Cafe Blog Reviews » small business

A Convenient Content Truth – WebProNews (blog)

admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:34:31 +0000

Noobpreneur.com (blog) A Convenient Content TruthWebProNews (blog)Big businesses with huge pageviews fueled by Google have emerged in recent years that exist only because of a unique SEO / Adwords relationship …Ten tips to make sure your firm is ranked by search enginesComputerWeekly.comHow Google Can Combat Content FarmsReadWriteWeb (blog)2010 Small Business Global OutlookNoobpreneur.com (blog)all 4 news articles

An Inconvenient Content Truth – WebProNews (blog)

cgseo — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:04:35 +0000

Noobpreneur.com (blog) An Inconvenient Content TruthWebProNews (blog)Big businesses with huge pageviews fueled by Google have emerged in recent years that exist only because of a unique SEO / Adwords relationship …Ten tips to make sure your firm is ranked by search enginesComputerWeekly.comHow Google Can Combat Content FarmsReadWriteWeb (blog)2010 Small Business Global OutlookNoobpreneur.com (blog)all 4 news articles

The Definition of Influence in Marketing and Social Media

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:12:18 +0000

In the world of small business owners… we would all love to be influencers. We would love to be perceived as the expert in the matter of which we are selling and we should be. A question that keeps surfacing among the “small biz chatter” is directed toward the subject of influence. Well… I think we are here to finally answer that. Thanks to Lisa Hoffmann and Mashable . Lisa was reading a post from Micah Baldwin (Lijit Networks ) called HOW TO: Measure Online Influence and I decided to check it out and read it for myself. I wanted to sum up some points Micah made and push them towards the small business owner. Social media marketing is very much a brand development tool for the small business owner. The majority of the time it is used for lead generation or visibility in a specific industry or region. Now, in order to realize the potential of social media and get excited.. instead of smoke and mirrors boredom … let’s look at Micah’s definition of Influence: Influence = (Personal Brand * Knowledge * Trust) So.. in order to maximize your reach online.. you need to be able to focus on the three top tiers of influence listed above. I am going to add another into the mix in order to speak to the small business owners in the group: Influence = (Personal Brand * Offline Interaction * Knowledge * Trust) The main purpose of talking about influence and personal brand recognition is to add the concept of offline social networking (something a small business owner lives day to day). In order to maximize your influence online you need to be be able to take it offline and create a 2-Touch-Point model of influence. You should read Micah’s post about the concepts of influence, personal brand, knowledge, and trust because it is great! We need to remember that the Personal Brand building of a small business owner has to include the offline and online networking in order to be strong. Related articles by Zemanta Making Social Media a Tool, Not a Distraction (mashable.com) Social Media, Blogs and Relationship Marketing (opencircle.co.za) Small Business Who Gets Domain Name Brand Protection And Call To Action (brucemarler.com)

View original post here:
The Definition of Influence in Marketing and Social Media

10 Ways To Build Trust with Social Media

admin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:08:27 +0000

In the new economy there is one major truth that stands above the rest… trust equals revenue . If you are a small to mid-sized business it is the amount of trust you can build between clients that strengthens your brand. With trust comes happy clients and with happy clients come referrals. Trust is a fundamental building block to all businesses. With that in mind… marketing is built under the assumption that stories can create an emotional bond between a consumer and a brand… a client and a service. Can you tell a story… create a service and en experience that builds trust? Social media can help you build that trust. 1. Content Content is the number one way you can build trust with potential clients. By creating meaningful and thought provoking content you are building a bridge to later sell that person on your services. Talk about what you do on a daily basis. When I say you.. it means you are writing and communicating stories that happen to YOU and not your industry. Create a blog on WordPress and get started. Want a paid system? Try Compendium. 2. Be Transparent Being transparent is extremely important when writing content and when participating in the social networks. Be human. Customers are people too. The people who are interested in your thoughts and suggestions want to know about you as a person. They want to know how you helped LARRY the plumber or Susan the accountant. 3. Picture of Your Day When you are using social networks make sure you put up pictures of your daily life. If you have a cell phone with a camera take some pictures and share them with your connections. Just don’t over do it. We can only look at so many professional business or glamor shots in a day and no pictures from the shower! 4. Picture of You Use your real picture. Don’t use your logo. There is only one exception to this rule. If you are using Twitter for your business and personal (see my company @Brandswag for an business example and @kyleplacy for a personal example). 5. Saying Thank You If somebody helps you share information or decideds to retweet a post.. make sure you thank that person. They are helping you spread the word… they are your online evangelists.. If you miss a thank you.. don’t let it kill you.. but try to make the most of the people that help you out. 6. Do Not Auto-DM on Twitter See my post… I hate Twitter Auto-DM 7. No Hard Selling I don’t care about your enewsletter or the new lotion you are selling. Also, just because I reply to a tweet or a message does not mean you can message me back and sell your wares. Social media is a long sell process. You are developing content in order to gain an order of trust with people in your area of influence. We are now experiencing a relationship driven economy… get on the train. 8. Time is Important Remember that you are building relationships.. do not trust the people that tell you to add 1023920 friends and make $10,000 a month. It is a load of crap. Build your following slowly… create relationships in an online environment that can be transferred offline. 9. Criticism is Important You will be criticized. It is a truth of open communication. Take it with stride and respond. If you are debated… make sure you debate back. Stand up for what you believe and you will gain trust with the people who are listening…. and watching. 10. Have fun Good Lord… is it that hard? You have the ability to connect with thousands… and thousands… and thousands of people from every nationality… and life experience. Just imagine your ability to expand your knowledge base and learn?! One thought: If you are not enjoying and having fun with what you do… quit… go find something else.

More:
10 Ways To Build Trust with Social Media

The Basics of Human Desire in Marketing

cgseo — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:07:56 +0000

What do all marketers strive for when creating a campaign? Is it a creative ad? Of course. Is it a funny jingle? Sometimes. Is it a memorable moment? They try. We (marketers) live and breathe for the opportunity to create a campaign that will move people. It is moving the consumer to action through an emotional drive that drags us out of bed in the morning. We strive to reach that point of peaking human desire. Meeting with clients and potential clients today I was moved by their desire and pure drive for their companies to succeed. They were thrilled with the concept of creating a campaign that drove the base of human emotion.. something that thrilled to the point of action… something that told a story. Tools like Facebook and Twitter in the world of Social media bring a new platform that encourages the pursuit of that emotional campaign . In all honesty it IS THE PLATFORM to create this thrill. There is no other medium on earth that allows for the human connection quite like social media. You can drive evangelists of your product to bring others to your door in a fraction of a second.You can encourage individuals all over the world to communicate and help… make.. your service or product better. How are you encouraging communication between current and potential clients? Isn’t it about time to start? Related articles by Zemanta When An Apology Can Open the Door to Trust (successful-blog.com) Ties That Bind or a Noose Around Your Neck? (barbarany_9.blogspot.com) What makes us social and is social media a good thing? (digital-constructions.com) The no straight lines of authentic value in the networked society (smlxtralarge.com)

Visit link:
The Basics of Human Desire in Marketing

Get on the front page of Google at a fraction of the cost you would normally pay – Fast Pitch Press (press release)

cgseo — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:08:21 +0000

OfficialWire (press release) Get on the front page of Google at a fraction of the cost you would normally payFast Pitch Press (press release)As a small business owner, instead of trying to compete on Google using Adwords and traditional Search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, …What is SEM, and Why Should You Care?Small Business ComputingWhy Search Marketing

Follow this link:
Get on the front page of Google at a fraction of the cost you would normally pay – Fast Pitch Press (press release)

What is SEM, and Why Should You Care? – Small Business Computing

cgseo — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:15:00 +0000

OfficialWire (press release) What is SEM, and Why Should You Care?Small Business Computing… your site appears as a sponsored link in the small text ads that appear on the top and right-hand side of a search results page — think Google AdWords. …Why Search Marketing is the golden tool for SME successUtalkmarketingall 8 news articles

10 Tips to Integrating Social Media with Marketing

cgseo — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:53:31 +0000

We had an excellent seminar this morning at Brandswag . The seminar was over the concepts of integrating social media into your overall marketing strategy. It is extremely important that every business drive social media through traditional marketing practices…. and vice-versa. Below you will find my Powerpoint presentation from the seminar. Integrating Social Media View more presentations from Kyle Lacy I wanted to break down 10 ways to integrate social media into your traditional marketing practices. The following tips are simple reminders that the world is changing and it is extremely important to shift with the edge. 1. Remember that customers are people first and buyers second It is important to keep in mind that your customers are not only a demographic and a wallet… but an individual. If you start to incorporate the thinking of “individualistic marketing” your focus will be extremely… targeted. 2. People thrive on conversation and deals A study recently released by Razorfis h states that of “ those that follow a brand on Twitter , 44% say that access to deals is the main reason. The same holds true for those that added a brand on Facebook or Myspace , where 37% cite access to exclusive deals or offers as their main reason.” (pg 9) There will always be a place for conversation and deals. Integrate your direct mail and coupon deals into your social media marketing. 3. Integration is extremely important because of speed and portability Mobile technology is revolutionizing the way the world communicates. Social media will hit mass appeal because of the mobile phone and the pda. Thousands of text messages are sent on a daily basis… even an hourly basis… It is rumored that 4.5 billion cell phones will be on the market by the end of 2010. China has a mobile provider with 500 million cell phone users. We are going to be mobile… portable.. and fast. 4. We are shifting from uni-directional and bi-directional communication to multi-directional. (slide 16) 5. Listening and monitoring your brand online This is one of the more important things you can do before integrating social media into your marketing strategy. Use Google Alerts or Radian 6 to monitor your brand and understand the positive and negative influence the Internet is having on your company and clients. 6. Objective and Strategy need to be developed before using social media Would you do anything in your business before planning out the ramifications of your actions? The same applies to social media. Now… if you would rather just throw ideas around without aiming… or acting… You are going to have a bigger problem than applying social media to your business. Ask yourself why you are going to be applying social media? Is it going to be for reputation management, brand awareness, or lead generation? 7. Add your social media profile links to your email signature Do I really have to explain that? Need an incentive? Check out the way Hotmail grew by leaps and bounds using the footer in email. 8. Plan the use of social media within your company Who should be using the company profile? Who should be adding content on a daily basis. It is extremely important to build out an internal social media policy . This should probably be one of the first things you deal with before entering a social media campaign. 9. Remember to build a content portal before pushing information through the Twitter-Face-Linked-verse. It is extremely important to build out a hub for your content. You need to be driving people (users) from different sites to a central location. Why? It is easier to capture information and sell. 10. Don’t stress. Have fun. Social media is not something to absolutely flip out about… it is important to understand and time will tell on the “importance” of the tools being created on the Internet. Remember to keep up-to-date and look for ways where social media can help strengthen your traditional communication strategy.

Continue reading here:
10 Tips to Integrating Social Media with Marketing

10 Ways to Maximize LinkedIN

admin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:17:25 +0000

Brandswag held a seminar yesterday entitled Beyond the Profile: Maximizing LinkedIN . We had a sold out crowd and it was a great discussion surrounding the better uses of LinkedIN. We are holding a seminar next Wednesday (the 24th) from 8-9:30am on Integrating Social Media into Your Marketing plan . Below you will find the slide deck from the seminar. I also wanted to briefly discuss the 10 different ways to maximize LinkedIN. It is extremely important to use LinkedIN for lead generation, job search, and professional networking. Let’s get to it. Linked In Seminar View more presentations from Kyle Lacy . 1. Take Full Advantage of Your Profile It is extremely important to maximize the use of your profile on LinkedIN. When you are communicating with other individuals.. on the site.. your profile speaks for you. Be very sure you upload a good photo and bring your profile to 100% completion. When I say upload a good photo… I do not mean an 80’s glamor shot or your company logo. 2. Uploading Your Initial Contacts When you are first joining LinkedIN it is important to build your initial contact base. Check out this easy to use tutorial from Dave Taylor . It is also important to connect to past/present colleagues and alumni from your college or university. 3. Recommendations It is my opinion that recommendations are one of the more powerful tools within in LinkedIN. Why? People know recommendations are sincere and other individuals had to write them for you. It is extremely hard to fake recommendations on LinkedIN. Check out this post on writing better LinkedIN recommendations . You should always recommend first! 4. Using Groups We discussed using groups in three different ways: 1. Lead Generation 2. Personal Development: Learning from others in your industry 3. Increase Your LinkedIN Profile development 5. Promotion of Events 6. Using Your Status Updates The status updates on LinkedIN are underused but have been changing slowly with the integration of Twitter into your LinkedIN profile. I try to update my LinkedIN profile with relevant news, blog posts I am writing, or information about my Twitter Marketing for Dummies book . 7. Using Applications Check out the LinkedIN Learning center about Apps: Click Here . Here are my top 4 applications to use on LinkedIN: BlogLink, Reading List by Amazon , Events, and Tweet. 8. Networking for a Job or for Lead Generation LinkedIN is extremely powerful when using the tool to connect with individuals who are looking to hire individuals in the corporate community. If you are using LinkedIN the right way it is extremely easy to get connected through a 2nd degree individual. Honestly though… who better to tell you about using LinkedIN for job search than Dan Schwabel and Chad Levit t. 9. Search Functionality in LinkedIN 10. Using LinkedIN for Lead Generation Have you heard of the six degrees from separation concept? This is fundamental to using LinkedIN for lead generation. It is possible to use LinkedIN to turn a cold lead into a warm lead by sending a request for an introduction. Check out the slide deck to find out how.

The rest is here:
10 Ways to Maximize LinkedIN

Why Do People Follow Brands? Conversation or Deals?

admin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:01:07 +0000

This is the second post about the Razorfish FEED 2009 Report … as promised. I was reading a post from my friend Todd Muffley over at Fat Atom and it got me thinking about the future of online communication. His post is entitled, “ Is Social Media One Big Coupon Book? ” The premise of the post is captured in two sentences: “If Social Media does become one big coupon book, watch out Newspaper, Magazine, Radio, TV and Direct Mail (to name a few). The old school push model of coupon distribution may just go the way of the VCR.” The post is (of course) fueled by the Razorfish study which states that of “ those that follow a brand on Twitter, 44% say that access to deals is the main reason. The same holds true for those that added a brand on Facebook or Myspace, where 37% cite access to exclusive deals or offers as their main reason.” (pg 9) Now, the Razorfish study does not give a voice to all 200 million people using broadband Internet access but it does create a platform for discussing the main draw of social media. I would venture to say that the main reason a user FIRST joins a fanpage or follows a brand on Twitter is because of a contest or promotion. Once the individual becomes a fan the SECOND step is interacting with that fan in order to build some type of trust. Repeat customers are the best customers… nay… repeat customers with friends are the best customers. There is always a conversation buried in the depths of a relationship being built between a customer and a brand. Where that relationship starts? Who knows? The important thing to remember is to have the conversation… which eventually leads to conversion. Of those who follow a brand on Twitter, 44% say access to exclusive deals is the main reason. The same holds true for those who “friended” a brand on Facebook or MySpace, where 37% cite access to exclusive deals or offers as their main reas Related articles by Zemanta Razorfish: the empire strikes back (superhypeblog.com) 19% of Internet users use Twitter or update status site : Up nearly 100% since April (kevin.lexblog.com) Call for Speakers: Social Media Summit – Israel – 6 Dec 09 (pulverblog.pulver.com) Integrate Social Media into Your Marketing Strategy (kylelacy.com)

Here is the original post:
Why Do People Follow Brands? Conversation or Deals?