Alberta Business Marketing

Facebook’s uniquitous Like button is almost ready to celebrate its first birthday.  Yesterday, Google launched the “+ 1” button to search results in the U.S., bringing real time social recommendations to search results.  Essentially, pressing the button on the Google search result is a way for users to vote for the search result.  Unlike the earlier social search experiment run by Google, user recommendations will show up in the search results!

If you were Google, what would you do with such votes? If I were Google I’d have them play some roll in the ranking of search results.

Try Google +1 on your browser

Users with a Google account can turn on “+1″ in the Google Experimental settings for their account.

The new +1 button only applies to Google.com, not global domains that are forced on users browsers depending on where in the world they are located – ie: Google.ca.  Depending on your country of origin, you’ll need to force Google to show the default U.S. domain in your browser.  Try:http://www.google.com/ncr (ncr stands for no country redirect)

What +1 looks like

When your mouse hovers over the Plus one button it becomes a colourful icon that you click in order to make a recommendation.  +1 users will also show up in the search results of people in their plus 1 network.  When users like a search result, but are not in your search network, results will show the number of people who like the search result.

Users can even +1 Ads!

According to Search Engine Land the Plus One button will also show up in Google Adwords Advertising.  Get the FAQ’s on this at Search Engine Land.

Here’s How Google explains +1.

Social Buttons everywhere!
Google will be rolling out +1 buttons for users to add to their websites soon! Sign up for an invitation to add Google’s button to your Website.
Stay tuned, it’s going to get very interesting for all of us on the social Web. Will +1 buttons have the same cachet that Facebook Like buttons do? Will users begin to get bored or overwhelmed with the plethora of choices awaiting them to like, +1 and tweet their favourite brands on the Web?

Tags: +1, free web marketing stuff, google, google news, plus 1, plus one
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Latest trends in mobile:

• over a third of folks are using Facebook with their handheld device. (that’s over 200 Million people!)
• Travelport reports more than half of business customers now use mobile technology for researching and booking hotels.
• 80% of these folks said mobile applications offering suggested restaurants and bars around the hotel location and a similar number want suggestions for recreational activities.
• 71% think Wi-Fi should be standard in hotel rooms.  (Just who are the other 29% hotel bookkeepers?)
• EMarketer estimates that 31% of mobile Internet users / 34% of smartphone users (nearly 25 million US mobile users) will research travel information on their mobile devices before making a trip this year. Nearly 12 million will use the mobile channel to book their plans.

I have answers to the most common reasons why many tourism folks haven’t started working on a handheld version of their website.

• You don’t know where to start. You hesitating because you don’t know what to do or how to do it.   Ask your guests what kind of info would be helpful.  Think like a traveler.  That’s a good start. Then see this little video.
  • Start with a map
  • Your phone number
  • Your SMS text number (if you don’t have one, get one.  Simple solution is a dedicated cell phone, but there are other options – Google Voice, Toktumi.)

• You can’t afford another website. You can’t afford NOT to have a mobile site.  Your traditional website will be gathering dust and be all but forgotten once you see the responses to your mobile efforts grow.  Check out Onbile.com and try their mobile website creation tool.  We used it to create our site.  Makes it easy to make changes anytime online and opens in a browser for those with mobile devices instead of our main site.  Oh, btw, it’s Free.
• You think your site looks just fine on the tiny screens. Get real.  Even with those fancy phones that zoom in are poor substitute to a well designed mobile website.  Take care of simple things for your traveler with a clean minimalist site.
• You don’t have the time to get working on your mobile site. You will soon have lots of time.   When all the business is going to those who make the time to create their mobile site.
• You think this accelerating growth trend is temporary and that folks will soon abandon their mobile devices? Your website is probably still a free geocities website and you still use a  hotmail address.  How did you ever find yourself on this page discussing mobile websites and tourism?

What are your thoughts on mobile websites? Any tips or resources to share?  Do you use a mobile service, a web or app designer that could help others get their mobile site up and running?

Tags: do's and don'ts, mobile web, mobile website, tourism
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Todd’s had it with out of control costs for telephones. He wants to shift that budget for overpriced phone calls into something that better drives business – starting with online media!
Todd explains the benefits of cutting the cord and going with a web based telephone service.

Links:

• Toktumi
• HeadsetPlus.com

Tags: free web marketing stuff
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If you are interested in using video to differentiate tourism in your region or your business, these three basics are what you need to look after to produce video folks will watch.
This video demonstrates the difference between 1080i and 1080p HD video, mic’d and unmic’d audio and shows the impact studio lighting can have.
We kept the shot wide so you could see what we were up to.

Tags: Video
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What do you want your ideal guest to do for you?  Let ‘em know, with Calls-to-Action.
You’ll be glad you did.

Tags: free web marketing stuff
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