ComHacker.org

by Patricia Mayo

Maybe being lazy is a good idea, according to - you guessed it (well maybe you didn’t) - Seth Godin. He calls it “keeping copy out of the way of your message“… but I know better.

Photo by Paul Mata

This isn’t the first I’ve heard of the concept. A lot of great and well-renowned books on copywriting say pretty much the same thing. Some of my favorite quotes by famous authors say pretty much the same thing.

Get to the point. Quickly.

But, you see, I have a little problem with broad stroke “solutions.”

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed so you never miss the next great communication tip. Thanks for stopping by, I hope to see you often!

Trisha, @mayobrains on Twitter

by Patricia Mayo

ChaCha is a whole new beast of search. If you thought it was tough getting a regular search engine to spit out what you really need for certain queries - then be prepared for sheer torture with ChaCha.

That, my friends, is what proved “third try is a charm” completely, and utterly, wrong.

I asked ChaCha because I was having a hard time finding what I needed through regular search. Usually I figure that’s because I’m using the wrong words - so maybe the “search pros” at ChaCha could figure it out.

Well, that is - if they can figure out what I’m asking in the annoying 160 character limit without an ability to follow up with the last person who tried but failed.

So I reverted to the tried but true “monkey see, monkey do.” In my fifth and finally successful try, I said “see this? This is what I want, but free.” For that I could’ve used Google’s “sites like this” function, and that’s what I typically do - because ChaCha has always been this way for me.

What am I doing wrong here folks? Why can’t I get what I want out of ChaCha?

(By the way, I really do have a ChaCha t-shirt. Two, in fact. I have a special affection for them too, being they were my first “geek shirts.”)

by Patricia Mayo

I don’t know who got the bright idea to spread this nasty rumor - but everyone seems to think the only concepts worth pursuing are the ones with a lot of people searching. It’s the dumbest unwritten rule of all time.

Photo by Sanja Gjenero

How can you expect to represent authority and stand out if you’re not doing something original? You have to lead the pack - and I’m sorry to say, leading the pack is one heck of a lonely thing to do!

Besides, anyone with half a brain cell - even SEO pros themselves - know you can’t rely entirely on search engine marketing. And if you don’t know why yet, allow me to show you.

by Carson McKee of Direct Contact

It’s so easy, so why doesn’t everyone use it? Social media - merely a buzzword to some, is an absolutely invaluable tool for many business to business networkers.

And yet, so many still seem to think it’s not worth their time. Why not?

In this guest post, LinkedIn and sales specialist Carson McKee takes an in-depth look at the problems solved and perceived to have been created by the networking breakthroughs of social media.

While social media has been embraced by many marketers today – it’s still the early days for business to business (B2B) marketers.

A Waste of Time?

Many social media sites are blocked in the work place, like Facebook and YouTube are where I work. So right off the bat, access is a problem. While many business environments allow access to Linkedin (I train sales people on using Linkedin as a business development tool), use of social media at many work places is seen as unproductive or a waste of time.