Advertising Age says you are the Social Network you use...

Advertising Age had an article about the work of Anderson Analytics identifying Social Network users' likely interests, buying habits, media consumption and more for marketers. The research shows that restaurants, and other social facilitating businesses should participate in Social Networking

Below are some interesting excepts from the article

...Today 110 million Americans, or 60% of the online population, use social networks, and that number is fairly conservative, because instead of counting unique users or everyone who has an account, as many estimates do, the Anderson study counted only people who have used a social network at least once in the past month....

...Some 52% of social networkers had friended or become a fan of at least one brand.....

....Anderson's research breaks down general social-media users into four categories: business users, fun seekers, social-media mavens and late followers. Of those, social-media mavens are the key group, not only because of their high incomes and decision-making power at companies but also because their large social-media footprints can make them brand allies and evangelists....

.....they (Non-users of social networks) say they don't use social media for three basic reasons: They don't have the time, they don't think it's secure or they think it's stupid. While the first two groups -- which Anderson labels "time-starved" and "concerned" -- may be swayed to join eventually, don't hold out much hope for the last group: 94% said they will never use social media.

About 22% of time-starved people said they'll be using social media within three months, and another 27% said they probably will within a year -- when they get the time that is; they're more interested than all others in pursuits such as exercise, entertaining, music and movies...

....Twitterers are the super-user group. Twitterers are more interested than the others in many subjects but skew particularly high in all news categories, restaurants, sports, politics, personal finance and religion. They also especially like pop culture, with music, movies, TV and reading, ranking higher than average. And their buying habits mirror that. They're more likely to buy books, movies, shoes and cosmetics online than the other groups.....

Taking Control of Your Internet Presence is the most Cost Effective way to get new Customers

Step 1 - Stop Internet Business Identity Theft and take control of your web presence on sites such as Google, MSN & Yahoo
Step2 - Start a blog on Google (blogger.com)
Step 3 - Get your business / products reviewed on Google, Yahoo, & Yelp
Step 4 - Use tools to track where your leads are coming from and going to on your blog / website
Step 5 - Create a customer Data Base - Email information is a must for the next steps of your marketing effort

How to Add an Image to a Post on Blogger

Two minute video about adding pictures to a post on your blog. When the video starts you will see an Ad on the bottom getting in your way to see the whole thing. Click on the "X" near the words "Ads by Google"

How to Login in and Post - The Video

I found this video about logging into Blogger and doing a basic post. Best yet it comes with snappy music.

1st Help info for New Blogger

Dave’s cheat sheet for blogging

OK, I have set up your blog, quickly gone over the work I have done and your head is spinning.

I have put together this email so that you can have the key documentation that you will need to Post on your blog site. I have linked the info in the Google Blogger Help that I think that you will need.

I have listed it in the priority that you should use. Start with just making text posts, then progress to putting in links and pictures. If you create posts I can access them and edit/ put in links and posts.

Please give me feedback if this is helpful in your efforts to be self sufficient in posting.

Step 1 - Posting Help – You should do this first and get good at it.

What is a URL?

What is a post?

How do I post to my blog?

How do I edit what I've written?

How do I delete a post?

How do I label my posts?

How do I make a link to another webpage?

How do I post pictures?

How do I delete a photo I have uploaded to my blog?

How do I edit my profile?

This is a nice overview. But has more info that what I selected above

Getting Started Guide

Step 2 – Video from YouTube or your own – This is more advanced, but you are capable

How do I post a video to my blog from YouTube?

How do I post audio/music to my blog?

Step 3 – Changing the look of the Blog – This is advanced. Do it with caution.

Layout Guide

Troubleshooting…

Troubleshooting picture upload problems

Microsoft agrees - Local Search is King

Microsoft continues to lag behind Google and Yahoo in the Search Market. Their newest product Bing was launched last week. Like Google and Yahoo, Bing emphasis the local content of its search ability

Satya Nadella, SVP of Microsoft’s Online Services Division, gave the morning keynote at the Microsoft Bing Summit in Carlsbad, CA last week. It was an introduction to Bing. The main reason I am highlighting this discussion is that Nadella explains that people engage in long search sessions when making purchase decisions. Almost 50% of time spent searching is spent during sessions longer than 30 minutes.
The slide shows 66% of people are using search more frequently as a decision-making tool; and in their strategic verticals:

• 75% product purchases
• 62% Local activity
• 45% Flight or hotel
• 43% Healthcare

It just keeps getting better for local business on the internet

Making it Easy for Customers to Review your Business

As small business owners become aware of all the information about their enterprise they can find both good and bad news. They are irritated that somewhere there is information about their sales revenue, who owns their business or other things that they view as company only information.

Google local is an amazing tool for promoting local business, but search engines like Google bring all the information together and takes away the ability to own the perception of a company. Hopefully business owners are pleasantly surprised that people have positively reviewed their business. But what gets most business owners attention is the negative review. Those negative reviews are out there and being spread across the internet. Unfortunately they are also listed on a company's Google Business listing. It is not all bad and here is a nice article discussing this issue: (Good or Bad - Reviews are important). Business need to embrace internet reviews and motivate their happy customers to review.

The natural way of life is that customers are more motivated to complain than praise. Many customers want to help local businesses, but for the customer there is a effort involved in providing a review. Most review services (Yelp, Yahoo, Google) require registration to provide a review. It is my experience that registering is too high a hurdle just to provide a positive review. The angry customer is more that motivated, but the good customer has better things to do.

So what is a business to do? How does sites like Amazon and Ebay get people to review others. The answer is they are already have an account and can simply write the review. Using that information, you can greatly lower the hurdle of reviewing a business. If a small business gets 4-10 reviews a year, they are way ahead of their competition. The secret is asking your customers with Gmail (Google) accounts to review on Google, your customers with Yahoo accounts to review on Yahoo and so on. My experience is if you have 1,000 emails around 200 to 300 of them will be either Gmail or Yahoo accounts. Getting 1-2% of these customers to favorably review your business should be easy, if not, you have greater problems than building a positive internet presence.

Local Business Continue to Shy Away from Yellow Pages - Giant R.H. Donnelly Files Chapter 11

Businesses continue move their advertising dollars away from Print and Yellow Pages. The latest to fall is Yellow Page giant R.H.Donnelley. Their strategy of big buyouts and combined with shrinking ad revenue sinks the Yellow Pages publisher

R.H. Donnelley filed Chapter 11 in a Delaware federal bankruptcy court last Friday May 29th. R.H. Donnelley said it has reached an agreement in principle with key creditors on the terms of a plan of reorganization that proposes to reduce debt by approximately $6.4 billion, eliminate approximately $500 million in annual interest expense and extend the company's bank maturities out to 2014.

The stock has had a tragic run, peaking at around $78 in 2007 before plunging on signs the economy was beginning to cool off.

As the deal stands, lenders will get 100% of the equity. I am not sure that is really a good deal for the lenders? Would you want to own a rapidly dying business with shrinking cash flow?

Say Goodbye to Yellow Pages and get with the program with Free Internet Local Business listings.

Getting above the Crowd of Interior Designers on Google Local Search

Ten Days ago, Karen T. called me asking if I could help her with marketing her Interior Design company, Beyond Words Design. She worked with Mechele from San Diego Kravet and Mechele referred Karen to me. We agreed that as a local business getting on the first page of Googles Local Search was job #1. If you are not familiar with the concept of Local Search, review this article before you move on.

With over 100 interior designers listed in Google Local Search for "Interior Design Encintas, CA" it looked like it may be a challenge to get on that key top 10 list. I am happy to report that within 10 days using the first Two of my Five Step process Karen was on the first page of Google. We started with the companies below coming up on the search term "Interior Design Encintas, CA".

A. Rustic Rooster
B. J W McCarter & Associates
C. Stems & Co.
D. Sensible Chic Interior Design
E. Id Studios
F. Designcorp
G. Cedros Design
H. Polinara Interiors

After these top local business were six more pages of interior designers based in the Encinitas area. Karen and I created her Blog / Business Website on Google, took control of Beyond Words Design local business listing and then researched why the Top 10 businesses on Google's Local Search were in the Top 10.

After establishing Beyond Words Design as a business on Google Local Business Center and taking ownership of that business idenity we started on moving Karen's company up that road of search pages. The next step was examinining the business that were already on the top ten list and looking at the information that Google had gathered and deamed of value for a Interior Designer from Encinitas CA.

Google and other search engines look to other business databases for information about the validity and value of each business. When prioritizing your plan for moving up the Google Local food chain, you must make sure that your business is in databases that Search Engines use to gather business listings. Google is known to use superpages.com as one of their basic sources of validating bussiness. It is always the first step on your road to the first page of Local Searches.

Another prime strategy is to find business listing data bases that Google may use for specific industries. For example Rustic Rooster and several others in Interior Design were referenced as a business on www.interiordesignersusa.info. With that info in hand we entered Beyond Words Design into the InteriorDesignerUSA data base. The results after 10 days of waiting for the data to be pushed around the internet was:

A. Rustic Rooster
B. J W McCarter & Associates
C. Stems & Co.
D. Sensible Chic Interior Design
E. Id Studios
F. Designcorp
G. Cedros Design
H. Polinara Interiors
I. Beyond Words Design

The next step is getting a similar position on MSN and Yahoo. The other direction is to broaden the Local Search Value of Beyond Words Design to cities close to Encinitas, CA.

Good or Bad - Reviews are Important

Reviews are one of the most important ways to insure that your Local Search Listing is on the first page of Internet Searches. Jeff Saxon does a nice job of showing that there is not much you can do to control the negative reviews that may occur.

You Can’t Edit Your Way Out of Negative Reviews by Jeff Saxon

....Very simply, reviews increase conversion rates. And several studies point to the fact that, yes, even negative reviews help.
It all boils down to credibility. Customer reviews simply have more credibility than your sales copy, so they inspire more confidence in the buyer. And negative reviews lend credibility to the review process itself, standing as visible proof that the reviews are not edited....

...The point: Your brand and product perception is not what you say it is anymore but what Google says it is....

Click here for the Article

Local Search Listing Continues to Grow in Importance

You are busy. You are a Real Business with a Store Front. Why should you care about this Internet Stuff? Simply, it is the most effective way in 2009 to bring more customers to your store.

In the U.S. at the end of 2007 there are well over 10 billion unique searches done each month. Of those searches 4 billion have Local intent (42% increase from 2006). Out of all local business searches, 86% of Internet users follow up their search with a phone call or a visit to the store. Of those, 61% end up making a purchase.

On top of that data, respected technology experts around the world think the world of mobile search is ready to take off in 2009 and 2010. In some places around the world, like Japan, many of these technologies are already in place. They’re in use even in the United States, with more sophisticated devices like the iPhone. Mobile searches are primarily going to pull their results from Local Search Engines.

So what are the pieces to Local Search Listings?

Local online directories such as Google® Maps and YellowPages.com™ are the Internet yellow pages. Profiling your business in these directories is similar to listing your phone number in the traditional yellow pages. Today, customers turn to the Internet to find a pizza store, a beauty parlor or a home improvement contractor in their area. Make sure your business is listed in local online directories where customers are looking for it.

So how do I submit my Business to Local Search Engines, Online Yellow Pages and Local Social Networks? And how do I update or correct wrong entries? - Sometimes this isn't easy to figure out!- For some sites you can do that online, through an online interface, but in other cases you will need to contact the Core Data Provider of the site in question.

Taking control of your business' Local Search Information is the Key to any effective Internet marketing strategy. I can help you to find the right pages on the sites and give guidance to how & where each site (ex. Google, MSN, Yahoo) get their business data from - because only if you know that you can control it. Email me for FREE 20 minute appointment.

Has your Business Identity been Stolen from You?

First, everything else being equal, most people want to do business with a local company. They know it is good for their community and it just feels more comfortable. On the Internet even Google recognizes this and has placed Google Local Search prominently on the key first page of any appropriate search of products or services.

So the good news is that Internet Search Engines like Google and Yahoo are providing high visibility to local businesses. It is surprising that at the end of 2008 it is estimated that less than 20% of Local Small Businesses have taken control of their local business account on any of the major Search Engines. That does not have to be a terrible thing, as the Search Engines can do a good job of at least acting like a web based yellow page and does not hurt your business.

What is alarming is that, either through bad computer algorithms or worse, the high jacking of your Local Business site, the links embedded in Your Local Business may not being linked to your business. This means that the best way new customers can find your business, is being redirected away from your website and ultimately your business. Examples can range from:

• A local franchisee who has a local website going to the corporate site, loosing local information
• A competitor linked to your business siphoning business away from you
• A similar named business being linked to your business

What would you do if you were looking for a Kitchen supply company and a link took you to a Pizza joint? Most people would move on to the next business on the list and you would have lost an opportunity to get a new customer.

Why Should You Care?
Nielsen//NetRatings found in 2004 that 24.4% of searchers on major search engines conducted searches that were local in scope, averaging 4.6 searches per searcher. By 2007 Nielsen//NetRatings saw this increase to 32.6%. Using the Internet to find local businesses is now main stream and can only grow in frequency.

For many local businesses, the question is no longer whether they should begin to market in the local online space, but when. Incredible opportunities are being missed, as consumers search online for local products and services, but the businesses do not have an effective online presence to serve those customers.

I specialize in working with Small Businesses in local markets. As an introduction to my services I will do a FREE analysis of your business and determine if it has been claimed on Google, Yahoo, LiveSearch (MSN), and Best of the Web. All I need is you to email me your Business Name and Zip Code and I will return to you your business’ status on the top 4 Search Engines Local Sites.

Where does the best Advertising Come From?

The single most powerful form of communications is word of mouth.

The Corporate Culture Customer Trust Index 2006 showed that comments from trusted acquaintances topped the poll of trusted channels of communications.

In simple terms, successful businesses continue to strive to make the customer experience memorable so that each customer becomes your advocate. The more advocates you have, the better your business will become.

Social Networking is one of the strongest tool for small business to keep in contact with their advocates and compete in today's down market.

Growing Your Business in 2009 - Case Study #1

Results:
The client's industry (U.S. Specialty Retailing) saw sales drop 13% for Q4'08 and looks to be down ~20% for Q1'09. In this down market, working with me, my client sales:

• Grew 14% Q4'08 over Q'407
• Were up 5% Q1'09 over Q1'08

Background:
Specialty retailer with one location, that has been in business for over 30 years and has a great reputation within their customer base. They have maintained best practices including the business systems they use. They have excellent IT integration from vendor ordering, POS (Point of Sales) systems, to their website. Being a small business owner, the client was focused on the day to day activities and was not able to spend any time marketing their business other than historic use of yellowpages advertising. Q1'08 business was down compared to Q1'07 and I was brought in to bring a fresh look at bringing new business to the store.

Goal:
Leverage in-store personnel, existing IT systems, and NEW Internet Tools to:

• Effectively compete against three larger multi-store competitors
  
• Bring increase in new customers to the store

Tools used:

• Email Capture in POS system
• Updated Website
• Monthly Email Newsletter
• Controlling Web presence / Social Networking
• Google Alerts
  
• Google Adwords
• Google Analytics
• Google Blogger / Facebook / Twitter

Conclusion:
The tools and framework that I provided were only a part of the clients success. The client put a significant amount of sweat equity (Employee Time) creating marketing programs for their customers including product sales, and free demonstrations of their products and services.
What I was able to do was guide the client in the use of free to inexpensive internet tools (Less than the cost of his old Yellowpage advertising - Which they dropped) to get the word of the client's marketing programs to existing and new customers.

Other indicators:

• Web activity increase of 3.5-4.5 fold increase in hits / page views from Q4'07 to Q1'09
• Email capture grew from ~200 to over 2500 in 12 months
• New customers grew from 22% of business in Q1'08 to 43% of business in Q1'09

Free business research tool from Google - Google Alerts

Put Google Alerts to work for you by sending you a daily digest of links of information related to your business by searching the web for key words you choose. For Free, you can get timely information about your industry, your competitors, or what people are saying about your business.

The different types of alerts include news (the latest news articles about your topic), web (the latest web pages that contain your search terms), blogs (posts that contain your search terms), comprehensive (the latest results from multiple sources), video (the latest videos with your search terms), and groups (posts from your Google groups). It's up to you whether you'd get daily, weekly, or "as it happens" email alerts.

To start you building your blog content you can simply take exerts from the original content Google Alerts provides (Make sure you reference the writer) and at the end create a link such as "Click Here for the article". If you are a reseller (as most retailers are) bring content & reviews from your vendors and place it on your blog.

Leveraging Google Alerts can be a easy way to add posts in business blogs, for those of you with writer's block. Click here if you want to see an example of using others articles on the Web found using Google Alerts, to build your blog.

It can also be the first line of defense in protecting your online reputation. It is good to know what people are saying, both good & bad, about you in the Wild West of the Internet.

Blogs vs Websites - Where to start?

Blogs are the way to go! It is a great way to start building a strong online presence without spending a lot of money and hassling with web designers. You can easily add new content. Search engines (like Google & Yahoo) love them. And if done right, customers love to read them.

For those of you who may not know what a blog is, it’s short for web log, and is a frequently updated website consisting of blog posts, or entries (more often than not, dated entries) that are arranged in reverse chronological order. So when a reader comes to your blog, they see your most recent article or post first.

The advantage of a blog is that blogs allows you to post written text, audio and video and have it online within minutes, unlike traditional static websites which can take hours to update and cost you each time - unless you’re familiar with building or editing web sites.

As you can see, I like blogs as the center of a new marketing effort instead of websites, but it is not just an apples/oranges decision, and it’s not just about which is easier to manage. It’s about which web you want to invest in:

• the current brochureware web, which gives you a static place to refer people to for information about business; or

• the social web, the thing the web is becoming, which has built in feedback loops and a referral system that can dramatically build awareness for your products & services.

Right now, I am a big fan of using blogger.com from Google. Along with it being a Free blog, using the business tools that Google has in conjunction with your blog can quickly provide you with a strong professional marketing effort on the web for little money.