Bloggers Networking on CBC TV Late Summer 2012

Bloggers, internet marketers, social media enthusiasts and people curious about the related topics and about John Chow, the famous A blogger from Vancouver, have been meeting regularly for a weekly lunch meeting for years. Those meetings came to be known as Dot Com Pho. But never before has the mainstream media like TV and radio paid any attention to that. That has changed on April 01, 2012.

CBC TV crew came by to observe what we do at Dot Com Pho and to make a documentary about it. This is not an April Fool’s Day joke. I have a video to prove it.

Why would CBC TV be interested in what local bloggers, internet marketers and social media enthusiasts do around a lunch table eating noodle soup, spring rolls and drinking iced coffe or the house tea? Is there a success story behind it somewhere?

You bet there is. Everybody loves a success story. It’s great that a TV station is paying attention to things other than disasters, crime and horror stories.

The fame and success of John Chow got their attention somehow. As the importance of the internet and social media increases so will the main stream media attention to it. CBC TV is going to run a TV documentary series this summer or late fall about social media.

I have written about the importance of Live Networking and Social Media in several of my posts. For those of you who missed that or ignored it you may want to go and read the posts now. At least read these two: 5 Reasons for Internet Marketing Networking and Social Media Engine Optimization.

When things are on TV it usually means that they are more important than things that don’t make it there. At least that’s how most people perceive it. The masses will certainly pay more attention to what is on TV especially if it’s there often enough.

The coming CBC TV documentary series will be likely an opener for more things to come on the subject.

As far as personalities go the main focus of this coming documentary, the part of it that will be from Vancouver, is John Chow.

The CBC TV crew asked four long timers of Dot Com Pho, those who have known John Chow for the longest time questions about him and how he became successful. To be fair they asked other questions too, having to do mainly with what the interviewees themselves do.

One of the recurring questions was “How would you describe John Chow to your Grandfather or Grandmother?” I personally found it funny. But there were a lot more interesting and deeper questions and no matter which ones will make it into the televised documentary, they will be great to hear and find the answers to by watching the program.

It will be interesting and educational not only for complete strangers but also for all those who have been going to Dot Com Pho lunches all those years or a portion of them and who know John Chow personally like myself. The reason is that those questions or at least some of them were never asked before or even if they were they weren’t answered in such depth.

I found the CBC TV crew very friendly and down to earth. Compared with some big screen movie making people that I had the chance to observe they were refreshingly normal, with no ego of elephant size towering above them.

They were:

Andrew Lavigne behind the camera who also asked some of the questions. Andrew Lavigne is the director and the main guy behind the coming series.

Kemp Edmonds asked a lot of the questions and seemed to be the PR guy.

Ruth (she did the lighting and I never caught the last name) and Jeremy who did something invisible.

The Dot Com Pho people that were interviewed in order of the interviews:

Rainer Schmoll from Thinkreferrals,

Ed Lau, from Ededition,

Michael Kwan, from BeyondtheRhetoric,

Stephen Fung from Futurelooks.

At the urging from our table CBC TV also interviewed Brian, the owner of the restaurant.

We had a normal and fun Dot Com Pho meeting as usual aside from the CBC TV filming crew presence creating a bit of extra excitement.

Watch the video below to see for yourself that CBC TV crew was really there. Andrew Lavigne at the start of the video also outlines the reasons for and the subjects of the coming documentary series.

Now that you’ve watched the video, please do check it out at least the first half of it if you haven’t done so, do me a favor and let me know by leaving a comment about it and the post above.

I’d also like your response to the following question:

If you knew for sure that there is going to be a TV crew filming a meeting for a documentary that will be shown on TV in your state or province and possibly nationwide would you be more likely to attend than if the meeting was to be a private one with just a video from it appearing on YouTube?

I’m very keen to know your answer. Hit the comment section right now and write away.

Have you done it? Great. Now tweet, bookmark, Google+ and Like it on Facebook.

I’ll thank you when I reply to your comment.

One last thing. Learn everything about social media in practice. Check out the most comprehensive course I know of and which I study myself. Click on the banner and take a good look.

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Authored by Vance Sova

Is Google Turning Into Social Engine?

There are subtle and rumored signs as well as obvious signs that Google is rapidly becoming a social engine. It will be the biggest social engine of all when everything falls into place.

If you are involved in or interested in internet marketing, it’s important for you to read on. If you haven’t read my post Social Engine Optimization-Social Media Search Engine Optimization-SMEO do so now. Then come back here to read about the obvious signs, the subtle and rumored signs of Google going social and get a few tips on internet marketing interaction and a hot Facebook and Google+ course.

Obvious Signs of Google Turning Social

The obvious signs are both fairly old – YouTube and fairly new – Google+. YouTube and Google+ are social platforms. While YouTube has been around for years it has recently started changing it’s look and tens of millions of dollars are going into making it even more social and interconnected with other social media sites. Google+ is still very new but it has already forced Facebook to be more proactive and even a little bit more pro business.

Subtle, Rumored Signs of Google Going Social

The internal and hidden workings of Google have always been kept secret and mysterious and perhaps rightly so. Things like the algorithm keep on changing to make it virtually impossible to fool the system.

But smart people don’t want to fool Google. Smart people want to do what works.

What works is sticking to the rules, honesty, good content and increasingly, this is the rumored part, interaction.

It seems that Google is now placing a lot more value on your interaction with your readers. In the past it had some value in Google’s eyes and it usually meant comments on your site or blog.

The value of comments is now much higher but that’s not all.

It appears that Google now also values highly your interaction through social media like Google+, YouTube and Facebook as they are connected to your site or blog.

Nobody is going to be able to conclusively prove this unless Google goes out of their way and makes a statement confirming it. They may never do that.

When you look at the signs mentioned above and how Google is in the process of integrating things like Google+ and YouTube with it’s new design into the mix you can’t but conclude that things are getting more social.

Update January 11, 2012: Yesterday a blog post appeared on Google’s blog that is announcing Google Search Plus. That is as obvious a sign of Google going social as you can get. It’s now even more important for you to keep on reading and clicking on one of the links that mention Facebook course or Google+ course or Social Media Course or anything similar.

Internet Marketing Interaction Tips

Engaging your readers and your audience has always been a good idea and it has always worked.

Now there are more ways of doing it than ever before.

Comments on your blog are very important and will always be. Don’t let anybody convince you otherwise. The importance of comments is growing steadily. One tip about comments that many ignore is that in order to interact through comments you need to reply to comments your readers post and keep the conversation going.

Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Twitter and other social media interaction is getting more important and valuable each day now.

Have you been resisting using Google+, Facebook etc. ?

If you use them, do you know how to use them fully, taking advantage of everything they can do for you?

I couldn’t believe it when I read a comment somewhere in which a person was astonished that there are actually courses on Facebook and Google+. To them chit chatting needs no instruction.

There’s a lot more that can be done with social media than chit chatting, of course.

Is every possible way of using them for your business, whether you are an internet marketer or a conventional brick and mortar operation, clear to you?

Unless you’ve devoted a lot of your time to figuring everything out for yourself and keep at it to stay up to date, it’s very unlikely that you know how to use Facebook, Google+ and other social media to their maximum potential.

This is why courses are popping up all the time, especially on Facebook, fan pages and so on.

People need help to be able to use them quickly, properly and fully for their businesses.  Most of these courses are helpful but I find that they are usually leaving out some important  things and sometimes too many. Most of the courses aren’t being updated and often are obsolete as soon as they come out.

There is one course on Facebook and Google+ that is complete and ongoing with constant updates. This course covers Facebook completely and Google+ increasingly. I’m taking the course myself and I’m recommending it to everybody. It’s the best  Facebook and Google+ course that I’ve seen so far.

Click on any of the two links just above or click here to check it out.

Are you currently taking a social media course or thinking about doing so?

What’s your opinion about Google turning into a social media engine?

Respond in the comments section and then like this post on Facebook, Google+ it and tweet the post to share it with others. Be social media and social engine friendly.

P.S. I’ve used a different text spacing for the Internet Marketing Interaction Tips part of the post. You are kindly requested to comment about which spacing you prefer after you answer the questions above. Does the larger spacing make it so much easier for you to read the text that you don’t mind having to do the extra scrolling? I listen, read and pay attention to what my readers prefer to see on my blog so please make your preference known.

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Authored by Vance Sova

Which internet browser should you use in general and for internet marketing in particular? Using the best browser available can make a difference in productivity.

Chrome versus Firefox-the Browser Wars

Until not so long ago most people involved in internet marketing in one form or another, including those learning it, were predominantly using the Firefox browser.

It was heavily recommended in different internet gurus courses and it was an undisputed winner.

It worked very well and had a large number of useful plug ins available for it.

When the Chrome came on the scene it seemed like most people didn’t pay that much attention to it at first. I certainly didn’t pay too much attention even though I downloaded and installed it in order to have an idea of what it was like.

But I continued using Firefox most of the time and exclusively for posting new posts on my blog.

Then one day when I was writing a blog post and adding videos to it something strange and weird happened. Without me doing anything to cause it the browser bar from the top of Firefox appeared inside of my new blog post and I couldn’t get rid of it without deleting the whole post. I tried several times to do everything else but the bar kept on reappearing.

So finally I  tried using the Chrome browser, for the first time, to write a post on my blog and it went smoothly. No unwanted bar appeared and my trust in Chrome started growing just as my trust in Firefox was shaken.

As many of you may know a few weeks ago the Google Bar stopped working on Firefox browser because Google won’t support it anymore there.

It looks like a browser war to me. It may or may not be but the fact is that Firefox’s appeal will suffer because of it.

If I were a lone internet marketer who does no live networking I’d be crushed by events like this.

How Live Internet Marketing Networking Helps 

Luckily, doing a lot of live internet marketing networking with local bloggers and marketers I’m able to handle things much better.

You can find out more about the importance of live internet marketing networking in the many posts I wrote about it on this blog starting with 5 Reasons For IM Networking and Meeting People Live.

Another good post to read is Internet Marketing Event Networking that even includes a short interview I did with one of the best known and most successful internet marketers in the UK, Lee McIntyre.

Choosing the Best Internet Marketing Tools is Easier When Discussed Live

As you will see in the video below, it helps to be able to discuss things with fellow marketers. Choosing a browser, for example, is easier when you talk to others and hear what their experience with different browsers is.

Since that discussion shown in the video above, Firefox 4 is no longer the newest version. The browser is already several versions up at Firefox 7.  Update January 11, 2012: Today I updated to Firefox 9.0.1 after strong and repeated urging from them. As usual something is not working as well as it did in the previous version, in my case it was Firefox 8 (one version up from when I first wrote this post). With the newest version, Firefox 9.0.1 the icons in my bookmarks are not showing. Basic stuff. It makes me wonder why they don’t check things are working before pushing it down people’s throats. Update February 12, 2012: I updated to Firefox 10.0.1. The bookmarks icons now show again.

Update March 09, 2012: I have found a flaw or a bug with Chrome for Mac (I don’t use one for Windows), Firefox for Windows and all major browsers for both systems with the exception of Firefox for Mac. What’s the flaw? When you go to YouTube, the new design that everyone started to be changed to as of March 07, 2012 and click on the Most Popular Videos tab instead of seeing the page with most popular videos you will still see the videos page as before except that the number of uploaded videos will be 37. This number 37 shows on every channel regardless of how many videos they uploaded. I have 352 uploaded videos right now for example. The only browser that works when you click on the Most Popular Videos tab is Firefox for Mac. If you use Chrome for Windows please let me know if it works or not. This may not be just a browser problem but since Firefox for Mac works it is at least partly a Chrome for Mac browser imperfection. Other browsers have the same issue. I wonder how long it will take for YouTube and Google to fix the problem. I did send them a bug report early morning March 08, 2012.

Update March 15, 2012: YouTube and Google have fixed the flaw or bug described in March 09 update above. It’s fixed not only for Chrome but for the other browsers as well. It took them a week. Good job.

The above updates just show that no browser is 100 % perfect. A browser may be perfect temporarily until the next issue with it comes up.

Changing versions so frequently is one of the things that I personally don’t like about Firefox. Sometimes the plug ins stop working when you install the newest version.

And when you happen to have an older computer that doesn’t support the newer Firefox version they keep on bugging you to install it anyway for months or even years.

You may be interested to know that John Chow for example doesn’t use Firefox browser at all anymore.

How about you?

What is your favorite browser, is it Firefox or Chrome? Is there a browser other than the two mentioned that you prefer?

Please comment on these things in the comments section and then tweet and bookmark this post to engage others.

How are you doing with social media like Facebook and Google+ ?

You may want to check out my favorite course on Facebook which also has a section on Google+ . All materials are continually being updated as things change so there’s no need to worry that things will become obsolete.

So do check it out.

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Authored by Vance Sova