Internet Marketing

Does Social Media Work for Small Biz?

2009-10-30T10:34:00.000-05:00

"More than three-quarters of US small-business executives surveyed did not find social networks helpful for generating leads or expanding their business."

This chart from a recent study shows that social media are not helping small businesses very much at this point. Only 3% of respondents said that they found social media to be very helpful. The article makes the observation that limited manpower seems to be a root cause of small businesses not making b better use of these new tools. To me, that also implies a certain lack of familiarity as well. The question this raises in my mind is, "Could social media be more helpful to small businesses, and how could the problems with using it effectively be overcome?"

My other reading on this subject suggests that certain kinds of businesses have more opportunity to benefit from social media than others. It seems that businesses targeting a younger demographic can do more with the medium because that is where the largest user audience comes from. The trick seems to be to offer something on the social medium that attracts the attention of the audience and encourages them to forward the information about the offer to their network of friends. What you are attempting to do is to generate the "viral effect" that the medium makes available to you.

I would certainly be interested in hearing from anyone who has used social media to good purpose in their business. After all, some 3% of respondents have said they are getting good results. What is it that they are doing that works for them, and how can the rest of us learn something from that?

Companies that Spend on Search Are Frustrated

2009-10-20T10:37:00.000-05:00

"To improve results, the study recommended the use of dynamic landing pages, so that “users who click through find content, images, messages and offers that are customized and highly relevant to them.”"

This report always focuses on advertising (click on the title to see the report), which is not really what we do in our clinic, but the information about searcher behavior and marketers experience seems relevant just the same. What this report says is that marketers are not getting the results that they want from their efforts because searchers are not landing on pages that address their interests immediately and directly.

Remember that our approach to marketing on the web bypasses this problem completely. We always emphasize optimizing your pages to attract traffic on specific phrases that are relevant. Our goal is to have a searcher land directly on the page on the web site that is most relevant to the search. That is exactly what the recommendation in this article amounts to, and where we have been all along!

It is always rewarding to see our approach to Internet Marketing validated by these kinds of reports. The approach is sound, and that is why our participants report so much success for their web sites as a result of attending our marketing clinic and applying what they learn to their businesses.

Synergy of Search and Social Media

2009-10-17T10:28:00.000-05:00

"Research has shown that display ad exposure can lift consumer response to paid search."

This research refers to paid search activity, but it seems fair to assume that organic search activity would be influenced in the same way. The point to take away from this article is that your marketing efforts through different approaches support and enhance one another. It is not a good idea to conduct all your marketing efforts through a single vehicle. The success that you have in each approach reinforces the success that you have in other approaches.

To put it another way, look at all the tools that you have available to promote your site and make use of several of them simultaneously rather than putting all your eggs in one basket. Your web site itself, is the core around which your other marketing revolves. This core effort is then supplemented and strengthened by your activities with blogging, newsletters, article publication, press releases, social media sites, reciprocal links, and, yes, even paid Internet ads! Plan to use several of these tools in concert based on your personal and business characteristics and capacities to support different approaches.

While our focus here is on Internet tools, don't overlook the importance of what you do in more traditional marketing through your use of business cards, letterhead, brochures, promotional gifts, and networking, which also reinforce your online marketing efforts. A well managed mixture of approaches could be more effective for your business than a single-minded focus on one strategy alone!

How to Build Links Fast: 101 Tips & Strategies

2009-10-03T08:51:00.002-05:00

"Link Building... Time-intensive. Frustrating. Sometimes confusing. Yet Unavoidable. Because ultimately, it's still the trump card for higher rankings."

The authors of this article have provided a very useful list of ways to get links for your web site, and illustrated it by starting with a tip that really works! This blog post proves that it works!

Reviewing this list is definitely worth your time. You won't find every item useful for your own business, but there are plenty of things that can be very helpful to you, and work in your specific environment. Within the 101 items on the list are about 30 bad ideas pointing out bad practices, so be sure that you note the point in the list where it switches from things-to-do to things-to-NOT-do!

You do need to go through the list to get the details, but I will summarize some of the key ideas here.

Become an authority and create lists. There are a number of specifics listed in this general concept, but the basic idea is to put something on your site that is worth linking to. Observe that I am proving this concept by blogging about this list and linking you to it!
Use PPC judiciously. This is the most interesting idea I have come across giving a reason to use PPC ("Pay Per Click")! The idea is that, after you have created a "link magnet" (see the first point!), you promote that page by purchasing some keyword phrases that will get traffic directly to that information. If it works for you, you will get a lot of leverage for the money spent on PPC.
Use news and syndication. We talk about this technique all the time in our search engine marketing clinic. The list provides several specific ideas that you can use in pursuing this approach. Basically, you are planting links all around the web with this approach.
Directories, social media, etc. Many directories can be really helpful to you, and all social media are becoming much more important and useful.
Join local organizations that provide links. Many professional associations include a link to your site on the membership lists. Look into these in your business field and consider local chambers of commerce, networking groups, etc., etc., etc.....

There are many more concepts in the list, but this should be enough to give you the idea. Near the bottom of the list, the authors switch to telling you things to avoid. Many of these just have to be tongue in cheek to fill out their total of 101 ideas, but many of them are practices that used to work or techniques that people actively use today, but that can get you in trouble if you get caught at it. These are worth your time to review, but make sure you have mentally switched gears to put a big "X" through each of these points as you absorb them!

Addendum: I posted this article on 10/3, and set up a PPC campaign to send traffic to it. On 10/17, when I checked my traffic, this page had ten times the pageviews of the next highest page on my blog! I have to believe this works!!

Google Strikes WebPosition!

2009-09-30T09:51:00.000-05:00

I have long used, and often described in class, a rank checking program called Web Position Gold. The software does many things beyond checking ranking positions, but I have never used other features, nor advocated their use. I have found this a very handy program for evaluating how well the search engine optimization and marketing techniques that we teach are working in practice. I have used it only periodically, perhaps only on a monthly basis, for any given site, in part to avoid overuse that would attract the attention of the search engines, and in part because one can obsess over rankings to no good end. Nevertheless, I find it very useful to occasionally see how my rankings on different sites are standing up on the web.

Google has never liked any of these programs becuause they can eat up so much bandwidth and processing capacity, but the only program they have ever specifically identified as something they disapprove of (at least as far as I have seen) is Web Position. Recently, they appear to have disabled the program completely. When I run the program against any of the sites I check, there are no Google results returned!

As a replacement, I have turned to RankChecker, an application that is an add-on to the Firefox browser and available from SEOBook at no charge (for now, they reserve the right to begin charging for it in the future). This is a web site with a number of good tools available and some good information about search engine marketing. It is definitely worth taking a look at if you are looking for tools to use to evaluate your web site performance.

Improve Your Google Rankings!

2009-09-29T18:17:00.001-05:00

Google is adding a new feature to its searches that provide more opportunity for informed search engine marketers ("SEM") to improve their listings. The new feature is additional links that are included within the search engine results listing to take searchers directly to relevant information within a target page of results. A good description of the new feature is provided in this blog post. The objective of the feature is to provide the searcher with more focused results when they are available and identified properly. The goal of the SEM is to take advantage of this new feature to provide more focused results for the search engine (Google) and the searcher.

The key to accomplishing this is to first segment your content pages to provide very focused subsections within the text. A good illustration of this and the following points can be found on the American Heart Association site. When you look at this page, pay special attention to two features; one, that page is divided into sections with captions identifying the topic in each, and, second, there is a "table of contents" at the top of the page that jumps to the "bookmarks" associated with the captions identifying each section. These are the necessary steps to getting the new Google feature to work for you. The code that establishes the bookmark will look something like this ("<a id="HDL" name="HDL">") in the html of your page.

A description of the "named anchors" concept is provided in this blog post. Reviewing this post while examining the American Heart Association page and its source code should make this enhancement easy to understand and implement on your site.

Search engine marketing is always changing, and the best way to keep abreast of the latest information is regular attendance at the free Internet Marketing Clinic offered twice a month at the UH Small Business Development Center.

Social Media Measurement Lags Adoption

2009-09-23T00:33:00.000-05:00

"The vast majority of professionals worldwide are using social technologies for business purposes..."

The chart shown here breaks down the uses that professionals are making of social media. The article talks about the fact that measurement of ROI remains a bit of a mystery to most users. There are ways to get some measurements, and they include both "soft" measures like the statistics showing followers or friends, and harder statistics that one creates on the site by actions like offering coupons only through the specific media being evaluated. When these coupons are used, you get a "hard" measure of the impact of the media.

The full article contains some other data in charts and some additional discussion. To read it, click on the title link above.

The right click distance can improve your search engine rankings

2009-09-23T00:08:00.000-05:00

"Some search engines (including Google) seem to take click distance into account when calculating the ranking of web pages. The lower the click distance, the more value is given to a web page."

Sounds good! What is "click distance", you might ask? This refers to the number of clicks that it takes to move from your home page to a specified page. To cut to the bottom line quickly, what this means is that pages that have a link to them from your home page are considered to be more important (and that contributes to their ranking value) than pages that are only accessible from other pages on your site.

This point also illustrates and confirms the value that a page on your site with a site map still has value in helping you to rank. A site map page is simply a page on your web site that contains a link to every major page on your site. If it is manageable, you should have a link on this page to EVERY page on your site, but that can be impractical for very large sites. Use your judgment, but make sure that your most important ranking pages are included here. A link from your home page to your site map page puts every page listed there only two clicks away from your home page. This kind of page still has a value that is not replaced by having a sitemap file in your root directory, although that is certainly good practice, as well. Do both!

This article (click on the title above, to read the full article) goes on to say,
"In addition to the click distance, some search engines might also take the directory structure into account.
A web page with the URL www.example.com/page.htm is considered more important than a page with a URL that points to a sub directory: www.example.com/here/there/whereever/page.htm"

Paying attention to these kinds of details will pay off in improved rankings for your site on all the keyword phrases that you include on your major pages. Remember, attention to detail is what makes for effective internet marketing and what will give you the edge in a very competitive field!

Demographics of Facebook Growth

2009-09-21T08:52:00.000-05:00

"Facebook may have started as a site geared toward the college crowd, but as the most popular social network in the US, it has broadened its user base considerably."

Things are always changing on the web, and it is important to keep up! This report discusses the growth of users of Facebook and the shift in the descroiption of who is on the service.

What we see is a growth in older users and in female users. Facebook, like much of the web, began with a larger component of young male users. As their demographic appeal changes, so do the opportunities to make use of the medium to reach diferent audiences. Always remember that you have to go where your prospects are! If they are now on Facebook, you need to be there too!

Opportunity Abounds!

2009-09-18T00:34:00.000-05:00

I am continually impressed by how the Internet allows small businesses to compete effectively with much larger companies. That characteristic is one of the things that draws me to this field.

I ran across an interesting sentence in a recent edition of The Economist that said, "Only 5% of European Union companies born since 1980 have made it into the list of the 1,000 biggest in the EU by market capitalisation (sic). In America, the figure is 22%."

Most of us in small businesses will never make it to this list, but I am impressed by the large number of companies started in the United States that have made the list. Most businesses don't have the reach to even aspire to this kind of growth, but I am inspired by the thought of the possibility.

One of my posts earlier this year referred to the ease of starting a business on the internet, and that ease certainly contributes something to the startling number of really successful companies compared to the experience in the European Union. Clearly, the environment in the United States is more favorable to start-ups than the environment in the EU, but the internet is definitely a part of that environment.

Never forget, while you are working away on improving the performance of your web site, that the potential rewards for learning to be effective on the web are huge!

SEO Isn't Only About Google??

2009-09-02T08:14:00.003-05:00

"It will be at least nine months -- and probably closer to a year -- before Microsoft takes over Yahoo's search infrastructure, theoretically consolidating 28% of the U.S. search market and mounting the first credible challenge on Google in a decade."

Not to rush into anything. There is no real sign that Bing is going to make much difference for a while. There are a few signs of some change coming along. This article (click on the title to go to the full article) points out a few differences that we need to be aware of.

When I read it, a few points jumped out. The first was that this is all still under discussion and Microsoft is still actively tweaking their operation, so nothing that we might think we know is really "fixed" yet!

With that caveat in mind, here are the points of importance that I noted:

Bing focuses more on the use of "categories", and those terms (names of the categories they use) become more important keyword phrases.
Bing is friendlier to Flash sites. This may open things up a little for more use of those kinds of pages within a site(?)
Bing offers different placements for photos and video.
Bing favors linking out more than other engines as long as the links are relevant to the overall context of the site and keywords.
Enable MSNBot onto your site and submit URLs for all sub-pages as it doesn't automatically crawl all pages.

One of the comments posted in response to this article provides a list of suggestions for focusing on Bing that I found interesting. What I tried to look for are things that might indicate some difference in how one approaches site management with the advent of Bing. Lots of the "tips" suggested things that I think we should be doing already in optimizing for Google, which still has to be the priority for the forseeable future.

Reciprocal and Directory Links, Still Good Practice?

2009-09-01T17:34:00.003-05:00

Yes, these are both still good ideas!

Reciprocal links refers to the practice of exchanging links with other sites on the web, like, "you link to me and I 'll link to you." This practice has been questioned because of its potential for abuse. Those are definitely legitimate questions, and extensive proliferation of links through "reciprocal fishing" (my own made-up term) is not good. For one thing, it is a lot of work, and it can lead to a lot of links that you have to monitor to ensure that they are still alive and still point to the site that you agreed to link to. Sometimes sites "die off" and are replaced by sites that you would not want to be associated with, but your link to them survives if you have not been vigilant!

On the other hand, there is good evidence that sites that are properly related tend to link to one another or to other related sites in a pattern that search engines notice and make use of. Eric Ward has been around the web a long time and has posted some research on his site about the importance of linking relationships. This is some really good information and should provide some real food for thought when considering your own linking strategy and your program.

My take-away from his piece is that linking to people who have good sites that deal with the same material that your site does (or, maybe, sites that do business with you or are in your industry?) is a good practice that will reward you with better performance on your site. If you pursue links with these kinds of site, as opposed to just scanning the web for likely reciprocal partners that you really don't know, you are likely to have fewer problems with disappearing sites or "spammy" sites.

Directory links are those that you get by obtaining listings in web directories. Getting these listings can be a tedious process, because it is hard for anyone to automate the process, which probably is at least part of the reason that the links remain valuable! For some research that indicates how these links can actually boost your site, take a look at this case study. Three pages that were "orphaned" within a site were listed in directories and their search engine positioning followed to observe the impact that the directory listings had on their performance.

The study validates the importance of getting good links to your site from directories. As in the case of any links, try for positioning your links in places that bear some relevance to what your site is about. That means, obviously, the appropriate category in general directories, but it also means seeking out specialized directories that focus on your subject matter. There are many of these specialized directories around, and they are not typically household names.

Remember, in Internet Marketing, as in just about any other endeavor, the rewards go to those who are willing to work for them! That is why persistent webmasters with small budgets can outperform companies who only have big budgets, but not the know-how or persistence.

Making Money by Giving Things Away?

2009-08-31T14:00:00.005-05:00

Sounds crazy, but the Internet has introduced some new ideas, and you need to understand the concept even if it is not for you.

The post at the other end of the title link outlines the principles of such a business model. Since this was posted (some years ago now) the concept has evolved and acquired a name. The term now being applied to the concept is "Freemium". In very simple terms, the concept is that you give something away (we are talking about services here, but the film industry used to give cameras away so that they could sell more film to the users, and they gave film away so they could earn the processing fees!), and then offer more elaborate or extended services at a cost to the consumer.

The author advises that you never make this into a "bait and switch" operation, where you provide something free and then later ask people to pay for it. The idea is, once free, always free, but as the free service becomes more valuable to you through use, you will be willing to pay for more features, or more capacity. In my personal experience, I have seem this work on me in regard to Picasaweb. I put all my vacation pictures up there so my family and friends can follow me on my travels. I find it so compelling that I have finally succumbed and bought more storage so I can keep adding pictures without having to manage the storage so tightly. With storage costs so low, I can get a lot for my money, and it doesn't bother me at all.

The NY Times recently did an article about another example of this business model being put into practice. In this story, the product is called Evernote, and it is an on-line database that one can use for storing all kinds of information of personal or business interest. I have not tried it (yet) so cannot provide any more reaction than what I read in the article, but it looks very interesting, and I will be there soon! You can read more about it on the Evernote website.

The entrepreneur who started the business describes the application as, “... a universal memory drawer”. He expects only a small number of users to ever pay for the enhanced service, but his metric that he is relying on is, "... the revenue from Evernote’s 500,000 active users is growing faster than the growth in the customer base." This means he is making money from the growth in the percentage of users who are paying.

This sounds to me like a real "cloud" application, where all your information and the application itself is part of the cloud, which you can get to from anywhere that you can get an Internet connection. This has a lot more appeal to me than having to remember to move material to the briefcase on my laptop before a trip, or making sure that I have material I might need or want while away up on the web somewhere that I can get to. I can see this being addictive, which is another feature of a good business model!

Not everyone will be in a field where this business model will work for them in the same way as described in these articles, but there are principles here that we can all benefit from if we can figure out a way to apply them to our own business model.

Social Network Marketing Expands Sphere

2009-08-31T09:02:00.004-05:00

"Social networks can be used for branding, improving customer loyalty, lead generation, direct marketing and e-commerce."

Previous postings have indicated that social media are being used effectively for creating brand awareness. This latest research confirms that use, but also points out that some marketers are having success in generating sales activities using the media. This seems to be largely through offering promotions that draw attention and response, but the major point is that the usage expands as people learn more about hos to exploit the services for their own needs.

Another article I recently referred to said that the primary reason that marketers were not using social media was a lack of understanding of how it worked or could be used. This latest article shows how things change as users learn more.

On another front, I have seen some indications that some people are beginning to move away from Facebook, in part, at least, because of its effort to exploit the service more aggressively for marketing purposes. This is part of the Facebook effort to monetize the application, but it seems to be creating some negative reaction among users. Whether this movement will continue or become significant remains to be seen, but illustrates the need to remain current with your understanding of what is going on in the online environment. It is changing every day, and those users who stay on top of the changes will do better in their efforts to make creative use of the tools!

Brand Marketers Embrace Social Media

2009-08-26T11:38:00.002-05:00

"The survey of US brand marketers found the majority already using social media."

Interestingly, the top reason for not using social media seems to be a lack of understanding of how best to do it. That would seem to be a gap that could be easily closed, and leads me to believe that we will see a much greater adoption of social media by businesses in the near future.

It seems to have too much power and potential to be allowed to languish because of a lack of understanding.

At the same time, the method given as the best means of measuring effectiveness is tracking website traffic.

My own investigation so far leads me to believe that social media can have a huge impact on certain kinds of businesses, while it is problematic for other types. One report I read about who is effectively using social media pointed toward what I would consider very connected communities like high tech businesses and people in communication-oriented businesses. In the cases described, people within the industry kept up with one another to stay on top of their field. This is more a "community" function than a "business to consumer" model, but still an important and beneficial use of the tools.

In fields where businesses are looking for a B2C function, it seemed to depend upon the demographics of the target audience and the characteristics of the business product or service. For example, younger consumers clearly have adopted these tools much more fully than older consumers, and businesses trying to reach that audience will have more opportunities. Also, products or services that can generate some excitement or "buzz" within their audience have much more to work with in using these tools.

For a better view of the charts or more discussion, visit eMarketer by clicking on the title of this posting.

Calling In Pros to Refine Your Google Image

2009-08-17T11:22:00.002-05:00

"Google's ubiquity as a research tool has given rise to a new industry: online identity management. The proliferation of blogs and Web sites can allow angry clients, jealous lovers or ruthless competitors to define a person's identity. Whether true or not, their words can have far-reaching effects."

Several people, at different times recently, have had problems with people posting things on the web that they were uncomfortable with. In one case, a friend's associate put up a lot of links to his name offering "escort services" so that it would look like he was in the business of setting up connections for people. This was a deliberate attempt to embarrass and cause problems. In another case, a search for my contact's name brought up some other blog postings that could be awkward for her business to be associated with. This was more of a "coincidental" situation rather than something deliberate, but it was still a problem.

In both cases, I had to tell them that there was no "direct" action that they could take to remove the problem materials, and that the only thing they could realistically do is to "push" the problem references out of sight by establishing a more robust presence on the web for material that they did want to be associated with.

It is unfortunate that this is the case, but there is simply no way to get things that are bad for you removed from the web. This article describes a solution offered by different companies whowill help you deal with this if it happens to you. What they are doing is implementing the practices that we teach in the Internet Marketing Clinic each month to help you build a strong position on the Internet.

Companies in new age of networking

2009-08-01T09:32:00.004-05:00

"Social media can be very helpful for a company to get ideas and receive instant feedback, and it's a way to get the word out about products and events. It's a publicity technique but more importantly, it's an engagement technique to make people feel connected."

A June survey conducted by The Internal Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and Buck Consultants reported almost 80 percent of organizations frequently use social media, outranking even e-mail. The most used form is blogs, which have become a very common feature of business web sites.

Businesses have an opportunity to reach their clients and prospects in a new way. If your business or organization is not using some form of social media to communicate your message, you are "leaving something on the table". In this competitive world, that is not a good idea.

Julie Freeman, president of International Association of Business Communicators, who was interviewed for this article, emphasizes the importance of thinking through what you want to communicate and what you want to accomplish before you undertake an effort to use this medium. That sounds like good advice for just about anything you do!

The basic message here is that the world is constantly changing, and to keep up with it, you have to be changing as well. Stay on top of these types of developments and make use of them as you determine they work best for you. You will be glad that you did!

How to Launch an Article Series

2009-07-26T10:34:00.003-05:00

"... how to get more marketing mileage out of my blog posts"

We frequently comment in our Internet Marketing Clinic that "Content is King!" What that means is that having good content on your web site is the best thing you can do to achieve good rankings in search engine results.

Almost everyone with a web site feels the pressure of generating good content for their site and is looking for ideas to get more material. This blog posting offers a nice technique for creating more of that content as a spin-off from the work you have already done. The basic idea is that you elaborate on things you have already done. Every good article that you create has points made within it that can suggest further detail that might be of value. Not only can you review your previous articles to look for these points, but you can anticipate this whenever you draft a new article by thinking in terms of lists of relevant points that are easily expandable in the future.

Every time I browse my web site, I find ideas that I could say more about or points that leave me feeling that I have not completely described what I was trying to say. Try this on you own site. Re-read your material and ask yourself, "if I were not familiar with this issue and reading this for the first time, what questions might I still have?" I am sure you will find triggers for more articles with this process!

Social Media for the Executive

2009-07-20T18:01:00.004-05:00

"How many times have you heard, 'Not on Twitter / Facebook / LinkedIn? You're way behind.'"

Pierpont Communications, a leading marketing firm here in Houston, recently took a look at social media from the perspective of a business executive and posted some interesting reactions to their blog.

The author made four points:

You expand your reach with these tools and can learn more about the people that you are dealing with in your business. That is always helpful.
Social media provide an inexpensive and efficient means of gathering information and maintaining contact.
Social networks are growing every day and more and more of the people you would like to reach are becoming available through this medium.
These media can provide you with early warnings about negative comments about your business that can give you an opportunity to take some action to counter the effect of the comments on your business.

In another blog entry on the same date, other authors from the same company provided more suggestions about how to think about and integrate these new media resources into your marketing strategy.

Keep in mind that the world is always changing and it is important to keep up with the changes if you want to be in the action. The growth of what we call "social media" is only one of the recent developments that is having an impact on business. Look into it and think about how it can be useful to you and your business or you may be falling behind your competitors without realizing it!

Why People Go Online - eMarketer

2009-07-17T11:26:00.003-05:00

"According to Ruder Finn, 100% of US Internet users surveyed in Q2 2009 went online to pass the time. Other popular reasons were education, connecting with others, researching and sharing. The least common intentions when logging on were to make purchases, manage finances, comparison shop and join causes. "

As Internet Marketers, we have to go where the people we are trying to reach are going. This survey tells us more about what people are doing when they are on the internet, and most of the time they are not there to buy things or do business! If we focus our efforts too narrowly on those kinds of activities, the people we are trying to reach are not going to be interested most of the time that they are on-line. That does not sound like a productive approach.

The message that this survey emphasizes once again is the importance of content to effective on-line marketing. Note that "Keep informed" was given as a reason for going online 79% of the time. Other similar reasons like "Research" and "Educate self" were cited more often. Entertainment reasons like "Pass time" and "Be entertained" also ranked very high. What this says is that if you provide interesting and informative content on your website, you will be in the zone that most of your prospects are seeking when they go online!

For effective outreach on the web, always keep in mind what the people you are trying to reach might find useful or entertaining. If you can communicate with them in that mode, you can be there when they are ready to make a purchase or another commitment that supports your business objectives.

Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn

2009-07-02T11:37:00.002-05:00

"All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn. In fact, 499 of them are represented by director-level and above employees."

I found the statement above intriguing because I had always thought of LinkedIn as a way that small businesses and individuals were interacting on the web rather than large corporations. While that may be true, what this statistic reveals is that the individuals who are on LinkedIn are connected to all these large organizations, and, importantly, in significant roles! That has a lot of implications when thinking about how this tool might be useful to someone using it for networking.

This blog entry outlines a short list of ways to make use of LinkedIn:

Increase your visibility.
Improve your connectability.
Improve your Google PageRank.
Enhance your search engine results.
Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks.
Increase the relevancy of your job search.
Make your interview go smoother.
Gauge the health of a company.
Gauge the health of an industry.
Track startups.
Ask for advice.
Integrate into a new job.
Scope out the competition, customers, partners, etc.

For a more detailed discussion on each of these ideas, click on the title of this posting to go directly to the original blog that I have quoted.

These are just ideas that others have collected, and they will be more effective for some people than for others. For example, it appears to me that there is a definite "age bias" inherent in this kind of tool. My connections who are over 55 do not seem to have as many connections as my connections who are under 55. With a networking tool like this, it becomes more powerful and useful as more people use it more fully.

The message for us all in this article is that there is a new tool available to anyone who can make something of it, and using it is free and relatively easy. Keep in mind that LinkedIn also has a paid option that offers more features and power, so if you are in the group (or want to get into the group) for which this tool works better, you have the opportunity to "gear it up" a notch.

The Future of the Internet?

2009-07-02T11:18:00.002-05:00

"Today, the Google-Facebook rivalry isn't just going strong, it has evolved into a full-blown battle over the future of the Internet—its structure, design, and utility. For the last decade or so, the Web has been defined by Google's algorithms—rigorous and efficient equations that parse practically every byte of online activity to build a dispassionate atlas of the online world. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline. In Zuckerberg's vision, users will query this "social graph" to find a doctor, the best camera, or someone to hire—rather than tapping the cold mathematics of a Google search. It is a complete rethinking of how we navigate the online world, one that places Facebook right at the center. In other words, right where Google is now."

Here is some food for thought! This article describes how Facebook is building a huge database of information about people and their activities and relationships. As described in this article, this platform could become the new way that people find information on the web, that is, by referrals from friends and connections rather than by search!

There is a lot of speculation in this article, and many things that might happen never do, but it appears that Google is taking this kind of threat seriously, indicating that there is something to the idea.

We are all aware that social media, of which Facebook is only one outstanding example, is playing a more and more significant role in marketing on the web. As active marketers, we all need to be aware of this new phenomenon, but the idea that Facebook could actually replace Google as the primary source of new traffic is a real paradigm shift.

Social Media: Mixing Business with Pleasure?

2009-06-11T10:42:00.003-05:00

"One of the questions I hear most often when I'm teaching a social media seminar is how to balance their professional social media presence with their personal one. People ask me if they should blog and Tweet as themselves or as their business. They ask if they should mix business contacts with friends on Facebook and LinkedIn. They want to know if they can talk about their hobbies on their business profiles. Basically, they want to know the pros and cons of mixing business with pleasure in the blurry-lined landscape of social media."

Social Media is (are??) intruding in our lives more and more every day. All of these new forms of communication and interaction pose new challenges and opportunities for us to consider. Jennifer has written an interesting article exploring some of the issues that arise in this area that we all need to think about seriously before we become active in this arena. A big point to remember is, "you can't take things back!" Once you have put something out into this environment, you have lost all control over it.

In my own experience, I find I am mixing business and social more and more on the web, but I tend to be a pretty private person anyway, and I am very cautious about the personal things that I post. Even so, this information, especially over some time, can become quite revealing, and you can inadvertently tell people things that you might not always be comfortable with.

One suggestion that I might make to newcomers to this field is to do some "lurking" before you become active. What this refers to is the practice of hanging around and reading what other people are saying without participating yourself. There are many forums on the web where this practice is really frowned upon and discouraged, but the newer forms of the social media are so wide open that I have not seen that same sort of attitude expressed. What it does for you is it gives you a chance to see what other people are doing so you can form your own impression of what is appropriate and comfortable for you before you commit yourself. When you see the material that other people are putting up on the web, I guarantee you will have a personal reaction to what you see. This reaction will help to inform you about your personal comfort zone, and you can use that information to guide your own participation.

As Jennifer's piece makes clear, it has to be a personal choice for each of us to determine the correct balance between these different interests. My own decision is to continue as I have been doing, but always remember that there is no private conversation taking place here and anything that I say can be seen by anyone else on the web, today or tomorrow, into the indefinite future! If you are not comfortable thinking about that prospect when you get ready to post something, don't post it! I want to err on the side of caution at all times.

Keyword-Driven Marketing for B2B

2009-06-09T16:30:00.004-05:00

"Understanding what your customers want – and how they express that need – is the foundation of effective marketing, ..."

We all know that keywords are the most important element in ranking that generates traffic to your web site, but the trick is understanding how to make them work for you. The quote above makes the point well, that you have to understand how your prospective customers express themselves in order to be successful.

This author is telling his audience that keywords are important to B2B (business to business) marketing just as in B2C (business to consumer) marketing. He also has a good list of points included in his article.

Use Keyword-Driven Marketing to truly understand the language of your customer.
Understand user intent and provide an entry point as early in the buying cycle as possible.
Develop integrated search marketing strategies to maximize return on investment.
Provide compelling experiences – not just content.
Test, test, and test again. Then, test, test and test again…

While these points are good, it is disappointing that there is no more detail provided to help one understand what these guidelines mean in practice.

I would elaborate on his points in this way.

It is crucial that you, as the marketer, understand what keyword phrases the prospect is like to use and what that choice of words indicates about his frame of mind at the time of the search. Specific terms pertaining to the product or service should never be overlooked in keyword marketing, but often the searcher is looking for information to understand a problem better or to get ideas for solutions. This orientation will lead to a different choice of keyword phrases for the search that must be anticipated.

As the author says, particularly in B2B marketing, it is important to enter the relationship with the prospect as early in the buying cycle as possible. With B2b, the cycle is likely to be longer, and the purpose of the marketing is to get into consideration before the purchasing decision begins to be made. Using your web site to convey your knowledge and understanding of the searchers' needs, and the professionalism to assist with them is the goal.

Applying the points described in the preceding paragraph is the strategic consideration. Creating compelling experiences means that you have to engage the interest of the prospect. Providing useful information in understandable form is the challenge.

Finally, testing is always important. One of the things that I liked about the website StartBreakingFree that I recommended in my previous post is the way Brian describes his testing efforts in great detail. It is through testing that you can discover which of various alternative approaches to your market will prove to be the most effective for you.

Start Your Own Web Business

2009-06-09T09:34:00.002-05:00

"It’s always pays to get around like minded people and see what you can learn."

Brian Armstrong is an Internet entrepreneur who maintains an interesting blog that is worth visiting. He has spoken in our clinic int he past and has been invited to return for another session, but, unfortunately for us, he has since moved to Argentina!

His blog is called StartBreakingFree, and it is all about his effort to become independent via his Internet activities. If you are interested in starting a business on the web, you might find a lot of interesting ideas on his site.

I was initially attracted to Brian's blog because he published a series documenting his thirty day effort to increase traffic to his web site. This was a great series because you could follow his thought process day-by-day as he tried different strategies to boost his performance and reported back on whether they worked or not! You can take a look at the "build traffic, get more subscribers, and sell books" strategy series to see if there are ideas that might be helpful to you in your own efforts to improve.

Brian continues to post his experiments on his site, as well as references to other people who are doing interesting things on the web. His site is a great resource for researching topics about internet marketing. When he comes back to the US for a visit, I hope we can get him in to tell us some of his adventures directly.