But when it rains it pours, and things went wrong, right, left, up and down.  June 1st to June 25th was seemingly one long blurry day of rain.  In the midst of it all, I suddenly found people who were local who had been friends since grade school, disappeared when I needed them most, after requesting my help days before and repeatedly pushing a known problem.   Yet my online friends stepped up, some knowing that my grandmother was only a big  drop in a bucket of a bad month, some simply knowing I was hurting.  And am still (there’s a lot unsaid).

Now perhaps you wonder what this has to do with online tools and how to use them.

Simple.

Years ago, people said you can not make real friends online.  Let me say social media has changed that.

Skype brought Kelly Maria Clark of KellyMariaClark.com and Vernon Harleston of TheHighRoad.com

Facebook and Twitter allowed Allison Smith Haley of Allicat.com, Bonnie Green of BonnieGreen.com, Kate Hollifield of CrazyQuiltAcademy.com and Elaine Ireland of ElaineIrelandPsychic.com  to chat, to email and send just this message *Hugs*.  Now if you are not a social media person the * indicates an action rather than saying something.

Text and cell phones kept me in touch with my boyfriend in New Mexico.

My real world broke apart.  My digital world exploded in love.  If you are not using social media then you do not know how many people who share your same heart (interests and personality and such) exist!

And as my world slowly started regaining some normalcy, I realized the #Blog30 had almost completely slipped by me.   25 days had.  So suddenly my head a bit above ground I started reading.

Create Something Buzzworthy by Melanie Kissell was the first that really struck me.  Somewhere in the middle of the month I started Rockstar Education to Website Basics and WordPress Site Creation and it has produced exactly zero sales.  So I am going to promote more, be louder about how much education you get in 3 months.  And now there is even coaching to go with it!

Then I stumbled across Suzie Cheel’s  Does Fear Stop You Growing? and I must say you feel pretty small when you are always afraid to ask for help and when you do people you trust disappear.  Yet unexpected people appeared and that made life better, and conquering fear is what I will have to do promote myself more.

Finally there was Michelle Shaeffer with Don’t Quit Weekend Inspiration by the time I read her blog…  I was in tears. (Sorry Michelle I just exploded in emotions on your comments)

It would have been easy to quit the blog challenge, to give my internet business, to lose faith, but that means giving up my dream.

I am a writer.

I am an author.

I have instructional guides that help beginners and are explained in detail without talking down, because YOU are worth it.  You are amazing. How do I know?  I was abused.  I have allowed people to tell me I am not worth it or worthy of good things.  And I know the garbage and dirt of life has denied the world of your beautiful light.

Thank you to all of you friends who touched my heart when your hands could not.

~ MJ Schrader

PS.  Get my WordPress coaching program.  It’s worth every cent.

Yes…

it is.

So today I was debating what to post about, and then I saw the following tweet from Wendi Friesen of Wendi.com.  You may remember just a few posts back was about Hypnosis and Wendi!

@WendiTV I’ve not tweeted forever. Somehow I lost my desire to tweet. Forgive me? How do I get my FB posts to go to twitter automatically? 

Unfortunately there were several methods to make this work before. Most of them had to do with your Facebook RSS feed. Yes, your Facebook had an RSS feed.   Of course your privacy settings had a lot of control over that as well.

However things have changed.

The RSS feed is gone. Now oddly enough in my research you can in fact read my notifications so you know which of my friends are talking to who and posting pictures… see that here.   No sorry, I am not going to expose my friends. It’s probably bad enough they have to put up with my crazy antics.  While there are in fact a million ways to bring your Twitter feed to Facebook, the same is not true vise versa. However for every rule there is an exception.

FAN PAGE EXCEPTION!

Here on the left you can see Link your Facebook PAGE to Twitter.  Note: “This feature only works with Facebook Pages” so if you have a FanPage then all you need to do is visit http://Facebook.com/twitter. Your fan pages will be listed there.

Currently I have 2 fan pages. One for me LoveRockstar and one for 365 Online Tips, the success and motivation site that Kelly Maria Clark and I run.  (Please take the links as a subtle hint that both sites need more fans )  And each of these is set up to go to a different twitter account.

Now about this RSS feed…

There is a wonderful service call TwitterFeed. Should you find your Facebook RSS feed then you can connect it.

However this actually this works with any RSS you have, so this is pretty good stuff! All you have to do is find your RSS feed. Your blog actually has one. For most blogs this is as simple as adding /feed to the end of your blog. i.e. http://loverockstar.com/blog/feed or http://rockstarguidebooks.com/feed

When your RSS feed gets published then this will go automatically to your twitter. Now if you are wondering what an RSS feed is, it’s basically a page with the first few lines of your latest updates.

Automation!

What is there not to like about that…

Live ♥ Laugh ♥ Love

~ MJ Schrader

PS Tomorrow’s post is going to be a bit out of character for her and at least 3 #Blog30 are going to be mentioned.

PPS Save 25% off my products on this special page.  You have until July 17th!

During Check Out use Coupon Code: PatSpecial610

Now that we have covered some of the major features for users, (see bottom of this post for links) how about the features you probably have heard rumors of and wonder why I did not mention. Unfortunately a couple features I was looking forward to, are in fact developers features.

Are you a code hacker?

Developers features are called that because they are mostly geared towards… well… developers. These require changing codes, a bit of code hacking and having more than a basic knowledge of WordPress.

Multi-Site Feature

Combining WordPress MU with WordPress you now can install WordPress once and create many websites.  This can mean sites for clients or multiple incidents for your own use. All it takes is adding one line of code to the WordPress configuration file and having a server that is strong enough to handle the added load. After adding it you will have a Network tab under your Tools tab.

Individual Author Templates

This is a feature blogs with multiple authors have been wanting. It allows each author on a blog to have their own template. This requires creating new author.php template files, yet one can be created for each author.

Custom Post Types

Sometimes you do no want to use posts or pages for your next WordPress entry. With other content management systems you have other options, but you can add new post types by adding code to the functions.php file. Then you can add as many new types as is necessary. These new post types will appear beneath the comments on your dashboard.

Custom Taxonomies

These are available again by adding some custom code. They can be added beneath one of your new post types to add a different type of tag. One example would be having a post type called books and creating an author taxonomy. Thus different book posts could be assigned to the respective author taxonomy. The new taxonomies will appear beneath the post type to which they are assigned.

What type of codes?

SixRevisions has information about the codes.  Since I have not yet tried these I suggest you visit their site and follow their instructions if you want to add these features.

~ MJ Schrader

One Click Upgrade Plugins

If you have several plugins, you know how often you see the little tab that says upgrades are available. You know the process of upgrading each one. You may even check the bulk actions tab wishing there was a way to upgrade all your plugins in one click. No more, there it is! Check the plugins that need upgrading, look under bulk actions and click upgrade and upgrade up to 15 plugins with one click.

Upgrade Themes

Yes, you can now upgrade themes. WordPress 3.0 will tell you that you have themes that need upgrading. It will create a “child theme” which should save most of your changes to your theme while upgrading the majority of the theme. This is a great feature, because WordPress 3.0 is going to require some major theme upgrades.

Short Links

If you use Twitter or FriendFeed you know using a short link is almost always a requirement. Now underneath your post title you can choose to edit the title, view your post or get shortlink. The link starts with WP.me and then a short code like other services. Currently you can not change the code, but you may be able to soon.

SEE WORDPRESS 3.0 ROCKS!!

~ MJ Schrader

Want 25% off my products?

save 25% off any product this special page.  You have until July 17th!

During Check Out use Coupon Code: PatSpecial610

Menus

Have you ever wished you could just quickly add a new tab to your menu? Now you can!

Not all themes accept the menus option, but this impressive feature will soon be something theme developers will add. If your theme accepts it great, if not you can visit Widgets, Appearance, and drag the Custom Menu to your sidebar. Just visit Appearance then Menus.   What you see on the right side will look similar to what you see below.

Adding to Your Menu

This is impressive. Many of my clients want to link different blogs and websites. With “Custom Links” you type in the web address, called URL, and then add a label for the menu. You can check mark various pages to be added to your menu or scroll down and check the categories you want added.

Change Your Menu

Then over on the right on the new menu you can create a custom name. Click the down arrow beside the menu item and you can change the “Title Attribute” or “Navigation Label.”  You will also notice you remove the item or cancel the change you made.  Drag and drop the menu to rearrange it, even move an item a bit to the right to make it a sub-menu item.

Of course the themes that support this are limited.  You can upload the brand new Twenty Ten theme created by the WordPress staff to use this feature.  You can also add to your sidebar as noted previously.  Either way the ability to create a unique to you menu is absolutely delicious.

~ MJ Schrader

PS.  Tomorrow you can read about other features.  If you want me to go into the features of the new Theme Twenty Ten please comment!  And please comment with your favorite features!

PPS Save 25% off my products?

You can save 25% off any product this special page.  You have until July 17th!

During Check Out use Coupon Code: PatSpecial610

This is final in the Planning the Unexpected series.  Each day is a products, person or service I recommend. Today is the final installment and this one is long, because a lot of people have questions about Hypnosis.  This also features another friend thanks to Unseminar and Pat O’Bryan and that is the lovely and wise Wendi Friesen…

Hypnosis and Online Business Success

Over the past couple of years I have gotten to know Wendi Friesen, a top hypnotist. In talking to her, it is surprising how many myths circulate regarding hypnosis and hypnotists.  The reality is it can actually help you with your online business success.

The Puppet Myth

Hypnosis does not make the mind into a puppet for the hypnotist. You are not going to do something against your nature. The people who jump up and crow like a rooster are people who subconsciously want to be performers.

You are not asleep or unconscious during hypnosis but your focus is completely with the words of the hypnotist or with what is hypnotizing you.   An example would be if you are driving a straight road, a road that seems to go on and on, you may have suffered from road hypnosis. In this state, your mind takes over and drives on autopilot, while another part of your mind is focused on entirely different matters.

A Focus Shift

You are not unconscious, but things that normally require thought do not, because your consciousness is targeted on the hypnosis. Thus when a hypnotist, like Wendi, asks you to raise your arm if you want to succeed, you raise it, seemingly unconsciously, because you want the success and you were focused on her words and not your own actions.

Will it work for me?

If you have an excuse or reason to not succeed, hypnosis will not help you. Conversely if your mind is open and receptive this greatly speeds up the process. An excellent hypnotist, like Wendi Friesen can find words that slip into your subconscious and your mind accepts the words as self-created. True hypnosis success is based on your mind accepting the message as part of you.

Should I try hypnosis?

Wendi Friesen has hypnosis CDs over a wide range of subjects and these are very beneficial for any problem you want to change.  You must be ready and wanting to change, or willing to find the reason you block changes. If you are blocking changes, you need something  like her “The Wall” hypnosis.   I have gone through it 5 times with different results.  Every morning Wendi’s “Wake up happy” CDs wake me up, they encourage me and I feel more confident.  So visit Wendi.com and see what will help you.

Free Website Content With Public Domain!

You need content for websites that you own, which can mean quite a bit of writing. Or your website content can come from a little known free source called public domain. This source of content has been around for a long time but you may not be capitalizing on it.

Public domain information

This is information that is not under a copyright law. Not just limited to actual text, this information may in the form of audio, images, pictures, video and more. All these different forms of media may have expired copyrights or it may never been under any copyright. Without these, it may be in the public domain.

You do need to check to make certain the information is in the public domain and free of copyright restrictions. If it is free of those you can use it as content on your blog or on your website.

Not Just Blogs!

Actually just about anywhere you would use that media format, you can use public domain media. You can easily use videos to create your own video products. You can create an audio book from audio or from an old book. Create membership websites and fill it with information you find on the public domain. Use images for shirts and graphics. You are only limited to your imagination.

Tony Laidig

Anyone who has been to an Unseminar can tell you how Tony Laidig shares incredible and valuable information about Public domain.  I have attended several and talked to him several different times.  He tells you where to find information, what to look for and if it is probably safe to use.

But what is incredible is that he created this Public Domain Toolbar.  What is so great about it, is that there is no remembering what rules apply to this year or that one.  You also can tell the toolbar what information you need and it will find it.   This toolbar can help provide you with more content than you can possibly use in several lifetimes.

Imagine this, almost everything the government gives public access to, is in the public domain.  Any and all media before 1923 is probably in the public domain.  Shakespeare can be yours. Does that make your head spin?

~ MJ Schrader

Save 25% off my products?

In honor of Pat’s Unseminar 8, you can save 25% off any product this special page.  You have until July 17th!

During Check Out use Coupon Code: PatSpecial610

This is seventh in the Planning the Unexpected series.  Each day is a products, person or service I recommend. Please again note that attached links are affiliate links. This helps me make some money to pay for some emergency things during my grandmother’s funeral. Today is about Social Media and features Mari Smith…

Social Media and Your Online Business

While you may not know what social media is, you probably have used it. Many of your friends use it, sometimes on a daily basis. These are the websites that allow people and business to connect to each other on a social basis. Social media has been growing for years and will only continue to grow.

Social Media Sites

Facebook allows families, classmates, friends and businesses to stay connected. Twitter allows for microblogging. This feed can include what is happening in your day, asking for advice, or telling friends where you are, if they want to join you. There is Linked in for business professionals. StumbleUpon which is social bookmarking, this allows you to share sites you like with others. The number of social media sites available is amazing and growing.

Growing Your Websites

People are social. Many people are busy, moving hundreds even thousands of miles is common. Social media allows people to stay close and stay in touch. While this may have started with people, businesses require people to buy. They also realized people like businesses that are friendly. Websites, businesses large and small benefit by joining in this social movement.

Mari Smith

I have followed Mari for quite a while and would love to meet her. It was through her sites and her products I learned how to set my Facebook page, find people I connected with and create a fan page. She has created products and reports that have helped me know what I need for Twitter.

Social Marketing Method

This course is about as complete as you can get. With Social Marketing Method you can learn Facebook and Twitter. Learn how it can help you, what you need to know to maximize your efforts while minimizing your time, in other words socialize smarter! See I have used Mari’s courses and while I have not met her they have helped me tremendously which is why if you want to grow on Facebook, Twitter and other social sites you can not go wrong with her. Plus she has a cool Scottish accent, which is really great for the monthly Q&A sessions with her.

~ MJ Schrader

Save 25% off my products?

In honor of Pat’s Unseminar 8, you can save 25% off any product this special page.  You have until July 17th!

During Check Out use Coupon Code: PatSpecial610

This is sixth in the Planning the Unexpected series.  Each day is a products, person or service I recommend. Please again note that attached links are affiliate links. This helps me make some money to pay for last minute travel and emergency things during my grandmother’s funeral. Today is about Autoresponders  and Aweber…

Stay in Touch with an Email Autoresponder

An email autoresponder is an online service that sends emails to your subscribers. While it is not an actual requirement to being online, it is something that keeps you, your readers, and potential customers connected. The biggest advantage is being able to send an email and earn money.

What can I email them?

As part of your agreement with the email autoresponder company, you agreed to send email subscribers only things related to why they joined. While you may have an email or two that vary over the course of the year the focus needs to be on why they joined.

You can email monthly newsletters, coupons, or special discounts. Many people like to email with tips and advice related to the topic. The big advantage of an email autoresponder is that you can email with each new product or when you find a new product you think they will like. This is how people send emails and make money.

Set Up is Easy

I strongly suggest Aweber. It has one of the highest deliver rates, meaning more of your emails get to subscribers than the others. With the set up wizard you are walked through each step quickly and easily.

Now they have a variety of forms to fit almost any niche and ability to change the colors to fit your needs. They also have an easy cut and paste code that you simply copy from their site and paste it where you want on your website.

This service is low cost and can really help your business, because you can email your readers when my latest products come out, that’s why I have an affiliate program. Ok, when YOUR latest products come out. You can make money by staying in touch and providing your readers with valuable information.

~ MJ Schrader

PS Want to save 25% off my products?

In honor of Pat’s Unseminar 8, you can save 25% off any product this special page.  You have until July 17th!

If you have been to an Unseminar you have heard about Masterminds.  This is a topic very near and dear to Bill Hibbler’s heart.

Just in case you do not know are groups of people who meet together to mastermind, or form meetings of the mind.  The idea is that two or more minds meeting together and working together create a third mind, a mastermind.

What about “Meet and Grow Rich”?

“Meet and Grow Rich” is a book written by two of my friends, Bill Hibbler and Joe Vitale. Using Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” they created this expansion and modernization of the mastermind concept. While Hill had touched on the concept Bill explains the details, advantages and power of masterminds?

Why use “Meet and Grow Rich”?

The book itself explains how to create a group, how to find partners and keep the group growing. Masterminds are a living organism that requires certain things to grow. When the mastermind is fed, it helps your business or personal life or both grow. The group shares information on whatever your problems may be and helps you circumvent them, while you help others with theirs.   You can visit Meet and Grow Rich and learn more about Masterminds and Bill Hibbler.  He’s a great coach.

~ MJ Schrader

PS Want to save 25% off my products?

In honor of Pat’s Unseminar 8, you can save 25% off any product this special page.  You have until July 17th!

During Check Out use Coupon Code: PatSpecial610