Showing posts with label squidoo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label squidoo. Show all posts

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

Social Networking and Blogging with Squidoo

If you are not familiar with Squidoo and its unique style of social networking and blogging then you should seriously pop over and give it a try.

If you don't know much about Squidoo its a way that you can blog, photo blog, make money blogging and social network all at the same time.

I was recently awarded Giant Squid status. The minimum requirement for this is to create 50 so called 'lenses'. Lenses are a general template that you populate with pre-created modules (think of them as mini templates)You select from a wide range of types. The squidoo modules allow you to post your own written content, photos,videos,run polls, and integrate things such as Amazon, eBay and Zazzle. You can also link to Twitter, Flikr and bring in RSS feeds.

Lenses are themed on topic of interest. For example I've built ones on a wide range of themes like my genealogy and family history lens The Border Reivers, and I've created lenses on quirky themes such as How to open a champagne bottle using a sword another on Disguise Camouflage Deception and Mimicry business themes such as Marketing Ethics and Criticism, and other business themes such as Leadership, and ways to achieve Competitive Advantage.

A full list of my lenses can be found in what the Squidoo social networking community call a Lensography.

When I first started on Squidoo I only had a couple of lenses for many months. Then I was contacted by Michelle Willow to join a social networking group of Squidoo users who share tips and encouragement to go for Giant Squid status. I was drafted into a sub group led by Free Lance writer Carol Fisher, who was a great help in offering content and design advice.

As you learn more about Squidoo and the people and relationships in the Squidoo social networking community you discover that it is supported by a huge range of resources, it has its own forums and specialised squidoo lenses and there is a constant and vibrant technical development programme that adds and refines lens and module features.

Where did the idea originate from? Squidoo was the brainchild of Seth Godin, you can learn more the background to Squidoo here.What is Squidoo.

I really enjoy Squidoo. It is good way to do social networking, its a complementary form of blogging, it allows you to share knowledge and know how, and to photo blog as well. My next task is to create 100 lenses.

Wednesday, 14 January 2009

Building A Squidoo Lens Portfolio

I've been spending more time recently developing my Squidoo lens portfolio. If you don't know, Squidoo is a site that lets you build information blogs on topics of your choosing. The Squidoo site then monetizes your lens by placing relevant adverts around your content, and each lens is supported by a suit of analytics to help you track your effectiveness.

Think of it as electronic scrap booking. Each lens is made up of modules which are provided for you to add a host of different types of content ranging from your own text, amazon book recommendations, wikipedia content, blog feeds and a whole host of others.

I joined Squidoo some 18 months ago and built two lenses, which sort of lay fallow until the other month. I averaged about 20 visitors a month. I now have over 30 lenses and I'm averaging 170 visitors a week and growing.

There is also a vibrant Squidoo community and ways to cross link to Facebook, Stumble, Digg and so on.

I've really seen significant changes in the visitors to my portfolio after thinking for some time that I'd been a bit gullible in joining. My current top lenses are:

How To Become An Air Guitar Expert


The Border Reivers an ancestry resource about the unique clans that lived on the English and Scottish borders


How To Open A Bottle of Champagne With A Sword



For a quick preview of my lenses you can see them here too My Squidoo Lens