Shama Hyder invited Mari Smith to chime in on her wonderful FaceBook presentation at Blog World. In this video, Mari talks about making friends with key, influential people on FaceBook. An info-packed 5 minutes from BlogWorld 08.Thanks Mari!

As freelance writers, we have devoted a whole lot of our time to writing SEO articles. It was fun to meet an actual SEO organization in the flesh while at BlogWorld. The thing that we liked about this SEO Champion was their focus on “organic” optimization. We are big fans of writing good content that happens to be optimized, rather than stuffing a bunch of keywords into an article and trying to make it sound like real content.

Of course, they don’t just work on content. They’re able to help you out with the more technical aspects of optimizing your tags and such, too.

Unfortunately, Tamara and I are not so tech-savvy when it comes to things like…um…tech. So, we’re really grateful for the help of people who are able to set up and design blogs and web sites. If it wasn’t for them, the two of us would probably be painting on cave walls or something.

Unique Blog Designs made their mark at BlogWorld Expo at a booth sharing their knowledge and expertise with those of us who are so hopelessly unskilled at this type of thing. I just love a man who tells me he can design for WordPress . . .

I recently took Susan’s press release writing class at SparkplugU, and she had some great things to say about PR Web. As you can imagine, I was pretty excited to see them at BlogWorld. Basically, their service helps you get your press releases into the hands of the right media outlets. I didn’t realize that they could also help you create press releases, so that was an interesting side note. (Of course, I’m a big fan of hiring a good writer to create your press release…hm, I can think of a couple!)

Whether you’re starting from scratch or you’re ready to get your press release out, it sounds like PR Web has some services that might be helpful. We’ll let Mario tell you more about it:

After facilitating an enlightening panel on podcasting with audio and video, I got to pick the brain of Jim Kukral a bit more and get some great tips on how to get started with video blogging.

Jim points out that online video is really not that difficult. He uses a $150 Flip Video Camcorder and a $50 work light from Home Depot!

If video is in your online future (and it probably should be) you’ll definitely want to pick up his free online video toolkit!

I caught up with Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, after the SEO session at Blog World Expo and asked him what the key motivating factor was that catalyzed his pursuit of the 4-hour work week.

Tim also points out that excessive action is a form of laziness. In other words, many home business owners work long hours because they don’t have anything else to fill up all those hours. Timothy encourages home business owners to consider the importance of reallocating their time to those things and people that bring them the most meaning and gratification.

I asked Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, at the end of our interview on how to use social media to promote your eCommerce business the following question - “If you had it to do all over again, what would you do different?”

His answer might surprise you!

In just 2-minutes, JB Glossinger, creator of MorningCoach.com shares a couple of powerful tips for home-business owners. Check out this video where he talks about the power of persistence and positive energy!

I recently had the pleasure of spending a good chunk of time with Sparkplugging’s eCommerce writer and On-line Biz Consulting’s, Kristie McDonald at BlogWorld 08. Not only is Kristie a delightful member of our SparkPlugging team, but Wow - what a wealth of internet marketing brilliance!

Meeting the other Sparkplugging authors was a great experience. Great people; great minds. Here, I was able to catch a video snippet of Kristie explaining the value of thinking outside of the box when you create your business blog.

Enjoy!

If you want some solid on-line marketing advice, watch this video featuring Shama Hyder’s panel presentation at BlogWorld. Naturally, there were a number of outstanding speakers at the expo, but I really enjoyed Shama’s no-nonsense approach to marketing your blog. Shama has the 1-2-3’s down and presents her information in a straight-forward, logical approach. Shama knows her stuff! Enjoy!