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Posts Tagged ‘social networking’

LinkedIn – Best Practices For You and Your Business

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM

Sunday, August 22, 2010

LinkedIn – Best Practices For You and Your Business

LinkedIn is a professional, business networking tool that is too
easily lumped into the social networking service. Even though
many of the same modes of operation are employed, the focus is
on professionals, professional dialog, professional
opportunities, and companies.

This list of LinkedIn best practices was compiled from my work
with clients, colleagues and friends who are trying to maximize
their professional opportunities. I hope it is also helpful for
you.

Get LinkedIn
If you are working, you need to be LinkedIn. If you are not
working, you really need to be LinkedIn (however, it would have
been better to be LinkedIn when you had a job). If you are a
college student, you need to be LinkedIn. The president of the
United States is LinkedIn… just do it.

Add Your Picture
A photograph not only personalizes your profile, it completes
it. Even though LinkedIn may no longer use a faceless silhouette
like other social sites, as shown here, you must keep in mind
that this profile is about you, put a face on it.

Finish Your Profile
If you are currently using LinkedIn, or at a minimum signed up
for it, finish your profile. Your profile should display 100%
Complete. If not, LinkedIn makes it easy with a profile wizard.
Typically, you can click on anything green and the wizard
recommends ways to increase your profile completeness. It will
suggest things to do like; write a recommendation, request a
recommendation, add more people, add another job, add
educational info, etc. The wizard helps get you to a point of
basic critical mass; displaying your completed profile
(education & job information) and about 20 connections.

Personalize Your LinkedIin URL

Which looks better to you?

Linkedin.com/pub/coco-design/4/74b/8b3

- or -

Linkedin.com/in/CocoDesign

Of course the second one is more marketable, more professional,
and easier to remember. More importantly, you need to get your
personalized LinkedIn URL before someone else, with a similar
name, gets it first.

Now that you have a personalized URL, add it to your business
email signature so that everyone who gets an email from you -

1) knows you are using LinkedIn,
2) can request to connect to you, and
3) learns about your capabilities when they review your profile.

Answer Questions
This is a great way to build credibility and expertise points.
When you answer a question on LinkedIn, the person who asked the
question can mark the best answer. The more “best answers” you
have, the more expertise credit you receive in your profile.
This is also a great way to connect with people of similar
interests or issues.

Asking questions is a good way to receive help from other
industry experts and colleagues. It is also good for informal
polling. Just do not make it a sales promotion. You will chase
people away.

Ask Others if They Use LinkedIn
When you meet someone that you would like to maintain a
professional connection with, ask them if they are using
LinkedIn and if the would mind if you sent a connection request.
This is generally a good question after trading business cards.

Grow Your Connections
Once you have your account to 100% with 20+ connections, you
will have created a little momentum. To help keep that going,
review your connections’ connections. Chances are you will know
a few of those people. Then each time someone connects with you
take a quick look at their connections… you may find one or
two that you have a relationship with as well. Send a link
request.

Important – Do NOT send invites to people you do not truly have
a relationship with. If you receive too many “I don’t know
this person” clicks on your request, you will be required to
know everyone’s email address to request a connection in the
future. Bad juju.

Give and Get Recommendations
LinkedIn is like a living, online professional resume/vita. What
makes LinkedIn better than a resume that says, “References
available upon request”, is that references are displayed for
all to see. These recommendations are written in the words of
the sender, you cannot edit them. If there is a problem with a
recommendation, you can easily request a revision or choose not
to display it. Note: you can only request a recommendation from
someone who is currently using LinkedIn.

Outbound Links
Your profile allows you to have three outbound links with labels
like “My Company”, “My Website”, “My Blog”, etc. I
recommend you change the label to “Other” for all three since
you can add personalized keywords to the label enhancing the SEO
for the target sites. For example, I could link to this article
with the label text “LinkedIn Best Practices Article” to help
with my search engine rankings for that keyword phrase. You can
also use the “Other” label for Facebook & Twitter links.

Join Groups
By joining Industry and interest-related groups you are
connected with a larger group of professionals within that
sector. This makes it easier for you to invite others in the
same group to connect without the need for knowing their email
address. Again, you need to be careful here. Unsolicited
invitations could get you hit with a few “I don’t know this
person” clicks.

Jobs Area
The jobs area is not only for people looking for work. It is
also an excellent place for businesses to list job
opportunities. Our small company does not use Monster, Career
Builder, Ladders, etc.; it would simply be too overwhelming.
When we are looking for someone, we only use LinkedIn Jobs. Not
only can I review the person’s professional profile and
associations, we can get an idea of how closely we are
connected. Job postings can be sent directly to people in your
list of contacts and they usually have good recommendations for
potential candidates.

LinkedIn Company
If you are a business owner add your company to the Company’s
area. If your company is already listed, make sure the
information is accurate and up to date.

Install the Toolbars
LinkedIn has both a browser toolbar and an Outlook toolbar. The
former works well with Gmail, with both IE & Firefox and, of
course, the latter works with Microsoft Outlook. The toolbars add
a LinkedIn icon next to a person’s email addresses in your
mailbox. This enables you to see their profile information and
makes it easier to send an invitation to connect.

Givers Gain
Bottom line, the more you give the more you get back. The more
information you share about yourself, the better the search
feature will return you or your company as a result. The more
recommendations you give, the more likely someone is to give you
one. The more questions you ask or answer the more likely you
are to connect with people of similar interests that you may
never have had the opportunity to meet.

Tags: LinkedIn, social networking, Social Networks, Web University

(0 Comments)

Dummies Guide to Facebook Marketing

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Dummies Guide to Facebook Marketing

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 4
years, you know how popular and widely used Facebook
is today.

Just a couple of years ago, you had to relentlessly
encourage your family and friends to join this social
networking website (shortly after others had convinced you
to join). Nowadays, it’s rare to find someone who hasn’t
got a Facebook account.

At last count, there were over 350 million users on
Facebook and this number is continuing to grow. It overtook
MySpace as the number 1 social networking website on the
planet last year and is just behind Google when it comes to
online traffic. You can then understand how important
Facebook marketing has become for websites everywhere.

It’s Not A Pitch Zone

The most important thing to remember about social media is
that it is not a place to blatantly and endlessly pitch
your product or service. If you do this, then you will not
get any favors from social media users, will get
largely ignored and even receive bad reviews.

Social media is actually used for building relationships
with potential clients in the market. There are a number of
ways you can do this:

- you can post helpful information (links) that helps
them solve a problem.

- you can personally chat with them to assist them.

- you can create content addressing the needs of users
and post it.

The bottom line is that you want to be seen as genuine and
helpful. This way, word can get out that you’re the real
deal and before you know it, people will become interested
in what you have to offer in terms of products and services.

Of course, the things you share on social networking sites
such as Facebook shouldn’t be the nitty gritty stuff that
you have to offer. You should share helpful information in
the form of teasers that will interest people enough to ask
and wonder if there’s more. Offering free stuff is great
for getting attention too.

How To Market On Facebook

The great thing about Facebook is that from the outset, it
has encouraged all users to use the website as a means of
sharing information and marketing whatever they please. As
a result, it has developed many ways for users to do this.
You are not obliged to use every single one of them, but a
combination of them can only improve your Facebook
marketing.

Pages

This is probably THE marketing tool out there on Facebook.
On its website Facebook describes Pages as “a public
Profile that enables you to share your business and
products with Facebook users.” It is specifically designed
for promoting a business and everything it has to offer.
People can then become a Fan of your page and when they do
this, they let their friends know that they’ve become a Fan
of your page via their News Feed. The potential for your
Page to gain a lot of popularity in a small period of time
is great.

Of course, it’s all dependent on the content you give out
for people to use. You need to show them a reason to become
a Fan of your Page as well as a reason for staying on.

Events

Create events to be held at a certain date and time.
Depending on your type of business, you can create one for
a local or international audience. It can be any one of the
following:

- seminar: It should be introductory and free but you
could promote a paid one too.

- webinar: A seminar conducted online which anyone in the
world can join.

- product/service launch: If you are about to launch a
product or service, this is a way to gain attention.

The best part about creating an event on Facebook is that
it can go viral, and before you know it, people will be
attending your event in droves.

Advertising

Finally, about a year ago, Facebook introduced an
advertising service where people can put ads promoting
their website or their Facebook Page and they pay per click
(PPC) or impression (CPM). It works in a similar way to
Google Adwords.

You can target your ads to certain geographical locations
but in addition, given the nature of Facebook, you can
attach your ads to social actions. For example, if you were
a wedding photographer and wanted to promote your services,
your ads could be set up to appear only to females between
the ages of 24 and 30 and whose relationship statuses
indicate they are engaged.

It must be noted, however, that Facebook Advertising is
still in beta mode which means that it will only improve
in the near future.

Embrace Facebook

If you want to market your website online, you would be
absolutely nuts not to use Facebook marketing as one of
your key strategies. Just be careful not to get caught up
in it too much because it can become a very time consuming
activity.

Tags: facebook, Social Network, social networking, Web Marketing, Web University

(0 Comments)

Building Brand Identity – Marketing With Twitter

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Building Brand Identity – Marketing With Twitter

Twitter, the net’s networking success story, is intriguing and
intimidating because of its message limitations: they can be 140
characters, and no more.

This is to say; each message sent on Twitter can be no larger
than the previous sentence. Not an additional letter, space,
period or dash can be added. These limitations have proven to be
the greatest asset and the greatest challenge for people trying
to use Twitter for any number of purposes.

On the advantageous side, the short messages have created an
entire culture of Twitter-fluent writers. The brevity of the
message stretches creative muscles, making people use every trick
to get the most information into the fewest characters. On the
other hand it creates a severe headache for the marketing minded,
as it doesn’t leave much room to present a case. Thus the vast
majority of Tweets are short little social comments or updates,
and most marketing revolves around calling attention to
particular links.

Of course, there are always ways around limitations, and Twitter
is something that every seriously market-minded organization
needs to embrace in order to see continued success on the web. In
the case of short message services like Twitter, the key lies as
much in the peripheral data that builds up around the message as
in the content itself.

Be SEO Minded

Twitter profiles are now ranked by search engines, Google in
particular. Every SEO technique you’ve learned now has a new,
exciting purpose.

For example, consider the biography you’re able to construct
using Twitter. This is a ripe opportunity to develop some brand
recognition right away. Put the title of the brand you’re
marketing in the bio, and consider including the most relevant
keywords in your profile. As ever, do so in a way that respects
the user’s intelligence, and gives them something worth reading.
Simply stringing together a chain of keywords is not the way to
go.

Include keywords in your Tweets as well, taking care not to be
terribly obvious about it. The first 20-30 characters are the
best place, as later words are of decreased importance in a
Google ranking search.

Identify Your Audience

Each brand rises and falls on the whim of the audience, known in
this case as tweeple.

There are a number of applications available to help you with the
process of identifying the tweeple that you want to cultivate
into an audience. Twitterholic (http://twitaholic.com/) can help
you identify the movers and shakers based on their Twitter
traffic and their location. If you know your field or brand
well, you can use this to locate groups with similar interests
and woo them to your feed. Tweepz (http://www.tweepz.com/) is a
similar tool, focusing on location, and Twitter itself has a
‘near this location’ feature that can be used to identify
tweeple nearby your center of business.

Let’s Give Them Something to Tweet About

Yes, Twitter is an effective way to quickly distribute
information. But its real power is in its ability to create
conversations about something interesting.

In theory you could simply gather up a large user list of tweeple
and start spamming them with links promoting your latest gig.
This is a surefire way to get flagged for abuse or ignored
entirely, and thus is rather counterproductive to good marketing
goals.

Instead, consider using alternative methods to drum up those
conversations that travel like wildfire.

For example, there is the technique of Alternate Reality Gaming.
This is a phenomenon based on the idea of taking ‘real’ events
and building a game out of them. Last Call Poker was an ARG that
intended to drum up sales for an upcoming video game, GUN.

LCP spread out information about gatherings, online incentives,
and other attractions to get people excited about the western
theme of the game. Tokens such as poker chips and other goodies
were given out at these events, and GUN went on to have a very
successful launch. People were invited into the world of the
western, and the chatter eventually included 8 million
participants.

This kind of rogue advertising is tailor-made to work with
Twitter. Locations and dates can easily fall within the 140
character limitation, as can short explanations. Consider
creating an ARG with a short story designed to work within 140
characters, locate an audience with the assorted Twitter tools at
your disposal, and plan some exciting events to promote your
brand. The chance to get involved always gets people talking, and
the more esoteric games can span entire continents.

There are other methods, some more appropriate to each individual
brand. Perhaps a modest bicycling business isn’t suited to
promote a large ARG experience. They could, however, organize a
bicycling flash mob by hopping onto the local bike hobbyist
twitter feed and posting a date and time. The trick is less which
technique you use, and more that you do your best to make it
relevant. As always, strong content and clear presentation will
win out over gimmicks and sales speak.

Also, consider one last thought. The introductory statements of
each section in this article are Twitter compatible, and so is
this one. Good luck and happy Tweeting.

Tags: brand, branding, Social Network, social networking, twitter, Web Marketing, Web University

(0 Comments)

Top 10 Tips for Using Twitter

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Top 10 Tips for Using Twitter

When it comes to social media, no one “gets it” as well
as Twitter. According to Econsultancy, as of Jan 2010,
Twitter has 75 million user accounts, with about 15
million of that total being active users. See
http://tinyurl.com/yetgcru . That’s a lot of people
sending a lot of Tweets. This micro-blogging service
makes it easy for small businesses and entrepreneurs
to stay in touch with those who choose to follow them,
and stay updated on new products, services, special
offers, industry news and more. It’s a win-win for
both the Tweeter, and their followers.

When it comes to using Twitter, there’s a right way and
a wrong way to use it. Your messages must be kept short,
under 140 characters, and they need to be helpful or
informative. Don’t carry on about what you ate for
breakfast, or the fact that you just brushed your teeth.
People will unfollow you faster than they can hit
the button, even if you do have good oral habits.

I’ve been using Twitter for a long time now and here’s
what I’ve found works best when participating in this
close knit community of few words.

1) Regular Postings: Now I’m not saying you need to post
every day, although that would be nice. You do need to
make an appearance on a regular basis. It’s like school -
you need to show up to pass. Be a contributor that your
followers get to really know and look forward to your
Tweets. If you’re the type of person who needs to plan
ahead, you can always use a service that allows you to
schedule tweets in advance, such as

http://www.socialoomph.com/

2) Retweet: If you see Tweets posted by other users that
you think your followers would like, then retweet them. It
only takes one click, and you’ll also be creating goodwill
with other Twitter users at the same time. If you’d like,
you can add a personal thought or comment before sending
it. Also, make it easy for others to retweet your posts
by adding RT buttons to your website or blog. It’s easy
with http://tweetmeme.com/about/retweet_button

3) Be Helpful: Keep in mind Twitter is a form of social
Media, so social interaction is key. It’s not all about
you. Whenever an opportunity arises to answer a question,
participate in a survey, or help solve a problem, do so.
In this way you’re participating in the community. This
also will help your brand and image when others know
they can count on you for support or feedback.

4) Don’t Be A Follow CopyCat: Don’t follow everyone who
follows you. This is probably my biggest pet peeve when
it comes to Twitter. So many people turn this feature on
to auto follow those who follow them. Why would you
want to do this? I’d prefer that those I follow are
people and topics I’ve hand-selected that interest me,
and not a mish-mash of followers who may be ranting
about things I have no interest in. Be selective in
who you follow or your Twitter stream could quickly
fill up with junk or spam. For quality people to
follow, see – http://followontwitterlists.com/

5) What to Tweet: Make sure that the tweets you post
are helpful and/or informative. Late breaking news
pertaining to your industry, as well as any specials or sales
you may have going on are always good topics. If you
find something you think your followers would like,
especially if it’s free or a bargain, share the love.
Plus, if your tweets are good, it will encourage others
to retweet them. For ideas see -

http://www.artbizblog.com/2009/07/what-to-tweet.html

6) Comment: Particpate in the community by commenting
on other people’s tweets. If you can answer a question,
do so. It never hurts and people really will appreciate
it when you take the time to comment on what they have
to say. It lets them know that others are actually
listening to what they have to say in the “Twitterverse”.

7) Say Thank You: When someone takes the time to retweet
one of your tweets, make sure to reply to them with a
“thank you”. Manners rule online as well as off, and
they’ll like the fact that you noticed the retweet
and took the time to show some gratitude. It may even
inspire them to retweet more of your tweets in the
future.

Be Personal: Again, I don’t need to know what you
ate for dinner, but every now and then you should show
your human side with a creative thought, quote, or
other statement. Let people know you’re “real” and
not just a lean mean business machine. You want to
tread lightly in this area. Too personal is overkill,
but a little can help in establishing a connection with
your followers.

9) Post Pictures/Video: Remember, Twitter is not just
for text. It’s easy to post short videos, and pictures
too. It’s nice to mix it up a little and share content
in other formats as well. Here are some resources

http://freenuts.com/video-sharing-websites-for-twitter/

10) Talk About More Than Yourself: It’s not all about
you, so please don’t make all your tweets one big marketing
message, such as only tweeting about your latest press
release, blog posting, or article that was published. No one
will want to follow you if you’re one big commercial. Yes,
some of this is fine in moderation, but you need to walk
a fine line and mix it up with other helpful, interesting
topics.

Now it’s time to start putting these tips into action.
Social media is all about participating and listening
to what others have to say. It’s all about creating and
sharing information and becoming part of the community.
If you approach Twitter in this fashion, you’ll not
only have a lot more fun, but your followers will like
and respect you – and if that doesn’t strengthen your
brand, nothing will.

Tags: Social Network, social networking, Strategies, tips, Tricks, twitter, Web University

(1 Comment )

Twitter: Followers, Niches, and Myths

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Twitter: Followers, Niches, and Myths

Twitter has certainly emerged as one of the most popular
social networking/blogging platforms of the past few years.
There are various reasons why Twitter has become so wildly
popular. It is a simple concept where brief messages can be
sent to loyal followers. This is why Twitter is so helpful
to small businesses. It can aid in promoting a business in
the most cost effective manner. Really, this is one of the
very best systems for promoting updates, info, and deals to
the followers of the Twitter account.

The one problem here is that most entrepreneurs look towards
quantity as opposed to quality in their followers. This can
prove to be a huge mistake since you never want to sacrifice
quality when looking to amass Twitter followers.

How do people make such a mistake? Well, they look at
volume as being the secret to their success. The problem
here is that the process is not going to be a very
successful one. Rather, it can prove to be disastrous more
than anything else because your business ends up promoting
itself to those that are really not interested in the
products or services you are offering.

Yes, some people will sign on to be followers of your
Twitter account with no real interest in being customers.
That is why you need to develop a strong niche following
as opposed to a large following.

The bottom line here is you do NOT want a large list of
followers. You want an EFFECTIVE list of followers.

Some may consider this notion to go against the grain in
which a Twitter account should be approached. After all,
Twitter is wildly popular so why not follow the trends? The
average Twitter account has changed dramatically since
July. The number of followers the average account maintains
has jumped from 70 to 300. This has led many accounts to
increase their number of postings. In July, the number was
in the range of 119. Today, it has jumped significantly to
420.

But, is there a great deal of benefit from such increases?
In all honesty, if the followers are not going to purchase,
the numbers do not really mean much. That means all those
increases in updates have less value as well. Again, you
want your efforts to be effective. Promoting volume in your
approach is not the way to achieve any true level of
success.

One problem with a large number of followers is that your
tweets need to be adjusted to handle larger volumes. That
means your tweets need to be clearly understood by all. As
such, you need to promote a generalized approach to the
tweets. This is not always the best method because you are
not providing detailed and specific information in the
tweets. This means those that are serious potential
customers may lose interest in the tweets or cease taking
them seriously. This is not a good thing if you are
seriously trying to sell a product or service.

It becomes a full time job to sort and respond to the real
people who are interested in you. Twittering without
engagement of your audience defeats the entire process of
marketing. I believe many people are using twitter as
“lets throw it out there and see what sticks”. I can tell
you from testing that this approach does not work. No
wonder people are leaving twitter in droves.

This leads to a more potentially serious side effect. If
more members of Twitter venture towards promoting generic,
uninteresting, and uninspiring tweets so as to boost the
volume of people reading, the health of the social network
site will not stay strong for long.

Basically, why would anyone would want to follow Twitter
when the tweets decline in value? This would certainly not
be a positive in terms of the ability for a small business
to procure new customers that are vital to the health of
the business.

Again, exploring options for expanding a business’ success
should center on niche marketing. This approach needs to be
taken with Twitter or else the value of Twitter will
decline. Based on what we are seeing, the decline will be
difficult to avoid in the future based on current actions.

Does this mean that Twitter is decidedly lacking in value
for those seeking to utilize what it has to offer? No, no
one is making such a statement as it would be a decidedly
inaccurate one.

Twitter, in fact, has taken steps to promote niche
marketing. This is evident in the ability to devise
“Twitter lists.” Twitter lists allow you to take certain
members of your massive group of followers and put them in
a particular category. You can then promote your tweets to
individual members of these various lists. So, you can
present wide, generic tweets as well as individualized
tweets to those that may be considered more serious
potential customers.

For example, you can create a group of people that have
already made purchases in the past. Then, you would be free
to issue tweets directly to such individuals as you wish.
This would be an effective form of niche marketing that
would be far more beneficial than putting forth perpetually
generalized tweets. One of the other problems with having
1,000′s of non-niched followers is seeing through the noise
of twitter.

As such, it is best to look towards growing these
individual lists in order to expand the potential to niche
market. Yet, many will seek to put forth the exact opposite
goal. They will look towards greatly expanding their number
of followers into the thousands while never stopping to
examine whether or not such a massive list truly boosts
their success potential. Such a strategy is a flawed one
that will not lead to the empirical success that is sought.

And, if you are not looking to succeed with your business,
then why even bother being in business? Twitter has
tremendous value and it delivers great benefit to those
looking to expand their small business’ promotional
strategies in a cost effective manner.

In conclusion, try not to become hung up on the notion
of greatly expanding your followers’ list. Seek to promote
effective niche marketing strategies instead.

Tags: Followers, Myths, Niches, social networking, twitter, Web University

(0 Comments)

Size Really Does Matter When it Comes to Twitter

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Back in the days when newsletters first hit the Internet, they were usually published in text format because many email clients did not support HTML email just yet. One of the problems many publishers faced was long URL’s being split in half and not being clickable to the reader. To solve this problem, shortening services started to spring up that would take a long URL and cut it down to a reasonable size.

With the popularity of Twitter and the confines of 140 characters, URL (link) shortening services are in high demand once again. When you have such a small amount of space to work with, no one wants a long URL cutting into that precious real estate.

There are a variety of shortening services to choose from, each having their own specific features and benefits. Most of them do work hand in hand with Twitter, allowing you to Tweet the link once it’s been shortened. If you’re an avid Twitter user this is a useful feature to have.

Some only provide a basic shortening service, but many allow you to view stats and metrics on your newly shortened links if you register. If you’re doing any form of social media marketing, it’s nice to be able to see if anyone’s actually clicking on all the links you’re sending out to the “Twitosphere”, or posting on Facebook and other sites. Tracking will give you an indication that you’re being heard and that people are actually paying attention to what you have to say.

Another important thing to look for is whether or not the shortening service uses 301 redirects. This is the most search engine friendly, and forces the search engine to look at the destination URL, not the domain of the shortening service itself. A 301 stands for a permanent move, not temporary. What this means is, you want the links you’re sending out to be given acknowledgment by the search engines, not the shortening service itself. Make sense?

Many allow custom URL’s, which allows you to use your name or company name in the links you create. This is great for branding purposes. Think of it as a vanity license plate. Instead of being just a regular URL it’s your special creation.

Let’s review a few options:

1) http://TweetBurner.com – A bare bones tracking service which allows you to shorten any link and then share it instantly with your Twitter followers or Friendfeed. Basic stat tracking is available so you can see how many people clicked on your link.

2) http://Cli.gs – A shortening service which includes full analytics. You can create links that include your brand in them. Free to use. It’s easy to send your links to Twitter with one click.

3) http://Bit.ly – This is Twitter’s default shortening service and used by Tweetdeck.com. It allows you to track performance of your links in real time. Easy to share generated links on Twitter, Facebook, even Gmail. It also offers many extra tools and plug-ins such as a browser bookmarklet and browser sidebar.

4) http://MyTwitterToolbar.com – Free to download and comes complete with a massive list of URL shorteners as well as over 50 Twitter tools. Also includes 100 Twitter tips.

5) http://www.TwitClicks.com – A fairly simple service that allows you to shorten a URL immediately and tweet it. Can also see complete stats. Detailed stats show percentage of browsers used and locations of those who clicked. Check out a short video on how to use it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ScPeCd6X4.

6) http://www.ExpandMyUrl.com – This service takes a shortened link and gives you the true URL that it points to. Perfect for the paranoid individual who wants to know where the shortened link will send them.

7) http://www.TwitPwr.com – A short URL service which also includes analytics and stats. Their home page shows the top 25 users with the most TwitPwr and also a “hot URL” list of those URL’s that get the most clicks. Free to use.

http://1link.in – A multiple link shortening service. Simply type in a list of links and get one link back for all. If you click on the newly shortened link it goes to a page showing details of what sites that link points to, and asks if you want to open them all. If you answer yes, multiple windows will open for each site.

9) http://Go2.me – A different type of link shortening and discussion service which creates shorter links which also contain a chat window to exchange comments with your readers. It’s also easy to share on Twitter, Facebook or email with one click.

10) http://Tw.itter.me – You can customize the shortened link with your name or company name. From what I saw no stats are available.

11) http://budurl.com – Another popular service which shows you a real time view of your inbound clicks. This free service allows you to track up to 250 Budurl’s. They provide 3 pay levels of service from $4.00 a month to $49.00 a month. There is a 21 day free tríal on any paid service. You can start out free and upgrade your account at any time.

12) http://Tr.Im – Trim those long URL’s and instantly share them on Twitter. If you want stats, you’ll need to register. Offers many different tools and extensions to make for easier sharing, such as a Firefox extension that allows you to view your tr.im stats and tweet your new links quickly.

13) http://short.ie – Keeps all your shortened links in one place. Tracks clicks and allows you to instantly share your list with friends. It can also be connected to your Twitter account for more features. Customization of URL’s also available.

14) http://hootsuite.com – Not really a URL shortening service, but has the ability built-in. Hootsuite is a “Twitter Toolbox” loaded with features which are all free. They use ow.ly as their built in link shortener.

If you haven’t tried a url shortening service, you’ll want to find one that fits your needs and start to really utilize it in your marketing activities. Finding out who’s clicking on your links, time of day, where they’re from and other information will be very valuable in your ongoing efforts as an Internet Marketer.

Remember, when it comes to social media marketing T.M.I (too much information) is a good thing, unlike when your Aunt Ethel wants you to sit with her and go over every detail of her latest vacatíon [grin]. One is helpful, the other just downright painful.

Tags: Social Media, Social Network, social networking, twitter, Web Marketing, Web University

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You Aren’t George Clooney – Get Your Social Networking Act In Gear

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM

Thursday, April 1, 2010

When George Clooney was recently asked about his take on Facebook at the Toronto Film Festival, his response was short: “I’d rather have a prostate exam than a Facebook page.”

Now, that’s probably understandable when movie studios (his potential clients) have his number on a speed dial, and pesky paparazzi (freebie seekers and unqualified prospects) chase after his every move.

But unless you already have more prospects and high quality clients than you and your business can handle, your approach to Social Networking should be drastically different.

Frankly, a little over a year ago I considered online networking a total waste of time. Fortunately, I was able to recognize how wrong I was. And I wasn’t the only one that had a change of heart on this.

After Dell revealed they generated a cool million dollars in extra sales in 2008, (ahm, make it a cool $3 million by June’09!), many other companies large and small started paying attention to this social networking “fad”!

Just consider a few of these facts:
• Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social networks initially considered online hang-out places for kids and teenagers are now attracting a much more demographically diverse crowd.

• Big brand names, like Ford, WholeFoods, Comcast, IBM, Dell, Southwest Airlines, and many, many more are establishing a strong presence on social networking hubs like Twitter and Facebook.

• Facebook membership has just passed the 300 million mark (that’s nearly the population of USA!) and Twitter is marching towards 18 million users by year’s end! That’s a lot of potential customers!

• Although, started with college kids in mind, over 50% of Facebook’s members now are over 25 years old, over 55% are women (the new buying power), 51% have an annual income of $75K, with 33% claiming to bring home $100K or more.

• Finally, Facebook has become one of the most trusted companies in America, and people spend three times more time there than on Google!
Got your attention now?

Good, let me give you just five basic tips on putting this massive connection power to your advantage.

1. Get Started! Open an account on every social media and social networking platform you come across. Even if you are not actively using all of them, (which you won’t) you should reserve your name, the name of your company, your brand, or your key products, because those are like real estate locations – once the prime spots are gone, they are gone! For example, I have the vanity url facebook.com/adamurbanski – but there are at least six other Adam Urbanskis who won’t ever be able to grab that link! I also have twitter.com/adamurbanski, youtube.com/adamurbanski and many more like this – are you getting the point?

2. Get Involved! Just opening the accounts won’t do anything for you. You must be actively involved. Choose the best three platforms for you – where you can find the largest population of your ideal clients and it’s the easiest to connect with them. Each platform provides search tools that enable you to find people you already know, current customers, as well as hubs where most of your ideal potential clients already hang out, so you can become visible to a lot of them very quickly. And start connecting and talking! But first…

3. Listen, Listen, Listen More The most important thing you must remember is that social networking is NOT ABOUT YOU! It’s ABOUT THEM! So don’t listen twice as much as you talk (I mean “post”), listen 10 times as much! Find out what the current topics are. What people are concerned about, what information and solutions they are looking for. Then make your posts relevant to other people’s needs! Here is a hint – nearly all of the social networking services and tools, at least the basic version of them, is free! So don’t go out there pitching your high-priced wares. Give, give, and give some more first! If your focus is on getting and taking, you will get a big fat NADA from your networking efforts. But if you focus on giving, you’ll be abundantly rewarded in return.

4. Get Attention! Following all the rules is for sissies! So don’t be a social networking pansy – have an opinion (in fact, have lots of opinions on everything!) and voice it loud and often! People admire people with opinions – even if they don’t agree with you, they will stick around to watch what will happen next. Social networking experts are quick to dispense all their “must not break” rules (heck, I’m doing it right now!), but the fact is, this is such a new media that most of the effective approaches are still to be discovered. And the only way to do so is by stepping on some toes and breaking some norms.

If you want a “safe” way to practice this, follow my PET formula: polarize, entertain, teach!

- POLARIZE. Whether you piss people off or make them love you, they will pay attention. If they are indifferent, they will leave!

- ENTERTAIN. People will always choose fun over education. If people laugh w/ you, they like you… Plus, when they laugh – they learn!

- TEACH. Gary Veynerchuk says “give good s#!%.” And he gets how PET works, because that phrase rubs some people the wrong way, it entertains, and it teaches! Peeps love good tips they can use right away – so share some!

5. Automate! The purpose of social networking is to CONNECT WITH PEOPLE on a very personal level. Still there are some tools that can help you impress your fans with your “omnipotent online presence” and get more networking done in less time.

RSS blog feeds, FriendFeed.com, Ping.fm, TwitterFeed.com, SocialOomph.com, TweetBeep.com, and TubeMogul.com are just a few of a plethora of tools and services – most of them free – that will kick your online socializing into high gear!

Here is my final take on it. And I really want you to get it! In April of 2008, from a stage at one of my boot camps, I called people who use Twitter “lazy idiots with no life” (yeah, how is that for polarizing, huh?) But at the same boot camp earlier this year I had my Twitter networking activities to thank for clients from Australia, Singapore, Netherlands, Spain, England, Hungary, and a few other countries. Needless to say, I changed my tune. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to what I now call professionals and entrepreneurs who refuse to recognize the client attracting power of social networking. Better yet – stop wondering, and if you aren’t involved yet – get started now!

Tags: Facebook Page, George Clooney, Social Marketing, Social Media, social networking, Web Marketing, Web University

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Top Ten Ways to Use Twitter for Marketing

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Twitter is a micro-blogging site that asks you a basic question, “What are you doing?” It allows anyone with an account to write up to 140 characters in a text field as a means to update, comment, promote or communicate to others who are “following” you. When people follow you, they see what you’ve recently contributed when they login. They see your “tweets”, which are the messages you leave.

And of course you can follow others who tweet about the things that interest you. As an Internet marketer you may want to follow other Internet marketers, for example.

Like anything, and this is especially true of working with social media, the more you give, the more you get. In other words, the more often you tweet the more activity you’ll generate. Some suggest that you tweet a few times a day, every day. Not every tweet needs to be profound. But they should all be useful.

It’s important that you don’t abuse Twitter for marketing and promoting your products, services or affiliate links. Most of your tweets ought to be about offering your followers useful and valuable information. Only once in a while should you try to use Twitter to promote something. Otherwise you’ll be perceived as a spammer, and no one wants that tag.

Imagine if you had a large number of people following your tweets? Some people have tens of thousands following them. If you had something to promote and you had a large following, you could quickly and efficiently alert a lot of people of your promo. It acts sort of like a mass emailíng blast to your house email list, but it’s a heck of a lot easier and faster. This is the power of Twitter.

One thing that I’ve noticed with Twitter is that it can seem overwhelming at times. The sheer information on Twitter, the ‘how-to’s', tutorials and all the other ubiquitous advice on how to use and take advantage of it can seem hard to understand and implement. So here’s an easy-to-understand list of the top ten ways in which you can use Twitter to market yourself, your business and your website.

The Top 10 Ways To Use Twitter for Marketing:

1. Use it to promote new pieces of content you or your company create to drive traffic to your site. From online articles to blog posts or from videos to webinars, each time you add something to the Web that is of value, tweet about it and include a link. (Most people on Twitter use www.TinyURL.com to take a long URL and make it short.)

2. Use it for learning new marketing ideas, strategies and techniques. If you follow the right people, and you have to be picky about who you follow, you’ll get pointed to a good amount of useful tutorials, videos, e-zines and other things that teach you about marketing.

3. Use it to get new customers. Use Twitter’s search to find people who may be interested in your product or service. There are many ingenious ways to search for people on Twitter. For example, if you sell red widgets you could go to http://search.twitter.com and find people who have tweeted specifically looking for red widgets. To do this, type the following into the search box: red widgets?

• You’ll notice a lot of the results will be of others selling red widgets. These ones will all obviously have links in them to direct people to the site they’re selling red widgets on. To weed these people/tweets out, use the negative sign like this: -http red widgets?

• Since every link has ‘http’ in it, using the negative sign in front of it will cause your search results to not include any tweets with links in them.

4. Use it to build your email list. Use Twitter’s search to find people who may be interested in the monthly newsletter you send out to your house email list. Invite these people to join.

5. Utilize Twitter plugins or add-ons such as TweetMyBlog or The Twitter Updater, which both automatically make tweets of every new blog post you publish. Also check out TwitThis. When visitors to your website click on the TwitThis button or link, it takes the URL of the Web page and creates a shorter URL using TinyURL. Then visitors can send this shortened URL and a description of the web page to all of their followers on Twitter. Finally, look at TweetLater, a service that allows you to write lots of tweets at once and then schedule them to go out over time.

6. Use it to build buzz about an upcoming product or website launch.

7. Use it to better brand yourself or your business. Remember, when someone wants to learn more about you or your company, they are increasingly using sites like Twitter for research. You could easily use Twitter to establish yourself as an authority in your field.

8. Use it to update followers on breaking news regarding your company. If your company is mentioned in a new article, tweet about it and include a link to the article. Or if you’re at a conference or trade show, you could tweet what you’re doing and invite people to visit you in person.

9. Use it for business networking, master-mind groups (see Napoleon Hill), and getting yourself seen by high-profile people in your industry.

10. Use it as an instant messaging system to keep you and your team on the same page during projects. This is especially useful for those who work with teams spread out in different cities or countries.

You should note that this top 10 list is not in order of importance or in any particular order. I suggest that you give Twitter a try if you haven’t already. See if you can apply a few of these techniques and tactics to help you take advantage of Twitter as a marketing tool.

And one more important thing to remember is that there is no silver bullet in marketing. You should always be trying and implementing numerous tactics when marketing your business. Don’t only rely on Twitter or any other one thing. Instead, use Twitter (or any other Web 2.0 site) as simply one more tool in your entire social media and marketing toolbox.

Tags: Social Media, Social Network, social networking, twitter, Web Marketing, Web University

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Social Networking for Business Guide

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM

Monday, March 15, 2010

It seems like there’s an over-abundance of social sites nowadays. For a newbie, it can be quite intimidating when first joining a network or two and building a community. A handful of questions may run through your head:

• Which networks to join?
• How to participate?
• What’s enough, or too much?
• How will it help my business?

So, to answer some of these, I’d like to present my “Social Media For Dummies” overview. First, a quick recap of my favorite networks and what they’re about.

Facebook – The ultimate platform for keeping up with (stalking) friends. I joined Facebook way back in 2005, you know, when it was just for college students and before you could even share photos (gasp!). I’ve witnessed the evolution of this mega-network over the years, and it has become, not only the 4th largest website in the world, but the best place to find people, keep up with them, and inform them. It is the son of Classmates.com on every possible steroid ever ingested by humans. The ability to share and communicate with friends and colleagues is seamless. Overall, Facebook is a great place to start your social networking endeavors.

LinkedIn – A must-have in every business person’s arsenal of tools. If you are (or hoping to be) in business of any sort, LinkedIn is a great place to set up shop. Very similar to Facebook, minus the annoying applications, plus job postings and resumes. This is where you network with those in your industry, join groups, research companies, and prospect clients. Build your credentials by asking colleagues for recommendations or head to the “Q&A” section to provide advice.

Twitter – Share, Learn, Meet. I wouldn’t be surprised if Webster adds a new definition for “tweet” this year. Within the first half of 2009, Twitter has gone from nearly 5 million users to over 23 million. It is the social media platform of choice at Fortune 100 companies. Easily share links, pictures, videos, articles… Oh, and personal updates… with followers. Twitter is kind of like the cocktail party of social networks. Here, you can easily reach out to strangers by tuning in to their tweets or quickly replying to them. A limited amount of customization keeps annoying advertisements and outlandish profiles at bay, unlike the outdated MySpace.

Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, reddit, etc. – Social Bookmarking to share and store your favorite links. You just read an article over at NYT.com that you loved. Use one or more of these bookmarking sites to share it with the world. Looking for information or articles on a certain subject? Head to one of these sites and search your topic, you’ll be able to peruse a list of articles or sites that others have found useful or interesting. Not only are these great for sharing, but storing sites for later use as well. Say you have a home desktop, a netbook for travel, and a work computer… customize your bookmarks and easily access them on each computer without updating each machine.

FriendFeed – All of your networks in one place. FriendFeed lets you put all of your networks in one big stream. Users can see your Facebook status, latest Tweet, pictures posted on Flickr, blog post, bookmarked article and much more when they follow your feed. Much like Twitter, but a whole lot more.

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These are the networks that I tend to spend most of my time on and are probably some of the key ingredients that should be in the pot. Every person and business is different and may need to change their recipe accordingly, but the key to all of these is to contribute and become a part of the conversation.

Now What?

So, now that we’ve covered some of the major players in the social networking field, it’s time to discover how we can use them. As a person in business, especially an industry with a significant amount of its target market online (which is really all of them now), you’ve got to understand that these networks are an integral part of their lives. Just like in previous decades where television commercials were considered a major part of any advertising/marketing plan because every one watched TV… now, as many are leaving cable in the dust and turning to the Internet for their information and entertainment, it’s more crucial than ever to join the ranks of the digital pioneers.

However, the people using these networks are smart. They don’t fall for blatant advertising traps like they used to. They want to know that there’s something in it for them. If your product isn’t it and that’s all you’re talking about on Twitter, then they’ll ignore you. Social networks aren’t about advertising – they’re about building relationships.

Say you run a small business, maybe you own a restaurant, a clothing boutique, a PR firm or a chiropractic firm… What is in it for you?
• Take a look at your customers or clients when they’re in your office or store. Are they on their iPhone or Blackberry checking email? Did they mention finding you online? Did they hear about you from a friend? If you can answer “yes” to any of those questions, then you’re missing out on connecting with your customers and should probably put on a pot of coffee, cause you’re going to be here for a while.

• Social media is a chance to be at your market’s finger tips when they look at their phone or get online in a friendly and non-obtrusive way.

• You can quickly address customer service issues by communicating directly with the customer.

• Prospect new clients.

• Learn about trends in your industry, stay up-to-date with competition and network with power players in your industry.

• Provide existing customers incentives, coupons or interesting information to keep them tuned in to your brand.
Many people will pay thousands of dollars trying to get these things with traditional techniques. Social media is free… despite, of course, any operating costs like time and possibly design fees to add a professional touch. You need to be on here… Do a Google News search for “small business social media”. BusinessWeek, LA Times, NY Times will be some of the publications insisting you buck up and make it happen.

How to Participate Effectively:
• Do not start a social media campaign if your intention is free advertising. No one will listen and you will waste your time. Period.

• Take a minute and figure out what you want to get out of being involved in social networks. Research how other businesses have been successful. Make a plan. Mashable is a great place to learn about social media.

• Twitter is a great place to find people in your area, geographically or by industry, and interact with them. Start a conversation, always give if you ever want to receive and don’t constantly advertise. No one likes spam… so don’t spam your followers with pleas to go to your website or go into business with you. Provide your followers a coupon or discount if you’re hoping for business from them… Keep them up-to-date on any changes to your menu or services… Share fun pictures from happy customers… Follow-up with an unhappy customer or use your competition’s bad customer service as a great way to introduce you into their lives. Just remember to keep it real, be you, because every one wants to know that there’s a human behind your username.

• Facebook is generally most successful for companies with a large following or customer base. But that doesn’t mean you should skip it… create a personal profile so you can network with friends and family. By being there, you can instantly share things about your business with people who already like you and will probably listen more than the average stranger. By keeping your brand in their mind, they’ll be more likely to spread the word and pass you along to their friends, and so on. Word of mouth, my friends…

• LinkedIn is a must for anyone in business. Very straightforward here, like a virtual resume on steroids. It’s always good to network with past and present colleagues and continue to build relationships, because you don’t know when you may need them or vice versa.
Last Words: Keep your brand consistent among all of the networks you decide to join. Monitor your brand using tracking tools. And remember to Collaborate, Communicate, and Participate.

Tags: Business, Guide, social networking, Strategies, Strategy

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How You Use Social Media Can Kill Your Business

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM

Saturday, March 13, 2010

The social media movement has expanded the number of people we can reach and connect with on a personal level. The new relationships and connections we create with people all over the world can have a profound effect on our personal and business growth. We learn about cultures and nations that we were, perhaps, previously ignorant of. None of this is a new concept, but what may be is how quickly you can destroy your business by using social media incorrectly.

Transparency is a Utopian Concept

Not too long ago, Michael Fortin wrote an article titled Don’t Be Transparent, Be Authentic Instead. That article is an important read for any social media wrangling business blogger and you can search for it online.

That article is the tip of the iceberg in the concept of ‘transparency’ being too Utopian to work within the jaded confines of our society. Of course, true transparency is ideal. Many things about a perfect world are. Unfortunately, as a group, most of the world isn’t ready or willing to accept true transparency without penalty.

When Transparency Fails

Let me give you a couple of examples of transparency failure we’ve seen.

Failure 1: We had a copywriter who was posting on Twitter about the work he was doing. He made several posts within a few hours which were ugly complaints about a client and how ‘stupid’ he felt that client was. We obviously considered this unacceptable and immediately removed him from our list of subcontractors, but think about this: If he was hoping to use Twitter to get more client work – how many potential clients just read that and thought… “I’m not going to risk being badmouthed on here, I’ll find someone else.” Everybody gets frustrated, but what if the client he was working on read that? Put it this way, if you wouldn’t say it to your client directly – don’t post it either.

Failure 2: We had a designer who was a day late returning her design phase work. When we contacted her, she said she had a family emergency the night before and was unable to send in her work because she wasn’t home. A quick check on Facebook showed that she was actually out at a party that night and posted multiple times while drunk talking about how much she was drinking and even hinting at wanting to bring a man she met there home with her. Obviously, we relieved her of the design work, handed it to another designer who caught up on the time schedule, and didn’t again work with her. In this case, people are allowed to have a life, we understand that. But if you cannot get your work done and have to lie about why – it’s a problem. If you do not have enough class to not post details about your ‘wild nights’ to everybody on your social networks — that’s also a problem.

How We Monitor Social Media Conversations

My business has been around for over a decade and is very focused on client satisfaction and excellent treatment of our web design clients. We have a network of hundreds of copywriters, designers, and coders who work with us on projects. However, even with screening of those experts when they come on board with us – you don’t always know someone until you have observed them over a long period of time.

That’s why we monitor what they say online.

How do we do that? Well first we get as many of their social profiles as we can. Usually, we ask for a list of them. We’ve also found that most people won’t provide them all. We then Google search the usernames of the ones they have given us because most people use the same usernames over and over. We also monitor blogs, and check for listings of social networks on those.

We have a system set up to consolidate all their social media comments into one master feed. That master feed can then be browsed directly to see what they’re up to, but that’s a lot of things to read each day. What we do is take the master feed, run it through a filter that creates two sub-feeds based on certain things we think are important to monitor. The first sub-feed is created by running the master list through a keyword & synonym filter that pulls out words related to business – for instance, “client” “business” “work” etc… The second sub-feed has a filter that runs their posts through a check for foul language and words like “sex” “drugs” “drunk” etc… There are hundreds of words in each filter.

Seem a bit ‘big brother’? It probably is – but reputation and client treatment is very important to us.

Here’s the thing: If we can read it and you can lose work with us over it… how many POTENTIAL clients did you lose also?

7 Ways to Edit Yourself

We’re not suggesting you stop having a life and stop making mistakes. You can post about those things and it simply makes you a more interesting person to read about. Just use common sense:
• If you wouldn’t say it to a client or boss – don’t say it where they can read it either.

• If you wouldn’t say it to your grandmother – don’t say it on your public posts.

• If you wouldn’t say it to a police officer – don’t post it on your social networks. For that matter, don’t do it either.

• If you plan to lie to your boss – don’t put the truth where they can see it.

• If you plan to go out and get drunk and know you have a tendency to post while drunk – give your phone to a friend to keep for you.

• Learn how to use privacy settings and understand how visible your posts are on different social networks.

• If you want a place to vent – create a completely different identity for yourself to do that. Name no names in your posts, and make no connection to your other profiles or email addresses.
Consider it all part of Internet Etiquette. Social networks are great to hear more personal things about someone and we encourage people to share a bit of themselves online (using normal cautions etc..). In the long run, full transparency is too Utopian for our modern world to handle well. We’re still at a point in our societal growth that when someone seriously calls a client an idiot – they tend to get a bit upset about it.

Tags: Business, Social Media, social networking, Strategies, Strategy, Web University

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Social Media and Conan O’Brien

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM

Monday, March 8, 2010

The way I see it, NBC has little chance of survival in the next ten years. They’ve proven themselves so caught up in the normal TV schedule way of thinking that they fail to understand their audience, what little of it is left.

Their lack of knowledge about social media, how it’s formed and how it can control the conversation is part of their failure in this situation and may very well be part of their failure as an organization.

Conan O’Brien on the other hand was able to harness the internet and social media to make a stand and, in the end, become more famous than he ever was before.

I’m going to explain this slowly, for the folks at NBC, if they are reading this. Let’s think of Conan O’Brien & Jay Leno as a brand, and that the internet is the next big media thing, where there will be millions and millions of Americans making decisions about their life based on what they read on the internet. When people run a search on this website called GOOGLE, they get thousands of pages of choices that they can read about the topic in which they are interested. That perhaps in the future, someday, consumers and people who watch television (aren’t they the same?) will be able to type in “Conan vs Jay” and get real time results that help shape their thinking about the subject, and therefore create brand identification and/or brand alienation depending on what happens.

Now for the rest of us, who understand Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and a bunch of other three word phrases with Affiliate, Marketing, Search and Interactive in them, here is some more high level explaining.

NBC, as a company, is still very much focused on Television being the predominant source of entertainment in the next ten years and hasn’t done much thinking beyond that. Despite paying people like Jay & Conan ridiculous amounts of money, their audience base plummeted each year as more and more people turned to independent internet entertainment. So they did not consided exactly what might happen, if they started to make changes in their schedule, move Jay Leno back to his previous slot and basically kick Conan to the curb.

Jay Leno, as funny as he might have been, isn’t exactly a representative of a modern, fast-paced, growing generation. He might get some people to stay up and watch the news before falling asleep during his monologue – but on the whole, no one can say he has his finger on the pulse of… well… anything.

You say, and perhaps the executives of NBC say, “we need to prop up our affiliates and their news shows, before we lose them.” So what? Television as a medium is on the way out, or at least changing. I don’t know anyone who actually watches the news at 11, let alone cares that Jay or Conan are right after it. The news has no relevance, since most of us have already learned about it 6 hours earlier from some blog or websites. As for humor and jokes, we’ve already spent most of the day on YouTube instead of doing our job, watching some kid falling down five flights of steps while eating a cheeseburger. Jay Leno isn’t going to keep our attention for more than one minute, while we wonder what his chin would like in 3-D.

So, what does this have to do with marketing? First of all, Conan O’Brien has managed to come out looking cleaner than a toothbrush at a Palin family reunion. When you google results regarding his dispute with Leno, you find tons of commentary and articles supporting him, putting him out there as the champion of the people, the underdog, the teabagger of comics.

While it’s more than likely he will just appear on another network, there is also a chance that he will take this momentum and create something completely unique on the internet. Anything he does on the internet will immediately be covered with millions of links, tweets and AIMs – all pointing to his new project. With the NBC money that he is walking away with, he could easily just make his own website, his own comedy channel, his own comedy network and become very wealthy on just the buzz surrounding his name.

I sincerely believe that Conan knew exactly what was going to happen, and used the internet to his advantage. Many of his writers and publicity team are very modern, having grown up on the internet. They knew that if they needed good publicity they would only have to turn to the internet in order to get the point across.

They used social media to covertly create “I’m with CoCo” groups while at the same time constantly making sure there was new “buzz” to pass around on twitter. From posts on Craigslist of Conan selling himself to the highest bidder for favors to late night tweets from the writing staff to their fan base, they knew that they could always win the war with an audience – that frankly is a lot more internet savvy than the Leno fan base.

Anyone engaged in social media marketing, needs to look closely at how Conan did this, how he made it seem to be organic and natural and then allowed it to seemingly take its own course. He knew how to create buzz, but more importantly content for internet buzz fodder. He knew that the one-liners that could be posted on Twitter were a thousand times more powerful than any ten minute monologue that could be spoken by …urhmm… that other guy.

Tags: Conan Obrien, Social Media, social networking, Web Marketing

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SEO / Web Marketing

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 11:23 PM

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN are really just databases. When you do a Google Search you’re not searching the Web, you’re searching Google’s database. There are two ways to get into these databases. One is to submit your site to the different search engines. In 6 to 9 weeks the search engine will index your site. They capture key elements from the code on your page and your content. These are then stored in the database. Typing in keywords into a search engine signals the algorithms to determine the which links should be displayed as a result of your search.

Tags: Add new tag, marketing, online, Search Engine Optimization, social networking, Strategy

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