Bloggers are busy folks. We shoehorn post writing, promotion, and networking in between day jobs, family time, and sleep (sometimes). That’s why I get all warm and fuzzy when I discover a time saving tool that works as advertised. The latest tool, “If Then Then That” (IFTTT) has got me shouting from the roof tops. IFTTT is incredibly powerful. It works by automatically performing specific actions based on a trigger. For example, IFTTT can watch an RSS feed for a specific keyword and perform a task when it is triggered. am an IFTTT addict. Here we go: Feeding the Twitter Beast. MORE >>

I was invited to contribute a column to an upcoming social media guidebook from Media Industry Newsletter and Folio. thought I’d share it here along with some links to additional resources. It is intended to be a general overview for publishers. Hopefully you’ll find it useful. How does social media activity impact search engine optimization? That’s a common question these days as publishers try to make the most of search and social for audience development. Annotations in the Search Results. Personalized Rankings. Secondary Links. Highlighting Authors. AuthorRank. MORE >>

This manifesto is a work in progress, and my personal output from 4 incredible days in Omaha last November with Joe Gerstandt, Jason Lauritsen, Jamie Notter, Janyne Emsick, Jen Benz, Eric WineGardner, Charlie Judy, James Papiano, Stuart Chittenden, Mike Wagner and David Ballard. I’m throwing it up on the blog because I can’t hold on to it any more. I’ve never been known to have a lot of patience. This is long but I thought I’d post the whole thing here first, before eventually breaking it up into smaller posts later. All of it is up for discussion. There­fore: I. debate. MORE >>

Tweet On our blog , we have previously written about an infographic that illustrates how social networking accounts for a huge amount of time spend online and relates content sharing to brands , but this new infographic from Go-Gulf takes a slightly closer look at how people around the world split their time across different online activities. It also predicts the most popular online activities and trends of the future. To pull out just a few interesting facts: 30% of the world’s entire population is now online, and the global time spend online per month is equivalent to 3,995,444 years. MORE >>

Below are 5 must-reads on using Pinterest for business that we wouldn’t want you to miss. How and Why to Use Pinterest for Business. By John Jantsch These days we get a new “it” thing every few months. Right now a newish service called Pinterest qualifies as next year’s Google+ or Twitter. Smart marketers are starting to wake up to the buzz and branding power of the growing Pinterest community. Tips: Boost Your Business With Pinterest. By John Brandon One social site has captured the attention of the masses recently… and it is not called Facebook or Twitter. MORE >>