If you are reading this blog then you are more than likely a big fan of Social Marketing and Web 2.0 Strategies. As such, you probably already have a copy of the "Authority Black Book" that was released by Jack Humphrey last year and went on to become one of the most downloaded free e-books ever. It turned into a sort of Social Marketer's bible. I know that I found tons of useful information and resources inside and have implemented some of the strategies found within.

Well I just found out that Jack has released an upgraded version with lots of new information and all of the old stuff as well. I thought I would get the word out to all my readers so they can get the newest version of the social marketer's bible now known as: Authority Black Book 2.0 for 2008.

I have talked about this a little bit already on this blog. Hopefully, you have at least signed up for the free version of Squidoo Secrets. If you have been following this blog, you should have already signed up for a Squidoo account and a Hub pages account. You will need them for this. Here are the basics of the strategy:

• find a product that you would like to promote that hasn't launched yet
• claim your real estate on Squidoo and Hub pages (the ideal lens or hub has the product name in the url…"www.squidoo.com/product-name" or "hubpages.com/hub/product-name")
• use the techniques in Squidoo Secrets to make your lens irresistible to the search engines (most of the techniques will work for your Hub page too)
• ping your lens and hub page at pingomatic, ping goat, and other pinging services
• submit a story, (a review of the product works good), about your lens to Digg, Propeller, Reddit, and any other social news sites you can think of. ( I use Web 2.0 Submitter, but you can use Social Marker as well )
• bookmark your lens everywhere: Technorati, Delicious, Only wire, you name it
• make your review into an article, with links to your Squidoo lens and Hub page, and use this free article submitter to distribute it to over 300 article directories (not all at once, 5-10 directories a day looks more natural)
• if you have a blog, make a couple of posts with links to your Squidoo lens and your Hub page.

If you do the first 5 steps a couple days before the launch and then follow up immediately with the rest, you will have at least 2 listings on the first page of Google results when the product launches. The sooner you get your sites up, the better chance you will have. The search term you will be ranking for is the product name itself.

I have found that usually the first Squidoo lens built about the topic will be the one that Google displays. This will change over time and the lens with the best content and optimization will win out. If some one beats you to the punch at the start, make sure you build a lot of back links to your lens and Hub page via the social bookmarking sites and by making blog comments.

Also, once the product launches, make sure you go back and update your lens and Hub page. I would make it a habit to add and/or modify your content on a weekly basis. This will give you the best results, especially in the beginning. After all, the search engines love fresh content.

I have been a member of Bob "The Teacher" Jenkin's program, Squidoo Secrets, since it was created. The tactics that I learned were instrumental in some of my lenses attaining 1st page Google rankings. Go to Google and type in Web 2.0 Submitter, Peel Away Ads, Exit Grabber, or You Can't Block This.

All of these Squidoo lenses are mine. If you want to learn how I managed to get my lenses on the first page of Google results then click here to download How Do You Do, Squidoo? This free report should get you started on your way. If you are still wondering why you should use Squidoo, then check out the video below.

You have only seen a fraction of what can be accomplished with Squidoo. I use my lenses as landing pages for pay per click campaigns. The lenses that are ranked high in Google have brought my a lot of free traffic that has resulted in some nice affiliate commissions.

Download your free report and then go check out the new and improved Squidoo Secrets. If you can afford it, I would jump on the upgrade offer because I am sure that you will want to do it later, but it will cost you more if you wait.

I ran across this awesome social bookmarking tool the other day and just had to share it with everybody. I have promoted a tool on this blog, called Web 2.0 Submitter. Web 2.0 Submitter lets you semi automate the submission process to 10 different social bookmarking sites. It is a great time saver in what can be a lengthy, drawn out process.

Well this new tool I ran across submits to 47 different social bookmarking sites.

It's called "Social Marker". OK, it doesn't automate the process as much as Web 2.0 Submitter but it will shave some time off the submission process. The big difference is that it is free. My recommendation is to use them both together. You can use the Social Marker to do the bookmarking sites that Web 2.0 Submitter doesn't cover. You will be able to create a ton of powerful, high page rank back links to your sites in know time.

My last post I apologized for not posting in over a week and then I turn around and don't post for almost three weeks. Shame on me! The truth is that I have been really busy. My new weight loss blog is like a daily journal so I have given it priority and post almost every day. My son has started soccer so that eats up about 4 - 6 hours a week, but enough with the excuses. To make up for my lack of attention to this blog I am giving you a free gift. Hopefully you have created a blog or website with a Squidoo lens and a Hub page to go with it based on the same topic and key words.

One of the best ways to get one way backlinks and some free traffic to your sites is to submit them to directories. This is old school marketing but it is still very effective and one of the basics that you should always do when you create a new blog or website. The main draw back with this tactic is that it is very time consuming. To help you speed up the process, I have a free tool for you called Directory Submitter. This is not a cheesy peice of software like some of the article submitters you have probably seen. This software is from Bryxen Software better known for porducts like SEO Elite and Keyword Elite, which by the way are 2 of my favorite marketing tools. Most of these types of submitters are not user friendly and they sometimes have problems auto filling the proper fields.

Directory Submitter does an awesome job. Click on one of the links in this post to download your free software, then submit your blog or website, your Squidoo lens, and your Hub page to all of the directories. There are 350 directories in the free version. I recommend submitting to 25-50 directories each day until you have submitted to all of them. This looks more natural to the search engines and is a better strategy then submitting to all of them on the same day. If you want to put your promotion in over drive then you can purchase the "gold" upgrade and submit to over 2200 directories. Go ahead and work on this and next time we will jump into Gather.com.