For the social media play – check this out. Conan did not have a twitter account until a few months ago.

As he’ll state in the video, because of 140 characters and 1 tweet he sent out to his followers, he was able to sell out his entire live comedy tour WITHOUT ADVERTISING.

And ya…. his fame and the fact that millions follow him helped, but imagine sending 1 tweet and then selling out of all your products with no money to spend on any advertising!

So, I like Conan’s dry humor, enjoy the video, watch it all the way through.

You’ll notice I use a lot of video posts in my blog and I’ve in the past used EZS3 Video players to host and wrap my mp4 video files on the websites I have.

But now, everything is changing because of Josh Bartlett’s easy video player pro.

Watch the video below as I interview Josh on what his video player does. Sorry, it’s kinda loud in the room we were talking in, but that’s ok, it’s still pretty easy to hear what we are talking about, if you listen closely.

Feel free to grab the embed code at the corner of my video and share it with your friends on your website or blog, or even share it with people via Twitter or Facebook, etc… See, that’s one of the coolest features of this video player!

Here is a little fun viral experiment to try to increase your twitter followers. Who knows, its so viral in the way it’s built, it just might work!

This site shows you a way of getting 1000′s of new followers on twitter, I just started using it myself and its starting to work already.

How to get 19,530 new twitter followers in 30 days
 

Tweetergetter is a great tool, and if everyone who reads this post plays along, it should get pretty massive!

Pass it on, help out and be the solution for those in need! Enjoy the holiday hope and Merry Christmas Message.

(CNN) — A family facing foreclosure is anything but a unique story in these troubled economic times.

Daniel and Ebony Sampson with their children. “It’s a personal miracle,” she says of how their home was saved.

But this is a happier story of one family whose financial ruin was averted by the actions of a friend, the compassion of strangers, the networking power of the Internet and the holiday spirit of giving.

“This is our Christmas story,” said Ebony Sampson. “It’s going to be told for generations and generations to come.”

Sampson, who lives in Aberdeen, Maryland, with her husband, Daniel, and their two young children, has overcome more hardship than one person should ever have to face. When she was in the 10th grade, she lost her entire family in a horrific car accident. Raised by a grandmother in New York, Ebony eventually used some life-insurance money from her parents’ death to buy the home in Aberdeen, near where she grew up.

But in June, Daniel got sick. After several tests, his doctors concluded that he was suffering from salmonella after eating a tainted tomato. As a new employee of Bank of America, he had not accrued enough paid time off to keep his job as a credit-card account manager.

Suddenly, the sole breadwinner in the Sampson household was out of work. Though the Sampsons received unemployment checks from the government, the money wasn’t enough to make ends meet.

First came the shut-off notices from the electric company. Then one of their cars broke down. One morning, Daniel woke up and looked out his bedroom window and saw his truck was missing. It had been repossessed.

With no job, no car and no income, the Sampsons got another surprise: Ebony Sampson learned she was eight weeks pregnant.

The Sampsons returned home from church, where they are practicing ministers, on a Sunday in November to find a stranger knocking on their front door. He wanted to put a bid in on their house. Ebony told him their home was not for sale. The next day, the Sampsons were notified that they were facing foreclosure unless they could come up with $10,000 in the next two weeks to bring their mortgage up to date.

“Once we received that letter, it was like, ‘Oh my God, what are we going to do?’ ” Daniel Sampson said. “I don’t think anyone in their right mind would receive a foreclosure notice and not be rattled by it.”

Somehow, the couple maintained their sense of humor. Ebony Sampson called one of her oldest friends, Jaki Grier, and jokingly asked her if she had $10,000. Jaki told her, “Sure, just let me open up my invisible purse!”

But then Grier got an idea.

A self-described geek, Grier started blogging years ago. Since then, she’s contributed to a magazine’s Web site and regularly posts thoughts and life happenings on her LiveJournal page. So, she published Ebony and Daniel’s story, along with a link where people could make a donation.

At the most, Jaki thought she could raise enough money to help the Sampsons pay a security deposit on an apartment after their home was auctioned.

But donations started pouring in. Within 24 hours, Grier’s blog had raised $1,000, far exceeding her expectations. People started linking to Grier’s blog from sites across the Internet and around the country.

Attorneys posted legal advice. Others in similar situations offered sympathy. One woman sent a donation with a note that said she had just lost her own home but wanted to help anyway. Another woman wrote that she didn’t have a car but would walk to her grocery store with a jar of change and donate it to the cause.

Yet another e-mail came from a woman who was unemployed, with no job prospects. She donated a dollar.

With every donation, the total raised ticked higher and higher on Grier’s blog.

“Everybody wants to give to a charity, but so many times when you give to a charity you don’t really see where your money goes,” Grier said. “At least with this, you saw the little [donations] ticker go. I think that made people excited.”

Four days after Grier’s blog post, she had raised $3,400 — enough to repair the Sampsons’ car. That night, Grier went to bed ecstatic. The next morning she checked her PayPal account and was stunned to find the balance had ballooned to $10,900.

In the time it took Grier to take the donation link down from her blog, the balance had reached $11,032. In just five days, she had raised enough money to save her friend’s home. A Baltimore TV station, WBAL, caught wind of the story and put it on the air. Someone contacted Daniel Sampson and offered him a job interview.

“It’s been overwhelming,” Daniel Sampson said. “For me, out of all the donations [we] received, it was a little kid [who] came knocking on the door early Saturday morning … with a five-dollar bill in his hand. He just came up to the door and said, ‘Here you go, mister.’ Then he just walked away. I was, like, speechless. He couldn’t have been more than 8 years old.”

Now Daniel and Ebony Sampson will be able to enjoy Christmas much more than they thought they would just a few weeks ago. They say that once their children are grown, they’ll tell them the story of how one holiday season they came within days of losing their house. They’ll spend this Christmas full of thanks.

“It doesn’t seem real to me, and so I just thank everyone out there that cares,” Ebony Sampson said. “There really was no hope for us. Then, out of nowhere, just the kindness of strangers, just people that came and, you know, provided for us. Jaki was our beacon of light that led them to us.

“It’s a personal blessing. It’s a personal miracle. It makes you understand what the season is all about.”

Animoto mixes pictures and music together and creates a nice mash, in minutes. It’s free to use and you can embed the video on your website, blog, myspace, facebook page, and basically anywhere one can put an html tag.

So, I just made an Animoto video for the upcoming Canada Marketing Summit, in the post below, and I also just made a new video for the landing page on my www.WhoisJeffMills.com page as well.

One thing is… I cannot get this rad song outa my head that I put in the mix. It’s kind of a U2 Meets the Cult meets the Grapes of Wrath (Canadian Rock Band from the 90′s) song, that just makes me FEEL GOOD listening to it. It’s by a band called Pure Dream Ladder and the song is “One More Day.”

Animoto has a sizable music license so you can play all these really cool songs in your video, with no permission needed and no music purchases needed, so that’s a nice savings feature and it gets the bands names out there too, cause they get a song credit automatically embedded into the video at the end. The music license does not really include many main stream signed bands, but that’s ok, there is enough emotional driven music in their catalog where you can find a song to fit any theme or range you want to push through your picture/video composition.

It’s amazing how you can take a cold and clean website, and add images and a song to it and how much life it instantly creates.

How are you doing in this area? Are your websites cold? Boring? Lifeless?

When I had my Midwest Super Conference, Bob Dale from Dalestudios in Eden Prairie, MN shot some fun shots of me and Izzy, my daughter just “kooking out”. We posed, kissed, smiled, did Karate Ninja poses and just had a fun time, letting it all hang out and cutting loose.

Other pictures were from Eric Farewell, from Blue Shoe Photography, out of Laguna Beach, CA.

You’ll see some of these new photos crop up over my sites in the weeks and months, as it makes me more human, than the suited fuddy duddy I was wearing before.

People told me I looked too professional and old wearing the suit… YIKES!

So, I went striped down, fun, casual and will be modifying my sites over time with the new pictures.

So, I want to know what you think of the new Who Is Jeff Mills page design. Here is a picture of the site, you gotta go there and experience the video. No optin required to just watch and listen, then come back here and post your comments.

He’s hosting a brand new workshop – the Outsource Secrets Revealed Workshop, which takes place November 8 and 9, 2008 in Bloomington, MN at the Cambria Suites, near the Mall of America.

Jeff wants each and every person who owns a small business or is thinking of working from home to see the advantages of using and tapping into the worldwide outsourcing resources readily available on the web.

“I first heard about the concept of using Outsourcers from one of my online marketing mentors back in 2004, who was making millions per year. I asked him how he worked so little, launched multiple products per year, and still had enough free time and he told me it was because he ‘Outsourced’ all his projects through internet vendors that he was able to live with sanity, work less and still increase his revenues!” said Mills.

Since that conversation in 2004, Jeff has mastered the online outsourcing phenomenon and seen his business hit 7 figures, all while working from a tiny closet office in his Cottage Grove, MN home.

Jeff Mills has quickly become the “Napoleon Hills of Outsourcing” as some of his clients call him, due to the fact that Jeff has interviewed over 30 different successful internet marketers who all claim their fortunes and lifestyles come not from all the products they sell, but from the advantages they found by hiring independent contractors to get jobs done for them that pay $2-$4 per hour!

Earlier this year, Jeff released this flagship product called, Outsource Secrets Revealed, a 15 disc volume where he interviewed on live webinars the top internet marketers in the world and somehow got them all to share their secret resources and techniques for how they outsource and work less, while making more money. His product has gone on to sell over 6 figures, and has spawned sub products like a monthly Outsourcing Coaching program, a free 70 page eBook called the Outsource Compendium, and now his Outsourcing Workshops, which Mills holds every 3 months in the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

“My outsourcing tools provide busy entrepreneurs and small business owners with the knowledge and know-how to actually increase their sales and to increase the money that they are bringing in – simply by knowing the basics of where to find good people and how to get tasks done cheaper and faster at the same time. People want blogs built, websites coded, software designed, social media profiles created, videos produced and sent to video hosting site, articles written and submitted and all that takes time and effort. We show people how to get others doing that work at ridiculously low fees,” said Mills.

By attending Jeff Mills’ new Outsource Secrets Revealed Workshop, a person can learn how to take what they’ve already got and help their business to grow in ways that they would never have dreamed of before.

The Outsource Workshop is a way for business owners or for those who want to work at home to figure out what they’re doing right, and to do more of it, as well as figure out what they could be doing differently, and then make the changes that are necessary in order to achieve their goals, by outsourcing where it makes sense.

The Outsourcing Secrets Revealed Workshop will have a number of excellent speakers presenting.

• John Jonas will be talking about hiring service providers from the Philippines.
• Lori Palm and Karen Lund will share insights about discovering what your core passions are so you can focus in on what you are best at and then learn how to outsource the rest!
• Henry Griner will be sharing how to outsource by hiring a project manager to oversee your tasks and where to find good people all over the world who are skilled and excellent in internet marketing.
• Dave Aron will be sharing tips and tricks he’s found for finding good virtual assistants.
• And Jeff Mills will be speaking about putting the whole Virtual team concept together and how a solo entrepreneur or small business owner can begin outsourcing by setting up proper structures and systems inside the business. Anyone who wishes to be able to maximize their own potential, and the potential of the business that they currently have is invited to attend the Outsource Workshop but seats are extremely limited. 

For additional information on the Outsource Secrets Revealed Workshop, contact Jeff Mills or visit http://outsourceworkshop.com.

ABOUT JEFF MILLS – Jeff Mills has been providing his clients with ways to manage their time and money since 2003 with his boutique internet marketing firm called, Goldmills Marketing. Having sold and marketed over $2 million dollars in product and services, Jeff is uniquely qualified to help your small business get to the next level in productivity and profits.

go to www.mogulus.com/jeffmills to see the channel live. If I wanted, I could say.. at 11:00 am tomorrow I will go live and talk and engage you on this topic… tune in. You show up at my site at 11 am and it’s like you are watching Jeff Mills tv.

Lots of possibilities and ways to MONETIZE this type of technology and media, those who are first movers, and marketers can make a killing with more intimate type of marketing from this. It’s a powerful program and best of all… IT’S FREE!

1. Use a 24 hr message on your rear car window with a sticker, make it big:

“Tired of Living Paycheck to Paycheck? Want more Money and Time Freedom Now?” (24 hr. Rec Msg) Call 888-888-8888 (use your cell phone)

2.  Use HotCards – Business Cards with 24 Hour Msg phone # on them. Say to someone who you strike up a conversation with, “I don’t know if this is for you or if you know anyone looking for some extra income, but if you know someone, just give them this card and have them call the recorded message on back. It might also be something you are interested in hearing about as well.”

Give them to waiters, waitresses, sports games, in line at a gas station, supermarket, ATM machines, airports, etc…

3. Warm Market: People you know – Call them up, say this: “Hey mom, I know you were telling me money is tight right now and you are looking for some extra cash… do me  a favor, I think I found a solution for people in the same situation as you, call it and tell me what you think. Grab a pen, here is the #….”

4. Use email signatures in your emails and autoresponders. I always include lines in my emails to get people to optin to my lists with my email signatures. “Click here to see the new house I just bought.” On that page have a picture and an explanation for how your business was able to build that home…buy you a new car… pay for your vacation, etc…

5. Online Advertising: Use the video hosting sites. Youtube, Google Video, Metacafe, Revver, these sites are free to submit user generated content to. Also join many social media sharing sites, and social sites like myspace, facebook, linkedin and more social sharing sites… there are ton of these out there.

6. Free Newspapers – There are still some free or next to free newspapers out there. Put in a 3 or 4 line ad that sends people to a free recorded message line where you collect their info if they are interested.

7. Meet Up Groups: Meetup.com is a great site for finding people who are into the same interests as you are. The types of groups out there are limitless. There are just an incredible amount of business or social group which you can get leads from for your business and share referrals.

The best ideas are here, but unless you do something… nothing is going to happen. So, take 1-2 ideas for now and do something with it immediately. Don’t wait for success to come to you. Don’t wait for God to open doors… kick em open yourself and walk in. If God says no, he’ll shut the door for you, but you need to be someone who takes action and implements good ideas.

Armand is a totally dedicated internet marketer who spends countless hours testing, tracking, and tweaking things until he is satisfied the end product will wow people.

I have been “wowed” many times by Armand in the casual conversations we have shared over meals, or just hanging out at internet marketing conferences and talking about how internet marketing needs to work.

Recently, I got a copy of Internet Marketing Explained, which Armand published in 2005. And now he is promoting his new Internet Marketing Explained program with much more content, as so much has changed on the internet over the last two years, a new version needed to be made.

This new version is a comprehensive model of content upon content and hours upon hours of audio and video training teaching and showing people how Armand Morin would market products and services over the internet.

If $45 millions dollars isn’t enough of a reason to get the home study course, then I don’t know what will motivate you more.

Go claim one of the copies of the Internet Marketing Explained Home Study Course before they run out or increase the price.

Did you elf yourself? I elfed my daugher, Izzy last year… here is the photo:

So, I was sitting at Panera the other day and I read this full page ad they had placed in the USA Today, which shows you how a good viral buzz campaign can work for a company.

Now what is sad is this site got so much traffic over the holidays and now that Santa has packed up, he took his Elves with him and the site is no longer “elfing” people. Why not put an optin form there Office Max? You are wasting you traffic and not capturing the visitors… duh!

Here is what they said in the ad.

“we would like to publically apologize for the recent drop in global productivity. Again, it was all caused by the re-launch of our www.elfyourself.com site.

We had no idea that this year over 123 million elves would be created (more than the populations of Canada, France, Sweden and New York City combined) in just 8 weeks.

And we never imagined that people would choose to spend over 2600 combined years making them – that’s enough time to date back to the 6th centrury B.C. and the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

So basically, a whole lot of people chose to create a whole lot of frolicking elves in tights instead of working on a whole bunch of other stuff. (oops…our bad!)”

Wow, so let’s do the #’s there again…

8 weeks = 123 Million people participated for free. After each time someone created an elf, they could MAIL IT (tell a friend generator type deal) to anyone and invite them to make an elf. THEN, after all that was done, guess where you ended up… seeing what Office Max’s special offers were on their website.

Do you think they might have sold a thing or two to some of those 123 million people? How about a HUGE email database to market back to? Maybe…

But they don’t talk about how much they sold or how much they made off this viral campaign. So maybe it was not as hot as they liked or mum’s the word at corporate.

Regardless, how much would it cost you or a starving programer to outsource a project like this that is fun, happy, viral and also gets your brand name exposed in the process?

If you can figure out a great gimmick like Orbitz.com did with Bash the Boss, then, you could have a serious hit on your hands. By the way… did you know national bass the boss day is coming up soon? See my earlier press release for that…. National Bass the Boss Day.

Look how much time the world spent on making elves… 2600 combined years, which is staggaring.. What if we united under some other cause or charity and put 2600 combined years effort into that? Wouldn’t that have a huge effect on something?

Well, lessons learned. Discover if there is a way to create a game, a tell-a-friend generator so massive people tell massive people about you or your deal.. and you could be well on your way with a great viral buzz campaign that takes off like crazy like Elf Yourself did.