This is part of the series the 31 Day Challenge To Optimize Your Blog With Social Media.

LinkedIn presents a wealth of untapped potential for non-profits. It’s the most respected professional social networking site, with more than 55 millions professionals from 200 countries. LinkedIn‘s tagline says it all: “Relationships Matter.”

Here are a few more tips on using LinkedIn to promote your blog.

Titles are everything

The short title of your LinkedIn profile is the first thing that gets seen in searches. Make it interesting.

List prior lives

If your profile only lists your current position, you’re limiting the power of LinkedIn.

When you include past employers in your profile, LinkedIn automatically alerts you of past colleagues. Including your complete professional history will help you build a network of those prior connections.

LinkedIn email signature

An embedded email signature is an easy way to promote your skills and experience (and your blog) in the course of doing business.

Improve your Google rankings

Because LinkedIn profiles rank very high on Google, exposure for your blog goes along for the ride. However, to maximize this potential, select “Full View” in your profile settings. Also, customize your public profile’s URL to be your actual name – then put this link on your website and use this link when you comment on blogs.

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Iattended a session about global initiatives being set forth at the World Economic Forum and one of them is a study on the worldwide gender gap led by Laura Tyson, a professor the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and former chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration.

“Half of the world’s innovators are women,” Tyson says.

I was so profoundly impressed and inspired by Professor Tyson. Her resume and credentials match her passion for equality among us all and she reminded me of the type of professor I had in school where you want to get there a few minutes early and sit in the front row. Her perspective and impact on pushing forward how women are treated globally and how we can educate ourselves about equality are something I encourage all of you to explore.

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Let me share something here that I’m not sharing over on the MySpace blogs. Rather let me gush for a second. Davos, Switzerland, is truly spectacular. There is something about an invite-only conference that allows every attendee to walk up to one another and say hi, introduce yourself, make conversation. Everyone who is here has done something special to be here. Sure, there are a few lucky ducks (like myself) who have found their way here, but heads of states and CEOs and global leaders all under one roof make for very interesting conversations.

Which leads me to my next point – the people here care very much. There are a lot of conversations about just about everything you could imagine. Water conservation and sustainable of global fisheries, the future of the Middle East, what the World Cup in South Africa this summer can do to raise awareness of current hot topic issues in Africa, the crisis in Haiti. There are a million things happening in the world right now and chances are someone here is an expert in that field.

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This is part of the series the 31 Day Challenge To Optimize Your Blog With Social Media.

The other day we spoke about managing time on social media. One way to manage time is to batch tasks together. But even with this approach, it still gets crazy-making when you have to go from Flickr to WordPress to Facebook and back toTwitter.

What if you could cut down on the number of social media sites that you’re posting content to? Posterous allows you to do just that – entirely by email.

Distribute content by pushing “send”

Posterous has broken down barriers to blogging by allowing users to post various types of content via email. Video, photos, videos and text are automatically formatted by Posterous. This allows you to automatically display short videos and audio files in their very own media player.

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This is part of the series the 31 Day Challenge To Optimize Your Blog With Social Media.

Guest post by Lewis Howes
LewisHowes.com

LinkedIn is one of the most powerful ways to drive traffic to your blog. It is always in the top five referred sites that drive traffic to my blogs each month.

I’m amazed by the success stories of individuals picking up new clients, receiving a full-time job and selling more products because of the way they utilize the Q&A section on LinkedIn.

This post is focused on driving traffic to your blog, but if you harness these principles you will notice more than just traffic as a bonus for your business. 

Ask interesting questions

The more compelling questions you ask, the better each response will be. If you’re trying to promote your blog, then you’ll want to ask questions about your niche or industry. If you’re an online marketer who specializes in email marketing, your question might be:

“What is your biggest challenge you face with email marketing, and what is your favorite email marketing provider?”

At the end of your question (where they provide room for additional comments), you could mention that the best answer will win a free 20-minute strategy session from you. Also offer to add their comments to your blog.

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Given the visible success of the Haiti text-to-give campaigns, SMS is bound to become one of the tools in an organization’s fundraising bag, if it isn’t already.

This week I heard about Drew Olanoff’s latest fundraising campaign, a text-to-give strategy on behalf of Boarding for Breast Cancer. Here’s how it works:

Every time someone texts “tp4bc” to 60611, the textPlus mobile address, textPlus will donate $1 to Boarding for Breast Cancer, a non-profit, youth-focused education, awareness, and fundraising foundation whose mission is to increase awareness about breast cancer, the importance of early detection and the value of an active lifestyle.

textPlus, a mobile app, offers users free texting with group text capability.  What’s cool is that Drew’s employer GOGII is the mobile app developer behind textPlus, a free group texting application available on the iPhone and Android platforms.

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This is part of the series the 31 Day Challenge To Optimize Your Blog With Social Media.

Apost I wrote a while ago called How to avoid the social media time suck received a lot of comments -– proof that social media time management is a constant struggle for folks -– and continues to be.

In fact, when I recently spoke about using social media for fundraising, I found that many of the questions were about social media time management. Here are 10 tactics to be more efficient with social media:

1. Stop multitasking

In his book The Power of Less, Leo Babauta argues that multitasking, despite its widespread practice, is actually very inefficient. He writes: “Doing more things means you’re likely to do a lot of unimportant things, and you’ll be over-worked and stressed at the same time.”

2. Task chunking

The idea here is to group similar types of tasks based on how your brain processes these tasks. For example, a blog post and a project proposal, which both require creative thinking, can be done during the same chunk of time. Or you could organize your Twitter lists and update your iPhone contacts during a time period you’ve determined to be “admin time”. This allows you to decrees inefficiencies created by constantly switching “brain spaces.”

3. Smart email

Email is a major distraction. Chances are you’re “checking” email constantly throughout the day. Leo recommends dealing with email only twice a day. But if you’re like me, checking email only twice a day might feel like too much of a habit change. You might want to start smaller. For example, I read and respond only to emails from clients and specific friends throughout the day, and save everything else for later. Gmail allows you to create filters to catch these important emails.

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Holly Ross, executive director, NTEN (Photo by JD Lasica)

Superguide to events for nonprofits & social change organizations

Following is a roundup of conferences and events scheduled in the nonprofit and social change sector in 2010, with a few educational events tossed in as well.

If you know of other must-attend events, please add them by posting in the comments at the bottom and I’ll add them within a day or two.

Note that we’ve published an “ultimate calendar” of 2010 conferences in social media, tech and marketing on our sister site, Socialmedia.biz.

Conference	Date	Place
January
NETA	Jan. 12-15	Las Vegas
Discussions and presentations about public television at the National Educational Telecommunications Association.
WordCamp	Jan. 23 onward	Various
WordCamps, where WordPress aficionados congregate, are happening in dozens of cities this year, including Boston (Jan. 23), Miami (Feb. 20), Ireland (March 6-7), Toronto (March 27-28) and elsewhere.
IRE Workshops	Jan. 23-24	New Orleans
Ethnic media watchdog workshops help journalists sharpen their skills, learn new approaches and add depth to their reporting.
World Economic Forum	Jan. 27-31	Davos, Switzerland
The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting (better known simply as Davos) has engaged leaders from all walks of life to shape the global agenda. Socialbrite’s own Sloane Berrent will be covering the event.
Twiistup	Jan. 28	Los Angeles
More than just a conference, Twiistup is LA’s biggest technology event. Twiistup combines a showcase for innovation, a platform for thought leaders and an audience of entrepreneurs, media and investors all wrapped in a unique, stylized environment that rivals a Hollywood production.
She’s Geeky	Jan. 29	Mountain View, Calif.
The third Bay Area event takes place at the Computer History Museum. She’s Geeky hosts unconferences across the U.S. to give women in science, tech, engineering and math a chance to get together to learn from each other and discuss the issues they face in their fields.
A Helluva Camp for Nonprofit Rebels	Jan. 30	San Francisco
As the economy faces a jobless recovery, social entrepreneurs are emerging in all sectors and industries. This content-packed camp features new faces and new ideas for the rebels who want to shake up the nonprofit world.
BarCamp	Jan. onward	Worldwide
BarCamp is an international network of user-created unconferences – open, participatory workshops – whose content is provided by users. Also look for offshoots of the BarCamp model, such as HealthCamp.
PodCamp	Jan. onward	Worldwide
A PodCamp is typically a free BarCamp-style community unconference for new media enthusiasts and professionals including bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, social networkers and anyone curious about new media.
February
CSR Performance Summit	Feb. 1-3	San Francisco
Many corporations have proved that corporate responsibility initiatives are essential to their bottom-line success. At CSR Performance Summit you will learn to align each initiative with strategy and to establish a foundation in meaningful metrics, research and industry best practices.
Social Media Week*	Feb. 1-5	Various cities
Learn about the potential of social media in a series of events in these cities: New York, San Francisco, London, Berlin, Toronto and São Paulo.
TED	Feb. 9-13	Long Beach, Calif.
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is where the world’s leading thinkers and doers gather to share ideas worth spreading. TEDActive, a simulcast experience, takes place in Palm Springs. TEDx brings the TED experience to local communities.
NonProfit 2.0	Feb. 12	Washington, DC
A conference on the next generation Web, NonProfit 2.0 offers keynote sessions led by Amanda Rose, founder of Twestival, then shifts into full-on unconference mode.
edSocialMedia Bootcamp	Feb. 16	Boston
Are you trying to understand social media and how it can be used at your school? Do you need a better grasp of the benefits and challenges of social media before jumping in? This one-day summit will tackle how social media can be used in education.
RootsCampDC	Feb. 20-21	Washington, DC
RootsCamp is an “unconference” convened by the New Organizing Institute and relying on attendees to identify the topics they want to talk about and the stories they want to share.
Social Enterprise Conference	Feb. 27-28	Cambridge, Mass.
The Social Enterprise Conference is one of the world’s leading forums to engage in dialogue, debate and expression around social enterprise with leaders from across the world.
March
Global Ignite Week	March 1-4	Worldwide
Ignite brings together geeks to do 5-minute talks in front of small audiences — with slides that rotate every 15 seconds. Global Ignite Week features 500 talks in 40 cities, including New York, LA, the Bay Area, Boston, Madrid, Manila, Paris and Sydney.
Journalism Diversity Symposium	March 4	Palo Alto, Calif.
News and Inclusion: Journalism and the Politics of Diversity will focus on the role of journalism in multicultural societies, with scholars from Singapore, Finland, Australia, The Netherlands, Canada, England and the U.S.
GoingGreen East	March 8-10	Boston
Here is where green-tech CEOs and industry executives meet investors. This executive event features CEO presentations and high-level debates on the most promising emerging green technologies and new entrepreneurial opportunities.
South by Southwest	March 12-21	Austin
Counterculture meets geek techies, indie filmmakers and alt bands. This year’s SXSW schedule: Interactive, March 12-16; Film, March 12-20; Music, March 17-21.
eCampaigning Forum	March 23-24	Oxford, UK
The event for e-campaigning practitioners to share their expertise.
Twestival	March 25	Global
People in hundreds of cities around the world will come together offline to rally around the cause of education by hosting local events to have fun and create awareness. Twestival (or Twitter Festival) uses social media for social good.
Transparency Camp	March 27-28	Washington, DC
This unconference will convene a trans-partisan tribe of open government advocates — government reps, technologists, journalists, developers, NGOs, wonks, activists — to share knowledge on how to use new technologies to make our government transparent, accountable and accessible to the public.
April
Nonprofit Technology	April 8-10	Atlanta
NTEN and the Georgia Center for Nonprofits will come together to provide an unparalleled meeting ground for drawing on the expertise and commitment of the nonprofit community.
AFP International Conference on Fundraising	April 11-14	Baltimore, Md.
The 47th AFP International Conference on Fundraising honors 50 years of working to advance the profession while celebrating fundraising’s bright future and its impact on people and societies around the world. Fundraisers from more than 20 countries will examine best practices, discuss new ideas and trends and share experiences to improve our organizations.
Skoll World Forum	April 14-16	Oxford, UK
The Skoll World Forum focuses on catalysing collaboration for large scale change. This year’s Forum will engage the world’s most influential social entrepreneurs, social investors and thought leaders to create partnerships, networks, knowledge and collaborative pathways between the social, policy, academic and private sectors.
Global Engagement Summit	April 14-18	Evanston, Ill.
The Global Engagement Summit (GES) is a five-day training conference for students committed to global change. Delegates come together to understand the opportunities for their engagement; to hone the skills and mindsets that will enable them to better plan and participate in change-based projects; and to connect with like-minded peers from around the world.
Earth Day Build-a-thon	April 17-20	Oakland, Calif.
Turn the tide, one home at a time, with this hands-on neighborhood revitalization program, no construction experience needed.
Global Philanthropy Forum	April 18-21	Redwood City, Calif.
Defy barriers, effect change: A conference about access to health, food and water. The conference will include breakout tracks, an awards banquet, musical performances and invite-only sessions.
Government 2010	April 22	London
A series of events in the United Kingdom during 2010 exploring Government 2.0.
Investment, Influence, Impact: Seizing the Moment	April 22-24	Denver
The conference will focus on how together we can seize the moment by increasing our investment, influence and impact to create positive, structural and long-lasting change for communities throughout the world.
ReVisioning Value 2010 Conference	April 26-27	Portland, Ore.
ReVV 2010 is a one-day conference that will explore the leading ideas and promising results of how new financial and organizational models are increasing the flow of needed capital to those who will use it to create a more just and sustainable world. The conference is followed by a day of hands-on workshops and roundtables designed to help participants apply the ideas offered at the conference to their own organizations.
Social Enterprise Alliance Summit	April 28-30	San Francisco
This international forum advocates for increased social impact through social enterprise. Join over 700 social entrepreneurs to learn, grow, be inspired, make new connections from around the globe and become part of this expanding movement.
Wisdom 2.0	April 30-May 2	Mountain View, Calif.
This three-day event brings together technology leaders from companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, along with Zen teachers, neuroscientists and others to explore how we can live in greater balance with, and more successfully use, the great technologies of our age.
May
Journalism Innovations III	May 1	San Francisco
The third Journalism Innovations program will be coming from Independent Arts & Media, the Society for Professional Journalists and the University of San Francisco.
NYC Symposium for Social Change	May 3	New York
The NYC Symposium for Social Change brings together the powerful economic tools of Wall Street with the entrepreneurship of social innovation to impact New York City’s most pressing issues in education, environment and impact investing.
Global Voices Citizen Media Summit	May 6-7	Santiago, Chile
Global Voices Online gathers with a diverse group of bloggers, activists, technologists and journalists from around the world for two days of public discussions and workshops. The theme of the meeting is “Next generation citizen media, public access and citizen participation.”
SHINE	May 13-15	London
As an antidote to business conferences or other social enterprise events, this unconference sets out to provide the space, place and time where people setting up their social enterprise could grow their business, learn from others in the same situation, and come away with their questions answered.
Games for Change Festival	May 24-27	New York
The seventh annual event takes place at Parsons The New School for Design.
Gov 2.0 Expo	May 25-27	Washington, DC
Government 2.0 is about empowering government employees to serve citizens better and opening up the government into a platform that enables citizens to better help their communities.
June
Cause Marketing Forum	June 2-3	Chicago
The 8th annual Cause Marketing Forum brings together business, nonprofit and agency executives dedicated to doing well by doing good together.
Personal Democracy Forum	June 3-5	New York City
The annual gathering of political activists, government reform advocates and techies, with an “unconference” for the Saturday after the formal conference ends.
Journalism That Matters	June 3-6	Detroit
Journalism that Matters invites persons of color — journalists, entrepreneurs, programmers, technologists, bloggers, videographers, venture capitalists, artists, funders, educators — to a “mashup” to explore how voices often unheard or misrepresented can reshape the future of journalism.
IJ7 & JTM	June 7-11	Palo Alto, Calif.
The 7th Conference on Innovation Journalism and Journalism That Matters will be held back to back at Stanford University with a look at journalism in the innovation economy.
New Media Consortium	June 9-12	Anaheim, Calif.
The NMC’s annual conference is an opportunity to learn about how higher-education institutions are using new media to improve teaching, learning and research. This conference offers presentations, workshops and networking opportunities and attracts an audience of hundreds of highly skilled professionals interested in the integration of emerging technologies into teaching, learning and creative inquiry.
Allied Media Conference	June 18-20	Detroit
The conference seeks to cultivate strategies for a more just and creative world. Attendees come together to share tools and tactics for transforming our communities through media-based organizing.
Salsa Community Conference	June 24-25	Washington, DC
The conference brings together savvy strategists, Salsa users extraordinaires, important partners, great speakers and more. Get hands-on training with the Salsa-savvy support team and fellow users, have one-on-ones with leading strategists, geek out with customizations and integrations in Salsa with SalsaScript, the Salsa Market and more.
NCTech4Good	June 25	Chapel Hill, NC
This conference brings together people from the nonprofit and technology sectors to identify and address the technology needs of the nonprofit community in North Carolina.
Nonprofit 2.0 Unconference	June 25	Washington, DC
Ever attend a conference, for a keynote, and find the rest of the content to be wanting? Nonprofit 2.0 delivers the best of both worlds, offering great keynote sessions led by Amanda Rose, founder of Twestival, and Wendy Harman, Social Media Manager for the American Red Cross — in an unconference format — at SEIU.
National Conference on Volunteering and Service	June 28-30	New York City
The annual event provides attendees with an opportunity to learn, connect and be inspired through exciting and informative plenary sessions, workshops, special events, service projects, exhibits, specialized corporate tracks and more.
July
Aspen Ideas Festival	July 5-11	Apen, Colo.
The Aspen Institute has been the nation’s premier gathering place for world leaders to engage in deep and inquisitive discussion of the ideas and issues that both shape our lives and challenge our times. The institute now seeks to engage a broader audience in a discussion of the significant issues that touch all parts of our society.
International Development Design Summit	July 7-30	Fort Collins, CO
The fourth annual summit brings together people from around the globe to build technologies that improve the lives of people in the developing world. It is the goal of IDDS 2010 to guide project teams through the process of becoming viable ventures with business plans to disseminate their innovations at scale. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the challenges of entrepreneurship and technology dissemination for developing markets with a diverse group of people from around the globe.
OSCON	July 19-23	Portland, OR
In its 12th year, OSCON continues to be the premier meeting ground for everyone using open source. At OSCON, you’ll participate in hundreds of sessions covering open source languages and platforms, practical tutorials, inspirational keynotes, an Expo Hall, and great networking events. Join over 2,500 people who are passionate about open source.
Netroots Nation	July 22-25	Las Vegas, Nev.
The Center for American Progress Action Fund, Netroots Nation and America’s Voice collaborate for the annual gathering of digital progressives.
Bridge to Integrated Marketing & Fundraising	July 26-28	Maryland
The 5th Annual Bridge to Integrated Marketing and Fundraising Conference combines the resources of two major organizations: The Association of Fundraising Professionals, Washington, DC Metro Area Chapter (AFP/DC), and the Direct Marketing Association of Washington (DMAW). Designed to bring together some of the biggest buyers, sellers and users of fundraising and direct marketing products and services, this three-day event features nationally and internationally renowned speakers and top cutting-edge educational programming.
August
Craigslist Foundation Boot Camp	Aug. 14	Berkeley, Calif.
Craigslist Foundation believes strong communities and neighborhoods are cornerstone of society. Boot Camp helps people learn how to make a positive impact in their communities and neighborhoods. The expanded focus aims at community builders and people engaged with their neighborhoods and social good across all sectors.
September
Clinton Global Initiative	Sept. 21-23	New York City
Building on President Clinton’s lifetime in public service, the Clinton Global Initiative reflects his belief that governments need collaboration from the private sector, non-governmental organizations and global leaders to confront the world’s most pressing problems.
Web of Change	Sept. 22-26	Hollyhock, Cortes Island
This 10th gathering has grown to about 90 participants who are seeking ways to harness the power of the Internet to effect social change.
Communicating Sustainability	Sept. 22-23	Santa Clara, Calif.
Communicating Sustainability 2010: Integrating Social Responsibility Into Your Organization’s DNA will provide you with new tools and some inspiring new models of sustainability and communications that every organization could benefit from knowing about.
Mobile Giving Conference	Sept. 27-28	Malibu, Calif.
This conference will focus on offering nonprofits — education, faith-based, disaster and cause-related organizations — best practice tools and solutions to communicate, serve, broaden awareness and raise financial support through mobile giving and other wireless services. Attending will be leaders from the carrier, wireless, technology, nonprofit and social entrepreneurship spaces to address the rapidly evolving mobile fundraising and communication marketplace.
The IdeaFestival	Sep. 29-Oct. 2	Louisville, Ky.
I spoke not long ago at the IdeaFestival, a world-class event that attracts highly diverse thinkers from around the globe to explore and celebrate innovation, imagination and cutting-edge ideas.
GoingGreen West	Sept. 14-16	San Francisco
The third year of the green technologies conference organized by AlwaysOn.
Women in Computing	Sep. 28-Oct. 2	Atlanta
A program of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, this gathering is designed to advance the research and career interests of women in computing.
October
Open Video Conference	Oct. 1-2	New York City
Michael Wesch is giving a keynote address at the second Open Video Conference. Dubbed “the explainer” by Wired magazine, Michael Wesch is a cultural anthropologist exploring the effects of new media on society and culture. The conference gathers top thinkers looking to bring open source alternatives to the often proprietary world of online video.
Social Capital Markets*	Oct. 4-6	San Francisco
Social Capital Markets (SoCap) will return this fall for its third gathering of social entrepreneurs and other change-makers.
Direct Marketing Association	Oct. 9-14	San Francisco
DMA2010 offers the latest technology, current research, renegade thinkers, industry giants, hundreds of educational sessions, thousands of your peers and the world’s largest exhibition for direct and interactive marketers. DMA2010 will feature hundreds of educational sessions, roundtables, forums and case studies led by the direct marketing community’s best and brightest thought leaders.
Bioneers	Oct. 15-17	San Rafael, Calif.
Bioneers is the premier environmental conference where social and scientific innovators focus on solutions inspired by nature and human ingenuity.
Blackbaud’s Conference for Nonprofits	Oct. 20–22	Washington, D.C.
The gathering provides three days of educational content dedicated to your specific needs and opportunities to network and interact with your peers and industry experts. Keynote speakers will help you learn about the key issues while offering engaging and inspiring stories.
Pop!Tech	Oct. 20-23	Camden, Maine
Pop!Tech is a network of remarkable people, extraordinary conferences, powerful ideas and innovative projects that are changing the world. I attended one year — it’s a great gathering.
November
BigTent	Nov. 18–20	Houston, TX
The BigTent Conference is an unprecedented 3 day gathering of youth leaders, educators, advocates and young people who will share strategies, philosophies and tools to advance the health and wellbeing of families and children. The conference combines inspiring presentations, practical workshops, celebratory community building, and a challenging call to action aimed at motivating and equipping individuals, organizations, and communities to do their part to ensure that children and youth are ready for college, work, and life by age 21.
December
Green Awards	December 2	London
The Green Awards has become a fixture the global eco calendar as the leading industry awards for sustainability in marketing and communications. The Green Awards recognizes excellence in 16 categories.
Conference on Philanthropy and the Leadership Forum	Dec. 3	Boston
Presenters will deliver 75-minute sessions on a topic within their expertise. Roundtable facilitators guide a topic-specific conversation with other conference attendees during lunch. The process this year is fully online in an effort to both conserve resources and streamline administration.

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This is part of the series the 31 Day Challenge To Optimize Your Blog With Social Media.

Like many kids, I was involved in the Boy Scouts. The scout leader was Mr. Pertrazzio, who was an electrician.

Now, I’m sure he loved being involved with the Boy Scouts. But when you think about it, he had a clear marketing advantage over other electricians: Parents trusted him. And some parents trusted him enough to let him into their homes, which is important for an electrician.

3 reasons why you should do charity work on your blog

1. It shows you care about something greater.
2. Your blog and your outposts have power to create awareness around important issues.
3. You can meet new bloggers that you can network with.

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