Like death and taxes, it seems that Google updates are invevitable. Well here comes another one in May 2016 of which you should be aware. It has been widely reported that mobile users are now in the majority, in terms of total Internet traffic. Google is again emphasizing mobile-friendliness in an upcoming update. This news has been gaining traction recently as evidenced by the following posts.
Here are two plugins you may want to install on your website.
The first will help you solve the first problem of compliance. The second will help your site load faster on mobile sites, which is important, since mobile users are on the go. They are extremely impatient, and don't have time to wait for pages to download, they just will go somewhere else.
Solve your mobile friendliness issues with any of the following plugins —–> Click here <—-
AMP is the second, less critical, yet important issue to consider. This has not really hit the news in a big way, yet, but here is a post from Google that explains in some detail what AMP or (Accelerated Mobile Pages).
Well before I reveal the answer to that question, what is the real benefit of social networking anyway?
Why should any online marketer spend time on social networks? Wouldn't time be better spent just blogging and communicating with prospects and customers using email and other more productive methods, instead of wasting time on social media?
I can understand that social media can sometimes seem like unproductive time, especially repeated posts on Facebook that few people will ever see.
The answer, I think, boils down to one word, REACH!. If only one hundred people read a post of mine on Pulse, the blogging platform on LinkedIn, (for example), then that is one hundred more people that have read something I have written, and might decide to reach out back to me. If they had never read my blog post they probably never would have had that chance to read something that I wrote, and possibly connect with me.
Admittedly, that is only 100 viewers out of a total of 8,000 of my first level connections, so the percentage is not particularly high. Supposing instead of a hundred or so views, I could get a thousand views for the same post that I submitted to LinkedIn? That would 10X better than posting on Pulse, right? And if I could get 10,000 views of the same post, now that would be something substantial, at that point, right?
Social Media has the possibility of magnifying the reach of my outreach efforts. Posting is one, and sharing content on social media is another. Where on social media can you get the greatest bang for your buck, or the greatest reach for time spent? The answer is Markethive. It is a new social network for entrepreneurs that is available by invitation. Just click on this link —-> Markethive, to find out more.
I have a number of posts on Markethive with thousands of views already, despite the fact that it is a relatively new social network. I have no doubt that with the new tools Markethive has recently implemented, I will soon get over 10k views on a single post.
So why do posts get so many views on Markethive?
1) You can share your blog posts on Markethive with your other social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and LinkedIn, Stumblupon, and others.
2) With your permission, other bloggers on Markethive can share your content on their blogs, as well as on their own social networks. You can also reciprocate to do the same with their content on your own blogs, and social networks.
3) As an owner of a group, you can share your content as often as you want with your group members. LinkedIn limits your ability to post to your group to one message per week. There is no limit to group messaging on Markethive. If you have valuable and interesting content to share with your group members, you can message your group members every day.
I give LinkedIn Workshops two times each week using one of the Markethive webinar rooms. I have great respect for LinkedIn, and use it extensively to prospect and find marketing automation customers for my local marketing business. There are so many great things that I like about LinkedIn, not the least of which is it's enormous size. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pintrest, and other social networks all have their strengths and weaknesses.
When it comes to blogging and my attempts to reach as many people as possible, however, I have to say, I prefer Markethive, and not only for it's blogging and sharing capabilities. So, when I ask the mirror on the wall what is the most powerful social marketing network for entrepreneurs of all, it tells me that Markethive is best one of all.
I suggest you give it a try, and you may find the same answer to your question that i did. See you on Markethive!
Harold Tells How He Is Working
For The FREEDOM Of Us ALL!
Sunday 17 April 2016
Take Your Place On The Golden Brick Wall
ACHIEVE THE RANK OF GOLD DIRECTOR IN 2016. HELP BUILD A GOLDEN FOUNDATION AND LEAVE A LEGACY!
* As a qualified Gold Director, you will have the option to purchase your own Gold Brick Box. Gold Brick Box includes 2 personalized and autographed Gold Brick cards & frame.
* One card is for you and the second gets donated to the GOLDEN BRICK WALL located at Corporate HQ in Stuttgart GERMANY
* First 1,000 Gold Directors to contribute to the Wall will earn “Legacy Leaders” benefits
The Karatbars Int. Foundation, on behalf of it’s Legacy Leaders will donate the Wall (and 1,000 grams of Gold) to a preferred Charity.
Congratulations to all of The Golden Brick Wall qualifiers. Thank you for leading the charge. There is a place waiting for the rest of us. Now let’s go claim it, and join our brothers and sisters!
A Large "GOLD" Angel Seen Over LA…
History was made in Los Angeles on Saturday as Lou Engle, Mike Bickle, Cindy Jacobs, Jack Hayford and other generals of the faith gathered at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for Azusa Now.
Jeff Jansen, founder of Global Fire Ministries, told Charisma News he believes it was one of the most significant events of the past few decades.
"As we were driving on Interstate 5 to the Azusa Now event on April 9, I saw a large gold angel standing over LA," Jansen says. "The Lord said, ’Just as the 1849 gold rush drew people to California…So 4/9 2016 will mark a new gold rush of divine proportion that will once again draw the nations into revival."
Here is what we know. The scripture says,"…For everything there is a sign.." What other sign could the large Gold angel refer to?
Isn’t it interesting that one of the largest spiritual gatherings in LA took place on the same day of the birth of the Founder of The Greatest International Movement to bring GOLD to the Masses?
Also, isn’t it interesting that the spiritual man of God saw a Large Angel standing over LA. And here at the Marriott, a man with the heart of a very large angel was standing, revealing to his helpers, the new developments in his work, to help the unfortunate do better, and for the masses of the human family to be able to acquire Gold.
That large angel that God gave that spiritual man the vision of, was none other than Harold Seiz of Stuttgart Germany.
In 2008, before the financial meltdown, Harold was in the financial services industry. He was in that industry for 16 years. He saw what was coming in the economy, and put all of his client’s portfolios into Gold.
At that time, he had what we call "walk away" money, meaning he could have retired and lived very well for the rest of his life. However he had a Vision. If he helped his clients, why could he not help the world of humanity? That Vision, my friends, became what we know, today, as Karatbars.
Our Own Payment System, WorldWide!
It was almost like a child feels on Christmas day with all of new pieces to our Karatbars portfolio. One by one Harold uncovered the new additions.
*We have our own payment system, with both our grams and our cash gold for change.
We have the roll out of our K-Exchanges here in the U.S.
We even have an app that will allow the transfer of gold from one account to another seamlessly for easy transactions.
And as a Powerful safety precaution we have Karabars facilities in several regions of the world. My friends, we have a leader who has Great VISION.
Love Your Skeptics
Doc’s and my business partner, Rashard, is the biggest skeptic I have ever met. When Doc and I presented Karatbars to him and his sweet little wife 2 1/2 years ago, they did not want to hear any kind of karatbars.
His attitude was so bad, that before I walked out of his door, I put my hand on his shoulder, and looked him in his eyes and said," I love you like a brother, but you are WRONG!" And he will tell you, he had trouble sleeping that night.
Love your skeptics. But stand your ground and know what you got. Because you could be talking to Your Rashard, the "biggest champion" of your team. You could, also, be talking to the individual that will, single handed, take your business around the globe. Below is Rashard’s visit at the Kings Palace in Nigeria
Also, I want to give a big shout out to our team members, who made the long journey from Nigeria & Ireland to join us at this historical event. You made it happen. We love you, and we applaud you. You are Leading by example!
"Successful People Do, What Unsuccessful People, Are Not Willing To Do!"
When my friend, and sponsor, Lourens Haasbroek from South Africa, introduced me to Karatbars, July 27, 2013, little did I know that my 41 year search for the business that I could experience some significant success was over. Yes, i have been searching since my first homebased business in 1972. I could have said forget it, and resign myself to just a J.O.B., but thank GOD I didn’t. Because I didn’t give up, I have been blessed with a business that spans around the globe with an organization of 20,000 Plus people. Successful people do, what unsuccessful people, are not willing to do.
This pic was taken at the Top Incentive Winners dinner at the home Harold was hosted in by Jeff Blue, one of the prominent Music Producers here in Beverly Hills. I did not win one of the Top Incentives, but helped Rashard win it. Love your skeptics, because your Biggest Skeptic just might be your team’s Biggest Champion. His mom and I call him OB, which means "Our Baby"…that’s her in the mirror taking my picture, lol.
Karatbars is the Greatest business that I have ever been a part of, and I will work it, to some degree, as long as GOD gives me breath. And Harold keeps making it better and better. I like what Mike Wiersma said Saturday, "…we haven’t even scratched the flee’s butt on the back of an elephant yet!"
And as Ty Best told us, "freedom is everything." And the 4 Steps he shared with us are,
1. You got to decide exactly what it is you want, and decide to be free.
2. Decide to pay the price. It is non-negotiable.
3.You got to change. Personal development. Read books.
4. You got to believe in this business. You got to believe in this company. You got to believe in yourself.
Successful people do, what unsuccessful people, are not willing to do. I wish you much success. Peace Out!
Here’s Why The GOP Wants to Stop Trump by Cancelling Elections
The truth about the cancelled Colo. caucus
The GOP establishment sees themselves as part of the “specialized class” responsible for making political decisions because they believe the public’s “too stupid” to make decisions for themselves.
This “spectator democracy,” first described by political insider Walter Lippmann in the 1920s, reduces voters into mere spectators – not participants – in public policy managed by a tiny elite, in this case the GOP establishment.
“The compelling moral principle [behind it] is that the mass of the public are just too stupid to be able to understand things,” Noam Chomsky wrote in describing Lippmann’s views.
This is the core principle of the GOP establishment: to them, only the elite have the intellect and rationality to decide the public’s best interests.
The public at large, on the other hand, cannot manage their own affairs and therefore must be lead like cattle towards the future world envisioned by those in control.
Not considered the decision-makers, the American people are meant to be mere bystanders in society, only participating on occasion during political “elections” to decide which one of the elites will “represent” them, such as Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz.
Populist candidates like Donald Trump are not allowed because they’re not compromised and controlled by the establishment.
The mainstream media serves the elite by fueling racial tensions, such as using straw man arguments to declare Trump “racist,” which encourages in-fighting amongst the public while the establishment gains more power without adversity.
And the media and the elite both want to keep the public locked into the false left-right paradigm which oversimplifies the public’s perception of the world so that they falsely believe that everything is simply black and white, one extreme against the other, conservative vs. liberal, red vs. blue.
While stuck in the paradigm, people are led to believe their opponents only exist on the opposite side of this two-dimensional spectrum and are completely unaware of the real power towering above.
But during this presidential race, Trump has successfully exposed the real power behind the throne – and that’s why the establishment wants to stop him.
Integrity often touted and claimed, rarely do many people really have a deep understanding how deep it goes and how important it really is in every aspect of our lives. Integrity is something you build, it builds in the fires of adversity, it reveals itself in your walk with the Lord, it becomes your foundation as you seek righteousness, it protects you when you are falsely and unjustly accused, it is tested when you experience prosperity. You can not measure it, nor can you hold it in your hand. There is no amount of Gold or money that can buy it. When you ask a crowd of 1000 people, who has integrity, everyone will raise their hands, but you know only a few truly do.
My Mom always said actions speak louder than words. And that is a fundamental truth. Let me explain or ask you a question. Are you willing to sacrifice everything to stand up for the truth, to stand for the oppressed? To stand for what is fundamentally right? To call out incompetence, deception, corruption, lies, cheats and thieves? Perhaps that is a hard question, but let me ask you the same question from a different perspective. Would you put your life in the hands of a person you knew was willing to lie, cheat or steal if the stakes were high enough? At what point would you draw the line? Now most of us rarely give this much thought and often our good nature prism make others that are corrupt look and seem to be on the up and up.
Actions speak louder than words, and walking that narrow path assures you will have less drama in your life. Less friends too, but they never were friends, they were fair weather friends.
What is my point? I am guilty! I have been that person I want nothing to do with. I have been that liar, that cheat, that thief. I was that person decades ago. Something has changed along the way. The process of learning to surf huge waves contributed to this change. Seeking and serving the Lord is the primary source that has slowly built character and integrity in me. It has been my constant companion now for several decades, yet I still pursue even greater integrity. Why? Because I want to serve the Lord, I want my life to have less drama. I do not want to be a slave to the deception. And I seek to serve others and how can I do that as a practicing liar, thief and cheat and in rebellion with the Lord? I cannot.
I have integrity. I can boldly make this claim because I have reached that point where being tested, I cling to integrity willing to sacrifice everything else, even my life. I have reached that level when I am confronted with a lack of integrity (corruption), where I discover deception, lying, thievery, greed, idolatry, and narcissism and sociopathy, I am repulsed, it is repelled and I have no tolerance for it. None!
I have nothing if I do not have integrity. It is the foundation of my repentance and obedience to the Lord. It is the main and only ingredient required to conduct business based on trust. It is what makes partnerships, marriages and business flourish. Without, all that ensues is disaster, destruction and death.
If you want to be successful, if you want to build a solid business, if you want a solid marriage, you will need this rare element called integrity. Be ready to look in the mirror and to thy own self, be true.
There is a test you can take that asks a ton of offish questions, it will be difficult to game the outcome the first time you take the test. Right off I knew the only way for me to take this test was to be 100% honest in my answers. Why not, you do want to know the level of your integrity right?
It is called the "Integrity and Work Ethics Test", by Psytests.com. So who is Psytests.com?
Psychtests.com originally appeared on the internet scene in 1997 and is a subsidiary of Plumeus Inc., a privately owned high-tech company specializing in psychological test development and related products and services. While Plumeus is responsible for research and development of high-quality products and services centered on an extensive battery of psychological assessments, Psychtests was conceived as the delivery system of those same solutions. Since its inception, Psychtests has become a pre-eminent provider of psychological assessment products and services to human resource personnel, therapists, academics, researchers and a host of other professionals around the world.
Management and staff
Psychtests staff is comprised of a dedicated team of psychologists, test developers, researchers, statisticians, writers, and artificial intelligence experts. Psychtests was founded and is led by Dr. Ilona Jerabek, a specialist in the field of psychometric assessments and Vrat Jerabek Ph. D., a researcher and authority in the field of artificial intelligence.
– See more at: http://corporate.psychtests.com/about/company#sthash.Ny2OBc1f.dpuf
History
Psychtests.com originally appeared on the internet scene in 1997 and is a subsidiary of Plumeus Inc., a privately owned high-tech company specializing in psychological test development and related products and services. While Plumeus is responsible for research and development of high-quality products and services centered on an extensive battery of psychological assessments, Psychtests was conceived as the delivery system of those same solutions. Since its inception, Psychtests has become a pre-eminent provider of psychological assessment products and services to human resource personnel, therapists, academics, researchers and a host of other professionals around the world.
Management and staff
Psychtests staff is comprised of a dedicated team of psychologists, test developers, researchers, statisticians, writers, and artificial intelligence experts. Psychtests was founded and is led by Dr. Ilona Jerabek, a specialist in the field of psychometric assessments and Vrat Jerabek Ph. D., a researcher and authority in the field of artificial intelligence.
– See more at: http://corporate.psychtests.com/about/company#sthash.Ny2OBc1f.dpuf
History
Psychtests.com originally appeared on the internet scene in 1997 and is a subsidiary of Plumeus Inc., a privately owned high-tech company specializing in psychological test development and related products and services. While Plumeus is responsible for research and development of high-quality products and services centered on an extensive battery of psychological assessments, Psychtests was conceived as the delivery system of those same solutions. Since its inception, Psychtests has become a pre-eminent provider of psychological assessment products and services to human resource personnel, therapists, academics, researchers and a host of other professionals around the world.
Management and staff
Psychtests staff is comprised of a dedicated team of psychologists, test developers, researchers, statisticians, writers, and artificial intelligence experts. Psychtests was founded and is led by Dr. Ilona Jerabek, a specialist in the field of psychometric assessments and Vrat Jerabek Ph. D., a researcher and authority in the field of artificial intelligence.
So I took the test. I want you to take it as well. Be honest, I am. But of course we already know if you fail miserably and have no Integrity, you will lie about the results. Bottom line though? You know the results.
I scored 100%. I wasn't surprised. If I have a fault, it is I am brutally honest, I will sacrifice it all to be honest and in being this way, many people, even partners and friends of 20 years terminate their relationships with me because of this.
My Score:
So there you have it, the final ingrediant to true success in life!
Post your score and comments below. Go ahead, let's have some fun.
Well the meme above says he does. Let me tell you how this lie was fabricated.
“Donald Trump has lined up three New York hedge funds, including money from billionaire George Soros, to invest $160 million in his Chicago skyscraper, a key piece in perhaps the largest construction financing in the city’s history, according to real estate sources and public documents.”?
That was back in October 28, 2004, 12 years ago. It says that the $160 million including money from Soros, not the whole amount. That money, from whomever it came from, was a business loan, not a campaign donation. Nobody knew 12 years ago that Trump would be whipping the socks off of all the Establishment Repubs today. It is in desperation that they are going back so far to dig up shit like this
Even if trump had got some of that money from a Soros hedge fund it would have been repaid long ago. Dig through his financials, which he made public, and prove me wrong. Let me repeat, even if true, it was a business loan, not a campaigner donation.
Here is the source of the above meme, you can see that justlittleoleme, who ever the hell that may be, dug up an artical from October 28, 2004 reposted on 1/18/2016, 1:17:20 PM.
Big names back Trump tower – Soros, Deutsche Bank said to be in on 90-story building (2004) Chicago Tribune | Thomas A. Corfman | October 28, 2004
Posted on 1/18/2016, 1:17:20 PM by justlittleoleme. He looked up a story from 12 years ago and the meme creator took it and run with it.
Donald Trump has lined up three New York hedge funds, including money from billionaire George Soros, to invest $160 million in his Chicago skyscraper, a key piece in perhaps the largest construction financing in the city’s history, according to real estate sources and public documents.
Despite reports about the project’s record-breaking sales, most of them from Trump himself, many Chicago real estate developers and lenders have expressed doubts about whether the 90-story tower would ever be built.
“It is such a huge project, and the prices he said he was getting were so outside the norm,” said Robert Glickman, president and chief executive of Chicago-based Corus Bank.
“It was reasonable to say, `Is this real?'” he said.
Much of the skepticism springs from Trump’s own hype. “Chicago developers are much less flamboyant,” said Glickman.
The massive financing, which sources say also will include a $650 million construction loan from Deutsche Bank, should quell those doubts.
-snip-
The document does not identify the other participants, but a key member is Grove Capital LLP, according to sources familiar with the transaction.
The firm manages most of the multibillion-dollar real estate portfolio of the $13 billion Soros Fund Management, from which Grove Capital was spun off last month.
On Thursday evening at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Soros used a 45-minute interview with Bloomberg TV’s Francine Lacqua to create an explosion of headlines on both the political and economic front. “Donald Trump is doing the work of ISIS,” Soros said, citing the anti-immigrant vitriol that’s been a hallmark of the Trump campaign as he’s risen in Republican primary polls. He levied a similar critique against candidates such as Ted Cruz, and said Hillary Clinton would win the general election in a landslide.
Ideas like closing U.S. borders to Muslims, Soros said, might “convince the Muslim community that there is no alternative but terrorism.” He also said ISIS’s “days are numbered” as both the Iraqi and Syrian governments win back territory the terrorist group gained.
The rise of ISIS and the crumbling of the Middle East has created a refugee crisis for Europe, and Soros said German Chancellor Angela Merkel may have erred in opening the country to refugees. “She risked her political capital and lost,” Soros said. Nonetheless, he expressed optimism that Germany and other European powers could successfully integrate migrants.
Andrew Carnegie was one of the most famous and wealthy industrialists of his day. His Carnegie Steel Company was one of the businesses that formed US Steel. Carnegie sold is company to US Steel which was formed as a partnership on March 2, 1901 (incorporated on February 25) between Elbert Henry Gary's Federal Steel Company and William Henry "Judge" Moore's National Steel Company. J.P. Morgan and Charles M. Schwab were also members of this ownership group.
US Steel went on to become the world's first billion dollar per year corporation. He sold Carnegie Steel for 500 million dollars, and he was nearly a 50% owner of the company. It is the money from this sale that he used to fund a vast array of philanthropic efforts for the remainder of his life. By the time he died in 1919, it is estimated that he had given away more than 350 million dollars.
Andrew Carnegie: The Early Years
Andrew Carnegie was born in Scotland and emigrated to the United States with his parents in the year 1848. He got his start as a telegrapher and by the middle of the 1860's, he had a variety of investments in railroad sleeping cars, railroads, bridges, and oil derricks.
His parents were extremely poor, although his uncle, a Scottish political leader by the name of George Lauder, Sr., influenced him as a young boy, introducing him to a variety of authors, and Scottish heroes. His uncle George had a son also by the name of George, and he grew up with Andrew. Later, they would become business partners.
Growing up, his father was a weaver and when his father grew ill his mother had to become the main breadwinner. Trying to make ends meet, the family decided to move to Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Money was borrowed from the Lauders to help with the migration.
Andrew Carnegie's first job was working as a “bobbin boy” in a cotton mill for a weekly salary of $1.20.
It was his uncle that recommended he become a telegrapher. It wasn’t long before he was promoted to operator, and his education and passion for reading helped him to become a self-made man.
His passion for reading was boosted by Col. James Anderson, who owned a personal library of 400 volumes, which he opened to working boys every Saturday night. Carnegie made the promise that if he were ever to become a wealthy man, he wanted to provide a similar opportunity to poor boys. This led to a significant amount of perseverance and hard work. This effort brought about a great number of opportunities. Within five years’ time, he had more than tripled his weekly salary. He took a job working for Thomas A Scott in 1853 at the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and became a manager there.
Young Andrew made a variety of connections by working with various railroad related businesses.Scott was the one that helped him with his investments. Later his investments began to accumulate, and broaden. Through the multiplication of these investments Andrew Carnegie began to grow his wealth.
Accomplishments
Andrew Carnegie has had a number of significant accomplishments in his lifetime. Much of this had to do with the relationships he formed, as well as his ability to keep a clear and level-headed perspective about his investments. During the Civil War, Scott was promoted to Assistant Secretary of War, and he named Carnegie the Superintendent of the Military Railways.
After the war, Keystone Bridge Company was developed, which included an investment of $40,000 in Story Farm. Carnegie left the railroads as a way of devoting his energy to the Ironworks trade. He formed the Keystone Bridge Company and used his connections to acquire a variety of contracts. He also provided stock to both Scott and Thomson (the President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company). He was able to learn a great deal from both men. Pennsylvania Railroad ultimately became one of his best customers.
By 1892 Andrew Carnegie had launched the Carnegie Steel Company, and this later helped the US output more steel than that of the UK – and Carnegie is greatly thanked for his contribution in this effort. Carnegie’s fortune came as a result of his ownership of the most extensive iron and steel operations any single individual in the U.S. has ever owned. He was responsible for several important innovations, including the mass production of steel using the Bessemer process. The second innovation was the vertical integration of raw material suppliers.
Challenges and Victories
Andrew Carnegie faced many challenges as well as victories throughout his lifetime. He can truly be identified as one of the rags to riches stories because he was challenged by not having parents from a high social status upon arriving in America. However, with the urging of his uncle, he took to becoming a telegrapher and used those relationships as a way of boosting his own social status.
He was smart, and he was known for being charming in social situations. His literary knowledge also helped him to be invited to a variety of important social functions, which Carnegie often exploited for his own benefit.
There were significant victories along the way as well. At the age of 66, in 1901, Andrew Carnegie was considering retirement. It is at this time that he decided to reform his enterprises. John Pierpont Morgan was a critical financial dealmaker, and he wanted to buy out not only Carnegie, but several other companies. This would help to cut costs and lower consumer prices as well as allow steel to be produced in greater quantities. Various negotiations took place, and the United States Steel Corporation was formed, becoming the first Corporation across the entire globe with a market capitalization totaling more than $1 billion.
He let his political views be known as well, including opposing American colonies. In one work, he also went as far as criticizing the British monarchy and explaining how the American Republic system was far superior.
Carnegie was a scholar throughout his entire life. He also used a significant amount of his money and investments to become an activist. Commodious swimming baths were constructed in his hometown in Scotland. He gave money to a library in his hometown as well. He contributed to the Bellevue Hospital Medical College and various others as well.
He paid for over 7,500 organs that were donated to churches around the world. He wisely agreed to construct over 3,000 libraries across the United States and Europe, but wisely, only after having received a commitment from the local community to buy books and provide an administrative staff.
In 1904, he founded the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, now known as Carnegie-Mellon University in 1904. In 1905 he created the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910.
Lessons learned
One of Andrew Carnegie's famous quotes reads,
"To try to make the world in some way better than you found it is to have a noble motive in life.”
Andrew Carnegie – The Empire of Business
I actually admire Andrew Carnegie more for his philanthropy than his business acumen. He has inspired successful entrepreneurs for more than a generation to support educational and humanitarian causes to help build a world of peace and prosperity for all. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet can be included in a long list of successful entrepreneurs that have learned from the standard of philanthropy that Andrew Carnegie set.
I aspire to become a small Andrew Carnegie. I don't ever expect to accumulate the kind of wealth that Andrew Carngie amassed in his lifetime, but I do want to become a millionaire. I would also like to fund a school in perpetuity, so that children of all nations, races, and religious backgrounds could study in peace.
Fearless Truth Teller Sarah Palin Tells Gobsmacked Wisconsin GOP Audience About Ted Cruz Giving “Gift Baskets” To Illegal Aliens…
Speaking on behalf of Donald Trump, Sarah Palin gave a speech last night to a Wisconsin Republican audience. Standing firmly on a platform of truth, Palin warned the mostly party (establishment) audience their decision to stand with deception in order to win an election also means placing themselves in a very precarious position.
The response from the audience to Sarah’s brutal honesty was what’s customarily known as “the collective nervousness of deceivers“.
Whenever anyone dares to tell the collective: ‘the emperor stands naked’; there’s a particular kind of autonomic group nervousness immediately evident. A group discomfort.
Such was the discomfort when Sarah Palin mentioned Senator Ted Cruz’s weak and opportunistic immigration position, and then contrast a real-life example of Cruz going to McAllen Texas (Saturday, July 19th 2014) to hand out “gift baskets” and welcome illegal alien families.
You could hear a pin-drop as an entire audience sat jaw-agape in disbelief.
When a fearless truth-teller stares down a room – the collective immediately need each other to retain their guise. Here’s an example of their initial response:
Perhaps the reason the entire Professional Republican audience reacted that way was because they preferred NOT to know. Or, then again, it could be because the example Sarah Palin was giving was widely hidden by the media.
Regardless of the reasoning for their disbelief, Sarah was simply telling the truth. Here’s some photographic evidence of the freebies as they were being passed out by Ted Cruz in 2014:
On the left that’s Senator Ted Cruz unloading the boxes of goodies. On the right is the illegal alien families who received the goodies (toys, stuffed animals, soccer balls etc).
Here’s more pictures of the same event:
“Humanitarian Crisis”? The entire event was essentially based on fraud. The fraud was the Obama administration claiming that hundreds of thousands of “Unaccompanied Alien Children” (UAC) were arriving on the southern border en masse, and needed to be cared for.
The entire administration talking point was complete nonsense, but the media helped sell the ridiculous story as if it were real; and Ted Cruz and Glenn Beck helped perpetrate the fraud by claiming there was an urgent “humanitarian crisis”. There was neither.
The reality was the influx of illegal border crossers were factually entire families, mostly from Mexico but also from Honduras, Guatemala and Panama.
The Obama administration had specifically kick-started the South American migration approximately a year earlier, and the families were showing up as an outcome of the State Department coordinating the exodus.
Almost everything about the crisis was a sham, including DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson going before an emergency congressional committee and demanding $4 billion (that’s billion) to deal with the “humanitarian crisis”. These were not “children”, they were entire families – and, as you can see from the pictures, these were entire family units.
We have tens of thousands of American kids in inner-city areas in as much of a crisis as the illegals we allowed to pour across the border; but we don’t see Jeh Johnson demanding $4 billion for the American children. Charity begins at home; at least it should.
So Sarah Palin brings some BIG TRUTHto those GOP insiders who gathered in Wisconsin; and, if we are to give benefit-of-the-doubt to those who heard it, apparently it’s the first time they became aware of Senator Cruz’s forked tongue on an issue. Hence, a gob smacked response.
Palin also pointed out another lie, when she reminded everyone that Senator Cruz never stopped the senate Gang-of-Eight amnesty bill. Despite Lyin’ Ted claiming on the campaign trail that he killed the bill, the reality is that bill passed the Senate in 2013, and it would have passed the House were it not for Dave Brat’s primary defeat of Eric Cantor in June of 2014 shortly before Sentor Cruz took off to the border with his gift baskets.
But Sarah didn’t stop there. She also fearlessly told the audience that Senator Ted Cruz was also lying about another policy aspect, his advocacy for the Trans-Pacific Trade Deal. And, more specifically, to the Trade Promotion Authority bill Senator Ted Cruz co-authored, co-planned and co-constructed, along with Paul Ryan in the House of Representatives. Again, Sarah was loaded with the truth.
The Republican disbelievers didn’t want to hear about that inconvenient reality either. Then again, when you stand boldly in sunlight the cockroaches never approach; they can only comfortably co-exist when they remain cloistered in the dark shadows of deception.
The media’s response to Palin’s speech? Well, initially (and immediately) they began accusing her of lying about the “gift baskets”. Then, after they realized everything she was saying was factual, they started spinning. Eventually, they dropped the subject – and that’s probably how it will remain today.
It’s easier to hide those uncomfortable truths that way. Well, at least until after the Tuesday election I guess.
Profile Pages: “Online Branding and Building Authority”
What is the difference between online branding and building authority? Some would consider it the same thing, but in reality it can be two completely different processes. Online branding is a way to get more exposure for your brand on all levels of online marketing, especially search and social.
Building authority takes online branding to the next level by making each online presence for a brand authoritative. It goes beyond just about creating a blog or social media account. The following are ways you can build your online brand as well as your authority.
Blogs are beneficial for brands for three reasons. First of all, blogs help you rank well in search engines – Google loves fresh, unique content on websites that are constantly updated. If you’re looking to meet this goal, be sure to use Markethive’s blog platform and build a blog team in a Markethive group to assist in greater content and curation.
RE: WordPress Markethive’s technology super charges WordPress campaigns.
Next, blogs provide for great content to share on social media networks. It’s hard to get traction if your just sharing product and sales pages. But if you’re sharing informative blog posts about your industry, you’re likely to get a lot of traffic and social shares.
Markethive provides plugins and widgets and tech that allows visitors to subscribe to your blog from their Social Networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, thereby allowing your new Markethive posts to publish to their news feed automatically.
Finally, great blogs can help your brand build authority in your niche. This is where you go above and beyond cookie cutter posts that talk about your product to creating awesome content in the form of:
Tutorials
Infographics
Videos
Industry Interviews
Awesome content will show fans of your industry that you know your stuff and therefore are the brand to go with for their business needs. A great example of this is the blog you are reading right now – Markethive has Inbound Marketing technologies, the go to Social Network and infographics that have been tweeted and liked over 10,000 times and posts that have been viewed on Facebook, LinkedIn and Stumbleupon over 100,000 times.
There are two great fears that brands have when it comes to blogging. One is that they won’t have anything to blog about, and this is a complete myth. Everyone can find something to blog about. You just have to expand your definition of the target audience. Imagine you had a body shop. You probably won’t get a lot of attention if you’re writing about paint booths and sanding tools all the time, but you will if you think about broader topics that would interest the people likely to visit an auto body shop. You can blog about the latest coolest Hot Rods at the coming Hot Rod Nationals show or the latest NASCAR winner to grab fans of those programs. Or you can blog about environmental issues and the Prious to grab environmentalists. Just think bigger!
The other fear is that they will be giving away “trade secrets” and lose their business. This one is especially common within industries like SEO, where a brand might feel like giving out ten steps to link building will give their customers the info they need to just do it themselves. But this just isn’t true. I have found that most of the time, if you give a complex, in-depth tutorial, a potential customer will see that your brand has the knowledge to do the service, but they won’t have the time or resources to do it for themselves. Hence, they’ll go with you because they feel confident that your brand has the expertise demonstrated in the content provided on the blog.
The key with your brand’s blog is to make sure that it is apparent who is behind the content. Whether you have your blog on your domain (yourbrand.com/blog), as a subdomain (blog.yourbrand.com), or as a separate site (yourbrandblog.com), be sure that it is matched to your brand. Check out Markethive’s site, blog, and subscribers profile pages, logged in dashboard and display variances on hand held devices. All are unique yet all are well branded and follow a conventional identity protocol (all on separate domains and different devices) as an example of great branding.
Guest Blog for Others (This is a major component in Markethive)
When it comes to blogging, you don’t want to keep the good stuff all to yourself. Guest blogging (join a Markethive Group to share content is that easy) is a great way to build your online brand presence and authority. The basic goal is to find a (GROUP) blog whose audience will be interested in your brand, and create a great piece of content for that blog.
Notice I said great piece of content. I would go so far as to say that the content you create for another (GROUP) site’s blog should be even better than the content you create for your own site. You want the content you create for another blog (GROUP) to rock. You want that content to generate additional social shares, comments, and traffic for the blog owner.
As you create GROUP posts for others, be sure to save the links to those guest posts for future reference. As you approach new GROUPs that you would like to guest post upon, you will want to include those links as examples of your successful guest posts in other Markethive GROUPS. If you can convince the GROUP owner that your post will be a perfect fit for their audience and will drive significant traffic and response, the GROUP blog owner will have a hard time resisting.
My main tips for GROUP blogging for your brand include:
1. Find the best GROUPs to guest post on.
When it comes to blogs you want to get a guest post on, your goal is to find those whose audience would be interested in your brand. The blog should get a significant amount of traffic and social shares as well – there’s no reason to post on a blog that has no visitors just because it has high PageRank or any other criteria – you want to get some brand exposure out of this! Use the Markethive GROUPs directory to start your search for blogs in your niche or industry.
2. Find the GROUPs blogging policy.
If you see that a GROUP allows guest bloggers or outside contributors, the GROUP should have some page or post posted that describes their post policy. If they do have a policy page or post, then be sure to note any and all criteria.
3. Start building a relationship with the GROUP owner first. (Markethive Groups is excellent for this)
Now that you’ve found the blog you want to pitch an idea to, don’t just jump in and pitch them yet. Start by getting to know the GROUP owner first by following their Markethive blog posts, their Twitter and their Facebook fan page. Comment on some of their latest posts – make those comments valuable to enhance discussion and demonstrate your writing skills and expertise in the industry. CoPromote their posts using Broadcasting tools and widgets. Do this for at least a week or two before pitching content to them.
4. Research and pitch great topic ideas. (Join others in our live Markethive Work Shops)
Don’t create the content first and then try to find it a home. Once you’ve found the right blogs and started engaging with the blogs themselves, you’ll get a feel for the type of content they publish.
To get an even better idea of what content is successful for each blog, subscribe to them in your Markethive back office blog platform. Then you will be able to see the site’s latest traffic scores. The higher score, the more comments, tweets, Facebook likes, and other social shares the post received. Use these high-scoring posts as an indicator as to what content does well on each blog.
Now you can message via the Markethive message system or request to join their group saying that you have recently enjoyed reading their blog (as evidenced by your commenting & social sharing) and would like to contribute to their site as a GROUP member. After reading their guidelines, you would like to see if they would be interested in the following topics. Then add three to four great post ideas that you believe will fit their audience to choose from. And of course, if you’ve done guest posts elsewhere, include some of your best links. If not, just include some great links from your own brand’s blog.
5. Create Awesome Content.
Once you get approval from a GROUP, your next job is to create an awesome piece of content. Make sure it fits the theme of that blogging GROUP and that it has the overall feel / tone of the GROUP blog you are submitting to. Also be sure to add in relevant links throughout your blog post – not to your own properties, but internal links to the blog itself. This shows the blog owner you’re really giving it 100% for them and their audience and not just trying to promote yourself.
The self-promotion piece should come at the end with your guest bio. Check out other author bios on the blogs and create yours to match. This is where you can say you are John Smith, an industry enthusiast from ABC Company.
Again, be sure to consider the blog’s guidelines and previous guest author bios when deciding to add one or more links back to your brand. The blog owner ultimately reserves the right to edit it as they feel is necessary.
6. Support your GROUP post once it goes live.
It’s not over yet. After that guest post goes live, you should give it your unconditional love in the form of social sharing with your brand’s audience on Twitter, Facebook, etc. as well as coming by to respond to comments. That kind of response on your guest post will further boost your brand’s reputation as a great guest blogger as well as a confident authority in your niche.
Don’t Forget Blog Commenting
Blog commenting is a great branding and authority building exercise you can do on any blog in your niche. I would suggest subscribing to the top blogs in your industry in Google Reader, and each time there is a new post, be sure to read it thoroughly and add a valuable comment. Remember this isn’t about link building – this is about building your brand’s presence online as an authority in your industry.
Get a Disqus account as well as it is a sort of social network of people that comment.
You can use the blog’s previous comments as a guide as to how you should format yours. Some blogs require you to only use your real name, while others are a little more lenient in using your name – your company. I would suggest linking your comments to your blog as people are more willing to click through to a brand’s blog than their main website.
Your Online Branding & Authority Building Strategy Using Blogs
What is your brand’s strategy when it comes to building your brand’s authority using blogs? Be sure to share what you find brings your brand the best results in the comments!
Create a Consistent Brand Image for Each Profile
Have you ever visited a company’s social profile, and you were not sure that it belonged to the company? One of the most important parts of branding is keeping a consistent image across all of your online properties so that no matter what path a person takes from one property to the next, they will always know it is your brand. For example, someone might:
Find your fan page through a friend’s activity stream and then follow it to your blog, then website
See a tweet from someone they are following, visit your Twitter profile, and then continue onto your website.
Start at your website, then go to check out your social profiles to see if your company is engaging with fans. Engaging is fuel and grows awareness, authority and respect. Comment, recommend. Just drive by liking and endorsing does no one any good and makes you look like a tire kicking couch potato.
Just like you wouldn’t want pages on your website to be different themes, you will want your social profiles to do the same. Markethive also leads the way in doing it right as well:
MARKETHIVE
Markethive probably does the best with branding between their website, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube accounts as shown above. All five are branded with the honey comb logo, color theme and climbers ascending Mt. Everest in representation of the entrepreneurial social community of entrepreneurs helping each other achieve their agendas, so you can feel the consistency moving from one property to the next.
BMW
The above shows BMW’s branding between their website, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube profiles. Each online property uses the same color scheme and is currently focused on automotive technology. The logos are all consistent, and the auto focused in the pages is different perspectives, the coloring and themes are consistent as well
BOLTHOUSE
Bolthouse’s (organic farm fresh juices) branding between their website, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube profiles as shown above uses the same color scheme, logo, and focus on their primary product, carrots and selections of juices. Excellent example of branding and consistency!
Help People Find Your Profiles
I do a lot of competitive analysis in my line of work, and one of the most frustrating things I have to do is search for a brand’s social profiles. Don’t hide your social media presence – flaunt them! Be sure to:
Put Social Icons on Your Website – Let visitors to your website know that you are engaging with your audience on social media as well by adding social icons to your website design. The most common places to place them include the header / menu bar, sidebar, and footer. They don’t have to be large and in charge – BMW’s are none existent on their main page and Bolthouse are right up top left of center where they should be and get the job done..
Put Social Links in Your Communications – Do you send emails regularly? Add social links to your email signature. Do you send newsletters? Add social icons to them.
Make Your Profiles Search Friendly – If I Google your brand name + Twitter, I should get your Twitter handle in the search results. To make this happen, be sure that the name of your social profile (and the username if possible) matches your brand name. You might be tempted to keyword optimize your profiles instead of optimizing them for your brand name – this is something you need to resist. You can learn more about social media SEO on how to optimize for both effectively for search engines.
Another frustration is the direct sales industry.
Even though the size of this industry is huge by any comparison with a market measured in the trillions, even the top 100 fail miserable branding with social media. Do not be like them, rather show them a good example with your efforts. After several days of research I was able to find one such company that at least had the top 5 Social Medias registered with a similar array (not the same name) of usernames. The super majorities only have a token Facebook page, even less with Youtube and Twitter and nearly nonexistent with a Google+ and for that almost none of them are engaged.
BEACHBODY
Team Beach Body with a yearly market of 250 million, struggles with social media but has managed to set up the top 5 social medias, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin and Google+, albeit, the account usernames vary, and across the media branding is seriously lacking. It becomes painfully clear this industry needs Markethive or at least their distributors seriously do.
Get Engaged with Your Followers, Fans, and Subscribers
You probably know that it is important to maintain an active account by posting lots of updates, and that it is best to do something other than blasting advertisements non-stop about your brand. So the question is, what should you be doing to stay active in your social networks? Get engaged with your audience, of course. Here are the top networks to get socially engaged in for your brand.
Twitter Engagement
If you’re goal is to build a strong presence on Twitter and demonstrate your brand’s authority in your industry, you need get involved with your following. Some ways to do so include:
Monitoring Brand Mentions – If you use Twitter itself, just do a search for your brand and save the search for future reference. If you use a Twitter management tool like HootSuite, create a keyword search column that will constantly update you with brand mentions. Anytime someone says something about your brand, whether it is good or bad, you should be responding to it if at all possible. This may mean adding some extra team members to your social media GROUP as a response staff. But over time, if people see that you are always on top of any discussion of your brand, you will gain trust and receive lots of great word of mouth marketing. People will tell their followers what a great response they’ve received from you and likely recommend you based on their satisfaction level.
Monitoring Industry Conversation – One of the best parts of Twitter is that you can jump into any conversation, anytime. So if you are a company providing Inbound Marketing services and technologies like Markethive, you can monitor anyone who talks about Inbound Marketing, SEO, linking, Entrepreneurial interests, and other related topics and just answer simple questions that anyone asks about those topics demonstrating your expertise.
Curate the Best Content – Even if you are the best content creator in your industry, people often like to see a second opinion. Find out who other authorities are in your industry and share their opinion on industry topics with your following. You will gain more relevant followers simply for sharing the best news.
Facebook Fan Page Engagement
There are several different ways you can engage with your fans using your fan page that will keep your current fans active and bring new fans to your brand. These include:
Updating Your Fan Page on Facebook – It’s tempting to use HootSuite and other automated programs to update your fan page. But it’s becoming more and more obvious that if you want your updates to show up in fan’s news feeds that the updates must be organic, or originating from your fan page itself. So take the extra time to disable all of your autofeeds and start updating your fan page manually on Facebook. And when people start engaging with your posts or posting directly on your wall, be sure to respond to them. If they know they’re getting response, they’re more likely to return. No one likes a one-way broadcast.
Try Out Different Types of Updates – Don’t just post links or ask questions. Spice it up – add some video updates and photos. Different types of people like different types of content – be sure to try to cater to everyone by mixing your content up!
Thanks to the last major update to Facebook fan pages, you are able to use Facebook as your fan page. This means you can like pages as your fan page instead of your personal profile and then comment on them as your fan page. If you can find pages that are not direct competitors but whose audience will be interested in your brand, you will want to get active on them. For example, social media consultants should be living on Social Media Examiner’s fan page to connect with other individuals and businesses looking for social media help.
LinkedIn Engagement
If your brand isn’t on LinkedIn, you are missing out. LinkedIn allows you to add a company page where you can post your products, services, job openings, and even send status updates to your company followers including your latest blog posts. But some of the best branding and authority building activities for this network lie in the activity of the professional profiles including:
Participating in Groups – There are lots of great, active groups on LinkedIn in a wide variety of industries. Find the groups that have your potential client base within them and start getting active in discussions and posting useful content. Just be sure not to do anything that the group moderator would consider as spamming!
Answering Questions – The next best area to build a great professional reputation and strong authority in your industry is in LinkedIn Answers. There are questions asked every day in topics ranging from administration to technology. The people who answer the most questions are also featured on the answers’ home page as the week’s top experts!
Gaining Recommendations – Last, but not least, is recommendations. You can get recommendations on both the company pages and the professional profiles of your employees. Imagine if someone is browsing your company’s page and sees that the top employees have a ton of recommendations. It will show that you have a lot of experts in the industry which will make potential clients even more confident in your brand!
My Mom always said actions speak louder than words. And that is a fundamental truth. Let me explain or ask you a question. Are you willing to sacrifice everything to stand up for the truth, to stand for the oppressed? To stand for what is fundamentally right? To call out incompetence, deception, corruption, lies, cheats and thieves? Perhaps that is a hard question, but let me ask you the same question from a different perspective. Would you put your life in the hands of a person you knew was willing to lie, cheat or steal if the stakes were high enough? At what point would you draw the line? Now most of us rarely give this much thought and often our good nature prism make others that are corrupt look and seem to be on the up and up.
Trump Owes Soros 160 Million Dollars?
Fearless Truth Teller Sarah Palin Tells Gobsmacked Wisconsin GOP Audience About Ted Cruz Giving “Gift Baskets” To Illegal Aliens…
Profile Pages: “Online Branding and Building Authority”
