You can’t read a book and think you have what it takes to become a consultant. Opinion and theory are great, but no match for years of experience and a proven track record of execution and success.

Having said all that…here are a few tips on how to tell if the person calling on you truly knows their stuff.

A snake oil salesperson…

1 - Tweets about themselves and what THEY are doing…constantly.
2 – Uses automated programs like “Top Followed” to grow their list of followers.
3 – Does not re-tweet others and isn’t involved in conversations on Twitter.
3 - Has a Facebook page containing posts with no links, has only been live for a month and only has 20 fans.
4 – Doesn’t have many followers on Twitter. Probably less than 500, or so and doesn’t have a robust FB page.
5 – Doesn’t have a blog on their website, or they haven’t posted on their blog in 2 months.
6 - Can’t provide success stories, testimonials or share any case studies of their work.

The snake oil salesperson is out there and on the prowl. Don’t get led down the primrose path. Do a little homework and make a good call. Work with a consultant who has a proven track record of success and can back it up.

For more information, or to get help with your social media strategy, CONTACT US!

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Most people don’t like change. And these changes caused quite an uproar amongst users, even to the point that users were fighting with each other about whether or not the changes were good. I must admit, I joined the debate.

Tickers, Timelines and Top Stories

Personally, I really like all the changes, except one…top stories. There are some pros and cons to this one.

Basically, Facebook picks which status updates/posts should be your “top stories” based on the relationship, number of people who like it, etc. and puts those at the top in the news feed. Most would argue they would rather see ALL of their friend’s updates, as well as updates from the pages they’ve liked, chronologically. That’s certainly how I feel.

What does this do to marketers who have worked so hard to grow their audiences and cultivate communities on their Facebook pages? The jury is still out, but I see some issues.

Pros and Cons

The bad thing: This means the likelihood of their audience seeing their posts will go down. In fact, I can see in the analytics where site traffic from Facebook has already started to decrease.

The good thing: Marketers who count on their business pages for website traffic and customer interaction will now have to work much harder to generate relevant, interesting, sharable content. Better content means more people will “like” it and be more likely to share that content with their friends.

Where Should We Focus?

The biggest takeaway for me in regards to the explosion of Google+ and the significant changes/updates to Facebook is the fact that regardless of social media evolution, everything always comes back to your website. Social media will continue to change and develop, as it should. Your website should also  improve on a regular basis, but IT should be your top priority…not mastering social media marketing. Your website is Base Camp. It’s a platform that YOU can control. The visitors generated from Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. should land on a website that doesn’t look like its straight out of 2004. Basically, it’s very important that your website doesn’t suck.

Make sure your website is at the top of its game. It needs to be visually appealing, have modern architecture, be search engine friendly (do the keyword research) and social media friendly, incorporating all the latest widgets and buttons that make for easy sharing. Your website should have a blog integrated within the site, not separate. It should also have analytics installed and you should be posting on the blog regularly, if not often.

Roll With The Changes

Don’t freak out when Facebook makes changes. This wasn’t the first and won’t be the last time they do. Also, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Get active on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, YouTube, etc. and get familiar with Google+. But, most importantly…have a website that stands out amongst your competitors. Make “Base Camp” your top priority and then put the icing on the cake with an awesome social marketing campaign.

Feel free to contact me with any questions or to learn more.

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1 – Retweet your followers: If one of your followers posts something you think is funny or interesting…retweet it for them. They’ll most likely see that and thank you…exposing your content to more people. Remember, Twitter’s not just about you.

2 – Post articles from other writers: Whatever your passion is…write about it on your blog. But also, post articles from other sources with similar content. This lets your followers know that you’re genuine about your passion and not just looking to push your own message out to them.

3 – Answer questions: Monitor your community and try to answer your followers’ questions. If you don’t know the answer to one…maybe someone else does. Find out and respond. This helps build your reputation and credibility, which can lead to more followers and the likelihood that your posts will get retweeted…hence, extending the reach of your message.

For more information, or to get help with your social media strategy, CONTACT US!

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Well, here we are in June of 2011 and location-based social networks and QR Codes are all the rage. Everyone’s talking about Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and now, Facebook Places. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn are all considered mainstream and imperative in terms of marketing.

However, it is obvious that many, if not most, businesses have yet to venture into the simplest and arguably the most effective type of social marketing…blogging.

Blogging is nothing new. Blogs date back to 1997, took off in 1999 and were considered mainstream by 2004.

It’s 2011 and your company hasn’t started blogging. Why is that? Are you afraid of what someone might post on your blog? Here’s the deal…people are going to talk about your company, whether it’s on your blog or in the grocery store. Perhaps you don’t see the importance and you’re not completely sold on blogging for business.

A recent study by eMarketer shows a strong increase in companies entering the blogosphere. Their study predicts that 43% of companies will be blogging by 2012.

Here’s a short list of 5 reasons why your company should be actively blogging:

1 - Blogging gives you the opportunity to establish yourself as the expert in your industry or field. Are you a local fitness center or gym? Your blog should contain posts and information on why someone should join your fitness center, as opposed to your competition. You never want to downgrade your competition on your blog. Rather, focus on what your fitness center has to offer and emphasize all the positive attributes of your facility and staff.

2 – Blogging gives your current and potential customers a platform to ask questions and communicate with your business. This adds credibility and can increase customer loyalty. Monitoring your blog closely, answering questions and replying to comments will promote trust and transparency.

3 – Search engines love fresh content. If you don’t add new content to your website on a regular basis the search engines have nothing new to crawl and distribute. Integrating a blog into your site makes it easy to post fresh information on a regular basis for the search engines to find.

4 – A blog is another chance to issue a press release, announce an event, launch a new product or make an important announcement. Blogging is marketing. What are you marketing? Your business!

5 – Your blog serves as what I call your “content distribution source.” With every blog post you publish, you can take that article, create profiles on dozens of other social platforms and post. Not only will this generate more traffic to your blog and website, but you’re also creating links, which will aid in search engine optimization.

Maximizing your blogging efforts will take time, but it’s worth it. Post often, include important keywords for your business/industry and engage with your audience. In my opinion, this should be the first step in creating a powerful social media presence and personality for your company or business.

To learn how we can help, CONTACT US!

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Inbound links, or backlinks, are essential for helping your website rank higher in the search engines. The more QUALITY links you have to your website, the greater the chances are that you will rank higher than your competitors.

By now you should be posting regularly on a blog. Regularly meaning at least once a week. The post should be original content (your content) and you should be taking that post and publishing it on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and any other social network or bookmarking sites you use.

However, there are many other free sites that will help create more inbound links that you may, or may not know about. Try these on for size…

1 – Pitch Engine
2 – Free Press Release
3 – Ezine Articles
4 – Articlesbase
5 – Free Article Submission
6 – Geckoe
7 – E-Articles
8 – WebProNews
9 – Buzzle
10 – GoArticles

How popular is your website? What things do you need to implement to increase your search engine rankings?

To find out more, contact us for a free website analysis.

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Here are a few quick tips that will help you create those links and improve your search engine rankings.

1 – Write and submit articles. You know your business better than anybody else. Take some time and write a few articles that pertain to a certain aspect of your business. Then, create accounts on EZineArticles.com and GoArticles.com and submit your articles to their aggregators.

2 – Start your own blog and link out to other blogs. Linking out as much as possible increases the likelihood that you’ll get a link back. When you start your blog make sure you list yours with the most relevant blog directories.

3 – Post comments on other blogs. If your comments are inciteful and thought provoking there is a much better chance that other readers will click on your profile, which leads them back to your site or blog. Don’t spam. That’s lame.

4 – Write and submit press releases. Make sure they are well-written and interesting. Submit them at PRWeb.com. It’s not free, but the investment is well worth it. Not willing to shell out the cash yet? Try Free-Press-Release.com.

5 – Social Bookmarking. Take the interesting content from your main website, articles, blog posts, etc. and post them on social bookmarking sites like Delicious, Digg, Reddit and Stumbleupon. This will create a churn of traffic back to your site.

Monitor your analytics closely to measure what’s working. There are hundreds of ways to create inbound links to your website. These are just 5 simple ways to get the ball rolling as you work towards taking it to the next level.

To learn how we can help, CONTACT US!

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Over the past couple of days there have been some issues with the 800-Pound Gorilla…Facebook. This led me to think about what would happen if Facebook suddenly disappeared. What would online marketers do if one of the most powerful tools they had was gone? One of the things we would do is put more focus on blogging. The truth is, we should never lose focus on blogging. Don’t neglect home base. Keep it fresh regularly and blog smart.

Here are 10 quick tips for effective blogging:

1 – Decide on a stand alone domain name myblog.com, or directory of existing site: mysite.com/blog. Utilizing a sub-domain is also an option: blog.mysite.com. If at all possible, avoid hosted services that do not allow you to use your own domain name.

2 – Research keywords and develop a glossary using a keyword research tool, such as www.semrush.com, www.wordstream.com or www.link-assistant.com.

3 – Enable your automatic trackback and ping functionality.

4 – Submit your RSS feed and Blog URL to prominent RSS and Blog directories and search engines.

5 – Optimize and distribute a press release announcing your blog.

6 – Research and comment on relevant industry-related blogs and blogs that are popular and get lots of traffic. Always link back, but don’t be spammy when you comment.

7 – Monitor your inbound links, traffic using analytics (Google Analytics, if possible). Also, monitor comments and mentions of your blog using Google Alerts, Technorati, Blogpulse or Trackur.

8 – Put prominent links to your profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr and other social platforms in every post.

9 – Include bookmarking/sharing widgets that allow users to share content on the platform of their choice: www.addthis.com.

10- Post regularly. I’m often asked how often. Once a month is not enough. Once a week is not enough. I’ll cover this more in my next post.

To learn how we can help, CONTACT US!

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By: Scott Dickson

When asked if they’re utilizing the power of social media and relationship marketing, many business-owners and CMO’s will reply, “Of course! We have an awesome Facebook page and we’re getting started on Twitter.”

Well, that’s great. But, setting up a Facebook page and linking your posts to a Twitter profile doesn’t mean you’re “on Twitter.” It means you’re doing it wrong.

In my opinion, you’re putting all your eggs in one basket by relying too heavily on Facebook. Don’t get me wrong, Facebook is a huge piece of the puzzle. But, if you’re not executing effectively AND not implementing other social media platforms, you’re missing opportunities to engage your potential audience.

YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine on the planet. If you do a search for your company, will it appear in the search results? Better yet, if you own a restaurant in Charlotte, do you have a video tagged appropriately that shows up in a YouTube search for “restaurants in Charlotte”?

If you’re business to business, you must be on LinkedIn, right? Are you a wedding photographer with pictures saturated and tagged on Flickr? If you’re a movie theater you must be using Foursquare to reward your mayor and other customers checking in. And how about Twitter? Are you engaged? Do you really know what it means to be engaged on Twitter, or are you just pushing out content?

Are you utilizing the power of social bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious, Reddit, Propeller, Stumbleupon, etc.?  Have you claimed your blog at Technorati? Do you even have a blog? Is your website set up to convert visitors into potential customers?

Is your head spinning?

Chances are pretty good you’ve watched this video ad nauseum. But, it does drive home the point that there are other platforms to pay attention to.

So, yes…Facebook is gigantic and amazing.  You’d be crazy not to work very hard to have a commanding presence there. However, you shouldn’t stop at Facebook.

Take the time and do the research on the other opportunities…or, you can always just contact me!

A shameless plug, no doubt. But, hey…it is my blog.

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