Tag Archives: IZEA Insiders

Photo-A-Day

On a Train Bound for Nowhere

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On a Train (Yacht) Bound for Nowhere
Photo-A-Day #1584

Today was the 1st day of Affiliate Summit East. I started off at 5:30am with a quick shower and change and kissed and hugged Allison and I was on my way to the Providence Amtrak Station. I decided that travel by rail was better than driving down from home. I was right, On the train I had time to sit and watch a couple of episodes of Wine Library TV with Gary Vaynerchuk. I didn’t get to meet him tonight, dang, someday Gary we are gonna chat about the He-Man characters and other 80s stuff you bring out from time to time on your show. Getting into the station is not as easy as the directions lead you to believe. The directions take you to the front of the building, which is fine if you are dropping someone off but if you are parking in the garage – $8.55 max per day, information I could find NOWHERE online so I’m sharing with you. you have to go past the building loop around by the Roger Williams National Park. Good thing for the Roger Williams Paddle Trail and Ten Mile River Watershed Council. And then come back up the 1st street you come to. Then you park down in the parking garage. From there it is upstairs, scan your receipt get your tickets and wait till the train comes.

Trains are so much better than airplanes. Oh my God they are! The only problems I saw were that since you can just get on a train anywhere except for the 1st car (unless you are in business class) it is hard to know what seats are reserved and which ones aren’t. Well, I guess it isn’t too hard since there are little pink tickets that the conductors put above the seats. However, I failed to see them and the conductor made me go to the next car. I passed a person sleeping and who was sitting in backwards facing seats. I took the seat right behind them. Big mistake. That person woke up and proceeded to talk at the loudest volume on their cell phone, which kept cutting out. One young woman asked the person to please talk louder and that person said, “You better not be talking to me.” This was someone who was not going to let the conventions of modern polite society dictate anything that they did. So I sacrificed some of my hearing and just turned up my ipod. When Jimmy Buffett didn’t help lighten my mood I went the other way and listened to some angry hair band stuff. It wasn’t until that person asked the conductor what time it was and the conductor said, as the person asked again, “I heard you sir.” The person then said, “Maam!” It was then I realized that this “guy” behind me was actually a woman. A woman that would make Mike Tyson cry. So other than the constant running commentary about people using the bathroom and not being able to lock the doors correctly and the speakerphone shouting conversation for 2 hours of the ride the train was still better than flying.

When I got into Penn Station I hopped on the subway and was going to make a series of complicated connections but instead went to the next station went up to the street and walked to the hotel. Today was Dominican Day in New York and it happened that the parade route was straight up the avenue of the Americas, the same street as my hotel. So after a few detours and police roadblocks I made it to the hotel and up to check in for Affiliate Summit. The first person I saw was Brett Bumeter, also an IZEA Insider. Brett showed me where to go and I got registered and my badge and swag bag. Inside the swag bag was Chris Brogan‘s Book Trust Agents, some Verve! Energy Drink, a copy of Feed Front and a $100 coupon for new advertisers to use Sponsored Tweets as wells as SocialSpark. So, some good stuff!

I couldn’t get into my room yet and I wasn’t going to drag my suitcase through the meet market so I settled in for my 1st session which was Dynamic Shopping – Content, Conversion Analytics. I wanted to go to Getting Noticed Fast but was running late so I settled for this one. I didn’t get much out of it. But it gave me a place to relax, drop my suitcase and stop sweating from my walk across town. I have to say the panel was all over the place and no one really gives you much info. You have to buy their systems for that. No thanks, not that interesting. Brett was in that one and we sat together. After the session was over he left and I took his seat to power up my cell phone. I tweeted like a madman on the train – yet another reason it is better than a plane. I also took stock of my swag bag and other stuff. I met a guy named Greg from www.Home123.com. We chatted about IZEA and SocialSpark and I made sure that he knew about his coupon.

Greg sat in on the second session that was Personal Branding 2.0 which was done by Stephanie Agresta (@stephagresta) and Sara Austin (@pop17). The session was a good one but an hour was certainly not enough time to delve into all the topics. I kept saying to myself. The topic they are talking about now, I wrote a blog post about that months ago. Afterward I chatted with Stephanie and told her that I would send her some of those posts. I wrote it on the back of her business card so that I would remember, tweeted to myself and also am writing this now so I had better not forget.

I didn’t stick around for the 3rd session because I was getting a bit tired and I wanted to go relax before heading out on the Valiant Yacht tour with MarketLeverage. Dina Riccobono got me a ticket to get on the yacht so I didn’t have to stow away. I got down to the lobby and hung around until my friend, and fellow IZEA Insider, Heather of BoatingBeautifulBritishColumbia came by with her friend and famous blogger Murray Newlands. We talked and used our Xshots and had a great time hanging in the lobby. Then it was time to go and we made our way out to the limos. MarketLeverage does things in a big way. There was a little wait but things worked out in the end. Heather and Murray took a different limo and I hung out with Brian Hawkins (pingo.com) and his friend Ryan. Brian is the Affiliate Marketing Manager for Pingo and he’s based in Boston. So I think we’re going to have to catch up after this weekend for sure. Brian, Ryan and I chatted about all things IZEA and SocialSpark, Sponsored Tweets and PayPerPost while we waited for our limo. I was getting hungry and I had managed to miss getting something for lunch like a dolt. So I ran across the street to a vendor and got a pretzel and a diet coke. That pretzel tasted so good! The limo for us arrived as I was getting my change, which makes sense because the transportation always comes when you are not sitting there right on top of it, waiting.

As we rode across town I talked with Udi Schlessinger of The Industry Review (The Industry Review). He’s one interesting guy. We had a great conversation that extended on to the boat. We went up tot he front of the boat and chatted, we were joined by Kim Rowley of www.KiMarketing.com and John Daly of Name Connect, LLC. After talking a while I realized that Kim was actually a person who had taken part in my CPC opp on SocialSpark but she was not part of my crew. I blurted, “You’re the Glitch!” Apparently my street team was so large that it threw a strange sort of glitch into SocialSpark that allowed people not on the crew to take opps. We’ve since gotten that fixed. It was fun talking with John and Kim and taking shots of the NY sky. The clouds were awesome. I didn’t take the good camera – why, don’t ask, I’m an idiot and wanted to be more mobile.

I did take many photos with the Xshot though and tried to give out all the business cards in my pocket, I gave out many but not all. The boat ride was a lot of fun and there were so many big name guys on the boat like John Chow, Zac Johnson and Jim Kukral. John was videotaping everything and at one point was in the gallery with Casey Thompson asking her about the dinner and video taping. I only know this because I was passing by the window and saw him in there and took this shot.

John Chow and Casey Thompson

The meal was fantastic and Casey Thompson was such a sweetheart. When we passed by the Statue of Liberty Casey was out at the rail talking to one of the crew about how beautiful it was. I then went into the galley and introduced myself and asked if I could take a photo with Casey. I used my Xshot but forgot to zoom out from the previous shot so we are a little close up in the photo and there is no statue behind us.

Casey Thompson and BenSpark

Later on someone else took a nice shot of the two of us.

Casey Thompson and BenSpark

Casey was really nice and worked so hard. She made some delicious appetizers, main course and great dessert. I gave her one of my cards. Later on a woman that I met, Erin, was saying that she wanted to meet Casey and get her picture taken with her but her camera had died. I was only too happy to help out. Here is how that shot came out. I ended up being handed camera after camera by various people for additional shots. No problem I love helping in that way.

Also on board I was interviewed by Dina Riccobono for MarketLeverage TV. She totally nabbed me on the spot about what Affiliate site was my favorite. I’ve got my love for IZEA which is not really an affiliate site, they do so much more with the sponsored conversations and sponsored tweets, so I went with MarketLeverage as they have been so good to me and my family and there really are some great opportunities with them. So not slight on my IZEA peeps. I love you guys. Dina gave me two shirts that say “I’m On a Yacht!” Affiliate Summit East 2009. That is a take on the Andy Samberg tune, “I’m on a Boat”.

Sadly it was time to dock and head back tot he hotel. Ont he way back I had a lively talk about Transformers, G.I. Joe and the 80’s toys I love with Jim Kukral (thebizwebcoach.com) and Thiago Prado of (whataboutbrazil.com) as well as Udi (we caught back up). Jim challenged me with some great ways to monetize my blog as well as some ideas for podcasts. We’re going to talk more on this. Well, that is it, Affiliate Summit East Day 1 in the can. I’m heading to bed. I’m sure I left some things out and I apologize if I left out any person, I tried to catch everyone. I did try to talk less and listen more but man I was so fired up with all the fun topics and things we were talking about I had to catch myself more than once and ask more questions of the people I was with. Still working on that. Thanks again Dina for getting me on the MarketLeverage Yacht.

BenSpark and Dina Riccobono

Here are the rest of my photos from Day one of Affiliate Summit East.

Blogging

How to Add Your Blog to SocialSpark – Blogger Version

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After writing the How To Add Your Blog to SocialSpark WordPress version and the How To Add Your Blog to SocialSpark Typepad Version I figured that a How To Add Your Blog to SocialSpark Blogger Version was in order. And as I look through the blogs of members of the I’m Not A Famous Blogger Crew I see that many of them use blogger/blogspot. So I hope that this helps out.

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

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 Blogger. Start with signing into your Blogger account. You should default to your Settings Screen. From Settings click Layout.

blogspot_09_00

You are now looking at the layout of your blog. You might be tempted to create an HTML/Javascript gadget and put the ITK and Claim code there. DON’T DO IT! You’re going to have to delve a little deeper. Click Edit HTML.

blogspot_09_01

Now you are in the Edit HTML area. You might be tempted to post your code in the code box right away. Again you have another step. You need to click Expand Widget Templates. That way the complete code of your blog is now in the Edit Template Box.

blogspot_09_02

Your screen will refresh and that lets you know that you’ve Expanded the Widget code and you should now see a check mark in the Expand Widget Code box. Click the scrollbar and scroll to the bottom of your code.

blogspot_09_03

Now you are at the bottom of the code box, paste in the code from SocialSpark directly above the < / body > tag. Then click Save Template.

blogspot_09_04 copy

Now go back to 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.