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20 of the Most Favored Social Media Blog Posts of 2010
Posted Dec 20th, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Blogging, Business, Social Media With | 1 Comment
Here are 20 most read and widely-shared social media blog posts of 2010 on MirnaBard.com. It’s a good time to revisit many of these posts, as they are great reminders when planning for 2011. Please let me know what your favorite one was in the comments below.

Thank you for all my supportive readers. I appreciate you more than you know!
Which one of the 20 was your favorite of 2010?
What Are the Important Differences Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?
Posted Oct 8th, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Blogging With | No Comments

I still see many businesses setting up their blog incorrectly, and one of the biggest mistakes is not hosting their own blog. When it comes to choosing WordPress as the blogging platform, this question is very common. Many companies and individuals still don’t know that WordPress has two options: WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

I’ve been meaning to write a blog post about this topic; however, I discovered that my colleague and WordPress wizard, Jarrett Gucci has an excellent blog post and video that discusses the pros and cons of each option. So why reinvent the wheel, right?

To read the full blog post, please visit Jarrett’s blog.

If you have already set up your blog with WordPress.com, I highly suggest you make the switch. What did you think of Jarrett’s tips?
7 WordPress Plug-ins to Help You Control Content Scraping
Posted May 12th, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Blogging, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) With | 4 Comments

Here are eight WordPress plug-ins that may help you better monitor your blog posts, as promised in yesterday’s blog post 9 Ways to Reduce Scraping and Catch Blog Post.

Simple Feed Copyright Plug-in – This adds a copyright notice at the bottom of feed articles.

©Feed Plug-in – This can add the copyright, a digital fingerprint and/or the IP of the feed reader.

Disclosure Policy Plug-in – This is another plug-in that gives you the option to add a copyright statement, legal disclaimers, and links to related content on your site or content on 3^rd party site.

Ozh’Better Feed Plug-in – This allows you to add a custom footer to RSS items. You can include copyright notices or any other links.

Owen Winkler’s AntiLeech Plug-in – This plug-in will help you create a cloaking. It produces fake content for automated software programs that includes links back to your site and sends it only to them. Reminder from my previous post: you should be very cautious when using cloaking methods so you don’t damage your reputation with search engines.

Feed Footer Plug-in – This is another plug-in that allows you to add footers under all blog posts in RSS feed. You can include copyright notices and even include rotating ads under each post.

Digital Fingerprint Detecting Content Theft Plug-in – This plug-in will place a digital fingerprint into posts, tailored to each individual user. The fingerprint is only visible in the RSS feed, not on the website itself.

To learn more, it is best to visit each plug-in site and choose the most suitable one for your blog. The best way to control scraping is to use a combination of the suggestions I shared on my previous post and a really good plug-in(s) of your choice.

The more difficult you make it for the automated programs, the harder it will be for them to steal your content and republish it.

Already using one of these plug-ins? What has your experience been?
9 Ways to Reduce Scraping and Catch Blog Post Theft
Posted May 11th, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Blogging, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) With | 15 Comments

Content scraping or theft is when original content is stolen from a blog to republish on another blog or site. This is considered to be plagiarism or copyright infringement, but since the Web is not completely regulated yet, scraping has become an extremely common problem. Although, this process can be done manually, normally it is done by automated software programs that allow content to be easily scraped from any blog.

Blog Post Theft

Some people practice scraping to intentionally harm others, but some do not know they are actually creating harm. If the original content is published on other blogs or websites, it can cause duplicate content issues, especially if the copied content out-ranks the original content in the search engines (See my blog post on duplicate content).

I have experienced this problem myself in the last few months, and I have let it slide because I know people who copied my posts meant no harm. Although I appreciate and encourage sharing of content, there are netiquette rules that should be followed (I will cover this topic in a different post). (more…)
Book Review: “Social Media Marketing: Market Your Real Estate & Mortgage Business Using the Power of Social Media”
Posted Mar 15th, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Blogging, Facebook, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter With | 3 Comments

I just finished reading “Social Media Marketing: Market Your Real Estate & Mortgage Business Using the Power of Social Media” eBook written by my good friend Naomi Trower, real estate broker and social media extraordinaire. I met Naomi in 2009 at the LA Twitter Conference, and we’ve kept in touch through Facebook and Twitter (the power of social networking, right?).

Many realtors and brokers have given up on their business in the past several years because of the new economy; and there are still many who continue to struggle but have not quite given up yet. If are a realtor who has not yet jumped into the sea of online opportunities to market your business, I urge you to do so as soon as possible.

Naomi is a perfect example of a broker who decided she was not going to let a slow economy stand in the way of business growth. For the past two years, Naomi has been integrating Internet marketing and social media tactics as part of her overall marketing strategy. She obtains 15-20 new leads per week by applying the same tactics described in her eBook.

I highly recommend this eBook to realtors and brokers who want a simple way to embrace and leverage social media. Naomi shares free or extremely cost-effective step-by-step tactics for Twitter, Facebook, blogging on WordPress, and Active Rain. I think she did a superb job at explaining all the tactics in an easy-to-follow format.

She even gives a sample of her social media schedule, keywords and phrases you can use to find your target audience as well as some fantastic examples of how to strategically word tweets, status updates, and introductions so it doesn’t seem like selling all the time. I especially liked how she personalized the book by sharing her experience with using social media. This shows me that she really walks the talk. Thank you for an excellent eBook Naomi!

I am not going to give away any of her secrets and tips, you will just have to buy the eBook and see for yourself. Click here to purchase the eBook and learn more about Naomi Trower. And, don’t forget to leave her a review after you read the book! This will be good social media practice for you (wink wink).

BTW, I loved the eBook so much that I will be recommending it and using Naomi as a case study in a keynote presentation I am giving to 300+ real estate professionals at the NAHREP event on March 25!

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