Alberta Business Marketing

Probably not…but I think I took a good step forward on Saturday.

I have been a huge supporter of the blogging platform WordPress for many years.  Like many of you, I cut my teeth on the free versions of WordPress and Blogger.  However, when I started to take blogging seriously, I stumbled on a company called Siteground.com and the rest is history.  Blogging is now part of my daily routine and this blog reaches thousands of folks each day.

WordPress offers one of the most reliable and easy to use blogging platforms available today.  Over the course of my regular business day, I work with many Calgary and global companies on how they can leverage blogs in their business.  Ulistic offers a wide range of blogging consulting services for business.  From blog consulting to coaching.  Contact me if I can help you with your business blogs at anytime.

WordPress is evolving to a fully functional web development platform.

For many years WordPress has strictly been used as a blogging platform.  For a while, some of the leading web developers started developing great looking websites on WordPress.  However over the past little while WordPress has become more acceptable in the mainstream web development world.   WordPress is now making serious moves towards offering a full-featured and rich content management system and web development platform.

On Friday, I met up with a good friend of mine and fellow WordPress blogger in Calgary and we immediately jumped into sharing tips and tricks on how we can make our WordPress blogs really sing.  I shared a few great plugins that I have found and started to use every day.  Many of our Ulistic clients are also leveraging these great additional functions on their WordPress blog.  Some of the plugins allow you to scroll testimonials, perform grammar/spelling checking and a wealth of other great added features.  You can even send a thank you note to those folks who leave a comment on your blog.

Then my friend shared with me a service he has been using and having some great success with, headwaythemes.com.  Headway is a blog development platform for WordPress.  You can see it on this blog, this weekend I changed the layout of my blog to a headway designed blog.  It took a bit of playing around at first, but after you learn how it really works and read the manual  or watch the YouTube videos it is quite awesome.  Headway takes all the confusion of CSS and HTML  and offers a powerful interface for you to develop your own professional business blog.  Upload your own header, change colours and really take ownership of your blog.

Don’t kiss your web developer goodbye just yet, but here is another web tool you can take advantage of for your blogs.  Your web developer combined with Headway can really make your blog rock n’roll.  I am not a developer, but as an avid blogger and marketing professional…I get this and the power a great locking blog can do for business.

Headway only works on your hosted WordPress blog.

Sorry folks…you need to have your own hosted version of WordPress to make this work.  If you have your blog hosted on the free WordPress servers, you can’t take advantage of the power headway offers.  However, don’t worry I have a solution for you.  Get a hosted version of WordPress with your own domain name for only $9.95 for the first year.  Click Here – Cheap WordPress Hosting.  After the first year, your hosting is only $120 for the year.  Great deal to get started.

Headway is about $90 for a personal version which allows you to run it on 2 of your websites, upgrade to the developers version for about $160.00 and use it on unlimited sites.  This is an awesome tool for WordPress, if you are serious about your blogging – this service if for you.

Tags: Akismet, awesome tool, blog, Blog hosting services, Blog software, Blogger, BuddyPress, Business/Finance, Calgary, Computing, content management system, Content management systems, functional web development platform, HTML, mainstream web development world, PHP programming language, Siteground, Technology/Internet, ulistic, USD, web developer, web developer goodbye, web developers, web development platform, web tool, wordpress, World Wide Web, YouTube Inc
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Last week our team from Ulistic met with the great folks at MSP University in Garden Grove, California.  Together, we started to carve out what will become an awesome relationship.  MSPU is one of the leading managed services firms globally and the clients they work with are market leaders and enjoy the fruits of the hard work. I have personally known Erick Simpson and Gary Beechum for a number of years, they are rock solid guys and the entire team at MSPU is built on the same core values Gary and Erick bring to the table.

During our chat last week we got looking at Facebook Marketing and how businesses can leverage Facebook to market their offerings.  It is no secret that Facebook is growing.  Their recent partnership with Microsoft BING has shot Facebook up to the 6th most popular search engine.  One in Four page views on the Internet is Facebook related and the average person spends anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour on Facebook each day.  Still many question Facebook’s effectiveness in the market place.

During our time with MSPU, a number of ideas were discussed, but it was this fact amongst all the others that kind of surprised me when I stumbled upon it.  There are almost as many Facebook users in California that what there is in the entire country of Canada.   This is no secret really, we have heard for years that there are just as many people in one state in the US than what we have in Canada.  15.4 million Facebook users in Canada and almost 15.5 in the entire state of California.  What does this mean for business?

Does marketing on Facebook now make sense to your business?

If you look at the numbers closely, the 15 million or so folks from either California or Canada represent about 50% of the population.  That represents a good portion of the Canadian or Californian landscape uses Facebook.  Pretty impressive.

Are you leveraging this to get your message out there?
How can you use Facebook to market your business?

There are many ways to do this from Pay-Per-Click or Pay-Per-Impression ads, Facebook Pages and regular interaction with people.  Engagement with folks on Facebook, talking with your community, the people in your network and simply serving the market.

Do you need to know more about how to create a Fan Page that sings?
Want to know how to engage with Facebook?

I invite you to reach out and let’s have a chat about how you can use Facebook right now.

There are a number of opportunities and Facebook can be another important channel for you to help with your marketing.  You know the old saying about LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION or what Wayne Gretzky has always said “skate to where the puck is going, not where it is”.

Need a hand to figure it out…visit my Execute On Facebook or Marketing On Facebook page and take the first step in creating a marketing strategy for Facebook today.

Tags: Blog software, Business Partnership, California, canada, Criticism of Facebook, Erick Simpson, Facebook, Facebook features, Facebook Inc, Garden Grove, Gary Beechum, Human Interest, LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION, Microsoft BING, MSP University, Online social networking, search engine, Social information processing, Technology/Internet, United States, wayne gretzky, web 2.0, World Wide Web
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Our clients at Ulistic challenge us from time to time.  Encouraging us to think outside the box when it comes to functionality with their online marketing, blogging and social media.  I would like to believe that my 15 years of experience as a Calgary IT consultant helps me understand how things work technically and then I love to put my creative layer over top and see where things go.  It is pretty cool and without great clients to push us…we would never be where Ulistic is today.  Thank You.

Blogging platforms are a dime a dozen.  Everyone has their favourite.  For me, when it comes to blogging platforms, WordPress is a hands down winner. I have used Blogger, TypePad and a wealth of other options and personally I haven’t used a platform that is as feature-rich plus offers the ease of use many small business marketing professionals are craving for with all of their online marketing solutions.

During a recent Internet Marketing Coaching call with one of our clients in Tampa, FL. I was challenged by them to add particular functionality to help with getting their message out online.  They needed to add a signature component at the end of each blog post so they don’t have to constantly type in a calls-to-action or quick blurbs about their business.  Sounded pretty simple and with my experience I knew WordPress would already have something I could recommend to my client.

The WordPress community did not disappoint.

I stumbled upon this great new plugin for WordPress which met our client’s need.  The FT Signature plugin designed by FullThrottle Development offered everything they  and we were looking for to meet this particular requirement but all now we have something we can use with all of our fully-managed online marketing clients.

The FT Signature plugin provides bloggers and clients of Ulistic, the ability to append a signature file at the end of each of their posts.  Just like you would with Microsoft Outlook.  You will see a great example of the FT Signature plugin in action at the end of this post.

It is customizable with a bit of HTML knowledge and can be turned on or off when you are composing your blog post.  This is a pretty powerful plugin for the WordPress platform.

If you haven’t heard of FullThrottle before, they provide full service web development in Raleigh, NC. Thanks to the team at FullThrottle for helping us out.

Learn more about how to automatically insert your signature on a WordPress blog today.

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Ulistic focuses on serving the needs of Canadian Small Business, REALTORS, and Information Technology firms across Canada and United States. Helping your business understand, deploy and leverage social media, search engine optimization and online communications to generate business opportunities and make an impact inside your community and industry.

My business partner David and I are business professionals first. We understand what it takes to run a successful small business.

I invite you to reach out to me personally at 403.775.2205 or email Stuart at scrawford@ulistic.com.

Tags: Blog software, Business/Finance, Calgary IT consultant, Computing, Content management systems, florida, FullThrottle Development, HTML, Microsoft Corporation, North Carolina, online marketing clients, online marketing solutions, Online Solutions, PHP programming language, Raleigh, recent Internet Marketing Coaching call, social media, tampa, Technology/Internet, ulistic, web development, wordpress, World Wide Web
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Hot off the presses…I pulled this off of some newswire stories today.

According to PCWorld’s Carrie-Ann Skinner, Facebook is reconsidering some it’s privacy settings after a backlash from their members.  Maybe not so many changes, but making privacy and controlling what others see in Facebook easier for the average user of Facebook.

Carrie-Ann included a quote from a Facebook representative in her article “We’re working on responding to these concerns. Watch this space”.  Privacy commissioners here in Canada and privacy groups in the UK have called Facebook privacy settings “unacceptable” and are on a rampage against the US-based social networking service.

Privacy specialists are lobbying Facebook for an opt-in vs. an opt-out policy for who sees what with your information on Facebook.  Some Facebook users are even threatening to take extreme action on May 31st, 2010 by deleting their accounts if Facebook doesn’t fix their privacy.  You can share your intention to quit Facebook by signing up on quitfacebookday.com.  Funny thing, according to Facebook, they added 10 million new users since the uproar on security first was reported.

Once again, I need to remind or caution you all that if you wouldn’t email a photo or even share it face-to-face with someone..then posting it on Facebook is also not a good idea.  When you elect to post something to any online service you must practice “sensibility”.  This goes for posting, sharing, status updates or anything that could be used against you.  Almost sounds like a court of law.

But, Facebook is just the whipping boy this month.  I still remember when Microsoft was the whipping boy for all the security holes in Windows…have we forgotten about Windows.  Next month or some time down the road it will be another program or social networks turn in the spotlight.  Maybe it is Twitter or LinkedIn’s turn next.

How can you test your Facebook privacy settings?

There is an answer for all of you who are concerned about your Facebook privacy settings and don’t understand how to lock everything down.  There is a great website and serve that does all the testing for you and ensures your Facebook account is properly secured.

Are you interested in testing and then ensuring your Facebook privacy settings are set correctly?

I stumbled across this interesting site today that helps you determine you level of privacy online.  Check out reclaimprivacy.org and test your online privacy. When you hit the reclaimprivacy.org site, read the instructions very carefully and run their tool against your Facebook privacy settings.  The service will offer up recommendations to tighten up your Facebook security and actually fix them for you.

Give it try to see if you have any privacy holes that need filling.

Tags: Blog software, canada, Carrie-Ann Skinner, Criticism of Facebook, Facebook, Facebook Beacon, Facebook Inc, Internet privacy, LinkedIn Ltd, Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Windows, online privacy, online service, Online social networking, privacy, reclaimprivacy.org site, representative, Social information processing, social media, Social network service, social networking service, social networks, Technology/Internet, Twitter Inc, United Kingdom, web 2.0, World Wide Web
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Many of our clients who are deeply engaged in our Ulistic Internet Mentoring Program, a program made up of 8 to 12 one-on-one mentoring sessions that is designed for small to large business.  Our program guides business owners or marketing teams through the entire process of their online marketing.  Our program enables teams or individuals to understand the inner tickings of their online marketing and provides strategies on how they can go to market in our online world.   We have a tremendous amount of interest on this program and if you would like to learn more, just give me a call at 403.775.2205 option 2.

Back to our topic of the day…

One of the questions that consisting percolates its way to the top of the FAQ pile is around looking professional on Facebook.  There is no doubt, Facebook’s popularity has shot through the roof with more and more people coming online to hook up long-lost friends from school, people who they have worked with and yes, even a small bit of business occurs on Facebook.

More and more companies, large and small are now setting up Facebook pages and groups to enables them to have another conduit to those who maybe interested in what they have to offer.  I still believe Facebook has a small bit of some merit with business.  I encourage everyone to look at their business goals and really have a crystal clear vision of who they want to do business with and once they know this, where do they hang out.  Is it Facebook?  Perfect, carry on…if not, let’s look at other places.

One tip I would like to share with you today is around your Facebook URL.  When you setup your personal account and your Facebook Page, you will given a URL with can look like this:

http://www.facebook.com/yourname/5848596854

Are you aware that Facebook provides you the ability to customize your URL?   This allows you to dump those nasty numbers that no one will ever remember which normally appears at the end of your facebook.com URL.  Here is an example using my own personal page and my own account on what you can do.

http://www.facebook.com/stuart.crawford.calgary – My personal Facebook account

http://www.facebook.com/stuartrcrawford – My Facebook Page

For your personal account or company page, it is easy for you to set up something like this.  To accomplish this goal, you simply need to navigate to http://www.facebook.com/username/ and set the vanity URL (web address) that suits you.  Caution, once you set the URL, it is not an easy task to change it and you may not be able to.  Choose wisely.

Tags: 403.775.2205, Blog software, Business/Finance, Criticism of Facebook, Facebook, Facebook features, Facebook Inc, Internet Mentoring Program, Online social networking, online world, Social information processing, social media, Technology/Internet, web 2.0, web address, World Wide Web
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