95% of the sponsor offers I get.

We had a great time talking to Chris Brogan, and learnt a lot with this interesting interview. Hope you all enjoyed it and learnt a thing or 2 from Chris Brogan. You may also like his book Trust Agents. If you read it, please tell us, what you liked and what you didn’t like in the book. I am sure, Chris will also be eager to know.
Thanks to Chris, for this fabulous interview.

Interview with SEO Expert – Mani Karthik

Mani Karthik is a professional blogger and SEO Consultant from Cochin, India. And he had previously worked in a full time job, as a in-house SEO Specialist with an MNC for 5 years.
He has worked for many big companies so far, to help them optimize their website. You can see the list of them, in the about me section of DailySEOBlog.com, which is his primary blog.

Now without hurting your curiosity, here is the interview:

Satish: Please introduce yourself and about your online ventures, to our readers.

Mani: I’m an SEO / Social Media Consultant and a professional blogger. So that means I earn a living out of blogging and helping people sell things online with the help of SEO.

Satish: When did you start blogging seriously? What motivated you to choose internet business?

Mani: Started off back in my office days where I was working as in house SEO consultant. Started blogging as a part time fun thing, but it soon grew on me. Made many mistakes, and ultimately settled down with my blog dailyseoblog.com, for which I’m known today.

Satish: Do you have any other day job (9 to 5 job)?

Mani: No.

Satish: With a popular SEO blog, you might be a busy man. How does your day look like?

Mani: Starts off with my regular work out, then scanning through emails and rss feeds, then blogging, tweeting, then SEO work, project reports , client calls and meetings. Then I hop on to social media and pretty much remain there till the end of day. I do keep a schedule and try to remain as organized as possible, but I also love it when I’m having a handful to deal and is overwhelmed with it.

Satish: 3 things that you consider a waste of time, which you do.

Mani: Nothing at the moment, but as I find something I’d be quick to quit it.

Satish: From your experience, what do you think are the 3 most misunderstood SEO myths?

Mani: The myths about link exchanges, meta information and page rank.

Satish: Your best 3 SEO tips ever.

Mani:
1 – Build content that will force people to link to you.
2 – Build your brand on the Internet that your target audience won’t miss seeing.
3 – Develop authority to your domain.

Satish: With all these years of SEO consultancy experience, what are the common mistakes that you see your clients making on their blogs or business websites.

Mani: Lack of content. And sometimes people expect results to appear over the weekend. Also there are people who approach me after having done all possible black hat stuff and expecting a come back.

Satish: What’s your take on Twitter? Many people say that it’s a good marketing tool, while many others dislike calling Twitter as a marketing tool.

Mani: Its unfair to label twitter, because it has developed (by users) over the time into many forms starting from a simple communication device to many different uses. Like once the mobile was, its a communication tool for many, while some use it for tele calling, some even use it for texting, while some use it as a device to browse the web. Similarly Twitter is different things to different people.
For me, Twitter is a great tool to communicate and connect with like minded folks. And the good thing about it is that it isn’t complicated like many so called social networking sites.

Satish: Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious, Yahoo Buzz! etc — Order them according to your priority ?

Mani: Digg > SU > Mixx > Delicious > Reddit – But they are not on the same stage. Each of them have different character and uses, its just that I use one more than the other according to my preferences.

Satish: What are your 3 main strategies for blog promotion?

Mani:
1 – Content.
2 – Brand.
3 – Communication.

Satish: What repels you the most from a blog/website(animation at your face advertising etc)?

Mani: Stale content.

Satish: Your tips, advice for newbie bloggers/webmasters.

Mani: Keep consistent, dont lose your cool. On the internet, success doesn’t happen overnight, its a gradual process. If you’re looking for making money overnight, try stock trading.

Satish: One more question of my personal interest.. I have heard the podcasts on your blog, they are really of high quality. What devices/hardware do you use for the purpose?

Mani: Skype and some free sound editing software like Audacity. I record all the podcasts/ video / talks from my Mac.

Some personal questions:-

Satish: Your Personal hobbies and interests?

Mani: Movies, music, and traveling.

Satish: Life before blogging, blogging life, where you want to see your blog in next 5 or 10 years time? And how do you feel about it.

Mani: After 5 years, I want to be doing the same thing as today and earning five times as of now. Honest.

Satish: Some of your life’s ambitions?

Mani: Setting up my own publishing agency.

Satish: How does your family and friends react when you say “I am working in Internet, from my Home!”

Mani: The reason I’m working from home is my family. I don’t want to be feeling guilty staying away from them, working for someone else. So they’re cool, in fact they help me very much with their support. Friends mostly don’t understand the idea except for the Internet savvy ones.

Satish: Please tell something, to all your fans and followers ..

Mani: Feel free to add me to your social networks. 🙂

We take this opportunity to thank Mani Karthik for the interview. And wish him a greater success in coming years.
Hope you have all enjoyed the interview and would practice, some of the practical things shared by Mani Karthik. Hope to hear your thoughts in the comment section.

Mani Karthik has moved his blog to a brand new domain called DailyBloggr, to focus on a broader topic. Make sure you visit the new site.

An Interview with Chitika(CHIH-tih-ka)

Founded in 2003, Chitika (pronounced CHIH-tih-ka), is a full-service on-line advertising network serving over 2 billion monthly impressions across more than 30,000 websites. For advertisers and media buyers, Chitika is a proven channel for targeting on-line consumers and qualified buyers. For all publishers, Chitika is an easy-to-use platform for earning daily ad revenue.

What does Chitika mean?
When Chitika co-founders, Venkat Kolluri and Alden DoRosario left Lycos in 2003 to start their own company, they sought a name that would suggest the speed with which its customers would be able to put up ads on their Web sites. Chitika, which means “snap of the fingers” in Telugu (a South Indian language), captured this sentiment and Chitika Inc. was born. Chitika introduced its online-ads service in January, 2004.
Chitika-eventfamilypic
Since the start of the company it has been mentioned in many of the mainstream media and has been one of the favorite for many “A” grade bloggers. We also use chitika, its been so great in terms of income generation so far. Haven’t seen us, using Chitika, that’s the secret of Chitika(premium) ads. They are invisible to direct visitors!

Ok, without much delay, here we present you the interview that we did with Ryan Travis Director of Client Services
Chitika, Inc.

1. We are very much curious about all the guys behind Chitika, and we want to have a look at your office. If you have any video or photographs(of your employees and office) then please share it with our readers.

Ah – sorry – I don’t have any pictures other than what you can see on our family page!

2. Do you read blogs? If yes, then which are your favorite blogs?

Yes I definitely do read blogs. For keeping up with business, I love to read ProBlogger, TechCrunch, ShoeMoney, and many others. For pleasure, I read PitchforkMedia.com (great for news), Stereogum, N4G, and lots of other sites (I’m a big music and video games nerd!).

3. We know that Chitika was started in 2003. So its not that old, so how could you manage to get the exposure? What do you think, was a stepping stone for Chitika?

Well our first major step was actually somewhat of an accident. Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) came across our ads and began using them, and they worked really well on his sites. He ended up writing a very positive review on the performance, and we really got a lot of exposure from that.

More recently, our Chitika | Premium ads have taken us to an even bigger audience. Our original eMiniMalls ads worked great only for sites about products, but now our new Chitika | Premium ads are doing fantastic on all types of sites (finance, travel, etc. – and don’t worry – they still work great on product sites too!).

4. How do you define success?

Heh.. that is a good question! I would define success as meeting or exceeding the goals that you have set (or that are set for you).

5. What are the mistakes you see your publishers and advertisers are making, in using Chitika

Well I am on the Publisher side so I can only speak for publishers – but the biggest mistake that I see constantly is placement. Publishers will often put our ads in placements that are just not good at all, and then they get upset when they don’t get any clicks on the ads. It is very frustrating! We try to fix this by sending out emails and creating pages to educate the publishers, and by putting up placement guides like this one.

6. What repels you the most from a blog/website(animation at your face advertising etc) ?

Yes – extremely animated ads (“shoot the monkey”, etc.), and especially ads with sound. I really hate hearing “Congratulations, you have won a free iPod!”.. that drives me crazy!

7. What are the new year resolutions for Chitika?

In 2008, we surpassed Ask.com in monthly search-targeted ads served. The next largest provider is Microsoft, and in 2009, we want to surpass them too.

8. How is Chitika differ from other ad networks?

We do a lot of things differently from other ad networks, but I would say that the main difference is in how we target and display our ads. With Chitika | Premium ads, we will only display to search engine traffic, and we will target the ads to what the user was searching for.

This allows us to show extremely relevant ads, and gives the users a good experience. Regular readers who come to your site directly will not see the ads at all – which makes them happy and keeps them coming back.

9. What inspired the idea of targeting the search engine visitors ?

The basic idea is this: better targeted ads means more money – for both publishers and advertisers. If we can target the ads to what people are searching for, then that is really a win-win situation for everyone involved.

10. We see you in twitter, helping your publishers in all possible manner. How do you manage your time?

Ha – terribly! That is something that I am really trying to improve on. It is hard to find a balance between helping everyone out individually, and forming higher-level plans of projects and different items I want to do. I’m still trying to figure out the correct mix, but I feel that it is extremely important to get out there and interact with our customers, no matter what size their sites are.

11. How big or how small is Chitika, as a company?

We are medium-sized. You can see some of us on our “Family” page – that shows the people who have been here the longest. Also – we are currently hiring for several new positions.

12. What all features are in your to do list of Chitika?

Too many! If I list them all here, I might take up all the space on your server 😉

13. If you knew what you know now when you first started Chitika, whats the one biggest tip you would give yourself today?

Do crazy stuff. I think that we all tend to get a little caught up in our worlds of trying to meet our numbers goals, and we get scared to try new/wild ideas. I have found that some of our most successful projects were the “crazy” ones.

14. Strategies used to promot Chitika ?

Lots – but mainly we rely on word-of-mouth. If we do a great job at helping publishers make money, then they will talk about it.

15. Your advice for all chitika publishers/advertisers to make the most out of chitika.

Try new things, and track them by using channels. It is amazing how much improvement you can make by just testing out little changes, like placement, link colors, etc. You should try a lot of different ideas, and see which ones work best. Check out the Chitika Blog for tips on where to place ads, and different ways to customize them.

16. Please tell something, that you would like all your advertisers/publishers/ and others to know about Chitika

Our ads work best when used together on the same page with AdSense – we are meant to be used as a compliment for AdSense, rather than a replacement. Our most successful publishers use both together.

Hope you enjoyed the interview. Ryan is really helpful for all the publishers. If you are a Chitika publisher, then feel free to contact him, if you have any problem or if you need any suggestions. Thanks Ryan and Chitika for the interview.

If you have not yet tried Chitika, then please give it a try. Chitika premium really works like a charm on many sites. Signup for chitika. And please leave your valuable comments in the comment section.

An Interview with BuySellAds.com

BuySellAds.com [BSA] is an advertising marketplace for small to medium sized website owners/publishers. They want to help small to medium sized website publishers sell more ads and make more money from buysellads websites. They also want to help advertisers find better placements and streamline the process of dealing with small to medium sized publishers.
Interview-BuySellAds-Technotip
BuySellAds.com is a direct banner selling service. As a result you can charge as much as you want for an ad slot and you can move away from PPC or CPM etc adnetworks and start charging more, on monthly basis.

We could somehow get in contact with a nice guy called Todd of buysellads.com, and he was kind enough to answer some of our questions.

1. We are very much curious about all the guys behind BuySellAds.com, and we want to have a look at your office. If you have any video and photographs(of your employees and office) then please share it with our readers.

Hahaha, well, BuySellAds.com is run by me out of the second bedroom in my apartment. We have a programmer and an assistant site manager who also work from home and are remote. We’re a very small team, 100% bootstrapped, and trying to be as efficient as possible to make this thing work for everyone. I don’t think there’s any other way to do it.

2. How would you decide that BSA is matured enough to comeout of *BETA*?

Good question. I’ll make you a deal… as soon as Gmail comes out of beta, we will come out of beta. Cool?

3. Do you read blogs? If yes, then which are your favorite blogs?

There are only two blogs I read religiously: http://TechCrunch.com and http://OnStartups.com

4. There was a Buzz in the blogosphere, when BSA was launched. what do you think made “A” list bloggers write about your launch?

I think the idea behind BSA just rings true with many bloggers. The problem I was trying to solve is real and I wasn’t the only person with that problem: selling ads on my own was a pain, too time consuming, and distracted me from publishing more often. Buying ads was also troublesome – contacting multiple bloggers, making payment different ways, etc, it was just totally disorganized and inefficient.

5. What about the tool(suggestion tool based on real data) which would show us the value of our blogs ad space?

Yes, this is a good idea and one that we want to do. It’s one of those things that’s very hard to get *right*. For example, a site in our network CSSRemix is getting around 100K impressions per month. They are selling 7 ads across the top of their site at $350 each. That is a $3.50 CPM which is very high for our network. You will find many sites of similar caliber that cannot charge that much. Pricing ads is tricky and is not an equation – there are many many factors involved. That being said, it’s something we’re very interested in building because it is hard to build – which would make it a very valuable tool.

6. What goals do you have for BSA in coming years?

Same goals we have now, help publishers sell more ads, and help advertisers find quality niche placements from a central marketplace.

7. What was the major challenge you faced while launching BSA?

Having the guts to pull the trigger. I had the site ready to go for a few weeks before I actually launched.

8. What do you call, was a stepping stone for BSA?

Getting some of the first publishers signed up (Logopond, PSDTuts, FreelanceSwitch, etc).

9. Share a happiest moment about BSA(except the launch day)?

Seeing the first ads sold moments after the first publisher had installed the ad code 😉

10. How do you define success?

Success for me is about doing the right thing. Whether in business, family, etc., it’s important to always do the right thing and that’s how I sleep well at night.

11. What are the mistakes you see your publishers and advertisers are making, in using BSA

Changing price frequently and/or raising the price on an advertiser in their first month. It just doesn’t make any sense. The publishers who do the best with BSA raise pricing on their advertisers *maybe* once every 3-4 months. I think that it is important for publishers to find a price they are happy with for this period of time and stick with it. Even if you need to raise the price for new advertisers, you should let the existing advertisers stay at their current rate for roughly 3-4 months. As for advertisers, the common mistake I see with them is not giving a placement enough time. One month is a long time, but with some businesses advertising in this niche it can be more about branding and staying power (believe it or not) than anything else.

12. What repels you the most from a blog/website(animation at your face advertising etc)?

Poorly placed ads that don’t fit in well with the design of the site. Sites that have scripts for more than 2 ad networks. The biggest turn off, however, is seeing ads that are not targeted. If you look through all of the websites in BSA’s inventory and check out the ads BSA serves for those sites, you will see that 99.9% of them (had to give myself a little room for error) are very targeted placements.

13. Whats your view about PPC, CPM, CPA advertising?

Blah, Blah and blah. I like to keep things simple, fixed 30-day rates.

14. What are the new year resolutions for BSA?

The one is easy, get the new site launched!

15. Please tell something, that you would like all your
advertisers/publishers/ and others to know about you and BuySellAds.com

What you see is what you get. BSA is real.

We are using BuySellAds on some of our blog too, and it provides a reliable service. Once your blog is accepted into their network, your blog will be listed in their marketplace and you will get a lot of exposure. And the best part is – they pay on time!
BuySellAds is still in Beta, and we hope it will be available for all public shortly. And we recommend to try Beta Registration and see your luck with them.

Hope you enjoyed the interview

Social Marketing[DIGG] With SocialElves.Com — An Interview

[ This is not a paid review. And we are not associated with Social Elves directly or indirectly. ]

Social Elves is a marketing group that helps expose your content to millions of people by promoting it on Digg.com, the largest social bookmarking site in the world.
And interestingly it claims that it doesn’t violet the policies of Digg.com.

We always wanted to learn more about traffic sources and Digg is one of the most popular one. So we asked these questions[About both Digg and SocialElves] to Mr.Josh Hartland of SocialElves and his answers were very interesting and informative. Hope you enjoy this interview..

1. Whats the meaning of SocialElves?

He he. That’s a funny story. Have you seen one of those Christmas movies in which a lot Santa’s elves are working by the side of a conveyor belt making the toys for Christmas. Well, that’s what inspired the idea for the site’s name. Considering that for a submission to be successful a lot of “elves” (diggers) have to help during the process we thought it made sense to call the site like that. I have to admit some people might find that kind of weird but at the moment of naming it, it was pretty funny and also made sense.

2. What is actually the aim of SocialElves? (Is it to make money or to promote the unnoticed interesting contents of the web, for a little fee).

Well, at Socialelves we are mostly interested in getting good content out to get the exposure it deserves. We always have to check the article or media before we promote it because we are not willing to waste anybody’s time or money on content that won’t be well accepted by the Digg community. However because of the amount of time it takes to do a successful promotion and the benefits the service has for our customers (SEO and Digg’s front page many times) we believe it is necessary to charge a fee in order for the amount of time invested to make sense.

3. Do you think $300 (is this amount less or more or worth it) is worth for 200 Diggs?

Well let me start by clarifying that in Socialelves none of our customers pay $300 for 200 diggs. That would be like buying diggs and that is not what we are selling here. What we are selling is a digg submission promotion service that guarantees as a result at least 50, 100 or 200 diggs depending on what package does a customer chooses once his or her content has been approved. Now, after that clarification: Absolutely! In order for a story to reach front page (as long as it is a good story) it usually takes between 100 and 200 diggs.

Additionally to the possibility of reaching Digg’s front page, the SEO of getting a high digg count for your submission has an important weight in a little search engine we like to call Google. Google loves Digg and crawls it daily in order to find all the submissions there are in it. Of course, a submission has to have some weight before Google starts noticing it (usually starts getting some attention at 50-70 diggs) so if you get a high amount of diggs not only do you have the possibility of making it to Digg’s front page but you are also improving your SE rankings on Google. In fact, if you are looking for good placements on keywords that have low or medium competition (between 500-5000 searches per month) it is very possible you obtain a placement on the first couple of pages in Google’s SE for keywords in that level. Now, this is not an absolute thing either as Google keeps evolving but if the content is submitted consciously to obtain these benefits, then they are usually achieved.

4. We have heard that, a story requires some 200 – 300 diggs (fluctuating number), within 24hrs to get to the front page of digg? (But you require 48hrs!)

True, but that is a policy we recently changed on our website since we have become more capable of marketing more efficiently a submission with better results in less time. So, as of right now, if you check our website you will see, on our FAQ section that the time frame has been changed to 24 hours.

5. What makes SocialElves different from other Digg Marketing sites?

There are 2 main reasons why we are better than our competition. The first one is the fact that we are not here to offer our customers advice and show them the door. We are here to offer them results. That is why we offer marketing packages with a minimum guarantee of diggs so that they can see for themselves we are serious about our business and about theirs. The second main difference is that we don’t buy or sell diggs which many others do. We only work with content that has quality and something valuable to offer to the Digg community. Our business is not about getting just any content promoted and then taking the money. Its about getting the good content the exposure it needs to be noticed by others.

6. How big/small is your company [SocialElves]?

Well, I wouldn’t say Socialelves is a big corporate operation (nor it needs to be). It is a business ran by a small amount of people with knowledge in the area of the social marketing. That’s all.

7. From how long have you been using Internet? (just for anything)

I think it must be probably about 5 years now.

8. What made you think of starting a site like SocialElves?

Well, I dont know how many of Digg’s users have noticed this but there are usually many good stories that never make it over 5 diggs. I myself was at that point before. So when I kept seeing this happening over and over again, it occured to me perhaps I could create a service that could help all of this stories get noticed and bring value both to the Digg community and to its sources. And that’s when I decided it would be a great idea to create a service like Socialelves.

9. Did Digg lawyers contact you for any obvious reasons?

Digg has indeed intended to persuade us from offering the service due to the nature of it. Since Digg is not just another website but more of a business funded through venture capital, they want to show their investors they take activities that may harm their model seriously and wont just stand and watch. However, at Socialelves, we don’t buy diggs, we don’t sell diggs and we don’t submit stories that we believe wont be welcomed by the Digg community. So we are really not a threat or a negative influence to them or their model.

10. Now, we know that promoting stories in Digg or Stumble manually requires a lot of time. So how long do you spend online to make sure that the submitted story gets to the Digg front page?

That usually depends on the quality of the content. Some stories are so good that they only need 3-4 hours. On the other hand, there are stories with less appeal that could take 8-10 hours per day.

11. What is the proportion of stories that make it to Digg’s front page by using your service?

So far our record averages around 2/3 of the submissions making it to the front page. This is possible because as I mentioned, we are selective on the content we promote but it is also possible, thanks to the consulting advice we provide to our clients in order for their stories to be optimized to become more popular. However this is only an amount based on our strongest marketing package (Platinum) . For the other 2 packages (Silver and Gold) the record is lower since those are packages mostly targeted for SEO purposes or to give a story a popularity headstart.

12. Do you get the request for digg (paid) from small bloggers or from big bloggers / small company or big company more?

We get requests from both small bloggers and websites as well as small to mid-size companies. There are also quite a few marketing companies that hire our services since they are aware of the benefits of the SEO that can be generated through Digg.

13. Have you ever spent money promoting SocialElves?

Only during the first couple of months after the website was launched.

14. Whats your advice to other people who use sites like Digg to promote their stories?

Well, that would depend on what are they trying to promote. But the best advice I could probably give them is this: If you want exposure for your content through websites like Digg, Reddit and Stumble Upon, don’t forget these are social bookmarking sites, so be social! If you believe your story is something a person that finds it interesting will want to share with others then your story is probably good enough.

15. Which one is most important – Concentrating on building quality content or to promote the already exiting quality content ?

I would say between those two, it may be more beneficial if you concentrate on creating quality content. I am not saying if you already have good content waiting to be discovered you should simply let it be and move on. However as a long term strategy, I believe if you constantly come with fresh quality content, people will notice you are the source of it and eventually you will become a reference for the content of the niche you are focusing on by doing this.

16. Whats your advice for people trying to game the Digg, Stumbleupon etc systems and trying to make money from it?

I don’t know if I have really any advice for them. I have known many people that got strong and reputed by using methods that were not ethical and in the end most of them have gone down as well as all their work. So if any of your readers is interested in being a part of the social bookmarking arena in the long term, I would recommend them not to take shortcuts like using interactive scripts because its just a matter of time before they get caught. As far as making money using social bookmarking sites, the trick lies in three simple skills: be creative, be discreet and be constant.

17. What do you think of Digg?

I think Digg is a great service that allows people to stay connected to all sorts of worldwide events and news. Digg can cover so many topics that can go from comical videos to nanotechnology that it is very useful for the average person to simply check it a few times a day to see what are the latest news. In many occasions I have informed myself of events that hadn’t been covered through sources like television until a few days after they occurred.

18. Do you think, site/blog design has anything to do with getting or not getting to the Digg front page?

I don’t necessarily think that factor is a direct cause for websites to make it to the front page or not but if you don’t have a reputation of good content to back you up, I do believe it could have indirect consequences for the simple reason that it may make you loose points with the people that really matter: the Digg community.

19. Do you think, placement of Advertisements on our blog has anything to do with getting or not getting to the Digg front page?

Just like I said on my last answer, I don’t believe it has a direct impact on whether a submission reaches front page or not but it can have an impact on the people that look at a website to decide whether if the content is worth the digg or not. But generally speaking if you have good content and don’t abuse on the amount of ads you have on your website or blog, you should be ok.

20. What type of articles do well on DIGG?

Social Articles. The kind of content that can become viral because it has an interesting factor, an ironic one or a comical one and appeals to the most general public possible. That doesn’t mean that there can’t be stories on a more specific niche that make it to the front page or get a lot of diggs though.

21. Your tips for, people who have just signed up for DIGG.

That would depend on what do they want to achieve in Digg. If they just want to be a regular user, just check it daily and digg what you like. If you want to become more popular and have some more weight on Digg, then earn active friends. Don’t just befriend them because you saw they are active. Check their submissions, digg them and comment on them. If you are consistent you will start seeing results in a few months (or earlier).

22. How do you manage your time for your offline life, inspite of spending lot of time online.

Well, right now I don’t have much offline life. I have access to all the commodities I need where I am and I love working on my computer. I do go from time to time to eat outside or go to the movie theater but I enjoy my current situation and don’t really need to change it. This is not the same for the few of us who are part of Socialelves though. Some are much more interested in the “outside world” than me and go out and spend most of their free time with their offline friends. Its just a little different for each one of us.

23. Tell us briefly about your lifestyle. We always want to know more(lifestyle) about internet entrepreneurs. [please share with some more details]

Well, I am sorry to disappoint you but in my personal case there is not much lifestyle for the moment. I have great plans for my future and have a lot of very interesting ideas for online and offline business models that are mostly based on innovation. Because of this, I currently dedicate most of my time to doing online research (when I am not working on Socialelves) and finding smart partners to ally with, in order to produce my ideas and create new ventures that I believe will be very successful. Right now, I spent most of my time in front of a screen (PC or TV) learning as much as I can. This may not seem like a lot of fun now, but it is when I can collect the fruits of my dedication that I will worry about relaxing a little.

24. We see that SocialElves talks only about DIGG. But there are equally popular sites like Stumbleupon, whats the difficulty to provide votes on those sites, when you already have a network of people with those accounts also.

Actually the reason why Socialelves hasn’t incursionated into other social bookmarking sites was that we first wanted to work with Digg, considering it is one of the largest and most popular social bookmarking sites. It is not really related to the fact that it is difficult to expand our services into a few other social bookmarking sites.

25. What features, products or services we can expect from SocialElves in the near future?

Well the rest of the crew and myself have been considering a few interesting ideas and as of right now, I can tell you that due to the large number of people that would like to have their websites on Digg but don’t currently have content that is good enough to become popular, we have decided to start offering content creation services specifically targeted for the Digg community. That way, many of our clients can stop getting worried about writing content that will only get rejected and leave that to us. We will be offering this new service on the the website in the next few weeks.

We also have plans to begin offering our services for Reddit and Stumble Upon in the next months. That is something we had thought of doing from the beginning but as I said, we first wanted to test how well the service worked with Digg. Besides those two additions, we are also going to be launching a blog shortly with information we hope bloggers and website owners will find valuable and helpful for their websites.

26. Advice us about using DIGG, Stumbleupon, Reddit etc effectively, to get good traffic.

Well, I am afraid there is only one way to get good traffic directly from social bookmarking sites, and that is through the front page (at least in Digg and Reddit). However, as I mentioned previously, there are also indirect benefits of becoming popular in vote count ( in Digg as we haven’t yet tested the SEO benefits on the other social bookmarking sites). So to answer the question, its a matter of becoming an active user of the social bookmarking site you are most interested in and making sure you can get as many active friends as possible. Something like a support group. If you can do that, your odds of constantly achieving successful submissions increase by a lot.

27. What not to do with our Digg account?

I’ll tell you what you should do before getting an account: read the terms. I know they may seem like too long and boring but that way you will have more clear what kind of limits there are. Additionally to that, give more than what you ask for. That way you will be more appreciated in the community and among your contacts. And that goes for diggs, comments and diggs on comments too.

Thanks for giving the interview

Update: We secretly tracked an interesting article, which was Dugg by socialelvies[after some investigation it was noticed that the blogger purchased SocialElve’s Digg Promotion Service – Silver pack of 75$ which promises of 50 Diggs] and to my wonder the article got more than 100 Diggs in 22hrs. So it seems that SocialElves deliver(actually over deliver!) what they offer on their website. Again, remember that we are NOT associated with Social Elves in anyway and its left to you to decide about using or not using SocialElves.

40 Bloggers Sharing their knowledge — Blog Blazers

Recently Stephane Grenier from landlordmax.com released his book BLOG BLAZERS: 40 Bloggers share their Secrets, to Creating a High-Traffic, and High-Profit Blog!
blogblazers
As you know we also do interviews of bloggers, entrepreneurs etc on our blog, So we were very much curious to read this book. As we stared reading this book, we could get a lot of very good blogs, which we never knew before. And the book is very interesting and informative. This book is packed with precious information, provided by the most experienced and influential people in the blogosphere. Each interview is about 5 pages long and the book contains 206 pages.
All the interviewee has shared what they have come across, in their way to success.
According to me, its a precious book for all bloggers and internet entrepreneurs. Because its good to learn from the people who have already learnt a lot.
So we highly recommend this book to everyone.
The book includes the interviews of most famous guys like:
Aaron Wall
Seth Godin
Stephane Grenier(Interviewing himself. And its really one of the best think to read.)
Yaro Starak
and many more..have a complete look at the interviewee here.
We have got many links to great articles around the web, from this book. We will share some of them in coming days.

Some of the questions asked are:

What’s your best tip for writing a successful blog post?

What are your main avenues for marketing your blog?

What was your most successful blog post ever?

What’s the most common mistake new bloggers make?

What turns you off most when visiting a blog?

What’s the best way to make money from your blog?

Which books and websites do you recommend to new bloggers?

Which five blogs do you regularly read?

and many more!

We are completely satisfied with the book and I am sure you will also get the value out of the book. And as a Xmas gift Stephane Grenier is offering Free shipping for Canadian and US orders and 5$(55%) off for international orders, till Xmas. And to avail this offer you need to purchase the book from the official website.
Note that the ebook version is only available from the official Blog Blazers website. In addition, if you purchase from the Blog Blazer website, you will have the option to select the “bundle package” which includes both the book and the ebook (the advantage being that you can click on the links in the ebook versus having to type them in).

Paperback – $ 16.95 USD (Free Shipping until Xmas)

Ebook [SAVE A TREE!] – $ 12.95 USD

Value Bundle Paperback + Ebook – $ 20.95 USD (Free Shipping)

You can just Google or visit BLOG BLAZERS Review page and see what people around(who have read it) the world has to say about this book. Its worth the money and the time spent on it.

If the shipping offer is expired, you can buy the book either from the Amazon or from the official website.

An Interview with the Master – “Daniel scocco” from DailyBlogTips.com

Daniel-Scocco-Daily-Blog-Tips Daniel Scocco has lived and studied in several places around the world, including Italy, Chile and Brazil. After receiving a degree in International Economics and working for a year within a multinational company, he decided to quit and pursue entrepreneurial projects on the Internet.
His experience completely changed the way he interacted with the Internet. Through out these years he launched several successful blogs, and Daily Blog Tips is the place where he shares what he learned along the way. The blog was nominated under the “Best Web Development Blog” category on the 2007 Weblog Awards, and currently it is ranked number 29 among the most popular blogs in the world (according to Technorati).
Daniel Scocco is an inspiration to start this blog and his blogs have helped us a lot in learning about blogging. I highly recommend every blogger to subscribe to DailyBlogTips. And I take this privilege to thank Daniel for giving this interview.

1. How long have you been blogging?

I started late in 2005.

2. Where did you first hear about blogging and making money through internet?

On StevePavlina.com

3. Are you a full time blogger?

Full time web publisher.

4. When did you quite your day job — Was it before/after you started getting more money from your blogs than your regular salary?

I quit before I was making any money online. But I was sure in 6 months to 1 year I would already be earning enough to live. That was the case.

5. Did you start with the purpose of making money?

No, I started because the lifestyle was what I wanted (i.e. the possibility to work from home and have plenty of free time).

6. How many blogs do you have or write for currently(otherthan Daily Blog Tips, Daily Bits, Daily Writing Tips…and hope you don’t write in Techcult.com ).

Those are the main ones. I have some smaller websites, but they are all static.

7. How many hours do you dedicate to them every day? How much time do you spend for each of your blogs? Do you sleep at night
🙂 ? (kidding!)

I work around 8 hours every day. The time is spent reading new stuff, writing posts for Daily Blog Tips, managing the other 3 blogs, and on some consulting projects.

8. Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious, Yahoo Buzz! — Order them with your priority ?

StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Buzz.

9. How much do you make from your blogs, monthly?

Around $3000.

10. What is your main income source?

Direct ads and consulting projects.

11. Do you think Adsense makes a blog look unprofessional?

Depends how you integrate it. AdSense on the sidebar or below the posts are fine. Blended with the content they look spammy.

12. What were the 3 major mistakes you did on your blog?

On Daily Blog Tips I already had a good experience. On previous blogs I messed up pretty bad though.

My first web hosting was a Windows plan on GoDaddy…

My first blog was a hand coded HTML page.

My first WordPress install was not done on the root folder.

13. What would you suggest for a blogger, who have just started his blog.

i. Wait till they get direct advertisers or use ad networks?

Wait until you have 1000 uniques a day, then put ads. Direct or ad networks will depend on the niche.

ii. AdSense or anyother ad networks

Depends on the niche.

14. If you could give an advice for a novice blogger, what would it be?

Focus on the content.

15. If you could read only one blog, which one would you pick?

TechCrunch

16. If you could read only one blog(related to blogging), which one would you pick?

Problogger

17. How many RSS feeds do you track daily?

Some 200

18. Have you ever invested money in promotion of your blogs?

Yes

19. What are your 3 main strategies for blog promotion- In a line each?

1.valuable content
2. contact with other bloggers
3. social media

20. What are your other revenue source, other than blogging?

Consulting projects and niche websites.

21. What was the most difficult situation faced by you in all these years, regarding blogging(except Spam 🙂 )?

Content theft.

22. Which are the 3 major traffic sources for your DailyBlogTips?

1. repeat traffic
2. search engines
3. social media

23. What is the secret of your success?

Consistency

24. How important is the design aspect? (0 to 10)

Some questions to which we expect some detailed answers.

1. How you spend your day?

Wake up at 6am more or less. Check email. Eat breakfast. work until 10:30. Hit the gym. Lunch. Work till 5pm. Train Jiu-Jitsu or Kick-boxing (depending on the day). Dinner. Go to sleep at 10pm or so.

2. Personal hobbies and interests?

Martial arts, swimming, weight lifting, saxophone, chess.

3. Life before blogging, blogging life, where you want to see your blog in next 5 or 10 years time?

Before working on the web I used to work for a multinational company. Boring.

Right now I love my life style.

Hopefully my blogs will still be going strong.

4. Some of your life’s ambitions?

I want to start my own Internet company some day.

5. What projects do you have in your to-do list for coming days(2008-2009 and even 2010, if any).

Buy a house, preferable at some nice beach location.

6. We see all over the internet that, people earning lot from Internet usually have cool life style, they will be going to holiday trips to their favorite places frequently etc etc….Do you think its true and do you also have such life style.

This is true for people earning bit time. I am not there yet.

7. Do you also complain of not having time?

No. I love the flexibility I have working from home.

8. 3 things you do, which you consider waste of time….

I don’t waste that much time actually. Don’t watch TV, don’t play games, don’t have gadgets or anything.

Only thing I could say is watching DVD movies.

9. How about your contacts with the outside real world(other than blogging life)? Do you meet and talk to people often or will you be busy almost all the time infront of your computer?

I think I keep a good balance. I workout or train martial arts almost every day, so I meet people there. On weekends I always meet up with friends and with my girlfriend, so it’s good.
I wish I would have more time for that though, but one got work hard.

We feel that everybody had great time reading this interview article. Daniel is one of our blogging idol and we are very happy as we started this “Interview” section with Daniel. If you have some interesting questions to ask your blogging idol or your blogging inspiration, then Ask questions here and Celebrity Bloggers will answer it(an Interview).