Beau » Beau Blackwell

Is Social Media Marketing Right for Your Business?

Posted by Beau Posted in Social Media | 2 Comments

When talking to small business owners and entrepreneurs, one of the most common questions I get is, “How should I use social media? I’ve heard it’s a good thing, but I don’t understand how it could work for my particular business.” Before I try to answer that question, I think it’s important to say that social media marketing may not be the best route for your business. Just because it works for some businesses doesn’t mean it’s a fit for … →

Why Foursquare Could Be Huge

Posted by Beau Posted in Social Media | 1 Comment

In the social media world, Foursquare has been a hot topic of discussion lately, as well as something of a lightning rod. People seem to either totally love it or totally hate it, with little middle ground. In case you’re not familiar with it, Foursquare is a location-based app that runs on smartphones like the iPhone, Droid, and Blackberry. Unlike some other location-based apps like Yelp that are primarily about reviews and finding specific kinds of businesses you might like … →

Business is a Game- Try to Have Some Fun

Posted by Beau Posted in Strategy | 2 Comments

A few days ago, I got Chris Brogan’s email newsletter, where he talked about games we play as kids being preparation for skills we’ll need as adults. The examples he gave, like tag and hide-and-seek, were for more primitive skills like hunting and, well, hiding. It got me thinking, though, about how many of the games that we start out playing as kids but continue to enjoy as adults utilize the same skills that help us in the business world. … →

Don't Let Your Business Be Hold Music

Posted by Beau Posted in Strategy | 3 Comments

Today I called my doctor’s office to make an appointment and had the distinct displeasure of being put on hold for close to 10 minutes. As is usually the case, for the entire wait I was subjected to godawful “smooth jazz” that made me want to hang up and switch doctors. While being aurally assaulted by this tripe, I thought to myself, “Who actually likes this crap, and why is it on nearly every phone system in the US?” The … →

WordPress Tip: Hiding Pages or Categories from Your Navigation

Posted by Beau Posted in Wordpress Tips | 2 Comments

If you run a blog that has lots of pages or categories (for example, if you blog on a lot of different subjects), you may run across a situation where there are so many categories listed in your navigation that it can “break” your theme by causing your navbar to wrap around. Usually this isn’t the end of the world, but you also want your theme to look its best and not distract readers by looking broken. For a number … →

WordPress Tip: Ping More Sites, Get More Exposure

Posted by Beau Posted in Wordpress Tips | 2 Comments

When you’re starting a new blog, one of the first things you want to do is let the Interweb know about your great content. Besides submitting a Google Sitemap, which I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the easiest ways to get the word out and start getting your site crawled is to “ping” Update Services like blog directories, news sites, and search portals like Google and Yahoo to let them know about your new content. WordPress will do … →

5 Essential Steps to Take After Installing WordPress

Posted by Beau Posted in Wordpress Tips | 6 Comments

If you’ve finally taken the plunge and gotten your first self-hosted WordPress blog installed, figuring out exactly what to do next can be a bit daunting. Obviously, you want to start writing and posting as quickly as you can so you don’t just have the Hello, World post on your site, but there are a few steps you should take first to put your new WordPress blog on the road to success. Please note that while some of these tips … →

Great People, Places & Things from BlogWorld 2009

Posted by Beau Posted in Social Media | 4 Comments

One of the best things about attending a conference like BlogWorld is that you get exposed to some amazing people you might never encounter otherwise, and learn about interesting sites, companies, and tools from the people who are already using them successfully. With that in mind, this post aims to share some of the cool resources and ideas I discovered this year, in the hopes that you’ll get something great out of them too. People You Should Listen To I’ll … →

Video: Tim Ferriss on How to Blog Without Killing Yourself

Posted by Beau Posted in Blogging | 3 Comments

I normally wouldn’t recommend a video that’s this long to everyone, but if you’re a blogger, you need to see this video. As someone who runs multiple blogs in addition to having a full-time job, I’ve often wondered how major bloggers can put in all the work required to grow their blogs and get a huge audience. Contrary to popular belief, “if you build it they will come” just isn’t always the case. There’s plenty of other work that goes … →

Thoughts on BlogWorld 2009

Posted by Beau Posted in Social Media | Leave a comment

This was my second year attending BlogWorld, and looking over my notes to try to piece together some coherent advice for people who couldn’t attend, something quickly became clear to me: there’s no single right way of becoming successful online. However, there was a common piece of advice that was repeated in every session I attended. I’ll get to that in a bit. For those of you haven’t attended before, the content of BlogWorld covers a wide variety of topics, … →