Danny Iny The Teaching Warrior Monk (Best of the Web!)

Can you believe it’s June already?

The last few weeks have been pretty crazy for me, because at the end of May (as you hopefully already know), I launched my biggest, most ambitious (totally free) project yet to date.

It was the Naked Marketing Manifesto, and it’s absorbed almost all of my time over the last few weeks.

And yet, as seems to always be the case no matter how busy I get, the blogosphere didn’t stand still.

While I was out promoting the manifesto, some amazing stuff has been written and posted. I may  not have been quite as visible on quite as many blogs as I usually am, but I’ve still been lurking, watching, and reading.

And today, I’d like to share with you some of the best things I’ve seen over the past month (and the story of how I got the name “Danny Iny The Teaching Warrior Monk”, and have this cool cartoon illustration done!)…

Essays, Exposés and Inspiration

Some of these make for some pretty intense reading – especially the Verge piece on Scamworld (that one really made me stop and think).

Clear an hour or two to go through them all – believe me, you shouldn’t miss even one of these posts!

• Are You Overthinking Your Value Proposition? (Ruth Zive Copywriting)
• Death By Hourly Wage (Jonathan Fields)
• One of the BEST things I ever did happened last Friday (Remodel Your Marketing)
• The Diamond Queen, the Elm Sapling and Growing Domains (Power in Comedy Dynamo)
• Why Winning Scares the Hell Out of Me (Radiant Life Rocks)
• The Commoditization of Expertise and Why You Should Never Trust a Guru (Danny Brown)
• How to Turn New Customers Into Repeat Customers (the secret is this one experiment) (Social Triggers)
• Why Social Search will be Google’s Greatest Downfall (The Sales Lion)
• Scamworld: ‘Get rich quick’ schemes mutate into an online monster (The Verge) – This one is really, really intense.
• A Wannabe and a Becoming at a marketing conference (Dov Gordon)
• $30,000 eBook Sales. In 2 Months. (A blog by fellow.)
• Why “Freemium” Fails for Startups: 3 Business Lessons from the Band New Order (Forbes)
• No one wants to be mediocre – so why are you? (Chris Carpenter’s Life Hacks)

Guides and How To’s

When it comes to marketing, blogging, social media, and business in general, there’s always more to learn, and I’m grateful that there are so many great people out there doing the teaching!

There’s so much information out there that it can get a bit overwhelming, so here are the very best guides, tips, tricks and how-to posts from the last few weeks (and special props to Mark Schaefer, who made the list 3 times!):

• How To Lower The Bar and Create Bigger Wins (Pick the Brain)
• Who Are The Influencers and How DO We Find Them? (Unspoken)
• How to Seduce a Goldfish (Affect Selling)
• Blog Better by Slowing Down (ProBlogger)
• Behind an Insane Single Day 50 Guest Post Blitz: the Strategy and the Results (Think Traffic)
• How to Break Out of a Creative Rut (Copyblogger)
• How to Become a Content Marketing Hero by Emulating Apple and Subway (Entreproducer)
• Getting your first book published: Lessons learned! (Business {Grow})
• If you do just one analysis for your business… (Businesses {Grow})
• Everything you wanted to know about Twitter Chats (Businesses {Grow})
• The Truth About Making Money While You Sleep (Copyblogger)
• Landing Page ROI 101: Are Your Landing Pages More Like Bouncing Betties? (Level 343)
• The Most Powerful Network Marketing Tip (Adrienne Smith)

The Great and Powerful List Post

I have a confession to make: I don’t actually like list posts.

I feel like it’s just too much information; I scan them for good ideas, bookmark them, and plan to get back to them but never do.

So a list post has to be really good for me to recommend it. And over the last few weeks, there have been quite a few that caught my attention:

• 5 Common Time Management Truths That Can Make You Unproductive (LifeHack)
• 15 (Mostly) Free Ways to Successfully Market Your E-book (MK Writer)
• 52 Cool Facts About Social Media – 2012 Edition (Danny Brown)
• 3 Steps to Writing Copy that Speaks to Real Desire (CopyBlogger)
• 8 Important Actions For Making The Most Of Your Guest Post (Buffer App)
• 5 Highly Effective Lead Generation Strategies for E-Commerce Websites (PadiCode)
• 24 Incredible Lessons Learned From Being In Business (Suitcase Entrepreneur)
• The 10 Most Misleading Social Media Metrics in the World (The Sales Lion)
• 3 Strategies for Email Marketing and How to Succeed with Each (Affect Selling)
• 8 Lessons My Knees Taught Me About Being A Great Business Advisor (Steve Baines)
• The “5 A” Framework for Content Marketing Success (Entrperoducer)
• 50 Ways To Lose Your Client – Sales Humor from Babette Ten Haken (Mind Mulch)

Videos, Infographics, and Other Fun Stuff

This is the “odds and ends” section of the post, and these are sometimes the most interesting, engaging, and fun pieces I’ve read from the last month. Enjoy them!

• The Best Spam Comment Ever? (One Spoon at a Time)
• An interview with William Cowie. D Bnonn Tennant interviews personal finance expert William Cowie (Attention Thievery)
• Conversion Clinic: Clay Picks A Fight With A Squeeze Page (Part 2) (Marketing Show)
• Meet EggZack (EggZack) – Check out how great a job they did on this video!
• Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012 (Vimeo)
• What’s more important? Exceeding Expectations or Solving Customer’s Needs – Part Two (Marketing Lagniappe)
• Firing Notme – Why Every Business Needs an Organizational Chart – The How To Guide (Steve Baines)
• So there’s this book… (Dave Thackery) – This is an entire book, completely free, so go grab it!

Interviews Kind Mentions, and Cartoons

I’ve been honored to participate in some great interviews over the last month, and several bloggers have very graciously mentioned me. One even drew that awesome cartoon of me, and dubbed me the “Teaching Warrior Monk” (last item on the list)! My thanks to them.

• 10 of the Smartest Things Said About Building a Thriving Audience Online (Think Traffic)
• What is the biggest mistake small businesses are making today? (Get the Phone Ringing)
• A One-Stop Guide To Getting People To Buy Your Stuff (Internet Marketing Gourmet)
• Interview: How Danny Iny Got 23,000 Visits A Month (In Just 2 Years) (Cavatica Copy)
• Why do you read this blog? (Terry’s Thoughts and Threads)
• 13 Badass Blogpreneurs You Need To Check Out – Now (Ryze Online)
• How Marketing Works – Video Interview with Danny Iny (Affect Selling)
• How Writing = More Traffic and Subscribers (Leaving Work Behind)
• The Gurus Are Wrong. THIS is How You Grow a Blog (The Digital Writer)
• Hall of Warriors Spotlight: Danny Iny (Enso Journey) – Check out the awesome cartoon of me!

And a handful of guest posts, too!

Of course, I couldn’t launch my new manifesto without a bunch of guest posts to spread the word!

If you missed them, then now’s your chance to catch up.

• How to Write a Report That Goes Viral and Gets You an Avalanche of Traffic (Boost Blog Traffic)
• The Naked Truth About How I Got 7,568 Subscribers in 5 Months (ThinkTraffic)
• The Naked Marketing Guide to Compelling Copy that Closes Sales (Copyblogger)
• The Naked Marketing Guide to Getting Dramatically More Traffic and Subscribers (Problogger)
• Using NAKED to Get What You Want (LifeHack.org)
• Three Keys to Spectacular Guest Posting Success (Write to Done)

We’ve listed a lot of great content here, but if you think we’ve missed out on anything important, please let us know in the comments!

Danny Iny (@DannyIny) is the co-founder of Firepole Marketing, the “Freddy Krueger of Blogging”, and the co-author (with Guy Kawasaki, Brian Clark, and many others) of Engagement from Scratch! (available on Amazon, or as a free download). The latest and greatest thing you can get from him (for free, of course) is his Naked Marketing Manifesto, about marketing that really works!

Tagged as: Best of the Web, Danny Iny