The 4th annual social media marketing conference took place on 30 May – 1 June at the Indaba Hotel in Fourways. Organised by Corptrain, the conference had many great speakers who gave new insights into the world of social media marketing.

Indaba Hotel is a great venue. As you can see, they even have peacocks who will entertain you during tea breaks.

On the first day of the conference we got to see some great presentations from a number of speakers, including Monique Leech (Millward Brown); Gloria Ruhrmund (Yonder Media); Jaime McLeod (WSI); Sarah-Jane Boden (SoulProviders) and Eran Eyal (Springleap).

One of the presentations that impressed the attendees was Eran Eyal’s presentation. Eran is the co-founder of Springleap.com, a website that hooks brands up with talented designers from around the world. The website is based on crowdsourcing (where you can use a bunch of people to come up with cool designs) but what makes it different is that the users get to vote for the winning design. To date, Springleap has rewarded designers with over R1.5-million in cash and they have worked with brands like Google, SABMiller, Lexus, Marmite, Vodafone and Mastercard to source designs and virally spread their brand awareness.

Another favourite of the day was Ryan Sauer from Search Online Consulting. Ryan explained what a Facebook Edgerank is and why you shouldn’t aim for a million Likes on Facebook – your goal should be a high level of engagement. Ryan says that if you want people to engage with your brand, you need to make things that people want to share.

On the second day of the conference, we heard what Carla Jones (saidWOT) had to say about online reputation management. You would be surprised at the number of companies who launch social media campaigns without setting proper KPI’s. If you want to show the financial director that your social media strategy is working, you need a list of-predefined goals and KPI’s. We also heard some interesting figures regarding customer experience management from Lawrence Smith (Oracle) and got some practical tips on social measurement from Craig Hannabus (4D EURO RSCG).

The second half of Day 2 was dedicated to a workshop by Dr Nikolaus Eberl, who spoke about online reputation management and social media. Dr Eberl showed us how to find out whether we have ‘digitally distinct’, ‘digitally dabbling’, ‘digitally disastrous’ or ‘digitally dissed’ online profile (you can try this out yourself www.onlineidcalculator.com).

On the third day, Dr Nikolaus Eberl gave a practical LinkedIn workshop and showed us how to optimise our profiles, how to use LinkedIn statistics and he explained why you need a recommendations on LinkedIn. During the afternoon, Ryan Sauer explained the basics of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and how to plan your website. Francois Muscat was going to speak at the workshop on the third day but unfortunately he fell ill and wasn’t able to attend.

Live blogging and tweeting at the conference

WSI OMS was there to live tweet and blog the event. We set up a blog where we are going to continue posting information about the conferences we attend (you can check it out here: www.realtimejournalism.co.za). We also created a Twitter hashtag #socialsa for the conference and it made 5,635 impressions from 221 tweets.

This post was written by Adrienne Brookbanks

“If you want something written properly, you either have to write it yourself or give it to Adrienne” – that’s our saying around here. Adrienne is a journalist, blogger, copywriter that writes everything from feature articles and press releases to blogs, tweets, wedding vows and obituaries (she can really write anything).

Adrienne obtained her Journalism degree at the University of Pretoria and her postgraduate degree in Journalism from the North West University. In 2009, did her diploma in Brand Management from the AAA School of Advertising.

Working as an SEO copywriter for WSI was Adrienne’s first job back in 2007. Since then, she’s been an Online Web Editor for an international casino group, a journalist for a magazine about climate change and energy issues in Africa and a writer for a B2B magazine for architects. Nowadays, Adrienne handles all the website copy, blogging and other content needs for WSI.

Interested in blogging for WSI?

Adrienne works with a small team of writers who contribute blogs on a wide range of topics – everything from decorating and fashion to design, engineering, construction and social media. If you’re interested in doing some blogging to build your portfolio or get a taste of blogging for digital marketing experts, drop her a line at adrienne@wsioms.co.za

Web design has become an increasingly important and popular service employed by all kinds of businesses and organizations since the internet boom. As a web designer it is important that you are aware of the types of questions web designers need to be asking, and what factors should be considered when making design decisions.

Here are a few common considerations that web designers must take into account:

• Content: too much or too little? One of the questions that web designers struggle with is how much content to put on the sites they design. Bear in mind that your website serves a particular purpose – and the content added needs to be in line with this. Adding too much content could distract the user from the key message the website is trying to convey or confuse them with too much information. Too little content however might render the site useless and unsuccessful. Therefore it is important to be mindful of how much content you are adding to the site, determined by what role the site is playing and what function it is supposed to perform.
• Use of graphics and animations: While it is important to attract people to your site and retain their attention when they get there by using graphics and animations, these should not overwhelm the user or detract from other important parts of the site. Often one large or significant graphic or animation is sufficient to draw the user’s attention, while too many will make the site look over-busy and difficult to navigate through. Once again you need to keep the purpose of the site firmly in mind as it will help you determine what kinds of graphics are needed and what role they should play in the site. One of the most successful uses of graphics and animations is the use of company mascots which already exist on their logos or as part of their brand identities (think of how well this works for Firefox). The rest of the site’s graphics, layout and colour scheme can then take its cue from these figures which are already established in the user’s mind.
• Maintenance and updating:  All web designers should keep in mind the maintenance and updating requirements of a site when designing them. It is helpful to know who will be maintaining and updating the content of the site after it has been designed. If it is an IT professional then the designer can be confident that they will be able to understand the content management system. If it is a small business run by the owner however, the designer needs to be aware that the person updating the site may not be technologically capable of dealing with more sophisticated systems. The site therefore needs to be designed accordingly.

By keeping these considerations in mind during all the steps of the web design process, you are more likely to succeed as a web designer and keep your clients happy and coming back!

Need help with your web design? Contact WSI OMS today!

This post was written by Marelise da Silva

Marelise has been with WSI since 2004 when Francois first opened his franchise. She fills a dynamic role in Francois team including Project Management, Web Administration and Client Services. Marelise is well versed in HTML, PHP and ASPX and she enjoys applying her skills to an ever changing industry.

When it comes to meaningful conversations via social media marketing, and deep discussions on all the various Web 2.0 channels, don’t just think about Twitter and Facebook. Even though these are most likely the most well-known social media channels available, in most cases the comments on these platforms doesn’t deliver that much results. If you are only interested in these two channels, you need to manage this over what you don’t and what you do want to become involved in.

Did you know that there are many other social media channels where your comments and discussions can reach a meaningful level and often lead to deeper conversations? Here’s a couple of the channels that I use on a regular basis.

Social media channels

LinkedIn: If you are looking for professional and in-depth discussions on particular business topics, LinkedIn is the route to go. Although this social media channel tends to be more B2B, it can be an excellent resource for solving and sharing solutions.

Pinterest: The new kid on the blog. Pinterest is an image sharing website with a big difference. The images that gets shared on this network can be commented on, and the comments can spread to Facebook or Twitter by sharing your images on this platform.

Instagram: This is big and expect lots of news about this in the coming weeks as it is now owned by Facebook. In truth, people don’t like to comment all the time, however there are millions of users that shares content on a daily basis. This makes Instagram the perfect channel that you can leave comments on.

Google+: While this social network by Google is not as popular as Twitter and Facebook, you can still find very useful and meaningful conversations on this network where you can leave comments on.

Foursquare: This network is different to the rest as it connects people on what they are busy doing and where they are. If you own a walk in business, why not add it on Foursquare and let you customers leave comments on their check in that they can share via their Twitter and Facebook profiles? Automated awareness.

While some of the channels explained above will not spark an immediate discussion with your social media campaign, why not use these in your strategy as well? Facebook and Twitter are not the only channels where you can spark a conversation with social media.

This post was written by Francois Muscat

Hello there, I started our business in 2004 and am enjoying every minute of it. I am a professional speaker (with the PSASA) and speak frequently  at Digital Marketing conferences all over the world. I am the current WSI training ambassador and last year I trained over 450 WSI Internet Marketing consultants world wide in digital marketing and social media.

Francois is the WSI area representative for Africa and is a member of the exclusive WSI President’s Circle, ICAC Council, operates a Regional Solutions Centre. Francois has won nine WSI awards including – Best Product Showcase, Excellence in Search Engine Optimization, Excellence in PPC, and two mentorship awards. Most recently he won the National Sales Award as Africa’s Franchisee of the Year at Stansted 2009. He enjoys mentoring over 12 WSI Internet Consultants internationally.

If you would like Francois Muscat to speak at your conference, seminar, workshop or provide in-house training to your team, contact him via the site or by phone at +27 11 468 3138.

Copywriting is not an easy job. It requires a large amount of research, an uncommon ability to write well and in a convincing manner and an ability to conceptualise everything from blog posts and articles to reports, white papers and sales brochures. As such there is always room for improvement when it comes to copywriting.

Follow these tips to improve the quality of your copywriting:

• Preparation is essential to writing good copy: specific details sell products and services, not fluff! Prepare for writing your copy by getting as much previously published information on the product or service you are writing about as possible. This should give you most of the information you need – phone clients to get the rest.
• Ask questions about the product: copywriting is about understanding a product’s benefits and features. You can gather testimonials from customers to gather and assess this information.
• Ask questions about the target audience: you need to know who the primary target audience of you copywriting is and also if there are any secondary audiences you need to appeal to. You need to understand what motivates consumers to buy the things they do. You can use emotions such as fear of loss, excitement or passion to motivate people to action.
• Study the advertising medium: you need to have a good idea of the type of publication your advert is going to be published in. If it is a magazine read it to get an idea of its tone and its target audience. If it is a classified advert in the newspaper, read the other classifieds to get an idea of what they are advertising and how they are doing it.
• Determine the desired outcome of your copy: a good copywriter writes with an objective in mind. Your copy’s objective may be to generate phone call enquiries, create sales or capture a prospective customer’s contact details. Include in your copy a number of ‘calls to action’ so that the reader feels compelled to act several times while reading your advert.

Need help with your copywriting? Contact WSI OMS today!

This post was written by Marianna Muscat

Marianna Muscat is talented in many different Internet Marketing Solutions. Not only is she able to sort most technical problems you put in front of her, she also has the rare ability to manage technical people and has won numerous ‘Man Manager” awards in her Corporate career. She is highly skilled in Google paid search, Search Engine Optimisation and project management. She has held Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer positions in a large South African bank for many years. She brings the skills on-board to take our WSI Franchise business to the next level.

If you look around the web, particularly on news sites and popular blogs, you most likely have noticed that some posts have author bios attached to the article. Some of these posts are guest posts, and the bio on the post is the reward the author receives for writing and publishing the content. One of the main reasons writing guest posts on blogs is to receive a link back to your own blog or website. It also helps with building your authority together with an online reputation management strategy.

Should you include a short bio in the footer of your own blog posts? I would definitely say yes. Including a bio not only helps with adding a personality to the post, it can also help you build credibility. If you have a blog with multiple authors, then it is even a better idea. What purpose does a bio serve? Find below a couple of benefits to include a bio in your blog posts.

Blog author bio benefits

Personalization: By including a bio on your blog posts you can personalize the content. The reader of the content will know they are looking at the content that has been posted by a real person, not by a robot. On the bio, you can link to your profile page, website, contact page or even your Facebook or Twitter profile.

Credibility: You can include the qualifications, skills, and training that you have received in your bio so that your readers can put more credence on the information that they are reading.

Ownership: You or your employees can take ownership of the content that has their name attached to it. People are more likely to produce quality content if they know their name will be tied on the material.

Including bios on posts are not for every websites, but they can mean a lot for even single author blogs. Placing a bio on the content that you are proud of, and then linking the content to your profile on Google+ and other profiles can help add credibility to you. Credibility is one of the main stepping-stones of trust, and trust can often lead to sales.

This post was written by Francois Muscat

Hello there, I started our business in 2004 and am enjoying every minute of it. I am a professional speaker (with the PSASA) and speak frequently  at Digital Marketing conferences all over the world. I am the current WSI training ambassador and last year I trained over 450 WSI Internet Marketing consultants world wide in digital marketing and social media.

Francois is the WSI area representative for Africa and is a member of the exclusive WSI President’s Circle, ICAC Council, operates a Regional Solutions Centre. Francois has won nine WSI awards including – Best Product Showcase, Excellence in Search Engine Optimization, Excellence in PPC, and two mentorship awards. Most recently he won the National Sales Award as Africa’s Franchisee of the Year at Stansted 2009. He enjoys mentoring over 12 WSI Internet Consultants internationally.

If you would like Francois Muscat to speak at your conference, seminar, workshop or provide in-house training to your team, contact him via the site or by phone at +27 11 468 3138.

With more and more companies building or having websites built for themselves every day, the need to compete is extremely strong.  That’s why it’s more vital than ever to have your website design stand out from the crowd – and the clever use of colour and eye-catching designs have never been more important.

Of course, the first thing to consider is the type business you’re designing the website for.  A website for an insurance company would, by nature, need to look more neutral and professional-looking than say a website for a cosmetics company aimed at teens.

Whatever type of website you’re designing, here are some basic tips that are common throughout and provide a good starting point for web designs – whichever type of company or service you’re working for.

Use natural colours wherever possible

Unless you’re designing a site for young, vibey products, stick to natural colours – they’re more authentic and pleasing than neons, dayglo and artificial colours.

Make the text stand out from its background

It’s been tested that black type on a white background is the most readable – but there are many other excellent variations.  Some great background colours are dark blues, greys and black.  Contrast and use various saturations of colours to get a great result.

Choose a few good colours and stick to this ‘theme’ throughout

Creating a good colour scheme with harmonious colours makes for a pleasant experience when people visit your site.  Don’t go overboard with colours – rather opt for three or four and use these (and saturations thereof) throughout your site.  If colours are ‘garish’ or hard on the eyes, they could cause your visitors to skim over or even avoid parts of your site.  Not good!

Consider those with visual impairments

Remember that some viewers will not have 20/20 vision.  Make colours contrast enough so that they’re easily readable.  For example, brown type on a slightly darker brown background could be totally illegible for someone with less than perfect eyesight.  Create enough contrast to make sure your content is easy on the eye – and readable.

You want your site visitors to enjoy their experience … which makes them eager to come back again and again. Need help with your web design? Contact WSI OMS today!

This post was written by Marelise da Silva

Marelise has been with WSI since 2004 when Francois first opened his franchise. She fills a dynamic role in Francois team including Project Management, Web Administration and Client Services. Marelise is well versed in HTML, PHP and ASPX and she enjoys applying her skills to an ever changing industry.

What are people currently saying about you online? Is your business or brand being talked about on the blogosphere (blogs)? What are  people saying? Is this something that you should be made aware of before it gets out of control and you can’t stop it? Monitoring what people are saying on the blogosphere and with social media can help you with your internet marketing campaign, and protect your digital reputation online.

With blog marketing you need to be proactive about managing your reputation online. It is not only important to monitor your own digital reputation of what people are saying about your business or brand, it is important to know what people are talking about regarding your competitors. This is a great way to get new ideas and it can provide you with new opportunities.

Track what is being said

You can track what is being said about your business, but this process usually takes a lot of time. You can outsource this process to another company that specializes in brand monitoring, but this costs money. Did you know that you can monitor the blogosphere yourself using various tools available online? Here’s a couple of tools that you can use to get started with this.

• News feeds: Search on the popular news feed services such as Google news for mentions of your name.
• Google blog search: Use Google blog search to search for mentions only related to blogs.
• Blog aggregators: Use top blog aggregators such as Technorati and search for your business name.
• Google alerts: Setup Google alerts to email/notify you any time your brand name or business is detected by Google.
• Forums: Search related popular forums for your brand name.
• Monitoring: Monitor popular blogs in your industry for any mentions of your business name.
• Trends: Search for trend tools online and watch the trends how often your business name or brand is used online.

This post was written by Francois Muscat

Hello there, I started our business in 2004 and am enjoying every minute of it. I am a professional speaker (with the PSASA) and speak frequently  at Digital Marketing conferences all over the world. I am the current WSI training ambassador and last year I trained over 450 WSI Internet Marketing consultants world wide in digital marketing and social media.

Francois is the WSI area representative for Africa and is a member of the exclusive WSI President’s Circle, ICAC Council, operates a Regional Solutions Centre. Francois has won nine WSI awards including – Best Product Showcase, Excellence in Search Engine Optimization, Excellence in PPC, and two mentorship awards. Most recently he won the National Sales Award as Africa’s Franchisee of the Year at Stansted 2009. He enjoys mentoring over 12 WSI Internet Consultants internationally.

If you would like Francois Muscat to speak at your conference, seminar, workshop or provide in-house training to your team, contact him via the site or by phone at +27 11 468 3138.

Everyone makes mistakes, but as a copywriter – you’re expected to provide 100% error free work. While typos and small grammar errors aren’t the end of the world, there are a few steps you can take to try and minimise the number of errors in your copy. Whether you’re a copywriter, sub editor, journalist or top selling author, never assume that your first draft is perfect.

Spellcheck

“Spellcheck” is probably the most common tool for picking up spelling errors and simple sentence structure and tense errors. It only takes a few seconds to run spellcheck, but it’s amazing how many writers still forget to do this before they submit their articles or blog posts.

It is pretty accurate but it can still let a word go by that is spelled correctly, just not the correct one for the job, so spellcheck can’t be the beginning and end of your proofreading exercise. Relying on spellcheck to make you a better writer is like relying on the Outsurance pointsmen to make you a better driver – it just won’t work.

Polishmywriting.com

There are some nifty proofreading programs on the internet for writers. Polishmywriting.com is one of these tools. Is a free application that allows you to enter a block of content and with one click comes up with a highlight over a suspicious word with suggestions.

You get what you pay for, however, so for an excellent proofreading program, a monthly subscription is necessary.  One of the best is White Smoke, which has ability to proofread writing, translate and act as a dictionary.  A writer’s wonderful companion, it will give you a score of your spelling, grammar and style.  White Smoke will keep track of sentence length, structure, redundancies, word count and give you reports.

Need help with your proofreading or copywriting? Contact WSI OMS now!

This post was written by Marianna Muscat

Marianna Muscat is talented in many different Internet Marketing Solutions. Not only is she able to sort most technical problems you put in front of her, she also has the rare ability to manage technical people and has won numerous ‘Man Manager” awards in her Corporate career. She is highly skilled in Google paid search, Search Engine Optimisation and project management. She has held Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer positions in a large South African bank for many years. She brings the skills on-board to take our WSI Franchise business to the next level.

Everyday you will find more people who are accessing the internet from mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. Even though the mobile web is growing at the speed of lite, most websites were not designed to be accessed via a mobile device with a smaller screen, mouse, and keyboard.

There are millions of phones and tablets in the world that exceeds the number of computers. The potential for internet marketing on the mobile website is not big, it is massive.  The number of web enabled mobile phones is growing. The new generation (smartphone) enabled phones with optimized mobile web browsers are quickly beginning to replace the older phones with no web connectivity.

Smartphones such as the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry ones offer computer like functionality and are busy growing in popularity. New 3G data plans have made accessing the mobile web more affordable. Businesses online are quickly responding to this trend and developing mobile friendly versions of their websites and blogs.

Utilize the mobile web

If you want to create a mobile version of your website, here’s a couple of ways you can utilize the mobile web with your website.

• Create a subdomain on your main domain that will be used for the mobile friendly site eg: “http://m.yourdomain.co.za”.
• Build a responsive theme for your website to automatically re size and style your website when someone access your website from a mobile device.
• If you don’t have a mobile website, find a mobile website developer that can convert your website for the mobile web.
• Search online for various mobile website templates that you can optimize with your look and feel.

This post was written by Francois Muscat

Hello there, I started our business in 2004 and am enjoying every minute of it. I am a professional speaker (with the PSASA) and speak frequently  at Digital Marketing conferences all over the world. I am the current WSI training ambassador and last year I trained over 450 WSI Internet Marketing consultants world wide in digital marketing and social media.

Francois is the WSI area representative for Africa and is a member of the exclusive WSI President’s Circle, ICAC Council, operates a Regional Solutions Centre. Francois has won nine WSI awards including – Best Product Showcase, Excellence in Search Engine Optimization, Excellence in PPC, and two mentorship awards. Most recently he won the National Sales Award as Africa’s Franchisee of the Year at Stansted 2009. He enjoys mentoring over 12 WSI Internet Consultants internationally.

If you would like Francois Muscat to speak at your conference, seminar, workshop or provide in-house training to your team, contact him via the site or by phone at +27 11 468 3138.

On the 27^th of April I attended the opening day for the #vocalislekker PSA conference.

We had a number of international keynote speakers and they are all awesome.

Charles Marcus was our opening keynote and he left such an impression on me I just had to write a post on his keynote.

He starts by stuttering for the first minute and my heart just reached out to him. I was not sure what we were going to hear from him. It brought visions from the movie The Kings Speech.

He then stops and tells us without a stutter, that, that was what he was like before he overcame his challenge in life.

Wow, I was gob smacked.

The message I got from Charles was that you can overcome diversity with a vision that takes you where you want to go.

He says that people talk a good game but very few play a good game, how true. And a one liner that was worth a tweet, “Relationships are the key to everything in life, Technology may rock but relationships rule”

That is something the younger generation should consider, as they are more into using technology to maintain relationships.

He goes on to talk about sustainability and how you need to keep relevant to stay in the game. Here’s one of his golden nuggets, “People are not looking for speakers, they are looking for experts that can help with things that they do.” I’m taking note of this as I position myself as a Digital Marketing Expert, who speaks, trains, and consults

His statement on the value proposition for speakers is so true, “Never think that value and price are the same. You must differentiate yourself with value or die on price.” “You will be a commodity as hired help” How true.

Value is the expertise that we as speakers bring, it is our duty to be memorable and provide a WOW factor as part of our service.

A great tip I picked up; as a speaker you should notify your organiser that you have just arrived and are looking forward to speaking at their event tomorrow.

Speakers who are struggling need to have guts. Guts is a game changer. Get on the phone to all your clients, ask them if they need your services and while you are about it, ask them if they can refer anyone to you. Overcome your fear for adversity. There are many people who are doing well in spite of the recession.

Be memorable and have a great attitude. But remember having a great attitude will not guarantee you success, but having a lousy attitude will guarantee failure.

He shared a defining moment in his life when he worked for Vidal Sassoon, a famous hair stylist business. He met Vidal while he was a junior working in a salon washing hair, cleaning up and making coffee for clients. Vidal came up to him and asked his name, and Charles said that he saw his whole life flash before him. As saying your name is one of the things that stutterers have real difficulty in saying.

He started to stutter, and Vidal bent down to his knees and took Charles’ hand and said, “don’t worry son, take your time.”

My eyes welled up and I had to swallow hard. I could just imagine what he was going through. from that moment on he changed his life, set his vision and accomplished it to become a highly sought after keynote speaker.

His message, “Have all the time in the world for the people in your life.”

I love it, thanks Charles for your transparency and courage to open up and let us see the real you.

You may know that I consult on online reputation and one of the things is to develop credibility and have people trust. You can achieve this by being transparent and authentic.

This post was written by Francois Muscat

Hello there, I started our business in 2004 and am enjoying every minute of it. I am a professional speaker (with the PSASA) and speak frequently  at Digital Marketing conferences all over the world. I am the current WSI training ambassador and last year I trained over 450 WSI Internet Marketing consultants world wide in digital marketing and social media.

Francois is the WSI area representative for Africa and is a member of the exclusive WSI President’s Circle, ICAC Council, operates a Regional Solutions Centre. Francois has won nine WSI awards including – Best Product Showcase, Excellence in Search Engine Optimization, Excellence in PPC, and two mentorship awards. Most recently he won the National Sales Award as Africa’s Franchisee of the Year at Stansted 2009. He enjoys mentoring over 12 WSI Internet Consultants internationally.

If you would like Francois Muscat to speak at your conference, seminar, workshop or provide in-house training to your team, contact him via the site or by phone at +27 11 468 3138.