11 Business Blogging Lessons Learned After 1.2 Million Words

Happy New Year and Welcome 2013!

Also, Happy Birthday to TopRank?s Online Marketing Blog!

A little over 9 years ago I started this blog as a way to save and share links to industry news. Over the years it has evolved in many ways thanks to our community and our team at TopRank.

Since 2003 Online Marketing Blog has generously shared thousands of posts, reaching millions of online marketers all over the world. Every time I speak at a conference, whether it?s in New York or Sydney or London, multiple people approach me with thanks for our blog?s contribution of insight, tips and useful information. That feedback is priceless and very much appreciated.

Now for some thanks back:

• Thank you to our 50,000 subscribers and the hundreds of thousands of people who visit via the web and from social networks.
• BIG THANKS to the companies who hired our agency TopRank Online Marketing after reading, following, listening and engaging with us.
• Thanks also to journalists and bloggers who reach out, cite us and reference our content in their stories.
• Thanks to our first time ever sponsors Trackur, Unbounce, Raven Tools, PRWeb, Acquisio and Digital People.
• Thanks to the?authors and industry?thought leaders who have written guest posts for us.
• Thanks to the team at TopRank Online Marketing (Alexis, Brian, Evan, Jolina, Mike Y. and Miranda) that contributed posts, liveblogged conferences and engaged with our community.
• Of course a BIG thanks goes to Ashley Zeckman for consistent contributions each and every week, including the most popular blog post on Online Marketing Blog for all of 2012!
• THANK YOU for reading, sharing and providing us with an even richer experience on the web. I hope you find our contributions useful and look forward to connecting with you on and offline.

With BlogWorld?s New Media Expo (NMX) conference coming up next weekend, I think it?s incredibly timely for a blog birthday post that shares tips from years of first hand experience. I appreciate that there?s a lot of advice on blogging out there and for those that want to hear from someone that has been at it for a very long time and with great results, this post might be of interest.

1. You Can?t Score Without A Goal

There?s really no way to predict 100% what a blog will do for your business, but at a minimum, a blog can serve as a direct communications platform for your company to reach all audiences that you might want to engage with. Setting goals and having a purpose is essential for any business investment in time and money. Otherwise, how will you know how to create your plan or when you?re successful?

My initial goals were simply to be functional and useful. Then they extended to things like traffic, search visibility and referred traffic to our company website. Now we can count a variety of goals that include customer acquisition, recruiting, industry media coverage, conference speaking and private workshops for companies, industry networking and other engagement, growth, retention and advocacy goals.

2. After the Honeymoon It?s Going to Take Work

When companies launch new blogs there?s excitement about the promise of creating a new way of communicating with prospects, customers, new employes and the media. ?The people responsible for creating content often have other responsibilities besides the company blog. Seeing your hard work published for the world to see, the first comments and mentions of your posts on industry websites is exciting.

That excitement, or ?honeymoon period? is going to wear off. ?Developing and maintaining a productive business blog takes work. It also means working smart. Many of the solutions to that work/hard smart observation are in the rest of this post. Just be aware that after you start a business blog or hire a dedicated blogger, there will be a period of over optimism and then reality will set in regarding being able to maintain several quality posts per week, keeping up with comments and being able to show a return on the time spent.

3. Failing to Plan is a Plan to Fail

When I first started a blog, Minneapolis digerati Garrick Van Buren asked me what my blogging strategy was. I replied that I had none, it was purely an experiment. The look of disbelief he gave was a bit of a lightbulb moment. It took me a while to develop a sold strategy after that, but things really ramped up after I did.

A plan can be as simple as outlining a hypothesis about what a blog will do for you or your company and the steps you think are necessary to reach those goals. ?If you want to be known as the king of ?red widgets? then planning blog posts around that topic will help advance that goal. That means topics from the reader?s perspective, not just editorialized advertisements for the brand. It also means planning networking, outreach, off-blog commenting and integration with other digital and offline messaging. ?A good blog can be a force multiplier for a social media or digital marketing effort.

4. Blog For Your Audience, Not Just Self Expression

I know one of the motivations for many individual bloggers is self expression. The motivation of expression is very powerful. But it can lead you away from reaching business goals.

When it comes to blogging for a business, it?s essential to identify business objectives and audience interests right along with self expression. The flavor of ?personality? added to blogged content that serves the needs of your readership is a lot more valuable than a rant. Accurate and timely information is more shareable and travels farther when a business blog has a particular voice. Self expression and business goals do not need to be mutually exclusive with business blogging.

Growing your blog audience means building community. People will often only show as much interest in your business blog as the interest you show in the community. So engage, ask and answer questions relevant to the topics your target audience is interested in. Tapping into those ongoing experiences means content that your audience will care about and a never ending source of new ideas.

5.??Stand For Something

While it?s important to use empathy with your community to identify topics that will attract and engage them, it?s also important to communicate your key values and unique selling proposition. ?With thousands of blog posts and even more social media updates published every day, there?s a lot of competition for your community?s time. ?By aligning your key business values and unique selling proposition with the content plan for your blog, you?ll provide a stronger signal that will help your brand stand out.

6. Grow Promotion Networks Months Before You Need Them

Great content isn?t great until people can find it, read it and share it with others. With a business blog, that means incorporating promotion into the?editorial?process. The free blog content planning spreadsheet?we published a while back provides for the usual, dates, topics, keywords and media. It also includes planning how certain blog posts will be promoted. Make promotion part of the process.

Writing a fantastic post and then deciding to reach out to people you haven?t connected with in a year or more to help you promote it, probably isn?t going to get the response you expected. ?As you plan your blog?s overall topics and themes, start reaching out via comments and social networks to the movers and shakers on those topics. Show value first, ie ?give to get?. ?When the time comes to promote, those networks where you?ve invested time and created value are more likely to return the favor.

Better yet, they?ve subscribed to your blog and are already helping to share because the content is relevant and useful.

7. Maintain a Queue

One of the biggest concerns companies have over corporate blogging is being able to maintain high quality content over time. ?I can assure you, I?ve learned this lesson many times. ?One of the keys to maintaining quality is to stay connected with your community and the industry. Take notes of trending topics and connections that you see. I like to use Evernote to nurture these ideas until they become budding blog posts.

Beyond planning topics and writing in advance, keep a queue of blog posts that you can draw from. Sitting down and writing a 2,000 word blog post like this one can take a long time, time that you don?t have. Rather, add to it from time to time. ?It?s easier spending a few minutes here and there on a post over a period of days or weeks than trying to find 1-2 hours of uninterrupted time.

8. Integrate With Other Digital Communications

A blog is not and should not be an island. ?A blog can serve many communication and engagement purposes from marketing to PR to customer service. Integrating the blog content plan with a company?s overall content marketing strategy should be a given, but often is not. Blogs can be excellent places for?repurposing?other digital content. ?They can provide support to other digital marketing content and advertising as well. ?Integrating key messages from other business communications and promotions into the blog editorial plan will help amplify those key messages in a natural way.

9. Ask for Help

As I?ve mentioned previously, I?ve written over 2,000 blog posts myself which amounts to over 1.2 million words. ?It took me a long time to learn the lesson of asking for help. I didn?t hire an internal marketer until 8 years of blogging. ?A diversity of bloggers helps spread the workload, it introduces new voices that may better resonate than your own, ?and for business blogging it can tap into subject matter experts that would otherwise go unpublished.

Asking for help goes beyond content contribution to social?participation. Giving relevant team members a heads up about a particularly special blog post may result in more social sharing. The same goes for sharing on social networks.

The key to asking for help is to make it crystal clear what you want the person to do, make it easy for them to do and give feedback upon completion. People will work for a living but die for recognition. Make sure you recognize contributors that are actually helping advance the blogging effort ? content, sharing or both.

10. Adaptability and Agility

Whether it?s listening to other blogs and emerging stories in the news or mining topics most often mention in your comments and the site search queries, adaptability is key. Leverage data from web analytics, social media monitoring services and even Google Alerts to identify mentions of your blog, trending topics and what your community is actually?responding?to. Adapt editorial as you need to and even ?newsjack? to tap into emerging news stories that you can be a part of. This requires speed and active monitoring but can be well worth it.

Speaking of speed, responding quickly to comments on the blog shows you value contribution and participation. Since so much content on a blog can get shared through services like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, it?s important to monitor those services too, in order to acknowledge commentary or to participate in resulting discussions from your posts.

11. ?Everybody Makes Mistakes

A blog for the blog owner is like a baby and you want everything perfect. Or like in my case, I?ve been at it for over 9 years. There are things I know that have taken a very long time that someone new to the business blogging world isn?t going to pickup overnight. No matter how many processes, checks and balances that you put in place, errors can occur. Whether it?s a type (the bane of my blogging existence) or a bad link or just bad writing.

Few companies have the luxury of a blog editor who can read through every post, check every link and also edit for style. But even when you don?t, it?s important to hold a standard for quality. ?Even with that standard, mistakes will be made. ?Identify them, correct them and move on.

BONUS. ?Measure What Matters

In my world, blogging serves multiple objectives including marketing, PR, Recruiting and Customer Service. ?In order for the effort of 5 posts a week (except yesterday) to pay off, it?s important to monitor the KPIs that lead to business value and to make changes

Think about the customer or audience journey to decide what?s important for you to measure. From creating awareness of your category and interest in your brand, to being included during consideration of different services or products to the ultimately being chosen, creating, promoting, monitoring and optimizing blog content performance is essential. The path for marketing as I just outline is very different than for recruiting or customer service.

Just make sure you can tap into analytics resources to measure progress and outcomes that the blog is contributing to. You?ll be able to show value of course but also tap into the information you?ll need to optimize performance of your investment.

I could write (another) book about blogging for business, so these insights are just the tip of the iceberg. If you stick around a while, you?ll hear many more.

If you?ve been blogging for a while, what are some of your best lessons learned?

Source: http://www.toprankblog.com/2013/01/11-lessons-learned-9-years-blogging/

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MFA Nugget: The Writing Teacher as Student | The Artist's Road

MONTPELIER, VERMONT ? It can be a bit trite when we hear instructors say they love to teach because they learn so much from their students. If you?re learning from us, we students can say, why are we paying you? But as someone who has also been an instructor, I know this can be true should the instructor permit it to happen. And it can lead to a greater educational experience for teacher and student.

A Master of Fine Arts degree is, in the field of creative writing instruction, what is known as a ?terminal degree?; in other words, it is a credential that certifies you to teach at the university level. It is hardly all that is needed, of course; many students here in the MFA in Writing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts would love to be university instructors someday, and our instructors are quick to point out that you also need teaching experience and extensive publishing credits before that dream can possibly be fulfilled.

But it was no surprise that a graduating student lecture here on teaching writing, followed by a faculty discussion on the topic, was well attended, despite the fact that we had to be in our seats at 9:15 am on New Year?s Day morning. I won?t speculate as to how many of those attending the lecture were a wee bit hungover.

The volume of information conveyed over that two-hour period is too extensive to include here, but a recurring theme related to instructor-student interaction was concern among attendees?many of whom are teaching writing in various capacities outside of a university setting?that they won?t have all of the answers. I have certainly harbored that concern.

One of our VCFA instructors?I will not include his name here because his comment was made in the intimacy of a classroom discussion?shared how insecure he was when he began teaching many years ago. He would qualify his statements, he said, always suggesting that he might not have all of the answers, driven in part by his dislike of pompous instructors who seemed to believe they knew everything. ?My mistake was to bring my insecurities into the classroom,? he said. ?The key was to find the right balance between arrogant asshole and apologetic weenie.? Let me say, as someone who has experienced his pedagogical style, he has found that balance.

One thing that struck me was another instructor saying how she gravitates toward teaching classes where the students were hungry to learn, as opposed to attending because of a requirement. The graduating student lecture had focused on teaching English Composition to college freshmen; at many schools such a course is a first-semester requirement for many or all students.

I found myself reflecting on my own experience as a teacher. In every setting in which I have taught, I realized, it has been to adults who had chosen to be there, often at significant expense and/or inconvenience. An enthusiastic and worldly collection of students makes teaching easy and inspiring. It makes it easy to learn from the students, if I can return to the observation at the opening of this post. I understand why that instructor would choose such courses, but I found myself wondering how I might handle that freshman composition class, facing a collection of faces bearing the resentment of lost time they?d prefer to spend in other ways.

I know many readers of The Artist?s Road are teachers in various ways, from universities to individual instruction, and of course all of us have been students.? I?d welcome your thoughts on this interconnection between instructor and student.

Source: http://artistsroad.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/mfa-nugget-the-writing-teacher-as-student/

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Why Roger Federer Is Such A Good Tennis Player | ArticleTree.info

by DavisPete

There are many tennis players that I like to watch and learn from. I am always so amazed by the way they play and how they hit the ball so cleanly and smoothly on the court. However, there is a lot of hard work and sacrifice these players put in for training and during matches in order to succeed. There are no shortcuts and these players put in countless hours of practice to improve themselves both physically and mentally. These players have been an inspiration to me and I have always been motivated by them. Although I like many players, the player I like the most is Roger Federer, the number 1 in the world. Roger Federer (born August 8, 1981) is a Swiss professional tennis player who, in 2004, became the world's top tennis player.

My favorite tennis player would be Roger Federer because he has always been my greatest inspiration from young. From a young age, I have always been fascinated by his game style and how smart he is on court. I always loved how he would often mix up the pace and rhythm in rallies and use various shots to destabilize the opponent; forcing the opponent to make mistakes. Moreover, I admire his ability to stay cool and calm during the match and showing little emotion whatsoever if he wins or loses the point. Roger Federer uses his brains a lot to play and succeed in tournaments. No doubt the Swiss Maestro has a good serve and decent strokes however, whenever he steps on court, he plays with his head and uses his all-rounded game to his advantage. He serves and volleys, chips and charges, everything; this is what confuses his opponents. This is why many recon Federer as the genius in tennis. I also feel that whenever Federer steps on court, there is always this aura about him and that he is just so neat and majestic. Whenever I watch him play, I feel like he plays so gracefully and effortlessly that it is just so amazing and entertaining to watch the Swiss play.

I like Roger because he is a determined person and will work hard for success. He says 'You always want to win. That is why you play tennis, because you love the sport and try to be the best you can at it.' This shows that he is competitive and is hungry for success. This led him to win 17 Grand Slam titles breaking the previous all-time men's record of 14 by Pete Sampras. Federer's list of achievements is countless and the Swiss has managed to break many records in his years of playing in the professional circuit.

With all these achievements, the Swiss still remains humble and is willing to learn and work even harder to achieve more and scale greater heights. He displays great sportsmanship on court and is always gracious when he wins or loses. I am always so inspired by his attitude as he is truly a remarkable sportsman with great character and amazing achievements.

In conclusion, Roger Federer has indeed been an inspiration and I have learnt a lot from him character wise and tennis wise. He is truly an amazing sportsman and people should learn from his cool and composed attitude. I have been motivated by Roger's competitive spirit and determined attitude to work harder on and off court. I will always admire Roger Federer and will keep learning from his game. He will always remain my favorite player of all time. Alle Federer!

Source: http://recreation.articletree.info/recreation-a-sports/11567-why-roger-federer-is-such-a-good-tennis-player

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Tips Handicapping The Biggest Horse Races ? Recreation and Sports

Thoroughbred and harness horse racing tips are predicted by jockeys, trainers, owners, grooms, professional gamblers and even horse racing bettors .

Tips that payout generally will come from an insider usually if the horse is the odds on favorite or if you are a close friend or relative to an owner, trainer or jockey. No person is going to give you a real tip because they like you, because the more people who know about it the less the horse will pay . So if you are not close to an insider then the only very good tips are probably the ones coming from a capper on a free picks sheet who wants to impress you with his expertise so you will continue to buy his picks.

Owners always believe their horses are going to win, so free horse racing tips from an owner may not be so good. Trainers and groomers are with the horses 24/7, so their predictions will be correct more often.

The best horse racing tips do come from the jockeys, lets face it the owner and a trainer can only tell a jockey how to ride but it?s the jockey who is out there on the track deciding if he will go to the front or lay back and close at the end . Sometimes some jockeys in a race will together by one of them preventing any other riders from the front or going to the lead and get into a speed duel to burn out other horses to alow the horse they want to win .

Betting on Horse Racing is an fascinating experience during the 2 minutes the race is on. From your local horse racing track to the prestigious Triple Crown Races you have a chance to win alot of money.

One of the betting options you can do is to box the horses you like on the same bet. This strategy ensures your chances of winning are enhanced . It ogives you more opportunities to place several bets on the horses you think will win the race and come into fist, second or third, on and exacta or triple bet. Ofcourse with these bets there will be a larger overall risk amount needed .

Another tip in winning your bets is having in-depth knowledge of the most succesful horse trainers in every race and what their win %?s are overall and what they are for the current meet. Some of the worlds best horse trainers that have remarkable win percentages in horse racing across the world are:

1).Aidan O?Brien: He is a one of the world celebrated horse trainers. The Irish has an outstanding records having trained the best horses that have won some of the world?s top horse races. He runs the the Coolmore racing team. Going by current results from George Washington and Dylan Thomas racing tournament this is one of the trainers you can place your bets confidently expect to cashpout .

2). Bob Baffet: Bob a top US trainer is an exceptional horse trainer that currently controls most of the races in California including the Triple Crown. You can always rely on cashing in when betting on horses trained by him.

3). Mark Johnson: The proprietor of the prestigious Kingsley House is a top trainer from the U.K. . Currently, Mark Johnson trains roughly 140 horses. If you have to place your bet in the top UK horse racing events then you can count on this Englishman as your bet on your favorite horse .

Apart from these helpful ideas, there are many online racebooks that will give you helpful instruction so that you can bet smarter. Some of the sites are remarkably willing to refund part of your bet so you do not always lose as much.

Tags: free horse racing tips, free picks

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 1st, 2013 at 7:02 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Source: http://recreationandsports.russiacourse.com/uncategorized/tips-handicapping-the-biggest-horse-races/

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Source: http://unoceo.posterous.com/tips-handicapping-the-biggest-horse-races-rec

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GOP leader Cantor opposes Senate 'cliff' bill (The Arizona Republic)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/274240560?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Colorado gets members-only clubs for legal pot use

DENVER (AP) ? With reggae music pumping in the background and flashing disco-style lights, members of the recreational pot club lit up in celebration of the new year ? and a new place to smoke legally among friends.

Club 64, in an industrial area just north of downtown Denver, opened at 4:20 p.m. on Monday, with some 200 people signed up. The opening came less than 24 hours after organizers announced they would charge a $29.99 admission price for the bring-your-own pot club.

"Look at this!" Chloe Villano exclaimed as the club she created over the weekend opened. "We were so scared because we didn't want it to be crazy. But this is crazy! People want this."

The private pot dens popped up less than a month after Colorado's governor signed into law a constitutional amendment allowing recreational pot use. Club 64 gets its name from the number of the amendment.

Two Colorado clubs were believed to be the first legal pot dens in the nation. The Denver Post reported that a similar pot club opened earlier Monday in the small southern Colorado town of Del Norte.

Colorado's marijuana amendment prohibits public consumption, and smoke-free laws also appear to ban indoor smokeouts. But Club 64 attorney Robert Corry said private pot dens are permissible because marijuana isn't sold, nor is it food or drink.

Villano, the club owner, said the pot club would meet monthly at different locations, with the $29.99 membership fee good for only one event. On Monday, the pot club was meeting in a hemp-based clothing store near downtown. Hooded sweatshirts and backpacks were shoved to a corner. In the main area, a few small tables sat next to a screen showing "The Big Lebowski."

A bar decorated with blue Christmas lights handed out sodas and Club 64's official snacks ? Goldfish and Cheetos. The snacks were inspired by Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who warned marijuana users the night of the marijuana vote, "don't break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly."

Corry said the pot clubs are intended for people who can't use marijuana at home because of local ordinance or because their landlords threaten eviction.

"It's just a place for adults to exercise their constitutional rights together," Corry said. "We're not selling pot here."

Among the new Club 64 members planning to ring in the New Year was Joe Valenciano of Denver. He heard about Club 64 a day ago and signed up immediately.

"We need more clubs like this," Valenciano said.

___

Find Kristen Wyatt at http://www.twitter.com/APkristenwyatt

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-01-01-US-Marijuana-Clubs/id-d573234a2c36494eac8de54a2086772f

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Some simple financial resolutions for 2013

16 hrs.

Linda Stern , Reuters

WASHINGTON - Make resolutions if you must: When you vow to track every dollar and never waste money again, you feel all clean and shiny for at least a few hours into the new year.?

But that doesn't usually last. Resolutions get broken because they are too lofty and too ill-defined. It is better to break your resolutions down into a specific to do list: here are the money moves to make now and in the coming weeks that will insure you're in a better financial place before 2013 ends.?

• Analyze your entertainment budget. Television service used to be free, except for the electricity to run it. Now you have to choose cable versus satellite dish and then add on movies from a host of services (like Amazon, Hulu and Netflix)?via a host of devices (like Roku, Apple TV and internet-enabled Blu-ray players). Monthly budgets for a family run well over $100, just for television, so it's worth figuring out what you watch and how you watch it and comparison shop for the cheapest way to do that. Often, cable and satellite providers will cut you a better deal if you say you're ready to quit their service. In today's fast-shifting environment, re-do this analysis once a year at contract renewal time.?
  
• Put one savings on auto-pilot. There is nothing new or revolutionary about this particular exercise, but it works. Choose a low-cost stock mutual fund from a direct-seller like Vanguard, Fidelity Investments or T. Rowe Price. Authorize the fund to sweep a set amount out of your checking account every month. Even $100 will make a difference over time. Just ignore this fund, except to watch it build over time.
  
• Max out your credit cards -- not with borrowing, but with rewards. After five years of tight credit, card issuers are coming back at consumers with a new waves of rewards. Look at all of the cards you already have -- if you haven't paid them off, send all of your available money to the highest rate card until you kill the balances, one at a time, as quickly as possible. Then compare the rewards they pay for travel, groceries, gas and any other categories that are important to you. Check the best offers out there now at Nerd Wallet.?
  
• Refinance your mortgage. Make your move now if you expect to be in your home for at least five years. Rates hover near historic lows, and bankers are still willing to lend money for 30 years at 3.25 percent and for 15 years at 2.5 percent. Nobody can predict when rates will rise, but they aren't likely to go down. At some point over the next 10 years, those rates are likely to look excellent. Furthermore, many people who were unable to refinance before because they didn't have enough equity in their homes may get relief from recent increases in home prices. To shop for a good rate, check the listings at MortgageMarvel.com and Bankrate.com, and compare with a couple of local mortgage lenders and your own credit union.?
  
• Buy life insurance. If you have a family that depends on you, and you don't already have six times your income in term coverage, it's time to buy. Rates have been falling for more than a decade, but now that's over and some are heading back up, says Byron Udell of Accuquote.com. Furthermore, some life insurance companies are giving up on some product lines that they believe are unprofitable in today's low interest rate environment. Shop for term life at Accuquote.com, Intelliquote.com and term4sale.com, and compare rates with independent firms like Geico and -- if you have a military connection -- USAA.?
  
• Adjust your 401(k) settings. If you just let your company auto-enroll you in the program, there's a good chance you aren't saving enough. Bump up your regular contributions at least to the level your company will match, and higher if you can afford it. Authorize the company that manages your 401(k) to rebalance your assets once a year, to keep your mix of stocks and bonds where you want it to be. That will automatically have you buying lower and selling higher.?
  
• Update your resume. Many workers have been stalled at work for five years or more. But the economy is improving, so it's a good time to brush up on needed skills, rewrite your resume and start networking via LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and your own personal connections. Even if you want to stay where you are, it's a good career move to stay abreast of what's going on all around.?
  
• Organize your info and look at your money. All good financial planning starts here. If you have balances on your credit cards, make a list of all of your cards, with their effective interest rates and balances. Your debt-payoff strategy will become clear. If you don't know how you spend your money, embrace a program like Quicken or an online aggregator like Mvelopes or Mint. Investing for retirement or otherwise? Find a program or system that allows you to track your investment mix and your returns on a quarterly basis. Set it up now, and your investment decisions will be made easier all year long.?
  

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/some-simple-financial-resolutions-2013-1C7782786

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