This is the pervasive question floating around the internet these dasy. Is the time and energy it takes to connect in social networks worth it?

I suppost this depends on your persepctive. Social media is made up of real people and as such is less prone to hype, manipulation and pitchfests. This means you have to be present and real and have something meaningful to share - regularly, in order to get noticed in online social networks.

It takes time and energy to create a relationship with real people and those are commodities that are often harder to find than money. Do you know anyone who isn’t slammed busy all day long at work?

Even having your own business doesn’t release you from the bondage of busy-ness. In fact, most of the time it is only worse. I am often struck wondering how other people do it- twitter, blog, articles, facebook, videos, and commenting feels like a hungry beast always wanting more.

Many people claim it can be a great way to boost business contacts and drive traffic.

I have seen a 400% increase in traffic in ess than 3 months dues strictly to social meida efforts.
I have found that we have substantially increased traffic to my sites and this blog thru social media, however, conversion is very low- nearly non existant.

Does this mean I have nothing of value to say or share?

Or does it mean that social media just spins folks around the web like butterflies in the wind?

Charles Heflin had a interesting blog on this subject called

Is there any return on investment in social media?

I am wondering what your experiences with social media have been  - won’t you take a minute to tell me?

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Recently a colleague of mine,Richard Brown, wrote me with a new video about eBay. Now I have personally been a powerseller on eBay for a while, and to be honest - eBay seriously gets under my skin.

Ironically, I have been a huge fan of the ginormous auction site for a long time. I buy nearly as much as I sell. (OK not good business - but it’s the truth) One of the reasons eBay is so hard to deal with is that they are constantly changing the ways people can sell and list. Last sprint they gave us 10 days to remove all downloadable products, not fun if you have a whole store of them. They also changes the categories which meant going into nearly 3000 products and entering the new information. That was also because turbo lister - the eBay listing tool, did not work properly to do multiple category changes.
The response form eBay was - somethings wrong? really? we’ll just ignore you till you hopefully go away.

I could go on…. for a long time!

Still I love eBay because of the customers I have been connected with and the other sellers I know. I LOVE the entrepreneurial nature of the site so I have stayed with them in spite of their attitude towards smaller sellers. One of the newest changes to come down the pike has been “best match” this is an algorithm that eBay decides is the best match for your search. It has changed the way listings are ranked dramatically. And therefore as a seller and buyer its important to understand this tool and fast!

So when Richard said he had discovered how to understand and utilize the best match tool of eBay I was thrilled. I watched the first movie which you can see here and was quite delighted by his obvious knowledge of eBay and its search meathods.

Being able to manipulate your listings on eBay is akin to getting to #1 on Google really fast.
Here is what he said in his own words

“Since they started using “Best Match” (a secret ranking algorithm) I’ve been researching it – until I managed to manipulate eBay rankings at will.”

He has a short video which explains step by step exactly how to have all your auctions appear at the top. If  you sell on eBay or think you may start - you NEED to watch this video! Naturally he saves the best for a paid version, but honestly at less than $50 I found the second movie to be a steal!  I can’t wait to get in there and mess with my listings so I can dominate my eBay niche too!

Once again here is the free eBay Video page
and the Slaes page where you can get the second eBay ranking video

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Ok don’t say I didn’t warn you- sometimes sitting at the computer is a dangerous occupation, especially to ones fragile mental health. ALl of the sudden something that would be marginally irritating becomes obsessivly amusing and then a video like this happens.

Oh well I guess I’ll just chalk it up to another embarrassing youtube moment.

Remember - listen at your own risk - I am not responsible for this tune rattling thru your head for the next week.

thanks and be nice

Jan

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