A week or so ago, I was scanning my Twitter profile feed in search of another tweet when I saw a slew of posts with the title “Check out this link” followed by a Facebook link.

Each tweet had the same title but different link associations. At first, I thought my account had maybe been hacked.

Not wanting to click the link that followed “Check out this link,” I created a controlled virtual environment to view the link from to control it should it be a virus, malware or ransomware.

Even though it was posted on Twitter, one can’t take chances by blindly clicking links.

Nevertheless, I clicked the link only to be taken to one of my daily expired auction pages. Then, I had an aha moment.

A few weeks ago, one of my many websites crossed the thousand-like club for Facebook likes.

It was a time to celebrate!  Why?

Well, this particular website is a local and somewhat a hyper micro-niche. Honestly, I’m surprised and elated that this website has 1000+ likes.

Nevertheless, crossing the 1000+ Facebook-like club renders the like button differently.

Instead of being able to see now that there are 1,024 likes, the Facebook like button for this specific website now only shows “1K”.

And because I don’t have a Facebook Fan, Business, or Profile page associated with this website, this adds yet another degree of difficulty in attempting to understand exactly how many likes, shares, and comments exist for a website URL, also known as a website domain name.

Amidst big brands such as Amazon, Walmart, and the list goes on, small businesses account for quite a bit of market share.

Google estimates that there are approximately 115 million small businesses in the world while the United States of Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy estimates that there are 28.8 million businesses in the US alone.

Of course, there’s much discussion to be had pertaining to what specific attributes must be realized to qualify as a small business. But I’m not writing to debate those finer points.

With both numbers on the rise annually, one has to wonder how small businesses are able to affordably differentiate themselves, especially when considering small businesses with a strict local or hyper-local presence.

How many oil change, dog grooming, nail salon and other local-centric business services do you pass daily going to and fro?

If you’re like me, then you’re likely surrounded by a growing number of small businesses, varying in name, peddling similar services in hopes that a potential customer remembers their business when the need arises.

Hoping that customers remember your business in a sea of competitive small businesses offerings is not a sound plan for existing or growing local market share.

But here’s something to ponder. Would you be interested in uniquely differentiating your business from the competition using an emoji domain?

When new to domaining, there is often a tendency to bid and buy expired domain names emotionally.

If you are familiar with expired domain auctions, specifically the GoDaddy aftermarket platform, then it’s likely you’ve been tempted to purchase closeout or buy-it-now domains for cheap.

You peruse the list and spot a desirable expired domain name that looks too good to be true.

You question yourself. How did this domain slip through the cracks and off the radar of daily domain bidders in an expired auction without a single bid?

The stars must have aligned for this expired domain and I to be united sings the voices in your head.

You buy the expired domain name thinking of the massive returns you’ll soon realize by developing or flipping.

Truth be told, we all have likely been down the path only to drop and not renew those domain gems we thought to have made us a fortune.

Don’t lose hope, though. Today, I’m sharing some insight to help you spot trending expiring domains that are undervalued.

It’s been a minute since I tackled automating blog posts to social networks.

If you’ve been keeping track, then you know we’ve created auto-post tutorials for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ using a variety of plugins and different paid and non-paid services.

I’m assuming that you guessed by the title of today’s post that we’d tackle how to publish WordPress blog posts to Instagram.

Instagram is a different social network beast than Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social networks.  And here’s why I think so…

You’re likely a bit perplexed by the title, right?

No worries, because you’re not the only one perplexed by finding out that emoji domain names are a reality. 😮

Yes, the silly 😄, 😂, 😜 and other icons, also known as emojis, you send via text, email and across social networks daily.

They are even included in Google search results! Yes, Google has fallen in ❤️❤️❤️ with emojis, and started having mixed emoji results.

Per Fortune, even GoDaddy is getting in on the act to win over millennials with an emoji search engine for available emoji domains (more on this in a minute).

And if that’s not enough, emojis are set to hit the big screen August 2017 🎥.

About 5-6 years ago, I agreed to work with a gentleman here in Austin to develop a website. For my time in developing the website and since he owned the domain, we agreed to split the advertising revenue.

At the end of our 2-year agreement, the same gentleman had a fallen out with mutual business partners about another website we operated. It was a pretty bad fallen out too, involving legal and lawsuits.

Allegedly, this gentleman had possession of a domain that was personally not his. He forced the company to purchase another domain name because he held the old name ransom.

Well, some time passed and cooler heads prevailed. The old domain was transferred to the company after some tough negotiations.

Not too long after this, I approached the gentleman with an offer about buying the domain that I had developed a website for years prior.

The domain was no longer being used, so I thought I had a decent shot at getting the domain at a reasonable price.