Category Archives: Blogging

Blogging

Newlands, Murray Newlands… Famous blogger?

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I consider myself Not a Famous Blogger so when I saw the headline “Newlands, Murray Newlands… Famous blogger?” I thought it might be time to ask this guy some questions. And since he he regularly asks other people questions with his interviews I figured I would turn the tables and ask him his own questions plus a few of my own.

I love reading Murray’s blog- he is as he describes others a super affiliate guru and he comes at online marketing with years of experience and expertise.

BenSpark: Tell me about what you are up to?

Murray Newlands: Murraynewlands.com is a blog about online marketing, from the affiliate side to the green world. I write about a broad range of matters within those spheres. Most of my readers are bloggers, online marketers, affiliates and people trying to change the world. This gets me into everything from carbon offsetting to famous people on twitter and of course my blog competition. I am into Facebook and Twitter- I’m happy to say that this week I hit 26,000 twitter followers and I’m still growing. I also have my own affiliate network called Affiliate Heat.

BenSpark: What was your first experience of social media?

Murray Newlands: I have had websites for a number of years including personal websites that never really went anywhere or were updates. Then in spring of this year I was at Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas and engaged with two people who opened my eyes. (Shawn Collins and Missy Ward put on a great event. I have a lot to thank them for in providing the networking medium to make my career possible, as well as Adtech London ). At the affiliate marketing shows I kept meeting Steve Hall who told me he was a blogger. I did not really know what that meant. I did not know who he was except
a cool guy who I hang out at parties with. I was trying to get
some PR for a company I was working for and asked him about his blog.

He told me it was a blog called Adrants; and (sorry Steve) I had never heard of it. Then he told me he gets over 15,000 visitors (that is the number from my memory) per day- that opened my eyes. Then I meet Heather Smith AKA HeatherinBC, an Izea insider, who told me people pay her to blog about stuff- another revelation! We got on like a house on fire. She has been my mentor. I recently did an interview with Missy Ward who also thinks Heather is great.

BenSpark: What is the biggest tip you would give to a newbie in social media?

Murray Newlands: Lots of bloggers work away in isolation. To be a great blogger you need to know about writing, SEO and marketing. Talking with and working with other bloggers is very motivational, and the blogging community is strong for networking and making new connections.
The key is to get yourself out there.

BenSpark: What do your interviewees do that you wish they wouldn’t?

Murray Newlands: Don’t tell anyone about it. I interview some people who blog about it, put it on Facebook, Twitter it, and let everyone know. If it is a good interview and piece of PR about you then you want the world to know and you want it to rank in search engines. People pay lots of money for great PR. If I have done most of the work then finish the job. Promote it and link to it.

BenSpark: Where do you see growth in the social
media field?

Murray Newlands: Online reputation development and protection is increasingly important as well as personal PR. This can be via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn but blogging with its potential for filling Google searches with either good or negative reviews is being recognised as very important. An example of this is my Clickbooth Review

BenSpark: What do you do to improve the world?

Murray Newlands: I promote green marketing and carbon offsetting to educate online marketers about the possibilities of promoting green products and services to the public.

BenSpark: What is one thing about you that not many people know?

Murray Newlands: I recently bought a Ducatti 900 monster as my first proper motorbike. I had a Vespa before. It is more fuel-efficient than a car for getting around. It is great fun and scares the living daylights out of me all at the same time.

BenSpark: What are your contact details?

Murray Newlands:

BenSpark: What events do you go to?

Murray Newlands: Adtech and Affiliate Summit are the
ones that spring to mind.

BenSpark: How do you prefer to communicate?

Murray Newlands: I actually prefer the phone but Facebook
is a great way to contact me.

BenSpark: Who would you recommend?

  • BenSpark
  • Shawn Collins
  • Missy Ward
  • Joe Tech
  • HeatherinBC
  • Steve Hall
  • Nadeem Azam
  • Jamie Evans
  • Ted Murphy
  • Dina Riccobono
  • Vince Stevenson
  • Eric CB
  • Jeff Valentine and Anthony Hall Adtech
  • Brian Nelson
  • Jim and Jennifer Mansfield
  • Marc Car
  • Samantha Leigh
  • Roland Navarro de Ros
  • Jess Luthi

BenSpark: What is your best blog post ever?

Murray Newlands: I think one of my earlier ones with Shawn
Collins when I asked him about being a member of the secret super affiliate forum on video. He denied being a member of the secret super affiliate forum and walked away.

BenSpark: What are some odd keywords people use to find your blog?

Murray Newlands: Super affiliate guru, Scot Richter, Famous
people on twitter, solar affiliate, ad:tech London and of course secret super affiliate guru.

BenSpark: Pirates or Ninjas?

Murray Newlands: Ninja pirates on a night out partying.

BenSpark: What one thing would be improved by adding Bacon to it?

Murray Newlands: Hum- now you have me thinking about the great smell and taste of bacon. I tend to eat a healthy breakfast but a breakfast late on a Saturday morning consisting of a homemade burger with bacon and a fried egg in it washed down with a pint of beer, makes for a very lazy Saturday afternoon!

BenSpark: What are things people can do for you?

Murray Newlands: Link to murraynewlands.com from the
word newlands. I am big into working with partners so find a way to work together. If you know someone who would be a great interview then let me know or get them to contact me!

When I interview you make the most of it

BenSpark: I would like to thank Murray Newlands for this great interview. Murray invited me to do an incredible interview with him recently and I’m also in the Murray Newlands blog contest as well. Murray is going to do big things.

Blogging

How to Add Your Blog to SocialSpark – WordPress Version

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Many comments that I get from new I’m Not A Famous Blogger Crew Members and non-crew members alike have to do with getting their blogs added to SocialSpark and having them approved. There are a few places to get this information and while the information is sound I don’t think it covers it quite like this little tutorial will. So strap in because this SocialSpark Saturday post is Double Sized (I missed last week so I’m making up for it.)

Adding your Blog to SocialSpark

First off you need to sign into SocialSpark and mouse over the Account tab.

SocialSpark Home Page

Next you will get a drop down menu of options. Choose Manage Blogger Account and Click it.

Manage your Blogger Account

From here you are going to want to click on the Blogs field in the middle of the screen.

Manage your SocialSpark Blogs

This will bring you to a list of your blogs (if you’ve already entered any). There is a link “Add Blog” Click it.

Add a Blog to SocialSpark

Now you are on the add blogs page. There is much to fill out here.

SocialSpark Add a Blog Form

Click Submit at the bottom of the page and that’s it, you have now added your blog.

Are you ready to claim it and submit it for approval…

Sure you Are!

LET’S DO IT!

Claiming your blog

Assuming that you follow my instructions above and you added your blog to the SocialSpark network then you are ready to claim your blog. It is pretty easy to do this.

Get the SocialSpark Code

Take a Look at your blog status. You will most likely see three red X’s. This means that you have not claimed your blog. You can find out more about why you need to claim the blog by clicking the “?” next to Claim Your Blog. This is what you will see when you click the “?” next to Claim Your Blog.

“Before you get your blog approved, we need to verify that you really are the owner. We have not yet verified that you own your site. Click the Get Code button to grab the code, place it on your site either before the closing HEAD tag or somewhere between the BODY tags. Then click Refresh here to run the verification script. Once you’ve claimed the site once, you can remove the claim code (Not ITK) from your site.“

The Second red X means that you have not installed the IZEA Tool Kit (ITK), you’re going to need to do this as well. Why? Here is the explanation that you see when you click the “?” next to Install ITK.

“The IZEA ToolKit (ITK) is a suite of tools that maximizes what you can do in the IZEA Network. After you place a piece of Javascript code on your website, we begin collecting statistics that gives you a RealRank and allows you to use other network features such as PPP Direct and SocialSpark Blog Sponsorships.“

We need to take care of the first two red X’s before we can tackle #3. To do this we are going to have to tackle code. Don’t worry it is not difficult at all. Click the Get Code button. The screen will darken and a new screen will appear with three boxes of code. You should only see three boxes if code is missing from your blog. So the first time you install code you will see a box of missing code that has both of codes from the second and third boxes (So you don’t have to copy and past code from each of the boxes. That would be redundant.). Just install the missing code anywhere between the < body > tags in your blog html code.

Copying Code to Claim your Blog on SocialSpark

This might seem scary to some but it really is not. Working with the code is not that difficult. These instructions are for the self-hosted WordPress platform (honestly you really should have your own domain name and hosting and use WordPress, I cannot stress this enough.). Go to your dashboard of your blog. Click on Editor under Appearance.

My WP dashboard

This brings you to the theme editor where you can edit specific portions of the html of your blog theme. You are most likely looking for the header or footer files. The header has the open BODY tag and the footer has the close BODY tag. The code from SocialSpark needs to go after the open BODY tag and before the close BODY tag. Highlight and copy the code from SocialSpark. Go to your theme and paste this code. Then save the file and return to SocialSpark.

Editng my WP footer

Now you are back on the My Blogs page of SocialSpark and you are going to test to see if the code was added correctly (it had better be if you followed these directions). Start off by clicking the Refresh button. A spider will go out and check your code to see if the claim code is installed. If it is your red X will turn to a green checkmark. Please note that the ITK installed might not go to a green check right away. That is okay, give it a little while and click refresh again.

Checking my claim on SocialSpark

Once your blog status has two green checks like the one below you are ready for the last step. The most important step.

ITK is installed

Submit your Blog for Verification

Once you have claimed your blog and added the IZEA Tool Kit to it you are ready to submit for verification and approval… or are you? Review the qualifications for having an approved blog first. This is from the Terms of Service.

“”Verified Blog”.
A blog that has been Claimed, and also meets these additional requirements:

1. Blogs Only. SocialSpark only accepts blogs, and not websites, message boards, e-mails, IM or other similar services.
2. English or Spanish Only Blogs. The blog and all posts relating to SocialSpark Opportunities must be in the English or Spanish language.
3. Original Blog Content. The blog must contain original editorial content in addition to Opportunity-related or other paid posts. Blogs that exist primarily for payment will not be accepted.
4. Appropriate Content. Blogs submitted to the marketplace may not include or support: excessive profanity, violence, or racial intolerance, illicit drugs or drug paraphernalia, pornography, adult or mature content, or any other content that promotes intolerance, illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others.
5. Minimum Blog Age. Blogs must be live for a minimum of ninety (90) days, counted from the date of the blog’s first post, with at least twenty (20) pre-existing posts written in the 90 days prior to registration with the SocialSpark Marketplace.

SocialSpark will not accept certain blogs and Bloggers as determined by SocialSpark in its sole discretion.”

If your blog fits those qualifications and you are ready to go then it is time to submit your blog for Verification.

To do this you must click the Get Verified link under Blog Status.

Time to submit to verification

That’s it, you do that and you are done, now you wait for Customer Love to check out your blog, a manual process to make sure that quality blogs are approved, and let you know that you are approved to take opps in the system. Your blog status should look like this.

Success on SocialSpark

Now start earning some money!

I am an IZEA Insider and my crew is called the “I’m Not A Famous Blogger” Crew and I want YOU to join me. Here are simple instructions on how exactly you can join my IZEA Insider Crew on SocialSpark.