Averting Disaster – Do Your Research (Part 1)

I was recently privy to one of the worst branding disasters I’ve ever encountered. The effect on the team launching the product was near catastrophic and hindsight proved just how avoidable it all was. There are a few simple rules to a product launch and I’m hoping that my recent experience can shed a light on how to avoid this problem in the future.

The following story is true. Certain names and details have been altered to protect the privacy and integrity of those involved.

The Product

I work as a digital media consultant responsible for developing content for various companies that choose to market their business on the internet. A well-intentioned individual who runs a website and blog devoted to tea was looking to expand their audience by hosting an online tea conference bringing experts from all over the world to discuss everything concerning tea, called “The Tea Council”. The online conference would be composed of 30 presentations and interviews on various subjects as they relate to tea marketed for free over a one-week period, and available for sale thereafter through the blog and various affiliates for $29.99.

The Team

A tremendous amount of work is involved to put together one of these online conferences for which there are numerous benefits to the consumer. First, during the week of the conference the information is available for free. Second, there is no need to buy a ticket, purchase a flight, or book a hotel room in another city - the entire conference can be enjoyed from one’s bedroom. And finally, the information is available to the consumer in perpetuity. In order to create this product, a whole content team and marketing team need to be assembled to create the product and to put it out to the world. Web space for the “theteacouncil” was purchased and all content and marketing for the conference would be channeled through that space. A single online conference takes a solid 2 to 3 months to put together employing about a dozen individuals all trained in their specific discipline as well as coordinating with a large group of experts who all have a stake in how great the reach is for this conference.

My Role

As the one responsible for designing the content, it was my job to consult with our client on how to make the best use of digital media to communicate the information of an expert with an audience of lay people. An interview is conducted between the conference host and the expert that is recorded and edited, and then turned into a final podcast-type deliverable for the consumer. Those interviews are then transcribed, from which a power point presentation is created. This power point is then turned into a video and is matched with the audio presentation which itself is delivered to the consumer. All in all, for thirty presentations, on my end alone, it was about 100 hours of work.

How It All Broke Down in the Blink of an Eye

We were less than a week away to launch. All the content was in place, all the affiliates were on board, and initial pre-registrations had already taken place. Heavy traffic was already heading to the website and sales were already being made. The client received a cease and desist letter from the owner of a website called “councilonteas.com”. After an initial review from a lawyer, although being reassured that the Council on Teas didn’t have much of a case, legal fees alone would cut significantly into the budget of the conference. The owner of the Council on Teas was also adamant that a deal could not be struck and that the Tea Council was in breach of a trademarked product and would be legally blocked from launching their product, and would face legal repercussions and be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, should they continue with their launch as planned.

 Lesson Learned

A simple Google search would have shown the existence of the Council on Teas company and their website, and the initial decision to launch the conference as “The Tea Council” had to be considered a terrible oversight. Even if the desired web space was available, it would have been preferable to do some initial market research and explore any websites and names that might have even been remotely similar to anything they wanted to launch.

Read on to Part 2 to find out what it took to finally get a completed product completely rebranded and launched.

Business Essentials: Building a Great Website

It wasn’t all that long ago that for a business to have a website seemed a novel thing. The tipping point has long past, and for a start up company to not prioritize their website as a major arm of their business seems sophomoric. The hurdles that confronted the early pioneers of website building (technical complexity, cost, technological limitations) have disappeared and there is now no excuse not to have a website. There is, however, one basic rule that has not changed – nor will it ever – and that is: the better and more effective you want your website to be, the greater the investment it will represent. Below are a few handy tips that will hopefully give you greater insight into what steps are involved in building your website and allay any concerns that it might represent.

The Anatomy of a Website

There are essentially two vital parts to any website that businesses need to consider: the code and the server.

The Code: Everything you see and read on the internet is nothing more than a series of binary codes – a seemingly endless stream of 1’s and 0’s. It’s like the DNA of your website. And as your DNA eventually becomes the you that others can see and interact with, so the code is what will become the part of your website that others see and interact with.

The Server: The code, in order to be seen and read by others, needs a place to be stored and easily accessed. The place where these codes are stored, or hosted, are on servers owned by companies that continuously allow the transfer of information. These hosting companies pay for their servers, and to transfer all those billions of bytes of information, and they make their money by your renting space for your website on their server in the form of a “domain”.

A website thus becomes a website when your code occupies the domain space that you have rented.

What You Pay For

Renting space with a hosting company is a piece of cake and can be done for as little as a few dollars a month. A simple Google search will likely bring up a myriad of companies that offer hosting with different options. Most have a help line that you can call and simply knowing a little bit about what you want your website to do will easily give them a sense of what option is best for you. Most often it comes down to whether or not you plan to have a lot of data-heavy bells and whistles like streaming audio and video. These things take up space, which means you may need to rent more server space.

Once you’ve rented the space, you need your space to have a name. This is how people will remember your website. Ideally, you’ll want your domain name to reflect the essentials of what your business is about and it should be snappy and easy to remember. Acquiring a domain name is somewhat of an art. It’s quite possible that your perfect domain name is something no one has yet thought of, at which point it’s easily acquired through your hosting company at no charge. However, if your perfect website name is owned it can be a challenge to acquire. There are entire companies that purchase domain names with the sole purpose of brokering them to people who want the name for their business. At this point you have to decide what the domain is worth to you. If someone has already beat you to it and has built a whole site around that domain name it might be best to explore other options. If it is available for purchase, then it all comes down to what you’re willing to pay.

The code you can also pay for, but most hosting sites now come with their own website builder which can handle the code for you. Although these website builders are rudimentary, they can easily handle a variety of different website formats and give the user several different style sheets to choose from. If you have time, building your own website can be fun.

WordPress

Stepping it up a notch, WordPress has become the gold standard in website design. WordPress takes a day to learn and a lifetime to master. Ultimately, it is an incredibly powerful and versatile tool for building websites. The program (or code, since technically it’s not a program) is free, but you’ll definitely be investing your time to learn how to use it. It can be as simple as downloading the code for a template, or completely building your own style sheet and code right from scratch. Scouring the web there all kinds of add-ons that are available that are simple enough to add to your website’s code and that can make your website all the more engaging to the visitor.

Website Design

Website design has become a niche all unto itself and there are plenty of companies and freelancers out in the marketplace who are happy to do the legwork of building the code for your website for you. This is essentially the code that you can pay for and although prices can vary substantially, so can the quality of the workmanship. Obviously, a more complicated website brings with it a heftier price tag. It’s standard practice for companies and freelancers to have a portfolio of designs so that you know what your getting into before you buy, but ultimately their job is to make your website as concise, easy to navigate, and engaging as possible.

What is Ad Retargeting?

Big Brother is watching you. At least that is what you might be thinking when you're suddenly presented with online popup ads related to a recent web search. Is it safe to say that you were being tracked from one website to another?

Actually yes, but there is nothing sinister about this.

It is a very common practice known as ad retargeting and it's helping many online businesses pull in new customers. Are you currently running an ad retargeting campaign? If not, you should be, because the conversion rates on retargeted banner ads are much higher, in many cases up to 20%. Retargeted ad campaigns target the 98% of the audience that don’t buy after leaving a website.

Regaining the lost lead.

Traditional display advertising has mostly been used as an awareness and branding tool. Whereas, retargeted ad campaigns have been great for driving conversions on your site, be they sales, sign ups, leads or subscribers.

If the goal of your advertising campaign is direct sales or signups and you have a decent amount of traffic then retargeting is ‘right’ for you.

It’s all in the cookie.

Every time you log onto the Internet and start surfing you leave a trail of breadcrumbs wherever you go. Those "breadcrumbs" grow into cookies. This is the tracking technology that allows visitors to any e-commerce site to pick up a cookie with every visit. Now they are tagged for potential retargeting.

You'll be paying a company to set up a retargeting platform that will collate all those cookies and present a bid to run your ads across many other web portals. These ads are banner ads which can bring that customer right back to your website – especially if they are dynamic.

Understand the threshold.

There is a minimum recommended traffic size that you should have coming to your website before starting a retargeting campaign. You should be aware that retargeting only targets your site visitors.

If your site only receives a small amount of traffic per month, then you will only have a small pool of users to target resulting a low sales volume

.

It has been found that if your site must receive at least 5,000 unique visitors per month. Even if you have less than 5,000 uniques, you can still add a retargeting tracking pixel to your site but your goals should be towards branding instead of sales.  Run a contest, or a lead generation campaign. 

Does ad retargeting work?

According to a comScore study, companies who use ad retargeting can see a 726% increase in return visits to their websites within four-week period. As for online shoppers, 72% don't finish shopping when they put items in their cart. Of that group, 8% return to make the purchase. Factor in ad retargeting and those returns bounce up to 26%.

These numbers definitely provide a convincing argument that ad retargeting should be a strong force for the smart marketer.  

Google and High Quality Content

Love it or hate it, Google is the dominant force when it comes to ranking your company's website. That ranking is registered when a prospect types in a keyword to find something they're looking for like "dentist in East Lansing" or "T-shirts in Fort Lauderdale." Google wants to reward it's users by presenting the most relevant websites at the top of their ranking page.

There aren't any "Google elves" sitting there answering keyword searches. Instead, an algorithm is activated for every search. Throughout the years, Google has tweaked the algorithm to make it better at finding great websites for the respective search results. They keep the algorithm a secret as many companies try to game it in order to be ranked higher. However, there are general rules that Google has outlined what a relevant website should follow in order to be ranked high.

According to Matt Cutts, Head of Google’s WebSpam team, fresh, relevant content is the foundation for high rankings. So, how does Google tell if a web page has high quality content? Consider these factors:

Duplicate Content

Google performs an instantaneous scan and recognizes just as fast whether or not a web site has overlapping and/or redundant content on your site. They look to see if you’ve copied content from other sites by checking the age of the content and percentage of similar content when comparing sites. Here is where your inclusion of keywords could actually come back to haunt you, especially if they are being overused. Does this mean you should abandon those keywords? Absolutely not. However, you might also want to freshen up your existing content if your keyword phrases all appear to be using the same phrasing.  

Quality Content

Google is looking for quality. When it can deliver that to its users then those users will come back for more. Is your content well written? Are there grammar or spelling errors? Does it read like a robot wrote the piece? There are many quality content writers out there who can deliver engaging content. If you don't have the skills, hire someone who does. One way Google measures quality content is through tracking how long an user stays on the page. If they arrive on the page and leave immediately, Google knows that the page wasn’t relevant to the search query, or that the website content wasn’t good.

Relevant Content

Here is where you need to search out the competition. Pretend you're a customer and Google the same keywords you hope someone would use to look for your site. What businesses come up on the first ranking page? More importantly, why did those sites come up first? Take the time to study those pages to see what they are doing right in terms of content, titles and headers. This is what you should be striving for.

Viral Content

The best type of content is something that will be shared. Whether that is an infographic, top ten list or really cool photo, if you can get viewers to bookmark or share that piece then you're spreading your message further across the web. Information and humor are two solid items that can make a piece of content go viral. If you can add a short, funny video all the better!

When you get right down to it, it's not rocket science. It's all about quality. 

Tips on Creating a Good Infographic

Infographics are a fun and quick way to learn about any topic without any heavy reading. There are many reasons why infographics are often better than just writing a blog post. They range from:

- Providing a data-rich visualization of a story or   thesis

- A great visual tool to educate and inform that is easily shared

- And a great way to build brand awareness that can be at a lower cost due to the viral sharing opportunities.

When done right, the infographic is a bold and fun way to present information about a subject. It's something you can quickly scan, presenting data-rich information visually.

The best type of infographic is one that can be shared across many websites. If you're the company that has created that popular infographic then you should be able to benefit from increased traffic, as users will want to learn more.

Adding an infographic to your website isn't as complicated as you think. Start with Googling "infographic templates." From there you'll want to follow the following tips on creating a good infographic:

Tip #1: Get the Right Data Source

The most important component in an infographic is the actual "info." This means you need to find a legitimate source for all your data points. Thanks to all the published studies, surveys and research it shouldn't be hard to collect the data points you need to support the purpose of your infographic. You could even borrow data from another infographic. Just make sure that you source your data within the content of your infographic.

Tip #2: Get the Right Designer

Although you might find a free template for your infographic that doesn't mean you'll have the skills to get the job done. Instead of driving yourself crazy, look for a terrific graphic artist who has experience creating these kinds of pieces. Yes, this is an investment but it's no different than paying for original content. As you shop around for a graphic artist you might find some who will do the job for a flat fee while others work on an hourly rate. Don't hesitate to check out their portfolios before committing to hiring them.

Tip #3: Get the Right Wireframe

Your infographic wireframe is essentially the outline of the story your want to tell. You have your data points. Now you want to lay them out in an order that provides the information in a compelling way for the viewer. Remember an infographic is vertical so build your story with a engaging beginning, middle and conclusion. In terms of the number of data points, six seems to be what generates the most follow-up Tweets. Make sure your logo and website information is included at the bottom of the graphic.

Tip #4: Get the Right Headline

All your hard work won't amount to anything unless it gets read. That's where a strong headline comes into play. This is your hook. Research has shown that most viewers are attracted to number headlines like "Top Ten" or "Five Best" etc. If you can work in numbers to your headline you'll be ahead of the game.

Tip #5: Get the Right Promotion Tools

Before you're ready to send your infographic out into cyberspace make sure you've got embed code that will make sharing this piece as simple as a click. You should then search for the blogs that would appreciate the information that you're sharing. Set up a targeted email campaign for the high PR blogs. Those blogs will be happy to use your content to fill up their pages.

Don't believe that? Google "Marvel vs. DC" infographic to see how many sites are sharing this single piece about which comic book company has better box office results. Hopefully, your infographic will have the same potential to go viral. 

Social Media May Drive More Traffic Than Search Engines

The owner of a typical brick and mortar storefront depends a lot on foot traffic to insure that their business is a success. That's why location is so vital when picking out a place of business. For an e-commerce company, getting high visibility on search engines or access to a large source of traffic is just as equally important. Getting that traffic directly to a company's website is the goal of any online marketing campaign.

The prevailing wisdom has been that search engines will do the trick provided you can increase your ranking on those pages. However, it appears that social media networks are giving the search engines a run for their money in terms of providing them with organic traffic. You only have to look at the numbers to appreciate where most internet users are spending their time.

Where Are The Users?

A recently published report put out by Forrester Research has found that 50% of 18 to 23 year olds and 43% of 24 to 32 year olds list social networks as their go-to internet-discovery resource. In that arena, Facebook and Twitter are holding sway as the number one and two forms of discovery for nearly a third of all American users alone. That represents an 18% increase for "discovery-use" on those sites since 2010.

The good news for search engine sites is that 54% of American users regularly depend on those search results to find what they are looking for. The bad news is that number is dropping. It was 61% in 2010.

More Fun Social Media Facts

The vast majority of Fortune 500 Companies have a Facebook page and/or Twitter account, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are using those resources effectively. For a business start-up looking to get a foothold in customer traffic, social media could be a productive resource to invest in. 

Here are some more of the findings from the research report:

·         26% of internet users discovered company websites through branded emails. That's an 11-point increase from 2012.

·         18% of internet users proclaimed that paid search results got them to where they wanted to go. These would be all those click through ads on Facebook.

·         28% of all internet users find new websites by clicking through to links on sites they are visiting. 

How can you make that work for your company? A simple quid pro quo will do. If you link to a business ask them to link to you. Obviously, you're not going to find much traffic with a competitor, but landing an affiliate site would be ideal. Write a lot of guest posts and have the articles placed on industry websites.  

Does all of this mean you should give up on search engine optimization all together? Absolutely not. 

However, it is clear you should be dividing your online marketing strategy equally between SEO and social media.

You'll probably find that they work hand in hand.

How to Find a Job Candidate's Social Media Profile

When a potential employee applies for a job they are hoping to present themselves in the best light possible. They are in charge of their own CV and behavior during an interview. However, if they will be hired to have a public role representing your company, you're well within your rights to do a deeper investigation into their online presence.

The thing about social media is that it's out there for the public to see. When it comes to tweets, comments and other types of public postings that job candidate can't expect those to remain secret. If you want to find out more about a prospective employee you can start with their profile picture.

Search By Image

A person who posts a profile will often use the same profile picture. You can find out where all those pictures have been used by installing Google Chrome. There is a easy to use extension plug-in called "Search by Image." You'll need to ad that app to your Chrome and you'll be good to go.

Once it is installed, all you need to do is right click the photo and use the "Search Google with this image" option. You should be directed to a page of duplicate photos. Each one of those photos can link to a different social media account where that profile picture was used. You'll be able to follow that person onto Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. If they have a blog or YouTube Channel you can also find a pathway to those accounts with the Google Image Search.

Keep in mind that this isn't an invasion of privacy. If someone posts pictures of themselves going wild at a bachelor party or hurling slurs in a comment section then they are being their own worst enemy. Just because you can post something doesn't mean you have to post everything! A person's discretion with their public profile says a lot about their character.

Expanding Your Search

Once you've found links to their social media accounts you can get a sense of how they interact in various forums. You can use this same tool to track information about your own company. If you have a product picture on your website that might have been snagged by someone to post in their own blog. Do they have permission for that? Are they saying disparaging things about your brand? If you discover something like that hopefully you can bring a quick end to the negativity.  

Getting the Most Out Of SEO

There you are, finally ready to launch your online business. You went through weeks of planning with a web designer and got everything worked out and tested.

Then, finally, your website goes live. And you wait. And wait.

Where are the customers? Where's the traffic? That's when you'll hear the word SEO for the first time. It's a word you should make your new best friend!

Search Engine Optimization is what can put your site at the top of search page rankings. But how can you get those high rankings? Fortunately, there are many wonderful resources available online to help you beef up your SEO. The goal is to choose the right SEO services and make sure that you get the value for your marketing money.

Here's what a good SEO company should be providing:

Knowledge and tools to research strong keywords. Everything starts with the keywords. This is what the typical customer will use to type into the search engines. Finding the right combination of keywords is, well, key. Keywords or phrases should be based on your understanding of your customers’ buying cycle. A comprehensive keyword search includes keyword popularity, competitive research and product-related searches. There are some keywords that appear to rank high but might make no sense in terms of being added to content. Your SEO expert needs to decipher the difference.

Ability to create engaging copy. Once you've got the keywords locked down you then have to fold them into your content. This is what will be picked up by the search engines. Working them into headlines is easy but it's the copy that really matters. Search engines are becoming extremely sophisticated - they can sniff out "spam copy" and penalize you for it. Don't depend on an IT guy crunching algorithms or a web designer to be able to entice your customers with the written word.

Up-to-date information. Google is still the reigning champ of search engines but it is getting plenty of competition from rivals Bing, Yahoo and a whole range of other players. Your SEO expert needs to be on top of all of the search engine parameters because they are constantly being upgraded. You want someone who will be staying far ahead of the technology curve. Ask them when the latest update to a search engine was and have them explain to you how it can affect your website. 

As you look for an SEO expert don't hesitate to shop around to find one that best suits your needs. Obviously, you should start with the ones that have the highest rankings themselves. You know they're doing something right.

Changing the Online Advertising Business Model

The recent flameout of Facebook's introduction to the stock market should be a cautionary tale to any online

business. One the main reasons that the Facebook stock tanked was that days before they went public, GM pulled its advertising because they weren't getting a return on their investment.

This sent a shock wave throughout all corners of e-commerce cyberspace. How can you not benefit from having access to over a billion Facebook users?

The answer is simple: The online advertising business model doesn't always work... and it shouldn't be the main business model for your startup.

The Big Fail

On many levels, the fail of online advertising is paralleling the fail of traditional television advertising. Thanks to DVRs, viewers are able to zap through commercials with ease. There are even devices being specifically marketed that will "hop" over commercials.

Naturally, this has the broadcast networks in an uproar. How can they justify ad rates if no one is watching the ads?

The same thing is happening online.

When a user logs on they're on a mission. They have a specific activity they are engaging in whether that's sending an email, playing a game or checking their friend’s newsfeed. More than anything, the internet is becoming a social networking site that is equal parts global and local community based.

Anyone who is spending their free time on the internet doesn't want to be advertised to.

A New Way to Brand

Foisting a message onto an internet user who hasn't asked for that message is destined to fail.

Why?

Because we don't need a message we can find for ourselves. A company brand can no longer be built by specific messaging alone.

It will be built by the number of "likes" on a Facebook page or amount of Twitter followers. Now that everyone gets to share their opinions on places like Yelp, a good review is often more important than a traditional ad.

We share what we like and that's how the popularity of a product, a movie, a book or a restaurant grows.

Finding Information in the Cyber Age

The greatest tool on the internet is also the great undoing of the advertising model. That would be the search engine. Whether you are a fan of Google, Bing, Chrome or any other search engine, we know how to get information.

If you want to shop for a new car, a pair of shoes, an appliance or just about anything else, the first stop will always be a search engine. The next stop could be one of the many review sites such as Yelp or Consumer Reports.

Nowhere in that search is advertising needed or wanted. We're becoming a society of information gatherers. That's good for the consumer but not so good for the business, unless they find a way to improve their search engine rankings.

We're also becoming very sophisticated when it comes to blocking or ignoring ads. Don't want a re-targeting pop-up ad? No problem... just delete your cookie history.

The more advertisers try to insert their messages the more the Internet user will find a way to block the ads.

Build Out the Social Network

So, what is a hapless company supposed to do to find new customers? Don't fight the internet but put it to work for your brand. If this is a social medium then find a way to engage your customer base by starting a conversation.

Suppose you're selling a cleaning product. Perhaps you can start a conversation by asking folks "What's the worst mess you've ever had to clean up?" That's not selling your product directly but allowing folks to join in on a conversation.

Once they are engaged they can be invited to try the product. In other words, think less about reaching the masses with a single message and instead redirecting that message as part of a two-way conversation. That's the power of social media networking. 

Create Your Own Videos to Help Your Customers

Can creating an online video help your business? Consider the facts: ComScore released a study that found a whopping 82.5% of American Internet users viewed a video online. Another report found that in 2010, 30% of Internet traffic was video content.

By this year, that number can go up to 90%. Next to Google, YouTube is the biggest search engine on the net. There are over 60 hours of video uploaded every single minute for a total of around 4 billion videos being posted every day.

About 800 million users stop by YouTube every month. That's an amazing range of audience to try and tap into and that is just YouTube.

In the business arena, consumers spend more time at a website watching a video as opposed to a site without that type of content. More folks would rather watch a video than read text so how can you tap into potential customer base?

That's easy: You have to create your own videos. If you're not convinced yet, consider these other factors:

Videos can be the best way to convey a lot of information.

A video can deliver a lot of messages in a short amount of time. This is especially important when it comes to company branding. Writing blog posts will only take you so far. With a video, you can reinforce the positive attributes of your company's product in a memorable way.

Make videos with humor and you'll go even further in terms of brand retention. You'll also be able to form your company's personality through your video presentations. That's going to be extremely valuable.

Videos can have multiple uses.

A video docked on your website can be a terrific asset, but a good video has a broad range of uses. It can be purposed on YouTube and other sites to bring traffic back to your site. The video can also be embedded in an email newsletter or used in a sales presentation.  

Videos are what your customers want.

Consider the tale of two websites. One has fun videos and the other just copy. Which one will get more engagement? The one with videos. If you want to keep your customers engaged give them what they want and that would be video content. In other words, if you're not making videos your competitor will.

Videos will continually be useful.

There are some studies that declare by 2014, the vast majority of mobile data traffic will be video. Every Smartphone and pad device has the capability to watch videos. By creating this type of content you'll be positioning your company to be "on the go" wherever your customers are headed. 

3 Best Social Media Books to Read

Understanding how to get the most out of social media takes an expert. Here are three books by the leading experts in the field.

Likeable Social Media: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on Facebook (And Other Social Networks)

This is New York Times best-seller is all about achieving success through online word-of-mouth marketing around the simple premise of being likeable. The best recommendation for any product or service often comes from a friend. If you can get a network of friends to recommend a site or page than that's half the battle. This informative book provides helpful insight in how to tap into the power of this specialized form of marketing. The methods presented in this tome have been utilized with great success by such a diverse range of companies as 1-800-FLOWERS.COM and the Ford Motor Company.


Author Dave Kerpen is an expert in this field. As the cofounder the social media-marketing firm Likeable, Dave is among the brightest and most successful leaders in this industry. His tried and true methods have a proven track record of success and he is definitely someone you'll want to listen to for your own social media campaign.


The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success

Presenting helpful information about social media campaigns means you need to stay ahead of the curve. The Social Media Bible is now in its updated third edition. Presented in this 700-page tome are all the important resources for big and small business to utilize the far reach of social media. With this updated edition you'll be able to find out how to bring in iPad users and apps, Foursquare and other location-targeted networks. Find out the latest about Google's every changing search engine algorithms. That information alone is worth buying this book!

500 Social Media Marketing Tips: Essential Advice, Hints and Strategy for Business: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and More!

Yes, you read that right: This amazing text presents 500 social media marketing tips. Included in those tips are links to over 130 video tutorials which can greatly enhance your learning curve. Among the top social networks covered are Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and YouTube. The expert tips will show you how to build your brand and engage with customers. When you consider that 22% of all North American online activity is spent at sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest than its clear this is a realm your business needs to tap into. 500 Social Media Marketing Tips will show you the way.

Top 5 SEO Myths That Need to Be Broken

As you enter into the e-commerce space, you're going to be learning all about driving traffic to your website. One of the first (and most important) concepts you should learn is about Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Simply put, the goal of SEO is to increase the rankings of your website when a specific search term or phrase is entered. Depending on the topic this can be a crowded field.

For instance, Google "locksmith" and your hometown. What you're sure to come up with are dozens of pages of locksmiths businesses. If your business is among those ranking on the first page you stand a much better chance of garnering that new customer. Along with understanding SEO you'll also run across some SEO myths.

You would follow these myths at your own peril because they might end up preventing traffic to your site as opposed to increasing traffic.

Here are the top 5 SEO myths that need to be broken.

You only have to optimize your site once.

Wrong. You might get lucky with your first wave of comprehensive SEO content and achieve that number one ranking but you won't be there for long. All of your competitors will be working on their own SEO strategies which can knock you off the top ranking at any time. This means you've got to consistently improve your SEO on a regular basis. Look at it this way: Would you only have one "special sale" for your business to attract customers? Of course not! The same can be said for SEO.

Links to social bookmarks aren't considered SEO.

Actually they are. Adding social networking bookmarks to your content are becoming an important and viable component to a comprehensive SEO strategy. Based on the findings of recent surveys, close to 14% of a website's ranking power can originate from sites like Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus. In other words, fire up those accounts and make sure they're part of your website.

You should always be posting content.

Yes and no. The myth is that without new content your site won't be picked up by search engines. The key issue is one of relevancy. Your content needs to be relevant for the search. If it is content for the sake of content then you're defeating the purpose. Making content relevant is at the heart of successful SEO and that will be determined by many factors both on your web pages and off those pages.

Forget title tags and meta tags; they don't work.

That would be a big mistake. This is where those on/off page factors come into play. A common mistake by webmasters is to title home pages as "home" as opposed to the keyword in title tags. Going back to the locksmith example, you shouldn't tag your landing page as "home" but "locksmith in Austin" (or wherever). Focus on a 160-character meta description of your content that will include a relevant keyword phrase and you'll come out a winner.

You can't have enough backlinks.

Yes you can. Backlinks link other websites to your site. It's a way of expanding the potential for traffic. However, once again it comes down to a matter of relevancy. You want to establish your website as a place of authority that means you want quality backlinks and not general spam. Linking to news stories and videos work but you'll have to occasionally go back and make sure those links aren't broken. 

Using Content Marketing to Build your Brand

Google can be a business' best friend or worst enemy.

As the number one search engine used by the vast majority of internet users, you would like nothing better than to be at the top of any search tied to your business. Knowing that their users depend on accurate information, Google is constantly updating and modifying its search algorithms to insure the sites they recommend are viable.

Google does this is by searching for fresh, original content and not just "spammy" stuffed copy. This has forced some brands to behave like media companies, producing content across various mediums, including video, photography, infographics and articles.

However, this shift in marketing has made it difficult for many brands, since effective content marketing demands turning away from self-promotion. Companies that put the needs of their customer first in their marketing, by providing interesting and engaging content, without any overt promotion will attract an audience that wants to consume the content, share it, comment on it, and even create it.

Here are some rules to follow to when using content marketing to build up your brand:

Don't promote - educate.

Teach your customers by being educational, not promotional. Work with experts by using thought leaders in your industry to create videos, blog entries, and other content for your target audience.

Help to solve a problem.

Your customers are usually looking for answers to a problem, so include information that solves a problem or answering a tough question. Show your prospects how your information helped solve a problem because they will explore your solution further if they have that same problem to solve.

Measure the success of your content strategy.

Analyze how users discover, consume, and share your content.  It’s vital that you measure the success or failure of your content marketing strategy. Start by taking a look at page views, time on page, your bounce rate and make sure that every single link that goes into your content marketing piece is trackable.  

Make it easy to share.

Your content must be easy to access - share it across many platforms. To get a large amount of traffic, you would need to understand where your customers hang out online. You'll have to do some research by knowing where your customers hang out online. As each community consumers content differently, build content that is specific to the audience, build that community and you'll be building traffic back to your site. 

The Google Patent Search Tool - Does This Affect Your Intellectual Property?

A patent is all about protection for your intellectual property. The United States provides patents to give inventors the right “to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling their invention throughout the United States or importing their invention into the United States.”

Every country can grant a patent which would govern that property in that country. It is conceivable that a patent granted in the U.S. or Canada doesn’t necessarily offer protection against infringement in a country like China or Russia.

Still, it is advisable for a business that has a piece of intellectual property to have it patented in as many countries as possible.

Google has created a patent search which is becoming a huge asset to many businesses. When you consider that there are 8 million approved patents and 3 million pending patent applications in the U.S. alone then you can see the need for a search engine. Now Google has put that database of the United States Patent and Trademark Office online for easy access. How can this help you protect your intellectual property? Consider these benefits:

Clearing the Field

The first obvious benefit of a Google patent search is to see if somebody beat you to the punch. In other words, has your brilliant idea already been developed? This is a search that really should be conducted once the plans for an item are ready to go to the prototype stage. If you find that your idea has been patented you’ll either have to rethink it entirely or scrape the project. Better to learn that in the early stages of development.

Borrowing Innovations

Suppose you’re in the kind of business that needs to create a machine to make the perfect widget. You’re really selling the widget but it has to be mass produced to be cost effective. That special machine you design to make the widget could be patented. However, you might find that another business has a similar machine you can adapt. There’s no need to go down the expensive patent review process when you can license the right to use that technology from the original patent holder. Remember, you want to get to your “widget” and the most affordable and stress free path to that goal is the way to go.

Getting Inspiration

There aren’t a lot of secrets when it comes to granting a patent. If you’re working through a challenging design you might do a patent search for similar products to see how other inventors overcame their hurdles. Who knows? You could be inspired to take your idea in a new direction that no one has thought of.

Inventor 411

It could be that you’re so impressed with a particular product or piece of intellectual property that you want to know more about the originator of that idea. The patent search will let you trace the inventor and find out what other ideas they’ve worked on.

Using Content Marketing To Drive Credibility

Raspberries.

 

What does creating original content have to do with raspberries?

 

Nothing. But the mere fact that the word “raspberries” has been randomly dropped into this article is proof positive that this is a piece of original online content. There are plenty of computer programs available to cut corners by churning out robotic content for websites. While those articles are loaded up with facts and figures they won’t have “raspberries:” that original creative flair. That’s what you should be striving to put into your content: originality.

Search engines are getting smarter. Google has launched several algorithm upgrades – the Penguin and Panda updates - which specifically targets websites that produce “spam” content. The Google spiders can tell the difference between an original piece of online content and something that has been “spun” or pasted together with a computer program. The new algorithm updates not only the take a look at the structure of a sentence, they also analyze the relevancy of content , the number of backlinks to the website, the number of times that an article or content gets shared using social media and so many other factors.

Guess which content goes to the top of their rankings? That’s right; it’s the original content. Google wants its users to receive maximum benefit from its searches and you should want the exact same thing for your online visitors. The best way to build up your company brand is through great content that your readers want to share. Here’s what you need to consider with every piece that you write or create:

Teach and Entertain

Readers go online to do two things. Be entertained or find a solution to a problem. Once you have an understanding as to what your target audience wants to do online, you can create the right piece of content that will attract your markets’ attention.  In other words, choose whether each piece that you write or create is going to be informative or fun to consume. You can’t solve all the world’s problems but when it comes to your little corner of cyber space you should be providing solutions that meet their immediate concerns. You should also provide a reason for those users to return to your site. That will only happen if you can put a smile on their face with your content. Get cheeky with the headlines. Don’t shy away from quirky graphics. You can still maintain a professional presence but keep it human and not robotic.

Build Trust and Credibility

Thanks to those Google algorithms, internet surfers are becoming a savvy bunch of readers. They can also quickly spot a “spam” article. Loading up your site with content for the sake of content is going to turn off that visitor. You might not make a sale on that first visit but if you plan your content marketing campaign (or a drip marketing campaign), you can slowly build up trust by creating original content that your target audience will want to read.  Your audience wants to find a reason to not do business with you. So, make sure that any content that you produce specifically targets your intended audience and their needs. When you’ve built that trust they’ll be coming back again and again.

Start a Conversation

With the advent of social media, email and blogs, we get the chance to join and be part of any community. This means we all have a chance to share our experiences and opinions. Give your users that opportunity by inviting them into the discussion. Your content should end with a call to action, whether that’s a link to more articles on your site or a question inviting the reader to leave a comment. Or even sign up for a newsletter. When you engage readers to share their thoughts they’ll come back to see who is commenting on their comments. That’s how you build an online community.

Questions? Feel free to ask and we’ll do our best to answer. (See how that works?!)

 

How Online PR Can Affect Your Ecommerce Sales

As the saying goes, the only bad publicity is no publicity. That’s a common refrain shared among PR folks and there is a grain of truth in that saying. Unless your target audience is aware of your business it will be extremely difficult to generate sales. That applies to a corner dry cleaner or an ecommerce site. Every business is dependent upon buzz and a good reputation. And the best way to generate that buzz is through positive press mentions. But you shouldn’t stop there. Good PR can come in many forms, especially through social media.

In this age, no one can ignore the fact that being online is a must for any business.   Gone are the days when your customers turn to actual yellow pages or pay attention to a TV ad to find what they need. Now most folks head to Google or ask their friends online to find just what they are looking for. What they will find could be your business ranked at the top of the search engine listings thanks to positive PR. Here are some ideas for generating that kind of proactive response:

Get involved in your target market’s community

Not every company can become an official sponsor of the Olympic Games but they can become a sponsor of the local youth hockey team or get involved with charity drives. All of those ideas can create positive a positive reputation that your business cares about the community you are targeting. Even if your market is nationwide, you can sponsor events or even athletes to build brand reputation. Start researching the interests and passions of your target market and see if you can find a way to get your brand involved in a positive way. Your involvement can often be mentioned by news organizations reporting on these causes. That’s terrific publicity.

Get to know your local TV news station

A good way to generate brand visibility is taking advantage of your local TV station. Many stations are affiliates of a larger channel so by promoting your PR angle; you have a higher chance of getting features, especially if it’s unusual. You can also re-post the news feature through YouTube and generate a lot of views. News producers need to fill up that programming with interesting features and not just the headline stories. Could you pitch an unusual segment to a local news producer? Suppose you have an ecommerce business that offers housecleaning products. You could pitch a segment about how your product can remove any stain in any home. If you can’t, then the winner will receive free cleaning services for life. Bottom line: think of how you can promote your business by providing something unusual that makes your company stand out.  

Get involved in online discussions

If your business is already attracting customers then it’s a safe bet those customers are talking about you to their friends or online. One of the most popular and largest online review sites is Yelp. Not only are they offering reviews for restaurants, but there are reviews for just about any other kind of business.

You need to plug into the various online communities to find out what is being said about your business. Set up a Google Alert for your company – this enables you to receive notifications if your company is being mentioned online. If you stumble upon a forum that your target market uses heavily, get involved. If someone has a problem with your company, go into customer service mode and try to fix their issue.

Easy Ways to Monitor Your Competition

Researching your competitors is important as it becomes an integral part of your company’s business strategy. By being able to track the top players in your industry, you can use that information to help improve your own services, gain new customers and increase your market share.  When doing competitive research, companies need to:

·         Understand what their competition is doing and how successful they are.

·         Identify the strategies your main competitors are using to increase sales.

In these times, it’s not that hard to keep abreast on what’s going on in the industry and especially your competitors.  If you don’t know what they are up to, then you can’t position your brand differently and won’t be able to convince potential customers as to why they should do business with you. Here are a few simple ways to keep tabs on your closest competitors:

·         Analyze your competitors’ websites. Your competitors’ websites will tell you a lot in regards to their sales and marketing strategy. Using online tools, you can review what keywords or phrases they are getting found for and targeting, analyze their backlink strategy and take a look at their editorial content. Sign up for their newsletters, and create a news alert to get their press releases. Your competitors’ website is the best place to learn about any new products or services that are launched. 

·         Follow their social media accounts. By signing for their Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter accounts, you will be able to be follow any updates about your competitors in real-time. Don’t only sign up for the main company accounts, but also identify key employees and sign up to follow their personal accounts. For example: you can keep track of who is leaving or getting hired using LinkedIn.  Social media platforms have created some transparency, allowing you to be updated on all your competitors quickly.

·         Use Google Alerts. Google Alerts is a great tool for the entrepreneur. It allows you to scan the internet for you and emails you any updates related to keywords or phrases that you choose.  You can even enter common keywords for both your companies and see which website has the most reach. This is a great way to see what prospects and customers are saying about you or your competitors.   

The benefits of tracking and analyzing your competition can range from maintaining high search engine rankings, stealing market share or identifying weaknesses in your competitors’ services. This information helps your prepare strategically as to what your competitors are up to and how your industry is evolving. Remember, information is power, and doing competitive research can only help your company move ahead.