Social media has always been a big part of the job interview process, even before the rise of the Internet. Your professional resume is a form of professional media, but with the rise of the LinkedIn profile, there is definitely another route to take if you are looking for a job.

Even though you can place yourself online in 1000 different places, a professional CV will never lose its relevance. Even if you put your CV online, you have much more control over that then you would over a public media profile. You can easily update your online CV, and you can also direct different job opportunities towards different versions of your CVs online (to fit the exact position(s) that you are looking for).

However, not to use LinkedIn would be remiss of anyone who is seriously looking for a job. As the network is dedicated to business social networking, it instantly connects you with people in your industry and people from your past that might be able to help you.

This does not mean that your LinkedIn profile will be the end-all be-all of your job search and that you can simply put up a resume there and forget about the rest of the work. As LinkedIn is a B2B website (for the most part, especially in terms of job networking), most of the people who are there are looking for work or networking. It is actually quite hard to find an employer, so imagine how difficult it must be for them to find you.

However, your chances go up if you use both online venues to promote yourself and combine that with the legwork that will never go out of style no matter how many different online formats the world can come up with for self-promotion.

There are number of reasons why anyone doing online promotion or marketing needs to have Google+ as part of their Internet strategy. It takes a business from the shadows and gives it maximum visibility. For example, businesses conducting Internet marketing in Orange County can be seen by Google+ and regular Google users around the world.

Search rankings are everything when it comes to Internet marketing. If a company is not ranking high in search results, it is not being seen and losing a substantial amount of business. Google+ can increase search rankings by allowing optimization right on the company’s Google+ Business Page itself. A description can have just enough keywords and it can contain SEO friendly links taking people straight to their website if they click through.

Another way that Google+ can make search engines find you is that Google+ profiles and Shares are now showing up in Google searches. If a friend Shares your page, which share will pop up in their friends’ relevant Google searches. If you Share a page, your profile will show up in your friends’ relevant searches along with the Share.

A business’ website strategy is only as good as its ability to promote its website. Google+ is of immense help here. The website can be shared directly on the Google+ page. In this way, it increases both the search ability of the website and that of the Google+ page by creating SEO friendly links. It also gives both more index able content so your relevant pages show up in searches instead of other irrelevant pages that happen to have your company’s name on them.

As a social network, Google+ is free and quick to use. There is no reason any company should not take advantage of this as part of their Internet strategy. If you want to save the time and effort and are already running a Facebook Page, use your Facebook posts on Google as well. Because they are in the same format and Facebook cannot be crawled by Google, it will not be seen as duplicate content and the good ol Google Panda won’t come a-knockin’.

From a pure SEO and SMO (Social Media Optimization) perspective, you should’ve created a Google+ Business Page two months ago. If you haven’t get on it. If you have, what have you done to optimize it? There are keywords you are optimizing for in your Info section, right? Those keywords are linked, right? The title and headers contain keywords I’m assuming..? And your photos are geo-tagged and contain keywords and your company’s keywords. Wow! Excellent. Great job!

If you have yet to do this, please please please do it right now. Like right now. If not, you are missing out on big search engine possibilities as you read this. And I completely understand if you don’t have the time to focus on your social media presence or rankings in search results, and it’s no worries. Because that’s where we come in.

Knowing what images to use can be quite beneficial to a website designer. Essentially, anyone can put together a basic website with words on it. However, knowing what images to use and where can improve the flow of a website and entice visitors to return.

The Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF, was widely popular in the beginning stages of internet strategy. With its lossless data compression, these images can be animated with 256 colors per frame. These images made a profound impact on the earlier website strategy for the file size was fairly small.

A portable Network Graphics image, or PNG, was designed later on to replace the GIF. PNG images are far superior to GIF because they can handle more than 256 colors and can be placed without a background. With a PNG, a background doesn’t exist giving the image versatility.

The JPG image, or JPEG, is quite common for its scalability. While saving the image, one can trade off image quality for storage size. This means they can be as clear as you need, or take up as little space as possible.

The Bitmap images, or BMP, are images that can store data independently of your video device. Operating systems use these quite extensively because it will only need to be loaded into the memory once. WBMP images are essentially bitmap images made in monochrome for mobile devices.

With Tagged Image File Format, or TIFF, one could store the image and return to edit it later without the loss of image quality. The TIFF images have not changed much since the early 90s, and are used mostly by graphic designers.

Depending on ones website strategy, there are many types to choose from. There is no right or wrong way, just efficiency for visitors to view the images.

Since the inception of the Internet, how a business has shaped its Internet presence has changed from simple webpages to flashy websites and full-fledged social media fueled marketing campaigns. Companies must not only consider how they present themselves, but must also be cognizant of the methods used to make their presence known.

SEO Factors

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is important if a business intends to make money online. Even a business that uses the Internet just to establish a presence or announce themselves an expert in their field has to carefully choose its keywords, and make sure it presents content that is not only search engine friendly, but reader friendly as well. Since Google changed its algorithm, one of the newer SEO trends has been for a company to start a blog and use it to attract customers. Blog posts are more search engine friendly, and allow a business to combine offering pertinent information to its customers with optimum keyword search capabilities.

Internet marketing Orange County Style

Internet marketing in Orange County and around the world is user-specific. It is very similar to word-of-mouth advertising, since customers who like a product or service will tell their friends, but instead of these conversations occurring while chatting on Main St., the conversations are taking place through tweets on Twitter and in Facebook walls. To execute an effective Internet marketing campaign, businesses have to go where their clients are, so knowing your customer demographic and social networking sites this demographic frequents is an important factor when developing an Internet marketing campaign.

Website Design California Style

The newest website design trends revolve around mobile marketing. With smartphones and tablets becoming all the rage, businesses are developing web design platforms that run correctly on a smaller screen. This is an emerging niche market; so many designers are using website outsourcing to have this portion of a business’ web presence completed.

Every business has to have an Internet strategy for bringing in new clients, new customers, and new fans. Social media can be used to a great effect to produce a greater “bump” for their bottom line. Having any sort of website strategy has to involve not only Facebook, but other social media outlets that will allow the business to gain as many followers as possible.

The best way to make more out of your internet presence is to use as many websites as you possibly can to make sure that your customers and potential customers know that you are out there.

Yes, starting with Facebook is a good start, but it is also a good idea to have a Twitter account, to have share buttons on your website for all of your content, and to even cross-post your items to all of your accounts with the outlets you use. When you cross-post, the people on both networks can see your information, follow you on a neighboring network, and refer more of their friends to you.

If you want to get more “super fans,” you will have to start offering promotions, sales, and contests on your networks that allow your followers to win prizes, get good deals, and generally give people a reason to keep checking up on your business. The more fun the interactions, the more likely people are to keep following.

In the end, you can only increase your presence online by making your business look more appealing to new potential customers through fun interaction on social networking sites.

YouTube is the largest video sharing website and is second only to Facebook as being the most popular website in the world. It is a misconception that YouTube is just for funny videos of teenagers looking for fame. Many businesses, from insurance companies to grocery chains, utilize video marketing on YouTube to better promote their products and services.

Having a successful website strategy can help you develop a YouTube strategy. When you were building your website, you took into consideration your audience, SEO, and content. Think about your website strategy as you plan your video. Develop a unique video that will set you apart from other businesses offering the same product or service as you. When you make a YouTube account, it would be a good idea to name it after your business. Use a high quality camera when you shoot your video. Don’t make your video too long, as you will lose your audience. Keep it unique, informative, family-friendly, and to the point. It would be a good idea to have a “call to action” at the end of your video.

Consider what you would like the audience to do after viewing your video – would you like them to call your business” Would you like them to pay your store a visit” Part of a successful YouTube strategy includes an effective call to action. Video Marketing can include sharing your video on your social networking site, emailing it to people you know, and inviting friends.

Whether you’re a big or small company, now is the time to get on YouTube and become a pioneer in your niche. You budget doesn’t have to be huge and you don’t have to put an incredible amount of resources into creating your videos. People want to see real people and real content anyways; don’t forget that. And remember, YouTube has 790 million visitors monthly. The possibilities are endless!

There are many website design trends onboard for 2012. Most of these have to do with the introduction of HTML5, which greatly improves the HTML coding process, however they are also concerned with cross-platform compatibility. While you may not adopt them all, if you are serious about webmastering, you should be aware of them. Your competition is almost certain to take advantage of one or more of these.

How SEO, Social Media, Blogging, Web Design & Analytics Will Change

It is always in your best interest to keep up on emerging SEO trends and changes in web design. While webmastering is a large job for anyone and demands you wear many hats, brushing-up on trends and your competition is a good thing to do at least once every few months. Even if you only do this once a year, it is a good habit to practice.

SEO trends come and go quickly, while web design trends tend to stick around a while. Search engine optimization changes rapidly, largely because so many search engines update their algorithms so often. These demand closer consideration more often, where design trends are slower to emerge.

The microblogging trend in social media seems to be topping-out. More people are creating blogs for longer discourse, though few are being maintained regularly. Social networks and status updates remain popular, and many continue to grow and develop. Having a social media presence is no longer an option; it’s a must.

Two of the top analytics sites recently updated their interfaces and features. Most notable are real-time statistics and mobile device counts. The more modern interfaces make the information easier to access and more pleasant to view.

Stay on top of these trends, even if you choose to ignore them for your own website. Revisit emerging trends at least occasionally to keep up with competition and the Web.

Desktop web browsers are fast and powerful. Their mobile counterparts, on the other hand, are generally less equipped (although they are speeding up everyday it seems). So it is paramount to remember that mobile-friendly websites need to be simple and efficient.

This can be achieved in several ways. First, when creating a mobile-friendly website, be sure to eliminate, or greatly limit, the number of images that are on the site. The screen resolution for most computer monitors is many times greater than that of a cell phone’s screen. Depending on how the mobile browser works, this might force the user to scroll sideways through pages. In that case, large images will make scrolling a cumbersome task. Otherwise, the browser may shrink the page to the width of the screen, which will create fuzzy or misshaped images.

In addition, note that mobile browsers may have a hard time processing certain technologies like Flash and Javascript. Both of these elements add functionality and depth to the online experience and they may seem like a hassle to remove. However, there are huge benefits to using basic HTML and limiting the amount of images and advanced forms of website code, namely speed and usability. And with websites, whether being viewed from a computer or mobile phone, its all about decreasing the bounce rate.

By concentrating on text, pages will load quicker and the user will be able to get the information they want without compromising bandwidth usage. Also, avoiding Flash and Javascript will cater to all types of mobile browsers. Every person will be able to view the web page, not just the ones who can utilize such technologies.

Catering to mobile and non-mobile crowds is not a hassle. It only requires some awareness and knowledge of the target market (and their behaviors). In the end, both the growing mobile base and website hosts will be much better off because users will be able to access what they desire and hosts will get the viewers they need.

At the center of every business’s online marketing strategy is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Mastering the art of SEO is no simple task. Although SEO may appear to be a daunting challenge, consider the follow simple yet effective methods to help jumpstart your SEO campaign.

1. Keywords! You should be conscious of placing relevant keywords across every page of your website. Keywords are essentially the words someone uses to stumble across a website via a search engine (like Google, Yahoo!, MSN). Therefore, its in your best interest to include as many appropriate ones as possible! There are many great online tools to help with keyword research and analysis. Our favorites are Google AdWords and SEMRush.
2. Create a sitemap. Creating sitemaps-a page listing and linking to all other parts of your website makes your website more visible to spiders, which in turn will improve your sites ranking.
3. Create search-friendly URLs. To do this, include clear and relevant keywords in the URL. For example, instead of www.shampooproducts.com/347658/s202.htm, try using www.shampooproducts.com/conditioner/dove. Notice how the latter URL incorporates keywords such as conditioner and Dove, while the former URL simply utilizes the generic business classification system. Search engines will rank URLs like the latter higher than those like the former.
4. Use Flash sparingly. Although flash may look pretty, flash images do not allow you to link to a single page. In addition, Flash is definitely on the way out with many companies choosing to go different directions for their web design.
5. Fresh content. Your content needs to be updated regularly if you wish to increase traffic to your site. A fun and effective way to do this is integrating a blog! Blogs allow you to reach out to clients and customers, provide more opportunities to link internally and externally, and give your site a personality of sorts. Also, in order to “beat” the Google Panda update, presenting fresh content is essential so that Google doesn’t treat your content as spam and punish you for it.

Although the above tips are by no means comprehensive, they should suffice in allowing you to begin your journey to mastering SEO. Good luck, and let us know if you have any questions!

Not gunna lie, pretty exhausted after an action-packed weekend… great Social India Conference by day, fun exploration of Bangalore and making some really awesome new friends by night. Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback on the Day 1 recap, it really does mean a lot. Just breaking into this whole personal branding game right now so there’s definitely a lot to learn (finally got a Twitter handle AT the conference – @chrismorherrera). And who better to learn it from than Kiruba Shankar, Founder of Business Blogging and public speaking aficionado who talked about building a personal brand.

Now I also REALLY love public speaking (I was a member of advanced acting conservatories and performed in myriad plays throughout my childhood, and capped it off by leading all pep rallies and social events for my high school as Spirit and Rally Commissioner my junior year); but Kiruba was something else, truly. His energy was contagious and he absolutely killed it during his presentation. Yeah he may have gotten through less than half of his slides, but that’s not what mattered – he reinvigorated all of us and really put the social media keyword ‘engagement’ into action. I’m still incapable of describing how amazing he was (hey Kiruba… come hang out with me in Bombay sometime!!).

Anyways, he had an exercise where he asked us to write down two tips for social media that we either stress ourselves or admire from someone else. Here are the two I wrote down verbatim:

• Be yourself and be conversational. Mixing your business and personal accounts truly showcases who you are (work hard play hard).
• Link to all social accounts from all social accounts (improve your brand SEO and spread the word).

The microphone was passed around the room as people shared their advice, all of which was very insightful. The one that really struck me (and is embedded in my first tip) was stated by Day 1 speaker Stefan Kolle, Founder of FutureLab: “Don’t take yourself too seriously.” SO true! We’re all human; we all love to have fun and connect with real people, so be real and don’t put up strict barriers between business and pleasure. Absolutely brilliant and definitely a motto I try to live by.

Okay, getting back to Kiruba’s presentation, here are some very simple yet important tips for building your personal brand:

• Get your own custom domain name. I am going to start my own blog and am thinking about using a personal URL (or WordPress) as the hosting platform… good idea or no? Any advice/recommendations for this?
• Keep your username consistent across as many platforms as possible to help people recognize you. This includes your profile photo as well. I definitely agree with this… it just becomes harder as there are apparently SO many Chris/Christopher Herreras out there (one of the reasons it took me so long to get on Twitter was because I couldn’t pick the ‘perfect’ username).
• Use YouTube to create and upload personal videos. Definitely agree. Right now my YouTube account is full of live concert footage and videos of my experiences in India (check it out… www.youtube.com/herrerameister). It’s a great idea to post videos of yourself talking about your niche and share those with the online community. At the end of videos, ask people to Share them on Facebook, Tweet about them, comment about them on YouTube itself, etc. Also talk about them on your different social networks so more people see them and you increase your personal SEO value. When real faces ask for comments (via YouTube videos), people will be much more likely to respond than they will to someone asking for comments behind a brand logo. Just my .02.

Overall very fun seminar with Kiruba Shankar and I hope to see him again in the future! I give him a lot of props for being so great despite following the first two speakers of the day, both of whom were also fantastic to learn from.

How a Traditional Media Pro Became a New Media Pioneer

Jim Long, White House Videographer for NBC News and Founder of Verge New Media, joined us from the U.S. on a live feed, which really sums up the power of the social technology we have today. I know Jim’s work quite well; I was a Political Science and South Asian Studies double major in Madison and have grown quite familiar with MANY different news networks (my favorite being Democracy Now with Amy Goodman – sorry Jim!). It was very cool to experience the live feed in a conference format for the first time and have him pass down his years of experience and wisdom.

I look up to the artistic media who push the boundaries and truly act as the 4th Branch of American politics, and Jim does that exceptionally well. I also frequent his blog, so needless to say I was pretty excited to hear him talk. The biggest point that I latched onto is that brands need to have a human side. Yes, this is played up as much as ‘engagement’ in social media discussions, but his Twitter account is the perfect example (@newmediajim). He perfectly blends his business and personal life, but more importantly recognizes that he gets more responses from his humorous/ridiculous/witty Tweets than from his serious ones.

Think about it. When we log on, sure we love to be educated and learn new things about our what peaks our interest, but we tend to love these things even more when they make us crack up or make our jaws drop. And that’s where it gets tricky for business on the Social Web: educating your audience with intriguing information, but making it more than the information. What you throw out there is obviously important, but how are you framing it? How are you posting it? Something as simple as posting a Y/N question vs. multiple choice poll on the same topic can be the difference between 2 responses and 200. In the end it all comes back to knowing your brand and knowing your target audience.

Because I used to be heavily involved in acting classes, I like to perform my own little acting lesson with social media content writing and engagement. I try to become the people I’m trying to reach, usually through creating personal profiles of a 3-4 of the “typical customers”, and try to reach into their minds to see what they (or “I”) really want from this company. I will sometimes even talk like them and nod my head a little to really get into character, no joke; once I realize this I start cracking up at my laptop… kind of weird, don’t judge. But that’s what you need to do. You need to know your brand, your goals, your mission – all that jazz – and then become your customer so you can tap into their hearts, minds and wallets.

Thank you Mr. Jim Long for being so great… it’s been a pleasure and privilege. Next we heard from the very talented Eric Weaver, Vice President of Ant’s Eye View, who talked about Social Business. Also a natural at pubic speaking, it was very cool to hear his take on social engagement and how consumer behavior needs to be catered to.

• 66% of people do business on social networks.
• Conversion is higher when a company is engaged socially.
• Engagement is more than the purchase. It’s also about establishing yourself with your target market and making recommendations to broaden their shopping scope a bit.
• Reach out to your customers’ sentiments and emotions. When people become emotionally attached, they are probably going to buy your stuff over someone else’s. This is also because consumers just don’t brands anymore.
• Value the power of creativity over technology. We have all these social analytics tools at our fingertips, but the best tool is listening and engaging yourself.
• 40% of people that Like a brand on Facebook later UNLike them. Basically don’t buy friends on a mad quest for Likes. Only do so if you are actually converting those Likes to purchases. I recently saw Kye Strance, Director of Product Management at Vocus, speak and he touched on Facebook ads. For Vocus the monthly $170 investment on ads has generated a tremendous ROI, so in that case they are definitely beneficial. But if Facebook ads are getting you a lot of Likes but no conversions, nix them from your campaign.
• Social is not a channel; it’s a conversation. “You don’t need a social media strategy” and “There is no ROI” were the two biggest things from @Weave that stuck out to me. As I’m trying to figure out an SM strategy myself right now, this was one of the last (and first, actually) things I wanted to hear. I think I understand where he’s coming. Run with me on this one…

It’s hard to create a strategy because the social landscape is always changing and therefore creating something set in stone is absolutely pointless. Totally agree. How can you tell someone to respond to with when the situation (meaning person, topic, time, network, how it’s framed, etc.) will always be different? Again, totally agree. But here’s my question: how do you create a fluid SM campaign that will go the way you want it to if there’s no proper “strategy” in place? Am I just wanting to control it too much? But how do you ensure that you educate someone and they handle their end of the deal with no proper strategy? Someone please… respond/comment/let me know your thoughts… they will be much appreciated.

Overall great talk by Eric Weaver and a great conference overall. The whole thing was setup by Akshaya Patra, a truly remarkable non-profit organization that strives to provide children in India with food and education. I cannot say enough about how wonderful they are and how amazing everyone from Akshaya Patra who was in attendance was. Definitely check them out, go to their website, and look into donating. Great cause for India’s children to say the least.

It was great meeting all of you! Let’s definitely keep in touch on… wait for it… waiiittt for ittt… social networks (ha…) and continue to share each other’s thoughts and ideas. Let’s grow as a community, not as individuals. Remember Kiruba’s talk where we all wrote down two tips for social media? Well, for those of you in attendance, it would be great for you two share the 2 most important things you learned and are taking away from the 2011 Social India Conference. What are the two most valuable tidbits of information that you will take back and implement for your business?

Cheers and hope to see you all at Social India 2012!

Christopher Morgan Herrera
chris@gmrwebteam.com
www.twitter.com/chrismorherrera

Posted from Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.