Today it seems that no matter what industry you’re in, your competition is stronger than ever.  How do you stand out and get that sale when people aren’t as loyal to brands as they used to be?   How do you get their attention in an ever growing sea of noise when they’re so often swayed by price rather than quality?   One answer is to become recognized as an expert in your industry, someone other people seek out for information.

The most important part to becoming known as an expert, of course, is that you know a lot about whatever it is you do.   That could be construction, public relations, HR, dogs — whatever it is, in order to gain the requisite knowledge to be regarded as a thought-leader in your field likely requires years of schooling or real-world practice, or both.   In addition, when your goal is to be recognized as an expert you need to always keep learning, and to constantly share that expertise. But first let’s talk about why you might want to be an expert.

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Benefits of Being an Expert

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Being an expert in your field makes you the go-to person for your industry. There are many people that I trust inherently on different subjects simply because they know their stuff, and they’re not trying to sell me anything.    They just want to be helpful in their own space.  These are people that I learn from, but also whom I would buy from because I trust their knowledge and expertise.

Being an expert helps you:

- Establish yourself as an industry leader
- Help others
- Become a trusted resource
- Get interviews and media coverage
- Gain access (via conference/speaking invites, etc.)
- Convert followers to sales

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Keep Up-to-Date

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Blogs & News – Blogs in your industry are a great place to find out the latest tools and news.   If you’re not already reading blogs, do a web search for to locate some blogs that cover your business niche.   Find ones that you like and subscribe to them by RSS so you won’t forget to read them.

It’s not a bad idea to set up a Google Alert to search for news about your industry.   Paying attention to news headlines is a great way to stay abreast of changes in your field.

Online Education – There’s no reason you have to enroll in college (again) to keep learning. There are a variety of online resources at which you can take free or cheap webinars or e-courses to keep the wheels churning.

Social Networks – Increasingly, social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, and Delicious are where people are sharing news and information that matters to them.   By following the already established experts in your niche, you’ll gain access to the information they possess, which will in turn increase your knowledge.

Conferences & Events – Every industry has conferences, trade shows, and other events, at which other experts in the industry gather to share their knowledge.   Attending these meetings can help you in your quest to continually learn new information.  You can find out about conferences by reading industry blogs, searching events sites like Upcoming.org, or finding local user groups on Meetup.

Imparting Your Wisdom

By sharing your knowledge with others, you’ll quickly become known for your expertise.   This can translate into sales, job offers, gigs, or other opportunities, as you build your personal brand as an expert.  Here are some ways you can share what you know.

Blogs – The easiest way to start sharing is by creating a blog.  Blogs are fantastic if you’ve got a ton of information in your head and need a place to dump it.  The bonus is: you can help others through that information.  Blog about what you know.  Share news, offer advice, give your opinion, and make yourself the go-to resource for what you do.  The key to successful blogging is to consistently put out good, original, and useful content that encourages readers to engage with you and with each other.

Social Media – Social media sites are designed for experts! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a question about something, tweeted it, and gotten free advice back, later, the people who provided me with expert advice are the people I buy from when I need their services.  By providing free advice on Twitter or Facebook, you will build a base of fans that both trust you and look to you for expert advice.  These fans will seek you out and recommend you to others seeking advice and information — in other words, by sharing your knowledge and gaining trust, your network will grow on its own.

Video – Don’t underestimate the power of video. For those who do well in front of a camera, sharing free how-to videos on sites like YouTube or Vimeo can lead to increased awareness. It also demonstrates to television producers how well you do on camera, which means online expert videos can lead to television appearances.

Speaking Up – You should already be attending industry conferences, trade shows, and user group meetings, and you should make sure to assert yourself as a knowledgeable voice in the community while at those events. Whether that means lining up formal speaking engagements — which will be easier to do the more you grow your personal brand as an expert — or just networking and sharing your expertise with other attendees, speaking up is helpful in building your expert brand.

Consulting – Offering consulting services can do two things: first, it can make you a little money, and second, it can help you establish yourself among industry insiders as someone who knows their stuff.  One consulting gig can lead to many based on referrals and having a list of business owners willing to give you a recommendation can be invaluable.  If you plan to offer consulting services, put information about your services on your blog and in your social profiles, and consider offering phone consultations.

Google’s Feedburner allows you to set up free email updates based on your RSS feed.  Here’s an easy tutorial on how to set it up.

Burn Your Feeds

You first need to head over to Feedburner to claim your blog’s RSS feed.  Log in with your Google account and enter the URL of your feed into the “Burn a feed right this instant” box:

Click next and you’ll be asked to choose a title and address – the defaults are usually fine.   Follow the rest of the instructions through and you should arrive at the Feed Management page.

Enable Email Subscriptions

Hit the “Publicize” tab and select “Email Subscriptions” from the left hand side.

Click “Activate” to enable the feature.

Customisation

In the left hand navigation you should now see four more options below “Email Subscriptions”.

“Communications Preferences” allows you to change the from address and subject/body of the confirmation email your readers will receive on subscription.

“Email Branding” lets you edit your email’s subject, fonts, colors, and allows you to add a logo.

At this stage it may be wise to edit the subscription email and subjects so that the tone is consistent with your blog.  The applies to fonts and colours too – leaving the email as it came out of the box looks dull and lazy.

Finally the “Delivery Options” page lets you customise the time zone and delivery window.  Ensure that the time zone matches that of the geographic location of the majority of your readers (check this in Google Analytics) and think about the best time of day for your email to go out.  The nature of your content may dictate this, but generally just before lunch is a good shout.

Add to your Blog

Go to the “Subscription Management” page to get the code to add a means of subscription to your blog.  The Subscription Form Code adds a form like this:

The Subscription Link Code adds a straight link.  There are also widgets available for TypePad and Blogger.

Simple!

The API (Application Programming Interface) has been an essential component for creating applications that hook into or utilize web apps such as Twitter and Facebook.  With it, developers have been able to create some amazing mashups and tools.   Some of the most helpful and oft-used applications on the web wouldn’t be possible without APIs.

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1. Google Maps

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Google Maps is one of the hottest APIs on the web.  The ProgrammableWeb API Directory tracks over 1800 mashups for Google Maps, which is more than three and a half times as many as the next most popular API. Google Maps perhaps did more to popularize the concept of web application mashups in the middle part of this decade than any other API.

1. Google’s Official Documentation for the Maps API is probably the best place to start. The site offers a developer’s guide, code samples and demos, case studies, and even a sandbox where you can test stuff out while you learn.

2. Earlier this year, Google abandoned its official Google Maps API blog in favor of a new Google Geo Developers Blog. The new blog encompasses all of Google’s mapping APIs, including both Maps and their Earth program. The blog is filled with useful posts about using the API, frequent news updates about changes and developments with the API itself, and links to creative uses by other developers.

3. The Official Google Maps API Group is probably the first place you should check out if you need help with your Maps-based project. The extremely active group hosts hundreds of thousands of discussions and is frequented by both seasoned and rookie developers, as well as Google Maps API core contributors. It is often the first place that upcoming API changes are made, so if your project hinges on the Google Maps API, then you should definitely keep an eye on the official group.

4. Mapki is an unofficial Google Maps API wiki at which Maps developers come together to discuss and document the API. The site has a huge list of developer’s tools and tutorials, as well as code snippets and FAQs.

5. Mike Williams’ Google Maps API Tutorial is an excellent and up-to-date overview of the API. It’s a great getting started point for anyone trying to get into mashup development with Google Maps or integrating maps into an existing project.

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2. Facebook / Facebook Connect

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Over a million developers have created over 350,000 active applications on the Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect has been adopted by more than 15,000 web sites, according to official stats. That easily makes Facebook’s platform and Connect API among the hottest development platforms on the web today.

1. The Facebook Developers site is one of the most complete and well-made and maintained developer sites on the web. It has a great getting started guide, as well as super active forums, an official blog for developers, and more.

2. If you’re developing anything for the Facebook Platform, then Facebook Developer Tools page is a must-bookmark resource. The tools, including test consoles for the API and FBML, as well as a playground environment for Facebook Connect, are super helpful for anyone working with the app platform or Facebook’s other developer APIs. They also recently released the Facebook Connect Wizard that makes integrating Facebook Connect with your site a snap.

3. Facebook’s Wiki offers a plethora of useful information for developers from guidelines to how-to guides to code examples and more. The site hosts over a thousand articles ensuring that if you need to do it with Facebook’s APIs, there’s a good bet you’ll find the information you need to know to learn how to do it somewhere in the wiki.

4. Though it hasn’t been updated in just over a year, the unofficial Facebook Developer online magazine is still an amazing resource for Facebook developers. It has an incredible archive of useful articles, tutorials, guides, and case studies that are still available for viewing.

5. It may just be a clever marketing tactic to get people to sign up for its hosting services, but Joyent’s popular Facebook Applications Developer Program, which offers free hosting for app developers for one year, is nonetheless a great resource. Especially for developers just getting into Facebook, Joyent’s program offers a no-risk way to test the waters.

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3. Twitter

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Anyone who reads this blog is well-aware of just how fast Twitter is growing. According to Compete, Twitter has grown over 650% this year, and it’s popular with developers too; Twitter application directory oneforty tracks over 1,800 Twitter-based or connected tools and applications.

1. The place to start, of course, is the Official API Wiki, which Twitter has packed with documentation, guides, tutorials, known issues, and FAQs for dealing with the Twitter API and OAuth.

2. Being Twitter, the Twitter API team naturally also has a Twitter account (@twitterapi). The account is updated by 5 core API developers at Twitter with news about the Twitter API and offers support to developers using it to build applications.

3. Twitter also has a blog, on which the company posts updates about their developer tools, as well as links to content that is helpful for developers, and spotlights of exceptional API uses. Also be sure to keep an eye on the service’s status blog to keep track of downtime issues and scheduled maintenance.

4. The Twitter Development Talk group/mailing list, which is hosted by Google Groups, is one of the best places to go to for help when you’re stuck with a Twitter API development problem. The site has had over 20,000 messages posted to it and is frequented by the API team. Twitter also operates a group for API announcements, which is a must-follow for developers craving the latest Twitter API news.

5. A search for Twitter on GitHub will return a ton of useful resources for developers, including over 13,000 code snippets and over 1,300 repositories, including many of the most popular Twitter libraries and wrappers. You can also find some of the open source technologies that actually power Twitter on GitHub.

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4. Flickr

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Flickr just recently passed 4 billion photos, so it’s no wonder that developers are excited to use it. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of mashups that rely on the Flickr API to add a little bit of visual appeal.

1. code.flickr is the home of Flickr’s official developer blog, and their official forum community. There are thousands of discussions in the Flickr API pool, as well as developers sharing screen shots of their creations, and the site also hosts the official SVN and Trac pages for the Flickr API, as well.

2. Yahoo!’s impressive Developer Network hosts a helpful Flickr section with a basic overview of the API, and links to the API key application form and information about rate limits and commercial usage. However, if you want meatier documentation, you’ll need to check out Flickr’s Official Flickr API documentation page, which offers a ton of information about using the API and links to third-party API kits for languages including ActionScript, Java, .NET, Objective-C, PHP, Python, and Ruby, among others.

3. If you’re still stumped, a good place to turn for an answer would be the YWS-Flickr Group on Yahoo! Groups. The active discussion list has over 3,000 Flickr developers that regularly share tips and tricks and help each other out.

4. The Ultimate Guide to Decoding the Flickr API is a very impressive tutorial from Nettuts+. Though just a single tutorial, it is a very good overview that is definitely a good place to start for developers interested in utilizing the Flickr API.

5. GitHub has a collection of over 200 Flickr code repositories including libraries and other helpful tools for developers. Ruby, JavaScript, Python, and PHP are the most popular languages among Flickr developers on the code sharing site.

by Nicholas Deleon on November 23, 2009

Consider this: if Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth largest in the world by population, ahead of both Japan and Russia.

When I talk to people about using social media to market their business, I usually get one of two responses. Either they love using Facebook and Twitter or they really don’t see what all the fuss is about. Unfortunately, both are missing the point.

Social media is probably one of the biggest developments in business since e-mail. Never before has the communications playing field been so level. Social media allows for a single-person, sole proprietorship to have the same potential consumer impact as a Fortune 100 company, without the million-dollar advertising budget.

And yet people still misunderstand social media or, even worse, ignore it completely as a fad.

Take my two earlier examples of responses. The first guy thinks social media is all about Facebook pages and Twitter statuses. The fact is, there are literally hundreds of options in the social media pantheon. The trick is figuring out which ones work best for communicating with your target audience and focusing your attention on those.

As popular as Facebook is, it might not be your best choice. This takes time and attention that not every small business owner might have. This is where outsourcing or contract work comes in handy. A good consultant will help you research your market and decide on the best course of action, while leaving you free to run your business.

Even worse is the second response - indifference. These are the people with their proverbial heads in the sand, assuming all of this social media hooplah will fade away.

Social media is not a fad, and it is not just for kids. Businesses small and large are making lots of money using this social media stuff. Look at upstart blender maker BlendTec, for example. They struck marketing gold with their popular “Will It Blend?” videos on YouTube and saw their sales increase five times as a result.

Now before you grab a digital camera and try your hand at becoming a viral video director, you should know that BlendTec invested a lot of time (if not money) in producing their video series. This is key. You must be prepared for the real cost of social media marketing. What you don’t spend in dollars, you will spend in sweat equity.

But at the end of the day, if it’s done right, the return on your investment could be legendary…and profitable

This morning, professional social network LinkedIn announced that it is opening up its API for developers to build applications around the platform. While LinkedIn has partnered with Twitter, Microsoft, IBM, Research In Motion and others, this will be the first time startups can tap into the platform.

While LinkedIn is releasing 11 different APIs, they fall into three distinct categories. First, developers will be able to let users easily access their information, profiles, connections and messages via oAuth login. The second functionality is to give users the ability to make actionable decisions about information, but letting them message their LinkedIn contacts, post updates, accept contacts and more. And the third piece of the puzzle is search. So developers will now be able to embed LinkedIn search in other applications.

Although the API is now available for all, LinkedIn has already partnered with a select group of developers. Here are a few examples of their integrations.

TweetDeck

Twitter, MySpace and Facebook client TweetDeck will be integrated with LinkedIn in its next version. You will be able to add a LinkedIn column to your TweetDeck, showing all the updates from your network that would normally be visible on the LinkedIn web page. From the client, you’ll be able to see a stream of updates from your contacts, view profiles of contacts and comment and message contacts directly from TweetDeck. If you want to filter the LinkedIn column to only show certain types of update (e.g. status updates, connections or profile changes), you will be able to manage this from the new filter panel which will appear when you click the column header.

Posturous

You can now add LinkedIn as an autopost site on Posturous. So when you update to Posturous, you’ll be able to update directly to your Status Message on LinkedIn. It doesn’t appear that it works the other way around.

Ribbit

Through Knx.to’s recently launched technology, cloud-based VoIP telephony service Ribbit Mobile will pull in the LinkedIn contact info and status updates from anyone who calls you on Ribbit. It will also pull in info from Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and other social media sites. The idea is to give a social context to all of your contacts, which is definitely useful information for both professional and personal contacts.

JobDASH

From the developers of TwitterJobSearch, comes JobDASH, which is an Adobe Air-powered Twitter and LinkedIn client that serves as a career management tool for IT professionals.t can be used to Track colleagues via LinkedIn, and track industry news. JobDASH also features real-time job listings that are posted on Twitter and cross posted from LinkedIn. You’ll be able to filter listings based on type of job.

Box.net

While Box.net co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie is not yet sure of eventual scope of the integration, it will enable users to take content from Box.net and share it with LinkedIn contacts and on their LinkedIn profiles. Box.net is doing this via its OpenBox platform. The long-term approach is to include LinkedIn data and details on our own users’ profiles (on Box.net) to make a richer experience.

Microsoft’s latest effort to gain relevance in the search wars is about to get a whole lot more interesting.

According to All Things Digital, the company is set to announce deals with both Twitter and Facebook to integrate status updates into its Bing search engine.

Details are expected to be announced later today at the Web 2.0 Summit, but the stage has been building for this for some time. Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook back in 2007, and has since signed search and advertising deals with the social network.

Meanwhile, Twitter has been known to be exploring search partnerships for at least the past month, though it’s long been suspected that the company would eventually eye significant revenue in this space. Although Twitter has been said to be willing to offer a full stream of tweets to search providers on a non-exclusive basis, it would appear that Microsoft has beaten Google to the punch in making it happen.

In All Things Digital’s latest report, both of the leading social sites are said to be talking to Google, so Bing’s advantage may be short lived, though it will be “weeks, if not months” until we see any actual integration go live.

More to come …

Ever since Twitter announced it is working on a new Lists feature a month ago, users and developers have been awaiting its broad rollout. Over the past few weeks, Twitter has been expanding the number of people in the Lists beta, but now it appears that a full rollout is under way.

As of yesterday, Twitter employee Nik Kallen reported that “25% of all users have Lists.” And then he Tweeted: “We’re releasing lists to even more people. Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Twitter.”

Judging from the what we are hearing from tapped-in Twitter developers, the buzz on Twitter itself, and our tip box, a full rollout is under way and is expected to be completed either today or tomorrow. (Remember, this is Twitter, so there are no guarantees).

Why is everyone so excited about these Lists? Finally, you will be able to create groups of people you follow on Twitter. So if there are 10 or 20 people who consistently deliver good Tweets, you can separate them out from the rest of your stream and just listen to them. Or you can create lists by topic, people you actually know versus people you only know via Twitter, or any other category. And the cool thing about these Lists is that once somebody makes a good list, other people can follow that entire list, which makes it much easier to get started on Twitter. Because finding interesting people to follow is actually a lot of work.

Has Lists been turned on for you yet?

The Mozilla Firefox browser has just received an update, and you should probably download it if you want to protect your computer from nearly a dozen critical vulnerabilities.

Firefox 3.5.4, released earlier this morning, is being called a security and stability update. It doesn’t add new features, but instead directly deals with Firefox stability issues, fixes a few bugs (i.e. the ability to re-submit crash reports), and most importantly, patches up a group of security vulnerabilities.

And from reading the list of fixed security issues, we recommend you upgrade as soon as possible. Here are the security issues this version of Firefox patches:

- Crashes with evidence of memory corruption
- Upgrade media libraries to fix memory safety bugs
- Download filename spoofing with RTL override
- Cross-origin data theft through document.getSelection()
- Heap buffer overflow in string to number conversion
- Chrome privilege escalation in XPCVariant::VariantDataToJS()
- Heap buffer overflow in GIF color map parser
- Crash in proxy auto-configuration regexp parsing
- Crash with recursive web-worker calls
- Local downloaded file tampering
- Form history vulnerable to stealing

You can read more about this release and download the update in the Mozilla release notes.

Did you tune into YouTube on Sunday to catch U2 performing live form the Rose Bowl? If you did, you had some serious virtual company.

The LA Times reports that Sunday’s show generated 10 million streams across 7 continents. The whole show was archived on YouTube Monday and has been viewed more than 1 million times since then.

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is calling the U2 concert the largest event in the company’s history and it very well could be a glimpse into what the GoogleGoogleGoogle-owned service plans in the future.

After all, it’s hard to make money off of short-form content, but with live streams, YouTube could potentially capitalize and maybe even come up with a payment model (a la Pay-Per-View) for really big events.

You can check out U2’s concert here:

So did you tune in Sunday night? What do you think about YouTube moving into live events? Would you pay to watch a live concert on YouTube? Let us know!