When you meet someone in person, do you connect with them online for ongoing networking?  Have you threaded together your online community across multiple platforms?

Extending the Networking Relationship

Networking in meatspace is so old fashioned! Who really shows up at local networking events or meets people offline?  Uh…. I do!

Really, this proven method of connecting with others can often be more valuable than an endless number of followers on any social platform.  That said, it is still incredibly valuable for you to extend that relationship from meeting in person to remaining top of mind in an ongoing manner.

Connect your real-world experiences online to continue building that relationship.  Scan their business cards and connect on LinkedIn.  Look them up on Google Plus.  Use Rapportive  in your email system to find them on other platforms.

Then – go about the work of building relationships.  Share content that keeps you visible as status updates or even sending useful links privately.  Interact on what they’ve posted.

Connecting Across the Web

While many advocate separate networks for separate purposes, or customizing each update for each place, I’m a fan of threading these all together.  Usually once or twice per week I post something on each of the networks that I participate in with links to my other online profiles.

On networks where space is short, like Twitter or LinkedIn status updates, I’ll often provide a single link back to the post on Google+.  In Facebook pages, I nearly duplicate this request.

Why Would You Want To Connect On Every Network?

I connect with the same people on nearly every network I can find them.  I specifically seek out as many ways to connect with people that particularly engage with what I share or those that I have considerable respect for.  I may not see what someone shares on Facebook because at that time I’m watching Google+.  I make my daily rounds across the web and do watch some things more carefully than others.

Connecting across many networks is ultimately up to each person to determine what works for them. Giving people the easy ability to connect further provides all that they need to take action.

Share the links on your profiles and on your own website. Make it easy for people to follow you where it works best for them.

The post Connecting Across the Web appeared first on Courtney Engle. Read more by Courtney Engle Robertson. Courtney Engle - Helping Business Owners Unlock Hidden Profits by Streamlining Social Media, Local SEO, and Mobile Marketing - Chambersburg, PA

LinkedIn Channels are a new addition to the news area of LinkedIn, known as LinkedIn Today.  Essentially, it is a list of curated topics (up to 20) that LinkedIn members can follow.

While it may not be breaking news, it will likely be more on point for recent information in your industry.   You can subscribe to LinkedIn Channels at http://www.linkedin.com/today/channels.

Once subscribed, view http://www.linkedin.com/today to see news that you’ve subscribed to.

To make use of channels, visit your LinkedIn Today view on a regular basis.  Find articles here that are interesting to reshare or send specifically to those that would benefit most with that information.

If you are already a Pulse app user, you may notice the layout is slightly familiar.  Pulse was acquired recently by LinkedIn.  The tiled layout of articles is much like the Pulse app.

Related articles

• LinkedIn Releases New ‘Channels’ for Reading Articles and Slide Shows
• LinkedIn anounces Curated Content Channels on LinkedIn Today

The post How to Use LinkedIn Channels appeared first on Courtney Engle. Read more by Courtney Engle Robertson. Courtney Engle - Helping Business Owners Unlock Hidden Profits by Streamlining Social Media, Local SEO, and Mobile Marketing - Chambersburg, PA

Have you ever found yourself in need of managing multiple WordPress websites?  Until recently, I had been logging in to many websites every time there was an urgent update.  This can be very time consuming, and doesn’t even account for security and backup on these sites.  I was struggling just to maintain these sites until I found a way to leverage my time better with ManageWP.

ManageWP allows me to manage WordPress sites and blogs from one dashboard.  I can login and see all my sites and all the sites of my clients. From this dashboard, I can run updates, optimize the databases, and scan security from the computer browser or mobile app.  Each night I run a full website backup, not just the content, to my Google Drive account.  I can deploy a new plugin to multiple websites at once.

If you are a WordPress manager, you really need to try ManageWP out.  It will save you considerable time and effort. During website setup, I have created a website with all my preferred plugins and theme framework already loaded in.  I can clone that website to a fresh domain and be well on my way to finishing the site in record time.

If you want to check them out, I’d greatly appreciate if you used my link: ManageWP

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Search engine optimization is important for local small business. With it, you can stand out when potential customers are searching for what you have to offer.  By claiming your listings and including data on your website for search engines to know exactly where you are located and help your community discover you in search, you will see higher search engine rankings.

Local SEO Tips:

1. Claim the big social media sites like Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  Complete your company profile thoroughly. 
2. Claim your business on the local check-in places like Foursquare, Yelp, and any niche systems related to your industry
3. List your business on free local news websites.  Many tv, newspapers, radio, and other traditional media outlets have sections of their websites for businesses to freely list their business.
4. Include your address, phone number, and hours of operation on the main page of your website, along with your email newsletter. Preferably as a click-to-call link.
5. Include Geotag data in the meta information on your website.  I use Yoast’s Local SEO plugin for this, but you can also include data from http://mygeoposition.com/.  The important addition that Yoast’s Local SEO plugin includes is Schema.org data, which can be complicated to hand-code.
6. Claim your listings anywhere and everywhere else that you can. There are countless directories in your niche, but also many listings such as the online Yellow Pages.  Find as many of these listings and precisely claim each.  Plan for this to be at least an afternoon of tedious but simple work. Each asks you to verify that you are in fact the business owner by using your company email and phone to verify these.  The more claimed listings that are all the same, the better your standings will rank.
7. Ask customers for reviews.

Check your local seo citation listings at:

1. GetListed - a great base start if you are trying to do it all yourself for free
2. Yext - an inexpensive option if you pay, or a good listing for free places to claim
3. Nuestar’s Localeze - a thorough listing, but works best when purchased
4. UBL (not free)
5. WhiteSpark (very limited in free mode)

Local SEO services:

It isn’t complicated to claim your accounts, but many just don’t know where to go to do so.  In addition, seeking out a local seo company can provide the benefits of monthly reports on reviews, monitoring activity on the networks, and claiming additional listings as they become available.

I can help with your Local SEO needs if you’d prefer to go that route.  Contact me for further information.

Related articles

• Easy Ways To Improve Your Local SEO – Citations
• 5 Reasons Your Small Business Needs Local SEO

The post How to Increase Local SEO for Your Small Business appeared first on Courtney Engle. Read more by Courtney Engle Robertson. Courtney Engle - Helping Business Owners Unlock Hidden Profits by Streamlining Social Media, Local SEO, and Mobile Marketing - Chambersburg, PA

Mobile marketing for small business continues to grow by leaps and bounds.  It is important for local small business owners to make full use of mobile marketing to best reach their audience.

What is mobile marketing?

• SMS text message marketing
• Creating mobile optimized websites to ensure that your whole website is thumb-navigation friendly, that all embedded photos and videos work across all types of mobile devices, and that the website is visually appealing on smartphones and tablets
• Implementing mobile landing pages (such as hours, menues, or any other specific page designed to be discovered specifically on a mobile device)
• Including click-to-call links, click-to-email options, and the ability to sign up on email newsletters or text message delivery systems

Recently Local Search Insider released a report with some shocking statistics on what mobile marketing is doing within the past year alone.

In 2012, growth in the number of PC users accessing the Internet flat-lined for the first time. By contrast, the share of web traffic from non-PC devices including smartphones and tablets more than doubled to 15% in December 2012 versus 7% in December 2011.

Local Mobile Search Report via Local Search Insider

What mobile marketing means for you:

More people are searching for all sorts of things. Now, more than ever before, you need to factor how your existing customers and clients are interacting with you and your company across all sorts of devices.  In addition, you need to remember what that experience may be like on any social media outposts extending beyond your website.

Some key marketing tips and takeaways for small business owners include:

• Approximately 77 million smartphone owners relied on applications to visit local content in December 2012, up 22 percent since December 2011.
• About 69 million users relied on browsers in December 2012, up 12 percent since December 2011.

If you are a local small business owner, you may need to make some rapid changes to your website, email newsletter, and social media accounts to be mobile-friendly.  Consider also implementing an sms system to share the updates and deals in a timely fashion for your customers.

The post Small Business Mobile Marketing appeared first on Courtney Engle. Read more by Courtney Engle Robertson. Courtney Engle - Helping Business Owners Unlock Hidden Profits by Streamlining Social Media, Local SEO, and Mobile Marketing - Chambersburg, PA

WordPress 3.6 is due to ship soon (currently May 20).  We looked in depth at the new changes, but let’s take another preview:

The post WordPress 3.6 Preview appeared first on Courtney Engle. Read more by Courtney Engle Robertson. Courtney Engle - Helping Business Owners Unlock Hidden Profits by Streamlining Social Media, Local SEO, and Mobile Marketing - Chambersburg, PA

Last month Google Reader announced it’d be closing it’s doors on July 1 as content curators realized their worst fears. I have looked at a few options that would replicate the features I loved most about Google Reader and used on my networks.  Here’s how I configured my content curation sources:

Feedly & Zite for Reading News

I use 2 apps for reading news.  Feedly has all the sources I’ve curated over the years into Google Reader.   A few years ago I reviewed Feedly and enjoyed it, but ultimately found it not quite as powerful.  Things have drastically improved in Feedly, and they are ready to roll out their own system when Google Reader goes dark.  I prefer to read it in list mode to blast through articles as fast as I had in Google Reader. This works well on mobile, too.

My other news reading app via mobile is Zite. I use Zite differently than Feedly.  Feedly is the place to see what I’ve selected, while Zite is the place to see suggested content based upon what I normally read and share.  I follow topics in Zite, often discovering articles on websites that are new to me.

Pocket for Saving and RSS Sharing

When I find an article on either of my reading places, I share that article manually to Google+ personal profile, and sometimes send it to Pocket as well.  With Pocket, I can get an RSS feed out that can later reach many other destinations.

IFTTT to direct that RSS Feed

Using https://ifttt.com/recipes/84459, I can have the content I put in Pocket automatically scheduled to reach other social destinations via Hootsuite autoschedule.  This spreads out when the content reaches some destinations so as not to bombard my community just because I happen to be blasting through all my content sources.  I still have to select what I want to share, but let this schedule out when it reaches them.

Hootsuite for Social Media Management

We’ve already looked at why I love using Hootsuite to manage my online community on most every platform.  You’ll need to connect your Hootsuite Pro account with IFTTT to finish off this content curation web.

Related articles

• How to Transition From Google Reader to Feedly [Plus Other RSS Reader Alternatives]
• Transitioning from Google Reader to feedly

The post How to replace Google Reader for Content Curation appeared first on Courtney Engle. Read more by Courtney Engle Robertson. Courtney Engle - Helping Business Owners Unlock Hidden Profits by Streamlining Social Media, Local SEO, and Mobile Marketing - Chambersburg, PA

Have you ever gotten stuck? I mean – really stuck.  I have, and it’s cost me more time than I’d like to admit.  I let myself be held back from reaching my goals in work and home life by myself, the excuses I believed about others, and by getting distracted by the next shiny new thing.

My friend Dixie Gillaspie has been great at helping me identify what my own excuses were, and challenging me to question why I haven’t yet reached some of the goals.  She’s done it again in her first book, “Just Blow It Up“.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book that have really challenged me this week:

• Do you know what boundaries you’ve established? What things are nonnegotiable —you simply will not do anything that requires that you violate this code?
• “You’ll never give 100 percent effort to achieving anything you aren’t 100 percent certain that you want to do.”
• To blow up a barricade you must be mentally and emotionally clear and connected to your desired destination. You must be ready to embrace your success.
• Once we stop blaming outside elements for keeping us from our desires, once we stop blaming ourselves for not pursuing our desires, then we can ask the right questions, and answer them truthfully. Then we can make choices based on our own truth, rather than our fear.

If you have run into a brick wall on the way to your goals, this book will help you blast through that and get on your way to your destination.

Stay tuned…. my destination will soon be ready to share too

The post Just Blow It Up by @DixieDynamite #JBIU appeared first on Courtney Engle. Read more by Courtney Engle Robertson. Courtney Engle - Helping Business Owners Unlock Hidden Profits by Streamlining Social Media, Local SEO, and Mobile Marketing - Chambersburg, PA

Your business needs compelling cover photos on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, & LinkedIn to make a strong first impression. Several networks have rules about them, and each network has it’s own size requirements.

Facebook Cover Photos

Facebook’s rules for cover photos are:

All covers are public. This means that anyone who visits your Page will be able to see your cover. Covers can’t be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on anyone else’s copyright. You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines. Covers may not include images with more than 20% text.

Test your page’s compliance.

In both Facebook and Google+, when a visitor clicks on the cover image, they will be presented with a right sidebar area to view the caption from the source, as well as comments others have written.  Use this space to link to a specific page on your website.  Consider tracking the traffic returning to your site using Google Analytics Tool URL builder.

Google+ Cover Photo

Google Plus has the largest image size for cover images at 2120 x 1192px. Images are at a 16:9 resolution, which matches many laptops and even televisions. However, when a visitor first loads a page or profile, only the bottom 1/3 or so actually displays.  Keep this in mind as you place important content near the bottom of the image.

A great resource for a Google+ Cover can be found at http://googlepluscoverphoto.blogspot.com/2013/03/Google-Plus-New-Cover-Photo-Size-Free-Templates-Download.html

LinkedIn Cover Image

LinkedIn doesn’t mention requirements on what image is used on Company Pages, but does specify formatting: PNG, JPEG, or GIF; max size 2 MB. Image must be 646 x 220 pixels or larger. (Note: You can crop your image once it’s uploaded.)

Twitter Cover Photo

Twitter doesn’t mention requirements either. The image sizing is 520 x 260 px. See Twitter for additional help on uploading the cover photo.

Social Media Sizing Resource:

A slightly dated listing of many social networks can be found at Lunametrics.

Related articles

• How to Format Your Social Media Posts for Optimum Engagement
• How to Size Images on Social Media: A Cheat Sheet (Infographic)

The post Cover Photo Guidelines on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, & LinkedIn appeared first on Courtney Engle. Read more by Courtney Engle Robertson. Courtney Engle - Helping Business Owners Unlock Hidden Profits by Streamlining Social Media, Local SEO, and Mobile Marketing - Chambersburg, PA

Last week a friend asked me, “Samsung or iPhone”? The question wasn’t really about what Android phone, but about which of the top 2 smartphones he should buy.  On March 15 2013, Samsung held a launch event for the Galaxy S4 that left me suggesting to my friend iPhone or any other Android but never under any circumstances should he consider Samsung.

What went wrong for Samsung?

As I see it, Samsung had 2 primary problems in launching this phone. First, the event was atrocious.  It was awkward and weird watching actors role-playing the device at Radio City Music Hall. The continual disruptions by the emcee breaking the forth wall and essentially stating “this is a joke, get it?” or “let’s give a round of applause” followed by silence was painful.  However, this was only part of the presentation problem.  The other large offense is more personal. Every woman depicted looked like a boozy June Cleaver worried about calorie counting and wedding planning. Samsung seems to be aiming mostly at consumers and not at business power users, but it’s no reason to present the content in such a manner as I witnessed.

The other big dilemma observed is that Samsung cluttering the phone they provide with crappy apps that remind me of the crapware pre-loaded onto Compaq and Gateway computers circa 1998. Not only is Samsung duplicating functionality that Google has provided via Android, but they are pre-loading apps that create functionality already available in the Google Play store.

Other Samsung Galaxy S4 Features

• A Google translate clone
• Samsung’s iMessage/BBM clone that doesn’t interface to Google Chat or other Google messaging services
• No major changes in the layout or interface
• More megapixels!

Check out the replay of this horrid event.  The ladies enter around 3/4 of the way through:

Moving forward, I hope that Samsung is less about a splashy showy launch that translates well internationally and pays attention to cultural sensitivity in each market.

If you’re looking for a great Android option, my friends suggest the HTC.

Related articles

• Samsung Galaxy S4 vs. HTC One

The post Samsung Won’t Get My Recommendation appeared first on Courtney Engle. Read more by Courtney Engle Robertson. Courtney Engle - Helping Business Owners Unlock Hidden Profits by Streamlining Social Media, Local SEO, and Mobile Marketing - Chambersburg, PA