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A Commercial Moment For Girl Scout Cookies

Well it’s that time of year again; Girl Scouts are out and about selling their cookies. I have personal experience with this because my sisters are in the Girl Scouts and they have a goal.

They each want to sell something like 120 boxes of cookies and we only have so many neighbors. I think it’s silly to try to win a prize like what they want. They have both selected a junky little bag with some brushes and a stuffed elephant! That’s a lot of work for a tooky toy.

But, then I learned the true reason why the girls sell the cookies, it turns out that all the money doesn’t just go to the troop. The troop only gets 50 cents per box and the rest goes to the Girl Scout Council to help poor girls that can’t afford to be in Girl Scouts. The money raised from cookies allows them to join and be part of a group and stay active.

My sisters and the rest of the Girl Scouts all work very hard at selling these cookies, and my Mom is pressuring me to buy some to help them out. This isn’t a big deal to me because I love Girl Scout cookies, and I think you do too. So, when a little girl comes to your door asking if you would like to buy some cookies, keep in mind the girls that they help.

Now, to the top selling cookies on the Girl Scout cookie list. (TOP 5)
1.  Thin Mints
2.  Samoas
3.  Do-Si-Dos
4.  Trefoils
5.  Lemons

What is my personal favorite? I love the lemons!

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Why You Can’t Farm Out Social Networking

You just can’t fake it when it comes to social networking. Sorry, it’s just not something that you can farm out to someone to do for you, you just have to do it yourself.

In fact that is the real value of social networking versus blogging or your website, it is you reacting with other people on a one to one basis. You can’t fake or ghost-do this!

I personally have seen some people actually hire social media coaches – now, there is value in that for novices who have just not gotten with the program to help assure that you have all the “boxes on your ticket checked”. I personally no longer set up Facebook or LinkedIn accounts for clients. I have found simply that it is impossible to speak for them effectively on highly personal issues such as favorite books, personal background and interests.

I love social networking, as I know that it is simply impossible to cheat on the creation of connections, but how you use social networking to your benefit is up to you. If all you do is add one more connection as if it is a numbers game, then you are really missing the absolute best aspect of it, which is to connect personally with other.

For me, I am now speaking to members of the French speaking family I lived with for one year in high school in Brussels on a foreign exchange program on a several times a week basis now versus at Christmas time. That’s just one example of a personal connection that has been reignited with Facebook in this case. Do you have an example you’d want to share about your experience with social networking? Do it now by clicking comments and tell me.

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Outspark’s Fiesta User Game Review

Fiesta is the game sweeping kids around the globe by storm. I interviewed a player to see what all the commotion was about. It seems she couldn’t pick just one feature about the game to be her favorite, but here are some she mentioned. First was that she liked to use it for chat and the second was because she feels it has good graphics. I must say as a gamer, graphics are a big part of liking a game; it’s all about how it looks.

 I asked her why she liked the game for chatting because there are plenty of ways to chat without a game being involved. She said none of her friends liked using AIM or other chat windows. Also her mother doesn’t want her to use them.

Next, I asked her, why do you buy enhancements that last under 30 days? (Mind you she spends real money on this) she answered 30 days is a long time to me and its only $5. Also I asked about marriage because I thought it was funny that characters would want to get married on a game. She said she doesn’t want to get married now, and didn’t say why others did it. All she said was that you have to pay for the marriage as well and the dress costs around $15 real dollars.

I then asked about hair coupons and what they do. She said the coupons are only $5 and they alloy you to change everything about your character’s face and you can even switch sexes. To close it up, I asked if a lot of people curse and what happens when they do, since this is a child’s game. She said there is cursing, but it is all blocked out and she doesn’t see it happen very often.

I hope you find this player review useful and can help you make a decision on whether to let your kids play the game.

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Keeping Tabs on Your Website Placement

Have you looked lately at your website’s organic placement? The majority of my business comes in from our high listing in the organic search results for the majority of our important keyword phrases. I know this and monitor my own website’s placement at a minimum of once a month.

What I have done is researched the popular search phrases that I want to place on. I have then optimized my source code to organically place for these terms. Once a month I review all the terms and update my placement and the placement of key client’s on my search engine results page.

To make it easy to track my results I made a word document with the term and inserted the Google, Yahoo, and MSN returns page address that shows my placement. When I want to do a review, I click the link in the Word document, use Control+F to open the search box and enter my domain, this allows me to count back up to the top of the page to know my own placement immediately. I then log the placement on the same Word document so I have a running tally of where I am. This allows me to identify if my month’s efforts or last page update made a difference up or down.

After I document my placement, I will typically go and tweak my home page or section home page in an effort to improve my own placement for those specific terms.

If you are not tracking your own website placement you should. You should be using your organic placement as a key metric to identify if what you are doing is working for you. A website that doesn’t work for you is not worth your time and money investment.