The main network that hashtags originate from is Twitter where its is heavily tied in with their search and trending systems but many other sites such as Google+ but not Facebook, so why do people use hashtags on Facebook? The main reason it appears on Facebook is because somebody is posting from a third party tool that posts to both Twitter & Facebook, they use an app that detects them on Facebook or simply because they don’t really have a grasp of how it works. However with tech culture and the #hashtag becoming more ingrained in our every day lives, many people also use them to link imply a link between their status and a topic or internet meme.

There is a lot of controversy in the “Internet Marketing” world since yesterday thanks to a post from TheVerge.com The article brings up some very good points in relation to unethical boiler rooms but goes a step further to tarnish the entire Internet Marketing industry as a scam. As anyone with even the slightest amount of success in the industry can tell you this is most definitely not the case.

The first thing to do is separate the practices of illegal or unethical boiler rooms from Internet Marketing. They are each entirely different things and I know from personal experience how annoying boiler rooms can be. I’ve been contacted by them before after interacting with certain marketers, none of whom are listed in the article, but I’ve also been a customer of some of the marketers listed in the article and had only positive experiences.

If you’ve been caught up in the hype surrounding this article it’s important to remember that Internet Marketing is at it’s core, a method of promotion, and for some that work with business, it’s also a legitimate career. It can be used to promote any business, both good and bad, so always perform due diligence before making any purchase or investment but you already knew that. Blanket labelling an entire industry as a scam, as The Verge have done, because of the commercial links of a few is definitely not an appropriate way to respond and does little to actually protect consumers.

I have no doubt that the main purpose of this article was to cause a stir and bring attention to their blog with a little controversy (which is an internet marketing tactic in itself) but it’s always important to take a balanced view of a situation and for that I refer you to official responses from both Marketing Land and Frank Kern who are both prominent figures in this discussion.

 Stay safe and know the facts.

For years big corporations have been trying to restrict it’s usage and now even the government is getting involved. I urge everyone who is pursuing a career in digital to stay aware of digital rights issues at the very least and in no time at all I think you’ll see the value in making contributions to one of the two major organisations protecting our rights every day.

Get More Information on Digital Rights Issues…

Campaigning Organisations:
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/ (UK)
https://www.eff.org/ (US Based – Worldwide Impact)

Great Source of Digital News:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/

Change is inevitable, so make sure you have your say on the way it goes!

I recently attended a guest lecture on social commerce by Philip Coen at Manchester Metropolitan University and one thing that stood out was the ability to offer on page discounts to people that spread your product socially. He discussed how more big brands were taking advantage of the Facebook Like button to offer discounts to their visitors. It got me thinking about how smaller companies could start to use this kind of technology in their digital marketing efforts and ultimately Viral Buyer was born.

What is Viral Buyer?

As it’s most basic Viral Buyer is a WordPress plugin that encourages your customers to ‘Like’ your sales page and offers them a small discount in return. This means that for every customer that likes your sales page up to 130 more people will be exposed to your product offering (based on average friend numbers from Facebook). As friends often share similar interests the viral potential is massive from this and the Like chain could go a very long way.

But that’s not all that Viral Buyer does… Getting your customers to share your product page is only half the game. You still need to be able to optimise what is actually displayed so that your sales page looks inviting to your customers networks.

Another feature of the plugin is that it enables you to customise exactly which thumbnail, page title and description is shown to your customers networks when they like your product page. Below you will find an example Facebook Like that I have fully customised with the Viral Buyer plugin.

The Viral Buyer plugin has only been out for four days and the sales page has already generated 56 Facebook likes and even more members. To put that in perspective another sales page that I launched 3 months ago for a product centred around Facebook still only has 45 likes (or an average of 3.75 likes per week) compared to 56 Likes in less than a week. Assuming these rates hold steady that is a 1440% increase in Likes with Viral Buyer & the week isn’t even over!

Needless to say I’m already very happy with the Viral Buyer plugin but there are still many more ideas on the way so things will only get better. For a limited time you can get the plugin for just $15 at full price or $10 with the like discount However the standard price will be going up, most probably doubling with the next version release, so if you want to lock in ownership and free upgrades for life, get in early and take the steps to make your sales pages go Viral with Viral Buyer for WordPress!

So what did you get up to Valentines Day? Did any of you encounter Cupid in your day?

The Thesis Theme for WordPress is a great theme and and definitely one of my favourite for developing new sites but it definitely takes some getting used to. I’ve been using it for over three years now and when I was first learning how to develop WordPress sites with the Thesis Theme, I used a lot of resources to learn the ropes and pick up little tricks. In this post I’d like to share links to a few of the most helpful Thesis tutorials and thesis bloggers…

• Start Customising Thesis with custom.css – This guide from the Thesis team themselves introduces the way most style changes can be made.
• Introduction To Thesis Hooks by Sugarrae - Hooks are what make the Thesis Theme so special but you need to know how to use them first!
• Visual Guide to The Location of Thesis Hooks - Once you know how to use them, you need to know where to find them
• How to Create Multiple Custom Page Templates – Because Thesis treats custom page templates a little differently than most themes…
• Introduction to Full Width Thesis - Most people seem to use the page layout but you can do great things with the whole screen to work with.

And whilst the above are great examples of specific tutorials that I’ve personally learned from… I’d also share the links to a blogs of a few people who regularly share (or have done so) great posts on how to do specific things in Thesis…

• Andrew Norcross
• Art of Blog
• Berchman
• Bill Erickson
• DIYThemes – (Hint: They made the Thesis Theme)
• Greg Rickaby
• Kristarella
• SugarRae
• ThesisTutor
• Wolf-Howl

Many traditional business owners would probably say I’m committing some marketing crime by linking to these guys as many offer similar WordPress development services to myself… The truth is these guys are all doing awesome things with thesis too, so it would be more of a crime not to link to wealth of knowledge that these guys (and girls) have shared with me and thousands of other Thesis Theme users around the world!

1Password

When you are working on the web you can build a sickening amount of online accounts in a very short time. Of course best practices for the web include a  different password for each site you visit but there is no way you could remember every one. That’s where one password steps in; it can automatically generate and remember every password you use anywhere on the web. Just a single click and you can be logged into any one of hundreds of saved accounts. And if you were worrying about security it does come with a master password feature so you can keep unwanted eyes away from your entire collection. This is an extension to a paid app but it is worth every penny!

Chrome Web Developer Tools

If you develop websites or even just need to dig into the source code of a site every now and then this is a great tool. It offers many options for running tests and editing live sites on the fly. Another great feature that anybody can use is instant javascript disabling for sites that contain too many annoying pop ups trying to mess with your browser.

Facebook: InviteThemAll

As a student entrepreneur I work a lot with Events on Facebook. Any Facebook events/group marketers will already be aware of the continually degrading experience for inviting people to events en masse and this extension takes back some of that power. It adds a simple toggle menu item to your Facebook invite box so you can invite all the friends to an event without having to select thousands individually. I’d highly recommend you use this sensibly as too many integrated invites could see your account getting blocked or at least make you very unpopular.

Rapportive

This is an amazing add on for Gmail users that automatically scans the incoming address of users that email you and provides you with a sidebar containing links to their social profiles and latest posts depending on their privacy settings. If you connect with people professionally over email this can serve as a great introduction to the people behind those random emails you receive and can save you from the occasional memory slip

SEOquake

An SEO toolbar is an absolute essential for web professionals, not only does it allow you to keep track of your own websites placings in the various indexes but it also acts as a great tool for competitive intelligence. You can find out how people are placing and also where their links are coming from amongst many other things. SEOQuake is not the only toolbar I’d recommend but it’s the one I use right now.

View Background Image

As someone that develops websites and works with lots of themes and images one of my biggest bugbears when moving over from Firefox was the lack of a “View Background Image” option in the context menu. This extension brings that functionality to chrome so you can find out the URLs and view the source images for backgrounds on any website.

Finding other extensions…

Obviously this is just a small selection of the many extensions available out there and one mans opinion. I’d love to hear which extensions you are using in the comments. And if you’ve yet to discover the world of Chrome Extensions an exciting new world awaits…

With a movement that started in Melbourne, Australia thousands of men are uniting as one to grow out their moustache in a fight a global enemy most commonly known as cancer. Whilst I have been lucky enough to avoid it’s direct contact it has touched those I have known and most people including yourself will be, or likely have already been, affected either directly or indirectly at some point throughout your life. So men of the world I call upon you to unite for one month and shout those fateful worlds “OCCUPY MY FACE!”

Starting on the 1st of Movember I will be donating my face to an initial shaving and going on to begin a journey of facial hair growth and discovery all in an act of charity. To document the journey of my facial occupation throughout the month of Movember I will take a picture each and every day, leading to a final display that can only be imagined! All I ask in return is that you donate whatever you can afford to help a charity that that seeks to raise awareness of, and ultimately crush, prostate and testicular cancer (although luckily in most cases not directly… ouch!).

To support help support Movember and the Occupy My Face movement click here. And for those brave souls that wish to donate their face to the cause, simply visit my Movember page and click to join the team in this global movement as you scream “Occupy My Face”, stay strong, it’s going to get hairy!

Our profiles will become a scrapbook of our lives, online and off. The stream is becoming a kind of “match of the day” for our friends daily lifes. And in the new sidebar the most intense data stream seen yet of your friends and families goings on…

Whilst there are issues with it’s implementation in the short run, bugs that be need to be stamped out, and a lot of user shock and dismay to work through. None can sell it so well, and explain it’s true power, than the infamous Don Draper of 60s based ad show ‘Mad Men’.

Enjoy…

Viddler Video Removed – Currently at http://youtu.be/wAcyJhsamcQ

I made my first WordPress powered site in 2007 when I decided to start a travel blog for my travels around Australia. I learned a lot and even managed to generate a nice monthly income from my first site through affiliate marketing. Not quite a full time wage but defeinitely a nice bonus that helped keep me going through my travels for nearly a year!

It’s now 2011; I’ve been working with WordPress for four years and I can attribute so much of my success directly to learning how to use WordPress. Throughout my time within the WordPress community I’ve created WordPress sites for many happy clients, built my own small network of blogs, released premium skins, premium plugins, and now I have a new addition to the family…

WPTutor.com is a new site that I’ve created to give back and share some of the knowledge that I’ve accumulated through the years. There are already over 4 hours of WordPress video tutorials inside and many more lined up for the coming weeks. Many of these are available free through a little backdoor that I’ve created for my fans on the WordPress Tutor Facebook page.

Whilst all the bases are covered the plan is for this website to grow and grow to become the ultimate resource for business owners and entrepreneurs looking to use WordPress. The tutorials are designed to be easy enough to follow so that even a complete novice can get a site set up and ready to start earning the same day. So if you want to be on of the WP Tutor pioneers then make sure you head on over and check out the WP Tutor site today and let me know what you think!