Foxxr and The Santa Cruz Marketing Roundtable are hosting a presentation on Insider Tips on Leveraging LinkedIn from 6 – 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 10th at the El Palomar banquet room 1336 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz.

Whether you are new to Linkedin or think you have already optimized your profile, Cole will offer you some of the best tips and inside information on how you can use LinkedIn to influence your business and career.

Join the Marketing Roundtable as we welcome Cole Fox to help you make the most of what LinkedIn has to offer. Cole was a sales professional with LinkedIn from 2010 til just recently and knows the in’s and out’s of how to utilize LinkedIn to grow your business.

• Develop business without a paid subscription
• Create the ideal LinkedIn profile
• Understand, create and manage your personal brand
• How to find and get hired at your dream job
• much more.

Cole joined LinkedIn when it had 50 million users. Nine months later it became a public company at 130 Million members and 2,200 internal employees. During his time at LinkedIn, his focus was to help companies leverage the network to hire the best talent at scale with LinkedIn’s corporate hiring solutions.

Cole will be covering several topics that are not commonly understood with social media and LinkedIn, in particular.

We welcome any questions that you would like us to address during this presentation.

Cole has just embarked on his latest journey as Sales Director for OVIA, a video candidate screening platform.

Brian Childers

The Santa Cruz Marketing Roundtable is hosting a must see event for Entrepreneurs and business owners at the new Plantronics Headquarters.

Learn how to leverage new opportunities for marketing dollars! Discover the innovative thought processes that have help Plantronics effectively leverage their marketing dollars while adding value to their channel partners within the business communication device industry.

Boris Seibert, Sr. Director, Strategic Business Partners at Plantronics will present on how Plantronics leveraged their channel partner relationships to optimize Search Engine Marketing dollars.

Their “Three Box” model helped Plantronics focus on the end user and generate their own “Aha Moments”. A collobarotive competition approach, or as Boris calls it, “collabotition” helped Plantronics create an environment where their online spending was a win for both Plantronics and their channel partners.

Learn how you may apply these same principles with your business as Boris reveals ideas that can help you tap into marketing dollars you may have thought never existed.

This event is being held at the newly designed Plantronics revolutionary workplace. Check-out their modern office design that set the desk jockeys free, resulting in enhanced collaboration, innovation, and individual contribution.

Click Here to RSVP

Brian Childers

Got a Google+ Personal Account?

For those of you that may have setup your Google Plus account with your personal Google or Gmail account, Google Plus finally launched today Google+ for Google Apps accounts, but there is no merge functionality.

Should you setup two different Google+ accounts?  If you are logging out of your Google Apps account to use your Google+ personal account and you like to +1 web pages, I say go for it. If you can wait a few weeks, Google says that they will have a solution.

Google+ Migration Tool Coming Soon

Google announced that  for those who’ve already started using Google+ with a personal Google Account and would prefer to use your Google Apps account, Google is building a migration tool to help you move over.

No Need to Rebuild Circles

With this tool, you won’t have to rebuild your circles, and people who’ve already added you to their circles will automatically be connected to your new profile. Be patient, Google doesn’t expect this migration option to be ready for another few weeks.

Go ahead and get started with your Apps account now and merge your connections once the tool is available.

Note: Although promised weeks after their Google+ for Apps launch, Google still does not have this migration tool available as of 2-29-12.

Brian Childers

1. Claim your listing. Go to http://places.google.com . Login using your existing Gmail account or create a new account (if you don’t have a gmail account) to claim your business listing. Once your account is created, login and l select the “List Your Business” button. First, find out if your business is listed. Enter your Country and Phone Number and select “Find Business Information”. If your business is listed, select “Edit”. If your business is not listed, select “Add a New Listing”.

2. Add your business information. Fill out the following categories:

• Basic Information – Business Name, Phone Number, Address etc. Always use a local phone number and address. The closer to the city center you are targeting is better. Use not only a phone number with the right area code but the right prefix for the area if possible. Use descriptive terms that contain a keyword or two that best describes your business. For example if you own an insurance agency, write “Acme Insurance Agency always has the best insurance solutions for any occasion.” For the Category Section you are given 5 sections to categorize your business. You will also want to use keywords that describe your business. People who search Google for your business will be typing in keywords for example “Capitola Insurance” or “Insurance Agent in Capitola”.

• Service Areas and Location Settings – There are two options to choose from. Select one of the two options. No, all customers come to the business location. Yes this business serves customers at their locations. If you select yes this business serves customers at their locations. Then specify how far you will travel to service customers.

• Hours of Operations – You can choose to not specify your hours of operations or select the days of the week and the time you are available for business.

• Payment Options – Specify how customers can pay at your business.

• Photos – Add some photos of your business and perhaps your employees. You can add up to 10 photos of your business. Post at least five. Make sure that you read Google’s photo submission guidelines.

• Videos – Add some videos for your business. You can add up to 5 videos for your listing. Upload your videos to YouTube first, then copy the YouTube URL of your video.

• Additional Details – Enter in any other details you want customers to know about your business. Such as if there is parking available or any particular brands of products that you offer.

NOTE: You want to complete all the different sections of information requested to their entirety. You don’t have to upload 10 photos or 5 videos, but initially try for at least five photos and one video. Getting a favorable ranking in Google Places will depend whether you filled out all the information. This is a huge mistake that most companies make when submitting their business to Google Places.

3. Once you are listed in Google Places, take the next steps. You should be indexed with a couple of days and no more than 3 weeks. You can check to see if your website has been listed by going to Google and typing in your business name along with your city name. Then on the left side of the Google search results click on “More” then “Places”. You may have to go to second or third page to find your listing.

4. Address optimize your website – The only changes you should make as far as the website goes for Google Places is address and services areas. Copy the address exactly as listed in the Google Places listing and add it to the bottom of each page of your website and your website should have some form of a contact us page. On the Contact us page it should be listed in the content of the page also.

**ADDRESS CONSISTENCY IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR EVERYTHING YOU DO RELATING TO GOOGLE PLACES**

Use the same exact address format for everything you do for your business that requires an address. This includes the domain registrar contact information.

For Example you want to avoid mismatched address information:

Address in Google: 101 Main St.

Address on your website: 101 Main Street

5. Ping Your Pages. Pinging your website to let Google know changes have been made. This will index the changes into its search engine. You can ping your website by going to http://pingomatic.com/ and submitting your website name and address. Wait until the new pages are indexed in Google before moving on. To check if your changes have been made, typesite:www.yourwebsite.com in the search field. This will display all of your website pages that Google indexed in the search engine. Move to the next step once you see you the changes are indexed.

6. Get Reviews – You want to hit the 5 reviews mark. The reason for the 5 reviews mark has to do with the rating process. If you have 5 or more reviews then you get a star rating also and this gives a small boost to your listing. DO NOT make fake reviews. Google has hundreds of the best PHD computer science majors and they are employing lots of techniques to determine review validity. Any computer you ever use to login to your Google account is recorded and any review posted from that account will be tracked to your Google Places listings.  Some great ideas to get real reviews is to just ask your best customers and provide them a link to http://www.google.com/hotpot . Another tip is to include the linkhttp://www.google.com/hotpot in your email signature for your business reviews. Don’t shoot for 5 reviews in one day. Spread it out over a period of time.

7. Build Links – This factor has always been important for Google Places but with the recent beat testing of mixed Organic within the Places ranking it is going to increase as a factor. The idea is to get back-links that include your service area and address. Use the service area as the anchor text and then within the article or posting include the address. The number of back-links you need to do will vary based on the competition. I have found it very helpful to building back-links to your Google places page using address, business name, phone #, and related keyword phrases. To find your Google Places link, login to your Google Places account, look in the top right hand corner and select “Link”. This is the URL that you will build backlinks to.

8. Get Listed on Other Directories – You should be listed in all the major 3rd party directories like Merchant Circle, City Search, etc. You do not have to do the paid listings with any of them. If the directory does not have free options then skip it. A great website to help you http://getlisted.org

9. Local Citations – Don’t miss this important step. It plays a big part in your position within Google Places. You want to be listed in all of the local sites like your local chamber of commerce site or Think Local First (if your area has this type of local business support organization).  You may not be able to get an actual link in many of them but you can in most every case post a citation. This means having a listing that mentions your company name and address. I have heard of many people on the top of Google Places by doing creating local citations.

Brian Childers

Branding is networking…both in person and online. Sifting through the maze of online tools to communicate your brand can be a daunting task. Fear not, read on and use the power of eight! These are eight essential tools that will make a powerful impact and help you create and manage your personal and/or organizational brand in the world of online networking.

Where do you get started? The answer…..right where you are sitting at this moment. Stop, open your calendar and make an appointment with yourself for two hours twice per week. Utilize this time to engage with your audience and position your brand.

1. The Brand is You

The first order of business is to discover which makes you unique in the marketplace. The first order of business is to get your own URL (website) name now if you haven’t already. They are only $12 per year on GoDaddy.com. Next is your personal brand statement, an essential component to communicating your brand to your audience. Click here for example.

Finally, use a consistent professional profile picture across all of your online networking sites. Just as a logo breads brand familiarity, so will your professional picture. Keep it consistent with LinkedIn, your Google profile, meetup.com, and any other sites you use to build your business.

2. Attract Local Search Queries with Google Places

3. Discover The Power of YouTube

Ted Williams is an iconic symbol who demonstrates the power of YouTube. Ted was homeless standing on a street corner with his brand statement on a piece of cardboard. This guy pulls up in a car, videos Ted, then posts it to YouTube. 13 million hits later, Ted Williams is on Dr. Phil, Jimmy Fallon, The Soup and more. He has landed numerous voice over jobs since. Most smart phones these days have video capabilities built-in. Use this feature that is at your fingertips and video your office, employees, or customer reviews and post.

4. Get a WordPress Website

The brand is you. You are the industry expert and the best platform demonstrate this to your audience is blogging. Blogs are literally mainstream and the best and most cost effective platform is WordPress. Blogs should be entertaining and informative and provide value to your audience.

Where to Find Content – The Power of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) has quickly become the backbone of how people receive information online. View content at a central location from several sources online. I personally use Feedly to help gather my RSS subscriptions into magazine style format. Another great site is Alltop.com. You can also try using a local copy writer or visit Ezine Articles and grab a relevant content. It’s free as long as you don’t alter the article and include author credits.

5. Engage Your Audience with Email Marketing

Email, the original social media, is at the core of all communication online. There are some negative connotations with email like spam, but the positive truth is that as long as you segment your audience so that your message is relevant to their needs and has value to, your readers will welcome your message.

We can break email down to about three categories:

Newsletters - should be educational and fun and sent about once per month.

Announcements - are event driven. They include holiday greetings, thank you’s, anniversaries, birthdays, etc.

Promotions, Invitations and Surveys - have limited content and should encourage click-through’s or calls to action.

Ace of Sales and MailChimp are my top two recommendations for simple and effective email programs. You can even try Ace of Sales Free for 30-days.

6. Get a Facebook Business Page

Facebook pages have become popular as a way for companies to establish a stronger presence on Facebookand, at the same, engage with the fast-growing Facebook population of more than 500 million active users. People spend triple their time on Facebook versus Google. Additionally, 71% of internet users in the United States are on Facebook. Facebook just launched some great new features to their business pages that make it easier to manage with multiple administrators.

7. Craft Your LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn ranks very high in Google with more than 100 million business users and is growing at a phenomenal rate. Get a custom URL by editing the default URL with your full name. Include keywords relevant to your services just as we discussed about Google places and position your headline to include your top specialties. My headline reads President – Foxxr | Branding Strategist | Web Design & eCommerce Consultant | Organizer Santa Cruz Marketing Roundtable.

Expand your network both online and in person. Use business cards you acquire to build your network. Include a link to your LinkedIn profile in your email signature, create buttons on your blog or website linking people to your profile.

8. Twitter Really Does Have Value

I used to think that Twitter was a colossal waste of my time. I now understand that Twitter is a great platform for marketers and/or business folks to get message out instantly (virally in some cases) and generate feedback that can help you measure the pulse of your audience.

The Brand is You

At the end of the day, most people will buy from you because they trust you and like you because of you. Jeffrey Gitomer wrote, “The more valuable you become, the more the marketplace will reward you”. In other words, become a resource for others and others will become a resource for you. So get out there and let r rip.

Brian Childers

Now there is a great way to build your social network from directly within Gmail. Last month, I installed this fantastic app called Rapportive that displays social media information about your contacts directly from your Gmail inbox. You can immediately see what people look like, where they’re based, and what they do.

Amazingly Simple

Whenever you open an email, Rapportive uses the senders email address to search their social networks. It will tell you whether you are connected and let’s you connect with them in a click without leaving your Gmail inbox.

I tell all of my friends about this app and they love it. It’s easy to install and doesn’t cost a penny.

Get it at http://rapportive.com

Brian Childers

If you spend more than 30% of your online time networking and browsing social media sites, you are not alone. I often spend time contributing and engaging with others that I have often never met?  There must be a self-serving purpose to contribute our time, thoughts and energy to engage within these communities, right?

Share your passion

Brian Childers

Online messaging is coming at us from all directions. Videos, email, apps, RSS feeds and tweets pull us in all different directions. The addictive nature of web browsing is shortening our attention span below nine seconds, according to a recent article by BBC News.

Make sure your website is able to quickly attract your readers and keep them coming back for more.

Here are 5 tips to a great website:

Brian Childers