Mr Beach Bum.com

Flash can really make a statement for your website and is very effective, when used properly, for advertising your site. The obstacle to flash, for many, is the upfront cost of Adobe Flash software (at $699). But even if you spend the money on the software, you are then faced with the task of creating your own flash projects, which can be daunting if you aren’t familiar with the software and can also result in less than stellar flash projects if you simply aren’t an artist.

I was faced with this same dilemma recently so I did some research and found a potential solution. It’s called Flash Ad Creator from a company called Laughingbird Software and the price is $39.99.  Sounds like a great price when compared to the alternative, but can this really do what I need it to do?

The idea behind the product is that you are given some pre-made flash templates. When you find a template that works for you, you can edit the pictures and text to make it your own.  The website claims that this is easy to do and that there are hundreds of templates to meet your needs. I decided to purchase the product myself in order to give this some real-world testing.

The purchase and download process is standard enough and resulted in no problems. I did avoid paying an extra $6.99 by un-checking a box that was automatically added to my cart for “unlimited downloads”. I don’t blame the author for offering it but for the $6.99 I will make my own backup copy of the download and take my chances. If, however, you are apt to lose downloaded software all the time then this might be something you’ll want to keep. As mentioned earlier, the price of the Flash Ad Creator is $39.99 via download. They also have options to receive the product on disc too if you really want that.

Now the fun begins…

Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry for being away for a bit. Things have calmed down a bit and hopefully I will be able to devote more time to this blog. If anyone is interested in being a guest blogger send me some examples of your work and I will be happy to invite you on board.

I haven’t been a total beach bum while I was away. I did some work on some of my sites and this resulted in the need to find a decent flash creation program and I came across a nice little gem that I will post a full review on - tomorrow! So be sure to check out the review tomorrow morning. Here’s a link to the software and tomorrow you can find out what I think about it!

I hope everyone had a great holiday season. It gets pretty busy for affiliate marketers around the holidays, but now you can have a bit of a break. Not for long though, it’s never too early to start preparing for the next holiday. Why do you think the stores are already putting up Valentine’s Day displays?

So is this the year that you start your online business?

…Search phrases that is. Aloha. I thought we’d have some fun and take another look at some of the recent search phrases that visitors have used to find me on the web.

First off, we have a visitor who searched under beach bum.com . Did you find what you were looking for? Maybe you werent sure at first but hopefully you’ve come across a site that inspires you to work towards what may be your own goal of becoming a beach bum - a rich one that is.

Next is a fun one that I am not really sure how to categorize - beach get a have my money. Ummm, hmmm. Not sure what you were looking for there. Are you telling me I can have your money? But you want a beach in return?

Moving on, we have - big bum.com. I guess I need to lose some weight. People are searching for my big ass now. This is not the persona I was trying to project.

Here is this one again, but it’s always fun - up the bum.com. I am starting to wonder if I have perpetuated this search phrase by writing it up in previous posts. But I have to wonder more why this person hasn’t actually found up the bum.com yet. I mean, wouldn’t you just put www . up the bum .com by now? Why would you need to search Google for that every month? Do you like it up the bum? Hey, whatever your preference. Who am I to judge?

Now for a more focused search phrase - shareasale sucks.com. Well, I have to agree with you to some extent. But I have made money with them. I challenge you to do the same and report back if you are the visitor who searched with this phrase. Come on, it’ll be fun!

And last but not least we have - multiple affiliate networks. Well I am glad to see that someone who is interested in affiliate marketing already has found me. With this in mind I can say that you have inspired me to work on a new article which I will post as soon as possible. After all, I work with multiple affiliate networks, so maybe I can share some tips with all of you on how to manage the multiple accounts, and hopefully the multiple paychecks, which can be challenging, especially for beginners.

It’s hard to believe it’s December already. A lot has gone on in my personal life this year. Some good, some really really bad. I guess that’s how it is for everyone. For me, it has meant that I haven’t been as good about posting here. I’ve actually considered sharing more of the personal trials and tribulations with all of you but I wasn’t sure if anyone would be interested. I suppose if you wouldn’t mind the occasional peek into the more personal side of your favorite beach bum, then let me know by dropping me a line in the comments. Or if you get enough reality on TV these days, tell me just to keep it business oriented. I would do a vote, but I would rather read your comments.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. The holiday season is always a busy one, even for a beach bum. I was recently talking to some fellow bloggers and it amazed me that a lot of them have no idea what Cyber Monday is. Many of them are familiar with Black Friday but not the other.

For those of you who are not familiar with either one, let me tell you. In the U.S. we celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow. Now most Americans get tomorrow off as a paid holiday. Some of the lucky ones get both Thursday and Friday off (paid)  but many still will take a day off Friday regardless. I don’t know how long this tradition has been around but for as long as I can remember the day after Thanksgiving (always falling on a Friday) has been known as Black Friday.

The reason it’s called Black Friday is because it is a day that retailers consider their busiest - thus they are typically “in the black” as opposed to being in the red to use accounting slang. Basically the retailers see their biggest profits that day. This has resulted in fierce competition between retailers and what amounts to an even bigger tradition for the day which involves offering up huge discounts on items (loss leaders, if you will) to get people to come to your store instead of others.

One more big tradition for Black Friday is to get up extremely early and wait in line for the stores to open. The stores typically open early on Black Friday. Most as early as 6 AM but I have seen ads for some claiming to open at 4 AM. Sheesh! You can expect huge crowds of people and fights over the last of the big sale items before they run out, etc.

Given all that, if you’re like me, you try to stay away from that scene. I like to shop online anyway. Which is where Cyber Monday comes in… In recent years it has become a tradition for online retailers to offer up some big savings and incentives to get people to shop online on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Cyber Monday is November 26. Still plenty of time to get your packages shipped in time for Christmas and a great way to get online shoppers to place mega orders on one huge online shopping day. So where do you come in?

Well, if you’re an affiliate marketer than you are already ready for Cyber Monday. Right?… RIGHT?!!?!??

If not, you’d better get crackin’ and get some of those Cyber Monday deals posted on your websites ASAP!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and thanks for being a loyal reader!

Do you know how many days there are until Christmas? If you do, then you likely are keenly aware of exactly how little time you have to get all of your affiliate links ready for the holidays. If you’re lucky, you’ve maybe got one or two weekends left to overhaul your site in time for Christmas. Halloween sales are already starting to slow down and the retailers will be putting up their Christmas goodies any day now - you should be doing the same.

I make most of my affiliate dollars during this time of year so if you haven’t seen a post on here in awhile it’s because that keeps me very busy. Many of my sites are just about ready so let this be a reminder to you if you need to be doing the same. Don’t miss out on the Christmas rush, especially if this is your first holiday season as an affiliate marketer. Also be ready with the after Christmas specials when the time comes and you’ll probably see some serious profits!

Some of you out there with blogs may already be using BlogRush. But I am sure there are a few who may have held off for a bit potentially because there was a lack of customization options. Well your wait is over. Blogrush introduced “flavors” which allow you to choose from a surprisingly diverse palette of colors that are sure to match any theme you can throw at it. These just went live this week and all you have to do is choose your default color scheme in your Blogrush settings page under flavors and you’re done. It’s that simple. I really like the way it looks on my site and I hope you do too.

While we’re on the subject, I have to say that so far I am happy with the number of credits I’ve been getting on the Blogrush account. I have seen some fairly steady incoming traffic too so I can say that if you have a blog, you should definitely consider using it.

If you are already using it, how has your experience with it been up to this point?

Maybe you didn’t even realize this but part of having a successful business includes building a brand. In many ways you are a branding expert without even realizing it. After all, you deal with brands in your everyday life and probably don’t even have to put much thought into it. For example, when you see an ad for McDonald’s, you probably know exactly what they stand for, what products they have, etc. This is branding in a nutshell. But let me tell you, when it comes to branding, it’s a lot easier to be a consumer than it is to be a business owner trying to build a brand. This is why you might need some good solid advice from the experts.

This is where the Brand Identity Guru comes in. The guru himself is Scott White, and he authors the Branding Blog . What I really enjoy about his blog is the fact that he takes a witty approach to a topic that might not be second nature to all of his readers. I have taken a few marketing classes in my time but I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know as much as I could about branding, yet I felt perfectly comfortable reading his posts. One of my absolute favorites is this post called “Brands we love/hate” I can certainly identify with a lot of what he says and I am sure most of you can too.

I often try to remind myself about the differences between perception and reality. And what I mean by that is you may have an idea in your head that you are going down one path, yet others may percieve an entirely different path.  It is all about what you project to others as to how they will perceive you. In many ways this is exactly what branding is all about. The idea is to be mindful enough about what you want to say with your brand image so that others will be able to perceive your reality. Sometimes it can come rather easily if you stay true to yourself, but I would bet that any of the most successful companies with some of the hottest brand names out there today didn’t get their image by accident or without careful planning and well executed strategies.

It is in this same sense that I quote from Scott’s post “How I’m going to beat type 2 diabetes using branding and business skilss” in which he says the following:

“For almost twenty years I’ve been helping clients develop a brand identity. I’ve also fixed some pretty messed up brand identities. You see brand identity is who you want to be, but brand image is how everyone else perceives you. Most of the time we see a gap between the brand identity and brand image. ”

So the question is, how will you handle your brand? Well if that question scares you at all then I highly recommend that you check out Scott’s blog, Branding Blog , and become a regular reader. It is actually quite entertaining but it makes you really think about branding in general and that is exactly what every business owner needs to do. And if you’re really serious about building your brand then you might consider checking out his “Pump up your brand workshop“.

The Branding Blog should definitely be on your RSS feed reader if you plan to start an online business and create an image that will keep people coming back. Do it now as opposed to later and maybe you can avoid the ugliness involved in repairing a damaged image.

This was a sponsored review.