Moog's Viewpoints

Five digital marketing tips for small businesses at the Crain's Small Business Forum

2009-09-15T06:32:30-05:00

This morning I am on a panel at the Crain's Small Business Forum in Chicago talking about how small businesses can use digital marketing generally and social media specifically to build their businesses. I thought it made sense to use this blog to help think through what I was going to say, write it down and be able to refer people to it in the future.

First, if you are like me and you always want to know more about the person providing the advice and what real experience they have, feel free to check out my Linked In profile. I have spent the last 15 years of my professional career building businesses that leveraged the power of the Internet. Three years ago we took CoolSavings private and I founded Viewpoints Network so I am speaking both as a provider of social technologies but more importantly as a business owner who uses all range of digital technologies.

So without further ado....

Five digital marketing tips for small businesses

Don't underestimate the power of e-mail. I suggest that you build a list of all the people that you want to know about your business and start to send an update to that list at least once a month. You can either do this using your personal e-mail account but if you want to get better tracking and opt out management then use a service like Constant Contact which is about $50 per month. Over the years I have collected about 5,000 business cards and e-mail addresses. 50% of these are no longer valid and I barely remember who half of the remaining 50% are. But that means I am left with 1,250 people who I have build relationships with over the years. I know these percentages are right because I took almost an entire day a few years ago to go through and code every record with a "level of familiarity"
Start a blog. Blogs are either free or really cheap. Don't be intimated thinking that you have to blog every day. We used blogs as a cheap and easy way to set up a web site that we could easily change and update. Check out http://onpoint.viewpoints.com/ This is our blog which also allows us to create "pages" which provide more information about Viewpoints. We use a service called TypePad which is $159 per year.
Open an account on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Depending on who your audience is, pick one to focus most of your time and energy on. Now you can start cross pollinating your e-mail, blog and social networking efforts by promoting your blog posts to your Twitter followers and encouraging your blog readers to sign up for your e-mail list or follow you on Twitter. You can find me at http://twitter.com/mattmoog (169 followers), http://www.facebook.com/mattmoog (534 friends), or http://www.linkedin.com/in/mattmoog (999 friends)
Learn about the importance of Search Engine Optimization. Search drives web behavior more than most people realize. The 120 million daily U.S. Internet users do about 2 searches a day. That means that that 6 billion times a month someone is using search to find something including either your business or something closely related to it. All of your blog posts should be designed to be found via search. If nothing else, try an experiment by picking an obscure word or phrase. Write a blog post about it and see if you get listed. You can use tools such as WordTracker or Google Trends to give you insight into what people are searching for.
Don't forget about lead generation and having great follow through. I use SalesForce.com religiously. It was the first tool I set up when we started Viewpoints. You should make it very easy for people to find you and request more information about what you are selling. Many of the services mentioned above can help you collect the right data from prospective customers so that you can follow up with them and develop and relationship with them until they are ready to buy.
And one more bonus tip. Take advantage of survey tools to find out more what your prospective customers are thinking. We use Zoomerang but you can also use tools such as Survey Monkey, Opinion Lab, Poll Daddy and others.

Viewpoints Update - February 2009

2009-02-04T13:25:29-06:00

Here we are again. February 4^th. Two days after Ground Hog Day, three days after the Superbowl, ten days until Valentine’s day, seventeen days until my birthday and only forty five days until the first day of spring. Can you believe it? Are you ready? Can we help you get ready?

This e-mail is ostensibly an update about the all the great stuff going on here at Viewpoints. (Did I tell you monthly traffic has more than tripled in the last year?) But rather than tell you about every new feature we released (did someone say iPhone app?), I personally think it is much more interesting to show you Viewpoints in action in a way that might even be helpful to you. In that spirit and in keeping with our mission to help consumers make smarter decisions, here is my personal list of Viewpoints inspired ideas to help you make it through the dog days of winter:

1. First, are you are feeling a bit of flat screen envy from your neighbors 46 inch flat screen monster that you watched the Superbowl on but having problems figuring out how you are going to stomach dropping $3,500+? Well then check out the Vizio - VW42L HDTV – one of our reviewers say “If this TV was a woman I’d marry her…” and only $850!

2. But perhaps your stomach is in knots over what to get your sweet heart for Valentine’s Day. For those of you on who like your sweets, may we suggest Lindt Lindor Truffles? Our reviewers say there is “heaven in every bite!”. Too decadent? Perhaps a good book? My wife and thirty of our reviewers loved Eat, Love Pray and Loving Frank. Not creative enough? Try out Nike ID, the service that lets you design your very own Nike shoes for your Valentine. Of course, you can hit the jewelry counter at Barney’s at the last minute but that will cost you a lot more!

3. Now my birthday. So you barely know me? Perhaps the I could give some advice for aonthera 39 year old laptop and e-mail obsessed entrepreneur in your life that could use a little diversion? My wife recently got me Marcus Sakey’s Good People and Ted Turner’s autobiography Call Me Ted. I highly recommend them both. If you are looking for something a bit more gadgety, I love my Bose In-ear Headphones and so do the 24 Viewpoints members who gave them a 4.88 rating.

4. And now for Spring. Have you seen the latest rage in barbeque grills? If you love the smoky flavor in your steaks, check out the Big Green Egg. Or if you are stuck with the spring cleaning, perhaps a new “Cyclonic Vacuum Cleaner” a category where Dyson takes the top honors. Planning your next big get away? We just had great luck with Vacation Rentals By Owner,(www.VRBO.com) to find vacation rentals. Lots of great deals in this economy!

And just for a bonus for any of you iPhone users out there here is a quick list of iPhone apps that I find myself using frequently these days: Pandora, iHandy Level, Twitterific, New York Times, tChessPro, PacMan, Black & White, Peg Jump, 15 Puzzle, and Labryrnith.

And last but not least, join me in welcoming Todd Koehler our new VP of Product Management and Katie Brauner our new marketing associate. Be sure to check out their profile pages on Viewpoints and say hello! Can you guess which one panned Twilight, loves Britney Spears and makes exotic bread with the Zojirushi Bread Machine, thinks the D-Link Router is not up to snuff and can’t get enough of Facebook?

As always, please keep Viewpoints in mind to reach in-market consumers who are actively researching purchases and social influencers who enjoy spreading the word about their experiences with products.

We are actively looking for advertisers and partnership opportunities.

Stay warm until winter is over and spring begins!

Regards,

Matt Moog

Founder/CEO

Viewpoints Network

312-447-6111

The largest Internet companies in Chicago

2009-01-09T12:16:52-06:00

I spend a few hours a week meeting with people who are either a) looking for a job at an Internet company or b) looking to start one. I always run through a list of both large and interesting (sometimes they are actually both!) Internet companies. My definition of an Internet company is a company delivers the majority of their service and product over the Internet. I will create a separate list of folks like United Airlines, Hyatt and Sears who are using the web in significant ways to drive sales. My bias with this particular list is toward the "consumer Internet" because I know less about the agency, consulting and b2b space, so please add some comments about who you would add.

The Biggest "Pureplay" Chicago Based Consumer Internet Companies (100+ employees)

The Mid Size (20-100 employees)

The Small (but mighty!) (1-20 employees)

The biggest B2B Chicago based Internet companies

Surepayroll
Comscore
Savo Group
Performics (now owned by Publicis)
Feedburner (now owned by Google)
LeapFrogOnline

Web Development Shops

Alpha Zeta
Design Kitchen
March First
VSA Design
Collosal Squid

Interactive Agencies

Pending

Viewpoints Update - December 2008

2008-12-16T13:24:00-06:00

As we speed into the final two weeks of December, I thought this would be a good time to give you a quick update on the latest at Viewpoints and maybe even give you a few gift ideas. I am pleased to report that last month we had 1.4 million unique users and we now have more than 150,000 registered members. I am starting to get used to 25%+ month over month growth!

As you know Viewpoints is social media company focused on helping consumers making smarter decisions. We are passionate (some might say obsessed) about finding ways to motivate consumers to tell us about their personal experiences with products, services and businesses so that we can in turn present all of this great insight back to the millions of in-market buyers who are using our site to make important decisions.

In this spirit of sharing personal experiences, I thought I would give you few of my own picks for the season that might help you sniff out a few great gifts for your friends and family (and maybe even you!).

· Dell XPS M1330 Laptop – I am personally a huge fan of this laptop. So much so that we have ordered six more of them for the other non Mac users here in the office. You can check out my review here.

· iPhone 3G - I don’t know what I would do without mine. Check out the 59 reviews of this product. One of my favorite reviews happens to be by our very own Vytas.

· Esperanza Resort – This little slice of heaven is in Cabos San Lucas Mexico. We are going back this year for our third consecutive year. The food, the weather, the pool, is all nearly perfect.

· My 2008 Movie Picks – Of the 18 movies I have reviewed over the last two years, I will have to say that Slumdog Millionaire, Milk and Frost are among the absolute best movies I have seen in quite some time. If you need a few great rentals, I would recommend Into the Wild and The Great Debaters.

· Dining Out? – My obsessions with restaurants is clearly become a problem. Check out this list of 60+ dining spots. I would highlight Kuma’s Corner and Hub 51 as two our favorite new spots. Unearth some real gems like the gourmet burgers at a metal bar (Kuma’s) and great tacos at an American style restaurant (Hub 51). And of course, Avec is basically the pinnacle of perfection in my book.

· Nintendo Wii – We got this last year and I will have to say other than throwing out my shoulder pitching in Wii Baseball, it has been a big hit.

In the gadget category we have been really happy with Canon Powershot G9 and The Flip Video Camera. The Canon is a nice high end compact digital camera but not as bulky as your typical SLR. The Flip Video Camera is a cheap ($130) and fun video camera that is small enough to slip in your pocket as you run out the door.

For any of you political junkie out there I strongly recommend Nine, a book by Jeffrey Toobin about the Supreme Court. A friend gave this to me as a gift this year and it was one of the best and most memorable reads of the year.

Anyone searching for the perfect bed? Read my review of the Westin Heavenly Mattress. Believe it or not, more than 17,000+ people have read this review since we started tracking review readership in April.

Any coffee lovers who are not quite coffee snobs? Check out my review of the single serving units the Keurig Coffee Maker and the Nespresso.

Who wouldn’t love a great bottle of wine or spirit? My favorite place to wander around and shop for wine is Sam’s Wine. If you are in Chicago, stop by. If not just order online.

Well, I guess for now that is it. I am starting to realize there are a whole slew of new things I need to review in time for the next update!

As far as Viewpoints, we are always looking for innovative marketers who are interested in finding new and effective ways to reach both in-market consumers and social influencers who love to spread the word about great products to their friends. Additionally, we are interested in syndication partnerships and we are now licensing our technology to help companies launch their own online communities. Check out Viewpoints and let us know if you like what you see!

Happy Holidays and a safe and healthy New Year!

Matt Moog

Founder & CEO

Viewpoints Network

312 447 6111

http://www.viewpoints.com/aboutme/Matt

Top Ten Most Commented on Reviews on Viewpoints

2008-10-28T10:13:48-05:00

I have to admit I love going to YouTube and browsing through the most popular videos. It really gives you a window into the service and tends to be very topical when you look at the most popular by different time frames. In that spirit, I had our tech team pull this list today. We are considering making this a full blown feature. What do you think?

Recent presentation from Charlene Li

2008-10-18T20:03:59-05:00

Social Media Marketing Summit Keynote, Oct. 1 2008

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: li charlene)

Viewpoints Update - October 2008

2008-10-08T13:23:00-05:00

(This was originally sent out as an e-mail and I later realized it should also be a blog post)

Two years ago the team here at Viewpoints set out to build a new platform for consumer reviews. We wanted to bring reviewers to life and give them an opportunity to write great reviews. At the end of the day our goal is to help consumers make smarter decisions in their everyday lives.

I am pleased to report that we have made fantastic progress toward our goals in this respect. In just one short year since our official launch, we have attracted more than 900,000 monthly users and have registered more than 125,000 members to join our growing community of reviewers.

Just this week we launched a major upgrade to our profile pages that give our members more ways to feature their great reviews and interact with fellow community members. Over the last year we have incorporated a long list of features such as message boards, blogs, photo galleries, private messaging, stats and advanced member profiling. Take a look at my profile page to see many of these features in action or read our recent blog post that provides a more detailed overview of the many great features in this release.

I am also pleased to report that it is not only our users but also advertisers who have seen the value in the Viewpoints solution. Leading advertisers such as Proctor & Gamble, Kenmore, Tivo, Panasonic, HP and partners such as Google and eBay have seen the benefit of running campaigns targeted at active "in-market buyers" and social influencers. Additionally we have also created co-brand versions of our site for several large clients who are interested in building an online community for their customers.

So that is the quick update, but we promise to be back more often than every two years to fill you in on all the exciting news here at Viewpoints!

Be sure to check out Viewpoints for all your holiday gift giving needs.

Warm Regards,

Matt Moog

Founder & CEO

312-447-6111

matt@viewpoints.com

http://www.viewpoints.com/aboutme/Matt

Big news! New profile page on Viewpoints.com

2008-10-08T11:10:02-05:00

When we launched Viewpoints.com last September we set out to create the most social platform for consumer reviews on the web. Our basic premise was that a social reviews platform would help create more context around the reviewer and in turn help our users, the people reading the reviews, make smarter decisions about everything from choosing the right digital camera to picking a hotel that met their specific needs.

I am happy to announce that we have taken that focus to another level. Last night we launched our completely remodeled profile page to give members new and exciting ways to engage with others and feature their reviews. Since this is my personal blog I will give you the run down using my own profile page as an example.

First, you can check out my public profile page here: http://www.viewpoints.com/aboutme/Matt. You will immediately notice the addition of my own mini blog, a place for "my motto" and the ability to leave me a private comment. All of those features are new.
Second, if you explore the "I Am" tag cloud in the left hand column you will see how you can filter and browse my reviews by the tags I have used to describe myself with those reviews. So for example, click on the "5 star diner" to see my 27 reviews of restaurants that include that tag.
Below my blog posts on my profile page you will also see my "Fun Facts & Interests" and then a list of my most recent reviews and message board conversations.
Next to my reviews and just below my "I Am" tag cloud you will also see some of the friends and fans I have recently made on Viewpoints and links to my photo collage and a beta project that helps you explore the connections among my friends.
You can find one of my favorite features by clicking on the "Reviews" link just to the right of my profile picture at the top of the page. Now we give our members and readers a whole new way to explore any reviewer's reviews. You can filter these reviews by my I Am tags or by category, by rating or by date. So for example, if you want to see the 11 hotel reviews or the 15 movie reviews or you can filter my reviews by "I Am" tag to see my 6 sushi lover reviews or my 5 wine lover reviews
The Friends & Fans section of the profile page gives you boatload of new ways to see the friends you have and make some more. If you are logged in you will also see what friends you have in common with anyone else on the site. I found it really helpful to view people who were my fans that I knew and needed to make them friends.
The Photos page proves the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. We have expanded the number of photos that you can upload as part of your profile to 27 photos and we have built a "Review Photo Album" to show off all the photos you have uploaded as part of your reviews. Check out the picture of me and the family in front of the Supreme Court sporting my Viewpoints T-Shirt!
As if all this wasn't enough, we also have some great new features that you have to be a member for. Be sure to register and log in and look at the "Edit Profile", "About Me" and "Settings" links just to the right of your picture. A personal favorite of mine is our new "Member Interests Survey" that helps connect you with other members who share your interests.
Also, don't miss the "view more stats" link just under your Stats Snapshot on your profile page. I have had more than 36,000 views of my reviews since we started tracking back in April. That is a pretty cool stat to track but the coolest thing of all is to see how you can write a review that starts getting readers almost immediately. My recent review of Hub 51, a new restaurant just down the street from us has already received 331 views in just a few weeks. It is also nice to know that more than 10,000 people have read my review of the Westin Heavenly Mattress!!

And after all that, here are two hidden gems that we clearly need to highlight more.

After you have made some friends be sure to check out "latest friends' activity" which you will find a link to in the left column of your friends & fans page. It is pretty cool to be able to see what all of your friends are up to including the ability to filter by reviews, discussion posts, friends, photos, comments and blog entries.
After you have completed your Member Interest Survey be sure to follow this link: http://www.viewpoints.com/quick_review to then write 10 quick reviews on product, services or businesses that you have personal experience with. We created this format to make it easy and fun for you to jump right in! We use your interests to suggest things to review.

Phew!!! How our development team managed to pack all of that into this project I will never know but my hat goes off to them. Congratulations to our incredible technology team.

Are you are starter or a joiner?

2008-10-03T11:30:06-05:00

As someone obsessed with social media I got to thinking about crowd dynamics at the Cubs game a few days ago. Next time you are at a big sporting event, watch how crowd action is first started and then how it spreads. This might seem strange but I think those of us who think long and hard about how to create vibrant online communities have something to learn from how the wave gets started .

In order for the wave to start, someone has to start it. Do they do it on their own? Do they first talk to a few friends privately? How many friends do they need to catch everyone elses attention? How many people need to follow their lead for then the entire stadium to join in the fun? And what can we learn about adoption rates by watching how quickly the wave moves from a few people to 30,000+? What can we learn about the fact that almost everyone participates when it really gets going, including the people who would never have started it on their own.

Does your community have those "wave starters" who can recruit a few more people to join in who then in turn get the wave going? Do you have the mechanisms in place to make sure that the "crowd" can see and then model what your leaders are doing? What is the reward or motivation of those starters?

I don't have all the answers to these questions, but certainly gets the mind going to think about how this everyday example of user participation can inform your online community efforts.

Warning! Your are being tracked. Proceed with caution...

2008-08-12T08:47:09-05:00

There is an article in The Washington Post today about a "surprising" disclosure that some advertising networks are NOT explicitly informing consumers when they track their behavior. Shocker! Every major ad network and ad serving company has been tracking consumer behavior without informing consumers for the past ten years. And ever since Doubleclick's attempted to purchase Abacus and connect catalog purchase data to web surfing behavior most ad networks have provided a way to opt out of being tracked, which of course almost no one does.

This leads me to ask a few questions to bring some more context to the debate:

Do the press and policy makers understand the difference between collecting anonymous surfing behavior and collecting surfing behavior that can be tied back to an individual household?
Why are credit card companies and catalog companies allowed to collect and sell detailed personal purchase and financial information while lawmakers are up in arms about tracking that is both anonymous and not tied to financial or transactional data?
Is "explicit consent" better than "explicitly informing"? Is explicit consent practical?
Do consumers really even care? In my experience most consumers are willing to give up huge amounts of personal information in exchange for things such as coupons, sweepstakes, free membership etc. One way to test this is to ask the top 50 sites how often a new member looks at their privacy policy when registering.
The U.S. government provides census data that map back to a zip+4 which usually is specific to a few hundred households. Is data no longer considered personal or need privacy protection when it is about you AND your neighbors?

What do you think?