Sullivan Street Communication - Blog

LinkedIn Endorsement Technology for Small Business

2012-11-15T09:21:00.004-05:00

LinkedIn "Endorsements" technology may be a boon to small business. Endorsements are very easy to give and so take the work out of people recommending your products or services.

Inc. Magazine outlines some strategies for using this new technology:

LinkedIn Endorsements Changes Everything: Here's Why

Some Summer Reading: How to Conduct a SEO Audit

2012-08-03T12:09:00.001-04:00

There is a good introduction to SEO audits on Search Engine Watch. Makes for fun summer reading :-) The article covers:

Title tags
Meta tags
Alt tags
Keyword Mapping and Cannibalization
H tags
On page copywriting

Read the article...

Small Business Take Note -- Google Places Being Replaced

2012-05-31T09:36:00.001-04:00

Google has announced that its Google Places functionality will now be merged with its Google Plus. It is good news for small local businesses who want to have a more dynamic presence on local search results.

Read Search Engine Land's piece on the changes:
Google Places is Over, Company Makes Google the Center of Gravity for Local Search.

Simple words

2012-03-19T14:40:00.000-04:00

This TedEd video illustrates the power of keeping your message simple.

Everyone is a media outlet

2012-03-19T14:22:00.002-04:00

As people engage more and more with Facebook, I expect media literacy to rise. All of a sudden the average person is faced with the same decisions that editors of newspapers and magazines have had to deal with for decades.

Entertain Us!

Be entertaining, keep people's interest, say something funny. Use images. Include some good storytelling. Or -- see people's engagement and interest in your Wall Posts diminish.

It's a lot easier to understand why newspapers and TV news can seem so shallow -- when you are engaging in the very same process yourself, and not even for financial return.

It may be training boring people to be more concise, get to the point. It may be educating us on the simple fact that, on the most part, people want to be entertained.

With that awareness is a more nuanced experience of the news, and advertising, and storytelling in general. We are all media outlets.

Facebook Page tip: properly size your cover photo

2012-03-06T13:49:00.002-05:00

The new Facebook page functionality includes a profile image, which should be your logo, and a 'cover image' which is an image that you think represents your organization.

You may have found that the image doesn't look the way you want it, particularly if it includes illustrations or text art. The trick to having it look great is to create artwork to fit exactly in the cover art space.

To do this, use your image editor and set the size of the art board to:

Width 851 x Height 315

Add your artwork and make it so it looks good with those dimensions. And, presto, when you upload it to your Facebook page it will look perfect.

Use video instead of text whenever possible

2012-02-17T16:14:00.000-05:00

Video is where it's going. People don't like to read on their screens. And, frankly most writing on company websites or non-profits is long-winded and stale. What if someone could get get all they need to know in 60 seconds. All the important bits about what you stand for, what you offer, why people should go with you?

That's where video comes in. It also helps in making technical or complicated things seem simple and easy to understand. Here's a video I just did for a client. It's simple -- it describes the benefits of an online service, and shows how it works from start to finish:

Web Marketing without Programmers

2012-02-17T15:59:00.002-05:00

Back in the day, (it seems a long time ago but was only a few years ago), everyone wanted a fully custom website. For good reason. Anything 'canned' looked like crap. That's changing. You can now use canned templates as a foundation for a good looking site.

Programmers have been indispensable for a long time because of the custom-nature of websites. Until now they haven't had to try hard or bring passion to a project or go the extra mile. They show up and they get paid and people were stuck with that level of service. Nobody really knows what they do, or how long it should take, or if it is worth spending that money. The price to result ratio has not been that good.

Hence the market demand for easy web publishing solutions that don't require programmers. Programmers no longer have to be a bottleneck to you getting your message out. Remove that bottleneck -- save money and get your projects out in record time.

I've recently started offering packages for clients that don't involve any programming, but produce excellent, full-featured and good-looking results. I encourage clients to focus on their content and messaging -- and don't get so hung up on fancy custom coding. Stick to the knitting: focus your efforts on your clients and on being authentic and helpful.

Out-of-the-Box Wordpress Templates Can Save You Money and Time - If They Fit Your Needs

2011-01-19T15:40:00.001-05:00

There's a real bump of interest lately in using out-of-the-box Wordpress templates, or hosted website building applications such as SquareSpace to create websites. The reason: the choices are now a whole lot better than they used to be. The out-of-the-box solutions are more flexible and offer true CMS capability.

Today, I'm going to focus on Wordpress templates. Pre-designed template solutions are not for everyone, as I'll explain later. For now, let's look at a scenario that does work. You've just created an IPhone app, and you need a promotional website. You get a website template from a theme house such as this one created by templatic:

Complete web solution for selling an app - $69

You buy the theme, install it on a Wordpress site and presto! The template does a lot of the heavy-lifting, even in modeling how to present your product effectively. If you were sitting around thinking, how do I present this app? you could spend hours!

This frees you up to focus on important tasks such as getting the right message. Just replace the 'screen' of the IPhone with your app picture, replace the text with your text, and presto! That template costs under a hundred dollars, plus your hosting fees of $10/month. I'd say, that works pretty darn well.

Obviously, an app developer is not going to need help installing Wordpress and the template, but, it wouldn't cost that much to pay someone, either. Most of the time, you might be able to muddle through yourself (as long as you don't get an error message).

Where templates work less well is when your product or service has no one-to-one template equivalent out there for purchase. You will find a lot of template shops that sell highly adjustable themes (you can pick the layout, colours, etc.). They're trying to scoop up as much business as they can with the pitch that you can customize it yourself to whatever you want!

Theme Building Platform DIY

But, buyer beware: the scenario often goes like this for people: excitement - confusion - disappointment.

Templates start off promising you everything. They look perfect, well, almost. They do everything I need, well almost. Humn, what do they do and what don't they do? I'm confused. Oh, damn, I guess I'm going to have to pay a programmer to improve a whole bunch of stuff for me.

The question is, how much will you have to pay a programmer to 'tweak' a template to your needs, in the end?

Go and search Google for "Premium Wordpress Templates". If you see dozens of designs that don't quite fit, you know that you may be in this latter scenario. You may end up having to re-engineer the template quite a bit. That's Ok, as long as you know what you're getting into.

Tips: How to Use Wordpress Templates

Manage your expectations: templates are often NOT magic bullets.
Do an exhaustive search for a template that is as close to the look and navigation you want as possible
Take your list of navigation/content/functionality requirements and match it up to the best template you can find -- to see where and how it falls short.
Suss out how much it is going to cost to bring the template to where you want it
Compare that to developing a custom site with a web designer
Don't do any of this unless you know programming or have a good programmer you can turn to

Now, it is a slightly different set of issues when it comes to using hosted solutions such as SquareSpace . I'll say more about that in an upcoming post. Sign-up (right column) to be informed when the article appears.

Making a living as an artist: micro-celebrity and the concept of 1000 true fans

2010-12-15T13:24:00.002-05:00

There's been a sea change in what it means to be a creative person, brought on by disruptive technologies of digital copying, and the Internet. The big question many have now is, how can you make a living as an artist?

In the music biz, the problem is often framed, why would someone give you money for your music when they can download it for free somewhere? Pick an industry and a similar question emerges.

A brilliant compromise - why didn't I think of that?

At the same time, new technology offers new marketing avenues and allows artists to reach their fans directly. Enormous publishing and distribution costs (along with creation costs), have been removed. That seems to be a good thing, right?

Creators everywhere are still trying to figure it out. One common thread, nowadays, is that creators aren't looking for mainstream superstar success. They're more realistic about capturing a more loyal fan base. Doing what they believe in and reaching out to a loyal community of people who share their passion for, say, knitting pet sweaters. Enter the concept of "1000 True Fans".

The idea of "1000 True Fans" is that you built a fan base of 1000 True Fans using a web presence, social media, blog etc.., along with real, physical networking (i.e. events, shaking hands, etc...). True Fans are defined as people who, basically like you enough to throw some money you way every year. Let's say, over the course of a year, buying your products, membership, donations, it's $100. That works out to 100G/year. You become a micro-celebrity and make a living at it. Not to mention, you have a real connection with your fans -- you 'feel the love' in a way that you might not as a macro-celebrity.

Here's a great discussion of the 1000 True Fans concept (by Kevin Kelly, who coined the term).
On the same site, is a long response from an artist who has a loyal fan base and offers a 'reality check' to the dream of the 1000 True Fans.

If you are an artist/creator these articles and the comments posted by readers are an excellent introduction to new forms of marketing for artists.

Comments on Websites.... Passing Fad?

2010-11-27T13:05:00.000-05:00

Smashing magazine recently did a think-piece on comments. Musing about the decline in thoughtful engagement on website comment areas, and the rise in a simpler, more facebook-like approach of people just saying that the 'like it' in a few words and moving along.

Was it a blip in the cultural history that comments were cool? Or is the proliferation of social media and demands on people's time that has killed thoughtful comments?

They go on to give tips on how to engage people once again in the material on your comment-enabled parts of your website:

1. Maximize Engagement
Find creative ways to ensure that the content we are putting out is as engaging or interactive as possible. If you can involve your readers in the post, you are more apt to get them thinking about the ideas being presented. Ask them questions throughout the article to get them into an inquisitive state of mind, so that they may end up reading with a much more critical eye and have more comments to make.
2. Respond in a Timely Manner
Watch the comments that are coming in and reply to them within a day or so. This is not to say that we have to be available at a moment’s notice to respond to each comment; but if readers take the time to consider your ideas and to leave their thoughts, we need to take the time to reply. Most will check back in a day or two to see if you have responded, hoping to keep the discussion going; if we have not gotten back to them by then, they might write off the idea of continuing the dialog and move on.
3. Foster a Conversational Environment
Create an atmosphere that is conducive to dialog. If we are already asking questions to get responses and are responding back, we need to nurture the conversation by being approachable. If your ideas are challenged, you have done well; don’t let that make you feel defensive about your original points as that tone will come across in your replies and might degrade the discussion into a debate, with both sides becoming more entrenched.
4. Adapt the Discussion
If our audience is turning to social media networks with their thoughts and follow-ups, we might have to adjust our approach and adopt an “If you can’t beat them, join them” mentality by moving the conversation there — even if it leads away from the original post. We can then try to later steer the conversation back to the comment section attached to the original article or post.

>> Read the full article here.

Facebook Page instead of a Website?

2010-11-23T08:50:00.002-05:00

Guy Kawasaki recently wrote a book called, Enchantment, and when it came time to promote it, he asked himself, "should I create a website, or just a Facebook Fanpage?". He opted for just the Fanpage. An interesting choice. (See the Enchantment Fanpage).

He talks about the choice in a column called Ask the Wise Guy. His rationale is not really rigorous, but he talks about the size of the facebook community, the inherent word-of-mouth aspect of Facebook, and the relative ease to get a good URL, amongst other things.

You can read the full article here:
Ask the Wise Guy: Facebook Fan Page or Website?

A Play on 'Viral' Marketing - Sears' Zombie Site

2010-10-23T12:53:00.003-04:00

Kind of worth mentioning, which is why companies might want to attempt this kind of thing: Sears has created a website for zombies to shop at - complete with real products.

Sears' Zombie website, complete with a zombie gift guide

www.sears.com/zombies

Websites - Ensuring that Key Messages and Actions are 'Above the Fold'

2010-10-20T15:53:00.002-04:00

Above the fold is a newspaper concept, but it also applies to doing web marketing. I suppose it should be called above the scroll, but that just doesn't sound as good.

Basically, you want to make sure that what you want the visitor to see or do (like, say a 'donate' button), is above the fold.

Now, you're asking, 'how do I know where the fold is'? Great Question! The answer is, there's no perfect 'fold' height, because there are so many different screen resolutions out there. Google Labs, however has a great tool that you can use, called, simply, Browsersize, http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/

Simply go to Browsersize, and enter your web address to see how your website holds up to the various screen dimensions - generated by statistics web-wide. Great tool! Here's what it looks like:

Each colour zone represents a 'fold' for different screen dimensions, along with the percentage of web users who have that screen size.

Being Strategic About Social Media - Save Time and Get Way Better Results

2010-10-19T11:33:00.000-04:00

Pushing past the BS of social media and using it effectively means understanding how what you have to offer helps people, and how to translate that into something community-oriented. Easier said than done, but a great way to start is with this series of questions, gleaned from a slide show by Gareth Kay:

What is the real problem?
Who is this among?
How might we best approach solving this?
Why might they talk about this idea?
How do they get involved?
What keeps the conversation going?

Tips on Managing Social Media - The Editorial Calendar

2010-10-07T09:32:00.000-04:00

To do Social Media right means building a community around your project (whatever that may be, from a book, to a cause, to a business). But, that takes work, and it involves planning.

I got a great tip on how do do this planning from a webinar How to Promote Your Book with Social Media, produced by a company called Highspot. The guest speaker, Nettie Hartsock, gleans from her experience in magazine publishing, Her recommendation: use an editorial calendar like they do for magazines.

You map out the month ahead (and not much further) - including how many posts, tweets, and facebook messages you want to do, what content you want to provide, and who is responsible for each bit. Also, you book off some time for responding to people and participating in the community.

With the calendar, you know what you have to do, you don't get overwhelmed. You also don't spend too much time on it, which is also a problem with social media. For more great tips, I recommend listening to the full webinar (1hr).

Non-Profit Marketing - The Costs Behind The Story of Stuff

2010-07-30T10:45:00.002-04:00

The Story of Stuff has been around for a while, so you have probably seen it. It's a video that was freely shared on the net to encourage the discussion and awareness of the environmental impact of consumer products. It's 20mins long and incorporates video, graphic illustration, and carefully crafted writing (you can watch it below).

It was an unqualified success and saw huge viewership, (over millions have watched it, and it went to TV broadcasts which saw viewership in the neighborhood of 50 Million). If you are with a non-profit and have a cause that you are trying to advocate for, you may want to do something similar.

How hard is it to do? How much does it cost? The creator of the Story of Stuff, Annie Leonard was interviewed about just that. Here's an excerpt from that interview:

3. How long did it take?

About four months.

4. What was the budget?

The budget for the video production (shoot, animation, and 1,000 initial DVDs) was $67,000, and the budget for the website design and implementation was $40,000, and the budget for the distribution strategy and implementation was $36,000.

5. Why did you choose the format you did? What were your design influences?

We wanted to take full advantage of the interactive features of Flash video in a way that had never been done before by activists. And we wanted to emulate the style of a Mac ad because the Mac aesthetic is the ultimate example of the seductiveness of consumption. We wanted to use that seductive look to fight consumption.

6. Who maintains it? How much time does it take?

Free Range maintains the site, and Annie updates the blog. We designed the site so Annie can easily update the information available for each chapter of the movie, including contact information for organizations who are actively working on the issues she discusses in the film. At this point, maintaining the site takes a few hours a week.

You can read more about the creation of The Story of Stuff by visiting TechSoup.org.

Adding Ads to Your Site - Tastefully

2010-07-14T09:36:00.005-04:00

It is hard to design around ads. They clutter everything up and distract from the visitor's experience of the content. But, if your goal is to generate revenue from your traffic, adding ads can be done tastefully. Today's case study: 101 Cookbooks.

By using a magazine layout, and paying loads of attention to typography and flow, they manage to create a site that is beautiful and easy to follow. Ads are placed predominantly on the right-hand side of a three-column layout. That helps users know that if they want to navigate the site they look to the left or up top. However, ads are peppered through the content as well. And they look good!

Like a magazine, they make extensive use of professional-quality photographs, keeping them big to keep the focus on the content. Mmmmm, I'm hungry already.

They employ traditional banner-style ads and also have boxes of Google Ads. For the Google Ads, they've controlled the style of them and placed them in a defined box that looks nice and separates them out from other content.

Another factor in the success of the design - lots of white-space. Much more than the average website. This allows the content to breathe and prevents visitors from being overwhelmed by the large amount of content on the site. Well done!

How Many People are Using Facebook?

2010-07-13T16:34:00.000-04:00

Here's what Facebook says about the usage of their network, if they are to be believed....

People on Facebook
More than 400 million active users
50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
Average user has 130 friends
People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook
Activity on Facebook
There are over 160 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups and events)
Average user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events
Average user creates 70 pieces of content each month
More than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month.
Global Reach
More than 70 translations available on the site
About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States
Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application
Platform
More than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries
Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications
More than 550,000 active applications currently on Facebook Platform
More than one million websites have integrated with Facebook Platform
More than 150 million people engage with Facebook on external websites every month
Two-thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook
Mobile
There are more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
There are more than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products

Globe and Mail Article on Blogging

2010-07-10T11:22:00.001-04:00

The Globe recently ran a piece on blogging, which they view as 'essential' for a website. How to make your website a daily destinatio: Five strategies to keep people coming back Here's an excerpt:

Make no bones about it: Blogging should be an essential part of any modern website. After all, a few clicks is literally all it takes to post updates in real-time around the clock, creating a steady stream of content that promises something new and exciting with every visit. Better still, professionals at all experience levels have the capability of readily doing it, and the practice also helps put a personal face on your organization, shining the spotlight on the individuals behind it.

The comments are funny, too. One commenter suggests that all you need to do is put pictures of cats on your website to drive up traffic.

Location, Location, Location: Optimizing your Presence on Google Maps

2010-07-08T12:57:00.002-04:00

If you have a brick-and-mortar business, like a laundromat, or hair salon, or coffee shop, or location-dependent services such as landscaping, home maintenance etc, it is a good idea to optimize your Google Maps listings. In Google-speak, that means using Google Places to manage your listings.

Searching Google Maps is not just for people sitting at computers any more, the increasing use of portable devices such as IPhones means that more and more people will be checking Google Maps to find a good place close to them. You want to make sure that you show up when someone is looking, and you also want to make sure that the information listed is correct, and reflects well on your business. Like this:

Here's a introductory video on Google Places.

The documentation on doing this is not the best but you can muddle through and get it right with a bit of persistence. Well worth the effort.

Using Outrage to Drive Traffic and Ad Sales

2010-07-07T09:41:00.001-04:00

Emily Gould, columnist as Slate Online discusses a phenomenon she calls Outrage World - How feminist blogs like Jezebel gin up page views by exploiting women's worst tendencies.

The trick, argues Gould, is to create outrage in order to drive up comments. Jezebel can get up to 1000 comments on a single article, with about 90,000 page views, like this article on the Daily Show's 'prejudice' against women.

The wonderful thing about comments is that participants go back again and again to see how people have responded to their ideas. That means more page views and more chances to deliver ads.

Gould's article is a critique of the phenomenon, which does sound horrible, but the idea is sound. For the right audience, comment participation can be an excellent way to drive traffic. Finding topics that people want to comment on is the trick. Angry feminists are a bit more motivated to share their ideas, which makes this model an excellent pairing for Jezebel. Do you have a area of interest that people feel passionate about?

Publicize your Facebook Page with a "Badge"

2010-07-03T11:30:00.000-04:00

You've created a page for your business on Facebook - Great! Now, you want to try and get people interacting with the page. One way to do this is to place a page "Badge" on your company website. A badge is a code snippet that you paste onto a website (or wherever) which dynamically shows the page status, image and fans.

Here's a badge for a hotel that my landlord's family has in Greece:

Blue Jay Beach Hotel

Promote Your Page Too

Notice that it shows the number of 'fans' and the status of updates on the page, along with the page's profile photo. Here's the official Facebook help answer on how to create a badge:

To create a badge, just click on the "Create a Profile Badge" link at the bottom of your profile page. This will take you to your Facebook Badge page. On this page, select the "Create Badge" option. You will be walked through the creation process.

Using Facebook "Pages" to Multiply Word-of-Mouth

2010-06-30T12:03:00.000-04:00

If someone is in their Facebook account, looking around and interacting, it's easy for them to 'broadcast' for you to all their friend's feeds, by just pressing the "Like" button. You just need to make it easy for them by setting up a Facebook page and providing something for them to "Like".

For a lot of companies that rely on word of mouth for business (like I do), this can help generate new business or at least built credibility. It can also put your search terms up higher on Google results pages.

Other benefits: Your company website may not have discussion boards and places where fans can post pictures, etc., but Facebook does, and its easy and free to set up a page for a business. Link them together.

You just need a Facebook account yourself to get starting making pages.

Wordpress Securitiy Vulnerabilities - Backup and Apply Security Patches Regularly!

2010-06-23T10:55:00.007-04:00

It's happened more than once. And it's happened to people that I know, too: My blog at www.sullivanstreet.ca, which was built on the open source Wordpress platform, got corrupted by hackers. I love Wordpress and all it's flexibility, but, if they don't get a handle on the security issue it could threaten to make the open source Wordpress obsolete..

For security reasons, I have switched to using Blogger. They've recently expanded the flexibility of the platform - which much more customization possible. Here is a list of Blogger features.Plus - Google will deal with security, not me... One less job.

If you are using Wordpress ask the person who maintains your blog to apply the security patches regularly, and also to backup your posts regularly. You can do this easily in the Tools > Export section of Wordpress. If you backup, then the worst that happens is that you have to delete/reinstall....