MONTCLAIR, NJ, February 10, 2010 — Experts from Google, AOL and Samson Media team up to help demystify internet marketing in a special NJ Advertising Club presentation, titled “Web Marketing Now.”
 
The presentation, part of the NJAdClub ‘Smartalk Lecture” series. is scheduled for 5:30-9 p.m., February 17th. Admission is $45 for the public; $35 for NJAdClub members; and $25 for students. To register, call 201-998-5133, or see below for directions and registration info.

“Rapid advances in technology can make web marketing a daunting task, said Samson Media president Gene Sower.  “We aim to demystify the online landscape. We highlight the popularity of Twitter, Facebook, LindedIn, blogging and other social media, and we talk about practical ways businesses can harness the web to attract and keep new customers.”

Since 2001, Sower helped launch two dot-coms, including About.com. Today, SamsonMedia.net  helps small to mid-sized businesses establish an Internet presence and improve search engine rankings.

The two other presenters are: 

Patrick Grandinetti, a Senior Agency Relationship Manager at Google where he oversees the company’s relationship with Omnicom Holding Company (OMC) agencies on the East Coast.

Matt Prohaska, a 17-year media and advertising veteran and Internet pioneer.  Prohaska spent the past 3 years at AOL leading a 150-person sales team in account management that worked with every North American advertiser managing over $1B in total annual revenue.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

CLICK HERE FOR DIRECTIONS

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The following video explains in a clear and concise manner how your maximum bid for keywords does NOT guarantee you the top spot.  Why?  It has to do with the premium that Google gives to the quality and relevance of your ad. 

Check out this 10-minute tutorial which explains why it’s not the highest bidder who rules the roost but the advertiser with the best quality that is king!

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release              

For More Information Contact:
Gene R. Sower
973.744.6621
gene@samsonmedia.net

Exclusive distributor in the U.S. and Canada

February 2, 2010-   Houston-based www.wagandbark.com is introducing the JetCare® System cold spray training and anti-bark collar for dogs, the latest line of anti-bark collars that uses a new, revolutionary cold air spray technology that stops dog barking with no risk of allergy or negative impact on a dog’s sense of smell. 

Painless & Harmless Cold Spray Technology

Unlike the electro-static (’shock’) collars, JetCare® System cold spray training and anti-bark collar for dogs uses a brief sensation of cold air to disrupt behavior.

“As soon as your dog misbehaves,” explains Sheryl Davis Farnsworth, founder of WagAndBark.com, “a cold spray directed towards the neck surprises the dog, interrupting the dog’s behavior while enabling you to direct the dog’s attention to another appropriate activity.”  Davis Farnsworth goes on to say that by “following up with positive reinforcement and rewards such as playtime or treats, JetCare® System cold spray training and anti-bark collar for dogs will assist your dog in learning how to obey you without fear.”

Unlike other spray collars that traditionally contain liquids such as citronella, which can interfere with the dog’s necessary sense of smell, JetCare® System cold spray training and anti-bark collar for dogs contains only an inert cold spray that is completely odorless and harmless to the dog.  The spray acts on the different senses of hearing (noise of the spray), touch (a cold sensation) and sight (appearance of the spray cloud) which is enough to distract and redirect the dog’s unwanted behavior.

JetCare® System cold spray training and anti-bark collar for dogs is available ONLY in the US and Canada through the wagandbark.com website.

The Houston-based WagAndBark.com company is dedicated to educating dog owners about various training methods and products and can be found on the Internet at www.wagandbark.com .  

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PHOTO (click for larger size)

The JetCare® System anti-bark collar for dogs.

 NOTE:  All images and text are for free and clear use.

The interest in social media marketing (SMM) by small and medium-sized businesses is evident everywhere I look in the Northern New Jeresy areas where my business is based.   The businesspeople I meet are simultaneously interested and confused.  They know they need to be there.  They WANT to participate, but they don’t know how to do it, what exactly is the conversation they’ll be starting or joining and, most importantly, how they are going to find the time or money to engage fully and MEANINGFULLY in the process.

As an Internet marketer it’s my business to practice what I preach.  Long a fan of blogging, email marketing and search engine optimization, those are tools that we’ve managed to master and harness effectively to do our bidding for ourselves and our clients.  And when SMM began to take over the conversation of Internet marketing about a year and half to two years ago, we were eager to jump in with both feet and figure out what this latest wrinkle in Internet marketing was all about.

As we now know, that “latest wrinkle” has become a tsunami that shows no sign of abatement.  Those that think it’s all a big fad are sadly mistaken and are probably the same people thinking (hoping?) that the Internet would just go away.  Well, we know how that’s turning out.

But the purpose of this blog post isn’t to add fuel to the Facebook hype or express our undying devotion to Twitter.  It’s to give you a simple example of how we recently put LinkedIn, the SMM tool aimed at businesses, to work to help us hire some administrative help for our business.

COMBINING THE BEST OF ALL WORLDS

Here’s what we did:

• Posted a complete job description on our blog
• Hand picked a list of about 80 contacts from our LinkedIn network
• Sent an email out using our iContact email account that requested help that included a link to the job posting on the blog (We have a job to hire for, do you know anyone?)

RESULTS?:  Within about two hours I had 4 personal recommendations and two phone calls as well as about six emails of resumes from people who had my email request passed along to them .  All the candidates were personal referrals from people I knew so the quality, I’m happy to say, was really great.  Bottom line, within 24 hours of sending the whole thing out I now have two interviews set up for the coming week and a fistful of potential back-up candidates.  In fact, I think it’s going to be a painfully hard choice given the quality of the candidates.

This was waaay more effective than placing an ad on Craig’s list, which I’ve also done very successfully.  The main difference was way fewer candidates but extremely better quality.   With Craig’s list, I typically get dozens of resumes, most of them completely wrong for the position which means I have to weed through 10 or 15 bad ones just to get to the 1 or 2 with potential. 

And not to be outdone, I received a tremendous resource for SEO talent from one of my tweeps on Twitter as a result of tweeting my help wanted request.    It may not be something I use for this specific hiring hunt but it will be something I turn to in the not too distant future.  Again and again.

Samson Media is looking for a FREELANCE administrative assistant and project manager to work approximately 15 – 20 hours per week.  This is a WORK FROM HOME position.  Flexible hours.  Must be able to make a weekly in-person meeting in the Montclair, New Jersey area.  DO NOT APPLY IF YOU ARE NOT LOCAL!

REQUIREMENTS:

• Must own laptop (preferably Windows-based)
• Must be highly organized
• Self-motivated (this is a work from home position so this is key!)
• Ability to write clearly and edit existing copy
• Interest in Search Engine Optimization
• Interest or basic knowledge of Pay Per Click advertising
• Must be Internet savvy -  you should know your way around Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter
• Must know Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel)
• Have an affinity for social media
• Basic HTML skills a huge plus

JOB DESCRIPTION:

This position is a bit of a Jack of All Trades as it relates to website development and Internet marketing.  Applicant must be client-friendly, self-motivated and well-organized.  Responsibilities include assisting company president with day to day management of assorted freelance designers and website programmers.  We use online project management software called Base Camp to manage our projects.  Additional responsibilities will include posting press releases, uploading video, updating blogs, uploading content to third-party websites and posting to social media sites like Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Applicant must be comfortable working from home which is both a blessing and a curse.  While the hours are extremely flexible there are deadlines that need to be met and a million details that need to be followed.  Client needs to be accessible via email at odd times and on weekends though we keep most calls and meetings to normal business hours.

Applicant must be interested in LEARNING alot about INTERNET MARKETING, and have a fearless interest in all things Web.  This is not a design job. 

PLUSES

• Basic HTML skills
• Ability to FTP

HUGE PLUSES

• Owns Dreamweaver and knows how to use it
• Familiarity with Word Press
• Not only source of income

PAY:  $15 – $25 per hour based on experience, paid weekly

EMAIL RESUME TO:  gene@samsonmedia.net

MONTCLAIR,  NJ,  January 25, 2010 – Showing optimism for the third year in a row, small and medium-sized businesses in the Northern New Jersey area feel that their business will improve in 2010.  This is according to the third annual year-end business survey conducted by Internet marketing firm Samson Media, LLC.

According to the email survey of over 1,500 area business people and entrepreneurs comprised from various area chambers of commerce and BNI groups, over 80% of respondents expect business to be better in 2010 than in 2009. This is up from 52% who expressed a similar optimistic outlook going into 2009.

“Either people are genuinely optimistic about the year ahead or 2009 was just so bad, people feel like it can’t get any worse,” explained Gene R. Sower, President of Samson Media.  “Maybe it’s the sense that we’ve hit bottom and we can only go up from here?”

NEW ADMINISTRATION IN WASHINGTON HAS NO EFFECT

At the one year anniversary of the new administration in Washington, less than 11% of survey respondents felt that “the policies of the new administration in Washington” made things better in 2009, while around 20% felt it had made things worse with over 47% feeling it had “no effect”. 

This contrasted with the 54.55% of last year’s respondents who felt that the incoming administration would improve things for their business.  

HIRING & JOB CREATION

Other survey highlights showed nearly 18% expect to hire more in the months ahead with almost 58% expecting to stand pat with only 3.5% expecting to reduce staffs in the year ahead.

Download the complete 10 question survey results here: 
http://samsonmedia.net/survey-results-2010.pdf

Samson Media, LLC, is an online marketing communications firm celebrating its third year anniversary in December 2009.  The company specializes in website design, search engine optimization, email marketing and small business consulting.

For more information, visit www.samsonmedia.net , or call 973-744-6621.

As part of our expanded marketing plans for 2010, I’m commited to harnessing Facebook and all of its social media bells and whistles and make it more business focused instead of friend focused. 

Why?

Well, while I enjoy keeping up with what my friend’s cat had for breakfast I figured why not have my cake and eat it, too?

After all, I can still have my personal FB page but now I can also tap all the same tools to help me grow my business.  Not least of which is some VERY cool tools that let me see all the demographic info for all my fans.  Since everyone who becomes a FB Fan has an account and a user profile, the stats for my fan page show me things such as the ages, gender and geographical locations of all fans.  Pretty cool!

 The thing with FB, though, is that in order to grab the straightforward URL, facebook.com/pages/samsonmedia, you need to have at least 25 friends.  I guess that’s to prevent fan pages with 2 or 3 fans from squatting on good domain names.  It’s proof of viability, I guess.

Anyway, we started last week and we’re already up to 17 friends, so getting 8 more shouldn’t be too difficult.  We look forward to sharing great info and techniques for marketing your business so please join the converstion by JOINING OUR FACEBOOK PAGE HERE.

By Bobby Golden

Ask your self these two simple questions before you begin your web site project. “What message are you trying to deliver and who are you trying to deliver it to?”

I feel this is where you need to start before you even talk to someone about Web Site Design.

Get to you message fast. What do I mean? Most people have a very short attention span. When I get to a site I want to know what the site is about fast. I do not want to read about how long you have been in business or that your company is named after your favorite hunting dog? Tell me about all that other stuff on secondary pages. What I want to know is how can your company or product help me now.

Do not overload your visitors with to much information. If you have multiple products that you will be marketing on your Web Site, design the site so that each product has a page. You should mention your products or services on the home page but do not go over board.

Do not over load your site with a bunch of flashy animations. It is a distraction from your message and that is not what you want your visitors to remember. You can use these animations on your site but pick and choose wisely where to use them.

Keep it Simple. All of us have gone to pages that were so complicated to navigate that we left and went to another web site. The first site might have had the exact item that we were looking for but we could not find it. That company lost a sale because their web site was too complicated.

Just keep it simple!

Does your competition have a web site? If they do, then take advantage of this. Do not copy the competition’s site but use it as a way to better develop your own site.

Keep your site up to date. Nothing makes me leave a web site faster than old out of date content or content that I have seen over and over again. If you no longer sell an item or offer a service, why is it still on your site? Why do you have a message about your half off end of the year sale when it is April? It does not take much time or effort to keep your site updated.

How will people find your Web Site on the Internet? This is a very important step. You can have the Best product on the Best Web Site and if nobody can find you then you are just spinning your wheels. You must choose the correct keywords and place those keywords in the proper place on your Web Site. If you call your product something, but the customers call it something else, then they will not find you.

Web Site Design is a balancing act between how you want your site to look and how you want your site to function. If you are building your site your self of have a Web Design Company build it for you, just make sure that your site functions properly and that it contains relevant up to date content. And remember you almost always get what you pay for.

Entrepreneur Mindset – Business Networking For Success
By Paul Wetton

Networking refers to the practice of interacting with associates, fellow entrepreneurs, colleagues and other people to build a network of far-reaching contacts. Today, networking has become an integral element of conducting business as it helps to reach wider audiences and perhaps maximize client base in the process. A very famous entrepreneur Robert Kiyosaki once stated that the rich get where they are because they understand the value of creating strong networks.

An entrepreneur has to realize the benefits networking has to offer and subsequently take steps to create a strong and large network of contacts. A modern business thrives on networking to generate business referrals. These referrals, in turn, help the business to function and flourish.

Steps to Build Business Networks

“It isn’t what you know but who you know that makes a difference” – this is an age-old adage and it stands true till date specifically in the business industry.

The significance and potential of a strong and powerful business network are immense.

Aspiring entrepreneurs can take the following steps to build strong business networks:

1. Attend Business Breakfasts: Business breakfasts present an opportunity for entrepreneurs to mingle and interact. This opportunity can be exploited to best use by socializing and thus creating contacts.

2. Join Trade and Business Associations: Trade and business associations aim to serve the local or regional business community. Several entrepreneurs and businesspersons join these associations to take advantage of the numerous benefits they have to offer. As a result, they have a large member base; this provides an opportunity to get to know other entrepreneurs from diverse industries and to learn from their experiences.

3. Business Card: A business card is an identity of an entrepreneur; it reflects the values and the ideas one stands for. It is extremely important to have an impressive business card that gives the right vibes; in the absence of the person, the business card should have the potential to present the right image of the entrepreneur as well as the business.

4. Host Seminars: Seminars are a form of academic instruction on particular topics offered by professional organizations in which individuals from different businesses participate. Hosting such seminars helps the attendees to get to know the speaker and also his/her background. This goes a long way to initiate and maintain business contacts.

5. Attend Seminars: Attending seminars is a good way to meet people with similar interests and to create contacts that help to build a professionally sound business network.

6. Active Referral Systems: It is imperative to have active referral systems in place. These help the entrepreneur to refer one’s work to other business owners. In this manner, other business owners will also refer the entrepreneur to their contacts. This helps to build more business and make more progress. The ability to generate referrals from other business owners is the single most relevant benefit of having a strong business network.

7. Public Speaking Skills: In order to maintain a strong business network, it is quite important to be able to interact and communicate effectively with people. This requires that the entrepreneur practices public speaking and sharpens his/her communication skills to be able to better interact with others and to leave a mark in their minds.

8. Buy Business Owners Lunch: In order to maintain the contacts in one’s network, it helps immensely to buy lunch for different business owners occasionally. Lunch time provides the opportunity to catch up on the latest business trends and market forces and also to communicate on a one-to-one basis. Having lunches together des not take away from the time assigned for daily tasks and also helps to stay in touch.

9. Participate in Local Community Events: Local community events and charities present good opportunities to market oneself and the business. It is helpful to get behind their scenes and help with their organization; this creates a good public reputation and a good image for business owners. Other business owners would also like to interact and learn from this image-building step.

10. Regular Press Releases: Press releases are a good means of communicating the recent changes and developments in the business to the public. Press releases also have and edge over regular advertising copy as they tend to be more authoritative and trustworthy. Thus, press releases should be regularly submitted to stay evident in people’s mind and to increase business awareness that helps to build contacts.

Benefits of Networking

Businesses with strong networks have an edge over its competition in numerous ways.

First, strong business networks are more updated with the latest business news. This helps entrepreneurs to learn about business prospects prior to others in the community. A business grapevine is an informal source of information and news; entrepreneurs with strong business networks are more aware of the information passing out in the grapevine.

Second, well-networked entrepreneurs are perceived as authority figures and leaders for others to follow. In business, perception is everything; people like to work with those people who are perceived as key players in the community. Third, a good network provides wider exposure which comes down to more capital investment opportunities. Investors tend to be more comfortable investing in businesses whose entrepreneurs are well-known and respected.

Ideas to Boost Your Business Network

1. Sponsor a series of business awards within the community

2. Start a business networking breakfast and invite special speakers

3. Interview various business experts and make the interviews available on the business’ website as pod casts or mini reports

4. Start a forum on your business website and invite other business people to join

Successful entrepreneurs have realized the value of networking and have reaped its benefits in the form of success and prosperity. They don’t indulge in networking every now and then rather they are constantly involved in the process of networking and creating strong business contacts.

Paul Wetton is an business networking professional and venture capital specialist who helps Australian business owners prepare their businesses for potential investors with his unique ‘Preparation For Investment’ Audit. See Paul Wetton’s Blog at http://AustralianVentureCapital.com

A survey conducted by Samson Media from over 1,500 newsletter subscribers shows a lot of optimism concerning the business climate in 2010.  The complete survey results will be released later in January but the first question in the survey, “Do you think that 2010 will be better or worse for your business than 2009?”, has garnered an overwhelmingly positive response so far: