For many companies, posting a regular blog with informative up to the minute content is a daunting task. This is especially so for small to medium sized business who may not have the resources at hand to blog effectively and consistently.

Sound familiar? If  it is simply inspiration that you need then read this blog post about banishing blog writer’s fatigue. But if the thought of adding a blog to your corporate marketing arsenal makes your blood run cold, don’t despair: there are other ways that you can take advantage of the blogosphere with out having to.

Blog Learning

Blogs are a great way to keep abreast of what is going on in your industry, to learn from luminaries, peers and prospective clients as well as to keep ahead of your competitors.  Use tools like Technorati to find and follow blogs that pertain to your market.  If you are using blogs for this purpose, it is a good idea to bookmark or use and RSS feed reader (like Google reader) to keep track of the ones you like and to share them with others in your company.

Blog Comments

Links are like gold on the Internet, the more your site has leading back to it, the better and this is even more the case if links come from high ranking blogs.   When posting comments on blogs, always make sure they are relevant and add value in relation to the post.  In addition to the link love, posting comments on blogs can help you establish a relationship with the blogger or company whose post you comment on (particularly handy if you would like to do business with this company) and can spread brand awareness from the blog’s readers.

Blog PR

Blog PR or as it is sometimes called, blog outreach, is another way you can use blogs without having to have one.   Popular blogs often get many thousands of visitors every day.  Imagine the traffic that would bring to your site if the blog were to mention and link back to your page.  Blog PR is all about enticing the rock star bloggers in your industry to blog about you, your product, service or unique story.  Bloggers, like journalists with traditional PR, are on the receiving end of many attempts to get publicity every day so your message has to stand out from the crowd in order to get any attention.  To be successful with blog PR you have to be highly targeted and creative.

Internal Blog

Blog technology is very versatile.  Just because you don’t want the exposure an external blog might bring doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take advantage of blogs in house to disseminate information.  By doing so you might discover that you do indeed have the talent or resources within the organisation to make an external blog possible.  Read our post from last September to learn more about internal blog uses.

Conclusion

Blogging is often the backbone of a social media strategy but, to be successful, you don’t need to have your own blog.  In fact, if blogging isn’t right for your company then embarking on a blog and then abandoning it can be really damaging.  Instead, consider the options above in order to take advantage of blogs to build your online presence.

Foursquare, the location based social network, is purported to be the next big social media phenomenon despite ongoing privacy concerns.   Launched just last year in only a few cities around the world, Foursquare now has over 400,000 unique visitors (in January).  Since September there has been a steep increase  in activity as users catch on to this popular social networking game and this is only expected to grow since Foursquare went global last month.

Foursquare Growth

Playing Foursquare

Foursquare allows users to check in from their mobile phones when they are out and about at dinner, sports venues, tourist venues and even at the hairdresser.  As a user, each time you check in to a location you are awarded points.

Once you start accumulating points or visiting locations frequently you are awarded badges and titles (I am the Mayor of Stock Up, one of my favorite places to have lunch in Kerrisdale).   Foursquare apps are available for download to most major smart phones (iPhone,  Blackberry, Android and Palm Pre.).

If you think it sounds like more of a game than a serious business network, you are right but if your business is location based, it is a game you really should be taking seriously.   A little friendly competition can do wonders to bring people back to your location again and again and so businesses are beginning to clue in to the loyalty potentially and Foursquare as a tool to spread awareness: many businesses are offering incentives to those who become mayor and to visitors who offer tips about the location.

Foursquare Tips for Business

1. Make sure you are listed on Foursquare.  The best way to do this is by joining the community, downloading the phone app and adding a venue from there (read this post from Dave Tailor for more detail on how to do so).

2. Consider offering incentives for those who visit frequently and sign up with Foursquare to promote these.  Every time someone signs in to your location, their followers see this, so the more Foursquare visitors you have the better – its like free advertising!

3. Monitor Foursquare to see who is visiting and especially to track tips.  Foursquare users can provide tips about your location and since this is user driven you may want to reward positive tips and be prepared to go to bat if someone posts something negative.  Most of the tips I have seen to date are positive.

My Perspective

I have been playing around with Foursquare for a few months and it is fun but so far I haven’t been rewarded for my patronage – here’s hoping this post changes that!

Frustrated at the longer anticipated wait for sushi the other week, I posted this warning others to factor in time but there has been no response to that either.

Since Out-Smarts is virtual and not location based, we’re not on there but we do encourage all businesses to be aware of what Foursquare is, to make sure they are listed and to keep an eye on what is being said about their business.  If Foursquare does take off, as it is predicted to, then more and more of your clients will be using this tool to share their nights out, business meetings and fun.

Our strategic partner, Louise Desmarais of Mud Creative always writes great and valuable blog posts and the latest is no exception, its all about effective online PR on a shoestring:

Why free press release sites may be all you need

Online press releases are perfect for an SEO tactic called “link building.” Link building is the process of creating inbound links to your site from other sites. The more inbound links your site has pointing to it, the more popular your site is perceived to be by the engines. And that bodes well for your rankings.

An online press release will offer readers a story that is newsworthy and have – at the very least – your site’s URL in it. Because your press release stays on the web for extended periods of time, that link is always working for you.

Readers of this blog know why I like PR Web for online press releases. I have also used www.marketwire.com and www.newswire.ca for releases that are geographically targeted with good results. But these are all paid services and for many small business owners, their rates can be a little out of reach. Plus, for best SEO results, online press releases should be issued on a regular basis – once a month or more frequently, which can really drive your costs up.

Start out free, and see what happens

If you’re just trying online PR for the first time or you have a tight budget, you can still get solid results by using free services. To find a good one, look for these characteristics:

• Free to use – or low cost for additional features
• Releases show up in Google and sometimes on Google News (Pick any release on the site, type the headline in the Google search bar, and see if it comes up.)
• The releases posted on the site are newsworthy, not sales focused. This is an indication that the site has editors who care about which releases they accept
• They allow at least one direct link to your site

There are gazillions of free press release distribution sites, (A Google search of “Free Press Release Sites” shows 70,900,000 results), but you can save yourself tons of time and still build inbound links with just three or four services, like these:

• www.prlog.org
• www.24-7pressrelease.com
• www.free-press-release-center.info
• www.onlineprnews.com

• For $12US, www.onlineprnews.com lets you add an image (could be your logo) and three anchor text links, gives you listing above the free releases, tweets the headline and guarantees inclusion in Google News. Not a bad deal.

Did it work?

While free services won’t provide a results report, it’s easy enough to see how successful your release was with these tricks:

• “Google it” – A day or two after your release, simply “Google” (or Yahoo) your company name, your targeted keyphrases, or even the entire headline of your release. Google will let you know which services, blogs, and industry publications picked it up.
• Google Alerts – Google Alerts is a time-saving feature that delivers results right to your inbox. Here’s how to set up Google Alerts.
• Google Analytics – Google Analytics are free, and easily added to your site. Your analytics will tell you where traffic came from and even which keyphrases were used to point them to your site.

If you’ve got news to share on the web, but you are avoiding press releases because of cost, give the free services a go. Online press releases just may be the extra boost you need to improve your rankings.

Thanks again Louise for letting me post this for my community too!

In December I read an article in the Vancouver Sun that inspired me.  The article, called “How Social Media Have Globalized the Shopping Experience”, related how the writer, Gillian Shaw, simply had to Twitter about her choice for next car and lo and behold she got a response from a GM dealer offering her a test drive. Here’s an excerpt:

My Social Media Experiment

So, I decided to try this out for myself to see whether organisations using social media are actually doing a good job of listening and responding to customers and prospects.

Twitter

First stop Twitter where I decided I would use the tool to plan a ski trip.  So I Twittered:

To date I haven’t had a response.  I tried a different tact and sent a Tweet to Sun Peaks who were listening to direct messages and did, thankfully, respond:

A few days later I got stuck in an elevator: what a perfect opportunity to see if anyone was listening and could help me.  So I posted my dilemma on Facebook and Twitter.  Followers we’re listening – I got 2 responses from friends, both in Alberta, both in no position to help me escape!

Facebook

On to Facebook, where I commented on the Marks & Spencer Page about my frustration with their delivery service (more often than not gifts for my family in the UK arrive broken or damaged):

Here was an opportunity for M&S to respond to my concern and to correct it in the public forum, to enhance their customer loyalty but again I had no response.  Very disappointing – this year I will find a more reliable supplier and M&S just lost a loyal customer of 20 odd years because they weren’t listening or were choosing to ignore my comments.

Shut Up and Listen

Whilst I might not have the following of a journalist like Gillian Shaw, I do have over 2000 Twitter followers and am very active online – I really expected to get more response to my social media comments.

What is my point here?  I have two:

1) Shut Up – First of all companies should realize that we are living in a new world, one where they can and should interact with their customers in these forums to build loyalty and improve customer service.  Your audience expects this and not doing so puts you at risk of negative exposure.   This is no longer a push to market model where companies bombard their audience with one way messages but a two way street where they can build loyal and valuable relationships with customers and prospects and enhance brand value.  Shut up about yourself already and focus instead on your audience and providing value for them.

2) Listen - the first step any company should take when approaching social media is to implement effective listening strategies.  Listen to what online communities have to say about your products or services, company, industry and competitors.   By doing so you will not only get a feel for what is appropriate (very useful when building your social media strategy) but you will also identify sales opportunities, chances to improve customer service and to build loyalty so that customers keep coming back.  Our article Are You Listening? talks about tools you can use to do this effectively.

Conclusion

I look forward to the day when companies stop talking about themselves and start listening to and fulfilling the needs of their audience on social media.  There is a vast source of information and opportunity about your company and your market online just waiting for you to tap into it.  What are you waiting for?  Shut up and listen!

Welcome to 2010 and our first blog post of the new year.  I hope you had a great festive season and that you are raring to go in 2010.

2010 Predictions

I thought this would be a good opportunity to review our social media predictions for 2009 (to see how on the ball I was) and to make some new ones for 2010.  (Clips in red are from last year’s predictions).

Social Media

2009 was the year when social media really took off, Oprah helped take Twitter to the masses and everyone and their dog started using social media tools.  However, there is some disillusionment now as folks realize, after spinning their wheels for a while that, to be effective using social media, you have to have a strategy. 2010 will be the year that social media becomes an integral part of organisations’ marketing and business development strategies and not simply a stand alone tool.

According to Compete.com visitor counts to both Twitter and Friendfeed peaked in late summer (Friendfeed seing a rather drastic decline after announcing their acquisition by Facebook in August interestingly enough). I hope that 2010 brings added functionality to Twitter (that top layer I have been dreaming about that puts all that great content to better use and makes it more accessible).   Brightkite never really reached the heights I predicted but competitor Foursquare did (arriving in Vancouver in the summer).

Geo Based Networks

In 2010 geo based social networks like Foursquare will continue to grow in popularity but more importantly, these offerings will become more sophisticated allowing both business and users to benefit more from their use.

Also on the mobile front, watch out for more digital advertising.  In November I blogged about The Future Of Advertising, introducing offerings like ScanLife and Kooaba.  In 2010 we will see these being put to use more and the promotions will become more interactive.

Whilst smart phone sales continued to grow in 2009, I expect that the iPhone will be less dominant as the Android really takes off in 2010.  I got one last month (HTC) and LOVE it!

Apps

For 2009, I didn’t predict the growth of the smart phone app: the number of iPhone apps doubled in the first six months of the year.  With Android’s growth and open nature, this phenomenon will continue in 2010 and beyond.  So start thinking about using apps that can help you in business, or developing apps that can help you reach your audience.

Newsletter Renaissance

In 2010 I predict we will see a newsletter renaissance as marketers realize that: a) email is still one of the best ways to reach their audience (you have their permission after all) and b) blogs don’t replace e-newsletters and are often aimed at completely different audiences.  I also think that we will continue to see blogs being used in ways other than for posting articles i.e. blog outreach, blog comments and community building.

Be More Social and Less “Me” Centric

Which leads me to one wish I have for 2010 with regard to social media.  So many companies and entrepreneurs are still using social media to push out information that is completely me centric ( i.e. links to their own websites and not others).  Wake up and smell the roses peeps!  This is not the 20th century when pushing out information was all you could do.  It is time for you to realise that the key to social media is in the name itself – being social.

In 2010 please interact with others more, build networks and relationships, reach out to new peeps, but most important of all, rather than taking a me centric view, change your focus to hone in on those you want to do business with: interact with these people, find ways to connect, to answer their questions and add value.  Then you will see the true benefit of using social media as part of your marketing or business development strategy.

Here’s to growth, prosperity and being social in 2010.  All the very best.

This month we’ve invited some guest bloggers to contribute. The first is by friend and colleague Guacira Naves (Owner, The Online Strategy House):

The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

Over a decade ago, an online marketing strategy was comprised by separate tactics that had only one concern in mind: to drive traffic to a site. The game was relatively simple: a site would be built, it’d be supported by email newsletters, advertising, maybe some traditional media, and that was all that there was to it.

Then, marketers became aware of the importance of search engine optimization, and added that component to their plan. Today, social media marketing is the new kid on the block. Not only that – it’s changing how the other online marketing elements interact with each other.

Below is a sample of how this interdependence plays out – and how you can combine each individual channel for the greater good:

Twitter and Google:

• Google’s new real time search results mean that tweets with your brand may now appear in search results. So, a strong visibility on Twitter can very well influence your site’s exposure on Google. That’s another reason to maintain an active Twitter profile, and populate it with quality content.

Twitter and Customer Opinion:

• Not only is Twitter the most important micro-blogging network, it is increasingly used as a search tool. It is a channel where people go to find the online equivalent to “word of mouth” about a product, service, etc. On Twitter, frustrated customers often share their gripes, and loyal clients rave about their favourite brands.  Here’s an example:

Imagine if you were looking for reviews on Virgin Mobile and came across the two tweets above.  They may very well sway your decision-making.

However, Virgin Mobile could have stepped in to have their say. It’d potentially have an impact not only on the three individuals involved in that dialogue, but Virgin’s update would’ve been found in searches made for that brand.

Here’s a positive example of how proactive companies observe Twitter conversations, and interact with users: on December 10th, I decided to try Pearltrees. I then tweeted this update:

Minutes later, I received a reply from Pearltrees CEO, Patrice Lamothe, with this message:

That update was not only relevant to me, but to any other individual making a search query for “Pearltrees” around that time.

So, the lesson is: people are going to use Twitter’s search tool to find information on your products or services. You might as well help them find information that is as positive as possible.

YouTube and Search Engine Optimization:

• YouTube videos are prominently represented in Google’s search engine results.You do have a YouTube channel, don’t you? Then, make sure that, among other things, your videos titles and tags are optimized. And guess what – this will help your presence in search engines, too.

YouTube and other Social Networks:

• YouTube also gives viewers the option to share a video via Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, orkut and StumbleUpon, directly from the video’s YouTube page. You can also embed a video into your blog, and invite readers to share it – either by embedding into their own blogs, by adding it to Facebook, or inviting them to share it through social bookmarking sites like Reddit. Earlier today, I embedded this third-party YouTube video about Hewlett-Packard into my own Facebook profile:

I wasn’t the only one. According to the video statistics, it was watched an additional 279 times as a result of links from Facebook. Reddit, a popular content-sharing site, had also generated 1,317 views.

Blogs and Search Engine Optimization:

• By frequently adding fresh, relevant content to your company’s blog, not only will you improve your brand’s presence and clout in the blogosphere, but you will help your site become more appealing in Google’s eyes. That is because Google naturally gives more importance to sites that are updated on a regular basis.

Blogs and Twitter:

• Blogs can easily be set up to automatically promote a new post, as soon as it is published. You will be not only be driving traffic to the blog itself, but will also help to keep your Twitter profile active with new, original material.

I could go on and on. This just scratches the surface, but gives you an idea of how, nowadays, online marketing elements are so interdependent. When planned accordingly and executed in an orchestrated manner, these tactics will make the whole stronger than the sum of its parts.

About the author: Guacira Naves is an online marketing strategist who has 18 years of Internet experience. Her company, The Online Strategy House, develops and executes holistic online marketing strategies to help clients achieve their short, medium and long-term goals.

Thanks to Guacira for this.  If you are interested in contributing  a post – give us a shout!

If you subscribe to Wired Magazine you may have noticed what they are hailing as the future of advertising – and they could be right (again).  A number of adverts contained in the publication are smart phone enabled using an application called Kooaba.  Once you’ve installed the Kooaba application on your smart phone you can take a photo of the ad, launch the app and it takes you to a specific landing page online.

The app is quick and easy to install but I did have to take 2 photos before the image was recognised.  I scanned the Glenfiddich ad and was taken to their landing page.  I had expected to be taken to a Wired specific landing page rather than the main page but with the approach still in its infancy and I guess that specific landing pages are yet to be built in.

Another example of smart advertising in use is at Metro News, the free newspaper,  where 2D bar codes appear on the print version of the paper allowing readers to scan using their smart phone and be taken to a mobile specific version of the article. To do this you have to go to their mobile site text GETMETRO or download the app and you are off to the races.

Here at Out-Smarts we are always keen to try out new technology so above you will find a 2D bar code allowing you to access this article on your phone. To scan it, download the Scanlife app for your phone, and scan using your smart phone to be taken to this blog on your phone. Neat huh? And it took only a few minutes to set up.

It can be a bit convoluted from the end user perspective but change is coming soon with the advent of NFC (near field communication) technology which promises to allow you to interact with print and TV ads in a highly streamlined way.

Making the user experience interactive and richer may be what will save traditional media, especially since they rely so heavily on advertising revenues.

Related articles:

NFC Enabled TV and Radio

Understanding the traffic visiting your site is a key metric, not just in terms of your Internet marketing efforts but also for building a effective social media campaigns.  Too many clients come to me wanting to bring more business through the website but without knowing anything about the traffic they are currently getting.

Do you know how many visitors your site gets as a result of your Facebook or Twitter presence?   Which blog posts or comments drive the most traffic to your site?  How much traffic your site gets overall and is it from your target audience?

Fortunately our friends over at Google have just the solution. Google analytics is a free web site traffic analysis tool that tracks traffic to your website. It works by having you enter some code on your web site and it should be the first thing on your to do list before embarking on any Internet marketing or social media marketing effort.

Using Google is a great way to understand your on-line community: how they find you; how they navigate your site and where they come from. Website owners can monitor and improve web site results by honing in on their specific community.  The service includes a dashboard containing vital visitors stats and the ability to drill down on these to find out more; score cards to assess traffic; conversion rate tracking analysis for keywords targeted; targeting by region (for example); the ability to create and share (send and schedule personalised e-mail reports) and export data.

Analytics is a free service that is used to attract customers to Google’s fee paid Ad Words and Ad Sense offering but those are optional – the benefits of this free data at our marketing fingertips are unquestionable.

Landing pages are the pages on your site where you want users to go after clicking an ad or a search result link. If you’re running any sort of online effort, you should at least have identified a landing page and its purpose.

Landing pages are a critical part of your site because it’s the place where you’re supposed to close the deal – have a user make a download, provide you with an email, make a purchase, or service the reason your business exists online.

While every landing page depends on an overall strategy and past performance, there are a few things that, with time, have become best practices. Not all of our landing page optimization tips may apply to your case so look at these objectively and take what works for you.

Here are our top 10 landing page optimization tips.

1. Make a Clear Offer or Proposition – What do you want your visitors to do: sign up for the news letter? Join a community? Try the new demo? Constantly ask yourself what it is you want your visitors to do and optimize for it. This is important to help you understand your strategy and avoid including too many choices or unnecessary information.

2. Careful With Distractions – Some even to the extent of removing page navigation to help focus attention. Though this might or might not work for you, have in mind that it’s easy to distract your visitor with less relevant options like company information, certifications and other products for example.

3. Size Matters  (Call To Action Buttons) – Have you noticed these buttons keep getting bigger? That’s because they perform better. Seth Godin calls them “bananas” and your visitors are the monkeys. The objective is to make it easy for the monkeys to find the bananas before they give up (less than 3 seconds).

4. Contrast (Call To Action Buttons) – Contrast for call to action buttons is good.  Use colours like red, yellow and green or a colour not widely use on the rest of the page to attract attention. Careful: contrast does not mean annoying. For the love of all that is good, avoid the flashing “YOU”RE THE 1,000,000th VISITOR!” style banners.

5. Above and Bellow (Call To Action Buttons) – Make the offer visible above the page fold and at the bottom. Perhaps your visitor has already done enough research to make the decision and want to buy right away. If the button is only at the bottom of the page you risk losing the lead to unnecessary actions.

6. Add Peer Validation – If you have previous client reviews or testimonials, this is the place to showcase them. This is important to add credibility and trust. Customers believe peers much more than they believe you, the seller.

7. Deliver The Offer – Don’t just hand them offer, email it to them! Yes, it’s an extra few minutes of waiting time for your customers, but it’s a great way to ensure you’ve got a valid email address.

8. Say Thank You – Take your customers to a “Thank You” page. This important to track conversions, an opportunity to ask for more information, and it’s just plain good manners.

9. Track It – Use tools like Google Analytics to track how your visitors come and interact with the page. A great way to do this is by creating funnels.  Funnels will help you understand where to make changes to improve conversions.

10. Test It – Use tools like Google Website Optimizer to try out new variations and see which one performs better. Making minor changes – e.g. colour, text and position - can sometimes boost your conversions beyond your expectations.

Thinking about your business bottom line? Contact Out-Smarts Marketing about creating a solid Internet Marketing Strategy.

Other resources:

Lee Munroe, a web designer from Ireland, has put together a great list of good call to action buttons here: http://www.leemunroe.com/web-design-trends-call-to-action-signup-download-buttons/

Wider Funnel, a Marketing Optimization company in Vancouver, works with a very effective principle for page optimization called the LIFT model. Learn about it here:  http://www.widerfunnel.com/conversion-rate-optimization/the-six-landing-page-conversion-rate-factors

Elastic Path, an enterprise ecommerce software company in Vancouver, published this short experiment on their blog about call to action button size.  http://www.getelastic.com/cta-size/

Whichtestwon.com – Anne Holland’s weekly optimization test. It’s not only insightful but also very cool! www.whichtestwon.com

Omniture, a popular web analytics platform, also has a landing page performance guessing game here: http://www.omniture.com/en/pickthewinner?cms_site_lang=1&s_rtid=25460&etlink=gra_sub2&sfid=0033000000WN28AAAT&elq=0d8c9eeab87e4680b981e1ff4831ddc4&s_iid=25443&ct=email&cp=lead%2520acquisition

by Jose Uzcategui

I recently had the opportunity to attend a leadership round table headed up by Judy Bishop of Bishop and Associates. Judy has been a key player on the Vancouver business scene for 20 years and her discussion surrounded building your personal brand.

During the conversation Judy pointed out that “branding” is not a term that should be used in a business context and that it in fact should only relate to cattle or livestock. Its an interesting point and got me thinking about the process we go through as marketers trying to influence our audience.  A mistake is often made in focusing on “us” (ie the company, product or service) and not “the audience”.

Taken literally as a verb, using -ing to form the progressive tense: branding,  is grammatically correct.  However, I think  its not the grammar that Judy has a bone of contention with but the implication.  Branding implies that we actively seek to make our mark on  the audience when in actual fact its not marketers who are in control of our brands but the audience itself.  Many marketers fail to recognize this and go about building their brand from the inside out without giving too much thought to the audience who is on the receiving end.

So what has all this got to do with social media I hear you ask.  Well, since you asked, I think its vital.  You shouldn’t go about using social media as a means “to burn your brand”  into the minds of your audience.  Social media users are particularly sensitive to manipulation.  Rather, look on social media as a great tool for making contact with your audience, to understand them better (what makes them tick)and to allow you to build better products for them.  Use it as a tool to build better relationships with them so that they, in turn, build a great perception of your company in their minds and are more likely to turn to you when in need. The best way to do this is to constantly be on the look out for ways that you can help your target audience and add value for them.  The key point here is that it is all about them not all about you.

Unlike Judy, I may use the term branding from time to time to categorize the efforts we make as marketers to build awareness but I do see her point.  Branding is something that is done to something else – the word implies a lack of respect.   Building a brand is all about respect: understanding your audience and catering to their needs.  By placing your customer front and centre and catering to their needs not yours, your marketing efforts will be more likely to succeed.

Related posts:

Branding – with Isabelle Mercier

And thanks Michelle for the great Highland Coo image!