Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock
Taking Internet Marketing from Peanuts to Profits

Today Twitter launched a purge that would have made Stalin proud.  In a single sweep they blasted the “spammers” who were manipulating the Twitter system and posting irrelevant tweets to people’s time lines.

There is no doubt in my mind that there are people gaming Twitter and there is nothing wrong with Twitter dispatching these spammers with haste.  But when Twitter started messing with my valid network of friends and colleagues, then they crossed the line.

This morning my Twitter followers dropped from about 169 to a mere 81.  I’m sure a few of those were spammers.  However, it was odd that after adding more than 70 new followers from BlogHer alone I would drop so low.

After some research, I found that it was not a spammer purge that zapped my network of Twits. Twitter for some reason blasted relationships that were perfectly valid.  Relationships that had active conversations.  Relationships that were working the way Twitter intended.

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No mater what your opinion of the Top Affiliate Challenge is, it was pretty undeniable that the Pepperjam Network team ran circles around the competition.

There are a lot of logistical reasons this happened - Jonathan VanClute and Carl Zetterlund (the first and second placing contestants) were both on that team.  Ken McArthur guided the team unwaveringly throughout the show.  They all worked as a team, and even in individual challenges, they won as a team.

Al of these things aside, there were some behind the scenes reasons why the team did so well promoting offers from the Pepperjam Network.  We had a ton of great sponsors on the show who all went above and beyond, but only a few got the results that the Pepperjam Team enjoyed. Read More

I have been using Text Link Ads for about three months now.  I applied to Kontera first, but they took over a week to approve my application.  Patience doesn’t come easy to me, so I also applied with Text Link Ads.

Text Link Ads got me approved quickly, and soon I had their code installed on my blog.  I was ready to start earning money, so I eagerly watched daily as TLA spidered through three years of my old content, adding my words and phrases to their inventory.

Within a week or so, I started selling the really spammy keywords like auto insurance, ringtones, Halloween, download music, free website, personal injury, Toshiba laptop and car loans. Read More

I swear the girls get the best schwag!  At the BlogHer 08 conference there was a Joby booth where they were giving away FREE Zivio Bluetooth earpieces.

Giving away free bluetooth headsets at a women’s blogging conference was a brilliant idea. Even if the women didn’t want theirs they could give them away on their blogs.  The combination of a $100+ item and scarce availability makes this a sweet giveaway item (sorry guys, keeping mine but Joby can send me another one to give away).

The Zivio headset its self is a pretty unique design given the current trends toward smaller devices and more technically complex noise canceling software.  The Zivio is quite noticeable when it is worn at more than 53 mm in length.  Despite its mere 13 gram weight, the Zivio conceals a retractable boom microphone that makes the unit a whopping 136 mm from top to bottom when extended. Read More

I spent some time talking to the people in the Yedda booth at BlogHer 08.  They have a service very similar to Yahoo Answers but with a blogger twist.

Yedda provides a widget that can be installed in your blog’s sidebar so your readers can ask you a question specifically.  The questions are then added to the Yedda system, where you can answer it.

So why in the world would you want to add content to the Yedda system instead of to your own blog? Read More

One of the booths at the BlogHer Conference was from a company called Adoptic. They are another traffic exchange company with a widget that you place in your sidebar to promote stories from other blogs. You can get 500 free credits in their traffic exchange if you sign up using the promo code “blogher”.

The idea is that people reading your blog will also see a post from another blog in the sidebar widget.  If they like in the story they click the link to read the other blog. When you sign up you can help the service deliver relevant posts to your sidebar by pigeonholing your blog into a few of their 27 different categories.

The idea is pretty simple - you share your readers with others and they send their readers to you. I have installed the widget on my blog to see how well it works. Read More

In my second BlogHer 08 session one of the attendees asked a pretty complex question.

The session was about public parenting and privacy. A younger woman stood up, took the microphone and asked how she can blog about her life and her child’s life, tell other people about her blog, and attend conferences (she said “not hiding or wearing a mask out in public) yet have others respect her boundaries.

The question is complex, but the answer is simple. You can’t. There is no way to receive public recognition for your blog without the accompanying public exposure. You can’t market yourself, and not market yourself at the same time. Read More

I just finished my first session at BlogHer 08 and I was pretty surprised by some of the topics that came up.

To just about everyone else in the blogosphere, content is content, and if your writing is interesting, entertaining, or on the edge, you are rewarded with readership, advertisers, and if you are really good, a profit.

But there are some people who look in on the world of “Mommy Blogging” and believe that these mothers are exploiting their children and that motherhood is not a “real job.”

With everything I have written about over the past few years, I have never had to fear someone accusing me of child exploitation or pimping. I can’t imagine what that must feel like, especially when you have truly valuable things to say about the real-life experiences with your family. Read More

I have started to notice all of the Back to School pallets rolling out in the stores and like clockwork, Schrock Innovations started getting questions from parents and grandparents who were trying to get the best computer deal for the student in their lives.

After working through a few of these calls and emails, I decided to author a short 12 page Back to School Computer Shopping Guide that would contain all of the basics you need to know when buying a new home office or back to school computer.

The guide covers what kind of specifications you should look for in a new notebook or decktop unit, what pitfalls you should avoid, and some critical questions you need to ask before you make your purchase.

The guide is free and is current as of July 2008.  You will need Abobe’s Acrobat PDF Reader to view the Back to School Computer Shopping Guide.

Feel free to post any questions you might have and I will do my level best to get them answered for you quickly.  For a faster response, you can call our office toll-free at 866-496-8772 or email us at support@schrockinnovations.com.

Just got settled in at the Westin St. Francis in San Fransisco for the 2008 Blogher conference.  So what is Thor Schrock doing at a women’s blogging conference?

My wife loves to write on her blog when she manages to find the time.  Some of the stuff she writes is fricking hilarious (even though she would never take credit or accept the praise).  Over the past year my wife has sacrificed so I could travel all over the place so it was time for me to return the favor.

Even though it is a conference for women bloggers, I will be helping out by recording some podcasts for their website.  I always try to find opportunity in everything, so I am hopeful I will learn a thing or two about blogging from a perspective I may not have considered before.

I’d have to say the only session I am nervous about attending is the Progressives session - primarily because I am one of the rare conservatives on the web that is willing to endure a pounding to stand up for what he believes in.

This is the session description from the BlogHer Schedule:

Progressives: Engaging Those Outside the Political Blogosphere in Political Discourse…and Action
Is 2008 the year when every blogger is a proof point for the old battle cry that “the personal
is political”? We are seeing a tremendous amount of interest and action around political issues
and causes from bloggers who usually steer clear. They are galvanizing their readers to be more
engaged and get more involved in a variety of ways. We’ll talk about some of those ways with
Twitter rabble-rouser Erin Kotecki-Vest, Momocrat Joanne Bamberger and a woman who
exhorts us all to exercise the Power of our Purse, Diane MacEachern.

All three women on the panel hold some pretty liberal views that I would generally disagree with.  That said, from their writings online they seem to be reasonable, rational people.  All things equal, I will do my best not to embarrass my wife by opening my pro-drilling, anti-Obama pie-hole.

One of the best lessons you can learn in life is that you can learn a lot about people by listening what they have to say and how they justify their arguements.  That doesn’t mean that they are right or wrong, but the first step in persuasion is listening.