Alberta Business Marketing

Over the past few weeks I have been studying the analytics used to track this blog amongst other sites under the careful eye of our team at Ulistic. I keep asking myself if Search is really all that important in today’s new Internet?  In the early days of the Internet, back in the days of webcrawler.com (which was my search engine of choice), searching for information was a hit and miss affair.  Sure some days you would find what you were looking for and some days maybe not.  Was that because of poor search engine optimization?  My spidey senses say no…maybe just a plain old lack of information online.

Then Google came along…and everything changed.

A new form of Snake Oil Salesmen was invented, “the search engine optimization guru”.  (Today we have social media gurus) Don’t get me wrong with every business comes which is popular attracts Snake Oil Salesmen.  Today, they are everywhere.  Someone looking to make a quick buck scaring small business people into thinking that they business will go under if they don’t do something now.  There isn’t a day that passes where I get solicited from someone who fails to truly identify themselves via email offering to put my site on the first page of the Google search engines.

Your business must have balance…you need to get out and shake hands, get some Vitamin D, go to people where the work, network, have a balanced website, effective search strategies, social media activities and much more…you can’t rest on search engine optimization alone and expect to survive.

Here is my side of the story – I am in the business and work with a number of IT firms, small businesses and others across North America and even I can’t guarantee to you that we will put you on the first page of Google.  Why?  Lots of reasons.  If you follow the best practices that professionals recommend, you have a much better chance of surfacing on the top of the search table. However, who is to say your competitors down the street isn’t after the same goal or that company on the other side of the globe who has repeatedly cut your grass over the past six months.

SEO is something that you firm must invest in.  But, like I said earlier it has to be part of the overall strategy and balanced with everything else you do.  SEO needs to be part of your overall marketing plan just like your business networking, your direct mail pieces and other marketing activities.  It must be part of the long-term vision of the organization and the management team of all organizations who wish to achieve success online must take ownership and be included in the process.

Yes, Search is crucial in today’s business world when it is balanced with all your other activities.

What about social?  Is Social Media the new search?  Will Facebook become the next big search engine?  My crystal ball says “Facebook has the potential”.  Now, search is on a whole new level.  Search enters social and social enters search.  Does it make sense?  Just looking at the web analytics I have to say I am impressed how much traffic comes from linkedin.com, twitter.com and facebook.com on a number of keysites under our watch at Ulistic.

Will we be saying…and then Facebook came along…and everything changed.

Tags: business networking, Business/Finance, Computing, Facebook, Facebook Inc, google, Google Inc., Internet Marketing, Internet search engines, media activities, media gurus, North America, poor search engine optimization, search engine, search engine optimization, search engine optimization guru, search engines, search strategies, search table, Social Media Ventures Inc, Technology/Internet, Vitamin D, web analytics, World Wide Web
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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
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off