June 22nd, 2011 by Rich Brooks
Online video–and especially YouTube–is critical to your online marketing and increasing your overall visibility. Julie Perry tells how.
For the highlights of this article be sure to check out How to Make YouTube Part of Your Social Media Marketing at FastCompany.com.
Rich: Hi, this is Rich Brooks, and I have on the phone with me today Julie Perry. She is the social media director at BLASTmedia, which is a PR and social media firm.
Read the rest of this entry »
June 15th, 2011 by Rene LeMerle
Just after a week of launching Google Wallet Google has launched it’s much anticipated Google Offers in Portland with selected local businesses offering customers some great deals to avail.
Google Offers, touted as a potential Groupon killer, came into existence after Google’s ambitious attempt to buy out Groupon failed last year. Soon after, Google announced that it was working on its own social coupon service and approximately a year later Google Offers came into existence.
Read the rest of this entry »
June 8th, 2011 by Rene LeMerle
With many businesses having both an offline, as well as an online presence, much of the time the two operate as 2 separate entities. Having the two elements work hand in hand can really give your business a boost, as what the customer sees in one area will be reinforced in full on the other.
I’ve outlined 7 handy tips that will help you to integrate both aspects of your business, and blur the line between your offline marketing, and online.
Read the rest of this entry »
June 1st, 2011 by Stoney deGeyter
Recently, during the Q&A part of a conference session I was attending, someone asked, “Can small businesses do their own SEO?” It’s not an easy question to answer but, in a post Panda Update world … I think the answer is no.
There are lots of things small businesses can do. I’ve mentioned some of them in ways to promote your small business for free and promote your small business for $888. But once we get past the basics, unless the small business owner has time to devote themselves to learning and implementing SEO, it’s almost a necessity to have someone on staff or to hire a consultant.
Read the rest of this entry »
May 25th, 2011 by Mark Schaefer
Lori Witzel, a newcomer to our community, asked me a good question the other day. “Did you get any phone calls? You left me hanging!”
You see, she had just read a blog post I wrote last year called “Social Media and the Big Conversation Fail.” The summary of the story is that my entire view of social media relationships had been shaken when I realized somebody I had considered a social media “friend,” Jenn Whinnem, had cystic fibrosis. I felt humiliated that I had not known this collaborator of mine suffered each day. What kind of a friend is that?
Read the rest of this entry »
May 18th, 2011 by John Jantsch
What is a Marketing Strategy and How Do I Get One
Without a lighthouse, how would ships (prior to GPS) know where landfall was? How would they know that they were headed in the right direction? What would have been their beacon? Think of your Marketing Strategy as a lighthouse… and not a GPS system. Businesses often make the mistake of confusing the two. See, a GPS will give you the exact directions to your exact destination with turn-by-turn accuracy, and while it would be nice if you could create a document/map for your business like this, it simply is not realistic in this day and age. A true Marketing Strategy is simply: a lighthouse. It’s a vision for where you business needs to be and how you’re going to get there (but we’re open to tweak and adjust on the journey).
Read the rest of this entry »
May 11th, 2011 by Rohit Bhargava
Most students of any business course are taught constantly about the importance of having a good Return on Investment. Whether that “investment” is measure in dollars or in time that you or your employees spend trying to do something, we are taught that the benefit must be tangible when it comes back to your business. The problem that many businesses have when it comes to social media is that the ROI is not as simple to measure as putting a discount code into a print ad and then counting the redemptions.
During a presentation at the World Business Forum last year, Charlene Li, bestselling author of “Groundswell” as well as the brilliant new business book “Open Leadership” and a leading mind in how social technologies can be used for business, talked about this in her short presentation to a global audience of business people. At one point she asked all the members of the audience to shake hands with the person next to them. Then she asked them to describe the ROI of that handshake. It was a nice example of where the measurement problem lies – because most of us are not used to quantifying the value of social relationships and conversations
Read the rest of this entry »
May 4th, 2011 by Pat McCarthy
Mike Arrington at Techcrunch wrote a recent post based on a conversation with a venture capitalist in which that investor said:
“Consumer Internet entrepreneurs are like pro basketball players, they peak at 25, by 30 they’re usually done.”
Read the rest of this entry »
April 27th, 2011 by Navneet Kaushal
Google releases its Google Offers, after Groupon turned down their $6 billion buyout. The product is a deal platform for local businesses via which they can advertise offers and deals on their products and services, attracting more customers every day. Deals and discounts (with specific validity) will be created by the product and sent out to local customers on a daily basis.
Read the rest of this entry »
April 20th, 2011 by Krishna De
Are you looking to build more visibility about your business online through outreach and connecting to your customers? Then take a look at the Dell Trade Secrets programme that was launched earlier this year.The programme was established to get their small business customers to talk with them as a company and with each other and at the same time build awareness for a new product in the Dell range – the Dell Vostro 130.
The campaign was all about how to create a great first impression – just as Dell believe that the Dell Vostro V 130 does as a lap top for the business traveller. the Trade Secrets campaign encouraged Dell customers to share their own ‘secrets’ to making a good first impression. This was done through Twitter where people were encourages to share tips using the #tradesecrets hashtag or directly on the Dell Facebook Page on a Trade Secrets app.
Read the rest of this entry »
