Word Count: ’bout 900 with lots of pictures
Time to read: ’bout three well-invested minutes
The Skinny: My new digest for all things marketing. Scroll down to skip the intro and get the goods from Neil Patel, Ana Hoffman, and Nicholas Tart.

Anytime someone wants their message to have a little more credibility, it seems they invoke the name of a man most revered for his intelligence: Albert Einstein.

Bunches of folks from political activists to hippie-type new agey folks have attached their message to his credibility.  By backing up whatever their crazy assertion is with something that Einstein had said, or even didn’t say. It’s a cheap trick and hardly anyone ever looks it up or calls you on it.

Turns out I’m not above this lame-ass move either 😉

Today my opportunitist, exploitative cheesy coattail-riding honored and reverent mention of the Einstein name will help me announce a new column in my blog: Share the Love Saturdays.

This will all make sense in 60 more seconds, I promise…

They always say that Albert Einstein was a genius. So how come when anyone ever calls you that, it’s an insult? Oh, you don’t remember where you parked the car? Nice goin’, Einstein. -Brian Regan

Einstein’s Shortcut to Mastering any Subject, Including Marketing

The quote that someone told me that somebody else heard that Einstein said something like was kinda along these lines:

“If you study a subject for just fifteen minutes a day for a year… At the end of that year you will have the equivalent of a year of college education in that subject.” -(a saying ascribed to) Albert Einstein

Y’know, poor Mr. Einstein has been quoted and MISquoted so many times, I just couldn’t believe this on face value.

So I looked it up.

Three credit hours of instruction in a subject is s’posed to be about 45 hours of in-seat attendance.

There’s two semesters in a college year, so 90 hours.

And 15 minutes is .25 of an hour.

So using Eintein’s slightly (ahem) less famous formula: 365 days X .25 of an hour per day = 91.25 hours!

Whoa. Smart guy, that Einstein.

My New Marketing Tips Digest: Share the Love Saturdays

SO what does this little morsel of Einsteinian wisdom have to do with my new column, and more importantly, what’s in it for YOU, dear reader? 😉

We-e-ll… first off, I can’t wait a whole year for my year of college edumacation. So instead of studying 15 minutes a day, I’ll be diving in for one full hour every day, scouring the internet for the best, up-to-the-nanosecond knowledge in this category: how to market your business on a Shoestring.

And I’ll be brain-dumping the very best nuggets of marketing gold right here every Saturday.

IN a year I figure that takes me into much more of a fart smeller. Er, smart feller. Think about it; if 15 minutes per day gives you a year of college in one year, then reading 4X that much a day gives you a four year degree in the same amount of time. And by sharing with you the very best things I found, you get to have my crib notes.

First Entries for Share The Love Marketing Tips:

First, a nod to Kristi Hines (www.kristihines.com, www.kikolani.com) for giving me this idea: you will find a similar digest in her Fetching Fridays tab. I’m not as smart so I need an extra day to process all the cool stuff I read during the week 😉

THIS week I’ve got to tell you about three particularly awesome posts I read regarding traffic.

The Massive Guide to Getting Massive Traffic by Neil Patel @NeilPatel (he’s kind of a big deal)

Neil is the freakiest geek I’ve seen so far in this space; I mean that in the best way. This post has nine tactics, some of which will seem familiar and others I never expected. Pure genius… I am watching Neil Patel and so should you. For MY hour a day, I’m scouring his posts and becoming geekier as I go.

Website Traffic Blueprint by Ana Hoffman @AnaTrafficCafe (she needs sleep, sanity, and a hug. But she’s a traffic fiend!)

Ana is down to Earth and a somewhat humorous writer. Her biggest asset is taking this complex subject and making it as simple as possible, but not simpler. She has helped me to “GET” things that went over my head before regarding SEO and all the different ways to drive traffic. Oooh! Let me urge you to pick up a PDF she gave me free here on this blog, as well as to go get “Mommy, Where Does Traffic Come From?” by subscribing to her blog. Ana rocketh mightily, go right now and consume this brain candy.

Ultimate Step-byStep Guide to Writing a Blog Post by Nicholas Tart @14ClicksNick (He teaches young people to be entrepreneurs).

Nick is an impressive young twentysomething that teaches you how to write for people and robots. His posts routinely get sent tens of thousands of hits from Google, and they are quite good reads and epic content to boot. Time you spend with Nick is sure to be profitable; I had a consulting session with him for $100 an hour and think it was a crazy good deal. Nick, ya still need to bill me young man.

Okay Steppers! I’m investing an hour a day in myself to become the smartest person in this space.

Next Step: go thou and do likewise.

Keep Stepping,

Kurt

P.S. It just wouldn’t be right to let you go now without a little shameless self-promotion. 😎 SO here’s a link to what Shoestring101 is all about, plus this other good one should this be yer first gander round these parts. And should you want to find us again, SUBSCRIBE. Duh.