Set up your iphone/ipad to send email from a google apps domain alias

I spent some time this morning trying to set up my iphone/ipad so that I could send emails from a new domain.  I want to switch all my personal emails to go from @4realz.net to @dustinluther.com… and have already set everything to work “right” on the backend of my Google Aps account.

However, @4realz.net is my primary account on google apps and a straightforward way to make this change seemed elusive until I came across this helpful article: iPhone and Google Apps – Sending emails from Gmail alias (nickname).

The author there was trying to do something a bit different in that they want to change a name alias (as in “a@4realz.net” to “b@4realz.net”), where as I want to change a domain alias (as in “c@4realz.net” to “c@dustinluther.com”).   However, the good news is that the solution is virtually the same.   Here’s where you need to change within your ios settings to make the change.

google alias for ios mapping

 

This worked the first time for me… and hope it does for you too!

 

Trick to Successfully Live-Streaming an Event?

Hire professionals!

No kidding.  For a while, my previous startup ran a few live-streamed events and can tell you it’s hard stuff to get right.

A few months ago, my team was asked to capture HD video and live-stream the entire day for an “Access to Capital” event in Downtown LA.  Theoretically, my team could have tried to take this on, but we were super busy with the event and didn’t have the experience to do it right.

I reached out to some video folks who reached out to some folks who connected me up with the Livestream team.  I have been using the Livestream for a long time to host our live video streams, but didn’t know they had the ability to handle the production side of things.

Anyway, they rocked the boat.  While they’re may be cheaper options out there, I’ve never dealt with a live-streaming team that was so professional and on top of all the details.  When they asked, I was more than happy to throw a positive testimonial their way… which a friend just pointed out to me in an email is now live on their site: Livestream Plans.

Livestream testimonial

If you’re curious to see the quality level they we got from the Livestream production team, we chopped up the video to highlight the various panels from the day and posted them here: Want Funding? Let The Experts Guide You!

“I’m looking to secure about 200k to finance a multi-niche exciting blog”

Over on BofA’s Small Business Community, someone asked (“Securing business financing“):

Hello! and Happy New Year!

I was wondering could someone please advise me on ways I can secure business financing for my business, operating since January 2009. I already know that I will not be approve for traditional financing so I am not seeking traditional loans.

I’m looking to secure about 200k to finance a multi-niche exciting blog. I need to hire a team of Social Media Manager, SEO experts, Writers, Editors to make it one of the top ten blogs. We will also put together an expert panel that will offer live on-line training services, also.

I am looking for non-traditional sources of financing. I do have a business and marketing plan. Thanks for your input.

startup funding panel

 

Seems safe to say they are almost definitely going to have a hard time finding funding for a multi-niche blog, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible…

My response sent them to a blog post of highlights from the recent Access to Capital event (“Want Funding? 54 Insights from…“) that included videos, presentations, tips, etc. on topics like alternative funding, startup funding and crowdfunding.  My hope was to inspire them to seek out a resource they might not have otherwise considered… but know there must be other resources out there.

Where would you send someone looking for a non-traditional source to fund their business? 

To advertise or not to advertise?

ap-supersonic-skydiver-4_3_r560Is that really the question?

This great pandodaily article by Kirk Cheyfitz about the best ads of 2012 that aren’t really ads, reminded me just how impressed I’ve always been with Red Bull’s marketing machine.

One of the defining “TV moments” for me this past year is when I watched the “Red Bull” guy (I should probably remember his name), crawl down the ladder of the space capsule and jump. That was a crazy moments when you have an incredible opportunity to prove yourself.

The takeaway?  Very few of us may have access to Red Bull’s marketing budget, but when we throw on our marketing hat, we should all be aspiring to think outside the box and make an incredible impact in 2013!

The Benefits of Relentless Networking

Credibility Corp Summer Interns 2012Last year, I was asked to give a presentation to CLU students and decided to focus on the idea that they should be relentless in their networking!

Often, when preparing for a talk, I “learn” something new or have an insight that sticks with me. For this talk, it was definitely that people looking to break into the business world should feel comfortable “over-promising” based on their current knowledge and then work their behind off to deliver on lofty goals!

Anyway, I clearly don’t go to slideshare.net nearly often enough, because I just visited the site and noticed that the presentation I created for that event has over 10K views! Woot! Glad to see so many folks found it useful!

On a related note, that talk at CLU brought in some awesome interns this past summer/fall and I’m back on the hunt for some more! If you know anyone interested in a crazy cool internship opportunity in either online marketing or technology development (developers!), send them my way! I’ve been interviewing people for the past few weeks and we’re sure to have another great crew this spring!

Implementing Google Authorship

I really want to get a better handle on google’s concept of authorship… As I find it’s always best to learn by trying to implement things, I spent some time this afternoon trying to configure myself as an “official” author within google search results.

google plus updates

The idea is that my profile photo should show up next to search results where I’m an author (similar to what google does for my google plus updates that get indexed):

Here are some of the things I did:

  • I added my Google Plus account to the author section of my company blog posts (You can see an example here: Naughty or Nice), and although I don’t think this was necessary, to be extra safe, I verified my work email
  • I added a link to my google plus account to the sidebar of this blog (I don’t have a “author” section under each post, so hoping this does the trick!). Again, to be safe, I also verified my domain email for my personal blog.
  • I added links from my Google Profile to both my personal and my work blog.
  • I updated my google profile photo make sure it was a clear profile picture
  • I updated my name on both blogs to make sure it matched my Google Profile exactly
  • Made sure to include the text: “?rel=author” to the google plus url string. As in: https://plus.google.com/+DustinLuther/?rel=author

That’s all I know to do at this point.

Now it’s just a waiting game as I check google to see if my “authorship” status starts showing up next to searches like these:

hide the timeline picture from public in facebook - Google Search

how to pick a good twitter name - Google Search

And if I missed something in setting up Google authorship (or I should have configured stuff in a better way), I would love to know!

UPDATE — First signs of success!
After hitting publish on my latest blog post (The Benefits of Relentless Networking), I noticed that my name shows up as an author next to that post for the term “Relentless Networking“! Thinking google still needs to reindex all my “old” posts, but this seems like great progress to me! 🙂
relentless networking

Have trouble understanding Facebook’s privacy settings?

Apparently, even the former marketing director at Facebook (and sister of Mark Zuckerberg) gets blindsided by Facebook’s privacy settings from time to time.

Update: My favorite take on this story yet: Yes, Randi Zuckerberg, Please Lecture Us About `Human Decency’ and if you’re curious about the details of Facebook privacy settings, Marketingland has a nice write up on the details: How Facebook Tagging Helped Make Randi Zuckerberg’s “Private” Photo Go Public

I miss blogging.

Instagram: you gotta pay

While the terms of service changes (and reversals) over at Instagram didn’t bother me much (they probably should have bothered me more), the changes did inspire me to have a few conversations around where original content should live.

It seems the WordPress mobile posting and syndication tools have come a long way in the past few years I want to see what it would mean to have my blog be the primary source for my content.

With that in mind, over the next few weeks, my plan is to think “blog first” whenever I feel inspired to share a link or post a photo and see what that looks like when implemented…  For those of you who follow along, hope you enjoy the ride!