1. Be Yourself. Be your true authentic self. Share personal stories. Give people an idea of who you are and what you’re interested in.

2. Be Discerning. As you open your kimono, so to speak, do it with some caution. I don’t think you should try to be something you’re not by any means. However, if you love hunting, or you’re a tree hugger, or you love Jesus – make SURE you want that to be PART OF YOUR BRAND. Once you put it out there on the internets – there ain’t no turning back!

3. Be Conversational. Write like you are talking to a friend. Just a few months ago, I’ve started to say “hello” or “happy day” on Facebook almost every week day. I’m always positive and people love it! I don’t shove platitudes or mindless quotes out there for no reason. I feel like I’m saying hello to a good friend!

4. Write Down 12 Topics. This will give you a whole year of curriculum. You guessed it, 1 topic per month. For each topic, you can come up with at least 4 sub topics – and that’s a month! What are your Battle Cry’s? What do you tell people over and over and over? You can milk each one of of your “Battle Cry’s” for at least a month.

5. Leverage Your Content. When you write a blog, paste the headline and a snippet into Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. They will automatically create a link right back to your blog. Your traffic WILL go up if you’re persistent. Get an email marketing program like MailChimp or iContact and paste part of your blog into a newsletter. Get an account with Ping.fm and put in all of your Social Media sites so you can post in one place and it broadcasts out to all of them.

And #6, because I like to go the extra mile… Use other people’s content. There are a ba-zillion articles, videos, cartoons and blogs on the internets. Share what you find interesting. NO, DON’T PLAGIARIZE! Always link back to the person, place or thing that you’ve quoted, give credit where credit is due. ALWAYS!

Have fun. Be real.

If you don’t love what you do, it will be hard to be successful.

But guess what? If you love paisley patterns, you can make a successful business online about that. (I just looked at my paisley iPhone cover that I bought on the internets!)

Let’s get started together for a great 2012!

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