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Unity Despite Chaos

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Today marks a sad day in American history that no blogger is happy to write about and no one is happy to talk about, especially New Yorkers like myself. The atrocities committed on this day 13 years ago will never be forgotten. Hours after the atrocity, the only two choices America had were to give up to terrorism or bounce back. Almost as expected, the second choice was chosen, but the only reason America was able to bounce back was because of its unity.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to undo the events that happened. The only thing we can do is live in a world affected by those events and react accordingly. America reacted by uniting together and waging war against the terrorists. This brought everyone in America together, and that helped out.

It is fair to say that the world is still filled with chaos. It is entirely predictable that bad things will continue to happen. This year has been filled with devastating news stories such as what is going on in Ukraine, Ferguson, and the other places in the world where conflict continues. The atrocity committed to James Foley does not make our world look any better either. I am sad to say that there have been too many dreaded events in 2014 for me to include in one blog post.

The kind of chaos that we experience in business and personal lives is absolutely minuscule compared to the dreaded event that happened 13 years ago and all of the dreaded events that are happening in the world right now. Regardless of what kind of chaos is involved, whether it be personal or continental, the only way to rise above the chaos is to be united.

There are some things we cannot do alone, and that is entirely okay. Always be willing to ask for help, for a shoulder to lean on, or for support. In addition, always be willing to do the same things when someone else is in need just like the first responders.

Americans leaned on each other and united together on this day to fight against terrorism. Instead of their views of the nation getting crippled, Americans became more proud of their country and what the country stands for.

United together, we will always remember this day and who it affected as well as who it continues to indirectly affect to this day.

 

How To Win As The Host Of A Giveaway

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Giveaways come in all shapes and sizes. They come as the form of Mac Book Pros and Amazon Gift Cards. While there are a fair share of great giveaways and giveaways that go wrong, everyone who hosts a giveaway wants to win. They want more engagement and long-term sales for their products. Luckily, there is a way to win as the host of a giveaway.

Allow everyone to win by doing something for you.

That’s all it takes. Mike Michalowicz, the master of hosting giveaways, did this for his book The Pumpkin Plan. For the book’s launch, anyone who submitted a video revealing their inner critic and posted it on YouTube got the book for free. Two runners-up would get a free 1 hour consultation session while 1 grand winner would get to have dinner with Mike and his inner circle of helpers. There were some requirements for this giveaway, but the big one was that at the very end of the video, everyone had to put visible and legible text “The Pumpkin Plan July 5, 2012” and have it displayed for at least three seconds.

It is easy to imagine that this marketing stunt cost a lot of money. It is easy to imagine that 100 people submitted videos for The Pumpkin Plan. If anyone who got his book for free left a review, those reviews probably were 4-5 star reviews each. That makes a book look a lot better on Amazon, and it also lowers the sales rank of a book (which means Amazon does a better job at promoting it and more people get to see the book). Even more, Mike’s method of choosing a winner had a 4 part process in which 75% of the process involved how many times the video got shared and viewed on social networks. This allowed Mike to create a sales army, and even though he had to pay for the sales army (buying and sending over books costs money), those videos are still up on YouTube which means his book The Pumpkin Plan is still being promoted by an array of people.

The next time you host your own giveaway, ask yourself how you can make sure that everyone wins a free prize.

 

5 Things To Look For In Your Bitly Stats

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bitly stats

Bitly is the best place to get your links’ statistics and store those links in a database for free. However, many people only use Bitly to get a shortened URL, and most people do not know all of the statistics that Bitly offers. While it is important to get a shorter URL and track your links, it is also very important to know what Bitly’s statistics mean for you.

I have used Bitly to track my blog’s growth for several years now. I use Bitly’s statistics to identify which links get the most clicks and which links do not generate as many clicks. By using this strategy, I identify which blog posts should still be tweeted and which blog posts should be replaced by another tweet. In order to change your strategy by using Bitly’s statistics, these are the 5 things you need to look for.

  1. Daily clicks for all of your links. How many clicks do you get every day. Bitly shows you how many clicks you got for up to 30 days. You can see when your clicks rose and fell. By figuring out when your clicks dramatically change, you need to identify what you did that day to get the change. If not sending out any tweets for the day resulted in a 50% decrease in clicks, then you need to send out more tweets. If sending out twice as many tweets resulted in a 50% increase in clicks, then you need to schedule more tweets.
  2. Daily clicks for your individual links. These statistics allow you to discover what kind of content your followers and visitors like. If one of your blog posts gets clicked on 10 times more than the others and got promoted just as much as your other links, then you need to continue tweeting about that blog post. If one of your blog posts gets no clicks while your other ones average 20 clicks each, the blog post that got 0 clicks needs to be taken out of your social media strategy.
  3. See what time of day your links get the most clicks. Did you know that you could see how many times your links got clicked in the most recent 24 hours? Whether you want to see how many clicks your link got at 6 am or 3 pm, Bitly allows you to see both. Seeing what times your links get clicked the most on can help you figure out when most people click on those links.
  4. The referrers. Out of all of the clicks I get from Bitly links, 87% of those clicks are from Twitter. By identifying the referrers, you can identify your biggest source of traffic as well as other sources that you need to improve on.
  5. The countries that people live in. Using this statistic will allow you to identify which country contains your largest audience. In addition, you can share links that favor the countries that you get the most visits from. If most of your visitors are from the U.S., tweet once or twice a day about American facts, culture, tradition, or anything else. If most of your visitors are from India, share some things related to India. Those links will probably get clicked on more than some of your other links.

Those are the five things to look for in your Bitly statistics. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional statistics that you look for in Bitly? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

 

How To Easily Come Up With A Big Idea

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Have you been trying to come up with a big idea? We all want to be the person who comes up with the next multimillion (or multibillion) dollar idea that is completely systematized. Many people believe that coming up with that kind of idea is difficult, but it is not nearly as challenging as people think.

When most people think of a big idea, they think of coming up with another Google or another Facebook. While these ideas would be really good ones, they are very hard to think of. Instead of spending countless years trying to think of the idea, focus on the small innovations. A small innovation can be a discount, a different colored product, a similar product with a different function, or anything in general that is slightly different from the competition. Those are the small innovations that are easier to think of that can still have a big impact on you and your business.

The small innovation can result in a big idea. 90% of the products and businesses that we see as big ideas are really small innovations of products and businesses that already existed.

 

How To Preserve Your Ideas For Safe Keeping

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We all come up with remarkable ideas. The problem is that when we think of an idea, we are either in the shower or that idea currently does not fit with the business plan. The best thing to do is write your idea on a sticky note. If you are in the shower when you come up with your remarkable idea, be sure to remember that idea for the duration of the shower and as you run to write it down on a sticky note.

The problem that many people have with writing ideas and goals on sticky notes is that they are easy to lose. All you need is a desk of paperwork and then it’s all over. The sticky notes go to the bottom of the pile and end up long forgotten.

I solved this problem by creating what one can call a mix of Pinterest and a notebook in real life. All I do is have an envelope for every month, and I put in all of the sticky notes for that month into the envelope. Every quarter, I review all of the sticky notes in the envelope. Some of them remind me of past goals while others bring back ideas that are now relevant and doable.

The next time you think of an idea, write it on a sticky note and put that sticky note in an envelope. Even if you think of something that makes no sense right now, it may make sense 6 months later when you look in the envelope.

 

This Is All Too Much For Me

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When I was going into my sophomore year, I decided to take several honors courses including an AP course. While I have been successfully able to maintain my blog for most of the school year, school is becoming more challenging. I have been assigned more homework than ever before as the quarter comes to an end. In addition, I will be studying intensely for finals because I am on the border line of B+ or A for many of my courses. In order to get A’s for my courses, I will have to pay more attention to my schoolwork than my blog, Twitter account, and business ventures.

Sending out blog posts takes up a large portion of my time, and by writing more blog posts, I have found less time to study throughout the day. I will still be able to blog over the summer, but if I end up with B+’s, I will not be able to undo those. For the sake of getting A’s instead of B+’s, I will be giving up blogging and using any of my social networks from now until the start of summer.

Blogging has created an overwhelming schedule which I can no longer deal with. In the end, I am doing research and writing blog posts for a combined total of 3 hours every day. Combined with extracurricular activities and high level courses, writing blog posts has become more of a chore than a hobby. In addition, my grades keep on dropping as I write more blog posts. This change is necessary for the safety of my grades. I am sorry to disappoint the people who have been reading this blog for a while, but I’m throwing up the white flag.

Before I give everyone my final farewell until the start of summer, I would like you to do one thing. Please look at the date on which this blog post was published. If you were afraid that my blog would remain dormant for two months, you have nothing to worry about. Blogging is a passion of mine. I’m here to stay, not give in.