Combining eBay and YouTube to Increase Your Fan Base

While I'm on this roll of telling you about great places you can learn how to make money on eBay and elsewhere online, I can't overlook one other trusted educator: Jim Cockrum. Jim is best known for his first book The Silent Sales Machine (on eBay). Jim has been around the eBay and online marketing scene for many years and is listed on an independent online Internet Marketing website, as the most trusted Internet marketer/teacher on the Web. I believe that and I didn't need a poll to tell me.

You can read his blog to get a better sense of who he is and what he is about. Although he has many income streams and claims to work just a few days a week for a six figure income, he still says that eBay is one of the best places to make a good living. So, read his blog, get on his newsletter mailing list, and learn. You won't be sorry.

Ken
DR EBAY
My Silent Team Member

eBay Ink

Here's a resource any serious eBayer should be watching. It's called eBay Ink. These are regular posts by eBay's resident blogger. His name is Richard Brewer-hay. He is an eBay, Inc. employee. His job is to blog about the conversations happening inside eBay and outside of it too.

It's a great way to keep up with what management is thinking and lower department heads are working on for the future, even before the official announcements are made about changes to the platform. Richard also welcomes comments and questions about his blog posts.

As I write this, Richard has blogged about his Favorite eCommerce Podcasts. The topics include: "eBay Radio", "ColderIce (Internet eCommerce & eBay)", "eBay & Beyond: Basics to Business", and "The River, The Ranch & The Bay." These are all great topics and I'm sure you will learn a lot if you give a listen.

Are You a Professional?

I'm probably not going to make any friends with this blog post, but I think it is something that needs to be talked about. Are you trying to start a business online? Perhaps you have a product to sell on eBay or another online marketplace and need to write descriptions that entice the lookers to buy. Or, maybe you want get into Internet marketing by providing a service to other online entrepreneurs. Well, I have a question.

Here's the question. Can you spell? Can you write using at least halfway decent grammar? If you want to look professional, you need to act professional and write in a professional manner. In a face-to-face business, potential customers judge you by what you wear and how you speak. In an online business, they initially only see what you write. The first contact with you might be a blog post you wrote, a sales letter they've found on an emailing, a free newsletter you sent out, or even Twitter. You won't appear professional if there are spelling errors, run-on sentences, no paragraph breaks, or other obvious grammatical errors. "Why do I need to look professional?" you might ask. Because 'professional' usually equates to traits like 'competent', 'trustworthy', and 'knowledgeable' for most people.

A program based or web based spelling checker is a first step. Always spell check before sending out anything. But a spelling checker is not enough. You need to proofread what you wrote after correcting any spelling mistakes caught by the spelling checker. Case in point, I was reading a blog post today where the writer used the word incite, when she really meant insight. The spelling checker knows they are both valid words, but with two very different meanings. Just this week I noticed two different people on Twitter who had a typographical error in their blog link that they put in their 'Bio'. Also, learn the correct usage of commonly misused words that sound alike, such as 'there', 'their', and 'they're' as well as 'to', 'two', and 'too'. If your blog posting software or other writing tool doesn't have a good spelling checker, write in Word or another good word processor and then cut and paste into your blog or other media. Then you'll also get the benefit of some grammer checking that the more robust writing platforms provide while spell checking.

Finally, use capitals and lower case as appropriate. That all lower case thing is so last century. And please don't use smileys or acronyms if you want to appear professional.

So, there, I've said it. I'll get down off the soapbox now. Oh, by the way, my grammar is not what my college writing professor would want to see on a thesis. I use a more conversational style, which, while still professional, comes across as 'friendly'. Comments are always welcome.