Building Your Online Marketing Ecosystem Part V: Create A Playbook

By John Joyce on March 6, 2010 - Comments 0

I mentioned in my last post that I would discuss the “how to” of implementing operational efficiencies within your social marketing efforts so let’s get to it.  Friends and clients are always asking me, “is this social media thing really worth the time and effort?”   My answer is, “it doesn’t have to take a lot of your time as long as you 1) Carve out a set allotment of time each day to develop conversation points and 2) Identify the appropriate tools to automate and streamline the delivery process.  The graphic below is only a small portion of the tools making up the “Twitterverse”:

Click Image to View Interactive Online Marketing Ecosystem

As a consultant, I work with clients during regular business hours so it’s most efficient for me to execute social media tactics early in the morning.  The overarching goal is to remain top of mind within your “community” by consistently helping, sharing and soliciting feedback.

Here’s a quick example of linking together several tools to more efficiently bring your message to social media platforms:

Click Image to View Interactive Online Marketing Ecosystem

It might take some time for you to figure out what tools fit your specific social media needs but, once you’ve identified the most effective system, you’ll actually find yourself able to focus on content creation instead of manual distribution.  You make time each morning to brush your teeth and have a cup of coffee so your social media efforts should be just as automatic.

I’ve shown you the tools; now it’s up to you to put them to good use.  Also, please let me know if there are any tools you’re using that you would like to share with us.

Building Your Online Marketing Ecosystem Part IV: Quick Hits

By John Joyce on March 5, 2010 - Comments 2

Even if you’re not microblogging yet you’ve definitely heard of Twitter.  Now there’s an entire category of similar tools available that I call Microcollaborsation platforms which allow you to present quick, concise messages to your target audience.  The only tool I have experienced from the graphic below is Twitter so that’s where I’ll focus my comments.

Click Image to View Interactive Online Marketing Ecosystem

Everyone has a different system for consuming their daily dose of news and information so you need to make sure you’re presenting your message in the most effective manner for each area of your ecosystem.  In this case, let’s assume you have written a blog post and now you’re ready to alert the Twitterverse of your incredible wisdom and knowledge with respect to [insert subject here].

For Twitter, your headline has to grab the reader and compel them to click on the link.  So, as you develop your “hook”, ask yourself these questions:

• Is this relevant to my target audience?
• Would my target audience find value in this information?
• How do I create a sense of urgency?
• How is this information different?

Once you get the hang of it, you’ll want to add some operational efficiencies to the process which I will outline in a future post.  But, for now, go create some great content, put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and showcase your expertise.

[I will be publishing the online marketing ecosystem graphic (with links) in the coming weeks so stay tuned]

Building Your Online Marketing Ecosystem Part III: Spread The Word

By John Joyce on March 4, 2010 - Comments 0

Click Image to View Interactive Online Marketing Ecosystem

As you will read throughout this series of posts, creating content is only half the battle.  The real work is identifying and managing outlets where you can share your message and extend your reach.

There are several blogging communities that allow you to create your own blog within a community and then, there are also blog directories where your self-hosted blog content is aggregated and accessible to all visitors and subscribers.

Take a look around and research some of these sites and services to see where you can get exposure for your blog content.  Sites like Blogged allow you to submit your blog and then will automatically pick up your posts as you release new content.

Building Your Online Marketing Ecosystem Part II: Start The Conversation

By John Joyce on March 2, 2010 - Comments 1

Previously, I discussed building the foundation for your online marketing ecosystem by crafting your core message and consistently communicating it to your target audience by using the many online tools available to small business owners today.  But what are those tools?

Click Image to View Interactive Online Marketing Ecosystem

Several weeks ago, Chris Brogan wrote about using mind mapping to collect his thoughts and organize information for blog posts, speeches, etc.  I did some research and found a product called MindMeister that has allowed me to create a graphical representation of the online marketing universe.  Since there are so many communication tools/services/platforms available, I’ve decided to break it down into bite size pieces starting with the easiest and most cost effective way for you to begin promoting your business online.

Blogging

The most powerful tool in your “let’s get found online” arsenal is a blog.  The top six blog platforms are listed in the graphic above with the most popular being WordPress.  ( I use WordPress for my blog and also as the Content Management System for my website)  I think WordPress is the best platform simply because of the seemingly endless supply of useful plug-ins and widgets that extend its functionality.  But, regardless of the platform, the most important advice I can offer is to make sure you choose a self-hosted solution. (see my post from Friday for more details)  And, finally, here are six reasons why your business needs a blog:

• Boost your organic rank (by consistently reiterating your core message and keywords)
• Position yourself and/or your business as THE subject matter expert(s) which increases your “authority” with the search engines.
• Start conversations with prospects, customers and peers by posting thought provoking advice, stories and anecdotes.  Believe it or not, blogging is very much a two way street.
• Firmly establish and manage your online reputation by consistently sharing useful information with the very people who are searching for you online.
• Your site visitors can choose to subscribe to your blog and receive the information in a way that suits them best – via email, straight RSS feed, or within their favorite feed reader.
• The only cost you incur with blogging is time.

Start the Conversation + Maintain Consistent, Quality Content = Acquired Authority and Trust

Stop What You’re Doing And Confirm You’ve Done These 3 Things!

By John Joyce on February 26, 2010 - Comments 0

It’s Friday and we’re all busy trying to close out the week strong but there’s no time like the present when it comes to improving your chances of “being found” online.  I continue to see websites that could substantially improve their SEO with very simple changes but, for whatever reason, it never gets done.  So, I recommend you check the following and fix (if not today, over the weekend):

Page Titles: Do you have page titles?  Do you succinctly describe the value you offer?  If the answer is, “no”, get to work.  Your page titles can be the most important search copy on your entire site.  Experiment.  Try different copy and see what performs best.

Blog: Your blog is also very important to organic rank so you need to make sure your site, http://www.yourdomain.com, gets credit for that content.  This means you don’t want http://yourdomain.blogger.com or http://yourdomain.wordpress.com because the content is separate from your website.  Secondly, if you self-host your website, you want your content in a subfolder and not a subdomain. http://blog.yourdomain.com is seen by the search engines as a different domain, therefore, the content is not credited to http://www.yourdomain.com.  We recommend you use http://www.yourdomain.com/blog instead.

301 Permanent Redirect: Do you know if http://yourdomain.com is permanently forwarded to http://www.yourdomain.com?  It seems like this is already done because they both take you to your website, right?  The easiest way to check is to visit http://bit.ly/duz3xu and type in http://yourdomain.com and click the “check redirects” button.  Here are the results from my check:

Checked link: http://thesmallbiznest.com

Type of redirect: 301 Moved Permanently

Redirected to: http://www.thesmallbiznest.com/

If you don’t know how to do these things yourself, check with your hosting company, website developer and blogging forums for step by step directions pertaining to your specific configuration.

Good Luck!

Need Real Time Analytics? Announcing Small Biz Insight

By John Joyce on February 25, 2010 - Comments 0

Small Biz Insight is a real time web analytics service allowing you to view up to the minute data on the traffic to your web site. Most services don’t allow you to make split second decisions because of a substantial delay in their delivery of your website data.

Real time data lets you react to changes in your traffic as they occur. For example, if you had an article that hit the front page of a popular site like digg.com, you would see the traffic spike in Small Biz Insight immediately, along with links back to the sources sending you the traffic. Knowing this, you could make changes to your site or to the article itself to take advantage of the situation.

If instead you relied solely on a service like Google Analytics, it would be up to 24 hours before you even knew about the traffic, and by then it would be too late to do anything about it.

Here is a partial list of the real time information available to you in Small Biz Insight:

• Customizable dashboard
• Filtering and segmentation
• Twitter analytics
• iPhone version
• Goals and conversions
• Campaign tracking
• Support for Google Analytics tags
• Information on each individual visitor

There are two versions of Insight available – Self Serve for $9.95/month and Managed for $19.95 which will include customization and reporting services.  If you’re interested in learning more, please send us an email at info@thesmallbiznest.com or call us at (800)277-1187.

The Small BizNest Has Been Added to Alltop

By John Joyce on January 27, 2010 - Comments 1

I just wanted to write a quick post to let everyone know that our site has been added to Alltop. (under the Small Business category)  You can think of Alltop as the “online magazine rack” of the web where they display the five most recent headlines of the “top”  information sources.  You can actually create a “MyAlltop” page and identify the news sources you want to view on a regular basis and also share that custom page with others. This doesn’t change the way you currently access our blog, it simply gives you another option for viewing our small business news and insights.

3 Things That Should Make A Small Business Owner Thankful

By John Joyce on November 25, 2009 - Comments 4

We’re living in a time where credit has dried up, the SBA seems to be stuck in quicksand and our government is bent on dictating healthcare legislation that will have a devastating impact on small businesses across the country.  So, what’s there to be thankful for?  Plenty.  Here are my top three:

1. We’re lucky enough to be in the middle of a marketing revolution and are only limited by our imagination and drive to succeed. So, let’s forget about the things we can’t control and perfect the ones we can.  We’re not sending out postcards and then sitting by the phone “hoping” someone will call.  We’re building brands and perfecting our methods for being found online.  We’re building communities.  We’re building trust.  We’re building the foundation for success.  This is really cool.
2. There is an almost unlimited number of marketing tools and services available for free. We’re talking high quality, high value tools that allow us to develop a more scientific approach to the art of marketing.  As our marketing efforts evolve, we’re able to measure success and adjust our tactics accordingly.  Automation allows us to focus on our core business.
3. We’re being forced to do more with less and this is a lesson we must all remember as we eventually head into economic recovery.  Just because we’re in a difficult economy doesn’t mean that we’re destined to fail.  Conversely, a strong economy doesn’t give you a green light to start blowing money on expensive  PPC campaigns.  Always operate within your means and be prepared for a rainy day.

Let’s stay positive and finish out the year strong.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Building Your Online Marketing Ecosystem Part 1: The Foundation

By John Joyce on November 3, 2009 - Comments 0

The first step of every business identity creation process is to build a solid foundation from which you can nurture a living, growing online presence. Because business owners become so entrenched in the day to day operations of their company, they don’t consider taking a step back to objectively reflect on the “state of the business”. Much of what I’m going to tell you in this post might seem incredibly elementary and you might even want to say, “duh”, to me. However, this simplified approach works even for an established business that wants to verify that their marketing strategy maps to their overall business goals. Let’s begin:

Who Am I? Why Am I Here? Admiral James Stockdale, although he picked the wrong venue, asked two important questions that should be pondered by any business owner. In many cases a business’ personality is as important as the product/service being offered. So, a clear understanding of “who” offers a identifiable persona to which prospective and existing customers can relate.

What do we do? This can be one of the most difficult messages to nail down for a small business but it is vital to the success of your marketing initiatives. Not only must you clearly articulate what you do but it’s imperative you differentiate your offering and communicate value.  Don’t get caught up in the trap of listing fifty features and all of the “cool widgets and gadgets” you have built.  Tell them how you are going to impact their bottom line and make them more successful.

Who Cares? Rather than engage in outbound marketing to the masses, now is the time to identify the characteristics of your dream customer and focus on driving them to your site.  If you already have happy customers, reach out to them and ask if they would be interested in participating in a quick survey.  The data you collect will shed light on why they chose to do business with you, what you can do better and it gives you the opportunity to thank them for their business.

Where Are They Looking? The final step, after identifying and segmenting your target audience is to understand where they go to find information about you/your product/your service. There are the obvious places such as search engines but, to dig a little deeper, you have to do some research and identify specific places (websites, Q&A sites, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) where people are talking about what you do and then you have to become an active participant by offering valuable information and linking back to your site where possible.

This entire process is continuous but it will organically build your brand and online presence over time. You have to be committed to this process and willing to commit the necessary time and effort. You will learn about the market, prospective customers, current customers, keyword strategy, potential new markets, and even potential partnerships with related businesses.

Once you identify the Who, What and Where, you will be better suited to develop your core message and consistently present it across all possible mechanisms.

Will Bing Twitter Help Your Small Business?

By John Joyce on October 22, 2009 - Comments 0

First, Microsoft surprised us when they released bing and it was actually a useful alternative search engine.  Now, they’ve surprised again by beating Google to the “Twitter Integration Party”.  Instead of being sequestered to the Twittersphere, small business tweeters will now gain exposure to the 80% of internet users who don’t use Twitter.

Ping and FriendFeed allow you to distribute your “microcontent” across all social networks and, now, Bing (and, yes eventually Google) will index not only the text of the tweet, but the link content as well.  I’m not sure if there will be an adjustment required by users based on how the information will be presented but there didn’t seem to be an issue when Google added images and video to their search engine.

This is pretty powerful stuff for a small business owner and should allow them to expand their online presence without significant effort.