Hey Everybody, I know it's been awhile since I've pushed out a good newsletter, my fault, I have more stuff to cover today. So hang in there, if you reach the end of this email you'll be well fed with knowledge. Before I begin, just in case you fall asleep before reaching the end. Go-Team signups next week, Mahalo has expanded the shifts to 5 days a week, with two 4 hour shift options along with the traditional 8 hour shift option. You can sign up here for next week. - http://bit.ly/GoTeamApril19-23 - For those unfamiliar, "Go Team" is our initiative to update and upgrade older pages in our system, if you think you can write 300 words about any random topic in under an hour, go ahead and sign up for the regular option, if you are unsure, pick the "training" option.
We're trying to get more people interested in this, I have been speaking with the editors and the direction it will eventually go is having Vertical based Go-Teams...so a Sports Dept. Go Team is in the works as we speak, I'll fill you all in when it comes about. Regardless, you need to be on IRC to take part, get your feet wet by visiting our sports IRC Channel - There is a big button to connect here - http://www.mahalo.com/mahalo-sports-vertical - I've only seen a few of you stumbling within. Log into the room, you don't need to be chatty while your there, just hang out while you work on Mahalo, who knows what page opportunities will come up while your there. Unless I am sleeping or firefighting I am in that room to assist and answer any questions you have.
Sport Department Rookies
First order order business is we have some rookies on our in on this email, I started a major recruitment process at the beginning of the month to help us tackle the out of date roster and athlete pages in the system, and the rookies have delivered, those reaching ten tasks include @NickBragg, @kkroz, @btempl, @mattharding, @klewis16, @RCHorgan, @Maverick819, @ernestm and @jasonf - I've included a few others in on this newsletter who are close to 10 tasks.
We have a new experimental process with the rookies that some of the veterans may want to get in on as well. After 10 tasks is reached I'm asking everybody to sign up for a few key social websites. It is absolutely vital for us to get connected online and to use the tools available to us throughout the web, I've been asking rookies to sign up for 5 sites to start, I'm going to go through them below here in a bit more detail.
Why Get Connected
We're writing on the web, it's a lot different from writing print but at the same time it's much of the same, you need readers. Although Mahalo's specialty is to attract random searchers through search engines, (over 80% of our traffic comes from each engines) our goal with getting connected will to be attract a more bountiful reader base from a variety of social websites. There are multiple benefits from connecting on social sites, I'll list a couple here.
1) Raises your profile - The more connected you are on more networks the higher it raises your writer profile, so if your plan is to write long term online, getting connected now, will benefit you in the long run.
2) Search Engine Optimization - Using social network and sharing links raises the rank of your pages. "Backlinks" are a major factor in how Google promotes pages, the more you share your pages, the more backlinks you create.
3) Traffic - Naturally, the more you share your pages, the bigger chance there is that people will visit your page, more traffic = more rev-share. The numbers are on our side, we have 70 people on this list, if we put those numbers to work, that is front page on any social website we wish, digg, reddit, you name it. All we have to do is get connected and work together.
4) Community - We're a big group, getting connected and interacting with each will make writing a little less lonely, we're all in the same boat and working as a group will help us in the short and long term.
Welcome to the Social Web - Reap the rewards of being connected
First off, you want to be using either Mozilla FireFox or Google Chrome when your using the web these days. If you are using Internet Explorer? Switch, right now. It's just a couple clicks to download, then about half a day to get used to it. Don't be afraid. You can do it! Personally, I switched to Chrome not too long ago after using FireFox for four years, Chrome is incredibly faster and the extensions, for me, are incredibly more streamlined but Firefox is good too. Honestly, anything but IE.
Twitter
http://twitter.com
What is it? Essentially it's your own thought bubble on the web, but it's also a great place to keep up on your Fellow Mahalo writers and to share links, it's a short messaging program where you have 140 characters to share a thought. It may seem silly in the beginning, but its an invaluable program these days, sign up using your Mahalo name, or any random nickname you may enjoy it, you may hate it, but give it a run.
How to use it? There are many ways to use Twitter, the only way I don't recommend is using the "web" option, to get the most out of twitter you want to either have a desktop client like "Tweetdeck" and "Twhirl" or a browser component. You can add Twitter to your browser by using the extensions below, makes twitter much easier to use and follow.
FireFox Extension: http://www.echofon.com/twitter/firefox/
Get Connected: Maybe not your main goal, but certainly the key to twitter is amassing as many followers as possible. I've been on Twitter for a few years and have over a thousand followers, but like everybody else I had to start with Zero. Let's give each other a heads start and simply follow each other here in the sports department. Once you've signed up to Twitter visit our Sports Department Followers list, and follow everybody here: http://twitter.com/jeffhoard/sportswithm/members - Let me know your Twitter name, and I'll add you to the list.
Etiquette: You want to sound like a human, you don't want to appear like a spam bot trying to get traffic. For example, instead of just posting a tweet that reads "St Louis Cardinals Roster - mahalo.com/st-louis-cardinals" you want to sound genuine and have a reason to share the link "How about those cardinals? URL" - "Cardinals doing good this year? URL" ...You don't want to be a spam bot, you want to interact with your followers. Talk about stuff other then your writing and sprinkle in links periodically.
How we benefit: It will build our presence on the web, if each of us have 1,000 followers and we each share a link to our 1,000 followers - That's 70,000 people who see our links, just like that, if our tweet is good and some of those 70,000 share the link, the cycle is vicious and lucrative.
StumbleUpon
http://stumbleupon.com
What is It? Beyond a major time suck...It's our biggest traffic source outside of Search Engines and Twitter. The idea behind Stumbleupon is your basically channel surfing websites. You click a "stumble" button and a completely random website will appear before you. In order for our pages to be one of those random sites we have to submit them.
How to use it? StumbleUpon is great because when you are on a page, it's simply 1 click to submit your page, you do need a browser extension. Once the extension is installed, all you need to do is click the "thumbs up" button, if its a new page to Stumble Upon it will ask you to tag and describe your link, you hit submit and your done, your page is added to their catalog.
Firefox Extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/138
Get Connected: StumbleUpon isn't much of a social site like the rest, I haven't discovered many benefits of connecting with each other, beyond the fact that when we subscribe to each other more of each others links will show up when we ourselves "stumble" - Otherwise, I believe the more subscriptions you get the more likely your pages will get stumbled. So for now, at least subscribe to my account, if your keen go through my list of subscriptions and subscribe at least to all them. My Account: http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/TayTVer/
Etiquette: Since I probably have the worst SU etiquette, I found an article that gives some tips and tricks here, http://www.techipedia.com/2010/stumbleupon-etiquette-guide/ - Obviously we want to stumble our best articles and pages but you'll also want to submit other content as well. My general rule of thumb with all Social sites is you want your own content to be under 25% of what you share, it's good karma.
How we benefit: The more of us who stumble the same article, the greater change that article has of going viral within StumbleUpon, it's absolutely amazing how much traffic StumbleUpon can deliver over a long period of time.
Del.icio.us
http://del.icio.us
What is It? It's a "social bookmarking" website, I've always used it as an archive for pages I've built, it's incredibly easy to use and it's a great way to categorize and keep track of your pages. When you bookmark a page you "Tag" it as a way to categorize your pages.
How to use it? This is the easiest one of the whole bunch to use, and after each page is published its not a bad idea to click the "Tag" button and instantly create a backlink to your pages. Also if you have a personal blog it creates great link and tag lists for your sidebar, I use them on both sportswithm.com and own personal blog jhoard.com
Firefox Extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3615
Get Connected: You can add me to your network by clicking the "add to network" button in the sidebar here, http://delicious.com/sports_archive
How we benefit: In short, this one will not make or break us, its a brilliant instant backlink and that's about it, I use it because I love archiving and tagging my work.
Ballhype
http://ballhype.com/
What is it? It's a site to share your sports articles, essentially it's ideal for blog posts and buzzy Mahalo pages as oppose to generic search result pages we build.
How to use it? There are no add-ons for this one, but you'll notice on http://www.sportswithm.com/ there is small box in the sidebar. When you post to Sportswithm.com your post will instantly appear on ballhype, all you need to do to help it is click the vote button. http://ballhype.com/blog/sports_with_m/ - By all means, vote and comment on each others posts for best results.
Get Connected: I'm relatively new there, but add me to your friends list, http://ballhype.com/profile/jeffhoard/ and go through my friends list and my friends as your friends :) As with every social website the more connected you are the better.
How we Benefit: To help create a name for our sports department we'll need to reach the elite of the sports writing world, becoming a presence on ballhype will go a long way towards this goal, it doesn't take many votes to get on the front page, if only a few of us click those arrows in the sportswithm sidebar we'll bring a lot of attention to our blog and our Mahalo pages.
Blogger
What is it? possibly the largest publishing program of all time. Blogger is where anybody can create a blog and publish an article, as a web-writer blogger is where you can use your own voice, write with your own words and write articles on any topic you wish.
How to use it? If you have not yet received an invite to sportswithm.com, I will happily send one you one, the rules however with our department blog is that you must have at least 300 words, an image, and 5 backlinks to Mahalo pages. You can also begin your own blog if you have not already, you can literally start a blogger blog in under 3 clicks and 3 minutes. I do however ask that your "display name" for the blog is the same as your Mahalo username.
Get Connected: This might sound old school internet to some of you, but if you have a blogger blog, I'll add you to the sportswithm.com blog roll...if you return the favor :D - In fact, we should all add each other to each others blog rolls. Blogger Blog rolls are perhaps the strongest form of google juice I have ever witnessed. On that same same note, you'll notice the "follow" button in the bottom right sidebar on sportswithm - please click that too.
How we Benefit: I believe blogging is our greatest front for our Mahalo sports pages, there is a greater chance to attracting interest when using your own voice in writing. If you believe opinions are your strength, blogging is certainly an avenue to pursue to strengthen your Mahalo pages. Also remember that every Mahalo page has the "embed" option, if you embed a Mahalo page to each blog post, you'll earn an extra M$1 for every 1,000 views you get...that's a higher rate then even rev-share, it's another great way to maximize your income especially if blogging is your strength.
Don't forget about Mahalo
Well, after all is said and done we don't want you forgetting about Mahalo we have some interesting new projects for you to get involved in beyond tasks and Go-Team. One that I want to briefly touch on is a new Mahalo Answers project that we've dubbed "Blue-Sites" - These are sister sites that are connected to Mahalo answers that are related to specific topics. The first three of series of sports question sites linked below, soon we'll have dozens related to all sports.
We're working on seeding these sites right now with Questions and Answers. You can log into them with your Mahalo login. During this process you'll earn M$.50 for every question you ask, and M$1.00 for every answer. The only rules are that your questions include a 100 word description, and your answers are 150 words + an image or video included.
You'll get paid for every question and answer, all you have to do is mark on this spreadsheet the URL that you participated in and you'll get paid at the end of each month.
Spreadsheet link - http://bit.ly/sportsQ
Beyond earning a bit of extra scratch its a good way to interact with each other, talk sports and so on.
So there you have you, Newsletter #9 - As always you can find an archive of the newsletters on del.icio.us here http://delicious.com/Sports_Archive/MSp_News
Have a great weekend everybody, and if you want to send me links to your social accounts, I'll be sure to connect with you on the networks listed above as well as others that you may already frequent.
Very Good News latter. when will you update Newsletter #10 i m waiting for this.