Alberta Business Marketing

I have started to write my next book, which will be an eBook on LinkedIn and practical uses for this great social networking service.  This book is for small business owners and those firms who service our vibrant small business community.  More details to follow soon.

A simple approach to a very powerful online tool for your small business

This is an all too common question within the business community today. I can see it still, you have been in business for many years and some “social media experts” waltzes through your front door and says “Hey man, you gotta use social media or you are out of business in the next few years, can I sell you my Social Media package?”. This sort of over-the-top approach to online marketing is leaving many business owners confused and scratching their heads.

There is some truth to how important social media in business is today, however it is just one “spoke” in your overall marketing strategy. It is a very big spoke and tools such as LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) can help you build strong and vibrant online communities, surround yourself with other thought leaders, give you an avenue to build your own crowd source network and open new doors that you may have never had in the past.

Many small business owners, sales professionals and those who work in the vibrant small business community are still confused by all the pressure to embrace social media and other social technologies within their own businesses. In reality, it is not confusing at all. You need someone to help you. Someone to debunk the myth and show you how the power can be harnessed without taking you away from your core role.

There are many social technologies available to us today, but which one is the best and why?

The answer to this question is multi-faceted – we need to decide what your end goal is. What are you looking to do? When do you want to do this? and Why?

Social media and its related technologies can help you create a loyal following of people interested in what you have to say, but only when you make it interesting. If you are boring or come across as always having something to sell, you may risk having people turn you off instead of achieving your end goal.

It is this behaviour that has the naysayers waving their flags and telling the world social media is just a passing fad?

Tags: linkedin, networking, social media, social networking, Stuart's ramblings
Posted in Online Marketing | | Comments Off

Are you interested in reaching new potential business opportunities?

Are you being told that you must be present on Twitter and Facebook, but can’t understand why?

Are you seeing your colleagues win more business simply by being found on the Internet?

The way people connect and share information is changing drastically.  People are sharing information openly about everything.  Searches on Google are hitting all time highs.  Requests for “good people” are happening everyday on LinkedIn and the Twitter phenomenon is changing to serious inquiries about business.  Are you ready?

Social Media is taking off however many of Calgary’s vibrant small business community is playing catch up.  Are you wanting to know more about how social media may fit into your business?  Sitting on fence and not sure what direction to take.  ULISTIC may just have the answer for you.  Come on out on Feb 25, 2010 at the Blackfoot Inn from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM to learn from David and I on how we have embraced the power of social technologies to grow several businesses across North America and especially right here in Calgary.  Social Media has changed the way businesses work online and also how “word of mouth” referrals makes the rounds online.

Dave and I want to share how we did things so you can do it for yourselves.

Register today by clicking here

During this full day training session, which is $197.00 + GST for each attendee (we have heard similar social media courses in Calgary are running for almost $500) you will what David and I have done over the past 3 – 5 years to promote our businesses online and win new business opportunities.  Social Media is not rocket science, but you need to know where to start, what to do, how to automate all the services and also how to track your reach and effectiveness online.

Bring your laptop (or we can loan you one) for this hands on training, because you will be doing work and not just watching a bunch of confusing PowerPoint type slides.  We guaranteed you will leave with new tips and tricks on social media and also if you haven’t even started using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn for your business, you will be the end of this interactive training day.

Here are what some of our past students have said about taking our social media training in the past.

“Stuart has always shown great confidence in his area of experience and has effective teaching skills. I enjoy Stuart’s easy manner and ability to set all participants at ease.”
Carolyn Jones, Happy Earth Inc.

“Stuart has been teaching us the basics to Social Media. We started with blogging, and now on Linkedin. We are very impressed and now we have learning the extra benefits and focus on the why.”
Jo-Ann Grimwood, Business Owner

Here is what we plan to cover during our time together:

1. The importance of Social Media
2. An overview of the top Social Media sites and how to use them.
3. Hands on setting up your Social Media accounts.
4. Preventing the fatal mistakes with your online communications.
5. Build your Social Media followers – how to get good followers.
6. How to place yourself as an industry expert with your followers.
7. Reach people with practical online videos that tell your story & how to syndicate your videos.
8. Automate… how to manage your Social Media strategy for multiple sites with one tool!

This is a great opportunity for you to get a jump on what social media can do for your business.  Register today by clicking here

Hope to see you on Feb 25.

?

Tags: Calgary, social media, social networking, training
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

Do you want to get first page on Google? If you have a web page or blog, you likely already are first page for some searches. With a bit of SEO, you can gain first page on more searches. And its simple.

The first and most obvious step is think about what words or phrases you want to be first page on.

Once you have that list, determine how many people are searching for those terms. To check how popular a search is you will need a tool. I use Wordtracker (there is a free online version). The higher the number, the more popular the search.

No point in trying to optimize for a word or phrase that is rarely searched. There is also no point in trying to optimize for a word that is too popular because getting a high ranking there will be almost impossible. So this is a "just right thing". You want to optimize for words that you have a good chance of ranking for. I suggest choosing 10-20 words and phrases.

Think about "long tail"

Think about how people will search. People often search with a question. EG where do I find X? Or where do I find Y in Canada. The longer the string, the less competition you will have for it so the easier you will get ranked.

So make the list of phrases you want to "own" and ones that are realistic to "own".

Now it is simple. Just put these words and phrases in your titles, picture descriptions, videos and in your text. The titles are the most important. That is why a blog called "Vegetable Lentil Soup Recipes" will get good Google juice on all 4 words. So searching "vegetable soup" will get first page. Or "lentil soup recipes" or "vegetable lentil recipes" etc.

Yes you want to repeat your words and phrases often in the text. This said - write naturally. Never let SEO be a substitute for good content.

So you do this and you still are not first page. That is because you do not have enough credibility with Google. You need another free tool to check this. I use a free Firefox plugin called searchstatus. It gives me both the PageRank and the Alexa rating of any web page. Higher PageRank numbers are better. High credibility is your ultimate goal as that is what gets you ranked first and Alexa tells you traffic (a lower number is better)

My blog (www.jimestill.com) has a pagerank of 5 and Alexa of 493,052 (meaning it is the 493,052th most popular site in the Internet). CMA blog has a pagerank of 4 and an Alexa of 587,900. This means if I SEO on the same phrase as CMA blog, google will list me before CMA Blog.

How do you increase your PageRank?

It is all about quality inbound links. You want people with a high credibility (PageRank 4+) to link to you - eg Globe and Mail would be great. More is better and link rank is almost logarithmic so a PageRank of 6 is worth 10 times one of 5 etc.

The best inbound links are contextual. So someone blogging and saying I heard time management guru Jim Estill speak and hot linking from "Time management guru" is great for me. Second best, hot link to "Jim Estill". Third is just having a link on a blogroll without any context or a link to click here.

You get a higher rank if you update your content regularly. That is why having a blog on your site is a good way to increase your ranking.

Moderate cross linking within your own material will also increase your rank and clarify for google what it is that you do.

3 ways to get links to your site:

1 - Ask politely. You might not always get a link but it never hurts to ask.

2 - Comment on other relevant blogs (and have your PageRank on so you ignore low PageRank and high alexa). Note that most comments in themselves do not constitute a link. But being out there gets people to look at you. You need people to look at your stuff for them to be inspired to link to it.

3 - Have good material. People link to quality. But of course they have to see it so promote your content

4 - Have your URL on all your print material, cards, letterhead, email sig file etc.

5 - Write guest articles and blogs in the right (high traffic) places (check the pagerank and Alexa).

6 - Contribute to other sites. EG write reviews on Amazon, join the conversations.

And a word of warning. Never play games (like buying links).

In the end it is about having good quality material. And being out there so people look at your material. People link to quality without you asking as long as they know about it.

Jim Estill

Tags: Digital, Strategy
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

Earlier this week I had the great pleasure of seeing celebrated author and blogger Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the Huffington Post, speak at the Telus Centre for Performance and Learning in downtown Toronto.

Chatting with a good friend just prior to the event, I tried to explain to her who I was going to see. The conversation was a fraught with difficulty, as my friend was not really familiar with the Huffington Post – or online news aggregators or blogs or the internet, in general. It was an uphill conversation.

After all, if my friend wasn’t familiar with the Huffington Post website, how could I describe the woman at the helm? Who is Arianna Huffington? Is she a dedicated journalist? Is she a left-wing politician? A rich business owner? A media darling?

The answer: yes.

Arianna is fascinating speaker and eminently quotable. Once she started her lecture, I found myself frantically jotting down notes, scribbling madly as one bon mot after another came flowing effortlessly from the podium. The event was billed as “The Brave New World of the New Media: How technology is changing the way we think, learn, play, work and vote”. Well, yes. That about covers it.

The agenda was lively and diverse. Arianna covered a variety of topics, switching hats from journalism to politics to lifestyle, each time cleverly conveying jewels of wisdom:

Wearing her Newspaperwoman and Journalist Hat
Journalists sometimes get seduced by access. They get the “fly on the wall” detail, but miss the story. Example: China shut off the internet and gave access to select reporters. This was a significant moment in journalism. It's easier to snow a few reporters than thousands of internet users.

Why be citizen journalists? Why do all the online stuff? Answer: self expression is the new form of entertainment. This does not undermine the role of professional journalism. Media will always need journalists to edit the content, frame the stories and give them context.

What we need is a hybrid; a world that brings together the accuracy, fairness and content of traditional journalism as well as the immediacy, accessibility and transparency of new media.

Wearing her New Media Advocate Hat
With regard to traditional media vs. new media: we need to be better at biopsies, not autopsies. Old media is acting like nothing has changed, merging into traffic using a horse and buggy. We can't use an analog map in a digital world.

Traditional media is ADD: breaks the story and then...nothing. New media is OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder): stays on the story day after day after day.

Content follows the user. As a media outlet, we can't expect the world's eyeballs to come to us. We need to go to where the eyeballs are.

People don't consume, but share news. Citizen journalists contribute to the national conversation. New media gives a voice to the voiceless.

Wearing the Politician and Liberal Pundit Hat
The American middle class is in trouble. Wall Street got bailed out, but Main Street did not get the same treatment.

In the U.S., the markets are treated like a Victorian lady - “she” can't handle bad news.

Not everything is Right versus Left – that's a lazy way of looking at politics. We need to take responsibility for our content: objectivity not stupidity.

Instead of Hope, we need Hope 2.0. It's not enough to just cast your vote, people need to stay engaged and contribute if they want to realize change.

Wearing her Lifestyle Guru Hat
Surrounded by our devices, we must learn to disconnect too. Technology can move ahead of social adaptation. We should use technology, but not let it use us.

Unplug and recharge, especially at night. Remove your wireless devices as far away from the bed as possible. Create your own oasis and retain your humanity. Our most precious resource is ourselves.

Arianna had dinner with a man who bragged about only needing four hours of sleep a night. She quipped, “That's too bad. This dinner would have been a lot more interesting if you had gotten five.”
----
So if you ask me now, who is Arianna Huffington? I’d answer: she's an author, a syndicated columnist, a new media advocate, a blogger, a humanist, a politician, a public speaker, a liberal pundit and a businesswoman. She’s the ultimate “all of the above”.

By Kerin Donahue, marketing coordinator at the Canadian Marketing Association

Tags: social media, This and That
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

Today, as I was riding in on the subway, reading the New York Times on my new iTouch, I stumbled upon an article about Apple's launch today (Wednesday Jan. 27) of its tablet product, or iPad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_zI21XEo0Q

Being an Apple fan from way back I couldn't help but feel a sense of real excitement. It got me reflecting on how much the Apple brand has meant to me over the years. And I'm not alone. The excitement that's building up in the media and among the Apple Faithful is almost palpable and very real.

I bought my first Mac (Mac Classic II) back in 1993ish. I was working at an agency and wanted a way to be able to work on those weekends when I was going back home to Kingston to visit the folks. The idea of a portable computer was exciting. Imagine, being free to take your computer anywhere. It was only 14 or 15 lbs. Oh, you PC people chained to your desks. How quaint.

Then when the first Apple notebooks came out, I was fortunate to be working on the Apple account and helped develop a launch campaign for them. (Best. Account. Ever.) The objective, as outlined in the brief, was to get the public over the mental hump of being able to work anywhere. Imagine sitting in a park or in a coffee shop clicking away on your laptop computer. Why, you could even work from home!

Then of course, the iPod changed everything. The recording industry, advertising, interaction (or lack thereof) between people in public places...everything. The iPhone then revolutionized how we think of what a phone is and what it can do. People could earn money and express their creative by developing Apps. We were now all working for Apple.

Walk into any mall where an Apple store exists and you'd think they were giving stuff away for free in there.

And now the anticipation for the iPad is reaching a fever pitch. People can taste it. The article in the NYT suggests that it's going to do for newspaper publishing what the iPod did for music. They're counting on it because we all know where the newspaper industry is headed. But will our collective love for all things Apple mean that we'll be willing to pay for things like the Star or the NYTs online through the Slate, when so much of the same information can be found on free sites elsewhere.

That's just one fascinating question we as marketers should be watching and reading about -- probably on our iPads.

Bryan Tenenhouse

Tags: Around the World, Customer Experience, Digital, Mobile
Posted in Advertising | | Comments Off