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Twitter Tennis – Jim and Shelby Volley

September 28, 2011
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This is another in our series of She Said, He Said posts. The term “Twitter Tennis” is being borrowed from Michael Josefowicz during #printchat, which we participate in regularly. We love Twitter chats because they tend to focus the conversation in on a particular topic and it’s fun to watch ideas being bounced back and [...]

Why this post is not a rant about traffic court

August 10, 2011
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Earlier today, I walked out of traffic court after accepting a plea deal from the county for a traffic infraction earlier this summer. I really wanted to write a post ranting about how my willingness to pay a higher fine resulted in a zero point parking violation exposes the hypocrisy in the system. The entire [...]

3 Favorite Blogging Tips and Tricks

August 9, 2011
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If you are a one-person “blog as a business,” then it’s likely the writing part of the blog is the easy half of the equation for you. For many, the technical side of running a blog can be far more challenging. I’ve got a tech background and often find this to be the case. My [...]

Blogging and SEO – Jim Says

August 4, 2011
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When I wrote I don’t want to turn work off, I discussed how your blog is one of the ways you can build a bigger megaphone to spread your message. Good search engine optimization (SEO) is just another one of the ways to expand your audience. It’s quite likely that those who find your blog [...]

5 WordCamp Chicago Session Takeaways

August 1, 2011
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I’m just back from two information packed days at WordCamp Chicago. After a conference, I try to find time to write down my takeaways. Generally my intention is to act upon the takeaways in a timely fashion. That does not always happen. So, writing this post serves two purposes for me: sharing the ideas and [...]

Why being on Google+ matters to your blog today

July 27, 2011
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Take a look at the image with this post. After only two weeks, Google+ is the number two traffic source for JimRaffel.com. In that same two weeks, I have about the same number of connections on Google+ as it took me several years to reach on Facebook. If you don’t want to miss out on [...]

How Inclusion on AllTop extends your reach

July 18, 2011
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More than a year ago, I applied to have this blog included on AllTop, which is an online magazine rack. About two weeks ago, I heard back that I had been accepted and added to the printing AllTop.com page (scroll all the way down the page and you’ll find me over in the right hand [...]

How do you incorporate Google Plus in your blogging strategy – Jim Says

July 13, 2011
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I decided to jump in the Google Plus (G+) waters fairly early. Based upon Google’s two recent failures in the social space, Buzz and Wave, this was a relatively risky use of my time to learn and grow with the service through its beta and limited invitation period. It’s been a good decision as I [...]

How to maximize the value of your event

May 5, 2011
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It’s been about a week since we completed a successful event for ColorMetrix. The thing is we are not done creating and deriving value from the event yet; not by a long shot. So, it was with great interest that I read “Beyond Your Event” over on the M-Bossed blog. If there is event planning [...]

How Thesis Theme makes managing blog post images easy

April 30, 2011
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If you’ve been a reader here for any length of time, you know I utilize the Thesis Theme to power this site as well as several others. Because seldomly read documentation, I “discover” Thesis features almost daily. For example, I add an image to almost every post on this blog. For a few months, I [...]