Alberta Business Marketing

Stop the presses…I recently read a very interesting article in today’s Calgary Herald from Canwest News Service journalist Misty Harris on the flood of “Social Media Guru’s” in today’s economy.   I few weeks I wrote a post on this blog about these self-proclaimed social media gurus and my good friend Joe from MSPMentor.net followed up with his article on “Seven Signs Your Social Media Coach is a Fraud“.

Instead of focusing on the negative like I have in the past this time I am going to try really hard to focus on the positives about having a professional who really understands small business challenges, marketing in general and how social media can play a part in your overall marketing efforts.

Here is question one to ask them.  What is marketing and how does it differ from sales?  Email me for the answer, not going to give away all my knowledge on my blog.  However, here are some differences on professionals vs..the others.

1.  Real Professionals never call themselves gurus, ninjas, experts and the list goes on.  Some of us may call ourselves consultants, professionals and maybe a strategist.  But many of don’t carry numb chucks so we are not ninjas or preach from the altar and therefore the evangelist wording is out.

2. Real business professionals have a proven track record.  We may talk about some of our success stories, but normally we are under a NDA (Non-disclosure agreement) and rarely have the opportunity to share some of our success stories.  However, like in some of the comments on Joe’s blog, we come recommended by our loyal clients to others and more often than not, engage with people the old fashioned way – we meet them face-to-face or talk to them in person.

3. Real professionals also run successful businesses or at least part of a successful business venture. Does your social media consultant under EBITDA or profit/loss?  How about the measurement of ROI and success indicators?  Here is a tip, ask your social media guru about the importance of the number of followers on Twitter and then call me or email me for my answer.  Want to see if we are different?

I love what Kemp Edwards from BCIT said in Misty’s article when talking about social media gurus “It’s sort of like declaring yourself the champion before you’ve hoisted the cup” or even what Dee Tremendous from the Toronto-based blog “Tremendous News” says “Social Media is a fertile land for douche bags”.

What I would caution Canadian small business owners is this…do your homework.  Check out your social media guru’s website, is it professional?  Is it just some free template and has all the free WordPress junk on it?  Your business needs to have a resource who can help you understand what makes sense for your business…not that you need a Facebook page or a Twitter account – just because.

Tags: blog, Business/Finance, Calgary Herald, Canwest News Service, Coach, Facebook Inc, Guru, Guru Granth Sahib, Joe, journalist, media guru, media gurus, Misty Harris, MSPMentor.net, Online social networking, Sikh terms, Sikhism, social media, social media consultant, Social Media Ventures Inc, strategist, toronto, Twitter, Twitter Inc, Vajrayana Buddhism, World Wide Web
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Ever since I joined the Google blog I am just blown away with the amount of cool stuff these guys offer.  This week I was catching up on some of Google blog reading with I stumbled upon this cool new feature with Google search.

Are you looking for something and not sure which brand names you should turn to?  Not to worry, turn to Google to help point you in the right direction.

Here is a snippet from the Google announcement.

Brand refinements in search results
Sometimes when searching for product information on Google, you may not know some of the brand names relevant to your particular search. For example, if you’re taking on a new river-rafting hobby, it’s quite likely you don’t have a clue about kayak manufacturers just yet. So, we wanted to make it easier for you to find the brands other people consider useful for popular product searches. So this week we launched a search refinement that calls out brand names related to your query in a single line above the rest of the results. Determined algorithmically, these highlighted brand names may help you find what you’re looking for faster, and make your research and shopping experience all the more enjoyable.

Example searches: [wedding dress], [digital camera] and [stroller]

Pretty cool stuff…

Tags: blog, Computing, digital camera, google, Google Inc., Google's hoaxes, Human-computer interaction, Hypertext, Internet, Mobile Payment, particular search, search refinement, technology, Technology/Internet, World Wide Web
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Are you thinking about the use of Twitter in your small business?  How can this micro-blogging service help me promote my business?  Why is it important?

My views on the overall importance of Twitter for business varies each day.  Some days I am on the bandwagon and some days I am not.  I believe effective use of Twitter has some importance for a business and your presence on Twitter can help with your overall online fishing.  I often speak on “casting your net” during our Calgary Online Marketing Courses.  In the same breath it is important that business people don’t consume all their time and efforts using Twitter as a tool to share information and events.

This is where a great blog comes into being an extremely strong strategy for your business.  Using your blog as a centre point and then leveraging Twitter (automatically) to help share out your information can be a very effective strategy.  Set it and forget it.  My blogging strategy is to offer my insight on popular topics, simply not to retweet other peoples stuff.

Google announced this week that searchers have the ability to go back in time, eventually to March 2006 to see archived tweets from Twitter.  This is pretty cool feature from Google.  Google calls this search technology “Real-Time Search” and it has been around for  few months now.  This week Google announced enhancements to real-time search, you can read about it on their blog by visiting Google Real-Time Search.

Do you really want to see its effectiveness? Google “Iceland Volcano” to see how it works on trending topics.  Real-time search is great, but it is really the archived Twitter search results that are impressive.

To see how the archived Twitter search works, just check out what Strathmore Realtor, Kevin Baldwin is doing on Twitter.  His Chestermere Real Estate blog feeds Twitter every time he posts information on his blog, posts a video on YouTube or lists a home on the MLS system, check out his Twitter archive at Chestermere Real Estate.

The next big thing around this search technology is also the “Top Links” section.  As a blogger, my goal is to share information with people they find interesting.  The Top Links on the right side of the Real-time Search results shows some of the top URL’s based on a particular search term.

Is your Search Engine Optimization firm helping you understand the importance of Real-time search?

Tags: blog, Blog hosting services, Business/Finance, Calgary Online, google, Google Inc., Iceland, Kevin Baldwin, Microblogging, Natural Disaster, Online Marketing Courses, Online social networking, overall online fishing, particular search term, real time search, Real-time web, search engine, search engine optimization, search results, search technology, search works, Technology/Internet, Twitter, Twitter Inc, Twitterrific, web 2.0, World Wide Web, YouTube Inc
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Be careful what you wish for eh!  Ulistic is having one crazy busy week but we are having a blast.

My blogging has been pretty light this week, some of you may actually be happy about this.  It is simply because we have an abundance of proposals and training sessions going on this week.  In the past week Ulistic has brought on two new mentoring clients in the US, working with firms in Houston and Seattle and most recently speaking to another firm in Tampa about how we can help them win new opportunities with effective online marketing strategies.  Combine this with our local obligations…well it is amazing and we are very blessed to say the least.  I simply love to serve those companies interested in learning more about how their business can prosper by leveraging online marketing.

I started a Facebook debate on Wednesday evening around the “Social Media Expert” topic.  For those who follow my blog know that I absolutely detest those who claim to be social media experts and have no business substance or experience to support their claim.  This Facebook discussion focuses around those who claim to be social media experts however lack business acumen on how social media can actually fit into their business model and the actual goals of the corporation.

Want to the join the discussion, visit Stuart Crawford Facebook profile to join in.

Tags: blog, Blog hosting services, Business/Finance, collaboration, Criticism of Facebook, Facebook, Facebook Inc, Houston, media experts, online marketing strategies, Online social networking, Seattle, Social information processing, social media, Social Media Ventures Inc, stuart crawford, Stuart's ramblings, tampa, The Facebook Era, United States, web 2.0, World Wide Web
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Working with Today’s Business Woman Magazine

Thanks to my good friends at Bulletproof InfoTech, one of Calgary’s top Microsoft Partners serving the needs of small business in Calgary.  Rene Sloos and the team allowed Ulistic to use his boardroom with fancy SMARTBoard to show the team from Today’s Business Woman the power of blogging.

Blogging as some of you may know is a passion of mine and whenever I have the opportunity to share the ins and outs of WordPress blogs with those looking for insight using this social media technology is a blessing.

Tags: blog, Blog software, bulletproof infotech, Business Woman, Business/Finance, Calgary, Computing, Content management systems, Internet, Microsoft Partners, PHP programming language, rene sloos, Social Landscape, social media technology, Technology/Internet, this social media technology, Uncategorized, wordpress, World Wide Web
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