Toluu : Rae Hoffman

Rae Hoffman

Never Mess With a Woman Who Can Pull Rank

By now, most people know that I am an evangelist for the Thesis theme and that the Sugarrae site actually runs on the theme.

When Chris Pearson announced the newest release of Thesis, it touted a bunch of great new features and fixed most of my previous gripes. Users who don’t know CSS or PHP have more control with the new thesis them than with any other theme I’ve ever seen.

It looked completely awesome until I downloaded it and saw that Thesis was now run completely on “hooks”. Not only did I not know what a hook was, the tutorials and discussions I saw about it scared the hell out of me.

My level of PHP knowledge (the code language WordPress is run on) is slight at best, thus why I was so thrilled in my earlier review:

You can do everything Thesis does without putting down any money buying the theme. Hell, you could also do this with wordpress if you knew how to (yes,

How to Promote a Brand New Blog

During PubCon last week, Vanessa Fox and I managed to sneak away to lunch alone to have some catch up time since both of our schedules are a bit insane.

After I calmed down from being attacked by a random sparrow (it was a really, REALLY big sparrow, ok?), the topic of conversation turned to Vanessa launching her new blog this week (uh, at least that’s the plan), Nine by Blue.

We were discussing proper and effective tactics to use for promoting new blogs and I made the mention that bloggers could take a lesson from actors, writers and musicians when they launch a new blog as far as promotional tactics. We discussed the similarities and while most are in tune with launching a brand new blog, most of these tactics can be effective for any website.

Promos and Trailers

Long before their newest album is complete or the movie is even 1/8 of the way to completing shooting, Studios and record labels are r

Vegas PubCon 2008 and UFC 91

I’m writing this post from the Las Vegas airport. I should have been home last night, but Air Canada decided to cancel “delay” my flight by about 13 hours.

While Vegas is my favorite city in the states, it becomes very… old, after about five days. I’m on day seven. I’m ready for this trip to end.

That said, this was easily the best trip to Las Vegas I’ve ever done, and I can’t count how many times I’ve been there on two hands.

The conference itself was pretty cool. I did a video interview with Vanessa Zamora from Search Engine World (she’s an awesome chick) and did my traditional site clinic panel. I was also threatened by a bird in a back alley (I’m so dead serious - it fluffed it’s wings, squawked and ran at me, on purpose).

I unfortunately missed fight club due to a hotel snafu, so no one got a chance to kick my ass in the literal sense. My ass was however kicked in the proverbial sense afterwards when the guys returned to tell me how

Win a Chance to Kick My Ass

You wish. ;-) So, I found out through the grapevine that there is going to be a “Fight Club” during Vegas PubCon. What that means is that for a paltry $150 dollars, you get a shot to meet and get some training from Shawn Tompkins, one of the best MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) coaches in the industry.

To put it in terms you can understand, this is like getting to spend an hour getting training in a very small group from the Aaron Wall of MMA. And I, with some thanks to Purpose, Inc., am going to give you a chance to attend this for free.

I repeat - this is a chance to:

Hang out in a small group with some of the top bloggers you read every day to experience some business, pleasure and networking
Meet one of the most legendary coaches (who is also a fighter) in the sport
Check out one of the most state of the art facilities in MMA, Xtreme Couture Vegas
Probably catch a glimpse of a few fighters you may recognize since there is a

Five Suggestions for Pepperjam Network

Recently a new merchant we’re working with made the move over to Pepperjam Network (they’re an affiliate network and yes, that’s an affiliate link), which forced us to get familiar with them.

After a few days of working with their backend a bit, I have a few suggestions the honchos over there may want to give some thought to. I could have sent this privately to Pepperjam, but figured other indie affiliate managers might be able to pick up some helpful information from this as well. So, here are five things I’d change if I were part of Pepperjam’s management team:

1. Sex may sell, but it doesn’t inspire confidence

I know sex sells, but when I visit their homepage, it is so obvious to me that they’re attempting to game their “never got a date in high school cause I was managing the AV club but how do you like me now that I’m an affiliate rockstar” constituency.

Oh sure, I’m a woman, which means I must be all in a huff over the “objectification of women”… not. Actually, I’m probably the opposite. My problem with it more is that I don’t want a bimbo managing my affiliate account and I don’t think most other professional affiliate marketers do either.