Out-Smarts Internet Marketing

The Out-Smarts Podcast #14 - Building Your Business with Fiona Walsh

mhairi — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:43:16 +0000

Fiona Walsh, CEO of FM Walsh and Associates, joins us for this Out-Smarts Podcast where we discuss the key attributes of successful entrepreneurs, how to grow your business in a recession and how entreprenuers can use social media to their benefit.

Links mentioned:
Sporty Jewels
marketing profs
Entreprenuer.com
Inc
Pink Magazine

New Experiences in Podcasting 7

mhairi — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:58:57 +0000

Episode #13 of the Out-Smarts Podcast was posted this week and it was a milestone for us. Our interview with Louise Desmarais was the first one recorded remotely with Louise in Calgary and me in Vancouver. It was another new experience in podcasting.

Our first attempt at recording the podcast using Skype to communicate and Audio Hijack to record failed dismally. Audio Hijack is great technology that allows you to record your Skype calls in MP3 formatt. Its perfect for uploading easily to Garageband to edit and enhance.

Unfortunately the best laid plans don’t always come to bear. Part way into our call, the Skype connection was lost and we had to abort. Not wanting to risk the same happening again, we went to plan b. I would use my podcast doohicky on my iPod and we would record it over speakerphone. The result, a great podcast with better sound quality than some of the in person one’s we’ve done in the past. Take a listen and let us know what you think.

Links:
New Experiences in Podcasting 6
New Experiences in Podcasting 5
New Experiences in Podcasting 4
Podcasting - Dead or Alive
New Experiences in Podcasting 3
New Experiences in Podcasting 2
NewExperiences in Podcasting 1

Community Conversations

mhairi — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:34:08 +0000

When I chose this book to review for the Mini Book Expo for Bloggers I expected it to be about, what else? - building on line communities.

The book (written by Paul Born President and Co-Founder of Tamarack an institute for community engagement) in actual fact is about building communities in the real world and what became apparent to me when reading it is there are many parallels between building real life communities that make a difference and building them online.

The book starts with a poignant example of a community organisation that was built, against all the odds, amid war torn Belfast and successfully brought the 2 sides in the conflict together because they opened the channels to allow each side to converse.

Born, lists four building blocks to successful community conversations: Conversing, Engaging, Collaborating and Vision. It is interesting to note that these same key pillars are pivotal in building social media communities too.

In the second part of the book, the author focuses on examples of successful community conversations and the techniques used to make them so. He points out that conversation cafes are great to stimulate discussion and can be conducted online. Peer to peer discussions (no not the technical kind but real peers brainstorming and stimulating discussions with other) can get the collective juices flowing (I see this happening on Twitter all the time). And finally, using visual stimulants, movies and photos to encourage conversation works really well.

Whilst not exactly the book I was expecting, I was surprised to find so many valuable ideas and practices that apply to the virtual world and can easily be adapted to stimulate conversation online. Perhaps next time I should read the book synopsis more closely but for now I am glad I didn’t - I would have missed this gem.

The Out-Smarts Podcast #13 - SEO Copywriting with Louise Desmarais

mhairi — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:46:52 +0000

Its lucky number 13 for the Out-Smarts podcast and this time we are fortunate to be in conversation with Louise Desmarais. Louise is an experienced web writer and founder of Mud Creative. In this podcast she offers some truly valuable insights that must be considered when writing web site text and content.

10 Tips for Effective Online Networking

mhairi — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:56:10 +0000

1. Be yourself - don’t try to create a persona that doesn’t reflect the real you. It will come back to haunt you.

2. Be selective about who you add. You don’t need to add each and every person who asks.

3. Don’t try to network on every online forum. Instead choose those that fit your audience or goals and work to build those.

4. Build your network online as you grow your real world network. When you meet someone new in the real world add them on social networks.

5. If you do plan to have a presence in as many networks as you can then consider using a tool to mass submit status updates to all.

6. If you interact with others on blogs or forums look for them and add them to your network.

7. You are in control of how much or as little info you want to post. Don’t feel pressured to add stuff that you’re not comfortable with.

8. Do the “Granny Test” before you post - ask yourself if your grandmother would approve, if the answer is yes then get posting.

9. Get to know and use the privacy controls if this is a concern for you.

10. Remember to link back to your site, blog or other profiles at every opportunity to give friends the chance to find you in other forums.

10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Site Ranking

mhairi — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:32:01 +0000

1. Write an article that relates to your area of expertise and submit it to ezine and article sites (the ones with the highest Google ranking).
2. Update your site often - a blog is a great way to do this.
3. Add forms to your site - check out Jotform.
4. Get more backlinks - find out which sites link back to your top competitors and submit your site to those with the highest traffic - don’t use a mass submit tool.
5. Podcast - add audio or video content to your site and make sure its listed in the podcast hubs.
6. Have the right content: effectively use keywords and appropriate SEO copy writing (listen to our upcoming podcast to find out more).
7. Get active in social networks - LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and make sure that those link back to your site.
8. Encourage community - use your blog or podcast to build community and invite others to get involved.
9. Remember that Google may be the most common search engine but there are many others - take these into account when considering SEO.
10. Utilize the hot spots on your site to the best advantage. The top left hand corner is valuable real estate - use it to tell the audience (and the engines) what you do.

Obama’s Success a Testament to The Power of Social Media

mhairi — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:19:58 +0000

I think the whole world breathed a sigh of relief and took a mutual step back from the brink last night as Barack Obama became President Elect of the US.

One of the reasons he was so successful was because he was able to appeal to ethnic voters, younger voters and voters from all walks of life in the US. His campaign was truly one of the best political campaigns ever conducted. Why, because he utilized every tool available to him to get the word out and to motivate the people.

His campaign was one of the first to effectively harness social media and this turned out to be pivotal in reaching the minorities and apathetics. Here are just some of the ways he used social media to help him win:

He effectively used YouTube posting inspirational videos to his own channel.

He used Flickr to real life pictures of real people in the campaigns as well as campaign posters.

His resume is on LinkedIn for all to see and he has used LinkedIn to ask questions and get answers from his constituents.

He used Facebook and MySpace to help humanize his appeal and to network with younger audience.

He has over 117,000 followers on Twitter and used that forum to briefly state the obvious during the campaign.

These are but a few of the social media tools he used to effectively spread the word and motivate the masses. In his victory speech he states “I will listen to you especially when we disagree”. No doubt he will be using the power of social media to do this too - I hope so.

The Out-Smarts Podcast #12 - Peer to Peer Financing and Social Media with James Wells

mhairi — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:50:04 +0000

In this Out-Smarts podcast we talk with James Wells. James is the Commercialization Officer at BCIT working with innovators and investors to take their ideas to market), he is also a comedian and founded a peer to peer financing company. Learn about the challenges of peer to peer financing and listen to James’ take on social media.

Out-Smarts On Spark - Effective Blogging

mhairi — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:27:59 +0000

Last week I blogged about the great Spark CBC Radio Show and its featured segment with Merlin Mann on blogging.

Listen out for this week’s session where Merlin follows up on pinpointing your blog passion with setting expectations. He points out that it is extremely important to set expectations regarding your blog so that you can work to achieve them consistently. These include: how often you blog, whether you will encourage interaction, style of content (audio, video, written). If you don’t set appropriate guidelines and goals for your blog you are less likely to achieve them and your message will become diluted. Check out our previous post on corporate blog writing etiquette.

The best part about this week’s show - I am listed as one of the contributors. Listen out for my comment on blog obsessions on Spark today at 4pm.

Oh and Dan and Nora - I should have pointed out thats Mhairi with a V! Thanks for another great show!

Reasons To Be Cheerful October 2008

mhairi — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:31:44 +0000

Amid all the gloom and doom of the economic world its difficult to see the silver lining these days. However, we have discovered so many reasons to be cheerful this month that we may have another Reasons To Be Cheerful in mid November so that we can share them all with you.

Our number one reason to be cheerful is that amid all this turmoil and recession we know that Internet and Social media marketing will prevail. Why? Because its more effective, less expensive and easier to track than traditional marketing efforts.

Now to our new media reasons of the month:

Caught the Twitter bug? Then you’ll be interested in your Twitter statistics perhaps. TweetStats reveals your Twitter habits. I’ve been on Twitter (@outsmarts) since March 2007 and it interesting to see how my interest waned then waxed.

Another great tool discovered this month is Ping.fm. Ping lets you post once to any number of social networking tools (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn and the list goes on). Very handy if you are trying to be everywhere at once.

Another most excellent discovery this month is the social advertising community AdHack - this is people powered advertising at its best.

Another great resource is HARO - Help A Reporter Out. Its a service that connects reporters with people who have content to share. Its a great way to share your material but watch out for email overload.

GivenGain is another site we came across this month. They facilitate giving. If you are a charity looking to set up a donations stream or if you are looking to give then check this out.

Lastly, WigglyWigglers - a fantastic example of how one company harnessed social media to the max.

Until next time - stay cheerful!