This is a guest post by Ben Johnson.

Becoming a thought leader in an industry requires expert level knowledge and vision, accompanied with the ability to communicate and align with relevant people. Social media provides that platform and power to reach out to people online and create a powerful and long lasting personal brand. Personal branding is no different than product branding, but this time it’s you who needs to be differentiated.

Developing a brand over social media is a step-by-step non-linear process and it will take some time before you start seeing the results. Remember, creating a personal brand is directly proportional to creating value for other people.

The Power of Blogging

Let’s first start with blogging. Blogging do it consistently and add value. Blogging provides tangible evidence of your expertise and achievements. Before starting a blog, setup all the on-page stuff. Firstly, buy user-friendly, easy-to remember, and content appropriate domain name, and then create blog theme according to your area of expertise and target audience. Meanwhile, set everything else like “About us” page with your personal and professional information, easy to use comments box, RSS subscription etc. Make sure that your blog is well-build for search engines.

Don’t forget to update your blog with quality and relevant content regularly to make your readers keep coming back. A strong, well written content can be the headstone of a great online identity, which in turn is a key element of a great personal brand.

Get Listed To Increase Online Presence

On the other hand, you need to increase your online presence. Therefore, register your blog with the available blog and web directories, claim with Technorati.com, and use Google Reader to store your searches. This way your blog will be easily indexed in search engines. Check regularly who is linking back to you through Yahoo! Site Explorer. Also commenting on other blogs within your area of expertise would certainly help in building connections with the experts.

Brand Extension With Social Media

Besides blogging, to further extend you personal brand, creating accounts on other social networks and media platforms help a lot. Like, Twitter, it connects you to other social media practitioners. Facebook and MySpace could be used for outpost and to stay in touch with friends, and find new ones, LinkedIn for professional networking, which helps in exploring business opportunities and getting advices from experts no matter where you are, Flicker for photo sharing, YouTube for video, Digg and StumbleUpon for voting, Upcoming.org for events updates, and Gmail for docs, readers and more. Creating accounts on all these would certainly give you jump recognition on social media. In addition, creating groups on social networking platforms give you an easy mechanism for communicating with lots of people in one go.

Time To Build Networks

After all the efforts, it’s time to start networking aggressively. Interact with people, allow them to reach you easily, thank community often for their time and attention, ask questions for expert advices, share knowledge based articles with your contacts and if you have mistakenly done something wrong, apologize immediately. Doing all these community building efforts grow you out as a natural extension.

Remember…

The concept of personal branding is closely associated to that of leadership and at the heart of its passion. There is much more you can do to standout and become a brand. Remember, Online personal branding using social media is depended on creating quality relationships. Try to look for ways to help those who are best placed to help you, they’ll be more inclined to help you, and if you need to call on them they’ll remember who you are.

This is guest post from Ben Johnson of Logoinn, custom logo design service provider based in UK.

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Last week, I wrote a blog post titled 5 Reasons Why I Won’t Read Your Joint Venture Proposal and it received tons of buzz. Now that you know the do’s and dont’s of writing JV proposals, here are some top tips on how to increase your chance of getting a YES. It’s the exact same tactics I used to get over 100 JV partners and launched my book to #1 on Amazon last year:

1. Set Up A “Salesletter” For Your Progam

Just like you have a salesletter for your product where you talk about the features, benefits, why you should buy etc, the same applies for JV partners. You’ve got to SELL your affiliate program/JV opportunity – what the product is about, what benefits will they get (commissions etc), how do they sign up etc.

2. Know Your Conversion Rates

You HAVE to test your salesletter beforehand. JV partners will want to know your stats so they know that your salesletter actually converts in the first place. Otherwise they’ll just be wasting their time and resources.

3. Offer A Large Commission

You just have to do a little more than the rest of your competitors to stand out from the crowd. Usually, for digital products, the commission rate is 50%. Why not do more than what’s expected and offer 75%? Or even 100%? In fact, for my eMillions book launch, I offered 100% commission. Yes I gave away all my profits because I know the money is made in the backend.

4. Make It Easy

Don’t let them do all the work, do the work for them. Give them all the ready-made tools such as email copy etc (to some extent even custom-build those promo tools). Put the affiliate link in the email promos for them (so not something like “Replace XXXX with your affiliate link”).

5. Leverage Results

You just need that ONE partner to get everything started. So leverage it by saying something like “Bob promoted it to a list of X number of people and made Y amount” or “So and so is already onboard” (creates social proof). It’s the snow ball effect.

Do you have any joint venture tips? Leave it in the comments section

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This is a guest post by Tiffany Davis.

If you take a look at all the young entrepreneurs who have made it to the list of rich and famous, you’ll find that they’ve mostly made their money online, through applications and programs for the Internet. Their success has spurred on others to take up the challenge and see if they can be the next Mark Zuckerburg (Facebook) or Chad Hurley (YouTube).

But not everyone has it in them to be an entrepreneur, even though they may be brilliant geniuses [Stan's Note: I do not agree with this comment] What it does take to be an entrepreneur is:

Guts

When you aspire to become an entrepreneur straight out of college or before you’ve left your twenties, when you’re ready to go it alone without seeking the safety net of a regular job and a month to month salary, you need to be courageous and gutsy. You can achieve success only if you’re confidence level is high and if you’re relatively sure of your capability, come what may.

Fearlessness

You need to be willing to take the necessary risks that are a part and parcel of any business venture. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you’re hesitant about taking a large leap based on your intuition, you’re going to lose out on opportunities. You also need to be ready to deal with failure, because as clichéd as it sounds, failure is indeed a stepping stone to success. You can learn much from your failures if you treat each one as a new experience that allows you to prevent the mistakes you made in the past.

Caution

Even when you take risks on one hand, you need to tread with caution on the other depending on the situation and people involved. The best way to do both is to learn to read situations and people and then trust your instincts to tell you the best way to go.

Money

If you have your own money as seed capital, well and good. If you don’t, you need to arrange enough to cover your start-up costs. You may be working out of a single room, but your experiments and market research will cost you money.

Business Acumen

I’ve listed this last, but it is by no means the least important of the list. It’s not enough that you’re a genius who has the best ideas there are in the business, you need to know how the business end of the deal works. If it’s not in your blood, hire someone or join forces with a friend who complements your genius with their business acumen.

Any business venture needs great ideas and a whole lot of persistence and dedication in order to succeed. If you think you have it in you to be an entrepreneur, go ahead and try your luck. After all, how will you know if you’re good at it if you don’t even try?

This post was contributed by Tiffany Davis, who writes about top online college courses. She welcomes your feedback at TiffanyMDavis82 at gmail.com

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Alright, you asked us the questions, we’ll provide you with the answers!

Tess asks:

Hello,

I have a question. Which Wordpress Theme is this website using? I think it’s great!

Stanley: Previously, we were using a modified version of John Cow’s Milk It Premium Theme. The new theme that you’re seeing right now is a heavily customized version of the DarkZen theme.

Paulubiadas asks:

Aside from Commission Junction, what other affiliate network doesn’t need a need a call from the network to get your account approve.

I don’t have a telephone!

Stanley: Out the top of my head – Clickbank, PayDotCom. Also, like the others replied, Linkshare and Moreniche.

Tom – Free Blogging Success Ebook asks:

What is your favourite way to generate traffic to your blogs?

Stanley: Creating good content that people will naturally share and bloggers will naturally link to.

Josh: Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook have a huge potential traffic for your site, if utilized well.

Gloson asks:

How much traffic does The University Kid receive daily?

Stanley: 500-1000 unique visitors per day.

Nicole Price asks:

How much time per day do you devote to blogging?

Stanley: About 1 hour per day, while maintaining the site is a 24/7 job I spend most of my time running my internet business (blogging is just a small portion)

Michael Gaudet asks:

What auto-responder do you use at TUK to alert subscribers to every new post?

Stanley: Google Feedburner. I’ve also launched the TUK newsletter which will also alert subscribers when a new blog post is submitted. I use GetResponse for that (the best autoresponder service in the industry)

The Almost Millionaire asks:

Why do you not use adsense to generate revenue from this blog? It seems like with such good traffic and readership, it would do well?

Josh: A Direct Advertising solution is better than a CPC Advertising Network as there is no middle-man (i.e. Google), which means more revenue. This also enables us to have direct communications with the advertiser (e.g. about Price Negotiations, Ad Placements), something we can’t do with Google AdSense.

Stanley: Because you don’t make jack with Google Adsense. Just going to be a waste of real estate on the site. It’s way more profitable when you sell direct ads.

Ethan asks:

Now feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that TUK is a driven by social traffic, rather than search engine traffic – rending a contextual advertising service like adsense, almost useless.

Stanley: You are wrong about the social traffic. TUK is mainly driven by direct visits (i.e. people typing in the URL in their address bar). Second is Google. Third is Twitter. But you are right about that Adsense is almost useless for sites like TUK.

A asks:

Why do you think there are so few female internet entrepreneurs (compared to males)

When’s ProdigyMagic gonna launch? (it says april 2009!)

oh one more, where do you see the Internet going in the next 5 years?
Do you think it’s getting oversaturated, or just beginning its potential?

lots of questions

darn questions just keep coming to me

Question for both of you: What are some other good business books you recommend? (you mentioned the Rich Dad/Poor Dad series, the Four Hour Work Week)

Some I’ve liked are Freakonomics, Predictably Irrational; working through Microtrends right now. Always looking for good reads

Stanley: That’s a lot of questions Let’s take it one by one:

I have no idea why there are so few female entrepreneurs. Maybe it’s because of our culture – guys tend to be more geeky and tech-savy than girls. They are probably more into shopping. That’s just my guess.

ProdigyMagic.com will be launching soon. It’s been postponed because we (my business partner and I for ProdigyMagic – no it’s not Josh) decided that we wanted to do something else that is related to charity. Plus, we’ve both been overloaded with exams after exams.

The internet will continue to grow – exponentially. It’s nowhere near saturation and nowhere near it’s full potential. It’s only in its infancy and there are way endless platforms that have yet to be explored (semantic web, mobile apps etc) Especially in China, where internet penetration rate is only 22% (compared to 80% for USA) so there’s a huge room for growth.

Good books to read: A great one I just finished reading a few weeks ago was Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good (if you’re into web 2.0 startups). I also love reading Donald Trump and Seth Godin’s books – I suggest each and one of their books are worth it (except for Trump’s How To Think Like A Billionaire - that was his only rubbish). The Irresistible Offer by Mark Joyner and ProBlogger by Darren Rowse are also pretty good. I’ve also heard good stuff about Joel Comm’s latest book Twitter Power (haven’t read it yet) although based on past records Joel’s stuff always rock. And of course, eMillions

Huggies Diaper Coupons asks:

When first starting out in trying to make money online do you think it’s better to start with 1 site and try and make it grow and then profit big from it or start with many small niche focused sites and make smaller profits from each one.

Thanks,
Steve

Stanley: If this was 2006, I would have told you to build 100 small niche sites with each making $10 per month, netting you $1,000. But things have changed – a lot. Now, I would say focus on one and build it BIG from there. Pick a niche that you’re passionate about, that’s not too broad (that your blog looses focus) or too narrow (that your blog has no room to grow).

Melvin asks:

well my friend, do you have any plans of changing the theme here? if yes then when probably and what are the type of themes you are looking at?

Stanley: We just did a few days ago

Jonas asks:

How do you sell your Direct Advertising Spots? What is the program used and how can I do the same?

Josh: We use a WordPress PlugIn called OIOPublisher. This plugin handles all your advertising buying and selling proceses, so that you can focus on what you need to do – blogging. The only thing you have to do is approve the advert. The script can be installed on an unlimited number of domains and also works with PayPal subscription.

OIOPublisher usually costs $47, but for The University Kid readers, you can use the following code: INDIGO-UNIKID to get a discount of $10 off. You can easily make that money back with your first ad sale.

Jos asks:

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Welcome to The University Kid – Version 2.0!

I’ve made a complete revamp from complete scratch to give it a much cleaner look. Some of the things I kept are the logo and the orange color to keep it’s brand. For those of you asking, the theme I’m using here is a heavily-customized version of DarkZen, which you can download for free at DailyBlogTips.

Please do take some time to check the new theme out and let me know what you think. I’m still making small tweaks here and would appreciate your feedbacks (good and bad – preferably the latter so I can actually make changes ) The theme has been tested on Firefox, Safari, Chrome, IE8 and IE7. If you’re using IE6 (which it looks totally screwed up on)… well go get Firefox!

Here are just a few highlights:

New Theme With A Cleaner Look

We gotta admit, the old theme was getting… well very old and the site desperately needed a new cleaner look with a modern feel to it. I’m currently thinking about whether or not to give it a more of a “magazine” look by having a landing style front page (just like ProBlogger, JohnChow). Let me know what’s your view on that.

Easier To Subscribe

I’ve pimped up the subscription box to give it a better user-interface. You can see the difference above. One of the ways to boost the number of RSS subscribers is simply to make it easier for people to subscribe! I got rid of the email optin box for the RSS feed and a newsletter will replace that instead (see below). I’ve added an extra option for people to subscribe via Twitter as it’s getting more and more popular.

TUK Newsletter & Exclusive Ebook!

And finally… it’s been coming – the launch of The University Kid Newsletter! This is where you’ll get exclusive TUK content not available on this blog such as interviews, how-to guides, tips & tricks, cutting edge techniques and more! I’ll also be sending out weekly blog post updates, promotions and product recommendations that will help you make money online

Plus…

As an incentive, I’ll be throwing in a free digital copy to my #1 best selling print book eMillions: Behind-The-Scenes Stories of 14 Successful Internet Millionaires – yes the exact same book which hit #1 on Amazon in FOUR different categories last year. In this whopping 260-page book, you get to listen to the world’s most successful internet marketers revealing their rags-to-riches journeys to becoming internet millionaires – straight from the horse’s mouth!

I’m talking about stories like:

• How a college filmmaker from Florida turned an “experiment” into a $248 million blockbuster through the power of viral marketing (guess which movie was that?)
• How a former U.S. Army Officer turned a one-man operation into a multi-million dollar international corporation with customers in every Internet-connected country on the planet
• How a 17 year-old kid with $70 in hand built a $3 million Internet company from the ground up teaching people how to play piano by ear

Plus interviews from people like Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker, Mark Joyner, Michel Fortin, Yanik Silver, Joel Christopher etc. You might recognize few of these names

Anyways, enough about the product. The bottom line is you’re getting this all for FREE. I’ve never done this before… that’s because I truly wanted to overdeliver and do more than what’s expected. The key to becoming successful is to provide VALUE.

To get your free copy, just enter your first name and primary email address below to sign up to the TUK newsletter. An email will be sent to you to confirm, after which a copy of your ebook will be sent to you in seconds.

* Your information will NEVER be shared

For those of you asking, the autoresponder I’m using is GetResponse which is the best one out there in my opinion (been using it for nearly three years now) and has been responsible for probably 80% of my internet business. I highly suggest you to go check it out

UPDATE: I messed up the autoresponder big time. I forgot to remove the split-testing code so you were directed to the eMillions squeeze page instead of the download link. Thanks for everybody who emailed me letting me know the problem. It’s been fixed now

Stats Updates

Also, I just wanna update you on the blog itself. It’s been just been a little over a month since the purchase of this blog. So what are the stats like after the takeover? So far so good:

• Revenue - $463. Mostly coming from direct advertising and affiliate sales. That’s 15% already returned on my $3,000 investment. Not bad for one month
• Subscribers - 1,290 subscribers. That’s 90 new RSS subscribers (I know it’s not a lot but not a bad start). Like I said, I’ll be launching a TUK newsletter shortly by giving away free digital version to my #1 best-selling book eMillions.
• Twitter - 9,350 followers. This is something new I’ve added to TUK. No dout social media is getting big and that’s going to be something that I’ll be focusing on a lot in the coming years
• Traffic – 11,400 unique visitors and just *slightly* over 100,000 pageviews… all in 40 days! Considering I haven’t done any major promotions, contests, campaigns etc that’s a pretty decent start.

Looking For Advertisers

I’m opening up to direct ads once again for the blog. My main focus over the past month has been on delivering value as opposed to making money. If anybody is interested in advertising on this blog, contact me here. The rates are still the same – $30 per month for 125*125 and $60 per month for 468*60. I’ve raised the price for sponsored reviews and paid plugs significantly because I wanted to decrease the number of those kind of posts and provide more content posts with great value.

Let me know what you think of the new design. I’m still testing out the design and making changes along the way. If you spot any errors or want to suggest ideas, please let me know.

No bais but I think the person who customized the theme did a brilliant job

P.S. I’m still taking questions for the Q&A so if you’ve got any please fire them away. I will be answering them next week.

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