I can’t help but write this post with a little bit of misguided anger. I read a blog earlier today (which will go unnamed) where the author lamented the make money online niche. He wrote that new bloggers to that niche would be best not to even start. Why not find a truly marketable skill?

It didn’t stop there. He felt his own grammatical prowess should be a guidepost for other bloggers. They should step up to the pencil mark on the door, and, if they weren’t tall enough, turn around and go home. What a ludicrous message to send out into the blogosphere.

Why the Attitude Sucked
First of all, I try to nurture my blogging voice. I do this by first seeing what I want to present. I enjoy being helpful, nurturing, excitable, and honest. I don’t desire to be pessimistic, downtrodden, elusive, or callous.

How do you know how you sound? Maybe this guy thought his blog post was the shining light in the middle of the dark Blogosphere. His was the pinpoint view of truth. We should all follow its guiding light to the promise land.

Maybe it would lead me where I don’t want to be — on the couch reading the newspaper, not caring about following my dreams.

Our attitude shows in our blog posts (see sarcasm above). What reader constantly wants to read depraved, arrogant drivel? I want to read positive, upbeat informative posts. The blogs I read focus on a number of things, and the ones to which I subscribe always have a positive message.

I’m not an expert. I do know a fair amount on writing, but I wouldn’t say I know every grammar rule out there. Does this mean I shouldn’t have a voice? Should I not share what I do know with others? I think I should and I should do it in the same positive manner that I have up to this point.

Some bloggers take on the antagonist role. I understand that, but it should be clear from the beginning. Even the bigger antagonists on the internet find time to relate to their readers.

I think it’s the tone used when talking about a topic. If I sound too strict, then you might think I’m an uptight guy, and my value as a blogger drops. In a certain niche, a helpful tone can carry you further. Others might not agree, but I don’t really see a need to be too caustic.

How to Change Your Blog Attitude?
We all can get off course. I have found my voice to be obtuse at times.  I have to rewrite sections of posts because they portray my ideas in a way not aligned with how I want to be. I call it reinventing. I have a voice I want to nurture and, for it to succeed, I make alterations to my message, strengthening my blog’s voice.

My blog attitude refers to the implied message I give out on any subject. I can write about an iPhone and be negative.

The iPhone should come with a quarter slot in the top so I can keep feeding it money throughout the day.

I can also talk about the same thing with a positive spin.

The iPhone makes me feel like a boy with a new toy, causing me to forget how much it costs me everyday.

Having a positive attitude can bolster your readers’ confidence in your message. Portraying a negative persona can be difficult to master. One negative site portrays the make money niche as an impossible dream. The Can’t Get Rich site pulls off the voice, because he’s not constantly negative. He simply doesn’t believe you can make money online.

I myself become frustrated when I read big bloggers who post with brazen errors. Give me a break, I think. They can afford to hire an editor.

I can’t.

We create our attitude with our perception of the world. If niche bloggers are writing boring content, then we can lament those bloggers or encourage them with our own blog attitude post. When we believe we can change the world, we just might.

Money or no money, I will continue to write until the blogging wheels fall off this old wagon.

I think this post title sums up my feelings from this morning. I woke up to find my Feedburner count had dropped by 11 subscribers. I quickly felt the pang of defeat. I wanted to know what could cause such a sudden drop in readership. I had written good content, right?

 I did a quick blog search through Google. I think this is the quickest way to find out what’s happening in the blogosphere. I found a number of articles talking about Feedburner counts dropping yet again. The first search I found took me to the Feedburner blog, which had a post from yesterday.

Google Integrating Feedburner
It sounds like the big G will be swallowing fire. The Feedburner crew has been hard at work behind the scenes making their service more Googley. It wasn’t until I read the comments on the post that I found the culprit for my lost subscribers.

Google Reader numbers were not counted yesterday. Oh, the irony.

So while integrating the service to be architecturally similar to Google’s backend architecture (i.e. putting/removing the junk in the trunk), they somehow lost touch with their very own service. I guess those are growing pains. Or is that indigestion? I don’t know for sure.

Living by Numbers
Needless to say, it’s rough losing 20% of my subscribers overnight. Someone on the comments of the Feedburner blog said their blog went from 500 to 150 overnight. I must say that’s a lot of Google Reader readers. I might have fallen out of my chair had I seen that much of a drop. As it was, my drop had me re-reading my past posts, looking for offending material. I’m glad it was just a glitch. You’re all still here, right?

Do you know how Feedburner counts subscribers? Curious? Mr Javo put up a nice discussion on the topic last week. You might check that out. In the meantime, I’m off to russle up some subscribers.  

This edition of the Powder Keg Review series looks at the Yimto Affiliate Marketing Blog.

I actually have a little history with this blog. I ran across it before my own blog came into creation. The Big Bang was yet a twinkle in the Blogosphere’s eye. What captured my attention with Tim, the creator of Yimto, was his honesty on his about page. He details his story from University student to marketing journeyman.

The Yimto Story
Tim knows affiliate marketing. He details the relevant services on the market, including those that have been around for a while, for us beginners. He constantly shares with his readers the new information he learns along his journey to financial independence. For instance, he recently talked about an affiliate marketing ebook, and I walked away from the review feeling like he explained its benefits clearly.

His posts have a candor not common to Internet marketing blogs. He tells you straight up he might not be the best at certain practices, but he’s learning. He captures the journeyman voice quite well. And his posts somehow carry an authority to them, even though he claims to only be learning. I think he balances teaching and learning quite well in his posts.

The Yimto Site
The site utilizes a two column right sidebar layout. The theme, while minimal, presents the information quite well. I love the stylish logo, the dark tone, and the easy to read text. The whole theme works, down to the sparse use of widgets in the sidebar to the curling vegetation at either end of the inner column.

Like many bloggers, Tim is very active in blog communities like Entrecard, MyBlogLog and Blog Catalog. The Yimto site sports widgets from these blogging communities.

The Yimto site lacks one thing, though. Ads. There are none on the site. You will find the Entrecard widget on his site, but no advertising, not even Adsense. I’m surprised — pleasantly, of course — as most affiliate marketers riddle their site with ads.

Yimto Reviews
If you visit Yimto, then you know he does reviews on sites and ebooks relevant to affiliate marketers. While many sites claim to give valid reviews of ebooks, I have a feeling that Yimto’s reviews carry more than just the slapped on sticker value. For instance, only one ebook had a rating of “Golden Opportunity.”

One ebook review fell into the lowest category — in the red. Before too long, I imagine more ebooks will find their way to that bottom category. (Maybe that’s my cynical outlook on marketing ebooks though.) I can rest assured that Yimto’s take on a specific affiliate marketing method will be honest, and not an attempt to drain my wallet for a quick buck.

Conclusion
I jumped over to Technorati after seeing Yimto’s authority listed on his site. He has a whopping 351 at the time of writing this. Tim started this blog in October of 2007. I’m sure if he continues to engage his audience with compelling blog posts on affiliate marketing his blog will continue to explode on the internet. His site is a definite powder keg.

Do you know of a site, service, blogging tool, widget, plugin, or advertising opportunity that has gunpowder spilling from its barrel? Write us a quick message to let us light the fuse.

After writing Creating Your Blog’s Perfume Page I received quite a few comments regarding the topic. Many of you commented that blogs cannot surpass the boundary of visual stimuli just yet. We do however see people placing audio ads into their pages. This obvious intrusion into our quiet privacy triggers the wrong emotion in many of us.

What can we learn from sensory branding methods? How can our blogs anchor (thanks, Mark) our brand to certain feelings?

A case study might work to flesh out more telling details. As was suggested in the previous comments, we may have to go with sensory modalities when conveying a message. However, we can look parallel to that idea and say we can create the impressions of the senses through metaphoric imagery. Let’s look at it from a fiction writer’s point of view.

Writer as Branding Aficionado
A writer can cause you to feel fear, see beautiful vistas, hear amazing conversations, taste exotic foods, and smell destruction using only words. As bloggers we can use the same tools to reinforce our brand. How do they do it?

That’s the hard part.

Metaphors are a giant tool for writers and might be the most underutilized branding tool for bloggers. Let’s take my blog for instance. My tagline, Exploding across the Internet, should not be taken literally. I am not in pieces. I am however writing content I feel will be valuable to a wide audience, who will eventually spread it throughout the internet. This will create the explosion. The big bang. You get it, right?

Metaphor: the transference of a word to a new sense. A claim that a certain subject is equal to another creates a metaphor.

How to Write your Blog’s Metaphor
A metaphor can elicit a subconscious response from a reader. For instance, the following sentences:

His blog - the Sherman tank rumbling through the streets - cannot be mistaken for any other.

Her blog has the warmth of a cup of cocoa.

These metaphors compare the blog with something quite different. The first one compares a blog to a Sherman tank. You realize nothing will stand in its way. It is powerful, steady, and impenetrable — a great resource for combat. There’s a lot you can pull from a metaphor. In this instance, the blog may also be unfriendly, deadly, caustic, etc. A metaphor can speak to positives and negatives.

The warmth of a cup of cocoa brings thoughts of positive moments when we’re with friends or enjoying solitude. It usually reveals a positive moment. This metaphor’s power comes from its simplicity. Often times, the simplest metaphors create the most vivid response from readers.

The right metaphors engage an audience and create the nostalgia we talked about in the previous post. Your blog’s metaphor may be in the tagline, or it may be scattered throughout your posts. A good metaphor will penetrate a reader’s mind and then cement a feeling for posterity.

Triggering Nostalgia
The metaphor creates the feeling of joy, happiness, fear, etc. The metaphor also hooks that feeling to your blog, but then how do you trigger it? Specifically, how do you trigger it when those readers are not on your blog?

I think this is what truly great advertising does. It creates a hook that later causes you to think of a commercial, which leads you back to a brand. I’m sure you’ve all had moments where you recalled a commercial moment. When this happens to me, it’s because I’m talking about the subject matter or just witnessed a reminder. Usually funny commercials are the ones that sneak their way into my conversations.

‘Remember the Sprint commercial where the guy slammed his phone into the other guys head? What a security system that phone had, right?’

Any number of things might have triggered that phone commercials memory within me. I’m wondering, can we do the same thing with our blog’s and their brand? If something of our content goes viral, I think so. What do you think? Does this theory hold water?

It’s been another week. But its also been an exciting week, since this blog’s turned one month old. It seems like I’ve been blogging for a long time now, but only a month has passed by. It’s truly been a great experience. So on to this weeks happenings.

 Happenings this Week
I’m excited to announce I’m now a seller in the Entrecard shop. This week I spent a good amount of time racking up Entrecard credits to do an advertising push. In the meantime, I noticed more and more sellers in the shop selling everything from Stumbles to site reviews. I thought, I have some good ideas I can put in there. Why not shoot Entrecard support an email?

I’m currently selling a post idea item for 30 ECs, under the Consulting category. If you’re interested, you can pick one up here. I’ll be putting up other items this week as well.

Milestone Reached! Some of you may have noticed that I reached an exciting milestone this week. I now have 54 subscribers according to Feedburner’s count! Since I passed the imaginary 50 barrier, I thought it was time to include the Feedburner counter on the site. Have you seen it yet?

Site Tweakings. Thanks again to Si Philps for helping me sort out the div problem in my site’s header. I’ve included a random banner at the top, as well as an announcement box on every page. I hope to create a stickier website, with those images pulling in new readers to interesting content.

Guest Post. I posted a guest post on Buzz My Blog this week (who recently had a guest post on John Cow).  I’ve also been asked to guest post on a neighboring blog on a semi-occasional basis. I’ll reveal more on that later. I have also been commissioned to take the reins on a new blog. I’m looking forward to that opportunity.

Posts. I think my post was overlooked yesterday. I had some server trouble late in the evening and believe the email RSS didn’t go out on time. For those who didn’t see it, check out the interview with the Second Life character Kabalyero. It’s an exciting look into marketing and branding in the virtual world.

From the engaging comments, the Blog Perfume page post was a big success. I’m working on a followup to that discussion, as many readers had relevant questions that opened up new ideas for me. That will be coming this week.

Which brings me to…

Upcoming Explosions
As was just mentioned, I’ll be writing a second part to the art of branding through smell. It may evolve into a larger series as well. We’ll see.

I’m going to do a Podcast soon. It will be a trial thing. I think everyone has voiced their opinions and I will give it a shot.

As always, this week will find me hard at work providing new content, lively discussions, and exploring new opportunities. If you haven’t done so this week, backup your Wordpress installation. You may regret it otherwise.