One thing we are really trying to do at Marketing ICE is teach the exact things we do in our own efforts.  As our members know there are a ton of blogging lessons on Marketing ICE and there is a reason we started there.  Blogging is one of the easiest ways to get started fast, make connections and get links there is.  While we are going to do more and more SEO, Black Hat and Advanced videos we will still keep doing more on blogs and Social Networking.

I wanted to take just a moment to show our members a project I just launched on my personal blog Comtech News.   I won't go into the full details here, you can just read the post called

Top Bloggers - A Call for Guest Posting

to learn all about it.

Basically it is pretty simple though I made a list of my 25 favorite bloggers who talk about business, marketing, internet marketing and sales.  Each has an opportunity to submit a guest post to my blog.  Some are huge name bloggers and some lesser known.  The beauty of this post is

1.  I am seeing some of these big name bloggers on m blog already, getting even a mention from some of them can really do a lot for your blog.

2.  Those who submit a guest post will add unique value to my blog

3.  Some of the lesser known bloggers are now associated with some big names 

4.  I will forge new friendships and relationships 

5.  My readers now will learn about new and really cool blogs

The key to this is I listed 25 bloggers but I am only accepting 15 guest posts.  So those listed have an incentive to claim a spot.  Additionally I did contact any of them directly, I simply put their blog names and proper names in my Technorati Tags and gave them a link.  Many people monitor thier links and own name in Technorati and like Google blog alert.  So I am relying on that to reach my guest bloggers.

So far as I know I am the first person to do something like this.  That makes it also creative and opens up things like Digg and PlugIM on that note if you read the story please consider plugging, bumping or digging it.  There are buttons for that at the bottom if you would like to.

So the bigger lesson here for everyone is about creativity!  Think about the techniques and skills we teach at MarketingICE, everyone is learning the same one, the key is the creativity you bring to the table, what ideas does my project give you or what ideas can you apply to our other training videos?  

Try to think of some creative things you can do that have never been done before.  Many times it is nothing more then using an old concept in a new way.

Again you can read my post about Guest Bloggers at Top Bloggers - A Call for Guest Posting. 

One very important thing to understand though is this, that list I made was not trumped up to get big name folks.  They are all actually blogs I have read for a long time, I find them all to be among the best there are available.  So if you try anything similar to this remember don't do it as a marketing thing only, be genuine.  The internet can seem like a big place but its communities are a lot like a small town.  If you are sincere you will do very well if you try to trump thing up, well, word gets around and fast.

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: blogging, blog, social networking, digg, plugim, bumpzee